So then those are all law-abiding people who are causing the deaths? Because that’s who you seem to intend to want to punish.
[quote=“mr_drm, post:18, topic:34180, full:true”]
Guns are so scary.[/quote]
Really? Mine don’t scare me at all. Guns owned by my friends don’t scare me either. All a matter of perspective, I guess.
If you see a policeman with a gun strapped to his hip, do you freak out? If you answered “no” then guns are not scary. It is the intention of the person carrying the gun that you should be suspicious of.
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Honestly, I agree with you right up to
No. You should be afraid. You should be very fucking afraid of what that particular tool can do. You should be afraid of how it makes others perceive you as a threat. You should be afraid of HAVING the kind of power that carrying it gives you.
You should be just afraid enough of your gun to treat it with the goddamned fucking respect that it and everyone else around you deserves.
Yes, I agree that criminals by definition circumvent the law. I agree that people can’t use their weapon of choice, they will find another one. I agree that the second amendment was intended to distribute the power of the military among the citizenry, rather than consolidating it in the hands of a few officials. Yes, I believe that we have the right to defend ourselves.
But the moment you start pretending that a lethal weapon is a harmless piece of metal, it tells me that you don’t fear and respect what it can do, but rather covet that power. It tells me that you don’t consider the consequences of your actions.
And that tells me that you- not everybody, but you- should not be trusted with a potato peeler, let alone a firearm.
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Don’t be silly—I don’t want to punish law-abiding gun owners any more than I want to punish law-abiding demolitions experts or law-abiding nuclear scientists or law-abiding disease researchers.
Unfortunately you can’t make something super-easy for law-abiding people to get their hands on and still make it super-difficult for criminals to get their hands on. That’s why we have restrictions on the production, distribution, purchase and use of potentially dangerous things, like explosives and smallpox viruses and jumbo jets and anti-aircraft missiles and plutonium.
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Well, we do have mandatory background checks for all purchases through dealers. There is NO place where you can go to a dealer and bypass a background check. Other places have additional, useless laws, but those do not really seem to help.
What policy were you thinking of? Maybe banning all semi-auto firearms? This would not have stopped the shooting a few days ago involving a double-barreled shotgun (as low-tech as you can get without having to carry a powder horn and a ram rod).
Maybe we should pass a ban on selling guns to people under 18? That would certainly have stopped the most recent 14-year-old who took a gun to school. Wait, we already have such a law???
Sorry, but the shooting near the California College a couple of weeks ago involved guns purchased legally in California – no need to leave the state. How did California’s extra-tight laws help anybody?
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Just don’t call them “Assault suspicious” that really brings out the gun pedant…I think the preferred term here would be “Semi-automatically suspicious”
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So if you wear clothes that have any colors, you’re in a gang. Got it.
/sarcasm
No, it isn’t easy to identify gang members. In fact, in my neighborhood, non-gang members get attacked by gang members quite regularly because they happen to be wearing a particular item of clothing that has some element of the wrong color and are mistaken for members of rival gangs. So apparently even gang members can’t easily identify other gang members.
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I’d like laws that look something like what most first-world countries have.
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You equate a simple firearm with explosives and smallpox viruses and jumbo jets and anti-aircraft missiles and plutonium. These simply aren’t in the same league and make for a specious argument.
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Tyranny : arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority. the government or rule of a tyrant or absolute ruler. a state ruled by a tyrant or absolute ruler. oppressive or unjustly severe government on the part of any ruler. undue severity or harshness.
But why bother providing examples? Yours are sufficient. Thanks.
Exactly! Unless you can get enough to go critical, plutonium really isn’t very dangerous…
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No, I used explosives and smallpox viruses and jumbo jets as clear-cut examples of how dangerous things can be effectively regulated.
I’m sick of hearing the nonsensical “more regulations won’t stop criminals, because criminals don’t care about laws” argument when we have plenty of precedent for keeping highly-regulated things out of the hands of criminals. Is it impossible for a criminal to get their hands on dynamite? Of course not. Is it a trivial matter for criminals to get their hands on dynamite? Thankfully, no.
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Well, not freak out, as such. But it always makes me wish he didn’t have it.
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Oh, like in Australia where gun deaths have gone down, but homicide overall has not dropped as fast as the USA? Should I mention that violent crime in Australia in general has gone UP over the last couple of decades while it has gone DOWN in the US? I bring up Australia because they publish some great statistics that make it easy to analyze the trends.
Or, how about Canada where they recently had a mass-stabbing with five deaths? Yes, Canada has less mass-murders in general, but that is to be expected since they have a fraction of the population, different history, different economics and a major parts of Canada even have a different language.
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a handful of examples where said law may not have (or may have, let’s be honest) been the solution for that particular problem? Seshat frowns disappointedly at your statstics fail.
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The average person isn’t an expert on telling gang tattoos from any other kind of tattoos.
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And luckily intent is super easily determined while said gun-toting citizen is still out of range enough for you do take evasive action…
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Especially if you’re an innocent bystander in New York or LA.
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So it’s the size of the bullet that you’re concerned about?
