Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
EdwardT
Trad climber
Retired
|
|
|
May 14, 2018 - 08:11am PT
|
Good stuff Werner!
I'm guessing he never expected to get shot in the chest by a car-line mom.
LOL
|
|
pud
climber
Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia
|
|
|
May 14, 2018 - 08:18am PT
|
As a life member of the NRA I know what they do.
One thing they do is fight to keep your right to defend yourself and your family from all threats, foreign and domestic.
Your personal opinion of how important this right is may vary.
edit:
The thug in Werner's video did not survive the brave actions by that off duty police woman.
Though the children around the incident did. :)
|
|
Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
|
|
|
May 14, 2018 - 09:00am PT
|
What about the threat of lunatics easily obtaining military grade weapons?
|
|
Norton
climber
The Wastelands
|
|
|
May 14, 2018 - 09:14am PT
|
Do you agree with the new NRA President Oliver North that the high school kids who survived the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are "civil terrorists"?
|
|
EdwardT
Trad climber
Retired
|
|
|
May 14, 2018 - 09:45am PT
|
Do you agree with the new NRA President Oliver North that the high school kids who survived the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are "civil terrorists"?
Was he talking about all of the survivors? Or just the "I want my 15 minutes" brown shirts?
|
|
Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
|
|
|
May 14, 2018 - 09:53am PT
|
|
|
Norton
climber
The Wastelands
|
|
|
May 14, 2018 - 09:53am PT
|
so when a high school kid speaks out against the causes of his classmates being killed he is now just hungry for fame, is that right honey boo boo?
|
|
EdwardT
Trad climber
Retired
|
|
|
May 14, 2018 - 11:12am PT
|
If these are acceptable...
Is this okay?
IMO none of it is okay.
I'm just curious where the line is. Why is it fine to crap all over our current POTUS, when referring to our last POTUS by his first name used to cause such a fuss.
If posters are going to be (unjustly) labelled a racist, does that make it okay to play the role.
|
|
Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
|
|
|
May 14, 2018 - 11:28am PT
|
nice move playing the political correctness card there Eddie
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
May 14, 2018 - 11:56am PT
|
The NRA/Arms Merchants have made sure handguns and assault rifles are available like candy.
I've asked people to support this "like candy" meme, but so far no takers. It is actually very difficult to purchase a gun in the USA today (the supposed "gun show loophole notwithstanding), and it is even harder in most States to carry your gun in public.
Various research puts the total number of guns sold without a background check at between 10% and 15%. And there is already no "private-transfers exemption" (which is what the "gun show loophole" should really be called) in 21 of the 50 states. So, in about half of the states (like California), you're not going to "tighten up" transfers more than they already are.
Moreover, the 2002 Bureau of Justice Statistics published: "Firearm Use by Offenders," which found that only 0.7% of convicts bought their firearms at gun shows. 39.2% obtained them from illegal street dealers. The majority of the rest stole their guns or had them given to them by another criminal. So, there's not much of a "criminal pipeline" from the supposed "gun show loophole" to the commission of gun-crime using a "loophole" gun. Remember also that criminals regularly pass background checks.
Now, of course, we're talking about "legality." As with alcohol during Prohibition and drugs during our utter cluster-fornication of a "war on drugs," ILLEGAL guns can be easily gotten, and they are. Criminals are not obeying gun-control laws, and they never will.
Furthermore, gun-control advocates don't talk much (at all) about the numerous nut-job, mass-murderers who obtained their guns legally (under even what would have been the best proposed "gun control" legislation) and who even passed a federal background check.
So, any serious talk about "gun control" will have to seriously acknowledge the dual points that frame reality:
1) Guns are not going away in the USA, nor will they be substantively "reduced" in number. "Type" reductions are irrelevant, as "assault weapons" account for a statistically insignificant number of homicides.
2) Guns of all types are already profoundly heavily regulated, but criminals will ALWAYS have ILLEGAL channels to get their hands on guns; laws to further criminalize guns of any type will have zero effect on that fact.
Need I remind everybody that alcohol production and consumption went UP (as did its cost) during Prohibition, and the only "product" of that legislation was gangland-America? Same with the "war on drugs." Gun control will not, cannot, keep guns out of the hands of criminals. You can "do more" to legislate, but murder is already illegal, as is armed robbery, rape, etc. Drugs are illegal. Etc.
What we have learned from our own history, as well as the history of the most totalitarian nations in human history is that you CANNOT "regulate" the flow of any item or substance that a significant proportion of the population want! ALL you do by trying (even in the most totalitarian ways) is to create black markets, and the flow actually INCREASES, as it becomes more financially viable for gangland America to traffic in the item/substance.
So far from "like candy," it's already much harder to legally get a gun than a car, and it's much harder in most places in the USA to carry your gun than to drive your car in public.
The "number" of guns is not the problem, nor are "the laws." Of the hundreds of millions of guns in circulation, the fraction of them that are misused is so tiny as to be well within any statistical margin of error (the FBI Uniform Crime Statistics state that fewer than 1% of guns in circulation will ever be used in the commission of a crime). The vast, vast majority of legal gun owners are both law-abiding and responsible. And the vast, VAST majority of guns in circulation (including those possessed illegally) will never be used to commit a crime.
Finally, the vast majority of criminals using a gun in the commission of their crimes were already barred by federal law from possessing a firearm. Pittsburgh, for example, in a city-wide study found that more than 80% of gun-crime perps were already federally barred from even possessing a gun. And that percentage is a working benchmark nationally in numerous other studies.
In that context of reality, it strikes me that both "sides" are bandying about the term "terrorist" with chilling frequency, to the point that the term now fails to explicate.
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
May 14, 2018 - 01:14pm PT
|
Arizona has no waiting period or limit on the number of guns that can be bought. Pass a background check, boom.
Wait! That's already nothing akin to "like candy." I've been background checked repeatedly, and it's not a trivial process. Even in Arizona you can't get "guns like candy."
Or perhaps I don't understand what you mean by "like candy." To me, that signifies something like "trivially," which is not the case anywhere in the USA.
If I wanted a thousand AR-15s tomorrow, all I would have to do is go pick them up. Same for 1000 Glocks.
You apparently think that that's a big problem. I do not, nor do the majority of Americans. The reason is because the number of guns in circulation is not a problem. As I cited, the number of guns that are ever misused is so tiny that it's not even a statistical blip. Increase the number of guns in circulation by ten times, and it's still within the margin of error for any rigorous study.
The reason is because the vast, VAST majority of Americans the own and carry guns are law-abiding and responsible, so the vast majority of guns "in circulation" are never used in the commission of any crime.
So, I don't have the slightest problem with a law-abiding American that passes a background check (as you've rightly noted) having as many guns as they want to have. That person and his/her guns will almost certainly never be the slightest threat to anybody.
It's like that line in the movie, The Peacemaker, "It's not the guy who wants 100 nukes that I worry about. It's the guy who wants one."
The nut-job, wannabe mass-murderer who wants one or two guns is the guy who can probably pass a background check right up until the moment he goes off the rails. THAT guy (and gangland America) is/are the problem, NOT the guy in Arizona with a huge collection of various guns.
That is being sold like candy.
That's a very strange comparison to candy! Any kid can get candy. Anybody with a buck or less can get candy. Nobody getting candy has to pass a federal background check. Nobody has to register their candy anywhere. And the litany of disconnects goes on and on and on and on.
In fact, there is exactly ZERO correlation between "like candy" and buying a gun ANYWHERE in the USA. That's just a really bad analogy, and as a meme it should be abandoned as being obviously unsustainable.
If we can't be serious in our use of rhetoric, then we can't have productive discussions. Guns in the USA are NOTHING "like candy." Period.
Where do the perps get all their guns, Richard?
That remains a largely open question that should be rigorously studied. I strongly support (and have repeatedly stated that on threads like these) Congress allocating funding to such studies.
I am not a member of the NRA and will never be, and I am angry with that organization for lobbying against funding for such studies! But seeing them as an utterly biased special-interest is a FAR cry from "calling them out" as a "terrorist organization!"
Despite the fact that we don't know in sufficient detail where perps get their guns, we do have some solid insights, as I cited in my previous post. And we know that only the tiniest fraction (+-1%) get them at gun shows through some "loophole."
About 40% steal their guns. A large number more have the gun given to them by another criminal (who might well have passed a background check at some point; many do). Many actually do pass background checks, such are the failings of that system, and we've seen high-profile examples of mass-murderers that should not have but did. The problem of straw-purchases is significant, but we already have a federal law against that practice.
A huge percentage, I believe from my own experience, are transferred by gun-running gangs. I used to have a lot of friends in a well-known biker gang, and I could literally get my hands on everything from Laos rockets to grenades to any sort of firearm you can imagine, all cheap, and all illegal. Much of this weaponry was "lifted" from the military by gang-connected military insiders. I know this first-hand. But how "traceable" is that sort of flow? Not very, because the military does NOT maintain the sort of granular record-keeping over every grenade, etc. that we wish it did!
Guns are brought in from other countries. How many? We don't know, but we do know that they come in in significant quantities. The gang I knew had a significant pipeline from Mexico.
The point is that perps are almost entirely NOT getting their guns through channels that can in principle be MORE regulated by laws. There are lots and lots of illegal guns, and there always will be. That is just a plain fact, and no amount of totalitarian gun control, no matter how rigorously enforced, is going to stop or even significantly reduce that fact. And the number of LEGAL guns bears almost no relation to that fact. By definition the illegal guns are black-market, and the black-market cannot be stopped or even significantly dented!
They are made, with full knowledge that some are going to them.
As is alcohol, in the full knowledge that many are going to abuse it, and some (far too many) will kill others BECAUSE of their abuse of it. "Please drink responsibly" is flat-out LAME, when companies see the carnage (not to mention broken homes, damage just short of death, lost productivity, and on and on) that results from the sweeping misuse of their product!
So, should Coors be sued every time somebody drinks a sixer and then drives? What about drinking a sixer and then beating the wife and/or kids?
We tried Prohibition, and it was worse than a disaster. We've tried a "war on drugs," and it is MUCH worse than a disaster.
The "circulation" of a product is NOT the manufacturer's fault, and the misuse of that product is NOT the manufacturer's fault. People make decisions about how to use a product, and the vast majority of people use products legally and responsibly. But the PEOPLE using a product are the ones that must be held accountable for their misuse of a product that has legitimate uses when used correctly and legally.
Drives sales of guns to the fearful of those with guns you see.
I'm not sure what that line means, but it looks like the "fearful" meme again. If so, it contributes nothing to a serious discussion. Unless you want to start emphasizing that those who wear seatbelts "live in fear of an accident."
I don't "live in fear," but I do carry a gun every day. I also wear a seatbelt, purchase various sorts of insurance, etc. It's all an odds game, and the things we "protect against" in general have very, very low odds of happening to us. I have flood insurance, which is not an insignificant cost, yet, given where it's located, my home will almost certainly never be flooded. I carry a gun and train with it regularly, yet I will almost certainly never need to shoot anybody.
This has nothing to do with being "fearful."
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
May 14, 2018 - 02:08pm PT
|
Either fearful or have a gun fetish, your choice Richard.
Well, it's impossible to have a serious conversation with somebody who issues such a false dichotomy as if it's fact.
Since false dichotomy and false analogy (that you continue to defend, despite the fact that not a single corollary exists) are the foundation of the "discussion," I choose not to keep playing with you.
Gun-controllers will continue to bark up the wrong tree. Fortunately, most Americans aren't buying it. You may get more universal background checks, but most Americans won't stand for arbitrary limitations that obviously are only effective (and punitive) relative to law-abiding citizens.
And the idea that the 2nd amendment is going to be substantive changed or entirely go away is a distant pipe-dream.
First, Americans are very suspicious of meddling with the constitution, particularly in this highly-divided, hyper-politicized era.
Second, the process is actually extremely difficult, more than people really wrap their wishful minds around.
Third, even if you could accomplish amending or eliminating the 2nd amendment, you'd only open the logical space for Congress to act legislatively, and good luck with that (as we see on this very subject)!
Fourth, all you'd then accomplish is to criminalize a HUGE swath of America, and sweeping civil disobedience would then take deep root (as it did during Prohibition and now regarding drugs), and you'd simultaneously accomplish nothing of substance toward solving the real problems of inner-city violence and random nut-jobs.
Finally, you would not have TOUCHED the actual right that the 2nd amendment references. That amendment does not grant a right; it references a pre-existing inalienable one. So, you'd have to also sweepingly change the culture's perspective of individual rights, as well as convince the modified culture that the "tyranny of the SCOTUS" is a better governmental model than an actual constitution with fixed meanings that are anchored in the original intentions of those that wrote and ratified the constitution.
The left is making some progress on the latter point, as it has pretty well succeeded in entirely conflating negative and positive rights. And it MIGHT, given enough time, EVENTUALLY accomplish all of this. But I'll be long gone by then.
So, 'nuff said. Good luck with all of the above.
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
May 14, 2018 - 02:35pm PT
|
Seatbelts are not used to murder other human beings either.
No, but cars and vans are. Furthermore, neither is my gun. Nor are the guns of the vast, vast majority of gun owners.
Alcohol creates vastly more carnage than guns. And you can't give a DUI abuser a pass, like, "It was just a mistake, not really 'murder,'" when the effects of alcohol are so well known that drinking a sixer and climbing behind the wheel is literally tantamount to shooting off a loaded gun in random directions in public.
Worse, the very act of drinking "irresponsibly" itself impairs the "responsibility center" of the brain, so that the phrase virtually amounts to a tautology. The only way to "drink responsibly" is to drink only around NON-drinkers who can ensure that you don't behave badly.
But nobody advocates 25-to-life for first-offense DUI offenders on the basis of "attempted murder." Yet, I quote from an attorney who specializes in murder-defense, who writes: "In Colorado, you are guilty of the crime of attempted murder when you knowingly engage in conduct which creates a grave risk of death."
That is precisely what a DUI person does. Precisely.
Yet, nobody is advocating for class-action lawsuits against Coors.
Nobody is arguing, "You can walk into any liquor store and buy CASES of alcohol, as much as you can afford, with no background check. That's INSANE!"
Nobody is noting that a multiple DUI offender is not in any way precluded from purchasing as much alcohol as s/he wants, despite having PROVEN his/her inability to be responsible with the substance. S/he simply produces State-issued ID showing proof of age (not even a drivers license is required; it might have been revoked), and if s/he is 21 or older, there are no limits.
Nobody is saying, "Who could possibly need a whole six pack? No single person should be able to purchase a 'magazine size' over three units. No responsible person could possibly need that much alcohol, and there is no GOOD use for it!"
Yet, unlike with guns and ammunition, the above statements are all true regarding alcohol.
The obvious point (that most Americans understand) is that we KNOW that for any product, a tiny minority of people cannot be trusted with it! We don't penalize the majority because of that fact. We don't punish the law-abiding, even when the carnage is vast, as it is in the case of alcohol abuse.
You drink and climb behind the wheel, and you are literally shooting off a gun in public, while "hoping" that you don't hit anybody. But NOBODY has a national discussion in those terms.
In contrast with cars AND guns, alcohol has exactly zero compelling public interest. Nobody has a pressing need for or inalienable right to alcohol consumption. Yet we accept the vast carnage caused by those that misuse it. And there are NO threads on Supertopo nor panties in a bunch over that carnage.
Go figure.
|
|
Norton
climber
The Wastelands
|
|
|
May 14, 2018 - 02:49pm PT
|
Edward asks about the high school shooting survivors who spoke out against gun violence
Was he (NRA Pres Oliver North) talking about all of the survivors? Or just the "I want my 15 minutes" brown shirts?
Edward, it seems you are, again, historically confused....
which one of the Marjory Stoneman high school kids are you referring to as a "Nazi"?
"Brown Shirts"-functioned as the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party
what 1930's Nazi quality do you see in those 16 year olds, Edward?
|
|
Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
|
|
|
May 14, 2018 - 03:00pm PT
|
The Trump/Hitler picture is based on fact
The Obama picture is based on hate.
next question
|
|
Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
|
|
|
May 14, 2018 - 03:20pm PT
|
If these are acceptable...
Is this okay?
I fully support your right to exercise your constitutional rights although
you're an apologist if not a collaborator for those who would remove them. If the Deplorable shoe fits...
|
|
wilbeer
Mountain climber
Terence Wilson greeneck alleghenys,ny,
|
|
|
May 14, 2018 - 03:23pm PT
|
Tut,there is no winning argument with the bolting madman.
I will say “gun show loophole notwithstanding”.
I know almost everyone west of Ohio thinks New York and the northeast are covered with liberals, but few realize most every civilian and military firearm were manufactured here.
You can’t swing a Remington without hitting a gun show in our area.
How do you think the major cities in the region get their guns,certainly not at Dick’s.
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
May 14, 2018 - 03:49pm PT
|
Comparison's to alcohol or cars are a straw man because the express purpose of the item/substance is not to kill other people. The express purpose of alcoholic beverages originally was as a food source (fermenting is a preservative process that makes the beverage keep) as well cars are essential transportation not designed to kill.
That's not actually a "straw man," even if things were working as you say. It would be a false analogy.
By your logic, then, comparing guns to candy is fallacious BECAUSE the express purpose of candy is not to kill, and the express purpose of guns is not to taste good. So, by your lights, unless the express purpose is exactly the same, it's a bad analogy.
The analogy between guns and alcohol revolves around usage (your candy analogy doesn't even have that!), and guns most certainly can be used to not kill. In fact, the vast majority of the time that a person is shot (even in war with military-grade weapons), they don't die.
The ACTUAL express purpose of a gun, and the reason they are most widely used by LEOs, the military, and individuals is to stop a threat, and that usually without actually killing the threat. Period.
And that actual expressly designed intention is a completely legitimate purpose that is both enshrined in our constitution and based upon inalienable rights.
So, your claim that guns are expressly designed to kill is false, both by intended usage and by actual outcomes.
Guns can kill, but so can cars, and so can alcohol. For all devices/substances, if the intended goal can be achieved without anybody dying, so much the better! And regarding guns, cars, and alcohol, illegitimate death results ONLY when the device/substance is MISused. Of course, the responsibility for MISuse (and bad intentions) resides 100% in people, not in the devices/substances themselves.
If you insist that "there are too many guns, and they are too easy for bad people to get," then you should (as a doctor, I would think) be QUICK to both grant my analogy and agree: "There's too much alcohol, and it's too easy for bad people to get." Its original use-case is no longer needed today (same claim as made about guns), and it has NO necessary use-case today (the same cannot be said about guns).
BTW, if you insist on pejorative language, such as "gun fetish," etc., you are merely revealing your own inability to simply discuss the arguments on their merits. I'm not calling you names, impugning your motives, or psych-babbling you. I'd appreciate it if you'd treat me with the same basic respect.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!