My compromise for gun control

This is one of the replies he's talking about. You do this sort of thing often. It's a way to respond without the recipient getting a notification. A way to get in the last word. Keeping it in a "bubble".

Yet another tactic for "winning" a discussion, by obfuscating it.

 

You can't have a discussion with someone who seriously believes that they're superior to the rest of us...morally, intellectually, and in any other way that they might care to compare themselves to us. It's an exercise in futility.

I will say this, though. When politicians put forth some of the Orwellian type restrictions on liberties and freedoms that they will attempt to pass into law...possibly *some* percentage of them are truly acting in what they believe are the best interests of their constituents, while, in my opinion, the majority of them are purely acting out of, well...let's just say their motivations are less well-intended. They want to continually build their own power and wealth, while ensuring that the rest of us stay solidly mired in our positions as their manual laborers, beholden to them for whatever scraps they deign to toss our way.

*But*...it certainly seems quite believable that "ordinary" citizens, who (whom?) argue for the anti-gun side of the issue...actually *do* believe what they're saying, and are trying to bring about what they *truly* believe will be a safer, less-violent world! So, while I shake my head at what *I* believe to be their misguided and naive attempts to foment such change...I can't help but admire what I hope are their purely altruistic intentions.

So, what I guess I'm trying to say, is this. In the end...we are all striving for the same goal. We wish to live in a world in which any, and every, man, woman, and child...are able to live their lives in security, safety, and freedom. Free from violence, hatred, fear, and criminal activity. So, we can all agree on this, as our ultimate goal (I'm hoping...unless I've overlooked some obvious exception or somehow missed the point). Our only disagreement is on the method by which we reach this end result. So, instead of fighting each other, getting angry and shouting tirades and insults at one another...why not try to bring about those ideas upon which we *can* agree? I think most will agree that we need to better address mental health issues. That's one place. Surely we might find one or two other ideas upon which we can, at least *somewhat*, reach some sort of agreement.

Or...I could be full of crap.

 

I feel the ideals, I really do. But I live in a world where friends have been carjacked, kidnapped, shot and maimed. Preparing for a reality we hope never comes seems a tad more prudent than assuming killers, maniacs and crooks are ever going to follow any rules we make regarding guns.

Most of the gun owners I know would rather see their prized piece rust into a lump before using it to kill someone. A fine ideal, but they clean it and practice with it to ensure a margin of protection from those who don't follow the rules or have a death wish for some indecipherable reasoning. When my daughter learned that home invaders generally dispatch the family dogs the moment they enter as both a personal safety action (for them) and a terrorizing/demoralizing action (for their victims), she wanted to learn how to shoot a pistol.

You never know where the motivation to protect will come from. Humanity is a long long way from enlightenment. Evolution is very slow, but so is humanity. We're still dealing with the same demons we had on the savannas. We have managed to pull ourselves out of the range of most predators for thousands of years, but the top predator is the one we still face.

And they don't often prey on our flesh. But they still prey on us one way or another. It's either the Falafel guy who over-charges based on your suit. Or it's the portfolio manager who finds a way to bury a 0.2% fee into the rest of your transactions, for life. Or the boss who insists you work off the clock. It's basically an asshole who holds everyone else in sheer contempt and only sees a turnip to be bled.

Then of course, there's the jerk with the gun who takes your wallet and phone while nobody else is paying attention.

In the county where I live (as well as many around Atlanta) an armed robbery is an automatic life sentence. So I very rarely feel any need to carry a gun. And I don't keep one in the house because I'm so certain that a group of assholes are going to invade through the front door. What I do keep is a revolver with rat shot rounds. They scare the shit out of coyotes and are non-lethal if the varmint happens to be human and lunging at me. I haven't fired the thing in 7 years and that was at a range. It's just a tool. I can dispatch a home invader with a chain saw or edger as well, but, imagine the legal mess!

 

If you can convince the American people to reimplement the draft, then by all means go for it. I really don't have an opinion for or against it. However, that's the only thing I have issue for such a program. Most US citizens are strongly against the draft. That's why I suggested that if we were to copy or adhere to a foreign policy, the Switzerland model with some changes would be better suited for the US.


I don't think the Switzerland draft plays such a big enough role to their gun laws and violence to be considered the whole suit while the actual laws only the buttons. At best, it's the pants or shirt while the laws themselves is the actual coat seeing how their laws and violence rate isn't that far from their neighboring countries. So we could buy the shirt and coat while adding our own pants.

 

Gun control proposals

Here is an edited version of a list that has been posted a few times on the forums that was formed from a couple of lists me and MeAgain had presented at differing times.

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Educate people about what the new legislation is about and would entail (Not taking away all guns, the goal is to reduce harm by limiting easy access to the criminal and irresponsible)

Reinforcing, enhancing, and mandating back ground checks for the purchase of a gun.

Immediate destruction of any weapon, ammunition, etc. used or acquired illegally.

Limiting the amount of legal ammunition that can be bought and retained.

Buyback programs - to get rid of or lower the number of midnight specials, assault weapons, etc.

All gun owners would need to pass a test of competence and responsibility to get a gun licence (part of which would be to pass a psychological evaluation)

A gun owner would need an up to date licence and insurance to carry on owning a gun (been found owning a gun without these will result in fine or and been banned from owning a gun).

Mandatory records of all sells or transfers of all firearms and immediate destruction of any that are discovered to be not recorded.

Any gun kept at home, place of work or in a motor vehicle would have to be held in a secure manner (eg safe or other secure locking system).

People that didn’t have an approved system would not be allowed to own a gun.

If a person loses or has their gun stolen, and it is shown that they did not show due diligence in securing their weapon they would be subject to a fine and/or banned from owning a gun.

Any guns would have to be presented for inspection 6 months after purchase then again one year after purchase and then every five years after that. Not presenting the gun would result in a fine losing the owner’s gun license (to deter straw purchases and passing on)

If the gun has been lost or stolen and that has not been reported that would result in a heavy fine and/or custodial sentence.

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These would be national laws the same through all the states and a Federal department would be set up to monitor them and make sure they are been enforced equally throughout the country.

The fines raised and a tax on firearms manufactures would be used to offset cost of these programmes.

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These are just suggestions and if people think of improvements please post your ideas.

 

Bull

It’s not the person - it is the argument

A good (you might even say superior) argument can stand up to scrutiny and can be defended from criticism in a rational and reasonable way.

Look through this thread and you will see that the gun lobbyist’s arguments don’t stand up very well to scrutiny and can’t be defended from the criticisms levelled at them even by the people presenting them.

And if you look at the thread you will find that many of the gun lobbyists don’t even try to address those criticisms and instead just attack the person posting them.

To me this reply is just another of those evasions, it’s a refusal to address the actual outstanding criticism by claiming that it’s futile to do so – with the result been that the criticism still remain unaddressed and therefore still stand.

 

Bull

But that's it the gun lobby arguments don’t seem to stand up to scrutiny.

But if one set of methods can’t be defended from criticism in any rational way they are likely to be bad methods and most likely should be dropped

But that's the problem I (and others) do present proposals and arguments but so often the gun lobbyists just present slogans, soundbites or statements that they then refuse to defend or even in some case discuss in any rational way.

So far Mac is the only person that seems to be doing that on the gun lobbyist side.

 

Bull

And to repeat – why can’t you do both - bring in prudent gun control measures and tackle mental health issues – this has already been covered, bringing it up again just means we once more go in circles, which as I’ve said many times is the big problem with these threads

The thing is that easy access to guns doesn’t tackle mental health issues in fact it just means people with such problems can more easily get access to guns.

Well-funded social and healthcare systems do help to tackle mental health issues and i've argued that on the forums many times BUT in my experience many of those on the gun lobby side lean to the right and have told me that such things are ‘socialism’ and ‘big government’ with others hinting that they have guns to stop such 'tyranny'.

 

Panic

So these would have gone to court – is it possible to point to records of these incidences – I have in the pasted been told about such things but when looked into they turn out that guns would not have helped or made things worse.

I’d also point out that in general crime the US is comparable to other rich nations it is only greatly different in the much higher levels of gun related injuries and deaths because of the ease of access to guns there is in the US.

Think about it – it’s much easier to carjack or kidnap if a person has a gun than other weapons

I mean I live in London I’ve had no friends who have been carjacked, kidnapped, or shot or maimed and when such things do happen it is big news because it is so rare.

To repeat – why not deal with the problem rather than the symptom (when that ‘cure’ is likely to make the problem worse)? Why not try and limit the possibility of guns falling into the hands of the criminal and irresponsible rather than advocating for an increase in the number of guns in the system that then could fall into the wrong hands.

 

I just don't get how we know people can hunt with a bow and arrow...why guns?

It is true that some people get off on the power of life or death. Don't deny it. Guns are a matter of principal, and the principled are the best shots, because their aim is true. But there are muddy waters.

 

Panic

So again why allow those human predators such easy access to guns?

Also isn’t there a social dimension (see also tackling mental issues above). Are people born killers or are they made into killers, the lions and wild dogs our ancestors meet on the savanna hunted because they were hungry, but give them a different upbringing and regular food and even they can be tamed, we domesticated dogs for example.

The majority of humans would not do others harmed, because most people have that kind of upbringing and have comfortable lives, but give people miserable and hard lives and the outcomes can be different.

So maybe a better way to tackle crime is by having a more equal and harmonious society.

But as explained before many Americans (mainly on the right) have a belief in threat and intimidation as a means of societal control so think in terms of punishment and guns

There are also strong leanings toward Social Darwinist thinking on the US right – that people are government by a competitive nature (eg predatory tendencies) that everyone is out for themselves rather than co-operative thinking that we can help each other through join action.

Like most things it’s a bit of both and that is why we have laws to try and curb predatory tendencies to stop the overcharging falafel guy or fraudulent portfolio manager for example.

And that is what prudent gun control is about co-operative thinking to try and limit the adverse consequences of criminal or irresponsible thinking.

 

Mac

Sorry but the thing is that you seem to agree with the proposed list of gun regulations (see above) so why are we quibbling about the Swiss system when the US needs a US system?

I mean the Swiss are not Americans as I’ve said I’ve meet both and I think because of their militia system the Swiss are a lot more civic minded and there does not seem to be that idea of having a gun so as to be able to overthrow the government.

As said they are a prosperous country with a lot higher wealth distribution than in the US to repeat from an earlier post

Also the Swiss have a universal healthcare system, a low poverty level, a generous welfare system and a penal system based on rehabilitation (Prison pop Switzerland 81 per 100000 US 655 per population). As I’ve discussed in the past these are all factors.

To me just cherry picking a few laws isn’t going to work because the two societies are so different the laws in my opinion wouldn’t work out of context – so you would need to turn the US into a Swiss like society for them to work and so I’d think it would be easier just to push for the proposed gun control list than that.

 

Who is allowing it? It's already illegal for maniacs to have guns. Same as felons (a life sentence in the US). Nobody is giving them away and legitimate vendors upload your info and wait for a response before letting you even pay for a weapon. For some reason it's slow when I apply, I figure it must be my veteran status. But when my wife applies, it comes back approved in a matter of seconds.

And again, the gun genie is already out of the bottle, you can't make them vanish. No matter how hard you wish and click your heels. It doesn't take advanced skills to make a gun and of course crooks aren't going to line up for permission to buy one, so what's the point of restricting legal owners?

Man of LaMancha is playing in the background.

Is this another bubble post I was supposed to miss?

 

Murderous Americans

There are differing versions of this but all seem to be based on the idea that Americans are more murderous than other any other people. That it is not ease of access to very lethal weapons that are to account for the much higher rates of gun related deaths in the US what is the real problem is the murderous nature of Americans.

That even if Americans did not have ease of access to guns they would still go out and kill just as many people with knives, baseball bats or spoons, because they so like to kill and injure. That if they couldn’t get easy access to guns they would dedicate themselves to learn all the chemical and machining knowledge to build themselves guns, canon or bombs because they are so committed to death and destruction.

There seems to me to be several problems with this.

Are Americans inherently more violent than other people? I don’t see that I’ve meet many Americans and have visited the US (or at least California) and that wasn’t my impression.

Are these people arguing that it is US society and way of life that creates violent people? If so shouldn’t they be doing something about that?

Then there is the problem about how lethal are differing types of weapon, yes knives, baseball bats and yes even spoons can be used to injure and even kill but there are not as good at doing it than a gun, that is why it is the weapon of choice for the military.

So if you actually do believe Americans are inherently or by up bring likely to violence then it would seem the height of absurdity to given them such ease of access to guns.

 

Panic

So you haven’t read anything in this thread that doesn’t just agree with you?

You are just repeating the same simplistic slogans I’ve already mentioned.

For example

Well this is Post 439

Panic

LOL but no-one has suggested that ‘fantasy’ nobody is talking of magically getting rid of all guns with a click of the fingers Thanos style.

This is about gun control not fantasy, trying to lessen the possibility of criminals or the irresponsible getting hold of a gun is not magic it is just a matter of bringing in regulations and laws that are aimed at doing that.

Why don’t you look at the list of gun proposals that have been presented and address them, rather than go off into fantasy land?

And as said before this is just another variation on the murderous American argument (copied above). That Americans so want to kill that they will make guns from scratch just so they can.

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Can gun lobbyist stop just repeating simplistic slogans it just means you force everyone to go round in circles although some tell me that is your whole purpose because you really do not have any decent arguments.

 

Panic

So maybe a better way to tackle crime is by having a more equal and harmonious society.

Don Quixote tilting at windmills?

Interesting – so you are saying that the social problems within US society are fantasies?

The inequality, the unnecessary poverty, the racial discrimination, the people without healthcare, the crumbling judicial system, the crumbling social system and etc - all these things are just not real?

And presumably because to you these problems do not exist you have no intention of doing anything about them.

Is this how you see the problems that come about because of the ease of access to guns in the US? They too are not real, all those unnecessary deaths are fictions or unimportant enough to be ignored as another gun lobbyist has already indicated?

 

Good luck with your knife.

 

LOL another half assed comment from yet another gun lobbyists if you haven't anything of any worth or substance to say why bother?

 

This is where you regularly lose me. You're always exactly wrong when you attempt this mind reading futility. I wonder, do you really think some magic combination of interpreted responses is going to make me suddenly swap my opinion over to yours? Laughable.


The only fantasies I see are yours. Most of the stuff you're talking about will be problems with or without guns because guns aren't the issue in any of them. Guns don't cause poverty, healthcare or infrastructure failures.

As far as what I do, you're assumptions seem to be personally biased since you don't know shit about how I operate. You assume the worst with no background other than my disagreements with you. Where DO you get this need to judge others so stridently? And can you see when you're wrong? Or are you a typical leftist and incapable of being wrong at all? It's damned baffling.

 

Those regulations and laws already exist. Criminals still refuse to follow them.

So what use is going after the people who own guns and don't commit any crimes with them? Why waste time with that?

It's interesting the way you sling "Gun Lobby/Lobbyist" around. The only place I discuss this is here, so it's a pretty thin venue to "lobby".

It reminds me of a prosecutor who tried to claim that I used my initials as my "alias". It was an effort to make me look just a little more sinister before the court. A pure lie of course and my lawyer shot it down readily. It wasn't about the truth, it was about winning the case and tossing me into a cage. And this asshole was willing to employ any tactic to see that end. Even trying to slap a fake label on me just to bolster his case.

The problem with "Gun Control" in the US is that the people pushing the hardest for it, are lying about their aims. So it's an intractable wedge issue that only serves to waste time. Much as it does here.