Skip to content

Logic Fail?

19 comments

Our favorite hoplophobe, Lucy Hornstein, the physician who refers to Second Amendment advocates as sociopathic domestic terrorists, has been heard from.

In comments on this post, Dr. Hornstein writes:

Non-events are wonderful. Too bad they (and concealed carry in general) have nothing to do with 32,000 firearms deaths last year (20,000 suicides). You sound like the folks who refuse flu shots because they’ve never gotten the flu. Logic fail.

Actually, we’re not like anti-vaccine activists at all. In fact, the guns we lawfully carry are our vaccine against firearms deaths.

And given the abysmal rate of effectiveness of the flu shot against this year’s strain, ours might even be more effective.

I was talking about encounters with lawful gun owners. Lawful gun use, either by police or in lawful self-defense by civilians (and that doesn’t count defensive gun uses in which no shots were fired, which outnumber defensive shootings by several orders of magnitude) comprise only a small fraction of yearly firearms deaths.

Those so-called “assault weapons” she wets her britches over comprise only a tiny fraction of annual firearms deaths, even counting mass shootings like Aurora and Newtown, and despite the fact that they are the most popular sporting arm in America today. There are many millions of AR15 rifles out there.

In fact, long guns only account for 300-odd yearly firearms deaths, and AR15 pattern rifles only represent a small fraction of that number.

The demographic most responsible for firearms deaths are young, inner-city, unemployed black males engaged in the sale or purchase of illicit pharmaceuticals.

If we really wanted to do something meaningful to reduce firearms violence, we’d target that demographic, by some means other than passing yet more ineffective laws to add to the laundry list of the ones they’re already ignoring.

Dr. Hornstein cannot seem to grasp the fact that the firearms restrictions she wants will only affect the 99.88% of gun owners who are law-abiding, and affect those who are committing gun crimes not at all.

In fact, concealed carry permit holders have proven to be far less likely to commit a crime than her allies in bedwetting hysteria, Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

So yeah, there is definitely a logic fail involved here.

But it wasn’t mine.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Posted by on March 8, 2013 • Filed under: Uncategorized
  • Don

    Yeah. Name calling. That REALLY enhances your flawed argument.

    I expected better from you AD.

    Just maybe EVERYONE getting rid of their guns would be worth it to not have hundreds of people killed a year by Sumdood.

    Oh wait. It’s your RIGHT to have a gun. I guess that makes the slaughter ok then.

    Not to be rude, but I’ve listened to your side of the story, and thank my stars I don’t live in a country where so many people are killed by gun toters every day.

    Didn’t Time magazine do an article years ago about all the gun deaths in one day?

    Seriously. Putting your theoretical right to have a gun aside for a moment, wouldn’t you like to not feel you need one to keep up in the arms race?

  • Ambulance_Driver

    1. The right is not theoretical. It is a basic human right, and not “granted” to us by our Constitution. Our Bill of Rights merely codified a list of human rights our founding fathers recognized as predating our country, in fact, predating organized government of any kind. We fled England and fought a war for independence because many of those rights had been denied to us. That is a distinction many foreigners fail to comprehend, but it is a very important one.
    2. I called her nothing but hysterical, which she was/is. And this is AFTER she stated that I, and 2nd Amendment advocates like me, are domestic terrorists and sociopaths who value an assault rifle over the life of a child. Before that day, this woman was a friend. No longer. Her characterization of my principles is offensive to me, and she has refused to retract her statements or apologize for them. I care not one whit what she thinks of me, or for that matter, what you think either if you feel the same way. I stopped reading her blog and engaging her altogether months ago. I only engage her now as the anti-gun troll she is, who only reads my blog or comments on Second Amendment posts.
    3. Everyone will NEVER get rid of their guns, any more than hunger and poverty will ever be fully conquered, or world peace achieved. You may wish otherwise, but THIS is the human condition, and to believe otherwise ignores history, biology, and basic human nature. If you actually believe that we will eventually get rid of all the guns, I’d really like to know what color the sky is in your fantasy world, because that will never happen, and comparing the U.S. to other countries in this regard is comparing apples and oranges.
    4. My right to have a gun does not make slaughter okay. Then again, if you consider 32,000 gun deaths a year in a country of 300 million, with more than 1 gun for every U.S. citizen a slaughter, then we may have to examine your concept of slaughter. 99.9% of gun owners and 99.9% of U.S. guns killed no one yesterday, and will kill no one any other day.
    5. Aside from your fantasy world of no guns – which we will never see – there is no way that more gun laws will deter a criminal class who, by their very definition, ignore existing laws in the first place. And as long as criminals are armed, I shall be as well. Gun violence is a symptom of a societal problem, not the cause. And banning the symptom will be just as effective as banning fever and body aches would be in eliminating the flu.
    6. We are a culturally, geographically, and ethnically diverse country, and we are not easily governed. In fact, the entire reason this country came into existence was because of a group of people whose worldview can be summed up as, “You’re not the boss of me.”
    That goes for our fellow citizens, and most especially our government, and what keeps the whole thing together is the implicit understanding that our government only has the power that WE grant it. In recent generations, many of our politicians have begun to forget that and many citizens rely on their government for their well-being, but I assure you that many Americans have not forgotten self-reliance, and we have not forgotten that the government works for us.
    And 100 million or so of us own over 300 million weapons, and we will keep them.
    I realize that a foreigner may never be able to understand that world view. If you weren’t raised in it, it may seem totally incomprehensible to you. You like the country you live in, and thank your lucky stars you don’t live here.
    I share that sentiment. I like the country I live in, and I thank my lucky stars you don’t live here either. We have too many like you already.

  • Ambulance_Driver

    A 23-year-old Time Magazine cover is your evidence, Don?

    Are you serious?

    Other than the fact that Time has not been a relevant or reputable news source in over twenty years anyway, let me bring some things to your attention. I believe our high water mark for murders and gun deaths was around 1991. Since then, they have dwindled steadily, and are currently at a 47-year low.
    During that same time frame, we had a federal assault weapons ban for 10 years (1994-2004) that, by the FBI’s own admission, did nothing to reduce murders, violent crime or gun crime.
    Gun ownership has exploded since 1991, and yet violent crime and murders are at a 47-year-low, and have been steadily decreasing for nearly a generation.
    So much for your idea that more guns equal more crime.

  • http://twitter.com/DinoDocLucy Lucy Hornstein

    Hm; How do you manage to leave cute little comments on my blog if you don’t read it?

    You called me a “liberal birther”, and I somehow managed to get over the name calling.

    I’ve managed to modify my point of view. You appear incapable of doing the same. I’m not “calling” for any specific legislation. I leave that to people who know more about the subject than I (and you, for that matter). Your opposition to things like a national gun database and limiting high-capacity magazines are based on delusions of government takeover that no one is calling for. You’re the one hearing and fearing things that exist in your imagination and nowhere else.

    Do you read anything that contradicts your point of view?
    http://thinkprogress.org/gun-debate-guide/

    GUNS…Guns…guns…
    ECHO…Echo…echo…

  • http://www.facebook.com/andrew.deschenes.338 Andrew Deschenes

    Seeing as, as you correctly put it, most of the firearms crime come from gentlemen engaged in the process of purchasing, selling or otherwise procuring substances that have been illegal for decades and are the subject of intense scrutiny and police action (the utility of which is at best disputable for its effectiveness)…if firearms are outlawed and every legal gun can be magically confiscated without issue…how do you make sure that none come over the border with the kilotons of MJ, cocaine, heroin, etc that cross the porous lines every day.

    Also, before we start banning, how about we do what the NRA has suggested – Enforce standing law. We have a standing senate bill to make straw purchasing double plus illegal (been illegal since 1968, IIRC), but we fail to prosecute persons who falsify data on purchase forms (One can assume at least 1% was malicious deceit). Yeah, that would also include Mayor Napoleon Bloomberg’s out of state ‘raids’.

  • Ambulance_Driver

    I only read your blog when you come to mine and leave your trolling comments on my gun posts. I ceased to listen to you when you started spewing your venom.
    And by the way, you’re also a liar. I never called you any such thing.

  • Ambulance_Driver

    And by the way, those “high” capacity magazine bans you support?

    They would have stopped neither the Aurora shooter or the Newtown shooter. The Aurora shooter’s drum magazine jammed after only a few rounds, and he did most of his killing with a Remington 870 pump shotgun, differing only in aesthetic features from my duck hunting shotgun. The Newtown shooter was dropping half-full magazines and reloading with full ones, much like players in first-person-shooter video games will do.
    You accuse me of fostering an echo chamber here. I have never banned or censored dissenting comments on my blog, and I will not. What I refuse to do, is listen to anything you have to say.
    The opportunity for civil discourse ended the day you called Second Amendment advocates domestic terrorists and stated that anyone who disagrees with you on the issue values an assault rifle over the life of a child.
    This is the level of discourse YOU have wrought, Dr. Hornstein. When you demonize people with differing viewpoints, you shut the door on reasonable debate yourself.

  • Ambulance_Driver

    How cute.

    My position has always been that if you don’t want to carry a gun, don’t. Yet since YOU don’t carry one, you don’t think *I* should carry one either, and somehow I’M the bully.
    That’s just precious in its childlike, twisted logic.

  • Ambulance_Driver

    The right to self-defense is a basic human right. The gun simply levels the playing field between you and your attacker. If spears were the deadliest weapon available, you’d be keening about spear control and wondering why anyone would need more than their bare hands to defend themselves.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=17127190 Ron ErtlGuy King

    From the “House Report 112-277 – NATIONAL RIGHT-TO-CARRY RECIPROCITY ACT OF 2011″ report:
    There is also little evidence that law-abiding permit holders are a threat to public safety. The state of Florida, which has issued over 2 million concealed carry permits since it adopted a `right-to-carry’ law in 1987, has revoked just 6,400 permits (just 0.3 percent of the total issued permits) and just 168 concealed carry permits were revoked due to the use of a firearm in a crime (just 0.008 percent).

    Personal note: Those 6,400 revoked permits were for non-firearm related incidents that would normally restrict a person from obtaining a CCW.

  • http://twitter.com/DinoDocLucy Lucy Hornstein

    Who’s twisting things now? *I* never said you shouldn’t carry a gun. I couldn’t care less. But a national database for firearms would go a long way towards curtailing the supply of guns to those “gentlemen engaged in the process of purchasing, selling or otherwise procuring substances that have been illegal for decades”. You’re the one opposing it on the specious grounds that the gubmint is going to use it to take yours away. No one wants your guns. It’s not all about you. Get over yourselves.

  • http://twitter.com/DinoDocLucy Lucy Hornstein

    Yeah, you did. Actually, your exact words were, “…the liberal equivalent of a birther.” It was in a comment on my blog. Between two blog sites and over 1100 posts, I’m at a loss to provide a direct link. But I remember it well; words sting. Though I’m not surprised that you don’t recall the incident, nor that you resort to further name-calling.

  • Joe E.

    Tell me, exactly, how a government database in Washington, D.C., will keep a thug in Chicago from getting a gun?

  • Dixie

    MVAs are the number one killer of children. Seems to me that unless she gives up her car, Ms. Hornstein is a ” domestic terrorist and sociopath who values her car over the life of a child”

  • Too Old To Work

    By what mechanism would a national database curtail illegal purchasing of firearms?
    It’s odd, but no one seems to care about young black males killing each other by the dozen. It’s only when a bunch of white upper middle class kids get killed that this debate starts anew.

    Diane Feinstein has gone on record several times saying that if she could she’d confiscate every gun in America. Others have been a little bit more subtle about it, but the history of gun control everywhere has been incremental. Start with scary looking guns and then slowly tighten the restrictions. Look at England, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Then look at the rate of violent crimes in those countries.

  • Sigivald

    Name calling?

    Like, uh, “domestic terrorist”?

  • Sigivald

    I also notice she singles out “suicides”, admitting they’re the majority of gun deaths.

    Problem is, only people who are serious about killing themselves choose a gun as their method – none of the “cry for help” crowd do, for obvious reasons.

    And people who are seriously suicidal are good at substitution… plus, of course, since they aren’t all that likely to have a criminal record, the only way to disarm them is to disarm everyone.

    All that, to have them use a rope, or some pills, or a razor in the tub [down, not across], and die anyway?

    No, thanks.

    “Something must be done. This is something. This must be done” is, to use a phrase above, “logic fail”.

  • Aesop

    AD,

    Shame on you, kicking the handicapped kids.

    You can’t help a doctor whose methodology is to discard all evidence that doesn’t fit in with her preconceptions and prejudices. You’re trying to spoonfeed reality to people who live in Neverneverland, while they plug their ears with fingers and babble “Lalalalalalalala.”

    Stop tapping her protective tinfoil helmet, and let her get back to tilting her windmills and trolling for validation for her pathetic efforts.

  • Ambulance_Driver

    It’s so CUTE how she cites from Mother Jones, who in turn cites a report from MAIG, as if either of those were actually legitimate!

    BTW, Dr. Hornstein, background checks on new gun purchases are required in EVERY state, so that graph is pure garbage.

    Japan’s suicide rate is many times as high as ours (last I checked, about 19x), yet private gun ownership is almost unheard of there.

    Oh, and lest you hold up the UK again as your gun-control Utopia, let’s make sure we’re comparing apples to apples:

    http://rboatright.blogspot.com/2013/03/comparing-england-or-uk-murder-rates.html?m=1

    Still may not equal the U.S. murder rate, but still far higher than the official numbers, likely even twice as high. And the UK’s violent crime rate overall is a good deal higher than ours, even accounting for the massaging of numbers and definitions.

Vote for me! Click Here

Polarized sunglasses, Flashlights, and Hiking boots.