Joe Olson: Your Argument is Invalid

On Monday February 4th Joe Olson, a Law Professor at Hamline University, offered a rebuttal to President Barack Obama’s address in North Minneapolis concerning gun violence.

The elements that follow in quotes are transcriptions that I have made of the interview he gave to MPR after the President’s remarks.

I did hear him being very careful to talk that people are supporting universal background checks without mentioning that the question they’re asked is do you support universal background checks.

I’m offering this particular nugget, without comment.

They’re not asked the question they should be asked which is do you support a universal background check that results in you and your rifle being registered on a list that is kept by the federal government forever.

F-O-R-E-V-E-R and don’t forget it.

Every time we have seen a registration list if you ask NRA members and other gun owners do you want to be on a government registration list they react exactly the same way Canadians have.

It’s amazing to me that this gentleman is actually a professor at an accredited local university because it took only three sentences before he managed to sound like a gun industry shill.

You always have a description of a bill that’s so broad that anyone would agree with it. And then you read the details of the bill and you say oh my god, no one would agree with that. But you have to read the bill in order to reach that level of conclusion. And the President is a real master at manipulating low information voters.

The above paragraph is an actual quote from an actual law professor at Hamline University.

And if I wasn’t mistaken, I would think it was his words that were aimed at low information voters. Because people with information would quickly realize this guy should not be allowed anywhere near a microphone, much less near the minds of our impressionable youth.

Anyone who is in the slightest way connected to the drug trade and can get cocaine by the pound can get any firearm he wants delivered by the same seller.

Again, this is a Law Professor at Hamline University who is apparently intimately familiar with how to deal with cocaine dealers. “Eight-ball” is apparently Joe Olson’s nickname around the campus.

The same thing is true of people like Adam Lanza. If you’re willing to shoot someone three times in the face to get their guns, then you’re going to get their guns.

If you’re willing to do something, you’ve done it.

Here we have a Law Professor, who is making the case that if a person is willing to do something, then they have done it.

This of course means that Sunday evening during the Super Bowl halftime show, millions of American men, myself included, had sexual relations with Beyonce.

Because if you’re willing to do something, you’ve done it. This is what the Law Professor would have us believe. I know this is getting old, but this crazy person who is saying all these crazy things… this crazy person is a Law Professor at Hamline University.

In case that hadn’t already been made clear.

One of the problems is the definition of mass shooting is four or more dead people…

In the eyes of Joe Olson, Law Professor at Hamline University, the problem with mass shootings isn’t the mass shootings themselves. No, they are but a mere trifle. The real problem with mass shootings is in fact the definition of mass shootings.

The four person cut-off, according to Joe Olson, Law Professor at Hamline University, is just not a good definition. And isn’t that the real tragedy here? If we just changed the definition of mass shooting, that would solve the problem of mass shootings.

Seriously, this is his argument.

And again, this man is a Law Professor. At Hamline University.

No. There are probably no efforts that the government can undertake, there’s efforts that individual citizens can undertake. You can have people at the company who are armed and who are prepared to deal with an armed threat if it comes in.

This is the same argument that has been made by the NRA, “the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

Except when the good guy with the gun can’t stop the bad guy with the gun, of course.

In many situations, I’m not going to discuss the signage case in particular. In many situations that threat has been recognized. You know that a particular employee is going to take his termination very badly. And you should probably prepare for controlling him when he does take it very badly.

In other words, “it’s not my problem that you don’t want to get shot by your disgruntled employee. You should be packing heat!”

There’s no reason to regulate everyone who lives in Roseville and owns a firearm because some people who live in inner city Minneapolis believe that shooting other people improves their standing in the community.

So then there is also no reason to regulate everyone who lives in inner city Minneapolis and owns a car because some people who live in Roseville believe that driving a Hummer improves their standing in the community.

So we should get rid of all regulations on cars.

[Then comes an anecdote about the professor (again, I am unable to believe this gentleman is a professor of something, but there you have it) receiving an atta-boy from some random company he spoke at. The purpose of this aside, one can only imagine, is pure self-puffery.]

If all a person knew of Joe Olson is what they heard of him in this particular interview, they would be excused for thinking that after the interview was over Mr. Olson had to be taken back to his room in the adult home he stays at under constant supervision for fear he might hurt himself or others.

Surprisingly this is not the case. This man is actually a Law Professor at Hamline University (I may have mentioned that). He is allowed to roam free among the rest of us and shape the minds of our youth. A truly horrifying thought.