We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
The Guardian is asking US gun owners whether they feel the press misrepresents them Survey here.
What are some of the most common misconceptions you encounter from non-gun owners? Do you identify, politically, with other gun owners? Do you feel misrepresented by the media? Tell us and we’ll feature your responses on the Guardian.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
Didn’t Mao ‘let a thousand flowers bloom’ and then kill them all?
Yes, but the Guardian can’t kill you – no gun.
OK, OK, just kidding. I do know what you mean. I too fear that whatever people might write in will probably be “framed” in a dismissive way. I’ve complained before how leftists strive to understand the customs of tribes who marry off girls at 12 or practise female genital mutilation, yet have nothing but racist jeers for tribes who practise evangelical Christianity, hunting or gun ownership. At least they are showing some awareness that they might have a problem with stereotyping gun owners.
Moving from tribal hatred to condescension is at a step in the right direction. And I think some here could write well enough to make it difficult to see the writer as an ignorant savage.
That’s a bit like Hamas phoning up the Anti-Defamation league and asking if they had eaten any tasty Muslim babies recently – all in the name of open dialogue you understand ;-).
They’re just trolling for anything that sounds like a negative self-revelation which can then be used in an attack.
I might have helped them out, but they wanted my name and email address. So I declined.
I’m not paranoid, just – err – circumspect.
Mr Ed and J.V may well be right.
And Guardian people do not need firearms – they use the state.
However, perhaps the Guardian people are being sincere – perhaps they really do what to understand people with different opinions (they would say a different “culture”) to their own. But, if so, they have made a classic mistake.
They are asking “gun owners” – i.e. they assume that a different opinion is based upon different INTERESTS (“capitalists favour the private ownership of capital – gun owners favour the private ownership of guns”). If they consider the idea that opinions are not based on interests, the Guardian people most likely assume (as Rousseau and Karl Marx did) that this is because a false ideology is spread by people with an INTEREST(most likely an ECONOMIC interest) in doing so.
This form of reductionism (reducing everything to “interests” normally ECONOMIC interests)is a classic mistake.
To bastardise St. Thomas Aquinas:
American gun owners read the Guardian? Seems like they will reach a small and unrepresentative group with this survey.
And at this moment, 1625 UCT, The Guardian is no longer accepting responses to their survey. Bet they got what they wanted and shut it down.
What is odd is that I don’t see a place to leave a comment. Perhaps they’re blocking comments from the US, but there’s simply no entry point for commenting. I also clicked through to the article from their reporter in Austin that she mentioned – clicking on “Jump to comments” lands me in nowheresville.
I don’t know if this is intentional or accidental. Running Firefox on Windows 7/64.
@ John G. The explanation o the Guardian is that those who reject communism may also reject guns, my first witness the Indonesian General in the 1960s who urged on the ‘suppression’ of the Maoist rebels with, I have read (years ago) the words, translated as ‘Do not shoot the Communists, bullets are too good for them, use knives’.
They cared, they won. The only lesson.
chuck,
You’d be surprised. In the comments to articles on gun control the great majority of the responses are very hostile to gun ownership but there are always some responses defending it, from both British and American commenters. The Guardian website has a huge American readership, I am told, despite the fact that the print edition of the paper is spiralling towards bankruptcy and was never that popular to start with, being aimed at a distinct but not large market of left wing mildly intellectual types.
The Guardian’s hereditary enemy, the Daily Mail, also has a huge US readership – I read somewhere that it is the most read news website in the world.
Borepatch,
I can only assume that the survey has ceased accepting entries. When I posted this, there was a comments-box form at the bottom of the explanation which had space for you to submit your views. It seems to have disappeared for me as well.
If only I could post there – then they could use my statements to further demonize gun owners !!
Misconceptions ?
Hmmm, let’s see –
Fully automatic guns are illegal !
No, they are not, at least not in most of the United states. It’s just that owning one is somewhat complicated ( and expensive !! )
He used an automatic pistol !!
HIGHLY doubtful. Semi-automatic is FAR more likely.
The gun went off !!
NO IT DIDN’T – someone or something pulled the trigger !!!!
Is it registered ??
Nope, doesn’t have to be in most of the United States despite Hollywood and the MSM trying to convince the ignorant masses that ALL GUNS must be registered otherwise they are illegal ( what the hell is an ‘illegal gun’ anyway – the gun can’t be illegal – it simply exists – owning it COULD be illegal but the gun itself CAN’T be illegal – don’t you just love
lawyers ! )
It was an AK-47 !!
Maybe, maybe not but that is the favorite buzz word tossed about by those who wouldn’t know one if they fell over it. Almost ANYTHING that is not a hand gun is ‘described’ as an AK-47 ! The newer buzz word is AR-15 ( and NO, AR does NOT stand for assault rifle !! ). I remember when the
buzz-word-of-the-week was ‘Saturday night special’. They NEVER quit.
Kill someone for any reason with ANYTHING except a gun and the individual is demonized. Use a firearm and automatically and with knee-jerk reliability it will be the guns fault.
These people KNOW exactly what they are doing. This type of propaganda ( and that’s what it is ) has been going on for decades. The statements are NOT made out of ignorance ( if they are, the writers should be fired ) and they don not care about your opinion or mine. They merely want you to think that they wish to change their way and write more ‘accurately’. Nothing could be further from the truth !
“The Guardian’s hereditary enemy, the Daily Mail, also has a huge US readership – I read somewhere that it is the most read news website in the world.”
Many of the major US papers (and their websites) have a leftist, partisan, slant and will not cover certain topics; but those topics are often covered on British sites. So if I go to, say, the NYT i KNOW that I will be deliberately misinformed – so I don’t bother. I’ll go to sites that may cover most stories.