Gooberman wrote:Lothar, your entire post above was simply an admission to avoiding the question I wanted answered! So why did you take offense when I said that I expected you to do so?
Because you meant it in a different way than I did. You meant it like "how dare you not answer my question?" -- as if my not answering was a sign of your superior argument skillz or something, and as if you were sure I couldn't possibly stand up to your amazingly well-thought out point. I meant it as "your question isn't relevant to me" -- I'm trying to improve your argument, not respond to it. If I wanted to argue the other side, I could give you considerably more trouble than I have -- but I'm not interested in arguing the other side because I don't think they're right. What I'm interested in doing is correcting a mistake in your argument, because it's actually fairly decent, but you're hurting your own position by making an absurd comparison.
You just admitted that you had no intention of answering the question I was posing, instead your only intention was to derail the argument momentarily so that it could fit in a nicer box.
My intent wasn't to derail the argument. Again, you're not understanding. My intent was to enhance the discussion by forcing you to clarify your position for your opponents, and to move away from an absurd comparison (plutonium != minigun) to a more apt comparison (apache ~ minigun).
I only amended it so that you could better understand itâ??s intent. An intent that you have now admitted to avoiding.
I didn't admit to "avoiding your intent". I just admitted to showing that you didn't argue your intent as effectively as you could have. You keep trying to pull this question-dodger angle on me, instead of shutting up and listening to what I'm saying, and improving your argument accordingly.
I amended my argument for you in hopes that you would continue it, (read the words precisely as they were written, I amended it for you so that you can better understand the intent), but since you have shown no interest in arguing that side I will go back to weapons-grade plutonium and ignore your momentary derailing as you have admittedly acknowledged no intention of continuing the argument.
Then it's your loss, because you're not listening to me. You think I'm trying to derail you, instead of recognizing that I'm trying to improve your position. You think my forcing you away from weapons-grade plutonium weakens your position, instead of recognizing that it strengthens it. Go back and re-read what I wrote, and this time, don't respond until you understand it. If you feel like using the words "derail" or "dodge" you didn't understand, so read again.
If you go back to arguing plutonium, all the pro-large-gun guys are going to go right back to ignoring you, because (like I demonstrated) plutonium doesn't have very much in common with a minigun. It's like someone arguing about necropedophilic incest in a gay marriage debate -- everyone on the other side is just going to go "this guy doesn't have any clue what he's talking about" and nobody is going to bother to answer. It's an absurd comparison. You're trying to paint your opponents as irrational wackos who either 1) think plutonium should be legal or 2) have an inconsistant position. But your opponents are (mostly) neither irrational or wacko -- and as many of them have demonstrated, they can consistantly hold that plutonium should be illegal while still allowing for miniguns to be legal.
Lothar, you have still not shown the contrast.
Then you haven't read carefully enough. You just quoted it:
"It's neither recreational, nor useful for protection, except in absurd cases." <b>-Lothar</b>
Whether or not something is recreational is a matter of opinion lothar! Who are you to say that bill gates spending 40billion to legally purchase one would have no enjoyment in going out somewhere over the pacific and setting one off?
I didn't say it wouldn't be *enjoyable*. I said it wouldn't be
SAFELY ENJOYABLE. Setting off a nuke in the south pacific is still dangerous to people other than the nuke-set-offer. It's likely that setting off a nuke on the moon would be dangerous. So a nuke cannot be safely used for entertainment (which makes it different than a minigun) and it can't be safely used for defending a person's house from an angry mob (which makes it different than a minigun.) Or, like Will said, you can buy a nuke as long as you keep it out of our solar system -- that's the only way it can be safely used for recreation.
Remember Drakona's "erasing the distinctions" post? You're trying very hard here to erase the distinctions between nukes and miniguns, and it weakens your own position. You want very badly for there to not be any differences, so that you can say anyone who thinks miniguns should be legal is as absurd as a person who thinks nukes should be legal. You want your opponents to be wacko irrational people. But that's not really a reasonable position to take, and the sooner you recognize it, the sooner you'll be able to take a position that *is* reasonable and force your opponents to actually defend themselves, rather than having them simply laugh you off.
You have failed at establishing, upon numerous requests to do so, where a minigun has been used for protection
Of course I did -- because the question isn't relevant. All I intended to do, and all I needed to do, was to demonstrate that a minigun is different from plutonium. I did so simply by mentioning recreational use. Showing that it might also be useful for protection was icing on the cake. Showing that one has actually *been* used for protection is not an interesting question to me -- we don't make laws based entirely on the past; we make laws based both on the past and on the future. If one of the pro-large-gun people wants to go find such a case, they can feel free, but it isn't necessary for dismantling your argument.
Let me state my main point one more time:
Goob, you have a decent position you're arguing from -- you think weapons should only be allowed if they reasonably can be used for protection. But, you're weakening your position by pretending that miniguns and plutonium are equivalent (heck, even AceCombat thinks that's absurd and "alittle outragious".) Such pretending is not respectful to your opponents -- it assumes they're irrational wackos, when in reality it's likely they've put as much thought into this as you and have come to fairly reasonable conclusions. It's also not likely to convince anyone of your position. So, if you want to strengthen your position, you should drop the "plutonium" angle and argue something more reasonable.
. Regarding the minigun, I also see no problem with ownership of it. It would be almost completely impractical for a criminal to use one, due to its difficulty of mobility. I think comparing owning one to owning a nuke is ridiculous. Here's a hint: can you destroy several square miles of city with a minigun? I didn't think so. As long as weapons such as these stay in legitimate hands, there should be no restrictions on their ownership. Note, however, that I am not advocating private use of bazookas, howitzers, or anything heavier; that's just a bit of overkill 
