No surprise, the gun-nuts make up quotes:
-- “The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.”If you don't know they're liars and lobbyists for the Gun Biz, that's impressive. Of course they're faked.
~Alexander Hamilton-- “Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples’ liberty’s teeth.”
~George Washington-- “You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass.”
~Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
I'm sure it got here as an echo of an email. Joe didn't make up this crap himself.
And that Top Ten crapola email looks to have been copied from the mother lode for bogus gun-nut fakes:
101 of the Best Gun Quotes Ever -- GeekPoliticsThere's another one from Joe's comment attributed falsely to Thomas Jefferson:
-- “One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.”Usually the NRA crowd pair that bit with another bogus Jefferson quote:
~Thomas Jefferson
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government"Thomas Jefferson... not !!
Facts matter. What Jefferson did believe and support publicly is what George Mason wrote into the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Which became the strongest basis for Madison's twelve proposed Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, of which 10 were passed and ratified as the Bill of Rights:
"That a well-regulated Militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defence of a free State; that Standing Armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power."Hamilton, writing in the Federalist Papers, came to a conclusion that the new country needed a standing army. Hamilton was joined by the whole crew who spent the years of the Revolutionary War in New Jersey and the coastal area fighting against British troops and their mercenaries
Jefferson lost his fight against a Standing Army. When he became president, he backed the army. He had come around to understanding the role of artillery. As a fact: you need professionals to use artillery effectively.
NRA's propaganda ignores that fact, 100%.
In the politics of the day, the language of the 2nd Amendment was approved as a consolation prize, of sorts. It is aimed precisely to keep the local militias alive and well. The country got a Standing Army and a navy. Militias still mattered but mostly out in the western border areas. Folks were still going at it in what were called "Indian Wars." Stealing land required superior firepower and it was the western militias that carried out the most of those operations.
As to the NRA/gun-nuts: where they're not faking quotes, they go over to simplistic slogans:
-- “A woman who demands further gun control legislation is like a chicken who roots for Colonel Sanders.”Even the NRA can hit upon a single statement that reflects sensible thought from the period when it was written.
~Larry Elder-- “The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will win and the decent people will lose.”
~James Earl Jones-- “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
~Benjamin Franklin-- “Gun control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars.”
~Unknown-- “I have a very strict gun control policy: if there’s a gun around, I want to be in control of it.”
~Clint Eastwood
Where Citizen Gun Use Mattered
“To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them…”Richard Lee, of Virginia, was the delegate who raised the issue of Independence at the Continental Congress. Which led to the very declaration of war that titled itself as the Declaration of Independence. Lee was a substantial member of group we call the Founding Fathers.
~Richard Henry Lee
Lee was also an Anti-Federalist and an opponent of this new Standing Army. His reply to the Continental Army officers who recounted the weakness of militiamen in battle was to strengthen the militias. In 1788 he argued that instead of building a Standing Army, the country should teach children and these militiamen to load their guns properly and hit their targets.
Take his statements literally, out of time and out of context and what you get is a tiny little 9-year old girl out at an Arizona shooting range, trying to fire off a burst from an Uzi.
Teach 'em young, eh? And fer gawd sake, ignore lethality.
Cost and Benefit Analysis
O.K., I'm cheating. I admit it. I'm changing the rules. I'm going over to facts.
We are limited presently to data from 2012 for determining the body counts from private use guns in America.
Now sources for 2013 are available but that will require an additional couple of steps for analysis. We must go through the Freedom Of Information (FOI) process and then track down item-level details. This is needed to break out the Civilian Justifiable Homicide events.
The numbers are relatively stable so here's the costs and benefits for guns from 2012:
Murders and willful manslaughters, suicides, accidents: 28,853.Some folks are Pro-Lifers. You'll read a lot of items here at DKOS arguing about that position. Other folks, who support these 28,853-or-so gun deaths a year are fairly depicted as Pro-Deathers. That's the cost to America annually -- most of it, c/c with Canada -- for the Home Defense gun-lover schtick.Civilian Justifiable Homicides where the victims are strangers and the location is a residence: 37.
Numbers run around a hundred for strangers getting shot/wounded at residences.
The suicides run to 19,000 a year using guns. Big COD for teens and twenty-somethings. Take guns out of homes and the suicide rate falls by a half for the non-gunner homes. No gun in the house, half the suicides.
Annual total for all Civilian Justifiable Homicides with guns run in the 200 to 300 range. Overwhelmingly, these involve responses to armed robberies at businesses.
"Home Defense" is a myth. Suicide is a fact.
Lightning rods are not a blunder. Fact is, lightning is not a myth. Guns ??? Numbers go all the other way.
"What if a Black thug broke in and got you helpless?" -- that's not really a question. There is no answer. It is an assertion that you are at risk of home invasion. And also that you, your wife and your dog are at risk of getting raped.
A grave risk, indeed, in the fantasy world of NRA propaganda.
When you get the idea of going out and waving your Glock 9mm/.35 at a drunk who's puking on your lawn after the neighbor's Super Bowl party, that's illegal. It's called "brandishing" and it is on the books in one form or another in 50 states. If you actually point a gun at someone who is not threatening you, that's Assault.
Call 911.
That's sane. Thoughtful. Based on evidence. The stuff of facts....
Facts don't matter.
How's this for brain puke:
NRA is trustworthy and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its Criminal Justice Information Services Division (CJIS) is part of the Insider, commie, Sharia-scheming, Big Government, tax stealing scheme to take over America.I made that up. It's fiction. Thing is, it's not fiction by much. For human brains filled up with slogans, that's what you get for thinking.And if you don't send $100 today to NRA and the Birchers and the Teabaggers, the Libruls're going to take over within the next two or three years !!!
Buy yerself a gun, damnit! A big one. Protect the Constitution.
Belief is stronger than logic. For the Pro-Deathers, facts don't matter.