Debate implies I would be willing to listen to the arguments of the other side. I am not. Guns are bad. We need to get rid of them. Anyone who thinks differently has flawed mental processes.
Okay, if your beliefs can’t stand up to reasonable challenges, they must not be very well founded.
As a result of this thread, I am slightly more pro-gun-ownership than I was before reading it, just because it’s made me associate the anti-gun side with fingers-in-their-ears I-insist-I’m-right-because-I-said-so type of people.
Are you actually going to respond to any of the questions you’ve been asked here, or are you just here to haughtily bellow your wisdom at us?
People who think it makes sense that having more lethal weapons around is good for society need to hear that they’re delusional. There’s way too much pussyfooting around that going on.
you should see the gun control thread over at Ars Technica. it’s gone around in circles so many times, Superman was able to rescue Lois Lane from the earthquake.
I’m glad you’re accomplishing so much by yelling your opinions to people on a little-known message board. Your arrogance is so endearing people will flock to your point of view.
I’ll be glad to answer any questions when doing so will be helpful. I’ll ignore the ones that lead down unproductive rabbit holes.
Someone is being defensive.
Yes, we figured that out too.
Again, welcome to the SDMB. Also, good-bye.
Regards,
Shodan
you’ve called people “delusional” and said they have “flawed mental processes,” stated clearly you don’t want to hear what anyone has to say because you already know it’s wrong, and outright refuse to answer questions that might help clarify your point of view. What else do you expect? If I invite you into my backyard and you proceed to piss in my swimming pool, is it “defensive” if I tell you to leave?
you should stay at Ars.
I think it makes sense for society. Are you calling me delusional?
Come take them. Since you won’t have a gun your chance of success is very very low. See you think words trump real force. That’s the flawed mental process.
Right, so the people who insist on bringing the evil scourge of gun ownership into the world, or at least defending the status quo shouldn’t be made to feel bad about being co-responsible for thousands of deaths every year because that would be impolite?
This is life or death. If you are on the wrong side of this then being labeled delusional means being given the benefit of the doubt. The alternative is that you’re deliberately being evil.
Any questions at this time?
I’m willing to allow that it may have been unintentional. I don’t own guns because I’m not an enthusiast, and I think that being an enthusiast - that is, someone who is passionate enough about guns to study how to safely use one, and makes it a point to regularly practice at a range so as to maintain proficiency (not just in shooting accuracy, but in safe handling when not actively firing) - is necessary to be a responsible firearm owner/user. I’ve certainly shot my share of guns before, .22 rifles at Boy Scout summer camp, pistol/rifle marksmanship classes as a college freshman, and a couple of entertaining evenings at an indoor range with a friend who was a gun owner - but I’m just not interested enough to go to a range regularly; I would be hard pressed to maintain the proficiency needed to safely handle a gun during a confrontation.
As it happens, I live in an area with a very low violent crime rate, so I’m willing to accept the (very low) risk of home invasion without having a gun in the house. Private gun ownership being legal here, it may well be that the risk of violent crime is as low as it is because bad guys think I might have a gun. I think that’s a good thing.
yes.
when are you leaving?
Yes. Are you calling me evil or delusional because I encourage and support wide spread gun ownership and carry?
You see, that’s a question that doesn’t help our nice little non-discussion.
But since I invited questions, I’ll answer it truthfully: I don’t know, but not planning on leaving any time soon.
What if your well-meant nattering doesn’t make me feel bad? I still have a gun and you do not.
I guess I’m evil. Muhahahaha. But you think your opinion matters and you think your approach to change minds works? That’s delusional. You also deliberately ignore or have never been educated about history. People working as agents of states have killed orders of magnitude, wiki that phrase if you need to, more than regular people.
Yes. You also seem to need a bit of extra time catching on.
Do these agents of states ever decide against that when their intended targets are armed?
Also, who cares what happened in the past? That’s over, we live in the present now and we’ll be living in the future soon enough.
If we start reducing the number of guns out there, then at some point in the future fewer people will die unnecessarily. It won’t be possible to get there overnight, but a good start would be to get rid of the type of guns and ammo that allow a single person to keep shooting at such a high rate that they’re basically unstoppable. Guns with a small magazine that takes significant time to reload are still bad, but orders of magnitude less so, so we can worry about those at some later date.