Cracked: Banning weapons due to a moral panic is stupid...

Unless it's guns!

So, Arizona might repeal their nunchuck ban.  And Cracked is there to fret about it.

Now unlike an earlier article where they fretted about at Judge in New York daring to cite McDonald vs Chicago to overturn a weapon ban.

This time they complain that prole are less influenced by movies and moral panics saying "Huh, weird to think there was once a time in this country when movies could get a weapon banned, but now multiple school shootings every year somehow don't."

But nobody wants to ban guns.

This also shows that Cracked can't even write an article laughing about the banning of literal sticks with a chain, without having to go on about gun control.

And for more amusement, the article asserts "nunchucks have been on the same ban list as sawed-off shotguns and silencers,"... except those are legal to own in Arizona.

Whoops.

Indy Councilman accuses Jewish deli owner of supporting Nazis

By unwelcoming NRA attendees during a convention. For reference this is the same Councileman Zach Adamson (D-17) who last year was part of a push to get the city-council to pass a law that amounted to demanding the state legislature ban all sorts of guns in Indianapolis.

From my notes when I attended last year....

It started with Zach Adamson (D-17) a grandstanding fellow who read his resolution and bragged about being in DC for a "die-in"

He did the standard litany of "weapons of war" and "designed to kill" and went with how assault weapons are specifically to mow down lots of people. But would not define /what/ caused it.

It turns out that Zach hates preemption. He railed against the statehouse taking power for itself and limited what the municipality could do.

He also went on about how congress made it legal to own "tools that can only kill mass amounts of people"

And on the "fetish with guns is out of control"

Now last year this did not even get out of committee (because 2 committee members of Zach's party did not bother to show up and thus when it went to a party-line vote it failed.

Still... the guy is very angry about Hoosiers having guns so this is not surprising at all.

Wired: "Guns are like free speech! Which is why the state should ban speech in a crisis!"

Welp. Now the advocates of Government Control are directly saying "we should regulate free speech like guns." Via Wired which is being especially totalitarian.

I remember when pointing out if someone were hostile to the Second Amendment they were likely to be hostile to the First was something only paranoid gun-nuts would say.

We need social network control—sensible rules about where, when, and what kinds of platforms should be free to operate, much the way nearly all governments in the world impose comprehensive regulations about where, when, and what kinds of guns should be allowed in communities. To fail to rein in social networks because of appeals to “freedom” would be like allowing vague words written 250 years ago to get in the way of controlling guns.

This is not written by someone parodying gun control talking points. This is written by someone who is praising a country banning social media after a terrorist attack. A country that the writer openly admits "has a relatively unfree press".

Note the writer is explicitly using the "The founders would never have intended X!"

An attack where guns were not even used.

But by focusing on those individuals’ shortcomings, wasn’t I buying into the argument that there was a good way for these social networks to operate, even during a time of crisis or during divisive elections? If only they had the right leaders! In essence, I was replicating the tired defense of unrestrained gun ownership—social networks don’t kill people, people kill people. In point of fact, guns magnify the violence of their users, as do social networks.

And this scary bit? Note how "decisive elections" are slipped in there.when talking about a media and clamp down after a terrorist attack. A terrorist attack done by an organized cell, not some lone person or group of social media trolls. But like how gun control advocates will use an attack where the killer murdered to get his guns to blame the manufacture's advertising or attacks where the killer passed a background check due to governmental incompetence to demand expanding the existing background checks. The facts simply don't matter.

I recommend reading the whole article. Its is a frightful example of how the folks who soothingly say they only want "common sense gun control" and then turn around and demand speech control.

Another scary part is that the author out and out lists several defenses /against/ the totalitarian controls he dreams of framed explicitly using firearms analogies:

* People should be able to defend themselves, good guy with a gun / users should be able to make their own speech to counter speech they disagree with

* Social media bans have can result in more violence / cities with more gun control have higher gun violence 

* So what if other people use free speech for bad purposes, I did not. IE "I don't care if every other person in the world murdered someone with a gun, I did not. 

* Social media can allow people to communicate in a crisis, firearms can allow people to defend themselves in a crisis.

Annnnnd... the writer's response to all that? Ignoring it. Except for the first which was dismissed as " every-person-for-themself anarchy" (which is really scary because if someone were to make an analogy that only the state should have guns to free speech...) and a conclusion that says that people *not* demanding for free speech controls are like people saying "Thoughts and Prayers" instead of offering real solutions...

Like using a terrorist bombing attack to try to ban free speech... or ban guns.

NZ Chief Censor shows it's not just the 2nd Amendment they hate...

New Zealand doesn't have a Second Amendment,  their Prime Minister recently bragged about how firearm ownership is a privilege over there (a couple days before deeming a whole bunch of guns banned without even bothering to put a bill before parliament)

But they also are  going after free speech.

It's one thing to deny the terrorist bastards the infamy and fame they so desire.  It's another, as NZ has done,  to make it a crime to posses or show people their manifesto. 

And conveniently this particular manifesto is where the monster says he expects and endorses the State to take certain actions.   Actions that the State eagerly and proudly did.

"The Office of Film and Literature classification announced Saturday that the document is objectionable under the law."

Well...  isn't that a handy power for their State to have.

This was said by.....  "New Zealand's Chief Censor David Shanks."  And yes, they do have a Chief Censor. Take in this puff piece on the office from a couple years ago

Keep that in mind,  all the people going "We should be like New Zealand."  They have a Chief Censor,  who will ban documents that are problematic for the goverment.


Of course you'l say "It's on the internet, so it's silly for them to think they can ban it."  Which I say "Welcome to the Party, Pal."

But more importantly... 

Now only is the NZ goverment doing some of the things the terrorist wanted,  but they are literally making it a crime for someone to provide evidence of it.

Just consider the incentives of that.

The Founders could never have imagined....

See....  Normally When someone goes "The Founders Would never have Imagined X when they were drafting the bill of Rights!"

That argument is used to say that gun control is (up to even banning handguns) is a-okay.

And the obvious rejoined is.  Well does this apply to First Amendment?  The Founders couldn't imagine internet and TV and...

Well this letter to the editor the New York Times published decided that was a good argument for speech control.  (One of three that they decided to highlight)

Unmoderated internet echo chambers are a danger that the founding fathers never envisioned when they wrote the First Amendment.
...
Americans love the First Amendment, but as with the Second Amendment, we have to have a conversation. In this digital era, is unrestricted free speech worth the proliferation of hate, and potentially more tragic events like those in New Zealand?

Welp.

And there's the race (or is it?)

So the PM of New Zealand is strutting about with how "they did something" And she's oh so proud to announce that in a week (Take that Australia!) she's made her gun control. And is demanding the proles turn in their guns. So far 37 (which is weak for a neighborhood buyback level)
And all the gun control advocates are cheering. Except... the bans aren't even before parliament yet. And they'll be introduced on in "the first week of April".
So... maybe 20 days. Huh. Though the scary part is that despite there not being a law (yet) the PM is already demanding guns be turned in and rounded up. As someone noted "Gotta keep up appearances against Australia."

Race to "Do SOMEthing!"

Interesting.

Not just the explicit "We must pass X before anyone can debate or question it!" That's expected.

One doesn’t have to be opposed to strict gun control — as I am — to
find this both dangerous and a little creepy. Indeed, I am struggling to
imagine to many other circumstances in which the suggestion would be as
uncritically repeated. Some of the worst legislation in all of history
has been passed in the middle of crises or in the immediate aftermath of
tragedies that engendered extreme emotional responses. Invariably,
“don’t listen to the naysayers” is bad, bad advice. So, too, is “If the
government is swift, it can do exactly what it wants to do.” And as for
“don’t let the dissenters show you they are good people” . . . well,
I’ll let you decide whether you want to live any country that heeds that

counsel.

But for the point of how Philip Alpers appears a lot in these articles.

Go over the gun control articles being pushed and you'll find that particular name cropping up again, and again, and again. Also note the PM of New Zealand has pledged gun control in 10 days. Ten. And by pure coincidence Australia had their giant gun confiscation 12 days after their atrocity. Yes... it is that much of a tit-for-tat.