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Senate Gun Control

Discussion in 'Community' started by Ghost, Dec 14, 2012.

  1. Kimball_Kinnison

    Kimball_Kinnison Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2001
    Why don't you quit the sarcasm? It doesn't make your position any more intelligent or rational. All it does is suggest that you don't have either facts or reason on your side, so you are forced to resort to ridicule.

    Tell me, what you actually expect a ban on AR-15s (and similar rifles) would accomplish? Would it reduce the homicide rate? Not by any significant amount. They might look "scary", but the simple fact is that while an AR was used to carry out the shooting at Sandy Hook, they simply aren't used in very many homicides. Banning them won't really make a difference, except to interfere with the peaceful and law-abiding citizens who use them for other, legal purposes (ranging from hunting, to target shooting, to killing varmint animals).

    There are literally tens of millions of AR-15 rifles out there in civilian hands in the US. There are over 100 million rifles of all types in civilian hands. And yet, only about 300-350 homicides each year involve any type of rifle (let alone "assault rifles"). How does that in any way suggest that "assault weapons" are a significant problem. You have a better chance of being beaten to death several times over before being killed by such a weapon.

    So really, by focusing on "assault weapons", what do you really want? What do you really expect?

    Guns have a large variety of uses. Many of them are highly beneficial to society, and some of them are harmful to society. In the overall balance, the harm caused by these weapons is minor compared to their vast number of benefits.
     
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  2. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 3, 2002
    Every KK retort ever made = 2+2 = 5. Never mind that man behind the curtain.
     
  3. Kimball_Kinnison

    Kimball_Kinnison Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2001
    I'm sorry, but I've provided facts and citations to back up my claims. I have pointed to very stark legal realities that make outright prohibition virtually impossible.

    In response, all you have are personal attacks. No facts, no evidence, no logic or reason. It's almost as though you have a religious faith that banning guns will make everything all better.

    There's an old legal saying: "When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound the law. When neither is on your side, pound the table." I have demonstrated both the facts and the legal reality to you. All you have done is to pound the table.

    If you have a problem with my facts, then present better ones. If you don't think that my conclusions follow from the facts that I give, then point out where you think the flaws are.

    But please stop ignoring both the facts and reason just because you don't like the conclusions.
     
  4. SuperWatto

    SuperWatto Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 19, 2000
     
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  5. Kimball_Kinnison

    Kimball_Kinnison Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2001
    How is that flawed reasoning?

    Even if you go by the metric of "lives saved", you have to look at both sides of the equation before you can determine whether guns are a plus or a minus. For example, you might say that banning handguns "saved" over 6000 lives per year, but if you take into account how often they are used defensively (which also saves lives), or how the homicide rate using other methods (such as knives) increases, then that 6000 gets offset considerably. Based on the data I've seen, the positive uses of guns (defensive uses, hunting, etc) are greater positives than the negative uses (homicides, etc) are negatives.

    Just because you don't like a conclusion doesn't mean that it's the product of flawed reasoning.
     
  6. SuperWatto

    SuperWatto Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 19, 2000
    Tell me, in your handy equation, how many dead deer equal one dead person?
    And where is that mythical set of data on positive use of guns?
     
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  7. Tim Battershell

    Tim Battershell Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 3, 2012
    Armies in retreat/evacuation have a habit of leaving behind massive quantities of weapons and ammunition.

    Can't happen to a US force? Try the Phillipines, Kasserine or the Ardennes Bulge! Just the same as with Britain

    After the fall of France, Britain only had enough Bren Guns (LMGs) in the UK to outfit one Division and only enough ammunition to allow an issue of five rounds per soldier. That against the whole weight of the Wehrmacht, a mere 22 miles away across the Channel.

    So how did the Home Guard get armed initially? With privately-held firearms -- including the contents of the Sandringham Gun Room!

    If ever in such dire straits yourselves, you may be glad that there are weapons and ammunition held outside the easily-identified, and easily targeted, Military and National Guard Armouries.
     
  8. anidanami124

    anidanami124 Jedi Master star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 24, 2002
    Oh I don't know maybe it has something to do with a number of serial killers have never used a gun to kill people with and prehpas some way for those people to defend themselves would have been helpful. Getting ready of guns would not stop Ted Bundy, Gerard John Schaefer, David parker Ray, Anthony Allen Shore, Dennis Rader, Richard Ramirez, John Wayne Gracy, and a number of other serial killers from doing what they did.

    Maybe it's the fact that that Scott Peterson killed his wife in a really sick way. Maybe it's the fact that in many of the domestic violence cases hitting, kicking, biting, shoving, restraining, slapping, throwing objects, and using object ie bats, knives, etc are used more then guns. I know hollywood wants you to believe other wise but when I hear of a guy killing his family and by stabing them all to death I don't go and say get ready of all knives and it will fix the problem. The problem with Gangs is not the guns it's the Gangs. Getting ready of the guns is not going to stop Gangs from using violence.

    That's a dream world people are living to think that guns cause more violence and is the biggest problem for the violence. It does not explain all the violence that happened LOOOOONG before the evil assulit rifles. I mean really with all the homicide cases that KK can post and it's the evil rifles that are the problem? Ted Bundy and Dennis Rader never used guns. So should we ban all rope and tape because thats what Dennis Rader used.

    There is also the fact that when the you look at the the deaths from handguns vs rifles more people die from handguns. But you have to look into way that is. Just saying if the person did not have a gun they would not have done what they did is a slap in the face to those that are killed by those people.
     
  9. SuperWatto

    SuperWatto Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 19, 2000
    Eh.... can I get KK back?
    At least he doesn't ramble.
     
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  10. anidanami124

    anidanami124 Jedi Master star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 24, 2002
    If you want to stop violence from Gangs then stop the gangs what does getting ready of assulits rifles do? The gangs are the problem no the guns. If you want to stop the domestic violence then stop the people who commeit to being with. What is getting ready of the assulit rifle going to do to stop the domestic violence?
     
  11. Darth Guy

    Darth Guy Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Aug 16, 2002
    Yes, we should prepare for the near-impossibility that the we will face a war on the scale of World War II in the near future, or that the contiguous United States will face fullscale attack/invasion by a foreign power for the first time since the War of 1812. Paranoid fantasy makes for sound policy.
     
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  12. Harpua

    Harpua Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Mar 12, 2005
    Getting RID... stop with the "getting ready."

    Anyway...

    Yes... we must get rid of all the minorities and women if we want gangs and domestic violence to end. That's logical and stuff.
     
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  13. Tim Battershell

    Tim Battershell Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 3, 2012
    Exactly the POV of successive British Governments / Military Leaders in the 1920s and '30s....
     
  14. Valairy Scot

    Valairy Scot Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 16, 2005
    anidanami124: While the points (some of them, anyway) you and others propound are valid, you tend to gloss over the sheer destructiveness of guns used in murder as opposed to other weapons. No, I don't have an answer; no, I don't propose to outlaw guns. But the very real fact is that one person with a gun is capable of inflicting more harm to more folks in a shorter time than that same attacker with a knife or baseball bat or other weapon of choice.

    So we shouldn't really argue that guns "don't kill" or guns "are a 2nd Amendment Right" - it should be focused on means of keeping guns away from those who misuse them. And I'm not sure there is any answer to that.

    But one thing we can hope for is a societal change where violence is not considered the answer to whatever and guns are not some machismo symbol (for those that think that way), and folks with mental problems are identified and treated in time. I don't think that is achievable, unfortunately.

    But we need to try to find some common ground and some answers acceptable to many to decrease such incidents, because we'll never entirely prevent them.
     
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  15. Darth Guy

    Darth Guy Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Aug 16, 2002
    Thank you for your sound, rational comparison of the geopolitical situations of today and the 1930's. Please, expand on this. I'm very interested in your analysis. Tell me, is it the Huns or the Reds who will come pouring across the Channel?
     
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  16. Ramza

    Ramza Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 13, 2008
    There was also no land invasion of the UK, so it's kind of a silly point of comparison. Unless we're going to seriously start arguing that a well-armed citizenry could've staved off bombers.

    Edit: Although, ironically, it's a remarkably good argument against his own rationale. "Guns would help us stave off foreign attacks!" "Yes, I'm sure people living in London during the Blitz were thinking to themselves 'Oh, if only I had my AR-15. That'd show Gerry a thing or two!'"
     
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  17. Tim Battershell

    Tim Battershell Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 3, 2012
    Ever hear of something called 'Operation Sealion', Ramza? The preparations for it were quite real; and done early enough after Dunkirk it could well have succeeded -- even WSC's best advice at the time was "You can always take one with you!". Actually, several Luftwaffe aircraft were downed by rifle fire. Guns are also a lot better than carving-knives lashed to broom-handles -- and I can quite imagine what Home Guardsmen would have said/thought if they'd been issued AR-15s in June 1940 (if they could have stopped drooling long enough)!
     
  18. Darth Guy

    Darth Guy Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Aug 16, 2002
    Several? By God, it won the war!
     
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  19. Ramza

    Ramza Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 13, 2008
    You mean the operation that required full air and naval supremacy over the Channel first? A strategic situation that never occurred? And if it had it wouldn't have mattered how many guns a person had because the Germans would have had full air and naval supremacy over the Channel? Not to mention who, exactly, is supposed to be invading in this comparable modern day scenario your metaphor alludes to? And how are they not bombing us before they launch a land invasion?
     
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  20. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    Anidanamaniamanamanami has a proud tradition of never making sense on these boards. It's refreshing to see such commitment to consistency.

    And Tim, how much is UKIP membership going for these days sport?
     
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  21. Tim Battershell

    Tim Battershell Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 3, 2012
    No drones, smart-bombs, all-weather-capable strike aircraft or see-in-the-dark gear then, remember! Radar was in it's infancy. The Army brass was rightly worried that if an enemy force of any size had got ashore, our army didn't have the offensive power to drive it out again -- we were that low on resources. Had Hitler not wasted his time with weeks of sightseeing (and/or thought that he could browbeat a capitulation out of us - opinions are somewhat divided over that) and made it a direct order, then it would have happened; air/naval supremacy notwithstanding. And the thinking about the possible invasion area, and hence the greatest numbers of positioned troops -- underarmed and with low morale after France -- (wait for this as a brilliant piece of Military Intelligence) was centered on the East, not the Channel, Coast until very late on! We were preparing to take the tanks on with Petrol-bombs, for goodness' sake.

    No idea! Not a member of any Political Party -- nor wanting to be. Just someone who has read a lot of well-researched books (written by people who were there at the time).
     
  22. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 2, 2000
    It's funny. I think this is the second or third sarcastic post I've mad in thirty-seven pages of posts. You have an extremely low tolerance for sarcasm (which is different from ridicule, by the way). But then I thought I remembered that about you.

    As to what an AR-15 ban would accomplish, I'm not saying anything about that. I dunno if they should be banned or not. It's a complicated discussion about that. All I'm saying is that your assertion that the main reason people want guns is to punch holes in paper is absurd. The main reason people want guns is so they will have the option of killing or wounding someone else. That's true for the military, the police, the criminals and the law-abiding civilians. There are easier frigging ways to punch holes in paper and open watermelons. I'd like you to explain why it takes an assault rifle for you to be happy. What does target shooting actually accomplish, anyway? Is your sense of well-being really tied to your ability to use a machine that was manufactured specially for killing and wounding people and animals to knock a frigging beer can off a fence post? I mean, come on!
     
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  23. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    Guns plainly have a greater potential for lethality than do things like knives or hammers. Your rather arbitrary "especially at close range" qualifier virtually concedes as much. You'd do as well to explain that guns are no more lethal than batons "especially without bullets." The ability to make an assault on an opponent at range is one of the chief benefits of a firearm.

    That's a full third of the six recent large scale mass killings. How isn't that legitimate? Especially when those with the highest resultant deaths are only a fraction of the worst mass killing incidents seen in the US. And especially when they are far outnumbered by the events in which no one at all died, even though it included a coordinated assault on a dormitory in the dead of night with multiple armed assailants. These events are by their very nature rare, and quite difficult to predict. Thus the argument from some quarters that basically nothing can be done to prevent them. When there's a clear record of another country handling them with much lower loss of life, I think that's worth looking at, not reverting to silliness about what the killed:injured ratio was.

    You have some gall to talk about other people's "flawed" use of statistics, just before you launch into a specious discourse on hole punching. If these statistics are a reassuring argument for legality, why not return to the earlier question about nuclear weapons? They've never been used in a single criminal activity. Since their invention, their gross average of deaths per year stands at just over 3,000 which is half that attributable to pistols in any one year? So why not legalize private ownership of nuclear weapons? It's twice as safe.
     
  24. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    I want to point out that I used to shoot competition with a Walther KK Match. A single shot, bolt action, .22 target rifle. 11 targets; 1 to sight the rifle, the other 10 for points.

    I routinely scored 95+.

    With a rifle that can only hold and fire one round at any given time; and that round is fairly ineffectual as a manstopper (excepting limited circumstances).

    So yeah. I can see the need for AR15s.
     
  25. LostOnHoth

    LostOnHoth Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 15, 2000
    What does any kind of sport accomplish? Target shooting is an Olympic sport as is archery and javelin. A gun is a machine which is designed to shoot a projectile, that is all. All this talk of guns being manufactured for "killing and wounding" is silly. There are guns which are manufactured for that purpose but that does not mean they can't be used for sport or recreation. There are also guns which are specifically manufactured for sport, like target shooting. For every round which is fired in the course of criminal activity there are a thousand rounds fired at a paper target or a clay sphere. The whole point of the debate is about gun control, that is, better regulation of guns so as to change the violent use of guns which seems to have pervaded the gun culture in the US. But ridiculing the entire sport of target shooting is not really helpful to that discussion.

    Besides, target shooting can be a lot of fun. It requires great skill and coordination. Those Olympians are worthy of admiration for their achievements. They are not the problem.