The War on Guns

[bump]

@Dissonance

In what possible way is that statement by me bizarre, incorrect or thoroughly unreasonable?

What you said is only true in the broadest of terms. By that, I mean that yes, firearms were originally designed (in the 13th century or so) as military weapons.

However over time, they’ve diverged into multiple variations, many of which are expressly not designed to kill anything. There are plenty of target pistols and rifles that are designed to put holes exactly on target in a piece of paper.

I have a Ruger 22/45 with the 5" bull barrel. It’s a target pistol that I suppose could be used to shoot an animal or person, but that’s not what it was designed for. If it was, it’d be a lot lighter, for one thing.

If you’ve ever seen an Olympic-style target rifle, they’re not what you’re thinking of as a “weapon” I’ll bet.

But… as you seem to be defining firearms as weapons, no matter the intended purpose, that probably doesn’t make you any difference.

[The_Man_In_Black]

@sentrix

…because americans think its their constitutional right to carry a weapon. ban them nationwide. you don’t need a weapon ( unless you are police, army, etc), you want one, compensates for something. why would the average joe blow need a gun?

I love it when people say that. “Just ban all guns! Then no one will have them and no one will die from them!” We banned almost all drugs in this country long ago. How well did that work out.

[Czarcasm]

@The_Man_In_Black

I love it when people say that. “Just ban all guns! Then no one will have them and no one will die from them!” We banned almost all drugs in this country long ago. How well did that work out.

You’re right-it’s hard to ban something once people become addicted to it.

[smiling_bandit]

@Dissonance

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.

Since you want to play dictionary, note these definitions:
*1. any instrument or device for use in attack or defense in combat, fighting, or war, as a sword, rifle, or cannon.[/I[

From WEAPON Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

There’s a concept in philosophy where accepting an idea or definition makes the idea or definition true or false. I can’t recall what it’s called anymore: Conditional Categorical occurs, but I find nothing on that. It will do for now, however.

The point of creating and enforcing the belief in a CC has a serious and significant purpose: it defines behavior without having to state all the sensible reasons for it. You may find this difficult to believe, but it can easily be understood. Churches are usually regarded as holy and/or contemplative locations. Therefore, people who need to think or pray go to them in order to do so. As a result, the location becomes a place of special significance which can assist a community in time of need, precisely because it has been defined so, whether more or less formality. Similarly, we hold votes on certain days simply because we decide to set Election day on particular date. It could have been any other date and would be equally correct (i.e., valid and true) provided that we did, in fact, vote on that date.

Do you see the applicability? In defining a separation of the physical object from the purposes it may be used for, we aim, if possible, to separate what we view as sensible and insensible - that is, responsible use and deliberately malicious use. The tool may be the same or different - as mentioned, there are numerous hunting and especially sport-shooting firearms whose use as a weapon is incidental and not clearly not intended - but the situation is not. The key difference in the responsible versus malicious use of firearms does not in any way lie in the use of a specific “weapon”, but the mindset of the man.

Given your hostile attitude towards guns, perhaps you could appreciate the fact that I, and many lawful firearm owners, do not consider them to be weapons. And that we would further separate I purpose firearms intended for hunting or sports, compared to those intended to be used in self-defense. The latter require a very different mental state to employ properly.

[Esox_Lucius]

@ElvisL1ves

The “scary” appearance is part of its attractiveness to purchasers, isn’t it?

For sure, but why single out one type of gun? Any gun can be used to intimidate. I’d be intimidated by a little handgun pointed at me, too.

CNN screwed up royally by misidentifying the gun, and inexcusably not correcting their mistake, it seems. Now the anti-controllers have more ammunition and our side has been set back. But besides that, in their zeal to demonize one type of gun, they’re implying that there’s no problem with other guns.

@HurricaneDitka

They already are controlled…I suspect you want them more “controlled”, so I’m curious: what did you have in mind?

That was supposed to be a punchline. I guess it missed the target.

[Full disclosure: I’m Canadian so read the following at your own risk.]

Yes, I think guns in the U.S. should be more controlled. You can’t deny that access to guns is too easy for people who shouldn’t have them. If you wanted to fix that, you could. I’m not an expert on how to do it, but I can point you to the regulations that work fairly well for us in Canada. (Note that guns are not banned here. We can hunt, shoot targets, collect them, buy them for self-defense. Responsible, law-abiding Americans would see little difference here. We just have a few more restrictions to minimize them falling into the wrong hands for the sake of public safety. As both a gun owner and a member of the public, it’s a minimal compromise that I’m completely comfortable with. I don’t feel put out or oppressed one bit.)

[JXJohns]

@Esox_Lucius

[Full disclosure: I’m Canadian so read the following at your own risk.]

Yes, I think guns in the U.S. should be more controlled. You can’t deny that access to guns is too easy for people who shouldn’t have them. If you wanted to fix that, you could. I’m not an expert on how to do it, but I can point you to the regulations that work fairly well for us in Canada. (Note that guns are not banned here. We can hunt, shoot targets, collect them, buy them for self-defense. Responsible, law-abiding Americans would see little difference here. We just have a few more restrictions to minimize them falling into the wrong hands for the sake of public safety. As both a gun owner and a member of the public, it’s a minimal compromise that I’m completely comfortable with. I don’t feel put out or oppressed one bit.)

Following your link gets me:

Forbidden - Users from your country are not permitted to browse this site.

[Esox_Lucius]

Sorry about that. Maybe our gun regulations are a state secret.

I’ll see if I can find them somewhere else.

[Farin]

@Esox_Lucius

Yes, I think guns in the U.S. should be more controlled. You can’t deny that access to guns is too easy for people who shouldn’t have them. If you wanted to fix that, you could. I’m not an expert on how to do it, but I can point you to the regulations that work fairly well for us in Canada. (Note that guns are not banned here. We can hunt, shoot targets, collect them, buy them for self-defense. Responsible, law-abiding Americans would see little difference here. We just have a few more restrictions to minimize them falling into the wrong hands for the sake of public safety. As both a gun owner and a member of the public, it’s a minimal compromise that I’m completely comfortable with. I don’t feel put out or oppressed one bit.)

Yes. But most…er…“anti-controllers” don’t mind additional regulation in terms of background checks and closing the person-to-person sales without a background check.

Most hate regulation because if you look at a place like California, they keep tweaking their “assault weapon” definition to include more and more guns. That’s why most people are against that sort of ban. It’s not “We are banning handguns.” or “We are banning high powered rifles.” it’s “We are banning assault weapons.” That is just too vague for a lot of people.

It doesn’t help that the media and political debates are dominated by the NRA (who is for the manufacturers and not the consumers) versus people that want guns completely restricted from sale (Diane Feinstein, etc). But, then, leaving out what citizens actually want is par for the course in our democracy.

[JXJohns]

@Farin

…It doesn’t help that the media and political debates are dominated by the NRA (who is for the manufacturers and not the consumers)…

The NRA has expanded to over 5 million members this year. If they did not speak for their members, or at least go in the general direction that the membership wants, those numbers would not be growing.

That being said, the NRA only represents 5% of the estimated 100 million gun owners out there. If there was such a distaste of the NRA’s direction, one would think that there is plenty of room for another organization that would truly represent the people. The bottom line though is that other than advocates on either side of the issue people just don’t care about guns.

[Farin]

@JXJohns

The NRA has expanded to over 5 million members this year. If they did not speak for their members, or at least go in the general direction that the membership wants, those numbers would not be growing.

That being said, the NRA only represents 5% of the estimated 100 million gun owners out there. If there was such a distaste of the NRA’s direction, one would think that there is plenty of room for another organization that would truly represent the people. The bottom line though is that other than advocates on either side of the issue people just don’t care about guns.

I’ve been hoping for a third party to arise for the last 20 years. People are entrenched, unfortunately, in their views. Not only in things like gun control, but things like their party of affiliation. Why didn’t the Tea Partiers form their own party(as an example)? Oh, they wanted access to the Republican warchest. Right.

People have been talking about alternatives to the NRA for at least 10 years and probably more (personal time frame, prior to 2002 I wasn’t looking at the NRA in any good detail). Without the funding the NRA gets from the Manufacturers, the few alternatives that exist are regional and setup as “Gun Clubs” and they don’t have any sort of sway over legislation outside of their local context.

[Esox_Lucius]

Two other sites that I hope are accessible:

Licensing Process – Firearms Law Canada

How To legally Get A Gun in Canada

[Irishman]

@Dissonance

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.

That was a statement of philosophical position, stated to define his attitude toward guns. Was it forcefully overstated? Sure. But that doesn’t make it wrong.

@Farin

Yes. But most…er…“anti-controllers” don’t mind additional regulation in terms of background checks and closing the person-to-person sales without a background check.

There is a segment of the “anti-controllers” who are concerned over the possibility of government tyranny. They don’t want their guns taken away, regulated to the point that they are then to be confiscated. Whether that stems from a fear the government itself could become corrupted, or a fear that we are one step away from a social upheaval, or afraid of situations like hurricanes and other natural disasters that put the law enforcement in a bind and bring out the worst in some of the populace with looting and whatnot, the ultimate effect is the same. If the government has a list of how many guns you own, which types, how much ammunition, etc, and the government decides to start confiscating, the poor gun owner could be left “defenseless”.

These gun owners are willing and encouraged to trade weapons or sell them without background checks, to foster the amount of guns not tracked. The fact that this supports criminals and guns being supplied to Mexican drug cartels does not register for them.

[Farin]

@Irishman

There is a segment of the “anti-controllers” who are concerned over the possibility of government tyranny. They don’t want their guns taken away, regulated to the point that they are then to be confiscated. Whether that stems from a fear the government itself could become corrupted, or a fear that we are one step away from a social upheaval, or afraid of situations like hurricanes and other natural disasters that put the law enforcement in a bind and bring out the worst in some of the populace with looting and whatnot, the ultimate effect is the same. If the government has a list of how many guns you own, which types, how much ammunition, etc, and the government decides to start confiscating, the poor gun owner could be left “defenseless”.

I’m one of them. I don’t think the government should be building intensive databases of persons not convicted of crimes outside of a simple identity database.

I don’t support registration, I only support that you are marked as owning a gun in case the mental health issue comes up. It’s not a topic I went into as it’s one of those things that gets people over-fired about the issue and because my ideas on privacy are…rather outlandish to most people. But that’s not a topic for gun debates.

[Esox_Lucius]

@Farin

Yes. But most…er…“anti-controllers” don’t mind additional regulation…

Most hate regulation because…

You seem to be contradicting yourself there.

If most gun owners don’t mind additional background checks, why don’t they happen? The Manchin-Toomey bill couldn’t even get out of the Senate (so that it could be shot down in the House).

That makes me wonder about the title of this thread. If there is a War on Guns, it’s significantly lop-sided for the guns.

(Sorry about “anti-controllers”. I didn’t want to use “gun nuts”. Is there a proper term?)

[HurricaneDitka]

@Farin

People have been talking about alternatives to the NRA for at least 10 years and probably more (personal time frame, prior to 2002 I wasn’t looking at the NRA in any good detail). Without the funding the NRA gets from the Manufacturers, the few alternatives that exist are regional and setup as “Gun Clubs” and they don’t have any sort of sway over legislation outside of their local context.

There are a number of national alternatives: Gun Owners of America, Second Amendment Foundation, Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, etc. No, they don’t have the pull in DC that the NRA does, but then again, no one has the pull that the NRA does, so that’s not really a very enlightening point. It’s not all about the manufacturer funding. If it were, the NRA wouldn’t be calling / mailing me every week or two looking for more money.

@Esox_Lucius

That makes me wonder about the title of this thread. If there is a War on Guns, it’s significantly lop-sided for the guns.

Yes, my side is winning the battle, for now.

@Esox_Lucius

(Sorry about “anti-controllers”. I didn’t want to use “gun nuts”. Is there a proper term?)

You could go with “gun owners” or “gun rights activists”. I usually call myself a “Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA) supporter”.

[Kable]

@Esox_Lucius

Two other sites that I hope are accessible:

Licensing Process – Firearms Law Canada

http://www.howtogetagun.ca/

You aren’t free to carry a handgun concealed or otherwise? That sucks.

Pretty long list of firearms you aren’t free to own:

Firearms regulation in Canada

[Whiteknight]

@Esox_Lucius

You seem to be contradicting yourself there.
If most gun owners don’t mind additional background checks, why don’t they happen? The Manchin-Toomey bill couldn’t even get out of the Senate (so that it could be shot down in the House).

My understanding is that you can mostly thank the NRA for that.
Cite

[JXJohns]

@Whiteknight

My understanding is that you can mostly thank the NRA for that.
Cite

After reading what the true limitations of that amendment were, it is clear that any changes would have been a pathetic waste of time. Anyone who supports that type of reasonable gun control belongs in the “we have to do something, even though it wont do anything” crowd.

[Dissonance]

@Kable

I already gave an example as to why here:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16675946&postcount=51

You did read my question to you, correct? I asked you in what possible way that statement by me is bizarre, incorrect or thoroughly unreasonable. Regurgitating a link does nothing to answer this.

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.

Wait - you object to this as a hijack of the OP (which was started by smilingbandit btw, no by me) and you demonstrate this objection by responding with a link to a statement that you call bizarre, incorrect and thoroughly unreasonable, then when asked to explain why you decide to hold your breath because it’s hijacking the OP? I’m sorry, sir, but it’s quite clear that 1) you have no problem with this hijack and that 2) you are ducking behind this as an excuse to not have to explain yourself.

@bump

What you said is only true in the broadest of terms. By that, I mean that yes, firearms were originally designed (in the 13th century or so) as military weapons.

But… as you seem to be defining firearms as weapons, no matter the intended purpose, that probably doesn’t make you any difference.

Your problem is with the dictionary and lack of respect for the English language, not with me. Again, firearms are weapons, full stop. Find me one dictionary definition that does not define a firearm as a weapon. It is disingenuous to state that firearms are not weapons. Guess what? Target rifles and target pistols are weapons. Again, if you insist otherwise your problem isn’t with me, it’s with the English language. If you are so confidant that they are not weapons, try walking into a bank with a target rifle slung over your shoulder and a target pistol strapped to your hip and explaining to the security guard and the police that you aren’t armed when they tell you to drop your weapons. Bonus points if you are able to try using this to mount a defense in your trial for armed robbery and don’t wind up as a slab in the morgue when you’re told to drop your weapons or you will be shot and you continue to tell the officers that you aren’t armed.

@Irishman

That was a statement of philosophical position, stated to define his attitude toward guns. Was it forcefully overstated? Sure. But that doesn’t make it wrong.

No, what makes it wrong is that he declares firearms are not weapons. That is demonstrably and entirely incorrect, and a very bizarre position to hold to boot.

@smiling_bandit

Since you want to play dictionary, note these definitions:

Do at least try to keep up, “playing dictionary” was not started by me, attempts to look at the definition of “weapon” and exclude firearms has already been done in this thread, to which I replied that looking up the definition of the word firearm might be a bit more useful in this post. You’ll note every definition of the word firearm defines it as a weapon.

Given your hostile attitude towards guns, perhaps you could appreciate the fact that I, and many lawful firearm owners, do not consider them to be weapons.

Again, where in the name of god do are you finding this hostile attitude towards guns that you’ve decided I have? I have not stated a position on gun control anywhere in this or other threads. As I have already told you, my problem with you has fuck-all to do with the issue of gun control. It has to do with your abuse of the English language. Firearms are weapons. I and many lawful end table owners may not consider end tables to be furniture. That doesn’t mean end tables aren’t furniture. It means I’m misusing the word furniture.

[Czarcasm]

@JXJohns

After reading what the true limitations of that amendment were, it is clear that any changes would have been a pathetic waste of time. Anyone who supports that type of reasonable gun control belongs in the “we have to do something, even though it wont do anything” crowd.

So the NRA fights laws that too strong and laws that are too weak? Have they ever found porridge that was just right?