So because people die in cars and obesity related issues, it's OK to continue to let people die due to guns?
First, who said that? Second, no one has ever died due to a gun. Never has a gun leaped up off a table and shot someone just because it wanted to. They were killed or injured by someone using a gun. You may wish to stop blaming the tool and blame the user.
There's a difference between guns, cars and food, your average Joe doesn't need a gun (let alone an assault rifle).
That's your opinion and you're welcome to it. It's one that I clearly don't agree with and to which I would say "What gives you the right to determine that?" If you don't want one, want one in your house, or want to be around people who have them that's your business.
Remove guns, reduce gun deaths. Pretty simple, has worked in other first world countries.
Who cares? If one really cared about those harmed they'd focus on what brought things to that point and not the tools used, as if banning them will suddenly make criminals shrug their shoulders in defeat. You want to help those people? Fantastic. Demand an end to the War on Drugs. Look for ways to lift people out of poverty without demanding more money from tax payers. Improve mental health care and campaign to remove the stigma associated with getting help.
Serious cultural differences there.
You're correct. There are serious cultural differences here. When bad things happen in many parts of the world people look to the heavy hand of government to solve their problems for them. You don't see that quite as much here, though that infection is starting to take hold.
In conclusion, like many who favor ever increasing regulation, you seem to want to blame the tool and ignore the causes. It seems to be the case that you believe that if only you could ban guns then suddenly criminals will just stop doing business, what with them being such law abiding chaps and all. -.-
Odd. I own guns and I carry a gun. Can't say I want power over anyone, unless we're counting myself. I've always found it odd that the people who are most afraid of non-state actors carrying are usually the ones who also want more and more State and centralized power and authority. Thoughts?
Ooh, ooh, an open invitation for my opinion!
I wouldn't say I'm 'afraid of non-state actors carrying', hell that is a mouthful right there, I just think the current US guns laws are stupid.
I'm also not in favour of 'more and more State and centrailized power and authority', but I do think a certain amount of state power gives the greatest net gain to society overall (it certainly beats no state power, which we get to see every now again in third world countries - hint, it ain't pretty).
So we know guns can be owned privately without issue, and we know regulations at some level produce beneficial results. So where do we land?
As someone else eloquently quote the other day, guns are force multiplier for crazy people. In the right hands they can do good, in the wrong hands they can do bad.
If you have an interest in reducing harm, then I can't see how you can accept the current gun laws in the US (especially when compared with every other similar Western democracy).
Crazy people with guns are a vanishingly small minority though. They grab headlines but aren't where most of the problems are. I'd wager we could reduce harm far more effectively in other areas with other programs. Ending the failed "War on (some) Drugs" would be an excellent start since large numbers of the murders and such are committed by and/or for drug gangs and related activities. Ending the drug war would likely remove their power and profit base and reduce crime related to same. There may be an uptick in user related crime but I'd wager it would be nothing but noise as compared to the drop in straight gang related crime.
Heavily regulating guns won't hardly effect, if at all, those most likely to misuse them and as such there seems little logical reason to increase regulation beyond current levels. Reducing crime, already at record low levels, even further is a good thing. Reducing violence, also at record low levels, further is also good. I think we trip ourselves up when we try and focus on "gun deaths" and "gun crime" and not just "crime."
I'm pretty sure people who like having power over other people are the one's with the guns.
Odd. I own guns and I carry a gun. Can't say I want power over anyone, unless we're counting myself. I've always found it odd that the people who are most afraid of non-state actors carrying are usually the ones who also want more and more State and centralized power and authority. Thoughts?
The trouble is that for most anti-gun people, the only gun owners they encounter are the loud and aggressive gun nuts who argue with them. (And vice versa I suppose) As with most prejudicial situations, if both sides were to mix more and see that by and large the folks on the other side aren't that different, the air would leak out of the balloon.
Seems reasonable. Many people have long said that the quickest way to convert an "anti-gun" person to at least being neutral is to be nice and maybe take them to a range. De-mystify and de-demonize the subject as it were.
I've always found it odd that the people who are most afraid of non-state actors carrying are usually the ones who also want more and more State and centralized power and authority.
And I've always found it odd that those who carry a gun because they fear the state actors also want more and more State authority to have more and bigger guns (the gun-nuts are pro large-government with large standing army).
I don't carry a gun out of "fear of state actors". I'm pretty sure I'd need more than a 9mm pistol for that. -.-
I don't know of too many "pro-gun" people who also carry and are in favor of large government. Supporting the military in its mission isn't necessarily the same thing. I support those who volunteer to serve, but I also would rather they just be able to stay home and that government be way way smaller than it is.
You are more likely to die from the added weight of the gun causing you to tip over and fall in a fatal fall than to have the gun save your life because you really needed a cop, and didn't have one handy.
You are much safer without a gun than with.
I have a fire extinguisher, but I am not the fire department.
The difference is that a fire extinguisher makes you safer. A gun only makes you feel safer. Guns are for irrational people only. The problem is they will never recognize that, because they are, well, irrational.
Aside from possibly wishful thinking what is your basis for any of these beliefs? Having the fire extinguisher doesn't make me safer. Having it and knowing how it use it in the event it is needed contributes to that safety. Having a weapon and knowing how to use it also can raise your odds of surviving an encounter one would likely not want to face with nothing but a reliance on the good nature of someone who has already demonstrated they're willing to harm one to get what they want.
Romancing Alaska, huh? Would you care to rely on your winning debate skills in the relatively unlikely event a Kodiak came calling on your camp?
You've just stated the problem with guns: "The same would be true if one handed it to an untrained and clueless adult." Now, consider all the clueless adults in America and how many of them have guns. Do you understand what I mean about guns being dangerous now, or are you going to continue with this pathetic "it's inanimate, therefore safe" stupidity? Oh, and good luck training a two year old in gun safety.
I wouldn't try to teach a two year old gun safety beyond "don't touch" and then keep them away from them until they've developed the mental capacity for more. I also wouldn't toss the keys to a 3600 pound steel missile, also known as a car, to an 8 year old nor would I hand a chainsaw to 6 year old because these are also recipes for "Are you bloody kidding me?" levels of awful.
None the less, every last one of those items are perfectly safe sitting inanimate and doing nothing. They all require a user to use or misuse. While you can try and fall back on the trope that guns are especially dangerous because of the "they were designed to kill" argument, the fact is that discounting suicides (reasonable as far as I'm concerned absent proof that presence of guns leads to more suicides) cars are twice as dangerous as guns if we're counting fatalities per year. If you somehow believe that discounting suicides isn't fair, then guns are merely as dangerous as cars. From that perspective the misuse of food, in the form of poor and overeating, is way way more deadly and I'm sure there are other examples as well.
The point is, guns are dangerous in the same way that other powerful and yes useful machines are dangerous. Their power means they can cause great harm if misused or used by the untrained. The exact same thing can be said about many things and yet no one is trying to ban them at the moment, are they?
Ok, guns are designed to shoot projectiles. For what purpose? Target practice? What is target practice for? To get better at shooting? What is shooting for?.... destroying stuff.
Also, you cannot tell me that guns are not designed to kill. That is the whole reason guns were invented, sorry, no, not for target practice and not for sport... those things came later and only exist because of the existence and prevalence of guns.
FYI, I am not anti-gun. I am just not trying to delude myself as to their reason for existing.
I won't dispute that they were originally exclusively designed as weapons. In that you are quite correct. However, much as they have advanced way beyond the arquebus of the 15th Century their uses these days are far more diverse. Since we're speaking of problems of the current time it makes sense to take that into consideration. Perhaps this is an abstruse point but fair as far as I'm concerned. Target practice may be for destructive purposes or merely for enjoyment and I'd wager that as a function of the percentage of shots for a given purpose that probably out numbers other purposes outside of the military or police.
In any case, it is the use a given user puts it to that really matters in the end and that's the point I was trying to make. When one says that a given item is only for a given purpose and that purpose is ostensibly "bad" then one is merely trying to demonize the object and campaign against it and/or to place all blame for ill-use on the object and not the user.
Now give it loaded to a child and say it's safe because it's an inanimate object. Don't worry, the kid isn't going to kill anyone, just like the gun isn't going to kill anyone.
Your example is looney, however, the gun is still not the dangerous actor. The child, if not properly trained in firearms safety, is the dangerous actor along with someone irresponsible enough to hand a firearm to such a person. The same would be true if one handed it to an untrained and clueless adult.
In other words, you proved the point I made. The gun will sit there and do nothing until the heat death of the universe, baring random events, unless a person picks it up and does something with it. Try again?
Short and possibly flippant answer, because a cop weighs too much.
Longer and more useful answer, because things happen and when it does the odds that a cop or such will be right there is vanishingly small. Sure, you can call the police and should do so. However, even under the very best of conditions it will still take them minutes to get there in a situation where seconds count. Do I have pretensions of being some super bad ass who will take on terrorists and vanquish evil? Don't be silly. I hope I could acquit myself well and have practiced with that in mind, less for terrorists (highly unlikely to ever happen) and more for mundane things, but still.
I have a fire extinguisher, but I am not the fire department. I have car insurance as well, and hope I never have to use any of these things. Yet, if I do I hope to be as prepared as one can reasonably be for such a thing. One could ask why you don't, if I may presume so much, carry one and be prepared as well. One could ask that, but as far as I'm concerned it would be rude to do so as if you don't I presume you have what you feel are good and proper reasons and I would not presume to judge anyone for doing so or not doing so. It's a personal decision and should remain such.
My stance on gun control is not relevant, which is exactly the point I'm trying to make. A person's stance on gun-control is not an indicator of whether they support a more authoritarian state in general, which is what the GP implies.
While realizing I replied above as well, I must say it is a fairly reliable indicator. You'll almost certainly never find a person who both says "strict gun control!" and also seriously say "maximum freedom for the individual!" unless they're laying some exceedingly serious caveats on that. While those in favor of guns rights and such may also sometimes lay caveats they don't tend to be as intrusive. Still, not ideal but possibly not as bad depending on whose bull is being gored.
Tell me, what's the difference between all those things you've listed and guns? I know you won't get it, so I'll tell you, guns are designed to kill. Those other things aren't. Why American't allow so many morons to have guns is beyond me. Just look at the number of people supporting Trump to give you an idea of the shear number of morons you have in your country, are you seriously suggesting these idiots should be allowed to own something designed to kill? Actually, don't answer that, you're probably one of them.
Guns are designed to shoot. They are often used for killing, they are even more frequently (by volume of shots) used for other things. I know lots of people who own and use guns frequently. Strangely, none of them have ever killed a person and only a few have killed anything at all. Guns are tools designed to do a job. Hammers drive nails, saws and axes cut wood, and guns fire projectiles. All of these can kill and all of these have variants which are more or less suited to killing. They also all have variants which would be terrible at killing.
Trying to take tools away is silly when the people who use them evil purposes are still running around doing bad things. Blame the user, not the tool.
> So, we should ban guns because poor people can't afford them? No, you should ban guns because THEY FUCKEN KILL PEOPLE! Jesus, how god damn hard is that to understand.
*looks over at his rifle on the wall* "Oi, kill anyone today?" *silence*
Oh.. right.. inanimate object. Doesn't answer and also doesn't jump off the wall and kill people. Weird that, isn't it?
I'm pretty sure people who like having power over other people are the one's with the guns.
Odd. I own guns and I carry a gun. Can't say I want power over anyone, unless we're counting myself. I've always found it odd that the people who are most afraid of non-state actors carrying are usually the ones who also want more and more State and centralized power and authority. Thoughts?
You're a god damn fool. If all of this is poppycock but we still act, there isn't much of a problem. If it isn't poppycock and we don't act then the results could be catastrophic. I'd rather we err in the side of caution only a fool would choose to do otherwise.
I imagine it depends on what one is proposing to do about it. If the danger is vague and ill-defined and questionably real, with a proposed 'fix' which will certainly cause massive economic and other hardships then it isn't as clear cut as you're making it out to be. If the danger was definite and the science truly settled, not this 'may' happen but 'if you don't do XYZ then ABC will definitely happen with a 95% probability' then taking drastic action would be warranted without question. However, with 'may' qualifiers up one way and down the other drastic action cannot reasonably be justified given the reasonably known costs of that action.
A much better line would be "make things more efficient and less polluting because clean air and water are good things and here's how we do it and not tank the economy and force fundamental over night changes". That's a message most people could get behind I'd imagine. Sadly, that isn't the message being put out there.
Given that government already eats plenty of money and still can't do its basic jobs properly, I don't see any logical reason to give even more to them.
How ELSE do you propose roads, bridges, pipes, etc. get built and repaired? Magic beans? If you are going to bash something, FIRST prepare a realistic alternative.
No one said anything about taking away the money, huge sums of it, which are already taken by government. I simply said there was no logical reason for them to come demanding even more when they have such a terrible record of taking care of what they are already taking. I'm proposing accountability.
>Then logically they could give whatever they think they should be paying in taxes to the government
False. Giving money voluntarily to the government creates way too big a tunnel to hide bribes in. American politicians are already quite sold-out enough, we do not need to have the rich advocating to create yet another large backchannel for them.
The whole point of taxes is that paying them is involuntary, that's literally the only difference between a tax and a bribe and bribes are a very bad thing.
Er.. I don't think anyone is suggesting that John RichGuy or Jane RichGirl sends personal checks to Senator ITakeBribes. There's a spot on tax returns to just give money. There are ways to just give money directly to the Treasury for addition to the General Funds.
The intent isn't actually to likely persuade anything to happen outside of something important: discussion. One or two people giving away, say, 20% more of their net worth hardly does anything and the case can easily be made that if doing X action doesn't meet Y result then find a better action.
Then logically they could give whatever they think they should be paying in taxes to the government and then make a big deal about that and encourage others to be as generous. Instead, they're calling for force to be used on others to make them do what they think is right.
Besides, nothing is stopping them from giving more if they really feel that strongly about it.
That's not how game theory works. Toll roads do not work with voluntary tolls. A few might pay but the majority would not. Funding of public goods works best on a non-voluntary basis. That's why civilizations evolved things like "taxes" pretty early on once agriculture started taking hold. Everybody pays, everybody benefits. Yes, you effectively contribute a portion of your labor to the city/state, but if everything is balanced right, the rewards of cooperation exceed the cost of your labor contribution.
That may not be how game theory works, but it would be a lot easier to swallow this attempt at "enforced altruism" if they themselves were already giving significantly more.
Besides, nothing is stopping them from giving more if they really feel that strongly about it.
There is a risk of depending on volunteer donations for infrastructure and basic services. During slumps, people are obviously going to give less. That means basic services take a big hit during bad times when they are needed most.
I had a similar complaint about Ron Paul's volunteer-based healthcare plan.
It also means the economy slows way down during slumps as the giving shrinks and reduces paychecks, exacerbating the existing slump. It's counter-Keynes.
None of this justifies the idea of raising taxes on certain groups simply because they can "afford" it. If these people truly believed they were undertaxed, then encourage others in their income bracket to give more and give more themselves. Given that government already eats plenty of money and still can't do its basic jobs properly, I don't see any logical reason to give even more to them. Let them prove they can properly manage what they have now first.
I don't know how you stoop to levels that cynical.
I feel empathy with these guys. My net worth is close to zero due to some bad decisions I made, but I earn more than double my national average. I still favour increasing tax on the wealthy, including myself in that. I do *not* think I have "spare money" to "give" to the government, far from it - but if COLLECTIVELY as a group the people as wealthy as me were all to agree to give a little more, I would be happy to do my part.
I strongly suspect wealthy people who make these kind of remarks are more likely to be charitable - paying extra taxes seems silly as you cannot influence the good it does directly, but donating those millions to charity gives you a level of control. They probably *are* giving more than the average wealthy person who is trying to drive DOWN taxes, social spending etc.
They may be more charitable, they may not. However, your logic doesn't seem overly sound to me. It seems to me that you're saying that you don't feel that you have extra money to give, yet somehow if it was done collectively and at the point of a gun with the force of government behind it you suddenly do have extra money? You have it, or you don't. If these people, or anyone for that matter, personally doesn't feel they're paying their fair share than they are free to give more and I would applaud their actions taken of their own volition. Instead, they're calling for the force of government to be used against others (albeit including themselves) to force them to do what they do not want to do.
If they want to give themselves, that's fine. Calling for force to be used on others to make them live their lives in the way that they believe is wrong.
Given they're trying to speak on behalf of many others that like as not don't feel as they do, it seems disingenuous. Besides, nothing is stopping them from giving more if they really feel that strongly about it.
It doesn't help that the NRA has moved from being a safety and enthusiast organization into a political one that encourages paranoia that the government is trying to ban guns outright.
Don't forget that the NRA has historically been in favour of gun control if it meant taking guns from unpopular people. If the NRA launched a campaign encouraging Muslim-Americans to own guns for personal defence (given that this group is disproportionately the target of hate crime these days), I'd believe they were actually in favour of protecting the second amendment.
Given that the Mulford Act was passed before the NRA really got into politics I'm not sure how you can say they were in favor of it. The NRA didn't get political until the 1970s. Of course, before the passage of such things as the Gun Control Act of 1968 the only significant gun control in the US was such things as the Mulford Act and the Sullivan Act in New York (passed much earlier, but still) there wasn't much of a need to be politically active as the federal assault on gun rights hadn't really begun. One could, and should, point to the National Firearms Act of 1932 as probably the earliest example of such an assault. I am unsure what the NRAs position, or if they even had one that early on, of it was at the time. Now, of course, the position would be that it is either unconstitutional or barely such.
In any case, I do thank you for pointing out one of the key components of all US gun control. It's almost always targeted in a racist manner along with targeting poor people. You're right, the Mulford Act was targeted against blacks. The Sullivan Act was targeted against Italians and other immigrant groups. The aforementioned National Firearms Act's tax on automatic weapons, suppresors, and weapons configured in certain ways was ostensibly to prevent crime and such, but it also just happened to allow the rich to still have anything they wanted. Later amendments added to it amplified this effect.
One only has to look at the permitting behavior for those few States which have so-called May Issue carry permits for more evidence of racism and similar motivations running throughout gun control. The history of gun control in the US has always been far more about taking guns away from undesirables than crime control.
Basically there's a significant number of people who believe that gun ownership is a vital part of their culture. They equate restrictions on gun ownership akin to government regulations about what sorts of apples can go into Mom's apple pie. It doesn't help that the NRA has moved from being a safety and enthusiast organization into a political one that encourages paranoia that the government is trying to ban guns outright. Because a guns are a part of culture this is all a part of what they think is the larger culture war.
You know, I wish you were right. I wish there weren't non-trivial segments of the government who weren't wanting to ban and confiscate such things. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world as you can see here. For those too lazy to click the link, it's Diane Feinstein in an interview in 1995 after the passage of the last Assault Weapons Ban saying that if she could have gotten the votes to force turning all such things in, she would have. If one thinks they would have stopped at so called Assault Weapons one would be seriously deluding themselves. If one thinks that she is alone in that view, especially in the Democrat party, one is deluding themselves.
"If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them -- Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in -- I would have done it." -- Diane Feinstein
Sincerely, We are a nation of 340+ million people.
Every day- dozens of previously reasonable gun owners lose it and use their guns inapproriately.
Like the retired police chief who shot a man to death for throwing popcorn on him in a movie theater.
Like the bystander lady who fired her gun at a fleeing truck with shoplifters (and who lost her license, thousands of dollars, and is on probation).
Like the guy who shot the black teen in the sheltered community.
Like the fathers who get depressed- or angry that their wife is divorcing them and kill the wife, the kids, and themselves.
I'm sure you are a great, calm, well trained, cool headed guy- but you can't be certain you will *always* be a great guy. Anyone can have a bad day and lose emotional control.
If you have kids, your gun increases risk to them much more than it lowers risk (unless maybe you live in a gang area with active shootings all the time).
You're right, every day dozens of gun owners do use their guns inappropriately. On those same days millions and millions of gun owners don't use them inappropriately. Every day people use all kinds of things inappropriately with various degrees of lethality or injury. That's not really a sufficient argument for the large scale infringement of rights.
Fortunately, the evidence is all pointing to you being wrong. That's why ownership is lawful. The reason is not exclusionary and the right is ours.
I think Johnny Cash said it very well: "Don't take your guns to town, son. Leave your guns at home." There are lots of responsible uses for guns and lots of responsible gun owners. There are a few fucking morons out there, and the penalties for irresponsible gun use and ownership are nearly non-existent. No one needs to take his gun to the bar: once someone has that hammer, an awful lot of problems start to look like nails.
Speaking as someone who carries that "hammer" every day oddly nothing has ever looked like a "nail" and I, and everyone I know, who do carry avoid problems like the plague. Because that's what you do when you're trying to be responsible about such a thing. You avoid trouble and only engage if there isn't any other reasonable option. That doesn't fit the narrative though, does it?
Whether penalties for "irresponsible gun use" are nearly non-existent or not I suppose depends on what you call "irresponsible". If one considers merely carrying such then you're right. If you consider randomly shooting it or pointing it or threatening with it such, then you'd be wrong. If you think otherwise, go ahead and try it though I certainly wouldn't recommend it for a host of reasons.
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So because people die in cars and obesity related issues, it's OK to continue to let people die due to guns?
First, who said that? Second, no one has ever died due to a gun. Never has a gun leaped up off a table and shot someone just because it wanted to. They were killed or injured by someone using a gun. You may wish to stop blaming the tool and blame the user.
There's a difference between guns, cars and food, your average Joe doesn't need a gun (let alone an assault rifle).
That's your opinion and you're welcome to it. It's one that I clearly don't agree with and to which I would say "What gives you the right to determine that?" If you don't want one, want one in your house, or want to be around people who have them that's your business.
Remove guns, reduce gun deaths. Pretty simple, has worked in other first world countries.
Who cares? If one really cared about those harmed they'd focus on what brought things to that point and not the tools used, as if banning them will suddenly make criminals shrug their shoulders in defeat. You want to help those people? Fantastic. Demand an end to the War on Drugs. Look for ways to lift people out of poverty without demanding more money from tax payers. Improve mental health care and campaign to remove the stigma associated with getting help.
Serious cultural differences there.
You're correct. There are serious cultural differences here. When bad things happen in many parts of the world people look to the heavy hand of government to solve their problems for them. You don't see that quite as much here, though that infection is starting to take hold.
In conclusion, like many who favor ever increasing regulation, you seem to want to blame the tool and ignore the causes. It seems to be the case that you believe that if only you could ban guns then suddenly criminals will just stop doing business, what with them being such law abiding chaps and all. -.-
Odd. I own guns and I carry a gun. Can't say I want power over anyone, unless we're counting myself. I've always found it odd that the people who are most afraid of non-state actors carrying are usually the ones who also want more and more State and centralized power and authority. Thoughts?
Ooh, ooh, an open invitation for my opinion!
I wouldn't say I'm 'afraid of non-state actors carrying', hell that is a mouthful right there, I just think the current US guns laws are stupid.
I'm also not in favour of 'more and more State and centrailized power and authority', but I do think a certain amount of state power gives the greatest net gain to society overall (it certainly beats no state power, which we get to see every now again in third world countries - hint, it ain't pretty).
So we know guns can be owned privately without issue, and we know regulations at some level produce beneficial results. So where do we land?
As someone else eloquently quote the other day, guns are force multiplier for crazy people. In the right hands they can do good, in the wrong hands they can do bad.
If you have an interest in reducing harm, then I can't see how you can accept the current gun laws in the US (especially when compared with every other similar Western democracy).
Crazy people with guns are a vanishingly small minority though. They grab headlines but aren't where most of the problems are. I'd wager we could reduce harm far more effectively in other areas with other programs. Ending the failed "War on (some) Drugs" would be an excellent start since large numbers of the murders and such are committed by and/or for drug gangs and related activities. Ending the drug war would likely remove their power and profit base and reduce crime related to same. There may be an uptick in user related crime but I'd wager it would be nothing but noise as compared to the drop in straight gang related crime.
Heavily regulating guns won't hardly effect, if at all, those most likely to misuse them and as such there seems little logical reason to increase regulation beyond current levels. Reducing crime, already at record low levels, even further is a good thing. Reducing violence, also at record low levels, further is also good. I think we trip ourselves up when we try and focus on "gun deaths" and "gun crime" and not just "crime."
I'm pretty sure people who like having power over other people are the one's with the guns.
Odd. I own guns and I carry a gun. Can't say I want power over anyone, unless we're counting myself. I've always found it odd that the people who are most afraid of non-state actors carrying are usually the ones who also want more and more State and centralized power and authority. Thoughts?
The trouble is that for most anti-gun people, the only gun owners they encounter are the loud and aggressive gun nuts who argue with them. (And vice versa I suppose) As with most prejudicial situations, if both sides were to mix more and see that by and large the folks on the other side aren't that different, the air would leak out of the balloon.
Seems reasonable. Many people have long said that the quickest way to convert an "anti-gun" person to at least being neutral is to be nice and maybe take them to a range. De-mystify and de-demonize the subject as it were.
I've always found it odd that the people who are most afraid of non-state actors carrying are usually the ones who also want more and more State and centralized power and authority.
And I've always found it odd that those who carry a gun because they fear the state actors also want more and more State authority to have more and bigger guns (the gun-nuts are pro large-government with large standing army).
I don't carry a gun out of "fear of state actors". I'm pretty sure I'd need more than a 9mm pistol for that. -.-
I don't know of too many "pro-gun" people who also carry and are in favor of large government. Supporting the military in its mission isn't necessarily the same thing. I support those who volunteer to serve, but I also would rather they just be able to stay home and that government be way way smaller than it is.
You are more likely to die from the added weight of the gun causing you to tip over and fall in a fatal fall than to have the gun save your life because you really needed a cop, and didn't have one handy.
You are much safer without a gun than with.
I have a fire extinguisher, but I am not the fire department.
The difference is that a fire extinguisher makes you safer. A gun only makes you feel safer. Guns are for irrational people only. The problem is they will never recognize that, because they are, well, irrational.
Aside from possibly wishful thinking what is your basis for any of these beliefs? Having the fire extinguisher doesn't make me safer. Having it and knowing how it use it in the event it is needed contributes to that safety. Having a weapon and knowing how to use it also can raise your odds of surviving an encounter one would likely not want to face with nothing but a reliance on the good nature of someone who has already demonstrated they're willing to harm one to get what they want.
Romancing Alaska, huh? Would you care to rely on your winning debate skills in the relatively unlikely event a Kodiak came calling on your camp?
You've just stated the problem with guns: "The same would be true if one handed it to an untrained and clueless adult."
Now, consider all the clueless adults in America and how many of them have guns.
Do you understand what I mean about guns being dangerous now, or are you going to continue with this pathetic "it's inanimate, therefore safe" stupidity?
Oh, and good luck training a two year old in gun safety.
I wouldn't try to teach a two year old gun safety beyond "don't touch" and then keep them away from them until they've developed the mental capacity for more. I also wouldn't toss the keys to a 3600 pound steel missile, also known as a car, to an 8 year old nor would I hand a chainsaw to 6 year old because these are also recipes for "Are you bloody kidding me?" levels of awful.
None the less, every last one of those items are perfectly safe sitting inanimate and doing nothing. They all require a user to use or misuse. While you can try and fall back on the trope that guns are especially dangerous because of the "they were designed to kill" argument, the fact is that discounting suicides (reasonable as far as I'm concerned absent proof that presence of guns leads to more suicides) cars are twice as dangerous as guns if we're counting fatalities per year. If you somehow believe that discounting suicides isn't fair, then guns are merely as dangerous as cars. From that perspective the misuse of food, in the form of poor and overeating, is way way more deadly and I'm sure there are other examples as well.
The point is, guns are dangerous in the same way that other powerful and yes useful machines are dangerous. Their power means they can cause great harm if misused or used by the untrained. The exact same thing can be said about many things and yet no one is trying to ban them at the moment, are they?
Ok, guns are designed to shoot projectiles. For what purpose? Target practice? What is target practice for? To get better at shooting? What is shooting for? .... destroying stuff.
Also, you cannot tell me that guns are not designed to kill. That is the whole reason guns were invented, sorry, no, not for target practice and not for sport... those things came later and only exist because of the existence and prevalence of guns.
FYI, I am not anti-gun. I am just not trying to delude myself as to their reason for existing.
I won't dispute that they were originally exclusively designed as weapons. In that you are quite correct. However, much as they have advanced way beyond the arquebus of the 15th Century their uses these days are far more diverse. Since we're speaking of problems of the current time it makes sense to take that into consideration. Perhaps this is an abstruse point but fair as far as I'm concerned. Target practice may be for destructive purposes or merely for enjoyment and I'd wager that as a function of the percentage of shots for a given purpose that probably out numbers other purposes outside of the military or police.
In any case, it is the use a given user puts it to that really matters in the end and that's the point I was trying to make. When one says that a given item is only for a given purpose and that purpose is ostensibly "bad" then one is merely trying to demonize the object and campaign against it and/or to place all blame for ill-use on the object and not the user.
Now give it loaded to a child and say it's safe because it's an inanimate object.
Don't worry, the kid isn't going to kill anyone, just like the gun isn't going to kill anyone.
Your example is looney, however, the gun is still not the dangerous actor. The child, if not properly trained in firearms safety, is the dangerous actor along with someone irresponsible enough to hand a firearm to such a person. The same would be true if one handed it to an untrained and clueless adult.
In other words, you proved the point I made. The gun will sit there and do nothing until the heat death of the universe, baring random events, unless a person picks it up and does something with it. Try again?
Tell us, why do you carry a gun?
Short and possibly flippant answer, because a cop weighs too much.
Longer and more useful answer, because things happen and when it does the odds that a cop or such will be right there is vanishingly small. Sure, you can call the police and should do so. However, even under the very best of conditions it will still take them minutes to get there in a situation where seconds count. Do I have pretensions of being some super bad ass who will take on terrorists and vanquish evil? Don't be silly. I hope I could acquit myself well and have practiced with that in mind, less for terrorists (highly unlikely to ever happen) and more for mundane things, but still.
I have a fire extinguisher, but I am not the fire department. I have car insurance as well, and hope I never have to use any of these things. Yet, if I do I hope to be as prepared as one can reasonably be for such a thing. One could ask why you don't, if I may presume so much, carry one and be prepared as well. One could ask that, but as far as I'm concerned it would be rude to do so as if you don't I presume you have what you feel are good and proper reasons and I would not presume to judge anyone for doing so or not doing so. It's a personal decision and should remain such.
My stance on gun control is not relevant, which is exactly the point I'm trying to make. A person's stance on gun-control is not an indicator of whether they support a more authoritarian state in general, which is what the GP implies.
While realizing I replied above as well, I must say it is a fairly reliable indicator. You'll almost certainly never find a person who both says "strict gun control!" and also seriously say "maximum freedom for the individual!" unless they're laying some exceedingly serious caveats on that. While those in favor of guns rights and such may also sometimes lay caveats they don't tend to be as intrusive. Still, not ideal but possibly not as bad depending on whose bull is being gored.
Tell me, what's the difference between all those things you've listed and guns?
I know you won't get it, so I'll tell you, guns are designed to kill. Those other things aren't.
Why American't allow so many morons to have guns is beyond me. Just look at the number of people supporting Trump to give you an idea of the shear number of morons you have in your country, are you seriously suggesting these idiots should be allowed to own something designed to kill?
Actually, don't answer that, you're probably one of them.
Guns are designed to shoot. They are often used for killing, they are even more frequently (by volume of shots) used for other things. I know lots of people who own and use guns frequently. Strangely, none of them have ever killed a person and only a few have killed anything at all. Guns are tools designed to do a job. Hammers drive nails, saws and axes cut wood, and guns fire projectiles. All of these can kill and all of these have variants which are more or less suited to killing. They also all have variants which would be terrible at killing.
Trying to take tools away is silly when the people who use them evil purposes are still running around doing bad things. Blame the user, not the tool.
> So, we should ban guns because poor people can't afford them?
No, you should ban guns because THEY FUCKEN KILL PEOPLE!
Jesus, how god damn hard is that to understand.
*looks over at his rifle on the wall* "Oi, kill anyone today?" *silence*
Oh.. right.. inanimate object. Doesn't answer and also doesn't jump off the wall and kill people. Weird that, isn't it?
I'm pretty sure people who like having power over other people are the one's with the guns.
Odd. I own guns and I carry a gun. Can't say I want power over anyone, unless we're counting myself. I've always found it odd that the people who are most afraid of non-state actors carrying are usually the ones who also want more and more State and centralized power and authority. Thoughts?
You're a god damn fool. If all of this is poppycock but we still act, there isn't much of a problem. If it isn't poppycock and we don't act then the results could be catastrophic. I'd rather we err in the side of caution only a fool would choose to do otherwise.
I imagine it depends on what one is proposing to do about it. If the danger is vague and ill-defined and questionably real, with a proposed 'fix' which will certainly cause massive economic and other hardships then it isn't as clear cut as you're making it out to be. If the danger was definite and the science truly settled, not this 'may' happen but 'if you don't do XYZ then ABC will definitely happen with a 95% probability' then taking drastic action would be warranted without question. However, with 'may' qualifiers up one way and down the other drastic action cannot reasonably be justified given the reasonably known costs of that action.
A much better line would be "make things more efficient and less polluting because clean air and water are good things and here's how we do it and not tank the economy and force fundamental over night changes". That's a message most people could get behind I'd imagine. Sadly, that isn't the message being put out there.
How ELSE do you propose roads, bridges, pipes, etc. get built and repaired? Magic beans? If you are going to bash something, FIRST prepare a realistic alternative.
No one said anything about taking away the money, huge sums of it, which are already taken by government. I simply said there was no logical reason for them to come demanding even more when they have such a terrible record of taking care of what they are already taking. I'm proposing accountability.
>Then logically they could give whatever they think they should be paying in taxes to the government
False. Giving money voluntarily to the government creates way too big a tunnel to hide bribes in. American politicians are already quite sold-out enough, we do not need to have the rich advocating to create yet another large backchannel for them.
The whole point of taxes is that paying them is involuntary, that's literally the only difference between a tax and a bribe and bribes are a very bad thing.
Er.. I don't think anyone is suggesting that John RichGuy or Jane RichGirl sends personal checks to Senator ITakeBribes. There's a spot on tax returns to just give money. There are ways to just give money directly to the Treasury for addition to the General Funds.
The intent isn't actually to likely persuade anything to happen outside of something important: discussion. One or two people giving away, say, 20% more of their net worth hardly does anything and the case can easily be made that if doing X action doesn't meet Y result then find a better action.
Then logically they could give whatever they think they should be paying in taxes to the government and then make a big deal about that and encourage others to be as generous. Instead, they're calling for force to be used on others to make them do what they think is right.
Besides, nothing is stopping them from giving more if they really feel that strongly about it.
That's not how game theory works. Toll roads do not work with voluntary tolls. A few might pay but the majority would not.
Funding of public goods works best on a non-voluntary basis. That's why civilizations evolved things like "taxes" pretty early on once agriculture started taking hold. Everybody pays, everybody benefits. Yes, you effectively contribute a portion of your labor to the city/state, but if everything is balanced right, the rewards of cooperation exceed the cost of your labor contribution.
That may not be how game theory works, but it would be a lot easier to swallow this attempt at "enforced altruism" if they themselves were already giving significantly more.
There is a risk of depending on volunteer donations for infrastructure and basic services. During slumps, people are obviously going to give less. That means basic services take a big hit during bad times when they are needed most.
I had a similar complaint about Ron Paul's volunteer-based healthcare plan.
It also means the economy slows way down during slumps as the giving shrinks and reduces paychecks, exacerbating the existing slump. It's counter-Keynes.
None of this justifies the idea of raising taxes on certain groups simply because they can "afford" it. If these people truly believed they were undertaxed, then encourage others in their income bracket to give more and give more themselves. Given that government already eats plenty of money and still can't do its basic jobs properly, I don't see any logical reason to give even more to them. Let them prove they can properly manage what they have now first.
I don't know how you stoop to levels that cynical.
I feel empathy with these guys. My net worth is close to zero due to some bad decisions I made, but I earn more than double my national average. I still favour increasing tax on the wealthy, including myself in that. I do *not* think I have "spare money" to "give" to the government, far from it - but if COLLECTIVELY as a group the people as wealthy as me were all to agree to give a little more, I would be happy to do my part.
I strongly suspect wealthy people who make these kind of remarks are more likely to be charitable - paying extra taxes seems silly as you cannot influence the good it does directly, but donating those millions to charity gives you a level of control. They probably *are* giving more than the average wealthy person who is trying to drive DOWN taxes, social spending etc.
They may be more charitable, they may not. However, your logic doesn't seem overly sound to me. It seems to me that you're saying that you don't feel that you have extra money to give, yet somehow if it was done collectively and at the point of a gun with the force of government behind it you suddenly do have extra money? You have it, or you don't. If these people, or anyone for that matter, personally doesn't feel they're paying their fair share than they are free to give more and I would applaud their actions taken of their own volition. Instead, they're calling for the force of government to be used against others (albeit including themselves) to force them to do what they do not want to do.
If they want to give themselves, that's fine. Calling for force to be used on others to make them live their lives in the way that they believe is wrong.
Given they're trying to speak on behalf of many others that like as not don't feel as they do, it seems disingenuous. Besides, nothing is stopping them from giving more if they really feel that strongly about it.
It doesn't help that the NRA has moved from being a safety and enthusiast organization into a political one that encourages paranoia that the government is trying to ban guns outright.
Don't forget that the NRA has historically been in favour of gun control if it meant taking guns from unpopular people. If the NRA launched a campaign encouraging Muslim-Americans to own guns for personal defence (given that this group is disproportionately the target of hate crime these days), I'd believe they were actually in favour of protecting the second amendment.
Given that the Mulford Act was passed before the NRA really got into politics I'm not sure how you can say they were in favor of it. The NRA didn't get political until the 1970s. Of course, before the passage of such things as the Gun Control Act of 1968 the only significant gun control in the US was such things as the Mulford Act and the Sullivan Act in New York (passed much earlier, but still) there wasn't much of a need to be politically active as the federal assault on gun rights hadn't really begun. One could, and should, point to the National Firearms Act of 1932 as probably the earliest example of such an assault. I am unsure what the NRAs position, or if they even had one that early on, of it was at the time. Now, of course, the position would be that it is either unconstitutional or barely such.
In any case, I do thank you for pointing out one of the key components of all US gun control. It's almost always targeted in a racist manner along with targeting poor people. You're right, the Mulford Act was targeted against blacks. The Sullivan Act was targeted against Italians and other immigrant groups. The aforementioned National Firearms Act's tax on automatic weapons, suppresors, and weapons configured in certain ways was ostensibly to prevent crime and such, but it also just happened to allow the rich to still have anything they wanted. Later amendments added to it amplified this effect.
One only has to look at the permitting behavior for those few States which have so-called May Issue carry permits for more evidence of racism and similar motivations running throughout gun control. The history of gun control in the US has always been far more about taking guns away from undesirables than crime control.
Basically there's a significant number of people who believe that gun ownership is a vital part of their culture. They equate restrictions on gun ownership akin to government regulations about what sorts of apples can go into Mom's apple pie. It doesn't help that the NRA has moved from being a safety and enthusiast organization into a political one that encourages paranoia that the government is trying to ban guns outright. Because a guns are a part of culture this is all a part of what they think is the larger culture war.
You know, I wish you were right. I wish there weren't non-trivial segments of the government who weren't wanting to ban and confiscate such things. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world as you can see here. For those too lazy to click the link, it's Diane Feinstein in an interview in 1995 after the passage of the last Assault Weapons Ban saying that if she could have gotten the votes to force turning all such things in, she would have. If one thinks they would have stopped at so called Assault Weapons one would be seriously deluding themselves. If one thinks that she is alone in that view, especially in the Democrat party, one is deluding themselves.
"If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them -- Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in -- I would have done it." -- Diane Feinstein
Sincerely,
We are a nation of 340+ million people.
Every day- dozens of previously reasonable gun owners lose it and use their guns inapproriately.
Like the retired police chief who shot a man to death for throwing popcorn on him in a movie theater.
Like the bystander lady who fired her gun at a fleeing truck with shoplifters (and who lost her license, thousands of dollars, and is on probation).
Like the guy who shot the black teen in the sheltered community.
Like the fathers who get depressed- or angry that their wife is divorcing them and kill the wife, the kids, and themselves.
I'm sure you are a great, calm, well trained, cool headed guy- but you can't be certain you will *always* be a great guy. Anyone can have a bad day and lose emotional control.
If you have kids, your gun increases risk to them much more than it lowers risk (unless maybe you live in a gang area with active shootings all the time).
You're right, every day dozens of gun owners do use their guns inappropriately. On those same days millions and millions of gun owners don't use them inappropriately. Every day people use all kinds of things inappropriately with various degrees of lethality or injury. That's not really a sufficient argument for the large scale infringement of rights.
Fortunately, the evidence is all pointing to you being wrong. That's why ownership is lawful. The reason is not exclusionary and the right is ours.
I think Johnny Cash said it very well: "Don't take your guns to town, son. Leave your guns at home." There are lots of responsible uses for guns and lots of responsible gun owners. There are a few fucking morons out there, and the penalties for irresponsible gun use and ownership are nearly non-existent. No one needs to take his gun to the bar: once someone has that hammer, an awful lot of problems start to look like nails.
Speaking as someone who carries that "hammer" every day oddly nothing has ever looked like a "nail" and I, and everyone I know, who do carry avoid problems like the plague. Because that's what you do when you're trying to be responsible about such a thing. You avoid trouble and only engage if there isn't any other reasonable option. That doesn't fit the narrative though, does it?
Whether penalties for "irresponsible gun use" are nearly non-existent or not I suppose depends on what you call "irresponsible". If one considers merely carrying such then you're right. If you consider randomly shooting it or pointing it or threatening with it such, then you'd be wrong. If you think otherwise, go ahead and try it though I certainly wouldn't recommend it for a host of reasons.