# Crafter Man: author of the two most appalling posts I've ever read here. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 14, 2012, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069 "2012-12-14T22:10:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/1 "2012-12-14T22:10:40Z")
[This is the thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=675561), about today’s school shootings. This is **Crafter Man** ’s first post, which I will admit is marginally defensible: > [@27 dead, 18 children](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/15): > > An extremely tragic event, obviously. But I would rather keep our gun laws exactly the way they are – and put up with the occasional massacre – than enact ultra-strict gun control measures that would guarantee something like this would never occur. After some astonished replies and even the suggestion it was sarcasm, **Crafter Man** doubles down: > [@27 dead, 18 children](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/27-dead-18-children/644050/38): > > Nope. > > Giving a choice between a) keeping my guns and living with the current crime rate, and b) giving up my guns and a guarantee there will never be another murder in this country using a firearm, I would choose the former. It is arguable whether privately owned guns are necessary for self defense, and I don’t want to argue that. But this goes farther – this says “I insist on keeping my guns, my gun hobbies and my gun fantasies, even at the cost of thousands of everyone else’s lives every single year. There is absolutely nothing that can make me give them up, including a guarantee that no one in the country would ever again be murdered with a gun.” After self defense, what is left for anyone to own a gun? It is a hobby, for a very few people it the edges of civilization it may be necessary for food, and then there is also the fantasy of an armed citizenry being able to overthrow an overly oppressive government. Do any of you other gun owners feel this way? Would you not give up your guns even in exchange for the knowledge that there would never again be another murder committed with a gun? Aside from the impossibility of such a guarantee, which I acknowledge, but I’m talking about the theoretical here. _If you believed this guarantee, would you surrender your guns in exchange for it?_ If not, is there anything else on Earth, or beyond it, that you would trade in your guns for? A cure for cancer? Inexhaustible cold fusion power? Teleportation? Anything at all? ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/2 "2012-12-14T22:13:50Z")
I am completely unsurprised that the poster in question would voice such an opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/3 "2012-12-14T22:14:50Z")
Most appalling posts? Maybe - just maybe - here. In general? You don’t get out much, do you, son? ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/4 "2012-12-14T22:35:04Z")
Outlawing guns will ensure there is never another gun massacre? Wow. Why don’t we outlaw other bad things like Rape and Heroin! ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/5 "2012-12-14T22:39:27Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Outlawing guns will ensure there is never another gun massacre? > > Wow. Why don’t we outlaw other bad things like Rape and Heroin! How many gun murders were there in England last year? On Topic: Crafter Man is a person who lives in constant fear. Guns allow him to simulate bravery. Don’t take that away from him! ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/6 "2012-12-14T22:40:58Z")
Yep. Boyo Jim is suggesting that the act of banning guns will prevent all gun crimes forever and ever in toto. It is certainly not a hypothetical or thought experiment involving a fictional idealized place. You have correctly intuited the post; good job. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/7 "2012-12-14T22:50:50Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Outlawing guns will ensure there is never another gun massacre? > > Wow. Why don’t we outlaw other bad things like Rape and Heroin! That’s not what he said, or I said. He said he would not give up his guns even if doing so meant that there would never again be a murder with guns in America. If that were true (and I know it’s not), would you turn in your guns or not? ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/8 "2012-12-14T22:55:59Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > That’s not what he said, or I said. He said he would not give up his guns even if doing so meant that there would never again be a murder with guns in America. > > If that were true (and I know it’s not), would you turn in your guns or not? So lets get pissed off at a response to a totally unrealistic and impossible hypothetical. Got it. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/9 "2012-12-14T22:57:12Z")
As a theoretical: Probably so. But since that isn’t a realistic scenario, I wouldn’t surrender them on a false promise. ---
**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:** [December 14, 2012, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/10 "2012-12-14T22:59:04Z")
The price of freedom is the blood of our children. Or so I am told. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/11 "2012-12-14T23:04:18Z")
Maybe we should cross this thread with the “what would you give up sex for” one. Because it’s obvious that many would give up their meat penis before their steel ones. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/12 "2012-12-14T23:05:10Z")
I hadn’t originally read through the thread, so I had to go check now to see whether **Crafter Man** had posted anything further, to more fully explain or justify his position. Apparently, his position is that freedom and security are mutually exclusive, and he values the former so highly and utterly that he isn’t willing to give up any of it in favor of the latter. I get the impression his idea of paradise would be living in the lawless old wild west. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/13 "2012-12-14T23:08:56Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > It is arguable whether privately owned guns are necessary for self defense, and I don’t want to argue that. But this goes farther – this says “I insist on keeping my guns, my gun hobbies and my gun fantasies, even at the cost of thousands of everyone else’s lives every single year. There is absolutely nothing that can make me give them up, including a guarantee that no one in the country would ever again be murdered with a gun.” > > After self defense, what is left for anyone to own a gun? It is a hobby, for a very few people it the edges of civilization it may be necessary for food, and then there is also the fantasy of an armed citizenry being able to overthrow an overly oppressive government. > > Do any of you other gun owners feel this way? Would you not give up your guns even in exchange for the knowledge that there would never again be another murder committed with a gun? Aside from the impossibility of such a guarantee, which I acknowledge, but I’m talking about the theoretical here. _If you believed this guarantee, would you surrender your guns in exchange for it?_ > > If not, is there anything else on Earth, or beyond it, that you would trade in your guns for? A cure for cancer? Inexhaustible cold fusion power? Teleportation? Anything at all? 40,000+ people have been killed in traffic accidents almost every single year for the past 50 years. That works out to 110 people per day. And yet it isn’t enough to get people to give up their cars. > **[Motor vehicle fatality rate in U.S. by year](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year)** > > Fatalities that result from motor vehicle crashes are the third largest cause of accidental deaths in the United States.\[a\] > For every age from 5 to 67, this is the leading cause of preventable death before 23 and the second leading cause of preventable death after (without taking into account the gender). > For pregnant women, fatalities that result from motor vehicle crashes are the first largest cause So I’m going to double down on the doubling down. (If you’re going to cry, I’ll give you something to cry about, so to speak.) I would be perfectly willing to have such a massacre every day, day in and day out, for infinity, if that’s what it takes for me to have unfettered access to any kind of weapons that I want. Freedom is messy–sometimes very messy. Sometimes the innocent must suffer. There is NOTHING that would persuade me to give up my freedom. “Better dead than Red.” ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/14 "2012-12-14T23:09:36Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > It is a hobby, for a very few people it the edges of civilization it may be necessary for food, and then there is also the fantasy of an armed citizenry being able to overthrow an overly oppressive government. He has guns to stop the government from banning guns (and other unlikely scenarios that guerrilla wannabes like to pretend they’re preventing): > [@Ask the Militia Guy!](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-militia-guy/143916/8): > > It’s anybody’s guess. But in my opinion the most like contenders would be: > > a) Foreign troops on our soil acting as a “police force” > b) U.N. troops on our soil acting as a “police force” > c) Firearms ban > d) Random checkpoints (“I vont to see your papers, please..”) That was in 2002, but he posted again to that thread last year without mentioning any kind of change in the worldview that one has to possess in order to join a guerrilla training group. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/15 "2012-12-14T23:19:55Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > So lets get pissed off at a response to a totally unrealistic and impossible hypothetical. Got it. Crafter Man is the one who proposed the hypothetical. It was not a dismissive response to someone else’s pie in the sky idea. ---
**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:** [December 14, 2012, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/16 "2012-12-14T23:22:26Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > Freedom is messy–sometimes very messy. Sometimes the innocent must suffer. There is NOTHING that would persuade me to give up my freedom. I’ll bet there is. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/17 "2012-12-14T23:23:24Z")
I love these threads where antis masturbate over the corpses of murder victims. You’re less concerned over a pile of dead children than you are over I WAS RIGHT ABOUT TEH GUNS!!!CRASFTER MAN IS EVIL1!!! Enjoy this to the fullest. It doesn’t happen often, so you should be sure to wallow in it as much as possible. Try not to get any on the coffins, though, as a matter of common courtesy. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/18 "2012-12-14T23:23:33Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > 40,000+ people have been killed in traffic accidents almost every single year for the past 50 years. That works out to 110 people per day. And yet it isn’t enough to get people to give up their cars. > [Motor vehicle fatality rate in U.S. by year - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year) > > So I’m going to double down on the doubling down. (If you’re going to cry, I’ll give you something to cry about, so to speak.) > > I would be perfectly willing to have such a massacre every day, day in and day out, for infinity, if that’s what it takes for me to have unfettered access to any kind of weapons that I want. > > Freedom is messy–sometimes very messy. Sometimes the innocent must suffer. There is NOTHING that would persuade me to give up my freedom. “Better dead than Red.” Is it that simple? Owning guns = freedom? You really believe you and your guns (and your friends’ guns) are our bulwark against _communism_? That _would_ make me cry – for you and your mental illness. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/19 "2012-12-14T23:26:41Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > I love these threads where antis masturbate over the corpses of murder victims. You’re less concerned over a pile of dead children than you are over I WAS RIGHT ABOUT TEH GUNS!!!CRASFTER MAN IS EVIL1!!! Enjoy this to the fullest. It doesn’t happen often, so you should be sure to wallow in it as much as possible. Try not to get any on the coffins, though, as a matter of common courtesy. WTF are you talking about? You’re apparently delusional. The question to you is simple – would you give up your guns for the certain knowledge that there would never be another murder with a gun in the US? Or do you also believe guns = freedom, and the latter is impossible without the former? ---
**Author:** ![Docta\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Docta\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Docta_G)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069/20 "2012-12-14T23:28:40Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > I love these threads where antis masturbate over the corpses of murder victims. You’re less concerned over a pile of dead children than you are over I WAS RIGHT ABOUT TEH GUNS!!!CRASFTER MAN IS EVIL1!!! Enjoy this to the fullest. It doesn’t happen often, so you should be sure to wallow in it as much as possible. Try not to get any on the coffins, though, as a matter of common courtesy. Shut the fuck up, you miserable piece of shit. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crafter-man-author-of-the-two-most-appalling-posts-ive-ever-read-here/644069.md?page=2)