I did answer the question. I’ve been answering these sorts of questions at length all throughout the thread. People can prefer different products of similar capabilities. I also addressed the underlying implicit point he was trying to make, since it was obvious that he was trying to point out an inconsistency, and using fallacious logic to do so.
I have been logically consistent and intellectually honest in this thread. You guys are the ones bending over backwards to support laws you know are bullshit. You think that because you outnumber me, that somehow makes you correct. The protection of the herd in arguments.
But fundamentally, you are on the side of ignorance. You are deliberately ignoring the fact of the matter and supporting restrictions on law abiding citizens based on flimsy premises.
If even the smarter and more educated of you lot are willing to toss aside that knowledge and spread your bullshit anyway, then it is a correct action on the side of gun rights advocacy to fight you across the board. You are not looking at finding the most effective laws that have the least amount of invasiveness, you are looking to deal out punishment to “gun nuts”.
Right. You said “That’s not a question!” and (in an edit I didn’t see) offered a metaphor that sort of addressed half of the concept and which was contradicted Algher’s actual, fact-based answer. I’ll let steronz talk about his own post, but again:
Maybe he has some kind of semi-automatic hands. I doubt I’m going to be able to get you to understand this, SenorBeef, but in case you are not doing this on purpose, you really are approaching these discussions with the predetermined view that your opponents are being dishonest and are just trying to ban lots and lots of guns. Then you find “evidence” for your opinion and declare they’re not arguing in good faith, at which point you’ve killed any chance for an actual discussion. And since you call people dishonest every third post, nobody gives a fuck if you think they’re being dishonest.
Well, for reasons I’ve explained over and over again, I feel that people who wish to spend their limited political capital on persuing assault weapons bans, those people who know they’re not actually meaningful, and will not affect public safety meaningfully, rather than working on something that may actually improve public safety probably do not have public safety in mind as their primary interest. What, then, is their primary interest? Would it be inaccurate to classify them as dishonest if they were to claim that public safety was their primary interest?
Thank you for this post, especially the quoted part. Since I don’t live in California, I haven’t met anyone who’s actually had to contend with laws like California’s, which I’m assuming don’t allow grandfathering.
The “not actually meaningful and they know it” part exists within your own skull. You’re calling people liars and sooper seecret gun grabbers because you’re having a basic failure to understand their argument.
Well, OK, why? If, as so many insist, the question of guns is strictly a utilitarian matter, uncluttered by emotional baggage or irrational motivations, why do manufacturers produce “scary looking” (note: your wording, not mine…) weapons. Because they sell better? I think that’s probably it.
Which leads us to the insight that people who buy these guns want “scary looking” guns. You say it is affectionate nostalgia for their military days, or a familiarity from same. Perhaps. So, are you suggesting that the majority of people who buy these things are veterans? Have any way to back that up?
I’m suggesting that the people who manufacture these guns make marketing decisions, based on their desire to have their product purchased. Duh. I’m further suggesting that they make these things “scary looking” because that’s what produces the desired result.
I’m not saying this completely rebuts your portrait of the totally rational, utilitarian gun owner. But perhaps it calls it into question in many of the cases.
For a visual enhancement, go down to your eleventy-seven store, check out the mag rack. You’ll find a gun magazine (paper, print) there. Two bits says I can describe the cover without even seeing it, a gun, depicted in lurid colors, thrusting from the page in a faux-3D, the muzzle thrust right into your face.
Gun porn. Johnny Wadd’s dick in .45 caliber. Who buys them? Why? Is this the sort of thing a healthy culture wishes to see flourishing? I don’t much care for actual flesh porn, but for my two bits, death porn is far, far worse.
Except the design of the two best known “scary rifles” were not designed by a marketing team to sell to the public, they were designed based on input from the military.
The AR style rifle was designed and sold to the US military.
The AK style rifle was designed (sold is an odd word here) for the former Warsaw Pact nations.
Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there!
I just love how that line can stand on it’s own, without context like that. It makes the reader wonder what’s being discussed, and entices them to deduce what is being referred to by the phrase “legally acquired and owned property”, which necessitates comparisons of things which can be owned and which others might not want people to own.
What makes it amusing enough to make me want to go to the quarry and throw stuff down there is the supposition that ExTank prolly was not trying to invoke the comparisons that naturally come to mind when he wrote it, but that nonetheless are inevitable when someone reads it.
I was just at Harbor Freight, a really good tool store, and I bought a Machete on sale for $4.99. As the lady rang it up she said: “Weapon, huh? Obama won’t let us have guns soon and they’ll come for stuff like this next”, so the puerile demands for “CITE!” that it’s a right wing conspiracy that he’s snatching all the guns is out there and it’s common no matter how much people here like to disclaim.
We don’t need to even say that the choice is “uncluttered by emotional baggage or irrational motivations”
The arguments you’re making now are “people think modern military guns look cool, that’s why they buy them” and you’re just hoping that’s somehow sinister enough to imply something. Even if you’re right, so what? Does it make the guns any more dangerous or lethal if people like the aesthetics?
But, as was addressed in the next post, most of these weapons were developed for the military, which tends to be big on utilitarianism and not so big on aesthetics.
As I’ve said like 5 times in this thread now, it’s been very common since the founding of this country for private citizens to own the common rifleman’s arm. They’re cheap, plentiful, there are surplus parts and ammunition, they’re usually rugged and simple, lots of gunsmiths are familiar with them to customize or fix them, lots of military get trained on them. And they have a historical value to them too. I’ve owned German and Russian rifles from WW2. I’d love to own a Garand an an enfield too. I’d love an M14. None of those things are black and modern looking, so you probably wouldn’t think anyone was weird for me liking them, but if I were to want the standard US military rifle of the last 40 years or the most commonly produced rifle of the modern world (AK47/74), suddenly you think sinister and a shooting spree waiting to happen. But the motivation in the same in every case. You’re the one somehow saying that owning military firearms up until about the 50s and 60s is okay, and owning ones from the 60s onwards is sinister and evil, simply based on the fact that you think the newer ones look scary.
I don’t think all the owners are veterans. Majority? I don’t know. A lot of the guys I know who own AR-15s are ex-military, but a lot aren’t. I’m just adding it to the list of of reasons people might want to own a common infantry rifle.
The military generally isn’t deliberately designing things to look scary. Mostly they want them to be simple to maintain, easy to repair, easy to train with, and reliable.
Again, even if you were right, so what? Are you seriously proposing that we ban guns that people think look appealing or badass or scary or however you want to phrase it? Regardless of the actual capabilities of those weapons?
That I don’t really know. I’ve never subscribed to gun magazines or anything like that. If I had to guess, SWAT teams and other “tactical” police have been trying to form their own little military rambo squads, and there’s been a lot of equipment designed for them designed to look like modern military gear. So if you’re into a certain kind of gear like that - rather than shotguns or hunting rifles or whatever - then the aesthetic of modern military weapons has kind of set the tone for the whole industry.
However, they are now being marketed to the public. As everyone talks past each other in these endless threads, no one seems to notice that this marketing, with tactical if not military themes appeals to its intended audience - but generates fear in others.
As the public sees photos of some of our recent murderous nutcases and their firearms - with an appearance similar to the photos of our armed forces from recent wars - it doubtless amplifies those fears.
I don’t think either side in gun debates is alone in fearing “jack booted thugs”.
Didn’t. Past tense. The only logical way to read the OP’s statement is if the OP is claiming that others were claiming that Obama would “take all the guns away” by the time the OP wrote that post. If you’re posting quotes about a future event, or an ongoing process, then it does not pertain to what the OP says, which is that gun nuts were all expecting Obama to have taken all the guns away last week.
All the paranoid rantings in the world about future action on gun control are not relevant to the OP’s position, which is that people actually thought guns would already all be banned. The entire point of the OP is laughing at these imaginary people who thought Obama would, last week, declare all guns illegal by executive order. These quotes do not support that.
