How about that it allows those with a physical handicap (missing arm, hand, etc) to perform equally in competitions requiring multiple shots in short time frame (skeet, biathlon, etc.)
Alternatively, I assure you that I can cycle and fire my Browning Pump
Shotgun as quickly or very nearly as quickly as my Browning Auto-5 semiautomatic. Would you do away with all weapons other than single shots then? Or do you mistakenly believe that all semiautomatics are military style high weapons with high capacity magazines?
pld: *“Modern society recognises that it is sometimes necessary to curtail individual freedoms for the good of society as a whole.”
I just asked Modern society, and he doesn’t recall saying this. Maybe it was somebody else?*
That’s odd, Phil, the last time I talked to modern society about this, that’s exactly what he said. He said that rampant individualism is not the same thing as the defense of individual liberty, and that in fact extreme individualists who refuse to recognize the need to balance the individual’s freedoms with responsibilities to the common good are not actually the best champions of liberty in a democratic society. Maybe he just doesn’t open up to you as much?
Hibbins: *“I’m yet to hear a logical reason for owning a semi-automatic weapon.”
How about that it allows those with a physical handicap (missing arm, hand, etc) to perform equally in competitions requiring multiple shots in short time frame (skeet, biathlon, etc.) *
Sounds perfectly reasonable, but doesn’t sound at all like a useful argument against a ban on such weapons in most cases. Persons with such handicaps should easily be able to get exemptions from such a ban.
Or maybe, Kimstu, some people (cough) (not you, of course) fail to recognize that “modern society” isn’t a thing with its own preferences and wants and desires. It’s comprised of individuals, like, say, you and me. And my wants don’t trump yours just because I say so, nor vice versa. Appeals to what “modern society” wants are specious – I’m a part of modern society. Ditto appeals to the “common good.” I am part of the common, and what’s good for me might not be what’s good for you.
I think it’s patently obvious that the number of crimes committed in this country with semi- and full-automatic weapons is statistically insignificant, so any call for a ban on those grounds is irrelevant. Given that, I don’t think owners of those weapons need to justify continued ownership to anyone.
Thanks for clearing that up…still, civilians are allowed to own automatic weapons in high risk areas, and I assume they do so in far higher numbers than here in the US.
pld:Or maybe, Kimstu, some people (cough) (not you, of course) fail to recognize that “modern society” isn’t a thing with its own preferences and wants and desires. It’s comprised of individuals, like, say, you and me. And my wants don’t trump yours just because I say so, nor vice versa.
Yup, I knew what you meant. But some people (not you, of course) fall into the common trap of discussing “society” only by analogy with pairs or small groups of individuals, and thus blurring the concepts of the “common will” or the “common good”, which, although they are indeed vague abstractions, are nonetheless useful when talking about real societies. Your wants don’t trump mine or vice versa, but the wants of a social majority do trump those of a minority, except in the case of infringement of their constitutional rights. (Since the current Supreme Court interpretation of the Second Amendment does not hold that it implies an unrestricted right of gun ownership, a ban on certain kinds of weapons is not necessarily a rights infringement.) It is not unreasonable to refer to that preference as “the will of society”, of course with the understanding that it doesn’t exactly represent the views of every individual in the society. Similarly, things that significantly increase danger for a large number of people in society are reasonably described as hazardous to “the common good,” even if there are also some people who like them. People in society are legitimately expected to weigh their own personal wants against the hazards or inconveniences that such wants can cause for others in the society, not just to argue that nobody else’s wants should “trump” their own. “I should be able to do what I want and everybody else should put up with it” is not any better as a general motto for a free society than “I must do only what other people want me to do.”
Jesus Christ! I’m not sure I can recall a more contentious, ill-informed and unfocused gun control debate ever appearing on this message board. I see an engorgement of unsupported allegations, an orgy of wild an inflammatory rhetoric, a surfeit of indignant self-righteousness and a vast sea of willful ignorance.
My view of this thread can best be express using a quote from our old buddy Shakespeare:
Ah! So we’re engaging in drive-by posts which add nothing to the debate? Cool! I had been considering a drive-by welcoming which would add nothing to the debate but I was too shy.
But now that the ice has been broken…
DonSkotus, welcome to the SDMB. It appears you have not been briefed on the “social contract” clause in your membership agreement (um, don’t look for that clause on the registration page; it’s a hypothetical construct so the print can only be read by a logician). Please be aware that this board admits no references to “the social contract”, “the organic processes of society” or “the common good” unless you are willing to have replies accepted on your behalf by the ghost of Ray Bolger. -This week he’s wearing a sandwich board which reads “Plutocracy” on the front and “Illicit Minor” on the rear. (We’re hoping to get a corporate sponsor for him soon, but there’s no sense letting valuable signage go to waste, eh?)
Thank you; that is all.
(Oh, except also, try this link on how to use vB code; it’ll help make your quote/responses easier to read.)
How can it be “used effectively” in a way that is not already illegal, except in self defense?
You can use a car legally and still endanger pedestrians…a momentary loss of control on a busy city street can do a lot of damage. How is a gun being used legally, ie simply carried or stored away somewhere, not actually fired except at a shooting range or in self defense, endangering anybody?
Neither one is capable of doing any harm at all unless someone uses it, in which case it is already illegal unless, once again, it is in self defense.
Neither one of those things can happen unless the owner uses the car or gun, in which case it is already, sing along, you know the words, illegal unless it is in self defense.
You can’t get a license to do something that is illegal.
I agree wholeheartedly. But they still perform the task… and are statistically less dangerous than handguns or semi-auto long guns. It’s my belief that autos are so demonized because they look/sound scarier.
Well, the DGU’s themselves do not, BUT… if a would-be criminal was aware that there was a higher number of gun owners in a particular area, he/she would probably want to move on to another area. Surely, this won’t stop “crimes of passion” or just plain-stupid crooks… but areas that have more CCW permit holders seem to have drops in crime, which indicates that a wider proliferation of guns in the hands of the law-abiding has a diminishing effect on levels of crime.
I don’t disagree at all. However, the major rebuttle to Lott’s research about DGU’s has been “the people he polled are all lying!” This ignores the fact that Lott didn’t conduct the polls himself… additionally, I have a hard time accepting that the vast majority of respondents would outright lie (I’m not THAT cynical yet :D) without a bit of evidence.
WAE: *“very few people actually get hurt by cars that never leave their owners’ property. Many people do get hurt by guns that never leave their owners’ property”
Neither one of those things can happen unless the owner uses the car or gun, in which case it is already, sing along, you know the words, illegal unless it is in self defense.
You can’t get a license to do something that is illegal.*
patiently I know that, Al. If you think that the mere illegality of an undesirable action is enough to stop people from committing it, then would you mind telling me why licenses for anything are ever required at all? Yes, a gun kept on the owner’s property can only be used either illegally or legally in self-defense (for the most part; there are also such things as target shooting, etc., where local laws permit, I believe). But a gun carried on public or alien property also can only be used either illegally or legally in self-defense. Why require a license for one and not the other? For that matter, a car driven on public roads can only be used either illegally or legally in accordance with traffic safety laws, so why require a license for that?
(Okay, can I get a mediator here? SPOOFE, Freedom, somebody, will you kindly undertake to explain to Al how it happens that when confined exclusively to the owner’s property, a gun is generally much more usable—and hence much more dangerous—than a car is, and that therefore it makes sense to require a user license for the former and not the latter? I seem to be having no luck at all in getting the idea across to him.)
SPOOFE: *“There’s no evidence that an automatic weapon is more necessary or effective in a DGU than an ordinary handgun or long gun.”
I agree wholeheartedly. But they still perform the task… and are statistically less dangerous than handguns or semi-auto long guns. It’s my belief that autos are so demonized because they look/sound scarier.*
Probably at least partly true, but I’m dubious about the issue of autos being “statistically less dangerous”. Remember, the things are damn near banned from private use even as it is; since 1934 you’ve needed special permission from the Treasury Dept. to own one, and you have to go through a full background check by the FBI and an application to BATF plus a heavy transfer fee, and it’s illegal to own one manufactured after 1986 under any circumstances. To my mind, this doesn’t indicate that full autos are no more likely to be dangerous to society than ordinary guns; it just indicates that the legal restrictions on ownership of them are sufficiently burdensome, and official knowledge of their whereabouts is sufficiently accurate, to discourage most people from trying to get them. If they were more generally accessible in the same way as handguns or ordinary long guns, I doubt very much that we’d find that they continued to be “statistically less dangerous”.
*“Lots of DGUs don’t in fact contribute anything significant to the deterrence of crime.”
Well, the DGU’s themselves do not, BUT… if a would-be criminal was aware that there was a higher number of gun owners in a particular area, he/she would probably want to move on to another area.*
Maybe, and the idea’s not intrinsically implausible, though I don’t think it’s been conclusively demonstrated from the evidence yet (even such pro-DGU people as Gary Kleck have complained that Lott’s statistics on this are sort of shaky). The chief problem that I have with this idea is not that I don’t believe it can be so, but that if it is so, it may effectively displace a crime burden from communities with more gun owners to ones with fewer gun owners. People who don’t want to own or use guns defensively would in essence be paying with increased risk for the increased safety of the people who do. (Communities which are already high-risk for gun violence, for example, would probably be more reluctant to make things easier for criminals by liberalizing carry laws, so they could be additionally burdened by crime displaced from communities that are already much safer—a typical “rich-get-richer-and-poor-get-poorer” scenario.)
You can certainly argue in response “well, that’s their problem, if they want to be safer then let them get a gun, if they don’t then let them accept the risk, I’m not going to avoid doing what I think will maximize my safety just because of their preferences.” And I can certainly understand that desire. But as I was saying to Phil, I don’t think it’s the healthiest attitude for a democratic society to adopt. It’s a bit like a smoker telling a non-smoker “well, if you were smoking yourself then my smoke wouldn’t bother you, so if you choose not to smoke then you just have to put up with the consequences of other people choosing to do so, I’m not going to avoid doing what I like just because of your preference.” If we took up that challenge and simply encouraged everybody to smoke, it would be a less healthy and comfortable society for everyone.
Similarly, it seems extremely likely that if every law-abiding person did own a gun, society would be much less safe for everyone. Guns do get stolen, and there would be many more of them to steal; guns do get misused by the young and the incompetent, and there would be many more of them to misuse; guns do get fired injudiciously in fear or anger. Gun owners do have a right to own guns, IMHO (and non-owners should accept that), but they also have a responsibility to consider what the effects of increased gun ownership in the society at large may be, and to acknowledge the need for strong restrictions to reduce those effects. Otherwise, it just becomes a tug-of-war of selfishness, with both sides saying “well, I want to do what I feel will maximize my safety, and if you don’t like it, tough.”
However, the major rebuttle to Lott’s research about DGU’s has been “the people he polled are all lying!” This ignores the fact that Lott didn’t conduct the polls himself… additionally, I have a hard time accepting that the vast majority of respondents would outright lie (I’m not THAT cynical yet ) without a bit of evidence.
I agree, but I haven’t seen that kind of claim myself; the articles I linked to (which admittedly were discussing the DGU claims of Kleck in particular rather than Lott) were much more nuanced in their arguments about the statistics. Though inaccuracy in self-reporting of DGUs does seem to be something we should take into account, I agree that we don’t need to assume that “they’re all lying.”
But… (isn’t there always a but?:))
Before I would agree with you, I think you should prove the point. Lets see the statistics of people getting hurt on the gun owners personal property vs. car accidents in public.
In my opinion suicides should be thrown out of the equation, but I wouldn’t mind seeing it both ways.
I have a feeling that less people get hurt by guns on the owners personal property than by cars on public roads.
Lets get some real numbers involved, and then you will have my support.
No no no, sorry Freedom, that’s not what I meant!! I meant, please explain to Weird Al that a car which is exclusively confined to its owner’s property is intrinsically much less usable and hence less dangerous than a gun which is exclusively confined to its owner’s property. (This all started because Al tried to argue that since you don’t require a user’s license for a car unless you want to take it off your own property, i.e., drive it, then you shouldn’t require a license for a gun either unless you take it off your own property. I have been trying to explain to him that that’s a poor analogy because a gun in those circumstances is much more hazardous than a car—you don’t generally have serious car accidents in your own driveway but you can certainly have serious gun casualties in your own house—but it doesn’t seem to be sinking in.)
I would actually be inclined to think that cars driven on the public road are statistically much more hazardous than guns in private possession, which is why we require a license to use them, and a damn good thing too.
I don’t have a scintillating record of success at convincing people (including WAE) that their analogies are bad, but let me take a shot here (pun intended).
Differences between Cars and Guns Which Invalidate Any Comparison of the Two used to Evaluate the Necessity for Liscensing the Use Of Either
[ol][li][ul][]Cars are used for transportation, i.e. moving from one point to another at a speed which makes such movement pratical. Generally not needed by most property owners to get around on their own property (YMMV).[]Guns are used to propel pieces of lead at high speeds; this is generally done to produce damage in the intended target (animal, human, paper, etc.). Generally have high utility whether standing on one’s property or on public property.[/ul][][ul][]The operation of a car on private property produces exhaust gases which are conducted away from the combustion chambers along a manifold and through a muffler to be vented into the atmosphere at non-lethal speeds. Contributes to overall pollution of the air but generally harmless to neighbors.[]The operation of a gun on private property propels a projectile (or group of shot/pellets) out of a firing chamber, through a barrel and in one direction at a lethal speed. Can generally cause injury or death to any neighbor who gets in the way of a projectile.[/ul][][ul][]The operation of a car on public property necessitates movement of a heavy mass at high speeds in close proximity to other operators of cars. Any collision between two or more moving vehicles, or a moving vehicle and a stationary object, is likely to produce carnage.[]The operation of a gun on public property has the same situational concerns as its operation on private property, however the risk factors to others may be greater due to closer proximity or higher quantity of humans close to the possible trajectories of the projectiles.[/ul][/ol][/li]
'Zalright?
Lovely, xeno, but I think it probably has too many long words in it for Weird Al. (All right, all right, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I take it back!!! covering head and running)
Sorry to disappoint you, but the Constitution is the highest law of the land. Any piece of it, including the 2nd Amendment, trumps any piece of federal, state, county, local legislation, as well as any treaty. It is a law more than anything else that there is. The only similarity your assertion bears to reality is that a significant portion of the highest law of the land is dedicated to the protection of rights.
And I’m surprised that you think it’s unclear. What language are you reading it in? In English, it’s very clear. Here, I’ll paraphrase:
Seems clear to me. And since the letter of the law says “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”, then I guess we agree. I accept the letter of the law as well.
Oh, so you think that the police are completely trustworthy. Guess you missed that beautiful footage of cops beating the bejeesus out of Rodney King. And they weren’t even using their guns, just nightsticks. Believe me, I don’t condone Rodney’s activities; I feel the cops got too carried away, is all. And human nature being what it is, it’ll happen again. If you can remove ALL weapons, EVERYWHERE, I’d maybe think about it. If ONE potential criminal out there has a weapon, so do I.
[slight hijack]this week a woman drowned her children. The oldest, a seven year old, saw this and had to be chased down and wrestled into the tub. water is unnecesary
Of course I don’t think that. I am surprised, though, to find a gun control advocate making this argument. The “mere illegality” of, say, posessing a concealed handgun in public will not stop a person intent on using that handgun to commit a crime. This is an argument most often used by people who oppose gun control.
You will have to be more specific than “anything”. As to cars, see my argument below.
Well, I have been waiting for you to get to this. Why, indeed, should a license be required to carry a gun on public property? In many states, you don’t in fact need one to carry a gun openly (as opposed to concealed), and in one state, Vermont, both kinds of carry require no license or permit of any kind.
Also, as I understand it, the states that have followed the popular trend of the last 15 years of liberalizing their laws on concealed carry to “shall issue” generally only require that applicants prove that they can legally own a gun (ie no felonies, legally sane, etc), and also, I think, usually take some kind of test of basic proficiency with a firearm, which could be justified by the fact that if you need to use the gun to defend yourself in public, there is a greater chance that you might hit an innocent bystander.
The experience of these states, as compared to states that are more restrictive, as chronicled by Professor John Lott in his study More Guns, Less Crime, provides us with an excellent argument against any gun licensing other than “shall issue” permits for carrying them concealed.
What you seem to be saying here is that any action you take in a motor vehicle that results in injury to a pedestrian is a violation of traffic safety laws. Though I’m sure if we really put our minds to it we could think of an exception to this, I am perfectly happy to assume that it is true.
So, for example, if a kid runs out into the street in front of me as I am driving, even though the kid is breaking the law by jaywalking, I as the motor vehicle operator am still required to yield, and avoid hitting him. However, depending on the circumstances, I may not be able to avoid hitting him.
One of the circumstances is my ability to see the kid, and one of the factors affecting that is my eyesight. Hence, in order to get a driver’s license, I have to pass a vision test. Hence, in reply to your argument, I can simply say that by getting a driver’s license you are demonstrating your ability to comply with the law.
IOW, it requires effort to use a car “effectively”, as you would have it, and remain in compliance with the law. OTOH, it requires no effort to not shoot a gun, which is the only way it can hurt someone.
Sigh You don’t seem to be getting it. The “usability” of a thing is only applicable if the thing is used. If I buy a gun, and keep it on my property, and refrain from using it in any way that is illegal, ie firing it, then it is not harming anyone. If we assume, however, that I am going to break the law then the whole analogy breaks down, because the only thing keeping the gun confined exclusively to my property is my respect for the law. If I don’t care about breaking the law, then I can just as well take the gun off my property, or I can just as well drive my car off my property, without a license to do either of those things.
Not true. I raised this subject in response to another poster, who had brought up an old gun control argument, which goes, roughly, “You have to get a license to get a car, so why shouldn’t you have to get a license to own a gun?” I pointed out that if you want a gun control regime similar to that for cars, then you will be supporting a system in which no license is required to simply keep a gun in your own home, which would be less restrictive than the laws already in place in a lot of places. This is a simple statement of fact, saying nothing about whether or not such a system is desirable.
I then went on to argue that driving a car in public is more dangerous than keeping a gun in your own home, with which you have already agreed, in your last post, and that driving a car in public is more dangerous than carrying a gun in public, with which I imagine you would disagree, although you haven’t bought it up.
My actual position on whether or not you should have to have a license to own or carry a gun or car or anything else for that matter, is that if the state wants to impose restrictions, the burden of proof is on it, not on the citizen. This is consistent with my earlier statement, you know the one I mean: “In a free society…” etc, etc.
That is not to say that I haven’t enjoyed the argument we have been having, on the comparative safety of a gun “confined exclusively to the owner’s property” versus that of a car “confined exclusively to the owner’s property”. But please don’t misrepresent my views.
Ahhhh…the first really sensible thing you’ve said This will be the subject of a GD thread I intend to start one of these years. Any time now. Just as soon as I get a round tuit So stay tuned.
WAE: *The valid point of comparison [between cars and guns] is that they can both be used, either accidently or with intent, to cause severe injury and/or death. *
But a car cannot be so used if confined strictly to one’s own property (in the overwhelming majority of cases, at least), whereas a gun can be. That’s why it doesn’t make sense to treat them as analogous when it comes to licensing requirements.
(All right, all right, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I take it back!!! covering head and running)