I see most people are just too fucking tired of dealing with your obtuseness to reply. Unfortunately, the things you say are so assinine that they ust be responded to.
Because the difference between “military style” and standard form is only a stock, or a flash suppressor, or a clip, or one of a number of features that are bullshit. We’re talking little differences between an assault weapon and their legal counterparts. We’re not really talking about the difference between an M-16/AR-15 and a 22 popgun.
That’s absolutely fucking silly. Lots of things were and weren’t designed to kill and can still be compared.
You can compare absolutely anything to absolutely anything else but it will not neccessarily advance the debate.
Death by motor vehicle is an occasional, unfortunate, unintended occurance. Death by firearm is the achievement of that tool’s aim.
For the purposes of this discussion, they are chalk and cheese and claiming legitimacy for one by doing so for the other is just obfuscation.
I still find the comparison, as used, appropriate, but I have to ask; do you think this debate is going to advance at all in the wake of 2 sides who are in complete disagreement without any chance for agreement? Especially in the wake of some of the ridiculous fucking arguments laid out by Demannlash in the previous days?
There were plenty of robberies and murders before guns were available.
I always love this one whenever it’s trotted out. Accidental gun deaths are so far down the list of accidental causes of death that it’s ridiculous to even bring it up. Kids will be run over, burned, fall, drown, choke and poison themselves in droves for every accidental gun death.
It’s not until kids hit the 15-18 y/o age range that intentional guns deaths start making a blip on the statistics screen. Guess what demographic they’re concentrated in.
Again, so far down the list of accidental causes of death as to be irrelevant. I’ll worry more about power tools and ladders than firearms, because no one ever expects to be accidentally killed with a Black & Decker 1/2" Drill.
While psychologically spectacular (the incessant medias “replay” really helps to burn it into your brain), hardly significant in any numerical/statistical sense.
To prove your point, you have to show that stringent gun control laws will actually reduce the number of guns in criminal’s hands.
All of your posturing about “normal people” who just go crazy and kill themselves is a bizzare, twisted reflection of the allegation that gun owners are paranoid nut-jobs, afraid of non-existent home-intruders and stalker/rapists.
Since this aint GD, and this has surely drifted into the realm of debate, let me get this back on track for the forum we’re in:
I guess so, you have a real ability to twist and manipulate statistics in an attempt to “prove” you idiotic points.
Feel free to post some newer ones then
How, oh great sage and eminent statistition. Please educate poor widdle moron me as to why you think they don’t say what they say.
I have. They are pointless without the bigger picture. The number of deaths by firearm in each country is a meaningless statistic without knowing the total murder rate AND weather it(the total murder rate) has changed since the gun ban was enacted. Here’s a question for you: Suppose you have a country called, say, Freedonia. The murder rate per capita in Fredonia is double that of the United States, but none of the murders were committed with guns. Everyone was bludgeoned to death with a frozen leg of lamb. Using your logic, you would claim that Freedonia is a safer place to be because the death by gun rate was so low. This is crazy.
Who the fuck cares, as long as they are using it responsibly? If I had a .60 cal Browning machine gun and all I used it for was to kill the coyotes trying to raid my chicken coop, what impact does it have on you or society that I am using a “military style weapon” (That’s a real “military style weapon”, not the bullshit way the term is usually applied) to protect my chickens?
I also hate to break it to you and the other gun control freaks, but in drive by type shootings, which was the “crisis” that lead to the AWB, “military style weapons” are not normally used. Those thugs use a Tec 9 or Mac 10 type weapon, ugly little useless weapons that bear about as much resemblance to “military style weapons”(baring special-ops type stuff) as a Yugo does to a Cadillac. Personally, I’d much rather be shot at by a gang banger with a fully auto Mac 10 than with, say, a Colt Model 1911. Chances are that 28-29 of his 30 rounds are going to go right up into the sky as he lets fly on full auto just like he saw the hero do in Grand Theft Auto.
Nope. But Firearms are 9th on the list, Motor vehicles are 6th. (from here, and the numbers are consistant with here (although that site omits suicide and Rx drug deaths)) Maybe the inventor of the guns should have invented the car if he really wanted to kill people more efficiently.
Someone once said that “…you should never argue with fools, they drag you down to their level and try to win through experience.” There are many fools here, “Fighting ignorance” hasn’t got a chance in this case. “I love my guns” always seems to overpower any rationality.
The need/want for a semi automatic weapons must be to cover the fact that you are crap shooter or to lazy to work a bolt.
The want/need to try to tell other people what to do/how to live their lives is an indication of an arrogant jackass who thinks that they are intellectual and moral superiors to everyone else.
Points I’ve tried make:
Store guns safely…
Ensure proper restrictions…
reduce number/type of firearms…
US has high number of gun deaths…
US has a lot of firearms in households…
Are you so ignorant, people, that you cannot link 2 and 2 together?
I have no problem with reasonable people, who use firearms in their line of work, or if a firearm is involved with a hobby. My point is that there is no real reason for John Q Public to own a semi automatic weapon/military style weapon/military fashioned/assault weapon/ assault weapon lookalike at all. Or is there? Apart from want there is no reason that is genuine. Just because you want something doesn’t mean you should be able to have it.
I’ll explain this to you one last time, then I’m putting your stupid ass on “ignore.”
No, but you don’t have 2 + 2, even though you are essentially asserting that 2 + 2 = 5.
At best, you have 1 + 1, but the equation still has to equal a value >2.
Fine. But most places in the USA they are legal, and since they are used in a ridiculously low number of crimes, the “need” to ban them for the public good isn’t there.
Sure there is.
Keeps the politicos honest.
Keeps marauding bands of deer at bay.
Kills dozens of bottles on fence rails at 100 yards.
Provides hours of fun and entertainment for the entire family.
Scares the willies out of the revenuers.
OK, I am going to ask you one simple, honest question, and I would like a simple honest answer. Since the types of weapons you’ve listed are used in a vanishingly small perentage of gun crimes, what is the point in banning them at all? What would be acomplished?
Maybe we should all own muzzle-loading firearms still, because then they wouldn’t look like assault weapons? Look, you narrow minded dumbfuck, I’ve tried reason, I’ve tried numbers and figures, I’ve tried ignoring your ignorance, I’ve tried rebutting your false analogies and every time you still end up coming off like a shrill harpie.
Do you really think that nobody should own a semi automatic weapon? I mean, to be fair that rules everything from about 1911 on, except for revolvers and bolt action rifles. Of course, I happen to own all of the above, but I think it’s fucking insane to say something like I quoted above.
Just because you want something doesn’t mean YOU should have it either, Demann. Your way on this subject and most semi-automatic rifles and pistols are another.
You’ve brought this entire discussion down and I can honestly say none of us are better off for it.
I live in Japan right now. Pretty much the only thing that restrains the Japanese government is the fact that they can’t get their act together long enough to do anything effective. North Korea is a threat and they don’t really want to deal with it on their own, so they’ve got to keep their noses fairly clean so the U.S. doesn’t make them pony up more money for their own defence. They know the U.S. doesn’t like it too much when countries start doing nasty things to civilians so they watch their act a bit. The recent history of getting thoroughly conquered for the first time in their long history also tends to make them a bit more passive than they were earlier this century.
The bureaucracies control most of what goes on here without too much interference from the actual representative, elected branch of the government. Besides, if you vote in an election you must choose one of the approved candidates. In the U.S. you could write in a vote for Daffy Duck or some other person you thought would do a better job if you wanted to, here you have no other choices other than the ones the government thinks would be okay to run. The whole reason the U.S. has a write-in vote provision is to prevent the government from having too much control of who can run in an election.
The police have an uncomfortable amount of power in Japan. You can be detained for up to 23 days without being charged with any crime. During that time you only have the right to see a lawyer for 15 minutes a day. You can, and in all likelihood, will be tortured during your “questioning.” Almost every single lawsuit against the police (or any branch of the government for that matter) has been dismissed by the courts. Japanese prison conditions are so abusive that Amnesty International devotes more space to citing human rights violations for Japan than it does for Thailand, which has prison conditions and rights abuses that are so notoriously awful that they have inspired several movies.
The Japanese Constitution has a provision that specifically states that a confession cannot be used as the main evidence for prosecuting a person for a crime is completely ignored in a large majority of the cases. Japanese lawyers have estimated that about 60-70 percent of the people in prison right now would not have been convicted if the Constitution was actually followed because there would not have been enough physical or circumstantial evidence to convict.
I personally know one person who was held for two weeks for allegedly beating his girlfriend. There was no evidence other than her word and the incident she referred to occurred almost a year before the accusation with no apparent repetition and with no change in their relationship. While he was being held, he was not allowed to sleep more than an hour or two per night. He was threatened verbally and physically. He was partially starved, given one meal a day in between 12-16 hour questioning sessions, which were conducted in Japanese with no translator present. He finally signed a confession as a condition of release. That confession could just as easily been used to convict him of the crime he had “committed” by breaking up with his Japanese girlfriend and telling her that he was not going to take her back to the U.S. with him. I know of another person who was beaten so badly while he was detained for a three day period that he needed treatment at a hospital before returning home to England. The only reason he was released so quickly is that my friend, who related the story to me, threatened to involve the British consul in the situation. The Japanese police originally denied that they had him in custody.
I can’t address European countries with as much authority as I can Japan simply because I’ve never lived there. However, I have read of numerous corruption problems in France and it is pretty common knowledge that British police have routinely violated citizens’ rights, due partly to continued problems with the I.R.A. China and North Korea, both of which have near-absolute gun control laws, are towering bastions of human rights, aren’t they? It doesn’t sound to me like gun control has a good effect on the behavior of the governments that practice it.
The United States Constitution has the Second Amendment provision precisely because one of the first things the British Empire did when attempting to deal with their cheeky colonials was to try to disarm them. If the gun control measures they had attempted to enforce had been successful, the U.S. would probably still be a Commonwealth country. Freedom of speech, protected by the First Amendment, was one of the most important and necessary things for starting and sustaining the Revolution, which is why it gets first billing. But, that’s obviously an outdated concept too. We don’t really need protection of our freedom of speech or protection against unreasonable search and seizure (protected by the Fourth Amendment, routinely and painfully violated when Britian was trying to disarm the American colonists) any more than we need protection of our rights to keep arms. Right?
If we were to follow the ideals that the founding fathers of the United States had laid out, we would never have a standing military force, only militias of armed citizens called up at times of need. I’m fairly certain that a large police force would probably not sit well with Jefferson and co. either. They were too individualistic to be comfortable with depending upon another for their protection.
The whole reason the U.S. has historically (but not recently, unfortunately) had such a good human rights record with its citizens is because it is largely an open and fair representative democracy. Most other countries, including most of Europe and certainly Japan, do not allow as much interference by their citizens in government as the U.S. does.
If it took the threat of armed revolt to keep the U.S. from sliding farther down the slope toward tyranny–something I highly doubt will ever be the case due in part to the excellent foresight of the people who founded the present government–I would certainly hope the means of doing so would still be available. The people who created the government in the first place thought it was so important that it needed specific and explicit protection, going so far as to include it in the founding document. It was considered second only to being able to speak your mind, even to criticize the government if need be. Without the Second Amendment provision, First and other Amendment rights are just so much ink on a page, as effective as cutting witticisms when a hulking bully is shaking you down for your lunch money.
sleel: Nice post, and a (belated) welcome to the Straight Dope!
demannlash, marky33: If y’all feel so Ogdamned strong on the subject, how come I don’t see y’all in Great Debates actually debating this topic (where it belongs) instead of hanging out in the fucking toilet of the Straight Dope, copping smokes and starting random conversations with complete strangers? :dubious:
GD is where you’ll usually find me but I haven’t come across this particular topic there. If I you would like to start a thread, I’d be happy to join in.
BTW: whiny, shitsplat - ok. But how do you reason that someone who disagrees with gun-greed is spineless?
