Personally, I don’t think the dude ever existed in the first place but that’s a completely different debate…
So more stringent guns laws enacted upon law abiding citizens is gonna do what again?
Sorry, I missed that part…
Is there a law you are in favor of?
Actually, I apologize.
Gun debates never change anyone’s mind.
We are who we are.
I’ll go back to oiling my AR and you go back to crying about how evil inanimate objects are…
Agreed?
No. Definitely not. Not in your sad sorry Christian-Abrahamist-Yahvist case. 'Twould be morally and spiritually indefensible to “lighten up” on any one who worships or honors the Abomination of Desolation, the Lord God of Israel. Thou Art Damned.
I never said nor thought inanimate objects are evil, nor did I cry. You illuminated for us all who you are and I have no doubt I cannot change your mind.
So yeah, I guess we’re agreed. Evening, then.
I’d gladly vote for a law that let’s me legally defend myself against someone who means to do me grave harm.
Kinda like how Zimmerman legally defended himself against Trayvon.
Fun fact: I live in Florida, the Gunshine State…
Your Troll is showing.
I’m not a troll.
I truly believe everything that I post on this board. I’m sorry that it veers from your perfect utopia worldview but that’s what I believe.
If calling me a troll gets me banned and helps cement this place as your super awesome echo chamber of like ideals then I really feel sorry for you.
I enjoy coming here and reading about differing views than my own, especially from seemingly smart people. If that makes me a troll then so be it.
The evidence of every other developed nation on Earth would suggest that somehow, they lead to fewer gun deaths. Somehow. It’s probably magic.
Abrasiveness doesn’t make you a troll. And everyone here wants their ideas to be challenged.
So, ok. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Many first world nations have strict gun control legislation, they also have far less homicides. Let us assume America is as exceptional as we like to believe. What is your evidence that equivalent laws with other first world nations won’t produce equivalent results in ours.
This carries a set of very nasty insinuations. You’re not going to make a habit of this sort of thing, are you?
Fuck it, I just read through the whole thread for the first time. I retract my benefit of the doubt. I’m done.
Well, no, but that was written by a troll. Everyone else in the thread, (including canned mayhem, even!) have used a higher level of discourse. You even count, since there’s an implied argument in your post.
You know, that sort of false equivalence might even look vaguely plausible if it wasn’t for obvious examples like the UK, Australia and other countries where mass shootings don’t happen since they restricted ownership of firearms.
And why does your side always have to talk about “making guns illegal” when they mean “impose stronger restrictions”. I’m in the UK, which has far tighter restrictions than the US would ever see, and I still legally own firearms. I just had to fill in 3 forms to get them. Why do you have to lie?
I’m always confused when people wanna compare our gun laws to other countries gun laws.
Who gives a shit about other countries? This country is the badess fucking country that has ever graced this planet and it’s not even close. Gun ownership by private citizens is written into our constitution, period. If you don’t like that shit then either gtfo or stop crying. If you live in a different country then come do something about it (lol).
Fact is, this country is a melting pot of different cultures. More so than anywhere else. Notice how everyone on the earth is breaking their neck to get here? Being a melting pot means tons of differing ideals thrown into the same mix. Shit, even the Muslims are falling all over themselves trying to kill each other over who interprets the Koran in a certain way.
You honestly expect this place to hold hands and sing John Lennon songs?
Also, when comparing gun violence, why doesn’t anyone acknowledge the racial makeup? Yeah, Sweden has us totally beat but look at what’s going on in Somalia…Compare that with Colorado Springs vs. Detroit and tell me you don’t see a pattern.
While MSNBC cries about the Oregan shooting this weekend 50 people will be shot in Chicago, 30 in Detroit, 50 in D.C. and Baltimore…But no one gives a shit about them…And Fox is the racist channel???
Ok…
This.
If we accept the statement in the Wikipedia article, the NRA cannon-balled into politics beginning in 1977. Prior to that was more like a hobbyist/enthusiast’s association for hunters and other recreational shooters, much as you would imagine a similar organization for recreational anglers. For most of the non-shooting, non-hunting public at large, guns were something you associated with hunting as you did rods and reels with fishing, and left it at that.
I had some personal contact with the NRA in the early 1970s, and I really can’t disagree with Wikipedia’s assertion.
You could have ended that sentence after the 3rd word and still been entirely accurate. Of course you’re confused. You’re an idiot.
The comparison is to show the obvious error that is “gun laws can’t work”, by pointing out they work pretty damned fine in every country that’s enacted them.
Let me know if there’s any other tricky concepts I can try to walk you through.
Wow, amazing job insulting my opening statement and then completely ignoring the rest of my post. I should totally pay attention to you huh?
I’ll get right on that…
It’s always pretty baffling to me how gun control advocates like to bring up this as an example, since it works so hard against them and exposes their true agenda.
Between 1934 and 1986, ownership of fully automatic weapons (“machine guns” in common but not technical terms) was restricted to people who underwent background checks, paid a $200 tax, and in some cases passed other state requirements. The requirements weren’t particular arduous, but it did prove that people weren’t criminals and were willing to go through some hassle to comply with the law.
Ownership of fully automatic firearms is still legal, I’ll get to that later.
During this 81 year period, only twice was a legally owned fully automatic weapon used to commit a crime. This is despite hundreds of thousands of people possessing these weapons for millions of man-years. And IIRC the two crimes that were committed were done by police officers, and don’t really count - they have a different way of procuring weapons than civilians.
You could say that it’s essentially a perfect record. If you were so inclined, you would say that it’s gun control working perfectly - licensing, registration, and requirements lead to a perfect record. A huge success for gun control, right?
So what happened in 1986? The “Firearms Owner Protection Act” banned the importation and manufacture of new fully automatic weapons for civilian ownership. Existing weapons were grandfathered in, simply because it’s easier and quieter not to require people to turn in their property. The supply of guns became fixed, and dwindling. Guns are pretty durable, and last a long time, but for various reasons the supply is shrinking. The fixed supply means that the value of the guns went up dramatically. It can now cost tens of thousands of dollars to land yourself one of the grandfathered weapons, and that only goes up over time as we’ve gone 30 years and counting with no new weapons in the registry.
So, given that these weapons had essentially a perfect record - an amazing record that no one here would expect to be true, and you could say it’s the biggest gun control success story, what does it mean when they were effectively banned anyway?
It means that many gun control advocates - especially some of the powerful ones - aren’t interested in results. They aren’t interested in public safety. They aren’t interested in evaluating the actual laws and their effects. They are interested in banning guns.
They banned those guns because, hey, “machine guns” sound scary to the general public, so they got support for it even though machine gun ownership had a perfect record. Often they will try to slip in “cop killer bullet” bans, and the public supports them, because hey, who wants cop killer bullets out there? Except they define cop killer bullets as bullets that can penetrate a level 1 bulletproof vest. Sounds reasonable if you have no idea what you’re talking about. But what that actually means is that all rifle bullets would be banned, because rifles can easily penetrate those vests - they’re only designed to stop handguns. But when those ban attempts fail, it’s always “RADICAL NRA KEEPS COP-KILLER BULLETS ON THE STREETS!”
Their goal - and I’m not saying everyone who advocates for gun control wants this, but many of the movers and shakers do - their goal is to ban any guns they can get public support for. That’s why they often spend their time and political capital trying to do bullshit like assault weapons bans that ban whether rifles can have barrel shrouds or bayonette lugs instead of making any sort of honest attempt to address public safety. Because they can hold up a scary-looking AR-15 or a rifle that looks lke an AK-47 and convince the public that “military hardware is shooting up our streets!”
If they thought they could convince people to ban all guns made on a tuesday, they would. If they could convince people to ban all guns made by a guy whose name starts with “S”, they would. Banning guns is the objective, and any means by which they can nickel and dime the public at large is not only acceptable, but their M.O.
So, you brought up the very reason that the NRA often fights gun control advocates tooth and nail. Because their proposals often have fuck-all to do with public safety or a real interest in curbing gun violence. They’re usually geared towards any combination of scare words, scary images, and exploiting public hysteria. The very example you cite - the non-criminality of licensed “machine gun” owners - perfectly demonstrates the actual gun control agenda.
As does the hysteria over mass shootings. Spree shootings are well under 1% of gun deaths in this country. They are a tiny blip on the gun violence radar. And yet it’s spree shootings and their sensational news coverage that get us to call for new laws. And yet if we craft our new laws to address spree shooters specifically, we’re addressing a tiny insignificant fraction of the problem. It’s quite difficult you’re making a rational analysis for public safety when only spree shooters motivate you to Get Out And Do Something.
There are people waiting to exploit that emotional reaction. They already have their laws pre-crafted and they generally have fuck-all to do with the actual impetus that gets them their support. They just wait until the hysteria and impetus to Do Something is so strong that people will support anything. That’s how we get nonsense like assault weapons bans. And incidentally, that’s exactly the sort of legislative exploitation of hysteria that got us the Patriot Act, just from the other political side.