bjack on 25/5/2016 at 01:25
Well thanks Vae. When one is beset by millions of naysayers, silence from the yeh side is still silence. What can seem obvious, is perceived by the other side as approval of their ideals. Sometimes, the South Park “Rabble Rabble Rabble” is necessary. It should not have to be, since the subject is self evident. However, those that wish to subjugate us to slave status (albeit they may do this subconsciously), must be met tete-a-tete. They attack with idiocy, they need to be retorted. Be silent and they assume victory. Do not rest on temporary conquest of ideas. Everything is always in flux. Cheers!
That hash of over worded flotsam, and the fact that you are more respected here... I do agree with you statement 100%. I wish, for the love of God (or whomever you wish to love or not love) that this did not have to be. Such is the imperfect fallen world of the human. Sad. Sometimes joyful. Always contentious. Imperfect and incomplete. Opps... A little rip off of Peart there.\
Tony_Tarantula on 25/5/2016 at 02:12
Also worth noting: in the previous place I lived I had some acquaintances with a VERY bad crowd....think Hell's Angels bad.
In that particular region there are a large number of criminal organizations active ranging from mexican drug smugglers, to street gangs, bikers...you name it. Almost everyone except the Mafia. It's much easier to get military grade weapons if you're a convicted felon. By social engineering logic it should be much harder for them. In the real world, the people who sell those weapons are very careful about who they do business with because one mistake could blow back on the entire organization. If you're a convicted felon not only are you less likely to be an undercover cop(and they can background check to make sure), but there will also be people in or from prison who can vouch that you're an OK dude.
That said I'm all for requiring people to take a class in order to carry. It's not a particularly onerous requirement and helps prevent stupid actions where people negligently discharge a weapon.
Quote:
Just wondering why no one responded to anything I posted. I think my wife’s and my case is pretty poignant in this discussion, but this subject is met with silence. Why is that? I think it is because this site is more of a mental masturbation club than anything. You love to speak your minds, but when some reality comes your way... all bets are off. Not in all cases of course, but this one is a winner
Personally I just think most people's "ideals" don't amount to much. There's a huge number of people who will shout about "diversity" and "tolerance" until they're blue in the face only to move to a new neighborhood as soon as theirs becomes just a little too ethnic.
Muzman on 25/5/2016 at 06:22
Quote Posted by bjack
Well thanks Vae. When one is beset by millions of naysayers, silence from the yeh side is still silence. What can seem obvious, is perceived by the other side as approval of their ideals. Sometimes, the South Park “Rabble Rabble Rabble” is necessary. It should not have to be, since the subject is self evident. However, those that wish to subjugate us to slave status (albeit they may do this subconsciously), must be met tete-a-tete. They attack with idiocy, they need to be retorted. Be silent and they assume victory. Do not rest on temporary conquest of ideas. Everything is always in flux. Cheers!
Geez dude. I thought you didn't want it to be a mental masturbation club?
Seriously though, what do you want people to say? You're talking about a boat load of systemic failures and using it as..what? I don't even know what your point is.
You want a shotgun because of some mad relative. Ok. I think you're kidding yourself about how much of a deterrent that's going to be if said person is as determined as you imagine him to be at murder (and I'd wager he's probably not that determined. But I don't know. I'm all the way over here).
But leave that aside for a moment. Can you prove to some reasonable standard that that's how it will be used, that it will be hard to steal, for kids to get at and you won't drink too much and shoot at lost black people who knock at the door late at night or something?
All good then. Enjoy what I would contend is in most cases a largely imaginary increase in personal and/or domestic security.
faetal on 25/5/2016 at 09:12
The US bubble is a weird one. If I follow the narrative being painted about personal protection, rights, freedom from tyranny etc, I'd have to accept the corollary that the rest of the world is somehow going to hell in a hand basket because of gun lack.
I understand that having a gun is a valid form of protection against people with other guns. However, the reverse is also true - if people have guns to defend themselves, you need guns to rob them as a baseline. Unless I'm to understand that all criminals throw away their now useless guns and register with the job centre the moment society is armed enough. All wide gun ownership does is to guarantee that guns will become involved in person on person crime at a higher rate. Which probably explains the huge per capita gun crime in the US.
I get that responsible gun owners aren't dangerous and that guns owned by these people, are NOT dangerous by default. I know that if I could own a firearm, I would do so responsibly, but I also accept that I don't want this right, because it also guarantees two things: (1) people less responsible than me will have the same rights (you can background check for things people have done, not what they could or might do; (2) there will be far more guns available to criminals because getting hold of guns illegally is far easier when they are in high supply. It is extremely difficult to get a gun in the UK, hence they are like unicorns. So to sum up here - if you are one of those good gun owners, you aren't the reason people are against gun ownership.
In a situation where everyone is armed, no one knows who is about to open fire except the person who has decided to do this (unless they telegraph this somehow). If guns are not allowed, then the police can arrest ANYONE they see with a gun. In the former scenario, they can only arrest people who use the gun to do something illegal, at which point things is fucked. The irony being that this is probably going to just increase demand for guns for personal protection.
My opinion: guns are cool, guns are fun to shoot, guns are useful if you hunt. Guns as a potential way to kill another person who might have a gun and wants to kill you = insanity and can only lead to more guns and a higher likelihood of them being fired. In the US guns are fetishised and seen as a form of personal empowerment and an emblem of freedom. Is everyone safer and more respectful of one another as a result?
I know this is a touchy topic and because it's so ingrained in US culture, there's a lot of cognitive dissonance at play (try discussing the UK monarchy = similar results), but I'd be interested in empirical reasoning for why gun ownership is such a good thing rather than just a cloud of personal or cultural ones.
demagogue on 25/5/2016 at 13:59
I at least noted personal and cultural connections but wasn't myself arguing gun ownership is justified just by that, since I don't think it is.
I also think just because something is a risk doesn't mean it should be automatically banned on those grounds alone either, otherwise you'd ban cars and fatty foods too, and I'm pro legalization of smoking, prostitution, and a lot of (not all) drugs, though granted the latter two to better protect the vulnerable population itself.
My honest position is I don't have a strong opinion about if guns are legal or not and am happy to defer to wonks that have spent decades studying the issue & have what seems to me a well thought out policy that works for the US context. Anything short of that, including most of the popular arguments both pro and con, I wouldn't trust much.
Pyrian on 25/5/2016 at 14:46
Quote Posted by demagogue
I also think just because something is a risk doesn't mean it should be automatically banned on those grounds alone...
Right? It's 'murica, having one place in the world where you can get whatever firearm you like (haha not really but y'know) at the cost of a bunch of deaths isn't so bad. I'd respect that argument if anybody made it, but actual gun proponents seem to live in a fantasy world where having dangerous death-dealing machines around makes them safer instead of less safe.
And that's not even getting into the regulation aspect of it. You hear all this talk of responsible gun ownership - what a great idea, wish we did something like that. And I absolutely do not count local regulations - if I can drive a few minutes to skirt a regulation, then it doesn't really count for much.
ffox on 25/5/2016 at 15:02
Quote Posted by bjack
... I think my wife’s and my case is pretty poignant in this discussion, but this subject is met with silence.
What would you do if you lived in a country where guns are banned?
catbarf on 25/5/2016 at 15:33
Quote Posted by faetal
I understand that having a gun is a valid form of protection against people with other guns. However, the reverse is also true - if people have guns to defend themselves, you need guns to rob them as a baseline. Unless I'm to understand that all criminals throw away their now useless guns and register with the job centre the moment society is armed enough. All wide gun ownership does is to
guarantee that guns will become involved in person on person crime at a higher rate. Which probably explains the huge per capita gun crime in the US.
I don't think anyone but the serious crazies disagree on this point, and as a hypothetical if we suddenly had no guns in the US I think our homicide and suicide rates would noticeably drop. Guns make killing easier, there's no way around that.
But at the same time, we already have a shitton of guns. The question is, what do we do about it? And a lot of proposed feel-good legislation, like assault weapon bans, infringe on the ability of responsible people to defend themselves a lot more than they keep guns out of the hands of criminals. To kind of piggyback off what you said, it's not like all criminals are going to throw away their unnecessary guns the moment guns are sufficiently regulated or outright banned. I think in these discussions it's very easy to mistake 'more gun bans != more safe' for 'more guns = more safe'.
Quote Posted by faetal
In a situation where everyone is armed, no one knows who is about to open fire except the person who has decided to do this (unless they telegraph this somehow). If guns are not allowed, then the police can arrest ANYONE they see with a gun. In the former scenario, they can only arrest people who use the gun to do something illegal, at which point things is fucked. The irony being that this is probably going to just increase demand for guns for personal protection.
I don't think that's really an issue. Criminals don't open-carry, and if a policeman sees someone trying to conceal a firearm they can ask to see their concealed carry permit. I can't think of any examples of a mass shooter or other nutjob openly carrying a gun and being ignored by police, either. Generally, the only people who a policeman will see carrying in public are law-abiding citizens.
I also want to point out that there are some serious cultural differences in play here as well besides the 'guns = freedom' one you mentioned. In the US, with a much more geographically spread population, police response times can be upwards of thirty minutes or more. Plus, with so many documented cases of police mistreatment of innocent citizens, and one Supreme Court case which famously upheld that a police officer has no obligation to protect a bystander, there are a lot of people who simply do not trust the police to protect them. There are a lot of little things like this that color perceptions of the issue and make it harder to see eye-to-eye.
catbarf on 25/5/2016 at 15:39
Quote Posted by Pyrian
And I absolutely do not count local regulations - if I can drive a few minutes to skirt a regulation, then it doesn't really count for much.
Do you mean like state-level restrictions? There's a lot of misinformation out there about how that works. It's illegal by federal law to sell a handgun to a resident of another state, and illegal to sell a rifle or shotgun that is not compliant with the laws of the buyer's home state. My friend from New York who lives in Pennsylvania for work can buy a gun in PA, but only if it's not a handgun and fully compliant with NY law.
bjack on 25/5/2016 at 15:54
Quote Posted by ffox
What would you do if you lived in a country where guns are banned?
The general fear would be the same, since people that want to break in and do weird things will do them without guns. I would have my baseball bats and possibly a very sharp sword. Of course the skill factor, my age, and the lack of relatively rapid fire would all be a negatives. Still better than being a slave and waiting patiently for cops to arrive. Oh, and the bad guys would still have guns despite whatever law there is. Last I heard, there are still armed home invasions in Australia. My best answer would be, if I could, move to another place where protection is allowed.
