Quote of the day—Jeff Snyder

How is it, then, that “assault weapons” magically transform into “counter-assault weapons” when handled by the police? And how do they revert to “deadly assault weapons” when handled by everyone else?

The fact that people believe that law enforcement may use these weapons demonstrates, of course, that people understand that the weapons have obvious and legitimate utility for defense of home, community and nation. This one fact shows that the guns are not evil of themselves, and do not whisper to their owners, taunting them to shoot children playing at recess or innocent bystanders in drive-by shootings.

This one fact shows that people understand that the responsible use of firearms depends foremost on the purpose and character of the person who wields the weapon. And because we know these things, this discrepancy between how we view police holds the key to understanding what the assault weapon ban is really about.

Jeff Snyder
Who’s Under Assault in the Assault Weapon Ban?
The Washington Times, Aug. 25, 1994, page A19

See also, Nation of Cowards 2001 page 64
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]


10 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Jeff Snyder

  1. I am just wondering when this succinct bit of logic is going to find its way into the next “conversation” about firearms that the MSM and the Progressives so clearly claim that we need to have. Oh, wait, it is not really a conversation these tyrants in waiting want to have as much as it is an edict that they want to dictate and enforce. Foolish me to have forgotten that.

    • The conversation is between our betters and we peasants. The only words out of our mouths, as we tug on our forelocks should be, “Yes, sir, no sir, I don’t know, sir, and no excuse sir.” Our part in the “Conversation” is the same part a three-year-old has when he spills ink on mommy’s beige floral dining room rug: “I’m sorry, mommy, I won’t play with ink again.”
      And THIS is true whether the object of the Anointeds’ wrath is one of the children of society, a minority person, or one of the all-knowing, mind- and future-reading white person, whether or not he is actually a majority person, for that role is not changeable.

  2. “this discrepancy between how we view police holds the key to understanding what the assault weapon ban is really about”

    Not so much how people view police as how they view their training. There’s a difference between a well-trained cop of soldier and a kid whose training comes from video games.

    I’m a fan of training (and have done a fair amount of it myself). Although I understand the concern over training requirements being used as tools to prevent ownership, that’s a political problem not a philosophical one. You can be in favor of requiring training without also being in favor of restricting ownership.

    • If “training” is _required_ then ownership IS restricted. It is restricted to those who have whatever “training” the powers that be specify. So while the specifics of the required training may be a “political” problem, that requiring training is an ownership restriction is simple logic.

    • I don’t hear that argument being made anywhere. The only thing I hear is “ban these weapons of war” (or variations of that). So, either they are being dishonest and really just have concerns about training (unlikely), you are trying to give them cover for their true objectives, or you have much different sources than I do.

      • I hear it all the time. Whenever pro-gun folks say there should be no age limits, no training requirements, etc. and then go on to argue about how 18 year-olds can go to war so they should be able to buy a gun, the argument always comes up that cops and soldiers are different than citizens specifically because of the training they receive.

        Maybe I’m just talking to different people, but it’s not an unreasonable point of view.

        That said, there are plenty of people who are just lazy and don’t think beyond the end of their first neuron, and from them we get the “weapons of war” argument. Not sure what to do about those folks except out vote them.

        To the earlier point about “requiring” training, we could perhaps avoid that if the gun sellers were more pushy about training for new buyers. “Hey, so how much training do you have? Wanna take a class? We have a good one, here’s a flyer.” That hasn’t happened once in the dozens of times I’ve bought a gun. Should shops be *required* to do that? No. Would it be an awfully good idea? Yes. Perhaps your shops already do. The Bellevue shop I go to does not.

        • I suspect shops don’t do this because they don’t want to come across as shills for the enemy.
          Encouraging training — sure. That’s a major activity of the NRA. It’s why Operation Blazing Sword exists.
          The problem is that most references to “training” are about mandatory training. Those are always slightly camouflaged schemes to restrict ownership, and in particularly make sure poor people are unlikely to have guns. High permit fees have the same intent and effect. So do high taxes; the infamous Teddy Kennedy attempt to attach a buck tax to each round sold, or some similar number, is merely a particularly blatant example. All these schemes fail on the obvious comeback “what about a mandatory training requirement to exercise your freedom of speech rights?”
          Given the motives behind the mandatory training notion, there is no reason to believe that encouraging voluntary training would make any difference. It’s not about training, it’s about restricting.

          • “It’s not about training, it’s about restricting.” For the anti-gun folks, sure. But that doesn’t prevent shops from taking the initiative and voluntarily doing it themselves. If the gun community actually cares about training folks who are “not in the community” as it were, more steps are warranted outside the old school (particularly given the political toxicity of the NRA these days). A flyer. A card slipped into every gun box. An encouraging word to attend a class (which might be hosted by the NRA but not have NRA slapped all over it like Nascar). All good things that will both increase overall safety, and probably even bring more people “into the community.”

        • West Coast Armory in Bellevue has lots of training flyers out. I don’t know about pushing them to other buyers though. I’m in there so often they know I have lots of practice and almost for certain more training than most. So when I buy a gun I can’t judge what they might tell someone else.

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