Gun trolls

RSS Archive

Random comments from Lane Crothers, a professor of politics and government, on the events of the day.

I teach in the Politics and Government Department at Illinois State University, in Normal, IL, And yes: it's pretty normal here. Thanks for asking.

If you're desperate to know more about me, my webpage is: lanecrothers.weebly.com. You can follow me in the twitterverse at LaneCrothersISU. Ask me anything

December 15, 2012

Gun trolls

So, a little earlier today I posted a graphic that showed what is pretty common knowledge: Americans are pretty supportive of gun ownership. I then made the point that this is why, despite horrible gun massacres, that we never make any serious inroads in reducing gun ownership in the US: guns are popular. We’ve decided we like guns to such an extent that we’re willing to tolerate the occasional massacre as a cost of protecting the rights to gun ownership in this country.

Note that while there was some snark in the comment—we don’t like to think we’re comfortable with gun massacres when we’re pro-gun—the post was nonetheless a simple comment about how popular guns are in the US. Descriptive, simple, empirical … nothing else.

At which point the gun trolls went crazy. All the old saws came out: “Guns don’t kill people! People kill people!” “Would you have us ban knives?!” “Guns are the core of American freedom!”

Aside from the fact that all of these are just really silly arguments, the thing is, I didn’t call for getting rid of guns in my post. Go read it. I didn’t. All I said was that just as Americans have grown comfortable with the fact that thousands of Americans die every year in car accidents, they will, if gun ownership/possession/use remains widespread in the US with few meaningful limits, have to learn to make their peace with gun massacres.

It’s the price of living in a society with lots of sociopaths and lots of guns.

2:10pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZPUuPyZPBB5L

(Notes: 72)