I’m not really going to get into this mess, but no, I don’t understand the line of thinking where you penalize millions of people for a handful of abusers. It is ridiculous.
It is also hypocritical as I imagine many of you would disagree with more government surveillance of your private lives? Your online and phone use? Everything done in the interest of security to protect you from “terrorists”. “XXX amount of lives don’t matter, as long as crazy Uncle Bob can surf his porn anonymously. His right or privacy trumps our right to live in a secure nation.”
Hey - while we are talking what is good for SOCIETY and the SAFETY AND HEALTH of it - let’s ban alcohol and smoking? Those two alone lead to waaaaaaay more deaths, abuse, family problems, long term health problems, and high health care costs. I am sure many gun deaths are fueled by alcohol. So we can get two birds with one stone.
Now maybe you want a nanny state and also want this. If so, I find you crazy, but at least consistent.
Otherwise, if you don’t support banning these things, you are a hypocrite, and you are saying “10,076 lives don’t matter, as long as crazy Uncle Bob gets his booze. His right to drink trumps 10,000+ people/year’s right to live.” And that is just for drunk driving. That doesn’t include the fights, rapes, accidental pregnancies, self imposed injuries, things bought on ebay and amazon, and health problems that alcohol leads to.
I am NOT willfully deceptive. I just am not paid to come up with the Australia stats. I chose a starting point, and the LATEST point where the numbers were valid. If you want to call me lazy, that is fine. I really do not want to enter 15 years of data in my spreadsheet. Just don’t call me dishonest.
By the way, why aren’t people doing the SAME THING to the US murder rate and realizing that it is down by about 50% over the last few decades. OH NO! THE MURDER RATE IS DROPPING! WE NEED TO FIX THAT!!!
Thank you. The voice of common sense. However, most people on here use alcohol to some degree. They do not mind taking away the rights of others, as long as it does not inconvenience THEM. But you had better not touch a freedom that they actually use themselves.
I, for one, hate smoking with a passion. Smoking took away my mother’s mind and killed her early. As much as I hate smoking, I will defend the rights of others to smoke, if that is what they choose. I hate the KKK (being in a trans-racial family), but I will defend their RIGHT to spew their stupidity because freedom of speech is the right thing, even if morons get to use it too.
Brainspore explained why filling in two years worth of “data” in your spreadsheet is a terrible/useless way to prove a trend. That’s why I included that quote in my reply. As I said above, this is your talking point - it’s extremely lazy to expect others to populate the dataset that you say proves your point when you can’t even be bothered to yourself (and, as such, you cant possibly know that the dataset proves your point). Dishonest. Lazy.
Several paragraphs lobbing subtle insult grenades isn’t “getting into this mess” how?
It is also hypocritical as I imagine many of you would disagree with more government surveillance of your private lives?
False equivalency. Try again. The deliberate and accidental use of guns in the US kills far more people than terrorism does.
The ‘right to privacy’ is also peppered with various systems, checks and balances to ensure that those freedoms are not being abused for deplorable shit like terrorism or child pron. If you read the fine print of almost any VPN you’ll find they explicitly say that, even if they dont keep logs it’s possible for them to de-anonymise you in real time as you use their service, in case you’re using it for things like child pron or to launch attacks. Data retention laws and things like subpoenas and warrants are precisely the kind of mechanisms that people consider acceptable to balance privacy with security, and the comparison to gun ownership is that there needs to be a universal system of mechanisms and to control who has guns and what kinds of guns they can have. Currently the US gun control system is spotty, inconsistent and littered with loopholes. Believe it or not I’m not in favour of banning all guns, but I am in favour of sensible gun laws, something America does not have.
while we are talking what is good for SOCIETY and the SAFETY AND HEALTH of it - let’s ban alcohol and smoking?
We’re not talking about that, but nice move trying to shift the goalposts there! I’m talking about what makes it safer for innocent individuals to live their live without the fear and real potential of being instantly killed, at distance and without warning. There are numerous arguments that can be made for alcohol’s dangers to society though I’d be very surprised if the number of innocent people who died from the result of someone else’s drinking was greater than those killed annually by guns. Smoking is bad for the smoker but, provided it is done with the kind of care and restrictions that smokers accept as law, it’s next to harmless to anyone who isn’t smoking. Another favoured talking point of pro-gun people, and another false equivalency (see the pattern forming?).
Those two alone lead to waaaaaaay more deaths, abuse, family problems, long term health problems, and high health care costs.
Most of these direct negative effects are felt by the individual imbibing, not those around them. That’s the difference between guns and drugs.
I am sure many gun deaths are fueled by alcohol.
Oh, so you agree with my assertion that an insta-kill button should be taken away from people whose impulse and decision-making abilities are impaired by alcohol which is cheap and everywhere? Wait… that didn’t work how you thought it would, did it?
Now maybe you want a nanny state and also want this.
Nice subtle dig there! No, I want you and your fellow selfish gun-nuts to stop arguing dishonestly and with blatant false equivalencies, thanks.
“10,076 lives don’t matter, as long as crazy Uncle Bob gets his booze. His right to drink trumps 10,000+ people/year’s right to live.” And that is just for drunk driving.
…No. Educate yourself before claiming fucking nonsense like this.
I was really hoping that one of you strong gun-rights folks would answer my earlier questions about whether or not you are in favor of banning some form of armaments or not, and if so, what is your rationale. I think it’s a fair question.
Does the above quote mean that Mister44 is fundamentally opposed to banning access to any forms of armament? If so, then good for him, he’s certainly got a consistent viewpoint. If not, then what is his rationale?
The problem as I see it is that of classism. I am not a huge fan of weapons, so I don’t mind them being banned - but if they are they need to banned for everybody. Not making access more difficult for some people than others. How about not manufacturing them? As far as I am concerned, there is no “trusted party” with the authority to take lives. And I don’t accept others such as police or military using force to keep me “safe”. The problem is that when you tell police “that’s great, but my family and I don’t accept your protection” - they turn on you, even if you weren’t doing anything illegal, they define you as the enemy.
I don’t mind that there are police, as such. But they and other government people are not in a privileged position. I don’t trust them if and when they take up arms against me or other people. The average person is who they supposedly derive their limited authority from, But when they neither trust nor respect their public, this authority, their social contract, is a lie.
What are we talking about? Firearms? Or are are we going into the realm of absurdity with something like “since you agree nuclear missiles should be restricted, we both agree armaments should be regulated, we just disagree on where the line is.”
With firearms I am mostly ok with the current NFA restrictions from '34. I’d like to see SBRs (Short Barreled Rifles) and Suppressors removed from the list and being bought like normal items.
I’d lift some import restrictions. Right now some arms have to have a certain percentage of US made parts.
I’d also allow the lift of the 86 law so that new items could be added to the full auto registry.
Other than that, no I don’t see the point in banning certain classes of guns.
How is that absurd? If anything, agreeing to that simple proposition (that the Second Amendment has limits) seems like a good starting place for a discussion about exactly where the limits of that Constitutional right should lie, and why.
I’m talking about “arms” in general because the 2nd amendment uses the term “arms,” not “firearms.” As Brainspore states, agreeing that the 2nd amendment has limits does seem like a good starting point for this discussion.
Thanks for the partial answer, but what is your specific rationale for being “ok” with those restrictions? As I’m sure you know, there are many U.S. citizens who would strongly disagree with those restrictions.
[quote=“teapot, post:153, topic:49142, full:true”]
False equivalency. Try again. The deliberate and accidental use of guns in the US kills far more people than terrorism does.[/quote]
So it kills less people and that makes it unimportant? Tell that to the people who are dead and their families. If guns killed less people you would be ok with it then? How much less, what is your “OK” number?
The guns laws I think are ok where they are. Most criminals do not get their guns from legal means. They circumvent the system. They are already breaking the law to obtain their guns. What is more laws going to do? You aren’t going to make a fool proof system. I don’t know what loop hole you are worried about, but the black market and people getting guns for them (straw purchase or private sales) are the top two ways criminals get their guns. You are going to be hard pressed to find a way to stop that.
We aren’t? I thought banning guns was for the good of society, making them safer.
Sooo… making it safer… for the good of society.
And unless you live in a a really bad area, you really shouldn’t fear getting shot. It is unlikely, especially if you aren’t already involved in illicit activities.
Who care’s if they are innocent? And who cares if it is less than firearms? So if we got the number for fire arms deaths down some, we’d all be kosher?
[quote=“teapot, post:153, topic:49142, full:true”]
Most of these direct negative effects are felt by the individual imbibing, not those around them. That’s the difference between guns and drugs.[/quote]
That’s bullshit and you know it. Drinking, smoking and drugs may have less graphic effects, but they are way more common and widespread.
Alcohol damages go way beyond deaths. You probably know someone or witnessed someone who got into fights, been raped, abused their spouse, got a divorce, were a shit dad/mom, lost their job, got pregnant, etc etc. You can end up not killing any one and still fuck over the lives of your loved ones.
Since you brought up drugs, that goes hand in hand with other things like prostitution, theft, and rock and roll. Some of the worst gun crime centers around drug gangs. If you removed the worst urban crime centers, the rest of the homicide rate in the US looks like Canada’s.
I have a friend of mine who doesn’t do drugs, not because he has a problem with drugs themselves, but because he knows someone some where died getting that drug to him. (Unless you know someone home growing weed. And then maybe not.)
At any rate, people like drinking, smoking, and drugs. Most of us do one or more of them. A vast majority of us do so responsibly. They see the absurdity in further restricting millions of users because of a small percentage of abusers.
And what wizardry do you propose to prevent people from using guns drunk? Make it standard on every car, that would help stop 10,000+ deaths a year. We actually have that technology.
In schools? I don’t know. 239 were murdered by drunk drivers. I am sure many more were murdered by people under the influence of something. Tens of thousands were abused physically, sexually, and verbally by parents and others under the influence. I am sure a fair number of accidental and homicide gun deaths involve alcohol.
OK, I see. Well it used to apply to cannons. Actually it still applies to cannons, as you can fire a cannon with less paper work than a fire arm. But it used to be the rich owned cannons and loaned them out during wars.
I guess the line I see is explosive. I don’t have a problem with rockets, missiles, canons, firearms, etc. I am going to draw the line at explosives as it is a more of an area affect. It also takes considerable more skill and training to handle explosives safely. But people still do it for fire works and demolition etc.
On the other hand, you used to be able to buy dynamite in hardware stores and people managed to mostly not blow each other up. So maybe that line isn’t needed. But I am trying to appear reasonable.
Well if you note I wanted to remove most of the teeth from the NFA. I don’t mind the concept of the full auto registry, but I don’t actually have a good reason to defend it. That actually goes against the libertarian side of me, as it probably isn’t needed. But I see that the extra paper work helps keep the riff raff away from it.
Still think SBRs and Suppressors should be removed from the list. It is rather arbitrary they are on there.
The problem is we made it illegal in the first place. Pre 1986 it was only a few hundred dollars and some paper work to guy an AR15 that was full auto. Most people didn’t bother because it was several hundred dollars more and a wait and then they had to feed it.
But now that the 86 law closed the registry, the cost of full autos has gone to where only the rich can afford them. But if they just made it all legal again with no other checks every Tom Dick and Jane would get one just because they can, and if they do ban them again, they can sell at a profit. Sort of like what happened to the AR15. Back in the 90s it was still an under ground gun. “What do you need that for?” The AWB made it the most popular firearm in the US.
Nothing makes an American want to do something more than telling them they can’t.
Thanks! I’m much more interested in hearing the rationale you use to decide which types of weapons you’re OK with, and which you are not, than hearing the details of which ones you’re OK with and which needs to be restricted. Is it based purely on a gut feeling, or do you do some form of mental cost/benefit calculations of potential good vs. potential harms? Or is there another form of logic you use that I’m missing here? I’m not trying to be sarcastic here, I really want to know.
