No, because as I’ve said before, there is no functional or substantive difference between these and these. Nothing at all.
But one of them looks ugly, so we know which one has to go. At least I think we both agree that the Remington is ugly.
Considering that the huge amount of weapons you would confiscate would come from law abiding homes and would never have been used in the commission of a crime anyway, the only weapons left would be those owned by criminals who by their very nature, would not turn them in. I would propose that your impact on firearm related violence would be minimal. Didn’t the Assault Weapon Ban of 1994 already prove that?
You only say that because you’ve never been rampaged by a herd of Wisconsin wildebeest.
The modern American hunter-gatherer roams a primal, unforgiving wilderness where it’s “kill or be killed.” At least until the beer runs out.
Only in Detroit, DC, New York, Chicago, and LA, which ironically are places where carrying weapons is banned.
Typically with this country, whether it’s armor in Iraq, aid in New Orleans, or self-defense weapons in cities that resemble Beirut on the best of days, you can’t have what you need until it’s too late.
I can understand the “I want free access to highly effective person killing tools because they are fun and useful and the occasional mall shooting is the price worth paying” argument. I might not agree with it, but I can understand it. Some of you on the pro-gun control side of the argument should just come right out and say it earlier rather than dicking around with terminological filibustering.
What makes you think that it’s necessary to say? It’s an implicit point. After all this time I thought that everybody understood our motivations. I mean, they’re transparent.
Hyperbole that makes you sound paranoid and afraid isn’t helping your cause you know. Or else I must have been to different LA, DC, Chicago and New York’s than the ones you are talking about.
Sorry, but do I understand you to be saying that you like to make your best points “implicitly” while wasting electrons on silly arguments about terminology?
It was no less hyperbolic than any other apocalyptic “why do you need these things?” statements that already exist in this thread.
I thought it was a smart-ass retort to a smart-ass comment. I’m not allowed to respond in kind?
They are not my “best points”. And the arguments about terminology aren’t silly. They are quite relevant distinctions.
Sure you are. But when your oppenent is being sarcastic about the need for Americans to have guns, maybe saying something that (backhandedly) emphasises their point might not be as much a “retort” as a capitulation, but up to you of course.
What are your best points?
How are the terminological arguments relevant?
Subtle 
Good, because that’s my argument.
Would banning guns make our country safer? Maybe. Maybe not. To be honest, I really don’t care. Even if banning guns would make us safer, I would still be against it. I would rather have the occasional psycho go on a shooting spree than give up my right to keep and bear arms.
I wonder if you would be so non-challant if it were your wife, daughter, or mother that was killed in this latest event.
After hearing that your close relative died, you’d just say: “Shit happens. Not all problems can (or should) be solved. It’s part of the price you pay for living in a free society”?
I would obviously be bummed. But stripping away rights from other people as a form of justice would never occur to me.
But isn’t that how justice and a code of laws works? Every law infringes on my liberty to do as I like to some extent - it’s a question of the cost versus the reward. And since the pro-gun adovocates are arguing that a gun is basically a cool thing to own and fun for plinking paper targets with, and only coincidentally a tool for killing people, I wouldn’t see how a toy like that was worth the danger to myself and my dependants.
It wouldn’t be as a form of justice. It’d be more like “I feel like fucking shit now. I have never felt this bad in my life. Maybe it would be good to take some steps so that fewer people in the future are put in this position”.
Since you mentioned above “Even if banning guns would make us safer, I would still be against it.”, let’s not quibble about whether such stricter gun control laws could ever work. If they did help, contemplating implementing them would be a natural response, I would think, to losing a loved one to a random school/mall shooting.
Is there a limit to how “occasional” the occasional psycho thing happens where you might be willing to consider banning guns, if they made us safer?
That is, assume that human nature and/or society were a bit different, and these shootings happened every day and killed thousands per day. Also assume that banning guns was feasible and would make us safer (since you say above that this does not affect your opinion). Would you still be unwilling to implement gun control?
If not, is there a limit? Is there a number of dead per day that you would say “I’ll give up my right to bear arms to stop this madness”?
If yes, is your current unwillingness to agree to gun control solely based on the relatively small number of people killed per day?
If not, why not? If gun control would make us safer, what is so fundamental about guns that you would rather live in a war zone than give them up?
I don’t have that mentality. It would never occur to me to strip rights away from other people due to any kind of grief or hardship I might endure.
I totally agree. Because to be honest, I think very strict gun control can make a society safer. Look at Japan. None-the-less, I am completely against gun control. I would rather have a high crime rate - and my right to keep and bear arms left 100% intact - than the reverse.
Mr. Jefferson once said, “I much prefer dangerous freedom to peaceful slavery.” I wholeheartedly agree.
No.
If psychos are running around shooting people with guns, then we need eliminate psychos, not guns.