Did Gore "shoot" himself in the ballot box?

Great Debates
61

And have you stopped beating your wife? The question is moot, since I am personally opposed to hunting (but do not favor limiting it or restricting it further).

So the implication is that you still assert that handguns are “useless” for hunting? Or just the ones with the “hollow point, Teflon-coated bullets”? Remember, “useless” was your sweeping accusation. If you had refined or qualified it more, I would never have commented. It is true that many, possibly most handguns are ineffective at hunting. But not all. And thus, pure factual inaccuracies and mischaracterizations about shooting sports need some sort of discussion.

The correct answer is - there is a whole genre of hunters that hunt with handguns. These individuals are typically what I would refer to as “purists”. They typically use .44 Magnums or higher caliber, or Thompson Contenders chambered for rifle cartridges, and rely on a combination of excruciatingly extended stalking and very close range to make a kill shot. Many of these people limit themselves to one shot per day (unless they are dealing with a wounded animal that must be dispatched to end suffering). As I said, they are very often purists.

These are people that very often return with nothing more than sore shoulders, wet feet, and cold asses from a weekend out. But they love their sport, and it is (as you can visualize, I am certain) a much, much more challenging sport than hunting by rifle. And much more fair to the animal being hunted. A very avid hunter I know in my office hunted deer with his Ruger Blackhawk .44 magnum for 8 years before he got one. Meanwhile, his friends would get 1-2 a year like clockwork by rifle. Who among this group was friendlier to the animal population? Who had to work harder at the kill, and thus was less of a “casual” hunter? The handgun user.

I know some people have an image of hunting deer by handgun being something akin to “Dirty Harry in the Woods”. That is a profound misunderstanding, if so.

We can keep this civil. My only real issue in jumping in was the sweeping generalization made, which you have already partially retracted.

62

Flinging around references to “paranoid homeowners” is not reasoned argument.

The guns carried by police officers are designed and made to kill people. Do you want to disarm the police?

Until the First Amendment is repealed, I will refrain from commenting on this.

Checked 'em both. No “right not to get killed” in either.

I refer you to what Joe_Cool said.

No I am not defending it. That was a very crude straw man.

No, it is not random. Look in the dictionary.

Do you have any information at all as to how often people with concealed carry permits have decided they “don’t like someone” and used their guns?

Finally, I hope you’re not serious about responding to everything I say with “I hope you’re not serious”.

63

And I guess we can dispense with the other half of Elvis’ misguided “useless for hunting or sport” comment, too.

You are correct in that the typical .38 or 9 mm is not the best handgun for either hunting or target shooting. But I know people who own both of the aforementioned handguns, who consider going to the shooting range with it a favorite activity.

Typical, “I don’t understand something; I don’t relate to it. Therefore, it is bad.”

And anyone who doesn’t properly secure or use their handgun is guilty of criminal negligence. No responsible gun supporter would say otherwise. So, what’s your point?

64

“Reason” has nothing to do with the average homeowner’s decision to keep a handgun on hand, when it’s far more likely to be used to suddenly settle a domestic argument than to scare off a burglar.

Please. There is no society you can name where murder is not the most serious crime there is, is there? And can you explain what “Thou shalt not kill” means, if it’s something other than “Thou shalt respect others’ right not to be killed”? Implying that there is a right to kill, which inevitably follows from not having a right not be killed, is another strike against reasonability.

No I am not defending it. That was a very crude straw man.
[/quote]

Then please explain further. I have made my meaning sufficiently clear - can you debate it?

If you don’t like the numbers presented to you, simply check your daily paper for today’s list of incidents in your community. How many people got shot in arguments vs. how many people scared off burglars? The NRA can provide a full, list of cases where guns really did “prevent crime” - but it’s pretty short by comparison. The Brady site, which has collected a lot of invective but very little factual rebuttal in this thread, includes a comprehensive debullshitting of that argument.

Who said “everything”, speaking of straw men? But if you’re going to make an extreme statement, expect to be called out on it.

While we’re at it, anybody who wants to discuss hunting equipment during a homicide debate should not be under the delusion that they’re addressing the question at hand responsibly.

65

What does that have to do with what he said? This sort of thing is usually referred to as “hand-waving.” Besides, if crime is as pervasive as you claim, then efforts taken to defend oneself can hardly be dismissed as “paranoid.” You can’t have it both ways, I’m afraid.

If you want to talk about “strikes against reasonability,” arguing for a “right not to be killed” on the basis of Biblical commandments is a good place to start, since we don’t live in a theocracy nor do many people even, and you may find this surprising, consider the Bible much of an authority on anything.

More to the point, the Constitution of the United States mentions no expressed or implied right not to be killed. Even the existence of laws criminalizing murder do not imply a right to be killed. If you believe otherwise, I expect you can back it up with facts. Citations to case law involving civil cases against attempted murderers for violation of one’s civil rights would be a good start.

Unless you can demonstrate that, in cases where someone was shot in an argument, the shooter in the majority of cases was a holder of a valid CCW permit, I fail to see the relevance of your response to what was asked.

Not that’s funny.

Er . . . you brought it up. If you didn’t want to talk about it, you shouldn’t have introduced the subject.

66

We really missed you in the 438 gun debates that have transpired in the last 6 months, Elvis.:smiley:

This statement alluding to the statistic of “you’re 43 times more likely to be hurt than, etc.” has been thoroughly stomped into a mud-hole. As with the 13 children die every day, yada-yada. As with 70% of the “statistics” cited by the HCI under the Brady umbrella nom de plume. Both sides of the gun argument have pretty much agreed to use non-factional sources for statistical analysis.

As to the OP, whatever the DNC feels they need to do concerning the gun issue is apparent in a new candidate for VA governor. Mark Warner, a democrat, with a very low grade from the NRA, is actively courting the gun lobby for support. As a matter of fact, he’s dropped his previous “sensible” gun control stand to strongly advocating Project Exile.

67

You brought it up as an offhand remark, and now you are not only unwilling and unable to defend it, you are trying to characterize being called on it as irresponsible? I must admit, I honestly didn’t see that one coming.

You could have just said “Yeah, I spoke off the cuff about them being “useless” for hunting. I meant to say that IMO they are impractical and silly for hunting…” or whatever, and that would have ended it. Trying to duck out of the question by ignoring it and characterizing discussion of it as irresponsible does not seem like good debate form to me. But what do I know, since I am “not capable of serious debate”?

68

Accidents aren’t the subject here. Care to prevent them is part of it, and care to prevent deliberate “misuse” is most of it.

True, and I agree we’re off-track. But the political ramifications can only be understood in the larger context of the long-running public debate.

As quiet as the gun-rights lobby has been? If the underlying causes can’t even be defined, much less addressed, then at least the means and effects can be dealt with.

True enough by definition. Yet the gun murders keep happening. Yes, there is a problem.

Thanks for a thoughtful, to-the-point response, though - an all-too-rare occurrence on this subject.

69

Yeah, I’m sure. But this started as a political thread, and I’ve been an active participant in those for some time. :smiley:

Then enlighten me. The true facts are? The Bradys have what facts wrong?

Interesting. Cite, or at least explanation?

70

Exactly. It was an offhand remark, which I clarified in just the manner you suggest.

If you don’t want to address the central points I was making, then don’t. If you’d rather pounce on offhand remarks, choking those little straw men to death, then go right ahead. You have my blessing to mark yourself a point on your little mental scorecard for it. Meanwhile, there’s a serious discussion going on, which you’re welcome to start contributing to.

71

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by ElvisL1ves *
**

Sorry, I couldn’t find his NRA rating prior to his campaign. The explanation in parathesis is mine.

From the Washington Post, June 21st.

While Mr. McEachin (other Democratic Candidate for the primary) is proud of his “F” rating from the National Rifle Association, Mr. Warner and his rural-area “Sportsmen for Warner” campaign committee take an NRA-brand position: stronger enforcement of existing gun laws but no more restrictions.

From the La Times, today.

Well, then, why is Mark Warner, the Democratic nominee in this fall’s Virginia governor’s race, angering many of his supporters by courting the National Rifle Assn.–to the point of echoing the group’s insistence that the state would be better off enforcing existing gun laws than passing new ones?

72

Just trying for a little honesty here, like most people. An honest debate is not an honest debate if strawmen are being set up and offhand factually incorrect remarks are left to stand uncorrected. Or have the rules changed?

Well…if they keep getting created, I will happily keep killing them.

Please - enough with the dramtic flourish. There’s no need for your continued dismissive snide remarks and inability to discuss things politely.

You only retracted “sport pistol shooting” (your words), not hunting. I would normally assume that this encompassed both aspects (seeing as handgun hunting is a legitimate and legal sport in many regions of the US), except that earlier you seperated the two when you said “useless for hunting or sport (btw)” (your words again, with emphasis added.) Thus, since I would not want to put words in your mouth (for which offence I’m quite certain you would be all over my ass like hair on a gorilla), it seems you have only retracted one part of your two-part offhand comment.

You then went on to create a “hollow point, Teflon-coated” strawman, which I shot down by describing how real handgun hunting is done. Since it seems you did not like the answer, you once again try to wave your proverbial hand and dismiss it.

Well, I may not be “Great Debater”, but that sure doesn’t seem polite and reasonable discourse to me.

73

And this, from Elvis, has gone uncommented on:

and

They apparently have suicides confused with homicides for starters. Suicide, is a non-starter and should not be included in this category. Suicide rates, in the U.S., are lower than many other industrialized countries, even some that have near total bans on handgun ownership. So, that reduces your number of intentional gun deaths to 12,102.

Now, the question is, how many of these dead guys are criminals engaged in criminal acts? Allow me to give you some numbers. The FBI uniform crime statistics for years 1976 thru 1998 indicate nearly 95% of gun deaths which are not attributable to either suicide, accident, or some unclassified method are criminals killing each other while engaged in, or as a result of, criminal activity.

This means of the 12,102 intentional gun deaths, a mere 605 are innocent citizens.

74

Following that, which I neglected in my previous post, just how many defensive gun uses every year do you believe prevent criminals from taking the life of an innocent person?

75

From the LA Times
State Lines, not Party Lines, Shape Gun Law Stances

From the article

But even more relevant IMO, is this bit

Put simply, this means that for you (anti Gun-Control), were willing to belive and anyone who appeared to agree with you on Guns the benefit of the doubt. Conversely, anyone who failed to denounce gun control, would automatically be assumed to be untrustworthy on everything else as well.

That is, you gave Bush trust (even when he lied to you) and distrusted Gore (even though he didn’t lie as much). It was that presumption of trustworthyness that then helped to decide your choice. For a pro-gun-control person, the converse would be true.

(I’m using you in the general rather than personal here, since I favor most of the control laws currently on the books, I can hardly say we :wink: )

I’d have to say my guess is that very few people voted single issue on Guns. But that (as the article says), how you feel about guns is strongly correlated to how you feel about most urban/rural issues. And Bush did much better on just about all of the rural issues than Gore did.

Also, Gore has the Charisma of a brick. But then again, Bush has the intellect of one. :smiley: My personal feeling is that Clinton Fatique was the primary factor in making it a close race. The bad taste of the past 4 years completely cancelled the benefit that Gore should have gotten as incumbent.

you said:

I hope you turn out to be right about this one. But if you insist, like some on this board do, that any gun control is bad gun control, them I’m sure you will be disappointed.

To me, it is self evident, that NO control is just not reasonable, and if we are to have SOME control, then the arguments need to be about the merits and drawbacks of particular control schemes rather than about whether or not the 2nd ammendment is a personal right or a collective one.

tj

76

Assuming you are not going to disinter the rotting corpse of that “43 to 1” fallacy, cite?

Not at all. It is not the job of the police to kill us. It is their job to protect us. If they can only use their guns to kill us, why should they have them?

Irrelevent.

Also irrelevent. As others have mentioned, we do not live in a theocracy.

Perhaps this passes for logic on whatever planet you are from, but not here. Or, to use your favorite phrase, I hope you’re not serious about this.

You have done no such thing. What is it you want me to explain? The definition of “random”? Go look it up.

What?! I am asking you for numbers here. Do you have any?

Zero for the first one. Zero for the second, though the papers are less than scrupulous about reporting such things.

Cite?

Link?

Yes, but controlled by who?

77

First of all, I was remiss in my last post: Welcome Back, Anthracite.

Elvis:

While I can’t speak to the motives behind the other 70-80 million gun owners in America, I can say that a reasoned apprehension of burglary was one of the reasons I applied for and received a concealed carry permit. I analyzed the area in which I worked (S. Dallas, industrial by day, urban war zone by night), the hours I was working (mid- and late shifts), the car I drove (a decent one), my manner of dress (casual professional) my physical bearing (5’ 7" caucasian) and concluded I was a prime target.

As I work hard for what I get, I have no desire to fork over cash and credit cards on any kind of basis, and took steps to ensure my defense. My job has taken me away from that environment, and I have since let my CCP expire.

Not necessarily. The clause of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independance is not a guarantee of those things, but a guarantee to the opportunity to those things. Being as the DOI is not a legally binding document, but a letter of notification and intent to King George III of England, the guarantee has no factual basis in law.

OTOH, the Constitution and the BOR were enacted to ensure the opportunity to those things, among others, but the emphasis is always upon the opportunity to them, not the government-certified right to them.

Subtle, but definite distinctions.

Ask, and ye shall receive.

The first item to grab my interest was the bit about Assault Weapons. It opens with a needs based argument, asking “SO…WHO NEEDS AN AK-47 TO GO DUCK-HUNTING?”. “Need” has not been held as a sound basis for determining any other basic right guaranteed by the BOR, and only once in regards to the 2nd in U.S. v. Miller where the Supreme Court found that it was not within their notice that a sawed-off shotgun was representative of a “militia-style” weapon.

From their opening paragraph:

When passing a lie, it is best to mix it with a bit of the truth. The claim that the upsurge of gun violence created a demand for assault weapons is quite interesting, as shown by the Bureau of Justice 's Bureau of Justic Statistics

A perusal of the Bureau of Justice Statistics Selected Findings Guns Used in Crime: Firearms, Crime, and Criminal Justice will show this on page 6:

Note the date of the report: 1995. If assault weapons are so prevalent in crime (as HCI claims), then how come a search of the Bureau of Justice’ website using the keyword “Assault Weapons” yields a 6 year-old report?

Homicide Trends in the U.S.: Weapons Used doesn’t mention “assault weapons”; Law Enforcement Officers Killed: By Weapon Type doesn’t mention “assault weapons”.

So where did HCI get their information? I checked for a source, but couldn’t find one. I guess we’re just supposed to take their word for it. :rolleyes:

That one was easy. I’ll debunk another load of horse-hockey from their website tomorrow.

78

OK, I’m back - some interesting points by several people seriously wanting to discuss the topic and its central points (exceptions exist). One at a time:

BF, thanks for the Warner information. Looks like another case of calculated campaign positioning, sure, but note that he is in fact calling for more and better enforcement. In a conservative state like Virginia, maybe no politician can afford to do more than that. Something to watch, anyway.

UncleBeer, suicides are indeed part of the societal problem. How many people are dead because they had an effective means to end it all, right there in the house, during the depths of a problem, when they might have survived and overcome it otherwise? I doubt there are any ways to come up with adequate numbers on that, but I do recall the Time cover story (no link; they don’t archive) a couple of years ago that listed the gun deaths in the US for a single week. Roughly half of them, several hundred as I recall, were suicides. Yes, that’s shaky evidence, but the number is certainly much higher than zero, as is the number of domestic arguments that end in gunfire simply because of availability.

You asked how many crimes are prevented each year - I don’t have any numbers either. Bueller?

Tejota, I certainly agree with you about single-issue voters. It’s still better than being a no-issue voter, though. I share your disappointment that some people who are quite willing to see reasonability in disagreeing views suddenly become religious zealots imagining themselves to be under attack to the bitter end by an equally-zealous opposition. We see that in the endless “The @#$&#^ Democrats want to take away your guns and your precious Second Amendment (second half only) rights and open us up to invasion” etc. ad nauseam stuff. Some of that is right here in this thread by people I know to be adults.

ExTank, no question you had a real fear, and there are real reasons for some to carry a weapon. I do hope you had adequate training, including how to keep the gun from being wrestled away and used to shoot you instead, of course. How many others can say the same?

BTW, I have said nothing about the Declaration of Independence. I have simply stated a general moral imperative shared by all cultures I know of - the prohibition of killing, and the inevitably-following right not to be killed. It’s more than a little weird to be challenged on that of all things, I must admit.

Re the “need for assault weapons” - without going into the subtleties of the US Constitution, try a more general approach, and answer a question you weren’t even asked but is interesting anyway. What need is there for a civilian to have one? What would you want to do, much less need to do, with one other than shoot a lot of people? What rights have to be overridden to allow it?
Oh, and anyone, I still don’t have even the start of an answer to the question of what rate of homicides should be considered acceptable. That seems to me to be at the heart of the debate. ExTank gets points for at least acknowledging it, even though he then ducked it.

79

So? How many people are dead in places where they don’t have instant access to firearms? The suicide rate in the United States has remained relatively flat over the past 30 years. This occurs while the number of firearms and the precentage of population owning firearms has greatly increased. The prevalance of firearms cannot be correlated with suicide rates. Period.

Well, if you believe the numbers I posted earlier are in any way reliable, those 600+ dead innocent citizens give us a homicide rate of just a bit over .02 per 10,000 population (assuming 280 million people in the U.S.). As for criminals shooting each other, if they aren’t killing innocent bystanders with stray shots, which obviously they aren’t in any numbers, who gives a damn how many of them die? They’ve made their decision to engage in violence; fuck 'em. I submit, in light of declining homicide rates, the demonstrable utility of firearms as instruments self-defense, that .02/10,000 is a reasonable number.

What rate would you condsider reasonable considering that it’s absolutely impossible to eliminate them entirely?

80

That isn’t a fair question. Obviously, no homicides* are “acceptable”. The real question is: What is tolerable in a free society?

You’re not going to like my answer. We must begrudingly tolerate all homicides that occur in our society without encroaching on our collective civil liberties. I know that sounds like a hedge - but there’s no number that will satisfy everyone (if you agree that homicides cannot be entirely prevented no matter what drastic steps are taken). If the choice is between preventing a homicide and protecting personal freedom, I’ll err on the side of protecting freedom.

[sub]* homicide, by its legal definition, does not include killing in self-defense.[/sub]