Connecticut School shooting!

[lotus503]

Knives, arrows, swords, axes etc all kinds of "efficient tools for killing" so what is your point?

They are less popular and less effective for rampage killers and not as efficient as a gun for wiping out folks in quick fashion.

So to the public at large they are less of a threat.

Guy in china attacks and slashes 22 people, none of them died. Meanwhile nut shoots and kills a ton of kids and lots die.

If you can't see the difference I can't help you.

 

[irishScott]

Again, this is a stupid false equivalency, in that SUVs are not intrinsically designed for any dangerous purpose. Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are designed to provide increased killing power. Again, I am not advocating for gun control measures and own several "high capacity" magazines for my Glock 17, but your analogy is silly.

How is it false? So guns are made for killing... so what? Not all killing is bad, just like not all driving is bad. The fallacy is in placing the morality of driving over the morality of using a gun. In placing cars in a different category than guns because of some supposed "need" or "usefulness" that is apparently superior to the "needs" and "usefulness" of guns.

I would argue that the need for extreme self defense, say, after a natural disaster like Katrina or in a situation like the Rodeny King riots is just as relevant as the more mundane daily needs for a car, if less frequent. This need could easily be met by "assault weapons", as it was in both mentioned scenarios.

Here's the arguments I'm hearing for banning high capacity magazines/assault weapons.

1. They are not "needed".
2. They are dangerous.

So why don't we ban other things that fit that criteria? And don't say "because they serve other purposes" as we've established that "they are not needed", ergo their "purpose" isn't enough to justify it.

1. An SUV is not "needed". It has no practical "purpose" (given the availability of Jeeps, pick-ups, and minivans).
2. An SUV is dangerous.

1. A pocket knife is not "needed", unless one is doing something that requires a knife.
2. A pocket knife is dangerous.

1. Nail clippers are no "needed" unless one is clipping nails.
2. Nail clippers are dangerous in certain contexts.

My point is the logic behind the arguments in favor of banning assault weapons and high capacity magazine is the same "logic" that's brought us beyond dumb TSA regulations and UK-style "need" and "proportional force" arguments where people get locked up for defending themselves. The argument invalidates itself because it's general, and if applied generally leads to absurdity.

The only attempt to specify its scope consists of an abstract moral, philosophical argument that guns are somehow different from other dangerous items due to their range of potential uses. If that's the case, then the argument is no longer about saving lives and dangerous items, but about philosophy and subjective impressions.

Therefore, I find the "need and danger" argument to be incredibly weak as a grounds for practical legislation.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

How is it false? So guns are made for killing... so what? Not all killing is bad, just like not all driving is bad. The fallacy is in placing the morality of driving over the morality of using a gun. In placing cars in a different category than guns because of some supposed "need" or "usefulness" that is apparently superior to the "needs" and "usefulness" of guns.

I would argue that the need for extreme self defense, say, after a natural disaster like Katrina or in a situation like the Rodeny King riots is just as relevant as the more mundane daily needs for a car, if less frequent. This need could easily be met by "assault weapons", as it was in both mentioned scenarios.

Here's the arguments I'm hearing for banning high capacity magazines/assault weapons.

1. They are not "needed".
2. They are dangerous.

So why don't we ban other things that fit that criteria? And don't say "because they serve other purposes" as we've established that "they are not needed", ergo their "purpose" isn't enough to justify it.

1. An SUV is not "needed". It has no practical "purpose" (given the availability of Jeeps, pick-ups, and minivans).
2. An SUV is dangerous.

1. A pocket knife is not "needed", unless one is doing something that requires a knife.
2. A pocket knife is dangerous.

1. Nail clippers are no "needed" unless one is clipping nails.
2. Nail clippers are dangerous in certain contexts.

My point is the logic behind the arguments in favor of banning assault weapons and high capacity magazine is the same "logic" that's brought us beyond dumb TSA regulations and UK-style "need" and "proportional force" arguments where people get locked up for defending themselves. The argument invalidates itself because it's general, and if applied generally leads to absurdity.

The only attempt to specify its scope consists of an abstract moral, philosophical argument that guns are somehow different from other dangerous items due to their range of potential uses. If that's the case, then the argument is no longer about saving lives and dangerous items, but about philosophy and subjective impressions.

Therefore, I find the "need and danger" argument to be incredibly weak as a grounds for practical legislation.

Again, I am not a gun control advocate, but this is a stupid argument that you should abandon, unless you are so stupid you yourself find it persuasive.

A vehicle's intended purpose is not to kill anyone. It is to provide transportation. A pocketknife's intended purpose is not to kill anyone. It is to slice things up. A gun's primary purpose is to kill or maim people. I agree that this can, under certain circumstances, be a legitimate and even laudatory goal, but without question the gun, in the hands of a madman, is a particularly destructive tool because it is designed as a killing implement. By way of contrast, the wacko who stabbed 22 kids in China yesterday killed nobody, while Adam Lanza killed 26, including 20 kids.

I understand that you have now attempted to reformulate your original argument to equate SUVs to large capacity magazines and assault weapons, but that is, in my view, an equally fallacious argument (an SUV is just a kind of vehicle, and thus not intended as a killing device, whereas an military-style rifle is a particularly effective and prolific killing tool, as demonstrated by the fact that Lanza apparently shot each of his victims multiple times with a rifle within just a few minutes), and one which you retreated to only after the foolishness of your original argument was pointed out.

 

[jpeyton]

Again, I am not a gun control advocate, but this is a stupid argument that you should abandon, unless you are so stupid you yourself find it persuasive.

Really no argument from the pro-gun standpoint should be abandoned. Even if an argument is without merit, it causes the opposition to expend time, energy and money to counter it.

The more time, energy and money the anti-gun lobby spends trying to achieve their agenda, the better it is for the pro-gun lobby.

 

[lotus503]

EVERY victim was hit multiple times by RIFLE shots.

http://news.yahoo.com/conn-school-victims-shot-rifle-multiple-times-204921024.html

So much for the guy who said the rifle was in the car.

 

[jpeyton]

EVERY victim was hit multiple times by RIFLE shots.

The DOJ and UPenn, when studying the effects of the assault weapons ban on gun crime, had this to say:

Should it be renewed, the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement. Assault weapons were rarely used in gun crimes even before the ban.

And the data backs it. Roughly 2% of gun crime involved assault weapons, and less than 0.5% of all firearms-related homicides involve mass shootings.

Were you as interested in politicizing violence when the other 99.5% of firearms-related homicide victims were dying?

 

[lotus503]

I think any madman will choose anything to kill. The issue is they choose guns, assault weapons in particular because they are a more accessible effective tool to reach the desired outcome.

I think the more effective the tool is as mass murder the harder it should be to get. This idea that private citizens need arsenals is stupid.

News flash you aren't rising up against a government that wants to suppress you anyhow. Not with drones and modern warfare.

 

[jpeyton]

News flash you aren't rising up against a government that wants to suppress you anyhow. Not with drones and modern warfare.

News flash, AR-15s are a popular platform for target shooting and competition (3-gun, high powered rifle).

Banning "assault weapons" isn't going to have measurable effect on gun crime.

News flash: firearms-related homicides per capita are on a DECLINE, despite a record number of "assault weapons" and other firearms being sold to the public. If these weapons were as dangerous as you're making them out to be, why is there an inverse relationship? The answer is simple: existing firearms legislation, along with societal efforts like better public awareness, more robust police forces, and tougher penal codes, are cutting down on gun crime.

 

[lotus503]

The DOJ and UPenn, when studying the effects of the assault weapons ban on gun crime, had this to say:


And the data backs it. Roughly 2% of gun crime involved assault weapons, and less than 0.5% of all firearms-related homicides involve mass shootings.

Were you as interested in politicizing violence when the other 99.5% of firearms-related homicide victims were dying?

While that may be true there is a lot of gun violence that will never be impacted. Gangs etc.

I care more about rampage killers and mass shooters who overwhelmingly used assault weapons, hi cap mags etc.

 

[lotus503]

News flash, AR-15s are a popular platform for target shooting and competition (3-gun, high powered rifle).

Banning "assault weapons" isn't going to have measurable effect on gun crime.

News flash: firearms-related homicides per capita are on a DECLINE, despite a record number of "assault weapons" and other firearms being sold to the public. If these weapons were as dangerous as you're making them out to be, why is there an inverse relationship?

Banning assault weapons will have an impact in the gun crime I care about most, rampage killers.

 

[jpeyton]

While that may be true there is a lot of gun violence that will never be impacted. Gangs etc.

I care more about rampage killers and mass shooters who overwhelmingly used assault weapons, hi cap mags etc.

Doesn't your heart bleed for a single dead gunshot victim, or does the body count have to 15+ for you to jump on the bandwagon?

 

[jpeyton]

Banning assault weapons will have an impact in the gun crime I care about most, rampage killers.

Right, so you're admittedly a hypocrite who can't do the math, and only has an emotionally-arrested plea for more legislation that might calm your paranoia.

 

[lotus503]

Right, so you're admittedly a hypocrite who can't do the math, and only has an emotionally-arrested plea for more legislation that might calm your paranoia.

Wrong, I think via the 2nd amendment Americans have the right to bear arms.

Accepting that I accept there will be death at the hands of guns.

However I don't think Americans should have the right to own any weapon they choose as such the ones designed to kill more faster should be banned or very hard to get.

It's not paranoia that's reserved for the gun culture frankly who have a need to protect themselves from all sorts of stupid shit.

 

[Darwin333]

Again, this is a stupid false equivalency, in that SUVs are not intrinsically designed for any dangerous purpose. Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are designed to provide increased killing power. Again, I am not advocating for gun control measures and own several "high capacity" magazines for my Glock 17, but your analogy is silly.

Assuming that you take your Glock 17 to the range and practice with it every once in a while, do you personally think magazine capacity would have changed any part of this tragedy at all? If the shooter only had 5 round magazines (in quantity to equal the amount of ammo he went in with), do you think less people would have been shot? Keep in mind that this was a "gun free zone" so there is no hope of a law abiding citizen being armed and able to return fire while he slapped another mag in and the vast majority of the adults where women who most likely couldn't overpower him in the very few seconds it takes someone to swap mags.

A personal question, how long do you figure that it takes you to change mags in a "combat" situation? Especially a situation in which you know for a fact that you will need another magazine so you probably have it in your hand or very accessible before you actually need it. Heck, if you do a bit of internet searching you can easily figure out how to "combat reload" where you put in a fresh mag before you are completely out which allows you to continue firing almost non-stop (goes double for guns, such as one that I own, that will fire without a magazine being inserted).

 

[irishScott]

Again, I am not a gun control advocate, but this is a stupid argument that you should abandon, unless you are so stupid you yourself find it persuasive.

A vehicle's intended purpose is not to kill anyone. It is to provide transportation. A pocketknife's intended purpose is not to kill anyone. It is to slice things up. A gun's primary purpose is to kill or maim people. I agree that this can, under certain circumstances, be a legitimate and even laudatory goal, but without question the gun, in the hands of a madman, is a particularly destructive tool because it is designed as a killing implement. By way of contrast, the wacko who stabbed 22 kids in China yesterday killed nobody, while Adam Lanza killed 26, including 20 kids.

I understand that you have now attempted to reformulate your original argument to equate SUVs to large capacity magazines and assault weapons, but that is, in my view, an equally fallacious argument (an SUV is just a kind of vehicle, and thus not intended as a killing device, whereas an military-style rifle is a particularly effective and prolific killing tool, as demonstrated by the fact that Lanza apparently shot each of his victims multiple times with a rifle within just a few minutes), and one which you retreated to only after the foolishness of your original argument was pointed out.

There was never any reformulation, that was my original argument. Sorry if I was unclear on that, I wasn't responding to you at that point.

You state guns should be regulated more than other similarly dangerous items due to some perceived "purpose". Cars are dangerous, especially dangerous in the hands of a madman, but in your mind this potential danger is excusable due to their primary utilitarian uses.

Guns, in your mind, have no similarly exculpatory "primary purpose". This is an issue of subjective philosophy, not a logical fact. It is also completely irrelevant to the argument that "assault weapons should be banned because they are especially dangerous".

To put it in one line, the argument in favor of banning assault weapons/high cap mags is: "These items should be banned because they are especially deadly, and their only purpose is to kill mass amounts of people." The second half of that sentence is an irrelevant and vague detail, subject to the reader's perception of such use. It is not a valid support for the argument "assault weapons/high capacity mags should be banned because they are especially deadly."

What your argument boils down to is "crazy people should not have access to assault weapons because they are especially deadly". Well no shit. Crazy people shouldn't have access to a lot especially deadly things (like, for example, CARS). And we have laws in place to limit said access. Now if you want to debate said laws fine. You can argue in favor of gun licensing, (which, I should point out, is based on a similar philosophy to car licensing), among other things.

But the fact is, the guns = cars analogy is not inaccurate merely due to a subjective, perceived difference in primary purpose. They are both extremely deadly in the wrong hands, extremely safe in the right hands, and are widely owned. Therefore they can be compared and equivocated on those grounds.

 

[Druidx]

Unfortunately knee jerk reactions rarely ever solve or properly address the problems they are in respose to. Look at how many people saw the assault weapons ban as a success when it hard virtually no impact on gun crime because assault weapons were rarely ever used in gun crimes. Not to mention the fact, the very definition of assault weapons was stupid.

 

[Druidx]

So much for the guy who said the rifle was in the car.

I'm pretty sure the story you quoted about the rifle being used is wrong since everyone else is still reporting the rifle was in the car. Plus I wouldn't put much faith into a story when their headline has a typo in it.

"Conn. school victims shot up rifle multiple times"

 

[lotus503]

Doesn't your heart bleed for a single dead gunshot victim, or does the body count have to 15+ for you to jump on the bandwagon?

I think an innocent person being killed by a gun is tragic, I think many people mowed down by an assault weapon is unacceptable.

Bandwagon? no I just understand there are degrees and levels of bad things some things are worse than others.

If that offends your sensibilities on gun ownership too bad, get used to it.

 

[lotus503]

I'm pretty sure the story you quoted about the rifle being used is wrong since everyone else is still reporting the rifle was in the car. Plus I wouldn't put much faith into a story when their headline has a typo in it.

"Conn. school victims shot up rifle multiple times"

I didn't report or link anything. We will know soon enough if he was using a rifle or if it in the car. I suspect given the carnage he did in fact use a semi auto rifle with .223

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Banning assault weapons will have an impact in the gun crime I care about most, rampage killers.

Oh ok good - Because assault weapons are already banned


(Protip: The quoted post is a perfect example the ignorance and typical argument of a liberal. They have 0 clue what they are even arguing, all they do is scream and shout I'M RIGHT BUT I DUNNO WHY LOL.

 

[jpeyton]

I think an innocent person being killed by a gun is tragic, I think many people mowed down by an assault weapon is unacceptable.

The Virginia Tech massacre was the deadliest in US history and involved no assault weapons whatsoever, just handguns.

Your solution?

 

[lotus503]

Oh ok good - Because assault weapons are already banned


(Protip: The quoted post is a perfect example the ignorance and typical argument of a liberal. They have 0 clue what they are even arguing, all they do is scream and shout I'M RIGHT BUT I DUNNO WHY LOL.

No they are not. "The Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired on September 13, 2004"

yes you are that fucking dumb lol

 

[jpeyton]

No they are not. "The Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired on September 13, 2004"

yes you are that fucking dumb lol

Connecticut has a state-level assault weapons ban.

 

[Engineer]

Wrong, I think via the 2nd amendment Americans have the right to bear arms.

Accepting that I accept there will be death at the hands of guns.

However I don't think Americans should have the right to own any weapon they choose as such the ones designed to kill more faster should be banned or very hard to get.

It's not paranoia that's reserved for the gun culture frankly who have a need to protect themselves from all sorts of stupid shit.

Thank you and agree.....but if people like jpeyton want to push me on the subject, I'll simply flip to the ban all side. Doesn't matter to me at all. Right now, I'm against all assault weapons but I support the right to bear an arm (not any arm that you may "want").

 

[lotus503]

The Virginia Tech massacre was the deadliest in US history and involved no assault weapons whatsoever, just handguns.

Your solution?

That's true, however that was prior to protocols and other accommodations to deal with the threat were in place.

A similar situation now I doubt would lead to as much death. The vetch shooter was killing for a very long time compared with other attacks with assault weapons.

Again degree of destruction you fail to comprehend.