Newsweek's Stone Asks 'Is Gun Violence the Cost of Freedom?'
"The Second Amendment that guarantees the right to bear arms is part of America’s founding fabric. So is senseless violence brought about by guns also American?" asked Newsweek's Daniel Stone in a January 13 post at the magazine's website.
Stone noted that his question was inspired by a similar query posed recently by a Russian journalist Andrei Sitov to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.:
Is occasional violent tragedy a distasteful byproduct of a free society? I walked out of the briefing room with Sitov, who appeared to realize the impact that his question had on the roomful of Americans. “It’s an obvious question and nobody asks that question,” he told me through his thick Russian accent. “This is a cost that your country pays for freedom.”
Of course the cost of freedom with any right is that evil and/or deranged people will abuse it to the harm of others, but Stone's piece seems to focus on civilian gun ownership as though it is mostly a societal liability without considering the real benefits private gun ownership have in protecting life, liberty, and property.
For example, since 1958, the National Rifle Association has been collecting news clippings from across America of everyday citizens using a firearm to defend their lives and property.
The feature, entitled, “The Armed Citizen” has documented "thousands of incidents of law-abiding Americans using firearms to halt or prevent crime."
"Editorial space allowing, the total could have been far greater of course, as award-winning survey research shows that each year in the U.S. gun owners use firearms for protection as frequently as 2.5 million times," the NRA notes.
What's more, the rare but deadly violence wrought by crazed gunmen is hardly a purely American phenomenon, as Stone suggested in his post. Indeed, the Hungerford Massacre of 1987and the Dunblane Massacre of 1996 both prompted fresh rounds of gun control in the United Kingdom.
- Ken Shepherd's blog
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Comments
***"The Second Amendment
Submitted by Willis_Leon_Johnson on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:07pm.
***"The Second Amendment that guarantees the right to bear arms is part of America’s founding fabric. So is senseless violence brought about by guns also American?" asked Newsweek's Daniel Stone***
Sorry Danny boy, but the "senseless violence" of which you speak is not caused by, nor a result of, The Second Amendment.
That "senseless violence" is a DIRECT RESULT of namby pamby liberal programs, policies and legislated laws that reward criminals, murders, rapists and other violent predators.
Please try to pay attention to the real world that the rest of us live in.
End 'gun violence in America' - Require training and MANDATORY "Shall Carry" by every Citizen.
If harry reid is the best person to lead the senate, what does that say about the other 99 senators?
Racy Pictures
Submitted by SnapTie on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:22pm.
Guess we all are going to be in for a treat shortly.Seems Loughner took some personal photos of himself in a red G String with a gun pressed in his buttocks.He left them at a local Walgreen's store for development and were just discovered.
Thanks a lot. I'll have
Submitted by ricklail on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:34pm.
Thanks a lot. I'll have nightmares about that all night long. I believe I'd rather see pictures of Helen Thomas neekid.
rick,
Submitted by Dave. on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:49pm.
I don't think there is a camera that has ever been made that the lens wouldn't shatter if it were used to take nude pics of Helen Thomas.
LOL - Hell, the whole thing is just liable to explode.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
1) Is the post-shooting
Submitted by stratman on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:23pm.
1) Is the post-shooting inflammatory and defamatory political attack by activist journalists like yourself "American" and worth the cost of Freedom? Fix you damnable "profession", Mr. Stone.
2) Ahh, comrade Communist propagandist Sitov. His country has incredibly violent people, from mobsters to politicians who sometimes are one and the same. As if no murderous cime occurs in Russia! I guess since it was State sanctioned then it is OK. Sitov knows how to beg, bark, sit, roll over and play dead on command from his master, Putin the Dog Whisperer.
Yes and u still can't have it
Submitted by CHP on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:26pm.
The answer is sometimes, but the cost is still worth it. Just as occasional highway deaths are the cost of automobiles, occasional losses are the cost of investing, occassional fires are the cost warming your home, and occassional house guests drinking from the water bottle is the cost of throwing a Christmas party. In fact it is the same as sin being the cost of free will. I do not want to give up free will, or Christmas parties, warmth, investing, driving, and gun ownership. Let's just try and reduce the negatives, in rational, effective and constitutional ways
Freedom and guns
Submitted by JakeMo on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:27pm.
Stone speaks as if there were no gun violence in nations that aren't free.
Mr. Stone, how exactly do you think those nations that aren't free came to be that way?
While we're at it,
Submitted by Barack_must_go..... on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:47pm.
While we're at it, Barack_Must_Go...... would like to know......' Is Debilitating Narcissism & Only Possessing the Emotional Development of a Nine Year Old the Cost of Progressive Liberalism in America "
Barack_Must_Go.....
I take it Daniel Stone has never read...
Submitted by Dave. on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:46pm.
...this book.
If he had, he would be at the range right now honing his skills.
We don't need more gun control laws. What we need are criminal control laws that will be enforced.
And there is also that little tyrannical-government-run-amok thingy that nobody ever seems to want to talk about.
-You know, the kind of government Stone and his MSM ilk are doing their best to help bring about in this country today - which is where I suspect his real concern about privately owned guns actually lies.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
Gun Violence is a cost of Liberalism
Submitted by Red Jeep on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 4:58pm.
1. If we made captured shooters/murderers names and photos "dead" in the MSM, no publicity, no infamy, it could go along ways in preventing copycats and future incidence like this.
I have written many times this week of the shooter in Arizona. Everyone knows who I am writing about. Don't need his name mentioned anymore or to see his mugshot.
2. Gun violence of this type would be further reduced if the shooter were tried and publically hanged already. But we must go to Liberal law namby pamby land which means he may go to try in 2 or 3 years and then upon conviction he becomes a taxpayer expense for 50+ years if the inmates don't kill him.
Through the arrest, the years until trial, and the tria,l the liberal MSM will just keep making a name for this man and costing taxpayers money and encouraging copy cats.
copy the NFL
Submitted by Agnostic on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 8:50pm.
streaker rule - no publicity
Yes.
Submitted by Red Jeep on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 9:10pm.
Once caught, nameless, the Perp. As in, "Today the Perp in the shooting of congress woman had bail denied."
I am still waiting for the media and democraps
Submitted by djwolf12 on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 5:11pm.
to denounce drug use and ban marijuana. They won't because they are for it. Drugs Good, Guns Bad.
Peace Is More Than an Absence of War!
Submitted by wascally on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 5:18pm.
I suppose that Stone prefer to have NO freedom, but permanent peacefulness in a world where we all live like subjects of curiosity in a real live Truman Show!
Naw, he's just stupid enough to believe....
Submitted by Willis_Leon_Johnson on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 5:43pm.
With no person allowed to own guns that the world will be perfect and the "freedom of Speech, and a Free press" will still exist in America.
None of the Constitutionally GUARANTEED Rights will exist, nor will the Constitution.
Next chance you get, ask a liberal if they think legislated law should ever supercede Constitutional law.
They turn real stupid when you start asking them to justify various laws.....
End 'gun violence in America' - Require training and MANDATORY "Shall Carry" by every Citizen.
If harry reid is the best person to lead the senate, what does that say about the other 99 senators?
War
Submitted by Agnostic on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 8:46pm.
War while tragic is simply part of negotiations as much as potentially losing a bid is part of business negotiations. The unvoiced threat of war is present during all of negotiations but the potential for war becomes real when areas are reached where there is no compromise. When you are talking freedom, way of life and life/death then compromise is not so simple. Disputes over land and other such trivialities are very rarely over the land itself but over one of the three things listed previously. How the media and history books portray war and the causes for them is too simplistic by far. However, not saying that the leadership in any particular negotiation is realistic or even sane enough to realize that there way of life doesn't necessarily have to end if they have to live next door to Jews - just an example, there are others but that was the low hanger.
Yeah, hardly anyone was ever
Submitted by RR GOP on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 5:40pm.
Yeah, hardly anyone was ever murdered until firearms were invented.
Dumb#@$%s.
"Under Capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism it's just the opposite."
"All that Communism needs to make it successful is for someone to feed and clothe it."
Gun Violence Created Our Country
Submitted by MinneMike on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 8:35pm.
Would there even be a United State of America without patriots overthrowing the English through gun violence?
Huh.
Submitted by 26CX on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 8:40pm.
I always thought it was the desire to be free from British rule and to be able to govern ourselves that created our country.
Perhaps
Submitted by Unsane on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 8:45pm.
Maybe.
But King George III was not reported to have said "Aw, shucks, guys, I am crestfallen the 13 colonies are leaving the British Empire. But if you want it that way, OK. I can't stop you."
:o)
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)
True, Unsane.
Submitted by 26CX on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 8:54pm.
But the United States wasn't created by gun violence. It was created by people who banded together to declare their independence and create the form of government that defined the United States.
They were forced to defend themselves against the British, but I don't consider that to be "gun violence". To my beady little mind, "gun violence" implies criminal activity and that isn't correct in this case.
Connotation
Submitted by Unsane on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 9:33pm.
Eh. If one decides to go literal, the colonists and Brits engaged in gun violence. Or, musket violence.
The United States was most certainly created violently. King George III didn't just sulk on his throne over the Declaration of Independence. Yes, people banded together, wrote the Declaration, and eventually came up with the Constitution. But paper rarely makes a nation. Blood typically does the trick. And so it was for the United States.
I see your point though. It's all in connotation, I suppose...
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)
Okay, Unsane.
Submitted by 26CX on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 9:37pm.
I see your point, also.
Like many of you
Submitted by panzerakc on Sat, 01/15/2011 - 6:41am.
I've found myself wondering why the left is so vehemently anti-gun-ownership-by-private citizen. I do understand the mindset that an unarmed citizenry is much easier to control. but it seems to be something more than that.
I wonder if the reason so many folks on the Left are anti-gun is because if they were the ones to have the guns, they'd use them? And not just for extreme cases of self defense.
I wonder if folks on the Left know/fear that if they were armed, even the smallest irritations could end in gunfire. Somebody cuts you off in traffic, or flips you off? Pull out your gun and blast away. Somebody cuts in front of you in a line? Blam, blam, that'll teach 'em. You've got your mouth all set for your favorite salad, and somebody takes the last bottle of aragula dressing off the shelf just ahead of you? Blow them out of their socks, catching the bottle before it shatters on the floor.
I wonder if those on the Left feel that because THEY would do those kinds of things if they had a gun, that folks excercising their 2nd amendment rights would do the exact same things.
Simpler
Submitted by Unsane on Sat, 01/15/2011 - 10:04pm.
I think it could be simpler than even that.
Many Leftists haven't seen a gun except watching TV or movies. So they wouldn't know what to do with one if they came across one.
People fear what they don't know, and many Leftists (and quite a few on the Right) don't understand that if you apply some basic, common sense rules around guns, nothing bad will happen. Much as one should when driving.
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)