Anti-Gun Writer Claims Conservatives Are "Delusional" About Guns

Well, we can give political blogger Dale Hansen of the Detroit News this much credit: he knows how to generate click-bait, even though he apparently knows almost nothing about firearms, firearms laws, or the Constitution.

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His recent contribution to the Huffington Post, Conservatives are Delusional About Facts on Guns managed to get nearly every “fact” he chose to contest incorrect… a truly impressive feat of incompetence.

In an attack designed to attack Fox News personalities, Hansen claims:

Of course the bigger problem here is that Gutfeld is convinced that his version of reality represents facts. Is it true that since 1950 only one or two mass shootings have occurred in non-gun-free zones? The shootings at Fort Hood and the Washington Naval Base are two recent mass shootings which clearly don’t fit the “gun-free” profile.

The reality, of course, is that Hansen is utterly, laughably wrong.

Military bases are “gun free zones.” Concealed carry is banned outright, firearms are strictly regulated outside of firing ranges and armories, and only police and soldiers on special duty have access to guns.

It gets worse.

Not to be outdone, Gutfeld’s colleague Eric Bolling adds his own misinformation to the mix when he stated: “You want facts, here are the facts. Since 1993 gun ownership has gone up by 50 percent. In that same period of time the murder rate has gone down by 50 percent”. The only problem with this “fact” is that it suggests this correlation represents causation. If Bolling thinks that things are getting better, he might also want to point out that in 1977 over 50% of households owned a gun while in 2014 that number had fallen to 31 percent. Perhaps the causation here is that there are less murders now because less people have access to guns.

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The one “fact” Hansen does get correct in his entire piece is the statement that correlation does not equal causation. We should congratulate him for getting at least this generalization correct.

Unfortunately, he steps in “it” again when attempts to cite General Social Survey (GSS) as “proof” that gun ownership is declining. As we’ve discussed previously, the GSS is an outlier, and all other available data shows that gun ownership is the highest it has ever been in American history, in terms of absolute numbers, in terms of per capita numbers, and in terms of penetration into specific demographic groups, including young, female and urban shooters.

Hansen then goes off the rails yet again, stating:

But making matters worse is when this group, arguing against gun control, held up the stop and frisk policy in New York as a success because as Gutfeld said “it is a fairly obvious point — stop and frisk gets guns — that prevents gun crime.” Amazingly, Gutfeld isn’t even aware how he completely contradicted himself. While arguing that more guns equals less crime he admits that he supports a “fairly obvious” policy of taking people’s guns because in his words “that prevents gun crime.” This is exactly the argument that gun rights advocates have been making for years. The only difference is, Gutfeld believes that race should play a part in determining who is allowed to have a gun.

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Hansen’s statement is irrational, disjointed and illogical.

Whatever your feelings on “stop and frisk,” the intent and application of the program was to look for cues in individual behavior—what poker players call “tells”—that strongly suggest someone is carrying an illegal firearm. Hansen’s assertion that, “Gutfeld believes that race should play a part in determining who is allowed to have a gun” seems to be nothing more than his own projection.

Thanks for letting us know what you really think of minorities, Dale.

To round out this bit of absurdity, he then provides an idea of how he would effectively disarm the American people.

The good news is there is a compromise available. The word “arms” in the constitution has not been specifically defined, which means it is open to interpretation. Instead of trying to outlaw guns, gun control advocates should simply outlaw the manufacture and sale of bullets. The second amendment would remain intact while gun deaths would fall dramatically. If legislators are uncomfortable with this option, the same thing could be accomplished by increasing the taxes on guns and bullets making them unaffordable for many of the mentally unstable individuals that commit these mass murders. Either way everyone wins.

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Yes, Dale Hansen, constitutional scholar and political blogger, truly thinks that an outright ban on the manufacture and sale of ammunition, or their punitive taxation, are remotely constitutional, politically possible, and practically implementable.

Amusingly, despite all of his illusions, he thinks that we’re the “gun nuts.”

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