Not my style, as you know. But he did just post new replies calling me a fraud and a pseudo-intellectual, since I had the affrontery to use the word “amelioration.” Which, although he claimed there were “many things wrong” with the statement that “the law has always had to balance the protection of individual rights with the amelioration of public risks,” was the only “thing[] wrong” that he thought to point out. Twice. (What else he finds “wrong” with that statement I can’t fathom, and I really don’t have the stomach to ask.)

I don’t know if it’s because my comments attract crazy people, or they make people crazy because the logic is inescapable but doesn’t validate their prejudices, so their brains just short-circuit and they go bugfuck haywire, like this guy did. I get sucked into these conversations because I have this misguided notion that I can help them reexamine some of those prejudices. My only hope is that readers will see it and recognize what’s going on.

I hope you told that piece of shit to go get a retroactive abortion.

“At least 3 more”?? What utter stupidity and nonsense.

3 dead, 3 wounded – Chardon High School, Chardon, OH
7 dead, 3 wounded – Oikos University, Oakland, CA
3 dead, 2 wounded – Tulsa, OK
5 dead, 0 wounded – Cafe Racer Espresso, Seattle, WA
12 dead, 58 wounded – Century 16 theater, Aurora, CO
6 dead, 4 wounded – Sihk temple, Oak Creek, WI
2 dead, 8 wounded – Empire State Building, New York, NY
5 dead, 3 wounded – Accent Signage Systems, Minneapolis, MN
3 dead, 4 wounded – Azana Salon and Spa, Brookfield, WI
27 dead, 1 wounded – Sandy Hook Elementary, Newtown, CT

And that’s just 2012.

Why in the world would you think 3 more would have any effect at all? We’ve been having “3 more” every few months for at least the 12 years since Columbine.

This is a common technique, over on Crooks & Liars we have a guy who will flood any gun topic with the usual NRA bs as well as other bits of info that usually has nothing to do with the topic being discussed.

You have to turn to the websites of UK papers and BBC to get useful information.

Then I get this:

…people like you making decisions for everyone else are in the long term a lot more dangerous.

You have no right to decide you can limit everyone else’s decisions to ones you personally feel comfortable with.

You argue that such decisions cost society more? Tough- you are the ones that wanted the nanny welfair state. You choose that, you choose to pay the price. Everyone else’s personal freedom is worth a hell of a lot more that you being uncomfortable about your neighbor owning firearms.
…
This is OUR society with our rules. You are trying to force a change in the laws. … Why do you want to disarm American citizens?

…
You assert a desire to change the law, from what it has been since before the American revolution (with a standard of personal liberty of adult citizens without felony conviction to own, possess, purchase and sell firearms at will) to one of draconian restriction totally alien to the American people.

…
What I do in the privacy of my home is none of your business- you have no right to stick your nose in the business of others. … Peaceable law abiding citizens are very unlikely to commit violent crimes.

That’s just a sampler. I’ve had several conversations like this, where I make a benign, and really indisputable, point about guns and public safety and am treated to the insufferable self-admiration of gun owners, who come back and accuse me of “assert[ing]” things I never asserted, advocating for things I never advocated, saying things I didn’t say, and essentially proving my point about self-congratulation, heroism and martyrdom, and taking the law personally.

My only point was that the law has to account for both rights and risks. That has always been true. All rights of all kinds have always been limited at the point where the exercise thereof causes harm to others or puts the public at risk. But rather than acknowledge this, gun fans like my friend quoted above just go bugfuck haywire and freak out over imaginary affronts to their personal virtue and heroism.

I’m exhausted. Which I guess is their goal; keep bombarding us with this awfulness until we just give up and let them have their beloved, deadly toys.

[P.S.: Yes, I know I keep promising to stay away from there. One of these days I’ll take my own advice.]