Not at all. But I guess I should give up on trying to make sense of the knot of thoughts in my head. Too many people are getting shot.
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You drive 25 mph everywhere?
And you don’t get shot?
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I’m already sorry to have brought that up, FFS. But that doesn’t help, as well.
Please see my feeble attempt to frame my failed analogy above.
Yes?
Also; trying to cross link to that from a phone is … not easy. Your suggestion is an excellent one, and I would greatly appreciate it if someone linked Humb’s post there.
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That’s semantic BS of the kind Mr.44 tried earlier; if you approve it’s a response and therefore by definition Good™, but if you disapprove it’s a reaction and therefore Bad™? Fuck that noise.
Also, I don’t believe anyone is seriously calling for an outright and absolute ban akin to, say, the ban on chlorofluorocarbons … which was, I might add, wildly successful.
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“We’ve had many presidents in the past who have gotten into emotional exchanges with distraught parents and siblings and others in times of, for example, returning the remains of someone who died in war…This challenge is not something unique to the Trump presidency,” Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign adviser, told The Daily Beast. “I know President Trump well enough to know that in a situation where he’s met with an emotional response, he can…respond appropriately.”
Really? Does he even know how to respond to a situation and/or group appropriately? The same man who told thousands of kids & pre-teens at the Boy Scout jamboree a story about a yacht orgy?
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*sighs
Well, I give you credit; at least this time around, you waited a full day after the horrific tragedy and needless loss of human life before posting the usual “guns aren’t bad” rhetoric.
I cannot emphasize enough that every single time you do this, it makes it seem like you care much more about firearms and having ready access to them than you do about the the lives and well being of other people.
I’d genuinely like to believe better of you than that… but you make it really hard when you do this every time guns are even mentioned, let alone when there’s yet another horrific tragedy.
And I say this as a member of this forum who generally likes and respects you, outside of your fetish…
SMH
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Why the “cars are as dangerous as guns” analogy doesn’t hold up (a partial list)
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Guns are dangerous by design, cars are dangerous as an unintended consequence. When a new innovation comes along that makes cars less likely to kill people it’s usually quickly adopted by the automotive industry and often made legally mandatory in short order. When a new innovation comes along that could make guns less likely to kill people the firearms lobby immediately steps in to protest against it.
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On a per-capita basis, car owners are far less likely to kill someone than gun owners. A minority of American households own guns, with just 3 percent of Americans accounting for half the guns in the United States. The vast majority of American households own one or more car. Yet the number of Americans killed by firearms is almost as high as the number of Americans killed by cars.
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Cars are integral to the daily lives of ordinary Americans everywhere. While it’s true that many people get by without private automobile ownership, ending private automobile use entirely would impact American life in ways that are difficult to comprehend. Ending private firearm ownership would inconvenience hunters and sport shooters, but that’s about it.
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Even avid hunters usually spend more time behind the wheel of a car than behind the trigger of a gun. Every single day urban commuters share the roads with tens of thousands of fellow citizens using automobiles, usually without incident. The last time that many Americans gathered together to use firearms at the same place and time was the Battle of Gettysburg.
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(ETA) Cars are not particularly effective devices for murdering people. Unless your intended target just happens to be standing in the road in front of you then it’s actually pretty hard to murder someone with a car. With few exceptions (like the truck attack in France) an automobile is frankly a terrible murder weapon compared to readily available alternatives. You can’t take a car into a school or an office building, your victim(s) have a much better chance of ducking out of the way when you come at them, and if you don’t hit them on your first attempt it’s likely they can just run away or duck behind an obstacle. That’s why we don’t send soldiers into combat armed only with jeeps.
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What can I say, a most excellent response.
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It’s just that, after all this, it seems like 100 persons shot dead per day might be what it takes for some actual gun control to take place.
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Not even then.
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Aye. That is more- or- less where the U.S. is already.
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Yeah, but everyone hated that guy. Even his own party.
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Melz, thanks for your candor, it is always appreciated. I am sorry if I come out heartless or non-emotional. Honestly, I have to FORCE myself not to emotional because other wise I take various comments and insults personally (whether they were directed at me or not). It also usually makes me make arguments that are more flawed.
Like your fetish comment. I don’t do this because I have a fetish. I do this because I PASSIONATELY believe in this and various other rights. I was arguing this position (albeit much more poorly) before I even owned a firearm. Fortunately when it comes to things like increased government surveillance, the ability to have secure encryption, the ability to ingest drugs, the right to privacy, and various other personal rights, most people here are on the same page so you don’t see me pop up on a soap box. Or evolution. Sweet Jesus if there was ever a creationist here you would see a masterful retort.
I don’t do this because I want dead kids in schools. I don’t do this because I want more dead criminals in the streets. I don’t do it with delusions of overthrowing the government. I don’t do this as a culture war against “libitards”. I don’t do it to make it easier for people to commit suicide. I am not a monster who doesn’t understand that some guns are used for bad. This November, a few weeks after filming my ex-wifes wedding, a casual friend shot himself in the chest and killed himself (after trying to use pills earlier that week). It was sad on multiple levels because he was (and I know everyone says this about dead people, but in this case it is true) the most genuinely nice guy I have ever known. I didn’t even know he was out of work for so long, and had I known I am 90% sure I could have secured him a job. His wife and sister-in-law were both doctors and yet missed all the signs. So again, it isn’t like I am divorced from reality.
I understand you and others don’t understand how I hold this position so vehemently, nor agree. That’s fine. But I feel I must keep trying. I don’t understand fully the position of some other people who fight for various rights. Even rights that I generally agree with will have proponents who take it to levels that I either don’t understand or don’t fully agree with. I’ll still listen while they tell other challengers that they won’t be told how to protest or defend their rights.
It would be easier to just let “them” have it. And some days I just skip a thread. Other times I just try to correct misinformation and not argue the point. But I do this because I truly believe this and all the other personal rights out there are important. Nothing more. I hope that at least leads to some understanding as to “why”.
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Coming from a family of gun owners, I would absolutely endorse something like this in every state.
It could well have stopped some mass shootings, as it provides a way to take substantive action in advance.
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It’s pretty much impossible to ban something that a large enough plurality of the population thinks it’s not wrong to possess, without constructing a surveillance state that would make Heinrich Himmler jealous.
Marijuana.
Heroin.
Pirated music and movies.
Alcohol, from 1919-33.
Guns are no different.
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