Oh, PLEASE, stop with the fucking Gun-Lovin' Hijacks.

[Weird_With_Words]

My apologies, my intent with that remark was not to be over-the-top, or to imply there is more going on than meets the eye. I was just trying to point out your characterization of my argument as being very unfair, and obviously slanted.

But I can see why you want off this topic, as it doesn’t exactly seem to be getting us anywhere. Especially since, believe it or not, I really wasn’t trying to get into any kind of extended brawl with you.

Oh well. Here’s hoping our next discourse is more productive.

[Frank]

@Weird With Words

Have I got it about right?

Please read this post, paying particular attention to this:

@CKDexterHaven

Text inside {QUOTE} tags is sacrosanct. Normal editorial rules apply: that is, you may indicate omitted portions of a quote by the use of ellipses “…” and you may add text to clarify a word using square brackets (e.g., “her [the sister’s] friend”), but you may not add editorial comments or edit a quote so as to change the substantive meaning; nor may you substitute text such as “some blather” or “more nonsense” inside the {QUOTE} tags.

[Weird_With_Words]

Erm, kinda confusing. But I think I’ll just avoid putting anything extra of any kind in the quote field.

Anyhow, thanks.

[Frank]

@Weird With Words

Erm, kinda confusing.

What’s confusing about it? Are you high? No editorial comments, editorial remarks, editorial notes that alter the quote beyond conventional editing of a quote. Which by the way, is a rule that [sic] adheres to.

If you wish to address a post sentence by sentence, then you need to get used to typing in your own quote’s and /quote’s.

Or you could follow your dad’s policy, which is to never quote anyone, and hope no one sneaks a post in.

[Captain_Carrot]

@Lizard

And if I were to know a guy and by happenstance “feel something rock-hard with an unmistakable outline under his sweater,” well, I have plenty of female friends who would love to meet him.

Especially if it goes all the way up to his sweater. I mean, seriously, wow.

[Rigamarole]

Huh? Sorry, you’ll have to repeat that, I didn’t hear you. I was cleaning my AK-47.

[Lizard]

@Captain Carrot

Especially if it goes all the way up to his sweater. I mean, seriously, wow.

I thought that deserved more notice than it was getting. Am I the only one who finds this thread hilarious?

[Rigamarole]

@Lizard

I thought that deserved more notice than it was getting. Am I the only one who finds this thread hilarious?

I noticed. Believe me, I noticed.

[E-Sabbath]

@Weird With Words

And I think they should be outlawed in any but the most controlled environment (i.e. gun ranges). My reasoning for this is simple: guns are undemocratic, and anti-populist, because they put too much power into the hands of one person who was not elected to that position of power.

I read this last night. Closed the window.
Half an hour later, I checked CNN. Saw a story which was video only. Hit Google News.
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/04/21/ap3637737.html

You’re right, Weird. It gives too much power to the weak, the elderly, the frail. Very antidemocratic.

[D_Odds]

@Antinor01

I’m with you. I’m sick of hearing about them.

But I just learned that being concerned about the proliferation of firearms is a mental disorder. Apply your own smiley here.

[elucidator]

@E-Sabbath

…You’re right, Weird. It gives too much power to the weak, the elderly, the frail. Very antidemocratic.

As well the belligerent, the psychotic, Dirty Harry wannabes…

[E-Sabbath]

That’s the thing about people, elucidator. Can’t trust them all. I don’t really want to continue this hijack, because the Op was kvetching about such things. Want to switch it over to one of the open threads, I will, but I did think the parallel was amusing and worth commenting on.
(Briefly: Who does it give more power to, the 6’4" belligerent / psychotic / Dirty Harry type with muscles, or to the 84 year old lady with the walker? Think carefully, now. And answer me somewhere else.)

[Airman_Doors_USAF]

@elucidator

As well the belligerent, the psychotic, Dirty Harry wannabes…

Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. Had this woman not had access to a handgun she likely would have remained a victim. So, what it really comes down to is this: In your desire to stop senseless violence and random victimization, are you willing to allow other people to be randomly victimized because they cannot defend themselves?

It seems to me that both sides of the double-edged sword are rather sharp. Wouldn’t you agree?

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@Airman Doors

Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. Had this woman not had access to a handgun she likely would have remained a victim. So, what it really comes down to is this: In your desire to stop senseless violence and random victimization, are you willing to allow other people to be randomly victimized because they cannot defend themselves?

It seems to me that both sides of the double-edged sword are rather sharp. Wouldn’t you agree?

The number of defensive gun uses is exceedingly rare (don’t even cite that tool Lott back to me), and the data are hard to come by, I assume, because of the extremely touchy nature of gun owners to be counted and such.

It should all come down to whether or not a gun is more likely to save a life or take it. If the proportion of little old ladies who successfully defend themselves (and their ilk) is greater than the proportion of little kids who kill the mailman by shooting a found handgun out the window (and their ilk), then it would be worth it to me. I don’t think this is the case, however, and I do think that the number one benefit of guns is to make white male suburbanites feel a false sense of security and protection from the lurking evil all around them.

[elucidator]

@Dave

…Wouldn’t you agree?

Yes, I would. The whole gun issue is fraught with emotional and instinctual biases, almost as much as the abortion issue. It is nearly impossible to reduce it down to falsifiable propositions and proveable conjecture. My own history surely informs (or taints) mine own, I grew up in Texas, and am heartily sick of the goddam things. I know people who have shot people over issues that rated nothing more than a pop in the jaw. Seems like almost every other day, I’d read about how Bubba shot Junior at the Dew Drop Inn. And you know what? At the time, I thought that was normal, that’s just how folks were!

Now I live in the People’s Republic of Minnesota, where I can got to a bar and be pretty assured that no one in the immediate vicinity feels any need to pack heat. Frankly, I find that soothing.

If you carry a weapon without being enjoined by duty to do so, you make a statement: I am afraid I will be hurt, if I cannot defend myself with deadly force. It is an ongoing invitation to make a bad situation much, much worse, and I speak as someone who has been robbed at gunpoint. In a world of accident and circumstance, you cannot truly protect yourself, you will spend your time setting trapdoors for unforseeable contingencies, like Kafka’s badger.

I would rather admit to being afraid, in very very rare circumstances, than carry that fear around as a lump of deadly iron. I will not witness for fear, I will not declare myself so afraid of my fellow man that I must be prepared to kill him at a moment’s notice. That does not conquer fear, that embraces fear, that clutches fear to your bosom, where it can drain life, joy, and generosity.

[E-Sabbath]

I think I’ve said it before, elucidator. If not, I’ll say it now.
I’m sorry you have to live in such fear. Maybe it’s a regional thing. I’m not scared of guns. I’m cautious, but not all that scared. They’re just one of many things that could easily kill me, and I don’t come into contact with them that way on a daily basis. I have taxicabs, cars (I work on the Boulevard of Death. Not a joke, it’s called that because of the high rate of pedestrian fatalities.), subways (Someone gets their jollies now and again from pushing people in front of subways. Hasn’t been caught, that I’m aware.) trains (Someone jumped in front of one I was on, Sunday.), bombs, knives (people have tried to mug me twice, unsuccessfully. Once I ignored them and kept walking and it worked. Once I used my bag with about 30 pounds of metal in it to knock them into a parked car, then ran for a nearby door to one of our facilities), AIDS (occupational hazard, former) people with mental issues due to substance abuse (occupational hazard, present), people who have relapsed (occupational hazard, present) and are flying, airplanes, terrorists (Different: I drive under a flight path every day, and… was it 808 that lost an engine after takeoff back in '01, nosed over, and went down?) toxic gas, nuclear meltdown (I live not far from Indian Point), and, of course, the ever popular fact that the missiles are still pointed at both where I work and at my home. (NYC, West Point has got to be a target. Had Duck and Cover drills till I was in 8th grade.)

This is pretty typical for anyone my age and location. I could probably add a few more if I felt like it. Food poisoning. Forgot that, for example. Superbug TB, too.

These all are reasonable and rational things to worry about being killed by. Thing is, I can’t panic about all of them. I just have to take rational precautions. If my fellow man is having a bad day, guns are only one of about fifty ways he can kill me… and not the easiest, when you consider the terrain. (Somewhere, there’s a great comic crime novel about a guy using NYC to kill people chasing him. Something about The Exterminator.)

Do I go armed on a daily basis? No. Do I think the guy with the bodega deserves the right to go armed to protect his daily take? Yeah.

And that’s pretty much the size of it.
Hm. ‘enjoined by duty’. Fancy words. So you’re not so much opposed to the guy carrying five grand to the bank, as you are randomly walking around with handguns.
You’re opposed to easy access to handguns for people with emotional issues.
Well, there’s two replies to that. First is, of course, the mild cheap shot, which I shall toss out and discard, for the sake of throwing it away. “We always fear ourselves more than anything else. Are you afraid of what you might do if you had one?”

There. Don’t bother answering, I figure someone was going to say it, and maybe in not such a polite way.

Second is the real and eternal question. Like the VT shooter… how can you seperate that from a perfectly normal person with real urgency? He was, to the eyes of the store owner, a perfectly normal guy who wanted a gun. You could get a gun, I could get a gun. How is the store owner going to distinguish the three of us?

Sometimes you need a gun. Like Aiska’s neighbor who essentially got robbed by the police. Yes, they killed her. But still, I’m going to point it out as a moment when someone actually needed a gun for self defense, and had it at a moment’s notice. Or Miss America stopping the robbers.
How are you going to define the difference between that, and between Joe-Bob being a effing fool and shooting Junior for having sex with his wife?
(putting aside the fact that I think that’s a pretty good use of a gun. Gets two idiots off the street. Joe-Bob and Junior.)

[catsix]

D_Odds said:
But I just learned that being concerned about the proliferation of firearms is a mental disorder. Apply your own smiley here.

The first insults I saw in the other thread were those that were made against gun owners, calling those of us who carry concealed mentally ill.

Hentor the Barbarian said:
The number of defensive gun uses is exceedingly rare (don’t even cite that tool Lott back to me), and the data are hard to come by, I assume, because of the extremely touchy nature of gun owners to be counted and such.

Here’s a number for you: 1.5 million.

From “Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms” a survey sponsored by the DOJ in 1994.

It should all come down to whether or not a gun is more likely to save a life or take it. If the proportion of little old ladies who successfully defend themselves (and their ilk) is greater than the proportion of little kids who kill the mailman by shooting a found handgun out the window (and their ilk), then it would be worth it to me.

I wouild say for certain that 1.5 million defensive gun uses per year is significantly more than the 776 accidental firearms-related deaths there were in 2000 (National Center for Health Statistics).

The number of defensive gun uses is larger than the number of accidental firearms deaths by a factor of 1932.99:1 using the DOJ sponsored survey.

I don’t see how there is any other possible conclusion, even when you consider homicides and suicides, which do not even come close to approaching six digits.

elucidator said:
In a world of accident and circumstance, you cannot truly protect yourself, you will spend your time setting trapdoors for unforseeable contingencies, like Kafka’s badger.

I’d be willing to bet your house has at least one smoke detector. I have one in my apartment, too. I’ve never had a fire in any home I’ve lived in for nearly 30 years. I have had a ‘home invasion’.

Smoke detector didn’t do shit for me then.

I will not witness for fear, I will not declare myself so afraid of my fellow man that I must be prepared to kill him at a moment’s notice.

Being prepared for something that could happen doesn’t mean you’re afraid of that thing. Having a firearm for self defense no more means being afraid of criminals than having a smoke detector means living in mortal fear of fire or having a first aid kit means one is terrified of a medical emergency.

That does not conquer fear, that embraces fear, that clutches fear to your bosom, where it can drain life, joy, and generosity.

Only when one takes full and complete responsibility for one’s personal safety can one live freely.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@catsix

Here’s a number for you: 1.5 million.

From “Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms” a survey sponsored by the DOJ in 1994.

Even the authors of that study suggest how crazy that figure is. It is likely better evidence of the overestimation of threat and hyperarousal that leads one to buy a gun in the first place than it is of actual uses of guns in self-defense. For example, the authors you cite say:

[…] On the basis of data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data, one would conclude that defensive uses are rare
indeed, about 108,000 per year. […]

Thus, it is of considerable interest and importance to check the reasonableness of the NSPOF estimates before embracing them. […] The results still suggest that DGU estimates are far too high.

For example, in only a small fraction of rape and robbery attempts do victims use guns in self-defense. It does not make sense, then, that the NSPOF estimate of the number of rapes in which a woman defended herself with a gun was more than the total number of rapes estimated from NCVS (exhibit 8). For other crimes listed in exhibit 8, the results are almost as absurd: the NSPOF estimate of DGU robberies is 36 percent of all NCVS-estimated robberies, while the NSPOF estimate
of DGU assaults is 19 percent of all aggravated assaults. If those percentages were close to accurate, crime would be a risky business indeed!

NSPOF estimates also suggest that 130,000 criminals are wounded or killed by civilian gun defenders. That number also appears completely out of line with other, more reliable statistics on the number of gunshot cases.[14]

The evidence of bias in the DGU estimates is even stronger when one recalls that the DGU estimates are calculated using only the most recently reported DGU incidents of NSPOF respondents; as noted, about half of the respondents who reported a DGU indicated two or more in the preceding year. Although there are no details on the circumstances of those additional DGUs, presumably they are
similar to the most recent case and provide evidence for additional millions of violent crimes foiled and perpetrators shot.

Thus, asking gun owners how many times they use their weapons in self-defense yields numbers that only make sense in fantasy world.

I’d be willing to bet your house has at least one smoke detector. I have one in my apartment, too. I’ve never had a fire in any home I’ve lived in for nearly 30 years. I have had a ‘home invasion’.

Smoke detector didn’t do shit for me then.

And smoke detectors never accidently go off and kill someone, or get misused in the heat of passion, so the comparison is completely idiotic.

I slipped up earlier when I asked yunz not to cite Lott - I meant Kleck.

[elucidator]

(Poof! Gone!)

[Cartooniverse]

@catsix

The first insults I saw in the other thread were those that were made against gun owners, calling those of us who carry concealed mentally ill.

Apparently being afraid of guns and gun owners is also a mental disorder. I’m waiting for the mental disorder that categorizes people who compulsively need to categorize those around them who have an opinion different than the one they feel the entire world must share. :dubious:

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but the hijack is proving to be more useful than my original rant, though I stick by what I said without hesitation, and have provided cite to back up some of the “lies” I supposedly delivered on page 1.

E-Sabbath, the problem with this argument:

You’re right, Weird. It gives too much power to the weak, the elderly, the frail. Very antidemocratic.

is that there’s nothing democratic about gun distribution. I Google’d “Gun ownership by age” and hit nothing useful. I suspect that there are more males under 40 with guns legally registered in their names than there are women over 65, but that is a pure guess. I’d love to be proven wrong, not because I love the idea of MORE guns about but because using the word “democracy” when talking about gun ownership is vaguely nauseating.

Democracy means a lot of things to different people but I’ve never heard it applied to gun ownership.

It’s a bit disingenuous to link to the story of the Ex Miss America shooter when one might just as easily link to a comprehensive story outlining the killings at V.T. last week. This democracy that keeps being linked to gun ownership is the same democracy that put the gun into that guys hands.

You cannot pick and choose where to use the idea of democracy. The college student turned mass killer gets to enjoy the fruits of democracy just as much as Ex M.A. does. Or, nobody does and we remove the idea of democracy from the debate over access to handguns in the United States. This would please me personally, but from the responses in this thread and many others I suspect I am in the minority in this regard.