U.S. gun control suggestion

Speech in and of itself does me no physical harm. An idiot with a gun can.

Using free speech to incite violence is illegal, however, Tom, because my right to not be killed outweighs your right to tell people to kill me, assuming both of us being innocent of any major crimes is held as a valid assumption.

Banning guns is bad. Regulating guns in such a way that no form of gun is banned (except, perhaps, foreign guns, for a different form of reasoning entirely) is... acceptable.

I am now known as Flyboy.

A gun is merely a tool. With nobody behind the trigger it is helplessly inert, incapable of inflicting harm to anyone.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people.

^ Problem is, those who advocate regulation seek to curb it to the point where you can't even use it when you have a gun pointed at your head and another pointed at your kids. It's one thing to promote say take a safety course before you buy, it's quite another to say all guns must be kept locked up and unloaded and other restrictive shit.

edited 6th Oct '11 4:52:57 PM by MajorTom

What a delightfully trite cliche, Tom. There's a reason I'm for the idea of gun regulation and lessons and background checks before giving someone a license and a gun. To make sure that person knows how to use it properly and is aware of the danger. I personally don't care how many people own guns; but I fucking care that they know how to use them and not accidentally shoot someone in the foot.

I'm also pretty sure that that the vast majority juries would vote in favor of the guy whose kids were danger. That's fucking self defense right there.

edited 6th Oct '11 4:54:40 PM by AceofSpades

Doesn't make it any less true.

Yet argue that to gun control enthusiasts of some types, moreso the politicians who propose such laws (and those laws forbidding self-defense exist) and it all falls on deaf ears.

edited 6th Oct '11 4:57:12 PM by MajorTom

No, but it was an entirely empty cliche when what we're talking about is making sure people know how to use guns properly, and that we can track guns that get stolen, and a dozen other things to make things as safe as possible. (No, I don't think anything can be entirely safe, the point is to cut it down as much as possible.) And keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally disturbed.

Not possible, even you know that.

As many guns as possible. "As possible" should be on the end of most my statements, really. But it's nice how that's the only part of my post you responded to.

It wasn't worth answering the rest of the post otherwise we'd get stuck in a circular "at what cost?" argument where we run into the problem of proposing regulations that in the end treat all gun owners responsible or not as psychotic criminals.

@Tom: if that was the case, then its not my fault the average Gun owner is a paranoid idiot who thinks "keep the safety off and aim downrange" is code for "GIVE ME YOUR WEAPON NOW COMRADE, HAIL STALIN"

Asking people to know the basics of how to use a gun before giving them is no more intrusive of their rights than being asked to have training with any other device before allowing you unsupervised use of it.

edited 6th Oct '11 5:38:29 PM by Midgetsnowman

But why do you have a gun?

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

The difference between guns and other tools is that, while many tools can be used as lethal weapons, that's not what they're designed for, and they're usually used for far more harmless tasks. For guns, though, their only real purpose is to kill things; they don't serve a practical, innocuous function that justifies their existence.

Bingo.

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

re: using guns to enable revolts against the military - this is a dumb fucking argument in America. Listen, the U.S. military has Predator drones and Firestorm weapons systems and antimaterial rifles and napalm and Abrams tanks. The firearms capability of the U.S. civilian population doesn't count for ratshit in a violent revolution scenario, because if you don't get the military (i.e. the non-civilian population) on your side, you're going to have a series of smoking holes where your revolution used to be. Which is why I always recommend peaceful noncooperative resistance for ALL your extralegal revolutionary needs! Call our toll-free number now.

re: the self-defense argument - there is a level of population density at which, past that threshold, the minor benefits of self-defense enabled by gun ownership is simply overshadowed by the problems caused by gun theft and gun crime. That's why I'm saying that cities should have the power to ban them while counties should have the power to keep them. Recall that for a lot of crimes, the majority of perpetrators are people the victims knew closely - friends, family members, these are the types who commit abuse and murder. Them's the stats. The same gun can protect a household from a robber or allow an abusive husband to 'avenge' himself on a wife who tries to run away. If it's worth it to allow the guns in an area, let them; otherwise, don't.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

So? Tanks are easy prey in Urban Warfare, one Molotov Cocktail down the Commander's hatch of an Abrams = dead/hurting turret crew. If that tank's buttoned up tight in a city, he's practically blind.

Secondly, the most dangerous foe in Afghanistan is a hadji with a 100 year old bolt action rifle and the ability to actually shoot straight. There are a lot of bolt action rifles in the US and a lot of folks who own them are current/former military who can shoot straight. M-16s and M-4 carbines are surprisingly poor weapons compared to many things civilians can get such as semi-automatic battle rifles, AK series rifles, and the aforementioned bolt actions.

Thirdly, Predators are like all air support. Incapable of winning a ground war on their own and easy to hide from in dense foliage or urban environs.

Yeah there is such a level, it's called all of humanity within a 50 km area. Self-defense is a fact of life. Did you know in San Francisco you can be stabbed 6 times by a 6 inch buck knife, shot 3 times by a .50 cal Desert Eagle, beaten with a tire iron and a Louisville slugger, raped and then tossed into a gutter to die and in all of that it's illegal to defend yourself with your fists? Do we want that in a society?

edited 6th Oct '11 6:31:43 PM by MajorTom

No, exactly why along with gun control you fund better education and cheaper university.

edited 6th Oct '11 6:35:24 PM by Erock

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

Yay! Now we get smarter criminals!

No, you get less criminals.

Unless you wan tto ignore where this has worked.

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

Come back when you take a course in sociology, Tom.

There is direct and demonstrable correlation between lack of education, job opportunity, wealth equality, and crime.

Edit: Fail, I forgot to finish the sentence...

edited 6th Oct '11 6:41:32 PM by USAF713

I am now known as Flyboy.

All I know is I will own as many guns as I please, but I like the mechanics of them and shooting them in gun ranges. I ain't gonna let anyone tell me otherwise.

^^ Correlation != causation you know that.

^^^ Like where? Everywhere that has enacted gun control and is "safe" is one step away from a draconian police state.

edited 6th Oct '11 6:38:00 PM by MajorTom

Sooo...

Canada, Sweden, Germany, Norway, Finland, Germany, Japan, the U.K., and South Korea are one step away from draconian dictators? News to me.

The problem isn't really the guns: it's the Republican domestic polciy that comes with pro-gun cantidates.

edited 6th Oct '11 6:41:57 PM by Erock

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

Point 1: not to veer too far into a "viability of violent revolt in the U.S." thread, but I haven't mentioned the humvees, the grenade launchers, the immediate intelligence advantage thanks to the NSA, the superior body armor, and loads of other shit the U.S. military has that I probably didn't even know about. All those things like vulnerable targets, power plants, etc.? The military knows where they are, because they live in the country and in many cases defend the targets in question. On top of that, no matter how difficult it is to fight a modern war in urban settings, the U.S. military has just had about a decade of very tough practice. Finally, "just air support" can level buildings, which the power can be will happily do after they pull the PR runaround on a violent revolutionary movement, which wouldn't be tough. Don't believe me? Does anyone even remember the firebombing of the MOVE protesters back in the 70s?

Any way you cut it, a violent revolution will require a lot of law enforcement and military collusion to succeed, in which case the revolutionaries can get their hands on the necessary hardware. In which case legal gun ownership pre-revolution is kinda irrelevant - my entire point.

Point 2:

Citation Needed. And even if it is so, I will go to the next NRA convention and buy its director a fucking drink if you can find me a San Francisco jury that would not acquit people on self defense grounds. Besides, even if San Francisco has retarded self-defense bylaws doesn't mean that a sane city can allow you to protect yourself with fists, pepper spray, and other non-firearm options.

I don't see gangsters breaking into stores to steal Tazers. Although it could be problematic if they did, a bunch of gangbangers with Tazers and pepper spray could really ruin someone's day...

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Correlation doesnt mean automatic causation. it still suggests a link that can be demonstrably proved or disproved through further evidence. You should know that before shouting out random truisms, Tom.

Also, if someones got all that weaponry, a single pistol aint gonna do dick squiddly for you if you havent had proper training in how to use a gun. But I mean, thats peanuts in exchange for allowing people to shoot a machinegun with no reguilation or training. Though I'm sure we're about to see yet another hilarious exaggeration of an unlikely scenario as utter proof of how the only way to make america safe is to allow Buck Tiddlypants to own a pair of desert eagles even if he has not the slightest fucking idea how to aim them.

edited 6th Oct '11 6:58:56 PM by Midgetsnowman

If gun control is a sign of a draconian state, it would appear that every single country in the West except the US is "one step away" from being a draconian state?

The Arab Spring is a better example of what type of weaponry is needed for armed rebellion. Libyan rebels weren't beating Gaddafi that had used airstrikes against unarmed civilians with handguns. They had pickup trucks with an MLRS attached to the back (how they managed to do that, I really am not sure). So if you wanted to argue for armed rebellion that's what you'd need. Of course, most people would think it patently insane for your population to be armed to the teeth and equivalent in power to the US military. I guess YMMV on this but I'm just pointing out what you'd actually need. Handguns and other dipshit weaponry is totally pointless.

The statement of "stealing a truck is easier than stealing a gun" is flat silly. Show me a country with weak gun control laws that instead suffers car bombs rather than gun crime. Oh can't find any? That's because it is idiotic to expect that in place of being able to shoot a guy with a 9mm, you instead drive a tanker full of fertilizer into a target instead. No, in place of gun crime, usually criminals are downgraded to a knife or manhandling. That way, the crime rate may not change but the casualty rate of crime does lower. The actual source of the crime may not be guns but if it means someone doesn't die in a robbery, that's a lot better for society. You can in fact demonstrate that knife crime rises against falling gun crime due to gun control.

Canada, which has strict gun control, allows you to shoot people in self-defence. In fact, in a famous case recently, police stormed a man's house, did not properly announce their presence and the homeowner shot and killed a police officer during the raid. He was acquitted for reasonable self-defence. Sounds quite different from your story of "gun control means that even if I have a gun pointed to my face then I would be found guilty!" It doesn't allow you to gun down criminals in the back who are running away, maybe that's your sticky point?

Gun control has no effect on people who want to shoot guns at a range. It just has to be stored properly and safely from theft and used in a responsible manner. Instead of relying on good human nature to do that, we regulate it to ensure that you in fact do such a thing by law.

edited 6th Oct '11 7:23:24 PM by breadloaf