There is no sarcasm which is blatantly obvious to me. You are saying that the whole teenage boy bit is “sarcasm”? And how do you determine this? So this bit about:
was sarcasm? Or was it:
( note the use of multiple {QUOTE}'s to define who says what… )
Is this the sarcasm? Just how much of the post is sarcasm and how much isn’t? Or is it just the one line that is attributed to UncleBeer? With powerful and well-written words like those, it sure doesn’t sound like a sarcastic response to the gun-related responses in this thread.
It sounds like a well-written, well-intentioned post that missed the target at the very end. That’s what it sounded like to me at the time. Having now been informed that in fact multiple posters are being quoted within the same post, with only one being credited, it makes more sense now.
Nowhere in his post was UncleBeer’s post attributed to him. Nowhere was UncleBeer referred to as being the subject. I submit that quoting multiple posters without referencing them does not lead to a clear post. In fact, the practice is not a very good one for use on this Board. IMO, it was a nice, but unintentionally unclear post. So can you not admit that it could have been interpreted that way???
My point - take another look yourself; it’s not really that clear at all. And don’t jump on my ass for misunderstanding it. I wasn’t rude at all to mintygreen. I have nothing against Mr/Ms mintygreen at all, who seems like a decent person, and I thought the sentiments in the first 90% of their post were good.
Please don’t start poking “mean old Anthracite” for my “brutal flame” here today without seriously thinking it about it some more, OK?
And Flymaster - did I piss you off or something in another thread? All the above applies equally.
Don’t worry, I’m far from offended, Anthracite. But just to explain, every line between the “knee-jerk” brackets in my post was taken directly from posters who flamed (even mildly, in the case of SPOOFE) psychobunny for being pissed off that a gun (Quick, call Charlton Heston and break out the British crime statistics!) led to the death of her patient. All I did was substitute “teenage boy” for “gun” to show how overblown their complaints were. psychobunny was not calling for the banning of guns any more than she was calling for the banning of teenage boys, so it was ridiculous for anyone to flame her for doing so.
So no one is allowed to say that irresponsible gun ownership is bad?
I beg to differ. Irresponsible gun owners are dangerous, to themselves, to others, and to the right to bear arms. As far as I can tell the OP said nothing about taking away any rights. Not a word. It was a rant about irresponsablity and stupidity that caused the death of a decent person.
Isn’t this an issue that pro gun rights (or whatever) are supposed to be adamant about? That if guns are treated with respect and knowledge they are not inherently dangerous, but if they are not used responsibly by the people in contact with the machines they can cause tragic injuries?
This is a perfect case in point not for taking guns away but for supporting responsible gun ownership.
No, and I’m sorry if I came off as sounding pissed. The smiley didn’t override the “fucking” I guess, but the sentence just didn’t sound quite right without it. I’m sorry for any confusion that may have arisen. I was mostly just taking a good natured jab at you. I didn’t know it was loaded, I swear. I was just playing around, and it went off.
Irresponsible “fuck” ownership is bad, too, kids.
But, in all fairness, it WAS pretty clearly taken verbatim from previous posts.
I’m all for owning guns responsibly. Why is it anathema for gun-owners to accept the idea that not everyone should have guns, anymore than anyone should be allowed to drive a car?
Crazy people should not have guns, people too stupid to keep them out of the hands of children should not be allowed to have guns; and people who don’t check a gun to see if it’s loaded should not be allowed to own a gun.
Absolutely, but you fail to mention that the state is a mechanism to carry out the general will of the people, which empowers the state to curtail individual rights as punishment. We allow the state to lock people in prison, we allow the state to take away a person’s driver’s license, and we should allow the state to remove a person’s right to own guns if he allows a death to happen through carelessness (and leaving guns out for kids to find counts as carelessness.)
Mind, I’m talking about INDIVIDUAL cases only.
There’s no way to tell in advance that someone’s not going to check if a gun’s loaded
Because the anti-Second Ammendment types are never satisfied. They passed the phoney “gun show ‘loophole’” law (aka: The “We don’t approve of the freedom to assemble” law which made the rules for buying guns at a gun show different from anywhere else in the state…and defined a gun-show as three or more gun owners in the same room discussing guns) in Colorado and the very next day S.A.F.E. (a gun-grabber group) was on the news talking about how they have to close the “newspaper loophole” (aka the “We don’t much like the freedom of the press, either” bill)
When gun-grabbers start talking responsibly (admitting that “militia”=“adults”, “the people”=“individuals” not state governments, that handguns are a legitimate weapon, that individuals have a right to self-defense, etc…) then maybe I’ll listen. Until then, I’ll fight EVERY proposal they make tooth and nail, since any victory gives the gun-grabbers “ammo” to go to the next level of their agenda.
Silly me… I’m not a history major (Biochemistry), I never found much liking for it. We can’t all be as informed as you “Oh Great Wise One”, sorry I can’t have known the REAL intention of the Bill of Rights. As for pre-existing rights… what gives the general populace the right to own a destructive force such as a gun? (ok… inserty arguments about cars being just as deadly)… but we need to be liscened and regristered to drive a vehicle, not to mention mandiatory insurance laws. When every gun is liscened and regristered… and the gun owner is FORCED to have insurance on any damage that gun may do then I’m all for the general populace owning guns.
Now go have a fifth of whiskey and clean your precious gun… hopefully loaded.
Well, he provided you with a good reference, so now you can be more informed on the deeper issues. Your tone of mockery is uncalled-for.
The right of an individual to defend their own life, and the sanctity of their body from abuse by others. It is a right which must be balanced with the added risk to others through accidents, stupidity, and crime.
I did read the refrence, and if anything it backed my point a bit… “To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss.” This is talking about people taking target practice and learning how to work a gun for the defence of the country, not everybody has a right to a gun to defend themselves.
This section was also good… “This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens.” Hamilton’s era was one of complex and difficult to use weapons (hardly called guns by today’s standards) so people needed to be trained to use them, but when a 15 year old CHILD can figure out how to use a modern weapon with no help then I really don’t think we need to be worried about this.
As for UB not being condensending… well he was and I certinally didn’t respond with too harsh of words… this is the Pit afterall.
If you are worried about defending yourself then take a martial art or there are sevral nonlethal weapons on the market that are legal to carry, unlike hand guns. Just ask youself something… if an attacker has a gun drawn on you, do you think they will give you time to retrive your weapon from where ever you have it?
Anyway what do Lesbian Vampires need with guns anyway?
If UB is a responsible gun owner, he should not have taken any offence to that, however if he did…
Anyway this IS the PIT, he took his moderator hat off when he posted in this forum, if he wants to ban me for an offhand “wiseass” remark… then there is nothing I can do about it. But the funny thing is I sure don’t see alot of people in here appologizing for making smart ass remarks.
I was certinally prepared to get flamed… but was he? When you stick your neck out on a hot topic like this, it comes from both sides.
To the rest of you: only two posts and this devolves into a gun debate? Fuck you. Fuck all of you. Do you really care about the OP? Seems like just about everyone posting here has their own agenda to push. Push it in GD. Hell, I’ll even start a thread for you to do this in there if you cannot yourselves.
As a member of the ‘I don’t really like guns, thanks’ folks, I can assure you that UncleBeer has no problem dealing with being flamed, if done w/style. However, let me assure you that I find any suggestion that anothe poster in some way die, (as you did with your crack about him cleaning his gun while drunk or however it was phrased), is beyond what I find acceptable. So, if you were looking for converts, not only didn’t you make them, but you also managed to alienate your allies as well.
On the OP (and, I might add, this seems to be a rareity for this thread): I can sympathize with her emotions at knowing a young person has died through some preventable accident.
and, I agree w/whoever pointed out (Medea’s Child?) that it should be perfectly acceptable (yes, even to those staunch supporters of the 2nd am.) to rail against ‘irresponsable gun owners/users’.
Nope, I don’t think anyone is saying that at all. What I and I believe the others are responding indignantly to it the first three words of the title of this thread. I hate guns." Seems like a sweeping indictment to me.
I’s sorry NPavelka, but you’ve quoted out of context.
Here are the three relevant paragraphs. When taken together they assume an entirely different meaning than the small portion you’ve selected.
Now, what this tells us is that the founding fathers, in this specific case, Alexander Hamilton, found the idea of a standing army repulsive. Nor did he believe the American people would find a standing army desireable or economically feasible. However, as this fragment clearly expresses, “… but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens,” Hamilton felt that should, whatever the cause, a despotic military regime arise, the armed populace should be capable of effectively fighting back. This is all very clear.
For the record, I did NOT flame the OP (anyone who would consider my comments as a “flame” is probably a tad thin-skinned). What I DID do was try to remind her (I assume that’s a “her”) that, despite her (admittedly justifiable) emotional distress, there IS another side to the issue. “I hate guns and want them all destroyed” is NOT a solution.
Now, if you want a REAL flame, I suggest you wait 'til NPavelka opens his ignorant little mouth again (here’s a hint, twit… learn a thing or two about something before you begin debating it).
actually, though the line “I hate guns” is in the thread title, I think she (and she mentions being a female doctor in her OP) she mentions in her OP
Now, since this is referring to a case where some unsupervised teens got a hold of said guns, I’d believe that the ‘idiotic gun owners’ referred to are those who would leave them available to untrained hands (assuming that if the 15 year old had been properly trained, the accident wouldn’t have happened either), and the ‘guns’ to be gotten rid of entirely are those of said idiotic gun owner.
That at the least is a possible interpretation of the OP, and I think it would have been proper to get clarification from the OP first before snapping her head off with the gun diatribe. Then we could have all ranted about idiots who would leave guns available to untrained 15 year olds who’d then kill their friend.
All the above applies equally.
smiley didn’t override the “fucking” I guess, but the sentence just didn’t sound quite right without it. I’m sorry for any confusion that may have arisen. I was mostly just taking a good natured jab at you. I didn’t know it was loaded, I swear. I was just playing around, and it went off.