‘Dumbest Argument’ is that Gun Owners Get a Pass on Comparable Laws

Not as dumb as the arguments for them…

USA –-(Ammoland.com)- “Here’s hands-down the dumbest argument against gun laws, and you hear it all the time” Allan Piper, Senior Politics Producer and narrator for a viral Now This News video assures viewers.  He’s trying to refute politicians who say gun laws only affect the law-abiding.

“By that logic, it doesn’t make sense to have laws about anything,” Piper claims. “Can’t have laws about stealing, because thieves don’t follow the law.” He goes on citing laws against murders, drugs, and traffic laws, using that to segue into a favorite talking point the citizen disarmament lobby uses,  “and you hear it all the time.”

“Mothers Against Drunk Driving pushed for tougher DUI laws and enforcement.” Piper relates,“ citing those and seatbelt laws for saving thousands of lives, “even though some people break them.”

“These commonsense safety laws work,” he observes, again repeating another familiar gun-grabber narrative. “And oddly enough, nobody has ever complained the government is trying to take our cars away.”

Funny he should bring that up because the voices trying to do just that with guns are getting louder. And yes, in fact, there is a nascent global movement to ban cars that is gaining a foothold here. Give the cultural terraformers a few decades.

“So yes, people will break laws,” Piper concludes. “But anyone who pretends that that makes it useless to even have a law is either lying or deluded.”

Make sense? Only to those who don’t understand he’s projecting on both counts.

This self-appointed voice of reason isn’t quite as authoritative as he gives himself credit for. Sure there are laws against speeding and drunk driving. Those are acts that endanger others. There are laws against actions endangering and harming others with firearms as well, and any honest analogy would end there.

Yes, absolutely it makes sense to have such laws even though criminals won’t obey them, because if and when they’re stopped or caught they deserve to pay for the damage they’ve done. No one argues otherwise about guns. But he wants to expand infringements and punishments to be applied to prior restraints that have nothing to do with harmful actions. That’s bait and switch, and a very disingenuous form of argument.

As for his (Alinsky Rule 5) ridicule that “nobody has ever complained that the government is trying to take our cars away,” the same can’t be said about guns to the point that it’s getting harder to deny. And as for making laws being “literally the only job” of lawmakers, yes, of course — within the confines of “the supreme Law of the Land” and their delegated authority. It doesn’t matter how many “lying or deluded” Americans ignorant of that are “begging” for usurpations — the Bill of Rights is there to keep a majority from disenfranchising the individual.

Noting that Now This News was founded as a way to influence millennials with a “left-leaning” agenda  (and then some), its transparent deception to undermine private gun ownership is hardly surprising. A truism we see practically every time they open their mouths is that for “progressives,” every day is Opposite Day. Were it otherwise, they’d embrace the right of the people to keep and bear arms as the ultimate egalitarian power-sharing arrangement.

Instead, even though they try to come across as edgy, sophisticated and hip, they’re really just apologists for the state, and ultimately a “monopoly of violence” state at that. That’s not exactly cutting edge for “journalists,” except for the repackaging. And it’s curious, that for social justice media warriors ostensibly opposed to government abuses, their “solution” is to help those they often pretend they don’t trust to be the ones controlling the guns.


About David CodreaDavid Codrea

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.

In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

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M.

ammo/gun control = ahole

Ken Windeler

Don’t even think that THEY want to and would ban cars. The Leftists war on so-called fossil fuels would accomplish just that. If gasoline is so expensive that you could no longer drive very far; and forget about electric cars, because without atomic energy they’re re-charged using fuel oil or Heaven forbid coal; people would be forced to move back into the cities. “Escape From New York” anyone.

Oldshooter

There are 2 kinds of laws (skipping the Latin legal terms): 1) laws against things that are inherently wrong, because they harm or infringe on the rights of others, like murder and theft, and, 2) laws that MAKE something that does not infringe on the rights of others illegal just because the law prohibits them, like seatbelts laws, gun laws, and drug laws. The purpose of the first kind, like the law against murder, is to make the punishment for violating them a part of the “social contract” and give the rights for their punishment to the society (via the… Read more »

Wild Bill

@OS, That is back to the basics! Malum en se versus malum prohibitum. Strong foundation, short, strong logic string. No liberal will ever understand it.

jj

Attempting to ban guns to prevent shootings is akin to banning cars to prevent drunk driving. If their argument was truly ‘about the children’, then they should be attempting to ban teenagers from owning cell phones since 10 times as many teens die texting while driving that in school shootings.

Allan Piper

Hi, David! This is Allan from the video. While we obviously don’t see eye-to-eye, I appreciate that you took the time to watch the video and express your disagreements with it. It is good for people with differing views to have a healthy dialogue. I think gun enthusiasts and gun reform advocates actually have much more in common than the media typically portrays. That’s one of the themes in my latest video, NowThis Reports: Three Days With Guns in Las Vegas. I’d invite you to check it out.

Best wishes

Henry

No, thanks. When you start from a position of dishonesty and illogic, and your aim is to proselytize this illogic to others with a false show of authority, it disincentivizes us to interact with you at all.

We took the time to watch the video for the same reason we would take the time to watch a nearby brush fire: not for any innate value it may have, but because we choose to be prepared, forewarned, and forearmed to defend ourselves and our families against it.

JoeUSooner

Magnificent reply, Henry. Well done!!

Rich in Mo.

Mr. Piper, One question; what is your plan for getting guns out of the hands of criminals?

Trumped

Gun reform = gun banner

I don’t see what people who actually respect the Constitution have in common with those who want to destroy it. Your arguments were proven to be dishonest and wrong, just like the entire gun control movement has been on every single gun related issue.

Trumped

i just took a quick look at your Twitter page and found you approvingly retweeting a moronic “nowthis” article about the UK banning handguns and how low their murder rate is – nevermind that London has a higher homicide rate than NYC these days and the mayor is ranting that grown men cannot carry a pocket knife. Banning all handguns is hardly “more in common” with someone who respects all of the Bill of Rights. Gun banner types know from polls and elections that their views are a minority fringe view, so the response is toward casting themselves as reformers… Read more »

Bill

Big difference. Mothers Against Drunk Driving promoted making PENALTIES for breaking the law stiffer. With guns, they don’t enforce the laws that exist very well, so the penalties are in fact lightened. Meanwhile, they make more and more LAWS, instead of stiffer penalties for committing real crimes, to the point where a law abiding person ends up forbidden on every side, while people who commit crimes of actual seriousness, like murdering people, as opposed to being so evil as to own an AR-15, aren’t even really in the public focus. Just imagine the outcry if MADD had started a campaign… Read more »

Edward Weber

Maybe ban high capacity horse power in all vehicles. Nothing over 10 HP. You don’t NEED anything more than that. Vehicles are for transportation,,,not for racing. Also, stick shifting,,,no automatics.

Phillip Evans

David, well said on all points!

JoeUSooner

Simply because some criminals have killed (in most liberals’ words, “deprived” innocent humans of their rights) with firearms, Leftists want to respond by “depriving” all other innocent, law-abiding, responsible citizens of THEIR rights. Liberals are spiteful 7-year-old children! Take your socialist, manure-laden gun-control expectations elsewhere, and leave me and my family alone.

Dave Brown

OK here we are complaining about the complainers which is just the same old same old. Me, Gunner for 54 years, NRA brought me in at age 12, and I am still going strong. The NRA sure ain’t what it use to be. My take is simple, I have lived with gun regulations like They are trying to pass again, and they did not hurt me. I look at this this way, Gun don’t kill people, yet people with guns kill people……. My challenge, meet me in the hallway at school, bring your Fav Daily CC (I have had one… Read more »

Mike11C

Well, my CC is a Glock 19 and, I carry an extra magazine fitted with a “+2” floor plate. That’s 32 rounds of 9mm. If I was a teacher, I would have my room arranged so the most difficult corner for an attacker to engage had a barricade of bookcases and desks to defend from. I believe that an attacker would be at a disadvantage no matter the size of his magazine.

gcm

Does anybody know how many gun laws are on the books? I’m just curious and NO we don’t need more.

Dave

Years ago I heard that there were over 50,000 yaws of all types, now I have read that there are over 20,000 laws. All in all to many.

Big Bill

I can’t think of any other legal item that is the subject of so many laws, federal, state and local, as guns.
How many total? Without a search of each and every governmental body, that would be hard to say.

Ron Linder

How about smoking? That’s how legislatures learned how to “control” a legal item and activity without making it illegal!!

JoeUSooner

@BigBill…

The current total is over 23,000 gun laws “on the books,” and enforceable.

American firearms constitute THE most heavily-regulated industry in the entire world!!

Wild Bill

@gcm, A better question giving rise to a more manacle figure, would be, “How many Constitutional gun laws are on the books?” The answer is Zero!

Laddyboy

Wild Bill: If I am not mistaken, you may correct me if I am mistaken, in the Federalist Papers there is one reason that an individual should be denied access to WEAPONS. That COMMON SENSE reason is; “If a person is WANTON to harm others”.

Wild Bill

@LB, I don’t know… Sounds more like something Jefferson or Mason would say. The Federalist Papers were written by Hamilton, Madison, and John Jay. There are 84 or 85 Federalist papers depending on whether you read Hopkins version or McLean version. Got any idea which one, more or less?
Maybe it was something said in the closed (and secret) Constitutional debates that got into the notes.

Wild Bill

@OV, Ohhh man! Sorry. Hey, I just got a new roof and garage door on the caretaker’s house after the last big storm. And this evening a tornado went by. It had Dorthy and Todo under its arm.

Chris Mallory

A few years ago the number 20,000 was being thrown around. That included all local, state and Federal laws. Who knows what it is today.

Wayne Clark

I know I’ll probably get ostracized for this but hey…it’s a free country with a first amendment, right? Every time I read an article such as this, I of course, tend to agree. As a matter of fact, most that respond, tend to agree. The problem I have is, there are soooooo many articles just like this one, that are published through various media outlets, that all seem to do the same thing…bitch & moan about what some writter, or some politico, or some starlet that has said something that’s detrimental to our 2A. What they tend to lack, is… Read more »

Tionico

nobody has ever complained the government is trying to take our cars away.” GO find and read Eric Peters, an automotive writer and libertarian guy. He has well documented that this is exactlh what ishappening with the push for self-driving and all electric cars. Just consider what cars are on the market today. Can anyone buy a diesel powered sedan that gets above 80 MPG in America? Nope. Can they in Europe? SUre, all day long. WE mandate that stupid blue horse pee for diesel cars now, what a joke. We already have mandated changes to both diesel and petrol… Read more »

Jim Macklin

Laws define crimes and declare what punishment is prescribed. Honest people probably don’t need laws once they have learned the basic rules that are generally called The Ten Commandments and social graces.
Criminals and the uncivil might well see laws as a challenge, a game to see how far they can push the limits.
Some criminals go into government and bring the attitude, the Constitution is a law that I am challenged to find a way around.

Jerald schmaltz

Vote republican , but make sure it’s not a rino like brian mast. That idiot got elected by saying he was pro second amendment. Once elected he wants to ban ar15s. I voted for him once but never again.

recon29

I’m with you, Jerald. I voted for him too. I keep getting the same form reply from his office. He’s playing the victim card. How he’s held his buddies when they were dying. So did I but I’m not a victim. He won’t directly answer any of my letters or emails. I called his Stuart office and told them I will be doing all I can to prevent him from being re-elected.

Will T.

The issue boils down to the fact is you cannot fix stupid. If someone truly believes that what they read on the internet or see on TV is true, without exception, you cannot fix that. It’s like arguing with my 16 year old about why they can’t be treated as a full adult. We have started raising a large group of people who think the government can do no wrong. I was raised on trust, but verify.

Mike Curry

How about, start enforcing the laws that are on the books already!! Start holding people accountable for their actions. Start handing down punishment that fits the crime!!!

Skip Jacobs

Timothy McVeigh killed 168 and injured 680 with fertalizer, over 2000 people were killed using highjacked planes, Theodore Kaczynsky killed by making bombs, people are being run down in the streets by stolen or leased trucks, and have we so readily forgotten the many attacks on people by machete wielding goof balls. Bad people will find a way to do harm if that is their end game, banning guns is a false naritive to sooth the broken hearted and the library wannabees. Let’s do something about mental health in this country and encourage law enforcement that when they get a… Read more »

Ron Linder

Well stated!!!

Henry

“Let’s do something about mental health in this country and encourage law enforcement that when they get a hint that some kid is going off to kill his fellow students that they actually do their job…” I have an even more radical idea: instead of fruitlessly trying to prevent all possible gun crime before it can occur (when stated that way, the futility becomes more obvious), let’s repeal all laws that counterproductively disarm citizens who could stop gun crime when it occurs. Let’s not unconsciously accept the socialist axiom that crimes can be stopped only by police, agents of the… Read more »

Marte

Laws are made so you can punish those who refuse to conform to acceptable behavior in human societal co-existence. This member of the truly dumb is arguing that increasing the degree of infringement of MY RIGHT is the same as my ignoring some law. There are punishments already in the books for violating illegal actions regarding guns, but WHERE does it say that we need to reinforce the infringement of MY RIGHTS as an American citizen and a member of the human race???? I have a right to keep and bear arms – very simple. I do NOT have the… Read more »

Wild Bill

@Marte, I like what you are writing!

Marc DV

@marte
I’d Vote for Ya !

Douglas Kuykendall

You can’t fix stupid.Send him across the ocean.

Marc Disabled Vet

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES !