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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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Where's your THREAD about the thousands of kids killed by SHS every year? Where's your level of outrage about this, since it causes more than an order of magnitude more child/infant deaths every year than guns do?
YOU are silly. NOBODY will EVER pull out a cigarette and immediately threaten my life or the life of anyone I am with. EVER. Comparing cigs to guns is absolutely 100% fuking silly.
I don't want to stop people from dying... in fact, it would be nice to see the population decline by several billion. I do want to stop people from being murdered. Big difference... consult your dictionary.
"Silly?" Ruhhheeellly?
Yep, 100% absolutely fuking silly.
Correct. None of those things is explicitly mentioned in the Amendment that instead just sweeping says, "...shall not be infringed." Last I read my Websters, "infringed" would neatly capture all of the restrictions you listed.
NONE of those things infringe on your right to keep and bear arms. They may make it slightly more inconvenient to PURCHASE them, but then... our founding fathers knew what they were doing and did NOT include the "right to purchase and acquire Arms" did they?
Statistically speaking, you ARE in danger... far more danger than being around someone responsibly owning (and even carrying) a gun.
In case you haven't noticed...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smoking_bans_in_the_United_States
blah blah blah blah blah... more loads of sh#t.
By your logic, why not just keep a pack of cigarettes by the nightstand to protect you from intruders? Just smoke them out.
I don't like cigarettes. If fact I hate them with a passion. I pounded on both my brother and my sister for smoking when they were younger. If you want to work for stricter legislation on cigarettes I will gladly join.
But comparing them to guns is absurd.
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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hahaaaaa... only you Ron!
You claim 589,447,365 guns were not used in crimes. Estimates say 89 guns per 100 US residents (wiki). With 313,000,000 people in the US that means there are approximately (89*313,000,000/100) = 278,000,000 guns owned by US citizens. Yet somehow nearly twice as many were not used in crime.
Stellar math displayed by some unknown, uncited source there!
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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The Constitution is a living document. Some amendments (notably the Second) could and SHOULD be amended.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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I took an oath to defend my country. I'm not saying the Second Amendment should be gutted, just modified in a resonable way that reflects America in the 21st century. Moot point anyway, i know it won't happen in my lifetime.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Colorado gave me whiplash.
I was just about to move back and twist one up and only weeks later they ban hi-caps.
Oh, the irony!
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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I believe they remain unconvinced, DMT.
Joe, some people need an explanation (when they can't read an avatar).
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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The question is, is Heller smart enough to realize legislation aimed at firearm SALES does absolutely NOTHING to contradict our right to keep and bear arms? Or is Heller just another politician who knows morans will vote based on meaningless statements like that?
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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Heller is a native Carsonite, class 0 77.. You do the math..
Sounds like someone is going to have to.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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just another politician who knows morans
Has he done the SW Buttress?
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Aaaiiieee... help me!!! Can't resist....
I don't want to stop people from dying... in fact, it would be nice to see the population decline by several billion. I do want to stop people from being murdered. Big difference... consult your dictionary.
Now I think I'm getting the picture. For you, "murder" is such a clear, bright line that IT is the great Satan worth spilling all these bytes and effort over.
1) Do you really think that the thousands of kids dying from lung cancer caused by cigarettes are really comforted by YOUR sentiment: "Wow, whew, at least I wasn't MURDERED! Makes me feel SO much better to know that I wasn't killed instantly by some crazed gunman's bullet. That whole 'murder' line really makes me feel SO much better; I know that I'm dying on the correct side of it!"
THAT is silly.
Have you ever watched somebody die of lung cancer? I have. Repeatedly. I can tell you that your nomenclature line means nothing. And I know a couple of them would gladly have traded their form of death for a quick murder ANY DAY!
People die. People kill other people. They use all sorts of implements. And there are better and worse ways to die when it's your time. What you "name" the form of death means nothing.
2) Why don't you identify and go after the CAUSES of murder (such as the "war on drugs" and the fact that a huge proportion of them are gangland in nature) rather than go after a tool?
3) Just because the proximate cause of a death is not as "immediate" or "clear" in the case of SHS does NOT make it one slightest bit less outrageous (indeed, it's more so). A gun feels like an immediate, proximate threat. Big deal. The cigs are FAR more dangerous and insidious. If you think that "intent" makes so much difference, refer back to point 1 above.
Finally, what I said earlier, even the MURDERS in this country (done with guns or otherwise) are at a level that's not worth getting your panties in a bunch about!
Sheeesh... I grew up and lived most of my life in the San Bernardino/Riverside area... a "hotbed of violence." I wasn't living in fear of getting shot, and I hung around with a pretty rough crowd for years: the Diablos. Ever hear of them?
FEAR owns this nation at this point. Let's have some perspective! "Land of the Free and Home of the Brave." Uhh, yeah, right. Don't even get me started on how we tolerate the NSA's constant invasion of every detail of our lives in the name of the "war on terror." "Land of the Free and Home of the Brave." Yeah, yeah, right, right.
Put it in perspective, people. Statistically speaking, gun deaths are NOTHING to get all worked up about, even if some of them are (dare I name that which must not be named?) MURDER.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Hey MadBolter, why not just murder your family members, and then shoot yourself in the head? Statistically speaking, it's NOTHING to get all worked up about.
That's not worth a response.
What IS worth saying is that I would do them a service to murder them with a gun rather than to force lung cancer upon them!
Both are heinous acts. Only one of those acts is already illegal. Rather than to get all in a tizzy about ONLY the former, back up, remember the words "statistically speaking," and go after the causes of much more frequent and much more horrible CAUSED death... regardless of nomenclature.
At least guns have intrinsic value. Cigarettes and other implements of smoking have NONE. You can't use smoking for ANY "good purpose." Why is smoking legal in this country at all? What good does it do ANYBODY?
Again, go after the statistically significant (and more horrible) death where it is. Going after the guns that cause a few thousand murders in a nation of 1/3 of a billion people is totally Quixotic. And if you care about saving children from horrible, needless death, you are totally barking up the wrong tree.
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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blah blah blah blah... more bullsh#t.
At least Ron's drivel is short and to the point.
Smoke up Johnny
to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and to refute it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.
or if you prefer
Ignoratio elenchi, also known as irrelevant conclusion, is the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may or may not be logically valid, but fails nonetheless to address the issue in question.
either way, smoking has exactly NOTHING to do with gun legislation.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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I will continue to label gun murders as STATISTICALLY trivial. If you cannot distinguish between that and the fact that the individual events matter to the INDIVIDUALS affected, then your level of thinking is apparent to all candid minds.
As a nation we cannot expend effort on every possible front. We "go after" those things that have the highest cost/benefit ratio and are NATIONAL issues. We can do no other, because there isn't enough money in the world to "go after" everything. And we should only WANT the feds involved in those issues that cannot in principle be handled by state and local agencies. These (extremely few) mad gunmen start murdering people in one state while shooting from another state, and then you might have the slightest basis upon which to invoke the interstate commerce clause to justify the feds being involved (yet again).
This gun-control brouhaha is a tempest in a teapot, exploited for political gain, and it is NOT a statistically significant issue upon which to expend the national will. There are other CAUSES of needless death and suffering upon which to expend the national will, if you are determined to expend the national will on such things.
I guess my meta-argument has been a bit too subtle for some of you, so let me clarify.
I do NOT want the government going after yet more freedoms, particularly when the justifications they employ are OFTEN not statistically significant!
I don't want them going after drugs, smoking, alcohol, fat, large sodas, or, yes, even guns. I want them OUT of the vast majority of our individual decisions. I want them EFFECTIVELY pursuing actual criminals (as in, those past-tense committing crimes), and I want that happening on almost entirely a state and local level. I don't want any form of pre-crime legislation, as until a person actually does commit a crime it is impossible to even KNOW much less address what they did.
Liberty means risk. It means that some whack-jobs will have the means and opportunity to commit heinous acts. Once caught, they should be punished FAR more severely than most presently are.
Liberty means personal responsibility. You know, of the sort that 99.999 percent of gun owners exercise. And, again, those few that are not responsible, or are outright criminal, should be punished severely in proportion to their negligence or crime.
Liberty also means recognizing that things we don't like are gonna happen. We don't live in fear; we accept that things are gonna happen, and that the odds are low that they are gonna happen to us.
If there's one thing I am afraid of, it's a government that declares war! War on terror, war on drugs, war on illiteracy, war on pretty much anything. These "wars" in our modern era accomplish nothing but cost us all a lot of money, divert our attention from things that really matter and that are REAL threats to our way of life, and distort our perspectives until we are falling all over ourselves to trade in liberties for "security."
If you want less "caused death," then at least focus on the more statistically-significant things to declare yet more war on. I think we've got the gun-murder thing well enough in hand. I'm not worried enough about terrorism to be willing to open my entire life in every detail to the NSA (and neither should anybody else here be!).
Get the gun thing in proper perspective. That's all I'm advocating. Is this issue really worth expending the national will over? Don't we have better things to worry about, such as the fact that we're on the brink of the dollar ceasing to be the world's reserve currency? Could it be that while we're all in a froth about a few thousand gun-murders, our entire society is in danger?
You want a hobby horse to ride? At least choose one that really matters to us as a NATION of 1/3 of a billion people. Why don't you expend 1/10 of your present energies on something like what the NSA has been doing for over a decade and that has slowly leaked out (despite the outraged denials of two different administrations, including this one) and that is an utter violation of the rule of law? Why don't you get worked up about the rapidly declining value of the dollar, as we are the only nation on Earth that can "print our way out of debt," but that with the effect that our financial power in the world is precipitously declining? Why don't you go after smoking, which is FAR more useless and statistically significant than gun-murders?
Perspective. That's all I'm advocating. Oh, and genuine liberty with responsibility.
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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NOTHING
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hillrat
Trad climber
reno, nv
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No, they're busy supplying all the "cool-aid" hoarders who think the supply is all dried up and are willing to pay five times what it's worth.
Hedge, you're an as#@&%e here, regardless of how you act in real life. Give me all the sh#t you want about using an avatar, but I noticed you didn't post your name and address here, or facebook, or anywhere else for that matter. Difference between us is that I try to conduct myself here in a similar manner as in real life; because there's a chance (and it's happened) that I might actually meet some of these fine folks out at the crag one day, and have a chance to climb, or grab a beer. Who knows? Point is, however you conduct yourself in real life, even your friends here feel the need to defend you by claiming how good and nice and humble you REALLY are.
Me? Well... sometimes I actually AM an as#@&%e.
John C,
Carson City, Nevada
still hoping to find the occasional partner, if I don't offend ya too much
edit: I'm also really a pretty nice guy in real life. Hedge is just an easy target.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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We joined WW2, and invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and spent trillions, based on separate, one-time incidents which murdered 3000 people each.
LOL. I mean, really, ROFL!
YOU just made MY point! (Although, you have no business comparing WW2 to Afghanistan and Iraq! Talk about "no relation!" Sheesh.)
These (except WW2) are flagrant political hobby horses. or are you so blind that you literally inhale BS and say it smells like flowers?
We need perspective as a nation, and we've almost totally lost it.
We are divided about things that really don't matter, which keeps us from focusing our national will on those things that DO matter to us as a NATION.
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hillrat
Trad climber
reno, nv
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Oh, just a few days ago you were handing out chastisement for those not using their REAL names. Why not throw in an address or two? I mean, jeez...
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hillrat
Trad climber
reno, nv
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And hell, I saw you name on an actual climbing related post somewhere, then I noticed that you've sort of changed your perspective here...
so...
Maybe yer not so bad after all...?
You've just been so... single-minded for soooooo many posts...
Anyway... ciao for now.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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You failed.
Says you. LOL
Well, no more bytes on this topic. The point is made for open minds. Thank you for acting as my foil.
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