01-09-2002 22:07									#181
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So basically, you want to make it harder for EVERYONE to get guns. Let's be honest - you're not just targeting criminals. I have no criminal record, but I'd still have to go through all that licensing and background bullshit.

Do you at least agree you'd have to amend the Constitution before you could do that?

	01-09-2002 22:11									#182
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Yeah, isn't it terrible that you have to prove you aren't a criminal in order to get a WEAPON?

No you don't have to amend the constitution.

I'm sorry David, but don't you think that wasting time in Drivers Ed and a day at the DMV getting a license is worth saving lives on the road? Don't you think taking a class in firearms safety and getting a license is worth saving lives? If you truly believe that your precious time is worth more than a life, you should start visiting hospital ER's and talking to the victims of gun violence. You should say flat out, "I know that you might not be sitting here, dying in this hospital bed if there was better gun control. But it's more important for me to be able to get guns easier than for you to have a chance at life."

	01-09-2002 22:18									#183
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quote: Yeah, isn't it terrible that you have to prove you aren't a criminal in order to get a WEAPON?

Yes, that throw's the whole innocent until proven guilty thing out the window.

quote: I'm sorry David, but don't you think that wasting time in Drivers Ed and a day at the DMV getting a license is worth saving lives on the road? Don't you think taking a class in firearms safety and getting a license is worth saving lives?

You're making a mistake, though. You're assuming driving a car and owning a gun are the same thing. They're not.

Driver's Ed is NOT required, so long as you drive on your private property. But if you want to use a public road, you have to obey driving regulations - you don't own the road, after all.

quote: If you truly believe that your precious time is worth more than a life, you should start visiting hospital ER's and talking to the victims of gun violence.

I don't oppose firearm safety courses, I oppose being forced to take one. I would probably take one anyway, but the Constitution doesn't provide a federal power to require me to take one.

quote: You should say flat out, "I know that you might not be sitting here, dying in this hospital bed if there was better gun control.

There's absolutely no way to say that. Do you think criminals will take your little safety course once they obtain a gun on the black market? I certainly don't.

	02-09-2002 02:34									#184
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quote: Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man Basically that's this thread in a nutshell... personal rights vs. group rights.

Since there are no collective rights, then individual rights wins.

quote: I tend to fall on the personal rights side, usually, but there's always a weighing of benefits to be made. IMO, the benefit to the individual of owning a gun isn't significant enough to outweigh the benefit to the group (fewer killings by guns)

In other words, you don't mind personal rights so long as you like what is being protected. If you hate/fear something (like guns) then you don't mind restricting them and demonizing people who own them.

	02-09-2002 02:58									#185
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quote: Originally posted by Sava It's pointless to argue with righty's on this subject. They don't care about safety. They don't care about murder rates. They only care about their own selfish "rights". What's sad is that it would probably take upwards of one million deaths per year to get these sickos to change their minds.

More of the demonization I was referring to. Gosh, and people have the gall to get all shocked when gun owners and their sympathizers get a bit irate when crap like this is spewed?

quote: They are even against scenarios of gun control that would make it much harder for criminals to get guns with minimal interference for law abiding citizens. It's so difficult to argue a moral topic with blatantly immoral people.

You are the immoral one, blithely slandering people simply because they won't bow to your whim.

You have no sense of borders, and wish to impose restrictions upon others based on your personal prejudices. When it doesn't work, I'm sure you'll want more, saying again it is "minimal" and then get even more angry when people refuse and attempt to demonize them further.

	02-09-2002 04:20									#186
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quote: Originally posted by Akka le Vil I'm not dismissive with people who disagree with me, I'm dismissive with people who don't understant a simple reasoning. They are free to disagree as long as they get what I mean.

...and yet when I do disagree you do what you are doing right now.

quote: Ok. So I will again use the big ol' argument : what about making atomic bombs available to anyone ? You can call it a red herring, it still is a perfect example of something which is not accessible for the average Joe for security reasons. Which is, according to you, destroying presumption of innocence.

Acutally, it's nothing more than a strawman propped up by anti-gunners who can't support their arguments against owning small arms.

I suppose you also predict great disasters if you make massive loudspeakers "available to anyone"? That would be one way of taking freedom of speech to a similarly ridiculous extreme.

quote: I do agree it's a culture war. I do agree that I don't understand what happens in the head of a gun owner. I disagree that I'm the kind of sick sissy paranoid you decribe, though. I just don't consider that the right of one people to own a gun outweight the right of others to be endangered by proliferation of weapons.

No, that is the big lie told in pursuit of your cultural war against gun owners. You use the acts of criminals to scapegoat them. Some of your comrades (Sava, Dr. Strangelove, 6k man) further use those crimes to demonize gun owners by claiming they must not care about people dying because they won't bow down to your whims. So they must be monsters to destroy or restrain.

quote: YOU obviously don't understand what happens in the head of an anti-gun either, BTW.

If you mean I'm not a telepath, then yes. Otherwise, your actions, and the acts of other anti-gun people seem ruled by fear, anger and hatred. You see an atrocity and you want someone to suffer for it. You've picked gun owners.

quote: Well, too bad that the second paragraph contradict the first. The goal of the example was to tell that we DON'T know in advance who will commit a crime. Because it's impossible.

...and I was sarcastically suggesting "solutions" so you can feel better. People are presumed innocent until they do something that proves otherwise. Even with guns.

quote: It was used to show how absurd is the sentence "You don't have anything to fear from my gun, because I'm not a criminal".

...and only show your own paranoia and phobia of firearms.

	02-09-2002 04:24									#187
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quote: Originally posted by Dr Strangelove Here's a link to an article that covers these points: http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/guns/archive/dgu .

Lambert? Heh. I've seen him flail about trying to disprove the work of Lott.

quote: In the disscussion of the number of lives saved by DGU it is pointed out that certainly not each use saves a life. Most of the incidents involving DGU reported fit into the category of robberies, for which there is a 0.35% expected victim death rate. Many other incidents would be classified as burglaries, trespass, or etc. The author calculates that a mere 200 lives are saved by DGU each year. In contrast about half of the 13,000 homicides are committed by people without prior criminal record, about whom the garbage slogan "when guns are banned only criminals will have guns" obviously doesn't apply. One could argue then that unrestriced access to guns saves 200 lives/year while costing 6500 lives/year.

In other words, he massaged the data and it fits your prejudices.

(Returns from reading the remarks....)

No wait, this is just Lambert saving articles he posted to the talk.politics.guns newsgroup. Odd how none of the articles refuting his claims are not appearing.

What's next? Albert Isham?

quote: I suffer from asthma. Some people's so called right to smoke causes me to be ill whenever I go to places where people smoke, i.e., amusement parks, outdoor festivals, etc. Tobacco should be banned!

Ah, so you do have other things you wish to exert control over. Why not name yourself Carry A Nation?

	02-09-2002 05:01									#188
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quote: Originally posted by Sinapus In other words, he massaged the data and it fits your prejudices.

Care to elaborate on your statement?

	02-09-2002 06:00									#189
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How is it John Doe's fault this happened? Say John Doe is a law abiding gun owner and hunts alot. He is not responsible for gun violence. If people want to own guns they should be able to. Its the job of the authoritys to make sure guns dont fall in the wrong hands.

	02-09-2002 08:04									#190
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Let's face the fact people, if there was only one gun left in the world, a bad person would own it and use it to commit crimes.
When they take the guns away the bow and arrow will be back big time, and with a bow you don't have to buy one because you can make your own.

	02-09-2002 08:08									#191
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quote: Originally posted by joseph1944 Let's face the fact people, if there was only one gun left in the world, a bad person would own it and use it to commit crimes. When they take the guns away the bow and arrow will be back big time, and with a bow you don't have to buy one because you can make your own.

Guns are a much more efficient way of killing people. A person wounded with a gun is more than six times more likely to die of his wounds than is one wounded by a knife. I think you'll find that the same thing is true of blunt weapons.