NRA Calls ‘Open Carry’ Rallies ‘Downright Weird’
When the NRA — the NRA, fergossakes — thinks your actions in support of the Second Amendment are ‘Weird’, you know* you’ve crossed some sort of line.
*But they probably don’t.
Get killed when you decide to play vigilante? Or kill your own family members by accident? Kill yourself in a moment of suicidal depression because it’s just so easy to kill yourself with a gun? Kill some random bystander?
That’s a lot more likely than you ever defending yourself against the criminal horde with your guns. Guns don’t make you safer - but they do make you a dangerous to yourself and everyone around you.
Guns do make me safer. Clearly you disagree, but I assert that they do give B]me** the potential to make me and my family safer. At the same time, they certainly do increase the chances that the other events may happen. You’re certainly correct there.
Similarly, my car lets me get around faster, but driving my car also increases the chances that I might get in an accident with it and harm someone else.
Similarly, my motorcycle lets me get around faster, but riding my bike also greatly increases the chances I will get hurt, and somewhat lesser increased chances that I will hurt someone else in an accident.
Guns do make me safer. Clearly you disagree, but I assert that they do give me the potential to defend me and my family, and thus make us safer. At the same time, they certainly do increase the chances that the other events may happen.
You’re correct there.
Similarly, my car lets me get around faster, but driving my car also increases the chances that I might get in an accident with it and harm someone else.
Similarly, my motorcycle lets me get around faster, but riding my bike also greatly increases the chances I will get hurt, and somewhat lesser increased chances that I will hurt someone else in an accident.
That’s the deal, for those of us who own guns or drive cars or ride motorcycles.
Okay. What regulations do you accept on guns that will make them safer in the manner that regulations on cars and motorcycles and who can use them make those things safer?
Hmmm, not sure I’m ready to solve that entire problem. But I’ve already said that CCW training is insufficient, so that can definitely improve. And because of that insufficient training, and because of the training and experience I’ve had, I don’t trust everyone who carries to handle their weapon correctly. But I’ve already said that, upthread.
This happened, years ago… it’s sobering to be an armed guard in a military vehicle transporting uniformed Marines carrying unloaded M-16s as we’re preparing to drive through a potentially hostile crowd of civilian protesters in an otherwise peaceful large American city, and also being read the rules on the authorized use of deadly force, and having to sign that document. I wasn’t really an “armed guard,” per se - I was issued a 9mm with two loaded magazines because I was the senior man on board. But I was the only one armed, and we had some 60+ unloaded M-16s with us.
If the vehicle were to be stormed, I was the only one on board armed and charged to defend us and our property with a loaded weapon. It’s highly likely we would have fought off any protesters, but if those protesters were skilled in hand-to-hand combat or were otherwise armed (knives, guns, what-have-you), and if they were overcoming our ability to fend them off, then I was charged with potentially unleashing deadly force.
And it’s not inconceivable that some civilian, who otherwise got up that day and had breakfast and was thinking s/he was going to have some fun with their friends at a simple protest, ends up dead. At my hands.
Like I said, a little sobering.
Can you imagine such a situation? I feared it. Not a scared-shitless, shaking in my boots and pissing my pants fear. But a rational fear that I didn’t want something to happen to some otherwise-innocent person protesting the war we were in and were going to, if I were forced to fire on him/her. My orders and authority were clear. I would have carried them out.
And I wasn’t an MP. I was in field artillery. So, crowd control and guarding against civilian protesters, well, let’s just say I wasn’t really trained to do that.
Fortunately the protesters were there on a previous day and not on the day we were making this move. There was no situation.
Since I spend too much time responding to people out of irritation, I just wanted to say that Bullitt, I like your straightforward and thorough consideration of the issues. I think you have a refreshing candor and show the type of healthy respect for firearms that gun owners often give lip service to.
I was disappointed to hear your endorsement of Reagan’s position vis a vis black people with guns, but otherwise thank you for your contributions.
I’ll happily chime in on that, too. Bullitt, thanks for your thoughtful and completely candid posts on this topic. We need more of that around here.
Thanks guys, although I’d think my comments don’t endear me to all in the 2d Amendment camp. Let alone the OCT folks. But, sheesh, carrying assault rifles, shotguns and rifles slung across your backs into a Sonic Burger joint just to make your point? Extreme…
About the “St. Ronnie” quote upthread, I agree to Reagan’s points about guns and not needing to carry in public, but not to any racial aspects of them.
The NRA is backing off it’s previous statement regarding the demonstrators in Texas, saying that the remarks were the fault of “a staffer” in the NRA lobbying group.
I’m glad I don’t live in Texas. :eek:
Being unable to see and understand that there are at least some benefits to private gun ownership is what makes you hopeless.
What you are doing is called putting words in my mouth.
No your fear is of guns. Otherwise you wouldn’t suggest “solutions” that would disarm law abiding citizens but have no impact on criminals. Your support for an assault weapons ban was entirely due to your irrational fear of guns.
The “average” law abiding citizen citizen is very trustworthy considering that we have a hundred million gun owners and a few thousand gun murders committed by these citizens. If you take the population of those gun owners who have CCW, the murder rate is even lower.
Wait, you make it sound like I am the only one that is trying to poke holes in the other side’s argument. At least I don’t entirely ignore data on the other side.
I use the term manufactured in the sense that this term (mass shootings=4 or more people being shot in one incident) was created recently. The article so much as admits as much. They take a currently existing statistic compiled by the FBI called mass murder (which has colloquially been called mass shootings if the mass murder is committed with a gun) and applied came up with the notion that if 4 murders are mass murder then 4 shootings are mass shootings despite the fact that people have been using the term mass shootings to refer to mass murder where firearms are involved.
Do you need me to cite instances where people use mass shootings to refer to mass murder committed by firearms?
I don’t deny that this number is relevant and useful but I thought the reason we have historically used murder numbers is because they were so much more reliable than a compilation of anecdote on reddit.com.
Well, its hard to tell if there has been an uptick since Newtown, I suspect there has been some increase.
So you think there is some non-trivial number of dangerous people who are allowed to own guns? How many gun murders do you think are committed by people who are legally allowed to own the gun they used for that homicide?
Well good for you and I hope you never do. I on the other hand have seen the direct benefits of private gun ownership during the LA riots.
Thats not exactly the whole story now is it? These “smart guns” have been around for decades (and the technology has never caught on because they have not been reliable enough (otherwise our cops would be using them). The vocal objection to their sale didn’t occur until states started passing smart gun laws.
If you ask me there are several safety features I wouldn’t object to becoming required. I would be OK with requiring drop safeties for example.
The fact that we have justifiable homicides doesn’t convince you that gun benefits is > 0?
I thought I got your meaning. Guns are OK for you but not for anyone else. Cars on the other hand are OK for everyone.
Would you feel differently if I showed you that CCWs commit crimes (including murder) at lower rates than the general public? I realize that this is mostly a result of self selection rather than in depth training but doesn’t that give you some comfort that the folks who get CCWs might be just as responsible as you are?
My point is that they wouldn’t and if they did, it is highly likely that they wouldn’t have to fire off a single shot. Mere presentation of the gun is very likely to be enough.
I don’t know but if you are proposing self defense classes or more training before you can carry, I don’t know if I would have a problem with that.
You can never have enough training but frankly, that sounds like more training than a cop gets to carry a loaded gun in public.
I’ve been to front sight and rifle dynamic (both in Las Vegas) and they are both almost recreational in nature. Its kind of like a dude ranch for guns, you learn a few things but it doesn’t turn you into a gun fighter. I don’t know that anything does.
Why “certainly not you” What do you know about me or my training that you can say that?
I’m pretty sure that you’re not the only person out there that feels this way.
Doesn’t it affect your analyses at all that CCW are more law abiding than the general public?
Help a brotha out with a quick summary of them, then. :rolleyes: Remarkable that you can’t do it.
No, it’s exposing what you are.
You persist in wallowing in this cowboy-movie fantasy of the world being divided into Good Guys (which, by your own definition, includes you) and Bad Guys. It doesn’t sink in that so many, many deaths are caused by people you yourself would have classified as Good Guys right up until that moment. To the fully sane, everyone is a human, and humans are complex mixes. Denying that, or failing to perceive it, is a symptom of psychopathy, such as you suffer from.
Just stop and let that sink in for a moment. There are, by your own fucking admission, thousands of unnecessary gun deaths caused by people you think are the Good Guys! What, then, makes them not Bad Guys? What, then, can you point to as a reason we should not mistrust *anyone *with a gun?
Fuck, yes. You’re one of them. To be clear, you are doubly dangerous both by being armed *and *by being psychopathic with a stunted sense of the importance of human life.
Including private gun ownership by the rioters, I trust you noticed.
You really don’t know? :rolleyes:
Well, the less controversial ones include hunting and sport shooting. The one that seems to get the resistance is the notion that guns can be used by ordinary citizens to defend themselves against criminals.
Not good guys versus bad guys. High risks versus low risks. You’re the one that seems to think I assume that anyone without a felony conviction is a good guy and that all underage people are bad guys?
Because sometimes people with guns use them to defend themselves against criminals and you seem to assume that all of these murders by previously law abiding citizens would not have occurred if guns didn’t exist.
What I noticed what the incredible deterrent effect that a bunch of armed Korean store owners had on rioter (some of whom were armed). Half of Koreatown burned on the first night and not a single store was burned when the Korean store owners started patrolling their rooftops with rifles. I also suspect that a lot of the armed looters were not “law abiding citizens”
Thats a way of saying that I don’t think I would have a problem with more training. In case you have forgotten, I’ve proposed licensing and registration requirements.
I think I’m probably going to stop engaging you on guns in the pit after today. I spend too much times defending myself from stupid insults.
“I suspect.” Good cite! Meanwhile, the upswing of gun purchases starting in 2008 has been well documented.
Well, there’s this one and this one and this one and this one and this one and this one…
So you’re hanging your experiential judgment on an episode from a generation ago, right before crime started doing its steady dive to levels not seen in fifty years?
Not to deny that bad experiences have a way of staying with you, but when you take out that experience and bring it into a discussion of this sort, it should occur to you that perhaps that happened in an increasingly distant and different time - different specifically with respect to the subject at hand?
OK, it’s possible that I’m wrong. Please fill me in on what measures the gun lobby has thrown its weight behind to make guns themselves less dangerous.
But I’m not asking you about you. I’m asking about the NRA and other major ‘pro-gun’ organizations.
Given that SYG has created a whole new category of ‘justifiable’ homicides out of thin air, that would be a negatory.
I keep having to tell this fucker that about half of homicide offenders have no felony convictions. Unless he can show why some meaningful number of those people have a formal mental illness, there’s no reason to believe they couldn’t legally own a gun. About half!
And of course they are dangerous. They fucking killed somebody. Fucking imbecile.
He just wants to ignore all data and all logic and pretend that the problem with guns is that some specific category of people who shouldn’t have one end up with one.
This argument is idiotic.
If a drug-addled mother of three threatens you with a dull swiss army knife to get money for baby formula, you would be legally justified in shooting her–she is threatening you with what appears to be a deadly weapon. And yet, there is no benefit–not to you, not to her children,not to society in general–if you shoot her dead rather than give her your wallet and call the police after the fact.
I’m not saying there are no cases where a gun saved a life. Certainly in isolated instances, being armed might have been the only factor between life or death for a victim of a crime. But I’m equally certain that in many (if not most) justifiable homicides, the homicide doesn’t end up making the shooter’s life any happier than if he had locked his family in the bedroom and let the burglar take his laptop.
As an aside, it’s very disturbing to me that you are treating “justifiable homicides” as synonymous with “beneficial homicides.” It speaks poorly of the value that you place on human life.
Neither of which involves carrying in a non-hunting or non-sport-shooting environment, does it?
If there was any evidence that that happened nearly as often, even by an order of magnitude, as the deaths enabled by the presence of guns, you might have a point. But, as there isn’t, you don’t.
As you yourself put it in the very previous paragraph, “ordinary citizens” and “criminals”.
No. Please reread again, with some effort this time. You’re stuck in a good guy / bad guy fantasy world. That warps your vision and limits your ability to comprehend.
Strawman, excluded middle. You really do need to be more careful with absolutes. No, not all, just the majority. A killing of a human being is more likely to occur if ready means to do it are readily available. IOW, duh.
In case *you *have forgotten, the last time a bill came up to do that, you *opposed *it. So please stop lying, okay? You’re not good enough at it for it to work.
You should re-read your argument.
Let me help you.
(emphasis added)
So… isolated cases would number more than zero, wouldn’t they?
So it sure seems to me that you deny that “gun benefits > 0” and then go right ahead and admit that “gun benefits > 0.”
After using the word “idiotic.”
Well, Counselor, you’re right. Can’t argue with that.
But damn, the wrong Doper snagged the username “Chief Pedant.”
Nonetheless, thank you for bringing the bazooka of your logic to bear on this flea of a point.