Do they actually want to kill people?
Don’t they realize that statistically, a gun is more likely to kill its owner than anyone else?
Reading comprehension: they’re called “assault weapons” for a reason.
How does it make sense that people who aren’t allowed to fly can buy guns legally?
I’ve done that shit by hand. It sucks. Give me a tool any day.
How else are they going to fight back when the jackbooted thugs come to take their liberties away?
In all seriousness, that’s the literal reason the Second Amendment was added to the Constitution. That makes it a fundamental principle of the American political system: the people have a right to stockpile weapons in preparation for an armed uprising.
Well, I’ve been reading English for quite a few years now, but I can’t figure out what that sentence is supposed to mean. In any event, the supreme court says it’s fine for the federal and state governments to limit gun ownership.
An maybe if you don’t have people collecting guns in anticipation of an armed uprising, there wouldn’t be much of a risk of an armed uprising.
That’s not actually a serious answer at all. I sincerely doubt there are many people who buy guns to engage in an armed uprising.
If you look at the way guns are marketed and advertised, it’ll give you a pretty clear insight into why people buy them:
If you don’t believe #3, google “Bushmaster Ad Man Card.” Of course, wanting a thing because you think it makes you better is hardly unique to guns. It’s a common marketing technique for many things.
#1 is just what you expect in a country where there’s lots of hunting, and #3 is a cultural matter. #2, of course, is a prisoner’s dilemma; the more people who have guns, the more gun violence you have, and the more people will want guns. When a maniac shoots up a workplace people might want more gun control, but that is an abstract thing that they cannot directly cause to happen. What they CAN do is get a gun in the hopes they can use it on bad guys. Which, statistically, results in at least one such person pulling the gun on someone in a heated argument and blowing them away, which means more gun violence stories, and more fear of gun-armed assailants, and more guns.
Think about this.
In the history of the world how often were under armed civilians placed under the rule of a well armed and supported asshole?
And how often in the history of the world was a nicely run government taken over by a bunch of armed asshole citizens?
Or Google just about any of our popular heroes (not necessarily American), like James Bond or the heroes of Star Wars. Very often they’re shown wielding a weapon. Why? Apparently because a person holding a weapon is more interesting, more potent, more badass than a person who isn’t holding a weapon.
It’s not that you want to kill people; it’s just that you don’t want anybody to kill you, or kick you around or mess with you. Nobody messes with a man holding a gun. (At least, that’s the way it works in many people’s imaginations, as opposed to real life.)
I know it originates with the Third Reich’s naming of the Sturmgewehr, but isn’t “assault weapon” a bit of a nebulous term that can revolve around aesthetics? If all you do with your Bushmaster is plink precious antique cans, is it an “assault” weapon? You’re not assaulting anyone.
Many of us think we need tools for killing because there are so many tools for killing around here!
No they don’t want to kill people.
A 2011 Gallup poll showed that 46% of men and 23% of women claim to personally own a firearm. If we take that number as true (it’s actually probably a higher number since many gun owners do not like to advertise their gun ownership). So if we take the total number of adults in the united states, 240 million, and divide that by 2 to represent the group of men and women we get (120m * .46)+(120m * .23) = 82.8 million gun owners in the United States.
I assume your fourth statement has to do with the idea that people on the “no-fly list” should be prevented from owning guns. This idea runs contrary to the idea of due process of law. A person is put on the list without any evidence being presented against them, and being given no chance to defend themselves prior to being put on the list. Furthermore the person is not informed that they are on the list until they attempt to fly. Couple that with the fact that the no-fly list is full of known errors. The no fly list in and of itself is a constitutional nightmare and is only justified because flying is supposedly a privilege rather than a right.
Now start using that list to decide who can own a gun? How about we use the list to decide who can be a member of the press? or who can have freedom of religion? Or who can vote?
I found this to be a thought-provoking essay:
Ethics From The Barrel Of A Gun
It embodies a more philosophical approach to items #2 and #3 on your list.
I believe it, but yes it’s obviously including deliberate suicide.
I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure there are no guns that stop bullets, only ones that spit out bullets. Strangely, you don’t see millions of people buying bullet-proof vests…
A bad thing, to be sure.
However, the point is that if it’s ok (for some interpretation of “ok”) for the relatively harmless act of flying, why is it suddenly inconceivable to use the same system to keep instrument of death out of people’s hands?
Either the process is flawed and the no-fly list needs to go or improved, or the process is acceptable and then it should be used to make it harder for dangerous people to get their hands on dangerous stuff.
It’s scary to think that some people consider the “right” to buy weapons more important than the right to travel.
We are taught when you wanna do the job right, find the right tool.
You might want to check out the thread in IMHO on the Second Amendment, it may prove elucidating.
The long and short of it is that, in the United States at least, the founders (and a great many others since) believed that you have an innate right to possess arms, the Constitution doesn’t give you that right, it simply says that it cannot be infringed by law. An equivalent can’t be drawn to the ‘right’ to get on a plane.
Well even though your OP seems purposely disingenuous, at the risk of stating the obvious: guns are tools for killing animals. I am sure there are far more non-human animals killed by guns each year than people. Statistically speaking.
America is a frontier culture. Even if modern life and a few hundred years of exploration and colonization have kind of made that lifestyle obsolete for most, especially urban city-dwellers, if you actually want to attempt to understand gun culture then you need to understand this fundamental aspect of it.
I found this quite thought provoking
ESR should stick to software.
I don’t think guns are cool nor exciting in any way, but they are pretty little pieces of brilliantly designed machinery. And they can be useful in a host of situations.
However, rather than worrying about it, consider:
a/ The more Americans are killed by other Americans, the fewer remain for the rest of us to have to kill.
b/ The more Americans are killed by other Americans, the fewer there are to kill the rest of us.
See the problem isn’t can we improve the no-fly list but rather why in the world do we have the list in the first place? I agree that freedom of travel by our preferred methods should be a right. You shouldn’t have to walk from Honolulu to Washington DC in order to petition your government. If a no-fly list must exists it should require a judge in open court putting you on that list in accordance with the 5th and 14th amendments.
The right to travel freely however is not a enumerated right, on the other hand the right to keep and bear arms is. Should not the enumerated, fundamental rights be protected most vigilantly and to the most strict standards? The reason that they were enumerated was precisely because they were viewed the most likely to be infringed upon by tyrants and the most likely rights to prevent tyrants from taking power. If we fail to defend them how is it possible to defend the rest.
Can we please stop talking about what a few people how lived 200 years thought was a good idea? It has no bearing on how we choose to live our lives today.
