Guncrazy USA

…and so it was at this point while wading through these replies that I just thought – this guy is a jerk – a complete pistolhead – he’s a true believer, with the blind stare and closed ears of the fanatic…

…And well…I just thought this is a waste of time and effort, because he’s a believer and a jerk he’ll just carry on defending his beliefs against what he sees as the enemy until hell freezes over…

I then thought fuck it, I think I prefer to do something else than talk with someone that’s not even listening to a fourth of what I say and is even less interested in it…and I thought I’d prefer to play with my kid…and so ….

 

Holy Canolies! Is this thread still alive? It's been 6 months since I posted in it, you folks haven't ironed out the detail yet?!?!?!

 

They got Lennon, they got Martin Luther,both Kennedys. My point is guns are in the wrong hands and with all this supposed spying on the public at least someone would identify who the jerks are with the toys.In america isn't it also Macho to join a gang and shoot some innocent person to show you are BRAVE?The Latin gangs and the bloods and crips. My co-worker was celebrating his birthday and a stray bullet got him in his house. The solution is....America really needs to get it's ass kicked so it will appreciate peace more.
Make everyone fed up with guns and whatever.

 

What every "gun control" advocate ALWAYS fails to see is that the criminals, the ones who get illegal guns and do illegal things, are NOT GOING TO COMPLY WITH GUN CONTROL LAWS. Therefore, all you have done is made it harder for the law abiding citizens, who use guns as PROTECTION, to defend themselves against the CRIMINALS, who will continue to get their guns illegally and do illegal things.

Secondly, check any reports you want across the globe and see what has happened to crime rates to countries who have implemented gun control laws. If you want I'll save you the time: They go up, and not by small amounts: In Australia domestic robberies went up by 80+%.

Criminals watch television too; as soon as they see that "ooh, people can't shoot me anymore" their illogical rationale for what they do is just exacerbated by the lowered fear of violent repercussions.

Gun control makes the law abiding defenseless.

 

Libertarians advocate the right to carry arms in public, if we are going to protect ourselves lets really do it, and get it over with, because we have a breakdown in society,then lets go.The first couple of weeks all the hotheads will kill each other off after that America will be a VERY polite society. We won't need lawyers for a while.

 

It's already legal to cary a gun on your hip in most states, including mine.

 

(This is written in general, not specific)

It's not about winning or losing.

It's about you having the right to defend yourself with lethal force if your life is in jeopardy.

It's about people needing to stop trying to change everyone else's rights just because they disagree with them.

If you don't like guns, fine, don't get one. If they make you uncomfortable and don't want anyone to have them, tough shit, you're living in a country that has already declared that I can carry one, and I might be civil enough to respect your feelings about them but don't think for a minute that will deprive me of my rights.

To me, it's the same idea as some vegetarian demanding that I only eat fruits and vegetables. First, I laugh, then I recover from laughing so hard, then I say, "Show me the law."

Again, it's not about winning or losing.

It's about people having the right to choose as individuals and stop changing a nation to suit themselves; how egotistical

 

ok where shall i start yeah if someone wants to kill someone then a gun is just one way and you can't ban everything that can kill someone or we wouldnt have anything.
and here in the uk any way all the guns used in these shootings are the illigel one's i dont think we will ever stop people killing people just like littering and polution

 

Personal freedom and ownership of guns, kind of conflict with social stabilty.But noone will ever take guns away from the people even in your wildest fantasies it will not happen.I sincerly think that most of you are not crazy enough to really harm anyone but guns are not toys.

 

Are any of the "pro" gun control types from OUTSIDE the US aware that...


1. MANY US citizens rely on hunted game to provide food for themselves and their families?
2. There are still parts of the US where you need to defend yourself+family from things like bears? (Try living in Alaska w/o a rifle...if you dare.)
3. That a fair bit of the US labor struggle involved workers taking up arms against their opressors? (Henry Clay Frick would, no doubt, have loved gun-control...after all, "when guns are outlawed, only Pinkertons will have guns!")

I happened to motocycle across the US, often camping by myself in remote areas...I carried iron and was damn glad I did, even though I never used it.

(Although, from a purely selfish standopoint, if guns were outlawed, I'd have one, even if I had to machine it myself, so perhaps I'd be even more comfortable with my firepower advantage.)

 

at the end of the day if i want a gun ill use a miiling tool or and a lathe and make my own! the tech is already here, so learn how to keep your emotions in check!! if you cant dont get one!!! and fubar i agree with you!! everybody wants to say its for defence!! if not for guns we never would have this thing we call a country! i just dressed 2 deer in 2 days that where given to me! im enjoying chilli tonight and the outher was stroganogh (or how ever you spell it) these peeps think pumpkin comes from a can!! hehe !! all we can do is remind them that if it wasent for outher peeps doing their work for them????? can you say HUNGRY!!

 

Hi Proud

“pussy-whipped bunny-hugging anti-violence socialist wannabes”

And the opposite would be presumably a wife beater, animal hater, violence promoter or instigator and confirmed reactionary pro-elite right wing conservative?

If I was to choose I know what I’d prefer to be.

But then Proud you know all about making choices because we already know your views on guns you are on record as admitting that if it was a choice between giving up your ownership of a gun and violent horrible murder of a million or more children – you’d choose to have the million children murdered.

I might find that viewpoint a little twisted but it is very clear.

**

K7leetha

It’s clear you haven’t read the threads involved with this issue (or seemingly any other viewpoint that runs counter to your own) because this doesn’t address what has already been said to criticise this viewpoint

First up what gun control measures are you talking about? For example are gun safes, that could very possibly cut down the number of gun being stolen from the law abiding and therefore getting into criminals hands, not worth trying?

As to protection wouldn’t the best protection be not have to (or fear having to) defend yourself in the first place? So what alternative ways have you thought about to tackle crime besides having guns?

Try post 167 and onward at
http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=231812&page=17&pp=10

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Fubar72

1) Are all the estimated 250,000,000+ or so guns in the US held by citizens that rely on hunting to survive? (1a) Are the millions of handguns purely used to hunt for food?

2) Are all the estimated 250,000,000+ or so guns in the US held by people just in wild areas such as Alaska?

3) Covered by the thread – ‘Can guns save you from suppression?’ http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=253937

I hitch hiked around Europe for ten years, often camping by myself in remote areas...I didn’t even think about having a gun let alone thinking I needed one.

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Flmkpr

I grew up in the country, I’ve skinned rabbits, plucked chickens and fowl and in my life I’ve picked most fruit and veg (although not pumpkins) and I’ve worked in a few food processing plants (where food was put in cans).

But I now live in an urban area like most people in the developed countries of the industrial and post-industrial world. (According to the US census some 80.6% of Americans live in urban areas)

So what is your point, maybe that it is good to have a Beretta 9mm handgun ready just in case a deer should pop up in the car park of the local pub or a moose on the dance floor down at the nightclub?

**

Again the same problem – many pro-gunners are not really interested in discussion only with pumping out the same old arguments (that are closer to slogans than argument) without ever addressing the criticisms of those arguments. I often wonder if such people have ever questioned or scrutinized what they say.

 

Pitt

Sorry but you are a jerk and there seems little point in me just saying things that you will ignore, it just gets repetitive and boring.

You’re a pistolhead, that fair enough, but it does mean that you’re not that interested in a debate, honest or otherwise; you just want to push your rather intellectually limited and limiting viewpoint with rather boring shrillness.

I mean you still haven’t addressed issues I bought up from over a year ago and it’s quite clear that you never will.

I’m not saying you are dumb or stupid but you haven’t said anything original or insightful for months and it’s clear you are not using the intelligence you do have to its fullest potential and you woefully underuse your rather stunted analytical abilities.

Cheers and fond regards

Balbus


**

 

Now the reason why I think the US is ‘guncrazy’ is because many of the advocates for guns seem so unmindfully monocratic in there outlook. They don’t seem to look further than the barrel of there guns.

Over a year ago – September 04 2006 – in Post 19 of the ‘Gun ownership is MAD?’ thread
http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2822065&postcount=19

I put forward a theory that hasn’t been refuted but seemingly many times vindicated

What I was suggesting was that the problem was not so much the guns but many Americans attitudes toward guns.

I expanded on this in May of 2007 in the thread ‘Violent Crimes and Solutions for’
http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3438944&postcount=8

To me the problem seemed to be that many Americans seem to see threat and intimidation (of which guns are just a part) as valid means of social control.

This attitude of threat and intimidation has become for many a way of dealing with social, economic or political problems.

(Who is this intimidation been directed at?
http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=231360&page=21&pp=10)

So guns are seen as a way to ‘deal’ with crime or possible government suppression but that attitude can so easily mean that an actually examination of why things might need ‘dealing’ with is forgotten.

To me gun craziness is just a part of a wider cultural craziness that would rather tie itself to the miseries of threat, intimidation and suppression than work toward a better society.



**

 

dam pit you always answer him with mutch more thouht than i can,lol but ya balbus ive hitched this country end to end top to bottom and never carried a gun i sleep with a loaded shotgun next to me in my home, i am 125lbs of pure fury when i need to be but to go whith a man 3 times my size is not an option! i had a few yrs ago 2 chainsaws stolen in 2yrs and where i come from thats a hanging offence! it jepordizes my life! ive had outher things stolen since and i know who did some of that, not once have i pulled a gun, i would prefer to use a louiville slugger! that way we both know i mean it! you gonna propose that we outlaw baseball bats? the reality of it is there are some bad badass folks out there, and every one of them are bigger than me!! when i was 21 some nut case hit me 17 times with a shingeling hatchet cut my girlfreinds little finger off if i had a gun he would have only hit me once!!! and my girlfreind would still have a working pinki,!! do i think every social problem can be solved with violence? absolutly NOT!! you ask all the time what would you do! so i put the same quest in your lap, !!!! peace!!!

 

Flmkpr

Thank you for backing up my theories but I get the feeling you didn’t really read what I’d written anyway.

“They can come to see the world as threatening, they can feel intimidated and fear that they are or could be the victim of suppression.

This attitude can lead to a near paranoidic outlook were everything and everyone is seen a potential threat that is just waiting to attack or repress them. This taints the way they see the government, how criminality can be dealt with, how they see their fellow citizens, differing social classes, differing ethnic groups, and even differing political philosophies or ideas.

Within the framework of such a worldview guns seem attractive as a means of ‘equalising’ the individual against what they perceive as threats, it makes them feel that they are also ‘powerful’ and intimidating and that they too, if needs be, can deal with, in other words suppress the threatening.

The problem is that such attitudes can build up an irrational barrier between reality and myth, between what they see as prudent and sensible and what actually is prudent and sensible”

**

“i sleep with a loaded shotgun next to me in my home”

To you even your home, the place where one should feel safe, is a threatening and threatened place. That level of anxiety is bound to colour how you see the world. (by the way even under the UK’s gun laws you could still own a shot gun)

“i would prefer to use a louiville slugger! that way we both know i mean it! you gonna propose that we outlaw baseball bats”

Which implies that you believe the way to settle disputes is through the threat or use of violence. This is about gaining control through intimidation and suppression, but can you seen beyond that?

“the reality of it is there are some bad badass folks out there, and every one of them are bigger than me!”

And so the gun becomes the ‘equaliser’, in a world where people have knives you seem to ask isn’t it better to have a gun? But what about in a world were people have guns what then, in a dispute do you shot first just in case?

To you guns are a way of dealing with problems but do you think about other ways of dealing with such problems?

**

Now back to the question I asked earlier and you still have not replied to –

“But I now live in an urban area like most people in the developed countries of the industrial and post-industrial world. (According to the US census some 80.6% of Americans live in urban areas)

So what is your point, maybe that it is good to have a Beretta 9mm handgun ready just in case a deer should pop up in the car park of the local pub or a moose on the dance floor down at the nightclub?

**

 

Pitt

What I was suggesting was that the problem was not so much the guns but many Americans attitudes toward guns.

Again while he touches on a good point I still say it’s not the attitude toward guns but rather the attitude toward their fellow man.

This is the problem, you just don’t bother to read things thoroughly or think about them even when they’ve been said to you a hundred or more times, you give a stock smug reply based on your beliefs even when that stock reply has been shown to be wrong or deeply flawed in the past.

We have been through this at length many times Pitt why do you continually just ignore things that don’t fit in with what you think?

The attitude of threat/intimidation/suppression (that involves guns) is an attitude toward others, (to quote just one bit it colours “how they see their fellow citizens”). That’s the point and one made clear over and over and one that you have even agreed to in our past conversations.

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To me the problem seemed to be that many Americans seem to see threat and intimidation (of which guns are just a part) as valid means of social control.

Again a small minority may indeed think this way. He has never explained How you link gun owners to this way of thinking.

But this has come up time and again in conversations here with pro-gunners; I’ve highlighted and quoted many such examples of such thinking, a lot of them from yourself that you don’t dispute.

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So guns are seen as a way to ‘deal’ with crime or possible government suppression but that attitude can so easily mean that an actually examination of why things might need ‘dealing’ with is forgotten.

Once again guns are a way to deal with crime and violence on an individual basis not a whole. Another thing he has yet to disprove.

You’ve said it before and I’ve disproved it before, quite a few times now.

I mean we have been through this at length, your advocacy of guns is based in part on the belief in deterrent – you believe that criminals will fear to act because they would not know who was armed to quote just one of your comments - “The criminal does not know when he will run into an armed individual giving him one more reason to hesitate on the act in the first place”

In other words you see it as a general policy as well as an individual policy.

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To me gun craziness is just a part of a wider cultural craziness that would rather tie itself to the miseries of threat, intimidation and suppression than work toward a better society.

This is coming from a person who makes suggestions such as strict and heavy punishments and jail terms for anyone violating gun laws. Yet when I pointed out that I have suggested the exact same thing he said I was using it as threat and intimidation where he is not.

I call you a jerk and you see it as a personal insult for me it just seems like a statement of fact.

The dictionary definition of a jerk is a foolish person someone that is silly, often in a smug or self-satisfied way.

Someone that wasn’t a jerk wouldn’t have replied to this by repeating a statement that has already been shown not stand up to scrutiny many, many times.

For example in the ‘carrot and stick’ sequence of posts that have popped up intermittingly here for months.

I could go to many places but lets start with post 1140 and follow it for a while.
http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3702940&postcount=1140
http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3705025&postcount=1148
http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3709453&postcount=1158
http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3714724&postcount=1162
http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3719203&postcount=1166
http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3719459&postcount=1171
http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3721198&postcount=1173
http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3723873&postcount=1181
I could go on but I think this gives a flavour.

You’re a jerk because you seem to foolishly thing just repeating something makes that thing true and you do it with an immature and rather silly self-satisfied smugness.

You’re a jerk because you don’t refute counter argument you just ignore them and just repeat statements knowing they have been shown to be incorrect or deeply flawed.

And you are a particularly major jerk because you seem to think that is clever.

**

I hold no animosity toward you my feeling veer more toward amusement and sadness, but you are a complete pistolhead who’s not really interested in debate, let alone honest debate.

Regards

Balbus.


**

 

I fail to see why the Bill of Rights is up for debate. Do you people value freedom and personal property rights? Do you want to be at the mercy of Organized Crime and the Government? Thats what the Left wants whether directly or indirectly, they are pushing for a population of people unable to defend themselves from crime or the Government.

I support the Bill of Rights, every Amendment to it. The Founders of this Nation where more intelligent than someone who buys leftist propaganda about how everything would be good if we gave up our guns.

 

While I don't completly agree with this sentiment, he makes one good point, why is the bill of rights up for debate, these are the rights considered important enough that they actually had to be listed.

 

holy crap balbus he is not talking about “settling disputes” he is talking about protecting himself and loved ones from violent attack. Just another example of your twisting other peoples words.

No, you’re wrong…again

To quote him directly – “ive had outher things stolen since and i know who did some of that, not once have i pulled a gun, i would prefer to use a louiville slugger!”

He has had things stolen, he thinks he knows who it is and his preferred method of dealing with this dispute is to use a baseball bat.

Which implies that he believes the way to settle disputes is through the threat or use of violence. This is about gaining control through intimidation and suppression, and the question is can he seen beyond that?


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So what is your point, maybe that it is good to have a Beretta 9mm handgun ready just in case a deer should pop up in the car park of the local pub or a moose on the dance floor down at the nightclub?

I commented on this but once again it was completely ignored as usual.

Not ignored, it was the same old same old that has been covered numerous times. Once more you present something without reference to (or addressing) the criticisms that such statements have already attracted.

Also it highlights your duplicity.

You claim loudly that you don’t promote gun ownership but you keep presenting such fear mongering scenarios which anyone wanting to promote firearms would present with the intention of frightening people into getting a gun.

Also it once more backs up my theories – society is seen as threatening (your home could be invaded by armed people at any time) and the way to deal with this is to use a gun to gain control through threat/intimidation/suppression.

The question which still remains unanswered is can you look beyond the barrel of the gun and think of other ways to tackle such perceived threat.


**

The attitude of threat/intimidation/suppression (that involves guns) is an attitude toward others, (to quote just one bit it colours “how they see their fellow citizens”).

Owning a gun has nothing whatsoever to do with ones attitude towards others. My guns have no effect on the way I perceive others and does not even come into play in regards to others unless they are attacking me or my family with violence.

We have discussed this at length many times you admit to carrying a gun in an attitude of threat/intimidation/suppression. You still have not addressed this or your alternatives to it.

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But this has come up time and again in conversations here with pro-gunners; I’ve highlighted and quoted many such examples of such thinking, a lot of them from yourself that you don’t dispute.

I can give you thousands of examples of anti-gun rhetoric and tie those into whatever I want. You are reaching and you know this. 99% of gun owners are just regular people who just want to live their lives in peace.

If you actually look at your words you don’t address what’s been said. You don’t seem to be disputing what’s been said, you just don’t like me highlighting how it backs up my theories.

You say that gun owners are just regular people who just want to live their lives in peace. But I’ve heard racists say the same thing. Being ‘regular’ doesn’t mean that people might not hold certain attitudes and views in common.

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I mean we have been through this at length, your advocacy of guns is based in part on the belief in deterrent –

Admitted by the very criminals they are meant to deter

So in fact you are telling me that my assessment is right

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“The criminal does not know when he will run into an armed individual giving him one more reason to hesitate on the act in the first place”

Again admitted by the criminals

And again you’re telling me that my assessment of your views is correct.

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In other words you see it as a general policy as well as an individual policy.

Other words my ass. Has nothing to do with policy it has to do with the fact that criminals would be less afraid to commit crimes if they knew the general public was forcibly disarmed like you want them to be. Again admitted by criminals.

But if you read this you are saying you see gun ownership as a general policy, again you are admitting that my assessment of your views is correct.

This is the problem one moment you say I’m wrong but after examination the next you’re saying I’m right, then later you often come out saying I’m wrong again.

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For example in the ‘carrot and stick’ sequence of posts that have popped up intermittingly here for months.

Which explains nothing to the fact that what you consider “threat and intimidation” is only when others who do not surrender to your beliefs say them. Please continue to spin away.

In other words you still refuse to address the points and issues raised by the ‘carrot and stick’ question.

To recap - mine is a carrot and stick approach

I’ve presented a few ideas that are aimed at making peoples lives more attractive, comfortable and worthwhile, which is the carrot.

I still feel that for the time being, we will need tough laws (the stick) but I hope that in time they would not be so necessary.

The problem is that you talk of getting tough and coming down hard, which is the stick, but you offer no carrot.

Instead of trying to create a happier, healthier society where people’s lives are more attractive, comfortable and worthwhile. You only seem to believe in the use of threat and intimidation with the aim of suppressing or controlling problems.

So Again

What social, economic or even political changes are you offering to alleviate the problems that can be behind the crimes?

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So once again we come back to the same problem – you just repeat the same old stuff which is often little more than a slogan without addressing (or even acknowledging) the criticisms of those statements.

You are not interested in debate let alone honest debate.

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