DescentBB

Zuruck wrote:oh, and as for not answering questions directly. Nobody has answered any of mine.

1. Why are guns so important?
2. If you do not feel safe in your city, why not move?
3. Why not just have guns for sport? Why carry around a tec 9 that is designed for just killing humans?
4. As said before, rights in the constitution are not guaranteed, so why do you think the right is yours?

1. Because firearm ownership is the cornerstone of the power of the people in this country. The whole point of the 2nd amendment was to make sure that “we the people” could defend our selves against a corrupt or oppressive government. I agree that an argument can be made that in an era of smart bombs “we the people” don’t stand a chance in an armed conflict with our own government. However, I think a measure of deterrent still exists.

2. Back to point one, where would you move to? They are not meant (constitutionally) for personal protection against thugs, although they are good for that too, they are meant as a deterrent to our government from overstepping its bounds. As such, anywhere you move with in the US you will face the same issue.

3. I don’t completely disagree with you on this point. My answer to you would be because a Tec 9 is a gun that is protected (like the rest of them) under the 2nd amendment.

NOTE: keep in mind that a Tec 9 is just a 9mm handgun that is made to be “scary looking”. There is nothing magical about them. Most serious firearm owners I know wouldn’t touch one with a ten foot pole.

4. The short and glib answer is because the 2nd amendment resides in what is known as “The Bill of Rights”. Whose rights are they, certainly not the governments. A better answer would be that those rights may not be explicitly granted by the Constitution, but they have been upheld for 230 years by SCOTUS and by tradition. They are as close to granted as they are likely to get.

NOTE: keep in mind that a Tec 9 is just a 9mm handgun that is made to be “scary looking”. There is nothing magical about them. Most serious firearm owners I know wouldn’t touch one with a ten foot pole.

Werd to ya mutha!

Don't waste your time with Zuruck. He'll be a lost cause until he or someone close to him becomes a victim. It's his choice to unarmed and vulnerable to those who chose to break the societal contract which is almost always by force.

He'll just recite the law and make it known to the criminal that he/she has broken the law and is in danger of punishment. I'm sure that will stop them in their tracks.

May all gungrabbers and antis be granted plentiful PERSONAL opportunities to experience the need for self-defense.

My interest in the anti-gun debate has more to do with constitutional issues than it does with personal protection from individual criminals.

My interest is in both.

Zuruck wrote:You think if more people had guns, crime would go down? Please, gun owners know no restraint. If they did, you wouldn't see roadside shootings on the 290 bottleneck....

You're confusing criminals with guns and legal gun owners.
Studies have shown that concealed weapons permit holders are less likely to commit a crime than ANY other subset of the population! Less likely to commit a crime than policemen, judges, nuns, or even whiny pacifist liberal dumbasses....

Will Robinson wrote:You're confusing criminals with guns and legal gun owners.
Studies have shown that concealed weapons permit holders are less likely to commit a crime than ANY other subset of the population! Less likely to commit a crime than policemen, judges, nuns, or even whiny pacifist liberal dumbasses....

Makes sense. If you are going to be carrying a concealed weapon for the purposes of defense (which I assume most concealed weapons permit holders are), then you are going to be extremely careful to avoid using it irresponsably, as it is all to easy to lose the self-defence case because you used excessive force, and a gun is about as excessive as a civilian can access.

Gun control.

USE BOTH HANDS!

Folks here have mainly been looking at the right to bear arms from a self defense against crime point of view. I think we need to take it further than that.

When the founding fathers wrote the constitution, they had just recently fought a violent revolution. Now remembering that, look at the exact wording of the amendment:

\"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.\"

The need and the right to fight crime is one I would not contest in any way, but it is NOT the main point of this amendment. \"necessary to the security of a free State\", is about something much bigger than crime. This amendment is about ensuring the people can violently overthrow the government if necessary.

The 2nd amendment gives the citizens of the U.S. a final VETO over any tyrant who attempts to take away our freedom. The founding fathers had just fought such a war against their own government, and they wanted to ensure that it could be done again, if necessary, against the very government they were setting up.

We have set up a government that should not require violent overthrow, that's what elections are for. BUT the people who started this nation were well aware of the fact that ANY country can drift away from its original ideas, that tyrants might rise to power anywhere, and that freedom is fragile and must be defended. And so, The 2nd amendment is there to make certain that Tiananmen Square could not happen HERE.

Well said that man.

Zuruck wrote:You think if more people had guns, crime would go down? Please, gun owners know no restraint. If they did, you wouldn't see roadside shootings on the 290 bottleneck....

What is this? are you saying that the moment I pick up a gun I'll go on a rampage? Please.

I've shot a rifle before with someone right beside me. I never shot him. Only the target I was aiming at which was a plastic bucket.

Gun control only serves to disarm the honest.

What makes you think a CRIMINAL, whose entire life is dedicated to BREAKING the law, will OBEY a law that says they can't be armed?\"

I can answer that: (since no other answer seems to be coming your way, I really detest gun control debates because neither side is willing to give any merit to the other)

Republicans/Conservatives tend view the world way to black and white. And liberals/democrats tend to give the world too many shades.

It's the definition that the bold implies for the word 'criminal' that is misleading. Let me give an example.

Joe spends his life working hard, he does obey the law. Loves his wife, comes home one day, catches her in bed with another man. Loses control, takes out his gun and shoots him.

Did this man dedicate his life to breaking the law? Nope. Is he a criminal? Hell yes.

Might he have obeyed a law preventing him from having a gun? Possibly.

There is no \"criminal\" gene. Being a criminal is making a choice, something that everyone is capable of. People who \"dedicated their lives\" to committing crime do not commit all of the crime.

In fact, I would guess that in domestic cases more often the person has not.

Gooberman wrote:....It's the definition that the bold implies for the word 'criminal' that is misleading. Let me give an example.

Joe spends his life working hard, he does obey the law. Loves his wife, comes home one day, catches her in bed with another man. Loses control, takes out his gun and shoots him.

Did this man dedicate his life to breaking the law? Nope. Is he a criminal? Hell yes.

Might he have obeyed a law preventing him from having a gun? Possibly.

There is no "criminal" gene. Being a criminal is making a choice, something that everyone is capable of. People who "dedicated their lives" to committing crime do not commit all of the crime.

In fact, I would guess that in domestic cases more often the person has not.

I think you'll find that domestic cases like the one you describe often end in a stabbing in households where guns are absent.
So do you have any other examples where the absence of a gun really does reduce crime? In your example it merely reduces the number of times per assault guns are used as the impliment not necessarily the reduction in violent assaults!

Note also that there are many studies that prove the presence of guns in the hands of law abiding citizens is credited with reducing crime rates so you already have an uphill battle if you're going to prove a net positive advantage for gun removal as crime deterent!
Also, isn't just singling out a narrow slice of the big picture like you tried with the domestic dispute scenario the very argument you call misleading since the limited selective picture your hypothetical paints doesn't include the millions of reported legal crime stopping uses of guns that happen every year?

Remember if you ban guns you're not just banning them from potential domestic abuse/ spousal infidelity situations, you are also removing them from the millions of other situations where they are used positively and effectively to stop criminals before the crime is committed!!!

I wonder how many gun-grabbers out there believe we need more laws.

How many more? Is there a number of laws on the books that can be reached at which law breakers will suddenly obey?

We're almost up to 24k gun laws with a few more coming down the pipe.. maybe 24k will be the magic number.

We simply need to make the new laws more lawful(?) because the current 23k don't seem to be effective.
Perhaps we can trick those who chose to disobey the current 23k laws by announcing that the current 23k laws are now MORE lawful then they were yesterday. Because yesterday those laws didn't mean much.. but, today they do.. because they're more lawful and you have to obey. If you chose not to obey the new, more lawful laws.. we'll have to get tough and make them more lawful tomorrow than they were yesterday which were more lawful than the laws the day before.

I'm pretty sure the criminals will obey the new, more lawful laws... it's the law!


No compromise.

I think you'll find that domestic cases like the one you describe often end in a stabbing in households where guns are absent.

If you come at me with a knife there is a damn good chance that I can overpower you. I didn't say there was a net positive, but there are some positives. (and your response is a prime example of what I was referring too about giving the other side merit, the world is not black or white).

Also, isn't just singling out a narrow slice of the big picture like you tried with the domestic dispute scenario the very argument you call misleading since the limited selective picture your hypothetical paints doesn't include the millions of reported legal crime stopping uses of guns that happen every year?

I was answering a question, not writing a thesis. My response was targeted as such. Try and refrain from giving other people their position in arguments, I will give you mine, (for the first time in this thread), at the end of this post.

Remember if you ban guns you're not just banning them from potential domestic abuse/ spousal infidelity situations

just wow....are you responding to me? I said I wanted to ban guns where?

since you exploited

lol@exploited.

What makes you think someone who doesn't care for the law will obey a law that says he cannot be armed?

....and…. I….. don't …..think ……that. I never said I did. You guys give positions before they are even offered. Someone who doesn't care about the law will not respect a law saying he can't have one. But someone who does respect the law can be prevented form making a really bad decision in the heat of passion.

The only gun control laws I support are against assault weapons, education weapons (taking a test before receiving a gun), you should have to log in so many hours at a shooting range before you can have your own gun, and I support identification laws that make it easier to track criminals who use guns maliciously. You can have 1000 riffles shotguns or handguns for all I care, I just want you to:

1. know how to use it
2. not have the ability to kill hundreds of people in a crowd before someone else drops your ass.
3. Get caught if you ever use it for bad purposes.

the answer doesn't particularly bother me

I’m not trying to bother you; I am trying to get you to see that there are some pros to not allowing guns. Is there a net positive? I don’t think so, some do. But you really have to stop saying the NRA (or whatever pro-gun person you get them from) talking points because they are usually pretty retarded. If you post these retarded one-liner talking points; then I'm going to show you why they are retarded, as the bolded section was.

There is no topic like gun control that makes people say some of the most inane things about the other group’s position.

Guns don’t kill people, physics kills people.

I keep getting a script error when I try and edit my post, somethings arn't worded the way I want them, but I guess it will have to do.

But someone who does respect the law can be prevented form making a really bad decision in the heat of passion.

Goob, I think out of all the anti-firearm guys you are the most resonable and I actually respect your opinion.

But, you're statement is suggesting that law abiding citizens do not have the self control to refrain from using their firearm inappropriately and that the meer presence of a firearm would drive them over the edge, forcing them to do something they normally wouldn't without access to a firearm.

I don't buy it one bit.

It has nothing to do with the fire-arm driving him over the edge. It has to do with him allready being driven to the edge, and that edge being so much more dangerous with a fire-arm. He would be just as intent on killing me without the firearm, but there is a less likely hood of him succeeding.

Just out of curiosity B, I know you disagree with me on 2 and 3, but what about 1?

Are you against someone being required to take a class/pass a test, and spend time on a range with a professional before recieving their first gun?

If Yes: ok, why?
If No: then isn't that a form of gun control that you support?

Goob, I have no problem with
educating firearm owners. Believe it or not, I stress to all my customers that they must practice and train in order to be proficient and safe. There's already a BFSC(basic firearm safety cert) required in California to purchase a handgun.

Safety is my primary concern, I'm not the kind of guy who likes to take a negligent discharge from the commando-clown next to me at the range. Truth be told, I haven't ran into any yet(clowns, not discharges) and I'm at the range at least twice a week. Most firearm owners are real responsible, which is why we don't have more accidental shootings.. there's 150 million firearm owners and most own multiple firearms, the odds speak for themselves.

First off, lets look at the statement you were responding to:

\"What makes you think a CRIMINAL, whose entire life is dedicated to BREAKING the law, will OBEY a law that says they can't be armed?\"

I'm assuming the law the criminal is alleged to ignore in that statement is one that would keep him from possesing a gun...
Call it a ban or not it's the same result...the law, if he chose to obey it, would result in his not having a gun.
So whether or not you personally are in favor of a gun ban or not really isn't part of the debate and wasn't a position 'I gave you'. You were however taking the position that if the gun were not available to the husband who finds his wife cheating then there would be a reduction in victims of violence and that is the position I ascribed to you and is established by your own words so get off the high horse on that one. I'm not manipulating your words to construct a strawman I'm using your words in context to understand your point and offering a counter view by asking you to think of the bigger picture. You now have admitted their won't be a net positive to such a law and I had already explained why, because:
A ) the removal of all guns won't cause the cheating wife to escape the wrath of an angry spouse. They will use knives and clubs and even the family station wagon to assault their target...
B ) the removal of guns will only affect the law abiding so then the 2 million per year legal uses of guns to stop criminals will suddenly stop thereby allowing 2 million criminal acts to succeed and be added to the bottom line. Definitely giving us a net negative result to using a gun ban as crime deterent.

People who are emotionally driven to gun bans are really thinking of what I call a magic wand approach. If you could wave a magic wand and literally eliminate all guns then you would see the results you seek.
However, until they find that magic wand please test your experiment of using the law as a deterent by banning all criminals guns first, if that succeeds then you can talk to us about banning the rest of the guns.

Your statement that \"I didn't say there was a net positive, but there are some positives. (and your response is a prime example of what I was referring too about giving the other side merit, the world is not black or white). \" reveals you didn't think it through enough.
If a \"few positives\" are to be gained by disarming 2 million people each year who stop criminals, creating 2 million new victims of crime, well that isn't just a slight swing in the statistics that would be a serious explosion of victims.

And the real scary part is those 2 million criminals are currently trying to work their evil knowing that the victim might be armed. Can you imagine what would happen if they knew the victim can't be armed?!?! Can you imagine how many more criminals would pop up?!?!

Banning guns by simply relying on law abiding citizens to give up their weapons and follow the law would be the single most foolish thing you could do in the pursuit of crime reduction!

Will Robinson wrote:"What makes you think a CRIMINAL, whose entire life is dedicated to BREAKING the law, will OBEY a law that says they can't be armed?"

I'm assuming the law the criminal is alleged to ignore in that statement is one that would keep him from possesing a gun...

Well, what we've tried up here(in Canada) is to increase Jail times for gun-assisted crimes. Although we also tried (and failed) a gun registry, which will hopefully be scrapped soon

Gooberman wrote:

What makes you think a CRIMINAL, whose entire life is dedicated to BREAKING the law, will OBEY a law that says they can't be armed?"

I can answer that: (since no other answer seems to be coming your way, I really detest gun control debates because neither side is willing to give any merit to the other)

Republicans/Conservatives tend view the world way to black and white. And liberals/democrats tend to give the world too many shades.

It's the definition that the bold implies for the word 'criminal' that is misleading. Let me give an example.

Joe spends his life working hard, he does obey the law. Loves his wife, comes home one day, catches her in bed with another man. Loses control, takes out his gun and shoots him.

Did this man dedicate his life to breaking the law? Nope. Is he a criminal? Hell yes.

Might he have obeyed a law preventing him from having a gun? Possibly.

There is no "criminal" gene. Being a criminal is making a choice, something that everyone is capable of. People who "dedicated their lives" to committing crime do not commit all of the crime.

In fact, I would guess that in domestic cases more often the person has not.

I think Sky was referring to career criminals. Not folks who commit a crime of passion.