Blogger gregorycamp had this to say in response to this post on Common Gunsense:
This is your website, so you have the right to do with it as you choose. That being said, I'd like to see you be honest about your actual purpose here. What you want is to make pronouncements and have your audience sing along in a chorus of agreement. So be it. Just don't expect those of us on the other side to be fooled.
Or to continue to waste our time "debating" Joan Peterson. I have stopped commenting on her posts because I know she and I will never agree. The differences in world views and values are too profound for total agreement.
About the only things that Joan Peterson and I agree on, after some reflection on my part, is that all firearms transfers should involve a background check, and that a better job must be done to include mental health records in background checks. I also think that training should be required for a license to carry a concealed weapon, and that training must include a qualification course of fire. Drug or alcohol use while armed should be prohibited, just as it is when operating automobiles.
As is the case now, one is always responsible for the use of the weapon in public, so everyone who carries a weapon must know when, and when not to use it. However, a person who uses a weapon in an act of lawful self defense should be immune from civil lawsuits.
Other then that, if you are not a prohibited person, you're good to go. No waiting periods to pick up a gun. No purchase limits: 1 handgun per month. No weapon-type bans: police officers and citizens get to carry the same weapons. No registration of weapons, no ammo restrictions, no micro-stamping, no rosters of supposedly safe weapons, unless the police are subject to the very same limits.
3 comments:
Thanks for the mention in your article. I first ran across Joan Peterson's writing a little while ago and thought I'd take her up on having a discussion, but I've found that all she wants is an echo of her own views.
What this shows me is that consensus is a rare thing. Opposing sides generally won't come to an agreement and often can't even understand what the others are saying. Compromise can be reached, but that's not agreement. It's just giving up and making everyone miserable.
This is the main reason that my political philosophy starts in libertarianism. You do your thing, and I'll do mine. We'll work together if we agree, but we'll only interfere in each other's business in the gravest need.
By the way, I also like the fact that comments appear without moderation. Perhaps Joan Peterson and her ilk would get better responses if she made it easier to reply.
Greg,
I believe that compromise must originate by the acceptance that the other persons view has some merit, and so the two side come to a meeting of the minds in order to promote common self-interest.
This is where Joan Peterson loses it: she does not believe that firearms have any social value, so she can never admit that the idea of people being armed in public while going about their daily business has merit.
No compromise is possible because of this, so I stopped commenting on her blog. I still read it, but I find it increasingly repetitive.
On moderating comments: I don't do it partly because I don't want to pay attention to Left Coast all the time, like it was a job, and also partly because I just don't get that many comments, so it is not a large problem. Joan, being a much more notorious person than me, must get tons of comments on her blog, many of them abusive, so she chooses to moderate the comments. But if it is true that she gets many comments submitted, she must be rejecting most of them to get the 20 comment or so that seem to be her average count.
If I had to guess, most comments to Joan's posts either disagree with her positions, are abusive to her personally, or both. It must suck to write stuff with which visitors to your blog consistently disagree.
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