XDA

Here is the way the liberal press (but I repeat myself) covers gun homicides:

Victim                                Perpetrator                         Coverage
White                                  Other than White               Gun Control
Other than White                White                                 Racism
Other than White                 Other than White              Run a story on Kardasians*

So Adam Gopnik again rails about guns when a black sniper shoots about a dozen white police officers in Dallas, killing 5.

Gopnik is in full 'I told you so' mode, but he's still a moron.

Key quote:

Once again, it needs stating because it can’t be stated too often: despite the desperate efforts of the National Rifle Association to prevent research on gun violence, the research has gone on, and shows conclusively what common sense already suggests. Guns are not merely the instrument; guns are the issue. The more guns there are, the more gun violence happens. (Emphasis added).

He couldn't be more wrong. Here is the truth:



So Gopnik wants to get rid of guns because they cause violence. Wrong problem perceived--wrong solution proposed. Here's some more idiotic statements:

In light of last night’s assassinations, it is also essential to remember that the more guns there are, the greater the danger to police officers themselves.

The greater danger to cops is from more people wanting to kill them, not the number of guns owned by Americans. The chart above would apply to police killed on duty numbers too.

Still more:

It requires no apology for unjustified police violence to point out that, in a heavily armed country, the police officer who thinks that a suspect is armed is likelier to panic than when he can be fairly confident that the suspect is not.

If there are only a thousand guns out there in criminal possession, cops could still never be fairly confident that the suspect has no gun.

Still more:

Last night’s tragedy was also the grotesque reductio ad absurdum of the claim that it takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun. There were nothing but good guys and they had nothing but guns, and five died anyway, as helpless as the rest of us.

I have to think there was one bad guy with a gun involved. I nominate Micah Johnson to be the bad guy with a gun here.

Here's the big finish:

Once again, the difference in policy views is clear, and can be coolly stated: those who insist on the right to concealed weapons, to the open carrying of firearms, to the availability of military weapons—to the essentially unlimited dissemination of guns—guarantee that the murders will continue. They have no plan to end them, except to return fire, with results we know. The people who don’t want the regulations that we know will help curb (not end) violent acts and help make them rare (not non-existent) have reconciled themselves to the mass murder of police officers, as well as of innocent men and women during traffic stops and of long, ghostly rows of harmless civilians and helpless children. The country is now clearly divided among those who want the killings and violence to stop and those who don’t. In the words of the old activist song, which side are you on?

Gopnik accuses us rational thinkers of guaranteeing murders will continue, then in the rest of the paragraph says murders will continue if his proposals are followed. Not very logical there. But the real problem is his magical thinking that gun control laws will help stop gun murders when the murder laws don't. We don't know that your stupid proposals will work; in fact, we know the opposite. What we know is that additional laws banning guns will only disarm the law abiding. We don't see that as a good thing at all. We who actually know about guns and gun violence and don't believe crazy things like more gun ownership means more gun violence when the opposite is true, do want gun violence to be curtailed. But we want to do it with things that work and not just things that don't work but which punish law abiding gun owners. In other words, we law abiding gun owners want to use facts to guide our purpose. We're on the side which actually proposes things that might help. Gopnik is on the other side.






* (h/t Jon Gabriel)

Labels: Adam Gopnik; Gun Idiot; Magical Thinking; Wrong Conclusions