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I grew up in a western community where guns were in almost every home. No problems, no killings, no accidents. The real problem is a general social breakdown, where criminals do have guns, and others are afraid of them.

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Civilized people living in civilized places don't carry with them the means of killing strangers and innocent bystanders. When you tame Dodge City, you do it by disarming everybody and leaving the police with a monopoly on weaponry.

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The only people who need me to "prove" I'm not a "right-wing nut" are people who are so fanatically left-wing that they can't tell a moderate from a cinderblock.

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I think that you have to look at gun control in context, because there really are only two reasons to use a gun:

1. Hunting for food.
2. Killing (defense, offense, justified, whatever)

How many of us need to do either of these?

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Suppose we do successfully keep guns out of the hands of criminals. (I seriously doubt that's possible either; banning drugs hasn't stopped them from becoming widespread.) They'll just find something else to use as a weapon. Are we going to end up banning all objects that can be used to kill someone or pose a threat if not handled with care?

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Originally posted by lynn johnson:
Gun control: Relax, focus on the sights lining up, and breathe out slowly. Squeeze the trigger. If you blink, you miss.

Now that is gun control!

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Posted by RunningBear (Member # 8477) on :
 

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By no means is this meant to stir up an argument or debate on gun control, I'm just curious if anyone can point me to anything of substance on Mr. Card's views on the subject.

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The bit about revolutions is ridiculous; what are you going to do against a modern military?

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seems to be working for the "insurgents" in Iraq.

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In what sense is it "working" for the "insurgents" in Iraq?

Sure, it's causing lots of mayhem. It's killing a lot of people - mostly Iraqis.

They're objective is overthrowing the first democratically elected government in Iraq in decades and, as best I can tell, that government still exists.

What, exactly, is "working" for them?
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
Because the media is willing to report on even a trivial number of casualties, the importance of hand guns and even knives has returned.
 

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Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 
I agree with OSC. Especially about the Dodge City comparison. Or maybe I've just seen Wyatt Earp one time too many .

And what good could having a single rifle do to fight off an enemy? In the revolution scenario, you imagine that the people you're fighting are the American army right?

Start with this, the first thing they do is find every gun registry in the area, and find all the local gun owners. Your houses are first on the chopping block. That still leaves plenty of guns, and especially with hunters, maybe only with hunters, people who know how to use them. It's one thing for there to be insurgents with AKs running around the streets trying to spray American tanks and such with bullets hoping for a hit. It's quite another to have Americans hiding out all over the place waiting to pick off enemy soldiers with rifles and high powered scopes.

Handguns are one thing. Rifles are another. A society that owns a lot of rifles like that is a nation of snipers in the making. If I were one, I'd make it my mission to kill one enemy soldier a day. Just one. If everyone in the nation made that their goal, either everyone being occupied ends up dead really fast, or the occupation ends really fast. But the situation wouldn't be nearly the same as it is currently in Iraq.

I don't think people should carry concealed weapons. Keeping a loaded pistol in your home in a lockbox with the safety on, that's something I could probably get behind. It's easily accessible, but not dangerous to other family members. Hunting rifles I believe in too.

But ALL assault rifles are totally without necessity. I don't necessarily think that we should be a nation totally without guns, but I also don't think there is an unlimited right to own a small armory in your home.
 

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Posted by Kenif (Member # 9629) on :
 
Living in the UK, I can't fathom living in a nation with such relaxed gun laws as the US.
 

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Posted by vonk (Member # 9027) on :
 
When I worked at Eckerd's about 10 years ago there was a pharmacist who was looking to trade his AK-47 for a motorcycle. He carried it in his trunk wherever he went, just in case he met someone that wanted to trade. As far as I know, no one got hurt. I'm not sure what point this makes, but I thought it was pretty odd at the time.
 

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Posted by Sevenar (Member # 9660) on :
 
I think that's one of the biggest reasons I respect Mr. Card. Even when I disagree with him on a point, I at least know that he has indeed weighed the opposite viewpoint and leaves open the possibility that he might change his view, given convincing new evidence or argument.

Where I differ from OSC in this case is that his viewpoint makes the tacit assumption that the police can adequately defend the people. If this were true, then yes, his version of gun control would be tenable. By extension, it would also mean that the world would be safe if all nuclear weapons were under the control of the UN.

Any idea with utopian elements (like Communism or Libertarianism) ultimately fails because human beings simply are not perfect and never will be. In the gun control case, crime still happens because people are not perfect. It happens because there can never be enough policemen to guarantee everyone's safety 24 hours a day (the horrors of a police state are worse than open access to guns). It happens because power does tend to corrupt imperfect human beings--even the police.

Guns cannot reasonably be replaced as defense weapons because of the equalization factor--bullets travel the same whether fired by a 25-year old Marine sharpshooter or a 90-year old WWII veteran. The same cannot be said for a baseball-bat fight. In the ten minutes it takes for a policeman to respond to a home invasion call, a strong criminal could beat every weaker resident to death with a golf club and scoot out the back door before the cop could shoot him. Without guns, there is truly an "arms" gap--and its that bit between the wrist and the shoulder--not weapons.

Now, to be fair to Mr. Card, our society actually is tame enough, for the most part, for the danger of accidental shootings to be greater than the danger from aggravated assault. Still, accidents happen with perfectly innocuous tools as well--traffic fatalities account for as many deaths each year as were lost by the United States during the entire Vietnam War.

The key to manageable gun ownership is the same as the key to manageable car ownership--reasonable licensing restrictions and focused training. Children should be exposed to the realities of guns at an early age to reduce curiosity-based or media-induced accidents. Dad started training me at 8. A friend trained his boy at 5 in pretty much the same way: take a good sized pistol (not a .22), go out to an outdoor range, and shoot a couple of times at paper bulls-eye targets only. The BOOM of a .357 Magnum round, coupled with the realization that the only resultant "kewl destruction" being a hole punched in a sheet of paper that didn't even look like a man, tends to sour a kid on gunslinger fantasies in a hurry. (People who train kids with .22s shattering bottles and exploding soda cans ought to be thrown in jail. All that does is teach kids that guns make funny things happen, so they want to show their friends when Daddy's not home...)

I readily admit that my plan also falls victim to the imperfect-human flaw. ("Hey, Johnny! I bought ya a .22! Grab that 6-pack of Fresca out of the fridge and hop in the car, we's a-gonna-go blow sh*t up!" "YAAAAY!") Yet, in the absence of live-in policemen, a gun in the hands of a properly-instructed individual is about all the protection one can reasonably exercise.

In my opinion,
Sev
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 

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Yet, in the absence of live-in policemen, a gun in the hands of a properly-instructed individual is about all the protection one can reasonably exercise.

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Guerrila tactics, IED's, and VASTLY more manpower than the military. . . seems to be working for the "insurgents" in Iraq. Why couldn't it be done here?

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Well, IEDs do not require access to guns, I would note. And it's a good IED that will stop a modern tank.

'Vastly more manpower'; why would you assume that? If you've really got 100% of the population behind you, then it's pretty safe to assume that the military won't be fighting you anyway; they're recruited from the same population, after all. Even in your war of independence, surely the textbook example of wide popular support, the population was about 33% Tory. I don't think you'll find any revolution with actual fighting where the government had less support than that. And there's also a vast difference between 'supports the cause of X' and 'is willing to take potshots at their soldiers'.

Then again, it seems to me that you are assuming the same kind of government we have now, not willing to inflict civilian casualties; but if you're going to be fighting it at all, you would think it would be rather more repressive and generally evil, yes? (Which incidentally is why the 'one-soldier-a-day' someone mentioned wouldn't work. If I were in charge of pacifying a city, I'd take a leaf from the old Imperial German army : Every time a soldier is shot by a civilian, ten hostages are hanged. Make sure that the hostages are from the upper classes.) For a slightly less bloodthirsty approach, just level the building the shot came from; warning the tenants is optional. Pretty soon the people who just want to be left alone will patrol the buildings themselves, thank you, or else there won't be any sniper vantage points left.
 

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Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
 
Kythri, I didn't mean YOU. I meant the hypothetical people to whom you wished me to address my remarks <grin>.

People can die from butter dropped on the floor, on which they slip and break their heads. But let's not work on butter registration till we have the far more lethal gun problem under control. People DO kill themselves with butter, but only slo-o-o-owly.

I knew a kid who pulled a gun out of his pocket while walking with his girlfriend home from school and shot himself quite deliberately in the head. He might not have done something so final with, say, a knife. The thing with guns is, you don't have a chance for second thoughts, whereas with car exhaust or gas or even slit wrists and sleeping pills you have a brief interval in which you can change your mind and call for rescue.

To me, unrestricted gun ownership is not worth the danger, not just to the families who live with the guns, but to everyone around them.
 

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Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
 
King of Men, you scare me.
 

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Posted by Gwen (Member # 9551) on :
 
And I thought I was the only person frightened by the casual discussion of ways to pacify rebellious cities.

I mean, I might talk about ways to take over the world with my friends, far away from any recording devices, but never on a public forum with a permanent record.
 

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Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
 
Even so, you never know which of your friends could be wearing a recording device

--j_k
 

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Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 

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Originally posted by Orson Scott Card:
King of Men, you scare me.

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Even so, you never know which of your friends could be wearing a recording device.

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It's not as though the Germans were being particularly uncivilised by the standards of the day. And they certainly didn't have a guerrilla problem in the parts of France they occupied.

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Originally posted by Orson Scott Card:
King of Men, you scare me.

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You're statistically more likely to shoot a family member than anyone else. Think about THAT when you buy your next gun folks.

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Eisenhower managed to create the U.S. freeway system without creating a fascist government

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

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You're statistically more likely to shoot a family member than anyone else. Think about THAT when you buy your next gun folks.

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A random person is more likely to do so. You have no idea what I am likely to do.

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So why should I care if someone owns a tank?

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Oh boy, just what we need.

Attn Soccer Moms!
Outgrowing that Hummer? Getting skilled enough driving where you only take up two parking spaces at the grocery store instead of three? Getting ready to move onto bigger things than just taking out bicyclists and the occassional subcompact? 10 mpg just a bit too frugal for your taste? Look no further than the M1A2 Abrams tank!
 

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Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
 
I think you are all missing the point on gun control. When you look at the core facts such details as handguns vs long guns become irrelevant.

The one and most important and most citical fact that is being overlooked is that we as the free citizens of the USA have power. More importantly, we have power over our government.

'V for Vendetta'
"People should not fear their government, their government should fear the people."

The Bill of Rights is the master list of things governments use to oppress their people. To prevent our government from gradually gaining the power to oppress us, our Rights are guaranteed under the Bill of Rights of the Constitution.

If a government want to oppress its people, as can be clearly seen by looking at any oppressed country in the world, the first thing they do it take over the media. Then the prevent the free assembly and free speech of the people. Then you are denied the right to your own property. It is searched, ceased, and confiscated without due and reasonable process of law.

Next, you control religious. Those you convert to your own preferred religion are putty in your hands. Those who have their own preferred religion suppressed or oppressed become dispondent and marginalized.

Once you have the people sufficiently oppressed, you start sham trials where people are convicted simply because the government wants them convicted. Or thrown in prison without trial simply because the government desires it.

And of course, you disarm the citizens completely. How can they fight oppression without weaspons?

We don't need a study to prove this. All we have to do is look at the ancient and modern history of the world, and we see the list of steps to oppress the citizens, and the corrupting corroding results of that oppression.

Let's actually look at the relevant Ammendment-

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

You can't imagine how incensed I am when I hear one more ignorant news reader say that the Second Ammendment is about hunting. It is not even remotely about hunting guns.

It is about the right of the people to maintain a citizens army to insure the 'security of a free state'. The National Guard, contrary to popular belief is not a citizen's malitia. It is controlled by the government; by the state governor in peacetime and by the federal government in time of crisis. At true malitia answers only to the people, and exists to enforce and defend the Constitution, and other founding documents and principles upon which our country was founded.

In short, we have the inalienable Right to control our government, rather than have our government control us without restraint. Our right to keep and bare arms is one of the many proven ways in which we assure that a 'government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not parish from this earth'. (Abraham Lincoln - Gettysburg Address)

Our country works because people have the ultimate power. When government has the absolute power, then you have absolute corruption.

To those who so freely and willingly give up their power, let these great orators remind you of what is important.

Ben Franklin-
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Abraham Lincoln-
"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or
die by suicide."

Thomas Jefferson-
"To secure these [inalienable] rights [to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed... Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

According to Lincoln, echoed by Franklin, our greatest enemy is ourselves, and our willingness to trade genuine power in the form of liberty for a false sense of security.

In my opinion, the road to distruction is paved with compromises to what should be inalienable and unalterable rights.

Just passing it along.

Steve/BlueWizard
 

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Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
 
Found another Jefferson Quote... can't resist posting it.

Thomas Jefferson-
"When the people fear the government you have tyranny...when the government fears the people you have liberty."

Found another interesting quote, rather than post again, I will add it here.

Bryan Hyde hosts a talk radio show each weekday morning on 590 AM KSUB.
"Here is the lesson in "V for Vendetta" that translates perfectly into real life: When, in the grip of fear, we allow the state to exercise unchecked authority in dealing with its enemies - that authority will eventually be used against us as well."


Steve/BlueWIzard
 

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Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
Perhaps you misunderstood my post; I don't necessarily have an opinion on whether people should own tanks, I was just wanting to know what yours was.
 

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Posted by ChevMalFet (Member # 9676) on :
 
I think it's also important to consider the context of the law, when considering restricting its application. The United Statese, when we were formed as a country, was not nearly the organized, relatively well definied nation we currently enjoy. A greater part of the nation was "frontier land," largely lawless, and in many areas the law had a very loose connection with national interest, being largely in place to protect local, often personal interests. In such a situation assertion of personal and social freedoms is much more important, and more often necessary.

Because we are no longer in such a situation, largely, the right to bear arms doesn't carry the same logical and personal resonance that it once did, and arguments for gun control are much harder to realistically counter. People simply do not identify, personally, with the original rationale without the historical perspective in which the law was drafted.

Personally, ideologically, this appears to me to be a mistake. I don't personally own a firearm, nor am eager to obtain one, but considering the looting and general lawlessness that followed Katrina, were I merely 20 miles to the North I would consider a firearm a very useful thing to have. As it was even where I am people were stealing running generators from homes in the middle of that night, amongst other more traditional vandalism.

Certain areas of the country, particularly, are not that far from a civil regression, given the proper power vacuum, and certain areas, such as, say, in Louisiana but also elsewhere have a fairly shaky grasp on civil authority—which, incidentally, many communities exacerbate by attempting to "legislate" authority rather than through assumption of responsibility.

My contention is that we need to take personal responsibility in this and other related matters to preserve our freedoms. I agree with Mr. Card in that many if not most families do not have a need to actually own a firearm, nor is the potential risk worth the perceived benefit in most places in our Country. I would also argue, however, that the onus of the decision should rely on the individual, and not the State, so that if a situation arises where governmental authority fails, it's not just the criminals that are able to arm themselves.
 

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Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 

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Originally posted by lynn johnson:
Orincoro, your argument is based on misinformation. Check out the NRA info posted above that demonstrates that gun accidents are declining rapidly and have been for many years. Guns at home are quite safe, and your fears about that are, bluntly, irrational.

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Originally posted by lynn johnson:
Orincoro, your argument is based on misinformation. Check out the NRA info posted above that demonstrates that gun accidents are declining rapidly and have been for many years. Guns at home are quite safe, and your fears about that are, bluntly, irrational.

Kellerman did studies that foster fears about guns, but his studies have been pretty thoroughly discredited, since he only studied the most high-risk families. NRA has studies on its site that contradict Kellerman and are based on a better sample.


The pot argument is not very sound, either. I wondered why you mentioned it. Most people don't use drugs when they are freely available, see Amsterdam and Jamaica. But we don't know how many people pot kills. It impairs depth perception and judgement. How many car wrecks are caused by those side effects? We just don't know.

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More one this: First of all I am deeply shocked that the National Rifle Association would post a study which presents evidence in FAVOR of gun ownership. Let's please have some impartiality here, and rely on information not provided by the zealots or even interested parties, on both sides.

As to the pot argument, I said that pot prohibition is BASED on the idea that millions of Americans will start smoking if it is legalized. I don't believe that would happen, and I have also read the statistics about drug use in drug friendly countries- that it is surprisingly low.

I pointed this out to draw attention to the fact that we are willing to have a prohibition based on a belief that Americans can't control themselves when it comes to a relatively harmless drug (let's face it, it is practically impossible to overdoes on THC, and that makes it, in a way, safer than most over the counter and prescription drugs for pain and appetite used for cancer and aids patients), and that we AREN'T willing to prohibit ownership and use of a device which is involved in tens of thousands of deaths every year. Demonstrably, guns are involved in countless deaths, and I would like to know how many of those dead were innocent of any wrong doing. How do these two policies make sense together?
 

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Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
And, sorry for the Triple Post- but


BlueWizard- your whole diatribe is based on the idea that gun control is the action of the government. What if the people get together and decide, democratically and with their own voices in government, that they don't want guns to be allowed any more.

Was the abolition of slavery an oppression of the people by the government in Washingtion? Un fact some did believed that it was... and how much of an expression of the will of the people was it at the time? How much of the population is in favor of it now? You'll find that thinking people today recognize that the government may not have had the overwhelming support of the people, and certainly it had a rebellion to deal with in the South, but today our moral attitudes have largely adjusted, and slave owning is not a right many people in America are going to defend. The idea that a slave was of less value than a white man was written into the constitution, and yet we have changed the law, and the law has has its due effect on us, and it continues to. I would argue then, that the law has a certain responsibility to respond to and ALSO to guide the growth of our values in the future, to be progressive and also responsive to our needs. If the world fills up with guns, we will NEED a way to limit their proliferation, we will need the law to do that.

This is all failing the very real possibility that as awareness grows, people may generally decide that they don't want guns to be common in our culture. If that happens, will you fall back on the bill of rights, written in a time when no-one could have predicted the capabilities of a modern weapon, or a time in which an active militia has become an obsolete idea, absent the tremendous technical wizardry needed to be effective in combat today?

This right is not based on your complete freedom as an American. We do not have complete freedom. At one time it was acceptable to shoot each other in duels, and that has gone from our culture, because people recognized that fighting with the ever increasing power of the gun was madness and suicide, and yet the guns have remained.
 

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Posted by ChevMalFet (Member # 9676) on :
 

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Originally posted by Orincoro:
"Guns at home are quite safe." Because the number of gun fatalities at home have decreased? Why have they decreased? Have guns become less able to shoot the owner's children or spouses in the middle of the night, or in a drunken fight or a fit of rage? Have guns become less useful for capricious suicide? Demonstrate in what way they are safe, and yet still designed to be at the ready for killing people, please.

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This is all failing the very real possibility that as awareness grows, people may generally decide that they don't want guns to be common in our culture. If that happens, will you fall back on the bill of rights, written in a time when no-one could have predicted the capabilities of a modern weapon, or a time in which an active militia has become an obsolete idea, absent the tremendous technical wizardry needed to be effective in combat today?

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What if the people get together and decide, democratically and with their own voices in government, that they don't want guns to be allowed any more.

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one could argue that while it required more skill a bow and arrow was a much more effective killing implement than contemporary firearms.

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Weapons Distribution

The UCR Program collects weapon data for murder, robbery, and aggravated assault offenses. An examination of these data indicated that most violent crime (30.7 percent) involved the use of personal weapons, such as hands, fists, feet, etc. Firearms were used in 26.4 percent and knives or cutting instruments were used in 15.5 percent of violent crime. Other dangerous weapons were used in 27.3 percent of violent offenses. (Based on Tables 2.9 and 19.)

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This is from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting summary for the 2004 calendar year.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_crime/index.html

Apparently, you are more likely to be the target of a 'personal' weapon than a firearm if you are the victim of a violent crime. Guess those who want arms reduction need to call for hands and feet reduction as well.
 

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Posted by ChevMalFet (Member # 9676) on :
 

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

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one could argue that while it required more skill a bow and arrow was a much more effective killing implement than contemporary firearms.

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I don't see how you could do that.

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Originally posted by Dagonee:

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What if the people get together and decide, democratically and with their own voices in government, that they don't want guns to be allowed any more.

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Conveniently, the Founders provided a way for the people to do that if they so decide.

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Originally posted by Ecthalion:
Someone mentioned something about this earlier and it just seems that its very staggering. Countries with no firearms rank highest in the world in crime. The place in the US thet you are not allowed to have guns (D.C.) has the highes crime in the U.S. And yet in switzerland where people carry fully sutomatics and ammo under their bed you have some of the lowest crime in the world.

As for the NRA and their statistics. Have you ever bothered reading any of the magazines. Almost every issue has information, statistics, articles given from government agencies that come from independant researchers and outside information. the list includes professors, lawyers and poloticians. You can say they stack thei information for the pro-gun and why wouldnt a gun magazine have articles on why they want to keep their guns. The point is much of their information doesnt come from fanciful stories they made up.

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Originally posted by BlueWizard:
Orincoro:
What the crap are you talking about? A gun in a home is a weapon of terrible destructive power, in a home.

Demonstrate in what way they are safe, and yet still designed to be at the ready for killing people, please.

BlueWizard:

Exactly what do you think most guns are used for? Do you really think all gun owners are sitting in their front window shooting down passers by. An unloaded gun is just a hunk of steel; it is no more dangerous, and probably less dangerous than a baseball bat or a kitchen knife.

Those who shoot family members accidently are violating the most standard and basic rules of gun safety. They are also violating the legal standards for use of deadly force. These people aren't injured because they were shot by a gun, they are injured because of the irresponsible and universally unsafe actions of the gun owner.

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Its still designed to put holes in PEOPLE, and kill them.

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DC has high crime rates for many reasons. This does not a compelling argument make.

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THis is what I just love about the pro-gun argument: we need it for our defense, its the most effective way to defend oneself! I believe someone in this thread said "the only way." Then when you point out that a gun can shoot ANYONE, you turn around and say that a gun is just a peice of metal, and not all that dangerous. Its still a gun. Its still designed to put holes in PEOPLE, and kill them. That is the end all, that is the purpose of guns. Like nuclear weapons for national defense, they are too powerful for any practical use in the home.

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Originally posted by Ecthalion:

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DC has high crime rates for many reasons. This does not a compelling argument make.

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yes it is, the debate is over presence of guns causing high crime. So case in point, states/districts/countries/cities that have a high population of law-abiding citezens who own guns have lower crime rate than places that have little to no guns.

All other reasons/statistics are dealing with the human perspective of the crime, not the weapon perspective. If you follow those it leads you dangerously close to profiling.

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Originally posted by Orincoro:
What are you going to do with a gun in your house other than shoot another human being?

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Originally posted by kythri:

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Originally posted by Orincoro:
What are you going to do with a gun in your house other than shoot another human being?

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Can you PLEASE lay off this idiocy?

You continue to insinuate that the only reason a person would buy a gun is to shoot someone, when it's already been established that people shoot for sport.

What am I going to do with a gun in MY house? I'm going to lock most of them in my safe, awaiting the next time I take them out for enjoyment of the shooting sports. I'm going to keep one of them near my bedside in the event of home invasion - and yes, my home has been broken into before, and fortunately for the would-be burglar, and for my pocketbook (legal fees ain't cheap), he ran off when he discovered someone was in the home.

Guess what? My gun didn't shoot another human being.

You're smarter than this, aren't you?

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Originally posted by lynn johnson:


They are also very often used to intimidate evil-doers. As I mentioned before, the NRA site (stop scoffing and actually read the study, please) shows some fairly good data suggesting the vast majority of self-protection with guns is NOT from shooting, but from showing.
lj

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Originally posted by lynn johnson:



But, Orincoro, you still missed my point. Your danger is IMAGINARY. Lots of people have guns, very few accidents. Driving is more dangerous. Swimming pools are (not that Leavitt is alwasy right!). Just because you can get yourself emotionally out of sorts (i.e., "what the _crap_ are you talking about" - emphasis on emotionally loaded word added) when we talk about guns means nothing at all. We have to deal in the real world, not in an imaginary world, some kind of post-apocalyptic hollywood fantasy. Sorry to be blunt, but just because you imagine a danger doesn't mean anything. YOu have to prove it is a worthy danger.
lynnjohnson

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What are you going to do with a gun in your house other than shoot another human being?

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Originally posted by Orincoro:
Indeed I am. Although your insinuating that the question is idiocy is not much of an invitation to response, I am going to ignore how rude you've been and answer anyway. It is not idiocy, and clearly since you believe that leaving it unanswered is unnacceptable, it is also effective in some way, even if you completely misconstrue the meaning, as you did.

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That is why I said, IN YOUR HOUSE.

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I was thinking about this today, arguing with myself about the uses of guns. Personally, I am not against a type of gun one might use for, say, target competitions. I find hunting distasteful, but I am not against people doing it, as long as they don't make me listen to stories about it or watch it on television, its alright. I eat meat after all, I know where that comes from. The same goes for owning a gun even as a collectable, or for competitive purposes, as a hobby. Those are at least defensible reasons for me. I will even concede that a responsible person might be alright owning weapon for defense of the home if he or she really feels it necessary.

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Here is my issue: people turning those casual rights, those common sense uses of a gun into a glorified patriotic right and duty. Frankly I think most people who make a big stink about the right to bear arms simply get off on the power of the gun. That is why there are gun collectors. They are not collecting examples of their duty to their country, they are collecting symbols and devices that represent power. That is understandable, but what is unnaceeptable to me is the denial of this motivation in every breath from every member of the NRA. This is a group of people chock full of those who get off on guns. The justifications for having guns are a little hard to bear with good humor when you're talking about assault rifles and hand-cannons in people's houses.

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Guns have become a cartoon idea in many ways.

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I remember growing up, seeing guns as these kind of magical devices that just spit power fire out one end. The people using guns are made to look oh so cool, and oh so intelligent and sexy in film and television. I remember a line from "American Beauty," in which one character talks almost with almost religious reverence about firing a gun to feel powerful. That view resonated with me in many ways, I recognize why people see them as power.

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Now, IN THE HOME, what use does a gun have? It is layed up in the anticipation of the moment in which it may be used to shoot someone. If you simply keeping a hunting rifle or a competition gun at home, that is not having a gun in the home for defense, that is not planning to use it. This seems to me in certain ways similar to the arms race of the second half of the 20th century.

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As Carl Sagan aptly put it in COSMOS, to paraphrase: "every major world power has a widely publicized set of reasons for stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, however, no world power invisions a scenario in which their armament should be used." Sagan wrote that to employ the nuclear arsenal is madness, and yet to keep it is a warning that madness may just overtake the powerful nation if it is crossed. He also wrote that simply because large scale nuclear war has not happened, this by no means proves that it never will.

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What I worry about is that people have this blind spot, or this kind of duality in their thinking. First, I have never killed anyone in my home, and therefore my gun has never caused harm. And two, if I one day should have to kill someone, then I could and would do it. In this case, I assert only that the intent DOES already exist, when you purchase the gun and keep it for defense, to use it to kill someone.

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When you buy a knife, you buy it to cut vegetables or gut fish.

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When you buy a spounge, you buy it to clean your bathroom or the countertops, but when you buy a handgun, for defense, you buy it to have the ability to kill people if you need it.

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The responsibility for that power doesn't come AFTER you use it, it is there all the time. If you end up shooting someone, then you have a responsibility to explain to yourself, to others, to society, why you made that choice. In this I am NOT EVEN saying that if I felt I really needed to, I wouldn't do the same thing, but I think I WOULD understand what I get myself into, I would consider my intent ahead of time. That is something that I really don't think people like to consider.

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"What the crap are you talking about" is a tradition here on Hatrack meant to point out when you think someone is trolling their agenda rather than actually trying to listen and engage in the debate. You're free to use it against me, but it is a convention of Hatrack. I'll try to find the link.

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Originally posted by Dagonee:

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"What the crap are you talking about" is a tradition here on Hatrack meant to point out when you think someone is trolling their agenda rather than actually trying to listen and engage in the debate. You're free to use it against me, but it is a convention of Hatrack. I'll try to find the link.

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You ought to reread the link. The manner in which you used it in this thread is not the manner which it was originally intended to be used.

Even the way it was originally intended to be used is very rude and by no means universally accepted here. But using it as you have in this thread - to dismiss a presentation of a relevant fact that could be supported or contradicted by evidence - is far ruder.

For that matter, so is rolling your eyes because someone presents the NRA as a source. Sure, they're interested. Doesn't make them wrong (or right). Noting their bias is one thing. Rolling your eyes - and not even bothering to present evidence to counter - is simply lazy debating.

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AS to the argument about knives- that's just silly and you know it. Knives are for cutting meat and vegetables. What are you going to do with a gun in your house other than shoot another human being? I agree when you say people kill people, but guns help... ALOT.

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Originally posted by Ecthalion:

To be honest none of us were there when the first gun was invented so you have no idea what his original purpose was for it. So the arguement "guns are made to kill people" is just as wrong as saying "Guns are made to eat".

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Originally posted by Ecthalion:
I dont know what more you are looking for as to a casual connection between guns and crime.

your arguement contradicts itself though, since you are here arguing about the nature of guns being for killing people and in essence commiting crimes. You are so ready to point out that there are many factors behind crime, none of which deal with the gun but all of which deal with the people commiting them. Since you are ready to admit that it is the people and thier circumstances that cause the crime independant of the weapon they choose then you cannot hope to argue that weapons of choice are in any way adding to the crime rate.

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One more clarification: my spelling is *atrocious* but I was attempting to write CAUSAL, not CASUAL, connection. You see the difference now I am sure.

Hmmmmm. I am willing to admit that the will to committ crime goes way beyond owning guns. Crimes happened long before we had guns, and will continue after. However, your assertion that I am ready to admit that the ownership of guns in no way adds to crime rates is too much to bear. The connection between guns and crime is decidedly complex, and I can neither assert nor deny that guns add or subtract to the overall crime rate. I think that there are many crimes, like armed robbery, which are aided by guns. Other crimes aided by guns are murder, and suicide, as OSC pointed out in the beginning of the thread. I cannot be sure if suicide rates would actually FALL if people didn't have guns, but I do know that many people kill themselves with guns, and that it is the quickest possible way to kill oneself. (Edit: And I hear the response: you can kill yourself with a car! Yes, you can, but I make clear above that it is my assertion that guns are designed for killing, and I don't think that most cars are designed with that in mind, quite the opposite.)

Now, I DO know that thousands of people are murdered with guns every year. Would these people have been murdered if there had not been guns involved? I recently had to bring in the police when one of our participants at the Teen Center got himself too deeply involved in a fued with another teen over a girl. The rival kid, from a nearby town, threatened to bring a friend with a gun to the confrontation, and this encouraged a few teens to spill the news to the staff and me, and I called the cops. What worries me is that I don't think these kids would have the guts or the ability to kill eachother with their bare hands, or even with knives, but a gun is very powerful and very final. I worried less about the fight than I did about that gun.

You may argue that the gun stopped the fight, but that's a very dodgy argument. If it had been a day when we had been closed, then I wouldn't have been there to call the cops, and the fight might have gone down, and someone might have been shot. That's anecdotal and alot of speculation on my part, and clearly these teens aren't examples of responsible gun ownership, and yet they may have had a gun anyway. Its too much freedom for me, knowing that that kid might have been 18, and had bought that gun legally. I dunno, scared the crap outa me!

All this way to say that I am nowhere near admitting that guns don't add to crime. That would be silly. Of course they at least add to every crime in which they are involved.
 

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Posted by ChevMalFet (Member # 9676) on :
 
You'd be surprised. I've known people beaten half to death by gangs of unarmed kids, and frankly my guess is they wouldn't have hesitated to finish the job were that their goal.

It's like locks and alarms in a house. Yeah, they make your house less desirable a target, but if someone really wants in, they will get in. Unfortunately the criminal mind is a terribly resourceful thing.
 

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Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
 
sorry, my mistake, i see the point you were trying to make about crime rates now. Funny how a word can mess up an entire paragraph.
 

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Posted by Gwen (Member # 9551) on :
 
This debate is making me crazy. I’ll start on the last page and go through:
It seems like we’re talking past each other. The people who are saying that guns are for killing people are addressing the free militia argument, and are saying that we should restrict gun ownership to those guns that would be as effective as possible for overthrowing a tyrannical government while being as ineffective as possible for criminal use. Guns are, in fact, for killing people, or else we’d just arm our free militia with the aforementioned oh-so-dangerous knives instead. Guns are effective at killing people. A militia could use rifles (hunters could also use rifles!), while criminals could use handguns for concealment.
Nothing in the second amendment specifies that all citizens have the right to keep and carry any kind of firearm whatsoever. As long as it doesn’t restrict the ability of citizens to form militias and overthrow tyrannical governments, we’re fine.
“A gun in a home is a weapon of terrible destructive power, in a home. This is the same device that cops use to stop the bad guys, this is the device you give a soldier in war. This is a weapon that is designed to hurt people.” Right. Comparing guns to cars because each can be used for recreational purposes or killing people is disingenuous; people have the right to own guns because they are useful for killing people, while they have the right to own cars because they are useful for transportation. The latter is restricted in certain ways that fit with the function of transportation, while the former is restricted in certain ways consistent with the function of killing people.
If guns weren’t effective at killing people, people wouldn’t have the right to have them anyway.

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Really, though, design intent is fairly irrelevant compared to practical application—when one can just as easily blow someone's head off with say a harpoon launcher, or use a chain-saw to similar effect as a shotgun.

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Someone mentioned something about this earlier and it just seems that it’s very staggering. Countries with no firearms rank highest in the world in crime. The place in the US that you are not allowed to have guns (D.C.) has the highest crime in the U.S. And yet in Switzerland where people carry fully automatics and ammo under their bed you have some of the lowest crime in the world.

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That 'gun owner' could just as easily have hit his son on the head with a baseball bat (or lamp or vase), or stabbed him with a kitchen knife.

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I think if you analyse that you will find that, to a massive degree, most ammunition is used to 'kill' little pieces of paper, tin cans, and tree stumps. Only an extremely extremely small portion of the ammunition sold and/or used is used in a crime. In case you haven't noticed, shooting is a sport, a sport practiced and enjoyed SAFELY by young people all over the world. Keep in mind I am talking about SHOOTING, not hunting. For every round fired in actual hunting, many many more rounds are fired in practicing hunting; in other words, target shooting.

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This is what I just love about the pro-gun argument: we need it for our defense, its the most effective way to defend oneself! I believe someone in this thread said "the only way." Then when you point out that a gun can shoot ANYONE, you turn around and say that a gun is just a peice of metal, and not all that dangerous. Its still a gun. Its still designed to put holes in PEOPLE, and kill them. That is the end all, that is the purpose of guns.

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All knives are made to cut things, it can cut anything and anyone, lets ban knives because the practicality of getting cut on accident or if somone is messing around doesnt outweigh the benifits of cutting things. Baseball bats are ment to smash little white balls far away, it can hit and smash just about anything, especially people's skulls. This risk of irresponsible basball-bat weilders and poorly aimed rocks, balls, pieces of wood completely outweights the sport, lets bann them too. wood chippers are made to shred things, which means it can potentially shredd anything and anyone that doesnt damage the blades, lawnmowers driven by idiots can kill kids, a glass bottle wielded by a drunk can hurt and kill.

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As I said before (and this will be on the final!), I don't need a gun for protection. I live in a very safe neighborhood, in a safe state. If I needed a gun for instant protection (based on living in a dangerous neighborhood) I would simply put a fully loaded 9mm into a lockbox with a quick combo lock. You keep it set to open on two of the three wheels, and the third wheel is three clicks off. In the dark, you feel the preset wheel, click it three times, and your gun is accessible. It is quiet and safe. If Bigfoots are invading your neighborhood, switch to the .45 for additional stopping power. (its a joke, folks)

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There are substantial social benefits from honoring what I think of as an innate right, that of defending myself.

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I don’t know what more you are looking for as to a causal connection between guns and crime. But i would say that if you’d like to test it yourself you could move to a nice city and put a sign in your front yard that says "There are no guns in this house" and then put "warning owner of firearm" in the lawn of everyone else’s house on the street and see how many times your house is robbed compared to theirs.

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You'd be surprised. I've known people beaten half to death by gangs of unarmed kids, and frankly my guess is they wouldn't have hesitated to finish the job were that their goal.

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True. But we’re concentrating on the crimes we can actually make any progress to preventing.

So, in conclusion: rifles for everyone, handguns for none. Or whatever works to lower the ability of criminals to commit crimes, while raising the ability of citizens to revolt against their government. Because that's covered by the second amendment.
I don't care if you hunt with or shoot or display your guns. Those guns aren't what we're talking about. We're talking about "but I need it so I can kill evil people!" vs. "oops, I accidentally killed someone."
 

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Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
Gwen I appreciate the effort But I think that this thread is effectively shot. (pun intended)

I do want to add that I was thinking the very same thing about Switzerland, how it is one of the richest countries on Earth, homogonized citizenry, good education, strongly nationalistic politics and a healthy tolerance for foreigners. All that helps their crime rates tremendously, as does their compulsory military service (iirc?) and their strong police forces. Guns in the home are related to this, but they have an entirely different situation from the racial diverse, economically diverse, educationally challenged United States.

It is a tough call to say that guns are the reason there is little crime there. Maybe the high consumption of chocolate, or the accurate knowledge of the time is the true cause.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 

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Originally posted by Gwen:

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As I said before (and this will be on the final!), I don't need a gun for protection. I live in a very safe neighborhood, in a safe state. If I needed a gun for instant protection (based on living in a dangerous neighborhood) I would simply put a fully loaded 9mm into a lockbox with a quick combo lock. You keep it set to open on two of the three wheels, and the third wheel is three clicks off. In the dark, you feel the preset wheel, click it three times, and your gun is accessible. It is quiet and safe. If Bigfoots are invading your neighborhood, switch to the .45 for additional stopping power. (its a joke, folks)

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If you don’t need a gun for protection, then the second amendment argument is what, again? I don’t recall a protection of the right of the people to bear and keep arms because a healthy shooting and hunting sporting community is essential to the protection of freedom.

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There are substantial social benefits from honoring what I think of as an innate right, that of defending myself.

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Didn’t you just say...? No, I must have imagined it. You need a gun for protection. Got it.
Either I’m hallucinating, or you have multiple personalities…

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Originally posted by Gwen:
This debate is making me crazy. I’ll start on the last page and go through:
It seems like we’re talking past each other. The people who are saying that guns are for killing people are addressing the free militia argument, and are saying that we should restrict gun ownership to those guns that would be as effective as possible for overthrowing a tyrannical government while being as ineffective as possible for criminal use. Guns are, in fact, for killing people, or else we’d just arm our free militia with the aforementioned oh-so-dangerous knives instead. Guns are effective at killing people. A militia could use rifles (hunters could also use rifles!), while criminals could use handguns for concealment.
Nothing in the second amendment specifies that all citizens have the right to keep and carry any kind of firearm whatsoever. As long as it doesn’t restrict the ability of citizens to form militias and overthrow tyrannical governments, we’re fine.

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Design intent is very relevant to the practical application.

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Knives are meant to cut things. They’re not meant to kill.

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Then he said that his right to defend himself should be honored, presumably by not prohibiting his ownership of a gun if he came to need one for protection.

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An unloaded firearm is useless. I'm quite sure that the home invader is going to wait for you to get your firearm out of it's safe location, load it, and ready yourself. Yes, I keep a handgun near my bedside, loaded and ready to fire. That same handgun is what I carry on my person - loaded and ready for use. We've already been over this. I conceded that it's unlikely that I'll ever need it, but I'm a Boy Scout. Our motto? Be prepared. In the unlikely event I ever need it, it'd be pretty stupid not to have it, or not to have it ready.

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Yet, the restriction of handguns does, in fact, restrict the ability of the citizenry to form an effective militia. A citizen-formed militia does not have the ability to train it's members like the US Military. As such, banning weapons that are easy to use restricts the effective formation.

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Blades weren't designed as a utility - they were designed as a weapon, and the utility use was found later.

Design intent doesn't matter one single bit. If you really cared about loss of life and injury, then why do you completely dismiss the much higher loss of life and injury from automobiles?

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Knives are meant to cut things. They’re not meant to kill. Guns are intended to kill things. Living things, which dead animals and bread and baseballs and dead wood aren’t. Guns are protected because they can kill people, specifically the soldiers in a tyrannical government. Getting cut by accident is usually less severe than getting shot by accident.
Try defending yourself from a criminal using a lawn mower, or concealing a baseball bat in order to rob a bank, or accidentally kill yourself with a knife, and you’ll see why the analogy just doesn’t work.

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In effect, you're saying that only the lives lost from firearms violence or negligence matter, because, in your opinion, firearms are only for killing, but vehicles have other uses.

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No, although I can see where you'd misread my point, since it is a somewhat subtle distinction. I'm saying that since firearms are protected specifically because they are effective at killing people, even more specifically because they would be useful in a revolution, firearms that are not so effective in a revolution but are more effective for less desirable uses like "ordinary" people-killing as done by murderers and bank robbers and the like, or for domestic disputes, or for accidentally killing someone else, should be restricted, or at least we should be willing to consider it instead of claiming that the uses of those types of guns for sport automatically protects them.
Automobiles are significantly different in that they are not a protected constiutional right--any of them--for any use--and that people use them for criminal activity much, much less frequently than they use certain types of guns.

In fact, what you pointed out is something of a background point of mine. If there was another amendment, Amendment 2.5, protecting the right of the people to keep and drive vehicles because swift and easy transportation is necessary for good non-governmental communication or some such, only those vehicles which served the purposes of swift and easy transportation would be explicitly protected. Recreational vehicles--not RVs, by the way, I mean quads and the like--could reasonably be restricted or even prohibited without violating that particular amendment's precepts.
I'm only debating for the sake of debating, by the way, and safety and the like aside, I think I'd be on the other side--just like Orincoro with his "I'm fine with people keeping guns for sport but they oughtn't to pretend that they have the right to own them because of the second amendment". Not because of the second amendment, either. I'm thinking of rather different amendments, but then I'm that crazy person who questions every law Congress passes that has no connection to interstate commerce...
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 

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and that people use them for criminal activity much, much less frequently than they use certain types of guns.

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Originally posted by kythri:

Blades weren't designed as a utility - they were designed as a weapon, and the utility use was found later.

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Nothing in the second amendment specifies that all citizens have the right to keep and carry any kind of firearm whatsoever

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With the aid of this new invention called the InterWeb or something, I learned a lot about how safe guns are - paradoxically.

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Tom, can you demonstrate that guns are not safe? Can you prove that the studies quoted by the NRA are false, and that lots of people are being killed by the foolish use of guns?

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Actually that is exactly what the 2nd Amendment says. The people who wrote it were not counting out cannons or other things either. The people had a right to defend themselves from tyrannical government, they lived through that and saw the need for that.

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In the mean time, you anti-gun folks, please go shoot with some responsible gun owner. Spend an hour shooting skeet, for example, or shoot a target with a big-bore hunting rifle. Shoot some water filled milk jugs with a handgun, especially a big one. Know this hobby for the vile, evil, disgusting business that it is. Get to know some shooters, so you can hear our fantasies involving blood, destruction and death. (Now don't quote that as if I meant it. It is sarcasm, a low form of humor, but the best I am capable of.)

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Sarcasm is my favorite brand of humor!

I have gone shooting, though, on a more serious note. That's why I understand how important a good gun education is as the common ground between all groups. Every-gun-is-a-loaded-gun, don't-point-the-gun-at-anything-you-don't-intend-to-kill, drilled into my siblings and I before we were even allowed in the presence of a gun. Having a mother who grew up shooting and was in the army can help with that sort of thing, too.
 

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Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
Well Gwen, now you understand the tactics people need to employ to maintain a position when someone brings a perfectly reasonable question to the table. You don't answer to that, you answer a charge that hasn't been brought, and you MAKE the challenge unreasonable, since it isn't already.

Given that neither of us has been particularly interested in talking about sport shooting, and in fact we've both said we don't really mind it within reason, of course an opposing argument is going to use sport shooting as a defense of guns. What I've been doing, especially later in the thread, is pointing out what I feel guns should not be used to do. Sport shooting isn't on my list.

Edit: And really, think about it, if sport shooting was the only thing people used guns for, then why would we be having this argument?
 

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Posted by kythri (Member # 9646) on :
 
Orincoro:

I guess my reading comprehension must suck, because I'm pretty sure that all questions you asked got answered, but since you're making accusations, do us a favor, and please repost your question or questions that you claim didn't get answered.
 

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Posted by MaGlick (Member # 9648) on :
 
"That's why nuclear weapons were such a fabulous success."

Add that to the inherent flaws of human nature you spoke about. The jury may still be out on the issue of fabulous success.

Those nukes allowed us to fight (and win) a cold war, and no doubt saved a lot of bloodshed last century, but I wouldn't be surprised if this century doesn't give us (humanity, I guess)the opportunity to use them to play catch up with the blood-letting (blood-evaporating?).
 

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Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
MaGlick I think you may be right.

Kythri- sorry but I am not going to play the repeat yourself game- read my longish post on this page if you want to hear what I have to say- otherwise we really are finished with this thread.
 

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Posted by kythri (Member # 9646) on :
 
OK, fine, I just did a search for "?", and I'll address all of your unanswered questions here.

I'll ignore the "(iirc?)" and the questions you ask of yourself, then answer.

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Now, I DO know that thousands of people are murdered with guns every year. Would these people have been murdered if there had not been guns involved?

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You can't begin to argue that guns are not designed with killing in mind- aren't they awarded a certain merit for their "stopping power?"

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Do we want to get into the intentions of the men who wrote the 2nd ammendment?

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And really, think about it, if sport shooting was the only thing people used guns for, then why would we be having this argument?

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it prohibits the restriction of free ownership and use of firearms by THE PEOPLE.

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If nobody ever used a firearm for any nefarious deed, then, no, of course we wouldn't be having this argument here.

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I do find it amusing, though, that the analogy of automobiles and their abuse was completely dismissed, though. You'll argue for restrictions on firearms because of their misuse, but you won't consider restrictions on vehicles due to their misuse. Once again, I say, design intent doesn't matter - actual use matters.

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Blades weren't designed as a utility - they were designed as a weapon, and the utility use was found later.

Design intent doesn't matter one single bit. If you really cared about loss of life and injury, then why do you completely dismiss the much higher loss of life and injury from automobiles?

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Wasn't this point already addressed? I really, really, really would hate for this thread to be a "let's see how many times we can repeat ourselves before we get sick and tired of the discussion" thread like a certain other one in this forum right now.

...Guns which are created solely for recreational purposes and would be difficult to kill people with are known as "paintball guns" because they shoot paintballs at what they're aimed at as opposed to, you know, bullets. Criminals don't rob banks with paint guns. Children rarely if ever (and I haven't looked it up, so I'm just guessing based on the lack of media coverage of something the media would certainly be all over--Stereotypical Youth Activity Turns Out To Be Deadly is the basic headline for that sort of thing, and we all remember how the studies and so on are made) kill themselves accidentally while playing with "loaded" paintguns. That's why no one that I know of wants severe restrictions on them; that's also why they're not protected by the second amendment.

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In fact, what you pointed out is something of a background point of mine. If there was another amendment, Amendment 2.5, protecting the right of the people to keep and drive vehicles because swift and easy transportation is necessary for good non-governmental communication or some such, only those vehicles which served the purposes of swift and easy transportation would be explicitly protected. Recreational vehicles--not RVs, by the way, I mean quads and the like--could reasonably be restricted or even prohibited without violating that particular amendment's precepts.

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Comparing guns to cars because each can be used for recreational purposes or killing people is disingenuous; people have the right to own guns because they are useful for killing people, while they have the right to own cars because they are useful for transportation. The latter is restricted in certain ways that fit with the function of transportation, while the former is restricted in certain ways consistent with the function of killing people.
If guns weren’t effective at killing people, people wouldn’t have the right to have them anyway.

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(Well, they might, but for different reasons, as outlined in the amendment I referred to earlier. You might want to check it out; it's a much better argument at least nationwide.)

Please, please, please either address my arguments for the differences between automobiles and guns before you go on about how amusing it is that no one on the gun-control side wants to outlaw cars. It's a bad analogy. Or, who knows, maybe you'll convince me that I'm wrong and it's a great analogy and maybe I'll *really* find it amusing. And maybe I don't have to keep repeating myself like a bad music download. (Translation: broken record.) And maybe we can move forward in the discussion, or at least not move backward into insulting each other based on things that the others have not done that they actually have, or based on things that the others have done that they actually haven't. Onward and upward and all that.
 

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Posted by Ecthalion (Member # 8825) on :
 
why in the world is this debate even still going? Everyone is ignoring the posts of oppostie opinions anyway.
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
I would wager that's exactly why the "debate" is still going.
 

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Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 

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Originally posted by kythri:

I do find it amusing, though, that the analogy of automobiles and their abuse was completely dismissed, though. You'll argue for restrictions on firearms because of their misuse, but you won't consider restrictions on vehicles due to their misuse. Once again, I say, design intent doesn't matter - actual use matters.

How about you employ some other tactics, now?

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I in fact do favor restrictions on the use of vehicles, and so does the law. Many states require that you be 18, all that you be tested and re-tested, that you be physically fit to drive, that you do not have a history of drunk driving, that you do not use illegal drugs. In some states the use of illegal drugs means the loss of a drivers liscense, even if you are not driving. Nearly all of these restrictions I support wholeheartedly, and I think we could use a few more on the list- though not so many that driving becomes impossible.

The analogy wasn't dismissed wantonly, but because it is stupid, and tired, and was answered thoughtfully several times already.

Regarding your condinued abuse and rude remarks about my "tactics." I have said, several times, that I do not want to continue in this conversation if I must be forced to repeat my argument to you in a continual niggling wittling down of one point, only so that you can bring up some big part of the argument I didn't even adress in my last reiteration, and bicker about that. Its obvious to me that you are just abusing the people on this thread and driving your agenda, and that frankly sucks. Rather than kindly responding to the current mode of the conversation, here you dredge up questions and points which have been driven into the ground. Then you drive your stake into the ground and ask me to respond to it as if it is an invitation to debate? No Thanks. That's all you get. Go look for your tactics somewhere else. I am now completely finished with this thread.
 

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Posted by kythri (Member # 9646) on :
 

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Originally posted by Gwen:

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it prohibits the restriction of free ownership and use of firearms by THE PEOPLE.

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No, it doesn't. It prohibits infringements on the right of the people (or should I say THE PEOPLE? what was that about?) to keep and bear arms. There is a historically recognized legal difference between an infringement of a right and a restriction to the right.

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I do find it amusing, though, that the analogy of automobiles and their abuse was completely dismissed, though. You'll argue for restrictions on firearms because of their misuse, but you won't consider restrictions on vehicles due to their misuse. Once again, I say, design intent doesn't matter - actual use matters.

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Hahahaha! Can you believe it? *Wipes tears from eyes* People actually find a qualitative difference between automobiles and firearms, despite the fact that both have destructive power! Hahaha! They're crazy! I know that the differences between them were already discussed in several arguments that haven't been addressed, but boy is it amusing that they still insist on holding onto their unrefuted views about the differences between cars and guns! Hahaha!

...I don't get it.

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...Guns which are created solely for recreational purposes and would be difficult to kill people with are known as "paintball guns" because they shoot paintballs at what they're aimed at as opposed to, you know, bullets.

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Criminals don't rob banks with paint guns.

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Children rarely if ever (and I haven't looked it up, so I'm just guessing based on the lack of media coverage of something the media would certainly be all over--Stereotypical Youth Activity Turns Out To Be Deadly is the basic headline for that sort of thing, and we all remember how the studies and so on are made) kill themselves accidentally while playing with "loaded" paintguns. That's why no one that I know of wants severe restrictions on them; that's also why they're not protected by the second amendment.

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Please, please, please either address my arguments for the differences between automobiles and guns before you go on about how amusing it is that no one on the gun-control side wants to outlaw cars.

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It's a bad analogy.

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Or, who knows, maybe you'll convince me that I'm wrong and it's a great analogy and maybe I'll *really* find it amusing. And maybe I don't have to keep repeating myself like a bad music download. (Translation: broken record.) And maybe we can move forward in the discussion, or at least not move backward into insulting each other based on things that the others have not done that they actually have, or based on things that the others have done that they actually haven't. Onward and upward and all that.

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Originally posted by Orincoro:
I in fact do favor restrictions on the use of vehicles, and so does the law. Many states require that you be 18, all that you be tested and re-tested, that you be physically fit to drive, that you do not have a history of drunk driving, that you do not use illegal drugs. In some states the use of illegal drugs means the loss of a drivers liscense, even if you are not driving. Nearly all of these restrictions I support wholeheartedly, and I think we could use a few more on the list- though not so many that driving becomes impossible.

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The analogy wasn't dismissed wantonly, but because it is stupid, and tired, and was answered thoughtfully several times already.

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Regarding your condinued abuse and rude remarks about my "tactics."

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I have said, several times, that I do not want to continue in this conversation if I must be forced to repeat my argument to you in a continual niggling wittling down of one point, only so that you can bring up some big part of the argument I didn't even adress in my last reiteration, and bicker about that. Its obvious to me that you are just abusing the people on this thread and driving your agenda, and that frankly sucks. Rather than kindly responding to the current mode of the conversation, here you dredge up questions and points which have been driven into the ground. Then you drive your stake into the ground and ask me to respond to it as if it is an invitation to debate? No Thanks. That's all you get. Go look for your tactics somewhere else. I am now completely finished with this thread.

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By the way, I don't currently own any guns, but will defend to the death the right to do so.

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Originally posted by TomDavidson:

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By the way, I don't currently own any guns, but will defend to the death the right to do so.

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Whose death did you have in mind, given that you don't own any guns?

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He said "currently", which implies, at least to me, the intent to purchase in the future.

Until then, he can come over and borrow one of mine.
 

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Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
 

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Originally posted by kythri:

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Originally posted by TomDavidson:

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By the way, I don't currently own any guns, but will defend to the death the right to do so.

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Whose death did you have in mind, given that you don't own any guns?

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He said "currently", which implies, at least to me, the intent to purchase in the future.

Until then, he can come over and borrow one of mine.

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That is neither accurate nor relevant. It is not relevant because the historical uses of knives is not at issue. A kitchen knife is designed for use, in a kitchen. Like many things, it can kill, but it is made with a kitchen in mind.

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Kitchen knives aren't the only kind of knives made, you know. He was talking blades in general, to my understanding; you then took that and moved to kitchen knives. Yes, kitchen knives are made to be used in the kitchen. But what are hunting knives made for? Switchblades?

I wonder whether you're implying that most homocides involving knives are thus kitchen knives? Can you clear this up for me? If you addressed it later then my apologies, I've just been skimming it quickly and this caught my eye. And I'm very tired, so excuse me if my question makes no sense. x.x
 

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Posted by RunningBear (Member # 8477) on :
 
AAIIIIEEEE!!!! Ok, I skipped to the end and I am replying. knives were designed to KILL. guns were designed to KILL. If I had a time machine, would you go running into a neanderthal camp waving your arms without fear because they didnt have guns and their flint knives were designed for chopping vegetables??!?!?! (hint: flint pierces well, and slices well, but cant handle any sort of pressure, like chopping) What about a hundred objects lying around the house that could be used to kill inadvertently? prescription drug related deaths are one of the leading non-"natural" causes of death in the U.S., so should we ban prescription drugs? And looking at the area around my town... we have had three teen suicides in the past six years, and knives were used for all of them. But they are designed for chopping vegetables, not killing. Please...
 

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Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
 
Let me make one small point regarding Automobiles, Knives, Baseball Bats, Neanderthal Flints, and other causes of death as they are used as analogies in this dicussion.

The point is, that with these various potentially deadly devices, when they are used to kill, you blame the operator and not the device. So, why should your attitude be any different with regard to guns?

A gun is merely a hunk of steel, until someone picks it up with intent; whether intentional intent or accidental intent. The result comes from the choices of the operator, just as it does from all these other devices.

And let us not forget, that weapons that can be used to form an armed resistance, are one of the major stones in the foundation of our freedom. Take out one stone and that leads to another, and that leads to the eventual collapse of our freedom and liberty.

Lincoln was right, we the people and our willingness to compromise our power as a free people is the greatest threat to our liberty.

We have seen the enemy and he is us.

Steve/BlueWizard
 

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Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 

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Originally posted by Hitoshi:

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That is neither accurate nor relevant. It is not relevant because the historical uses of knives is not at issue. A kitchen knife is designed for use, in a kitchen. Like many things, it can kill, but it is made with a kitchen in mind.

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Kitchen knives aren't the only kind of knives made, you know. He was talking blades in general, to my understanding; you then took that and moved to kitchen knives. Yes, kitchen knives are made to be used in the kitchen. But what are hunting knives made for? Switchblades?

I wonder whether you're implying that most homocides involving knives are thus kitchen knives? Can you clear this up for me? If you addressed it later then my apologies, I've just been skimming it quickly and this caught my eye. And I'm very tired, so excuse me if my question makes no sense. x.x

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:looks around to see that the trolls are indeed gone:

It was thorougly adressed in several of my posts; and I pointed out early on that a katana blade is one thing and a kitchen knife is something else, I am against the katana unless you are using it for chopping wood or something. All of these continued rationalizations of "a gun is a hunk of steel" are disengenuous, because we all know what the 9mm was built to do. You can use anything to kill, and it will still be you killing, but buying something designed for death-dealing is alot different from buying a car or a kitchen knife (unless you intend to go a-killing with either of those things, which is why there ARE restrictions on them too; they're dangerous). No plea for "people kill people" is going to make me forget that guns are meant to help the process along, and that a gun for home defense is a tool for killing. A tool for defense yes, defense through the ability to kill, and as we all know, the threat would be nothing if no-one ever got shot. People do though. <OSC style grin>

:Dashes off gleefully to escape the trolls lurking in the thread:
 

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Posted by ChevMalFet (Member # 9676) on :
 
I hope no one would chop wood with a katana… Though I think that's possibly a bad example as most who own authentic Japanese swords likely own them for the craftsmanship they represent more than anything else.

As far as guns primary design being for killing; it depends on the weapon. It is worth noting, however, that there are still many wilderness areas in the US where a handgun is advisable for personal protection from various predators (and areas where something larger is more appropriate).

The long and short is there are legitimate reasons to own many fire arms, even if you do not agree with a sportsman's reasons or someone that chooses to own for self defense.

And realistically, a solid grasp of High School chemistry gives one a much more effect means to kill large numbers of people than a firearm, for someone with intent. I think the folks that oppose firearms from an accidental death standpoint have a much more solid footing than those that argue against the legitimacy of the desire itself.
 

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Posted by RunningBear (Member # 8477) on :
 
Lancelot has got a point, one that I was backing up, because there are a hundred and one ways to create a lethal weapon, and it is not that a weapon is lethal that makes it dangerous, it is the fact that someone does not properly care for it and/or uses it in a certain manner that makes it dangerous.

Accidental firearm injuries are not uncommon, but in the gross majority, they are caused by doing something stupid, like getting drunk and going hunting, or riding in a car and resting the rifle on your foot while looking for the quarry.

The cases in which children get a hold of firearms and injure themselves or others are the fault of whoever left the gun in an available place without teaching the children about the danger of the item.

NEVER leave a firearm in an area accessible to a child or person who is not trained in firearm safety.

And my own philosophy concerning the ownership of weapons for self defense is, hope for the best, prepare for the worst, just do it carefully.

Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

[ September 05, 2006, 05:57 PM: Message edited by: RunningBear ]
 

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Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
: remembers why he abandoned the thread in the first place, shudders and walks away shaking his head:

More slogans everybody! Aphorisms are going to change the world!
 

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Posted by RunningBear (Member # 8477) on :
 
ignoring them wont make them false.
 

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Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
No, but their being stupid will make them less interesting.

edit: and repeating them over and over will not make them smarter.
 

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Posted by Hitoshi (Member # 8218) on :
 

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Originally posted by Orincoro:
No, but their being stupid will make them less interesting.

edit: and repeating them over and over will not make them smarter.

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And repeating that you're right doesn't make you righter.

Both sides have their views. There's no point in expecting to change the world through an Internet debate. It's just to toss ideas around, all of which are as right and fine as the next.
 

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Posted by RunningBear (Member # 8477) on :
 
I consider it quite fun. I don't know why.

But I do.

My aphorisms are better than your aphorisms anyway.


 

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Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
 
Solutions, not slogans!

(Reported in the Dogbert Ruling Class Newsletter as a slogan in a *successful* city council campaign.)
 

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Posted by RunningBear (Member # 8477) on :
 
Well, no one liked my solution of shooting everyone who disagreed with me... I mean, it worked in 1984!
 

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Posted by kythri (Member # 9646) on :
 

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Originally posted by Orincoro:
:looks around to see that the trolls are indeed gone:

*SNIP*

:Dashes off gleefully to escape the trolls lurking in the thread: [/QB]

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