This thread was so much fun I hate to see it die....<stirs pot>...so I thought I'd respond to F4's first post in here.
I used the Santa method so I could reclaim the "longest post" trophy.
Hello Boy's
Couldn't resist.
A gun only has one purpose. To kill. This is the simplistic type of logic that you claim to deplore. A gun does not have one purpose. At it’s invention the purpose was clearly to kill. However, like everything else, it evolved. Is trap or skeet shooting with a shotgun killing? Obviously not. They are sports, Olympic medal sports enjoyed by literally millions of people.
It’s easy to come up with buzzwords and catch-phrases. Unfortunately they don’t make a convincing argument by themselves.
A car has only one purpose. To transport.This is true, unless you count the car as a mobile bordello. Unfortunately the car is a much more proficient "killer" than the gun. The facts are that misused cars kill far more people than guns in the United States every single year. This despite registration, licensing, testing, vehicle inspections, more police on traffic duty than violent crime duty, continually improving safety equipment and Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
This gets to the heart of the issue. Too many people expect simply passing a law or confiscating a gun to solve the problem. The problem is one of personal responsibility for one’s actions. Bottom line, we don’t prosecute and KEEP in prison violent criminals. How many violent criminals are repeat offenders? Ask yourself how that happens. Primarily this happens because we never treat the underlying causes of the problem The English, at one time, would HANG you for stealing a loaf of bread. Bread still got stolen; a starving man has no choice. When are we going to address the underlying problems that are the source of so much of this violence?
A knife has many purposes. As do guns, cars, ball bats, croquet sticks, shovels, knitting needles, pots, pans and fingernail clippers. Unfortunately you can be killed with any one of those. Those are inanimate tools; they are inert until a person picks them up and makes the choice to use them for good or evil. Unfortunately, in the US of today personal responsibility and accountability are foreign concepts.
A baseball bat is meant to hit baseballs.
When I drive a car I am volentarally getting into the vehical and assuming the risk of driving or being a passenger.
When my neighbor buy's a gun what am I agreeing too? That my neighbor now has the right to shoot me whenever they please?Obviously, your neighbor does not have that right. This is specious, inflammatory rhetoric that does nothing to bring this issue to a mature discussion.
The odds of your neighbor accidentally shooting you are most likely about equal to him running you over as he backs out of his driveway. You know that to be true, too. An infinitesimally small number of people in possession of a gun use it for unjustified violence. Many who do are repeat criminals, not your average neighbor. However, once again inflammatory rhetoric is used rather than reason. It still doesn’t make a convincing argument.
Could this person try to kill me with a knife? Yes. But I would have the same odds of defending myself against him and surviving weather I am armed or not. The same applies to a baseball bat or crowbar or whatever. Even with a car I can just go inside my house and the threat is over. With a gun my life looses value to some gun nut with a God complex and his "rights". Could a really big strong guy kill you with his hands? Yes. If you were a small person or a woman, you would be in SERIOUS trouble. In fact that’s exactly why guns became popular. Because they significantly increase the chances for a small person to survive an attack by a larger, violent person or group of persons.
Thomas Jefferson said it better than I can:
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
--- Jefferson's "Commonplace Book," 1774-1776, quoting from On Crimes and Punishment, by criminologist Cesare Beccaria, 1764
This was true at the founding and it’s still true. But maybe TJ was "some gun nut with a God complex".
Oh, and by the way. Charlton Heston has just admitted to having an alchohol problem and having spent three weeks in rehabilitation.
Yipee, guns for everyone. I feel safer already. I sure wish he was my neighbor. Teddy Kennedy is a major pro gun control advocate. What does his drinking have to do with his position? I can’t count how many times he’s been dried out. Maybe he drinks to forget drowning Mary Jo when he accidentally drove his car off a bridge. Damn, killed her with a car; I bet her parents are glad it wasn’t a gun! But what does that have to do with his position? His bodyguards are armed; does he deserve that right more than a average citizen? Are you really going to argue that a recovering alcoholic (and they are all always "recovering"...ask one) is in some way incapable of reason or making a valid argument? If so, then after Heston, I suggest we start removing this type from the Congress! Let’s start with Ted!
OK, enough with the sarcasm. You can see that this type of commentary absolutely does not bear on the important issue before the nation. It’s just another example of inflammatory rhetoric that can be used by both sides. It’s pointless and that is my point here. T
Ripsnort,
If people would do as you say and use their fist then you would see much less violence in the world. But cowardness is the rule in this country and a gun is an easy way to win an arguement when you know you can't win the fight. Deadly weapons? Hardly ever. More people get killed in their bathtubs every year than do in fist fights. I know, why don't we outlaw bathtubs? You gun folk are predictable. Gun folk are no more or less predictable than anti-gun folk. In a nation that has had a "war on drugs" for the last 35 years or so, do you see any indication that illegal drugs are in short supply? In a nation that totally banned alcohol during Prohibition, was there any real shortage? Prostitution has been illegal everywhere almost forever. See any shortage of hookers? Pick whatever illegal activity you wish and you can find it almost anywhere.
The case can probably be made and proved that prohibition of anything leads to a rise in that illegal activity. After all, it’s this same group…CRIMINALS…that cause the present gun problem.
Yet you would have us believe that if all of us law-abiding citizens gave up our guns, everything would work out perfectly. No criminal would smuggle in AK-47’s from China or the Soviet Union. No criminal would toss a bale of handguns in with the next shipment of coke. No "coyote" leading illegal immigrants across the border would make them carry some contraband firearms for him for a little extra profit.
After all, in the entire history of the US, law enforcement has been totally successful in enforcing the laws against prohibited behaviors.
Puh-leez. Do you really expect people to believe that?
It’s exactly as Jefferson said:… "Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides…"
.....ah, I feel better now! Let's argue some more.
I like this way better than the gun/HO/FM whines. ;D
