Jab1: what the fuck are you babbling about?! Make an argument, don’t just toss of some numbers without some contextual framework (like, say, an argument?) to plug them into.
So, what if Texas concealed carry population is around 1% of the total state population? What does that signify to you? To me, it signifies aproximately 200,000 people, give-or-take, that have paid their money, been fingerprinted, photographed, investigated, sat in a class, passes a test and received a photo I.D. license to carry concealed where it is lawfull to do so.
:rolleyes: Between you and Elvis, I’m going to go broke sending all my money to the N.R.A.
Since the number of people in Texas who have CCW is now so very low, it’s not at all surprising to me that few (if any) of them have yet to go nutso and shoot someone for saying (for example) that the Dallas Cowboys suck eggs this season. But as the numbers go up, an action like that is BOUND to happen. It’s inevitable; it’d dictated by the laws of probability. The more guns there are, the more likely it is that someone, somewhere, will do something with a gun that he shouldn’t have. The fact that a person is not required to undergo any training virtually guarantees that this will happen. And you, sir, admitted that people aren’t required to undergo any extensive training to get a CCW:
And I’d be willing to bet that what little “instruction” you got was mainly about HOW to fire a weapon and little or nothing about WHEN.
I consider the death of any human a price too huge to pay for the illusion of safety and security that guns give. No one deserves to be shot to death, not even goddamned terrorists.
Get over yourself, Beagle. I absolutely guarantee that if you walk around downtown Dallas with a six-shooter strapped to your hip, you will be arrested and charged with a crime. Do you contend otherwise? If so, I will be happy to provide the citations that you know very well exist.
:mad: No, screw it. I feel like proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that you Beagle doesn’t have the slightest idea what he’s talking about.
Here’s a hint, Beagle: Next time you get ultra-snotty about demanding someone to provide authority for a perfectly simple fact, you better make damn sure you’ve got a leg to stand on. Otherwise, all you’re going to accomplish is revealing your own foolishness as you fall on your ass.
Good Christ Allmighty, jab, what would you have done if you had been in charge of the D-Day invasion at Normandy? Given our soldiers truncheons and instructed them to give those nasty Nazis a stern talking-to?
How much money do you have? 'Cause I’m going to take that bet.
The training, while not extensive, did thoroughly cover the legal aspects of WHERE you can carry, HOW you can carry, WHEN you can “display”, WHEN you can draw, and WHEN you can fire. It also covered safe handling, storage, and carry, as well as firing proficiency. Lastly, it also covered techniques of non-violent conflict resolution.
It was a 20 hour course and took up an entire weekend.
“Display” is anything from lifting a shirt or coat to make your weapon visible to announcing “I have a gun,” because in a civil suit, “display” can supposedly indicate intent of the shooter.
The reason I said “civil suit” is because even if you shoot someone and the police rule it “righteous,” you’re still likely to be sued by either the attacker (assuming he’s still alive) or his family for wrongful injury or death.
Supposedly, 9 times out of 10, if the cops rule it a righteous shoot, your suit will never make it to trial. But we were advised to find and retain the services of a defense attorney against the eventuality of ever having to draw, much less fire.
On the one hand, I like the fact that society, even Texas society, places such burdens upon citizens legally carrying
firearms. It will make one definitely think, hard, about a situation as it develops (the sort of scenario I believe you, Jab, are envisioning).
On the other hand, violent confrontations with criminals rarely leave a person the luxury of careful contemplation. It is act quickly or surrender, and the victim of the criminal’s intent cannot afford to hesitate, trying to puzzle out the intent of his or her assailant so as to avoid criminal prosecution and/or litigation.
Reasonable Fear of Harm or Death is a subjective standard, and the burden of proof is almost always upon the shooter, and rightly so. However, if they get an anti-gun cop or judge, they may just as easily be found guilty of murder when in fact they simply defended themselves.
It’s a roll of the dice, and that I find unacceptable, hence mine and other’s call for nationwide, objective-as-humanly-possible concealed carry licensing and use-of-force standards.
In spite of the “Wild West” mythos surrounding Texas, we are hardly the most gun-friendly state where concealed carry is involved. IIRC, we get only a “C” grade from the NRA, while Brady, et.al., gives us an “F” for even allowing licensed concealed carry; we just can’t seem to please anybody.
I would not have been in charge of the D-day invasion or any other invasion. I doubt very much I would have been in the military in the first place, let alone Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces (or whatever Eisenhower’s title was). I understand that the question is hypothetical, but it’s also pointless.
Never mind. :o (Though I must wonder why you disparaged it earlier, saying it wasn’t enough to trust an airline passenger to know when to shoot and when not to.)
And there are many people who shoot without thinking. THEY’RE the ones I’m worried about and you can’t always know who they are before you let them start packing “heat.” So I say let no one carry; the risk of being wrong is too great. One wrongful death in even one billion is too many. (Assuming there even is such a thing as a “righteous” death, and I indicated above that I don’t really believe there is such a thing.)
That’s the excuse some LAPD cops gave a few years ago when they shot a frail, mentally-ill homeless woman who came after them with a screwdriver. Yeah, their lives were endangered, SURE they were. AFAIK, these cops were punished only lightly for killing a woman who was never truly a threat to them. This is what can happen when you get a PRO-gun judge.
Wouldn’t this violate States’ Rights? I mean, how would you accomplish this without a Constitutional amendment?
Well, boo-hoo.
I guess I need to remind you that I was born in Texas and lived there till I was 19. Where I lived, in a tiny farming town, a guy who didn’t own a gun or know how to shoot one was looked upon as a “queer” or “suicidal”.
“Don’t you want to live, you goddamn faggot?” they’d ask me.
“Of course,” I said. “But I want everyone else to live too.” Never having met someone so generous before, they were dumbfounded. Then they would find their voices and demand, “Don’t you know that some people deserve to die?” (Which I found odd coming from people who claimed they were Christians and believed that God made everyone. God made people who “deserve to die”?)
I refuse to believe that I deserve to live more than anyone else does. If a person’s life can ever be taken from him, then there is no such thing as a right to life, there is only the privilege to live. Even Jefferson didn’t seem to understand this. He mentions “the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and then later tells how these “rights” can be taken away. If they can be taken away, how can be called “rights”? If they can be surrendered, how can they be called “rights”?
*“IHR” is the Institute for Historical Review. My post at the bottom of that thread shows that they DO deny that millions of Jews were deliberately killed by the Nazis.
I can agree with that. However, if “life” is a “privilege”, then wouldn’t it follow that someone else who tried to take your life would, as punishment/recourse, lose that privilege?
It’s not a matter of “deserve to die”… it’s a matter of “deserve to live”. I like to think that I deserve to live. As such, I have a right to prevent someone from taking (or trying to take) my life. Sometimes this may require me to take theirs.
I don’t think it’s any more pointless than an atheist asking Mormons and other theists how they distinguish between a true and a false prophet. That question is equally hypothetical, yet you feel that the theists should entertain it in your LDS thread.
In any case, what you appear to be saying is that you consider the life of Pol Pot, or Stalin, or Hitler (no, I’m not Godwinizing, it’s a legitimate condition to the question) to be exactly equivalent to yours, and that you would neither take up arms against them nor support the taking up of arms against them. Is that the case?
And if so, how does that jibe with telling UncleBeer that you did a happy dance when Richard Nixon died? Isn’t his life equal to yours too, then?
I don’t see how a person who claims to be ethical could support the former proposition, and I don’t see how a person who claims to value all life precisely equally could claim the latter. If this deserves its own thread, I’ll be happy to start one.
Because there is a difference between the man-about-town confronting a mugger on a city sidewalk and that same man-about-town confronting a group of armed, probably trained terrorists in an aircraft, potentially filled with hundreds of people, flying at 500+ miles-per-hour at 30,000+ feet through the air, an environment inimical to humans and extremely unforgiving of accidents and mishaps.
That’s simply your value judgement; mine essentuially says the same thing, but that the greater evil is depriving a person of their ability to compete with an assailant, who either disregarded gun control laws and equiped themselves with the implements of force and coercion illegally or who decided to initiate force against other people for profit or pleasure.
Licensed, and even minimally trained law-abiding citizens are extremely less likely to “shoot without thinking” than any other citizen with a firearm solely in their home or at the shooting range.
One innocent victim, deprived of the ability to resist and defend themselves against force and coercion by another, is too many.
Cite? Show that the judge was specifically pro-gun, and in that case, and not just pro-cop. I’m not denying the existence, generally, of pro-gun law enforcement or judiciary. I just want it proven in the example you cited. Could she have been a frail, hopped-to-the-gills crack addict? A “dust head” going berserk?
Facts. I want facts.
Possibly; it could also be worded to the effect of “Where the state allows concealed carry, these are the standards which should be applied”.
Amazingly enough, the town you grew up in in Texas sounds remarkably like the town I grew up in in Illinois. Perhaps the commonality has more to due with rural communities and mindsets than geopolitical boundaries.
Perhaps Texas’ restrictions on concealed carry are a good thing; by raising the bar, they make people consider if it is worth the trouble. For me, when I worked nights as an on-call service tech in south Dallas, it was. After my job moved on, it wasn’t.
That’s a value judgement you are free to make, but only for yourself. I generally agree with you, with a few certain exceptions. Anyone initiating force against me or another for profit or pleasure jeopardizes their right to life. I would have them confronted with equal or superior force, and the will to use such force, in defense of the victim(s).
If they persist, and represent a reasonable jeopardy to life or limb of a victim, then they have, IMHO, lost the right to life; by either my hand or anothers, be it fellow citizen, appointed peace officer, or the state’s retribution.
Thus spake Zarathushtra.
I think you labor under a misapprehension of the definition of “rights”. Grab a dictionary. It’s under the R’s.
People have rights. People form societies. Societies form governments. Governments enact laws to protect the rights of their citizens. They protect citizens from hostile governments (formed from hostile societies, comprised of hostile peoples) and from each other.
Some rights, unregulated by either personal or regulatory restraint, can cause harm. Thus regulations, and punishments for violating such regulations are enacted. Such punishments can include temporary or permanent forfeiture of rights. None are absolute, except in the theoretical sense.
Excessive regulation infringes upon a right. If such regulation is objectively necessary, then perhaps it no longer can be claimed as a right.
It isn’t hypothetical to them. By saying that it’s hypothetical only to me, they don’t have to answer it?
I find it immensely hypocritical to use evil methods to get rid of evil.
If you can’t see the difference between merely wishing that certain individuals were dead and actually killing them, I don’t know what to say. Merely thinking that someone ought to die is not a crime. Actually murdering them is the crime.
What would you have done to get rid of Hitler? Begged him? Bribed him? Issued an arrest warrant? I’d like a specific, detailed answer, because I think this speaks directly to your ethics.
If you can’t see the difference between merely wishing that certain individuals were dead and actually killing them, I don’t know what to say. Merely thinking that someone ought to die is not a crime. Actually murdering them is the crime.
[/QUOTE]
Ah, so it isn’t that you particularly value life in general, you just value not deliberately killing people. If Ronald Reagan is accidentally hit by a car next week, you’ll do a happy dance, but if someone deliberately runs him over, you won’t? Is that it?
Rejoicing in a death is rejoicing in a death, regardless of how the person died, and it certainly removes from the rejoicer any claim to ethical superiority, or even consistency, on the basis of “valuing life.” If you valued life the way you claim, then Richard Nixon’s death would have been a tragedy to you.
As far as “rights” go, spare me. You and I both know that “rights” are not embedded in our DNA, or otherwise bestowed on us from on high at birth. Rights are only meaningful, once claimed, to the extent that the people around you agree to recognize and value them.
I have a “right” to free speech because I live in a country whose government is based on a document which grants that right a certain legal, protected status. The government is obligated, within certain limitations, to recognize and protect that right. You, however, are not. In this forum, you can refuse to read my posts. In real life, you could plug your ears, shout me down, or walk away. As far as you are concerned, my “right” to free speech only extends as far as your willingness to listen to me.
pldennison, I’m starting to think you’re as unreasonable on this subject as BickByro is about the Apollo program. You want every microscopic point clarified. This is no longer a debate and is now an interrogation.
I would like a specific, detailed answer as to why it was not possible to capture him alive, assuming he would not have committed suicide before the Allies found his bunker.
Yes. What is the contradiction? If someone deliberately murders Ronald Reagan, try and imprison the SOB for life. But at the same time, be kinda glad that RR is not around anymore. (I have no more love for Jack Ruby than I do for Oswald. I have no love for any killer.)
No fucking way. Remember the Palestinians who rejoiced when they heard of the 9/11 attacks? What was despicable about their rejoicing is that they were celebrating the deaths of people who had done them no harm. I hope you don’t believe that Nixon had done no harm to this country.
I quite agree. The right to speak does not come with a guarantee that anyone will listen or even agree.
Where did I say that it did?
Ex Tank: As for the woman killed by the LAPD, I’m having trouble finding all the information you aksed for. For a start, here is a long story from the LAWeekly that briefly mentions the incident:
“Riordan” is the ex-mayor of L.A.; “Parks” is the chief of police. “I.G.” means “Inspector General,” whose job is to investigate and evaluate police conduct.
Here is another story about the way the LAPD handles the homeless. It ain’t pretty.
That must be why I couldn’t recall how the cops responsible were punished. (I said, “As far as I know…”) This is the most recent story I copuld find on the incident, and it’s apparently still under review.
At least I established that it really happened. (I’d go to the L. A. Times for those stories they refer to, but the Times charges for old stories and I would not be able to link to them.)
Hah! I found what is perhaps the definitive article on the shooting of Margaret Mitchell (not the writer of Gone With the Wind.) It’s four pages long, so I hope any interested parties have enough free time to read it.
BickByro?!?!?!?!/ Damn, jab, that hurts. You could’ve just kicked me in the nuts, you know.
As far as the Hitler thing goes, you still dodged the question. A specific answer as to why we couldn’t capture him alive would be that he stuck his own pistol in his mouth and blew his head off before we could get him to surrender. But more to the point, we couldn’t just drop a commando team on his bunker; there was a well defended German perimeter, and lots of anti-aircraft guns. In short, they sure as hell were going to be shooting at us, whether we preferred them to or not.
If you’re going to ask someone to engage in the business of defense for you, like the cops, or the army, it is fundamentally immoral to deprive them of using the same level of force with which they are likely to meet. I comprehend – or should I say I recognize – your distaste for firearms, but if someone’s going to be shooting at our defense forces, I certainly think we should let them shoot back. Not everyone is going to play by our rules, as I think recent events have demonstrated.
You were dismissive of my talk about rights, and in fact didn’t quote most of what I said. It was specifically in response to your statement:
Calling something a “right” doesn’t mean it can never be taken away or surrendered. I can’t imagine why you would think it would, really. Your “right” to free association can be surrendered any time you are convicted of a felony. Your “right” to free speech can be abridged when it involves a direct threat to a public official. There is no such thing as an absolute right, unless every living human being and nature itself is in agreement. One’s assertion of a right to live is meaningless both when facing the barrel of a gun and when facing an oncoming landslide.
You don’t have a right to live. Neither do I. Not a naturally occurring one. I only have a right to live to the extent that you and most other people decide on a day-to-day basis not to kill me. And, frankly, although some methods rank lower on my list than others, if you or someone else decides not to recognize that right any more, it matters little to me whether the tool is a gun, a flamethrower, a paralyzing poison, or a blunt object to the head.
But if it comes to a position where the value of my life is juxtaposed with that of another person, certain decisions have to be made. Do I deserve to live more than Slobodan Milosevic does? Your answer to a similar proposition was, “I refuse to believe that I deserve to live more than anyone else does.” Sorry, but I disagree. You bet your ass I deserve to live more than Milosevic, or Bin Laden, or Pol Pol, or Pinochet. I also deserve to live more than any individual who decides to directly confront me and attempt to take my life or to cause me or my wife, or other members of my family, serious bodily harm. If I find myself in a position where I have to defend myself with lethal means, so be it.
What all this comes down to is that I, as I have said in the past, believe that you are sufficiently irrational and paranoid on the topic of guns that you are incapable of discussing the topic rationally. You want all guns on earth to be banned and disappear forever, therefore anything that falls short of that goal is not reasonable to you. It appears to me that you sometimes have a difficult time shoehorning the rest of your ethical system, and your feelings on the value of life, into this view, and it results in what appear to me to be inconsistencies.
Jab1: I read all four pages of the “definitive article” you linked to, and found nothing about pro-gun judges siding with police officers in a questionable shooting.
What I found is another egregious example of the L.A.P.D.'s mishandling of a police involved shooting. Conflicting versions of events, official statements not reflecting the verbal testimony of witnesses; this is nothing new in L.A.
And your citation of it was a red herring, irrelevant to the issue at hand: your hypocrisy and your irrational fear of guns.
Your hypocrisy is your total respect for the lives of the assholes who may abuse firearms to threaten you, but not for political adversaries you’d happily dance upon the graves of should they die or be killed tomorrow. I didn’t care much for President Clinton, but I never wished harm upon the man (disgrace and shame, perhaps, but never physical harm; nor did I ever want him to come to harm).
Your irrational fear of guns stems from a close-minded childhood in a rural community, and extends to a police agency with one of the worst track records of excessive violence against minorities and the helpless. I say this: you are close-minded. You are unable to grasp or conceive of any possibility, any eventuality outside of the indelibly stamped negatives you look to for examples, and wrap around yourself in smug superiority.
Maybe if there were no guns, there would be no violence. History is against it, as man has committed violence upon man since rocks and sticks were the latest and greatest in personal armaments. Maybe if there were no guns, there would simply be less violence. Myself and others don’t believe our government and police agencies capable of rendering a gun-free country without trampling on a goodly portion of the Bill of Rights (aside from the 2nd Ad.) in the process, or without permanently sealing the borders, creating huge police forces in the process.
Maybe there are things that can be done to further insure that crack dealers and drug runners don’t have guns to shoot each other and the police with. Bring them up, and describe how you believe it will accomplish your objective. Be prepared to examine the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Maybe gun-control advocates think I’m a fucking chump for being amenable to reason, hoping to move legislation and regulations one step closer to near-total or total firearms bans.
The issue is more complex, and more diverse than your close-minded, simplistic and often hypocritical view would have it be. I at least consider alternatives.
I’m not used to the happy version of pldennison; I retract the BickByro comparison!
Because Jefferson said certain rights were “inalienable.” (Or was it “UNalienable”?) Webster’s defines “alienable” as “transferable to another’s ownership”. So “inalienable” means “NOT transferable to another’s ownership;” that is, no one else may own an individual’s rights that are considered inalienable. So, if someone allows someone else to kill or imprison him, he is transferring his rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to someone else and, thus, his rights are alienable.
So, are you saying Jefferson was wrong when he said certain rights are inalienable? And if so, wouldn’t that mean this country declared its independence without sufficient reason?
Two completely different situations. Theoretically, any human being can be talked into putting down his (or her) gun; you can’t talk a landslide out of killing you!
Then why cling to life at all? By your own words, we’re not entitled to it. Why should anyone be permitted to keep something he is not entitled to?
As far as taking care of (or getting rid of) the bad guys in the world, just put me down in the group that wishes very fervently that there was some other way of doing it than killing them. I guess we human beings are far weaker and more helpless than I want to believe. That depresses me (but then again, most things do).
ExTank, I am guilty of nothing more than having an imperfect memory. Believe me, it is VERY imperfect. I guess you missed this part I wrote:
Meaning that they STILL haven’t been punished. (Didn’t you notice that it was dated August 10th of last year? It’s in the URL.) When or if they are, I’ll let you know.
I have NO respect for anyone who threatens to shoot me. Where did I say that I did? Do you think I have respect for them merely because I refuse to stoop down to their below-ground level and kill them as they were trying to kill me? I will not use my enemy’s methods against him; how can I kill and then honestly say I am against killing?
