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The one and only big fat thread about GUNS.

Crux

Evermore
1,302
Posts
11
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Hum,what was that guy's name who also decided that citizans shouldn't have guns...Fitler? No... Bitler?....nope... Oh,Yeah. Hitler.

You get my point.

Sadly at this point it seems that there will be some more gun laws.
Great job turning Sheep into Lambs guys! :D
 

Ivysaur

Grass dinosaur extraordinaire
21,082
Posts
17
Years
Hum,what was that guy's name who also decided that citizans shouldn't have guns...Fitler? No... Bitler?....nope... Oh,Yeah. Hitler.

You get my point.

Sadly at this point it seems that there will be some more gun laws.
Great job turning Sheep into Lambs guys! :D


Oh, I was thinking of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who banned guns almost completely in the UK back in 1997, turning the British Islands into a hellhole of weapon smuggling and underground crime causing thousands of deaths every year.

Wait no. The crime rate there is less than half than in the US. Are Brits some sort of pacifistic superrace of humans? Or maybe is it just a matter of education?

But yeah, please let's try to keep this discussion away from Godwin's Law. Throwing a gratuite Argumentum Ad Hitlerum is never a synonym with "intelligent debate".
 

twocows

The not-so-black cat of ill omen
4,307
Posts
15
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Oh, I was thinking of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who banned guns almost completely in the UK back in 1997, turning the British Islands into a hellhole of weapon smuggling and underground crime causing thousands of deaths every year.

Wait no. The crime rate there is less than half than in the US. Are Brits some sort of pacifistic superrace of humans? Or maybe is it just a matter of education?
How did the crime rate before '97 in the UK compare to the US?

Drugs are not a good parallel to guns. Drugs are addictive substances. People who buy guns are (presumably, mostly) mentally stable and can weigh the pros and cons of breaking the law to get guns, unlike addicts who aren't going to be able to make as sound a judgement. It's what happened in other parts of the world when they banned certain guns. People accepted it.
Yes, I forgot about all the would-be criminals who are worried about buying their weapons legally. Wouldn't want to get a $50 fine on top of 15 to life.
 
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483
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  • Seen Oct 2, 2020
The 2nd amendment was also made during a time when guns had to be reloaded way more often than now. When semi automatics didn't even exist yet.
Yes, and the 1st amendment was made during a time when radio, televisions and computers didn't exist. So either freedom of speech should not apply to radio, television or computers, or the fact that semi-automatic weapons didn't exist at the time of the drafting of the 2nd amendment has nothing at all to do with the protections it's meant to extend.

You can't have it both ways.



There are a number of other posts I'd like to respond to in this thread, but honestly it's too depressing to even bother. It's sad, but not news to me, that so few people have any understanding of rights and so many are so eager to see them eliminated.

No tyranny has ever come to be without some considerable number of people who demanded that somebody be given the power to take rights away from somebody else. They live in their own little bubble worlds, where all that matters is what they want, and if somebody else wants something else, that shouldn't be allowed and it's not only justified but right that power be granted to prevent it. They don't wake up to the fact that granting the power to deny someone else's rights creates the power to deny their own rights until those rights are set to be denied, and by then it's too late.

Go ahead - throw out the second amendment. Just don't cry when the people to whom you grant that power also throw out the first and the third and the fourth and the fifth and all the rest of them while they're at it, because at its most basic level, it's going to be YOUR fault when they do.
 

Mr. X

It's... kinda effective?
2,391
Posts
17
Years
Hum,what was that guy's name who also decided that citizans shouldn't have guns...Fitler? No... Bitler?....nope... Oh,Yeah. Hitler.

Hmm, what was that guys name who decided that private citizens could own guns? Kaddam? No... Raddam? Nope... Oh, yeah. Saddam.

You know, for all the talk about guns being a way to prevent governmental tyranny, it seems strange that it occurred in his country despite it having lax gun control laws.

The funny thing about the UK... The increased crime rate isn't a result of gun control, it's a result of them changing the way they calculated the crime rate. I don't think anyone is using the older methods anymore, but while they did they found that despite the new methods showing a increase in crime, the older methods showed a decrease in crime. I suppose that it would have leveled off since then, but saying that the UK experienced a massive increase in crime when the gun ban was put in effect is completely false.
 

Nihilego

[color=#95b4d4]ユービーゼロイチ パラサイト[/color]
8,875
Posts
12
Years
I read a great post elsewhere the other day with some statistics relating to this sort of thing. I'll share some of them here.

The US is ranked tenth for highest rate of firearm-related deaths. Rate, not number - its large population's been accounted for here.

Following its '97 ban of all handguns, followed by further ban of all guns not used for hunting, the UK sits near the bottom for both rates of gun-related deaths and homocides. While I don't know the 'before and after' statistics or know their comparisons, this is undeniably very low. And personal, non-hunting firearms are illegal. I'm putting two and two together here.

Japan with its zero-tolerance policy of guns has only ten gun-related deaths on average per year.

Since 1996, the US has had 31 school shootings. The rest of the world has had 14. The strong majority of the guns used were obtained legally.

If these don't convince you that there is a problem in the US with the availability of guns, then I have no idea what will. The stats are there and they show that making guns illegal reduces gun crime rates, and that the US has an embarrassingly high rate of gun-related deaths.

If anyone's interested, by the way, I found these in a post by Cipher on SerebiiForums. I'll probably go dig up some of my own ones in a bit since I feel cheap just copying them like this, lol.

edit:
Guns, which are 2.8x more likely to kill in this given example, were used to commit 75% of over 10,000 homicides in 2005. Also, when compared to similarly politically and economically developed countries, the US has a gun-related death rate eight times higher.
 
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Sir Codin

Guest
0
Posts
Found something rather interesting:



What do you guys think?
 

Ivysaur

Grass dinosaur extraordinaire
21,082
Posts
17
Years
No tyranny has ever come to be without some considerable number of people who demanded that somebody be given the power to take rights away from somebody else. They live in their own little bubble worlds, where all that matters is what they want, and if somebody else wants something else, that shouldn't be allowed and it's not only justified but right that power be granted to prevent it. They don't wake up to the fact that granting the power to deny someone else's rights creates the power to deny their own rights until those rights are set to be denied, and by then it's too late.

Go ahead - throw out the second amendment. Just don't cry when the people to whom you grant that power also throw out the first and the third and the fourth and the fifth and all the rest of them while they're at it, because at its most basic level, it's going to be YOUR fault when they do.

Do you even know how the US political system works? Have you ever heard about heir constitutional framework? Because for a single person/group to remove or change anything from there without the support of anybody else, you need a majority control in the House, the Congress, the White House, and the Congress, the Senate and the Governorship of at least 39 States. And there are elections going on every two years, meaning that, for all of these circunstances to meet, you either need
a) a fantastic landslide which would effectively give you enough legitimacy to change anything (because that's the point of democracy, after all, making sure most people agree with your ideas before being allowed to enact them),
b) an extraordinarily suicidal electorate who would be ready to vote for the people supporting the removal of (insert clause here) despite being clearly negative for them, and do it in massively majorities all over the country, going back to a), or
c) a general agreement between different parties to support a decision believing is actually positive for them, and a population which would agree to the idea and support it with majorities (example: most of the existing amendments).

In fact, the purpose of having a constitutional framework is precisely preventing one ruler to go all power hungry and change everything on his own, that's why most dictatorships come after a war, or in countries with paper-strong institutions that can be blown up just by breathing too hard around them. If you think the US would allow someone to just randomly supress the Senate or outlaw elections out of the blue, you have a ridiculously unrealisticly low faith on them.

And, despite all this, if somehow an evil President took over the US, I'm pretty sure guns would help stop the largest army in the world- all those tanks and drones and missiles and internet control over the water supplies have nothing to do against a good old rifle, right? Right? In fact, they probably would not be necessary if there are massively gigantic demonstrations.
 
10,769
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14
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If these don't convince you that there is a problem in the US with the availability of guns, then I have no idea what will. The stats are there and they show that making guns illegal reduces gun crime rates, and that the US has an embarrassingly high rate of gun-related deaths.
I'm convinced! (I was already convinced though.)

I do wonder though. If you're a person who accepts that there are a lot of gun-related crimes wherever guns are legal and that by making gun ownership near-impossible some countries have greatly reduced the number of gun-related deaths, in other words taking away guns saves lives, would you still oppose the general idea of taking away guns on principle even if it saves lives?

To use a non-gun example of the same idea: Lowering speed limits has been shown to reduce vehicle accidents and deaths, but people would have to drive slower and you'd get a fined for driving the speed you always have. Would you accept it if it meant fewer deaths?
 
483
Posts
11
Years
  • Seen Oct 2, 2020
Do you even know how the US political system works? Have you ever heard about heir constitutional framework? Because for a single person/group to remove or change anything from there without the support of anybody else, you need a majority control in the House, the Congress, the White House, and the Congress, the Senate and the Governorship of at least 39 States. And there are elections going on every two years, meaning that, for all of these circunstances to meet, you either need
a) a fantastic landslide which would effectively give you enough legitimacy to change anything (because that's the point of democracy, after all, making sure most people agree with your ideas before being allowed to enact them),
b) an extraordinarily suicidal electorate who would be ready to vote for the people supporting the removal of (insert clause here) despite being clearly negative for them, and do it in massively majorities all over the country, going back to a), or
c) a general agreement between different parties to support a decision believing is actually positive for them, and a population which would agree to the idea and support it with majorities (example: most of the existing amendments).

In fact, the purpose of having a constitutional framework is precisely preventing one ruler to go all power hungry and change everything on his own, that's why most dictatorships come after a war, or in countries with paper-strong institutions that can be blown up just by breathing too hard around them. If you think the US would allow someone to just randomly supress the Senate or outlaw elections out of the blue, you have a ridiculously unrealisticly low faith on them.

And, despite all this, if somehow an evil President took over the US, I'm pretty sure guns would help stop the largest army in the world- all those tanks and drones and missiles and internet control over the water supplies have nothing to do against a good old rifle, right? Right? In fact, they probably would not be necessary if there are massively gigantic demonstrations.
Um... yes. I know how the US political system works, and I have to say I have no idea what might've led you to believe that I don't.

As (I would have thought unnecessary) clarification - my response was to those on this thread who are demanding that the US government be granted the power to ban guns. I didn't even address whether such a thing is possible, since that's a secondary issue - the primary issue is merely that it's desired, and further that that desire is treated as legitimate, and the destruction of rights necessary to enact it justified.

First - the mere fact that people demand that it be done is problematic, not to mention depressing, simply because it's evidence of the complete failure of so many to even begin to grasp the notion of rights. Second - and to your point - such a thing IS possible, and explicitly possible with sufficient public support (or maybe more accurately, the lack of sufficient public opposition).

"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them." - Frederick Douglass

We already have a government of politicians who explicitly work for their own benefit and for the benefit of their cronies and patrons and against the interests of the common people and who demonstrably lie about it. What on Earth makes you think that they would not, much less could not, take advantage of the simpletons who don't grasp the concept of rights and work to destroy them? Politicians are professionals, and the most powerful of them are necessarily extremely skilled and necessarily extremely power-hungry. They are only waiting for the moment when they can cobble together enough of an appearance of support for shifting power from us to them, at which point they can be counted upon to do so, and to attempt to placate the opposition with the illusion of that power shift being a necessary outcome of the "democratic" process. And for that, they don't need your support or my support - they don't even need "the public's" support. All they need is the colorable illusion of such. If they can only make the claim that they have that support - only point to enough particularly vocal examples of such - they can muster the rest of the sheep around it. Their desired outcome becomes THE outcome as soon as they can claim that it's our desired outcome, which doesn't require the support of the majority - it only requires a lack of sufficiently forceful opposition. If we don't tell them loudly enough and often enough that we do NOT want this, then they can, and will, and do, point to the few who say that they do and claim that it's a "mandate," and enough of the rest will just reflexively fall in line that it becomes one.

So those few who demand that the government be empowered to deny the rights of all - those dolts who can't even grasp the simple concept that a government that's empowered to deny the rights of others will also deny their rights, and once empowered CANNOT BE STOPPED - must be kicked squarely in the teeth with their dangerous stupidity. Because even with the constraints nominally imposed on government by the Constitution (most of which restraints are already ignored anyway, as a matter of fact), their stupidity can and will and does provide the power-hungry few who most keenly seek out office and most predictably come to attain it with all the excuse they need to keep expanding their own power at the cost of our liberty.

Guns aren't even the point, really. Rights are the point. Liberty is the point. Gun ownership is simply an exercise of a right, just as free speech is, or freedom to assemble is, or liberty is, or life is. It's not that government must not be empowered to deny gun ownership - it's that government must not be empowered to deny RIGHTS. That's the point that all too many people can't or won't grasp, and that failure is the thing upon which tyrannies grow.
 
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Unforgettable

Melodies of Life
1,620
Posts
16
Years
Guns by themselves don't kill people. people kill people and if they want to kill someone badly enough they will with or without gun laws. owning a gun is my right as an American citizen and my right. shouldn't be taken away. What brought all this on was sad and broke my heart but guns aren't the.issue here. People are the issue.
 
14,092
Posts
14
Years
Um... yes. I know how the US political system works, and I have to say I have no idea what might've led you to believe that I don't.

As (I would have thought unnecessary) clarification - my response was to those on this thread who are demanding that the US government be granted the power to ban guns. I didn't even address whether such a thing is possible, since that's a secondary issue - the primary issue is merely that it's desired, and further that that desire is treated as legitimate, and the destruction of rights necessary to enact it justified.

First - the mere fact that people demand that it be done is problematic, not to mention depressing, simply because it's evidence of the complete failure of so many to even begin to grasp the notion of rights. Second - and to your point - such a thing IS possible, and explicitly possible with sufficient public support (or maybe more accurately, the lack of sufficient public opposition).

"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them." - Frederick Douglass

We already have a government of politicians who explicitly work for their own benefit and for the benefit of their cronies and patrons and against the interests of the common people and who demonstrably lie about it. What on Earth makes you think that they would not, much less could not, take advantage of the simpletons who don't grasp the concept of rights and work to destroy them? Politicians are professionals, and the most powerful of them are necessarily extremely skilled and necessarily extremely power-hungry. They are only waiting for the moment when they can cobble together enough of an appearance of support for shifting power from us to them, at which point they can be counted upon to do so, and to attempt to placate the opposition with the illusion of that power shift being a necessary outcome of the "democratic" process. And for that, they don't need your support or my support - they don't even need "the public's" support. All they need is the colorable illusion of such. If they can only make the claim that they have that support - only point to enough particularly vocal examples of such - they can muster the rest of the sheep around it. Their desired outcome becomes THE outcome as soon as they can claim that it's our desired outcome, which doesn't require the support of the majority - it only requires a lack of sufficiently forceful opposition. If we don't tell them loudly enough and often enough that we do NOT want this, then they can, and will, and do, point to the few who say that they do and claim that it's a "mandate," and enough of the rest will just reflexively fall in line that it becomes one.

So those few who demand that the government be empowered to deny the rights of all - those dolts who can't even grasp the simple concept that a government that's empowered to deny the rights of others will also deny their rights, and once empowered CANNOT BE STOPPED - must be kicked squarely in the teeth with their dangerous stupidity. Because even with the constraints nominally imposed on government by the Constitution (most of which restraints are already ignored anyway, as a matter of fact), their stupidity can and will and does provide the power-hungry few who most keenly seek out office and most predictably come to attain it with all the excuse they need to keep expanding their own power at the cost of our liberty.

Guns aren't even the point, really. Rights are the point. Liberty is the point. Gun ownership is simply an exercise of a right, just as free speech is, or freedom to assemble is, or liberty is, or life is. It's not that government must not be empowered to deny gun ownership - it's that government must not be empowered to deny RIGHTS. That's the point that all too many people can't or won't grasp, and that failure is the thing upon which tyrannies grow.

I get what you're trying to argue, but owning a firearm cannot be compared to the Right to free speech or the right to peacefully assemble or freedom of religion. Those are far more important and are sacred values. Owning a gun is not that important when being compared to those, despite what Wayne La Pierre and the NRA think.
 
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Guns by themselves don't kill people. people kill people and if they want to kill someone badly enough they will with or without gun laws.
So you're kinda of saying that gun laws will stop those people who don't want to kill badly enough, like the people who only want to kill on a whim, or who only kinda want to kill. Isn't that a good idea? It'll stop some of the people who would maybe kill someone.
 

Star-Lord

withdrawl .
715
Posts
15
Years
Guns by themselves don't kill people. people kill people and if they want to kill someone badly enough they will with or without gun laws. owning a gun is my right as an American citizen and my right. shouldn't be taken away. What brought all this on was sad and broke my heart but guns aren't the.issue here. People are the issue.

I hate this line of logic. It should be changed to this: "Guns don't kill people, but they make it easier to kill people". I mean what other use does a semiautomatic weapon with extended clips/magazines/whatever have? Those are meant to give you the highest ratio of killing something. It should be a requirement for anyone that uses this tired expression to explain how guns don't make it easier to kill people (Without relating it to how cars and knives can kill people because those serve a valid everyday purpose for most people.)

Hell I'm not even anti-gun (I think hunting rifles and like a pistol for personal protection is fine) it just gets frustrating when people refuse to address an issue.
 

Crux

Evermore
1,302
Posts
11
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*sigh*
I'm not going to waste my time trying to argue that we as american citizans should by constitutional rights be allowed to own firearms, because I know that whatever I say somebody on here is going to retort that "Guns just make it easier for criminals to kill people" and doubtlessly half of you wouldn't even bother to think about what I said. (you know who you are)

So.
All i'm going to ask of you is that both sides of the arguement stop,think everything over, (and I mean actually think, not just rearrange your opinions.) and try to see this from more then one perspective.

And to everybody who is thinking poorly of those with drasticly different veiw points...
Spoiler:
 

Sir Codin

Guest
0
Posts
Well said Rococo.

I'm also going to repost this because I'm under the impression people didn't watch it the last time I did:



Here are the FBI charts he used:
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-1
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-2

Also here's some state data:
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-5

Looks like it varies highly from state to state despite gun laws. California's gun laws are pretty strict, yet it has a higher murder rate than Utah and Texas, which from what I understand have laxer gun laws. Though, I will admit, Texas ain't far behind California. And District of Columbia have some of the (if not THE) most strict gun laws, but sweet Christmas, look at that murder rate! However, some states with lax gun laws also have pretty damn high murder rates as well. Keep in mind, this is RATE PER 100,000, not amount. Also keep in mind these also include murders with other weapons, not just guns, but firearms are the main tool of use.

I know it's data from 2011, but that's the most recent they have. I don't know how long it'll take the FBI to round up data for 2012.

Yet, despite all of this, the data is showing that the overall national violent crime and murder rate in the United States has declined significantly over the past 20 years, despite the increased population, the expiration of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban in 2004, and other things. Yes, we do have higher firearm crime rate than quite a few other countries, especially European countries, but it seems people are failing to realize (or at least acknowledge) that the overall murder and violent crime rate in the US is dropping.

I'm not entirely convinced that availability of guns causes crime, nor do I agree with outright banning them (some increased control, perhaps), but I won't deny that they make it easier to kill more people. But the sad and honest truth is that, increased difficulty or not, violent individuals will find a way if they are desperate enough, even with means other than guns. Humanity has always been like that, as much as that sucks.

And with that, I might possibly be done with this thread. I had an entire rant written and saved, but I'm just going to withhold it because I feel like I'd just be preaching to a brick wall at this point.
 
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14,092
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14
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Maryland School suspends six-year-old for 'gun gesture'

A suburban Washington, D.C. family has retained legal counsel after their six-year-old son was suspended from school for making a gun gesture with his thumb and forefinger, pointing at another student and saying "pow."

The boy, a student at Roscoe R. Nix Elementary School in Silver Spring, Maryland, made the universal kid sign for a gun a week after 20-year-old Adam Lanza massacred 20 young children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

The boy's parents received a letter explaining that his punishment would be a one-day suspension, to be served January 2, the first day students return from winter break, reports WRC-TV.

Robin Ficker, an attorney representing the family, maintains that school officials overreacted to the pretend gesture. The boy is too young to comprehend in any meaningful way the significance of his actions, Ficker argued.

"He doesn't understand," Ficker told the NBC affiliate. "The law says he is not old enough to form intent."

"What they're doing is looking at the worst possible interpretation of a young, naive six-year-old," Ficker added, according to the Washington Examiner.

Ficker also said school officials were wrong not to discuss the situation with the boy's mother and not to consider the long-term repercussions of a suspension.

"They could have called the mother in. They didn't do that," Ficker told the Examiner. "They just said, 'You're suspended.' Five years from now, when someone in to Montgomery County looks at his permanent record, they're going to see that he threatened to shoot another student."

In the letter the boy's parents received, Assistant Principal Renee Garraway alluded to the boy's previous involvement in a comparable event.

"He was spoken to earlier today about a similar incident," the letter read.

Ficker alleges that school officials never notified the boy's parents of any prior issues. "They won't say what the similar incident is," he told the Examiner.

Garraway declined comment, says the Examiner.

"Generally, in an incident involving the behavior of our younger students, we will make sure that the student and his family are well-informed of any behavior that needs to change and understand the consequences if the behavior does not change," a spokesperson for the school district told WRC-TV.

The policy of the Montgomery County Public Schools provides a 10-day window to appeal student suspensions.

http://news.yahoo.com/maryland-school-suspends-six-old-boy-making-gun-120614885.html

Thoughts? Kinda ridiculous tbh.
 

PokéZoom

~Gotta Catch Em All
80
Posts
11
Years
LOLWAT
It's not like it's uncommon for kids to do this... If this happened when I was 6, almost everyone in the school would be on death row by now.

Honestly, there are some really stupid people working at that school.
 

Sir Codin

Guest
0
Posts
It is ridiculous and they did overreact.

I remember kids that age when I was in grade school used to make gestures like that while playing cops and robbers. Nobody gave a damn.
 
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