scared? wrote:Someone ban this moron gramps before he murders his family with a gun...
hell no. he should be allowed to go on posting right up to when that happens, at which point we can bump one of his pro-gun threads and flood it with links to the story and reaction faces
My point wasn't that PuFF's stat, although all encompassing (suicides, accidents, intentional) was not correct. My point was a lot more people die from many other things. Actual gun shooting deaths are around 30,000. But because they come from guns are they somehow worse or more preventable than other causes? Get real...
Cancer and illness is a naturally occurring part of human life, but more is being done to try and combat those things than the controlling of guns. You can’t go on a rampage giving people cancer, but you can go giving people bullets to the head.
Read my post on page 5 and let me know your thoughts. I am genuinely interested as people with your mindset are the ones I feel need to treated with the kid gloves I am referring too. I don’t mean that in a derogatory way either, as my post explains.
Don Carlos wrote:The issues that America has when it comes to gun control is that the right to bear arms is a founding pillar of the country.
The second amendment states “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
When something like this is so engrained into a country then getting laws changed are difficult as the people of the country will fiercely defend, and rightly so. I have realised that despite what the outside world think, it is the right of the American people to have guns, so we (we being the rest of the world) need to stop getting on our own high horse about it. But here is rub; while I agree that the rights of the people should be defended, the constitution was adopted in 1787 and went into effect in 1789. Duelling pistols were the weapons of choice in those days... These were slow, inaccurate, cumbersome weapons. The constitution was never designed to deal with the deadly assault rifles of the modern era. It needs to be adapted to fit modern times and the advances in gun technology.
or perhaps that was never the point of the second amendment in the first place?
Some of the misinformation following the Sandy Hook shootings took issue with the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees American citizens the right to bear arms. Thus British chat-show-host-cum-constitutional-expert Piers Morgan lectured Americans on its meaning: ‘The Second Amendment was devised with muskets in mind, not high-powered handguns and assault rifles. Fact.’
Except it’s not a fact, Piers. The Second Amendment is about freedom and equality, not specific guns. Historically, a connection can be traced between the ascent of the Enlightenment man - born in liberty, equality and brotherhood - and the freedom of every man to possess arms. Citizenship has been linked to the right to possess arms, most infamously in the Dred Scott case of 1857, where escaped slave Dred Scott petitioned for his freedom after travelling to a free state in the United States before the Civil War. Denying Scott’s claim on the basis that blacks could never be citizens, he defended his position by saying that citizenship entailed ‘the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs; and to keep and carry arms wherever they went’.
Piers would do better to read the Federalist Papers, where founding father James Madison noted that ‘Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms’.
What this is saying is that all rules/laws/constitutions are open to interpretation in which case they are not really rules/laws/constitutions at all - more guidelines open to be enforced in the way the individual sees fit. They are no longer absolute and things can magically be added in. The 2nd amendment in its entirety is “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”
You cannot misconstrue that as being about personal freedoms. While I agree it does not specify the type of guns I am sure they (the founder fathers etc) could not imagine the devastation that could be caused by more modern weaponry. If you wanted to take this in the way the spiked article wants you to, about the personal freedoms to hold arms then why doesn’t everyone have missiles or nuclear bombs? While they are expensive, the principle should hold true for every type of weapon. The reason is that they are “too powerful” and should not be held by the general public. BUT the second amendment allows them to so surely the government is infringing on the rights of the people?
An extreme example, but the basic principles are sound.
leaving aside the strange grammar of the 2nd amendment, and the fact that the RKBA has been established as an individual freedom in case law (not so long ago in DC, for instance), what about the question of personal ownership of nukes?
i think the answer to that question lies in remembering that: 'freedom = power/control'. to say of someone that they're free is to say that they have a certain measure of power/control over their lives, and that they are not unduly constrained (however 'unduly' is defined) by the power/control desires of others. a handgun (or even assault rifle) gives a person a comparatively limited amount of power, and due to the low cost of handguns it's a power which - when used against others - could reasonably be expected to be countered by an equal power held by those others (hence the term 'equaliser'). a nuke on the other hand would give them a ridiculous amount of power, sufficient to hold an entire city or country to ransom, and what's more a power only available to the very rich, so unlikely to be countered. that's a very obvious infringement on other people's control of their own lives
as the article i quoted argues: this isn't actually about the weapons. it's about the relationship between the individual and state in a free society. the position of the founders (to put it in simple cartoon terms) is that allowing the state a total monopoly on deadly force is just asking for trouble, and is a hallmark of unfree societies. (ironically, given that, it would actually be more consistent to that principle for individuals to own ridiculously powerful weapons, since the american state possesses them itself. a sig sauer isn't going to be much use against a drone strike, after all...)
Fair comment; but give everyone a nuke like they have a gun...interesting prospect then just from the point of view that if one was used you'd kill yourself as well, rendering it's use completely pointless unless that was the whole point. There are huge flaws in the analogy, I know that, but in theory there is no reason why in a country where it is your right to bear arms that this couldn't happen.
I'm still against the owning of guns by the mass public due to the stupidity of a large proportion of people, but then when it is decreed that it within their rights to own such items what are you going to do? It doesn’t make it right but it is what it is. The sooner people realise that there is no legitimate reason to own a gun that can dish out 30 bullets in 7 seconds the better.
It's not my country and I see why people want to defend their rights but there has also got to be a small amount of common sense involved, which sadly there doesn't seem to be looking from outside in.
losCHUNK wrote:
You are more likely to kill someone though, as a gun owner you are included in the figures that puff posted. You and your gun are more likely to kill your family or others by simply having it in the house or living in a state that's all yeehaw, as opposed to living somewhere more normal without any guns.
That's without going into anything 'accidental' so no need for the car comparison, which is retarded as the differences can be listed in a book as thick as your brain - cars are pretty much required and are actually designed to prevent deaths from accidents.
You're a moron beyond comprehension. I've already learned that engaging you in conversation is pointless. K THX BYE.
Don Carlos wrote: Cancer and illness is a naturally occurring part of human life, but more is being done to try and combat those things than the controlling of guns. You can’t go on a rampage giving people cancer, but you can go giving people bullets to the head.
Read my post on page 5 and let me know your thoughts. I am genuinely interested as people with your mindset are the ones I feel need to treated with the kid gloves I am referring too. I don’t mean that in a derogatory way either, as my post explains.
Cancer isn't an "all natural" disease. There are plenty of things we know cause cancer, but look past them. And no, you can't chase someone around with cancer and kill them. But what about the enormous strain it puts on our health care system and our cost of insurance. BTW, second hand smoke does kill people. I'm willing to bet more people die from second hand smoke than from mass shootings.
We obviously have different mindsets about guns. We will most likely never find common ground. You want to ban all guns. I want more required education for gun owners. You want an extreme change. I want a responsible median. I think that my option is more likely than yours.
Don Carlos wrote: Cancer and illness is a naturally occurring part of human life, but more is being done to try and combat those things than the controlling of guns. You can’t go on a rampage giving people cancer, but you can go giving people bullets to the head.
Read my post on page 5 and let me know your thoughts. I am genuinely interested as people with your mindset are the ones I feel need to treated with the kid gloves I am referring too. I don’t mean that in a derogatory way either, as my post explains.
Cancer isn't an "all natural" disease. There are plenty of things we know cause cancer, but look past them. And no, you can't chase someone around with cancer and kill them. But what about the enormous strain it puts on our health care system and our cost of insurance. BTW, second hand smoke does kill people. I'm willing to bet more people die from second hand smoke than from mass shootings.
We obviously have different mindsets about guns. We will most likely never find common ground. You want to ban all guns. I want more required education for gun owners. You want an extreme change. I want a responsible median. I think that my option is more likely than yours.
Cancer has been around for as long as humans have - the first documented case of it being in Egypt some 1500BC
And I take it you didn't read my post on page 5....
I bet most anti-gun-control morons think the idea behind gun control is to ban guns completely, when in reality it means better rules on what kinds of guns can be sold, the process in which they can be sold, and to whom they can be sold to. Case in point:
YourGrandpa wrote:You want to ban all guns. I want more required education for gun owners. You want an extreme change. I want a responsible median. I think that my option is more likely than yours.
This reminds me of a discussion with a so-called anti-abortionist who stated something along the lines of, "I don't believe in pro-choice. I believe that abortions are wrong. While I don't believe in banning abortions completely, I think that we should give women better resources to make an informed decision about abortion and only have an abortion as a last resort."
Hey, dick smack. He sad that he advocates eliminating the personal possession of fire arms. Isn't that a BAN? I advocate this, "better rules on what kinds of guns can be sold, the process in which they can be sold, and to whom they can be sold to."
shaft wrote:Tell us Gramps, how would gun education have saved the Sandy Hook children?
Maybe if the mother was better educated on the proper storage of fire arms and the possibilities of not doing so, her son might not have been able to access them.
Don Carlos wrote:I'm still against the owning of guns by the mass public due to the stupidity of a large proportion of people, but then when it is decreed that it within their rights to own such items what are you going to do? It doesn’t make it right but it is what it is. The sooner people realise that there is no legitimate reason to own a gun that can dish out 30 bullets in 7 seconds the better.
well i think i said earlier in this thread that global warming kills a fuckload of people in the developing world every year but no one sells their car and gives up the long haul flight vacation over it. is there a 'legitimate reason' to fly to Magalouf for the long weekend? sorry but as i said before, the whole 'need'-based argument opens up a whole grocery store full of cans of worms
It's not my country and I see why people want to defend their rights but there has also got to be a small amount of common sense involved, which sadly there doesn't seem to be looking from outside in.
'common sense' (unless it's very basic stuff like looking before you cross the road or not sticking your wet fingers into a live socket) is mostly just a combination of urban myths that idiots 'reckon' are true, and ideological mystification designed to conceal the fact that what the speaker means by 'common sense' is just a political position in disguise
shaft wrote:Tell us Gramps, how would gun education have saved the Sandy Hook children?
Maybe if the mother was better educated on the proper storage of fire arms and the possibilities of not doing so, her son might not have been able to access them.
or maybe if the kids all had Walther PPKs in their lunchboxes Sandy Hook would never have happened
Hey, dick smack. He sad that he advocates eliminating the personal possession of fire arms. Isn't that a BAN? I advocate this, "better rules on what kinds of guns can be sold, the process in which they can be sold, and to whom they can be sold to."
Fuck you, moron.
So, are you for or against gun control? Because I don't know what you're arguing about here.
