Senate Gun Control

I wonder if there's a special NRA subcommittee for pastors who own assault rifles.

 

Well, Jesus did intend for man to arm himself to the teeth, and pastors have Jesus on their speed-dial, so...

 

Home-schooled by a gun-toting preacher. What could possibly go wrong?

 

No Don't! Its too late!

 

I think I know why this gun debate is so heated for gun owners: they believe themselves to be the good guys. What shoud be a morally neutral act (purchasing a gun) they treat as a moral imperative to be 'good guys'.

 

I would turn that around a bit. It's not that it's treated as a moral imperative to be 'good guys', but that it is a push back against the people who think that they ought to be treated as bad guys for buying (or wanting to buy) a gun.

For the longest time in this country, guns were treated as just tools. You could walk down to the hardware store and buy a pound of nails, some paint, and a hunting rifle all in the same trip. Since that time, gun owners have been treated with more an more suspicion because of a few high-profile incidents. The JFK/MLK/Bobby Kennedy assassinations set the ball rolling, but it continued through the Reagan attempted assassination, the Long Island train shooter (which both largely contributed to the Brady Bill and the AWB passing), and then more recent incidents like Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson, Aurora, and Sandy Hook.

Through those incidents, there have been several attempts by people in the media to portray guns themselves as the problem, and by extension anyone who owns one as a potential criminal. How can you not expect some sort of push back against that? If someone started treating you like a bad guy, and you knew, didn't just suspect but you knew, that they were wrong, how would you react? As Charlton Heston said in his 1999 speech opening the NRA's general meeting in Denver (11 days after the Columbine shooting):

Historically speaking, the NRA has been a huge advocate for civil rights. They worked with the NAACP during the civil rights movement to help defend the rights of African-Americans to defend themselves. They provided some of the most staunch opposition to the KKK as they tried to disarm blacks in the South. (in fact, the KKK was started by former Confederate officers, while the NRA was formed by former Union officers, and later led by Ulysses S. Grant.) And yet, they are constantly vilified as being "evil" and blamed for any acts of violence that come along.

Again, how would your respond to such attacks?

 

They are the true good guys, all these gun owners who use their (God-given) guns for evil, or accidentally shoot each other, or allow their children to steal their guns and go mental, are not true good guys. Good guys shouldn't have to be treated like bad guys just because some pretenders to the title good guys break the law, which is perfect and unchangeable.

EDIT:
Heh, this was written before I saw KK's post above.

 

The whole good guy/bad guy thing was, I assume, lamenting the vast oversimplification.

So were black people. You could legally rape your wife. Children were sent to work in mines. There was a genocide in progress. These were dark times and your nostalgia for them is irrational.

It's not just high profile incidents that have vilified gun owners. The American stereotype of the slack jawed toothless ignorant gun nut has risen independently of those events.

Those incidents raise the profile in the media, but the gun problem is not limited to the increasingly frequent and intense rate of gun massacres, the main issue is suicide, followed by homicide/manslaughter, followed by accidental death. I'm talking about the gun related death rate. We've been over the figures so many times, there's such an obvious correlation between gun ownership and gun death that I don't feel I should need to explain it in this thread ever again.

I don't think you genuinely lack this much self awareness.

 

I'm sorry, but are you trying to be offensive to further your arguments? Or do you just specialize in using the "straw man" fallacy? Where did I express "nostalgia" for any of the items that you mentioned?

I simply described (accurately) what the perception of guns was until there was an active attempt to shift that perception. The attitudes that Fire_Ice_Death described largely developed in response to that shift in perception.

How was that speech trolling? The point of that speech is that NRA members (and by extension, gun owners) are everywhere in America. They are your neighbor, your accountant, your doctor, the person who mans the checkout lane at the supermarket, the person next to you on the bus, and so forth. The attempt to portray gun owners as "bad guys" paints all of those people with the same brush.

 

Kimball_Kinnison
Just look at the part of the speech where he describes how they put the show on despite formal requests from the community not to. He said that stuff knowing that it would provoke passionate responses. Seems like trolling or a lack of self awareness to me. It was a colossal misjudgement, either way.

You're missing the point with the good guys/bad guys argument. It's a gross oversimplification. It oversimplifies to the point that it renders the argument meaningless.

Only a Sith deals in absolutes, remember!

 

So when you were saying how the perception of gun as tool has shifted to gun as dangerous weapon, you weren't making any judgement about that? Because it seemed to me that you were being nostalgic and bemoaning the march of progress. I apologize if I completely misunderstood the tone of your post, but I don't believe I did.

Prove it.

 

To which you evidently read the context to the same speech I provided earlier.

The full context is that it was part of the NRA's annual meeting, which is required by New York law (under which the organization was chartered). The meeting was scheduled more than a year in advance, and by law required at least 10 days notice to change the location. The Columbine shooting happened 11 days prior to the meeting. As a result, the NRA cancelled all of their planned activities except for the minimum required by law (the actual general membership meeting where they vote on new officers).

You don't know anything about me, and yet you seem to "know" whether I was being nostalgic or not? That's called projecting. You are projecting onto my words the stereotypes that you have of a gun owner, rather than looking at what I am actually trying to say. You then went on to make some rather blatant accusations against me as a person (suggesting that I was nostalgic for allowing such evils as slavery, rape, etc).

Comments like that strongly indicate that you aren't exactly arguing in good faith here.

 

My coworker (a gun enthusiast) and I have had a lengthy debate about this in which he said my views are so socialist that I should go back to canada.

He seriously doubts any banning of weapons will solve the problem (as there was already a ban when sandy hook transpired?). He also possibly sees gun owners as the victims here.

 

Since they were homeschooled, does this make this a school shooting?

 

The bare minimum required by law is not to make a provocative speech designed to intimidate opponents and upset grieving parents. The bare minimum would have been to not have a Hollywood a-list actor go on television to embarrass his country before the eyes of the world.

LOL.

You were describing how sad it was that perceptions of the gun have shifted away from equivalence with a spirit level and towards an instrument of death (which is something I think you've yet to prove as a matter of fact), I reminded you of a few other societal norms that coexisted with that supposedly ideal state. I was suggesting that your nostalgia for the past was rose tinted, not that you support slavery, genocide or rape. I honestly didn't think anyone in this discussion would leap to that conclusion. If I didn't make myself clear enough then I apologise, but I think you are the one arguing in bad faith here.

If anyone else thinks I was accusing KK of being nostalgic for slavery etc, please let me know.

 

Heston was the President of the NRA at the time, and had the responsibility to run the meeting. What I quoted was from only part of his opening remarks. I linked to the full text earlier in the thread.

The point of his remarks is that NRA members aren't "some other guy". They are people all around you every day. They are normal people that you wouldn't look twice at. That's not a "provocative speech designed to intimidate opponents". It's a clear statement of fact and a response to the attempts at that time to demonize the NRA, blaming them for attacks they had nothing to do with.

What you are missing is that there are many, many people who still see firearms as merely a tool, rather than being "an instrument of death". And yet, there are many who focus today on the guns as being evil, rather than treating them as the tools that they are.

You want proof? Your own comments (and many of the ones from others in this thread) already prove that shift in perception among some groups. Look at the villianization of "assault weapons", which are labelled as such only on the basis of cosmetic features. (For example, what does a bayonet lug have to do with how lethal a gun is? Or a flash hider? Or an adjustable stock? Or a pistol grip?) It is an active effort to do so.

Your words were an explicit accusation. You can't hide behind the excuse of "I didn't really mean it" just because you are called out on it. Either say what you mean, or don't complain when people take your words at face value.

 

What he should have written then was that your nostalgia for a time when guns were "just tools" is both impractical for import into the modern urban world and probably a confabulation to begin with. Guns evolved for use as a standoff killing weapon by standing armies and were only belatedly adapted for hunting and personal defense. And let's not forget dueling.

As an aside, for those who don't know, like you, Kimball, my father was an avid gun collector. Unlike you, though, he collected only civil-war era and earlier weapons. My sense is that he was much more nostalgic about guns than you. He had several sets of excellent pre-civil war era dueling pistols.

By the way, I feel that pistol dueling between card-carrying NRA members should be legal.

 

Fixed.

 

The NRA demonise themselves adequately enough. All critics have to do is point to the actual things that they say and do.

His remarks spoke directly to the NRA's opponents, read the opening paragraphs of the quote you posted.

The bare minimum would not have included rabble rousing.

I asked for proof regarding your assertion that guns were seen as tools in the past, rather than weapons.

I'm not missing the fact that many people regard their guns as tools, I'm actively arguing against their fallacious logic and have done this whole thread.

I'm not claiming that guns are evil, I just finished explaining to you the fallacy of over simplifying real-life arguments using narrative tools like good, evil, goodies and baddies.

If you're in favour of encouraging the perception of guns as tools rather than weapons, why are you opposed to cosmetic features that accentuate the killing, macho, militaristic fantasy aspects of guns? Surely a ban on these silly Rambo fantasy equivalent of Hello Kitty stickers would help you achieve your goal.

Is it really a left wing agenda to 'villainize' guns, or have villains managed that all by themselves?

What about the right wing agenda to disassociate suicide from the gun argument, or disassociate gun crime and gun ownership, or gun ownership and responsible gun ownership, or responsible gun ownership and 'truly' responsible gun ownership, etc etc?

If you'd taken my words at face value you'd not be saying such foolish claptrap.

Do you know what an explicit accusation looks like? Can you see one in any of my posts that you've feigned outrage over?

If you think I've explicitly accused you of this terrible thing, then I think the mods should get involved.

 

'Import' implies bringing something in -- the viewpoint of guns being 'just tools' has been around for decades, if not centuries.

The Discus and Javelin also evolved as standoff killing weapons before being imported into sporting competitions. Guns (starting with 'fowling pieces') have been used for hunting for almost as long as guns have existed, I think you will find.

 

Are you're views actually socialist or is he one of thoes yokles who uses socialist as a catchall for "everything I don't agree with and view it as evil".

Maybe it is because I was born in 1982, the cold war had no real impact on my psyche. I don't find Russia scary, communism is to me a bad economic plan and that is all it is, and Socialism means you figure some things are too important to trust "to for profit" instatutions.

May be it is a generational gap.

 

bravo.

there's a band name in there somewhere, but i cant find it.

 

62-Year-Old With Gun Only One Standing Between Nation And Full-Scale Government Takeover

 

The Gub'ment trembles with fear...

 

Glad I saw that was an Onion link before I headesked, although sadly it wouldn't surprise me if that's the attitude of some gun owners.