The “scary” appearance is part of its attractiveness to purchasers, isn’t it?
Why do you buy a car? Is it for looks? Fuel economy? Transmission type? Fuel type?
Because I bet if you asked that question to people in general, you’d get a whole lot of answers. It’s the same with guns.
The AR15 is usually sought out because it’s highly modifiable. You need one gun to do the work of 3-4. You can change just about everything on the gun.
I’m sure some people buy it because it “looks scary” but that’s like saying that all car owners only care about the look of their car. Sure SOME only care about that, but most would say that that’s not why they do so. You can verify this for yourself: How many people do you see walking around with their guns out to intimidate people? Police and military don’t count as those people are required to wear guns when they are wearing them.
If you can’t think of 1 despite there being roughly 270 million guns in this country, I think you have your answer. You can’t scare someone by locking your gun in a cabinet.
Probably for some people. Others prefer wood, and/or great wood like this:
Black plastic is a lot cheaper than good wood, and is certainly more utilitarian. But back to the OP Elvis, what do your thoughts on the media blaming misuse of Biden’s favorite shotgun on the AR15? No comment because the end justifies the means?
My thoughts? Early, rushed, inaccurate reporting, in the push to get something on the air in a timely manner. The early reporting was fraught with misinformation, because the facts weren’t readily available. So?
The point of my earlier post was to offer a counter to the common, silly statement about “scary-looking guns”.
Oh yes, I can, I can. There are multiple participants on this very board who brag about it, and more than that who fantasize about it, too. As you know.
I haven’t actually seen anyone on these boards brag about intimidating other people with their guns, but I don’t tend to stray from Great Debates. And I don’t extrapolate other’s statements to say that they do, I take people at their word unless I am given evidence that they aren’t being truthful. If they were to say “I like to wander around with my AR15 and scare people.” I would call them on it. I support the right for people to own guns. I do not support anyone’s right to be stupid and/or reckless.
I honestly hope you don’t know people like that in real life.
Also, I fantasize about being a small man with large ears fairly frequently. Doesn’t mean I am trying to find a plastic surgeon to make it a reality. Many people fantasize about things that are beyond their control or found in their “perfect world”. It doesn’t mean that they are actively trying to make that world come to fruition. A fantasy is a release, a dream, a what-have-you. It is not the same thing as a “Goal” where you are trying to actively achieve something.
The media keeps misrepresenting what types of firearms are being used in mass shootings. Your side doesn’t know the difference, or doesn’t care. It gives the impression that you don’t even fully understand what your trying to legislate.
They already are controlled. There’s a lengthy list of categories of people who are prohibited from purchasing or possessing them (which no longer includes Tom DeLay). There are strict licensing and record-keeping requirements for manufacturers and dealers and a slew of laws at the state and local levels that govern their use. I’m guessing all that is not enough for you though. I suspect you want them more “controlled”, so I’m curious: what did you have in mind?
I could understand that if they were just reporting on the type of gun used in the incident, but they went above and beyond that. Look at the CNN article I linked to in the OP. They’re clearly trying to leave readers with the impression that the Navy Yard shooter used an AR-15. They know it’s not true (and they acknowledge it - vaguely in the third paragraph and somewhat less vaguely in the fourth paragraph) but they leave the first two paragraphs (and the rest of the article) up there anyways. Why? Because it pushes their biased agenda (ETA: which is that “assault weapons” are so particularly malevolent and destructive that they should be singled out for a ban, but that argument falls apart if people find out that Alexis was able to wreak havoc with a simple Biden-approved pump shotgun).
It could be an agenda as you say, or it could be rushed and detail-challenged reporting and rushed editing. Certainly you’ll see it if you want to see it.
It’s not rushed anymore. It’s now Thursday, and the CNN article’s second and third sentences still read, “A U.S. law enforcement official said Monday that gunman Aaron Alexis unleashed a barrage of bullets using an AR-15, a rifle and a semi-automatic handgun. Authorities believed the AR-15 was used for most of the shooting, the official said.”
I’m not the only one that sees it that way. Bill O’Reilly trashed the news media for getting it wrong (and devoted gun-rights advocates don’t consider Bill O’Reilly a friend or ally).
But your defense in that situation is not “but I didn’t shoot him with a weapon”. It involves “how could I possibly have expected that to be a human in an animal suit? What was he thinking, knowing people had loaded firearms and are out shooting at moose-like objects?”
You are right, pulling on definitions is not going to work, sorry for bringing it up. I did not mean to claim that calling guns “weapons” is inaccurate. My point was that sometimes the choice of words can play into and demonstrate psychological positions on topics. The word “weapon” carries a connotation of something used for violence. The term “firearm” may or may not carry that same connotation. The effort is being made to distinguish the tool from the use.
It’s like the aforementioned knife. A knife is a weapon - it’s pointy and bladed and cuts and stabs and is often used for violence. Except a knife is also a tool that uses those same features for non-violent purposes, like slicing up vegetables.
I carry a pocket knife on me most of the time. I could, in a pinch, use it for self defense. I do practice pulling it out quickly. I do know a woman who had to use her knives to fight off two attackers. But I have never had to use my knife as a self defense tool, even by displaying it. I use it to cut things from time to time, and open mail. It’s a tool I have with me for those semi-frequent uses that also happens to be something that could really mess someone up if I felt like it. Is my knife a weapon? Inherently? It has never been used as one. But sure, call it a weapon, and then complain that I’m carrying a weapon everywhere and I could go in a rampage and slash and cut people, like that guy did on that Houston college campus earlier this year. Or I could open my mail with my weapon.
The people who want to ban firearms harp on the fact that they are “weapons”. The people who defend firearms want to emphasize that they are “tools”.
That piece certainly is an agenda driven piece. Some other article might be a case of rushed reporting and inaccurate information, but that article is an anti-AR-15 agenda article using the navy yard shooting as a pretext.
The article begins with a reference to AR-15s. It then has 3 paragraphs about the shooting, including erroneous statements that an AR-15 was used, followed by disclaimers that one probably wasn’t used. That is followed by 35 paragraphs discussing AR-15s as mass shooting weapons and advocacy of gun control, including banning AR-15s.
No, pulling on definitions works just fine, it just doesn’t work the way you want it to. This attempt to portray ‘weapon’ as an emotionally loaded term and ‘firearm’ an emotionally neutral term has absolutely no validity. A firearm is a weapon, full stop. That is the defining part of its definition. You will not find the word firearm defined in any dictionary as not being a weapon. It is a firearm because it is an armament.
People who have respect for the English language are aware that firearms are weapons, and that every time you use the word firearm you are referring to a weapon. Again, this has fuck-all to do with one’s position on gun control, nobody is harping on anything. I have no idea what you hope to gain by trying to obscure the situation by bringing in the word ‘tool’ at this point. All weapons are tools, full stop. That’s part of the definition of the word tool. You cannot however, in any good faith substitute the word tool for firearm unless you intend to confuse the reader; not all tools are weapons. If I told you Charles Whitman killed 17 people using tools you’d wonder if English was my first language, regardless of the fact that the statement is technically correct.
My point was that the words you choose frame the discussion one way or another. Most of the gun control arguments use the most threatening type language possible to describe the guns. For example if someone uses a beat up old M1903 Springfield to shoot a bunch of people, saying that the shooter killed the people with a high-powered military rifle conjures up a much different mental picture than saying that he shot them with a 110 year old museum relic.
The tool/rifle/weapon argument is a somewhat more subtle version of that above, with the possible exception that just about anything you can club or puncture someone with is a weapon, while not everything is really a tool.
[QUOTE=Dissonance]
People who have respect for the English language are aware that firearms are weapons, and that every time you use the word firearm you are referring to a weapon. [snip] I have no idea what you hope to gain by trying to obscure the situation by bringing in the word ‘tool’ at this point. All weapons are tools, full stop. That’s part of the definition of the word tool. You cannot however, in any good faith substitute the word tool for firearm unless you intend to confuse the reader; not all tools are weapons.
[/QUOTE]
Of course not, and I never said all tools are weapons. “Weapon” is a generic word, “tool” is an even more generic word. But by virtue of that genericness, it is also less alarmist.
Reasonable people are aware of all this. Reasonable people have no trouble understanding that a gun can be a firearm, a weapon, and a tool all at once. Reasonable people can accept that just because a gun is a weapon that does not mean that every gun owner is running around shooting everyone they see.
But reasonable people also aren’t going around calling every gun used in a shooting an AR-15. We’re not always dealing with reasonable people. So there is some value in selecting the words to shape the conversation the way you want it.
It’s just like the abortion debate, where one side styles itself “Pro-Life” and the other “Pro-Choice”. Those two terms are not opposites, but they carry the connotations that the groups want to emphasize.
Multiple participants on this board? Who are they?
You are forgetting how this issue was brought up. It was not by a gun control advocate using the most inflammatory language possible. It was the bizarre, factually incorrect and thoroughly unreasonable statement by smilingbandit that firearms are not weapons.
Yeah but you followed it up with this bizarre, incorrect, and thoroughly unreasonable statement:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16675627&postcount=21
Semantics aside, do you have any comments regarding the OP? Or do think it better to continue arguing definitions in order to cloud/dodge the real issue? You know, the agenda to demonize “assault weapons” (in particular the AR15) by dishonestly blaming non-“assault weapon” related deaths" (in particular the Remington 870) on said AR15.
In what possible way is that statement by me bizarre, incorrect or thoroughly unreasonable?
I already gave an example as to why here:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16675946&postcount=51
I might be willing to discuss the issue further if you start a new thread on the proper definition of a weapon, but I really don’t want to further continue the hijack of the OP.
Now about that OP, no comments?