VT Shootings, Gun Control !

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
61

[quote]PGJ wrote:
Michael570 wrote:
lucasa wrote:

So, ban neckties, bathtubs, and pillows? I mean seriously, most of the hicks that own neckties don’t use them in a responsible manner anyway, they don’t make anyone any safer, and I’m pretty sure Japan’s Constitution doesn’t provide a right to bear a cravat.

Don’t even get me started on bathtubs…

I support the right to bear arms so I’d like to see gun advocates drop this line of argument. I think it weakens your position.

The primary purpose of a firearm is to kill people. Plain and simple it is a weapon designed to kill. Not every gun owner owns guns for the purpose of killing people but the gun itself is designed for a specific use.

People are killed everyday with “non-weapon” items but the fact remains that neckties, bathtubs, and pillows aren’t designed to do what guns do.

Absolutely, positively wrong! Guns are used for sport and hunting as well. Marksmenship is a major sport. Some people hunt for food. The bow and arrow has the EXACT same purposes as the gun. Should they be banned as well? What about the axe and knife?

[/quote]

There are hundreds of million of guns in the US. If they each fulfilled their primary purpose everyone in the US would be dead.

62

I realize guns are used for sporting purposes. That’s why I specified their primary purpose. My point is that a gun is a killing tool. Of course it can be used in other manners. But to me you weaken your position when you raise the issue of hunting and sport. The 2nd Amendment doesn’t reference hunting or marksmanship. It’s very specific in what type of gun use it is protecting.

Is the primary purpose of an axe or knife killing? Maybe in the past but today I see them being used primarily as tools for other purposes.

The bow and arrow makes a better example but it’s also irrelevant to the constitutional debate. Either way, bow and arrows, axes, knives, neckties, bathtubs, and pillows are all apples and oranges comparisons.

63

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
PGJ wrote:
Michael570 wrote:
lucasa wrote:

So, ban neckties, bathtubs, and pillows? I mean seriously, most of the hicks that own neckties don’t use them in a responsible manner anyway, they don’t make anyone any safer, and I’m pretty sure Japan’s Constitution doesn’t provide a right to bear a cravat.

Don’t even get me started on bathtubs…

I support the right to bear arms so I’d like to see gun advocates drop this line of argument. I think it weakens your position.

The primary purpose of a firearm is to kill people. Plain and simple it is a weapon designed to kill. Not every gun owner owns guns for the purpose of killing people but the gun itself is designed for a specific use.

People are killed everyday with “non-weapon” items but the fact remains that neckties, bathtubs, and pillows aren’t designed to do what guns do.

Absolutely, positively wrong! Guns are used for sport and hunting as well. Marksmenship is a major sport. Some people hunt for food. The bow and arrow has the EXACT same purposes as the gun. Should they be banned as well? What about the axe and knife?

There are hundreds of million of guns in the US. If they each fulfilled their primary purpose everyone in the US would be dead.[/quote]

I’m not sure what your point is. Are you saying that’s not their primary purpose? If not, then what is?

64

[quote]Michael570 wrote:

People are killed everyday with “non-weapon” items but the fact remains that neckties, bathtubs, and pillows aren’t designed to do what guns do. [/quote]

So I can mount a reasonable defense, could you please clarify what “function” neckties were “designed” to perform?

65

[quote]lucasa wrote:
Michael570 wrote:

People are killed everyday with “non-weapon” items but the fact remains that neckties, bathtubs, and pillows aren’t designed to do what guns do.

So I can mount a reasonable defense, could you please clarify what “function” neckties were “designed” to perform?[/quote]

They function as a form of clothing as opposed to a strangulation device.

66

Ok, I have to give a little bit of a rant on this topic, so here it goes. The second ammendment to the Constitution was created in case we the people are ever to fall under the rule of a tyrant, so that we could have a chance of rebellion.

Now of course this was written back when citizens possessed the same guns as the military, so this was in a sense somewhat of a plausible assumption if everybody took up their second ammendment right. Presently, there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of our nation’s gun owners kicking the military’s ass; never going to happen.

Moving on, eliminating guns has to quite honestly be the dumbest fucking attempt at a solution I have ever heard. Let me explain this in a simple manner, what people demand will always be supplied. Yeah, let’s ban drugs, that way nobody can use illegal drugs!

Wow, that policy works great, nobody uses drugs because the government says they’re illegal, so if they’re illegal, nobody can produce and proliferate drugs. The drug war is lost, it’s a waste of our damn money when if they were legal there would be a decline in their use, less crime, less deaths, and we wouldn’t be paying for it.

Not to get off topic here, but this is directly relevant. People want guns, people will always have guns. A felon doesn’t apply for a firearms ID card or pistol permit, then go to a licensed gun store and purchase a firearm, you morons. He goes to an underground source and buys an unregistered firearm of his choice.

Now Mr. Felon goes in a store to commit armed robbery on Mr. Goodguy, but oh wait, Mr. Goodguy can’t buy a gun legally and he is a law aibidng citizen so he wouldn’t go underground to buy one, but yeah because they’re illegal Mr. Felon can’t have one! Anyway, Mr. Goodguy gets robbed and his head blown off because a select amount of ignorant jerkoffs tried to piss on his second ammendment right, boy you’ve made the nation safer. Click the link below and watch the first video on the page, then tell me about how great a system of outlawing guns works.
http://www.usconcealedcarry.com/public/764.cfm

States with more people carrying have actually had comparitively lower instances of violent crime, in a recent national poll 88% of police officers support private citizen gun ownership. Now I’m not saying let’s sell guns to everybody, people should be checked out, I mean hell it took me nine weeks to get my firearm ID card and then even when I went to buy my rifle they called the State Police to confirm I hadn’t done anything between the time I was issued the license and the day I was trying to buy the gun.

If we’re all armed, then what advantage does a criminal now have?

About the whole debate with the police not going in immediately at the school, I’m not a law enforcement official so I don’t really know if they’re required to not do that, or if they were ordered not to, or if they were just that stupid. But the reality is that if they did what they were supposed to do, well, we have to come up with a better way of going about this situation.

I can’t understand how you can focus on setting up a perimeter when you hear gun shots and kids screaming, but this isn’t my field of knowledge so whatever.

67

[quote]JeffR wrote:

beowolf,

I hear what you are saying. There are some of us who think it would be a worse screw up if the politicians decided to have a go at this.

We really do think that trying to ban X amount of weapons, would only punish the law abiding.

Again, I can identify and can to some extent agree with you.

It’s funny, it almost sounds like a Federalist verus Anti-Federalist set of arguments. Who do you trust? The people or the politicians?

I don’t know how you stop every lone nut. However, I have some ideas.

First, DON’T SHOW THE SCUMBALL’S VIDEO/PICTURES. Copy-cat murders happen all the time.

Second, I can go along with a gun safety class. If for no other reason than to educate people.

Third, if you have a felony, you need to have x number of years of non-crime prior to getting a gun.

Those are some of my ideas of the top of my idea.

JeffR
[/quote]

Haha, I was thinking along the same line about the Federalist/Anti-Federalist thing, though we aren’t at such extreme odds.

I can most definetly see where your coming from. While I don’t agree completely, I can see the solidity of your reasoning on this matter.

And of course, I agree with your ideas. Especially number one. Showing the videos glorifies them to other would-be killers.

They see the attention the killers get, and they copy to receive the same. Thats why your not supposed to do big mourning ceremonies for people who commit suicide. It only encourages more people to take the same option.

68

For the sake of comparison. There are plenty of weapons in Finland, most of them are hunting weapons, handguns are not common. Shooting incidents in public places like schools - not happened yet - and malls are rare.

What is relatively common is that a grazy finn drinks himself silly and starts shooting from his home. Sometimes he manages to shoot somebody, in most cases the culprit is too drunk to hit the house on the other side of the street.

Homicides are mostly done with knifes, axes and kitchen utensils. Without doubt handguns would be preferred if they were more readily available. The majority of violent acts are done when drunk.

69

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
buffballswell wrote:
Because some of us still believe deeply in the sacrifices of those who came before us, so that we may have the freedoms they fought so passionately for. Because what was true then, is still true now. Our fathers, grandfathers, and great grandfathers fought, and many died to protect “the words of long gone men.” Personally I only hope that there are still men bread of the same character.

Yes, but what they were fighting for isn’t something written in stone. It is a piece of paper that can be amended. Number 2 has little life left in it.

When the revolution comes do you think you are going to be looking to a piece of paper to tell you how to behave? If I found the need to revolt against my government I would not need the second amendment to tell me it is ok. If the first amendment remains protected the second is not necessary.

Besides this, the whole “Our fathers, grandfathers, and great grandfathers fought, and many died to protect,” is nothing but rhetoric. Many of us do not want to be held to account for what ultimately is nothing more than words.[/quote]

In short, that is bullshit. In their genius the Founding Fathers believed in checks and balances. I would argue that the ultimate check would be at the barrel of a gun, I think the founding fathers believed that to the extent that the right to bear arms is not the ninth, or even the tenth amendment to the Constitution it is the second. Give up that right and it is only a matter of time before all the others are gone.

70

[quote]MisterAmazing wrote:
Presently, there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of our nation’s gun owners kicking the military’s ass; never going to happen.[/quote]

Unless the Army nukes it’s own country, I’d put my money on the people anytime.

There’s no way an army comprising about 500,000 soldiers is going to put down a revolution by a sizeable portion of your 300,000,000 population.

A sizeable portion of your army is currently trying to pacify Iraq and getting nowhere; you think it would do better with a population over 10 times as large and better armed?

I don’t see it.

71

[quote]PGJ wrote:
Why do Europeans think they need to provide input on American issues? We don’t give a shit about Irish politics or laws.
[/quote]

I give a shit about world issues especially when I see on TV that 32 innocent people lost their lives to a crazed nut who quite easily went into his local ‘GUN SHOP’ and bought himself two guns. I see this insane shit everyday on the news’ look at yesterdays news from Nasa Houston, it sickens me’ maybe thats what separates me from you.

[quote]PGJ wrote:

Here’s an example you might understand (and keep in mind I lived in England for 3 years). If private gun ownership is illegal in the UK, how in the world does the IRA get guns? It SHOULD be impossible, right? But they do.
[/quote]

Comparing a well organised politically motivated terrorist organistion shipping illegal weaponry into Ireland or the UK to a low life scum bag physco buying a gun at their local store in the US in pure nonsense, c’mon!

[quote]PGJ wrote:

Here’s another good reason to keep and bear arms…America has never been invaded and never will be. Not only do we have a massive military, but we also have millions and millions of private citizens armed to the teeth ready to defend our boarders.No nation could ever hope to invade.
[/quote]

Man’ your boarders are separated by the ATLANTIC and PACIFIC oceans for fuck sake! So your argument on never being invaded is laughable. War / invasion usually come hand in hand with the procurement of power / resources / suppression and or annihilation of the natives. To mount a full fledged invasion on the US would cost billions and it wouldnt make economic sense and thats why terrorism is soo fashionable these days!

[quote]PGJ wrote:

Europe has been the cause of more death and destruction in the last few hundred years than in all of human history.
[/quote]

With the exception of the Native American Indians where in the hell do you think your ancestors came from?

To use the argument that Europe has been the cause of so much death and destruction in the last few hundred years is ridiculous. Thats the nature of humanity we love to war! Where there are no controls set in place for people and when ignorance and hatred bypass common sense things become messy. How many people died of gun related incidents in the US last year? I’d say quite a few more than Ireland / UK / France / Germany / Italy / Spain / Holland / Denmark blah blah blah put to together. We still have our crazy fucks just like you but their access to ‘legal’ lethal force by semi automatic or automatic weaponry is non-existent.

[quote]PGJ wrote:

Perhaps that’s because of it’s a completely defenseless citizenry who are completely at the whim of whatever European nation is the most powerful at that time. Give every Frenchman a gun in the 1930’s and maybe Hitler doesn’t have such an easy time.

[/quote]

Again a stupid statement! Considering the majority of France and Europe was rural and the majority of farmers owned guns your argument crys of pure nonsense. Hitler spread his resources too thin and as a result lost the war. His breaking of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact resulted in his downfall.

We are ALL damn lucky (including you) Hitlers lust for power extended towards Moscow. It took the combined efforts of Russia, Britain and the US to kick his ass and to suggest that peasant farmers in France had a chance of defending themselves against the nazi war machine suggests you are somewhat delusional.

P.S. I obviously have no say in your national politics nor will I tell you your own business. My point here is to highlight my opinion that access to guns does not solve anything but only adds to the problem.

Again if the laws over here allowed the lunatics I know to get their hands on a gun I can guaruntee you that they would love the chance to blow some one away. Thank God we dont thats all I have to say.

72

[quote]pookie wrote:
MisterAmazing wrote:
Presently, there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of our nation’s gun owners kicking the military’s ass; never going to happen.

Unless the Army nukes it’s own country, I’d put my money on the people anytime.

There’s no way an army comprising about 500,000 soldiers is going to put down a revolution by a sizeable portion of your 300,000,000 population.

A sizeable portion of your army is currently trying to pacify Iraq and getting nowhere; you think it would do better with a population over 10 times as large and better armed?

I don’t see it.
[/quote]

Ok, out of those 300,000,000, a considerably small portion actually has arms. Also consider the fact that these people are all spread across fifty states, two of which are not even connected to the mainland directly, with no central means of organization and communication.

The weapons these people possess in comparison to guided missiles, fighter jets, fully automatic weapons, tanks, soldiers trained to kill, soliders trained to kill that are organized, warships, submarines…well, c’mon there’s no way in hell. You can compare numbers, but fifty guys with hunting rifles/shotguns/pistols/revovlers trying to attack one tank wouldn’t really be able to do shit; a few good blasts and they’re all cooked.

Now, the Iraq war; waste of time, lives, money, pointless - absolutely. But what you’re saying is that we’re failing to pacify the nation, not trying to put down a revolution. The reason that there are so many problems there now is due to the fact that we are not fighting with full force, because every time one civilian gets killed we’re portrayed as Satan.

They’re getting their asses kicked as far as numbers go, if we really wanted to we could just make the entire country a crater, but it’s like Vietnam, they’re like flies on shit, they just won’t ever stop and people from the surrounding countries keep leaking in to help the insurgents. It’s a war that is impossible to win psychologically, thus it will never end, same thing as Vietnam.

73

Same old shit will just keep happening. Some kid gets shat on his whole life, decides to take out years and years of anger upon people who he feels deserve it, media labels them a “monster” and blames superficial scapegoats, a few months later we pretend it never happened, repeat.

i think people should look to the highschool culture that breeds insular individals like this

before shouting GUNS! RAP MUSIC! VIDEO GAMES!

74

[quote]MisterAmazing wrote:
Ok, out of those 300,000,000, a considerably small portion actually has arms.[/quote]

Yes, but many of those that do have more than 1 gun. They could distribute. Some enthusiasts could probably arm their whole neighborhood and have spares leftovers.

Even if you discount Hawaii and Alaska, you still have large groups of population who could, given a minimum of organization, occupy and control a large territory.

Of course, if the army decides to genocide it’s own people, then they’ll win… not sure what they’re winning, since they’re won’t be a country left for them either.

Another factor to consider is that some portion of the army is bound to be sympathetic to the rebels. Depending on what proportion defects, you could have a rebellion that has access to fighters, subs and tanks too.

You can look to many countries where “coup” have been mounted by small groups of men with popular support. They posed no threat to the country’s army when matched on paper, yet they still succeeded in toppling whatever regime was there.

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[quote]pookie wrote:
…
[/quote]

I’ll have to side with MisterAmazing on this one. There’s no way I’ll put my money on the populace against something as mighty as the US military. They could practically handle billions of pistols-bearing people, let alone a couple of hundred millions. Just my speculative opinion on a far-fetched conjectural scenario…

MisterAmazing, a question: If every single country had nukes, do you think the world would be safer? You seem to make the case for guns being the “great equalizers”. How’s an A-bomb any different?

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[quote]lixy wrote:
I’ll have to side with MisterAmazing on this one.[/quote]

Cool. You’re generally on the losing side of every debate, so I’ll take this as back up for my position.

As for the US army handling billions of armed people, it all depends if mass extermination via WMDs is on the table.

With conventional warfare only, I’m still skeptical.

If Thunderbolt is reading this, I wonder what his view is on this topic: Could the US citizenry rise against and topple it’s leaders if the Army remained loyal to them?

77

[quote]pookie wrote:
lixy wrote:
I’ll have to side with MisterAmazing on this one.

Cool. You’re generally on the losing side of every debate, so I’ll take this as back up for my position.

As for the US army handling billions of armed people, it all depends if mass extermination via WMDs is on the table.

With conventional warfare only, I’m still skeptical.

If Thunderbolt is reading this, I wonder what his view is on this topic: Could the US citizenry rise against and topple it’s leaders if the Army remained loyal to them?
[/quote]

I am not Thunderbolt but the answer is yes.

Look at Iraq and multiply it by 100.

That, and massive tax revolts.

78

[quote]pookie wrote:
Cool. You’re generally on the losing side of every debate, so I’ll take this as back up for my position.[/quote]

Low, low, very low…

[quote]As for the US army handling billions of armed people, it all depends if mass extermination via WMDs is on the table.

With conventional warfare only, I’m still skeptical.[/quote]

Once you kill a few dozen millions - in conventional warfare -, I put my money on people getting scared beyond belief and calling for an armistice.

79

Ok, few responses here.

Pookie:
You didn’t say anything about the military being sided with the people, this obviously changes the entire scenario because we’re talking about the military either kicking the peoples’ asses, or the army being with the people. If the military is with he people then it’s up to some politicians with some guns to defend their tyranny, which wouldn’t work at all without a military. So yes, if the military was with the people of course they would win, I was talking in perspective of them being loyal to the ruling power. You say it’s worked in other countries, uh…we’re the United States; enough said about that. Yeah, people dispersing arms to others and joining together and organizing, hahaha, can you be any less of a realist here? We’re in a pointless war and people follow like sheep, you think they’re going to organize and revolt against the world’s #1 superpower?

lixy:
To answer your question, I honestly don’t see a comparison between guns and nuclear missiles. Guns aren’t going to destroy an entire continent and all the life on it with effects for years to come. True, they are both weapons of war, but this is comparing an ice cube to a glacier.

80

[quote]MisterAmazing wrote:
lixy:
To answer your question, I honestly don’t see a comparison between guns and nuclear missiles. Guns aren’t going to destroy an entire continent and all the life on it with effects for years to come. True, they are both weapons of war, but this is comparing an ice cube to a glacier. [/quote]

Not a satisfactory analogy. We study a glacier the same way we study an ice cube. Both have the same properties, and provided you change the scale, you couldn’t tell one from the other.

It’s like the old joke:

A man approaches a woman in a bar and says: “Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?” She ponders for a while then replies giggling: “My, well…sure!”
He then asks her if she’d sleep with him for 10 bucks. She gets up angrily and says “What’s the matter with you? What kind of girl do you think I am?”
The man then calmely answers “I think we already established that. Now, it’s just a matter of determining the price”.

I think it’s all a matter of perspective, and don’t see why you couldn’t compare guns and nukes, and apply the same reasoning globally as you would apply to smaller-scale-yet-lethal guns.

Think of it this way: Would Bush have attacked Iraq had Saddam had nukes? Can any Arab country even think about attacking Israel post-Vanunu? Isn’t Pakistani-Indian differences settled more diplomatically now that they both displayed their nuclear capability?