lissener

A relevant site for this thread.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html

I’m not interested in your defense of lissener. He’s obviously perfectly capable of speaking for himself. I responed to your only point that addressed anything I had to say about you. That’s the limit of any discussion I wish to have with you here.

Find any thread where I’ve labeled gun control advocates with such derogatory terms without first them having been applied myself and gun owners in general. If you can find one, I’ll retract my claim.

Yeah, but wasn’t it cool how I worked the image of the child’s ketchuppy accident into a metaphor for casual bloodshed? Let’s stay on point, people.

UB, How is critiquing your arguement a defence of lissener?

Humph. I’m undecided on the gun control issue, but lean somewhat toward the pro-control side of the issue: I find the Second-Amendment arguments against gun control to be very weak, and it’s really only the practical aspects of gun control that I find problematic.

That said, lissener, I think you’re poisoning the debate. Know this:

  • Pretty much every intelligent person who argues against gun control does so from a sincere belief that gun control will increase suffering.
  • Recognition that we don’t have the Perfect Solution, one which will prevent any violent deaths, does not equal considering particular violent deaths to be acceptable.
  • Intelligent, reasonable, informed, ethical people can oppose gun control.
  • We all want the same goal (reduced violent deaths); we just disagree over the best means to achieve that goal.

When you go about suggesting that anti-gun-control people are childish, motivated by simplistic pride, don’t care about the dead, are thoughtless, etc., you’re not debating with them: you’re caricaturing your opponents so that you don’t have to engage in the very thorny issues at hand with them. THAT, I think, is childish behavior; what’s more, it’s intellectual laziness.

UncleBeer isn’t blameless himself in this category: in this thread, he has suggested that gun-control forces want to stop at nothing short of a ban on guns, which is at best an overgeneralization and is at worst inaccurate. Pro-gun folks often go even more overboard, sometimes as overboard as you yourself have gone, Lissener. However, in this thread, I think you’re the primary offender.

It’s possible to advocate gun control from a respectful, reasoned, informed position. Doing so requires that you listen respectfully to your debating opponents and consider what they say carefully. And always, always, always remember that folks who oppose gun control are just as horrified by violent deaths as you are; they just believe in a different method for reducing violent deaths.

Daniel

So this is a party that nobody else is invited to? In that case this could have been done via email.

emphasis added. I suspect/hope you mean “Decrease”

Wring, I think he meant increase. The people who argue against gun control think that gun control will increase suffering. They’re arguing against something that increases suffering.

Being from Canada I can say that changing a constitution creates one helluva mess and not everyone is ever happy. You can’t please all the people all the time. As for the right to bear arms I think that was included at a time where you needed one to defend your family and property, I don’t think that is the case so much today. I’m not against people having guns for pleasure/sport/hunting but I think when you buy a gun you should be forced to prove that A) you own a gun locker or other safe lockable storage and B) bring a trigger lock with you or you’re not leaving the store without one ie buy one at the store.

I have heard about smart guns that need the owner’s fingerprint on the trigger to be fired. IMO this would please both sides of the gun debate, as long as gun owners have all the necessary licences. Don’t know how it works down there but up here you can’t buy a gun without that licence.

Registering guns IMO wouldn’t work as only the law abiding honest citizens would actually register them. I can’t see John Q. Criminal registering his gun before he goes on a crime spree.

Of course the black market makes all gun control moot.

I wasn’t defending lissener. I was criticizing your claims.

Honestly, I was thinking about the pro-gun posters in general, not you in particular, since I was responding to your charges about "[y]ou, and others, among the gun control faction . . . " Of course, I’m not real fond of the times you’ve called me a liar or claimed I was posting in bad faith for having the temerity to explain the state of the law and dispute the assertions of the other side. Cite and cite.

Always wanted to use that word, “moot”.

Cheesesteak got it right: people who argue FOR gun control do so because the believe gun control DECREASES suffering. The reverse is also true.

Daniel

had to read it over and over and over again to get there. ok, objection withdrawn.

Legal matters?

I objected to your use of the term ‘gun fetishists’ and to the condescending tone of your posts. I don’t recall asserting a legal proposition in this thread, or any other thread. I’m not saying you lack knowledge, minty. I’m saying that you use derogatory and insulting language when you make remarks like ‘gun fetishists’.

You’re telling me that I can expect to be berated if I assert a legal proposition, which I didn’t do. I argue the gun control debates from the position that there is no actual need to ban guns, and that those who legally own guns are by and large law-abiding people who cause no harm to anyone. Neither of those opinions have anything to do with court rulings, they’re philosophical positions. So, why then have you responded in a patronizing manner and stated that your problem with me is that I offer up legal propositions without legal authority?

Why would I do that? My interest in this debate isn’t in the substance of the opinion of a judge, it’s in whether or not there is actually a compelling reason to ban any or all types of guns, not in whether a judge meant X when he wrote Y.

You’re right to expect that you won’t get one. You can dare me all you like, but I am not going to argue legalese nuances with you. Your ‘gun fetishists’ statements and your personal opinions regarding firearms are my real interest.

Several gun control advocates have flat out said that registration, licensing, the banning of handguns are only steps to the final goal. Where do people like UncleBeer and myself get the idea that there are gun-control forces who want to stop at nothing short of a total ban on guns? From the gun-control forces themselves.

catsix, note what I’m talking about.

This doesn’t suggest that the “ban guns” group are a subset of gun control folks.

Beyond this, the sort of microparsing of one another’s posts that you and minty are engaging in is distasteful to me; if you disagree with my characterization of beer’s characterization of gun-control folks, we’re gonna agree to disagree.

Daniel

No kidding. But I didn’t deride you there, did I? I use a derisive term in response to a condescending drive-by from another poster entirely. If your only point is that I sometimes use “derogatory and insulting language,” is that a surprise for anybody this side of Jesus? Try not to get all bent out of shape about it unless I call you a gun fetishist.

If we’re arguing about the law, that’s quite correct. If you’re being a jackass on other matters, obviously different considerations are involved.

Because you called me out for being a know-it-all lawyer, you twit. If you don’t care what the law is or my explanations of it, why would you give a damn about whether I’m a legal know-it-all?

Not me, baby. And you damn well oughta know it by now, as many times as we’ve gone over it. So take your strawman and shove it.

Surely don’t believe that I cannot discern the difference between being “loud” on a message board and the use of deadly force. You’re being absurd.

Also

That’s not how I read it. I don’t believe there’s any need for me to rebut minty’s “critique” of my argument. As I said, I’m not interested in what minty has to say about this and lissner is perfectly capable of speaking for himself. lissener made the statements and he’s the guy I have the beef with. There’s no need for me to respond to someone else’s interpretation, or justification, of lissener’s statements. Which is all, in essence, that minty has done; he’s offered his reasons why I shouldn’t be offended by lissener’s outrageous accusations. While I may read and perhaps reflect on what minty has said (and maybe even learn something), there is nothing compelling me to comment on his interpretations of lissener’s actions; I simply don’t see, despite claims to the contrary, his words as a critique of my argument; I think they’re merely his observations and interpretations of the original words. If you don’t believe me, go back and re-read that post; there’s little there but explanations of what minty believes lissener is trying to say. I’d rather hear first-hand an explanation of the meaning behind the words. And since the source is so easily available, there’s no cause for me accept, or respond to, a third-party interpretation. Honestly, I’m rather shocked that people find despicable behavior such as lissener’s defensible, anyway.

As for taking this to e-mail, yeah, that was certainly a possibility. But there are hundreds of threads in this forum that are essentially (at least initially) between two individuals. You’ll note, however, that I did take exception to a statement made by someone other than lissener, which makes it more of a group thing, no? Surely your comment could have been taken to e-mail, too. After all, it’s something directed solely at myself. Right? Exactly the same thing you are making an issue of my doing.

They’re not. At least according to the persons leading and directing the loudest of the gun control groups. And according to many of their politicians in D.C. I’ve posted a string of quotes from these folks before showing exactly what they believe.

Try again. There are many posts with childish ad hominem attacks in both of those threads made prior to mine. (Which I’ll admit are also childish and derogatory, certainly calling you a "smartass is. I regret that.) You’ve not met my challenge. I asked for a cite where I initiated the insults against a whole group of people, not where I contiuned the existing pattern and then only against one specific personality. Certainly, I can label individuals, and individual actions, as I perceive them, without impugning entire groups. And nowhere have I stooped to outright bigotry, as the man whose words you attempt to explain away has done.

In any case, my main thrust here is not name-calling on an individual basis. It’s: a) the accusations that somehow imply that gun owners and gun rights advocates, as a group, are less moral than the gun control proponents, and b) the pattern of name-calling and childish insults - a pattern that is more often than not initiated and perpetuated by gun control people.

But I see the abrasive and bigoted lissener has absolutely nothing to say in his defense. I expected as much, since his stance is indefensible. He doesn’t even appear to be aware of what the point of this is. Or interested in learning. Willful stupidity and considered malice. Totally repugnant.

And on preview:

That’s all well and good - now that you’ve explained it. But when you first made that statement, there was no way for anyone to discern exactly to whom you were applying it. How was catsix, or anyone, to know you weren’t being derogatory to them personally, or collectively. When given the general flavor of that thread, it was certainly reasonable to assume that it was being applied broadly to anyone who believe that there are positive social aspects of private gun ownership in the U.S. (I ain’t gonna argue the numbers of DGU’s with you; I, too, believe Kleck’s are vastly overstated, but even the DOJ, and they seem to have the lowest estimate, claim about 80,000 DGU’s/year - this is still about 7 times the number of gun homicides, so it seems reasonable to expect that there are far more legitimate defensive uses by innocents than innocents murdered with guns. Thus, my belief that there is a positive social aspect to private gun ownership.)

cleaned up coding - ub

I own guns that have been in my family for 4 generations. Out of all those gun-years of ownership, none of them have been used for any crimes, no murders, no deaths.

Why is that?? How can somebody actually own guns and not use them for violent purposes??

I feel like I should be a mass murderer, but I seem to be failing miserably. Can some of you please explain to me where I have failed???

Or is it possible that I can actually own guns and NOT be a mass murderer??

:wally

As I said, the childish straw-man non-debates happen from both sides of the argument.

Daniel