My compromise for gun control

You may feel the need to buy a tank, I don't. You can in fact own a fully functional tank but it's a lot of time, money, and paperwork.

 

Why would I need a tank when I don't even need a gun?

 

As I said, if you feel like you need a tank, as long as you have a clean record, go for it. I'm not here to dictate to you what you need or don't need.

 

Mac

So again you go through life feel you will be attacked at any moment?

I didn’t learn to do CPR out of fear of attack, I don’t feel I need a gun because again I don’t fear I’m going to be attacked.

Why do you?

But people in security, police, and the military are by their jobs reasonably likely to be the target of an attack, why do you feel like you will be the target of an attack?

I mean why would say a dentists in a quiet suburb need an ‘assault weapon’ for self-defence or to topple the government and wouldn’t that seem more like them have a mental health problem?

Using a gun is a life taking ability as we have established you need no real skill to kill or injure someone with a gun as Bagel points out toddlers have done it.

 

Mac

Car and Guns (again)

I’m sorry but a lot of this has been gone through before but in brief her it is again.

*

When people get in a car they don’t fear that other drivers will purposely try and attack them.

And as you say the vast majority of incidences involving cars are accidents - they are not on the result of an attack - and even then the vast majority of those accidents are minor, they are not likely to result in injury or worse. And we have lots of regulations a laws in place to try and limit those accidents.

You want to have a gun specifically because you fear you are going to be attacked on purpose.

And cars are not weapons and the manufactures often sell the car on its safety record or features with new things brought in all the time seat belts, airbags, proximity alarms, etc. There are cars now that are aware of their surrounds and apply the brakes if you don’t.

Guns are sold as weapons and sold on their potential to kill and maim, even the additions are to make the firearm better at killing, laser sights, extended magazines, sound suppressors etc.

So it would seem to me that there is very little in your comparison of cars and guns

 

Mac

Cars and Guns part Two

In the UK by law you have to use a safety belt (you can be fined £500 and get penalty points if you don’t).

Also by law a driver also has to have a current licence, follow the rules of the road, not be drunk and driving etc there are any regulations meant to try and limit accidents.

I’m not sure how a dash cam helps with road safety?

By law in the UK a car has to be road worthy, safe to be on the road, most cars sold these days come with many safety features as standard. We are also moving toward bringing in new laws on road safety requiring vehicles to have intelligent speed assistance (ISA), advanced emergency braking (AEB) and lane-keeping technology amongst other things.

You can do defensive driving courses if you are willing to pay for them but why would you if it wasn’t really needed? I mean you might if you feared been the target of an attack but otherwise why?

Well in the UK and many places in the US the things associated to cars are not ‘personal preference’ they are the law.

*

To repeat people don’t get into a car believing other drivers are purposely going to try and attack them but that seems to be exactly why you and others want a gun for self-defence.

 

Mac

But in societal terms do you think there should be regulations and laws to ‘dictate’ over public safety?

What is needed and not needed?

I mean you brought up cars – well there are lots of laws and regulations to try and reduce the risk to personal and public safety surrounding them – do you think they shouldn’t be in place?

How about food hygiene, drug safety, building regs, etc, when it comes to public safety what needs to be ‘dictated’ on or not?

To bring something up from earlier, if a group said they like to drink and drive and said they don’t want laws forbidding it, would you say fine or think that it might be better to have laws dictating it is not allowed?

 

At least 8 people reported killed in mass shooting in German city

betty white..

 

Did you learned CPR out of fear of someone collapsing with no pulse right in front of you? If not, why did you learn it? It's the same line of reasoning you're asking me why I carry. It's not out of fear of anything. It's a tool that I want to have. Nothing more or less. You may not feel the need to carry and that's fine. I don't question why you feel the need to take CPR. I'm not calling you fearful for taking extra steps to potentially save a life even if the likelihood is slim.

I carry because I want to be prepared. Which is also why I carry a first aid kit and tourniquet.

For one, I'm former auxiliary law enforcement, currently working as security, and about to enter the field of corrections. So while I can use that as an excuse as to why I carry, I don't. I carry for the principle of being prepared regardless of what job I have or career I want to pursue.

I don't intend on becoming a paramedic but that doesn't stop me from carrying first aid supplies on or about my person. I don't intend on becoming a NASCAR driver but that doesn't stop me from being safe on the road.

For one, most people who have "assualt weapons" for self defense only have them as home protection or keep them in their vehicles. Most people who carry firearms for protection carry handguns. For another, as I've said numerous times, I'm not a psychologist and presumably neither are you. I can't answer whether a hypothetical person living in a hypothetical world would have mental issues if he stated that he needed to carry an "assault weapon" for self defense or to overthrow the government if he feels that the situation calls for it.

Not sure how that really relates to what I said but ok.

 

You're conflating two different analogies with each other. Nobody said that drivers fear being attacked. However, what drivers are concerned about is not wrecking. The main premise to comparing driving a car to carrying a gun is people prepare for things that might happen but statistically don't. Therefore it's not being fearful to take steps to prevent something that isn't likely to happen to you anyway. You don't wreck your car everyday but the possibility to wreck once is there and you take steps to mitigate that. I don't get robbed everyday but the possibility for it to happen once is there and I take steps to mitigate that.

Again, I'm comparing the aspect of preparing for something which might happen but doesn't happen all the to the reason why some people choose to carry a firearm.

 

It happens, government gets big, abusive and evil.

I don't think humanity has evolved past this kind of thing happening again.

We have a mass incarceration holocaust going on right now in the US, major protests 2014-2015 and they had to back off us and change only because they fear us as a whole.

Now is the worst time to ditch the second amendment as the 5G surveillance state is getting built, that facial recognition like in China its happening world wide.

Who ever controls that machine is going to have a lot of power. This is the wrong time in history to think humanity has evolved past committing atrocities.

 

Shoe

This has been gone over a thousand times

It’s the same argument that if only the German Jews had had guns then the holocaust would not have happened – here is something I posted years ago when someone said that and that it would have stopped blacks been lynched.

The problem is that the German people had been taught the Jews were dangerous. So what if some of them had fired on the police that had come to take them away, do you think the German people would have seen this as justified and come to their defence or just seem it as proof the Jews were indeed dangerous and needed locking away?

Think about US history, did the Native American that fought back, get the support of the American citizenry? What if the US citizens of Japanese descent had resisted the unconstitutional internment imposed on them, and what if they had shot at the police would they have got general popular support? What about these hauled in front of McCarthy, would people have rallied to them if they had refused to go before such witch hunts and opened fire on those that came to take them?

The question being why didn’t the decent and good white people of those areas (where the lynching’s took place) protect the black people being abused, they had access to guns, they had votes, they filled juries, they could have done a lot to stop what was happening, why didn’t they?

*

Gun owners claim they will protect the US against ‘tyranny’ but it seems to me that more often than not gun owners have been the ones that have stood in the way of justice and progress.

Back then if a black person spoke out against injustice in many place in the US they would have found a crowd of bedsheet wearing gun owners outside their house demanding they shut up - or worse.

I remember an interview with some gun holding tea party supporters at the time Obama was president that were basically threatening armed insurrection ‘if Obama turned America socialist’

If you look at gun ownership in the US and the vast majority of them lean to the right politically and a solid group lean very heavily to the right.

Also you have to realise that the notion that Hitler confiscated everyone’s guns is mostly bogus.

University of Chicago law professor Bernard Harcourt explored this myth in depth in a 2004 article published in the Fordham Law Review. As it turns out, the Weimar Republic, the German government that immediately preceded Hitler’s, actually had tougher gun laws than the Nazi regime. After its defeat in World War I, and agreeing to the harsh surrender terms laid out in the Treaty of Versailles, the German legislature in 1919 passed a law that effectively banned all private firearm possession, leading the government to confiscate guns already in circulation. In 1928, the Reichstag relaxed the regulation a bit, but put in place a strict registration regime that required citizens to acquire separate permits to own guns, sell them or carry them.

The 1938 law signed by Hitler that the NRA’s LaPierre has mentions in his book basically does the opposite of what he says it did. “The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as well as ammunition,” Harcourt wrote. Meanwhile, many more categories of people, including Nazi party members, were exempted from gun ownership regulations altogether, while the legal age of purchase was lowered from 20 to 18, and permit lengths were extended from one year to three years.

Thing on that one bit - Nazi party members, were exempted from gun ownership regulations altogether

Again I why didn’t the good gun owners do anything about it the lynching’s of black people

I mean to me segregation is a clear sign of an evil tyrannical government so why didn’t the decent and good gun owners protect the black people being abused and bring down that evil form of government. I mean white people had easy access to guns, they had votes, they filled juries, they could have done a lot to stop what was happening, why didn’t they?

The point is that just owning a gun does not mean you will fight evil or tyranny because you might actually support that evil, that tyranny

It might even be the case that gun owners might even use those guns to intimidate or kill those that do talk out against the evil, like the case of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner in Mississippi and the assassination of Martin Luther King.

So it is very important when gun owners say they have guns to stop what they see as their political opponents from acting in certain ways to ask who do they see as their political opponents and what things would cause them to take up arms against them.

Would the people that have the guns fight against evil or uphold it?

 

Mac

As I’ve said in the UK there have to be a certain number of trained first aiders in a workplace.

Because of that been a trained First Aider is a good thing to have on your CV.

Workplace managers or Safety Officers will often spread the training around letting some people’s certificates lapse (you have to refresh once a year) so that others can be trained so that they can then put it on their CV.

My certificate is lapsed but Trained First Aider is still on my CV

So it has nothing to do with fear, it’s basically a workplace perk that enhances your CV oh and a by-product is that it could save a life.

Thing is that doing CPR is not an aggressive or threatening action no-one shouts ‘BACK OFF or I’ll do CPR on you’

So if this is your big argument for saying that you carry a gun because you are not afraid of been attacked it just doesn’t seem to stand up.

 

Mac

A guns is a lethal weapon, it has no other use than to be a lethal weapon, ‘nothing more nothing less’.

It would seem to me that the only reason someone would want to have on them a lethal weapon was that they were afraid of been attacked.

As I’ve said I and many, many other people don’t carry weapons of any kind because we don’t fear that we will be attacked. In the UK we do have specialist police units that are armed but the vast majority of UK police officers (I believe it is 90% in London) are not armed with guns and are not trained in their use.

I’ve told you why I know CPR it is a pretty boring and mundane reason that has nothing to do with fear or ‘being prepared’. In fact been a first aider will often come up on how to write or enhance your CV. And the majority of people I know who have the training got it through workplace schemes.

But the reason you are prepared is because you fear been attacked, if you didn’t fear being attacked you would not feel you needed to be prepared.

I mean you feel the need to carry around a lethal weapon, it would seem to me that people that were not afraid wouldn’t do that.

 

Mac

But a first aid kit or a car were not designed to kill and maim people.

You could use things in a first aid kit or your car to injure or kill someone but that wouldn’t be there specific purpose.

Sorry but this just comes across as a cop out, an evasion, it is reasonable to ask your opinion even if you are not a psychologist.

I mean in response to a question about how to stop those that might be a problem having guns you said

Well those close friends and family are unlikely to be psychologist either so why are you unable to make a judgment here?

Honestly if someone said to you that they needed a gun so they can be prepared to shot their political enemies if they so desired, do you think such a person should be able to have as many guns as they want?

 

Mac

But that is my point - people don’t get into a car fearing to be attacked but you carry a gun because you do fear that you could be attacked.

The reason you feel the need to carry a lethal weapon is because you fear been attacked, if you didn’t fear being attacked you would not feel the need to be prepared.

Why do you feel that need when most people don’t?

I mean if you didn’t fear been attacked you wouldn’t feel the need to be prepared for an attack and therefore wouldn’t feel you needed to carry around a lethal weapon.

It seems to me the gun is only there because of the fear

The question is then why do you have that fear when many others don’t?

 

Shoe

Can you please explain?

 

Fears

So gun owners feel they need to be prepared for the things they fear

The question is are guns the best way of tackling the things they fear?

Mac mentions the fear of getting robbed, Shoe fears a tyrannical government

But is easy access to guns the best way of tackling these fears?

Crime

Well from the crime statistics shown above it can be seen that general crime rates (like Robbery) in the US are not that different than other countries where there is not ease of access to guns. The one big discrepancy been the much large rates of gun related deaths and murders in the US.

In the US a person has the same likelihood of getting robbed but a higher likelihood of been shot and killed.

Tyrannical government

The problem is that if you look at history it is often the case that the type of people that want to be the gun owners have been the ones in favour of the tyranny.

That seems to have been the case in Nazis Germany and segregated America so for a society to somehow depend on the gun owners to be the ones to protect the majority from tyranny would seem to be foolhardy at best without finding out who the gun owners see as the ‘enemy’ and what their definition of what tyranny would be.

 

Do you buckle your seatbelt solely because you might get caught without it on?

Again, do you solely do or don't do those things solely out of the fear of being caught? Because not a week goes by without me observing a safety violation while I'm driving and there are no law enforcement around.

It's mainly to prevent getting falsely accused if you're in an accident and it wasn't your fault.

Sure, but even with the laws in place, there are certain brands and models that are safer than others. An SUV is safer than a smart car, for example.

It makes you more situationally aware of your surroundings and makes you a better driver overall.

People don't buckle their seatbelts believing they'll wreck on the way to work either. Both carrying a firearm and wearing a seatbelt are precautions.

 

Mac

Seat belts vs Guns

Putting on a seat belt is a passive not aggressive action – I suppose you could injure or kill someone with a seat belt but that is not what it was designed for unlike a gun – no one has ever shouted ‘Get Back or I’ll put my seat belt on’.

Ease of access to seatbelts decreases the likelihood of car related death and injury. Ease of access to guns increases the likelihood of gun related death and injury.

Seat belts are just one of many laws, regulations and safety devices in place to try and limit the harm of ease of access to cars, yet many in the gun lobby reject virtually all regulation in relation to guns, even you have rejected simple registration.