QUOTE (Lord of the North @ Dec 26 2008, 22.55)

They are wrong.

Do you love to flame and belittle those who disagree with you? What happened to debating civilly?

QUOTE (Ser Bruce the Hound KG @ Dec 26 2008, 14.41)

In the early going in would have been possable for Japan to invade but they did not because of this fear

Sadly this sort of hairbrained gibberish is standard rhetoric for the gun nut type. Hell, I've heard the same statement on the matter repeated time and time again, word for word, that I'm quite convince the script was written by the NRA themselves for propaganda purposes. And to a decent extent, its worked. Some people seriously believe that without a rifle in every closet, or a handgun in every pocket, America just might fall to the Huns.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 26 2008, 21.01)

Do you love to flame and belittle those who disagree with you? What happened to debating civilly?

What exactly is uncivil about saying 'they're wrong' when in fact they are? Hell, what's uncivil about saying 'they're wrong' even if there's a good chance they're right? I'm missing the flaming and belittling here. Methinks you're a hypersensitive pansy. (Which I don't really mean. I just thought I'd give you a clear example of what flaming and belittling might look like)

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 26 2008, 22.04)

Just a long stream of condescending responses.

Have you read what Bruce the Hound has written? If condescension is all it receives, he's getting off light.

QUOTE (unholy diver @ Dec 27 2008, 00.07)

The fact is, that we are too lenient on criminals.

QUOTE (unholy diver @ Dec 27 2008, 00.07)

We should be working more to eliminate reasons for people to mentally "crash" instead of taking away guns. Eliminate the source not the weapon.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 27 2008, 02.18)

However, Ser's assumption that an armed American citizenry could create problems for potential invaders is a correct one and as much has been stated by many foreign military officers.

QUOTE (Meili @ Dec 27 2008, 06.58)

Maybe we should ban cars and ride bikes everywhere as cars kill around 42,000 a year (not to mention maim and cripple).... But oh, we need cars right?

Is there a head banging into a wall emoticon? A slitting my eyeballs with razors and pouring salt on the wound smiley? How many fucking times will these same lame, half-witted arguments get trotted out? Cars serve a highly essential primary purpose that is necessary for the function of society as we know it. And that purpose is not to kill people. Guns too have a primary purpose. And that purpose IS IN FACT to kill people. How fucking hard is it to see that distinction?

Not only that, cars are restricted all the fucking time. Stop signs, lights, speed limits, safety standards, seat belts, air bags, emission standards. Licensing. Drunk driving laws. Revoking licenses. Registration. Insurance requirements. We regulate the fuck out of those things all the time and noone cries bloody murder. But any gun control whatsoever gets your black helicopter types running for the hills with twitchy trigger fingers.

QUOTE (Meili @ Dec 27 2008, 07.44)

You don't find that statement a bit hypocritical as you are spouting the same gibberish an anti-gun person spouts word for word as if you got it straight from a world/love peace pamphlet?

I have no idea what you just said.

QUOTE (Meili @ Dec 27 2008, 07.44)

We get you hate guns and any object that spouts a projectile as a high speed that could cause damage if directed towards a person.

And this one's just straight up false. I love guns. I shoot them all the time. The bigger the better. My uncle has a BMG .50, thing is a fricken monster. A literal damned cannon. But I'm also sensible enough to look at the numbers and realize that society is much better off without them. This of course is another standard, half-assed tactic of the gun nut lobby; assign sinister motives to the opposition as a means of delegitimizing their argument. A variation on the ad hominem. Can't possibly have a good, legitimate reason for favoring gun bans, must be because I hate guns.

QUOTE (Meili @ Dec 27 2008, 07.44)

Expect others to disagree and on this argument, I think people have strong pro's and con's for each view and I doubt you will sway anyone.

There are pro's, but not many strong ones. Really the most effective pro-gun argument thus far was proposed by Jacen on page one. And to my mind, its about the only one that reasonably challenges the anti-gun arguments. The prohibitive difficulty, not to mention political impossibility, of pushing through any serious nationwide gun ban and implementing it over the outcry of the psycho 'from my cold dead hands' types. So really the only very strong argument isn't that guns shouldn't be banned, but to a large extent that they can't be. All the rest of the shit is pretty handily demolished by the 12,000 annual murders.

QUOTE (Meili @ Dec 27 2008, 07.44)

Not me at least. I just bought a Glock 19 two weeks ago and I love it Also two weeks ago my car was broken into and three weeks before that two blocks away, a house was broken into and the husband and wife were killed in a botched robbery. Guess what, the bad guys had guns and they didn't. Not saying if they did it would have prevented it, but it would have at least made the odds better.

Despite NRA rhetoric to the contrary, there's a very good possibility that under a nation-wide gun ban that the robbers wouldn't have had a guns either. And in either case that's just one instance. You've still got 11,999 more to go before you balance things out. Not to mention the fact that on average, a family with a gun in the house is more likely to have someone shot by their own gun (accident, mistaken identity, domestic dispute, etc) than by anyone elses. Percentages say they don't make you safer.

QUOTE (Meili @ Dec 27 2008 - 07.47)

And yet, people still die dailynot to mention hourly due to them. Restrictions or not.

Do you comprehend how pathetically weak the car v. gun argument is? If not there's really no reason to continue this discussion.

QUOTE (Chataya de Venoge @ Dec 27 2008, 08.29)

This type of thread comes around as often as the abortion threads. What's really sad is:

1. We still don't know exactly what it was that killed those 9 people (and my guess would be fire, not bullets). EHK should really be bemoaning the USA's culture of violence, or even more specifically, domestic violence, rather than calling for a blanket ban on guns.

We've covered this. At least I have. Up thread, my other posts. They're good reading. I know this to be true because I wrote them. Give them a try. We can bemoan until the cows come home, it does nothing. We can rail against the cultural of violence, domestic abuse, the societal factors that cause people to break down and go batshit, but that's not a solution. Hell, that doesn't even isolate the direct problems. We cannot definitively identify all the social and cultural factors that cause these breakdowns. We have no means of effectively addressing them without cameras in every house and mandated 'treatment' for those who get a bit fidgety under hard times.

What we can do is restrict the tools by which these people cause most of their death and destruction. The most effective tools for these purposes, ones that exist primarily and almost exclusively for that purpose. That is an obvious, clear cut response with a high probability of working if successfully implemented. Trying to fix the broken parts of our culture might be noble and should be pursued, but it doesn't neutralize or even marginally diminish the existing threat for the foreseeable future. People are still getting killed in droves. And the only way to significantly limit those droves at the moment are to get rid of the guns.

QUOTE (Chataya de Venoge @ Dec 27 2008, 08.29)

Or maybe he should be calling for a blanket ban on homemade flamethrowers (which, my guess is that they're already banned, but it didn't matter too much to this ex-husband nutjob).

When 12,000 people are being killed per year by flamethrowers, I'll give it equal weight. It doesn't fucking matter what these people were killed by. If it wasn't the bullets this time, it was the bullets thousands of other times. I have no doubt there are people rubbing their hands together on the other side of their monitor waiting for the news that these were all burn victims so they can 'A HAH!' to all those gun-hating saps who thought otherwise. What they don't get, what they are too fucking dense and dumb to get, is that it doesn't fucking matter. The reality of this one single instance does not change the reality of thousands of other instances.

QUOTE (Bruce Midgetsbane @ Dec 27 2008, 10.50)

We should ban cancer. It kills a lot of people.

You want a good reason not to ban guns? How about a lot more than 12000 murders. Gun owners such as myself would be willing to fight back if this line is crossed. How about every person with a uniform on being shot as they drive through town? How about when a huge section of the population turns violently anti-government en masse? How many murders per year do you think that will add up to? 50000? 100000? Are you expecting everyone to just roll over and take it? Because they won't.

So you're saying you might resort to murder to keep your guns? To me that's even more reason to get rid of them, you and those like you are too prone to violence to keep them. I do love some peoples eagerness to resort to treason, bloodshed, and terrorist threats when they don't get their way. Screw that pesky little voting booth. And it typically comes from those who are the first and loudest to proclaim their own patriotism.

By this logic we should just roll over and do whatever big bad Bin Laden tells us to or else we can expect to get attacked again. Are you all for giving into the demands of terrorists? Or only when you're the terrorist?

QUOTE (Bruce Midgetsbane @ Dec 27 2008, 10.50)

We should ban cancer. It kills a lot of people.

And this is case in point of why its difficult to take much from your side seriously. Some of you actually think this is a worthwhile argument. If this is your definition of sound logic and reason, you really aren't properly equipped to vote. Or for that matter express an opinion that anyone but your dog should listen to.

QUOTE (Bruce Midgetsbane @ Dec 27 2008, 11.40)

I'm saying I will violently resists the infringement of my right to bear arms.

You didn't have a right to bear arms (as an individual) until last year. In a few more years, we might yet revert back to the status quo that reigned for the 200+ years before that.

QUOTE (Bruce Midgetsbane @ Dec 27 2008, 11.40)

Says the guy who wanted to carpet bomb Somalian cities to prevent boat theft.

I fail to see what legitimate purpose piracy serves. Gun control however has perfectly legitimate and beneficial purposes. Opposing piracy does not equal shooting people for deciding to ban guns.

QUOTE (Bruce Midgetsbane @ Dec 27 2008, 11.40)

If people voted to enslave you and your family, would you submit when the slave-takers came? Voting does not equal moral authority.

And gun control does not equal slavery. Find a more valid comparison.

QUOTE (Bruce Midgetsbane @ Dec 27 2008, 11.40)

Your reason for wishing to ban guns is because of 12000 gun-deaths per year. You have expressed willingness to ban other things if they approach this number. I pointed out that a gun-ban would kill more people per year in this country than a non-gun ban in an appeal to this argument.

First, I doubt it. I know there's some crazy gun nuts out there, but most won't act on their bullshit rhetoric. Second those 12,000 gun deaths are a fact of everyday life. They exist because someone snapped, because of the drug trade, other petty criminality. It is not there to intimidate society into their desired course of action. I favor addressing the realities in society. I do not favor caving to intimidation, threats and violence dedicated to forcing along a particular course.

QUOTE (Bruce Midgetsbane @ Dec 27 2008, 11.40)

Sarcasm bro - I thought it was obvious. Here's another: we should ban death. It kills a lot of people per year. Obviously we can't address the root cause on a societal level so we should address the symptoms. Anyone caught with zero brain activity and no heart rate will face harsh penalties. They will be pumped full of toxic chemicals, stuffed into a small box, buried at least 6 feet underground, and never let out. See? It's a joke.

You threw up something patently ridiculous as a comparison to show how (supposedly) absurd gun control is. However the level of absurdity between the two examples is equivalent only in the mind of an imbecile. It is yet another worthless, invalid comparison.

QUOTE (Bruce Midgetsbane @ Dec 27 2008, 12.25)

I have always had a right to bear arms, whether the government recognizes it or not. If they stop recognizing it, my rights will continue to exist inspite of their disapproval.

Why do you think you have such rights?

QUOTE (Bruce Midgetsbane @ Dec 27 2008, 12.25)

Apparently it equals bombing them for happening to live in the same town as pirates. Your comments on numerous other threads put the lie to your supposed desire to protect life.

I cannot find a war in history that did not have civilian casualties. And pirates are effectively at war with the world.

QUOTE (Bruce Midgetsbane @ Dec 27 2008, 12.25)

Both are banned by constitutional amendment. It's a perfectly valid legal comparison. As would be a comparison to the government demanding that you be licensed before being allowed to speak. Or quartering troops in your house during a time of peace.

Yet again you prove that you have no idea what you're talking about.

QUOTE (Bruce Midgetsbane @ Dec 27 2008, 12.25)

WTF??? What do you think a gun ban would be? Please give us your guns and stop selling them pretty please? Or would it be, "Go along with EHK's required course of action or else (threats, intimidation) you will go to jail (violence). You love throwing around intimidation, threats and violence to get /your own/ facist, totalitarian way. You just don't think its fair that someone should get to throw them back.

The state uses force or the threat of force to compel certain behavior (or non-behavior) all the time. Its a significant reason for their existence. They hold a monopoly on use of force as a means of maintaining order and security. I can't think of anyone who would want to live under a state that didn't exercise some degree of force. However most people are not in favor of rogue vigilante's arbitrarily deciding to use force to get their way. Yet another incredibly stupid comparison.

QUOTE (Bruce Midgetsbane @ Dec 27 2008, 12.25)

But the people who are responsible for the majority of the gun deaths will always find ways to get guns.

I fail to see how you can state this with any certainty. Take a nationwide ban + confiscations + SEVERE penalties for possession and you will drastically limit the supply of available guns. Discourage their use even if they are available. And make them prohibitively expensive for many as a result.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 27 2008, 12.30)

I seriously doubt anybody like this psycho would care too much about the price of a gun, especially when he killed himself afterwards anyways.

The price? No. But this is a middle aged, suburbia dwelling working man. I doubt he has all that many criminal associations. I doubt he would know where to look for a gun in the first place. And the mere difficulty of figuring all that out would serve as a further deterrent to actually acting out in this manner. Would it have stopped this guy? Maybe, maybe not. But on a macro scale, when you consider all the psychos who one day happen to snap, that added difficulty will prevent alot of them acting. You'd be surprised how decisive a factor ease and convenience (or the lack thereof) is for all sorts of actions.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 27 2008, 12.30)

Besides, I don't think supply and demand will change the price of black market guns like you seem to think. This all besides the fact that a large % of the population already owns guns.

Maybe all my movie watching is off, but common practice for the 'professional criminal' is to dispose of a murder weapon after usage. If the weapons become too expensive, I doubt many would consider them all that expendable anymore. They'd be kept around. Which makes the job of law enforcement much easier as a ballistics check could trace the gun to whatever crime its been used in. And your average street thug and minor drug dealer really doesn't make that much money. The penalties and cost would be enough to deter many from arming up.

For your non-criminals, your 'passion crimers' and your postal psychos, the mere fact that most wouldn't have a gun handy and couldn't get ahold of one easily would be enough to deter most of them.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 27 2008, 12.30)

You mentioned earlier that you think people should be able to rent guns for purposes like hunting, but what happens to those who own guns?

You drop off a credit card for a bar tab, I'm sure they could come up with some sort of collateral (even just a license) to make sure you return the guns at the end of the day. In either case, hopefully this wouldn't be necessary. The main problems are handguns. Get rid of those and see how things go. If rifles and shotguns pick up the slack, than move on to those. If they don't to any significant degree, than they remain legal.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 27 2008, 12.30)

Some people have guns that have been passed down from father to son for multiple generations. Does the government take those away as well?

Maybe they do. Maybe they make special licenses and allowances for collector pieces. Who knows? Who cares. These are minor side issues that get ironed out in the nitty, gritty details. They do not carry sufficient weight to be considered a real counter-argument.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 27 2008, 12.30)

A lot of people use their guns to put food on the table, if they can't afford to buy groceries how the hell are they going to be able to afford to rent a gun or pay for overpriced ammunition(banning of guns will increase the price of ammunition to ridiculous levels).

I'm sure exemptions could be made for special circumstances. Again minor, insignificant details.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 27 2008, 12.30)

Then you have to get into the field of how much economic loss will the banning of guns have? 100,000 people will lose their jobs. Perhaps more.

There are other industries. Other jobs. Hell, we can take some of the money saved on law enforcement and put it into a retraining fund for employees of the arms industry. The industry won't completely die off either, police and the military still must be armed. 100,000 people? I think you overestimate how many people the industry and those directly related to it employ.

QUOTE (Bruce Midgetsbane @ Dec 27 2008, 12.50)

If you really want to, I'm game.

The militia was called up by the state governments during emergencies. It was composed of willing able bodied men. The militia need regulation because you couldn't have 200 guys in the militia with 200 different types of guns. A sharpshooter with a shotgun is pretty useless. Therefore the militia needed regulated.

The militia, however, didn't exist, unless called up by the state. Therefore, there is another, separate clause, indicating the right of the people. The people, could not have their right to bear arms infringed. Indeed, only the militia could have their arms regulated!

This is nonsensical. Seriously, leave the Constitution to the experts. Yeah there are favorable interpretations supporting the right to bear arms as an individual right, but you didn't make that case in the least. The right of the people to bear arms exists only insofar as its necessary to form a well regulated militia. As we now have a fully armed standing military as well as a national guard, the militia is covered. And it is not necessary for the people to keep their own weapons to maintain it.

QUOTE (The Prisoner @ Dec 27 2008, 14.04)

You don't believe the justices on the Supreme Court are experts?

First, the current justices of the supreme court didn't give anything close to the 'reasoning' (if you can call it that) that midget just did. Second, I prefer the hundreds of Supreme Court justices previous to this crew who thought it was a collective rather than individual right.

QUOTE (Ser Scot A Ellison @ Dec 27 2008, 14.18)

EHK,

Hundreds? Exaggerate much?

200+ years of justices. Alot of them are geriatrics by the time they get appointed. Most of them appointed during the days of lesser life expectancies. Hundreds sounded about right. Might be overestimating. The point is no court until this one ruled that the right to bear arms was an individual right.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 27 2008, 14.19)

And if you make them prohibitively expensive you're taking them away from the good majority of people who are the responsible ones. The people who use guns to hunt.

One of those responsible ones just offed his family at a Christmas party dressed as Santa Claus. There are no responsible ones. Anyone under the right pressures and circumstances has the potential to snap. And the ones who are most adamant about guns being their sacred god-given right are often the scariest of them all. I don't think I've met one who seemed 100% right in the head.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 27 2008, 14.19)

I think you fail to see how important guns are to some people. A ban won't get rid of existing guns. How would they confiscate our guns? Break into our houses and steal our guns? People won't willingly hand over their guns, no matter the penalties.

To be decided. Maybe we take registration records and send court summons to those who don't surrender the weapons. Arresting them if they don't show up or don't comply. Maybe we ignore it and simply bust them if they ever take them out in plain view. In either case most of those 'gun-loving' enough to defy the law on the matter are unlikely to part with them easily, aka, they're generally not gonna sell them to criminals. And so long as they don't snap themselves, they shouldn't present too much of a problem locked up in their houses. Don't ask, don't tell until given a reason to do otherwise. It still leaves the problem of some fuckers going postal or Joe Nobody murdering a cheating spouse he just caught, but it still limits the overall availability of guns and the absolute numbers of gun owners, which will very likely have a significant impact on murder rates. Its not perfect, but its progress. Got to look at these things on a macro scale.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 27 2008, 14.19)

Middle aged surburbian men have had little difficulty finding connections in the past from everything from drugs to hitmen. Hell, I have absolutely no criminal associations, but I could obtain a gun today if I needed to. All you have to do is talk to somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody.

First, you make it sound much easier than it actually is. Since I graduated college I wouldn't have the first clue of where to find any drugs bigger than pot. Most people I know are in the same boat. And even the mere process of asking people is enough to raise eyebrows and perhaps get the guy reported before he even acts on the matter. The threat of getting caught before the fact will act as a further deterrence. As will the added hassle of having to jump through those hoops. It won't stop everyone, but it will stop a hell of alot of them. Again, we're look at this on a societal level, big number statistics. And these measures will have a major impact on those statistics. The question isn't 'what potentially can be done' but what, in most cases (or even simply enough cases) WILL be done.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 27 2008, 14.19)

They would still depose of the weapon. The price of getting caught isn't worth trying to resell the gun. And if a person rented the gun off the street he'd simply return it without it getting led back to him. And again, you overexaggerate the effect this would have on the price of guns. banning guns and confiscation would only take away a small % of the overall guns, and more guns would be smuggled in. Not to mention, many guns would be produced inside the country. It's not that difficult to manufacture a gun.

It is not difficult to manufacture a gun. It is difficult to hide the large scale manufacture of a bunch of guns. And all the black market manufacture in the world isn't gonna dent the productive capacity of all the major gun companies operating openly and legitly at their big factories. Guns are big, bulky, and heavy compared to drugs. They can't be hidden in all the corners and cracks that powdered drugs can. They simply can't be smuggled in in sufficient numbers to make up for the losses. The major problem will be the existing guns that people don't get rid of.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 27 2008, 14.19)

So do you simply hand the guns back to their owners after taking them away?

I'm not sure what you're asking.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 27 2008, 14.19)

I don't think they're minor side issues. These people take their guns seriously.

Who gives a shit? You don't base policy around the side-hobbies of a tiny niche of the population. This is a side issue. Its not terribly relevant to the main argument.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 27 2008, 14.19)

If you make exemptions for some, then everybody will want their "special circumstances". These are not minor or insignificant details.

Yes, they are. And most of the regulatory schemes out there have special exemptions for certain circumstances. Its nothing new. Certain cars get a tax break. Certain items have luxury taxes. Some require special licenses. You make it sound like these minor fine points will undermine the integrity of the whole effort. I don't think many people are gonna raise hell because farmer Joe got an exemption to keep some guns to make sure wolves don't eat his cattle. Hell, most of the countries with major gun bans already have such exemptions. Some have them for sport shooters too. Shit like this is barely relevant. It sure as hell ain't decisive. This is missing the forest in order to worship a sapling. This is nothing. This is shit you discuss after you've already decided upon your primary course.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 27 2008, 14.19)

I think you grossly overstate the money saved on law enforcement. The vast majority of law enforcement involves things other than gun homocides. And then you'd have to add law enforcement for all of the people being prosecuted for having guns. IMO law enforcement would increase. Then you'd also have an increase in prison capacity as people go to jail for possessing guns or distributing guns. You'd also have to hire extra law enforcement to battle the underground organized crime that'll be specializing in gun trade.

Fair enough, we don't have an available slush fund to to simply transfer to money to. We'll just have to assume that the thousands of people still breathing, working, and contributing to the tax base who would otherwise be dead from gunshot wounds will be enough to make up the difference.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 27 2008, 14.19)

basically every organization that caters to hunters, to gun sports, etc. Shooting ranges would be shut down. Wildlife rangers would cut their numbers.

Again, there's no need to close shooting ranges. There can even be designated hunting areas. Come in, pay a fee, rent a gun, shoot away, return it and go home. And if it doesn't become necessary to ban rifles and shotguns, much of this is moot anyway.

QUOTE (turinturambar @ Dec 27 2008, 14.19)

You do realize there is no formal registry of gun owners in most of the US? That being the case how do you plan to confiscate unregistered firearms currently in private hands?

Put the word out. Give a grace period to turn in their guns. We'll even give them some cash for it. After said period anyone caught with a gun serves an extra long prison term. Those who don't turn them over will at the very least most likely not carry them around. Too risky.

So Migitbane, are you an anarchist or something?

Liberterian, I think.

Close enough.