Because guns save lives.
It’s too bad none of those people were armed. I’m going to write a check to the NRA in the hope that they’ll encourage more people to be armed.
You know what? There’s usually a really strong contingent of gun owners here on the SDMB, who come into these threads to make much better arguments against the uninformed anti-gun crap than I can. For whatever reason, they’re not here. So this is now just a big orgy of bliss-ninny anti-gun bullshit, devoid of all logic and reason, and I’m through trying to take part in it. So enjoy jerking yourselves off with your unfounded opinions and your anti-gun screeds, and keep jerking and praying that everything will just be stars and rainbows and unicorns and ponies, and that all the bad bad scary evil guns will magically disappear someday. Fine. Have fun.
I’ll just say this much: if the time comes that you people are attacked by someone intending to kill you, you’ll just be a bunch of statistics. Unprotected and unarmed as you are, you’ll be ground under the wheels of a decidedly unfriendly world, just like millions of other little sheep before you. You’ll just be an obituary in the paper and then forgotten after a few weeks - all because you didn’t have the foresight to protect yourself. On the other hand, if the time comes that I am attacked by someone who intends to do me harm, I am going to survive. I’m going to live on; I won’t be a statistic or an obituary. I’m going to live; I’m going to have a family, and kids; I’m going to defend myself and my life, because I KNOW that the world is NOT all rainbows and unicorns; and if someone breaks into my house or attacks me in an alley or whatever, I’ll have a means of protecting myself. And even when I’m 90 years old, and I can barely walk, let alone fight someone, I’ll still have that same protection - because a gun levels the playing field between the weak and strong.
Firearms are a wonderful tool, in the hands of good people. I know it, and the people who founded this country and wrote our Constitution knew it.
And just out of spite, for all the haters in this thread, I just renewed my NRA membership online (and upgraded it to 3 years.)
Have a nice day.
Agent Towers
please do not think I am neglecting your questions. I congratulate you in knowing about the Haymarket Massacre. I do take exception to your statement that the policemen who died did so because they were shot by other policemen. A bomb was thrown into the midst of the charging police officers who used a wedge formation to break up the picnicers in the Square. Somebody - and to this day it has never been proven - threw a bomb into the midst of the officers killing 7 officers and wounding dozens more. Louis Lingg seems to be the person of choice by those who know the most about it.
I would recomend a great book written about it - DEATH IN THE HAYMARKET by James Green published just three years ago in 2006. It is the best that I have read of at least three on the subject.
When we talk about the Massacre of 1886, I am firmly and totally on the side of the labor activists. No ifs, ands or buts. I do think it is a mistake to confuse one historical event with todays events. I am a great believer in the DEERHUNTER school of reality… “this is this - this is not something else”.
Given the history of the USA and given the reality of over 100 million firearms in the hands of people here, I do not think it is realistic for police officers to be unarmed as they do in a few other countries.
I have no proposal for disarming the population of the USA.
If I have neglected any of your questions, please feel free to follow up.
I’m out of this thread, but before I go I do want to say - thank you for that response. I appreciate the civility.
I come from a long line of people who fought the law - and won. My own great grandfather killed a policeman in Belorussia who had broken into his house during a pogrom. Maybe you’ve heard that word - if not, look it up. It’s a great example of why people need to be able to protect themselves.
I’m far from a reactionary conservative. I’ve got punk rock in my soul. Power to the people, I say - and guns are power.
Blah blah blah bullshit. You know exactly how dishonest all those arguments are, they’ve been done to death around here. I’m not going to rehash them here, since you’re not interested in truth or logic.
Right. Because an all-out shootout is the best of all possible worlds.
Thanks for confirming my beliefs.
Major news networks like the AP never have any sort of political axe to grind when it comes to guns. I’m sure this guy killed cops over his fears of Obama, and not because he lost is job, or for the domestic disturbance the cops were responding to. I’m sure there was nothing mentally wrong with this high-school-dropout, dishonorably discharged Marine. :rolleyes:
The AP is a conservative controlled organization.
You sure act like a big bad poster who is unafraid to debate guns in the pit. Let’s see you take it to Great Debates, then we will all see how interested you are in “truth” or “logic”.
. . . It’ll be your fault if they’re packing heat, instead of a stick.
Oh yes, there’s a convincing argument. Failing to address any point of my post is especially effective!
I might as well just post this link to have just as convincing of a counter-argument.
It is your prerogative to be a victim. Not me. When bullets come my way, I shoot back.
As I said, it’s too bad no one in that facility was armed. It is incidents like this that get people motivated to carry guns and enroll in training classes.
Riiight. Because suddenly truth and logic will out, when I say it, instead of the millions of times this horse has been beaten to death around here. Go back over the ~5,642,126 threads on this subject for one of the most perfectly sustained campaigns of dishonesty and hypocrisy this board has ever seen.
So you don’t even want to try to explain what this means?
I hereby assign you “moral responsibility” for the 9/11 attacks. What now?
They don’t even necessarily have to have an axe to grind - they just want to sell newspapers.
“The motive for the crime isn’t clear, but at some unspecified time some random friends said that he had said SOMETHING REALLY INFLAMMATORY THAT WILL GET PEOPLE FIRED UP AND SELL MORE NEWSPAPERS.”
We all know how the journalism game works. Whatever facts make the story more exciting will get printed. If the police chief had said, or even speculated, that the shooter’s views on gun control were any part of this nutjob’s motive, they would have printed it. But he didn’t. He just said the motive was unclear. Oh, and also, some friends said he had some gun advocacy views. They probably also said a few other things about him, but not anything nearly as exciting that helps sell more newspapers. A little creative sentence construction to blur the ideas together and make them seem related, and BAM! - advertising’s selling like hotcakes.
It’s every bit as deceptive and greedy as gun shops using “Get your guns before Obama does!” signs to drive up sales.
lissener works in an industry that encourages people to sit perfectly still for long periods, sometimes as long as three hours at a time. lissener is therefore to blame for much of the obesity epidemic in this country. lissener, how do you live with yourself?
lissener, you seem to believe that if guns were banned then no one would have guns. Why do you believe this?
Did you even bother to read the story? Three POLICE OFFICERS dead and three POLICE OFFICERS wounded. Do you think they were unarmed?
Yes, it is. The Second Amendment was a very bad idea.
Yes, the NRA and other gun advocates did, by making guns so widely available that it’s easy for criminals to get them.
As a “leftist” and the board’s designated Blunt Atheist I’ll say, yes it does promote a culture of violence and killing ( as does Christianity ). They should certainly take responsibility for promoting a dangerous delusion like religion. Any religion. Like all religions, the world would be far better off if Islam never existed.
Ah, gotta love the delusions of a man who thinks his beliefs disprove all. Reminds me of the mentality of “my post is my cite”.