“WELL REGULATED”, A Report From The Minnesota Gun Rights Rally

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“WELL REGULATED”, A Report From The Minnesota Gun Rights Rally
 
Spray painted in fluorescent green on two sides of a cardboard sign, “WELL
REGULATED”. I took that message to the pro gun rally on March 31st at the
Capitol in St. Paul. I chose these Second Amendment words a week after the
youth-led rally of up to 20,000 (my guess was there were 10 or 15,000, but who
really knows) demanded an end to gun violence and legal action to limit the
ever-increasing number of deadly weapons in the U.S..
 
This Saturday the winds were moderate and the temperature a few degrees higher
than the cold march a week before. I walked up the mall past a car with an
InfoWars bumper sticker towards the Capitol steps arriving just after the rally
got underway.
 
I thought gun control advocates would be on the sidelines wearing orange
t-shirts and holding signs to assert rights of safety, children’s education and
freedom from fear. But I saw none. The steps of the Capitol were one-quarter
filled with “don’t tread on me” flag carriers, burly men and women in
camouflage gear, a few kids, people carrying misspelled signs, American flags
on poles and blue jean patches, pre-printed pro-Trump signs and tributes to
their interpretation of the Second Amendment. Many stood with handguns
strapped to their sides. I wandered through the gathering, very generously
estimated by some media at 400 people.
 
A convenor of the rally, probably Chris Dorr or Ben Dorr or Aaron Dorr, got it
underway and made it plain that he, recently arrived from Iowa, or maybe Ohio,
or perhaps some other state, was very unhappy with the Republicans at the
Capitol. (City Pages, 5-10-2015, reported that the head of Gun Owners Civil
Rights Alliance here in Minnesota views the Dorrs as rip-offs: "They prey on
people's fears and paint things as pretty much going to heck in a handbasket
right away if you don't send us money.” They have a traveling show for
gunners.) GOP House Speaker Dowd, he complained, did not allow a “stand your
ground” law that would encourage civilian use of deadly force, even when less
dangerous alternatives are evident and required by modern self-defense law.
One of the Dorrs made it clear that no legislator was welcome at their rally,
to general applause.
 
WELL on one side, REGULATED on the other. My sign. Yes, I know that Antonin
Scalia’s opinion in Miller was that “well regulated” was applicable to the
militia only, but I wanted a conversation not a legal debate.
 
A man, probably about forty years old, dressed like he was going to a movie or
back to the office for a couple of hours stopped to talk. I explained that I
wanted to talk to people at the rally about what made sense for drawing
practical lines within this abstract gun debate.
 
He went right to the “shall not be infringed” language of the Amendment. I
said: “Well does that mean that any civilian should be able to keep and carry
armed grenades? An armed M-1 tank? A shoulder launched missile?” He
responded with “I guess we can debate what constitutes a firearm.” Not being a
Second Amendment geek, I did not correct him to say the words are “keep and
bear arms.” But there is a line whose placement on the spectrum of deadliness
was at least subject to debate.
 
He moved onto “what about machine guns, I suppose you don’t like machine guns,
but it is legal to have and to shoot machine guns, if you have a federal
license.” I agreed that I did not like machine guns and thought that
licensure was a very good thing if they are around. That is another line that
he agreed needs to be drawn somewhere. The “militia” from Illinois who are
charged with firebombing a mosque in Bloomington were recently indicted for
having an unlicensed machine gun, but that was after the gun rally.
 
He went on to ask about limits on the number of bullets in ammunition clips and
I said limiting those would also be good. I explained I particularly fear such
guns because my son, a police officer, is required to go into dangerous
situations, not retreat, situations made more dangerous because of the number
and deadliness of guns out there. He argued that restrictions on ammunition
clips would disarm police and stated that “you never want to go into a gun
fight with fewer bullets than the other guy.”
 
I am not sure how that undercuts “well-regulated” gun ownership policies, but I
think that in nearly 50 years in Minnesota, police have only been involved once
in what I would call a gunfight. In St. Paul in 2014 a criminal shot and
killed one officer at a traffic stop and then triggered a shoot-out with other
police several hours later. It appears that neither Officer Patrick or any
other police who were the shooting victims of other tragic crimes lacked
firepower. And the murderer of Officer Patrick might have killed more had he
had bigger guns and more ammunition.
 
He proceeded next to the argument that possession of guns, lots of guns, guns
with huge firepower, is the people’s last protection against government
tyranny. “That’s the first thing tyrants do, they take away people’s guns.”
 
I heard revolutionary romantics make similar arguments in the 1970s. I knew
that the justifications offered by the Black Panthers, the American Indian
Movement, the Weather Underground were rooted in the same kind of thinking and
that it increased the apparent power of their movements. I also know that the
state, deep or shallow, is very ready to kill, imprison, threaten, blackmail,
buy off or otherwise neutralize such threats, whether real or imagined.
 
It happened when President Washington marched the Army on the Whiskey
Rebellion’s armed tax protesters in 1794. It happened in the Civil War. It
happened at Wounded Knee in the 19th and 20th centuries. It happened in Black
Panther leader Fred Hampton’s bedroom in Chicago. It happened at MIssissippi
State and Kent State. I think that the threat of actual tyranny is much
greater now than it was in 1970 but think that armed resistance is both futile
and misguided.
 
I said to my interlocutor: “Surely you must know that the government has
firepower that would immediately overwhelm even a well-armed citizenry, such as
what you aim for?” He agreed, saying, “Its not for something like, say,
seizing an armory; but like if a police officer comes to your home without a
warrant and insists on coming in. Wouldn’t it be good to be able to say, ’I
stand on my rights and have a shotgun at hand. Leave!’?”
 
I did not respond with “Yeah, the armory raid didn’t work so well for John
Brown.” Nor with my view that in a democracy the answer to police violating
constitutional boundaries is not firearms. I did not comment that there are
already too many people, particularly black and brown-skinned people, shot by
police for no reason or for bad reasons and that we don’t need to have even
more situations where officers feel forced to use their guns. Nor did I voice
my reaction that I don’t want my son having to worry more than he must already
do about encountering firearm threats when trying to protect the people.
 
I think I just shook my head.
 
I think that this fellow can repeat the cant, but doesn’t really believe in the
“resistance to tyranny” argument.
 
I moved on to say how glad I was that the Second Amendment has not been so
inviolate that my severely mentally ill brother, who for time obsessed about
wanting guns to protect himself from imagined drug dealers, could get his hands
on such weapons. My debater fully agreed that someone like my brother should
not have guns.
 
I said: “But I thought there were no permissible limits on the people’s rights
under the Second Amendment? It make no exceptions for reason, age, capacity,
wisdom, judgment or sanity. So I guess we agree that lines must be drawn, we
need to have discussions and have a government that makes reasonable choices
about where those lines should be drawn.”
 
In that space, his zone of power and passion, he was not convinced, but we had
a civil discussion and I hope he will hang onto the idea that he, a gun guy,
actually agrees with “regulated.” What sets us apart is our view on what
constitutes “well”. Our conversation ended and I turned my attention back to
the speaker on the steps.
 
This fellow identified himself as a member of the clergy and a former handgun
permit holder. I’ll call him Reverend Ruger as I missed his name. He reported
that he has relinquished the permit, and hinted that he continues to carry
deadly weapons, in defiance of the law. He is a proud, a very very proud, gun
owner. A Second Amendment absolutist, I suppose we might call him.
 
He expressed his disdain for the “perverts back there” gesturing back at the
Capitol. “And they are all perverts, whether they call themselves Republicans
or Democrats.” His voice rose higher and higher through the PA, cracking with
greater emotion each time he spat out the word “pervert”, but I could not
understand his charge of perversion. Does he know something about men’s room
rituals in the Senate Majority offices that the Red Star, I mean the Star
Tribune, has failed to uncover?
 
Not long ago, “Reverend Ruger” discovered that just down the road from his
favorite place for target practice is, how could you guess, a training facility
for swat teams. He has, therefore, gathered together his buddies who also love
their guns and they have all now bonded over the scent of cordite at his
shooting place, organized themselves and made a pledge of mutual self-defense.
 
Having thus established his readiness to confront tyranny, the speaker returned
to his religious fervor …. and I lost his train of thought. He went on at some
length on several articles of faith, including the establishment of or the
existence of or the threat of the Sanhedrin.
 
The Sanhedrin? The name echoed from somewhere.... Did this appear in some
mystery novel I read about medieval religious artifacts and murders? Is it in
The DaVinci Code? Does it appear in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
(“Fake news” of a scurrilous nature created by a Russian anti-semite at the
start of the 20th century. 800,000 copies were distributed by Henry Ford in
the 1920s.)
 
Wikipedia later informed me that the Sanhedrin was a 71 member “Supreme Court”
of the top rabbis of the Jewish people. The Sanhedrin ceased to operate
about 1700 years ago but some have tried to reestablish from time to time:
Napoleon Bonaparte, for one, and orthodox Jews in Israel more recently.
 
Did our speaker endorse the Sanhedrin? Aspire to adjunct membership? Did
“Reverend Ruger” advocate taking up arms against the Sanhedrin? I do not know.
 
It was cold even though the rhetoric was hot. I headed for home, but kept my
sign. The gun fetishists will have another rally on another, warmer day.
 
Perhaps I’ll have some more line drawing discussions then.

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A little context, here, since Mr. Wilkinson likely doesn’t know it.
 
“Minnesota Gun Rights” is a sham. It’s a fund-raising scam run by a couple of
brothers from Iowa, Aaron and Chris Dorr. They are amazingly proficient
hucksters; they’ve staked out quite a market fleecing people who are concerned
about two incredibly emotional topics, abortion and gun control.
 
In Iowa, Minnesota and about nine other states, the Dorrs have establsihed
loud, aggressive (and virtually cost-free) social media presences that focus on
lots of loud, uncompromising rhetoric aimed at fund-raising - combined with
almost no actual on-the-street activism. They explain this as “not selling
out to the accomodationists of *both* parties”, which is another way of saying
“all hat, no cowboy”. They spend as much time criticizing the *real* second
amendment human rights groups as they do the victim-disarmament / criminal
safety racket.
 
As the truth about them gets out, most serious 2nd Amendment human rights
activists have called them out as scam artists. They have no support in the
legislator among human rights activists - even the one representative they
*did* support (albeit only with social media), Rep. Cal Bahr, rebuked them
right after he was elected, when the depths of the scam became clear to him.
 
The *real* 2nd Amendment Human RIghts rally is coming up Saturday, April 28 at
noon. It’s sponsored by the MN Gun Owners Caucus, the MN Gun Owners PAC, the
Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance, with help from the African-American Heritage
Gun Club and other grass-roots human rights groups that support actual freedom.
 
I won’t address the rest of the post to which I’m replying - what indeed would
be the point? Other than noting that not a single one of the “reforms” being
jabbered about would have prevented a single mass shooting, or pointing out the
corrosive racism of focusing on incredibly rare events like school shootings
(which have claimed 35 students in the past five years - which is immeasurably
tragic but a tiny fraction of the rate of kids killed playing football or
driving cars) while vigorously ignoring the slaughter of black and brown kids
in ones and twos outside school in Demcorat-run cities nationwide, I mean.
 
Mitch Berg
The Midway
 
> On Apr 12, 2018, at 5:22 PM, J Wilkinson <<email obscured>> wrote:
>
>
> “WELL REGULATED”, A Report From The Minnesota Gun Rights Rally
>
> Spray painted in fluorescent green on two sides of a cardboard sign, “WELL
REGULATED”. I took that message to the pro gun rally on March 31st at the
Capitol in St. Paul. I chose these Second Amendment words a week after the
youth-led rally of up to 20,000 (my guess was there were 10 or 15,000, but who
really knows) demanded an end to gun violence and legal action to limit the
ever-increasing number of deadly weapons in the U.S..
>
> This Saturday the winds were moderate and the temperature a few degrees
higher than the cold march a week before. I walked up the mall past a car with
an InfoWars bumper sticker towards the Capitol steps arriving just after the
rally got underway.
>
> I thought gun control advocates would be on the sidelines wearing orange
t-shirts and holding signs to assert rights of safety, children’s education and
freedom from fear. But I saw none. The steps of the Capitol were one-quarter
filled with “don’t tread on me” flag carriers, burly men and women in
camouflage gear, a few kids, people carrying misspelled signs, American flags
on poles and blue jean patches, pre-printed pro-Trump signs and tributes to
their interpretation of the Second Amendment. Many stood with handguns
strapped to their sides. I wandered through the gathering, very generously
estimated by some media at 400 people.
>
> A convenor of the rally, probably Chris Dorr or Ben Dorr or Aaron Dorr, got
it underway and made it plain that he, recently arrived from Iowa, or maybe
Ohio, or perhaps some other state, was very unhappy with the Republicans at the
Capitol. (City Pages, 5-10-2015, reported that the head of Gun Owners Civil
Rights Alliance here in Minnesota views the Dorrs as rip-offs: "They prey on
people's fears and paint things as pretty much going to heck in a handbasket
right away if you don't send us money.” They have a traveling show for
gunners.) GOP House Speaker Dowd, he complained, did not allow a “stand your
ground” law that would encourage civilian use of deadly force, even when less
dangerous alternatives are evident and required by modern self-defense law.
One of the Dorrs made it clear that no legislator was welcome at their rally,
to general applause.
>
> WELL on one side, REGULATED on the other. My sign. Yes, I know that Antonin
Scalia’s opinion in Miller was that “well regulated” was applicable to the
militia only, but I wanted a conversation not a legal debate.
>
> A man, probably about forty years old, dressed like he was going to a movie
or back to the office for a couple of hours stopped to talk. I explained that
I wanted to talk to people at the rally about what made sense for drawing
practical lines within this abstract gun debate.
>
> He went right to the “shall not be infringed” language of the Amendment. I
said: “Well does that mean that any civilian should be able to keep and carry
armed grenades? An armed M-1 tank? A shoulder launched missile?” He
responded with “I guess we can debate what constitutes a firearm.” Not being a
Second Amendment geek, I did not correct him to say the words are “keep and
bear arms.” But there is a line whose placement on the spectrum of deadliness
was at least subject to debate.
>
> He moved onto “what about machine guns, I suppose you don’t like machine
guns, but it is legal to have and to shoot machine guns, if you have a federal
license.” I agreed that I did not like machine guns and thought that
licensure was a very good thing if they are around. That is another line that
he agreed needs to be drawn somewhere. The “militia” from Illinois who are
charged with firebombing a mosque in Bloomington were recently indicted for
having an unlicensed machine gun, but that was after the gun rally.
>
> He went on to ask about limits on the number of bullets in ammunition clips
and I said limiting those would also be good. I explained I particularly fear
such guns because my son, a police officer, is required to go into dangerous
situations, not retreat, situations made more dangerous because of the number
and deadliness of guns out there. He argued that restrictions on ammunition
clips would disarm police and stated that “you never want to go into a gun
fight with fewer bullets than the other guy.”
>
> I am not sure how that undercuts “well-regulated” gun ownership policies, but
I think that in nearly 50 years in Minnesota, police have only been involved
once in what I would call a gunfight. In St. Paul in 2014 a criminal shot and
killed one officer at a traffic stop and then triggered a shoot-out with other
police several hours later. It appears that neither Officer Patrick or any
other police who were the shooting victims of other tragic crimes lacked
firepower. And the murderer of Officer Patrick might have killed more had he
had bigger guns and more ammunition.
>
> He proceeded next to the argument that possession of guns, lots of guns, guns
with huge firepower, is the people’s last protection against government
tyranny. “That’s the first thing tyrants do, they take away people’s guns.”
>
> I heard revolutionary romantics make similar arguments in the 1970s. I knew
that the justifications offered by the Black Panthers, the American Indian
Movement, the Weather Underground were rooted in the same kind of thinking and
that it increased the apparent power of their movements. I also know that the
state, deep or shallow, is very ready to kill, imprison, threaten, blackmail,
buy off or otherwise neutralize such threats, whether real or imagined.
>
> It happened when President Washington marched the Army on the Whiskey
Rebellion’s armed tax protesters in 1794. It happened in the Civil War. It
happened at Wounded Knee in the 19th and 20th centuries. It happened in Black
Panther leader Fred Hampton’s bedroom in Chicago. It happened at MIssissippi
State and Kent State. I think that the threat of actual tyranny is much
greater now than it was in 1970 but think that armed resistance is both futile
and misguided.
>
> I said to my interlocutor: “Surely you must know that the government has
firepower that would immediately overwhelm even a well-armed citizenry, such as
what you aim for?” He agreed, saying, “Its not for something like, say,
seizing an armory; but like if a police officer comes to your home without a
warrant and insists on coming in. Wouldn’t it be good to be able to say, ’I
stand on my rights and have a shotgun at hand. Leave!’?”
>
> I did not respond with “Yeah, the armory raid didn’t work so well for John
Brown.” Nor with my view that in a democracy the answer to police violating
constitutional boundaries is not firearms. I did not comment that there are
already too many people, particularly black and brown-skinned people, shot by
police for no reason or for bad reasons and that we don’t need to have even
more situations where officers feel forced to use their guns. Nor did I voice
my reaction that I don’t want my son having to worry more than he must already
do about encountering firearm threats when trying to protect the people.
>
> I think I just shook my head.
>
> I think that this fellow can repeat the cant, but doesn’t really believe in
the “resistance to tyranny” argument.
>
> I moved on to say how glad I was that the Second Amendment has not been so
inviolate that my severely mentally ill brother, who for time obsessed about
wanting guns to protect himself from imagined drug dealers, could get his hands
on such weapons. My debater fully agreed that someone like my brother should
not have guns.
>
> I said: “But I thought there were no permissible limits on the people’s
rights under the Second Amendment? It make no exceptions for reason, age,
capacity, wisdom, judgment or sanity. So I guess we agree that lines must be
drawn, we need to have discussions and have a government that makes reasonable
choices about where those lines should be drawn.”
>
> In that space, his zone of power and passion, he was not convinced, but we
had a civil discussion and I hope he will hang onto the idea that he, a gun
guy, actually agrees with “regulated.” What sets us apart is our view on what
constitutes “well”. Our conversation ended and I turned my attention back to
the speaker on the steps.
>
> This fellow identified himself as a member of the clergy and a former handgun
permit holder. I’ll call him Reverend Ruger as I missed his name. He reported
that he has relinquished the permit, and hinted that he continues to carry
deadly weapons, in defiance of the law. He is a proud, a very very proud, gun
owner. A Second Amendment absolutist, I suppose we might call him.
>
> He expressed his disdain for the “perverts back there” gesturing back at the
Capitol. “And they are all perverts, whether they call themselves Republicans
or Democrats.” His voice rose higher and higher through the PA, cracking with
greater emotion each time he spat out the word “pervert”, but I could not
understand his charge of perversion. Does he know something about men’s room
rituals in the Senate Majority offices that the Red Star, I mean the Star
Tribune, has failed to uncover?
>
> Not long ago, “Reverend Ruger” discovered that just down the road from his
favorite place for target practice is, how could you guess, a training facility
for swat teams. He has, therefore, gathered together his buddies who also love
their guns and they have all now bonded over the scent of cordite at his
shooting place, organized themselves and made a pledge of mutual self-defense.
>
> Having thus established his readiness to confront tyranny, the speaker
returned to his religious fervor …. and I lost his train of thought. He went
on at some length on several articles of faith, including the establishment of
or the existence of or the threat of the Sanhedrin.
>
> The Sanhedrin? The name echoed from somewhere.... Did this appear in some
mystery novel I read about medieval religious artifacts and murders? Is it in
The DaVinci Code? Does it appear in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
(“Fake news” of a scurrilous nature created by a Russian anti-semite at the
start of the 20th century. 800,000 copies were distributed by Henry Ford in
the 1920s.)
>
> Wikipedia later informed me that the Sanhedrin was a 71 member “Supreme
Court” of the top rabbis of the Jewish people. The Sanhedrin ceased to
operate about 1700 years ago but some have tried to reestablish from time to
time: Napoleon Bonaparte, for one, and orthodox Jews in Israel more recently.
>
> Did our speaker endorse the Sanhedrin? Aspire to adjunct membership? Did
“Reverend Ruger” advocate taking up arms against the Sanhedrin? I do not know.
>
> It was cold even though the rhetoric was hot. I headed for home, but kept my
sign. The gun fetishists will have another rally on another, warmer day.
>
> Perhaps I’ll have some more line drawing discussions then.
>
>
>
> Jay Wilkinson
> Macalester Groveland, St Paul
> About/contact Jay Wilkinson: http://forums.e-democracy.org​/p​/jaywilkinson
>
>
> * Work or live in Downtown Saint Paul? Take our survey:
> https://www.surveymonkey.com​/r​/downtownstpaulsurveyft
>
> * Questions about rule violations? Contact: <email obscured>
>
>
> ------------------------
> Reply: Reply-All or visit
http://forums.e-democracy.org​/r​/topic​/3Aogh1yTwEDQILFGT5p4WC

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Jay's posts infrequently here, but when he does, it's worth the read. I
read every word of it. Thanks!
 
Tom Goldstein
 
On April 12, 2018 at 5:22 PM J Wilkinson wrote:“WELL REGULATED”, A Report From
The Minnesota Gun Rights RallySpray painted in fluorescent green on two sides
of a cardboard sign, “WELL REGULATED”. I took that message to the pro gun rally
on March 31st at the Capitol in St. Paul. I chose these Second Amendment words
a week after the youth-led rally of up to 20,000 (my guess was there were 10 or
15,000, but who really knows) demanded an end to gun violence and legal action
to limit the ever-increasing number of deadly weapons in the U.S.. This
Saturday the winds were moderate and the temperature a few degrees higher than
the cold march a week before. I walked up the mall past a car with an InfoWars
bumper sticker towards the Capitol steps arriving just after the rally got
underway. I thought gun control advocates would be on the sidelines wearing
orange t-shirts and holding signs to assert rights of safety, children’s
education and freedom from fear. But I saw none. The steps of the Capitol were
one-quarter filled with “don’t tread on me” flag carriers, burly men and women
in camouflage gear, a few kids, people carrying misspelled signs, American
flags on poles and blue jean patches, pre-printed pro-Trump signs and tributes
to their interpretation of the Second Amendment. Many stood with handguns
strapped to their sides. I wandered through the gathering, very generously
estimated by some media at 400 people. A convenor of the rally, probably Chris
Dorr or Ben Dorr or Aaron Dorr, got it underway and made it plain that he,
recently arrived from Iowa, or maybe Ohio, or perhaps some other state, was
very unhappy with the Republicans at the Capitol. (City Pages, 5-10-2015,
reported that the head of Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance here in Minnesota
views the Dorrs as rip-offs: "They prey on people's fears and paint things as
pretty much going to heck in a handbasket right away if you don't send us
money.” They have a traveling show for gunners.) GOP House Speaker Dowd, he
complained, did not allow a “stand your ground” law that would encourage
civilian use of deadly force, even when less dangerous alternatives are evident
and required by modern self-defense law. One of the Dorrs made it clear that no
legislator was welcome at their rally, to general applause.WELL on one side,
REGULATED on the other. My sign. Yes, I know that Antonin Scalia’s opinion in
Miller was that “well regulated” was applicable to the militia only, but I
wanted a conversation not a legal debate.A man, probably about forty years old,
dressed like he was going to a movie or back to the office for a couple of
hours stopped to talk. I explained that I wanted to talk to people at the rally
about what made sense for drawing practical lines within this abstract gun
debate. He went right to the “shall not be infringed” language of the
Amendment. I said: “Well does that mean that any civilian should be able to
keep and carry armed grenades? An armed M-1 tank? A shoulder launched missile?”
He responded with “I guess we can debate what constitutes a firearm.” Not being
a Second Amendment geek, I did not correct him to say the words are “keep and
bear arms.” But there is a line whose placement on the spectrum of deadliness
was at least subject to debate.He moved onto “what about machine guns, I
suppose you don’t like machine guns, but it is legal to have and to shoot
machine guns, if you have a federal license.” I agreed that I did not like
machine guns and thought that licensure was a very good thing if they are
around. That is another line that he agreed needs to be drawn somewhere. The
“militia” from Illinois who are charged with firebombing a mosque in
Bloomington were recently indicted for having an unlicensed machine gun, but
that was after the gun rally. He went on to ask about limits on the number of
bullets in ammunition clips and I said limiting those would also be good. I
explained I particularly fear such guns because my son, a police officer, is
required to go into dangerous situations, not retreat, situations made more
dangerous because of the number and deadliness of guns out there. He argued
that restrictions on ammunition clips would disarm police and stated that “you
never want to go into a gun fight with fewer bullets than the other guy.”
I am not sure how that undercuts “well-regulated” gun ownership policies, but I
think that in nearly 50 years in Minnesota, police have only been involved once
in what I would call a gunfight. In St. Paul in 2014 a criminal shot and killed
one officer at a traffic stop and then triggered a shoot-out with other police
several hours later. It appears that neither Officer Patrick or any other
police who were the shooting victims of other tragic crimes lacked firepower.
And the murderer of Officer Patrick might have killed more had he had bigger
guns and more ammunition.He proceeded next to the argument that possession of
guns, lots of guns, guns with huge firepower, is the people’s last protection
against government tyranny. “That’s the first thing tyrants do, they take away
people’s guns.”
I heard revolutionary romantics make similar arguments in the 1970s. I knew
that the justifications offered by the Black Panthers, the American Indian
Movement, the Weather Underground were rooted in the same kind of thinking and
that it increased the apparent power of their movements. I also know that the
state, deep or shallow, is very ready to kill, imprison, threaten, blackmail,
buy off or otherwise neutralize such threats, whether real or imagined. It
happened when President Washington marched the Army on the Whiskey Rebellion’s
armed tax protesters in 1794. It happened in the Civil War. It happened at
Wounded Knee in the 19th and 20th centuries. It happened in Black Panther
leader Fred Hampton’s bedroom in Chicago. It happened at MIssissippi State and
Kent State. I think that the threat of actual tyranny is much greater now than
it was in 1970 but think that armed resistance is both futile and misguided.I
said to my interlocutor: “Surely you must know that the government has
firepower that would immediately overwhelm even a well-armed citizenry, such as
what you aim for?” He agreed, saying, “Its not for something like, say, seizing
an armory; but like if a police officer comes to your home without a warrant
and insists on coming in. Wouldn’t it be good to be able to say, ’I stand on my
rights and have a shotgun at hand. Leave!’?”
I did not respond with “Yeah, the armory raid didn’t work so well for John
Brown.” Nor with my view that in a democracy the answer to police violating
constitutional boundaries is not firearms. I did not comment that there are
already too many people, particularly black and brown-skinned people, shot by
police for no reason or for bad reasons and that we don’t need to have even
more situations where officers feel forced to use their guns. Nor did I voice
my reaction that I don’t want my son having to worry more than he must already
do about encountering firearm threats when trying to protect the people. I
think I just shook my head. I think that this fellow can repeat the cant, but
doesn’t really believe in the “resistance to tyranny” argument.I moved on to
say how glad I was that the Second Amendment has not been so inviolate that my
severely mentally ill brother, who for time obsessed about wanting guns to
protect himself from imagined drug dealers, could get his hands on such
weapons. My debater fully agreed that someone like my brother should not have
guns. I said: “But I thought there were no permissible limits on the people’s
rights under the Second Amendment? It make no exceptions for reason, age,
capacity, wisdom, judgment or sanity. So I guess we agree that lines must be
drawn, we need to have discussions and have a government that makes reasonable
choices about where those lines should be drawn.”
In that space, his zone of power and passion, he was not convinced, but we had
a civil discussion and I hope he will hang onto the idea that he, a gun guy,
actually agrees with “regulated.” What sets us apart is our view on what
constitutes “well”. Our conversation ended and I turned my attention back to
the speaker on the steps. This fellow identified himself as a member of the
clergy and a former handgun permit holder. I’ll call him Reverend Ruger as I
missed his name. He reported that he has relinquished the permit, and hinted
that he continues to carry deadly weapons, in defiance of the law. He is a
proud, a very very proud, gun owner. A Second Amendment absolutist, I suppose
we might call him. He expressed his disdain for the “perverts back there”
gesturing back at the Capitol. “And they are all perverts, whether they call
themselves Republicans or Democrats.” His voice rose higher and higher through
the PA, cracking with greater emotion each time he spat out the word “pervert”,
but I could not understand his charge of perversion. Does he know something
about men’s room rituals in the Senate Majority offices that the Red Star, I
mean the Star Tribune, has failed to uncover? Not long ago, “Reverend Ruger”
discovered that just down the road from his favorite place for target practice
is, how could you guess, a training facility for swat teams. He has, therefore,
gathered together his buddies who also love their guns and they have all now
bonded over the scent of cordite at his shooting place, organized themselves
and made a pledge of mutual self-defense. Having thus established his readiness
to confront tyranny, the speaker returned to his religious fervor …. and I lost
his train of thought. He went on at some length on several articles of faith,
including the establishment of or the existence of or the threat of the
Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin? The name echoed from somewhere.... Did this appear in
some mystery novel I read about medieval religious artifacts and murders? Is it
in The DaVinci Code? Does it appear in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
(“Fake news” of a scurrilous nature created by a Russian anti-semite at the
start of the 20th century. 800,000 copies were distributed by Henry Ford in the
1920s.) Wikipedia later informed me that the Sanhedrin was a 71 member “Supreme
Court” of the top rabbis of the Jewish people. The Sanhedrin ceased to operate
about 1700 years ago but some have tried to reestablish from time to time:
Napoleon Bonaparte, for one, and orthodox Jews in Israel more recently. Did our
speaker endorse the Sanhedrin? Aspire to adjunct membership? Did “Reverend
Ruger” advocate taking up arms against the Sanhedrin? I do not know. It was
cold even though the rhetoric was hot. I headed for home, but kept my sign. The
gun fetishists will have another rally on another, warmer day. Perhaps I’ll
have some more line drawing discussions then.Jay WilkinsonMacalester Groveland,
St PaulAbout/contact Jay Wilkinson:
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Mitch wisely eschews debating gun control points, but I am not so wise.
 
To start, I will address a single point (for the sake of brevity): The ‘defense
against tyranny’ is a sound argument. Consider how any government action would
be carried out. Of course it would not be with amassed military power - it
would be mostly individual law enforcement officers carrying orders out over
weeks, months, or years. Law enforcement officers *already* face extreme risks
from asymmetrical actions in our cities! It would exceedingly difficult for the
state to confiscate all the weapons, even if many people *were* forced to give
them up. 150,000,000 gun owners vs. 150,000 law enforcement officers. The right
to keep and bear arms most definitely limits the actions a tyrannical
government can take. Americans *will* fight to maintain their rights, and
enabling that is the purpose of the 2nd amendment.

Share

To John’s point - I love it when criminal-protection/victim disarmament
advocates say “What? You think you’re going to fight a tank with a rifle?”
 
Forget for a moment the obvious tactical answer (“Of course not. You fight the
truck bringing the fuel and ammo and food TO the tank with the rifle”), the
question betrays a pollyannaish view on the part of the
criminal-protection/victim disarmament advocates. They apparently think the
military is composed of the children of families with parents that have
masters’ degrees in Poli Sci from Carlton, who shop at Whole Foods, drive
Subarus, and think John Oliver is just dreamy.
 
No. The military is overwhelmingly the children of Red America. An 18 year old
from Texas is 32 times as likely to serve in the military as one from Manhattan
or San Francisco (and even those are almost invariably the blue-collar black,
Irish and Puerto Rican kids from Staten Island or Oakland) [1]. The
active-duty military votes GOP by a 50-60 point margin [2] (and the reserves,
40-50 points) A move to impose tyranny on the nation at large would be imposing
it on the parents, siblings and cousins of the military.
 
So the question isn’t “how are you going to fight tyranny and a tank with an
AR-15”. The question is “how are you going to impose tyranny against a tank
*and* an AR-15 with a picket sign and one of those pink knit kitty hats?”.
 
All submitted in the interest of intellectual thoroughness. Let’s not go
attacking each other, shall we?
 
And we’ll see all of you who favor *genuine* freedom for the law-abiding
citizen two weeks from tomorrow, April 28, at the Capitol!
 
Mitch Berg
Who is terrified of guns and would never own, much less use, one.
 
 
 
[1] Cite - Robert Kaplan of “The Atlantic” in his book “Imperial Grunts”
[2]
https://www.military.com​/daily​-news​/2016​/11​/02​/survey​-career​-oriented​-troops​-favor​-trump​-over​-clinton​.html
<https://www.military.com​/daily​-news​/2016​/11​/02​/survey​-career​-oriented​-troops​-favor​-trump​-over​-clinton​.html>
 
> On Apr 13, 2018, at 11:21 AM, John Gaylord <<email obscured>> wrote:
>
> Mitch wisely eschews debating gun control points, but I am not so wise.
>
> To start, I will address a single point (for the sake of brevity): The
‘defense against tyranny’ is a sound argument. Consider how any government
action would be carried out. Of course it would not be with amassed military
power - it would be mostly individual law enforcement officers carrying orders
out over weeks, months, or years. Law enforcement officers *already* face
extreme risks from asymmetrical actions in our cities! It would exceedingly
difficult for the state to confiscate all the weapons, even if many people
*were* forced to give them up. 150,000,000 gun owners vs. 150,000 law
enforcement officers. The right to keep and bear arms most definitely limits
the actions a tyrannical government can take. Americans *will* fight to
maintain their rights, and enabling that is the purpose of the 2nd amendment.
>
>
> John Gaylord
> Union Park, St. Paul
> About/contact John Gaylord: http://forums.e-democracy.org​/p​/johngaylord
>
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No regulatory lines, even if they will not prevent every school shooting, every
suicide, every ambush of police officers? That's my question this week.

Share

Hi Jay,
 
Can you clarify your question? Are you referring to 'where to draw regulatory
lines'? There are definitely lots of extant regulations, so there cannot be 'no
lines.' (But perhaps I'm misunderstanding you.)

Share

I’ll echo John’s question. What do you mean “no regulatory lines?”
 
You do realize gun homicides are *down 50% in the past 20 years*, don’t you?
 
And homicides in school are down 75% in that same time.
 
You do realize that gun homicides are down by *more* than that rate in
Minnesota over that time, and that Minnesota has both more carry permittees per
capita than Texas, we have one of the lowest murder rates in the country?
 
And every suicide is a tragedy - but it’s not a random one. Firearm suicide is
heavily concentrated among elderly men in rural areas, usually depressed, often
socially-isolated, frequently terminally ill. Most have been using firearms
since childhood without incident. What “regulation” do you propose that would
curb suicide (which is entirely tied to available means - take away a gun, and
they’ll use booze and sleeping pills).
 
Have you ever tried to buy a gun? There are most definitely regulatory
lines.
 
Given the, er, broad nature of your question, it’s hard to tell what to answer,
but I’ve certainly tried.
 
Two questions for you, Jay:
1. Could you please be a little more specific?
2. What “regulatory line” would you suggest that actually addresses criminal
behavior, rather than the behavior of people who are vastly more demonstrably
law-abiding than the general public (as gun owners in fact are).
 
Thanks,
 
Mitch Berg
A thought criminal perhaps, but not a criminal.
 
 
> On Apr 13, 2018, at 7:01 PM, Jay Wilkinson <<email obscured>> wrote:
>
> No regulatory lines, even if they will not prevent every school shooting,
every suicide, every ambush of police officers? That's my question this week.
>
> Jay Wilkinson
> Macalester Groveland, St Paul
> About/contact Jay Wilkinson: http://forums.e-democracy.org​/p​/jaywilkinson
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Yes, by now everyone know the gun homicide rate is down etc etc. And that's
great.
 
And you do realize that, despite those great changes, it is still insanely high
in comparison to our peers in the rest of the world? (And you do know exactly
where you can stick those comments about race, right? As I refer to comparing
ourselves to our cultural peers, right?)
 
And when someone says you can find reasonable people on both sides of the
issue, kind of implying some sort of equality in numbers, you know that that
is total BS when, again, you include, our peers?
 
Sure you know that. Some of you read newspapers from those parts of the world.
 
P.S. If not US, at least Minnesota.

Rest of post

-----Original Message-----
From: Saint Paul Issues Forum [mailto:stpaul-issues@forums.e-democracy.org] On
Behalf Of Mitchell Berg
Sent: Saturday, April 14, 2018 8:52 AM
To: <email obscured>
Cc: stpaul-issues@forums.e-democracy.org
Subject: [SPIF] “WELL REGULATED”, A Report From The Minnesota Gun Rights Rally
 
You do realize gun homicides are *down 50% in the past 20 years*, don’t you?
 
And homicides in school are down 75% in that same time.
 
You do realize that gun homicides are down by *more* than that rate in
Minnesota over that time, and that Minnesota has both more carry permittees per
capita than Texas, we have one of the lowest murder rates in the country?

Share

I get why 2nd Amendment advocates like Mitch object to gun control advocates
arguing that firearms restrictions will lower suicide rates. The NRA and other
gun proponents see any move to address the public health impact of guns as
letting the “gun-grabbing” camel’s nose into their tent.
 
That leads to the NRA resisting publicly funded research that might undermine
their position, and to insisting that guns don’t present an unacceptable threat
to health and safety.
 
As a suicide prevention advocate, I’m not sure “regulating” gun ownership is
the best approach to addressing a public health issue—or even a good starting
point for discussing it.
 
But I’m even less certain nothing can be done.
 
I’d prefer that the gun debate focus on reducing harm. There’s potential for
finding common ground. Unless of course, further research finds that certain
restrictions will lead to reduced harm.
 
I do want address what Mitch says: "Firearm suicide is heavily concentrated
among elderly men in rural areas, usually depressed, often socially-isolated,
frequently terminally ill. Most have been using firearms since childhood
without incident.”
 
Gun suicide IS a disproportionate problem in rural areas. But the fact is,
three quarters of US gun suicides occur outside small town/rural settings, and
the highest rate occurs among the 45-54 age group (20.3 per 100,000 vs. 13.6
for the nation as a whole). So we can’t assign the high incidence of gun
suicides to depressed old farmers with cancer who were going to kill themselves
anyway.
 
Mitch says suicide "is entirely tied to available means - take away a gun, and
they’ll use booze and sleeping pills."
 
This is a common misconception. Suicidal individuals do not consider all means
acceptable to them. Studies show that if a person’s preferred suicide method is
unavailable, they are unlikely to switch to a different one. Even if an
alternate method is used, it is likely to be less lethal.
 
Further, as many as two-thirds of those who reported suicide attempts didn’t
plan their attempt ahead of time, and the time between decision and action was
short. A quarter of those made an attempt 5 minutes after making the decision;
half within 20 minutes, and three-quarters within an hour.
 
That’s why guns are used in so many completed suicides. They are available on
impulse, acceptable to most men who have guns around, and they are the most
lethal means commonly available.
 
I do believe having fewer guns around would reduce accidents, impulsive murders
and self-harm. Gun advocates say that having more guns around protects us from
untold and uncommitted murders.
 
How do we get beyond this impasse?

Rest of post

 

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Hi Charlie, I believe getting beyond this impasse starts with the two sides
listening to each other and refraining from misrepresenting and insulting the
other side (I am not referring to your post). This thread began with a anti-gun
piece which characterized the other side as ignorant and bigoted. The original
piece covered the gamut of anti-gun points - which makes it very difficult to
respond. The original poster obviously spent a lot of time on the original
piece, then clams up and refuses to discuss further. Then we get comments like
the last post - very aggressive “you do know exactly where you can stick those
comments…” and “…you know that that is total BS…” and “Sure you know that. Some
of you read newspapers from those parts of the world.” We need to try to be
persuasive, not least because bullying exacerbates the issue - especially in
this case - if one side feels they need defending, attacking them is not a
sound approach to compromise.
 
To address your point: 2nd Amendment advocates object to gun control advocates
desire to take law-abiding citizens guns away. Many gun control advocates
appear to seize on any statistic in their zeal. This does a disservice to
actual solutions to problems, like the suicide issue you discuss.

Share

John, it was an interesting term I read being used by those high school
students. They said "I call BS on you". Not sure it applies here. But I think
your somewhat selective in your criticism, and perhaps in your role as
moderator too.
 
Yes, I was aggressive in referring to the crap about being called racist by one
your gun pushing buddies earlier, and especially so as it was so conveniently
done so then. On one hand it was claimed to be ignorant to make a certain
comparison between different cultures and then, flip flop, it was racists not
to allow comparisons. Yes, I like that comment by the student then. So, when I
once again had to refer to that comparison to once again hearing statistics not
addressing the issue, I got preemptive.
 
A few weeks ago I read a virulent, almost a foaming at mouth, declaration that
Tom Goldstein was a liar. Yes, a liar!!! For referring to some comment about
the 'good guys' as being anecdotal. Which in the normal course of events, in
would have been. Unless of course you want to include law enforcement as 'good
guys', which they are, so you can. But again, I'd like to quote those High
School guys. In the report being referred to in that discussion, concerning
cases of perps of mass shooting being stopped, approximately 3% were done by
civilians. The 'good guys'. Yah Tom, you're a GD liar. Right.
 
I'll admit I'm more reactive than productive. That's been my career. Review. A
habit. I think when BS is seen it should be noted. I still enjoy reading the
good productive talk.
 
But you're missing a really good one when I stifle myself (saw a good PBS
feature on Norman Lear the other day) about equating Human rights with Gun
rights (Ya know, they're in the constitution, ya). Now that one would have fit
your bill for negativity. I'm still cleaning up the mess.
 
P.S. John, SPIF, Really?
 
P.P.S. You're right though. There is absolutely nothing positive up there.

Rest of post

 

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Hmm. Let’s see - where to start?
 
Charlie Quimby wrote:
 
"Mitch says suicide "is entirely tied to available means - take away a gun, and
they’ll use booze and sleeping pills.”...Suicidal individuals do not consider
all means acceptable to them. Studies show that if a person’s preferred suicide
method is unavailable, they are unlikely to switch to a different one. Even if
an alternate method is used, it is likely to be less lethal.”
 
I’m not really equipped to debate the fine details of the issue - but in the
UK, guns are unavailable (to non-criminals, anyway), and the suicide rate is
almost identical to the US. Guns are even rarer (and *not* a part of the
culture) in Japan, and their suicide rate is double ours. While suicide may
indeed be frequently a spur of the moment decision for many, there are clearly
ample means of doing it without a gun. Sorry to say.
 
"That leads to the NRA resisting publicly funded research that might undermine
their position”
 
Sorry, Charlie. Go out to Google and look for gun research grant money.
There’s millions of dollars out there going into various flavors of gun
violence research. It’s a myth that “The NRA banned public health research”
(although equating violent crime to “public health” is about as logical
as…well, equating behavior with pathology, any way you slice it - the logical
equivalent of phrenoiogy). The Dixon Amendment didn’t “ban public health
research on guns”; it just forecloses the politicization of science by barring
the CDC from using public funds to promote a partisan position.
 
"How do we get beyond this impasse?”
 
For starters, stop using things like mental illness and its tragic effects to
try to exert social control over law-abiding citizens. It’s like treating flu
by banning vomit; you’re not even bothering to treat the symptom, much less the
disease, and everyone is on to it.
 
And no, I’m not being remotely flippant. For human rights activists like
myself, that is the proverbial hill worth dying on.
 
You want to talk reforming mental health policy (as the NRA does)? I’m all
ears. Want to close gaps in reporting (many of them due to institutional
sloth) that allows people like Nik Cruz and Omar Matteen to buy guns when they
should have been barred? Let’s do. Want to debate the link between
smothering urban progressive politics and violent street crime - whoops, I
guess you don’t, but again, I’m with ya. .Want to work on ways to engage with
the potentially suicidal, to work with people at risk of going into
violence-prone lifestyles (which account for 75-90% of all gun deaths every
year), to tighten up reporting on things like domestic abuse (with due
process)? Alleluiah, let’s.
 
To start the “debate” by saying “Sure, let’s start with gutting the civil
rights of people who have done, and will do, nothing wrong?” Want to defer to
the jabbering of people who don’t know the difference between a civil right and
an MPR pledge drive, demanding “solutions” that, even logically, can solve
nothing? It’s gonna be a long day.
 
Speaking of which - it’s hard to know exactly what Pat Byrne was trying to say
- but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t very conversational.
 
". They said "I call BS on you". Not sure it applies here.”
 
Unless you can actually say what the “BS” is - and the high school kids truly
can not, and goodness knows Pat can’t - then no, probably doesn’t.
 
"Yes, I was aggressive in referring to the crap about being called racist by
one your gun pushing buddies earlier, and especially so as it was so
conveniently done so then. On one hand it was claimed to be ignorant to make a
certain comparison between different cultures and then, flip flop, it was
racists not to allow comparisons.”
 
And I was correct on both counts.
 
Saying (for example) “Japan/Sweden/Germany have no guns, and no gun crime, so
that’s what we should do!” is - I’ll be charitable - an oversimplification;
those are all highly homogenous societies with long, unbroken communitarian
traditions - and, in some cases (Japan) the kinds of police powers that would
make some of you yakk up your skulls if you thought about it (start with
“presumption of guilt” - ringing any bells?). Nothing about their societies
are comparable to ours.
 
(Or the “Counterintuitive” observation that the parts of this country that have
the most intact traditions of *law-abiding* gun use - including Minnesota -
have the lowest rates of crime, while places without that tradition have high,
sometimes crisis-level, rates of crime - which is only counterintuitive if
you’re utterly uninformed).
 
And yes, when I point out that the US is actually #94 in the world in homicides
and the response is “No, we only count *western, industrial* nations”, it’s
both wrong (Brazil has comprehensive gun control, a first-world society, and a
murder rate five times ours) and indicates the murder of a Honduran or
Salvadoran is of less moral weight than a Westerner. And yes, you people -
urban progressives - don’t bat an eye about hundreds of deaths a year of brown
and black kids in Chicago or Detroit or NoMi - but march in the streets when
kids who look like MPR executives’ children get killed.
 
What SHOULD we call it?
 
"I read a virulent, almost a foaming at mouth, declaration that Tom Goldstein
was a liar.”
 
Don’t flatter yourselves (pl). No foam. Just an utterly accurate
observation that Goldstein wrote a couple of things that are untrue. Factually
void. Wrong. Was Mr. Goldstein lying? Well, if he actually believes he was
telling the truth and not misleading people, perhaps not - but it was still
void of truth.
 
And I’ll be happy to prove it, point by point - but it seems Mr. Goldstein has
decided to ignore my responses.
 
"(Ya know, they're in the constitution, ya)”
 
Pat, it’s so *cute* that you try to condescend. Keep reaching for the stars!
 
"you're missing a really good one...about equating Human rights with Gun
rights”
 
The right to protect ones self, property, family, community and freedom IS a
human right. Just because you don’t value it doesn’t change it. That some
people don’t appreciate other peoples’ civil rights is why we have a 13th
Amendment, among others.
 
Mitch Berg
Who fights for *all* civil rights, not just the easy, convenient or PC ones.

Rest of post

> On Apr 15, 2018, at 9:57 AM, Paddy <<email obscured>> wrote:
>
> John, it was an interesting term I read being used by those high school
students. They said "I call BS on you". Not sure it applies here. But I think
your somewhat selective in your criticism, and perhaps in your role as
moderator too.
>
> Yes, I was aggressive in referring to the crap about being called racist by
one your gun pushing buddies earlier, and especially so as it was so
conveniently done so then. On one hand it was claimed to be ignorant to make a
certain comparison between different cultures and then, flip flop, it was
racists not to allow comparisons. Yes, I like that comment by the student then.
So, when I once again had to refer to that comparison to once again hearing
statistics not addressing the issue, I got preemptive.
>
> A few weeks ago I read a virulent, almost a foaming at mouth, declaration
that Tom Goldstein was a liar. Yes, a liar!!! For referring to some comment
about the 'good guys' as being anecdotal. Which in the normal course of events,
in would have been. Unless of course you want to include law enforcement as
'good guys', which they are, so you can. But again, I'd like to quote those
High School guys. In the report being referred to in that discussion,
concerning cases of perps of mass shooting being stopped, approximately 3% were
done by civilians. The 'good guys'. Yah Tom, you're a GD liar. Right.
>
> I'll admit I'm more reactive than productive. That's been my career. Review.
A habit. I think when BS is seen it should be noted. I still enjoy reading the
good productive talk.
>
> But you're missing a really good one when I stifle myself (saw a good PBS
feature on Norman Lear the other day) about equating Human rights with Gun
rights (Ya know, they're in the constitution, ya). Now that one would have fit
your bill for negativity. I'm still cleaning up the mess.
>
> P.S. John, SPIF, Really?
>
> P.P.S. You're right though. There is absolutely nothing positive up there.
>
>
>
>
> Pat Byrne
> St. Clair and Lexington Parkway Neighborhood, St. Paul
> About/contact Pat Byrne: http://forums.e-democracy.org​/p​/patbyrne1
>
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I'm not trying to hijack this thread to the subject of suicide, so I'll just
provide two quick reads about the issue in Japan and Korea—two countries that
have high rates of suicide and low rates of gun ownership.
 
https://bpr.berkeley.edu​/2017​/10​/31​/the​-scourge​-of​-south​-korea​-stress​-and​-suicide​-in​-korean​-society​/
 
http://www.bbc.com​/news​/world​-33362387
 
You'll notice both talk about culture, stress, and breakdown of family and
tradition—not guns or other means.
 
We should be able to have this kind of conversation, but also be allowed to
admit that guns in particular are a part of American culture. This is not an
argument for regulation, simply a statement of reality.

Share

The 1993 Dickey Amendment Mitch cites to refute a statement I didn't make about
the NRA's resistance to research that might undermine its positions, was
introduced after NRA lobbying and objections to a 1993 CDC-funded study that
showed a gun in the home was associated with an increased risk of homicide in
the home.
 
At the same time Congress passed the amendment, it re-allocated the $2.6
million budget that had been set aside for firearms research.
 
So it's true the language of the amendment did not prohibit research, it just
took away the money and effectively warned that future research better not be
used to in support of gun control. Since the whole point of doing research is
to find out things you don't know, researchers were placed in an untenable
position.
 
The effect was that no money has been appropriated to the CDC for firearms
related research since then. Dickey himself regretted that outcome, but we
still have it.

Share

Wow, all that talk about gun grabbing sure is good for business. Look at the
March 2018 NICs numbers.
 
https://www.fbi.gov​/file​-repository​/nics​_firearm​_checks​_​-​_month​_year​.pdf​/view

Share

Most of the people at the rally I attended, at least in their public
pronouncements seemed to have a view of "no limits, no regs" - happily at least
one attendee was interested in discussion and seemed OK with some regs. That
was, for me, a source of hope.
 
Mitch, thanks for calling out the sponsors of that effort - I am OK with them
speaking their minds. Is there any connection between the extreme views I
heard on the 31st and the White Rabbit (gawd what a name) Militia in Illinois
who firebombed in Bloomington? I think so and hope that the lies they seem to
believe are exposed as such by better-informed gun rights supporters.
 
>From some of the reporting I have seen (and anecdotally from a trauma doc) one
of the reasons for purported decline in gun homicides is the huge improvement
in trauma care, not because fewer people are being shot. And survivors
frequently lead tragic and expensive lives after their near-fatal wounds.
 
By the way, here is a summary of MN law now:
http://www.startribune.com​/what​-you​-need​-to​-know​-about​-minnesota​-s​-gun​-laws​/474903103​/​.
 
The MN house bill that makes some sense to me is here:
https://www.revisor.mn.gov​/bills​/text​.php​?number​=HF3022​&​;version​=0​&​;session​=ls90​&​;session​_year​=2018​&​;session​_number​=0​.
 
Just as an example, right now a person at a gun show could sell a
semi-automatic and a bump stock and one hundred rounds to my brother who you
will recall is severely mentally ill and at was one time, gun-obsessed.
(Happily, he has no money, but he had money at the time of the onset of the
illness.) My brother could sell to a criminal at a coffee shop. This proposal
would require all gun transfers to go thru a licensed dealer who would have a
chance to check and see that my brother is under guardianship in another state
(though data sharing is a real problem) and stop that chain of events at the
gun show. (He is a FORMER Minnesotan, btw.)
 
It would make sales of magazines with more than 10 bullets illegal. I'd prefer
a six bullet limit. Do gun owners out there see a need for more than 6? Well
how about a debate about line-drawing - 12? 15?
 
To swerve into uncharted territory now I'd like to hear others' view on
mandatory liability insurance. Perhaps the incidence of improper use and
storage and transfer of guns by law abiding owners is so small that to
actuaries could not set rates that would entice business.
 
These ideas would not stop every tragedy - or even 5% of the gun killings and
woundings. Seat belts and speed limits don't keep all car crash victims alive.
Criminals often do not follow gun laws, but some do and others get caught
before gun fire starts.
 
These restrictions would inconvenience law-abiding, good neighbors. Yep.
 
It may be that all we can do is work at the margins of the problem of gun
violence, but it should be discussed and acted on.

Rest of post

 

Share

Mr Wilkinson
 
Your post is informative and thought-provoking.
 
A good starting point.
 
Tim Holden
 
On Mon, Apr 16, 2018, 10:54 AM Jay Wilkinson <<email obscured>> wrote:
 
> Most of the people at the rally I attended, at least in their public
> pronouncements seemed to have a view of "no limits, no regs" - happily at
> least one attendee was interested in discussion and seemed OK with some
> regs. That was, for me, a source of hope.
>
> Mitch, thanks for calling out the sponsors of that effort - I am OK with
> them speaking their minds. Is there any connection between the extreme
> views I heard on the 31st and the White Rabbit (gawd what a name) Militia
> in Illinois who firebombed in Bloomington? I think so and hope that the
> lies they seem to believe are exposed as such by better-informed gun rights
> supporters.
>
> >From some of the reporting I have seen (and anecdotally from a trauma
> doc) one of the reasons for purported decline in gun homicides is the huge
> improvement in trauma care, not because fewer people are being shot. And
> survivors frequently lead tragic and expensive lives after their near-fatal
> wounds.
>
> By the way, here is a summary of MN law now:
>
>
http://www.startribune.com​/what​-you​-need​-to​-know​-about​-minnesota​-s​-gun​-laws​/474903103​/​.
>
>
> The MN house bill that makes some sense to me is here:
>
https://www.revisor.mn.gov​/bills​/text​.php​?number​=HF3022​&​;version​=0​&​;session​=ls90​&​;session​_year​=2018​&​;session​_number​=0​.

Rest of post

>
>
> Just as an example, right now a person at a gun show could sell a
> semi-automatic and a bump stock and one hundred rounds to my brother who
> you will recall is severely mentally ill and at was one time, gun-obsessed.
> (Happily, he has no money, but he had money at the time of the onset of the
> illness.) My brother could sell to a criminal at a coffee shop. This
> proposal would require all gun transfers to go thru a licensed dealer who
> would have a chance to check and see that my brother is under guardianship
> in another state (though data sharing is a real problem) and stop that
> chain of events at the gun show. (He is a FORMER Minnesotan, btw.)
>
> It would make sales of magazines with more than 10 bullets illegal. I'd
> prefer a six bullet limit. Do gun owners out there see a need for more
> than 6? Well how about a debate about line-drawing - 12? 15?
>
> To swerve into uncharted territory now I'd like to hear others' view on
> mandatory liability insurance. Perhaps the incidence of improper use and
> storage and transfer of guns by law abiding owners is so small that to
> actuaries could not set rates that would entice business.
>
> These ideas would not stop every tragedy - or even 5% of the gun killings
> and woundings. Seat belts and speed limits don't keep all car crash
> victims alive. Criminals often do not follow gun laws, but some do and
> others get caught before gun fire starts.
>
> These restrictions would inconvenience law-abiding, good neighbors. Yep.
>
> It may be that all we can do is work at the margins of the problem of gun
> violence, but it should be discussed and acted on.
>
>
>
>
>
> Jay Wilkinson
> Macalester Groveland, St Paul
> About/contact Jay Wilkinson: http://forums.e-democracy.org​/p​/jaywilkinson
>
>
> * Work or live in Downtown Saint Paul? Take our survey:
> https://www.surveymonkey.com​/r​/downtownstpaulsurveyft
>
> * Questions about rule violations? Contact: <email obscured>
>
>
> ------------------------
> Reply: Reply-All or visit
> http://forums.e-democracy.org​/r​/topic​/7CcIvUGavGsfQTRLLz7nF
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>
>
>

Share

Hi Jay,
 
Neither bump stocks nor gun shows have contributed to the overall issue, so I
would not be in favor of those components. Similarly, magazine size is not the
problem. It is not so much the ‘inconvenience’ (since we’re already subject to
many regulations), but the lack of evidence that additional inconvenience will
help the problem.
 
The legislation you mention (HF3022) bans silencers, dead-beat dads, trigger
activators, and a host of other things ‘at the margins’ as you say. None of
these contribute to the issue. The bill replaces a list of “Assault Style”
weapons with the term “semi-automatic rifle” (sec. 8 624.712 sub 7) which
potentially brings most guns into its purview. "Semi automatic" weapons
comprise more than 50% of all guns. HF3022 would ban sales of guns to those
under 18 - in a state where it is very common for fathers to buy their sons a
first deer rifle at age 14. Would that now become a ‘straw purchase’?
 
The provisions in the bill for the ‘temporary’ removal of gun rights comes from
a government that can’t respond to more than 5% of elder abuse cases - can’t
respond to the vast majority of child endangerment cases, and can’t issue a
drivers license on time. Should any American deprived of a basic civil right
believe that government is capable of managing that?

Share

It seems many of our members support the proposed law - HF3022, but few want to
debate the actual content and why it would be alarming to law-abiding
Minnesotans. The primary issue is not that any regulations are proposed (as the
straw man argument goes) but that the regulations threaten to encompass all
users and all firearms.
 
As I mentioned above, HF3022 redefines 'assault weapon' from a list of specific
weapons to “any…semiautomatic rifle that has the capacity to accept a
detachable magazine…" (and one or more add-on features) *and* “[any]
semiautomatic pistol that has the capacity to accept more than seven rounds of
ammunition” The latter includes the vast majority of semi-automatic pistols.
 
I already mentioned that the prohibition to transfer any of these weapons to
someone under 18, would end a very common (and legal) practice in Minnesota.
(Unless there is some exception for family members that I did not find.) This
regulation would make many Minnesotans into criminals, require that they
surrender now-illegal firearms and magazines, and also require that they submit
to annual background checks and in-home inspections of firearm storage.
 
The 'car/seat belt' analogy made above is inapt - an apt analogy would be
outlawing all cars that can go over 80 mph in order to prevent deaths caused by
speeders or fleeing criminals.
 
So far this April in Chicago, 13 people have been shot and killed. The number
killed with an AR-15? Zero. We need to intervene with potential murderers, not
try to regulate the hardware. Even the NY Times used to agree with that.
(http://tinyurl.com/yd63r9ef)

Share

John, thanks for making me more aware of HF3022
 
Below, I've attached the definitions for assault weapons, and I'm wondering if
you could pin point those that you find objectionable. I didn't find any
onerous but I'm not a user.
 
Another items confused me when you noted " the prohibition to transfer any of
these weapons to someone under 18, would end a very common (and legal) practice
in Minnesota". I couldn't find an outright prohibition, and the conditions I
did find also seemed like good ideas to me. Again, perhaps you could pin point
which of the conditions you find objectionable.
 
While probably most of you claims are factually true or literally true, I
suspect some are so in the same vein as all those "good guys" who stopped all
those mass killers. Not quite the whole story. Or anywhere near it. I'll try
to visit those yet.
 
But again, I'm new to HF3022. Has the ammo clip size of concern been changed
from ten to seven? Perhaps I have the wrong version?
 
P.S. I can't figure out why this remains in SPIF. I'm posting it also in the
Minnesota Forum

Rest of post

-----------------------------
 
Assault weapon" means any:
 
(1) semiautomatic rifle that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine
and has one or more of the following:
-A pistol grip or thumbhole stock;
-Any feature capable of functioning as a protruding grip that can be held by
the nontrigger hand;
-A folding or telescoping stock; or
-A shroud attached to the barrel or that partially or completely encircles the
barrel allowing the bearer to hold the firearm with the nontrigger hand without
being burned, but excluding a slide that encloses the barrel;
 
(2) semiautomatic pistol, or any semiautomatic, centerfire, or rimfire rifle
with a fixed magazine, that has the capacity to accept more than seven rounds
of ammunition;
 
(3) semiautomatic pistol that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine
and has one or more of the following:
-Any feature capable of functioning as a protruding grip that can be held by
the nontrigger hand;
-A folding, telescoping, or thumbhole stock;
-A shroud attached to the barrel or that partially or completely encircles the
barrel allowing the bearer to hold the firearm with the nontrigger hand without
being burned, but excluding a slide that encloses the barrel; or
-The capacity to accept a detachable magazine at any location outside of the
pistol grip;
 
(4) semiautomatic shotgun that has one or more of the following:
-A pistol grip or thumbhole stock;
-Any feature capable of functioning as a protruding grip that can be held by
the nontrigger hand;
-A folding or telescoping stock;
-A fixed magazine capacity in excess of seven rounds; or
-An ability to accept a detachable magazine;
 
(5) shotgun with a revolving cylinder; or
 
(6) conversion kit, part, or combination of parts from which an assault weapon
can be assembled if those parts are in the possession or under the control of
the same person.
 
(b) Assault weapon does not include any firearm that has been made permanently
inoperable
 
-----------------
 
Ineligible people
 
(1) a person under the age of 18 years except that a person under 18 may
possess ammunition designed for use in a firearm that the person may lawfully
possess and may carry or possess a pistol or semiautomatic military-style
assault weapon
(i) in the actual presence or under the direct supervision of the person's
parent or guardian,
(ii) for the purpose of military drill under the auspices of a legally
recognized military organization and under competent supervision,
(iii) for the purpose of instruction, competition, or target practice on a
firing range approved by the chief of police or county sheriff in whose
jurisdiction the range is located and under direct supervision; or
(iv) if the person has successfully completed a course designed to teach
marksmanship and safety with a pistol or semiautomatic military-style assault
weapon and approved by the commissioner of natural resources
 
-------------------
 
Original post to SPIF
 
It seems many of our members support the proposed law - HF3022, but few want to
debate the actual content and why it would be alarming to law-abiding
Minnesotans. The primary issue is not that any regulations are proposed (as the
straw man argument goes) but that the regulations threaten to encompass all
users and all firearms.
 
As I mentioned above, HF3022 redefines 'assault weapon' from a list of specific
weapons to “any…semiautomatic rifle that has the capacity to accept a
detachable magazine…" (and one or more add-on features) *and* “[any]
semiautomatic pistol that has the capacity to accept more than seven rounds of
ammunition” The latter includes the vast majority of semi-automatic pistols.
 
I already mentioned that the prohibition to transfer any of these weapons to
someone under 18, would end a very common (and legal) practice in Minnesota.
(Unless there is some exception for family members that I did not find.) This
regulation would make many Minnesotans into criminals, require that they
surrender now-illegal firearms and magazines, and also require that they submit
to annual background checks and in-home inspections of firearm storage.
 
The 'car/seat belt' analogy made above is inapt - an apt analogy would be
outlawing all cars that can go over 80 mph in order to prevent deaths caused by
speeders or fleeing criminals.
 
So far this April in Chicago, 13 people have been shot and killed. The number
killed with an AR-15? Zero. We need to intervene with potential murderers, not
try to regulate the hardware. Even the NY Times used to agree with that.
(http://tinyurl.com/yd63r9ef)

Share

Hi Pat,
 
A ‘military-style assault rifle’ is just a semi-automatic rifle with some
optional features. These optional features do not make a gun ‘more deadly.’ The
attempt to ban them is objectionable because there is no rational basis for it,
and it will affect millions of law-abiding Americans.
 
The 7-round citation is in line 6.17. The definition of an ineligible person is
in line 8.16. Line 21.29 prohibits the transfer to ineligible persons.

Share

Paddy,
 
Since you say you’re not “a user”, I’m going to assume you’re utterly
unfamiliar with firearms. A fair guess?
 
The entire list of prohibited features - folding stocks, pistol grips, barrel
shrouds and the like - are *entirlely* cosmetic - like running boards on a
pickup truck. A truck with running boards isn’t any faster or handier than one
without, and a rifle with a pistol grip and a barrel shroud is *no* more lethal
than any other gun.
 
Magazines over ten rounds get spoken of like the boogieman, but they have no
effect on crime. Even on mass shootings - because when nobody can resist you,
you can reload at your leisure. Nik Cruz used ten round magazines (NOT 30 or
100 rounds!) at Parkland - and he had four uninterrupted minutes to shoot, and
left the scene at his leisure. With four uninterrupted minutes, he could have
killed 17 with a break-action double barrel shotgun. San Ysidro, Columbine,
Virginia Tech, New Life Christian Center and most of the spree shootings you’ve
heard of were done with mundane regular-sized magazines.
 
And the list of restrictions in HF3022 would ban a near majority of firearms
used by law-abiding citizens in Minnesota. Most defensive handguns have
magazines larger than ten rounds (just like the guns every cop in this state
uses). “Fixed magazines over seven rounds” means every World War 2 relic,
grandpa’s old Garand from Anzio, is headed for the scrap heap too.
 
Hope that’s answered your questions.
 
Now I have one for you. You refer to " l those "good guys" who stopped all
those mass killers. Not quite the whole story. Or anywhere near it.” Would you
care to get specific? Because I’ve personally written about nearly two dozens
such cases…:
 
http://www.shotinthedark.info​/wp​/​?page​_id​=55536
<http://www.shotinthedark.info​/wp​/​?page​_id​=55536>
 
…and I”m going to guess you have not. So please - what is “the whole story?”
Be specific.
 
By the way - I think it was you who was bemoaning the non-fact “fact” that the
CDC is presented from researching gun violence. It’s not, of course - it’s
merely forbidden to advocate gun policy. The Dickey Amendment happened
because Congress was worried about the integrity of the “science” that would be
produced.
 
Turns out Dickey was right: the CDC has been withholding information showing
that Americans use firearms in justifiable self-defense WAY more than
officialdom lets on:
 
http://reason.com​/blog​/2018​/04​/20​/cdc​-provides​-more​-evidence​-that​-plenty​-o
<http://reason.com​/blog​/2018​/04​/20​/cdc​-provides​-more​-evidence​-that​-plenty​-o>
 
Read it. The inescapable confusion is that the CDC’s political leadership
didn’t want any evidence leaking out that would impugn their race to stigmatize
law-abiding gun owners.
 
Which you, Paddy, may not see as much of a problem - but I, as someone who
respects science, do.
 
Anyway - I’d appreciate an answer to my question (and I”ll appreciated it even
more if it doesn’t include a slab of ad hominem and deflection. Hope springs
as eternal as this winter has been_.
 
Mitch Berg
The Midway
 
(PS - anyone noticed how the Parkland kids have been shunted out of the public
eye? Turns out Dave Hogg was a bigger gun salesman than Barack Obama).

Rest of post

> On Apr 21, 2018, at 3:25 PM, Paddy <<email obscured>> wrote:
>
> John, thanks for making me more aware of HF3022
>
> Below, I've attached the definitions for assault weapons, and I'm wondering
if you could pin point those that you find objectionable. I didn't find any
onerous but I'm not a user.
>
> Another items confused me when you noted " the prohibition to transfer any of
these weapons to someone under 18, would end a very common (and legal) practice
in Minnesota". I couldn't find an outright prohibition, and the conditions I
did find also seemed like good ideas to me. Again, perhaps you could pin point
which of the conditions you find objectionable.
>
> While probably most of you claims are factually true or literally true, I
suspect some are so in the same vein as all those "good guys" who stopped all
those mass killers. Not quite the whole story. Or anywhere near it. I'll try
to visit those yet.
>
> But again, I'm new to HF3022. Has the ammo clip size of concern been changed
from ten to seven? Perhaps I have the wrong version?
>
> P.S. I can't figure out why this remains in SPIF. I'm posting it also in the
Minnesota Forum
>
> -----------------------------
>
> Assault weapon" means any:
>
> (1) semiautomatic rifle that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine
and has one or more of the following:
> -A pistol grip or thumbhole stock;
> -Any feature capable of functioning as a protruding grip that can be held by
the nontrigger hand;
> -A folding or telescoping stock; or
> -A shroud attached to the barrel or that partially or completely encircles
the barrel allowing the bearer to hold the firearm with the nontrigger hand
without being burned, but excluding a slide that encloses the barrel;
>
> (2) semiautomatic pistol, or any semiautomatic, centerfire, or rimfire rifle
with a fixed magazine, that has the capacity to accept more than seven rounds
of ammunition;
>
> (3) semiautomatic pistol that has the capacity to accept a detachable
magazine and has one or more of the following:
> -Any feature capable of functioning as a protruding grip that can be held by
the nontrigger hand;
> -A folding, telescoping, or thumbhole stock;
> -A shroud attached to the barrel or that partially or completely encircles
the barrel allowing the bearer to hold the firearm with the nontrigger hand
without being burned, but excluding a slide that encloses the barrel; or
> -The capacity to accept a detachable magazine at any location outside of the
pistol grip;
>
> (4) semiautomatic shotgun that has one or more of the following:
> -A pistol grip or thumbhole stock;
> -Any feature capable of functioning as a protruding grip that can be held by
the nontrigger hand;
> -A folding or telescoping stock;
> -A fixed magazine capacity in excess of seven rounds; or
> -An ability to accept a detachable magazine;
>
> (5) shotgun with a revolving cylinder; or
>
> (6) conversion kit, part, or combination of parts from which an assault
weapon can be assembled if those parts are in the possession or under the
control of the same person.
>
> (b) Assault weapon does not include any firearm that has been made
permanently inoperable
>
> -----------------
>
> Ineligible people
>
> (1) a person under the age of 18 years except that a person under 18 may
possess ammunition designed for use in a firearm that the person may lawfully
possess and may carry or possess a pistol or semiautomatic military-style
assault weapon
> (i) in the actual presence or under the direct supervision of the person's
parent or guardian,
> (ii) for the purpose of military drill under the auspices of a legally
recognized military organization and under competent supervision,
> (iii) for the purpose of instruction, competition, or target practice on a
firing range approved by the chief of police or county sheriff in whose
jurisdiction the range is located and under direct supervision; or
> (iv) if the person has successfully completed a course designed to teach
marksmanship and safety with a pistol or semiautomatic military-style assault
weapon and approved by the commissioner of natural resources
>
> -------------------
>
> Original post to SPIF
>
> It seems many of our members support the proposed law - HF3022, but few want
to debate the actual content and why it would be alarming to law-abiding
Minnesotans. The primary issue is not that any regulations are proposed (as the
straw man argument goes) but that the regulations threaten to encompass all
users and all firearms.
>
> As I mentioned above, HF3022 redefines 'assault weapon' from a list of
specific weapons to “any…semiautomatic rifle that has the capacity to accept a
detachable magazine…" (and one or more add-on features) *and* “[any]
semiautomatic pistol that has the capacity to accept more than seven rounds of
ammunition” The latter includes the vast majority of semi-automatic pistols.
>
> I already mentioned that the prohibition to transfer any of these weapons to
someone under 18, would end a very common (and legal) practice in Minnesota.
(Unless there is some exception for family members that I did not find.) This
regulation would make many Minnesotans into criminals, require that they
surrender now-illegal firearms and magazines, and also require that they submit
to annual background checks and in-home inspections of firearm storage.
>
> The 'car/seat belt' analogy made above is inapt - an apt analogy would be
outlawing all cars that can go over 80 mph in order to prevent deaths caused by
speeders or fleeing criminals.
>
> So far this April in Chicago, 13 people have been shot and killed. The number
killed with an AR-15? Zero. We need to intervene with potential murderers, not
try to regulate the hardware. Even the NY Times used to agree with that.
(http://tinyurl.com/yd63r9ef)
>
>
>
> Pat Byrne
> St. Clair and Lexington Parkway Neighborhood, St. Paul
> About/contact Pat Byrne: http://forums.e-democracy.org​/p​/patbyrne1
>
>
> * Work or live in Downtown Saint Paul? Take our survey:
> https://www.surveymonkey.com​/r​/downtownstpaulsurveyft
>
> * Questions about rule violations? Contact: <email obscured>
>
>
> ------------------------
> Reply: Reply-All or visit
http://forums.e-democracy.org​/r​/topic​/1P3tfaRbTYzHEzul9iwrWc

Share

John, I'd say you blew right by that one. I did include all the definitions
from the bill, and it appears you object to all of them? Or none of them? I
can't tell. You didn't cite specifics although they were listed for us.
 
I still think the seven comes from an older version, February of before. I
thought I was using a March version?
 
And I did include one of the definitions of being eligible, which noted being
under 18, with some fairly notable exceptions about those young people that I
think you simply ignored.
 
Anyway.
 
Dave, I think you're referring to things John wrote.
 
Mitch, I suspect you just like calling people stupid about guns, so you can be
more smart and more right. That, along with a belief that a right to bear arms
is a god given right would be a tough nut to crack if someone wanted. Or allow
any type of machination to be cited. I liked the one on polls.
 
No, I have familiarity with firearms. None with assault weapons however, as I'm
of the opinion that's pure insanity. But, JMO.
 
My own personal reference to assault weapons or large ammunition clips would be
more based on the impression that restricting them, whatever the cosmetics, or
sizes, seems to be a common point in many of the countries in their gun control
laws that seem to do better with either gun deaths or gun homicides. I'd call
that the closest I can get to empirical data. I don't really want to argue
about seven bullets or ten. I think anything past three is not needed. A lot of
hunters I know get all puffed up and talk about more than one being too much.
 
As for defensive need for larger clips, based upon my interpretation of that
empirical data I wander across, the best clip size is zero. You want to defend
your family? Don't have a gun in the house.
 
As to my comments on 'good guys', you already referred to the federal report
based on a number of years of data on mass killings. You probably have its
title right on the tip of your tongue. You know which one. I'd have to look it
up again. But one of their statistics was that 3% of the events were stopped by
what I'd call the 'good guys', or civilians carrying. While certainly a plus, I
wouldn't refer to that as a lot, or a bunch, or any type of positive attribute
to the number. Any attempt to do so I characterize as blowing up anecdotal
info, much as Tom did, unless I was made aware of a different study that was
being referred to. And then, yep, I'd have to plead ignorance as it hadn't been
brought up in the discussions.
 
But that's not really part of the issue we're talking about. And actually
trying to focus on those mass killings is more of a distraction than not, when
you do consider another study that notes approximately 1,300 killed over 12
years in 'mass' killings (again, variable depending on definition of mass)
compared to 350,000 gun deaths or 140,000 gun homicides. Less than 1% of the
homicides.
 
I've made no mention of CDC
 
Thanks much
 
By the way, any future responses to HR3022, if any, will be made on the
Minnesota site, because this in SPIF is just goofy. Any response on Gun Control
may be in Minnesota or US site

Rest of post

-----Original Messages-----
 
From: Saint Paul Issues Forum [mailto:stpaul-issues@forums.e-democracy.org] On
Behalf Of John Gaylord
Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2018
To: SPIF
Subject: [SPIF] “WELL REGULATED”, A Report From The Minnesota Gun Rights Rally
 
Hi Pat,
 
A ‘military-style assault rifle’ is just a semi-automatic rifle with some
optional features. These optional features do not make a gun ‘more deadly.’ The
attempt to ban them is objectionable because there is no rational basis for it,
and it will affect millions of law-abiding Americans.
 
The 7-round citation is in line 6.17. The definition of an ineligible person is
in line 8.16. Line 21.29 prohibits the transfer to ineligible persons.
 
 
John Gaylord
Union Park, St. Paul
About/contact John Gaylord: http://forums.e-democracy.org​/p​/johngaylord
 
-----Original Messages-----
 
From: Saint Paul Issues Forum [mailto:stpaul-issues@forums.e-democracy.org] On
Behalf Of Mitchell Berg
Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2018 4:32 PM
To: SPIF
Subject: [SPIF] “WELL REGULATED”, A Report From The Minnesota Gun Rights Rally
 
Paddy,
 
Since you say you’re not “a user”, I’m going to assume you’re utterly
unfamiliar with firearms. A fair guess?
 
Now I have one for you. You refer to " l those "good guys" who stopped all
those mass killers. Not quite the whole story. Or anywhere near it.” Would you
care to get specific? Because I’ve personally written about nearly two dozens
such cases…:
 
http://www.shotinthedark.info​/wp​/​?page​_id​=55536
<http://www.shotinthedark.info​/wp​/​?page​_id​=55536>
 
…and I”m going to guess you have not. So please - what is “the whole story?”
Be specific.
 
By the way - I think it was you who was bemoaning the non-fact “fact” that the
CDC is presented from researching gun violence. It’s not, of course - it’s
merely forbidden to advocate gun policy. The Dickey Amendment happened
because Congress was worried about the integrity of the “science” that would be
produced.
 
Turns out Dickey was right: the CDC has been withholding information showing
that Americans use firearms in justifiable self-defense WAY more than
officialdom lets on:
 
http://reason.com​/blog​/2018​/04​/20​/cdc​-provides​-more​-evidence​-that​-plenty​-o
<http://reason.com​/blog​/2018​/04​/20​/cdc​-provides​-more​-evidence​-that​-plenty​-o>
 
Read it. The inescapable confusion is that the CDC’s political leadership
didn’t want any evidence leaking out that would impugn their race to stigmatize
law-abiding gun owners.
 
Which you, Paddy, may not see as much of a problem - but I, as someone who
respects science, do.
 
Anyway - I’d appreciate an answer to my question (and I”ll appreciated it even
more if it doesn’t include a slab of ad hominem and deflection. Hope springs
as eternal as this winter has been_.
 
Mitch Berg
The Midway
 
(PS - anyone noticed how the Parkland kids have been shunted out of the public
eye? Turns out Dave Hogg was a bigger gun salesman than Barack Obama).

Share

“Paddy” responds.
 
> Mitch, I suspect you just like calling people stupid about guns, so you can
be more smart and more right.
 
You couldn’t be more wrong. And that’s a handy little way to dismiss what was
a factual, reasoned response to your question.
 
I don’t want to call people “stupid”, because that’s a lousy way to convince
them (and I do convince people). But it’s a simple fact: most gun control
activists are not well informed.
 
The Second Amendment IS an important right to me. While I don’t believe in
“litmus tests”, I find a politician’s (and person’s, for that matter) stance on
the right to keep and bear arms is a bellwether of their stances on *all* civil
liberties. And if the government doesn’t trust you to defend yourself, then
it’s government that can’t be trusted.
 
How one responds to that statement says a lot about how one approaches the
relationship between government and citizen.
 
> That, along with a belief that a right to bear arms is a god given right
would be a tough nut to crack if someone wanted.
 
As it should be, if one believes rights are granted by God.
 
Let me ask you, Paddy - think of an issue that matters to you. If someone
approached that issue with an endless train of wives’ tales and twenty-year
out-of date pseudoscience and deflections and ad hominem and, often as not,
social bigotry, would YOU be convinced? How long would you feign
appreciation for their point of view?
 
Why would I - or anyone to whom *any* issue matters - be convinced by that?
 
> As to my comments on 'good guys', you already referred to the federal report
based on a number of years of data on mass killings. You probably have its
title right on the tip of your tongue.
 
Several. :-D
 
> But one of their statistics was that 3% of the events were stopped by what
I'd call the 'good guys', or civilians carrying. While certainly a plus, I
wouldn't refer to that as a lot, or a bunch, or any type of positive attribute
to the number.
 
3% is a number deeply open to dispute, since the Secret Service and FBI use
some fairly restrictive definitions. Also - the Secret Service study noted
that a high percentage of shooters killed themselves - without noting that many
kill themselves after encountering resistance, a tendency that’s been noted in
studies of spree killers.
 
So it’s possible, maybe even likely, that 3% is low.
 
But let’s run with 3%. Perhaps 1% of the American public have a permit to
carry a firearm in public; more in some places (greater MN, the rural west,
most WalMarts - places where spree killings never happen [1]), much lower in
others. Pick a group of 100 random people, and one *might* have a legal
firearm on them (two in Hinkley or Blue Earth, three in Bismarck or Cheyenne).
 
Now, remember:
 
a) spree killers often/usually pick targets where they know nobody will be
armed (schools, federal offices, posted buildings, places that are statutorily
“gun free”)
b) many spree killings take place in places with low levels of civilian gun
ownership (big cities, suburbs),
 
…then 3% is actually much higher than one might expect.
 
> But that's not really part of the issue we're talking about. And actually
trying to focus on those mass killings is more of a distraction than not, when
you do consider another study that notes approximately 1,300 killed over 12
years in 'mass' killings (again, variable depending on definition of mass)
compared to 350,000 gun deaths or 140,000 gun homicides. Less than 1% of the
homicides.
 
Thanks for bringing this up at long last (although I honestly tried). THere’s
been a lot of progress in this area - gun homicides ARE down 50% in the past 20
years, mostly due to non-sexy things like sentence enhancements for gun crimes,
prosecuting straw buyers, and intervening with youth before they get into
violence-prone lifestyles (66% to 80% of non-justified gun homicides involve a
perp, a victim, or both with a criminal record). Stuff the NRA pushed with
*great* success 30 years ago, by the way.
 
So let’s talk about that!
 
The problem is, responses like HF3022 (and the many bills like it the DFL is
throwing against the wall this session) have nothing to do with any of this, or
even mass shootings.
 
What it *is* is a symptom of the same thing we’ve seen in this thread - the
social uneasiness people on the left have about people who aren’t like them.
Gun control has always been about making people who aren’t like those in power
feel less uneasy about Everybody Else. For the first 100 years - 1866 to 1968
- gun control was about disarming black people. Now, it’s about all those
scary and impudent red-staters - as President Obama called us behind closed
doors, the “bitter gun clinging jeebus freaks” or whatever - and the
frightening things they call “rights”.
 
Gun control is about Big Left’s unease with with their fellow Americans. The
response is about our unease with, well, all of you.
 
>
> I've made no mention of CDC
 
Must have been Goldstein. Who always scampers away whenever I get involved.
Go figure.
 
> By the way, any future responses to HR3022, if any, will be made on the
Minnesota site, because this in SPIF is just goofy. Any response on Gun Control
may be in Minnesota or US site
 
That’s fine - it is a little weird, you’re right. But I’ve long since ditched
all E-“Democracy” forums but this one. I stay on Saint Paul on the off chance
some Saint Paul talk will come up that isn’t primarily DFL PR.
 
Thanks,
 
MBerg
 
[1] I’m going to guess nobody saw the security video of the guy who drew a gun
in WalMart and started shooting - and 3-4 customers with permits shot back?

Share

Hi Pat,
 
You try to paint proponents of gun rights as misguided - believing guns to
protect them when they really don’t. That’s your opinion and you’re entitled to
it.
 
You pretend to want to debate the specifics of HF3022, which attempts to use
specific language to ban certain devices, yet you continue to make nonsensical
comments, like “the best clip size is zero”. I think you’re for banning
“semi-automatic rifles” in civilian hands, and nothing will change your mind.
But I’m genuinely interested in making this bill better.
 
So lets take the first on the list of banned features - the silencer - why
should that device be banned?

Share

Before I respond (belatedly) to Jay, just a quick announcement - which is
germane to SPIF because it’ll take place IN Saint Paul.
 
Next Saturday, from noon to 2PM, the state’s *real* 2nd Amendment Human Rights
group, the MN Gun Owners Caucus, will be hosting its gun rights rally on the
Capitol mall. We’ll be joined by several pro-freedom congressional
representatives, guest speakers from all over the country, and at least a
thousand human rights supporters.
 
I’m going to try to be there (it conflicts with my show schedule, but for this
I may do a rare pre-recorded program). I’d invite any of you who might want an
introduction to the *real* face of the MN 2nd Amendment human rights movement
to meet me there. I’d love to talk.
 
OK. Onward to Jay:
 
> Is there any connection between the extreme views I heard on the 31st and the
White Rabbit (gawd what a name) Militia in Illinois who firebombed in
Bloomington? I think so and hope that the lies they seem to believe are
exposed as such by better-informed gun rights supporters.
 
Remember the old saying “A lie can go around the world before the truth has
tied his shoes in the morning?” This is an example of that.
 
After the Dar Al Farouk bombing, “Protect” Minnesota - a local extremist
gun-grabber group - posted on social media asking "“We hope that groups like
Minnesota Gun Rights, Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus and Gun Owners Civil Rights
Alliance can provide good information to the FBI to find and arrest the people
responsible”. It was a cowardly bit of slander, and they knew it - they
erased it from their facebook post. It’s like asking Black Lives Matter if
they know who killed a cop.
 
But the damage is done; semi-informed gun-controllers “heard it somewhere”
that Minnesota human rights groups are linked to the bombing.
 
There was and is no link.
 
Quite the opposite - the Gun Owners Caucus reached out to Dar Al Farook after
the bombing (as opposed to “Protect” Minnesota, which merely used the mosque as
a prop for its cowardly character assassination).
 
> From some of the reporting I have seen (and anecdotally from a trauma doc)
one of the reasons for purported decline in gun homicides is the huge
improvement in trauma care, not because fewer people are being shot.
 
Advances in trauma care are a wonderful thing (thanks, 15 years of global
warfare!), it doesn’t explain the commensurate 50% drop in most *other* violent
crime where no trauma care is needed, now, does it?
 
I’ve seen a *lot* of “reporting” that tries to ascribe the drop in gun deaths
to everything from the economy to medical care to abortion. None of those
theories stands up (and if you want to know why, case by case, I’m certainly
the guy to do it - but I don’t want to bludgeon people too hard).
 
> And survivors frequently lead tragic and expensive lives after their
near-fatal wounds.
 
Yep. I know a few. It’s time to lower the crime rate *further*. How about we
end the “war on drugs” for starters?
 
> Just as an example, right now a person at a gun show could sell a
semi-automatic and a bump stock and one hundred rounds to my brother who you
will recall is severely mentally ill and at was one time, gun-obsessed.
 
They *could*. They’d be potentially violating federal law already if they did.
And most shooters (most!) know that - which is why most people sell through
licensed dealers with background checks if they’re selling to strangers. Not
everyone - but that’s very risky for the seller.
 
> My brother could sell to a criminal at a coffee shop. This proposal would
require all gun transfers to go thru a licensed dealer who would have a chance
to check and see that my brother is under guardianship in another state (though
data sharing is a real problem) and stop that chain of events at the gun show.
 
That’s true enough.
 
But let’s say your brother just needs the money real bad, and the criminal
needs the gun bad, and is willing to pay $400 for a $300 pistol without any
paperwork. Is your brother (or anyone who doesn’t mind dealing with criminals,
really) going to stop and say “Wait just a doggone minute - THE LAW says I have
to get a background check?” and scrub the deal?
 
Of course not. Black markets always find suppliers.
 
Chicago has among the “toughest” gun laws in the country, and some of the worst
gun violence. And those guns come from “straw buyers” - people from Illinois
with clean records who go to Indiana, buy guns, and sell them at a markup to
criminals in Chicago.
 
How are you going to get them to take those background checks? They’re making
a *killing* (so to speak) as gun traffickers!
 
This is why we refuse to compromise on this point - because, as I’ve just shown
(for the second time in this thread), it CAN NOT work.
 
That happens, by the way, because the US Attorney for Northern Illinois
*publicly announced* that he wasn’t prosecuting “straw buyers” anymore -
because chasing gang members aunts never got anyone elected Senator.
 
(You want a regulation that works? Force the US Attorneys’ offices to *do
their jobs*.)
 
> It would make sales of magazines with more than 10 bullets illegal. I'd
prefer a six bullet limit. Do gun owners out there see a need for more than 6?
Well how about a debate about line-drawing - 12? 15?
 
Are you a self-defense shooter, Jay?
 
If not - all due respect, but why are you suggesting magazine limits, and
suggesting policy impacting a subject you know nothing about?
 
Why do you suppose the police turned in their revolvers - “six shooters” - for
18 round Glocks and 15 round SIGs? Because self-defense shooting isn’t
hunting, and it isn’t poking holds in paper on the range. The last thing you
want is to run out of bullets before someone who is trying to kill you and your
family is stopped (and that is the legal standard for civilian self-defense, by
the way - someone has to be trying to kill you. Now). Magazine limits are
pure security theater - they have no effect on crime, and burden the
law-abiding self-defense shooter.
 
(And before you say “well, yeah, cops are different” - they are indeed. They
are often wearing bulletproof vests, they have backup, they have a “patrol
rifle” (an AR15 with a different name) with a bag of 30 round magazines in the
trunk if things get out of hand. A civilian in their home? A woman fighting
off a stalker out on the street? They’re as alone as can be. Every round is a
chance at life. Seriously - learn the subject).
 
> To swerve into uncharted territory now I'd like to hear others' view on
mandatory liability insurance. Perhaps the incidence of improper use and
storage and transfer of guns by law abiding owners is so small that to
actuaries could not set rates that would entice business.
 
An OK idea in theory - except for making it mandatory, which means “government
controls it”, which means an anti-gun government (like Saint Paul’s) could use
its regulatory clout to price insurance out of the reach, first of poor people,
then everybody.
 
Insurance is a good idea - but only if it’s voluntary, and can’t be weaponized
by the likes of Linda Slocum and Dave Pinto.
 
> These ideas would not stop every tragedy - or even 5% of the gun killings and
woundings.
 
In the meantime, I’ve yet to see you, Goldstein or Paddy even mention the
things - sentencing enhancements, enforcing straw buyer laws, intervention with
at risk youth - that HAVE stopped 50% of tragedies.
 
> Criminals often do not follow gun laws, but some do
 
They follow the laws..that put THEM in jail. Not the ones that go after the
rest of us.
 
> These restrictions would inconvenience law-abiding, good neighbors. Yep.
 
And that’s really the goal, isn’t it? To stick it to those Fox News watching,
seed-cap-wearing, animal-killing, Trump voting, Bible-thumping non-DFLers.
Isn’t it?
 
> It may be that all we can do is work at the margins of the problem of gun
violence, but it should be discussed and acted on.
 
All due respect, Jay, but if one of you actually wants to “discuss” this issue
past the point where every one of your proposals is inevitably factually and
logically flensed clean, without storming away or switching to ad-hominem,
it’ll be a first. But I love firsts.
 
Anyway - hope you can make it to the Capitol next Saturday. I’ll hope to be
there as well. Hopefully we’ll clear up a few misconceptions - heck, if we
clear them ALL up, you’ll end up joining the NRA...
 
Mitch Berg
The Midway

Share

Before Mitch ridicules any more folks for bringing up the CDC, I'd invite
members to search this thread. The first mention of CDC comes from Mitch,
prompted by my comment that the NRA resists publicly funded research that might
undermine their position. They do.
 
He responded with a rant about myths I never mentioned and then raised the
"Dixon" amendment. Yes, Mitch, I know you meant Dickey. I didn't pounce on your
misstatement then because people who want to have a meaningful exchange don't
needlessly antagonize each other. Neither do they mischaracterize their
statements.
 
I clarified my position and it drew no further reply from Mitch. Maybe he
forgot it because it left no opening to fight over.
 
He and I actually agree on a number things in this discussion, but the
political gun debate (both sides) always feels like all or nothing, and I find
all the digital spittle expended not to my taste.

Share

Before I respond to Charlie Quimby, I’d like to respond to something that a few
people have mentioned. To avoid the appearance of ridiculing anyone personally
(the last thing I want), I shall turn to the gift of dramatization:
 
SCENE: On the Saint Paul Forum.
 
SOMEONE OTHER THAN MITCH: The NRA has bullied the government out of funding
public health research into gun violence!
 
MITCH: Well, no - they merely passed legislation forbidding the CDC from
taking partisan positions on the issue - which is extremely dubiously related
to public health in the first place.
 
RANDOM PROGRESSIVE (Possibly not in this forum): Why do you hate science?
 
MITCH: Quite the opposite. When you mix science and politics, you don’t end
up with scientific politics. You end up with politicized science. I respect
science too much to allow that.
 
RANDOM PROGRESSIVE: You’re paranoid! The CDC would never jigger their data to
reach a partisan result.
 
MITCH: They did *precisely* that; they hid a survey - a very thorough and
valid one, by the way - that fully confirmed everything the 2nd Amendment
Human Rights movement has been saying for the past 25 years about defensive gun
uses by civilians, indicating that civilians DO use guns for self defense about
20 times as much as the Department of Justice has claimed.
 
https://reason.com​/blog​/2018​/04​/20​/cdc​-provides​-more​-evidence​-that​-plenty​-o
<https://reason.com​/blog​/2018​/04​/20​/cdc​-provides​-more​-evidence​-that​-plenty​-o>
 
Which destroys one of Big Left’s narratives - that the idea of civilians using
guns in self-defense is “anecdotal” (you smelling what I’m cooking here, Tom
and Paddy?). This is the CDC - the group you all think is supremely qualified
to do this research in the first place, remember? And they got busted trying
to game the numbers, just as the NRA said they would. Remember?
 
SOMEONE ON THE FORUM: Hahahah, Mitch. Nobody actually mentioned the CDC!
Your point is thus invalid! Hahaha, red-state gun-hugging deplorable
jeebus-clinging loser!
 
(And SCENE).
 
Note: Some lines juiced up for dramatic effect.
 
Charlie: I don’t believe I’ve ridiculed anyone in this entire thread (other
than my constant, ambient ridicule for, well ,a certain 9/11 truther among
y’all) although I’m considering it with Goldstein. My flippant nature might
be mistaken for ridicule - I’m an artist, dammit, don’t cramp my style. And
I’ll cop to the fact that the left has introduced literally not a single new
argument in the 25-odd years I’ve been an activist - so responding can be a bit
of a chore. In this thread, I’m responding to literally the same things I
responded to 20-odd years ago on the original E-Democracy Minnesota Politics
forum. I’m looking forward to one day saying “I showed your father he was
wrong on that point…”.
 
Impatience? Restlessness? Perhaps, dare I say, a little bored patronization,
like Joe Mauer doing batting practice with a bunch of little league pitchers
(again, not ridiculing, just observing)? Yes. Ridicule? Nah. I don’t need
to do that.
 
I am serious about my invitation to come out to the Gun Rights rally - and not
just to stand among the Bloomberg Youth on the sidelines, but to actually meet
the actual people so many of you fear so much. You might even learn
something, if you’re wired for that kind of thing.
 
——————————
 
By the way - something Jay wrote stuck in my craw:
 
If someone were to say “Stop and Frisk is a proven means of lowering violent
and property crime - and if some black people feel inconvenienced, so be it!”,
you’d react with horror and anger. And I’d agree with you (as someone who
actually cares about *all* civil liberties). *Even though* Stop and Frisk
actually *does* affect crime, it *does* excessively burden the law-abiding,
based largely on appearances.
 
So when Jay writes "These restrictions would inconvenience law-abiding, good
neighbors” - and all in furtherance of policies that, unlike Stop and Frisk,
will not and can not have *any* effect on violent crime? It’s makes clear
what the real motive is; sticking it to people who aren’t like y’all.
 
There’s a word for that. It rhymes with “fliggotry”. Face it.
 
Mitch Berg
The Midway
 
 
 
> On Apr 22, 2018, at 1:50 PM, Charlie Quimby <<email obscured>> wrote:
>
> Before Mitch ridicules any more folks for bringing up the CDC, I'd invite
members to search this thread. The first mention of CDC comes from Mitch,
prompted by my comment that the NRA resists publicly funded research that might
undermine their position. They do.
>
> He responded with a rant about myths I never mentioned and then raised the
"Dixon" amendment. Yes, Mitch, I know you meant Dickey. I didn't pounce on your
misstatement then because people who want to have a meaningful exchange don't
needlessly antagonize each other. Neither do they mischaracterize their
statements.
>
> I clarified my position and it drew no further reply from Mitch. Maybe he
forgot it because it left no opening to fight over.
>
> He and I actually agree on a number things in this discussion, but the
political gun debate (both sides) always feels like all or nothing, and I find
all the digital spittle expended not to my taste.
>
>
> Charlie Quimby
> St. Anthony Park (Work), Golden Valley
> About/contact Charlie Quimby: http://forums.e-democracy.org​/p​/charliequimby
>
>
> * Work or live in Downtown Saint Paul? Take our survey:
> https://www.surveymonkey.com​/r​/downtownstpaulsurveyft
>
> * Questions about rule violations? Contact: <email obscured>
>
>
> ------------------------
> Reply: Reply-All or visit
http://forums.e-democracy.org​/r​/topic​/6d1aLOZryiKreInamKBwDi

Rest of post

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Share

WELL WELL WELL
 
GOOD MORNING
 
Representative QUAY, WONDERFUL JOB ITS ABOUT TIME!!
 
Sit in at Capitol smells of COMMON SENSE, Back Ground Checks, FANTASTIC
FINALLY
 
TIM HOLDEN
 
WWW.HOLDEN4GOVERNOR
 
Fix it Legoman, Drama Queens😁
 
On Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 10:42 PM Mitchell Berg <

Rest of post

<email obscured>> wrote:
 
> Before I respond to Charlie Quimby, I’d like to respond to something that
> a few people have mentioned. To avoid the appearance of ridiculing anyone
> personally (the last thing I want), I shall turn to the gift of
> dramatization:
>
> SCENE: On the Saint Paul Forum.
>
> SOMEONE OTHER THAN MITCH: The NRA has bullied the government out of
> funding public health research into gun violence!
>
> MITCH: Well, no - they merely passed legislation forbidding the CDC from
> taking partisan positions on the issue - which is extremely dubiously
> related to public health in the first place.
>
> RANDOM PROGRESSIVE (Possibly not in this forum): Why do you hate science?
>
> MITCH: Quite the opposite. When you mix science and politics, you don’t
> end up with scientific politics. You end up with politicized science. I
> respect science too much to allow that.
>
> RANDOM PROGRESSIVE: You’re paranoid! The CDC would never jigger their
> data to reach a partisan result.
>
> MITCH: They did *precisely* that; they hid a survey - a very thorough and
> valid one, by the way - that fully confirmed everything the 2nd Amendment
> Human Rights movement has been saying for the past 25 years about defensive
> gun uses by civilians, indicating that civilians DO use guns for self
> defense about 20 times as much as the Department of Justice has claimed.
>
> https://reason.com​/blog​/2018​/04​/20​/cdc​-provides​-more​-evidence​-that​-plenty​-o
> <
> https://reason.com​/blog​/2018​/04​/20​/cdc​-provides​-more​-evidence​-that​-plenty​-o
> >
>
> Which destroys one of Big Left’s narratives - that the idea of civilians
> using guns in self-defense is “anecdotal” (you smelling what I’m cooking
> here, Tom and Paddy?). This is the CDC - the group you all think is
> supremely qualified to do this research in the first place, remember? And
> they got busted trying to game the numbers, just as the NRA said they
> would. Remember?
>
> SOMEONE ON THE FORUM: Hahahah, Mitch. Nobody actually mentioned the
> CDC! Your point is thus invalid! Hahaha, red-state gun-hugging
> deplorable jeebus-clinging loser!
>
> (And SCENE).
>
> Note: Some lines juiced up for dramatic effect.
>
> Charlie: I don’t believe I’ve ridiculed anyone in this entire thread
> (other than my constant, ambient ridicule for, well ,a certain 9/11 truther
> among y’all) although I’m considering it with Goldstein. My flippant
> nature might be mistaken for ridicule - I’m an artist, dammit, don’t cramp
> my style. And I’ll cop to the fact that the left has introduced literally
> not a single new argument in the 25-odd years I’ve been an activist - so
> responding can be a bit of a chore. In this thread, I’m responding to
> literally the same things I responded to 20-odd years ago on the original
> E-Democracy Minnesota Politics forum. I’m looking forward to one day
> saying “I showed your father he was wrong on that point…”.
>
> Impatience? Restlessness? Perhaps, dare I say, a little bored
> patronization, like Joe Mauer doing batting practice with a bunch of little
> league pitchers (again, not ridiculing, just observing)? Yes. Ridicule?
> Nah. I don’t need to do that.
>
> I am serious about my invitation to come out to the Gun Rights rally - and
> not just to stand among the Bloomberg Youth on the sidelines, but to
> actually meet the actual people so many of you fear so much. You might
> even learn something, if you’re wired for that kind of thing.
>
> ——————————
>
> By the way - something Jay wrote stuck in my craw:
>
> If someone were to say “Stop and Frisk is a proven means of lowering
> violent and property crime - and if some black people feel inconvenienced,
> so be it!”, you’d react with horror and anger. And I’d agree with you (as
> someone who actually cares about *all* civil liberties). *Even though*
> Stop and Frisk actually *does* affect crime, it *does* excessively burden
> the law-abiding, based largely on appearances.
>
> So when Jay writes "These restrictions would inconvenience law-abiding,
> good neighbors” - and all in furtherance of policies that, unlike Stop and
> Frisk, will not and can not have *any* effect on violent crime? It’s
> makes clear what the real motive is; sticking it to people who aren’t like
> y’all.
>
> There’s a word for that. It rhymes with “fliggotry”. Face it.
>
> Mitch Berg
> The Midway
>
>
>
> > On Apr 22, 2018, at 1:50 PM, Charlie Quimby <<email obscured>>
> wrote:
> >
> > Before Mitch ridicules any more folks for bringing up the CDC, I'd
> invite members to search this thread. The first mention of CDC comes from
> Mitch, prompted by my comment that the NRA resists publicly funded research
> that might undermine their position. They do.
> >
> > He responded with a rant about myths I never mentioned and then raised
> the "Dixon" amendment. Yes, Mitch, I know you meant Dickey. I didn't pounce
> on your misstatement then because people who want to have a meaningful
> exchange don't needlessly antagonize each other. Neither do they
> mischaracterize their statements.
> >
> > I clarified my position and it drew no further reply from Mitch. Maybe
> he forgot it because it left no opening to fight over.
> >
> > He and I actually agree on a number things in this discussion, but the
> political gun debate (both sides) always feels like all or nothing, and I
> find all the digital spittle expended not to my taste.
> >
> >
> > Charlie Quimby
> > St. Anthony Park (Work), Golden Valley
> > About/contact Charlie Quimby:
> http://forums.e-democracy.org​/p​/charliequimby
> >
> >
> > * Work or live in Downtown Saint Paul? Take our survey:
> > https://www.surveymonkey.com​/r​/downtownstpaulsurveyft
> >
> > * Questions about rule violations? Contact: <email obscured>
> >
> >
> > ------------------------
> > Reply: Reply-All or visit
> http://forums.e-democracy.org​/r​/topic​/6d1aLOZryiKreInamKBwDi
> > New Topic: stpaul-issues@forums.e-democracy.org
> > Digest: Subject: digest on
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> >
> >
> >
> >
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> >
> >
>
>
>
> mitch berg
> The Midway, Saint Paul
> About/contact mitch berg: http://forums.e-democracy.org​/p​/mitchberg
>
>
> * Work or live in Downtown Saint Paul? Take our survey:
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>

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Tim,
 
Please be specific - which of Maye Quade’s proposals would actually save lives,
and *how*?
 
Because this looks to me like Rep. Maye Quade doing what she does best (or
most, anyway) - seeking attention.
 
I look forward to your answer.
 
MBerg
The Midway
 
Sent from my iPhone
 
> On Apr 25, 2018, at 8:16 AM, TIMOTHY HOLDEN <<email obscured>> wrote:
>
> WELL WELL WELL
>
> GOOD MORNING
>
> Representative QUAY, WONDERFUL JOB ITS ABOUT TIME!!
>
> Sit in at Capitol smells of COMMON SENSE, Back Ground Checks, FANTASTIC
> FINALLY
>
> TIM HOLDEN
>
> WWW.HOLDEN4GOVERNOR
>
> Fix it Legoman, Drama Queens😁
>
> On Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 10:42 PM Mitchell Berg <
> <email obscured>> wrote:
>
>> Before I respond to Charlie Quimby, I’d like to respond to something that
>> a few people have mentioned. To avoid the appearance of ridiculing anyone
>> personally (the last thing I want), I shall turn to the gift of
>> dramatization:
>>
>> SCENE: On the Saint Paul Forum.
>>
>> SOMEONE OTHER THAN MITCH: The NRA has bullied the government out of
>> funding public health research into gun violence!
>>
>> MITCH: Well, no - they merely passed legislation forbidding the CDC from
>> taking partisan positions on the issue - which is extremely dubiously
>> related to public health in the first place.
>>
>> RANDOM PROGRESSIVE (Possibly not in this forum): Why do you hate science?
>>
>> MITCH: Quite the opposite. When you mix science and politics, you don’t
>> end up with scientific politics. You end up with politicized science. I
>> respect science too much to allow that.
>>
>> RANDOM PROGRESSIVE: You’re paranoid! The CDC would never jigger their
>> data to reach a partisan result.
>>
>> MITCH: They did *precisely* that; they hid a survey - a very thorough and
>> valid one, by the way - that fully confirmed everything the 2nd Amendment
>> Human Rights movement has been saying for the past 25 years about defensive
>> gun uses by civilians, indicating that civilians DO use guns for self
>> defense about 20 times as much as the Department of Justice has claimed.
>>
>> https://reason.com​/blog​/2018​/04​/20​/cdc​-provides​-more​-evidence​-that​-plenty​-o
>> <
>> https://reason.com​/blog​/2018​/04​/20​/cdc​-provides​-more​-evidence​-that​-plenty​-o
>>>
>>
>> Which destroys one of Big Left’s narratives - that the idea of civilians
>> using guns in self-defense is “anecdotal” (you smelling what I’m cooking
>> here, Tom and Paddy?). This is the CDC - the group you all think is
>> supremely qualified to do this research in the first place, remember? And
>> they got busted trying to game the numbers, just as the NRA said they
>> would. Remember?
>>
>> SOMEONE ON THE FORUM: Hahahah, Mitch. Nobody actually mentioned the
>> CDC! Your point is thus invalid! Hahaha, red-state gun-hugging
>> deplorable jeebus-clinging loser!
>>
>> (And SCENE).
>>
>> Note: Some lines juiced up for dramatic effect.
>>
>> Charlie: I don’t believe I’ve ridiculed anyone in this entire thread
>> (other than my constant, ambient ridicule for, well ,a certain 9/11 truther
>> among y’all) although I’m considering it with Goldstein. My flippant
>> nature might be mistaken for ridicule - I’m an artist, dammit, don’t cramp
>> my style. And I’ll cop to the fact that the left has introduced literally
>> not a single new argument in the 25-odd years I’ve been an activist - so
>> responding can be a bit of a chore. In this thread, I’m responding to
>> literally the same things I responded to 20-odd years ago on the original
>> E-Democracy Minnesota Politics forum. I’m looking forward to one day
>> saying “I showed your father he was wrong on that point…”.
>>
>> Impatience? Restlessness? Perhaps, dare I say, a little bored
>> patronization, like Joe Mauer doing batting practice with a bunch of little
>> league pitchers (again, not ridiculing, just observing)? Yes. Ridicule?
>> Nah. I don’t need to do that.
>>
>> I am serious about my invitation to come out to the Gun Rights rally - and
>> not just to stand among the Bloomberg Youth on the sidelines, but to
>> actually meet the actual people so many of you fear so much. You might
>> even learn something, if you’re wired for that kind of thing.
>>
>> ——————————
>>
>> By the way - something Jay wrote stuck in my craw:
>>
>> If someone were to say “Stop and Frisk is a proven means of lowering
>> violent and property crime - and if some black people feel inconvenienced,
>> so be it!”, you’d react with horror and anger. And I’d agree with you (as
>> someone who actually cares about *all* civil liberties). *Even though*
>> Stop and Frisk actually *does* affect crime, it *does* excessively burden
>> the law-abiding, based largely on appearances.
>>
>> So when Jay writes "These restrictions would inconvenience law-abiding,
>> good neighbors” - and all in furtherance of policies that, unlike Stop and
>> Frisk, will not and can not have *any* effect on violent crime? It’s
>> makes clear what the real motive is; sticking it to people who aren’t like
>> y’all.
>>
>> There’s a word for that. It rhymes with “fliggotry”. Face it.
>>
>> Mitch Berg
>> The Midway
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Apr 22, 2018, at 1:50 PM, Charlie Quimby <<email obscured>>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Before Mitch ridicules any more folks for bringing up the CDC, I'd
>> invite members to search this thread. The first mention of CDC comes from
>> Mitch, prompted by my comment that the NRA resists publicly funded research
>> that might undermine their position. They do.
>>>
>>> He responded with a rant about myths I never mentioned and then raised
>> the "Dixon" amendment. Yes, Mitch, I know you meant Dickey. I didn't pounce
>> on your misstatement then because people who want to have a meaningful
>> exchange don't needlessly antagonize each other. Neither do they
>> mischaracterize their statements.
>>>
>>> I clarified my position and it drew no further reply from Mitch. Maybe
>> he forgot it because it left no opening to fight over.
>>>
>>> He and I actually agree on a number things in this discussion, but the
>> political gun debate (both sides) always feels like all or nothing, and I
>> find all the digital spittle expended not to my taste.
>>>
>>>
>>> Charlie Quimby
>>> St. Anthony Park (Work), Golden Valley
>>> About/contact Charlie Quimby:
>> http://forums.e-democracy.org​/p​/charliequimby
>>>
>>>
>>> * Work or live in Downtown Saint Paul? Take our survey:
>>> https://www.surveymonkey.com​/r​/downtownstpaulsurveyft
>>>
>>> * Questions about rule violations? Contact: <email obscured>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------
>>> Reply: Reply-All or visit
>> http://forums.e-democracy.org​/r​/topic​/6d1aLOZryiKreInamKBwDi
>>> New Topic: stpaul-issues@forums.e-democracy.org
>>> Digest: Subject: digest on
>>> Leave: Subject: unsubscribe
>>> Forum Home: http://forums.e-democracy.org​/groups​/stpaul​-issues
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting: http://OnlineGroups.Net
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> mitch berg
>> The Midway, Saint Paul
>> About/contact mitch berg: http://forums.e-democracy.org​/p​/mitchberg
>>
>>
>> * Work or live in Downtown Saint Paul? Take our survey:
>> https://www.surveymonkey.com​/r​/downtownstpaulsurveyft
>>
>> * Questions about rule violations? Contact: <email obscured>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------
>> Reply: Reply-All or visit
>> http://forums.e-democracy.org​/r​/topic​/36m71iS0hOw1f9sjsSWRCp
>> New Topic: stpaul-issues@forums.e-democracy.org
>> Digest: Subject: digest on
>> Leave: Subject: unsubscribe
>> Forum Home: http://forums.e-democracy.org​/groups​/stpaul​-issues
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting: http://OnlineGroups.Net
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> Tim Holden
> Como
> About/contact Tim Holden: http://forums.e-democracy.org​/p​/timholden
>
>
> * Work or live in Downtown Saint Paul? Take our survey:
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>
> * Questions about rule violations? Contact: <email obscured>
>
>
> ------------------------
> Reply: Reply-All or visit
http://forums.e-democracy.org​/r​/topic​/4sU86mzlEMp0TXXFsbjI8G

Rest of post

> New Topic: stpaul-issues@forums.e-democracy.org
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>

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Steady Hand GREAT aim.
 
GUN CONTROL regulation could be similar to vehicle registration.
 
Now how can we FIX MNLARS.
 
Sorry for the delayed response, CAMPAIGN PHONES RINGING NON STOP
 
 
TIM HOLDEN
 
HOLDEN4GOVERNOR

Rest of post

 
On Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 1:18 PM Mitchell Berg <<email obscured>> wrote:
 
> Tim,
>
> Please be specific - which of Maye Quade’s proposals would actually save
> lives, and *how*?
>
> Because this looks to me like Rep. Maye Quade doing what she does best (or
> most, anyway) - seeking attention.
>
> I look forward to your answer.
>
> MBerg
> The Midway
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Apr 25, 2018, at 8:16 AM, TIMOTHY HOLDEN <<email obscured>>
> wrote:
> >
> > WELL WELL WELL
> >
> > GOOD MORNING
> >
> > Representative QUAY, WONDERFUL JOB ITS ABOUT TIME!!
> >
> > Sit in at Capitol smells of COMMON SENSE, Back Ground Checks, FANTASTIC
> > FINALLY
> >
> > TIM HOLDEN
> >
> > WWW.HOLDEN4GOVERNOR
> >
> > Fix it Legoman, Drama Queens😁
> >
> > On Sun, Apr 22, 2018, 10:42 PM Mitchell Berg <
> > <email obscured>> wrote:
> >
> >> Before I respond to Charlie Quimby, I’d like to respond to something
> that
> >> a few people have mentioned. To avoid the appearance of ridiculing
> anyone
> >> personally (the last thing I want), I shall turn to the gift of
> >> dramatization:
> >>
> >> SCENE: On the Saint Paul Forum.
> >>
> >> SOMEONE OTHER THAN MITCH: The NRA has bullied the government out of
> >> funding public health research into gun violence!
> >>
> >> MITCH: Well, no - they merely passed legislation forbidding the CDC
> from
> >> taking partisan positions on the issue - which is extremely dubiously
> >> related to public health in the first place.
> >>
> >> RANDOM PROGRESSIVE (Possibly not in this forum): Why do you hate
> science?
> >>
> >> MITCH: Quite the opposite. When you mix science and politics, you
> don’t
> >> end up with scientific politics. You end up with politicized science. I
> >> respect science too much to allow that.
> >>
> >> RANDOM PROGRESSIVE: You’re paranoid! The CDC would never jigger their
> >> data to reach a partisan result.
> >>
> >> MITCH: They did *precisely* that; they hid a survey - a very thorough
> and
> >> valid one, by the way - that fully confirmed everything the 2nd
> Amendment
> >> Human Rights movement has been saying for the past 25 years about
> defensive
> >> gun uses by civilians, indicating that civilians DO use guns for self
> >> defense about 20 times as much as the Department of Justice has claimed.
> >>
> >>
> https://reason.com​/blog​/2018​/04​/20​/cdc​-provides​-more​-evidence​-that​-plenty​-o
> >> <
> >>
> https://reason.com​/blog​/2018​/04​/20​/cdc​-provides​-more​-evidence​-that​-plenty​-o
> >>>
> >>
> >> Which destroys one of Big Left’s narratives - that the idea of civilians
> >> using guns in self-defense is “anecdotal” (you smelling what I’m cooking
> >> here, Tom and Paddy?). This is the CDC - the group you all think is
> >> supremely qualified to do this research in the first place, remember?
> And
> >> they got busted trying to game the numbers, just as the NRA said they
> >> would. Remember?
> >>
> >> SOMEONE ON THE FORUM: Hahahah, Mitch. Nobody actually mentioned the
> >> CDC! Your point is thus invalid! Hahaha, red-state gun-hugging
> >> deplorable jeebus-clinging loser!
> >>
> >> (And SCENE).
> >>
> >> Note: Some lines juiced up for dramatic effect.
> >>
> >> Charlie: I don’t believe I’ve ridiculed anyone in this entire thread
> >> (other than my constant, ambient ridicule for, well ,a certain 9/11
> truther
> >> among y’all) although I’m considering it with Goldstein. My flippant
> >> nature might be mistaken for ridicule - I’m an artist, dammit, don’t
> cramp
> >> my style. And I’ll cop to the fact that the left has introduced
> literally
> >> not a single new argument in the 25-odd years I’ve been an activist - so
> >> responding can be a bit of a chore. In this thread, I’m responding to
> >> literally the same things I responded to 20-odd years ago on the
> original
> >> E-Democracy Minnesota Politics forum. I’m looking forward to one day
> >> saying “I showed your father he was wrong on that point…”.
> >>
> >> Impatience? Restlessness? Perhaps, dare I say, a little bored
> >> patronization, like Joe Mauer doing batting practice with a bunch of
> little
> >> league pitchers (again, not ridiculing, just observing)? Yes.
> Ridicule?
> >> Nah. I don’t need to do that.
> >>
> >> I am serious about my invitation to come out to the Gun Rights rally -
> and
> >> not just to stand among the Bloomberg Youth on the sidelines, but to
> >> actually meet the actual people so many of you fear so much. You might
> >> even learn something, if you’re wired for that kind of thing.
> >>
> >> ——————————
> >>
> >> By the way - something Jay wrote stuck in my craw:
> >>
> >> If someone were to say “Stop and Frisk is a proven means of lowering
> >> violent and property crime - and if some black people feel
> inconvenienced,
> >> so be it!”, you’d react with horror and anger. And I’d agree with you
> (as
> >> someone who actually cares about *all* civil liberties). *Even though*
> >> Stop and Frisk actually *does* affect crime, it *does* excessively
> burden
> >> the law-abiding, based largely on appearances.
> >>
> >> So when Jay writes "These restrictions would inconvenience law-abiding,
> >> good neighbors” - and all in furtherance of policies that, unlike Stop
> and
> >> Frisk, will not and can not have *any* effect on violent crime? It’s
> >> makes clear what the real motive is; sticking it to people who aren’t
> like
> >> y’all.
> >>
> >> There’s a word for that. It rhymes with “fliggotry”. Face it.
> >>
> >> Mitch Berg
> >> The Midway
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> On Apr 22, 2018, at 1:50 PM, Charlie Quimby <<email obscured>>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Before Mitch ridicules any more folks for bringing up the CDC, I'd
> >> invite members to search this thread. The first mention of CDC comes
> from
> >> Mitch, prompted by my comment that the NRA resists publicly funded
> research
> >> that might undermine their position. They do.
> >>>
> >>> He responded with a rant about myths I never mentioned and then raised
> >> the "Dixon" amendment. Yes, Mitch, I know you meant Dickey. I didn't
> pounce
> >> on your misstatement then because people who want to have a meaningful
> >> exchange don't needlessly antagonize each other. Neither do they
> >> mischaracterize their statements.
> >>>
> >>> I clarified my position and it drew no further reply from Mitch. Maybe
> >> he forgot it because it left no opening to fight over.
> >>>
> >>> He and I actually agree on a number things in this discussion, but the
> >> political gun debate (both sides) always feels like all or nothing, and
> I
> >> find all the digital spittle expended not to my taste.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Charlie Quimby
> >>> St. Anthony Park (Work), Golden Valley
> >>> About/contact Charlie Quimby:
> >> http://forums.e-democracy.org​/p​/charliequimby
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> * Work or live in Downtown Saint Paul? Take our survey:
> >>> https://www.surveymonkey.com​/r​/downtownstpaulsurveyft
> >>>
> >>> * Questions about rule violations? Contact: <email obscured>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------
> >>> Reply: Reply-All or visit
> >> http://forums.e-democracy.org​/r​/topic​/6d1aLOZryiKreInamKBwDi
> >>> New Topic: stpaul-issues@forums.e-democracy.org
> >>> Digest: Subject: digest on
> >>> Leave: Subject: unsubscribe
> >>> Forum Home: http://forums.e-democracy.org​/groups​/stpaul​-issues
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting: http://OnlineGroups.Net
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> mitch berg
> >> The Midway, Saint Paul
> >> About/contact mitch berg: http://forums.e-democracy.org​/p​/mitchberg
> >>
> >>
> >> * Work or live in Downtown Saint Paul? Take our survey:
> >> https://www.surveymonkey.com​/r​/downtownstpaulsurveyft
> >>
> >> * Questions about rule violations? Contact: <email obscured>
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------
> >> Reply: Reply-All or visit
> >> http://forums.e-democracy.org​/r​/topic​/36m71iS0hOw1f9sjsSWRCp
> >> New Topic: stpaul-issues@forums.e-democracy.org
> >> Digest: Subject: digest on
> >> Leave: Subject: unsubscribe
> >> Forum Home: http://forums.e-democracy.org​/groups​/stpaul​-issues
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting: http://OnlineGroups.Net
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > Tim Holden
> > Como
> > About/contact Tim Holden: http://forums.e-democracy.org​/p​/timholden
> >
> >
> > * Work or live in Downtown Saint Paul? Take our survey:
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> >
> >
> > ------------------------
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> http://forums.e-democracy.org​/r​/topic​/4sU86mzlEMp0TXXFsbjI8G
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> > Digest: Subject: digest on
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http://fixnics.org/factinfo.cfm
 
So, the same folks running our driver's license computers will be running the
proposed "universal registration"?
 
And the kids want to be safe?