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EvC Forum Side Orders Coffee House Gun Control

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Author Topic:   Gun Control
1.61803
Member (Idle past 1504 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


(5)
Message 301 of 310 (669754)
08-02-2012 11:02 AM


My 2 cents.
Well my final take on the topic is that there are those who feel firearm proliferation is linked to violent crime. Either through the ease of killing with such weapons or the general availability of them.
Then there are those who feel the right to keep and bare arms is of more importance than the possible reduction of firearms for the sake of hopefully reducing violent crime and accidents. This is a common deep seated American view.
Then yet another camp who takes a pragmatic view that anything that is a cause of grief in a society should be done away with.
So whats the answer? Well I really believe you can not un-invent the wheel so to speak. Pandoras box has been opened. Guns in America are prolific and available to most anyone who wishes to obtain one. I am a gun owner. Am I part of the problem? Perhaps, since the fact that I possess fire arms that could be used to do bad things is always a possibility. But it has been my experience that many gun owners own them for a myriad of reasons. To some they are objects of art, to collect. To others they are objects to customize and tinker with. Some folks like to go out and shoot them for fun. Some folks have a Freudian complex and have guns to compensate for a tiny pecker. On and on the reasons for gun ownership is as varied as the types of guns themselves.
I find guns amazing things, but I know they are a scourge of mankind as well. As long as people are irresponsible, criminal, violent there will be gun related deaths. And every gun owner must come to terms with his desire to own one knowing the horror this invention has brought upon our species. Stan Lee's quote comes to mind,
"With great power comes great responsibility."

"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


(5)
Message 302 of 310 (669755)
08-02-2012 11:12 AM


My Summary -- Expectations, Fantasy and Reality
It's not really about gun control, but gun responsibility: I have no difficulty with people behaving responsibly, whether that is with a car a gun or a piece of paper.
The problem is when people behave irresponsibly, whether that is with a car a gun or a piece of paper.
Many people on the gun liberty side of the debate have unreasonable -- inmhysao -- expectations of what that really allows.
It is an unreasonable expectation that a person or even a small group of people could take on a fraction of the US Military and be successful in any real way. One need only look at history to see this.
Part of this is because as soon as you start, media etc will brand you as a nut or terrorist type group (White Supremacist, Branch Dravidian, John Brown, etc etc etc) and general public opinion will turn against you.
If you want to protect democracy and the American way you can (A) join the National Guard and (B) become involved in civic and public affairs -- you can protest what you feel are unjust actions by government and vote to change them. There is a place for military in government, to protect the nation against unreasonable attacks, but we do not need to be the biggest bully on the block, spending more than all other nations combined on the ability to kill people -- this is the US being unreasonable. We need to scale back on this for so many reasons.
Violent protest accomplishes violence and bloodshed and does not in any way provide an avenue for a peaceful outcome that is necessarily better than before. Look at Syria -- who will end up there? Al Queda?. Guns and weapons do not ensure that the concepts behind the protest\insurgency\whatever are valid or desirable, just that they may (temporarily) be held in place by more violence.
Peaceful protest can change governments by slower evolutionary steps that do lead to peaceful desirable outcomes. Look at civil rights here, Egypt, India, and many many more examples.
The soviet union did not fall by violent means. The wall in Berlin was not torn down by war. Yes there are still political problems there, but they are better than before, and there is still possible further developments that build on the existing structures.
Information and knowledge are much more powerful than guns/weapons in the long run.
One last point I would make is that anyone who thinks that having weapons improves their argument are more like to have and use weapons in a dispute. Curiously forcing your opinion on someone else does not make it any more valid.
Enjoy.
Edited by RAZD, : end

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


(4)
Message 303 of 310 (669756)
08-02-2012 11:32 AM


It's about responsibility
As I posted back in Message 108, the problem is not the guns but the current US society.
It is not so much about guns as it is about US society and culture IMHO. As I mentioned over in Message 164 of the Colorado thread, when I was growing up guns were near ubiquitous and not just out in the boonies. Just about every family I knew had a gun rack in the den or shotgun by the door, kids often went out hunting often alone or in pairs, seeing a '94 or Marlin in the gun rack of a pickup sitting with doors unlocked and windows open was far more common than seeing a pickup without one, seeing someone wearing a holster and a S&W 1917 or even a Colt slabside wouldn't even rate notice. But there weren't that many shootings and if you touched someones gun without permission you should expect a slap alongside the head from the nearest adult, related or unrelated.
In the US there seems to be a mantra of personal freedom, but not even any discussion about the personal responsibilities that should accompany those freedoms.
Until we return to instilling a culture of personal responsibility (whether it involves guns, drugs or the most deadly of all, driving) the US will remain a dangerous and deadly place.
Edited by jar, : appalin grammer

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

  
Artemis Entreri 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4229 days)
Posts: 1194
From: Northern Virginia
Joined: 07-08-2008


Message 304 of 310 (669757)
08-02-2012 11:41 AM


Is this really in summation?
The reason I ask is because I left a summation post, and according to the rules one is not allowed to reply to a post, yet 4 people replied to my summation post.
can I reply to them?
what is going on here? are some posters just exempt from the guidelines and rules (I'm still trying to figure this place out)?

Replies to this message:
 Message 309 by Adminnemooseus, posted 08-07-2012 8:14 PM Artemis Entreri has not replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


(3)
Message 305 of 310 (669758)
08-02-2012 12:08 PM


There are no easy answers
You reap what you sow. If there are guns around, there's likely to be gun-related violence. But does that mean "more" violence in general? Do guns produce violence or do they just make it easier?
Prohibition doesn't work. If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns (but that will make it easier to spot the outlaws).
If you want to live in a gun-obsessed society, that's your choice. If you want to uphold an antiquated Constitution, that's your choice. If you want to take up arms against tyranny, that's your choice too - but civilian-owned weapons have little chance against a modern army.
If some maniac decides to shoot me, whether or not I have a gun is unlikely to make any difference. As for me and my house, we will go unarmed into the great unknown.

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 306 of 310 (669759)
08-02-2012 12:16 PM


I'd like to see this same debate occur in a situatioon where the evidence supported argument requirement was as strict as that used in the science forum, but I don't think EvC forum is a place for that discussion.
In particular, I see lots of assertions about why we have a second amendment, but not one of them, by people on either side of the debate, is historically correct. Unfortunately, that's quite typical of gun control/freedom debates.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(2)
Message 307 of 310 (669772)
08-02-2012 2:43 PM


Out of my cold, dead hands
We know some things for sure:
1. There is a direct relationship between gun related deaths (murder, accident and suicide) and the number of guns in society.
2. The USA has a much higher death rate by guns than the average across all developed countries.
3. Guns are capable of killing more people, more quickly than other methods available to ordinary citizens.
4. Mass murder by shooting is a recurrent problem in several societies.
5. It's inarguable that reducing the number of guns in a population would reduce the number of deaths by guns.
6. It's counter-intuitive that reducing the number of guns in society would not also reduce the overall number of violent deaths and where it has been done with real intent (such as Australia after their mass murder) it has had very positive results.
The arguments for not reducing the number of guns in any modern democratic, society are strange and unique to the USA. They're a puzzle to other developed countries being a result of their frontier psyche, relatively recent revolutionary history and more than usually violent culture.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


(1)
Message 308 of 310 (669783)
08-02-2012 5:58 PM


Do guns cause murders? Does ownership harm public safety, and if so, does that justify forcible disarmament of the populace? Given the capacity of printing presses to facilitate libel (or is it slander?) or foment discord should ownership of such presses be restricted?
I don't know that there's any easy answer to these questions. I don't know whether the Second Amendment protects an individual or collective right to guns, as it's been interpreted in both ways. But I do know that however you interpret the Second Amendment, whatever your position on it, you can't ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist, or pretend that it's not a major obstacle to enacting the kind of gun control that may have worked in other countries.

  
Adminnemooseus
Administrator
Posts: 3974
Joined: 09-26-2002


Message 309 of 310 (669993)
08-07-2012 8:14 PM
Reply to: Message 304 by Artemis Entreri
08-02-2012 11:41 AM


Re: Is this really in summation?
Summation mode for this topic started at 300 messages. Your summation message was apparently during the "summation mode is coming soon" period.
You've now made your message during the summation mode period, and should not be able to post any more messages in this topic.
And apparently admins still get to reply to specific messages during summation mode time. Admins can also post multiple message during summation mode time.
Adminnemooseus
Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Add middle paragraph.
Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Typo, or something like that.

Or something like that.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 304 by Artemis Entreri, posted 08-02-2012 11:41 AM Artemis Entreri has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(2)
Message 310 of 310 (669994)
08-07-2012 8:58 PM


Summation
I haven't been reading this thread for the past few days, but I assume that what has happened is that after much thoughtful debate all the participants have arrived at a well-reasoned consensus, since this is what invariably happens when people talk about guns on the internet. I don't know of any topic that generates so much unanimity, except perhaps the question of whether the Israelis are more to blame than the Palestinians or vice versa. Maybe we could tackle that one next.

  
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