Ima let you finish and all…but do let me repost that particular chunk of wisdom-flung:
So I appreciate the sentiment, but I think we’re on the same side of this issue.
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Oops! I was skimming through the thread for a couple of examples and obviously didn’t read hard enough. Sorry 
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You don’t want to stigmatize the mentally ill?
Then stop doing it.
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[quote=“albill, post:114, topic:68685, full:true”]
Because the example are bullshit and/or secondary. Yes, you can use the device created to fire a hunk of lead accurately as a speed to kill a human to shoot paper targets. That doesn’t mean it is the device’s intent.[/quote]
This tired argument is irrational and dishonest at best. Tools do not have a soul and predetermined destiny. Yes guns were originally made to kill things - but if you LOOK at how they are ACTUALLY being used only a TINY portion are ever used for that purpose. A vast majority of people - even those who buy a gun for defense - never hurt a thing. The idea that there is a “primary” or “secondary” purpose is ridiculous. If you want to play that game every vegan and vegetarian should give up their knives. The earliest knives were made to kill people and animals and cut flesh - not chop your carrots up. Oh wait - we found an alliterative use for them? Too bad, the original INTENT of their creation and sole use for thousands of years were weapons and butcher instruments.
Add to that list bows and arrows (Which I guess they found new uses for, my daughter is thinking of joining the archery team at school. Not sure how those matches work. May need to raise funds for funeral expenses unless they aren’t using these things as INTENDED.) The carbon steel sword on my wall was only made to parry and skewer, evidently. (sorry @Medievalist). Every club, bat, and stick we use in sports should be given up because the original CLUB was made to be used as a WEAPON to kill people and animals. The fact we found they wack balls around is irrelevant. They are dangerous weapons. Have you seen Sean of the Dead? Cricket bats are like if a club and a broad sword had a bastard child.
Personally I have NEVER bought a gun with the intent to hurt anyone or with defense on my mind. I have thought afterwards about which ones to use if defense is needed, but my primary INTENT was to find guns that were fun to shoot and could be used in timed firing sports (USPSA). Living in a big city I have several indoor ranges where pistols are fun to shoot. Outdoor rifle ranges are much harder to find and to get to.
INTENT is solely on the shoulder of the user. Someone may get a gun with the INTENT of shooting someone - but that is no different than someone buying something else with the INTNENT of committing a crime. e.g. spray paint or eggs to vandalize, sudafed to make meth, crowbars to break and enter, anti-freeze to poison a dog, a camera and computer to make and distribute child porn, cryptology software to send encrypted stolen files, a Corvette to drive 100 mph on the highway, the list goes on.
[quote=“albill, post:114, topic:68685, full:true”]
Oh really? Then why do I own a firearm and why did I continue to train on them?[/quote]
Fudds own guns. Many of them lots of guns. They like shooting and many of them like hunting. They have the sort of thing Obama or Biden would take a photo op with. $3000 Beretta shot guns and nice walnut grained bolt actions. Slick stuff. Stuff my dad owns (with out the high price tag. He’s cheap.)
What separates my dad from a Fudd is that even though he has no use for or desire to own a magazine fed semi auto rifle or a modern semiautomatic handgun, he knows that the arguments for banning them are bogus and semantics. The only difference between his Remington 700 and the army M-24 sniper rifle is his is lighter and much prettier.
You are absolutely right I don’t know you or your political leanings. Not trying to guess where you lie everywhere, but on this issue I feel I have you pegged.
As for my nickname, it stems from a Vampire the Masquerade character I made when I was 18, which I took from a crappy but fun song by the Electric Hellfire Club, “Mr.44”. Yes I was trying to be dark and brooding and scary. Soon after I found IRC and took that as my IRC handle. I later still used it as a pen name to write for a paintballl magazine. It wasn’t until after I quit paintball that I got my first gun. And it wasn’t until about a year ago I finally got a .44 magnum. Years later, thanks to the interwebs, I found out the original song was about the Son of Sam killer. I thought it was just a made up thing when I took the name.
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Intents are determined by the designers and makers of a thing, not the thing itself. Let’s not be intellectually dishonest, since you dislike that so much. The rest of your commentary about knives and arrows is exactly that and a straw man. Knives, for example, clearly have the primary use of “cutting things.” Yes, you can cut living things. You can cut rope. They are clearly a tool with utility. All guns do is move a bit of metal at lethal velocities. That’s it.
As to your discussion of what you really meant by your made up jargon term…whatever.
If you and others wanted a firearm only to shoot targets, you could have a gun made (because there would be a market, right?) that is only good for shooting targets and then we all wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we? People don’t want those guns. They want the ones that are made to kill things.
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It is EXACTLY as dishonest as the arguments you are using against it.
And petty, immature people with weak arguments start resorting to petty and immature namecalling.
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Yes we are a statistical outlier. Because we have soooo many guns, yet our murder rate is actually pretty damn low compared to other countries with high gun ownership. Our murder rate is much, much lower than Mexico, who is right next door and has pretty stringent gun laws. Why is that? Could it be the 101 other factors that lead to crime and not whether the citizens have guns?
[quote=“redesigned, post:129, topic:68685, full:true”]
I care more about the americans being killed then snark attacks on america’s character. human lives matter. bonus, if we actually fix the problem then we don’t have to worry about snark attacks on the issue.[/quote]
My point being, bad shit happens everywhere. Yes you can find “safer” countries with less crime, but I contend that is because 1) they have different people living there, 2) in general they have better economic equality and 3) they have better social programs.
The first statement was a bit tongue in cheek, because as you point out, I go on to say how harsher laws don’t translate into better behavior. Though I AM for locking up violent criminals, the reason our incarceration rate is so stupid high isn’t from violent crime. We also need better programs for rehabilitation, which you can’t really do given how big the beast is right now.
As for the mentally ill, that, IMHO, is a bit of a red herring. Yes our health care system sucks. Yes our MENTAL health care system is worse. The problem is crazy people make GREAT headlines, e.g. the Newtown and CO Theater shooters. Clearly these people have issues and if we had a better system maybe they could have been gotten help sooner.
But - these mass shootings, while awesome for grabbing headlines, are a drop in the bucket for the core amount of gun crime. The worst of it occurs in big cities in certain neighborhoods. Of course THAT is where we should be focusing our research on and working to figure out a solution.
It is entirely possible he wanted to wound and not kill. In the article I read they described it “suicide by cop” as he didn’t surrender. But any way - what stopped the stabby guy? A racist cop? What did he use?
How is anything I said dishonest?
For second I thought you called me pretty and I got excited… Damn…
Name calling? It is more of a descriptive term. Like a Trekkie or a Whovian. Or maybe Gun Nut. Or Petty. Or Immature.
It isn’t a derogatory term.
Descriptive of anyone who disagrees with you? It certainly isn’t a common term with a well accepted meaning, unlike your examples (well, the first three).
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That’s not for you to decide
This whole discussion is quite stupid. We know which BBS members will show up in every thread about violence in America to defend gun use and ownership and how that isn’t really the cause of any problems in America. I don’t know why we keep falling for the trick of actually engaging here. We all know that none of them are going to ever agree that gun violence involves…you know…lots of guns.
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Gun violence involve guns. Guns don’t CAUSE violence.
There are like 18 million people who practice Martial Arts in the US. A system developed with the INTENT and give that person knowledge to assault others. Sure, technically it is for “defense” but every fight or assault involves hands and feet as weapons. But of those 18 million practitioners, how many of them actually “Fight”? Not sparring, but actual fighting? Very few. How many of them fight out side of a sport or a “ring”? Very very few.
Just like guns, many people learn to fight with no intention of actually fighting people for real, certainly no intent to go out and be the aggressor. But by your same logic we should close these schools down as they are doing nothing more than teaching violent methods to hurt other people and criminal or crazy people could use this knowledge to hurt others.
but they demonstrably ENABLE violence. Thats the point you are repeatedly and arrogantly ignoring.
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Can they use their martial arts to kill 20 or so people from a distance as they wander around in the span of five or ten minutes? Do we have a history of monthly (or weekly) incidents of this happening?
I’ve never heard of a martial artist climbing up in a clock tower and using his martial arts to pick off student after student…
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The good ones can, if certain anime shows are to be believed…
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There’s also the built-in check of the YEARS it takes to become proficient at any martial art- and that those years have a way of creating a degree of understanding and control that a (nearly) impulse-bought firearm doesn’t require.
If we want to have gun owners start with an airsoft gun and slowly, over the course of years of being taught by professionals, graduate to higher caliber firearms, we’ve got something to talk about.
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And any good school is gonna kick out the jerks with anger management issues as well.
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Apparently any regulation or licensing of firearms is just a slippery slope to confiscation and then…communism!
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A quick question:
Does this “communism” you speak of come with universal health care coverage? Cause I might want in on that action.
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