The Philadelphia Inquirer carried a letter from a reader (Ben Burrows) which refers to “the solution to gun violence“:

The solution to gun violence ultimately will be political. It will involve educating rural and urban gun owners on the reasons why they need different sets of rules for gun ownership.

Rural residents can be more than an hour away from law-enforcement help and may need to protect themselves with force before law enforcement arrives.

Got that? Rural areas should be permitted to use guns because if an individual in a rural area needs to protect himself, the cops can’t get there in time. So, the premise here is, if the cops can’t get to you in time to save you, you should be permitted a gun to allow you a chance to save yourself.

Now, that’s different from living in an urban area, where… well, I’ll let Mr. Burrows tell it:

Urban residents are threatened by concealed automatic and assault-style weapons favored by street gangs. The urban violence is aggravated by automobile drive-bys for escape in seconds – even with the availability of law enforcement in minutes.

See? In an urban area, the cops can get to you in minutes, which is too late, because you’re already dead, and the perpetrators are gone. So, since the cops can’t get to you in time to save you in an urban area, you should not be permitte… Hm. Wait a second here.

What’s the difference between the rural and urban areas again?

If the problem is that the urban areas have more automatic weapons, then I fail to see how new gun laws would help, since automatic weapons are already illegal.

We need to establish a legal framework that enables protection in rural areas without enabling the gun epidemic in poor urban areas.

What we need to worry about here is not the “gun epidemic” in poor urban areas. What we need to worry about is the crime epidemic in poor urban areas, and consider exactly what drives that epidemic. The easy answer, the one that many politicians would have us believe, is that guns cause the crime epidemic, but that simply is not the case.

( þ Classical Values)

Sony, you went wrong with your PS3

Matt and Ted’s search for answers leads them to take Mr. Bennet and his family hostage. While the modern day Mr. Bennet deals with this, flashbacks tell the story of his history with the organization.

This ended up being a great episode of Heroes. It was the first one that focused on a single storyline (well, two, but they involved the same character), and I think it’s all the stronger because of that.

Spoilers below.

More …

…as long as I approve of how you use it.

Until today, I’d never heard of Jim Zumbo. According to Wikipedia, he is “a firearms and hunting commentator and writer, and former Hunting Editor for Outdoor Life magazine. He hosted the program Jim Zumbo Outdoors on The Outdoor Channel and regularly wrote columns, books and blogs on the topic since 1962, joining Outdoor Life magazine full-time in 1978. Cabelas, Remington, Gerber Knives and many other hunting-related organizations sponsored Zumbo’s program or reprinted his words.”

A little more than a week ago, Zumbo wrote a post on his blog titled “Assault Weapons for Hunters?“, in which he said he felt that “assault rifles” (which he also called “terrorist rifles”) had no place in hunting. He followed that with the assertion that they should be banned. Gun-rights bloggers were, to say the least, upset about this. Kevin at The Smallest Minority has written several posts about it (Elmer Fudds: Our Own Worst Enemies, That Didn’t Take Long…, The Wedge Goes In Deeper, …).

Zumbo has since apologized, saying he didn’t realize how many people hunted with these guns. The apology, in many ways, indicates that Zumbo doesn’t really understand why his comments generated the firestorm that they did.

There is a tendency among some people to want to ban anything they don’t approve of. There are a huge number of entirely well-intentioned people who would make it illegal to use racial slurs, or to participate in “hate speech”. In many cases, these people would also say they support the right to free speech. What they mean is, “I support the right to free speech, provided I like what you say.”

That is essentially what Jim Zumbo has said here. “I support the right to bear arms, provided you use the guns I like, and you use them in ways I approve.” By framing his apology around the fact that he didn’t know how many hunters used these guns, he’s still saying that he supports your right to bear arms — as long as you use them to hunt.

Given that Zumbo is a fairly high profile gun owner, and that gun rights activists are already portrayed as “gun nuts”, it’s not at all surprising that those who actively support gun rights are up at arms (pardon the pun) about this.

You may have heard by now that Fox News has cancelled The Half Hour News Hour, which was, as I understand it, supposed to be their answer to The Daily Show. Now, I didn’t watch The Half Hour News Hour, but that is in part because nothing I saw made me think it would actually be amusing in the least, and not a single review I read after the fact made me regret that decision.

I suspect that you’ll hear people say that the problem with this show is that conservatives aren’t funny. Honestly, I don’t think that’s it. I could easily point out a half dozen very funny bloggers (Steve H., at Hog on Ice, for example) who are also conservative.

I will readily admit that I’m not funny. Well, I amuse myself, but that’s hardly the same thing at all. Still, I find it hard to believe that Fox News couldn’t find a few writers to make this show at least a little bit funny. Really, if you want an amusing conservative news show, here’s what you do: you report the facts.

For example, the New York Times reports that Republicans in the Senate narrowly rejected an effort to force a cloture vote intended to force debate. Once again: The New York Times, which anyone (who is liberal) will tell you is an unbiased news source, reports that Republicans in the Senate to reject a cloture vote intended to force debate. By definition, a cloture vote is designed to close a debate and cause an immediate vote.

So, you have your news anchor, who has to be able to deliver this perfectly, explaining that the New York Times has reported the cloture vote, its rejection by Republicans, and the fact that rejecting the cloture means that Republicans are stifling debate. Meanwhile, down at the bottom of the screen, you have the following pop up: “Clo•ture [kloh-cher]: a method of closing a debate and causing an immediate vote to be taken on the question.”

Report on Democratic Senator Carl Levin, who appeared on Fox News Sunday, where he said that if they couldn’t repeal the 2002 authorization to go to war, Democrats can come up with a bipartisan approach, such as a modification of the 2002 authorization that allows the use of troops in Iraq, but only as long as they’re not carrying out any combat missions. That reminds me of a sitcom commercial where a man says that he wanted to get a dog, and his wife wanted a cat, so they compromised… and got a cat.

Have an interview with a representative from a “pro-choice” group, and interview them until they say what they really believe: that choice should only be permitted when the people trying to force their will on women are on the right — if it’s a liberal telling you what to do, you should just roll over and obey, because they know what’s right for you.

I mean, come on — liberals say stupid, self-contradictory things every single day*. Yes, actually going out and hiring good comic writers would push the show from slightly amusing to laugh-out-loud hilarious, but you can get mildly amusing just by finding an anchor with good delivery who will report what liberals say as though it’s actually sensible. Then you slap a “satire” label on it, and there you go.

* To be fair, conservatives say stupid, self-contradictory things, too, and you can’t tell me that comedians on the left side of the political spectrum don’t take advantage of that fact.