I think most police officer’s would disagree with you. They are quite effective in self defense.
Missed the edit window.
I was going from memory - always a bad idea. I think that was actually said by Jesse Ventura, not Wayne LaPierre. Mea Culpa
I was just musing on Columbine and the killers did indeed build and bring a lot of homemade bombs, but because of their amateur skills, none of the bombs detonated with any serious energy. The potential was there to level the building and kill hundreds, though, instead of the partly few dozen that were felled with banal boring guns.
So, if we’re to take Miller’s position seriously, America shouldn’t be any more dangerous a place if blocks of C4 and reliable programmable detonators (surely there will be apps for that) became widely available, right? The tools are irrelevant, only the intent matters, apparently.
So guns don’t kill anyone, people do, but guns by themselves are effective in self-defence? Have I got that right?
(Piper frantically scribbles notes, trying to keep up. Sheesh this Gunn stuff is complicated. )
A gun by itself is an inanimate hunk of metal. Add that as a footnote.
correct.
Guns are inanimate objects so that would not be an accurate statement. Guns are an effective tool for self defense. This is why police officers carry them and why with training we are allowed to do the same in the US.
Not really. People are complicated. guns are not.
Yes! This has been my main point. Guns are effective tools, both for self-defense and for murder. And some guns are better at each in different circumstances than others.
Yes! 
It’s interesting you bring this up because the US government use to produce pamphlets on how to make explosives. They were for farmers who wanted to remove tree stumps.
The best way to deal with violence is to fix the cause of it and not the tools used to commit it. Tools are easily replaced.
So what do you think is wrong with American culture that isn’t as wrong as, say, Canadian culture? We watch all the same movies and TV shows and whatnot and while we also get the occasional school shooting, it’s a a far lower rate, even per capita.
The problem isn’t guns at all - they haven’t become deadlier in the last fifty years (I suppose manufacturing techniques have improved somewhat, making tolerances tighter and reliability improved), but maybe you just can’t have them because you’re too stupid/immature to use them wisely and tighter restrictions are necessary on that basis.
It’s a hypothesis.
Forget the notes. As of this post, I think it’s clear that trying to discuss this with Magiver is a waste of time.
Another footnote: so is a hunk of enriched uranium. Or, more accurately, two finely machined hunks of enriched uranium that fit together perfectly to form a critical mass. Just inanimate metal. It’s people that are the problem, right, not the inanimate metal? When do I get my enriched uranium? I’d like a side order of plutonium-239, too, please. It’s just metal. As a law-abiding citizen, I just want to look at it and fondle it. What could possibly go wrong?
I can only speak for US culture but It seems much different than the 60’s and 70’s. I would say my parents were probably mature adults at 18 and that number gets pushed higher as time goes by. Obviously the family unit shifted from a 1 income to 2 income environment. Television is far more violent by many factors and video games are amazingly violent. I can remember being shocked at how realistic the blood and gore had gotten on TV and that was in the late 70’s.
I’m not going to wax nostalgic but my childhood was much more… subdued? Simpler? Less violent?
How is attacking a poster you disagree with useful in this discussion? do you think the kids who commit mass murder are respectful of their classmates? It seems to me that’s what is lacking in the first place.
I don’t think your atomic bomb rhetoric is a rational response.
I think a lot of it comes down to just fundamental different world views. At some point people of your persuasion will throw up their hands and say what’s the point. You seem to take it as obvious your point of view, and it is incredulous that anyone could think differently.
Whereas on Friday I talked to a co-worker whose kids go to the school where the shooting took place. He thinks there should be armed guards at every ingress and egress point. That wouldn’t necessarily be my tact, but I do think it’s worth while understanding that reasonable people can disagree.
If left alone a loaded gun will do nothing for years until a spring maybe fails and it might go off. I’m guessing that radioactive materials, not unlike the bucket of uranium at the Grand Canyon pose a threat without any human intervention.
Just a thought.
Okay, so what do you think modern Canada is like? The U.S. in 1970? Or another country that watches the exact same TV and movies as in the U.S., has seen the same economic changes as the U.S., and yet doesn’t have weekly school shootings like the U.S.?
I suggest guns are pretty much the same, but for some reason Canadians don’t use them to fulfill lethal fantasies and Americans do, hence considering taking guns away from Americans is worth considering.
We don’t have the same demographic makeup. Black on black homicides are about 4 times higher than average and that drives the average up considerably.
Gee, I was wondering how long it would take for race to come up.
Well, America, I guess you have a choice - give up guns or give up black people, if you want to stop all those white kids from gunning down their classmates.
Are you disputing my cite? Are you really going to suggest we don’t have issues that break down demographically? Do you not understand the difference between race and culture? Do you not understand The United States has a history of slavery that is different from Canada?
It’s irrelevant to school shootings, and certainly Columbine. Are you claiming most school shootings are done by black students at mostly black schools?
Then he should volunteer to be one of those guards. The guards usually get taken out first because they are the most obvious targets and they have the element of surprise against them.
And who is paying for these guards? Money taken away from learning?