Redneck shoots up Pensacola with AK-47

[FBM]

                      

!!1!	NOTMOD Question answered. Thread locked. Civility ignored. Posters mocked. Just one more service we offer.

Sale on skint beaver tails?

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You look like you're eating one and have one wrapped around yer hed.

[JimC]

So, what makes owning a gun comparable to watching a person get beaten and stabbed to death for entertainment?

The comparison is : The Romans considered it perfectly normal to watch that stuff.
In the US, it's considered normal to own guns.

The comparison is to point out that we accept the strangest things as normal, if we are brought up with them.
You could never convince a Roman that there was anything wrong with watching fights to the death.
Likewise gun ownership in the US.
It's about what's considered normal.

I live in a part of the US where gun ownership is far more rare, I wasn't brought up with guns, and up until a few years ago, I thought guns were bad and mean and scary. After a while, I started to realize that a lot of the anti-gun arguments lacked factual support, and my opinion started to shift. You'll certainly never convince me there's anything wrong with owning guns, if you can't find the facts to back it up. Having said that, if a conclusive link between gun ownership rates and violent crime existed, you and every other anti-gun debater I've ever talked to would have rubbed it in my face a long time ago.

I certainly think that mistermack has taken the anti-gun argument way too far. Gun owners anywhere are not somehow more likely to be weird, anti-social loners... Responsible gun ownership is a reasonable position, and no-one should be advocating a society where people cannot own a gun of some sort. I have enjoyed target shooting and hunting in the past, and they are a vital tool for Aussie farmers to control populations of feral, introduced animals... (rabbits, foxes, pigs, goats, British back-packers...)

However, if military style semi-automatic assault rifles, and concealable handguns with large magazines are readily available to the public at large, they will also be more easily available to crazies who want to do the big massacre thing. Target shooting and hunting do not require such weapons; they are man-killers by design. It may well be that societies which restrict the availability of certain classes of guns can avoid a significant number of massacre-style rampages...

[FBM]

However, if military style semi-automatic assault rifles, and concealable handguns with large magazines are readily available to the public at large, they will also be more easily available to crazies who want to do the big massacre thing. Target shooting and hunting do not require such weapons; they are man-killers by design. It may well be that societies which restrict the availability of certain classes of guns can avoid a significant number of massacre-style rampages...

I'd agree with this, Jim. Although I did have an SKS with a 30-round clip (and a few 20s) for many years, and although I did kill a deer with it (which I ate), the hi-cap magazine didn't contribute one thing to the hunt. You're just not going to get 20 or 30 shots at a deer. In my experience, three at best. Whereas I'm very hesitant to support restrictions on freedoms, I think restricting that sort of weapon is a reasonable acknowledgement of the reality that societies breed whackos. Even so, this issue isn't even near the top of the list of things we should be doing to protect peaceful citizens.

[Wumbologist]

However, if military style semi-automatic assault rifles, and concealable handguns with large magazines are readily available to the public at large, they will also be more easily available to crazies who want to do the big massacre thing. Target shooting and hunting do not require such weapons; they are man-killers by design. It may well be that societies which restrict the availability of certain classes of guns can avoid a significant number of massacre-style rampages...

I'm not sure what the fuss is over "military-style" semi-automatic weapons. The only difference between a military-style AR-15 and my non-military style Ruger Mini-14 is that the AR-15 resembles a military gun, and therefore looks scarier. They will otherwise perform the same functions.

As far as high-capacity magazines are concerned, I'm not convinced that banning them would have any effect on gun massacres. It was just last year that Derrick Bird, armed with a .22 rifle and a shotgun, killed 12 people in Cumbria without the advantage of high-capacity magazines. Let's compare that to a couple of well-known massacres in the US.

In the Columbine Massacre, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed a total of 13 people, not including themselves. They were armed with four firearms. Out of those firearms, only Klebold's Tec-9 was equipped with high-capacity magazines, a 52 round, a32 round, and a 28 round magazine. With twice as many shooters, AND high-capacity magazines, they only ended up killing one more person than Derrick Bird.

There's also the more recent Tuscon shooting, which brought the issue of high-capacity magazines into the national spotlight. Jared Lee Loughner brought his Glock pistol with a high-capacity magazine to a grocery store in Tuscon, and killed six people. That's HALF as many as Derrick Bird killed without high-capacity magazines.

The other common factor between Columbine and Tuscon is the fact that none of the attackers in those incidents should have legally been able to obtain their firearms at all. Banning high-capacity magazines would not have stopped them from attacking. At best, one might speculate that MAYBE, one or two less people might have died, but there's no guarantee of that. On the other hand, tighter enforcement of existing firearms laws might have prevented the attackers from illegally obtaining guns in the first place, in which case none of the victims would have died.

If giving up high-capacity magazines would guarantee that no criminals could get their hands on them, and the gun control lobby would leave gun owners alone, I'd consider it a small sacrifice to make. However, this is simply not the case. High capacity magazines are the first on a long list of progressively more restrictive bans that the gun control lobby would love to enact. Today they say 30 rounds is too much. Ban those, and tomorrow they'll say 20, then 10, then 6, and soon enough they'll say "See, those 3-round guns are useless for self-defense anyway, why don't you just go ahead and turn them in?".

[FBM]

Jörmungandr, the slippery-slope argument is very tempting. But here, it ignores the influence of voters who are commmitted to resisting that progression of the restrictions on our constitutional rights. If the stats say that hi-cap mags make no difference, that will be presented and the anti-gun lobby will have to find another avenue of attack. In order to argue for hi-cap mags and/or fully-auto weapons, we'd have to come up with some stats in which they aided in the defense of law-abiding citizens. I don't think the "legitimate hobby" defense is going to carry much weight in that debate (not saying that was your argument, btw).

I still agree with the idea that the citizenry should be armed in order to prevent the gummit from d/evolving into a tyranny. Anybody who thinks that that is no longer a possibility just hasn't been paying attention.

[laklak]

Animals aren't that dangerous. I mean you can run off a polar bear by jangling your keys at it. Or so I'm told.

Fuckers are so cowardly they turned WHITE.

[Coito ergo sum]

This debate appears to have boiled down to:

Side A: I believe guns are too dangerous to be legal.

Side B: I don't think so.

[FBM]

This debate appears to have boiled down to:

Side A: I believe guns are too dangerous to be legal.

Side B: I don't think so.

Again.

[mistermack]

My argument is that gun ownership is a magnet for pathetic wankers, and so is hunting.
If you restricted it to normal people, there would be no guns anyway.

Maybe you could dish out the gun licences by having one licence for every two applicants.
To get your licence, you would have to win a gunfight to the death, with six shooters, in the middle of high street USA.

I'd watch that.

[Wumbologist]

My argument is that gun ownership is a magnet for pathetic wankers, and so is hunting.
If you restricted it to normal people, there would be no guns anyway.

Maybe you could dish out the gun licences by having one licence for every two applicants.
To get your licence, you would have to win a gunfight to the death, with six shooters, in the middle of high street USA.

I'd watch that.

My argument is that people who whine about gun ownership are pathetic wankers.

[laklak]

Except we don't need no stinking licenses.

[mistermack]

My argument is that people who whine about gun ownership are pathetic wankers.

Ban all pathetic wankers from owning guns then. To get a gun licence, you should have to prove that you don't want one.

[Wumbologist]

My argument is that people who whine about gun ownership are pathetic wankers.

Ban all pathetic wankers from owning guns then. To get a gun licence, you should have to prove that you don't want one.

[Seth]

Jörmungandr, the slippery-slope argument is very tempting. But here, it ignores the influence of voters who are commmitted to resisting that progression of the restrictions on our constitutional rights. If the stats say that hi-cap mags make no difference, that will be presented and the anti-gun lobby will have to find another avenue of attack. In order to argue for hi-cap mags and/or fully-auto weapons, we'd have to come up with some stats in which they aided in the defense of law-abiding citizens. I don't think the "legitimate hobby" defense is going to carry much weight in that debate (not saying that was your argument, btw).

I still agree with the idea that the citizenry should be armed in order to prevent the gummit from d/evolving into a tyranny. Anybody who thinks that that is no longer a possibility just hasn't been paying attention.

Okay, this is just ignorant of political reality. Clinton didn't come up with any "stats" when enacting the "assault weapons ban," he manufactured false data claiming that "assault weapons are the criminal's weapon of choice," knowing full well this was an outright lie.

The "anti-gun lobby" need only convince a majority of legislators in Congress that hi-cap magazines pose a danger, and they do that by lying and magnifying the actual danger posed by such magazines by using the fallacy of "spotlighting," wherein they take a very small number of notorious events, like the shooting of Giffords, and imply that if the devices aren't banned, such events will become routine.

It's not about reason, it's about emotion. You're right that the "legitimate hobby" argument is not going to get far though because this is being cast as a case of "why do you NEED such a device" not "do you have a RIGHT to such a device."

The whole reason the assault weapons ban put in place by Clinton was not renewed was because pro-gun forces successfully debunked the wild cries that its expiration would result in bloodbaths in the street by pointing out that statistically, the ban did not reduce crime AT ALL.

[Gallstones]

So, what makes owning a gun comparable to watching a person get beaten and stabbed to death for entertainment?

The comparison is : The Romans considered it perfectly normal to watch that stuff.
In the US, it's considered normal to own guns.

The comparison is to point out that we accept the strangest things as normal, if we are brought up with them.
You could never convince a Roman that there was anything wrong with watching fights to the death.
Likewise gun ownership in the US.
It's about what's considered normal.

I live in a part of the US where gun ownership is far more rare, I wasn't brought up with guns, and up until a few years ago, I thought guns were bad and mean and scary. After a while, I started to realize that a lot of the anti-gun arguments lacked factual support, and my opinion started to shift. You'll certainly never convince me there's anything wrong with owning guns, if you can't find the facts to back it up. Having said that, if a conclusive link between gun ownership rates and violent crime existed, you and every other anti-gun debater I've ever talked to would have rubbed it in my face a long time ago.

I certainly think that mistermack has taken the anti-gun argument way too far. Gun owners anywhere are not somehow more likely to be weird, anti-social loners... Responsible gun ownership is a reasonable position, and no-one should be advocating a society where people cannot own a gun of some sort. I have enjoyed target shooting and hunting in the past, and they are a vital tool for Aussie farmers to control populations of feral, introduced animals... (rabbits, foxes, pigs, goats, British back-packers...)

However, if military style semi-automatic assault rifles, and concealable handguns with large magazines are readily available to the public at large, they will also be more easily available to crazies who want to do the big massacre thing. Target shooting and hunting do not require such weapons; they are man-killers by design. It may well be that societies which restrict the availability of certain classes of guns can avoid a significant number of massacre-style rampages...

Assault rifles are a design. Period.
If a rifle or handgun can kill a deer or elk, it can kill a human.

So then the argument against assault style rifles is emotional and not rational.