In CA, you can’t carry a loaded gun -even openly- without a permit, either. But yes, I know there are a few states where you can.
Well if he’s talking about States where you need a permit and training similar to a CCW license, then he’s obviously not speaking factually.
You mean he’s safer to be around than some random guy with a gun, right? I mean, as much as the gun-owning crowd likes to pretend the things are pefectly safe when it’s convenient for them to do so*, the things do magnify the damage-doing capacity of their carrier by a significant factor. If there’s a 5% chance that random guy without a gun is dangerous, and a 1% chance that the random guy with a gun is ten times as dangerous, then which should I be more wary of?
That said, I will concede that I wasn’t factoring in the “extensive background check” that persons packing guns may or may not have - does this make me an idiot? (Probably not - you can’t make a duck a duck.) Such things don’t enter my mind when I see a gun - I think “right to bear arms”, and completely forget the part following it that said that only good responsible people can do it.
So I won’t hide behind the defense that this thread is axiomatically only about guns that bystanders know they’re there - either open carry, or I suppose concealed carry that’s not being concealed very good. Is Idaho one of those states where you need a background check to open carry, by the way? Anybody want to do my homework for me?
- and the rest of the time guns have deadly stopping power! - another curious dichotomy; the gun-carriers’ arguments are full of them, right down to their very core. Which leads us into:
I think there’s a real risk that my house will burn down, and that some loon** will get my car in an accident. I also think there’s a real risk that that dude open-carrying is a clumsy guy with a bad temper who’s maybe had a beer or two. This is a consistent position for me to take; even if it shows that I don’t have the bravery/recklessness of a true man.
Thing is, it’s the gun-owners who are trying to sell me the idea that strangers are perfectly safe. While clearly not believing it themselves. They want it both ways simlutaneously - strangers are dangerous so they’re justified in packing; but strangers are safe so I shouldn’t try to stop them from packing. So which am I supposed to believe again?
If the person packing doesn’t see the contradiction, it’s probably because of special pleading - justified in their case. They know they aren’t dangerous***, so they can be trusted with guns, as a special case. Strangers… not so much. Those guys might be crazy! Even the ones with guns…though if I have a gun, I’m better off than if I don’t if the crazies start shooting. So I should be allowed to pack, and be trusted in doing so, as a special case. And if you don’t pack a gun, well, you’d better hope I’m around to save you from all those armed nuts with guns - you’ll thank me then! You should be thanking me now, for my protecting presence dissuading the bad guys!
Of course, before I give the gun owner his deputy sheriff star, I find myself asking - if nobody was packing, wouldn’t I be in the same boat, only less dangerous all around? Especially since I don’t have the special pleading advantage of knowing the gun-carrier in question is stable, leaving me with nothing but the self-contradictory promises of gun-owners that everything will be fine, trust us.
** myself not excluded.
*** more specifically, they’re not dangerous to themselves. Some gun-owners are responsible and right to think themselves so. But all we can say about all of them is that they know they’re not going to attack themselves. And about that they’re right!
In every state that has in the past couple of decades enacted “shall issue” gun-carry laws, the same thing has happened: opponents of shall issue insisted that we would see an upturn of gun deaths as hotheads turn what would have been an argument or a fist fight into a lethal shooting. Only no such thing actually has occurred.
In states where one requirement to be issued a carry permit is that you take a certification class, it is drilled into you that if you choose to carry a gun it is your responsibility to deescalate whenever possible. In my home state the laws on what constitutes a justifed shooting are crystal clear: it must have been the absolute last resort after every lesser measure has failed. I presume most other states have similar provisions. The laws make it clear that carrying a gun is NOT a license to go around saying “Oh yeh tough guy? Whatchu gonna do about it?”. Carrying a firearm imposes an increased necessity for self-restraint. One does not respond to a dispute or confrontation by drawing a firearm for roughly the same reason that you do not respond to a bratty little kid kicking you in the shins by slapping them off their feet: the disparity of force is too high.
I hypothesize that this amounts to what might tongue-in-cheek be called “the firearm hormesis effect”. What is sometimes phrased as “an armed society is a polite society”.
So the point of carrying the gun is to scare yourself out of getting into fights? Sort of a we-all-have-nukes-so-we-don’t-start-wars effect?
That’s going to be tough to internalize, since people keep saying that you should never carry a gun if you’re not willing to use it. Yeah yeah, you’re only supposed to use it at the right time - but how do you know it’s the right time? Oh yeah, your judgement. Which some people don’t have or it’d never be the right time…
On the one hand, yeah, it’s simple: don’t pull your gun unless he pulls his gun first. But on the other hand this feels like a philosophical shell game.
Actually, slapping the brat sounds perfectly justifiable to me, if he’s already kicked me once and shows every indication of getting ready to do so again.
All gun owners, everywhere?
Who said precisely that?
False dichotomy, since I don’t believe anyone is asserting the the second point.
Before I bother to respond further, look at the language you’ve used in this thread thus far:
Look at the words you keep using…“cowboy”, “hand cannon”, “Dodge City”, “swinging gun”…is that the rhetoric of a factual debate?
You say that facetiously but in fact that’s not so far off the mark. As someone posted in one of the threads about nuclear proliferation, the prospect of nuclear annihilation sharpens the mind wonderfully. So does the prospect of provoking a shooting. Or as I commented aways upthread, people who go around shooting anyone who looks at them crosseyed will undergo a dramatic Darwinian selection as to their ability to continue walking free- or alive.
Let me ask this: what makes citizens who have passed a criminal and psychiatric background check and invested the time and expense of passing a required educational course less trustworthy than police officers? How trustworthy is trustworthy enough? Do cops in the local squadroom wonder if that one guy undergoing the bitter divorce is going to go postal with his service piece one of these days?
All gun owners everywhere what?
That wasn’t in a quote, so it’s not precisely anybody. Lumpy argued that general position as why I shouldn’t be afraid that he’s packing, though - it’s okay he is because I’m supposed to assume he’s not a nut, the way I supposedly do with the unarmed folks.
I don’t care what you believe.
Do you want to debate the debate, or my debate rhetoric? This is why I don’t care what you believe; you’re just sniping at me. If that’s all you want to do, don’t bother responding further.
I wasn’t being as facetious as you might think - perhaps some people have been thrown off by my occasional use of rhetoric (which is intended to try and convey how I see the situation in question - that’s not just a mere gun, that’s a hand cannon, a deadly weapon!), but I really am trying to address and consider this seriously.
Thing is, though, that this raises two questions: firstly is the MAD worth the cases where it doesn’t work? People do shoot each other occasionally, and the accessibility of guns to the good people doubtlessly makes it easier for the bad people to get them too. And secondly - what if I don’t want to own a gun? Am I at some sort of Darwinian disadvantage? Aside from being acutely aware that there’s a lot of deadly metal floating around if somebody should forget about the consequences for a minute.
There are three reasons.
-
I don’t really believe that they’re that well-trained. In some places that may be necessary, but I dunno about here. And I don’t believe for an instant that cops are held merely to the standard of training and practice and testing of the average joe. So yeah, less trustworthy.
-
I don’t buy that these people have a real reason to carry. Cops do - it’s part of their job. But non-cops don’t, so I have to question the mindset that makes a person feel that they need to carry a cold metal death weapon hand cannon (hi Una!) just to walk down the street. Are they that scared for their life? Are they that jumpy? Are they that twitchy?
This thread has amply demonstrated that they may also have some sort of PR reasons to carry, but I can’t assume that that’s their only reason. Call me a pessimist, but I’m forced to consider the possibility that they’re looking for trouble. With cops I know that they’re technically looking for trouble - but there’s no reason to think that they’re scared to walk unarmed to the grocery store and back.
- People get shot, and as best I can tell most of the time it’s not cops shooting people, and even when it is the cops usually didn’t shoot first. This argues strongly that the majority of reckless shooting is done by non-cops, just based on the evidence. Ergo, non-cops are more dangerous with guns than cops, QED.
Now, obviously most of the people who shoot first are criminals -er, I mean, were criminally inclined even before they started shooting. Which is to say, they’re black hats (hi Una!). But people in real life don’t wear identifying hats usually - so knowing that mostly only bad people shoot people doesn’t tell me much before the fact.
And I don’t know if cops are scared of each other. One hopes they take steps to keep an eye on each other, hoping to notice before anybody actually snaps…
I’ve refrained from claiming that people who are against gun carry have a paranoid neurotic phobia about guns. Please refrain from implying that those who carry guns must be mentally ill.
Aside from rules which may require cops in some locales to be essentially “on call” at all times, plenty of police consider it prudent to carry off duty.
People who are law-abiding gun owners and licensed carriers just LOVE being lumped together with criminals into an “everybody besides police” category. Knowing that police can ask anyone carrying to show ID and a permit, do you think that gang members and convicted felons are going to carry openly?
ETA: In any event, this thread has gone off the rails. Unless someone has anything to offer other than the unbridgable ideological divide between those who think that citizens ought to be able to carry and those who think only police should bear arms, I suggest closing this thread.
Yes, a man with a gun is almost as dangerous as one with a two ton 80mph chuck of steel. :rolleyes:
Don’t be difficult, you knew what I was saying.
…because I was correct, you did make a false dichotomy and you refuse to acknowledge it.
I’m going to explain this carefully in a language we can all understand.
We are not in a face to face conversation, so we cannot read tone or judge intent as well as we might. What I demonstrated by quoting your numerous bombastic statements (your words, not made up by anyone else) is that one sees the two most likely conclusions are that you either have a clear and perhaps unshakable bias, or else are only in the thread to troll for responses. Nonetheless, I felt like your posts in other threads on other topics evidenced far more rationality and intelligence than was being displayed herein. Thus, I showed you how your posts were coming across to others, to see what your response would be; an explanatory one, a corrective one, or…something else.
Your response was to be oppositional-defiant, and to devolve into childish taunting, such as:
That’s not cool.
I concur.