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As to long guns...there is a very strong anti gun voice here, that doesn't distinguish between what type of firearm, simply it is enough that they are merely dangerous.
As to bears, y'all are likely right. They are not a serious concern, merely an observation that there are areas in our very large US which are populated by dangerous animals. In mn I had a couple bear encounters/near misses.
As to the riots, I may have exaggerated, there were two incidents in particular I was referring to. One was at our home in Van Nuys, which was backed by a 6' cinderblock wall. A young male someone was noisily in our back yard, my father drew a gun on him and said something like "Out the way came." Which he did. The end. Story two, same day as Denny was beaten, my dad was at work & had a big moving style truck filled with gear from the Gallagher show, who he was prop master for, when at a stop light, four young black fellas in a car pulled up behind him and jumped out of their car with weapons in hand, my father pulled his gun & shot at their feet, and drove away. The end.
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As to firearms such as rifles, speaking only for myself (though I would be surprised if others didn't agree), I'm not sure what you mean by 'it's enough that they're dangerous'. Enough for what? No one is talking about confiscation, certainly not here and in fact no one in the gun control movement is either. Or at least no one of any weight and substance.
While I wouldn't be surprised if long guns were less dangerous in ways that handguns are more dangerous (in fact, I would be surprised if long guns *weren't* statistically less dangerous), having a long gun does present a danger. Full stop. It's a weapon designed to kill living things, and is therefore dangerous. Is that danger enough to offset the dangers it might help prevent? Such as animal attacks, oppressive governments, or home invasions? I don't know, though I suspect the answer is probably not since the first two are all but infinitesimal threats and I can't speak to the latter in rural areas. Can long guns, with sufficient regulation and checks be made safe enough that the risk posed by owning them is mitigated sufficiently? Actually for long guns in particular I think the answer is yes.
But they're still dangerous. You've been to gun ranges before, so I know you can understand that there's a reason why there are rules such as 'treat every firearm as though it is loaded-yes, even when you are absolutely certain it isn't loaded'. It's because they're dangerous. It's the same reason surgeons have many layers of redundancy in terms of cleanliness before and during a surgery-because there is a small risk that is always, regardless of safeguards, going to be there and it can kill people, and the only effective long term solution is massive overkill in terms of safety.
Anyway, as for bears and wild animal attacks, given what Dogbreath shared about the facts of bear attacks in California over the past 140ish years, do you feel the media coverage on animal attacks is understated, proportionate, or exagerrated?
As for the LA Riots, I can't parse the details quite. Did the man in the back yard see the weapon your father had? And the four young men, what sort of weapons did they have? But to an extent, though your own perception of the dangers and that of your father are very understandable, a cold-blooded risk assessment would also ask questions like: how likely are riots in LA going forward? How often have they happened, and how dangerous have they been in the past? If one were to happen in the future, how likely am I to be directly affected?
The truth is that the factual answers to those questions must be that the likelihood of riots in LA that affect you with direct force, or your family, are based on what we have seen before extremely rare. Meanwhile, I suspect it is true that in a single year, more children are killed by suicide by firearm in los Angeles than any humans have died in all of the riots that have taken place there combined. http://www.ph.ucla.edu/sciprc/pdf/FIREARMS.pdf
It seems to me that of two very unlikely events-rioting necessitating a firearm for defense of family, self, and property; or mental illness leading to suicide by firearm-of these two very unlikely events, it is much, much more likely that you or someone in your family, or anyone with a firearm in the household, would use the firearm for suicide than for defense against riots.
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Rakeesh: I haven't successfully found a source that breaks down accidental gun deaths by weapon type, but the FBI breaks down homicides by weapon type - rifles and shotguns are only used in a fraction of them. In 2014, for example, there were 5,562 handgun homicides, 248 rifle homicides, and 262 shotgun homicides. And I would imagine a significant portion of those 248 rifle homicides were were assault rifles - a long barreled, high powered bolt-action hunting rifle is actually a pretty awkward murder weapon unless you're killing from a long distance like Charles Whitman or the Virginia snipers or something.
Lacking a breakdown of accidents by gun types, I can say anecdotally at least that it's pretty difficult to accidentally shoot yourself with a hunting rifle - most of the hunting accidents I've heard about are trigger happy hunters accidentally shooting other hunters (which is why we always wore orange) or someone shooting from level ground instead of shooting down from a tree stand and missing, and their bullet hitting someone else half a mile away type freak accident. They're also big and awkward and hard for young children to handle and play with, which is important when you consider that 8% of all unintentional shootings are by children under the age of 6.
Of course the main difference is that hunting rifles are also useful tools, and are many, many times safer (at least in terms in people killed with them for sure, and probably in terms of accident-prevention) than handguns - I don't think I've seen any serious legislation out there suggesting they be banned. As I mentioned before, even countries with very tough gun ownership laws - up to and including straight up banning handgun ownership for any reason - still make it fairly easy to buy hunting rifles and shotguns. Though "fairly easy" is a relative term - in socialist Sweden you have to have been an active member of an approved shooting club for 6 months and then take a hunting exam to basically prove you understand how to operate the weapon and hunt safely, and then you can own up to 6 rifles at a time. Which isn't too onerous for anyone who's legitimately buying guns to go hunting, and is kind of similar to states where you have to pass Driver's Ed and then have a learners permit for 6 months before getting a driver's license, but is much more restrictive than anywhere in the US and ironically much less restrictive than the "they're going to take all our guns away!" people who are literally afraid of the US turning into Sweden make it out to be.
I'm somewhat ambivalent on the issue. I own handguns and take them to the range fairly often. I also keep them locked in a safe when I'm not using them, and even padlock them in my travel case when I transport them. Conceal carry is effectively illegal* here, but even if it wasn't I don't think I would ever carry. I never really run into situations where I would ever have to use a gun, and I'm nowhere near confident enough to say that there is a 0% chance of there being an accident.
I remember, for example, when I was a kid there was a police detective who went to our church (which 6 year old me thought was the coolest thing ever) and one day he nodded off in the middle of the sermon and a gun he was wearing on a shoulder hostler fell out and clattered really loudly on the floor. He was really embarrassed and the pastor laughed and made a joke about it later, but that always sort of stuck with me. I go to the bar after work sometimes with my buddies, there have been 2 or 3 times my wife has had to pick me up because one of them bought a few rounds of shots for everyone and I didn't want to risk driving after a few drinks. I've thought in those situations, "what if I was carrying?" If I don't trust my motor skills and judgement enough after a few drinks to drive home since my car is a potentially lethal weapon, why would I trust myself with a much more lethal weapon? What if it falls out and I drunkenly reach to pick it up and flag someone or accidentally shoot someone, or someone thinks I'm aiming a gun at them and shoots me? Those are kind of absurd scenarios but I think about stuff like that a lot. Or I could leave it in the car, but then what if someone breaks into the car and steals it? Then there's a criminal with another gun. Same for if I do get mugged - if they see I have a gun, what went from 2 hours of drudgery as I cancel my credit and debit cards and order new ones and buy a new wallet just turned into a potentially lethal situation.
I just can't really think of any good reason to conceal carry and plenty of bad ones, and even though I think I'm a pretty safe and competent gun owner, I think doing so would be risky. More risky than the 1 in a million chance I'm somewhere there's a mass shooting and I'm in just the right position and have quick enough reflexes and can think clearly in all the noise and violence and confusion to find and neutralize the shooter. It's just not a very good risk-reward trade off for me personally, and I think that effect is magnified when you apply that to all of societies, with your wannabe cowboy heroes with twitchy trigger fingers out there who blow their neighbor's drunk girlfriend's brains out because she accidentally tried to get into the wrong house late at night. I've talked to more than one guy who's shared gleeful fantasies about what they would do if they ever had their home broken into or got mugged that have made me think "this man should never be trusted with a firearm."
*It's technically legal, but permits have to be issued on a case-by-case basis and the police chief here has categorically refused to issue any permits up until this point.
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I strongly, strongly suspect that gun culture promotes and encourages this sort of exaggeration as part of the toxic narrative on which it depends.
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Flagged someone? Does that mean covered them, ie pointed a gun at then on accident?
The fact that you think about this stuff DB, is one of the reasons why I would, personally, feel safe with you packing.
Also, when drinking, one should not be armed. And under my suggested system, doing so would be a federal crime, publishable by loss of carry permit at minimum and likely substantially worse punishment, including jail time.
Just for the record, I have NEVER carried concealed in my life, not once.
Also the fellas you mentioned, who are fantasizing about killing, I would hope they would not pass the mandatory psych eval required for public carry.
Laatly, if carrying and buds want to drink, wouldn't you go drop off your pow pow at home before you go? That's what I'd do if I went out drinking & carried...two things I don't do, btw.
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I strongly, strongly suspect that gun culture promotes and encourages this sort of exaggeration as part of the toxic narrative on which it depends.
I do not contest this, the NRA are ass bags and thousands upon thousands of unnecessary lives have been tragically lost bc of their stupidity, greed & myopia.
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Flagged someone? Does that mean covered them, ie pointed a gun at then on accident?
"Flagging" and "covering" are two different terms. Flagging means pointing your weapon's muzzle at another person because you're not maintaining proper muzzle control. I really recommend you become familiar with some basic gun safety rules and terminology and follow them diligently if you're going to own weapons.
quote:Just for the record, I have NEVER carried concealed in my life, not once.
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: I'm in process currently to carry concealed in my new county.
And through much of this thread as well as Sam's you've defended concealed carry and how great of an idea you it is. I guess you can make the argument that you've never concealed carried up until now, but your "in my new county" qualification implies that you concealed carried in your old county. Even if you technically haven't before, you still very much intend to carry now. So that's kind of a strange point to make.
quote:Also the fellas you mentioned, who are fantasizing about killing, I would hope they would not pass the mandatory psych eval required for public carry.
What mandatory psych eval? Back home anyway, you literally just need to not have a criminal record. Did you have a mandatory psych eval recently when you applied for your conceal carry permit?
quote:Laatly, if carrying and buds want to drink, wouldn't you go drop off your pow pow at home before you go? That's what I'd do if I went out drinking & carried...two things I don't do, btw.
do you call your gun "pow pow"
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I think he was referring to his ideas for a new system of gun control regulations for many of the points that puzzled you, Dogbreath.
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Also, no, I just get bored and like to play with words, none of my many firearms have nick names, I refer to rhem by their make/calaber the very few times I have discussed them in any detail.
Also, I taught gun safety for years professionally, as well as carried exposed for employment.
Even the article you linked says that " In the military, we used the term of flagging someone with a weapon. By this we meant pointing, even incidentally the muzzle at someone." Bolding mine. Although I volunteered twice, I never had the honor of service and was unfamiliar w the phrase.
Did you perhaps forget my extensive experience w firearms when you suggested I familiarise with basc safety?
As to carrying in my new county...I moved semi recently, so that was all that reference was. I'm not much in process in reality. I've downloaded the forms to apply, but my printer is down and I haven't gotten around to fixing it.
I must admit I exaggerated that too.
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Before we go any further, can you just go ahead and share what else you've claimed about yourself that is actually just an "exaggeration"? Do you actually own guns, or have you just thought about maybe buying one?* Where did you teach gun safety "professionally" for years while remaining ignorant of gun safety terminology? Were you a police consultant? Work for a shooting range? Or maybe you took a gun safety class once? Where does the exaggeration stop and the truth begin with you?
*This actually seems like the most plausible scenario to me now, in which case, can I ask you to please not buy a gun? Or if you do, don't carry it around with you?
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I worked at three shooting ranges (three locations, two companies), over a 6 year period, and while I had other duties, teaching gun safety was one of my jobs. All employees were encouraged to carry exposed while working.
My father bought me my first gun at age 12, and I own about a dozen, currently. At no time, since the age of 12, have I NOT owned at least, but unusually more than, one firearm.
I was certified to carry exposed, and did so for a living while going to school for computer drafting and design, I worked private security for over 8 years.
I once accidentally shot thru a window at age 13, thinking I was dry firing, luckily I lived deep in rural MN at the time and the only thing in that direction for miles was a cemetery and swamp.
I once almost blew off my fingers at age 17, when I slipped while slowly lowering the hammer of a handgun. The firing pin dimpled the primer but not deep enough to go off.
I kept that round all these years as a reminder of how lucky I am to have the fingers of my left hand intact.
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Some of you all make it very easy to pull off.
Well, for whoresons pieces of shit who would be better of killed as children by their parents, that's not surprising!
ETA: Hey, I'll talk seriously with you about an issue and give you another shot-again. I'll even stick up for you to Dogbreath of all people if I think he's misunderstood or missed something you said, though God knows if anyone was entitled to taking a harsh view of you it's him. (How many harrassing emails *did* you send him, anyway?)
But if you ever had the right to play the victim before-a dubious proposition at best-you burned right through that right sometime around 'if only your father had killed you as a child'. Then, all you had to say about that was 'out of respect to BB I'll put asterisks up and hey you had a role too'.
I'll save Parkour some work and just remind you, as I just did, that on this subject you are entirely full of shit. You're not a victim, you're an aggressor.
posted
And another thing-if I or any of the other people you dislike so much, the 'dogpilers', said even half of what you did, they would have apologized by now without conditions. Not that they would have said stuff like that, but if they so lost their tempers they would have expressed remorse very soon after.
It isn't that I want an apology from you, not least because it's as obvious now as it was in the past that you wouldn't mean it. But I will happily point out your glaring hypocrisy in the realm of who's a bad guy questions at the very least until you make the bare minimum gesture of civility.
------
On a separate but related issue, what does actually sting a little is the way this was treated publicly as just an 'oh, you're better than that' and 'I appreciate self-editing'.
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: I worked at three shooting ranges (three locations, two companies), over a 6 year period, and while I had other duties, teaching gun safety was one of my jobs. All employees were encouraged to carry exposed while working.
My father bought me my first gun at age 12, and I own about a dozen, currently. At no time, since the age of 12, have I NOT owned at least, but unusually more than, one firearm.
I was certified to carry exposed, and did so for a living while going to school for computer drafting and design, I worked private security for over 8 years.
I once accidentally shot thru a window at age 13, thinking I was dry firing, luckily I lived deep in rural MN at the time and the only thing in that direction for miles was a cemetery and swamp.
I once almost blew off my fingers at age 17, when I slipped while slowly lowering the hammer of a handgun. The firing pin dimpled the primer but not deep enough to go off.
I kept that round all these years as a reminder of how lucky I am to have the fingers of my left hand intact.
Thanks for your honesty, SW. I appreciate it.
I have a question: after the various discussions in this thread, including all the hard data that's been presented, social and philosophical and psychological issues discussed... has your perception of this issue changed at all? Do you still stand by your earlier posts, thinking that conceal carry is a good insurance policy? Do you still think the vision you presented in your original post presents a net positive gain to society?
Keep in mind, for example, that the cowboy action hero mindset folks I mentioned most certainly *would* pass a psych evaluation. (One of them at least I *know* has - he's a cop) None of them are insane or mentally unstable, they just have very dangerous world views regarding guns and self defense and a highly skewed perception of exactly how dangerous the world around them actually is. In fact, and this isn't meant as a dis, most of the things they say are things you yourself have said at one point or another over the years, mostly when talking about defending your family against hypothetical threats. (Which is perfectly understandable)
Whether or not you're sane and experienced and rational and would never ever do something like that, carrying a lethal weapon absolutely changes the way you interact with the world and other people. I don't think either of those cops set out to kill anyone that day, and I'm sure they're very sorry that they did, but when you're jumped up on fear and adrenaline and in a dangerous situation and you only have a second or two to think about your actions and you have a lethal weapon in your hand... a simple mistake or overreaction will cost someone else their life. And afterwards, quite often as we've seen, it was a death that was not at all necessary or justified.
Likewise, there's a reason why one of the leading causes of death on the battlefield is friendly fire. It's not always easy or even possible to always make the right decision, no matter how experienced or level headed you are. People make mistakes, people misjudge situations. I know damn well that I can't trust myself to always make the right decision in a split-second situation like that, to never make mistakes. Can you really say you are that confident in yourself? How about people who are demonstrably less calm and more caviler in their approach to guns than you?
Again, knowing how minuscule the potential reward is (the one in a million chance you somehow stop a mass shooting), and how great the risk is, can you still really say it's worth it?
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First off I would NOT describe my teenage self as " mature, rational, highly experienced gun owner", but thank you.
Also, did you read my stats on open carry, shall carry states? And the 8 million est. permits issued currently?
It's not so much that I am pro carry as I am pro oversight of carry, altho I could see the confusion.
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: First off I would NOT describe my teenage self as " mature, rational, highly experienced gun owner", but thank you.
Also, did you read my stats on open carry, shall carry states? And the 8 million est. permits issued currently?
Yes, and others have addressed that as well.
quote:It's not so much that I am pro carry as I am pro oversight of carry, altho I could see the confusion.
If you're not pro carry then why did you claim you were in the process of getting a concealed carry permit? I realize you admitted you lied about that, but you had to have had a reason for lying about it, right? Why would you try to get a permit to carry and talk about how it's a good insurance policy and how is it really unreasonable to want to keep your family safe and so forth if you're not pro-carry?
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: I didn't lie, I exaggerated...there is a difference.
What difference?
You realize "exaggeration" is not an antonym of "lie", right? A lie that also happens to be an exaggeration isn't somehow made any less a lie by virtue of being an exaggeration. If I said "I make a million dollars a year" - the fact that I'm greatly exaggerating my salary doesn't somehow make that statement not a lie. If I say "I got that job!" when really I was just maybe thinking about printing out the paperwork for the job application once I get my printer fixed, that's a lie. You knowingly stated something that was untrue with the intention of deceiving other people. You lied.
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All of that is beside the point, though. What I'm interested in is the question you've avoided answering so far. Again:
quote:knowing how minuscule the potential reward is (the one in a million chance you somehow stop a mass shooting), and how great the risk is, can you still really say it's worth it?
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Some of you all make it very easy to pull off.
You know, at this point it's a bit of a vicious circle.
You can be stubborn when someone corrects obviously untrue or possibly unwise things that you say. And because you seemingly have this idea that you must only be corrected and engaged in ways that you find appropriate, and slowly but surely become more aggressive and unhinged as people refuse to act the way you tell them to, yeah, conflict seems to find you.
This doesn't make you a victim, and it's both ludicrous and sad that you apparently think you're one, especially in this of all threads.
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DB...Not sure...something to think about at least. I am not a statistic...however I do not see a huge upside at the moment, so I haven't done more than read the paper work, establish that I meet all qualifications...it's not worth that much effort to me at the moment, however situations can change quickly, and I had thought, heck, it would be handy to have the permit just in case I ever run across a burning need to carry...like civil unrest, or nope, that's about it.
The need for a gun can be abrupt, however the wheels of government move at their own pace, so best to plan ahead.
I do not agree about all exaggerations being lies, a better comparison would be you implying that you are well off, while in actuality you are only doing okay.
I tend to reserve the word lying, especially when the person I'm speaking to and I are not necessarily on the best terms. It's terminology that can cause strife. But, that's only one man's opinion.
My point is I'm far more in favor of some oversight than I am gunho for the idea of carrying.
One feller I worked with, he was senior instructor, ex special forces somesuch, with all the advanced training degrees, the walking death type you mentioned meeting yourself...he wore his gun in his home...he was literally armed at all times.
And I was like, jesh and golly Sir (some guys you just gotta call Sir), that seems a little overkill...he had stats he quoted, likely from biased sources, and I nodded and left his steely eyed gaze as quickly as possible.
You, me, nobody was gunna get this guy's gun from him, I doubt even his cold dead fingers would let go after his heart goes from high blood pressure...he reminded me of mad eye moody from HP...CONSTANT VIGILANCE.
What is the truth? The truth is we live in a world of uncertainty, and change is the only constant.
More than I think it's GOOD to have armed citizens, I think it's IMPORTANT to pass intelligent safety laws, like the sane laws of my own state, I.e. required safety testing, required proof of safe storage.
The mag capacity & "assault weapon" ban laws are mostly a bad joke tho. Bc they are insanely easy to get around. A p.o. box or buddy in another state, a bullet button, and Bob's you uncle.
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Some of you all make it very easy to pull off.
You know, at this point it's a bit of a vicious circle.
You can be stubborn when someone corrects obviously untrue or possibly unwise things that you say. And because you seemingly have this idea that you must only be corrected and engaged in ways that you find appropriate, and slowly but surely become more aggressive and unhinged as people refuse to act the way you tell them to, yeah, conflict seems to find you.
This doesn't make you a victim, and it's both ludicrous and sad that you apparently think you're one, especially in this of all threads.
I certainly have impulse control issues, but I'm hardly the only one w issues friend. I don't enjoy or seek out the victim role knowingly.
But seriously, do you really see me getting into it with ppl who are not activity seeking to push my buttons?
It's always the same five or six dudes...whether it's me they are having a go at, or Ron, or Clive, the ones who enjoy conflict, and like to put people in their place.
It isn't black and white, we all add to the discord, and while I can accept that I need to mature in some ways, I have zero doubt in mind that I ain't the only one.
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quote:I certainly have impulse control issues, but I'm hardly the only one w issues friend.
I would suggest not waiting for everyone else in the world to be done having issues before taking responsibility for and dealing with your own.
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Some of you all make it very easy to pull off.
You know, at this point it's a bit of a vicious circle.
You can be stubborn when someone corrects obviously untrue or possibly unwise things that you say. And because you seemingly have this idea that you must only be corrected and engaged in ways that you find appropriate, and slowly but surely become more aggressive and unhinged as people refuse to act the way you tell them to, yeah, conflict seems to find you.
This doesn't make you a victim, and it's both ludicrous and sad that you apparently think you're one, especially in this of all threads.
I certainly have impulse control issues, but I'm hardly the only one w issues friend. I don't enjoy or seek out the victim role knowingly.
But seriously, do you really see me getting into it with ppl who are not activity seeking to push my buttons?
It's always the same five or six dudes...whether it's me they are having a go at, or Ron, or Clive, the ones who enjoy conflict, and like to put people in their place.
It isn't black and white, we all add to the discord, and while I can accept that I need to mature in some ways, I have zero doubt in mind that I ain't the only one.
Yeah, I remember the last time after you mocked somebody's views on a current events issue and they totally lost their shit and called your parents whores and wished you were dead and hinted at violence against you.
Except no, wait, that's what you do. Which makes this idea of equivalence you're pushing transparent bullshit.
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"But seriously, do you really see me getting into it with ppl who are not activity seeking to push my buttons?"
Yes. Frequently.
But in an effort to understand your viewpoint here, would you want to quote a couple of times when people were "actively seeking to push your buttons?"
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I am genuinely appreciative of your willingness to try and see things from my side, however, I feel like the actual topic of conversation is already obscured currently, and I'd like to steer it back.
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: DB...Not sure...something to think about at least. I am not a statistic...however I do not see a huge upside at the moment, so I haven't done more than read the paper work, establish that I meet all qualifications...it's not worth that much effort to me at the moment, however situations can change quickly, and I had thought, heck, it would be handy to have the permit just in case I ever run across a burning need to carry...like civil unrest, or nope, that's about it.
Then what was all this stuff before about how important it is to carry as an insurance policy? I'm not going to quote literally everything you said in this thread up until now, you know what you said as well as I did. Is this discussion why you're moving goalposts now?
quote:The need for a gun can be abrupt, however the wheels of government move at their own pace, so best to plan ahead.
I also pretty convincingly demonstrated to you that the situations where there's an abrupt "need for a gun" (like the lie about your father saving your life during the riots when he literally just yelled at someone to get out of his backyard) by a civilian are either astronomically low or situations where having a gun or not is unlikely to change the outcome. You are not a statistic, however statistics pretty clearly model how much of a threat there is to you and how much having a gun will ameliorate or add to that threat.
quote:I do not agree about all exaggerations being lies, a better comparison would be you implying that you are well off, while in actuality you are only doing okay.
First, I never said all exaggerations are lies. I said "'exaggeration' is not an antonym of 'lie'" and "a lie doesn't stop being a lie by virtue of being an exaggeration." Can you at least please stop blatantly lying about what I said?
Second, that's not a better comparison. You didn't "imply" anything (and implying something untrue with the intention of deceiving people is also a lie, just a more cowardly one), you made a definite statement that you you knew wasn't true. Which is a lie.
I mean ffs, if I were to tell my boss I was in the middle of working on a project and had met x number of requirements and then it later came up after 2 weeks of jerking around that I hadn't even started that project, I would be fired for lying. She wouldn't say "oh, well, it's OK that you lied because you also happened to be exaggerating!" That's a load of crap, SW. You're a grown man here, you know damn well what a lie is and why lying to people, especially in an attempt to win an argument, is a shitty thing to do. Do you think you're winning anyone's respect by pretending to literally not understand why it's not OK for you to just make things up?
quote:I tend to reserve the word lying, especially when the person I'm speaking to and I are not necessarily on the best terms. It's terminology that can cause strife. But, that's only one man's opinion.
Whereas I think lying to people can cause strife, and I try to avoid that by demonstrating a basic level of honor, honesty and integrity in my professional and personal life. I think telling people I wish their father had killed them as a child can cause strife. And as bad is Rakeesh is according to you - worse than Kim Jong Un, human excrement, etc. - he's never lied to me. Heck, even when we've been in contentious debates and he realizes he got a minor detail wrong, he pretty quickly owns it. Do you seriously think lying is acceptable or that other people should ignore your lies to "avoid causing strife" rather than expecting you to act honorably? Because that's pretty sad. It also means I can't trust anything you say. (As you've repeatedly confirmed just in this thread)
quote:What is the truth? The truth is we live in a world of uncertainty, and change is the only constant.
That's a fundamentally false postulation, though. I already spelled it out, but you are not a cowboy in some anarchist-fantasy wild west. You live in a civilized nation where most of that uncertainty that would make you think you "need a gun" has been removed. And again, nearly every instance you claimed you need a gun for (including wild bear attacks which haven't killed anyone in your state in over 140 years!) I've demonstrated is something that has either astronomically low chances of happening, or is something that having a gun is unlikely to change the outcome. Your "world of uncertainty" has very little actual uncertainty when it comes to being a victim of violent crime, especially as a white man in the US. Adding a gun to that situation adds to that uncertainty, it doesn't detract from it.
quote:The mag capacity & "assault weapon" ban laws are mostly a bad joke tho. Bc they are insanely easy to get around. A p.o. box or buddy in another state, a bullet button, and Bob's you uncle.
It's incredibly easy for me to break traffic laws by running a red light or speeding. Should we not have traffic laws then? Are traffic laws a "bad joke" because they're insanely easy to get around?
quote:Once again, it needs stating because it can’t be stated too often: despite the desperate efforts of the National Rifle Association to prevent research on gun violence, the research has gone on, and shows conclusively what common sense already suggests. Guns are not merely the instrument; guns are the issue. The more guns there are, the more gun violence happens. In light of last night’s assassinations, it is also essential to remember that the more guns there are, the greater the danger to police officers themselves. It requires no apology for unjustified police violence to point out that, in a heavily armed country, the police officer who thinks that a suspect is armed is likelier to panic than when he can be fairly confident that the suspect is not. We have come to accept it as natural that ordinary police officers should be armed and ready to use lethal force at all times. They should not be. A black man with a concealed weapon should be no more liable to be killed than a white man with one. But having a nation of men carrying concealed lethal weapons pretty much guarantees that there will be lethal results, an outcome only made worse by our toxic racial history. Last night’s tragedy was also the grotesque reductio ad absurdum of the claim that it takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun. There were nothing but good guys and they had nothing but guns, and five died anyway, as helpless as the rest of us.
Once again, the difference in policy views is clear, and can be coolly stated: those who insist on the right to concealed weapons, to the open carrying of firearms, to the availability of military weapons—to the essentially unlimited dissemination of guns—guarantee that the murders will continue. They have no plan to end them, except to return fire, with results we know. The people who don’t want the regulations that we know will help curb (not end) violent acts and help make them rare (not non-existent) have reconciled themselves to the mass murder of police officers, as well as of innocent men and women during traffic stops and of long, ghostly rows of harmless civilians and helpless children. The country is now clearly divided among those who want the killings and violence to stop and those who don’t. In the words of the old activist song, which side are you on?
posted
About the riots. Yeah, based on your latest description of what actually happened, you definitely lied about the impact of guns in that situation, and you first told that lie quite a long time ago. At least months. Maybe you're fooling yourself, too-maybe someone in your backyard (did you ever clarify if your father could see this person and if he was armed, and if the guy could see your father and if he was armed?) might've hurt your family, or something, and maybe your father having a gun saved lives, and so for argument purposes that counts as 'saved our lives', I don't know.
What I have much less uncertainty about is how you would characterize it if I did such a thing. For example, say it couldn't be released to the public certain details of certain deaths, such as suicides. Some information made it seem likely that many thousands of suicides each year were done with firearms, but I didn't actually know that for sure-it just seemed likely to me. But in an argument with you I said it was sure. Later I admit that, well, I wasn't actually sure at all.
I have little doubt you would (rightly) accuse me of lying in such a scenario. Hell, you've been willing to call my mother a whore and express a wish that I'd been killed as a child because I mocked your position, so I think it's very fair for me to think you'd call me a liar in that instance.
Anyway, here's what we appear to be left with now with your very modified claims about what gun ownership in your family might have meant for your family's safety during the LA riots. During an incredibly rare event (rioting), there were two events. One of them was trespassing which might have led to something else, such as theft or other crimes; the other was something involving multiple people and a car, I'm not sure what that could have led to. In the trespassing, it's not clear if the gun was decisive, or if the other guy had a gun either. So in that case, maybe a gun prevented what might have been a violent crime. I can't speak to the other thing, since you haven't offered enough details about it.
Up against that one open variable and the other one which has a lot of unknown in it, we have to consider the two instances when you actually, as a hypothetical, nearly did yourself serious injury by accident with a family firearm as a minor. In one of those instances, only the lack of a passerby whether hiking or visiting a cemetery or what kept that from resulting in someone else being shot as well. Were you an only child, or did other members of the family experience near misses like that?
Anyway, based on what you've now said about the riots and about your own childhood interactions with guns...yeah just those two factors well you've got two maybes in an incredibly rare circumstance, the riots, held up against two actually happened near misses.
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(FWIW, the lie in question he and I were discussing was his claim "I'm in process currently to carry concealed in my new county", which he later admitted was completely false)
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Yeah, that too. It is frankly pretty damned weird, since it's not as though it bolstered the argument anyway.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Once again, it needs stating because it can’t be stated too often: despite the desperate efforts of the National Rifle Association to prevent research on gun violence, the research has gone on, and shows conclusively what common sense already suggests. Guns are not merely the instrument; guns are the issue. The more guns there are, the more gun violence happens. In light of last night’s assassinations, it is also essential to remember that the more guns there are, the greater the danger to police officers themselves. It requires no apology for unjustified police violence to point out that, in a heavily armed country, the police officer who thinks that a suspect is armed is likelier to panic than when he can be fairly confident that the suspect is not. We have come to accept it as natural that ordinary police officers should be armed and ready to use lethal force at all times. They should not be. A black man with a concealed weapon should be no more liable to be killed than a white man with one. But having a nation of men carrying concealed lethal weapons pretty much guarantees that there will be lethal results, an outcome only made worse by our toxic racial history. Last night’s tragedy was also the grotesque reductio ad absurdum of the claim that it takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun. There were nothing but good guys and they had nothing but guns, and five died anyway, as helpless as the rest of us.
Once again, the difference in policy views is clear, and can be coolly stated: those who insist on the right to concealed weapons, to the open carrying of firearms, to the availability of military weapons—to the essentially unlimited dissemination of guns—guarantee that the murders will continue. They have no plan to end them, except to return fire, with results we know. The people who don’t want the regulations that we know will help curb (not end) violent acts and help make them rare (not non-existent) have reconciled themselves to the mass murder of police officers, as well as of innocent men and women during traffic stops and of long, ghostly rows of harmless civilians and helpless children. The country is now clearly divided among those who want the killings and violence to stop and those who don’t. In the words of the old activist song, which side are you on?
So, Sam, you own guns right? You aren't straight up anti gun that I've seen...so I don't think the sides are pro and anti gun, right? It anti carry that is your point?
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DB, I'm fairly certain that my comparison to car insurance was in response to conversation, and not a generalized call for every one to carry.
As to the bullet button...it is fully legal, and basically circumvents all bans and puts AR, AKs and such back on the CA market...The ban was in and around '99, and bullet buttons came in the market a few years after, if memory serves.
As it is a CA issue I don't think you are up to date?
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I'm aware of it (as well as problems in Chicago with private owners in Indiana legally selling to folks who cross the state border from Illinois), just commenting that just because a law can be easily broken or circumvented doesn't make it a "bad joke." That's sort of a tired argument - "this gun law can't be 100% enforced and therefore shouldn't exist/is just a joke!" isn't a mentality we apply to any other law, despite people routinely breaking them or finding legal loopholes around them.
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Is there a law where the approach is 'by making this law and attempting to enforce it, we can completely eliminate or nearly eliminate this activity'?
Off the top of my head, I can't think of a single law designed that way. Laws against murder, theft, sexual assault, traffic laws, tax laws, environmental laws, all of them exist without this bizarrely high standard of 'if there's away around it, we shouldn't make a law against it' you're arbitrarily applying here, Stone_Wolf.
Like Dogbreath said, can you reference any other law that meets the standards you're using for gun control laws in this instance?
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: So, Sam, you own guns right? You aren't straight up anti gun that I've seen...so I don't think the sides are pro and anti gun, right? It anti carry that is your point?
How best to put this, I wonder.
Well, okay, here's my best take.
I own guns, my mom carries a gun near constantly for her half-year job (she's an outfitteer for horseback fish and game hunts really, really deep in the grand teton wilderness), my dad has traded more guns than I think I could fit a double wide trailer with, I know guns, I am not straight phobic of guns like some anti-gun types are, but I have to live with the knowledge that until this country disarms at minimum as severely as Australia did in the wake of port arthur, the price we pay for our gun freedoms will be tens or hundreds of thousands of gun homicides a year that DON'T go away when more people arm themselves, but DO go away when the government revokes gun rights and makes guns a rarity owned by only a few people overall, with plenty of regulations.
If I could rewrite human nature to make this not the case, and make it so that you could have a nation with the second amendment not have to pay for the NRA's ideal state of law with hundreds of thousands of dead people and constant violent massacres? I would so do that. I would want to believe that humans are cool enough to trust with the right to bear arms unreservedly, because the idea of owning a gun is cool up until you reach the horrible 'practice' part of the theory. But we aren't, and that's not how things work out in practice, our nation is bloody proof of that fact. I would also rewrite human physiology to be able to smoke without health risk, because smoking looks really cool, especially in movies. I would also make motorcycles not an insanely dangerous and stupid life choice, and my sociology degree worth more to me than a piece of emergency framed toilet paper. Then I would be a gun-toting, smoking, motorcycle riding, snakeskin leather boot wearing, $150k+ a year salaried community-centric city infrastucture development manager, a job that totally existed that I could do. All of these realities sound super rad in my (quite adolescent) head.
But even though I would smoke if it wasn't a stupid thing to do, smoking is a stupid dangerous thing to do, so I don't smoke.
And even though I would definitely, positively, absolutely own and ride a motorcycle ALL THE TIME if motorcycles weren't stupid dangerous to drive, they are, so I drive a Honda CRV instead.
And even though the idea of owning a gun is presented with a lot of fictional upsides, the reality is messier, and understanding that means being willing, absolutely willing, to legislate away my right to own a firearm, without hesitation. And I definitely don't carry, because the idea that concealed carry laws make people safer is also a fiction.
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quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: It's a mentality you apply to other, non-gun related laws too?
Yes, I started a post about it years ago how old and not evenly applied laws be removed from the books, and all laws should be written in plain English, also, with a built in escape clause in case the prosecution holds the letter of the law, but go against the intent of the law.
I'll dig you up a link asap.
My thoughts were not met with general acclaim Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Well, at least you're consistent. :/ (Though the gun control laws you're mentioning are hardly old or unevenly applied, afaik)
___
As a quick aside: I want to note that one of the reasons it's difficult to enforce gun laws effectively - not that any law is 100% successfully enforced, or even often 50% effectively enforced - about half of all murders go unsolved, for example (though nobody has said "laws against murder are just a bad joke!" even when the murderer pretty clearly gets away with it) - is the ease of transporting weapons over state lines and vastly different gun laws from state-to-state and even different counties. If you want a good idea of what the US would look like with uniform gun control laws, Hawaii is a good example, where conceal carry is effectively illegal and where getting permission to buy, register, and own a gun is roughly as difficult as it is to buy and drive a car. Hawaii is also geographically separate from the rest of the US and, because of luggage scanners in airports, makes it much harder to just cross state lines with guns purchased elsewhere.
We have the lowest gun death rate in the US despite being a densely populated state with 1.4 million people and a minority-majority population. And keep in mind, even that rate - 2.2 per 100,000 - is mostly suicides and accidents. In 2011, for example (the latest year I found accurate data for murders broken down by weapon type), Hawaii not only had the lowest overall number of murders of any state in the Union (despite being the 39th most populous) at 7 murders, it also only had one gun murder.
That's not zero, but that's significantly lower than any other state, especially which you account for that being one gun murder out of a population of 1.4 million. And the fact that the lowest gun death rate correlates to a lowest gun murder rate which also correlates to an overall lowest murder rate in the entire US... there's a reasonably strong argument that the "if they didn't have guns just as many people would be murdered, but with knives or pointy sticks!" argument is false. Will there still be murders? Yes, of course, unless there's a fluke year where nobody gets murdered - which might happen for Hawaii but is unlikely on a larger scale like the entire US - there will still be murders. Even the most peaceful countries in the world still have murders. But those murders occur far less often, and at a much lower rate. Why? Because while the people who truly premeditate and are 100% on killing will do still do their pointy stick killing sprees, but it's much harder to kill with a stick or a knife than it is with a gun. It takes a lot more effort, thought, and intent. Killing with a gun is a decision that can be made in half a second, often reflexively. Going out and sharpening a stick to stab someone with, or even going and finding a knife and chasing someone down and stabbing them, takes a lot more physical and more importantly cognitive effort. That, and the victim(s) in question have a much better chance of surviving and fighting back. Look at the Wolverhampton Machete Attack, for example, where a deranged man went to a preschool with a machete and attacked a bunch of kids. A number of children were injured - some severely - but the teacher was able to fend him off long enough that nobody died. (Not even the attacker, who was subdued by police) Compare that to what happens when a similarly deranged man goes to a school with a gun instead.
A very interesting side effect of this is that the last time someone in Hawaii was shot during a traffic stop was in 2001. (And that involved a hostile driver with an gun who opened fire on the police, incidentally) We've gone 15 years without the sort of event that is almost depressingly common now - a routine traffic stop that escalates into a deadly situation where someone (occasionally a cop, but usually the person being pulled over) gets shot to death. You could argue that might be because of better police training, but I doubt it - I know some local cops and they aren't better trained or better paid or more professional than cops elsewhere. The biggest factor is probably that cops here can pull someone over and be reasonably certain that they're not walking into a life-or-death situation. That at worst maybe they'll have to deal with an angry tourist yelling at them, or maybe have to arrest someone for drunk driving. It's an entirely different mindset.
I think if maybe the entire US were to adopt a similar gun control stance as Hawaii - which by the way, still lets me buy and own guns and shoot them at the range - we would see a similar massive drop in the gun violence rate nationwide as well as police shootings. Not right away, or even in a few years, but in 10 or 20 years? Absolutely. A big part of that, though, arguably even more important than changing the laws, is changing the toxic gun culture we currently have in the US. That means the "guns are an insurance policy" mindset, that means the cowboy action hero mindset, that means the "it's an unsafe, uncertain world, I need my gun to protect me and my family just in case" mindset.
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Sam...thank you for sharing. I'm not quite sure what to do w this information. I'm running a bit short on sleep, but I'll reread it with new eyes and see if I can make proper sense it in the morn. Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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DB, I liked a lot of your post, and agreed with a lot of it too.
I have a couple questions...does Hawaii have inner cities or poverty, prostitution & drug problems? Or gangs?
I'm really asking, I only visited once, and had a lovely week of snorkling and barbeque, and don't kno much about that beautiful state.
There was another thing...oh, the pointy stick thing.
I feel that the pointy stick outrage kinda overshadowed my "point". Simply, that people who have a will, will find a way.
Even my original comment acknowledged that guns are more efficient, effective killing machines.
And I'm -clearly- for added oversight.
Honestly, I'm a bit conflicted.
I own an AR15. It's preban and registered and 100% legal, and it's one of my favorite toys...especially since I got a .22 conversation bolt...and if asked, not a month ago, if it was important that I have an AR, I would have said w/o hesitation said 'yes! for reasons!'
But really, if Russians or Chinese troops start landing, my best bet for keeping my family safe would be peaceful surrender, instead of Call of Duty, Resistance ed, which honestly I have day dreamed about.
On the other hand, I was watching a show on history channel about this civilization, who, when Genghis Kahn & his armies arrived at their boarder, their king brought gifts of gold and their finest trade goods, and surrendered, begging for mercy.
Turns out old Genghis just happen to be on his death bed, and felt spiteful. He ordered his eldest son and heir to raze the entire civilization, all buildings pulled down, all citizens murdered.
And that's -exactly- what happened. The end.
Also, is it not factual that before most modern holocausts that all firearms were confiscated? That Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Quddafi, Castro, Kim Jong Il, MouTstoung, and others did exactly this?
I understand, no one here is calling for 100% disarmament, I'm really asking.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:I feel that the pointy stick outrage kinda overshadowed my "point". Simply, that people who have a will, will find a way.
For this conversation, this simply isn't true. Not only do firearms lower the necessary will required to find a way to kill by a great deal, but even with a great deal of will to kill, sometimes that isn't enough. If one person has a sword of iron and the other of bronze, and both have an equal will to kill the other, the warrior with the iron sword has an advantage. Macguyvers who can turn more ordinary implements of a post industrial society are about as rare and unlikely as the notion of one good guy with a gun stopping a mass shooting.
quote:Turns out old Genghis just happen to be on his death bed, and felt spiteful. He ordered his eldest son and heir to raze the entire civilization, all buildings pulled down, all citizens murdered.
It's fortunate that conquering the known world isn't really a thing anymore. As for Russia and to a hugely lesser extent China, the only physical danger you or any Americans actually faced from them was nuclear war. Against which firearms are irrelevant.
quote:Also, is it not factual that before most modern holocausts that all firearms were confiscated? That Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Quddafi, Castro, Kim Jong Il, MouTstoung, and others did exactly this?
That's a complicated question that doesn't have a simple answer. Some of those societies had been generally disarmed for a long time prior to those leaders, such as the USSR under Stalin. It's also not the case in any of those examples that disarming a society was the biggest or even a major stepping stone to what came later. Further, if the United States government or that of California wants your firearms and decided to use force to get them, it's going to get them. That sort of use of force never comes out of the blue anyway.
But the biggest argument against this question is all of the societies that have disarmed that *didn't* have holocausts, which by the way is usually a pretty specific term and never happened in Cuba, either. The connection between tyranny and gun control is another myth fostered by gun control advocates that has little basis in history and feeds much more on, to be candid, action hero fantasies than any historical precedents.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: I have a couple questions...does Hawaii have inner cities or poverty, prostitution & drug problems? Or gangs?
Yes to all five. Of course it has those things. The poverty rate is a little over 10%, there is a major city with skyscrapers and ghettos and the works, as well as a few smaller cities, there is a lot of prostitution, a pretty huge meth problem as of late, and plenty of gangs. It has all the problems that come with being a modern, industrialized state with a mostly urban population.
quote:There was another thing...oh, the pointy stick thing.
I feel that the pointy stick outrage kinda overshadowed my "point". Simply, that people who have a will, will find a way.
Yes, but you skipped over the part where I talked about how it takes a lot more will and malice aforethought to murder someone with a pointy stick than it does a gun. What percentage of murders do you suppose are planned out beforehand? There are a lot more murders that happen in a fit of passion: two guys in a fight, gangsters defending their turf, someone walks in on their spouse having an affair, hell a couple is having a fight and one says they'll leave the other (and in those cases it's usually the woman who gets shot), someone gets cut off one too many times and loses their shit, a cop all jumped up on adrenaline thinks a black man is reaching for a gun... all of these are folks with, "poor impulse control" as you put it, who happen to be carrying or have immediate access to a gun.
But lets pretty much set aside the huge number of second degree murders and negligent homicides and stick to premeditated murders. Of that percentage of murders that are planned out beforehand, how many do you think depend on the murderer knowing he will succeed because he has a gun? Do you think as many drive-by or workplace shootings would occur if they were drive-by or workplace pointy stick stabbings? You've already acknowledged they would be much less lethal, but do you think there would still be just as many if the folks plotting those murders knew they were unlikely to kill anyone at all, much less 5 or 10 or 49 people? Don't you think that a huge part of plotting those mass murders in the first place is knowing that you are likely to succeed?
You seem unwilling or unable, despite numerous people explaining it to you repeatedly, to understand that "the will" isn't a static, immutable thing. That people can't just be neatly broken down into "has a will to kill someone" and "doesn't have a will to kill someone" categories. Of course you're always going to find outliers - crazy people like the machete wielding guy who attacked a preschool if you read my earlier post - but the vast majority of murders *aren't* committed by people who are determined to kill no matter how much planning or difficulty is involved. The majority of murders aren't even planned. Guns completely change that. It's not just that guns are capable of killing far more people far more efficiently - and they are - it's that guns make killing much easier to do. Both in the sense that guns require much less thought or determination to kill with, and the fact that the ability to kill quickly and easily with guns makes killing much easier and more attractive to plan. Can't you understand that?
Posts: 2222 | Registered: Dec 2008
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Stone Wolf: when you started this thread you were advocating for the following:
quote:They would issue federal concieled carry permits, valid in all 50 states & territories & protectorates.
That would greatly reduce the amount of oversight and almost certainly increase the amount of gun violence in my state. Do you still support this nationwide concealed carry plan you outlined in your OP, Stone Wolf? Or have you changed your mind?
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