The NRA paradise is here.

[Beet]

A newborn who was abducted from his dying mother after she was repeatedly shot outside a US pediatric centre was found safe hours later, according to Texan investigators who said the suspected shooter sped off with the infant in a blood-stained Lexus.
The three-day-old boy named Keegan was found about 8pm local time on Tuesday, about six hours after his mother, Kala Marie Golden, was fatally shot following a verbal altercation in a suburban Houston parking lot, Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon said.
Mr Ligon would not say where the infant was found, but he said it was not at a nearby apartment complex where officers wielding guns and riot shields searched earlier on Tuesday evening.

"The child is healthy. The father of the child is on his way to be reunited with the child," Mr Ligon told The Associated Press.
A person of interest has been detained though no charges have been filed, he said. He would not provide any details about the person.
Ms Golden was leaving an afternoon check-up with her Keegan when she had an argument with a woman in a Lexus parked next to her pick-up truck, Montgomery County sheriff's Lieutenant Dan Norris said.

Witnesses said the woman repeatedly shot Ms Golden, took the infant and sped away, hitting the dying mother as she screamed "my baby" and tried to reach into the Lexus, Lieutenant Norris said.
Witnesses also reported hearing as many as seven gunshots and said a man was also in the sky blue or light green Lexus, which was blood-stained on the driver's side, Norris said.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/my-baby-dying-mother-screams-out-for-newborn-as-shooter-speeds-off-with-threedayold-son-after-carpark-argument-20120418-1x6va.html#ixzz1sMneyHBX

[Beet]

In an NRA paradise the mother would have whipped out her own gun and shot the kidnapper and her accomplice dead before they got away.  Alas, the pediatric center probably trampled the mother's second amendment rights and would not let her carry a gun with her inside, thus leaving her vulnerable to this tragic murder/abduction.

That's the standard response. Except this happened outside. Since the shooting happened before the abduction, it would have to have been a Minority Report-style mind-reading operation. The problem with the idea of guns as defensive weapons is that they aren't. They're inherently offensive and designed to kill. If anyone can get shot just because they think someone else is about to shoot them, then it's open season on anyone, anywhere. After all, maybe the couple thought the mother was about to shoot the couple?

[Beet]

In an NRA paradise the mother would have whipped out her own gun and shot the kidnapper and her accomplice dead before they got away.  Alas, the pediatric center probably trampled the mother's second amendment rights and would not let her carry a gun with her inside, thus leaving her vulnerable to this tragic murder/abduction.

That's the standard response. Except this happened outside. Since the shooting happened before the abduction, it would have to have been a Minority Report-style mind-reading operation. The problem with the idea of guns as defensive weapons is that they aren't. They're inherently offensive and designed to kill. If anyone can get shot just because they think someone else is about to shoot them, then it's open season on anyone, anywhere. After all, maybe the couple thought the mother was about to shoot the couple?

If guns are banned inside, the mother could hardly carry a gun from her car to the door, could she?  Also, the mother reportedly lived at least long enough to scream "my baby" and try to reach into the getaway car, so in the NRA paradise, while the mother would still be dead, she'd be able to do in the malfeasants before she died of her wounds.   

No, because she had already reached her car and she could have pulled a gun from it. Also, we don't know that she wasn't armed. Maybe she did have a concealed weapon but was too wounded to pull it out, aim and fire. Or maybe she just didn't see the point. Or maybe she was afraid she'd accidentally hit her baby, and chose to forego vengeance to reduce danger to her baby.

Anyway, in the fake NRA paradise, three people are dead, while in the actual NRA paradise, only one person is dead. I hardly see one the former is less horrific than the latter.

[Beet]

The biggest mistake the gun control lobby ever made was pushing for generally ineffective and not much more than symbolic legislation like the Brady Bill and Assault Weapons Ban or defending things like the DC handgun ban. This allowed the NRA to basically win the debate by using this as proof gun control doesn't work. The fact that there has been virtually no effect whatsoever on gun crime before and after the expiration of the AWB doesn't necessarily prove that a better worded less loophole filled law wouldn't have an effect on reducing gun crime, but because of that fact you now have plenty of people believing things like "Well I don't really like guns but I don't see the point in tightening the laws against them because doing so doesn't work in reducing crime." Similarly the reasons why DC couldn't simply couldn't ban handguns and expect it to work are quite obvious, but the fact that the gun control lobby pushed so hard against repeal of that and bothered to fight the court challenge kind of discredited them in the eyes of the swing voter, including many people who don't ever want to buy a handgun but would see banning the sale of them in their own state to be pretty silly.

Now I don't think anecdotes like this either are a good argument for gun control, but the fact that the gun control lobby has to resort to them instead of stats is telling. They can't defend the failure of basically every gun control law in the last two decades or that they've already cried wolf too many times (I remember Brady/Million Mom press releases before the expiration of the AWB about how if it was allowed to expire the streets would flow with blood and all that, doomsaying that was about as accurate as the Y2K doomsaying.) One could make a case that had more to do with them being bad laws, rather than all gun control laws being bad laws, but like it or not it's the reason the NRA won the debate and why the public isn't going to accept "more gun laws = less crime".

Well do you think that there could be gun laws that are designed better, and if so, how?

In any case, as I've said before, my point is posting these things is more because I dislike the arguments that the anti-gun control people come up when these stories are brought up than to push for any specific gun laws. Their arguments are faulty and radical. I'm not necessarily pushing for any particular law. I mostly just disagree with the notion that more people walking around with handguns = a safer, better society. I'd be fine simply with repeal of the Stand Your Ground laws (which aren't even about the right to keep and bear arms), the freezing of the status quo in terms of actual gun laws, and the reopening of federal funding for gun studies.

[Beet]

In the US? Probably not. The gun culture I find pretty ridiculous, but it can't be legislated out of existence. It'd be just as much a failure as the War on Drugs.

Well okay then. You blame the gun control lobby for designing bad laws, but you admit that they wouldn't have been able to do better. But I agree that gun culture can't be legislated out of existence, and that it would be extremely foolish to try. The gun control lobby definitely overreached in the '90s.

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Yeah, I guess the gun control lobby is too ideological and extreme in the other direction. I just don't notice them because they don't have any power except in big cities.