I assume that all of you have heard about the tragic van attack in Toronto that took ten innocent lives and injured fifteen. Politicians around the world have offered the usual thoughts and prayers. My friends that is simply not enough. These attacks will not end until we ban the van.
These behemoths of the road are always potential engines of mass destruction, whether used deliberately for that purpose or accidentally. Please do not respond in opposition to a common sense ban on vans by citing some mythical right to use the mode of transportation of our choice. Our ancestors rode on carriages powered by a horse. Two at most. They did not intend for us to use fully automatic transmission with engines capable of making cars go 120 mph. NOBODY, AND I MEAN NOBODY, in a civilized society needs to have a vehicle with a 10 speed automatic transmission or even a 7 speed automatic transmission.
In cities around the globe bollards are being placed along streets to prevent rogue vans from suddenly mowing down pedestrians. How much more rational to simply ban the van.
Please don’t give me the sophistical argument that vans serve a useful purpose. We have alternative means of transportation, including shank’s mare, and if just one life is saved, a ban on vans is completely justified. In 2016 there were over five million automobile collisions in the US, many involving vans, with a stunning 37,000 fatalities, with the maimed and injured numbering in the hundreds of thousands. It is time for this carnage to cease, now!
I can hear the counterargument that if we outlaw vans only outlaws will have vans. Precisely! Easier for law authorities to confiscate them and imprison the malefactors. It is time to take a stand for our lives, and the lives of our children! Vote out of office all van loving politicians, in thrall to the money from the merchants of death, the manufacturers of these blood stained vans.
Ban the Van! Ban the Van! Ban the Van!
As this old timer (and 1967 VW bus owner) recalls, somewhat ironically, it was indeed a leftist (Ralph Nader) that proposed this exact thing many decades ago. The reality is though, that it is also the leftist attempt at confiscating innocent citizen’s gun that have probably made them the greatest gun salespeople in our history.
It’s easy to be a liberal in the USA. Every NRA member and law-abiding gun owner is guilty of any and all gun violence.
The Toronto mass murderer hasn’t a Muslim name, yet the PD hasn’t reported a motive for the vannacre that killed ten.
It will all be worth when we can save one life . . . We must register, license, require 100% background checks, etc. for every Muslim.
The left’s gun confiscation hysteria is fairly low, at number seven, on the list if causes for the impending civil war.
Typical leftist nonsense. Clearly law enforcement and the military should be allowed to have vans. The waiting period for renting vans should be longer than currently in force. Limiting the horse-power may also help. Why, Don, must you always overreact?
I would hope to interject the voice of reason, here. Need we ban all vans? The van used in Toronto is a scary looking van. I think it is an assault van. We need an assault van-ban, man!
We could try an assault van ban initially I suppose, but only if Meryl Streep approves.
Ban Liberials!
For them; A mind is a terrible thing.
I see your point, but really not a good analogy. It’s comparing capability with design…what can kill to what is designed to kill.
Ah, but guns are not merely designed to kill Ben. Most guns used defensively are never fired. The apprehension of the Toronto mad vanner is a good example. Of course the vast majority of guns are never used to kill anyone. With over 300 million firearms in this country, we had most recently 33,000 firearm fatalities in this country in 2014 and two-thirds of those were suicides. Almost all firearms are used for nonlethal purposes, just like most vans.
The most destructive “assault weapon” is that of mindless liberalism assaulting the moral sanity of the population.
“Our ancestors rode on carriages powered by a horse. Two at most.”
Until the four-in-hand rigging was devised in the 19th century
Guns are designed to enable precise, deadly force at range. Not the same thing as designed to kill people.
Being able to bypass both natural and tactical advantages makes deadly force less valuable, and reduces the value of offering a deadly threat.
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The reason this isn’t a good comparison is because people have actually been calling for it, for years.
“Big vehicles” being blamed for crashes– even when they are not at fault, even when someone hit them. Calls for special licensing, outlawing moving vans…. (my dear husband puts up with my pointing out that it’s not that being able to drive a small car doesn’t make you able to drive a moving truck, it’s that a sizable number of people can’t drive, and a moving truck just makes it more obvious)
I see your point, but really not a good analogy. It’s comparing capability with design…what can kill to what is designed to kill.
No, but not a bad analogy in other respects. The ownership and operation of firearms and motor vehicles are extensively regulated. The gross cost of having these implements about is manifest. However, we also understand that those gross costs are at this juncture fairly insensitive in their levels to additional increments of regulation. Where they differ is that as we speak, alternative avenues to reducing the gross cost of firearms prevalence are known and available. In regard to vans, that’s not the case except for marginal improvements.
I can see “someone” proposing that self driving rental trucks be banned and that all rentals be driven by a hired driver provided by the rental company.
I can see “someone” proposing that self driving rental trucks be banned and that all rentals be driven by a hired driver provided by the rental company.
That’s exactly what the twits doing the “discussion*” came up with. Everyone should have to use moving services, because gosh moving vans are just too dangerous.
* is it really a discussion when there isn’t any disagreement?
Where they differ is that as we speak, alternative avenues to reducing the gross cost of firearms prevalence are known and available.
Worse, based on the evidence, the gross cost is increased by the regulations on them.
The vast majority of spree shootings have been in areas where the targets were not allowed to have weapons, and I know more people killed using illegal, improvised or personal weapons while waiting for permission to have a firearm than those unjustly killed with a firearm.
(Thus the note that everyone having the ability to project deadly force makes offering it much less valuable.)
Father Mitch Pacwa on EWTN this morning said that the translation of the Fifth Commandment is “Thou shalt not kill with stealth.”; laying in wait for the unsuspecting victim and taking his life, homicide in the first degree. This is the problem for the court to decide. Did the van owner, any and all van owners and gun owners, lay in wait for their victims and take their lives?
Ban the vans…absolutely.
In the UK guns have been banned and the plea in court of self defense has also been banned…because…? Murder by knives has quadrupled in the UK. By all means ban the vans.
I worked with a murderer who ran down an old woman to watch her die pinned to a building. He bragged about it. I was almost run down on the street but luckily I could outrun the car. Ban the vans. I will sign the petition.
All rental vans should be “my pillow”-ized with king size pillows on the front at least 3 to 4 deep, up and around the window. And they should be the firmest pillows possible.
Reminder…
Van = possession
Arms = right
A God – given right.
No one needs permission (i.e. a permit) to exercise a right.