It all depends on where you live. CVS isn't located everywhere, for one thing. The Walgreens near where I used to live was always fairly well-stocked, and there was almost always one of those much closer to people than going to a full grocery store.
I'm not a complete CAD junkie or anything, but I've used ProE, SolidWorks, and even CATIA. If I wanted to just design something for fun, I'd probably reach for SolidWorks first. It's really powerful, but also really intuitive and easy to use (at least the more recent versions).
I've heard a lot of good things about Rhino, too (and many others have called it out here), but I haven't used it personally, so I can't compare it to the others above.
Sure, it's nice if you need to use it in an industrialized setting, and have assemblies with thousands of components. But as for designing small objects for personal manufacture? All I can say about using CATIA for model creation is that it leaves me sorely wishing for SolidWorks (which is funny, since they're now owned by the same company).
Well, I didn't really want to get into the topic of innovation, even though I briefly touched on it with point one. There are definitely copious amounts of copy & paste going on over at Nintendo, but they still manage to pull out some pretty nifty new mechanics now and then. I still remember the transition to 3D for Mario and Zelda. It may seem mundane now, but it was a huge task to make that transition without royally screwing everything up. The storylines may be the same tired old basic tales, but Nintendo does try to freshen things up from time to time. I don't think there's any real argument against claiming that a game like Skyward Sword is much more "new" and "innovative" compared to the original Legend of Zelda than the latest Call of Duty to the original.
But really, I just wanted to point out that the number of games in a franchise alone doesn't mean much without the context of time.
While the number of games alone certainly does seem to support your point, there are a few things to keep in mind. One, would be how different are these games from one another (in any way you care to compare games)? Another, you have to keep in mind the lifespan of these games. Yes, there are 18 Super Mario games, but they're also spread out over 30 years, which isn't all that different from 9 CoD games over 10 years. It's just that the Nintendo series have been around for longer. Given a few more decades, the other game developers are sure to milk their franchises for all they're worth.
Though, I hardly see how this is even really relevant. New people are continually being introduced to gaming, and even of those who've been gamers for decades, if a particular series continues to be fun to play, who cares if there are 20 previous games in the series?
That's quite a long post, so I won't respond point-by-point, but I'd say we're generally in greater agreement than either of us probably would've imagined at first.
I see your point about magazine capacity, and I honestly don't have a good answer. Personally, I wouldn't be bothered by eliminating magazines altogether. The problem there is that I wouldn't dare suggest such a thing to a gun enthusiast, given the amount of pushback there is simply over limiting high capacity magazines. Suggesting limiting them altogether? Man, get ready for a shit storm.
As for mental health initiatives, I'm all for that. But again, there are issues. Most obviously, there's the issue of paying for all this, and it's never been popular with a good portion of the country to have any sort of "socialized care," or viewing such mandatory evaluations as an invasion of privacy. I wish those weren't issues, because regular checkups for everyone would have a huge benefit.
I agree with getting rid of bullshit regulations (like barrel length, which you mentioned), and at the same time, I would like to see the agencies responsible not have their hands cuffed when it comes to enforcing the laws that most can agree on (hate to be "that guy," but Jon Stewart really nailed the issue last night as to how the ATF has been castrated).
Please excuse me for my hasty generalization. I was just using gun rights proponents' view to demonstrate one possible extreme from their point of view.
BUT NO ONE IS LEGISLATING THE RIGHT OUT OF EXISTENCE!
Stop being such a brainwashed idiot. Even the relatively restrictive law just passed by New York even specifically states that they're not going to take away your guns. All these things you're afraid of are figments of your imagination, nothing more.
As for the rest? Boo-hoo. Even most elementary children understand the concept of a few bad apples ruining things for everyone. Instead of focusing on a healthy mentality about having and using guns, too many gun proponents have spent the last few decades going off the deep end, decrying imaginary conspiracies about people trying to take their guns, fantasizing about revolutions and civil wars, organizing militias and planning for segregated communities.
I'm sorry, but these sorts of people aren't protecting their rights; they're putting others' rights in danger. If you dislike the possibility of gun regulation, you need to be angry at the people who abuse their rights, not the ones who want to protect themselves from those nutjobs.
Okay, specifically: completely eliminate mass shootings and reduce remaining gun violence by at least 75%. Happy?
And please don't twist my argument. The purpose for banning hi-cap mags isn't "it can't get any worse." The purpose for banning them is to attempt to make it more difficult to carry out mass shootings with their current level of expediency. The point of that blurb is simply to point that, unlike some possible solutions (e.g. arming more people), there is virtually no way that banning hi-cap mags could make the situation worse than it currently is.
Is there possible direct and obvious harm from hi-cap mags? Well, yes and no. They make the situation worse, but it's certainly arguable to what extent they make the situation worse. But again, banning them could only help. For responsible gun owners, it does not significantly impair their ability to use their weapons.
And please, stop misdirecting with fallacies. Yes, virtually anything on earth *could* be used as a weapon, even absurdly mundane objects. But unlike the weapons in question, pencils aren't designed to cause massive damage to large numbers of people. You could harm one, perhaps two people with one, and it would be difficult to cause serious harm. Contrast that again with assault rifles, which allow you to take out dozens of people with just a squeeze of the trigger. These things are in completely different leagues--you know it, I know it, everyone reading knows it, so please stop trotting out that tired argument.
The same goes for your slippery slope fallacy. Yes, restrictions could easily get out of hand. That's why people need to team up and try to come with a reasonable figure together, rather than devolving into a bunch of howling monkeys screaming about the government coming to take all your guns away. You're the gun enthusiast. You tell me what would be restrictive enough to curtail mass violence, but lenient enough for legitimate, responsible use. If changing mags is so easy, as is repeatedly claimed, then there should be no issue having to carry three 10-round clips, rather than a single 30-round magazine.
I believe in such things as reasonable restrictions. Many gun advocates do not seem to. However, like it or not, you can be that at least *some* form of regulation will be enacted. Gun rights proponents can either be part of the solution and help to shape those regulations to something that are reasonable, or they can go pout in the corner, call names, and watch helplessly as something more restrictive is passed. The choice is theirs.
Well, I thank you for putting forth some specific ideas. So few people seem willing to do so.
As for a goal, that's the easy part: a significant reduction in gun violence. But that hardly helps solve the problem, as you could attack that issue from a hundred different ways (education, weapons bans, ammo bans, background checks just to name the first few).
Like I said, I don't know how effective hi-cap mag bans would be, but at any rate, I don't think it's possible to make things worse. At worst, banning them would have no impact. And if you're a responsible owner, the difference should also be negligible and unimportant. I can't really think of any argument in favor of having them, short of some deranged self-protection fantasy that has about a one in a trillion chance of happening (excluding instances where one makes himself a target of law enforcement by doing something absurd).
Very true points, but have you seen what happens any time someone tries to pass something for the better health and well-being of American citizens?:-P
But no, I just mention Switzerland because it proves that you can have guns and low violence rates at the same time. If we are to keep ourselves so armed, we really need to discover what their secret is and begin to implement it as soon as possible.
All right, seems straightforward enough: you don't want to do anything at all.
If you haven't noticed, there's a bit of a problem. People tend to be going on shooting sprees more often than ever, and your solution is to do nothing at all. Great. Problem solved. We can all go home now.
Like I said, that's just one possibility based on what other nations have done. On one extreme, you have a nation like the UK, which has completely banned guns to the point that even officers don't even carry them, and they have much lower gun violence than we do. In the opposite direction, we have a nation like Switzerland, which has gun ownership levels similar to our own, but much lower gun violence, presumably due to their compulsory military service. I was merely offering that up as an option for discussion.
As I've said numerous times, I believe the best answer is education. Preferably, I'd like something more than a single one-hour course, but if we had something more along the lines of driving tests--show you have proficient knowledge and regularly demonstrate that you still have that knowledge--would go a long way in preventing a lot of the unnecessary gun accidents, though I doubt it would have much effect on the large-scale incidents.
Well, those are just two examples. I'm trying to be general, stating that any reasonable person would agree that at least some restrictions should be put in place, and they don't have to be drastic. There is definitely a position in between complete deregulation and complete disarmament, and it shouldn't take geniuses to figure out roughly where it lies. Yes, we can argue about the definition of assault weapons and whatnot, but I think most people would agree that at *some* level, guns reach a point to where they shouldn't be publicly available. This is how I'd roughly define "common sense restrctions."
As with any rule, there will always be exceptions, but things like hi-cap mags would still help. Can some people switch them out fast enough for it not to matter? Sure. But not *everyone* is a quick reload champion, and making a potential gunman have to reload more often gives just a little more help to those either trying to get away, or for those trying to take him down.
We can argue about the specifics about what has been done, but one thing we've tried that certainly hasn't helped is doing nothing.
Hey, I never said they were perfect. Quite the opposite, in fact. But like I said before, despite their flaws, I'd trust the cops more in most situations than a private citizen weilding a gun.
As for CCW, I have no strong opposition to that. There are places where I think you shouldn't take weapons, even if you can, but in general, I approve because you have to pass more stringent tests to get a CC license, and I would trust such people to generally be more knowledgeable about properly using their weapons than your average Joe.
Your behavior is appalling; please grow up before you attempt any further discussion, okay?
So, what do you propose? It's hard to draw a line, so let's just make everything legal?
Oh, how about it's possible to get guns on a black market, so we should just give up on any form of regulation and allow full autos to be sold?
Or maybe, people can fake background checks with false IDs, so let's not have any checks, either!
Dude, I get it. Drawing a line between acceptable and unacceptable is difficult, and even with a line there, it's not going to be 100% effective. BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN WE SHOULDN'T TRY.
How about you try something constructive for a change? Don't like how the representative are framing the gun debate? Well, assuming you're a reasonable person, why not try to help them? If you know so much, why don't you let everyone else in on a better way to curtail this epidemic. Either put up or shut up. Unless you have specific plans, and at least some sort of rationale behind it (granted, there's going to be some arbitrary decisions no matter how you cut it), you'll need to learn to live with what lawmakers are coming up with.
So what, your first argument fell flat on its face, so you're trying for something more ridiculous?
Okay, let's go with this one, too. Have you ever noticed that larger vehicles tend to require greater certification? Sure, there's a little wiggle room when it comes to personal vehicles, but once you really start getting into larger ones--semi trucks, limousines, trains, planes, etc.--you have to obtain special licenses. Gonna drive a big SUV? Fine, go ahead. Gonna drive a bus full of passengers that you're now responsible for? You're going to need special licensing for that.
All vehicles have some inherent danger to their operation, but there's a hell of a lot of difference in, say, what a motorcycle can cause--both to the rider and those around him--and what a bus can do. And guess what; we do draw lines! We've drawn lines in vehicle size for who knows how long (I don't care to look it up, really). Do any sort of driving and you'll know there are all sorts of regulations that reference a vehicle's weight, number of wheels, number of axles, etc.
Do you have an even more absurd analogy you'd like to try and shoehorn your argument into?
Yes, I realize it's all arbitrary and it's nearly impossible to get people to agree. However, I completely reject your premise that vehicle size has nothing to do with their danger. What would you rather get into an accident with: an out-of-control semi, or an out-of-control SmartCar? Yeah, I thought so...
Way to completely distort everything, bravo! You twist words just like a US citizen, even if you are Canadian!
The point of a car is to get from point A to point B. They can be dangerous if used properly, but usually don't cause harm with normal use.
The point of assault rifles/handguns is to harm. They are dangerous whether used properly or improperly, and frequently cause harm with normal use.
THAT is the difference. Now, with plenty of proper training, the danger associated with guns can be minimized, but there's no getting around the fact that they are specifically designed for the purpose of causing damage of some form. Trying to equate that with cars is simply asinine.
I have no trouble with the police using such weapons. And that's not because I'm a statist or any other such ridiculous argument I'm sure to encounter. I'm fine with the police having access to such weapons because 1) they receive training on how to use them, 2) they're secured when not in use, and 3) there's oversight in the rare events that they are used. When an office fires a weapon, he is required to justify its use. Sure, sometimes they justifications are flimsy, but they aren't any worse than the "Stand Your Ground" laws around the country. Regardless, given any random cop versus any random private citizen, I'd have more trust in the cop to use such a weapon responsibly.
There are rights and there are priveleges, and few in this country seem to be able to distinguish one from another. The Second Amendment, even in its most liberal reading (not in the political sense) does nothing to say what type of firearms a person should or should not have. I hate to use the tired old musket argument, but it is somewhat appropriate. The authors of the Constitution had no concept when writing the Second Amendment of the sort of weapons that would one day be on the market. It's doubtful they'd have intended that clause to mean that any person can have any weapon of any kind. I'll ask you what I ask everyone: where do you draw the line? At what point would you say that something is too destructive to be publicly available?
Besides, "rights" are already legislated away. Felons cannot own firearms, even though that is supposed to be a "right" afforded to everyone. And yet, how many people would complain that a convicted felon can't have a gun? (Okay, there are definitely those out there who'd say they have the right, but we call such people "lunatics.")
I'll be completely honest with you: I'm not the person to ask for an exact definition of an assault weapon. I'll leave that to people with more experience in the field, to those moderate gun enthusiasts who are willing to find common ground. I can't tell you exactly where the line should be drawn, though I'd say that once we start getting into semi-auto territory, there aren't many compelling reasons for why people *should* have access to them.
Stop trying to cloud the issue. Quibbling over technical details has its place, but not when its only an attempt to obstruct any sort of discussion on the subject. It's not as if what I say would matter, anyway, as you would undoubtedly object to anything I might say. If I said that they should only ban fully-automatic rifles with >100-round magazines, there's still someone out there who'd find fault with drawing the line there. This is where I would kindly request help from moderate-minded gun enthusiasts. What do YOU think is a reasonable cutoff? (And hint: if you don't think any cutoff is reasonable, you're not even remotely moderate.)
Yet another person who can't have a reasonable argument. No, we generally don't restrict cars to 10 mph. However, we DO have speed limits, and we have them for a reason: an attempt to balance convenience and safety.
But you know, there *are* places with 10 mph speed limits. These are often places like subdivisions and parking lots, where there is a greater risk of injury to other people. The greater the risk, the greater the regulation. Do you not see how that works? This is what we sane people refer to as "reasonable restrictions," and this is the sort of thing many want to bring to the gun industry. They don't want to completely take away all your firearms, they just want to put greater restrctions on situations that are more capable of causing greater harm. Why are guns so different from cars? I don't see people up in arms over the fact that we're not allowed to drive 100 mph through parking lots; why is this so different?
Slashdot Mirror
It all depends on where you live. CVS isn't located everywhere, for one thing. The Walgreens near where I used to live was always fairly well-stocked, and there was almost always one of those much closer to people than going to a full grocery store.
They serve a purpose, even if it's a limited one.
The ground can be used as a source or drain, depending on the season. In winter, it's warmer than the atmosphere, and in summer it's colder.
But yes, essentially just a heat pump.
I'm not a complete CAD junkie or anything, but I've used ProE, SolidWorks, and even CATIA. If I wanted to just design something for fun, I'd probably reach for SolidWorks first. It's really powerful, but also really intuitive and easy to use (at least the more recent versions).
I've heard a lot of good things about Rhino, too (and many others have called it out here), but I haven't used it personally, so I can't compare it to the others above.
CATIA? Really?
Sure, it's nice if you need to use it in an industrialized setting, and have assemblies with thousands of components. But as for designing small objects for personal manufacture? All I can say about using CATIA for model creation is that it leaves me sorely wishing for SolidWorks (which is funny, since they're now owned by the same company).
Well, I didn't really want to get into the topic of innovation, even though I briefly touched on it with point one. There are definitely copious amounts of copy & paste going on over at Nintendo, but they still manage to pull out some pretty nifty new mechanics now and then. I still remember the transition to 3D for Mario and Zelda. It may seem mundane now, but it was a huge task to make that transition without royally screwing everything up. The storylines may be the same tired old basic tales, but Nintendo does try to freshen things up from time to time. I don't think there's any real argument against claiming that a game like Skyward Sword is much more "new" and "innovative" compared to the original Legend of Zelda than the latest Call of Duty to the original.
But really, I just wanted to point out that the number of games in a franchise alone doesn't mean much without the context of time.
While the number of games alone certainly does seem to support your point, there are a few things to keep in mind. One, would be how different are these games from one another (in any way you care to compare games)? Another, you have to keep in mind the lifespan of these games. Yes, there are 18 Super Mario games, but they're also spread out over 30 years, which isn't all that different from 9 CoD games over 10 years. It's just that the Nintendo series have been around for longer. Given a few more decades, the other game developers are sure to milk their franchises for all they're worth.
Though, I hardly see how this is even really relevant. New people are continually being introduced to gaming, and even of those who've been gamers for decades, if a particular series continues to be fun to play, who cares if there are 20 previous games in the series?
That's quite a long post, so I won't respond point-by-point, but I'd say we're generally in greater agreement than either of us probably would've imagined at first.
I see your point about magazine capacity, and I honestly don't have a good answer. Personally, I wouldn't be bothered by eliminating magazines altogether. The problem there is that I wouldn't dare suggest such a thing to a gun enthusiast, given the amount of pushback there is simply over limiting high capacity magazines. Suggesting limiting them altogether? Man, get ready for a shit storm.
As for mental health initiatives, I'm all for that. But again, there are issues. Most obviously, there's the issue of paying for all this, and it's never been popular with a good portion of the country to have any sort of "socialized care," or viewing such mandatory evaluations as an invasion of privacy. I wish those weren't issues, because regular checkups for everyone would have a huge benefit.
I agree with getting rid of bullshit regulations (like barrel length, which you mentioned), and at the same time, I would like to see the agencies responsible not have their hands cuffed when it comes to enforcing the laws that most can agree on (hate to be "that guy," but Jon Stewart really nailed the issue last night as to how the ATF has been castrated).
Please excuse me for my hasty generalization. I was just using gun rights proponents' view to demonstrate one possible extreme from their point of view.
Sir, you wow me with your indomitable intellect!
BUT NO ONE IS LEGISLATING THE RIGHT OUT OF EXISTENCE!
Stop being such a brainwashed idiot. Even the relatively restrictive law just passed by New York even specifically states that they're not going to take away your guns. All these things you're afraid of are figments of your imagination, nothing more.
As for the rest? Boo-hoo. Even most elementary children understand the concept of a few bad apples ruining things for everyone. Instead of focusing on a healthy mentality about having and using guns, too many gun proponents have spent the last few decades going off the deep end, decrying imaginary conspiracies about people trying to take their guns, fantasizing about revolutions and civil wars, organizing militias and planning for segregated communities.
I'm sorry, but these sorts of people aren't protecting their rights; they're putting others' rights in danger. If you dislike the possibility of gun regulation, you need to be angry at the people who abuse their rights, not the ones who want to protect themselves from those nutjobs.
Okay, specifically: completely eliminate mass shootings and reduce remaining gun violence by at least 75%. Happy?
And please don't twist my argument. The purpose for banning hi-cap mags isn't "it can't get any worse." The purpose for banning them is to attempt to make it more difficult to carry out mass shootings with their current level of expediency. The point of that blurb is simply to point that, unlike some possible solutions (e.g. arming more people), there is virtually no way that banning hi-cap mags could make the situation worse than it currently is.
Is there possible direct and obvious harm from hi-cap mags? Well, yes and no. They make the situation worse, but it's certainly arguable to what extent they make the situation worse. But again, banning them could only help. For responsible gun owners, it does not significantly impair their ability to use their weapons.
And please, stop misdirecting with fallacies. Yes, virtually anything on earth *could* be used as a weapon, even absurdly mundane objects. But unlike the weapons in question, pencils aren't designed to cause massive damage to large numbers of people. You could harm one, perhaps two people with one, and it would be difficult to cause serious harm. Contrast that again with assault rifles, which allow you to take out dozens of people with just a squeeze of the trigger. These things are in completely different leagues--you know it, I know it, everyone reading knows it, so please stop trotting out that tired argument.
The same goes for your slippery slope fallacy. Yes, restrictions could easily get out of hand. That's why people need to team up and try to come with a reasonable figure together, rather than devolving into a bunch of howling monkeys screaming about the government coming to take all your guns away. You're the gun enthusiast. You tell me what would be restrictive enough to curtail mass violence, but lenient enough for legitimate, responsible use. If changing mags is so easy, as is repeatedly claimed, then there should be no issue having to carry three 10-round clips, rather than a single 30-round magazine.
I believe in such things as reasonable restrictions. Many gun advocates do not seem to. However, like it or not, you can be that at least *some* form of regulation will be enacted. Gun rights proponents can either be part of the solution and help to shape those regulations to something that are reasonable, or they can go pout in the corner, call names, and watch helplessly as something more restrictive is passed. The choice is theirs.
Well, I thank you for putting forth some specific ideas. So few people seem willing to do so.
As for a goal, that's the easy part: a significant reduction in gun violence. But that hardly helps solve the problem, as you could attack that issue from a hundred different ways (education, weapons bans, ammo bans, background checks just to name the first few).
Like I said, I don't know how effective hi-cap mag bans would be, but at any rate, I don't think it's possible to make things worse. At worst, banning them would have no impact. And if you're a responsible owner, the difference should also be negligible and unimportant. I can't really think of any argument in favor of having them, short of some deranged self-protection fantasy that has about a one in a trillion chance of happening (excluding instances where one makes himself a target of law enforcement by doing something absurd).
Very true points, but have you seen what happens any time someone tries to pass something for the better health and well-being of American citizens? :-P
But no, I just mention Switzerland because it proves that you can have guns and low violence rates at the same time. If we are to keep ourselves so armed, we really need to discover what their secret is and begin to implement it as soon as possible.
All right, seems straightforward enough: you don't want to do anything at all.
If you haven't noticed, there's a bit of a problem. People tend to be going on shooting sprees more often than ever, and your solution is to do nothing at all. Great. Problem solved. We can all go home now.
Like I said, that's just one possibility based on what other nations have done. On one extreme, you have a nation like the UK, which has completely banned guns to the point that even officers don't even carry them, and they have much lower gun violence than we do. In the opposite direction, we have a nation like Switzerland, which has gun ownership levels similar to our own, but much lower gun violence, presumably due to their compulsory military service. I was merely offering that up as an option for discussion.
As I've said numerous times, I believe the best answer is education. Preferably, I'd like something more than a single one-hour course, but if we had something more along the lines of driving tests--show you have proficient knowledge and regularly demonstrate that you still have that knowledge--would go a long way in preventing a lot of the unnecessary gun accidents, though I doubt it would have much effect on the large-scale incidents.
Well, those are just two examples. I'm trying to be general, stating that any reasonable person would agree that at least some restrictions should be put in place, and they don't have to be drastic. There is definitely a position in between complete deregulation and complete disarmament, and it shouldn't take geniuses to figure out roughly where it lies. Yes, we can argue about the definition of assault weapons and whatnot, but I think most people would agree that at *some* level, guns reach a point to where they shouldn't be publicly available. This is how I'd roughly define "common sense restrctions."
As with any rule, there will always be exceptions, but things like hi-cap mags would still help. Can some people switch them out fast enough for it not to matter? Sure. But not *everyone* is a quick reload champion, and making a potential gunman have to reload more often gives just a little more help to those either trying to get away, or for those trying to take him down.
We can argue about the specifics about what has been done, but one thing we've tried that certainly hasn't helped is doing nothing.
How the hell is this an "immoral" position? Morality has nothing to do with my position. If anything, it would be amoral.
Hey, I never said they were perfect. Quite the opposite, in fact. But like I said before, despite their flaws, I'd trust the cops more in most situations than a private citizen weilding a gun.
As for CCW, I have no strong opposition to that. There are places where I think you shouldn't take weapons, even if you can, but in general, I approve because you have to pass more stringent tests to get a CC license, and I would trust such people to generally be more knowledgeable about properly using their weapons than your average Joe.
Your behavior is appalling; please grow up before you attempt any further discussion, okay?
So, what do you propose? It's hard to draw a line, so let's just make everything legal?
Oh, how about it's possible to get guns on a black market, so we should just give up on any form of regulation and allow full autos to be sold?
Or maybe, people can fake background checks with false IDs, so let's not have any checks, either!
Dude, I get it. Drawing a line between acceptable and unacceptable is difficult, and even with a line there, it's not going to be 100% effective. BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN WE SHOULDN'T TRY.
How about you try something constructive for a change? Don't like how the representative are framing the gun debate? Well, assuming you're a reasonable person, why not try to help them? If you know so much, why don't you let everyone else in on a better way to curtail this epidemic. Either put up or shut up. Unless you have specific plans, and at least some sort of rationale behind it (granted, there's going to be some arbitrary decisions no matter how you cut it), you'll need to learn to live with what lawmakers are coming up with.
So what, your first argument fell flat on its face, so you're trying for something more ridiculous?
Okay, let's go with this one, too. Have you ever noticed that larger vehicles tend to require greater certification? Sure, there's a little wiggle room when it comes to personal vehicles, but once you really start getting into larger ones--semi trucks, limousines, trains, planes, etc.--you have to obtain special licenses. Gonna drive a big SUV? Fine, go ahead. Gonna drive a bus full of passengers that you're now responsible for? You're going to need special licensing for that.
All vehicles have some inherent danger to their operation, but there's a hell of a lot of difference in, say, what a motorcycle can cause--both to the rider and those around him--and what a bus can do. And guess what; we do draw lines! We've drawn lines in vehicle size for who knows how long (I don't care to look it up, really). Do any sort of driving and you'll know there are all sorts of regulations that reference a vehicle's weight, number of wheels, number of axles, etc.
Do you have an even more absurd analogy you'd like to try and shoehorn your argument into?
Yes, I realize it's all arbitrary and it's nearly impossible to get people to agree. However, I completely reject your premise that vehicle size has nothing to do with their danger. What would you rather get into an accident with: an out-of-control semi, or an out-of-control SmartCar? Yeah, I thought so...
Way to completely distort everything, bravo! You twist words just like a US citizen, even if you are Canadian!
The point of a car is to get from point A to point B. They can be dangerous if used properly, but usually don't cause harm with normal use.
The point of assault rifles/handguns is to harm. They are dangerous whether used properly or improperly, and frequently cause harm with normal use.
THAT is the difference. Now, with plenty of proper training, the danger associated with guns can be minimized, but there's no getting around the fact that they are specifically designed for the purpose of causing damage of some form. Trying to equate that with cars is simply asinine.
I have no trouble with the police using such weapons. And that's not because I'm a statist or any other such ridiculous argument I'm sure to encounter. I'm fine with the police having access to such weapons because 1) they receive training on how to use them, 2) they're secured when not in use, and 3) there's oversight in the rare events that they are used. When an office fires a weapon, he is required to justify its use. Sure, sometimes they justifications are flimsy, but they aren't any worse than the "Stand Your Ground" laws around the country. Regardless, given any random cop versus any random private citizen, I'd have more trust in the cop to use such a weapon responsibly.
There are rights and there are priveleges, and few in this country seem to be able to distinguish one from another. The Second Amendment, even in its most liberal reading (not in the political sense) does nothing to say what type of firearms a person should or should not have. I hate to use the tired old musket argument, but it is somewhat appropriate. The authors of the Constitution had no concept when writing the Second Amendment of the sort of weapons that would one day be on the market. It's doubtful they'd have intended that clause to mean that any person can have any weapon of any kind. I'll ask you what I ask everyone: where do you draw the line? At what point would you say that something is too destructive to be publicly available?
Besides, "rights" are already legislated away. Felons cannot own firearms, even though that is supposed to be a "right" afforded to everyone. And yet, how many people would complain that a convicted felon can't have a gun? (Okay, there are definitely those out there who'd say they have the right, but we call such people "lunatics.")
I'll be completely honest with you: I'm not the person to ask for an exact definition of an assault weapon. I'll leave that to people with more experience in the field, to those moderate gun enthusiasts who are willing to find common ground. I can't tell you exactly where the line should be drawn, though I'd say that once we start getting into semi-auto territory, there aren't many compelling reasons for why people *should* have access to them.
Stop trying to cloud the issue. Quibbling over technical details has its place, but not when its only an attempt to obstruct any sort of discussion on the subject. It's not as if what I say would matter, anyway, as you would undoubtedly object to anything I might say. If I said that they should only ban fully-automatic rifles with >100-round magazines, there's still someone out there who'd find fault with drawing the line there. This is where I would kindly request help from moderate-minded gun enthusiasts. What do YOU think is a reasonable cutoff? (And hint: if you don't think any cutoff is reasonable, you're not even remotely moderate.)
Yet another person who can't have a reasonable argument. No, we generally don't restrict cars to 10 mph. However, we DO have speed limits, and we have them for a reason: an attempt to balance convenience and safety.
But you know, there *are* places with 10 mph speed limits. These are often places like subdivisions and parking lots, where there is a greater risk of injury to other people. The greater the risk, the greater the regulation. Do you not see how that works? This is what we sane people refer to as "reasonable restrictions," and this is the sort of thing many want to bring to the gun industry. They don't want to completely take away all your firearms, they just want to put greater restrctions on situations that are more capable of causing greater harm. Why are guns so different from cars? I don't see people up in arms over the fact that we're not allowed to drive 100 mph through parking lots; why is this so different?