Shooting at Virginia Tech

[Urbane Guerrilla]

It does not surprise me that as warped a big-C Communist as tw is would be so friendly to the disempowering of the general population: this man is not visibly a democrat, nor is he that sort of democrat known as a republican.

He forgets something a famous commie once wrote: "Power grows from the barrel of a gun." Yes, I can from time to time quote Mao, to my own ends. Considering that in more normal times in China Mao would have been arrested as a bandit and beheaded, whereas my conduct is exceedingly unlikely to get me executed, I'd say my own ends are better than Mao's. It's so often like that for the anticommunists.

In a republic, the source of political power is the people, the electorate. That which reduces the power of the electorate should simply not be countenanced.

Yet, even in the face of all his perfidies, the NRA will patiently uphold tw's gun rights, and encourage him to actually enjoy the use of the rights and the guns.

Charts comparing gun ownership in America compared to a following increase in violent death demonstrates a problem that is also well proven throughout the world.

Of course, if this kind of thing is what tw accepts as factual, no wonder his conclusions are raddled with error, and likewise with all the subsequent horrors that spring from them. The numbers of guns in America have climbed steadily, and crime of all sorts has been slumping -- violent death too -- in all the states of the Union that have liberalized concealed carry of weapons, and accidents with arms have fallen off also. NRA sources are the most convenient places to find the data, but sources outside the NRA exist also -- viz., John Lott and FBI statistics.

Nah, a convenient litmus test for who's the more democratically inclined is to examine their enthusiasm for private arms ownership. Like most convenient tests, it's not comprehensive, but in tw's case, it is most surely illuminating, to say nothing of, in Tolkien's words, "perfectly true and applicable."