(bolding mine)
I did a lot of things the last time I was in Vegas, but the $200 I spent at
http://www.thegunstorelasvegas.com/gunrental.html
was by far the most fun.
I was just in Vegas for my bachelor party. One of the suggested activities was to go to this place (or something like it, I dont remember exactly). I declined - I have shot guns before, not one thing about them appealed to me. Different strokes I guess.
The targets were pictures of bin Laden, I cut through one with a belt fed SAW light machine that chewed through 50 rounds in less than a minute. Now I’m saving up to get one for home defence should a paper cut out of Osama appear 40 yards from my house. Unfortunately my wife thinks we need a new counter top.
Anyone know how effective a granite counter top is for home defence? Or how many accidental deaths result each year?
Antis can whine about guns, but if you really want a massacre you useexplosives. Or gasoline.
I daresay we are never going to be able to do anything effective preemptively about bloodthirsty crazoids. These attempts to feel safe through restricting the law abiding accomplish nothing.
The point that progun people miss is that these things have actual, practical, real world uses that have nothing to do with killing people. That’s why we aren’t awed by the amazing stats about car fatalities and whatnot. With guns, the only practical use is to shoot people.
FWIW Cecil and I looked into this some time ago and determined it was about a wash - the benefit of guns was probably close to the cost of guns. That was his opinion; mine was weighted that the benefit was greater. I’m happy to accept an equivalence, however, based on the fact it was so doggone hard to pin down many hard numbers.
If you get some time, can you expand on this? How did you define “benefit” & “cost” when were you trying to quantify this? Genuinely curious.
This is of course prima facie false, as anyone familiar with even the concepts of hunting, sport shooting, or this little event called the Olympic Games, should be aware that the “only practical use” is not “to shoot people.”
I mean seriously, 10 years and the same old crap can still be found in the “Great Debates” forum. Isn’t there some point at which this should cease?
It was written up for the newspaper and can be found on the Straight Dope website. The main comparison was in terms of lives saved and crimes prevented, not monetary cost. Pro-gun folks such as Kleck claim enormous numbers of lives saved due to guns; I’m somewhat skeptical of that. Nonetheless, I came across many studies on the deterrence effect where criminals in prison who were interviewed claimed one of the top deterrence factors to them for breaking into a house or mugging someone was the thought that the victim(s) might have a gun. Direct defensive gun use however was found to be smaller than thought, and skewed by reporting by some who claimed “hundreds” of defensive uses annually, something which begs belief.
And thankfully CCW holders (a very law-abiding group in the first place) are not placed in positions where they need to use their firearm very often. In fact, defensive gun use by any CCW holder is rare enough that it’s notable. This begs the questions of whether or not there isn’t much need for defensive gun use period, or (my suspicion) whether CCW holders are generally law-abiding people who have good situational awareness and tend not to get into trouble in the first place.
Then the argument goes towards the angle “…would the clumsy person prone to falling down the stairs be more likely to kill him/herself quicker or more effectively with a firearm?”
It’s an emotional subject with adherents on one side or the other for opposing reasons. You won’t see much middle ground being posted here. The staunch adherents of one or the other philosophy tend to stay that way.
I sometimes wonder why the anti-gun people seem to be the ones with the tendency to keep bringing it up.
Fences are not that expensive, relative to the cost of a pool. It is well known that pools are not effective investments when considering the value of a house. But people build them anyhow, and still do, even with the restrictions. I’m sure some people did complain, but look at complaints about seatbelts, which don’t cost anything and which involve you not getting killed, not some kid. I’ve been around a while, and don’t recalled any large scale fence protests.
I think I was living in Ottawa at the time the city council wanted everyone with a pool to build a fence. People lost their shit, as they do with most anything.
A better example would be helmet laws.
By “practical use” I meant as a tool to accomplish a specific goal, not a recreational need. ANYTHING can be used recreationally; I can throw plutonium rods through a basket for a game but thats not what I would define as a “practical use”. And sure, there are Ted Nugents in the world who hunt as a primary means of eating, but they are, as you would say, rare enough that it’s notable.
Of what use is life if we err on the side of judging based on the practical goals and mechanistic utility, and nothing else? Sports are dangerous, period. When I give lectures on fencing to parents they’re always astonished, then disbelieving, when I show them stats that fencing has a lower injury and death rate per hour played or per “encounter” than football, softball, basketball, or soccer. I then get an emotional reaction from them which is “but…but…you use SWORDS!” Firearms have enjoyed a sporting use for more than 500 years; minimizing or ignoring that huge component seems wrong.
When Barrett M82A1 with AN/PVS-10 day/night optics are outlawed, only outlaws will have Barrett M82A1 with AN/PVS-10 day/night optics.
I could just as easily turn the question back around on you. I have loads of fun with my plutonium basketball game. Sure it renders the cities I play it in uninhabitable for several million years after the game is over and lots of people die, but lots of things are dangerous! Live a little!
The point is, obviously, that you have to draw a line somewhere. Personally, I draw it at a device that offers 0 practical use and presents all sorts of dangers and problems in society. Other people draw it on the other side of guns but this side of tanks and whatnot. Frankly driving/shooting a tank sounds like way more fun than a gun, but w/e.
I’d kill for one of those. And with one it would be easier to kill for one of those.
Issues of practicality aside, you think that Barret with FMJ would make an awesome dawn/dusk elk rifle up in the mountains if you didn’t mind toting it around? 
From the Wiki:
“The long effective range, over 1,800 metres (5,900 ft) (1.1 miles), along with high energy and availability of highly effective ammunition such as API and Raufoss Mk 211, allows for effective operations against targets like radar cabins, trucks, parked aircraft. and the like. The M82 can also be used to defeat human targets from standoff range or against targets behind cover. However, anti-personnel use is not a major application for the M82 (or any other .50 BMG rifle, for that matter). There is a widespread misconception that a number of treaties have banned use of the .50 BMG against human targets, and recruits have been advised by generations of drill instructors to only aim a .50 BMG at an enemy soldier’s web gear or other equipment worn on his body.[citation needed] However, the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s office has issued a legal opinion that the .50 BMG and even the Raufoss Mk 211 round are legal for use against enemy personnel.[citation needed]”
Shouldn’t a distinction also be made between handguns, shotguns, and rifles?
.
What if I’ve attached all three to a cross bow?