I agree that personal protection is just about the least convincing argument for owning a gun. Even supposedly experienced handlers manage to get mugged or shoot themselves accidentally.
Unfortunately, American punditry (following most of the unreasoning public) feels the need to view this as a binary issue: Gun nuts and survivalists on one side, touchy-feely gun-banning liberals on the other. This ensures that the lunatic fringes on both ends of the spectrum will make sure that we don’t make any real progress since the real goal appears to be making points with their supporters by denigrating the other side.
Bullying open-carry zealots who would have been shot for their behavior just a generation or two ago are now considered reasonable when they demand that lunatics and drunks should be allowed to be armed no matter where they are. Fear-mongering supporters of banning all guns seem to ignore the fact that not everyone lives in a city with quick access to responsive, responsible law enforcement and that they don’t have the right to outlaw hunting just because they think meat is murder.
Significantly? You will have to have some pretty air tight studies that would make me change my mind, because violent crime as a whole has gone down, while in most states things like CCW has become legal. I don’t think gun laws do much good at all in stopping crime. We are actually living in one of the safest times in history right now.
Rounding up and getting rid of the all the guns would reduce gun crime, but I am not a proponent of punishing the many for the acts of a few.
And places like the UK have done that. Has their crime disappeared? No. Now they are making kitchen knives you can’t stab people with and passing knife laws and running anti-Knife campaigns.
I don’t understand why you people can’t come to terms that people commit crimes for other reason besides they have access to weapons.
[quote=“teapot, post:38, topic:53907”]
There evidence for AGW is supported by 99% of climate scientists yet the idiotic debate about it in mainstream society rages on.[/quote]
Why dont we stick to the topic and hand and not build snow men.
Uh - I have read enough articles on the matter to see the bulk of the violence is gang related. I think if you want to stop them fighting you need to ask yourself why they are fighting and willing to die for that fight.
Depends upon your metrics of “work well”. It is generally hypocrisy, since the weapons are legislated away by governments who reserve the right to use them themselves. This posits separate classes of people, saying that one should have weapons, while the other should not. I wouldn’t say that this has the makings of a sound compromise.
It’s not about groups of people at all. Teams such as “gun nuts” versus “victims” versus “philosophy classes”… I think these are defined by rhetorical stances on this as a social issue, not as accurate descriptions of reality.
Deciding about the necessity of laws is precisely a philosophical/ethical/political process. Also, as I said before, the “loopholes” are partly intentional. Because the country refuses to allow or ban guns outright, so it becomes a contentious battle for who keeps them, and who loses them.
I’m kind of more annoyed that this kind of tactic is acceptable to show “teachable moments”.
Lets say an anti-abortion group makes a fake planned parenthood like office and does the same kind of fear mongering and rumor spreading. Would anyone here tip their hat and go “Aaah that really brought out good talking points to raise awareness of the issue”. I hope not. I’d be just annoyed at those people as I am here.
The gun rights/gun control argument really won’t be solved, this and a long list of other BB similar posts show a divided community, and thats fine with me. I don’t mind opposing views. Would be boring without them. However I do take exception to the manipulation here by those in the video.
I’d also be curious if THEY followed all relevant New York State and Federal laws in setting up the gun shop. That is if they had a number of personally owned firearms there, they are breaking many many laws in even posing as they would be selling them. I mean that’s a LOT of money in fees etc to spend just for a PSA video in any state, much less NY…
Sorry, post Jameson night grumpy ranting that may have been answered already in many nested comments above this
Who gets to determine what that level is? I sure as fuck hope it’s not you.
And places like the UK have done that. Has their crime disappeared?
Who is building straw men? This is not an argument about reducing crime, it’s an argument about reducing death and injury. I know you desperately want to make this about general crime statistics, because the gun violence statistics this video presents are pretty damming of the misconception the owning a gun makes you safer and it’s much easier to argue the “it won’t reduce crime” line.
and passing knife laws and running anti-Knife campaigns.
Which is probably working. We had a knife crime problem in Australia. Now you can’t buy a knife if you are younger than 16, knife crime seems to be down and I’m not at all upset that 15 year olds can’t buy a knife. Are you making my point for me now? Thanks!
Why dont we stick to the topic and hand and not build snow men.
Why don’t we!? Your side has been trying to reframe this the whole thread. Also, if you weren’t so obsessively focussed on ‘winning’ this argument, you’d have seen my point was that even in the face of overwhelming evidence being presented by experts, moronic shitstains think their subjective assessment of a situation trumps the views and opinions of experts.
I like interacting with you but I frequently get the feeling we’re in university and talking ourselves in circles after dropping acid. The bottom line is that, intentional or not, the loopholes are primarily the ways that guns go from legitimate and documented range weapons to black-market murder tools.
We have strict gun laws in Australia. If you have a reason to have a gun you can get one. Reasons include: security industry, farm owner, range shooting, hunting. No sane person (myself included) is saying “BAN TEH GUNZ!!!” but many sane people are saying “fix your shit, or lay in the blood-soaked bed you’ve made”. I do think hunters are fucking assholes though.
As I’ve made clear many times before: I actually like guns and, if I had a rural property, I’d almost certainly buy a rifle. What I’m saying, which Americans always seem to misconstrue into me wanting them to have no guns, is that you need bulletproof (excuse the pun) systems in place to make sure that people who are high risk cannot get their hands on weapons and that some weapons really have no practical use for anything but killing a bunch of stuff, really quickly.
Trophy hunters tend to be assholes. Among the hunters I’ve known, some are like that, others just like nature, male bonding, and the taste of gamey meat. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with killing for food, even if you don’t need to (although there’s parts of the country where people do hunt for sustenance–parts that are not as far removed from big cities as you’d think). Circle of life, paleo diet and all that. Just don’t waste it.
I’ve actually met more Fishermen that are bigger assholes. Anglers are more likely to break rules set forth by the DNR, kill fish just for kicks, or out of sheer malice if they decide the fish they catch is bad for some reason (invasive, perceived detriment to sportfish populations, or just ugly looking).
Well when you talk about “sensible gun laws” I guess you are going to have to elaborate.
The two areas of gun deaths I am concerned about is gun crime and accidents.
Certainly owning a gun has potential danger. Lots of things are dangerous in this world. Many of these things people do for fun. I am not sure you are to think you can legislate what people can and can’t do.
But of the ~100 Million gun owners we have ~800 accidental deaths per year. That is pretty low. I’d like to see it lower, but I am not sure what one would propose to reduce that number. Many accidents happen from people misusing or not obeying the basic safety rules. I am not sure how any legislation will help them be more responsible as people. Awareness campaigns could help.
Any any rate combating accidents is completely different than combating gun crime, two totally different issues, two different solutions. So most people focus on the bigger problem of ~12000 gun deaths from crime. So I guess if you want to get to some specifics let’s go, but in general you seem to devolve “they are too dangerous for anyone to be trusted with them”.
These are all very half-assed attempts at trying to diminish the reality of what a gun is: Harvey Milk wasn’t killed with a Twinkie, Reagan wasn’t shot with a copy of “Catcher In The Rye”, nobody was killed with an Ozzy LP, and a genetic food allergy is not anywhere near comparable with pulling a trigger. Guns don’t really have any other purpose except for wounding or killing, whether that applies to a human or an animal. Even target shooting is essentially a stand-in for hitting a living target, hence the fact that a lot of common targets have a human outline.
I am actually not opposed to guns, but I am tired of the fact that America can’t have a rational discussion of gun safety or gun control, because any talk along that line is countered with screams of “tyranny!”, as well as flawed logic and questionable statistics. I also have a hard time believing the NRA isn’t in bed with gun manufacturers, since they promote a paranoia about gun rights that actually increases gun sales-- for all the talk of Obama taking away our guns, sales have boomed the last 6 years.
Which loopholes are you referring to? Criminals get their guns mainly from the black market, stealing them, or from friends or family (which may or may not be a straw purchase, or a private sale.)
All of those things are already illegal. What additional loop holes do you wish to close up?
I know not all hunters are like that, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of condemnation for that behaviour coming from the pro-hunting crowd because even those asshole guys are ‘part of the team’ and they don’t want to rock the boat.
I like nature. I’d suggest they take up snowboarding which is liberating, gets you out into nature better than hunting, can provide the same male bonding and, best of all, doesn’t require stuff to die for those lulz.
Just don’t waste it.
America is built on waste
paleo diet
aka “hipster idiot diet”
Incidentally, Deer can be assholes too.
I missed the part where the deer bought a gun to unfairly stack the odds
I would disagree that snowboarding gets you more out into nature. Although I’ve occasionally startled flocks of turkeys, you’d have to go to some lengths to go snowboarding in a place that is more than a mile or two from the nearest bar. Also, snowboarding falls flat on its face as an excuse to get away from the wife and kids for a week.
I missed the part where the deer bought a gun to unfairly stack the odds
You probably want to go hang out with Boar hunters then. Especially the German ones. But hey, in all fairness, for any fight with Humans to be a fair fight, we’d need to lobotomize ourselves. We’re top dog not because of our claws, but because we figured out how to make really pointy sticks.
But seriously, did you read the link on the deer? Because I’ve been trying to find a reason to post it, because it is completely nuts. Literally, Deer Eat Babies.
Apparently brevity only leaves room for others to attribute motives where none exist.
I agree with every point you make in your second paragraph, and also look forward to a time when we can have a rational discussion of gun safety. That’s why I wrote what I did; not to diminish the reality of gun violence, but to mock the approach of those whose attempts to ban guns are just as simplistic, emotionally loaded, and disingenuous as those in the gun lobby.
The overarching principle of what I’d characterise as ‘sensible gun laws’ would start with there being consistency across all states. I understand that the structure of the US makes this legally difficult, but it’s necessary for stopping people who simply side-step regulation by getting their shit from states with lax laws.
Other problems with the current US system, as I see them, are the differing and frequently spotty background checks that occur with gun sales in stores, potentially inadequate laws to keep guns out of the hands of mentally unstable people, the insane availability of cheap black market guns which is impossible to solve without reducing the supply of guns, gun shows in the southern states that require no background checks or proper documentation of sale/transfer.
This is somewhat by-the-by but I also find it disgusting that the US is the world’s leading supplier of guns - especially to morally questionable regimes - and that power means the firearm industry lobby is well funded and the government is reluctant to impose laws that would impact that sweet-ass annual cash pile from the tax they pay.
So I guess if you want to get to some specifics let’s go, but in general you seem to devolve “they are too dangerous for anyone to be trusted with them”.
No man. You know this isn’t true as I’ve explicitly explained to you before and in this thread to popobawa4u that I like guns. I think they’re fascinating as a piece of engineering. I don’t see much legitimate use for handguns outside of people who need to have a highly portable weapon to do their job (cops/security). I also think the arguments for assault rifles being something civilians can own as being pretty flimsy.
Shotguns and long-barrelled rifles have obvious farm uses, plus IMO those are pretty much the only types that are really needed for a satisfactory range of competition shooting. Pistol comps are interesting but seem so abstracted from any real-world application that I find them to be pretty weird.
If I could force a single piece of firearms legislation, that would be it. Basically all gun crime, and nearly all firearms related deaths and injuries happen with handguns. Obviously because they’re really easy to point at things you don’t actually want to kill, they have low accuracy, and large cross section ammo.
I enjoy firearms, I like target shooting. I’ve gone duck hunting a few times even, but just from the data, it looks like handguns are by far the biggest problem in having hundreds of millions of firearms. They make both intentional and accidental killings too easy.
Also, that video made me grind my teeth. Every single customer mishandled those guns like freaking toddlers. Fingers on the trigger, pointing them in unsafe directions.
Ugh. If we’re not going to try and get these hundreds of millions of guns down to a reasonable number, then we really need to make firearms handling and safety a mandatory high school / elementary school class that gets repeated maybe 3 times in school careers.
