You can find a few loud assholes who espouse just about any stupid opinion you care to invent; that doesn’t mean they represent your typical gun owner. It’s that ready and easy generalization from the few to the many that’s ignorant, offensive, and makes you look like you don’t care about the facts or the reasons or the human beings on the other side of a political argument from you; you just turn your brain off, close your mind and open your mouth.
If you actually tried to get to know some of us as people you might be surprised. Most of us aren’t paranoid, or dreaming of starting a revolution, or even particularly needful of guns for self-defense – and we resent being forced to align ourselves politically with mixed nuts just because there are a lot of people like you who don’t care about any right you yourself don’t exercise. If people like you would grow up maybe there’d be a better chance of reasonable discussion of the issue.
It’s not our fault that there are so many crazy paranoid gun owners in the US, nor that they get all the media attention. But perhaps if you stopped trying to pretend that it’s only a “few loud assholes” rather than “a significant number of loud assholes” we could make some progress.
I know many responsible gun owners. I can tell because they’re not the ones who jump immediately to “If Obama tries to take my guns, I’ll shove 'em up his ass!” when any political subject at all is mentioned.
Again, it’s not our fault you’re defending the crazies. I thought you were the “grown-up” in this discussion?
Because this is a perfect example of “reasonable discussion”. Gotcha.
Call it pragmatic political self-defense. If my rights are under attack, I’m going to align myself with other people who will vote the way I will on that issue, even if I dislike them for other reasons. I’m not defending them at all, we just happen to agree on one thing and will vote together. If I don’t, I lose – and in great part this is because nobody on the other side seems to be proposing anything except stupid ideas: bans instead of licensing or other reasonable regulation, targeting “assault weapons” instead of handguns, magazine size restrictions that won’t do a damn bit of good for anybody.
If politicians on your side of the issue actually proposed something like owner licensing, I might well be skeptical, but I wouldn’t feel driven to join the NRA and vote Republican in order to oppose it. I’ve already sent my money to the NRA, even though Wayne LaPierre is a jackass. And as a blue-state gay liberal who voted for Obama twice, I would hate to have to start voting Republican. But we’ve all got something we feel prickly about, that we’ll go on the war path for. One of mine happens to be the Bill of Rights.
In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re winning that fight. When you’re fighting multiple fires, you’ll leave the one you’ve got momentarily under control to turn your attention to a sudden flare-up. It’s not easy; one tends to accumulate gray hairs. My only consolation is that I might just be able to rock the Anderson Cooper look by the time I’m 35.
And you’re not the only one, I really ought to be sleeping too.
The home invasion scenario is so full of shit. What, are they like the cable company, “We will be invading your home some time between the hours of 12 am and 4 am…”
They burst through your door, guns drawn, and you get to say “Whoa, Kings X, gotta go get my gun, won’t be but a minute!” and they say “Sure, go fetch it. We’ll just lean the door back up and pretend to break it down, then we can have our shoot out! Ready? On three…one…two…”
Show me the numbers, show me the thousands of cases of home invading thugs who are stymied by an armed resident. Double dog dare you.
The real reason the home invasion scenario is full of shit is because hardly anyone actually takes home invasions seriously. By that I mean, if you’re in charge of designing a bank vault, you don’t build the thing out of drywall and hollow doors, with non-tempered glass on the first floor, and no concern for choke points or room layout, then hand one moderately-trained guard a handgun and say, “OK, if anyone comes in here, you’re the guy.”
Then people go on about how they need to protect their family, which they apparently value less than however much money is in the local Wells Fargo branch office. I’ve asked the question here before, about why people who insisted on arming themselves for home defense don’t instead spend the money on steel interior doors, bullet-resistant walls, and hardline phones in the bedrooms to call the police.
I know such modifications aren’t always feasible, and the most reasonable answers I got to such questions were things like kids rooms on the other side of the house, renting instead of owning, etc. Not everyone has the freedom to redesign their house into a fortress. I get that. But you’d think some people would, at least if they were rational about defending themselves from home invaders. Nobody does, though. There’s very little effort that goes into making bedrooms impenetrable, and lots of effort (and money) that goes into training with a tiny device that’s notorious for being difficult to use in panic situations and also for accidentally or intentionally killing occupants or friendlies.
I’d take the whole concept of home defense a lot more seriously if at least some gun owners did as well.
Actually, that happened to me, once. Suddenly, my living room was full of narks. Maybe it was Nark Week, dunno. Rumor has it that someone told them “Hey, you want a major dealer, you gotta bust that 'luc guy…” Long story short, had about as much as the average hippy, about half a lid, some papers, some “paraphernalia”. Didn’t have a gun. Maybe if I had, wouldn’t be posting here.
Later on, some papers got mislaid, some other stuff didn’t happen, and my lawyer/friend said it was code for “You shut up and forget it, and we will too. Raise a stink, we’ll fuck with you. Your call.”
OK so when someone breaks into your house with a gun what are you going to use? A baseball bat?
cite.
This displays your utter ignorance of guns. What the fuck is a weapon of mass slaughter? How is an “assault weapon” any more deadly than a hunting rifle? Or a shotgun? Or a handgun?
Why are the police such pussies? Why is the US military so full of pussies? If they were REAL MEN they would go fight al qaeda with baseball bats and a big dog. What a retarded argument.
How can you physically limit rate of fire to 3 seconds?
Yeah but the rest of the world doesn’t have well armed criminals. So let me know when you have disarmed the criminals and I will let you know when you can disarm me.
“Firearms” are not on the table, a small subset of rifle is on the table. A subset that accounts for less than 4% of all gun deaths in America. It would make more sense if they went after everything but that simply cannot be achieved in America.
That is because the kneejerk reaction of gun control activists is to try and ban firearms in the most retarded way possible.
Yes, yes it is your fault. Because gun control activists take such stupid irrational positions that we find ourselves in the same corner as the guys who think a black guy in the white house is a sign of end times.
So no real answer then. I don’t subscribe to the notion that we need guns to prevent tyranny, not anytime soon but when you spend so much time focusing on a stupid ban on guns that don’t account for a significant percentage of gun deaths, it makes you look really retarded.
I keep my gun by my bed in a biometric gun safe. It takes me about three seconds to get my gun locked and loaded.
The Department of Justice estimates that private citizens use guns to prevent crime about 1.5 million times a year.
First off, I haven’t said squat about “banning guns”.
Second, sure, he needed a gun, he got it from the commies. The people who were likely to kill him, they were getting theirs from us. I agree with you that his situation of tyrannical distress was so extreme is has no real relevance to us, but then, you brought it up.
Yet, oddly, you seem to add a caveat, you seem to suggest, to hint, to imply that if the monstrous gun grabbing agenda goes forward, that might be enough, that might place your predicament on the same level as his.
In your dreams. Nightmare, actually.
C’mon, three seconds? That’s how you live, you keep a loaded weapon within reach, every day of your life, because of a perceived threat? To quote St Robert of Hibbing, you ask why I don’t live here, honey, why don’t you move?
But don’t you find it slightly odd that the side of this debate that insists it has rock solid numbers will bend over backwards to prevent having those numbers confirmed by research? I’m sure about evolution, I welcome research. I’m sure about global warming, I welcome research. That’s how people are who are actually sure about their numbers.
If I may, I’ll help with that, I was just reading it. I think it is important to read, not just look at Exhibit 7. Link to PDF for 1994 telephone survey (National Survey of Private Ownership of Firearms—NSPOF).
After a handgun ban and a few decades guns will get harder and harder for criminals to get so that they will not be invading homes with handguns so often. There is no total safety, but we are too far into crazy libertarian personal rights re: guns and children shouldn’t have to pay the price.
Go look at any typical youtube argument and tell me those people should be allowed to own handguns.
Any gun control thread on the SDMB where pro-gun people say that THEIR right to a gun should not be impugned because you can’t do anything about crazy people mowing down kids.
What the fuck are you talking about “assault weapons” for when I never used the term? I am NOT ignorant about guns, I fire recreationally and I probably will get a shotgun sometime this year, I have never stated I think all guns should be banned, and in fact I’ve said on the SDMB that the assault weapon ban is stupid and that handguns are the problem, so you can take your straw somewhere else.
You said just about the most retarded thing I have ever seen in a gun control debate, congratulations.
Its just an estimate but even the most anti-gun folks think its at least 65K/year.
Over the last few weeks, you’ve been wondering out loud why anyone would need an assault weapon.
Do you lock your doors and windows at night? How do you live like that?
Who is St. Robert of Hibbing?
I have seen the society and the rule of law collapse in major cities. I saw cops driving right through my neighborhood past looters and rioter to go protect wealthier neighborhoods. If some guy didn’t have a couple of crates of old WWI russian rifles the entire neighborhood would have burned down.
Its better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it.
I think I used the word “estimates”
Care to eat those words or is there some reason that you are still right even when presented with at least some evidence saying you are wrong?
You said “This might shock you as a gun nut, but there are ways to defend yourself without a gun.”
I’m not sure how that statement was not directly specifically at me, but whatever.
And in the meantime, the only armed civilians will be criminals? Yeah, sure, I don’t see any flaws in that plan.
And even if that weren’t the case, your argument would only make sense if the current proposals were to get rid of all guns. Its not, its to get rid of a subset of guns that cause less than 4% of all gun deaths while entirely ignoring the class of guns that cause over 90% of all gun deaths.
But go ahead and keep using the gravestones of those kids as your soapbox to effect ineffective changes. Like I keep saying, universal background checks, national licensing standards for firearm ownership and a national gun registry would do a shitload much more good than anything that is being proposed right now.
I don’t know which youtube videos you’ve been watching but I did a youtube search for Obama gun control and there was a lot of ranting but so what? everyone on this board rants about shit.
How the FUCK is saying “an assault weapons ban will do nothing to curb gun violence” the same as saying “mass murders are acceptible if they don’t hurt gun rights” I don’t usually offer to defend everyone on my side of the argument but point to one post on there where anyone (and remember you said that “we always say” this shit so it shoudl be REAL fucking easy to find ONE instance) said that mass murders are acceptable as long as we get to keep our guns?
I guess I got confused when you were standing on the gravestones of dead children so soon after an “assault weapon” was used to slaughter 20 kids and then used the term “weapon of mass slaughter” So what DID you mean when you said “weapon of mass slaughter” Were you really talking about handguns?
Thats just your inability to understand words. Cops have guns because bad guys have guns. If the bad guys used brass knuckles, patrolmen wouldn’t need guns. cpps don’t have guns in any of the [places where criminals don’t have guns. And if the cops ever feel secure enough to send out their patrolmen without guns then I think an argument can be made that law abiding citizens may not really need guns.
Can you at least give me a choice, if a crazed crackhead with an illegally acquired gun breaks my door down with full intent to rob my house and hurt me and my wife and 3 yr old cute baby girl (Think about your own little cutie babies) because I can’t get to my gun safe and take the trigger lock off to use my legal guns before I get shot"? FUCK YOU!!
Baseball bat? Are you fucking serious? You are a fucking dumbass stupid moron and if that gets me banned I don’t give a flying ratfuck.
I’ve never been championing the AWB, I think all handguns should be banned for civilians and only shotguns and rifles with limited capacity magazines allowed. No one needs more.
I don’t disagree with you.
If you don’t think handguns should be banned, you’d prefer easy mass shootings and gang warfare than for your toy to be illegal. You don’t have to say it, it’s what you’d believe.
I was talking about any gun where within a few moment you can kill 28 people, so high capacity rifles and pistols which are not neccessary for defense at all but make excellent mass murder tools.
I already said it would be decades before guns would be hard enough for criminals to get for us to achieve the minimum levels of gun homicides seen in western Europe which has gone through similar bans. So for the forseeable future cops will need to have guns, and until the cost benefit for the cops’ safety outweighs their danger of shooting civilians, they should keep their guns. At least they have SOME competency tests, background checks and mental illness screening unlike the moronic fucking youtubers who can buy unlimited killing weapons unchecked at gunshows (but from what I’ve heard they’re still pretty terrible shots usually).