Well, I think it is fair to say that Joan Peterson, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence Ownership board member and weblog writer under the moniker of “Japete”, has finally gone of the deep end. Honestly, it took longer than I was expecting.
In the space of two days, Joan banned Sean Sorrentino for his heinous use of facts to support his argument, and then turns around and speciously accuses him of harassment and libel when he finds information concerning her sister’s murderer.
The fact that most murderers have at least one prior criminal conviction is so plain and obvious, we are not even going to address it, except to wonder why it is that Joan is incapable of understanding that 70% is a majority. Is an inability to perform basic mathematical functions a requirement for being an anti-rights nut?
Moving on, I would normally agree that digging up information on people’s carbon lives is something of a no-no for interpersonal relationships on the cortex, except for one small detail: Joan Peterson has made it clear, time and time again, that the primary reason she is looking for any and all methods to abridge, infringe, and limit our Second Amendment-protected rights is her sister’s murder (a crime perpetrated by the sister’s husband). With that in mind, it only seems fair for us to be as informed about the incident as she is, and it is only common sense for us to research the murder and the situation around it. But, worse still, Joan has used her ex-brother-in-law’s supposedly clean record as a vehicle to insinuate that all firearm owners are supposed potential murderers who are only a brief snap of their sanity away from shooting people they know.
Except for one small detail: her brother-in-law’s record was far from clean, and if our judicial system was worth a damn, he probably would not have been eligible to own a firearm for years before he murdered Joan’s sister, and definitely would have spent the years afterwards in very uncomfortable facilities.
So for having the nerve to point out that her sister’s murderer was nowhere near pure-as-the-driven-snow the fateful day when he pulled the trigger, Sean is now faced with bans, accusations, and threats from Joan Peterson. Does that sound like the actions of a rational person?
To someone of a sound mind, Barbara Berglund’s murder, and the handling of the case afterwards, presents an overwhelming reason to cast a scrutinizing eye on the Minnesota judicial system, and work on some rather significant overhauls of the same – it is only common sense, given that it is conjectured that Russell Lund Jr. repeatedly escaped both conviction and trial on the basis of his money and his family’s position in the community (and, finally, his eventual suicide). Instead, Joan takes the path of the absurd, and goes on a single-minded crusade to blame the inanimate tool and remove it from society. Does that sound like the actions of a rational person?
Much like other pro-rights webloggers, I lost interest in Joan Peterson a while ago… especially after exposing her misappropriation of a simple phrase and debunking every single one of her arguments in a single post, but this recent turn of events is important to highlight.
This is the face of hoplophobia – a woman who is so blinded by her own personal pain and fear that she would strip you of your Constitutionally-protected rights by any means available.
This is the face of the Brady Campaign – an individual who would violently deny basic facts that are substantiated by repeated research from wholly impartial authorities.
This is the face of modern “gun control” – a person who would threaten others with “libel” suits for daring to publish known information regarding her sister’s deceased murderer.
Is this starting to damage your calm a little? It should.
The strange thing is, I have no interest in Joan’s “carbon life.” I don’t know her address, and I only know her name because the early posts on her blog were posted with her real name as author. The only person I’m trying to find out about is the murderer. It’s strange to me that she would have a problem with that.
Damage my calm… I like that.. Firefly reference? Go figure…
For the record, I promise I didn’t read this until after I posted my article. I think you make better points, but the topics intersect. With a nut like Joan, I don’t see how we couldn’t though.
What damages my calm is how many rights we’ve lost to these backwards bigots, and how much work it’ll take to restore sanity to this country.
Its really shameful.
Honestly, I wrote and scheduled this morning’s post about an hour before I read yours. I didn’t change a thing.
I think it is time we start reclaiming what is common sense.
Your graphic showing gun owners and criminals highlights this perfectly.
Is it common sense to try to manage 280,000,000 firearms or the 500,000 or so people committing violent crimes?
The truth hurts and the Lund’s, japete’s ex bro-in-law’s family are money.
Lot of money.
In fact they were having a disagreement over Lund’s 11 Millions Dollar fortune when he killed them.
So tell me if this incident had not occured in japete’s life.
Would she even give a crap about guns and gun control?
These stories about all her “friends” being victim’s of gun violence must have occurred outside Minnesota or she most know all 60 or so gangbangers shot by each other in the Twin Cities yearly…and there was a lot less “gun” violence back when her ex bro in law shot her sister.
And would someone please explain how a “gun” creates “violence”. In fact how does any inanimate object create anything? Unless a person is involved!!
Sean D Sorrentino - I am honestly not tracking her defensiveness regarding her murdering ex-brother-in-law either… I mean, I can somewhat understand families defending their own, but when their own are murdering their own… how the hell does that work?
I guess that makes about as much sense as accusing someone of libel when they post known facts concerning the situation…
Patrick - I have to give the woman credit for something… she has provided a lot of good people a lot of good blogfodder.
Weer’d Beard - Unfortunately, fear and insanity appear to be contagious… or at least pervasive. Until we can adequately help people like Joan, we are going to be facing assaults against our rights and our persons until we finally punch our tickets, and that is a damned shame.
Bob S. - “Common sense” appears to be the latest fatality to the unending assault of the anti-rights nuts against the English language… First we had “Saturday night specials”, then “assault weapons”, and so on, and so forth…
Given the common sense applications of keeping dangerous, violent people locked up for as long as possible, you really have to wonder why the anti-rights nuts are so opposed to it.
Maddmedic - I was starting to wonder if all of those stories are fabrications myself… Granted, the Brady Bunch has a particularly scummy habit of co-opting victims in order to exploit them and their stories, so it would make sense that Joan would know a greater number of them than an average person, but it still seems a little overly stilted
In Lund’s case, it appears to be definitely a matter of money and influence, and he was not even the bright one of the family… Just goes to show how useless our “justice” system has become.
I frankly just don’t get it.
I have the comments on that post in the RSS reader so I can see what else is said (since I can’t participate). Chris posted some really good talking points (several I could never agree or compromise on, but others I might be willing to yield, if his terms were met. The very definition of compromise. She still won’t give anything. She can’t talk about it. As if she actually IS the mouthpiece for the Brady organization. She is willing to take those points and give to her people though… As if they actually had power to enact change. This coming from a woman who openly admits that the NRA actually decides everything. Isn’t that a contradiction in thought? Oh wait. That is the very definition of Joan.
And of course, we have Sparky mouthing off again, and she allows it.
This proves my posted point that she doesn’t have a cohesive thought in her head about what she actually thinks. She can’t talk about anything until she phones the mother ship to find out what she should be thinking. What rubbish.
“She can’t talk about anything until she phones the mother ship to find out what she should be thinking.”
One of the commenters said that she sounded like two different people, one in the main post, a different on in comments. Maybe she is copy-pasting the transmissions from the mother ship to make her posts, and then being totally incoherent in comments.
Patrick wrote:
That is the part that really amuses/gets to me… The woman will spew forth all kinds of ideas for furthering hers and her organization’s anti-rights goals, but when people start offering up reasons why those ideas will not work, or ideas of items for the anti-rights nuts to give up in order to achieve true compromise, she immediately falls back on some permutation of, “Well, I cannot get into the specifics of it, and have no control over it, so there is no point discussing it.”
Then why the frak are you even talking about it, you gorramed idiot? And why are you acting like you can decide these very important points in your posts, and then crawling away in sheer terror of actual discussion in your comments?
I honestly think she never expected to receive any kind of pro-rights comments, and is now trapped into leaving them, lest we expose her for the complete fraud she is – sure, she moderates, but she allows some comments, and, according to her bastardized logic, that is a “compromise”.
@ Sean Sorrentino: That could also be a very compelling explanation… She is fed talking points and scripts, but when left to her lonesome, she simply cannot hold up her end of a conversation. I wonder if she is like this in person, too?
“I honestly think she never expected to receive any kind of pro-rights comments”
I think that she genuinely thought that she would be speaking to that group of people that the EVIL NRA doesn’t speak for. She honestly thought that she was part of the “vast majority” of “common sense” people, and if we were just exposed to her sensible solutions, we would jump on the bandwagon.
She’s missing two critical points though. The internet is like real life. People self select. The “vast majority” generally have no opinion on things, so they don’t end up here. Secondly, there is no “vast majority” in favor of “common sense” gun control, or in fact, any gun control at all once it is explained to them. I imagine that she is genuinely confused why she is so outnumbered. Between her, and her anti-rights wacko “friends” and the strange middle case Brent, she’s still outnumbered 20 to one.
She actually thinks that if she was able to talk to us in complete sentences that we would abandon our “bumper sticker logic” for her “common sense.” She is apparently unaware that the slogan on the bumper sticker is just the tip of the rhetorical iceberg. We can’t put “I own a gun to defend myself and my family, for recreation and sport, and, if they get too stupid in Washington, DC, to kill all those sunsobitches who, by their actions, have shown them to be enemies, domestic. And Zombies.” We have to shorten it to “You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead hands.” We all know what it really means, but that’s too many words to read safely while driving at 70 MPH.
It is interesting to note that her weblog received at most about 25 comments before Joe Huffman shined the spotlight on her… And she has been writing since March of this year. I think, if I were to check my archives, I received more comments than that…
And, to be fair, both sides have the problem of echo chambers (or, as you say, we self-select)… We get to thinking that most people would support unlicensed open carry because we do, and the other side gets to thinking that most people would support assault weapon bans because they do. Then, when those opinions get shown the light of day, the reality starts to set in.
Did she really try to light into our “bumper sticker” logic? Must have missed that, and just as well… Sounds like we need to start renting billboards, though
.
I don’t think that she ever said “bumper sticker logic” ever, but it is a common gun grabber theme. I’d love to see Oleg Volk photos on billboards.
Hm. We would have to choose carefully, lest we end up being blamed for far too many accidents…