I'm going to focus the rest of my blogging today on updates for The New York Times' Virginia Tech panel.
There is a new addition to the list: Dr. Richard Kadison, chief of mental health services for Harvard's health services.
It appears mine was the first panelist submission, so I've linked to it below, under John O'Neil's introduction. The basic ground rules are keep each post around or under 300 words. I will continue to add links to this post as they appear, so check back in if you want to keep informed on this.
Master Link to Panel Page (All Posts)
Virginia Tech: After the Shootings
by John O'Neil
Guns on Campus: Could They Prevent a Repeat?
By David Codrea
Better Prepared, but Safer?
By Richard Canas
Changes at Many Levels
By Ada Meloy
Remembrance and Protest
By Rev. Alexander W. Evans
The View From the ‘Lie-In’
By Josh Horwitz
No More ‘Easy’ Guns
By Rev. Alexander W. Evans
Changed Law, Unchanged Danger
By David Codrea
What Campus Police Think
By Ada Meloy
Sharing the Worries When a Student Is Troubled
By Richard Kadison
Rethinking the Role of Campus Police
By Richard Canas
Guns No Deterrent to the Suicidal
By Josh Horwitz
Arguing for Gun Choice
By David Codrea
Creating More Routes for Help
By Richard Kadison
UPDATE: We're done. I emailed Mr. O'Neil and asked if comments were closed for good and will advise when he replies--it may be tomorrow 'til he does.
Thank you all for your kind support here, and especially to those of you who provided the best, most intelligent backup I could hope for. I knew going in I'd be surrounded on the panel by people conditioned and incapable of grokking our views, and also that I would not be able to catch every chair and bottle thrown in the melee. You articulated our "side" with thoughtfulness and composure, and I'm sure gave their readers much to mull on. And based on the near absence of contrary comments, I'd say that despite my being outnumbered, you kept the hordes at bay.
If they do this again, it will no doubt be due in large part to the way you handled things.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
38 comments:
Good opening commentary there David. I am glad to see that you were chosen to present the reasonable side of this issue.
O.K., looks like they're presenting your writings unedited for now. Maybe this will work. Great opening salvo!
Thanks, JR and Crotalus. You and other WoG visitors, please spread the word on this and/or leave a comment on their site. To have the NYT present unvarnished RKBA is rare enough. I'm hoping if they see the topic generates a lot of interest, friendly or hostile, they'll give us more opportunities to use their megaphone.
Excellent intro David!
Scott W.
Phx
I enjoyed your opening statement and will be keeping an eye on it along with my comments
I posted a comment under the "Better Prepared, but Safer?" essay, referencing the drill involving a cop/"mock gunman" at the NC college campus, and how, even when the cops think there is no danger to themselves, it takes them ten minutes to respond... then gave an opportunity for the question to be begged as to how long it would have taken to execute a line of students facing a wall.
I'm hopeful that angle will be reconsidered by the author.
-"VoR"/anon
Is it just me or is everyone but David giving us a 1yr. old news story of what happened? Where are the ideas? Maybe later?
It's not just you, samenokami: the only sort of comment I could think of to make was something along the lines of "that was nice - did you have a point?", which won't help anyone with a brain, and shouldn't make it past the moderation anyhow.
Mindless emotionally-driven drivel.
-"VoR"/anon
Here's what I put into comments on the "The View From the Lie-In" post: (pending approval of course, we'll see)
"Pro-gunnies, get this through your THICK SKULL: if absolutely no one on campus has a gun, there can NEVER be a shooting death. I like it. !!! :)
How will the policy be enforced to guarentee 100% that a criminal will not simply ignore the rule and bring a weapon onto campus?
What will the punishment be for a violator? Expulsion? What guarentee will be given that the person will not return to campus? Added 24 hour security?
How will campus security tell who is the potential criminal and who are students?
What rules will be in place to protect the civil rights of students?
Who will pay for all of these protective measures?
Our students are babies, and need to be protected. If they weren't in college, they might be in Iraq, armed with M4's shooting it out with insergents. They can protect the nation, but for God's sake- they cannot protect themselves!"
Here's the comment I posted in case it does not make it through the moderators at the Times:
According to anti-gun extremist mystics, certain doom always lies around the corner. They are the holier-than-thou prohibitionists of our time, promising that they possess the secret to the success of our civilization. They are no different from the Victorian and Prohibitionist martyrs that have come before them. The Victorians promised us that if we ban the topic of sex, we would live in a truly moral age without pre-marital sex and without bastard children. Right. That worked well. The Prohibitionists promised us that if we ban alcohol, the world's problems will be solved, and alcohol would cease to be an influence in our lives. Right. That worked well. If only these poor fools were right. In their self-righteous zeal and mystical incantations of a better world, these modern mystics have become a bizarre hybrid between a snake oil salesman who promises a bogus cure to constantly lure new fools to give up their cash in order to replenish his coffers and an attention-starved prophet of doom standing on the street corner with his sign proclaiming "The end is near."
Just like this prophet of doom, the anti-gun mystics warn us in no uncertain terms that unless we follow them, and quickly, we are all doomed! Unfortunately for us, these paranoid soothsayers create self-fulfilling prophesies just like their narrow-minded fellow travelers from prior generations. For example, the prudes of the Victorian era, who pretended to suppress sexual activity while doing that which they denied, brought us unwanted births and repression. The suppression of alcohol during prohibition brought us organized crime and public corruption that exists to this day. Likewise, through gun prohibition, the modern day descendants of these morally superior martyrs, will bring the very thing they pretend to cure: violence against helpless victims.
Let's see if mine makes it in:
Who was it that said or sang that we don't put up tombstones for the dead, but for the living? If someone is willing to violate one of the most basic of God's commandments - "Thou shalt not murder," what makes anyone believe that lesser human laws will have any effect on his plans?
It's clear that all of the laws that people beg for after these incidents are nothing more than tombstones for the living - a useless group of talismans that let them think that now they are safe from the forces of evil...and as equally efficacious as the talismans carried by people centuries ago, hoping to ward off the Black Death.
.April 16th,
2008
1:51 pm This panelist hasn’t contributed much to the conversation yet. Will there be anything substantive from any of the panelists except the knuckle-draggin gun-owner (David Codrea)?
— Posted by scott
This was posted under
Changes at Many Levels
By Ada Meloy
None of the proside has resorted to name calling and there are far more then anti
I have tried twice to post questions/comments about Israel's armed student body and faculty. Both comments were not posted. I think this is a point we have to push.
Keep up the great work David.
I guess opaww doesn't understand my facetious comment on A Meloy's first comment -
"This panelist hasn’t contributed much to the conversation yet. Will there be anything substantive from any of the panelists except the knuckle-draggin gun-owner (David Codrea)?"
— Posted by scott
I trust David does.
Scott
Very interesting to see The New York Times put up a variety of articles by a variety of individuals.
Very cool.
While always cautious about the MSM, kudos to NYT.
C.H.
oops sorry was thinking it was a gun hater I did not see that it was you
Don't pay any attention to the comment I left there I guess I need new glasses.
Is it just my imagination, or were/are there only pro-RTKBA-ers commenting on this? Where are all the anti-s? David is the only addressing any issues/presenting any ideas. The rest are just so much mental masturbation.
So far yes it is progun
The commentary left there is very well done.
I am hoping a few fence sitters read this.
This is great! Been watching and posting all day.
Tony
Keep on doing so--this is our chance to use their megaphone, and if they see enough reader interest, the chances of them doing someting like this again increase.
I'm limited in what I can do--I don't want to post too much or it will look like the kid in class who always raises his hand--so I appreciate everybody weighing in in comments.
Please continue to spread the word and recruit people to leave well-spoken comments of their own.
Right now I am listening to NRA’s Cam and company from last night because I think he gave you a good plug on his program. I am trying to listen to make sure.
The last hour of last night’s cam and co. won't play so I guess I'll have to wait till tonight’s show to see what he says.
I just do not have the eloquent wording or the intelligence to follow all the posts
"Why do you keep using that word? I do not think it means what you think it means."
Logic, the process of reason, reason based on principles and facts, is the word.
Fact: we have open college campuses, with law enforcement response times of approximately ten _minutes_ when it is known there is no danger to those same law enforcement agents.
Fact: laws do not prevent criminal action.
Therefore, doing away with already unConstitutional prohibitions on efficient self-defense tools (where it involves schools funded with tax dollars, at the least) will tip the balance from where we are now - a nation at the mercy of criminals who do not care about laws such as "do not murder" - towards a situation where personally responsible individuals, who have weighed their options carefully and whom have determined that they will not delegate their personal well-being to a slow, faceless uniform, to not only provide an instant deterrent to violent crime against the individual, but also within the immediate vicinity of that individual.
Neither do I require readers to take my words on mere faith alone...
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/ccrkba-says-press-purposely-downplays-key-role-of-armed-student,306928.shtml
... for such a situation already exists, and it saves lives.
I do also believe that the situation involving schools in Israel is an excellent example of what we need to accomplish here in the USA.
Wish I could have been more heavily involved (not that my input would have been all that useful), but the stuff going on in Illinois fairly consumed me today.
Speaking of which, HB 758 (a virtual ban of private handgun sales) failed today--by a razor thin, two vote margin. That was probably their best shot (no pun intended), and I'm cautiously optimistic that they may not even try the other disarmament bills they've been pushing.
Man--I'm tired.
Well done David. It is so cool to see your work published in The NY Times. I also left a comment on the Times page, it should be up as soon as it is approved. This is very exciting. Great work on your part and I am glad to see your fine work for our cause get the exposure and credit it deserves.
A well done to all who have voiced there opinions, and a special thanks to David for letting us know so we could.
David, I think you did well holding up our end in this matter.You are attempting to debate with professional liars. When you refute one of their specious claims,rather than admit their error, they just shift to another specious claim. Your effort is worthwhile because readers can judge for themselves as to truthfullness. I have been active for 2cd Amendment issues since 1967. Until the advent of the internet, the mass media had a monopoly on opinion and used it to censor effective opposition. I quit writing letters to the editor when my 3 paragraph letter was published as a two paragraph letter, without acknowlegement that it had been edited. I realized then that they were not misguided and could not be reasoned with. I never stopped writing to my legislators, though. Perhaps that made a difference. A point that I like to emphasize is that a CHL is EVIDENCE of good character.
Sam Wilson
Looks like they stopped approving comments and went home for the night.
my comment on the lie in article:
"...if there were no guns, there would be no ability for anyone, law abiding or not, by mistake or on purpose to shoot another person."
Manda, just how are you proposing to accomplish this?
I wholeheartedly agree. If, or factually when, guns did not exist no one got shot, by a firearm. They may have gotten shot by an arrow or a crossbow bolt, they may have been stabbed with a knife, a sword or a pointy stick. Heck, they even got chopped up with axes and bludgeoned to death with maces, clubs, hammers etc...
How is that better? Honestly, I really do not understand how it is better to be killed or maimed by a hand held melee weapon than to be shot by a gun.
The difference, the ONLY real difference is that guns can be used by anyone, including the weak. Guns are the only tools that equalize the field. Otherwise, the strong dominate the weak, the strong and well-trained dominate everyone of lesser strength and training.
By your name I assume that you are a woman. Prior to effective, readily available repeating firearms women were regarded as barely better than property. Heck in many cases they were considered to be property. Do you wish to return to those days?
The fact of the matter is that firearms are an old, well established technology. People can manufacture firearms with hand tools. They are not going anywhere. Unless of course you can find a genie and wish them out of existence.
The only thing that can be done is to restrict them to certain classes of people. Oddly enough restricting weapons has been done before. It tends to create unpleasant living conditions for the majority of the populace.
Unrestricted access allows people to take responsibility for their own safety. It also causes them to take responsibility for their actions.
I weighed in, some did not appear and I was on my good behavior too.
You done good David.
I saw nothing to refute any point you made except for poorly grounded emotion.
Let us hope that readers on the fence can tell the difference between unfounded feelings and fact.
Bravo.
C.H.
As usual, my hat's off to you David.
A job well done. I read every essay and commented on a couple (too late, possibly.)
Thanks for going to bat for us with such class and quality.
Thank you, David for giving us an excellent base for our follow up arguments. I think it makes a much bigger impact when several people support your arguments than the normal all of us trying to counter the article.
David, I noticed that comments to you were almost completely favorable, while the anti-gunners were pretty much taken to task by their commenters.
Yep--I think the preponderence of well-reasoned and irrefutable logic from our side kept them at bay and allowed me to focus on the task at hand--just think how miserable it would have been if I'd have had not only the panelists to contend with, but also hostile jeering from the crowd. The fact that the other invitees outnumbered me while you all outnumbered their supporters ought to be an object lesson we all can learn from.
David, thank you for stating the simple truth so plainly and responsibly. As others have noted, you were not only the sole pro-self-defense on the panel, but the only one who offered any plan other than "more of what hasn't worked yet, only harder".
The desirability of armed self defense was also the only issue that drew substantial comments. Even mental health questions, including inadequate hospitalization and inappropriate medication, drew no more than a few random, non specific responses.
And, yes, the almost total silence of gun-grab supporters is very striking. I'm torn between thinking there just weren't any, and thinking that none of them spoke coherently or politely enough to make it through moderation.
Again, thanks for speaking for all of us. I hope Those Who Would Rule were listening.
Post a Comment