That’s just factually incorrect. Have you not heard about Defense Distributed?
Also, this just came up today: the world’s first(?) 3D printed metal pistol.
If you insist someone has to leave the debate until they’ve read a specific book of your choosing then people will rightly point out that you’re setting arbitrary and unreasonable restrictions on who is allowed to be part of the discussion.
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Simply put pistols are a nearly a purely defensive weapon as they are nearly useless when it comes to being used offensively.
For a more in depth understanding, go read. 
I think we can all agree that those are two mutually exclusive groups, yes?
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Good lord, you must really be prey to confirmation bias if you think that’s true. All I have to do to realize you’re peddling BS is recall how many, many crimes are committed with a handgun. And how little good it would do in such cases to try whipping out another one in response.
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That’s pretty silly. Of course pistols aren’t “nearly useless when it comes to being used offensively.”
They’re certainly more effective as offensive weapons than are knives and since I’m pretty sure you’ve already used the “criminals will just use knives!” pseudo-argument you’ll have to concede that pistols make pretty good offensive weapons to be consistent.
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I don’t think it was that Guns & Ammo found his column offensive.
I think they underestimated the raging insanity of their readers.
Their Facebook page comments are just frightening.
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So it is okay to demand that the person you are debating with educate you on everything when it comes to a complex subject that would involve spending a nice chunk of the day typing out?
The reason I personally am so vocal against any more gun control is because I am a coward, and I know history. I know that the bloodiest war the United States ever fought was the “Civil War”. I know the biggest cause of human death in the last century was governments killing their own subjects. I believe strongly that gun confistaction would lead to civil war in this nation, so while we can politely argue about what the marginal tax rate should be or if abortion providors should be regulated at the state or federal level, I will NOT let you blindly drag the rest of the nation into a civil war because you didn’t even know that these guys exist: http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2012/08/kill-all-they-send.html Or because you thought that we’d always be able to trust our men in the military to follow civilian orders and so naturally you assumed in your idealistic hopolophibic bubble that everyone else did to. Or that everyone else is as big a coward as you and your friends and I am who would sigh and hand over our rifles. Most of the “cold dead” braggards are just that, but there are at least 3% who aren’t. Most of whom have shot at and been shot at before in the employ of our rich Uncle Sam. They know now the NSA is listening and the FBI is entrapping. If you hopolophibic fools drag us far enough for gun confiscation to ever start then these guys and their cousins will leave their cellphones at home and start driving around with their lists hanging federal employees from lamp-posts. You think the LEOs in CA freaked out over that one Dorner guy? Imagine what they’ll do next. And you and I and all the “reasonable” people and stupid idealists are going to find out how those two old ladies with the misfortune of driving a blue pickup (http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/08/16900348-women-shot-during-lapd-ex-cop-manhunt-had-no-warning-lawyer-says ) felt when we get caught in the civil war that all you simple idealistic people who just want the neighborhood to be safe never ever intended to happen. Shut up you foolish people before you drag us there. I’ll compromise on lots of issues, but not taking another step towards mass deaths in the name of safety and hoping that this one won’t be the crucial straw either. Does that make me an evil radical who wants to silence reasonable dissent? Call me what you like, but read your history books too. WE are blessed to live in an exception; let’s keep it that way.
I somehow doubt the amount of information required would really “involve spending a nice chunk of the day typing out”. But yeah, if you want to bring people around to your point of view you might have to actually reason with them instead of screaming that they haven’t read the correct books.
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Just because something can be used offensively does not make it a offensive weapon. Also a knife also not primarily a weapon.
I’ve pointed out a educational resource on this topic. Go read it if you are curious what the fuck a offensive weapon is.
You don’t live in any kind of exception, you live in a country run by cynical bastards who regularly hoodwink authoritarian loons into mandating their continued excesses (much like everywhere, really). The fact it is enshrined in your constitution that you get to have toy firearms would make zero difference were the real guns to come out against the people.
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I’ve never heard of the guy.
Am I having a discussion with him, or you?
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You’re only marginalizing your own perspective. If you mean something really specific by “offensive weapon” then the onus is on you to introduce that definition into the discussion. You can play Mr. Tough Guy Smartypants all you want but it’s not going to convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with you.
If a knife is not primarily a weapon why the fuck are you gun nuts so fucking scared of criminals running around with knives? Every time this subject comes up there’s some gun nut screaming about how if their guns get taken away criminals are just going to come after them with knives.
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It’s not a demand. Perhaps you think its a demand because you don’t have a handle on the material and you’re embarrassed?
Anything i believe, I believe in my own words. You know, because I’m a man. Try it. Answer the question.
Can you give an example of these ‘defensive weapons’? Or can you give another excuse or some more awesome name calling?
You have an opportunity here to really make your original point. Make it yourself.
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This is the subtlest Godwin I’ve ever heard. So kudos, I guess? But seriously, if you actually knew anything about Europe you’d notice their gun policies have not made them any more tyrannical than the US, where plentiful guns coexist along with all the modern abuses you mention.
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actually i’m not really focused on debating you about the relative merits of any kind of gun control. i’m just trying to put what you were saying into the context of the time when the nfa was enacted. your anachronistic reference to nonexistent school shootings in the early 1930s divorced the nfa from its true context.
judging by nemomeno’s rundown of some of your other statements in this thread it seems like context is something you try to avoid at all costs. but by all means, keep trying. at some point you might even post something both in context and relevant.
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You know, it’s really depressing that we can’t have a discussion about gun control and expect it to be rational.
For what it’s worth, to a western European, the US’s lack of gun control does look mad. We have a higher population density than you (and hence a higher violent crime rate*) but lower murder rate (about a quarter of what the US has). Why? We’ve had serious gun control laws for a long time and it’s a lot harder to kill someone in a fit of rage with a knife.
I’m not making a judgement one way or the other (not my country), but seriously, this advocacy that guns make people safer looks delusional from the outside because the data just doesn’t support it.
*though it’s worth pointing out we also have a wider classification of violent crime to boot. Some countries factor things like minor fights as violent crime.
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I’ve also not engaged in any name calling here.
What you are doing is driving trollies. You constantly trying force some one to explain in detail something when they provide you with a outlet to answer your question on your own.
Also your claim to see firearms as tools is questionable as you are completely unaware of the most well known author on the subject.
Thank you, thank you, for this dose of plain-and-simple sanity.
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