Dear Gun Carriers

[gejohnston]

114. and?

s to your commenters' notion that WalMart is just like K-mart or Target --- not so. There are some significant differences.
"Target, Kmart? None. Both are big box stores that sell shit from China to the working class."

1. Target and K-mart are publicly traded; shares are owned by a large number of people, and the companies are subject to actions and directives from the shareholders, particularly the institutional shareholders (although not as sensitive as they should be, particularly in terms of board membership, executive compensation and a few other ares). In contrast, WalMart is owned and controlled by the Walton family.

Not really relevant, since many of the board members are the same people who are also ALEC members. BTW, Hillary Clinton was on the Wal Mart board.

2. Neither Target nor K-mart do a large business in guns and ammo; WalMart is the single largest retailer of both in the U.S., AND has had issues with improper sales in the past. In resolving those issues, WalMart made a voluntary agreement about selling both guns and ammo on which it has reneged.

So? Improper sales, have the ATF investigated and and a US Attorney filed charges against Wal Mart for violating the Gun Control Act?

3. WalMart has the distinction of being the public location to which most gun carriers go armed on their first public excursion with a firearm. WalMart also has the singular distinction of having a firearms accident on average of approximately 1 every 2.5 weeks. A number of those involve not only property damage, but injuries to the gun owner and to innocent bystanders. This argues that those carrying, either concealed or openly, are not as safe as they'd like us to believe. It also makes WalMart different from K-Mart and Target which do NOT have that poor safety record.

4. WalMart was until not long ago one of the core members, along with the NRA in ALEC, an unregistered lobbying organization which existed solely to draft primarily state level legislation, in secret, in cooperation with exclusively conservative state legislators whom they paid - both directly and indirectly - to act on behalf of special interests AGAINST the interests of their state residents and businesses. That is engaging in a long term well funded pattern of corruption which should be objectionable to every individual.

Macy's doesn't the same.

5. I'd be happy to take on any of the commenters here on matters of fact; and for the record, I live in a rural area, I am myself firearms proficient, including in the past having a CCW permit, and - if it matters - I'm also female and well educated.

6. There is a valid issue in comparing red states and blue states; red states are consistently poorer, less educated, and compare poorly on pretty much EVERY metric. Of those people whom Romney was addressing with contempt as the 47%? The reality is that most of the 47% who rely most heavily on some form of government assistance for their survival live in red states, and include a substantial number of his supporters who would be voting against their own economic interests in supporting conservative candidates - but they do so because of a mistaken belief that the right will support their gun interests better than the left.

It is a lot more than the gun issue. As Orwell observed in the UK, there is a certain amount of elitism.

In practice that hasn't actually been true, Obama has expanded, not restricted gun carry for example; but it makes a good wedge issue.

Riders on a larger bill, does not really matter. Besides, as criminologist James Wright pointed out years ago, when big city politicians complain "it's that state's fault", it really comes across as scapegoating.

7. It works, because those who are less well educated and who are more conservative do not think analytically but rather think emotionally -- as determined by a range of testing, including MRI testing which shows which parts of the brain are used. I would also refer readers here to the work of Daniel Kahneman, the nobel prize winning psychologist and 'neural-economist'.

Most if not all gun control arguments are emotional and use too many logical fallacies. I would argue that gun control is really a conservative stance popular with some liberals.

I would argue to those here who are pro-gun that emotional reactions, particularly for those who demonstrate poor impulse control, are not the best decisions in using lethal force.

I argue the anti gun are emotional reactions, since I have yet to see a good argument void of logical fallacies.

So if any of you would care to address me directly - have at it.