Mega-Thread: Gun Control Thread

[Tinykong]

The 0.00085% who died have zero rights now - so your "rights" ended up indirectly infringing upon theirs.

And nobody actually dies "defending the Constitution." I wasn't aware the Germans were targeting that piece of paper stored away so viciously

Owning a gun =/= killing with a gun. Stop shifting the blame from the criminal to the weapon.

Have you ever read the oath every member of the Armed Services takes? Probably not.

---------- Post added 2013-03-13 at 06:29 AM ----------

No I'm not. Cars are not weapons. My "rules" or "philosophy" or whatever you want to call it here only apply to weapons.

Drive your car at a police officer, and see if they don't consider it a weapon under certain circumstances.

Just because something CAN be dangerous doesn't mean it HAS to be dangerous, and just because something wasn't designed to kill doesn't mean it can't be used to kill.

[Zhangfei]

Owning a gun =/= killing with a gun. Stop shifting the blame from the criminal to the weapon.

Have you ever read the oath every member of the Armed Services takes? Probably not.

Why does it matter? I'm not advocating removing guns from the army.

I know owning a gun =/= killing with a gun, but the first is the absolute basis for the second. Considering the second is quite frequent, the rules in place clearly aren't doing enough, so why not go a step further?

[Tinykong]

I think it's time to steer clear of this thread, we're going round and round with the same tired arguments, page after page. Dead horse is dead.

Thankfully, John and Jane Q. America have the attention span of a gnat, and quickly lose interest in matters that don't directly involve them. Talks about gun control and violence will quiet down again, and life can return to normal.

Better stay indoors when it rains, wouldn't want that lightning bolt to strike you down and affirm those irrational fears. Lock your front door, might wake up in a bathtub full of ice after being victimized by organ thieves.

[Zhangfei]

I think it's time to steer clear of this thread, we're going round and round with the same tired arguments, page after page. Dead horse is dead.

Thankfully, John and Jane Q. America have the attention span of a gnat, and quickly lose interest in matters that don't directly involve them. Talks about gun control and violence will quiet down again, and life can return to normal.

Better stay indoors when it rains, wouldn't want that lightning bolt to strike you down and affirm those irrational fears. Lock your front door, might wake up in a bathtub full of ice after being victimized by organ thieves.

It's not irrational when school shootings actually happen more frequently where I teach than where I come from and some people have suggested arming me (ME?! Would YOU trust me? I certainly don't when it comes to firearms) in case of emergency. That's entirely rational.

But otherwise I agree with you. Next up, war on Easter!

[Tinykong]

It's not irrational when school shootings actually happen more frequently where I teach than where I come from and some people have suggested arming me (ME?! Would YOU trust me? I certainly don't when it comes to firearms) in case of emergency. That's entirely rational.

But otherwise I agree with you. Next up, war on Easter!

You're more likely to die of an infection disease, in a traffic collision, of an STD, from a fall, of a burn, or by accidental drowning than you are a firearm homicide.

Being afraid of a firearm death, and really giving a second thought to the others is illogical. That you don't trust yourself with a firearm is extremely telling, and alludes to your irrational fears. This thread has kept me awake far too many nights...no longer.

[Zhangfei]

You're more likely to die of an infection disease, in a traffic collision, of an STD, from a fall, of a burn, or by accidental drowning than you are a firearm homicide.

Being afraid of a firearm death, and really giving a second thought to the others is illogical. That you don't trust yourself with a firearm is extremely telling, and alludes to your irrational fears. This thread has kept me awake far too many nights...no longer.

I don't think avoiding weapons is irrational. My point is it's irrational to assume everyone can and/or should handle them.

And I also like laws that prevent disease, traffic collisions and work hard to avoid the others...

[Eroginous]

I agree and understand. I just don't get what that has to do with the 11k who die from entirely preventable means.

It's like you don't understand basic concepts. The fact that gun deaths can be preventable has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Deaths from car accidents can be preventable too. The problem you are having is that you are simply unable to understand that deaths are no more or less relevant because of what caused them. A death in a car accident is no less relevant than a death from a firearm. A bunch of deaths from a disease outbreak is no less relevant than a bunch of deaths in a mass shooting.

All deaths are equally relevant and undesirable. As human beings we are granted certain rights because those have been determined to be the rights we need in order to effectively live a happy and healthy life. One of those rights just happens to be the right to own and bear arms. We have that right because our founding fathers understood that there is no guarantee of freedom. They understood that there is no guarantee of safety. Even living in a first world country with the most powerful military in the world and police in every city, we are STILL NOT GUARANTEED FREEDOM AND SAFETY.

We have the right to own and bear arms because there exists the possibility where our freedom and/or safety might be in jeopardy, and it's up to US as individuals to take responsibility for our own safety. Neither the police or our government are obligated to protect any of us. Therefore, the only rights we have as people are the rights we are willing to fight for. If someone seeks to harm me, the only recourse I have are to a) let them harm me, or b) do something to stop them.

That's where owning a gun comes in. You can sit here and try to argue that I shouldn't protect myself, but that's bullshit. I could very well die in the time it takes for the police to get here, and even if I am not yet dead, they could decide that the situation is too dangerous for them to intervene, and I might be killed anyway. You seriously have your head on backwards if you think that you can just go through life with no thought or care about your own safety. You are especially ignorant if you think that taking away people's ability to protect themselves is a good or necessary idea.

[Deleted]

Don't just open your door for someone. And I have my gun on me when I answer my door.



You make that statement based on what? There are around 300 million firearms in the US. Each year there are about 300,000 violent crimes committed with firearms. That means 99.9% of firearms are not used in crime every year. If you want to look at just homicides, that's 10,000 per year, or 99.99996% of guns that are NOT used every year to kill someone.

Now driving? Something in the order of 5 million accidents per year, 3 million people suffering light to severe injury, and 30,000 people killed.

"According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) 32,885 people died in traffic crashes in 2010 in the United States (latest figures available), including an estimated 10,228 people who died in drunk driving crashes, accounting for 31% of all traffic deaths last year."

So you don't want to talk about just driving? How about drunk driving. You don't -need- alcohol. So if you totally banned alcohol you could save over 10,000 deaths due to drunk driving. Drunk driving is already illegal, so why are people dying from it?

Note that banning alcohol isn't the answer. MORE EDUCATION about alcohol might reduce its health impacts. Likewise more firearm education might reduce its health impacts as well.

Most people don't open their frontdoor with a gun, just because you do, doesn't mean everyone does.

As for your wall of useless text i'm just gonna say car usage > gun usage. At any given time there are several million cars driving around. How many guns do you think are being fired/used per day in comparison? Also cars have a usefull purpose (transport), guns don't have any usefull purpose (outside of animal control) for the civilian population.

[Skroe]

As a gun owner, I never was afraid of the UN's decisions. Doesn't mean shit to US law directly. That's part of the reason I don't like or support the NRA, they are too extreme and do NOT speak for me (and many other gun owners). [I'm not afraid of the UN ATT. It's talking about illegal firearms transfers. If Beretta wants to ship guns to FFLs in the US, that's not going to change, so it doesn't affect me.]

They aren't the end-all be-all on the pro-gun front.

No, it doesn't effect US gun laws directly. It has a bigger effect.
Guns are a problem in the US, but they are a scourge world wide. They are destructive, destabilizing tools that allow small groups of thugs to punch well above their weight because guns magnify their ruthlessness. In the last ten years alone, guns flooding the streets of Iraq, Venezuela and Egypt have worsened the security situation in these countries.

This treaty will be the first, important step in tying the noose around international arms sales. It will be very difficult for small arms to be sold by the hundreds of thousands to countries and private buyers. It'll track and control their flow. It'll make it harder for arms to enter conflict zones. And as a nice side effect it'll make it very difficult for American and European Arms manufactuers to sell their wares in strictly regulated markets, thus drying up a revenue stream. And it'll make importation of foreign guns (even guns made by European arms companies) more difficult here at home.

Will it infringe the right to own a gun? No. It just means American Gun companies are smaller, poorer, and have access to fewer markets and are regulated in dozens of national regulatory schemes, none of which are the same.

That's how you drain the swamp. You'll still be able to buy an AR-15 at Dick's. But the manufacturer will charge more for it because he'll be making far fewer, thus eventually putting it out of reach. The $11,000 AR-15 sounds pretty good to me.

[Maleficus]

Will it infringe the right to own a gun? No.

That's how you drain the swamp. You'll still be able to buy an AR-15 at Dick's. But the manufacturer will charge more for it because he'll be making far fewer, thus eventually putting it out of reach. The $11,000 AR-15 sounds pretty good to me.

Love this kind of absurdity. The argument that "infringing" on a right only means completely removing any possibility of exercising that right is downright nutty. The end goal of pushing the cost of firearms and their necessary components into the stratosphere IS to limit ownership, thereby infringing on that right.

[Zoranon]

No, it doesn't effect US gun laws directly. It has a bigger effect.
Guns are a problem in the US, but they are a scourge world wide. They are destructive, destabilizing tools that allow small groups of thugs to punch well above their weight because guns magnify their ruthlessness. In the last ten years alone, guns flooding the streets of Iraq, Venezuela and Egypt have worsened the security situation in these countries.

This treaty will be the first, important step in tying the noose around international arms sales. It will be very difficult for small arms to be sold by the hundreds of thousands to countries and private buyers. It'll track and control their flow. It'll make it harder for arms to enter conflict zones. And as a nice side effect it'll make it very difficult for American and European Arms manufactuers to sell their wares in strictly regulated markets, thus drying up a revenue stream. And it'll make importation of foreign guns (even guns made by European arms companies) more difficult here at home.

Will it infringe the right to own a gun? No. It just means American Gun companies are smaller, poorer, and have access to fewer markets and are regulated in dozens of national regulatory schemes, none of which are the same.

That's how you drain the swamp. You'll still be able to buy an AR-15 at Dick's. But the manufacturer will charge more for it because he'll be making far fewer, thus eventually putting it out of reach. The $11,000 AR-15 sounds pretty good to me.

Funnily enough, at the moment the so called "assault weapons" are surging in price because the manufacturers can´t produce enough of that.

All in all keep dreaming and just in case, do look under your bad to check if the big bad gun is not hiding there.

[Maleficus]

As for your wall of useless text i'm just gonna say car usage > gun usage. At any given time there are several million cars driving around. How many guns do you think are being fired/used per day in comparison? Also cars have a usefull purpose (transport), guns don't have any usefull purpose (outside of animal control) for the civilian population.

Let's get rid of anything without "a useful purpose" then. Alcohol, cigarettes, video games, twinkies, the white house calligraphy staff, hot air balloons, breast implants (geez...did i really just suggest that?), so on and so forth.

---------- Post added 2013-03-13 at 03:50 PM ----------

I don't think avoiding weapons is irrational. My point is it's irrational to assume everyone can and/or should handle them.

And I also like laws that prevent disease, traffic collisions and work hard to avoid the others...

Do laws prevent anything?

Maybe CT psycho just ignored the gun free zone and didn't break any other laws (except for the other 40+ laws he broke carrying out his spree).

[Payday]

Do laws prevent anything?

Maybe CT psycho just ignored the gun free zone and didn't break any other laws (except for the other 40+ laws he broke carrying out his spree).

I never get tired of seeing the ol' "laws don't work because they don't stop all crime" argument. You're the guy that in the same breath will say that murder laws don't reduce the rate of murder then right?

[mrwingtipshoes]

Get a bat. Doesn't matter how big he is, a solid hit from an aluminum bat with break a bone and your kid can't kill himself with it showing off for his friends.

I'm disabled and can't walk most days, what now smart ass? Guess i should roll or hobble over to him with a baseball bat i can't swing with out losing balance and hit him? I'm not some super baseball bat wielding, 350lbs bench pressing warrior I am a disabled man with a degenerative disorder. What the fuck do i do?

[Eroginous]

Do laws prevent anything?

Maybe CT psycho just ignored the gun free zone and didn't break any other laws (except for the other 40+ laws he broke carrying out his spree).

I think that's a large part of the disconnect. These anti gun nuts think that laws actually stop people from doing things. So in their mind, more laws = less crime. The reality is that there's a large part of our society who will never pick up a gun (or any other weapon) and use it to facilitate a crime. Conversely, there's an extremely small percentage of our society who will always commit a crime because they have zero regard for laws.

To that effect, laws aren't designed to stop crime. They are designed to give our society recourse in the event of a crime. Some dude breaks the law, our police arrest him, our courts charge him with the appropriate crime, he is sentenced to the appropriate legal punishment, and life goes on. Coincidentally, this is why we have the right to bear arms. At any time between the commission of a crime and the time the police apprehend a suspect, it is up to us as citizens to protect ourselves from criminals. There isn't a cop on every street corner. There isn't a federal agent in every home.

But there is a citizen, who has the right to bear arms, in all those places.

I'm disabled and can't walk most days, what now smart ass? Guess i should roll or hobble over to him with a baseball bat i can't swing with out losing balance and hit him? I'm not some super baseball bat wielding, 350lbs bench pressing warrior I am a disabled man with a degenerative disorder. What the fuck do i do?

Sadly enough, liberals want to take your rights away because 'you have a defect that prevents you from being a rational/responsible human being.'

[Payday]

I think that's a large part of the disconnect. These anti gun nuts think that laws actually stop people from doing things. So in their mind, more laws = less crime. The reality is that there's a large part of our society who will never pick up a gun (or any other weapon) and use it to facilitate a crime. Conversely, there's an extremely small percentage of our society who will always commit a crime because they have zero regard for laws.

To that effect, laws aren't designed to stop crime. They are designed to give our society recourse in the event of a crime. Some dude breaks the law, our police arrest him, our courts charge him with the appropriate crime, he is sentenced to the appropriate legal punishment, and life goes on. Coincidentally, this is why we have the right to bear arms. At any time between the commission of a crime and the time the police apprehend a suspect, it is up to us as citizens to protect ourselves from criminals. There isn't a cop on every street corner. There isn't a federal agent in every home.

But there is a citizen, who has the right to bear arms, in all those places.



Sadly enough, liberals want to take your rights away because 'you have a defect that prevents you from being a rational/responsible human being.'

Making the argument that laws don't lessen the frequency of crime is not helping your cause.

[Deleted]

No idea if this has been posted yet, but heres some more fuel for this fiery debate......

http://rt.com/usa/shooting-mohawk-herkimer-york-211/

Four people have been shot dead after a gunman in Upstate New York went on a shooting spree Wednesday morning EST.

Police believe 64-year-old Kurt Myers of Mohawk, NY opened fire Wednesday near a car wash in Herkimer County, New York, halfway between Syracuse and Albany. Two people were shot dead on the scene, and two others were fatally wounded nearby on South Washington Street in Mohawk, State Police press liaison Jack Keller tells the Little Falls Times.

According to the authorities, six people were shot in all, with four succumbing to their wounds as of 11:18 a.m. Wednesday morning. Police were still searching for their suspect into the afternoon, but the latest reports courtesy of a local newspaper suggest the authorities may have narrowed in on a possible culprit. They warn that he should be considered “armed and extremely dangerous.”

The Utica Observer-Dispatch reports that Swat teams and a police helicopter have surrounded a jewelry store in downtown Herkimer, NY, but it is still not yet clear if the suspect is inside. The paper adds that Mohawk officials believe the suspect may be on foot, and other reports cite the possibility that he was picked up by a taxi.

[Eroginous]

Making the argument that laws don't lessen the frequency of crime is not helping your cause.

Most people don't refrain from committing a crime 'because it's illegal.' They refrain from committing a crime because they are cognitively aware of the negative implications their actions would have on other people.

Conversely, criminals don't commit crimes 'because it's illegal.' They commit crimes because they don't acknowledge the implications of their negative actions. Or if they do, they don't care.

Laws give us a recourse to deal with criminals, that's all. They don't magically stop people from committing crimes, because if they did, we would have zero crime. If they WERE designed to stop crimes, we would have to nix them because they fail miserably at it.

[Dillon]

I'm disabled and can't walk most days, what now smart ass? Guess i should roll or hobble over to him with a baseball bat i can't swing with out losing balance and hit him? I'm not some super baseball bat wielding, 350lbs bench pressing warrior I am a disabled man with a degenerative disorder. What the fuck do i do?

If the hoplophobes had their way, the best you could do is hope you and your family's deaths were quick and without abuse, rather than ensuring you have a chance to live.

[Nadev]

I'm disabled and can't walk most days, what now smart ass? Guess i should roll or hobble over to him with a baseball bat i can't swing with out losing balance and hit him? I'm not some super baseball bat wielding, 350lbs bench pressing warrior I am a disabled man with a degenerative disorder. What the fuck do i do?

For the gun control crowd, you become a prop and a statistic for why we need to ban guns.