I think Scumpup makes a valid point. Why take any special pride in the fact that you didn’t do something when nobody ever said you had to do it in the first place?
An immediate handgun ban would either be impossible to pass in the first place or impossible to enforce. There would have to be a years-long process of delegitimizing handguns and making them increasingly difficult and expensive to legally own. A “pecked to death by ducks” strategy such as eventually eliminated almost all legal handguns in Britain.
To the extent that ignorance is simply a substitute for irrational hatred, it is true in some respects but not all. I know little about meth, and I dislike it. From what I know, it doesn’t seem like it should be legal. But when you try to generalize it to everything else, using marijuana or gays as an example, you run into the reality that some things are objectively harmless and some are not.
The problem with guns is that pro-gun people think that with better knowledge of HOW a gun works, people will come around. I don’t think that’s true. I don’t need to know the difference between a semi-automatic or automatic, a glock and a luger, or a “machine gun” with an M16 to know that I don’t really need it around me. Why would I need to be informed about guns to know that I’ve never had an occasion where I needed to put a bullet into someone?
It may not be clear but I agree completely. That’s why I said no one should be proud they are American, or white or black, because you cannot choose those things. What I thought was stupid was his response, because he didn’t address that. None of us picked where we were born, thus none of us should be proud of our birth country simply because we were born there.
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The problem with guns is that pro-gun people think that with better knowledge of HOW a gun works, people will come around. I don’t think that’s true. I don’t need to know the difference between a semi-automatic or automatic, a glock and a luger, or a “machine gun” with an M16 to know that I don’t really need it around me. Why would I need to be informed about guns to know that I’ve never had an occasion where I needed to put a bullet into someone?
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Because if you are going to debate something, it helps if you have at least a rudimentary knowledge of the subject you are debating. If nothing else, you aren’t constantly being dinged on the fundamentals and basic aspects, and you sound more credible in a debate.
At any rate, again, let’s stick to the topic if you would. I know you’ve made some good posts that ARE on topic, so just ask that we all stay focused here. Algher has made a good on topic post that has some interesting ideas, but no one has followed up and instead we are talking about tangential things.
I didn’t address any of that because, until you brought it up, nobody had mentioned any of those things. The only irrational pride under discussion was at having never touched a gun. FTR, I agree that pride in nationality, race, or other things over which you had no control is silly.
Basically, pride in ignorance, which is always kind of silly and sad at the same time.
The thread is kind of sliding toward a debate about the 2nd amendment, so I don’t feel bad for pushing it a little further in that direction.
The right to bear arms doesn’t mean the right to bear every type of arm. That much is obvious, as just about everyone would agree that it’s silly to say the 2nd amendment allows citizens to privately buy or sell or own nuclear warheads or Soviet tanks or mustard gas or helicopter gunships. Everyone agrees the government can limit or ban the sale or ownership of at least some arms, in at least some cases. So let’s please stop with the “first you’d have to repeal or amend the 2nd amendment” crap when talking about handgun bans.
ETA: I do not support a ban on handguns, and if my wife weren’t against it I’d own a handgun myself. I grew up with guns in the house, I know how to safely handle and use them, I’m comfortable with them, and I think they’re fun.
<Chris Rock>What do you want, a COOKIE ?</CR>
If I believed in a deity, I would pray that we could_just once_have a discussion related to the Second Ammendment without somebody bringing up the privately owned nuclear weapons absurdity.
I bet you would.
While we’re at it, why don’t we all agree that the Second Ammendment doesn’t guarantee private citizens the right to own Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulators? And Death Stars. And Stone Burners. And Genesis Torpedoes. And Reality Bombs.
Private citizens have as much chance of owning any of those fictional weapons as they do nuclear weapons, so we might as well apply the Second Ammendment to them too.
You can get rid of guns. Plenty of countries have done it.
Ther was a war in korea in the 1950s and guns were literally lying around.
criminal gangs fight with swords because they don’t have guns.
So how would you do it in America? Korea had a dictatorial government to help.
So we’re in agreement that the second amendment doesn’t protect the right for citizens to own every imaginable weapon, right?
To the founding fathers, a moden pistol would seem superpowered. Were machine guns or ammo clips or even bullet cartridges even science fiction by that time? Would they have written the 2nd using the same language otherwise?
Not necessarily. I don’t agree with setting boundaries with absurdities, just for starters.
Also, there is the scale (there are orders of magnitude more guns in the US than there were ‘literally lying around’ after the Korean war), plus the US has had a culture steeped in personal gun ownership that goes back for over two hundred years, while there was nothing similar in Korea. I’m sure this will be handwaved away, but it’s reality, and it’s certainly going to be a factor. As far as I know, there is no other country that has had a similar tradition that has lasted so long. In order to do this ban, as other posters have said, you’d need to erode that first, to cause a sea change in Americans attitudes towards personal gun ownership as your primary goal. Without that, it’s just not realistic.
Which founding fathers? There were steam powered machine guns, multi shot weapons, exploding shells, etc. at the time. They allowed cannons on merchant ships as well
By the way, you can also buy your own helicopter gunship - some assembly required.
Buy your chopper on Ebay:
Then you just need to pay the transfer tax on the machine gun of choice you wish to install.
So the boundary on which types of weapons the government can theoretically ban without violating the 2nd amendment is something short of absurd, then?
I’ll agree with that.
People make a lot of ancestral cultures, but in my experience and opinion they hardly matter - a man knows what’s been around them from the time they turned 10ish or so, and nothing at all about two hundred years prior. It’s actually a point of much grief among first generation immigrants (to any different culture), who more often than not see their sons and daughters adopt the culture of their new country and toss the “old ways” aside like they don’t matter… because they really don’t, in this place and time.
So, really, whether people have been able to own handguns for a lifetime or twenty doesn’t really matter on the day the ban’s passed, and even less than that twenty years later.
I mean, America can also boast a few centuries of horse riding tradition. Europe much longer than that. How many people do you know ride (or better yet, own) horses ?
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I mean, America can also boast a few centuries of horse riding tradition. Europe much longer than that. How many people do you know ride (or better yet, own) horses ?
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Horseback riding as a tradition was mostly something for the rich. Horseback riding as a necessity has been replaced by cars in the US…which is another of those things that I’d say would be nearly impossible to separate Americans from.
Regardless, nothing (yet) has replaced gun ownership in the minds of most Americans, as you can see in the polls on this subject. So, before blowing this off, I think you need to seriously consider it before making any realistic plans to ban handguns or guns in general in the US.
They don’t…unless they do, so to speak. If a tradition, such as private gun ownership, dies out in the popular imagination, then you can say it’s a dead tradition. In the US, however, it hasn’t died…yet. It’s funny, because in the polls, a majority of Americans still desire personal firearms ownership as a protected right. But, from what I understand, the actual numbers of gun owners has steadily dropped in the US over time and continues to do so, at least that’s what I recall. I am a case in point, assuming I’m remembering correctly…I’m pretty pro-personal firearms ownership, and because of the past efforts by the anti-gun movement in the US, I’m also a strong advocate of keeping and maintaining gun ownership as a protected right (broadly…I’m ok with regulation), but I don’t actually own any firearms (I do own arms, but they are a bit more anachronistic than guns).
Sure…though to get that ban passed you first need to get enough people on board with that. So, sort of a chicken/egg thingy there. 