Except for the child murder, he’s a good guy.
He’s a piece of shit.
If you haven’t encountered him before I think an objective summary would be: pompous, stupid, cruel bigot.
He has flown beneath my radar. I’ll await his reply to my P&E post asking about his motives and peruse these two threads in the meantime. Thanks.
Prepare yourself, they are headache-inducing at times.
Don’t expect any worthwhile interaction. An accurate description of his conversational style:
https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-was-in-saudi-is-pitted/952796/20?u=riemann
Yeah, this response didn’t leave me expecting much. Not so much a sponge, but a dog running away with a tail between the legs.
I just knew that he had some real crime junkie-type obsession with mass killings and a tendency to refer to himself in the third person objective like someone with depersonalization-derealization disorder. I don’t even want to click on those links and find out what you mean by “pompous, stupid, cruel bigot”.
Stranger
I also admire your flair for understatement.
Thank you for conceding a point that has been repeatedly made by innumerable dopers.
Finally.
That was pretty weak sauce, Martin. I see why you prefer to play the satirist on this one.
He’s a really blatant homophobe and isn’t shy about it. He doesn’t even see why it’s such a big deal.
And that is what I think the problem is. Your antagonism doesn’t only show up when you intend it to. It leaks a lot. In this case, you took a political potshot. You framed the gun control position in the worst possible light, to the point that it is inaccurate. Rather than show an interest in debate, you misrepresented the argument.
It is clear that posters on the SDMB do not in fact only care about gun control whenever a mass shooting happens. This is clear because there are plenty of threads that get started at times when there hasn’t been such a shooting.
It is also clear that gun control activists don’t only care about it when a mass shooting happens, as they’ve been fighting for gun rights for a long time.
Using these types of hyperbole do tend to come off as antagonistic, even if that is not your intent. This is especially so after you have admitted that sometimes your purpose for posting here is to “slap people with a fish” or something like that.
I know the feeling. I also often can’t hide my frustration or antagonism to something said, even though I think I have. And I’ve got taken to task for it. But it’s important to try.
If not, then it’s entirely fair for people to think you’re just doing it to piss people off.
I don’t think I have ever said anything like that.
Besides the callous use of the falacy of relative privation to say that we can’t talk about the murder of 18 elementary kids and a teacher because there are lots more other shootings, his main point is just flat out wrong, and ludicrously so.
Yes, most of the thread titles related to guns in the last couple of months are about mass shooting, but that’s because there is a new one every fucking month, and so any interest in talking about gun control in general can find a home in whatever happens to me the most recent mass shooting thread. In every single one of those straight dope, the pro gun control dopers discuss the larger epidemic of gun violence beyond the current mass shooting. Why? Because it makes our point! It supports that gun control argument more than anything else. Democrats talk about the mass shootings because they are the best way to get a disinterested public engaged with the larger problem of gun violence in America.
Saying that the Democrats only care about mass shootings and don’t care about the larger issue of gun violence would be like saying that Republicans are only interested in the few examples of illegal immigrants who commit violent crimes, while not caring at all about the fact that thousands of illegal immigrants cross the border every day. It’s nonsensical.
The only fish slapping I can recall involved a Monty Python cast member, possibly speaking in an exaggerated French accent?
ETA: I misremembered the accent.
Pardon me for embracing the hijack, because while I’ve had disagreements with Martin_Hyde (including a snipe at him in his prior pit thread after he called me a liar most politely), he isn’t wholey wrong on this issue of messaging. I will not speak to the racist elements, or dishonest conversation topics because for many reasons I’m avoiding that other thread. On to specific points from the thread that AREN’T about M_H.
I normally describe myself as moderately pro-gun. I do own several, both purchased and more inherited, and do have a CCW that I secured during a point when my job put me at definite if not huge risk but only after an approved safety course with rangetime. But I also have all my serial numbers registered with my insurance and through a local police outreach in case of theft. There are two firearms in a secured biometric safe in the bedroom, and the rest are in a secure vault-style safe. And I have no children in the house to put at risk. I have zero issues with making similar requirements legal law. Buuuuuut…
Those sentiments get me -hated- by the groups suggested above, because they feel that any compromise is a slippery slope. And back to M_H point, you get politicians, like Beto (who I wanted to vote for) who say ‘Hell yeah we’re going to take your guns’ which feed into that propaganda machine, which shouts down countless moderates on the issue.
Which is what I was talking about in part in my prior book. I absolutely support mandatory background checks as well as altering some of the laws regarding some of the transfers on even personal sales, although I think there should be (speaking from personal experience) a better way to handle inherited weapons than paying a per item FFL transfer. But that’s details.
However, I’ll also disagree with the characterization of the NRA. I was never a member, but could see the point - until I dug into the NRA’s past. It’s always been much more about keeping guns out of the hands of the wrong (see POC) people, and a whole lot less about protecting 2nd Amd. rights or firearm safety. Fuck those asshats.
Sorry for the snip, but this is actually a point I brought up in a couple of threads months back. The recent massive increase in gun sales included a massive jump (40% according to reporting) in non-traditional first-time buyers - mostly POC and women. And not for what I’d consider happy reasons - just fear of lockdowns, racial violence against African-Americans and Asians, and general disorder.
The question is, if down the line, this demographic of more casual owners will care in enough to shift both perceptions of gun-owners away from the Proud Boy / Militia Wannabe / Redneck trope AND contribute their experiences to changing the current gun culture. I’m hoping, but, well, figure it’ll take decades for that at best.
So TL:DR - we gun moderates are actually still here, and we want to find alternatives, but we were looooong ago drowned out by the extremists, and since many of us (including me) already vote D on most issues (because the R tossed out fiscal responsibility, sold their soul to Christian Supremacy,and a host of social issues not to mention the oily goo of the Trump-era) we’ve been written off as possible sources of votes and have zero influence in said circles.
I am also a gun owner, though in my case it’s only one pistol. It’s also registered with the police and kept locked up.
For what it’s worth, nobody on this board has ever given me any grief about it.
I’m also moderately pro gun (but think all guns should be registered and we need better controls in general).
I never said people can’t talk about things.
Only because you don’t have the authority to do so. You certainly suggested that we shouldn’t talk about it, though.
Redirected to @Paul_was_in_Saudi’s own pre-existing thread:
https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-was-in-saudi-is-pitted/952796/43
Stranger
We shouldn’t be upset about mass shootings! We should be upset about the nig… Blacks and the wet… Mexicans!
Ahh yes, the party of ‘You hate gunowners ,you the real racist!’
After the tsunami, I went to Indonesia and built five water treatment plants, several kilometers of water distribution networks, and 15 public water distribution points. In Kosovo, I helped organize the first free and fair election. That’s who I am.
You help get school kids slaughtered. That’s who you are.
You are a piece of shit.