There is no catastrophe so ghastly that we will reform our gun laws

[martybegan]

another point worthy of consideration and discussion --

the latest incident -- that shooting in Calif. makes the NRA case about as well as any could. Here is a situation where there were warning signs all over the place, the police were called in to talk to a kid with a terrible menatla health history, they met with him -- and concluded that there was no big concern (maybe they sent Chief Wiggum?).

my point is this really does make the case that the police cant or wont protect you even when they are asked to and specifically directed to a clearly dangerous person. to draw the conclusion that in the end you can only count on yourself for protection and the best way to do that is to carry a gun is not unreasonable. The gun control crowd can scream about this as supporting their position all they want but this was a terrible failure of law enforcement to protect the public. Undeniable

The big thing is they never even checked out his weapon owning status, which would have been available if the Police had bothered looking it up.

 

[Paperman299]

I hope you're just trying to force this into your political ideology and don't believe this because if you do and you actually do own guns, seriously, you need to get rid of your guns and get help.

Again, a city liberal elitist snob who obviously knows nothing of guns, gun owners or gun cultures is telling us what we think because of course, you shoot guns!

You are full of shit. This is bull. You know nothing of what you are talking about. You're just tarring the millions of responsible gun owners with your sanctimonious attitudes and stereotypes of the minority of loonies out there.

I'd overwhelmingly trust gun owners with my wallet any day of the week before I trusted liberal city dwellers with it. They are overwhemingly good, responsible people who more than anything want NOT to kill people no matter what crap you want to make up about us because it serves your bigotry and political agenda.

Paperman would need to explain darts,horseshoes,beanbags all games where you try and hit a target.
Target shooting is just another game where you try for accuracy.

[MENTION=31057]JoeB131[/MENTION], [MENTION=48060]guno[/MENTION], [MENTION=47594]PaintMyHouse[/MENTION], [MENTION=20155]paperview[/MENTION]

Yes, none explain all the other things people do to hit targets. None of them also explain why if guns are only to kill people why they like to shoot them. And none of them ever meet anyone else who shoots guns who isn't a liberal caricature of gun owners. They just love the lie that they know guns and gun owners because they are them, and that's how they know we're one tree twig snap of a shooting rampage.

So gentlemen, I invited you here for a challenge. Act on your lie and your stereotypical liberal elitist snobby views of gun owners. Go down to your local shooting club and walk the walk of telling them you are imagining shooting people with every target and that's the only purpose of guns and ask them what shooting rampage fantasizes they have. If you want to maintain the lie, do it. The response you get isn't remotely what you think it will be...

You might have noticed that no one else on the thread is suggesting that I've villainized guns or gun owners. Only you. Everyone else recognizes I'm on your side on gun control, except on one point. But that's apparently all you needed to begin villainizing my character, and attacking me as someone on the "wrong team."

I feel that something that is obviously a weapon can be used recreationally by a responsible person, without the need to pretend it is an arcade game or darts. Maybe I should have used the word "weapon" earlier, and that would have been clearer. So my point is: A gun is still a lethal weapon, even when you are not using it as one, and to try to dress up guns as free-floating "tools" causes more problems in the already messed-up gun control discussion than it solves.

Also, you can stop slinging this "you just hate gun owners" bull at me. Ducks I shot as a kid are stuffed and hanging on the wall at my parents' house. A good afternoon here is riding back and forth the 200 yards between the target and the long-range rifle whose scope you're adjusting. Your problem is you can't imagine anyone who doesn't agree with you on this is anything but a cartoon of things you hate.

So maybe it's time you adjust your snobby elitist view of liberals.

 

[deaddogseye]

another point worthy of consideration and discussion --

the latest incident -- that shooting in Calif. makes the NRA case about as well as any could. Here is a situation where there were warning signs all over the place, the police were called in to talk to a kid with a terrible menatla health history, they met with him -- and concluded that there was no big concern (maybe they sent Chief Wiggum?).

my point is this really does make the case that the police cant or wont protect you even when they are asked to and specifically directed to a clearly dangerous person. to draw the conclusion that in the end you can only count on yourself for protection and the best way to do that is to carry a gun is not unreasonable. The gun control crowd can scream about this as supporting their position all they want but this was a terrible failure of law enforcement to protect the public. Undeniable

The big thing is they never even checked out his weapon owning status, which would have been available if the Police had bothered looking it up.

not to mention going on to youtube to see his murderous rants. they probalby spend most of their day there anyway

 

[kaz]

You might have noticed that no one else on the thread is suggesting that I've villainized guns or gun owners. Only you. Everyone else recognizes I'm on your side on gun control, except on one point. But that's apparently all you needed to begin villainizing my character, and attacking me as someone on the "wrong team."

You keep saying the purpose of guns is to kill living things. If you just admitted you were a liberal city snob about guns who never touched one then whatever. But when you claim to be a gun owner, and that's your attitude, it's seriously sick. Unless you're just lying about your experience with guns.

Guns shoot a projectile. There is no mentally healthy reason to look at that and say wow, there's no purpose in that but killing. And there's no reason anyone who actually has experience with guns would think that target shooters are practicing killing, or that collectors think about their guns and think about killing, or for God sakes people who want to protect themselves are thinking about killing. And if you know gun owners there is no reason you would think that they think that.

I don't see the difference in what you are saying and the challenge I gave you. Well, meant to give you...

 

[kaz]

Even in just recreational shooting, the fascination with the gun stems from its status as a killing implement

Dude, this was your comment that I found to be the most seriously disturbing. It's actually what triggered the challenge.

 

[Paperman299]

Even in just recreational shooting, the fascination with the gun stems from its status as a killing implement

Dude, this was your comment that I found to be the most seriously disturbing. It's actually what triggered the challenge.

I also said

I go skeet-shooting semi-regularly, and it's not because I actually think I may one day need to kill someone with a 12-gauge.

That fact that only you are drawing something disturbing out of the things I've said should be a red flag. You'll note literally everything else you've said about me and my posts has been wrong.

Something doesn't have to be wrong with people for them to disagree with you.

 

[kaz]

Even in just recreational shooting, the fascination with the gun stems from its status as a killing implement

Dude, this was your comment that I found to be the most seriously disturbing. It's actually what triggered the challenge.

I also said

I go skeet-shooting semi-regularly, and it's not because I actually think I may one day need to kill someone with a 12-gauge.

That fact that only you are drawing something disturbing out of the things I've said should be a red flag. You'll note literally everything else you've said about me and my posts has been wrong.

Something doesn't have to be wrong with people for them to disagree with you.

Strawman, and a lazy one that lets you off the hook for doing nothing. I disagree with people all the time on the board. I only have called a few "disturbing." Your comments are that. Or they are politically motivated. I suppose only you know.

 

[Nosmo King]

If the gun is benign and the person operating it is the problem, why the opposition to universal back ground checks? Each and every gun sale, swap, trade or bequest should be subject to a back ground check.

Opposition to them is tantamount to an endorsement of the claims in the OP. No catastrophe is ghastly enough.

Some Conservatives have tried to rationalize that every murder is the equivalent of a gun murder. Baseball bats, knives, even automobiles. But they refuse to recognize that these other implements do not wreck mass havoc. The difference between a shooting and a mass shooting is the tool used. But the gun lovers will equivocate, rationalize, squirm and side step the fact that a mad man with a semi-automatic weapon fitted with high capacity ammunition magazines poses a greater threat than a mad man with a Louisville Slugger or a blade.

California has the background checks in place they are pushing. this latest guy passed 3 of them, while undergoing psychiatric evaluation, while being investigated by the police.

Just as lowering the speed limit did not put a stop to all highway deaths, just as inspecting fruits and vegetables did not eradicate salmonella from out food supply, just as curbing hazardous emissions from smoke stacks did not eliminate all air pollution, back ground checks will not prevent every mad man from obtaining a gun.

But no one can deny that speed limits save lives, food inspections make our food supply safer and limiting emissions made our air measurably cleaner. Couldn't the gun community concede that back ground checks could help REDUCE the number of mass shootings at the hands of the insane? Every measure taken cannot be seen strictly through the lens of 'infringement' or 'ineffectiveness'. If indeed the gun is a benign object used by the insane to wreak havoc, shouldn't we take greater precautions to keep guns out of the hands of the irresponsible and the insane?

 

[IlarMeilyr]

But no one can deny that speed limits save lives, food inspections make our food supply safer and limiting emissions made our air measurably cleaner.

No one can deny that outlawing controlled substances has nearly eliminated drug abuse in our land.

At least that's something we all agree upon. Right?

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Americans love our guns...

Nothing can change that

We had JFK, RFK, MLK, Reagan shot and we just sighed and said too bad
We had Columbine, Aurora, Virginia Tech and finally Newton and we did nothing
Our murder rate is triple of that in similar countries...we do nothing

We have our second amendment and are willing to put up with some bloodshed. It is the price of freedom

and we had well over 300,000,000 million guns each year and every year that were used appropriately. the good drwarfs the bad.

Except for the 10,000 gun deaths...

If guns made you safer, we'd be the safest nation on earth. Instead we're among the most violent advanced societies on earth.

Clearly it's false that guns make you or society on the whole safer.

What are you citing as your control?

Is there another country out there with identical cultural and socio-economic properties as the US, but no guns?

Gotta love the hypothetical-as-fact argument.

 

[P@triot]

Our death penalty is not a deterrent to murder. You only have to look at the great state of Texas and their execution rate.
Fact is, the US has the highest murder rate by far in the civilized world. The question is, what do we do about it

The answer from conservatives is.....Nothing

Not true at all - the answer from conservatives is ARM PEOPLE! Liberals are just too stupid to listen, so they get killed.

The answer from liberals is.....piss on the U.S. Constitution and implement the same tired and failed libtard policies that have failed America for over a centruy now.

We already have what, 300,000,000 guns in the nation....will having 300,000,000,000 make us more or less safe? Nations with fewer guns have far fewer deaths. Those are the facts now back to the conservative lie-fest.

No sweetie - the facts are that every single victim of Elliot Rodger was unarmed. Every single one of them.

Those are the actual facts. Now back to your absurd liberal narrative built from irrational fear and ignorance of firearms.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

If the gun is benign and the person operating it is the problem, why the opposition to universal back ground checks? Each and every gun sale, swap, trade or bequest should be subject to a back ground check.

Opposition to them is tantamount to an endorsement of the claims in the OP. No catastrophe is ghastly enough.

Some Conservatives have tried to rationalize that every murder is the equivalent of a gun murder. Baseball bats, knives, even automobiles. But they refuse to recognize that these other implements do not wreck mass havoc. The difference between a shooting and a mass shooting is the tool used. But the gun lovers will equivocate, rationalize, squirm and side step the fact that a mad man with a semi-automatic weapon fitted with high capacity ammunition magazines poses a greater threat than a mad man with a Louisville Slugger or a blade.

California has the background checks in place they are pushing. this latest guy passed 3 of them, while undergoing psychiatric evaluation, while being investigated by the police.

Just as lowering the speed limit did not put a stop to all highway deaths, just as inspecting fruits and vegetables did not eradicate salmonella from out food supply, just as curbing hazardous emissions from smoke stacks did not eliminate all air pollution, back ground checks will not prevent every mad man from obtaining a gun.

But no one can deny that speed limits save lives, food inspections make our food supply safer and limiting emissions made our air measurably cleaner. Couldn't the gun community concede that back ground checks could help REDUCE the number of mass shootings at the hands of the insane? Every measure taken cannot be seen strictly through the lens of 'infringement' or 'ineffectiveness'. If indeed the gun is a benign object used by the insane to wreak havoc, shouldn't we take greater precautions to keep guns out of the hands of the irresponsible and the insane?

It's not about strictly seeing this through the lenses of infringement and ineffectiveness. It's about cost-benefit analysis.

Cost: First the obvious: Doctor-patient privelage (or at least the illusion of it that's left to us by Obamacare) is gone. Bye bye

More importantly. . .

Once the precedent is set that the "mentally ill" are disallowed from exercising their 2nd Amendment rights, it not only implies a precedent for that particular amendment, but also a precedent that one's mental state becomes a potential criteria by which constitutional rights can be summarily denied. Let that sink in. Mental state (or some bureaucrat's determination of one's mental state!) becomes a potential criteria by which constitutional rights can be summarily denied.

Mentally ill, insane, unstable. . . these are pretty subjective terms and open to a lot of interpretation. On top of that, the psychological field as a whole isn't a static thing. Knowledge of the human brain and psyche is still growing and new psychological terms are still being coined. We'd be making the concession that some person or some governing body would necessarily be in charge of deciding which conditions were enough reason to deny someone a constitutional right, and in charge of defining these conditions for legal purposes.

The entire idea of the Bill of Rights is to protect specific rights from the intrusions of our own government. The cost of what you suggest is the setting of a precedent that the government from which we protect these rights can define psychological conditions based on which to deny us those very rights.

Like it or not, what you're describing is way, -way- bigger than guns.

Benefit: Less diagnosed crazies would be able to acquire their guns legally. This wouldn't actually stop the P2P gun sales and trades, it would just necessitate taking out of the light of day those transactions made by people who couldn't or wouldn't fit the bill for a background check. Those crazies who currently get their guns through legal P2P trades and sales would still mostly get their guns, just the transactions wouldn't be legal. But some of those transactions wouldn't happen! !

So, in theory, if this were in effect since Kip Kinkle, you'd be able to stop -some- of the mass shootings perpetrated by crazies who were both diagnosed -and- acquired their firearms legally and personally. Without those guns, I'm certain that not all of them would have found some alternative method of murdering lots of people. As long as you force someone whose boiling over with homicidal urges to use melee weapons or engineer explosives, they'll probably abandon those violent desires and go join the Peace Corps.

But hey, if we can save a couple dozen people by shitting all over the Constitution, go for it. I don't need my rights. Warm fuzzy fuzzy child worship for the win! Lock me up if you have to, just keep those little cuties safe and cozy!

 

[candycorn]

and we had well over 300,000,000 million guns each year and every year that were used appropriately. the good drwarfs the bad.

Except for the 10,000 gun deaths...

If guns made you safer, we'd be the safest nation on earth. Instead we're among the most violent advanced societies on earth.

Clearly it's false that guns make you or society on the whole safer.

What are you citing as your control?

Is there another country out there with identical cultural and socio-economic properties as the US, but no guns?

Gotta love the hypothetical-as-fact argument.

England has the same books, CD's, movies, etc... and (gasp) black folks.
Somehow they have a much safer society. The difference; 2nd amendment here, no second amendment there.

Your turn;

If video games incite violence--ya know--the claptrap we keep hearing from gun nuts and their Grand Dragon Wayne Lapierre, why aren't they inciting gun violence overseas?

 

[candycorn]

Not true at all - the answer from conservatives is ARM PEOPLE! Liberals are just too stupid to listen, so they get killed.

The answer from liberals is.....piss on the U.S. Constitution and implement the same tired and failed libtard policies that have failed America for over a centruy now.

We already have what, 300,000,000 guns in the nation....will having 300,000,000,000 make us more or less safe? Nations with fewer guns have far fewer deaths. Those are the facts now back to the conservative lie-fest.

No sweetie - the facts are that every single victim of Elliot Rodger was unarmed. Every single one of them.

Those are the actual facts. Now back to your absurd liberal narrative built from irrational fear and ignorance of firearms.

Link to that or did you just make that up as you do with all of your arguments?

 

[kaz]

But no one can deny that speed limits save lives, food inspections make our food supply safer and limiting emissions made our air measurably cleaner

Speed limits are enforced against people who break speed limits.

Food inspections target people who sell bad food.

Emissions standards target polluters.

Gun laws target people who follow the law

 

[JoeB131]

[

[MENTION=31057]JoeB131[/MENTION], [MENTION=48060]guno[/MENTION], [MENTION=47594]PaintMyHouse[/MENTION], [MENTION=20155]paperview[/MENTION]

Yes, none explain all the other things people do to hit targets. None of them also explain why if guns are only to kill people why they like to shoot them. And none of them ever meet anyone else who shoots guns who isn't a liberal caricature of gun owners. They just love the lie that they know guns and gun owners because they are them, and that's how they know we're one tree twig snap of a shooting rampage.

So gentlemen, I invited you here for a challenge. Act on your lie and your stereotypical liberal elitist snobby views of gun owners. Go down to your local shooting club and walk the walk of telling them you are imagining shooting people with every target and that's the only purpose of guns and ask them what shooting rampage fantasizes they have. If you want to maintain the lie, do it. The response you get isn't remotely what you think it will be...

You have a point. Most of the targets I shot at in the army were shaped like a person.

Now, why make a paper target look like a person if the purpose of the gun wasn't to SHOOT PEOPLE!!!

Come on, dude, this ain't rocket science.

 

[FA_Q2]

Our death penalty is not a deterrent to murder. You only have to look at the great state of Texas and their execution rate.
Fact is, the US has the highest murder rate by far in the civilized world. The question is, what do we do about it

The answer from conservatives is.....Nothing

Not true at all - the answer from conservatives is ARM PEOPLE! Liberals are just too stupid to listen, so they get killed.

The answer from liberals is.....piss on the U.S. Constitution and implement the same tired and failed libtard policies that have failed America for over a centruy now.

We already have what, 300,000,000 guns in the nation....will having 300,000,000,000 make us more or less safe? Nations with fewer guns have far fewer deaths. Those are the facts now back to the conservative lie-fest.

i have already posted the hard numbers in this very threat that show your statement to be an utter and complete lie.

 

[FA_Q2]

If a very powerful politician lost his daughter/son in one of these massacres with a democrat in the White House, you may see some traction...

Short of that; nothing. It's too politically costly for anyone to be the grown up and point out the idiocy of the right wing on this.

Nobody knows idiocy quit like [MENTION=20614]candycorn[/MENTION] and [MENTION=20321]rightwinger[/MENTION]... Sweetie, murder is already illegal. So if that law - punishable by the death penalty - isn't stopping people from killing, please explain to us how laws banning firearms will stop guns... (I'll wait patiently while you stutter and stammer trying to think of a response that is less humiliating than your ignorant post above)

Our death penalty is not a deterrent to murder. You only have to look at the great state of Texas and their execution rate.
Fact is, the US has the highest murder rate by far in the civilized world. The question is, what do we do about it

The answer from conservatives is.....Nothing

Actually, the conservatives have given answers. Unfortunately, people like yourself have no interest in actual answers whatsoever. Instead, you want to rehash failed ideas that you know damn well will do nothing whatsoever but give you a warm fuzzy that you did something.

What we need to do about our homicide rate has nothing to do with the implements used and everything to do with the underlying factors for violence. Not that you really want to address that reality – your ilk are much happier demanding that others give up their rights so YOU feel better.

 

[P@triot]

We already have what, 300,000,000 guns in the nation....will having 300,000,000,000 make us more or less safe? Nations with fewer guns have far fewer deaths. Those are the facts now back to the conservative lie-fest.

No sweetie - the facts are that every single victim of Elliot Rodger was unarmed. Every single one of them.

Those are the actual facts. Now back to your absurd liberal narrative built from irrational fear and ignorance of firearms.

Link to that or did you just make that up as you do with all of your arguments?

I wonder how a misandrist feminist like candycorn reconciles her "girl power" with her "make sure girls are unarmed and powerless" mentality. Do you know the last thing that Melissa Dohme said in this episode which chronicled her brutal attack? It showed her holding a gun and she said "I will never be defenseless again". And yet Candycorn wants to make her defenseless again. Nice. Real nice candy. You're a real champion for women...

48 Hours Live to Tell: Melissa Dohme's story of survival - CBS News

A Survivor's Story - Melissa Dohme's brutal attack and incredible recovery - Pictures - CBS News

Melissa Dohme attack: Stabbed 32 times, dating violence survivor tells story - CBS News

 

[P@triot]

[MENTION=31057]JoeB131[/MENTION], [MENTION=48060]guno[/MENTION], [MENTION=47594]PaintMyHouse[/MENTION], [MENTION=20155]paperview[/MENTION]

Yes, none explain all the other things people do to hit targets. None of them also explain why if guns are only to kill people why they like to shoot them. And none of them ever meet anyone else who shoots guns who isn't a liberal caricature of gun owners. They just love the lie that they know guns and gun owners because they are them, and that's how they know we're one tree twig snap of a shooting rampage.

So gentlemen, I invited you here for a challenge. Act on your lie and your stereotypical liberal elitist snobby views of gun owners. Go down to your local shooting club and walk the walk of telling them you are imagining shooting people with every target and that's the only purpose of guns and ask them what shooting rampage fantasizes they have. If you want to maintain the lie, do it. The response you get isn't remotely what you think it will be...

You have a point. Most of the targets I shot at in the army were shaped like a person.

Now, why make a paper target look like a person if the purpose of the gun wasn't to SHOOT PEOPLE!!!

Come on, dude, this ain't rocket science.

So by your "logic" - why is the Secret Service heavily armed? So that they can shoot the president?

The purpose of a gun is not to "shoot people". The purpose of a gun is to neutralize a threat. Sadly, most often that threat comes in the form of a person - hence the reason to practice on targets shaped like a person. However, it can also come in the form of a bear, a wolf, or other dangerous animal. They are, of course, also used for hunting.

Just think, if you Dumbocrats weren't so soft on crime and working 24x7 to keep criminals on the streets, we wouldn't need so many guns. But lets not talk about that liberal failure...