And even with their rigorous training, rigid command structure, rules, and orders - murders, rapes, and other abuse still happen. Yet you would cite that as evidence that there would be no incidents with college students with far less training, no rules, no orders, and no supervision?
Wanna run that by us again?
Uh, no. I’m simply pointing out that we quite happily allow people aged 18 and up to handle weapons and put them in high pressure situations without screaming that they’re going to go on killing sprees. AFAIK, there’s no efforts raise the minimum enlistment age, and no one’s saying that we should prohibit soldiers from being issued weapons until they reach a certain age.
As for those who are a disgrace to their service, that’s a flaw in the human condition. After all, in places where there’s more restrictive laws against firearms than there is in the US, they still have rapes, murders, and other crimes. If you want to completely eliminate crime, you have to completely eliminate humans.
Why? So you can distort that as well?
What did I distort? You offered the argument that soldiers are given guns, ostensibly to counter the argument that giving guns to college students is a bad idea. If that wasn’t your point, why did you bring up the soldiers?
You can’t scroll up to see where you posted this?
When I said nothing of the kind. Nor is your comment about “no rules” even remotely accurate. As has been well illustrated by the Dopers in this thread who have conceale carry permits, they do have rules which they have to follow.
FTR, I don’t own a gun, have never even fired a gun, and think that for most people carrying a gun is utterly unnecessary. I’ve stated before that until both sides on the gun issue stop being so damned hysterical, we’re not going to end up gun laws that reduce the number of innocent victims. Christ, we’ve reached the point in this country where a little kid can be expelled from school for simply drawing a picture of a gun! How rational is that?
I said in response:
Your response to me was:
What is has to do with it, is that I am neither defending the survey nor disputing it. I thought that was pretty obvious when I said:
Clear enough for you?
You took it on yourself to cite a series of statistics from the survey and add the conclusion that:
I then pointed out that unless you understand the survey and how it was performed, I don’t think you can make such a bold statement. In particular, until you understand what the survey means by threatened or attacked, you simply cannot make that claim.
You respond once again with:
Odd that, for someone who believes in reading for comprehension. I could have sworn I said:
There are other options, you know. I would never own a gun, but I’m pro-gun-rights. I don’t agree with either of the two above statements. Both seem obviously flawed if not downright idiotic to me. My pro-gun stance is not about arming the general populace in case of attack by maniac, but making sure it’s not just the military and police who have guns and know how to use them, when the people in charge of those forces can become corrupt.
I don’t think the availability of guns had anything to do with this case, pro or con. I think focusing on that aspect is a distraction from the real underlying issues. If he’d just snapped while carrying, maybe, but in a world with no legal guns someone determined to kill as many people as possible will find a way. I think part of the anti-gun backlash to this is about people being terrified at the reality that we are never completely safe from each other. The idea that someone could just decide to kill you and, if you have no warning, probably therefore succeed, is too terrible, so we want to blame the implement, anything but flawed, chaotic human nature or, god-forbid, some kind cultural impetus.
They may find a way to do something, but we have restrictions on certain weapons in order to reduce how much damage can be done (hence we don’t let just anyone buy a nuke). Also, you overestimate most criminals. Sure, with careful planning, intelligence, and determination any person could kill several people no matter the restrictions. Most people who are going to snap do not have those traits though, and I find it doubtful that they would be able to cause anywhere near the same level of harm if the necessary materials were not readily available.
It is like one of the school shootings I linked to earlier. Kid has plans for bombs and strategies for maximum mayhem, but ends up just picking up his dad’s rifle and handgun and randomly shooting rather than following through on his plans. Anyone could kill just about anyone in this country and never get caught, but people are not determined or clever enough for the most part, and act on passion. Those are the people who gun restrictions affect.
I didn’t say I thought there should be no restrictions at all. And I disagree entirely with the rest. I think if someone decides to kill you, all they have to do is sneak up on you with some piano wire. Actually, if Cho had decided to use any number of common, easy poisons he probably could have taken down a lot more before being detected.
Again, I just don’t think this is true at all. It’s easy to make a human body die in any number of ways. Cleverness doesn’t begin to enter into it.
In what language are bullets not ordnance? In what language are all weapons not arms? Are you just making up your own personal definitions?
I never understand why this ridiculous argument keeps on popping up. Sure, you can kill other people with piano wire, poisons, dropping a safe on their head, injecting them with blood of the wrong type, who knows what. The fact remains that guns are small, portable, and very efficient when you want to kill a large amount of people in a very short time. If anything can be a deadly weapon, why don’t you see soldiers, policeman, or security personnel carrying piano wire or bottles of poison? Because a gun is faster and easier.
Bombs are potentially even faster and deadlier, but anyway, yes, I know. That’s why I’m in favor of the people having them so they don’t potentially have to go up against a bunch of trained killers with assault rifles when all they have is chlorine bombs and socks full of nickles. What I wrote was in response to the idea that without guns, 32 people wouldn’t have died, full stop. That is ridiculous. There are so many other – not better, but very easy to find and just as deadly – ways that if he couldn’t get guns, he likely would have used one. Indeed, he wrote bomb threats, it seems, so he was probably considering an explosive instead. My point wasn’t that guns don’t do a lot of damage, but that a lone psycho who wants to kill a bunch of people is not going to be stopped by a lack of guns any more than he’d be started by a presence of guns, so the debate isn’t relevant in this case.
Catsix, perhaps I should share with you an unwritten rule of the pit:
Whenever someone opens a “Think of the Children” thread, any comment other than bemoaning the plight of the children will be met with derision.
Without the gun, he wouldn’t have been able to kill so many people in such a short amount of time. If he had walked into the classroom with piano wire, do you think 32 people would have died?
Sure, with careful planning, he might be able to secretly garrot 32 people over the course of time, but in that case there is a much higher chance that he will be stopped before 32 people die.
Which is the point of the laws we have. The materials for making bombs are out there. Anyone can get to them. So, why is selling a bomb illegal when you can sell all the components and the person can assemble it themselves? Because people are more likely to blow people up with a bomb if it is easier to get a bomb. Anyone can kill many people but we make laws that make it harder to do so.
If any argument were “Guns don’t make it easier to kill people so they should all be legal” perhaps the above would apply. But it’s “lone psychos will kill people even if they don’t have guns so gun control isn’t relevant in this case”.
Well WTF, then - are you saying you agree with me that the survey isn’t good evidence? If you agree with me, why the bloody fuck are you arguing with me about it?
I’m not gonna play your little 'I’m neither agreeing nor disagreeing" game. Grow a pair and take a stand on it.
So you want ME to defend the methodology of the survey in order to explain what it doesn’t prove. Uh, no thanks. Since you are not defending that evidence, we can assume it’s a crock of shit until such time as anyone cares to defend it.
Sorry for two posts - I didn’t think the first one had posted.
Uh, I don’t have to “scroll up”, butthole. I’m aware of what I wrote.
What you DID is make an asinine comment that we give guns to college-age students in the military, and expected us to believe that this is somehow evidence for anything.
And no, college students do NOT have rules to follow as soldiers do. I’m not sure which planet you’re talking about. A college student might have his grade reduced for missing the morning lecture, but he doesn’t get court-marshalled for it. Soldiers are very strictly controlled and supervised, and still bad things happen. Students have much less oversight, training, and control. It’s a stupid, stupid analogy.
No. Try reading what I am saying once you wipe the spittle from the screen. I don’t know if it is good evidence or not. I am pretty certain that YOU are misreading it, because, based on what you linked to, you have no clue what the survey means by the terms to which you refer. And understanding what those terms mean might be a pretty fundamental part of understanding what the survey means.
I never tried to say the survey said anything. You tried to analyze it and use it to show that:
I called you on that, because I think you don’t know enough about the survey to make such a claim. You then proceed, as ever, to weasel.
I am not citing the survey to say anything. I just want you to back up the argument you made based on its data.
No doubt asking you to back up anything is a strawman. You thought you were being so very clever and using the survey to prove something other poor mortals did not think it proved. Back that up.