gun nutters . . . . scary stuff!

[irishScott]

No, it's suddenly illegal.

It's like saying "Ha you can carry a knife around, but add an automatic switch to it and it's suddenly and deadly weapon " that isn't the case, and yet they are illegal in America.

Right, and why were locking knives made illegal? Just because? Then again that apparently makes sense to you.

 

[HAL9000]

Right, and why were locking knives made illegal? Just because? Then again that apparently makes sense to you.

No idea, I wasn't instrumental in making the law.

It's the same logic as certain places in America banning high capacity magazine, so you can only murder 30 people without reloading...

 

[PingviN]

If I ever visit the UK I want to go to Hal's house. I'll get a throwaway knife, a hotel a mile away and walk with my deadly [deep satanic voice] "3 inch locking blade" in my pocket right to his doorstep, show it to him, and walk back to my hotel. I'll wipe it down and toss it into a trash can or something on my way back. Bet he'll wet the bed that night realizing just how useless some of his nation's laws are. Of course he'll forget it and revert 6 days later.

Of course laws can be broken, but laws (in Europe at least) set the norm which is why most people do not break the law. If you make carrying knives illegal, most people will refrain from carrying knives. If you, by law, restrict gun ownership, most people will respect those restrictions.

On the matter of gun nutters: seems pretty obvious to most of the developed world that the fewer the guns, the fewer the gun-related crimes. You have constitutional right to bear arms, put in place to protect your rights against the government. Is that a real threat today? It's been over 200 years - enough with the paranoia already.

 

[HAL9000]

Of course laws can be broken, but laws (in Europe at least) set the norm which is why most people do not break the law. If you make carrying knives illegal, most people will refrain from carrying knives. If you, by law, restrict gun ownership, most people will respect those restrictions.

On the matter of gun nutters: seems pretty obvious to most of the developed world that the fewer the guns, the fewer the gun-related crimes. You have constitutional right to bear arms, put in place to protect your rights against the government. Is that a real threat today? It's been over 200 years - enough with the paranoia already.

Best post in thread.

 

[irishScott]

No idea, I wasn't instrumental in making the law.

It's the same logic as certain places in America banning high capacity magazine, so you can only murder 30 people without reloading...

Yes, and when talking locked knives compared to unlocked knives that "logic" is even more retarded.

 

[irishScott]

Of course laws can be broken, but laws (in Europe at least) set the norm which is why most people do not break the law. If you make carrying knives illegal, most people will refrain from carrying knives. If you, by law, restrict gun ownership, most people will respect those restrictions.

On the matter of gun nutters: seems pretty obvious to most of the developed world that the fewer the guns, the fewer the gun-related crimes. You have constitutional right to bear arms, put in place to protect your rights against the government. Is that a real threat today? It's been over 200 years - enough with the paranoia already.

Correction: "If you by law restrict gun ownership, law abiding people will respect those restrictions. Criminals will continue to not give a shit, and the supply here is such (270,000,000 firearms and millions more each year) that barring massive warrant-less door-to-door searches said criminals will always have access to guns.

Also the Supreme Court recently ruled that guns are "essential for self defense" and that the 2nd amendment does protect the individual right to a firearm. Maybe a few crazies fantasize of armed rebellion, which is up there with the zombie apocalypse. I didn't buy guns for some hypothetical revolution and no one I know did. Self defense and hunting are the de facto reasons for gun ownership.

That said, it probably won't occur in my lifetime but all things come to an end. Government is continually getting more controlling, and a century or more down the line that could manifest in ugly ways. If an armed revolution is necessary when America starts to fall (and it eventually will) I want the populace armed enough to make a difference. The idea is similar to a panic button. Just because you have no need for it for quite some time doesn't make it worthless, anymore than my no-collision driving record makes my seatbelt worthless. The rest of the developed world does this as well in their own way. The French maintain their own Nuclear deterrent for example, despite being a member of NATO.

Also I don't mean to sound arrogant, but "most of the developed world" is not America. We largely prize our individual freedom here, Europeans seem to prize their safety, even when they're already safe. I've felt safe all my life despite growing up in a gun-friendly state, then come on here and listen to foreigners shiver at how bad things must be, all because some of us have guns. You tell me which is more paranoid.

 

[PingviN]

Correction: "If you by law restrict gun ownership, law abiding people will respect those restrictions. Criminals will continue to not give a shit, and the supply here is such (270,000,000 firearms and millions more each year) that barring massive warrant-less door-to-door searches said criminals will always have access to guns.

Compare gun-related violence in the US to any other industrialized country. Now tell me again that restricting access to guns do not help in preventing gun-related violence. There are criminals in other countries too and yes, some of them have access to guns through black markets, but really, compare per capita and see which works better.

Also the Supreme Court recently ruled that guns are "essential for self defense" and that the 2nd amendment does protect the individual right to a firearm. Maybe a few crazies fantasize of armed rebellion, which is up there with the zombie apocalypse. I didn't buy guns for some hypothetical revolution and no one I know did. Self defense and hunting are the de facto reasons for gun ownership.

Yes, the second amendment does protect the individual right to a firearm. Doesn't say what kind of firearm. Do you need an assault rifle for self defense? A semi-automatic shotgun? A submachine gun? A fully automatic pistol? How about a grenade launcher? Cruise missiles on your lawn? Artillery? A tank? A nuke?

We hunt in other counties too while having much more severe regulations and restrictions to gun ownership. It works here, why can't it work in the states?

That said, it probably won't occur in my lifetime but all things come to an end. Government is continually getting more controlling, and a century or more down the line that could manifest in ugly ways. If an armed revolution is necessary when America starts to fall (and it eventually will) I want the populace armed enough to make a difference. The idea is similar to a panic button. Just because you have no need for it for quite some time doesn't make it worthless, anymore than my no-collision driving record makes my seatbelt worthless. The rest of the developed world does this as well in their own way. The French maintain their own Nuclear deterrent for example, despite being a member of NATO.

Difference is that French nukes are not used. In my opinion, the public can arm themselves all they want, they still wont stand a chance against your army. If the army sides with the people against the big bad gubbernment, then you wont need civilians armed.

Also I don't mean to sound arrogant, but "most of the developed world" is not America. We largely prize our individual freedom here, Europeans seem to prize their safety. I've felt safe all my life despite growing up in a gun-friendly state, then come on here and listen to foreigners shiver at how bad things must be, all because some of us have guns. You tell me which is more paranoid.

Most Americans probably feel safe. Most Americans will never come in contact with gun-related violence. But you don't really mean to say that gun-related violence in the States is not a problem?

Regarding the individual freedoms: you already have several laws in place that restricts individual freedoms. But when it comes to restricting access to weaponry not needed for personal protection, you just seem to put your foot down hard. I'm sorry, but I don't get it. I don't see the rationality in this. Doesn't seem to me like your right to carrying arms helps you in reducing or stopping crime. Individual cases, sure, but in the larger picture?

 

[irishScott]

Compare gun-related violence in the US to any other industrialized country. Now tell me again that restricting access to guns do not help in preventing gun-related violence. There are criminals in other countries too and yes, some of them have access to guns through black markets, but really, compare per capita and see which works better.

Yes, fewer guns means less gun violence. My points is that we have a shit-ton of guns already, close to 1:1 guns/person here. Enough to arm the population of any European nation several if not 10s of times over. It is impossible to effectively restrict the supply of guns to criminals here without turning the US into a martial-law police state, and even then you'd be hard pressed to do so.

In any case, fewer guns does not mean less violent crime overall, of which gun violence is just one part. By contrast, there's a small city (~35,000 people) called Kennesaw in Georgia, just north of Atlanta. Since 1982 they've had a mandate that all able households must keep a working firearm and ammo for it in the house. Their crime rates are ridiculously low across the board. I know correlation != causation, but if an armed populace is supposed to produce this massive spike in crime... as an admittedly singular case study here in the US Kennesaw has proven that false for 30 years straight.

Yes, the second amendment does protect the individual right to a firearm. Doesn't say what kind of firearm. Do you need an assault rifle for self defense? A semi-automatic shotgun? A submachine gun? A fully automatic pistol? How about a grenade launcher? Cruise missiles on your lawn? Artillery? A tank? A nuke?

Yet another piece of European psychology: "needs" trumping "rights". There's no explicit answer to this, but "arms" is generally defined as small arms, which in turn means rifles/pistols/etc. "Ordnance" and "arms" are two different things.

I'll reference that in the Revolutionary war the individual "arms" of the militia and Continental Army were roughly equivalent or slightly sub-par to the standard issue of the professional British military. We essentially have that same status-quo today, sans fully automatic capability; but honestly full-auto is overrated IMO. Especially when you don't have the logistical backing of the US military.

We hunt in other counties too while having much more severe regulations and restrictions to gun ownership. It works here, why can't it work in the states?

You want to restrict and regulate 270,000,000 firearms at a stroke and think it will make any difference to the criminals? (Who are largely already armed illegally) Sudden alcohol prohibition failed, why would sudden gun prohibition succeed?

Difference is that French nukes are not used. In my opinion, the public can arm themselves all they want, they still wont stand a chance against your army. If the army sides with the people against the big bad gubbernment, then you wont need civilians armed.

I sincerely doubt the military would be that one-sided, but even assuming they were, the US is a big place; and much of our domestic military infrastructure is based on civilian infrastructure. Many are directly enmeshed in our cities. If a large percentage revolted, the military would be hard pressed to do much about it. The civilians wouldn't have to engage tanks and planes for long if they're deprived of fuel.

It was the same way in the Revolutionary War. When the Revolution really kicked off the militia didn't engage the British head on, they besieged Boston. And it worked until the Brits sent a massive relief force. In a US civil war, where is such a relief force going to come from?

The dynamics of such a thing are nothing but speculation, but an inflamed populace blowing up roads, bridges, and basically severing military supply lines all over the place would be near impossible to contend with. Never mind the fact that the military couldn't effectively occupy the entire country if they wanted to. A largely armed populace could do a great deal of damage if decently organized. It would make Afghanistan look like a vacation.

Most Americans probably feel safe. Most Americans will never come in contact with gun-related violence. But you don't really mean to say that gun-related violence in the States is not a problem?

It's a problem, but not a serious one. Look at the numbers (taken from FBI Uniform Crime Reports)

Gun Deaths in 2010: 8,775
US Population in 2010: 309,183,463

Meaning 0.00284% of the population is killed by guns (all causes: suicide, murder, etc) each year. Compare that to (according to Gallup) 47% report that they have a gun in their home.

So >50% (assuming multiple people per household) have ready access to a gun, 0.00284% are killed by a gun each year. Would I like to see that latter number even smaller? Yes. But do I accept these numbers in the grand scheme of things? Yes. And honestly a lot of that latter number comes from inner-city violence (where gun laws are the strictest no less) and they'd be killing each other by other means anyway.

Back when SCOTUS struck down the Chicago handgun ban, I remember more than a few quotes along the lines of "I just wanted a chance, now I have one." Sad state, but thankfully it's only an extreme minority of American who have to live that way. Regardless the answer to the problem is essentially education and opportunity. You don't punish 47% to reduce 0.00284% to 0.00244%

Regarding the individual freedoms: you already have several laws in place that restricts individual freedoms. But when it comes to restricting access to weaponry not needed for personal protection, you just seem to put your foot down hard. I'm sorry, but I don't get it. I don't see the rationality in this. Doesn't seem to me like your right to carrying arms helps you in reducing or stopping crime. Individual cases, sure, but in the larger picture?

Well if it's not helping it certainly doesn't seem to be hurting much. National average crime has been dropping and is continuing to drop, while gun sales have been in the millions each year. In fact gun crime has even dropped slightly along with that trend. Once again, correlation != causation, but the issue doesn't appear all that serious.

The reason we put our foot down so hard is what happened in the 90s. Assault weapons were banned out of nowhere for no apparent reason, and were banned quite stupidly. Check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rGpykAX1fo

A more concrete example is that rifles with bayonet lugs were banned. I challenge you to find one instance of a criminal using a bayonet, attached to a rifle, to commit a crime. Then find me enough instances to warrant a national law about it. In addition we had the ATF formed, which has merely been embroiled in scandal after scandal and has uselessly cost American lives.

Only 47% of households own guns, most who don't are reasonably apathetic, but there is a politically significant element that is constantly attempting to restrict and outright ban that right. The media is also largely anti-gun, although thankfully that's slowly shifting. There's a lot of misunderstanding, and some ignorant gun grabber preaching to me about how I should handle/store/use my gun is like hearing someone without even a learner's permit tell me how to drive. It is notable that most gun-control advocates have never handled a gun, and those that have are much more moderate about it.

Cliffs: Slippery slope.

 

[HAL9000]

Yes, and when talking locked knives compared to unlocked knives that "logic" is even more retarded.

It makes some sense as it is harder to stab someone with my slip joint without hurting yourself.

 

[irishScott]

It makes some sense as it is harder to stab someone with my slip joint without hurting yourself.

I think you should sharpen your knife.

 

[HAL9000]

I think you should sharpen your knife.

It's not the sharpening that's the problem, when the tip hits a solid surface the blade tends to close in on my fingers, unless it's done in a particular motion that prevents the blade from closing, so it's marginally more difficult to stab.

 

[mect]

Compare gun-related violence in the US to any other industrialized country. Now tell me again that restricting access to guns do not help in preventing gun-related violence. There are criminals in other countries too and yes, some of them have access to guns through black markets, but really, compare per capita and see which works better.

You can't just compare two points and declare a correlation. You can't compare the US to just any one other country and declare guns are the cause. Now if you compare all the countries, look at the level of gun restrictions in each and then compare this to homocide rates, you could potentially draw a conclusion, but I don't think you will see the correlation you are expecting. As I posted earlier, if access to guns causes an increase in homicide rates, please explain the lack of correlation (or possibly negative correlation) between gun ownership and homicide rates by state within the United States. Please explain why South Africa has a very low level of gun ownership and quite extreme burdens to obtain a firearm, and yet 8 times the homicides as the US. Explain why as the US has loosened gun regulations overall, homicide rates have decreased.

Yes, the second amendment does protect the individual right to a firearm. Doesn't say what kind of firearm. Do you need an assault rifle for self defense? A semi-automatic shotgun? A submachine gun? A fully automatic pistol? How about a grenade launcher? Cruise missiles on your lawn? Artillery? A tank? A nuke?

Certain states in the US have passed regulations against "assault weapons", and these laws have nothing to do with the function of the gun, how often that type of weapon is actually used in a crime, nothing. Why do we just randomly select scary types of weapons and outlaw them. Show me data that these types of guns are used in a large number of crimes, and maybe we can talk. Better yet, show me data that banning these types of weapons will reduce homicide rates, and then we can talk. The question isn't, why do you need something, but why shouldn't you be able to have something. You don't just go outlawing random things because people can't demonstrate a need. Show me the data.

We hunt in other counties too while having much more severe regulations and restrictions to gun ownership. It works here, why can't it work in the states?

Response: Again, show me the data that indicates that stricter gun laws lead to lower homicides, and not just a selection of two data points.

Most Americans probably feel safe. Most Americans will never come in contact with gun-related violence. But you don't really mean to say that gun-related violence in the States is not a problem?

Who said that gun-related violence isn't a problem. We just disagree that gun control is the solution because I haven't seen any data that indicates that gun control works. On the contrary, the problem is not guns, the problem is a cultural cycle of gang violence in this country. The things we need to do to address the problem of gun violence are decrease poverty, increase education, provide activities (especially for inner city kids) that give them productive activities to participate in. This is a social problem, not a problem that can be solved by legislating away guns.

Regarding the individual freedoms: you already have several laws in place that restricts individual freedoms. But when it comes to restricting access to weaponry not needed for personal protection, you just seem to put your foot down hard. I'm sorry, but I don't get it. I don't see the rationality in this. Doesn't seem to me like your right to carrying arms helps you in reducing or stopping crime. Individual cases, sure, but in the larger picture?

Again, show me data that indicates that allowing guns is a significant factor for homicide violence, and then we can talk.

 

[irishScott]

It's not the sharpening that's the problem, when the tip hits a solid surface the blade tends to close in on my fingers, unless it's done in a particular motion that prevents the blade from closing, so it's marginally more difficult to stab.

Reverse the blade (so the knife would be closing towards you) and stab slightly upwards at an angle. Wear leather gloves to prevent being cut in case of accident (you want to wear gloves anyway during the commission of a crime). Or just cut the person's throat and avoid stabbing entirely. There are also very stiff slip-joint knives that might as well be locking (see the Spyderco UK Pen Knife) Either way, I'd replace "marginally" with "negligibly".

 

[HAL9000]

Reverse the blade (so the knife would be closing towards you) and stab slightly upwards at an angle. Wear leather gloves to prevent being cut in case of accident (you want to wear gloves anyway during the commission of a crime). Or just cut the person's throat and avoid stabbing entirely. There are also very stiff slip-joint knives that might as well be locking (see the Spyderco UK Pen Knife) Either way, I'd replace "marginally" with "negligibly".

Yeah that's the point I made when I said "unless it's done in a particular motion that prevents the blade from closing"

This same argument could be had with the whole large capacity magazine thing... "marginally" / "negligibly" I could kill someone with my knife holding it as you describe or cutting the person, you could still kill 60 people with an assault rifle, using two mags rather than one.

Potato - Potato

 

[bfdd]

Oh! The post where you claimed there hadn't been any killing spree's in the US since 2009 and that people building nuclear reactors were common place. :|

Oh look you replied and you're still wrong about the nuclear reactors thing. Though apparently I was wrong about the shootings. You're still a fucking tool bag

people will always have access to guns because making a gun isn't hard, nor should that information of guns be restricted from people.

 

[mect]

Nobody banned boats, but pretty much everyone responded with ideas to try to make ships safer and add regulations to make sure a disaster didn't happen again if it could be at all avoided.

What people didn't do is say that sailing is just dangerous and then strongly argue against doing anything remotely differently with future ships or voyages and claiming everyone who argued otherwise hates freedom. Does any of that sound familiar?

There seem to be two main reactions after a shooting like this. On one hand you have the people who argue that this is a good example of why we need stricter gun control to keep weapons out of the hands of people who would do things like this. And on the other hand you have people basically arguing that nothing is wrong, everything is working as intended and anyone who thinks we need to do something different is a horrible, misguided person who's trying to destroy freedom.

Now I think the gun control arguments may be oversimplifying things, but the pro-gun arguments are just stupid. Surely we can all agree that someone using their legally purchased weapons to shoot up a theater full of innocent people probably isn't what the founding fathers had in mind when they wrote the 2nd amendment. You don't think gun control is the answer, fine, but could the NRA folks respond like they actually care about the problem instead of acting like they just view it as an annoyingly inconvenient gun control argument?

Or in other words, I feel like I'd like the gun crowd a lot more if theater shootings elicited more responses like "that's horrible, I wonder what we can do" and less "you better not use this an an excuse to take my guns".

I think the biggest concern for gun supporters is that the government will respond in the same way that they did over 9/11 and the giant screw up TSA is. While I'm all for thinking about ways to make things safer, my fear is that the government in typical fashion will pass legislation just so they can say they are fixing the problem, when all the "fix" does is make things a pain in the ass for law abiding citizens without doing anything to actually decrease criminal behavior.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I think the biggest concern for gun supporters is that the government will respond in the same way that they did over 9/11 and the giant screw up TSA is. While I'm all for thinking about ways to make things safer, my fear is that the government in typical fashion will pass legislation just so they can say they are fixing the problem, when all the "fix" does is make things a pain in the ass for law abiding citizens without doing anything to actually decrease criminal behavior.

But at the same time you realize that doing nothing won't change anything. So I think what Rainsford was saying was that regardless of whether you're pro gun or anti-gun, you should be working towards a solution. The solution may vary, but at least you've all recognized a problem.

 

[mect]

But at the same time you realize that doing nothing won't change anything. So I think what Rainsford was saying was that regardless of whether you're pro gun or anti-gun, you should be working towards a solution. The solution may vary, but at least you've all recognized a problem.

The problem is sometimes doing nothing is the best option, at least from a selection of options proposed. If I had to choose between doing nothing and and what has developed for airport security since 9/11, for example, I would have selected doing nothing. Too often politicians (at both the national and local level) choose a solution that is worse than doing nothing simply because then they can say they did something about the problem. I'm all for talking about solutions, so long as people don't start trying to implement them (especially when it can create significant burdens for law abiding citizens) just for the sake of trying something out. If such legislation is going to be passed, it had better have sound reasoning (guns are only designed to kill people is not sound reasoning) backed by convincing data (Europe has less violent crimes than the US is not convincing data).

Like I've said, I think we do need to work on this problem, but I think social safety nets, early intervention programs in the inner cities, and other social programs will be much more effective than most (maybe even all) gun control legislation.

 

[HAL9000]

Oh look you replied and you're still wrong about the nuclear reactors thing. Though apparently I was wrong about the shootings. You're still a fucking tool bag

people will always have access to guns because making a gun isn't hard, nor should that information of guns be restricted from people.

Sure it should, the number of confiscated home made guns in the UK is pretty low, so it obviously works