Bill Moyers disses JPFO

[Xela]

Just got off the couch to drop one of my all time favorite commentators a few lines (on his blog).

I like Bill, a lot, but darn it if he didn't get this one wrong. I can't believe he came up with this one soon after he invited to have a representative of the National Review!!!! over for a conversation about Thomas Paine.

Bill Moyers disses JPFO:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2009/06/bill_moyers_michael_winship_wh.html

Don't take me wrong, there are some things I find truly disagreeable with the JPFO, but just to brushed them off like this is just uncalled for.

Oh well, I guess it is his show after all.

Xela

[krispos42]

1. What's JPFO? n/t

[Euromutt]

2. Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

They're one of the more radical RKBA groups; despite the name, they also take Gentiles. Their idée-fixe is that Gun Control Act of 1968 must be repealed because it's supposedly based on the Nazi firearms law of 1938. Problem is, this fact they're so stridently insistent about is plain wrong. The GCA resembles German law to some extent, but it's the firearms law of 1928, implemented under the Weimar republic.
See also: http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcnazimyth.html

[krispos42]

3. We modeled our interstates on Nazi Germany, too.

Some people have to relax a little.

[Euromutt]

4. So when Bill Moyers says "why don't we talk about guns?" he means...

"Why don't people do what I tell them regarding guns?" He doesn't want a dialogue, just a monologue.

After Wednesday’s shooting, a conservative organization immediately offered those of us in the media a chance to interview the founder of “Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership,” whose expertise, it was said, is in helping people understand why gun control doesn’t belong in a civilized society.

The e-mail went on to say, “Your audience will appreciate non nonsense common sense talk that will make them wonder why anyone wants to ban guns in the first place.”

Thanks, but no thanks.

Quite right, Bill, why would you want to talk to someone with a different point of view? Keeping an open mind is so overrated, after all.

So let the faithful of every persuasion keep their guns for hunting and skeet, for trap and target practice, for collecting.

Like .22-caliber rifles. What are the chances of someone using one of those to kill someone, right?

They can even have a permit for a gun to protect their business or home, <...>

So the same government that has repeatedly stated it has no responsibility to protect me as an individual citizen (Warren vs D.C., Castle Rock vs. Gonzales) can deny me the means to protect myself? What a wonderful idea.

<...> even though it’s 22 times more likely to shoot a member of the family (including suicides) than an intruder.

Oh boy, one of the Kellermann canards! Honestly, that man has never done a gun control study that didn't wind up getting shredded, in one case by grad students from a statistics class (among others).

The study from which this statistic is derived is "Injuries and deaths due to firearms in the home," Journal of Trauma 45:263-267.
Curiously, closer examination (by others) of the data revealed that where the origin of the firearm involved in the shooting was known, that weapon was one kept in the home in which the shooting occurred in 14.2% of cases, which seriously undermines the claimed causal relationship. It simply does not make sense that owning a gun would make it more likely that someone would come to your house and shoot you with his gun. It is, however, quite plausible that if you have particularly good reason to fear that someone might come to your house with a gun intending to kill you (e.g. because you're a drug dealer, and you have competitors), you would be inclined to acquire a firearm yourself.

Just another Kellermann study "proving" that having insulin in the house increases your chances of getting diabetes.

Every year there are 30,000 gun deaths and in some years more than 400,000 non-fatal, gun-related assaults.

We go over the fatalities frequently enough that I won't hash it out again; suffice to say that if you continue permit the keeping of firearms for sporting purposes, those 16-17,000 gun suicides aren't going to stop.
And since 1996, the percentage of nonfatal violent crimes involving a firearm has been less than 10%, leaving several million nonfatal violent crimes that aren't going to be stopped by restricting access to firearms.

[aikoaiko]

5. What Moyers fails to understand or insists in denying is that....

...it is not the gun merchants or NRA that are winning the day on guns, it is the citizens.

We are talking about guns, quite a bit. The anti-gun side is losing simply because it focuses on limiting or banning gun access to law abiding folks. Everyone wants to reduce gun violence, but not everyone is willing to violate the 2nd amendment.