Mega-Thread: Gun Control Thread

[Tinykong]

What kind of mental contortions do you go through to come up with this stuff?

Poster makes comment that says gun control advocates will commit thousands of fire arm safety violations on a regular basis.
Tinykong questions why poster thinks it is acceptable to be incompetent as long as it is common place.

Mental contortion? Nah.

[belfpala]

Mental contortion? Nah.

Mental contortions? Yah.

Do I even have to spell it out? One anti-gun person mishandles a gun so OMG LOLOLOLOLLOLLOLLOLLL.

The premise was that many pro-gun people also mishandle guns. But, I guess that's ok.

[Tinykong]

Mental contortions? Yah.

Do I even have to spell it out? One anti-gun person mishandles a gun so OMG LOLOLOLOLLOLLOLLOLLL.

The premise was that many pro-gun people also mishandle guns. But, I guess that's ok.

Feinstein isn't just "one anti-gun person," she wrote the legislation, rallied support for it, and considered the bill being shot down to be a personal defeat.

You'd think she would have a little more knowledge than a layperson. You know, since her actions impact the rights of 300+ million people.

Yeah, "one person." lol

[PhaelixWW]

I think the demographic of gun control advocates is limited mostly to people who own guns and know how to use, keep, and store them properly, and those who don't even own guns and would never own one and do not bother educating themselves on proper handling but it probably wouldn't matter because the likelihood of a gun being in their hands is small. Feinstein obviously falls into the latter category, and was caught by a cameraman demonstrating her lack of knowledge of safe handling. Although I suppose because Feinstein does it, all advocates of gun control are ignoramuses who would demonstrate equally poor gun handling?

Yay sweeping generalizations.

Once again, nobody said it was universally true. It was said as a generalization. And as a generalization, it's true. But we all understand that's it's a generalization.

I don't get why this is so hard to understand, and why people are getting so defensive. Nobody's tried to apply this generalization to a single person who hasn't already demonstrated it's truth in public (Feinstein, Biden, DeGette, McCarthy).

[steale]

I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume that someone with no gun experience wouldn't know how to safely and properly handle a firearm, in the same way that someone who's never been around a car is probably not a safe driver.
(see what I did there? Gun and car comparisons making a comeback)

[PhaelixWW]

I think it's funny when the widespread and extensive use of cars is discounted in the argument when gun usage is extremely limited.

I think it's funny that I compared the usage of cars and guns and now you're pretending that it didn't happen. Your response at the time was "well, cars have been used as a distraction too much by both sides". And now you're back again with it.

In fact, cars haven't been mentioned in 3 pages. Your comment was the last thing mentioned, where you said:

Any time the tug of war back and forth isn't going in one side's favor, they pull out the car analogy.

So... thanks for pulling out the car analogy again.

It's pretty ridiculous to take a single snapshot photo of Feinstein, then use that as evidence that gun control advocates are unfamiliar with firearm safety.

Seriously, use some reading comprehension, okay? It's not being used as evidence of anything. Because it wasn't said as a universal truth. It was said as a general truth. Much like you admit here:

I mean I'd more or less agree that gun control advocates know less about firearm safety than gun rights advocates...

That's ALL.

General truths are fine. The problem arises when someone tries to take a general truth and either state it as a universal truth, or tries to use it as evidence for a single instance.

But that's not what happened, so... chillax?

Why would I hold an opinion of something I have absolutely no clue about? That's kind of a dumb thing to do.

Wow, Wells, I underestimated your ability to be so incredibly obtuse in order to try and argue your position.

You discount things like intelligent reasoning and logical extrapolation. Having an opinion is not the same thing as trying to prove that your opinion is correct.

And to say that you have "absolutely no clue" about it is disingenuous. You love to try and be a big thinker and a know-it-all, you even have a list of logical fallacies in your sig, and yet your excuse for not being able to form an opinion here is extreme ignorance?

Nobody buys that. Try again.

[Wells]

Do you have any useful data to support the claim? Because all I'm seeing is cherry picked examples

Your generalization is just a stereotype that tickles your fancy

---------- Post added 2013-05-28 at 07:21 PM ----------

Claims devoid of supporting data don't become valid just because you call them generalizations.

---------- Post added 2013-05-28 at 07:33 PM ----------

In fact I'm doing the only rational thing here when I say I don't know what level of gun safety gun control advocates have because I don't have that information. You should consider excercisng such restraint

[Daurock]

I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume that someone with no gun experience wouldn't know how to safely and properly handle a firearm, in the same way that someone who's never been around a car is probably not a safe driver.
(see what I did there? Gun and car comparisons making a comeback)

The leaders showing poor safety handling are not strangers to guns in that they've never handled a firearm. Feinstein has a Concealed Carry Permit in California, which is not a particularly friendly state for CCW. Biden likes to tout his Shotgunning background. They do at least have a casual acquaintance with guns, and as such both have in theory leaned the very basics about firearm handling. If they were around firearms as much as the people that live and breathe this stuff, they would not have forgotten/ignored those very basic rules. The point is that they are not experts in the field, which is why people question why they should be the ones spearheading new laws.

I do not expect all the members of congress to be experts in all fields; I do think it's reasonable for the ones writing and spearheading individual bills to be experts at what they're writing about. That's the issue at hand, really.

[smelltheglove]

Straw man.

Legislators should understand the real impact and effectiveness of something if they are voting on whether or not to ban them. You don't need to be able to draw a schematic of a trigger assembly in order to understand what "semi-automatic" means and how it's in a completely different class of effectiveness compared to "automatic".

no, it's really not a straw man. at all. especially when the pro-gun crowd wants to act like douches when people say "clip" instead of "magazine" to make claims that the person is clueless. you cant rest your entire case on semantics and them claim them as the bare minimum to be able to vote or have a say on the subject. when you do, you leave the door open for "ban anything that fires a projectile since you wanted to act like a dick about it", and even though i am against bans i would be hard pressed to find sympathy

[Wells]

no, it's really not a straw man. at all. especially when the pro-gun crowd wants to act like douches when people say "clip" instead of "magazine" to make claims that the person is clueless. you cant rest your entire case on semantics and them claim them as the bare minimum to be able to vote or have a say on the subject. when you do, you leave the door open for "ban anything that fires a projectile since you wanted to act like a dick about it", and even though i am against bans i would be hard pressed to find sympathy

I love when they declare entire polls invalid because they used the word clip

[smelltheglove]

I love when they declare entire polls invalid because they used the word clip

the ridiculous part is that crap almost compels me to argue against my own beliefs, lol. imo, if an argument is good it can stand on its own, not be propped up with mountains of bullshit. my personal stance is that the 2nd IS of value to our nation, but that personal accountability is severely lacking. sure, if you shoot people you get punished. but if you store your gun inadequately and it's stolen? no problem. if you straw purchase? damned near impossible to prove, so no problem. you sell your gun to someone that goes on a rampage? once again, no problem. leave your gun in a closet, your teenager grabs it and goes on a shooting party at school? no problem.

i believe that the overwhelming majority of gun owners are responsible to some degree (although i find the number that brag about keeping their gun under their pillow and shit concerning). i also believe that the death of the 2nd wont be feinstein or her ilk, but a refusal to even acknowledge that problems exist in our gun ownership framework that will eventually backlash precipitously when the body count finally pushes the issue over the edge

[PhaelixWW]

no, it's really not a straw man. at all.

Yes, it was.

You quoted someone saying that the legislators should know what they're talking about and then you argued that we were saying that they had to "know the intricacies of how a gun works" in order to legislate. That's a straw man.

in·tri·cate
/ˈintrikit/
Adjective
Very complicated or detailed.

The difference between automatic and semi-automatic is not an intricacy. The difference between a magazine and clip may be fairly semantic, but it's not an intricacy. Knowing what a barrel shroud is, and (heaven forbid) where it is on the firearm is not an intricacy. Knowing that magazines are reloadable and reusable is not an intricacy.

These are basic things that can be understood by anybody if they spend even 5 minutes learning about firearms. For legislators attempting to pass legislation about the "danger" of these common, easy-to-understand features without bothering to take 5 minutes to understand what the fuck they're talking about is shameful and reprehensible.

So yes, your attempt to escalate the argument is, in fact, a straw man.

when you do, you leave the door open for "ban anything that fires a projectile since you wanted to act like a dick about it"

I have no idea how this is supposed to logically follow.

i also believe that the death of the 2nd wont be feinstein or her ilk, but a refusal to even acknowledge that problems exist in our gun ownership framework that will eventually backlash precipitously when the body count finally pushes the issue over the edge

And statements like this that ignore the fact that the crime and gun homicide rates are at the lowest point in 40-50 years are ridiculous.

Precipitously? Over the edge? What edge are you talking about? If there was an edge, this country would have erupted into flames in 1992.

[Deleted]

no, it's really not a straw man. at all. especially when the pro-gun crowd wants to act like douches when people say "clip" instead of "magazine" to make claims that the person is clueless. you cant rest your entire case on semantics and them claim them as the bare minimum to be able to vote or have a say on the subject. when you do, you leave the door open for "ban anything that fires a projectile since you wanted to act like a dick about it", and even though i am against bans i would be hard pressed to find sympathy

Well, when you got some gun-control folks not even knowing that magazines are reusable and spreading such misinformation on the news...

[Deadvolcanoes]

So, because incompetence is common place, it is somehow acceptable?

What? Where did I say or imply that firearm negligence is acceptable?

Seriously, use some reading comprehension, okay? It's not being used as evidence of anything. Because it wasn't said as a universal truth. It was said as a general truth.

Give me a break. You said "many, if not most, gun control advocates (especially the ones pushing legislation) would be unfamiliar with even the basics of proper firearm handling safety."

You then linked a picture of a 6 year old girl holding a gun correctly, vs Feinstein holding a gun incorrectly, with a caption of "I think this about sums it up."

A single picture doesn't sum shit up.

General truths are fine. The problem arises when someone tries to take a general truth and either state it as a universal truth, or tries to use it as evidence for a single instance.

But that's not what happened, so... chillax?

I'm not condemning a universal truth. I'm agreeing with your basic premise, and disagreeing with the use of that silly Feinstein picture that's been linked a thousand times in this thread as some kind of trump card.

[Svifnymr]

You then linked a picture of a 6 year old girl holding a gun correctly, vs Feinstein holding a gun incorrectly, with a caption of "I think this about sums it up."

A single picture doesn't sum shit up.
I'm not condemning a universal truth. I'm agreeing with your basic premise, and disagreeing with the use of that silly Feinstein picture that's been linked a thousand times in this thread as some kind of trump card.

Honestly, you'd be better off saying "a single person" doesn't sum shit up. Feinstein has done it numerous times, she loves appearing with a rifle in hand and in any of the pictures/video's I've seen, has never shown the least awareness of how she's acting with it. Biden's suggestion was silly, Obama shoots clays that are apparently directly in front of him, but neither chooses to appear with rifle in hand the way Feinstein does.

[Deleted]

Honestly, you'd be better off saying "a single person" doesn't sum shit up. Feinstein has done it numerous times, she loves appearing with a rifle in hand and in any of the pictures/video's I've seen, has never shown the least awareness of how she's acting with it. Biden's suggestion was silly, Obama shoots clays that are apparently directly in front of him, but neither chooses to appear with rifle in hand the way Feinstein does.

Biden's suggestion was downright dangerous. Know your target and what's beyond, that's firearm safety 101.

[Payday]

Biden's suggestion was downright dangerous. Know your target and what's beyond, that's firearm safety 101.

Downright dangerous? What did he say?

[Raidenx]

saw MSNBC denigrating this guy

why

[Eroginous]

Downright dangerous? What did he say?

He said that every household should have a shotgun, and if anyone tries to break in, she should go outside and fire a couple rounds up in the air off the back porch cuz that will 'let them bad guys know.'

Paraphrasing here.

[Payday]

He said that every household should have a shotgun, and if anyone tries to break in, she should go outside and fire a couple rounds up in the air off the back porch cuz that will 'let them bad guys know.'

Paraphrasing here.

Oh that's weird..in the video I saw he said she should go out on the balcony and fire a couple rounds at them, not in the air.