# Assholes with guns in my 'hood **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 10, 2013, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745 "2013-01-10T14:58:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/161 "2013-01-12T20:04:18Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Why wouldn’t it fly? There are tons of laws that target one specific behavior. For example many states have laws prohibiting driving with an open liquor bottle in the car. I’d be really surprised, though, if mention of this would cause most people to go scurrying off to see if the law mentions other things you can’t do with an open liquor bottle. This must be obvious to you by now, and I can understand why you wouldn’t admit it, but the point is that it would be very strange for something to be prohibited only while doing it **for reasons of protest**. That gets into suppressing freedom of expression territory. > [@](#): > > I think you should draw the line at accusing other people of stupidity for taking words literally rather than making the same odd distortions to the phrasing of a statement that you’ve chosen to make You didn’t take the words literally. If you had, you would not have incorrectly **inferred** that they meant there were no other restrictions. You took “X is prohibited” and extrapolated it to “X and nothing else is prohibited.” I can understand how you’d make that inference, but you can’t deny that it was an inference. ---
**Author:** ![Uber\_the\_Goober](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/58956e/32.png) [@Uber\_the\_Goober](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uber_the_Goober)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/162 "2013-01-12T20:52:38Z")
So this has pretty much devolved into a mindless pedant’s war hasn’t it? No actual substantive discussion going on? Thought so… ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/163 "2013-01-12T22:15:10Z")
> [@spinky](#): > > This must be obvious to you by now, and I can understand why you wouldn’t admit it, but the point is that it would be very strange for something to be prohibited only while doing it **for reasons of protest**. That gets into suppressing freedom of expression territory. You evidently find it strange but I doubt most people do. People aren’t allowed to behave any way they want so long as it’s in the form of protest. In this case certain people were protesting in a way that not only created fear amongst the populace but which carried with it also an unacceptable risk of gun violence. There are many, many laws on the books created for lesser reasons than that. > [@spinky](#): > > You didn’t take the words literally. Oh, but I did. In fact that was one of your complaints: that I should have inferred from the paragraph in question that there was more to it than what it said. > [@spinky](#): > > If you had, you would not have incorrectly **inferred** that they meant there were no other restrictions. You took “X is prohibited” and extrapolated it to “X and nothing else is prohibited.” I can understand how you’d make that inference, but you can’t deny that it was an inference. Certainly I made an inference. That I made an inference was never in question and I’ve never denied it. But it was a perfectly appropriate inference given the lead-in by **Spiny Norman** and by the wording of the article itself at that point. There was simply no compelling reason to suspect at that point in the article that waaay down toward the end additional prohibitions involving open carry would be included as well. > [@Uber\_the\_Goober](#): > > And on preview: > > No actual substantive discussion going on? > > Thought so… Not for the last few hours anyway. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/164 "2013-01-12T22:34:11Z")
Oh, you needn’t worry, **Starkers**. None of your fans and neither of your friends would ever accuse you of pedantry. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/165 "2013-01-12T22:52:42Z")
> [@Uber\_the\_Goober](#): > > So this has pretty much devolved into a mindless pedant’s war hasn’t it? Since the noun is plural, the apostrophe should follow the s. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/166 "2013-01-12T23:44:40Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Tell that to the \*\*Airmen \*\*of the world who pretend that half of it _doesn’t mean anything_! [I don’t have to pretend.](http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/beararms.htm) > [@](#): > > Scalia wrote that it was essential that the operative clause be consistent with the prefatory clause, but that the prefatory clause did not limit the operative clause. The argument is finished. It will never come back except in the wistful, wishful dreams of people like yourself. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/167 "2013-01-13T00:36:41Z")
> [@fumster](#): > > You gun nuts have already established the the relative destructive power of a weapon is immaterial. My right to have sarin gas is absolute. I am not a gun “nut”, and neither have I established that the relative destructive power of a weapon is immaterial. Indeed, in one of these increasingly stupid threads, I wondered why no one called for the outlaw of the materials used to blow up all those folks in Oklahoma City. I believe I mentioned airplanes into buildings as well. Also, your gas is dangerous just sitting around, should it’s container leak. It requires that I load, take off the safety, point it at someone and pull the trigger for a gun that is just sitting around to become dangerous. Your right to have sarin gas in not absolute as it is far more dangerous than a gun. Which of course you know, you just fail at debate. ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/168 "2013-01-13T01:03:53Z")
You make some very good points in your post, \*\* Elucidator\*\*. But I have some quibbles. > [@elucidator](#): > > But the public is alarmed, and fearful. This is always a bad thing, just by itself. Fear destroys reason. Agree 100%. But how do we reduce this fear in light of the fact that we have a huge industry actively (if inadvertently) promoting it? I am referring, of course, to the 24-hour news media. The news has always been biased to the sensational and the bloody: “If it bleeds, it leads.” And as the news becomes more global in scope, there’s always something horrific happening somewhere to broadcast. Most people now believe the world is more dangerous than ever, when the actual facts show the crime rate in the US is the lowest it’s been since 1960. > [@](#): > > But if this movement to “reasonable” regulation is stymied, neutralized, rendered moot, as the NRA would have it be, its only going to get worse. And if the NRA does step out of the way, it’s STILL going to get worse. Because somewhere, some nut is still going to find a way to carry out another massacre using firearms, which he news media will cynically exploit for ratings, which will led to panicky people to call for still more regulation since the earlier changes in the law obviously failed to “keep us safe!”. Which leads directly to what you predicted in your next sentence: > [@](#): > > Which means stupid things will happen. Stupid laws, unenforceable regulations. Arguably, those are worse than no regulation whatever. And I agree completely, whith both parts of what you said there. But I see the War on Scary Guns as similar to the War on Terror and the War on Drugs. Panicked people mislead by the media for crass profit motives and desperate for an unattainable and illusory safety launch an attack on the boogeyman of the day (Assault rifles! Pot! Scary Swarthy Foreigners!) which does fuck-all to actually solve any real problems but does reduce everyone’s rights and places ever-greater amounts of power in the hands of a federal government which is increasingly under the control of moneyed interests rather than the larger citizenry. I have no good answers for how to reverse this trend of “legislation by emotion.”. But I am very afraid of what this country might become if we don’t find some way to counteract it. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/169 "2013-01-13T01:12:41Z")
> [@artemis](#): > > And if the NRA does step out of the way, it’s STILL going to get worse. Because somewhere, some nut is still going to find a way to carry out another massacre using firearms… The fallacy being, the perfect is the enemy of the good. We don’t have to eliminate gun tragedies altogether to make sensible regulation a good idea; if they reduce gun violence, they are a success. Gun rights advocates pointing to a single nut job after regulation and saying “Ah HAH!” is not a very good argument for having no regulation at all. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/170 "2013-01-13T01:18:56Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > The fallacy being, the perfect is the enemy of the good. We don’t have to eliminate gun tragedies altogether to make sensible regulation a good idea; if they reduce gun violence, they are a success. Gun rights advocates pointing to a single nut job after regulation and saying “Ah HAH!” is not a very good argument for having no regulation at all. When something has been tried and found to have no measurable effect, zero, none at all, doing it again is neither the perfect nor the good. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/171 "2013-01-13T01:21:17Z")
Hey! The only issue allowed is whether or not to let the black helicopters swoop in and take all our precious bodily guns! ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/172 "2013-01-13T01:23:51Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > When something has been tried and found to have no measurable effect, zero, none at all, doing it again is neither the perfect nor the good. I guess we will never know, will we? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/173 "2013-01-13T01:24:31Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > When something has been tried and found to have no measurable effect, zero, none at all, doing it again is neither the perfect nor the good. And doing nothing at all is…doing nothing at all. Surrendering to it. Shrug it off. Has that worked any better? ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/174 "2013-01-13T01:28:02Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > And doing nothing at all is…doing nothing at all. Surrendering to it. Shrug it off. Has that worked any better? Right. So we’ll replace something that hasn’t done anything with something that hasn’t done anything…why? Oh, that’s right, because it’s not important to actually do something, it’s important that people are seen to be doing something. ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/175 "2013-01-13T01:28:12Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > The fallacy being, the perfect is the enemy of the good. We don’t have to eliminate gun tragedies altogether to make sensible regulation a good idea; if they reduce gun violence, they are a success. Gun rights advocates pointing to a single nut job after regulation and saying “Ah HAH!” is not a very good argument for having no regulation at all. Except thsat we already HAVE regulations in place. What makes you think that even more regulation will actually make a difference, as opposed to merely being a useless burden on the law-abiding? And why are we only talking about increasing the regulations on firearms, and not (for example) discussing regulating how the news media reports these massacres? (And I’m not merely proposing that to be contrary. I think one reason we may be seeing more of these shootings is that the media’s coverage of them has inadvertently made them a part of the cultural zeitgeist, and we’ve consequently have a significant copycat effect going on. We know excessive coverage of suicides promotes copycats, and suicides are what these spree killings ultimately are.) ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/176 "2013-01-13T01:37:45Z")
That’s a different amendment, and a different discussion. Similarly, sure, the guys had the right to express themselves because of the right to free speech, but that was not their stated reason for walking around with rifles: their reason was to USE their 2nd amendment rights, not their 1st. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/177 "2013-01-13T01:57:33Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > Right. So we’ll replace something that hasn’t done anything with something that hasn’t done anything…why? Oh, that’s right, because it’s not important to actually do something, it’s important that people are seen to be doing something. So, what’s your plan? Hope this shit stops happening? I’d love it, can you give me any good reason to think so? So the shit goes on, and people get more upset and scared. Then what? Something has to give. Seems to me you can opt for some sensible regulations now, or worse ones tomorrow. Or just hope it all goes away. Think that’s likely? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/178 "2013-01-13T02:06:17Z")
> [@artemis](#): > > Except thsat we already HAVE regulations in place. What makes you think we are not safer because of them? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/179 "2013-01-13T02:14:03Z")
Hard to know, and impossible to prove. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745/180 "2013-01-13T03:15:23Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > So, what’s your plan? Hope this shit stops happening? I’d love it, can you give me any good reason to think so? > > So the shit goes on, and people get more upset and scared. Then what? Something has to give. > > Seems to me you can opt for some sensible regulations now, or worse ones tomorrow. Or just hope it all goes away. Think that’s likely? There _is_ no such thing as “sensible” regulation of guns, assuming the purpose of this supposed sensibility is to reduce or eliminate murderous rampages by crackpots or more commonplace murders committed by criminals. There are millions and millions and millions of guns in this country and there is simply no rational expectation that we’ll ever be able to keep them out of the hands of criminals and crackpots. The only thing gun regulation will accomplish is to throw up roadblocks in front of people who want them for home protection or some other legitimate purpose, and to serve as a foot in the door for what the left really wants, which let’s face it, is to ban them entirely. People are going to kill people and that’s all there is to it. Those who can accomplish it with guns will use guns, and most of the people who kill with guns are thugs and criminals and druggies who won’t be daunted in the slightest by any type of regulation. You can call cognizance and acceptance of this fact “doing nothing” but in terms of trying to stop gun crime doing nothing to regulate guns is the only sensible thing to do, assuming we are to define sensibility as undertaking an action that we expect to have the intended effect. And then we have the matter of proportionality. More children likely die in automobile accidents every weekend in this country than were killed in the Sandy Hook shooting, so how is it sensible to enact legislation which we know in advance is going to have negligible effect on bad guys and crackpots while at the same time making it harder and more expensive for law abiding citizens to purchase weapons they want for their own protection or for sporting purposes? I asked before and I’ll ask again, why does it not make more sense to crack down severely on illegal possession of guns and the use of them in committing crimes? The bad guys are where the vast majority of the gun problem lies, so why not focus our efforts there? Make illegal possession of guns a mandatory 10-year sentence with no parole. Make use of a gun in the commission of a crime a mandatory 15-year sentence with no parole, and use of a gun in a crime resulting in death a mandatory life sentence with no chance of parole. So we’ll need more prisons. So what? Make gun crime a federal crime and let the federal government build and operate them. We spend a hell of a lot more on other things that accomplish a hell of a lot less. And I’ll guarantee you that assholes will be a lot less likely to be schlepping guns around if a simple traffic stop could result in their being shipped of to Club Fed for 10 years, no ifs ands or buts about it. Same with robberies and other types of crime. Use of a gun is going to be much more risky if getting caught means an 15 additional years with no way out, and dipshits will think twice before indulging their trigger finger if getting caught means life with no parole ever, though the likelihood is they won’t have a gun with them in the first place because of the consequences should they get pulled over for an expired tag or burned-out tail light. How is that not a way more sensible an approach to gun crime than passing laws that we already know won’t have their intended effect on the bad guys, and which serve only to make gun ownership more difficult and expensive for everyone else? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/assholes-with-guns-in-my-hood/646745.md?page=10)