We’re winning
Someone call Eric Zorn a Waaahmbulance:
I’ve written several posts and column items recently on the issue of gun control — the most recent one asking for ideas from both sides about compromises that gun-rights people and gun-ban people might be able to live with.
And each time it has struck me how tiny, uninspired and vague the response has been from those who favor new laws to try to keep guns out of the hand of evildoers.
While the gun-rights folks weigh in quickly and forcefully with links to studies and detailed arguments, the gun-ban folks are mostly quiet. The suggestions seem to be mostly on the order of Police Supt. Jody Weis’ call in today’s paper to ban AK-47 rifles, which, as I have argued before, is beside the point, at best.
If gun-control advocates don’t want to or can’t join the conversation here, I’m prepared to shut it down as the futile exercise it may well be.
Oh my god, you mean we calmly refute your talking points with facts, figures, cites and logic? And take issue when you guys just parrot what an anti-gun group tells you? Another Chicago columnist learned this lesson a bit back. And see here. Mr. Zorn, meet the internet graveyard of anti-gun activists.
We’re passionate and ready. And, at the click of a button, I can send you all the Reasoned Discoursetm you can handle.
This is why we win. Sure, it’s like whack-a-mole in that we can’t stop or we lose. But there’s no shortage of us to counter your emotion-laden, feel good nonsense. That and, outside a few locations of which Chicago is one, gun control is just not very popular.
The anti-gun side even uses the wealth of the Joyce Foundation to pay people to appear as though there is a grassroots gun control movement when there is not. The pro-gun side does not pay me. I do it because I believe in it. Compared to your side which has to shell out $650K to an ad agency to set up a fake network of fake anti-gun activists.
Rusty points out you answered your own question.
Sebastian says we should thank Al Gore for his internets.
Update: May be reading the piece wrong. See update here.
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Curious Parallel:
“The first few days were slow going, but following a brief write-up of my site by Junk Science I was swamped by climate skeptics who did a good job of frightening off the few brave Greens who slogged out the debate with. Whilst there was a lot of rubbish written, the truth was that they didn’t so much frighten the Greens away – they comprehensively demolished them with a more in depth understanding of the science, cleverly thought out arguments, and some very smart answers. If you want to learn about the physics of convection currents, gas chromatography, or any number of climate science topics then read some of the early debates on TalkClimateChange. I didn’t believe a word of it, but I had to admit that these guys were good.
In the following months the situation hardly changed. As the forum continued to grow, as the blog began to catch traffic, and as I continued to try and recruit green members I continued to be disappointed with the debate. In short, and I am sorry to say it, anti-greens (Reds, as we call them) appear to be more willing to comment, more structured, more able to quote peer reviewed research, more apparently rational and apparently wider read and better informed.”
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Compromises??? We’ve already made far too many, Eric–it’s time for the pendulum to swing quit a ways in the opposite direction.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:01 am
I must admit, I don’t really see why you’re berating Zorn so much, he’s all but admitted that we have facts and the gun banners don’t, he’s written one of the more honest pieces on EBR’s I’ve seen in the media (in 1994, no less), and in the comments he acknowledged the utility of handguns for self-defense in response to a commenter who just wanted to take them all away.
I don’t know anything about the guy, he’s probably written some super dumb shit in the past that you’re aware of and I’m not, but it seems to me that if he’s a gun control advocate, he’s one of the more rational ones.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:04 am
Yeah, but he’s still advocating the ‘do it more and harder’ schtick.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:18 am
Commenter RayL there said:
Of course, he meant gun owners were a small minority. But isn’t creating legislation to protect inner city kids from themselves a case of small minorities hijacking our politics?
Inner city kids are small, and they are minorities. Hardy har har! Holy shit I am hilarious.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:20 am
I believe you, but just judging by that one link, it appears he can be reasoned with at least—he may be wrong, but he doesn’t appear to be a complete zealot. That alone puts him head and shoulders above the rest of the jackasses we normally have to smack down.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:21 am
Chicago needs to recognize that it doesn’t have a gun problem. It has a gang members who happen to have guns problem.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:44 am
Chicago can’t recognize that, because it would mean speaking plainly some unpleasant truths which are “racist” and would involve the besieged community recognizing and taking responsibility for it’s problem rather than blaming others.