We had Toomey and Manchin lead the last try (the one after Newtown), and that went real well.
So I’m calling bullshit on this. And even if it were true, it would be all about the gun lovers getting their fee-fee’s all hurt, and that being more important to them than, you know, saving lives.
I’ve heard this “if only libruls would talk more nicely to conservatives and be more willing to compromise, then we’d work things out” baloney for decades. But do the people saying that ever get upset when Carson and Cruz call the Dems Nazis and jackbooted thugs? Fuck, no. Apparently only conservatives have tender feelings that need to be treated gently.
AFAICT, a lot of it is because some jurisdictions do not permit open carry. So it is frequently a gauge of whether or not a state permits people to carry guns at all.
Some of it is type of mentality that is (rightly or wrongly) ridiculed by folks like Elvis. They don’t want to give the “bad guys” a heads up on who is armed and who is not armed. See, sheepdogs.
Folks who get concealed carry generally have to pass more rigorous background checks than what is needed to purchase a gun and tend to be more law abiding than the general population (in some places (like Texas) they are more law abiding than the police).
You have a different idea of what responsible means than the American legal system generally.
For example. There are penalties for failure to properly secure explosives. But those penalties do not include criminal liability for whatever the thieves did with those explosives. There is no penalty for what happens to stolen explosives that were properly stored.
You are making the case that guns are inherently dangerous and we should impose an higher standard of liability in these cases. And while we frequently do this in assigning tort liability, we generally do not do this when it comes to criminal liability.
Vicarious criminal liability is a rare bird when you haven’t committed any crime yourself.
I agree. I try to avoid such rhetoric, except possibly the last one. I’ve known people who refuse to go where they can’t carry, and at least for those few, it is because they’re afraid, but they’re an exception. Although I will admit that I find it hard to understand why anyone would want to be constantly armed.
So they have some details wrong. The point is that they want to ban weapons that can fire numerous rounds in succession. Understand their obvious intent, correct them on the details, and carry on. But some people won’t even engage with people who don’t have every detail right. That’s not constructive, but it is useful for shutting down conversation.
It’s often used when it’s not even relevant. For an example see Damuri Ajashi’s comment about “low information, high hysteria folks”. It wasn’t even in response to some wrong information. It was nothing but an ad hominem talking point.
No, the mentality is that of *wanting *something to happen so you can act out your hero fantasies. Never mind that they actually almost never happen, and the gun carrier is pretty likely to be identified by another one or an LEO as being the “bad guy”. Especially never mind that a more responsible approach is to deter having something happen, which your shooting iron cannot do if it is not seen. Or you can be like **MacTech **here and talk about “showing leather” and all those other tough-talk terms he picked up on a message board for his fellow cowards or somewhere.
So, no, concealed carry is cowboy-movie fantasizing at best, more often an instigating factor, and in general contributes to people getting killed. If you want to fight crime, become an LEO or stay the hell out of the way. But cut the fantasizing.
Exactly. But they don’t want such things to even be discussed so they derail conversations into discussions of technical details. I don’t know if the NRA employs Frank Lutz but they must have one or more people like him either on their payrolls or as consultants, because they are masters at disrupting and redirecting conversation.
Frank Luntz specializes more in coming up with terminology that sways focus groups - “death tax” for the estate tax, for instance. The NRA doesn’t do that; they use terms and talking points designed to provide reassurance to the viscera of their donor/member base.
Thinking a car can travel 300mph through a school zone is not a problem of details - it’s a fundamental lack of understanding of the issues involved. But you’re right, if it’s mere details, then correcting them is easy. When someone says, they don’t want to ban all guns, just guns that can fire numerous rounds in succession, the correction is that yes, what they are saying is that they want to ban all guns. And the intent is obvious - and that’s why there’s no point in engaging with those people. When a group of people call you a terrorist, there is no point in engaging those people. When people say they want to negotiate, and offer absolutely nothing in return, there is no point in engaging those people. When people call for “reasonable” restrictions, like confiscation, there is no point in engaging those people. When people are so willfully ignorant that they think there is no non-military purpose to firearms while living in a country whose police force is armed, there is no point in engaging those people. Are you one of those people?
When the goal is to kill you, it’s not like you can negotiate some middle ground where you both agree to only kill you a little bit.
There you see an example of the avoidance strategy you describe, **davidm **- the excluded-middle of pretending (lying) that any regulation proposal means wanting a complete ban. It’s dishonest and cowardly, but effective and common.
I have medical insurance. I do not want to fall and break my ankle.
I have dental insurance. I do not want to have a root canal.
I have car insurance. I do not want some bozo to run a red light and hit me.
I have homeowners insurance. I do not want to come home to find a tree fallen into my living room.
I conceal carry. I really, really, do not want to ever need it.
The only fantasies here are your delusions of adequacy.
Yes. I can’t tell if some of these people (people in general, not anyone in particular on this board) are deliberately using dishonest debating tactics or if they’ve just picked them up by listening to the NRA and others who are doing it deliberately. This stuff comes from linguists and PR people. It’s not all that different from how they sell us razor blades and automobiles. It’s likely coming from Ad agencies and PR firms hired by the gun lobby. The people who tried to obfuscate the facts on tobacco, and are currently doing the same with climate change.
Actually, it even works on a kind of meta level. What are we currently discussing? Not guns - debating tactics.
And how can we not? It’s either that or engage them on their level. But we still end up discussing something other than guns. What they do is clever and insidious. We need to learn how to turn it around on them.
Within the gun carriers’ community there is an open debate on concealed vs. open carry, with arguments for both; and state laws differ on the subject themselves. Some states make no distinction between them, some require concealed, at least one used to require open. Basically it depends on whether displaying a gun is considered “brandishing” or not in that state. In my state of Minnesota both open and concealed carry are legal, but drawing a gun is considered an act of force, punishable as fifth-degree assault if not justified.
I’ve heard that some states that require concealed have laws against “printing”- having it be obvious that you have a poorly-concealed firearm on you. And whether by necessity or by choice, if you’re going to carry concealed you want to do so successfully.
You want a cite for the presumption of innocence in America? Of course he is a responsible law-abiding gun owner, until it is proven otherwise.
Or would you prefer we profile all gun owners as rage filled sociopaths, likely to go off at the slightest provocation? It would certainly make it easier to seize their guns, but I doubt that is what you had in mind.