Is the glass half empty or is the glass half full?

[PhillySane]

During a very interesting conversation between Robert Gibbs and Russian reporter Andrei Sitov:

(CNN)
Sitov said he agreed with that characterization but persisted with his original line of thought, declaring: "This is America, the democracy, the freedom of speech, the freedom of assembly, the freedom to petition your government. And many people outside would also say - and the quote, unquote "freedom" of a deranged mind to react in a violent way is also American. How do you respond to that?"

Gibbs seemed startled by the last part and asked Sitov to repeat it, so the Russian journalist said again, "The quote, unquote 'freedom' of the deranged mind to respect - to react violently to that, it is also American."
http://whitehouse.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/13/chill-in-the-white-house-briefing-room/?hpt=T2

My initial reaction was, "How could Gibbs miss what he was saying?" I got it right off the bat. But then, I tend to think this way about our "freedoms" too. Maybe some of us have gotten to the point where this isn't apparent to us, or we just accept things as they are, or this is okay, the way it should be. But maybe, certain freedoms, are a little, how can I say this delicately, excessive? Maybe its me. But I understood clearly what the reporter was saying.

Does his question seem outrageous or confusing to anyone else?

[Ricochet21]

1. George Carlin

said the damn glass is too big

[Katya Mullethov]

5. It was sourced by a flunky buyer

And it's 50% larger than specified .

[mvccd1000]

11. Unless my math is wrong...

... it would have to be 100% larger than specified to be 1/2 full. If it was 50% larger than specified, it would be 2/3 full. :)

[Katya Mullethov]

18. damn

Ya see ,that's why I avoid statistics and use the mullets on my lodge pole as benchmarks.

[one-eyed fat man]

19. Maybe you need a new shirt?

:hide:

[Katya Mullethov]

21. I like double entendres

http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/yhst-50863389838911_2136_13634947
I was wearing one of these this summer and one teen out of a group of a half dozen leans over the counter , grins real big and says " Is that Alexey Leonov ? And I says , no ..... you cryptic little bastard . It's General George S Patton . . . I think I like you...... smart ass ." He just griiiiiins .


When ya run across kids like that, it cant help but give one at least a glimmer of hope .

[Glassunion]

26. Did the rest think it was Elmer Fudd?

[Hoyt]

2. With our lax gun laws and recent "liberalization" of public carrying, we make easy for deranged.

Gibbs knew what Sitov was saying -- our politicians are just so afraid of the guns in every waistband lobby and whining from those who can't walk out of their house unarmed, that they run from stating an honest opinion.

[Katya Mullethov]

3. Make it easy for deranged ........what ?

Make it easy for deranged wastes of skin to dwell amongst us without the STAZI scoopin' em up ?
Aside from that intermittent synaptic open short , waistband remark, I believe you may have encountered
some difficulty distinguishing between the " Self Defense Crew" and the "Two Live Crew" .

Shall I illustrate ?

[Statistical]

4. Hate to break it to you but criminals don't follow the law.

If AZ made carrying a gun anywhere at anytime for any reason the suepect still WOULD HAVE. Why? Because he was a criminal. He was willing to break about a dozen laws including on of the highest: homicide.

The belief that if you outlaw something (like conceal carry) that will stop criminals is downright naive.

[Hoyt]

7. Think long-term, not short-term.

If we want to get out of this mess we are in with guns and crime, we need to start now in the hopes things will be better years, or decades, down the road. As it stands now we are on the "slippery slope" (guns-in-public advocates always use as an excuse) toward more and more people armed. If we accept for a moment that those who cannot now walk out of their house without a gun are not somewhat deranged, then we have to admit that sooner or latter -- as more and more gun obsessed go running out to buy a new gun -- we will start signing up more and more deranged folks like Loughner. I'd like to see that impeded somewhat. But right now, the gun cowboys are pushing for lax laws like in Arizona. We don't need casual gun-toters in public -- it's really that simple.

Heck, even bars in 1800s often barred armed cowboys.

[X_Digger]

8. ie, "I'm sure things will get better soon, we just need more gun control.."

"Any day now, trust me.. "

"Real soon now, the benefits will kick in.."

"Next year, for sure, there'll be some change.."

..20 years later..

"Give it some time, guys, I didn't say it'd happen overnight.."

[Statistical]

9. There is no evidence for that.

Numbers of guns has expanded. Number of states allowing CCW have expanded. The nature of CCW is more liberal (shall issue vs may issue).

Homicide rate and violent crime has declined.

I have heard your song nonstop for the last 20 years. Every year this country becomes a SAFER place. Are you aware we have a violent crime rate lower than the UK. Are you aware UK banning guns had no effect on violent crime?

[Hoyt]

13. Give me a break. It's been getting warmer too, maybe that's the correlation for the decrease.

More guns will not help. It just means more and more deranged will get them like Loughner and walk into public with the thing. No need even to think about searching someone acting strangely or with a bag or whatever because lots of folks in Az carry guns. Until we quite glamorizing guns, appeasing gun owners, etc., we will remain too violent. I'm not necessarily suggesting we follow what is at the end of that "slippery slope" feared among guns in public folks, but there is a "slippery slope" where we are attracting more and more deranged to guns. Need to do something.

[Atypical Liberal]

24. But clearly more guns are not hurting.

More guns will not help.

But you are ignoring the facts. In spite of record numbers of firearms in circulation, record numbers of firearms and ammunition sold in the last two years, the FBI UCR data and the CDC data show that violent crime continues to decline, as to accidental firearm deaths.

You are right - you can't claim that more firearms made this happen, but you certainly can't claim that more firearms cause more crime, because we aren't seeing the increased crime in spite of the increase number of firearms and the increased ability to carry concealed that has happened over the last 20 years.

[PavePusher]

12. Just as they do now. SS,DD. What's your point?

Besides, we only have just about the same laws as Vermont. If they can do it, why not us?

[Hoyt]

14. Change Vermont's laws too. Would never suggest singling out your state.

[one-eyed fat man]

20. Same old song and dance.

Homer Cummings, FDR's Attorney General had made banning handguns his life's work. The odd provision for "AOW's or "Any Other Weapons" in the NFA is what remained after Congress amended his original version of the National Firearms Act and removed pistols and revolvers from its language.

The argument was that the law was needed to "disarm gangsters." Never mind it was the Volstead Act, aka Prohibition, which was strongly backed by the KKK and the Democratic Party just 10 years earlier at the 1924 Convention, aka the "Klanbake," which made organized crime the lucrative enterprise it had become.

Homer Cummings was also Chairman of the DNC during the Wilson Administration. He allied with the Klan to support William McAdoo at the 1924 Convention. He counted the income tax among the most notable accomplishments of the Democratic Party in "Achievements of the Democratic Party." - American Leaders Speak, 1918-1920

Political assassinations of the Sixties led to the Gun Control Act of 1968. Then, the gun controllers assured us, the "weapon(s) of choice" were cheap: small handguns, "Saturday Night Specials," and military surplus rifles, so their import was banned. For the first time, retail gun dealers were licensed at the Federal level.

Then Josh Sugramann, seeing public support for gun control waning, coined the term "assault weapon." He also did not see deceit or deception as an obstacle to advancing his cause.

"Assault weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully-automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons –anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun– can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons."

Then came Brady, and another frank admission, from the Attorney General, this time.

"Waiting periods are only a step. Registration is only a step. The prohibition of private firearms is the goal."
-Janet Reno

Brady's goal of "waiting periods" devolved into "instant background checks" which, ironically, they opposed. Eventually, the Assault Weapons Ban became the "crowning glory" of Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party.

In fact, the assault weapons ban will have no significant effect either on the crime rate or on personal security. Nonetheless, it is a good idea . . . . Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation.

Charles Krauthammer, 'Disarm the Citizenry. But Not Yet,' Washington Post, Apr. 5, 1996

Whether or not you believe the Democratic Party's lemming like devotion to gun control caused the Debacle of the 1994 elections, President Clinton does.

The NRA had a great night. They beat both Speaker Tom Foley and Jack Brooks, two of the ablest members of Congress, who had warned me this would happen. Foley was the first Speaker to be defeated in more than a century. Jack Brooks has supported the NRA for years and had led the fight against the assault weapons ban in the House, but as chairman of the Judiciary Committee he had voted for the overall crime bill even after the ban was put into it. The NRA was an unforgiving master; one strike and you're out. The gun lobby claimed to have defeated nineteen out of the twenty-four members on its list. They did at least that much damage and could rightfully claim to have made Gingrich the House Speaker.

So started the push back.

Paul Helmke, the president of the Brady Campaign, pleaded with D.C. before the Court granted certiorari that it modify its gun laws rather than appeal to the Supreme Court. Looks like he understood that the collective rights theory of the Second Amendment was tenuous, at best. The foundation of most gun control arguments was that only the States' right to arm militias is protected. By going to the Supreme Court they ran the risk of the court finding for an "individual right." He ruefully admitted that after the court ruled that the door had been shut, "the path to a complete ban on gun ownership is now gone."

Every time some lunatic commits an act of lunacy there will be those who will insist it was the "gun's" fault.

There have been laws limiting lunatics access to dangerous objects for longer than I can remember, and I am older than dirt.

For just as long, lunatics have been proving that you can't outsmart crazy. They have also proven you can't prevent unreasoned, hasty and knee-jerk responses to their lunacy either.

So the call from gun control proponents after this latest tragedy are predicable. They assure that despite the failures of past gun control efforts, the "ban de jour" will prevent the next "senseless tragedy."

But then you have to recall the words of Senator Howard Metzenbaum, "I don't care about crime, I just want to get the guns."

[Nolimit]

6. He should've fired back with a question.

I would have asked him how he responds to many people outside would say that to have a deranged government is the Russian way.

[spin]

10. The USSR had ways of dealing with the freedom of a " deranged mind" ...

and they were very good at keeping sane people in line too. The new government appears to becoming more and more like the old government.

If I would have been Gibbs I might have asked the Russian how long the USSR lasted and why it collapsed. I might have pointed out that currently the Russians do not appear to like their government.

When Russians are asked to identify the causes of their uncertainty, Gudkov continues, they first of all point to matters of immediate concern such as fear of inflation, infrastructure catastrophes and “a feeling of general defenselessness” and “constant concern about the future of their children or the health of those close to them.”

But when they are queried about whether they believe the assurances of the government that “it is in a position to deal in the near future with economic problems,” Gudkov notes, “about half of the population is extremely skeptical,” with the more urban and better off being more so than their rural or poorer counterparts.

Economic instability, the sociologist points out, “is combined with a sharp feeling of social constraint and the absence of defense. Fifty-eight percent of all Russians and 73 percent of Muscovites with higher education say they do not feel that they can count on the laws to defend them.
http://www.eurasiareview.com/world-news/europe/survey-russians-overwhelmingly-say-they-don%E2%80%99t-know-whether-their-country-has-a-future-13012011/

I would have finally bet the reporter that our government will outlast his government and most of the other governments in Europe. I would explain that trusting our citizens and allowing our citizens freedoms has drawbacks but the bottom line is that it also makes our government successful and long lasting. Our government is not designed to rule the people with an iron fist, our government serves the people.

That's why I could never be allowed to have his job.

[Hoyt]

15. Ah, the argument other than defense -- we must protect ourselves from the government.

That's a pretty strong statement and exactly what Loughner thought he was doing.

As a citizen of this country, I really don't want people who are like most of the gun owners/fanatics I've known "running" the country because they are armed. We actually had that where I live not that long ago. You might not be in that group, but I don't think most of the country really believes you guys packing in a nursery school or Chuck E Cheeze is going to protect us from the government. I might not like some things the government does, but I really don't think we need that kind of protection. And I wonder about people who do. And if it were to come to that, I think we'd have to "combat" them in other ways.

And, finally, I really don't want to be in a position of fighting between neighbors -- and that is what it will be if we get to that point -- and the best way to stop that is to stop priming the pump with more guns.

[beevul]

16. You were there, and a mind reader to boot?

You were there, and a mind reader to boot?

"That's a pretty strong statement and exactly what Loughner thought he was doing."

Thats your opinion, and while it likely doesn't mirror reality, your entitled to it.

Change the second amendment, via the provided amendment process and get back to us.

Until then, its a pipedream.

And even if by some quirk of fate it were to happen, I think afterwards youd regret it happening, and wish it could be taken back.



"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." Thomas Jefferson.

[spin]

22. You would think that if you allowed the citizens of a country to be armed ...

that they would overthrow their government far more often than the citizens of a nation that had tight gun controls. It's only logical.

In fact one of the founding fathers who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and our nation's third President predicted that is what would happen.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure." Thomas Jefferson

Well he was wrong. True we had the Civil War which was largely fought over the issue of slavery, a malignancy in our nation even in 1787 when the Constitution was written. The founders who wrote the Constitution attempted to resolve this problem but compromise was impossible. We have also had other minor rebellions such as The Whiskey Rebellion and Shays's Rebellion which are little known.

Lets look at the bottom line.

Only about 7,000 words long, the U.S. Constitution is one of the shortest constitutions in the world. It is also the oldest written constitution still in effect.
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/constitution/index.cfm

I will not claim that the reason the Constitution has survived is the Second Amendment as that would be foolish. The document is a strong but flexible framework that can be modified with considerable difficulty. Perhaps the big reason the Constitution has survived is that the government it establishes serves the people, the people don't serve the government.

Under our Constitution, citizens have far more rights than the citizens of amny other nations. The First Amendment grants what I consider the most important rights; freedom of speech, press, religion, the right to peaceable assemble and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

But the Second Amendment does allow citizens to own firearms and our citizens do. There may well be as many firearms in our nation as there are men, women and children. Just look at the sales of firearms in 2009.

Washington, DC --(AmmoLand.com)- Data released by the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) for the year reported 14,033,824 NICS Checks for the year of 2009, a 10 percent increase in gun purchases from the 12,709,023 reported in 2008.

So far that is roughly 14,000,000+ guns bought last year!

The total is probably more as many NICS background checks cover the purchase of more than one gun at a time by individuals.

To put it in perspective that is more guns than the combined active armies of the top 21 countries in the world. countries by number of troops.
http://www.ammoland.com/2010/01/13/gun-owners-buy-14-million-plus-guns-in-2009/

If you allow people freedoms, some will misuse those freedoms. Surprisingly the percentage of people who abuse the right to own firearms is extremely low. We can always work to stop gun violence and in our nation we have had good success recently as the violent crime rate has decreased dramatically in the last 15 years.

The year 2005 was overall the safest year in the past thirty years. The recent overall decrease has reflected upon all significant types of crime, with all violent and property crimes having decreased and reached an all-time low. The homicide rate in particular has decreased over 42% between its record high point in 1991 and 2005.


The violent crime rate of the United States, 1960 to 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

Gun owners have helped run this country since its founding. Many of our Presidents and Representatives in Congress throughout our history have owned and enjoyed shooting firearms. That's still true today.

It appears, from what we now of Loughner at this time, the he suffered severe mental problems. He may have hated big government but the question remains if he had the ability to reason.

Could gun owners overthrow our government if it ever turned into a tyranny that was unresponsive to the wishes of its citizens. We could spend hours arguing over this point. I tend to believe that those who say the government would win in a fight against the majority of the citizens haven't learned any lessons from Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. But the argument isn't really pertinent as our country is nowhere close to the point at which an uprising is necessary. Our Constitution is still working, our votes still count. The War on Terror has infringed on some of our rights but we are nowhere close to living in a police state.

[lawodevolution]

17. Someone needs to remind the Russian that in his country where guns are banned

the rate of violence is like Mexico's.

[Atypical Liberal]

23. I don't think freedoms are "excessive".

I agree with the reporter also, but my take on it is different than yours. We do have the freedom of the deranged mind to react in a violent way in this country. We have that freedom because we do not live in a police state where people's behavior is excessively monitored, and we live in a society with relatively free access to firearms. These things are American ideals. And they do enable the deranged mine to react in violent ways.

But I agree with the father of the 9-year-old shot in Arizona, when he said that we live in a free society and these kinds of things happening are the price we have to pay for it.

To some people this is outrageous, but not to me.

As Thomas Jefferson said, I'd rather live with the problems afforded by too much liberty than too little of it.

[Glassunion]

25. Two theories...

Science: The glass is always full. Just the sum of what fills it may differ. If the glass contains 10% water it is still full. The other 90% is occupied by the sum of gasses we call air.

My Theory: The glass is always half full, but what's in it tastes like shit and will probably kill me.