It never happens? Really? Really? That’s a statement you want following you around in these debates in the future?
It happened to me, FTR, so you are obviously incorrect.
No. No. No! This really is a very simple question. To reiterate, I asked:
I don’t think anyone suggests that there is a great deal of social ill in allowing people to choose their marriage partners (yes, there is some, domestic violence, etc., but nobody has seriously contended that it outweighs the benefits–as has been done for private gun possession). Freedom of speech carries with it a few more evils, and for the record, there are classes of speech we restrict because the social harm overwhelms the benefits: incitement to violence, child pornography, etc. etc.
Don’t tell me “some people like guns.” I get that. Tell me why society should pretermit the very real dangers of gun possession just because some people have made an avocation out of firearms.
Congratulations! You, dear reader, are being inducted into the Fighting Ignorance Hall of Fame, which recognizes that there is a price for setting up a public message board - that members will occasionally be exposed to ignorant bullshit masquerading as an attempt to fight ignorance.
As a reader of haymarketmartyr’s OP, you have made the ultimate sacrifice. Og bless you. Og bless the SDMB!
Perhaps not, but you are a confusing person. You are repeatedly capable of intelligent, considered, thoughtful postings, to the point of where in even in some cases where I am diametrically opposed to you on a subject, I can respect you and your posts. You have actually helped change my opinions politically on some subjects in the past.
And yet on the subject of anything gun-related, you definitely present a very different face to the SDMB. I know my opinion doesn’t mean much, but posting is free.
This kind of naivete–although, pessimist that I am, I actually think it’s more likely to be dishonesty than naivete–is annoying enough. But when it’s used as a rationale to maintain a system that costs thousands of innocent lives every year, is beyond annoying.
Argent, hon, you’re wrong. It is indeed the fault of the NRA and its members that the guy went all nuts and didn’t throw eggs at the officers, or spit at them and insult their mothers, he shot them with a gun.
Their blood is on the hand of every bullshit asshole gun “rights” advocate in this country, including the squicky fuckers on this board who pretend that their “right” is some kind of patriotic duty that fulfills the letter (but ignores the spirit) of the Constitution, in much the same way that snakehandling fundies believe their practices are a religious duty mandated by the literal text of the bible.
Every child that dies while playing with his daddies detachable penis, sorry, gun; every cop gunned down by an armed criminal; every domestic dustup that ends at the morgue; all that blood is your hands, Argent, and those of your fellow NRAers.
What makes you think I was attempting to answer you?
Another lone nut?
Is that enough yet? Or do you guys need more?
I seriously thought this was some kind of sarcasm or parody when I first read it. I was really disappointed when I realized it wasn’t, especially since I generally like you, Lissener.
I can’t believe I’m even taking the time to debate the points you’ve brought up, but…
If the blood is on the hands of the NRA and its members, it’s also on the hands of the Founding Fathers of the United States, since they’re the ones who put the Second Amendment in the Constitution;
More people die every year in car accidents than by gunfire; should we ban cars? Way more people die from being fat lard-asses who gorge themselves with fatty food and die of obesity, diabetes and heart disease than by gunfire - should we ban all the fat, lazy lard-asses?
The reason why gun rights advocates advocate for gun rights is because there are so many places in America where there ARE no gun rights. Including Washington DC and New York City, two places with much higher crime rates than gun-friendly states like Vermont or Indiana - guns are totally impossible to legally own over there, and yet…somehow…criminals continue killing people?
How is this possible? Are those criminals all NRA members? Did the NRA put guns in their hands?
The people in those crime zones, law abiding people, ought to have the right to defend themselves. Because obviously the criminals aren’t abiding by the law against owning guns - just like they are not abiding by the laws against murder, robbery and rape.
Your post is so hopelessly naive. Go live in your little bliss-ninny fantasy world. Go put your head in the sand and hope that everything would just be stars and rainbows and unicorns if all the bad nasty evil guns were just taken away. (From the citizens - not the government, naturally, since governments never do anything bad with guns.) Yeah, the blood is on my hands. Right. I’ll cry myself to sleep every night.
Yes, really.
Sure, it’s nice to have a low crime rate. But not at the expense of my rights. I would never trade my right to keep and bear arms in exchange for a lower crime rate.
And I’d still love to see some kind of response to what I posted on the last page, though I’m sure it’ll never happen because it would cause the leftists’ heads to explode:
Is the fault of the gun owner for not properly storing a lethal weapon. Owning a gun is a responsibility that some people don’t take seriously enough. I’m not familiar with how easy it is to obtain a gun in this country, but it seems like there’s plenty of room to tighten controls without banning guns altogether.
Religion is selling God. An idea. A figment.
The NRA is selling (don’t nitpick, you know what I mean) guns. Tangible weapons, designed specifically to put chunks of metal into flesh in as efficient a means possible.
Yeah, you’re right, same thing.
And my head remains as yet un-esploded…
The NRA has actively opposed efforts to curb the proliferation of firearms. Islam has not facilitated the sort of killing spree you describe or impaired efforts to prevent it. (I am aware that this point has been and is capable of being controverted, and that those objections run the gamut from out-and-out prejudice to more measured and reasoned claims; for the purpose of this thread, I will accept Argent Towers’s apparent stipulation that this fictitious Islam-as-a-monolith does not promote or permit such incidents.)
You seem to believe we are faulting the NRA because of the shooter’s beliefs. That is not the case. Rather, it is the NRA’s stance of opposing firearm regulations that begets their blameworthiness. What the shooter believed is immaterial–both here and your Islam example.
Religion is an idea; a figment; and an idea and figment that has caused millions of people over time to be massacred in the name of one god or another. Religion, as a force, is infinitely more powerful than even the most advanced firearm. And religions, believe it or not, exert a far greater force upon people all over the world than the NRA does.
Yeah, nobody ever get killed because of God.
The OP also never addressed the point that I brought up, which was that his own username is a reference to a massacre of striking workers by the POLICE; and I don’t see any sentiment in his posts that he would also like the police to go unarmed. In fact, six policemen were shot to death in the Haymarket riot - BY OTHER POLICEMEN, accidentally. You think cops are the only people who are qualified to carry guns? Read up on all the instances of police brutality over the years; of some or other innocent man being shot to death by incompetent cops; and then get back to me with your proposal of disarming the civilian population (but not the police.)
ETA - or is it also the NRA’s fault when cops shoot an innocent person to death?
I could have sworn the goalposts were right here a minute ago!
Jesus fucking christ people.
One is a tangible object built for one purpose.
The other is an idea.
So, you’re saying then, that it is actually just as dangerous to tell you kids about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount as it is to hand them a loaded .44?
Answer the questions and stop pussyfooting.
Again. The blame lies with the shooter, first, and then the NRA and anyone who gave the fucks a dime. That money went to lobbyists who then fought tooth and nail to relax or erase gun-control and ease of access laws. What in that last sentence did I say that is factually incorrect?
I am pro-choice. I vote pro-choice. I give money to pro-choice causes. This means that I have the blood of every aborted child on my hands. I can rationalize that because I do not believe life begins at conception.
How do you rationalize what you’re doing?
I see what he did there…
What regulation would have prevented this?