I think this really hits the nail on the head. So many people buy into the culture of fear that is instilled in this country starting from a young age. In the part of the world in which I live in now (I realize that it is the suburbs, not strictly speaking the “big city”) there has been a famous serial killer (The Night Stalker), gang shootings (once a man was shot dead just sitting in front of his house a couple of blocks away from my previous residence less than 10 miles away), road rage, etc. As an undergraduate, when I was living with a roommate I came home late at night to find a man hiding in her bedroom, the man attacked me, threw me to the ground and ran away. (This, by the way, was in a “small town” in a rural state - not in California).
But I still walk around weaponless and unafraid. My biggest worry is dying in a car accident on the way to work!
I blame society! No, not really, but our entertainment industry consistently shows us that you could fire a spray of bullets into a crowd without ever hitting an innocent victim, when policeman violate a suspect’s civil rights, it’s always excusable because the suspect is a scumbag (and anyway we all know that the court system is jury-rigged against law enforcement), and you can engage in high speed pursuits safe in the knowledge that pedestrians and other cars will be able to get out of your way in time. The “liberal entertainment media” seems to have a great love for heavy-handed authority.
I am betting that many of the people so concerned about their safety could improve their quality of life so much more by doing some basic health maintenance (losing weight, eating right, exercising) rather than carrying a gun.
Oh, sure. Just like, someday, maybe, you’ll come up with some proof that armed civilians prevent crime faster than accidents and anger and the 340,000 legitimate guns that are stolen every year enable those crimes. Or, not, depending on your personal ratio of stupidity-to-hypocrisy. So far as I can tell, right now you’re running about even.
Lovely. What a wonderful set of people self-described gun-carriers are. They never get mad at anything. Except, maybe, pseudonymous internet message boards. Other than that, or something else that sets them off.
I think maybe then you were not quite normal and average on the Pitt campus…
They’re not, potato-head. Neither is the psycho kid who brings a gun to campus in order to shoot a bunch of people. Sometimes people are dangerous for invisible reasons, or in ways that don’t seem obvious to a bunch of 20-year-old kids.
You haven’t, maybe, but the innocent bystanders you’re drunkenly (or just drunkenly and ignorantly) defending, might really wish you’d put your inalienable rights back in your pocket for a while.
And maybe your self-diagnosed chances don’t trump the right of others to survive the situation. Even if some belated scenario pays out in favor of individual heroism, there ain’t no algorithm proving you’re the hero. Meanwhile, since we’re being all formal about evidence, where’s the cite that shows armed citizens beat determined criminals a particular percentage of the time?
Really, the average every day person that doesn’t own a gun really doesn’t want to restrict anyone’s rights. I don’t own a gun, and probably never will. But if I changed my mind or circumstances changed I certainly think I should have the right to buy one.
I don’t get the mindset that thinks everyone wants to take a persons guns away simply because some guy on TV brings it up because it’s a hot button topic.
You’ve explained your point of view. others haven’t. While no one is under any obligation to explain why they feel the way they do, it’s hard to understand where a person is coming from when they don’t.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with either post. Maybe they get sick of defending themselves against the anti-gun crowd, but it’s hard to see the other side of the argument when it always comes down to “it’s my right to do so”.
This sounds about right to me. Everyone is so worried about violence and being made a victim. What is that Mark Twain saying - “I’ve been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” That’s what gun hysteria looks like from the outside looking in.
Watch the media carefully; are they trying to fan the flames of fear, or are they simply reporting what actually happened? Does anyone feel better after watching the news about this event, or do you come away feeling worse and more scared? Why should you feel more scared? Is there a better chance today than there was yesterday that you will be killed by a madman as you go about your day?
Well, to be fair, it was the standard right hand pancake that was a pain while driving. I then switched to a left hand cross draw, much more comfortable and easier to access while seated.
You know, I think there’s a fundamental disconnect between gun-owners and non-gun-owners.
Gun advocates see a situation like the VA shootings, and thinks, “If only more armed people like myself had been there to shoot that guy, there’d be a lot fewer casualties!”
The rest of us see that situation and think, “If guns weren’t so easy to get, maybe it would’ve never happened in the first place.”
Dr. Gary Kleck found two million times per year. Numbers ranged from the NCVS at the low end (108,000 Defensive Gun Uses per year) to 2.5 million per year in at least thirteen surveys prior to Kleck’s. One subsequent survey was conducted by the DOJ and estimated 1.5 million DGU’s per year.
Can you actually read?
Does that mean that no college student should own a firearm?
Where did you get the idea that I’m ‘drunkenly’ doing anything? Do you have any reason to calling me a drunk?
Fifteen different studies that put the number between 108,000 and 2.5 million times a year.
No, I think that in the parts of the USA that I am familiar with, the odds are that you can better improve your quality of life by watching your health rather than carrying a gun.
And the gun isn’t being punished. Since you were playing the “if the students had guns, this might not have been so bad” card yesterday, can I ask today “if this guy hadn’t been able to buy a gun, might he not have just hanged himself in his room or something instead of committing mass murder?”
You act like that’s a stupid or unreasonable question. It’s at least as reasonable as the one you and others are asking.
Why? I don’t see any logical distinction. We routinely cite an object’s potential for destruction and mayhem as a basis for regulating access to it. That goes for guns, chemicals, cars, planes, and nuclear weapons.
By your “guns don’t kill people, people do” logic, we shouldn’t regulate any dangerous objects, since they don’t become dangerous until they’re in the hands of a dangerous person.
Nice. A survey of gun owners, posted on a website with the motto, "Until the Second Amendment is treated as normal constitutional law, this web site will always be under construction… "
The studies themselves are real. The figure 1.5 million came from the Department of Justice sponsored research in 1994 (Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms).
But hey, when you can’t defeat the argument, attack the messenger. Do you have anything to say regarding the research of Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz beyond the fact that it has been cited by pro-gun rights groups?
Are you incapable of responding to my point? I had a teacher in law school who told this story: He was sitting in the gallery of the Supreme Court awaiting the argument he was there to deliver. While he waited, he listened to the argument ahead of him on the schedule. It involved a federal law governing poultry in some way. The lawyer arguing wasn’t very bright. One of the justices asked him about a particular case, and the lawyer said, “Ah, but that case involved turkeys. This case is about chickens.”
There are obvious differences between guns and nuclear weapons. There are obvious differences between chickens and turkeys. The question is whether any of those differences have any bearing on the underlying logic of the argument.
If you cannot grasp the argument ad absurdum I am making, then there is little point in proceeding. But let’s try. I’ll edit out the analogy and try to make my point clearer. Your argument was that restrictions on gun rights are unfair because they restrict the conduct of the law-abiding on the basis of others’ criminal misuse of guns. To your argument I have responded that ALL regulations of dangerous objects are based on the potential for misuse, even if most law-abiding citizens would never misuse them. If accepted, your argument could be used to dismantle huge swaths of regulation, most of which I would assume you would favor.
Incidentally, and not in response to any point I have seen you make, my argument has the additional effect of illuminating the absurdity of textualist readings of the Second Amendment, under which the term “arms” is always given precisely the meaning that the “gun rights advocate” wants it to have; i.e., “I want it to include the guns I have hanging above my fireplace and sitting in my nightstand drawer, but not rocket launchers, grenades, flamethrowers, and nuclear weapons.”
Since you were playing the “if the students had guns, this might not have been so bad” card yesterday, can I ask today “if this guy hadn’t been able to buy a gun, might he not have just hanged himself in his room or something instead of committing mass murder?”