Gun magazine editor forced to resign after running pro-reform column

boing
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Simply put, you’re wrong. They also had knowledge of how to make a gun. You can’t just throw a metal tube and firing pin and trigger, hammer and frame at each other and magically assemble a gun. Now you can.

DD has made a proof of concept of transforming gunsmithing from a skilled trade to pushbutton manufacturing.

Your argument sounds like that of a newspaper at the outset of the internet: “Anyone can publish? Ha. The internet is and will be a big fat nothing in the calculus of news distribution. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you something.”

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You know, gun owners aren’t all paranoid psychotic doomsday preppers. Fear and hysteria aren’t usually the reasons why someone buys a gun (at least not the people I know).

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I suppose that’s fair in that there were more tyranny-caused deaths there. I assumed that wasn’t what you were getting at because 1. you didn’t seem aware of the actual death tolls, seeing as how the largest was disease; and 2. it would make your argument even less sensible to try and use early industrial China as a key data point.

At any rate, modern Europe isn’t relevant because it’s the whole world, but because it’s a somewhat similar context that shows your paranoia is entirely invented. Of all the arguments used in gun debates, “stable democracies can’t have gun control” is by far the most obviously wrong.

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[quote=“SteampunkBanana, post:2, topic:13824”]
Things are going to change one day in this country for these people as a result of a some heinous event in the future.[/quote]

Like someone shooting up kindergartens? Now regular school shootings? If these sorts of events can’t garner enough outrage to move any kind of gun regulation through Congress, what kind of event do you think would be sufficient?

For the foreseeable future, the Gun Lobby has won this debate. We’re going to have to get used to our kids getting gunned down a few times a year.

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126

Nowadays, most of the art of using tools to make something is lost on a large part of the population. I think Defense Distributed has brought the principle of being able to build a gun yourself (which, as you say, is not a new concept) into this generation. Most folks now would be more comfortable building a gun using a computer and 3D printer than plumbing equipment and hand tools.

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127

Or you could, like, you know, work on the causes of violent crime.

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Like socialized mental healthcare?

Redistribution of wealth to combat poverty?

Gets my vote!

I’d also like some controls that make it harder for the lunatics that shoot up school kids to have access to guns. Call me crazy.

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129

The right to keep and bear arms is not about hunting. Bad people intent on killing can not be prevented from obtaining firearms. Good people should not either. Of course, there need to be limits but moderate discourse from either side seems limited these days, sadly.

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Oh sure, solving all violent crime is a lot easier than controlling access to guns, especially to mentally ill people. Why didn’t I think of that?

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131

There are the name we give things, and the name they give themselves…

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Nor are gun control advocates all hand-wringing, government-loving sheeple.

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133

You know who I particularly dislike being armed? The police.

I say disarm them first, then disarm the law-abiding majority. Then make sure the punishment for committing crimes with guns is extraordinarily high.

If all the ‘good guys’ are unarmed, the bad guys don’t need to carry them either.

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134

I have used and owned 'em. Doesn’t alter my statement at all. And I’m very much in favour of their control. You come off as a little patronising there, if I’m honest.

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135

Actually my argument (to use your terminology) is to say “No WordPress isn’t a revolution, people have been publishing on the web in all sorts of ways since its inception.” DD hasn’t transformed anything and are unlikely to do so. They put a hole in a hunk of plastic and put a firing pin on it. Whoopee. Anyone that can add two and two could see that coming, and in fact real manufacturers have been trying it for years. Also with ceramics, foamed metal, all sorts of materials and methods. A gun was also just laser sintered for the first time recently as well, is that a ‘transformation’ of manufacture in your mind? As a thing I guess a printed gun is interesting, but the adoration of DD I don’t get.

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While not every gun owner I know is driven by fear and hysteria, fear is certainly a somewhat common reason to purchase a handgun especially, and Fear and Hysteria certainly seem to be the driving force behind every gun owner I’ve ever met that responds with the abuse and hyperbole demonstrated here.

There are two distinct groups of gun owners (well, more than that, but for the purposes of this argument) - People who like guns and have a reason to own them, and people who feel they NEED them. The second group are by far the most noisy, and pretty much all meet the definition of “paranoid”, “fearful”, and “hysterical”, at the very least. (Anecdotally, many of them also seem to aggressive, angry, and delusional as well)

That the mere suggestion that gun owners be able to demonstrate sufficient knowledge of firearm safety before being allowed to carry a weapon on them is sufficient to cause death threats, shunning, etc. and so on, makes that pretty obvious.

It’s a debate driven the crazy terrified nuts on both sides who see every conversation as capitulation to the “other side”, and everyone who acts reasonably (like the author in this article) is quickly declared an enemy of both the gun-nuts AND the gun-control-nuts. To them, every event, every possible chance, is a crisis, and the opinions of the echo chamber are the only thing that matters.

The best thing those who actually like, appreciate, and need guns could do is increase their popular support by ceasing to provide a platform for the crazies, cease generating excuses for them, cease letting them drive the debate. Responsible gun owners should be driving the pro-gun arguments, not the terrified loonies who prove themselves most capable of grabbing the microphone and drowning everyone else out.

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Well, it was ever thus back over this side of the pond. Seems to work, more or less.
(In B4 ‘statistics about crime in the UK’. I don’t care)

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You are pretty wrong about the 2nd Amendment granting an individual right to own firearms:

Further, the history of the 2nd Amendment in general comes from fugitive slave hunting parties:

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Planes had been terrorist targets before, but until September 11th when 3,000 people died there was no need to have several billion dollars thrown at the issue. Until there is a large enough national tragedy involving direct use of firearms there will not be anything done.

We have established that shooting twenty children is not enough to move the needle. The shooting of a Republican President was enough to get legislation for about 20 years or so before rolling it back. The point I am making is that there is going to be September 11th sized event that will move the needle, the fact that it will take an unknown quantity of citizens to die before that happens instead of dealing with it after more limited quantities is a shame.

My personal number has been reached. Eventually more people will reach their own number and controls will be instated the same way one can no longer get a Thompson through the mail.

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Just because you have stated your point three times and not been agreed with does not mean you are being ignored, it just means others don’t agree with it. Sometimes that’s the way it is.

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EXACTLY. ‘Gun Control’ != ‘Confiscating All Guns Forever’. It’s a nonsensical, disingenuous stance to equate the two, as evinced quite elegantly by a reaction that uses the phrase ‘people of the Gun’, FFS.

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