Guns in our society.

[Senoska]

Humanity is still in the throes of a fetish for opiates, worldwide, for centuries now. Not going away any time soon.

Opiates are addicting, guns are not.

Try again.

[guartz]

Opiates are addicting, guns are not.

Try again.

One could argue that guns feed the addiction for power.

[kuronosan]

1) If you didn't choose to buy an iPod and live with these 'hoodrats', then you wouldn't be in that position. We can bounce the 'choosing' vs 'forced' argument until we are blue in the face.

This is absolutely fucking retarded logic. People choose to rob each other because they're fucking greedy and desperate. Having a gun just makes it easier because why get your ass kicked when you can just shoot someone and run away? Fucking retarded. Like anyone chooses to be robbed, you idiot.

2) You're playing the totally unrealistic card here. Mocking the argument is null.

Says the guy who thinks being robbed is the fault of the victim for having something worth stealing.

3) You're right, I didn't. I made more than one analogy. in an debate, you have to compare and contrast one subject to another with the same underlying issue, and this case I'd think it would be safe to assume causes of preventable fatalities was the issue. Gun - Bad - Death - Hoodrat were the four choices you but up for debate on the issue. So you have to compare guns with other things. We'll save how to debate 101 for another day.

In a real argument, you forget your bullshit debating tactics of trying to find fallacies in your opponent's argument and use common-fucking-sense. You can't compare guns to anything but guns, just like you can't compare war to anything but war or racism to anything but racism. You can draw analogies all you want but comparing fast food to guns is the utmost line of retardation.

4) Really? Where is your proof for this, any statistical data? If i was pissed off someone flipped me off while I was driving I could try to ram them off the road into oncoming traffic easier than I could stab them or beat them to death ... so you better take away my car in case I'm an irrational person.

People actually try to ram other people off the road out of road rage. You shouldn't ban cars, but you should make it more difficult for idiotic fucking people to get a driver's license. Force them to ride a bike or walk to work. Assholes have no place on the road, just like assholes have no place owning guns.

5) You talk like you live in Harlem in one paragraph, then in another you act like you're from the backwoods of Alabama where everyone has a gun rack, and .22's are issued with birth certificates. Take guns away from people, they'll evolve and find different methods for killing people. That's the thing about the human race -- adaptation is a bitch.

Are you fucking idiotic or what? Take a look at the following statement. Make a man walk to work. He has to exert a lot of time and effort to do it, so he lives close by so that the walk is minimal. Give him a bike, suddenly he gets to work quicker and can work further away than before. Put a car in front of him and give him a license. Now he can commute out of town because he doesn't have to walk or ride, he can get there in no time.

Now say the same thing about killing someone. It takes a lot of effort to kick someone's ass, especially if you're a pussy (like most gun owners are). Give the guy a knife, and he can easily dispatch somebody, although with a little effort, and not as easily because the victim can still defend themselves and fight back. Now give him a gun, and watch that fear of getting your ass kicked melt away. Why worry about the consequences if you can just pull the trigger and not have to worry about anything happening to you?

Do you see where I'm going with this? Your fucking retarded logic seems to assert that guns are not the reason people are violent. People are inherently violent, just like people (re: most americans) are inherently lazy and pussified. Give them the means to act out their anger and they will. Do you think there would be terrorist attacks and fatal school shootings if there were no guns?

When was the last time you heard of a couple of guys going around a school and fatally beating everyone up with their bare hands? You don't, because they're pussies and would never get past two people before someone beat the shit out of them.

People are not the problem. Guns are.

6) Being at the wrong place at the wrong time happens alot more than stray bullets. I do not believe in more guns = more safe, but I believe in my freedoms. Once again, if you're an unreasonable/unstable person, you're gonna do unreasonable/unstable things regardless if you have a gun or not.

Imagine having the freedom to own a gun and then having one held to your head by a guy who wants your ipod. You freely submit it to him but he shoots you anyway. As you lie there bleeding and dying, do you really think the guy who shot you gave a fuck about your freedom? Do you really believe you will be thinking "wow at least we have the right to bear arms"?

Get the fuck out of here. You're more likely to commit a homicide with a gun than you are with anything else simply because it's quick and easy.

Again, another unreasonable statement from an unreasonable person. Please bring more to the table than silly comments, verbal assaults on other people whom don't agree with you, and the weak and contrary statement of owning guns because you can, but you'd give them up if they were made illegal.

How about you bring more to the table than your weak-ass "I was captain of the debate team" logic and use some fucking common sense? Senoska's point isn't as transparent as you like to paint. Unreasonable. If I could own a gun I would too, and I would also gladly give them up if they were made illegal. Why would I do that? Because I think peace is a better solution than war. That doesn't mean I'm stupid enough not to take advantage of a chance to defend myself from people who don't fucking care.

God damn right I'd own a gun if I could afford one. The only reason for that is because other fuckers who don't give as much of a shit about life as I do own one too.

Use your fucking brain.

[aru]

People are not the problem. Guns are.

I'll have what you're smoking.

[Melchiah]

People are not the problem. Guns are.

You just lost all shred of credibility in this discussion. No one anywhere close to the line on this issue is going to take you seriously now. Enjoy preaching that bullshit rhetoric to the other fringe liberals, because that's your audience now.

[Eratosthenes]

If I could own a gun I would too, and I would also gladly give them up if they were made illegal. Why would I do that? Because I think peace is a better solution than war. That doesn't mean I'm stupid enough not to take advantage of a chance to defend myself from people who don't fucking care.

Epic self-pwnage.

The people who don't fucking care are still gonna attack you after you've gladly given up your chance to defend yourself.

The bottom line is that people have the right to defend themselves. Do you really think someone would ask you to waive that right "for your own protection"?

That said, I do support tougher restrictions for the sale of firearms, like no more garage-sale style transactions.

[Melchiah]

Epic self-pwnage.

The people who don't fucking care are still gonna attack you after you've gladly given up your chance to defend yourself.

The bottom line is that people have the right to defend themselves. Do you really think someone would ask you to waive that right "for your own protection"?

That said, I do support tougher restrictions for the sale of firearms, like no more garage-sale style transactions.

This, a thousand times.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

Epic self-pwnage.

The people who don't fucking care are still gonna attack you after you've gladly given up your chance to defend yourself.

The bottom line is that people have the right to defend themselves. Do you really think someone would ask you to waive that right "for your own protection"?

That said, I do support tougher restrictions for the sale of firearms, like no more garage-sale style transactions.

Actually, they won't. This has been proven by countries with national firearm bans. Your paranoia does not a fact make.

You just lost all shred of credibility in this discussion. No one anywhere close to the line on this issue is going to take you seriously now. Enjoy preaching that bullshit rhetoric to the other fringe liberals, because that's your audience now.

And when some dipshit NRA member says we should ban hamburgers because of heart attacks they haven't lost all credibility. Because at that point they're just preaching that bullshit rhetoric to the other fringe conservatives, because that's their only audience at that point.

A gun is a tool.

tool   [tool]
–noun
1. an implement, esp. one held in the hand, as a hammer, saw, or file, for performing or facilitating mechanical operations.
2. any instrument of manual operation.

Last time I checked to operate a firearm an person was needed. If you take away the gun and leave the person, the capability of mass murders we've seen goes away. This is logical solvency. You can't escape it. You're just looking at this through a different lens and refuse to see the truth in it.


If it really came down to it, and there was a pro-gun uprising, I think America as a whole would be a better place to see pro-gun, anti-democracy, theocratic fascist conservatives die to precision military counter-insurgency tactics.

Then the history books would reveal the pathetic concept that having a pistol or even an assault rifle to defend your perception of freedom against a multi-billion dollar military and intelligence infrastructure was laughable at its most dreadfully polite retelling.

Any statistic you guys throw out can be rebutted as it usually comes from a biased source that left out information, as our side throws out hard facts and proof that it has worked in other countries or statistics that cannot be rebutted and we get the same dumb shit retorts that are entirely irrelevant in any context outside of internet ego and penis envy ( bad analogies, amerikkka durrrr, etc ).


Life would be a lot easier if you guys stopped with the bullshit replies and were honest enough to just say "Listen I want my fucking way. I don't care if people die, I have my own selfish reasons for wanting this."

It sounds tons better than these bullshit zombie apocalypse-escape from new york-demolition man scenarios where once guns are gone from American citizens hands the world turns to shit. Which by the way you have no proof backing that claim, where as gun control people have claims showing this actually does work.

[Nystul]

Did anyone see 20/20 last night? Find it on the web. "If I had a gun" I think was the title. It made me think of this thread- especially those of you that argue that handguns are good for self defense.


I think many of you are young and impressionable. I think none of you have ever been in a situation where you had a gun and were forced into returning fire. They made the claim that media- TV, movies, games, etc provide an unrealistic expectation in terms of firearms and their use. I think most people here would say with confidence that they could, even if they didn't have any training, draw a weapon and hit a target 10 feet away under stress. Whats 10 feet right? The fact of the matter is that unless you train hours. HOURS and hours and hours, you won't.

They did this little experiment. They took 6 college kids of varying experience (from none to 100+ hours) with guns and told them they were to take a gun safety class. They trained them using a real glock handgun using plastic/paint rounds. Then one at a time they gave them a gun to conceal, told them they were the only person that had one and to hold on to it for an exercise to happen much later in the day. For now they were going to a class on safety equipment (face shield/gloves etc). THe room is filled with cops/employees of the show (student does not know). As soon as they learn how to put on all their gear someone kicks open the door and starts shooting.

Of the 6, 5 attempted to draw (1 who did not had the second most experience with handguns, he just froze).

Of the 5, 3 actually got their guns out (2 who did not either had it get stuck in their shirts. One had the most handgun experience the other owned an airsoft pistol).

Of the 3 who got their guns out:

1 ended up shooting the wrong person
1 managed a few shots and hit the shooter in the thigh, though she herself took 2 to the head.
1 returned fire with 5 shots, hitting the floor twice, the blackboard twice, and the shooter barely on the shoulder (would have been a grazing wound at best). She herself took 5 rounds to the chest. She also nearly hit a "fellow student" fleeing past her. This student had some fire arm experience and was a martial arts blackbelt. In the shooting range training sessions she was the most accurate shooter.

There is no guarantee you'll react in time (you may freeze), you don't have the muscle memory and hours of training to draw quickly and aim accurately, and you will have difficulty hitting your target if you even get that far. And what every student who did attempt to draw their weapon DID do was stand up and be the only- the ONLY person in the room upright and staring making themselves a huge easy target. All of them would have been much better off just running.

They also showed surveillance clips of a robbery of a convenience store where the owner and robber exchange 14 rounds at a distance of maybe 6 feet and NO ONE IS HIT.

I think many of you VASTLY overestimate the effectiveness of a handgun as a weapon of self defense in the hands of someone who has no training, moderate training, or even significant training. It's easy to think of yourself as Rambo but you're not.

[Souj]

you know, if guns never existed, we'd still be having these same kind of arguments, except with different weapons. the human race is a big heaping pile of "kill this guy for X reason" and no guns wouldnt stop that. they just make things easier.

[Plow]

you know, if guns never existed, we'd still be having these same kind of arguments, except with different weapons. the human race is a big heaping pile of "kill this guy for X reason" and no guns wouldnt stop that. they just make things easier.

Unfortunately people don't seem to realize that making killing people easier is kind of a big deal.

People also don't seem to understand that nobody in the world is trying to argue that stricter gun laws will eliminate violent crime, all we're trying to do is reduce it.

[kuronosan]

Epic self-pwnage.

The people who don't fucking care are still gonna attack you after you've gladly given up your chance to defend yourself.

The bottom line is that people have the right to defend themselves. Do you really think someone would ask you to waive that right "for your own protection"?

That said, I do support tougher restrictions for the sale of firearms, like no more garage-sale style transactions.

What are you, narrow-minded? You call that epic self-ownage just because my statements seem to contradict each other?

Read what I said. I would gladly give them up if they were made illegal. Of course I fucking realize that people who don't care are going to attack me. I don't own a gun now, so they would attack me regardless.

The bottom line is that people do have a right to defend themselves. People can get guns illegally already (and most of the guns out there were obtained just like that) and I'm not naive enough to believe that banning guns will magically make shooting go away.

We need tougher restrictions, period. The point of my post is that I support whatever law brings about the most peace. It does NOT mean I'm stupid enough to believe that people are going to magically get along if you take away their guns.

Jesus H. Christ.

You just lost all shred of credibility in this discussion. No one anywhere close to the line on this issue is going to take you seriously now. Enjoy preaching that bullshit rhetoric to the other fringe liberals, because that's your audience now.

Quit taking my statements out of context and examine what I said as a whole.

People, by nature, are already violent and will kill whether guns are around or not. Guns are a tool that make killing easier. Therefore, people are inherently not the problem when it comes to gun violence. Guns are the problem, because they make killing much more accessible and easy for irresponsible and irrational people that choose to wield them. If guns were not around, sure, people would find other means to kill somebody (like knives or swords, what have you). However, in our world, and not Disneyland, GUNS exist. Therefore, GUNS are the issue. You can't attack my credibility by taking one fucking sentence and acting as if that single sentence is a collective thought. That isn't what an argument is.

As if I give a shit whether people take me seriously or not. I know what I meant to say.

[aru]

Nystul, I think you are being insulting by calling pro-gun people young and impressionable. It also seems strange to me for you to say that after not realizing how completely biased and one-sided that 20/20 episode was. THEY PUT FUCKING REVOLVERS IN TODDLERS' TOY CHESTS AND WERE SHOCKED THAT THEY PLAYED WITH THEM. How could you take the rest of that episode seriously after that? Giving 6 kids guns in a school shooting scenario when they all have under 100 hrs of training doesn't prove shit. Just taking a basic pistol safety course is 10 hours long. What do you think would have happened if all the students in that classroom were carrying instead of just one? Even just more than one student? This question wasn't even considered. I wonder how well a room full of trained soldiers and police officers would have faired so we could have compaired the results. Then they had a clip of some asshole giving what seemed like made up statistics of your percentage of survival if you shot at an attacker. Apparently if you can't defend yourself 100% of the time it isn't worth trying. So if that guy was on fire and you had a fire extinguisher he would tell you not to use it because there is a chance that the extinguisher might fail.

That 10 year old reporter kid was pretty awesome, though.

If you take away the gun and leave the person, the capability of mass murders we've seen goes away.

Wrong.

[Rhinox]

you know, if guns never existed, we'd still be having these same kind of arguments, except with different weapons. the human race is a big heaping pile of "kill this guy for X reason" and no guns wouldnt stop that. they just make things easier.

Except you know, we probably wouldn't. I'd be much happier with drive by crossbowing then shooting. Fuck I'd even support your right to conceal carry a crossbow!

[Melchiah]

If you take away the gun and leave the person, the capability of mass murders we've seen goes away.

Respectfully, I disagree. I've already referenced Harris/Klebold who used a combination of explosives and firearms, and Timothy McVeigh.

A person who loses it to the point of developing a desire to commit as large a number of public killings as possible is going to find a way to do it. Your argument might have been valid before guns and explosives came on the scene, when everyone settled disagreements with blades. But at this point in our history, knowledge is so widespread that you can't un-invent these things.

It's not logistically possible to round up and confiscate all the weapons in this country. Ask Canada, they spent millions just trying to get them all registered, and they are still spending flushing that money down the tube. How much more expensive do you think it would be to implement an agency to actually go around and round up every firearm in America? It's just not feasible, and at this point I'm sick of hearing about it.

As for the example given by 20/20, that was skewed journalism at it's finest. First off, I'm willing to bet the end of my dick that the guy who busted in and started shooting was a person highly trained in infiltration and how to clear a room. For fuck's sake man, that's like men against boys and it was set up that way to skew the report. Navy Seals and Green Berets are not the people you find on the news blowing people away in a diner. I call bullshit on 20/20 for that pile. No reasonable person would ever think that carrying a weapon with such a lack of training as those individuals in that report had even comes close to qualifying as responsible gun ownership.

You want an example of responsible gun ownership? I personally spend every fair-weathered Sunday out at the range with my dad putting hours in on different weapons. I have carried my weapon a grand total of 5 times since I've owned it, and those times were at a point where I had to go to a place at night as part of my job that I just didn't feel safe. Even with all the hours I've put in, I never feel comfortable carrying a weapon, because I know exactly what that weapon is capable of given the slightest misstep. These things as a whole make me a responsible gun owner, and no one has the right to take my right to defend myself from another human being away from me.

[Eratosthenes]

Guns make crime easy is a bullshit argument. Take guns away, and this argument will apply to the next thing, so where do you stop?

Nobody in prison is allowed to have any sort of weapon. Yet even with all the security, prisoners still make, carry, and use shivs.

They do it because it lets them overpower the prisoners who don't. All a criminal cares about is being better armed than the victim.

[Vekta]

Regardless of what you do/ban/restrict people will always get if they want it bad enough. These people are usually the ones who dont care about breaking the law in the first place.

Ban Guns all that happens if only the crooks and criminals have them. the lesser crooks will move onto knives and heavy objects.

If they want to kill someone bad enough weather they have guns or not they will do so. There just wont be the off chance that a armed civilian will stop them.

No matter what you do violence will never ever go away

[Snprphnx]

there is a big difference between banning guns, and restricting their sales. Banning guns altogether is a horrible idea , Australia has proven that. Their government banned and destroyed over 650,000 firearms in the late 1990s, including handguns, .22cal rifles, and shotguns. The Prime Minister at the time said "personal defense" was NOT a reason to own a firearm. Here are the numbers one year after the guns were LM-17'd...

# Countrywide, homicides are up 3.2 percent;
# Assaults are up 8.6 percent;
# Amazingly, armed robberies have climbed nearly 45 percent;
# In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent;

this information is posted on several sites, from the NRA site to Australian news sites. Taking guns from law abiding citizens does one thing, emboldens criminals, due to a reduced fear that their next victim is protected.

As for the example given by 20/20, that was skewed journalism at it's finest. First off, I'm willing to bet the end of my dick that the guy who busted in and started shooting was a person highly trained in infiltration and how to clear a room. For fuck's sake man, that's like men against boys and it was set up that way to skew the report. Navy Seals and Green Berets are not the people you find on the news blowing people away in a diner. I call bullshit on 20/20 for that pile. No reasonable person would ever think that carrying a weapon with such a lack of training as those individuals in that report had even comes close to qualifying as responsible gun ownership.

seriously? you really think that you need to be a green beret, navy seal, or swat member to kill people? April 17, 2007 at VA Tech ring a bell? You know, where a 23 year old exchange student took 2, just 2 pistols, and killed 32 and injured another 25. These were guns he had bought in the 2 months prior to the shooting, the second just 9 days before. He was not trained in clearing a room, or special tactics. He was a kid who was fucked up in the head, and took it out on the world.

Nystuls post about the 20/20 story proves that it doesnt matter how trained you are, you never know how you will react when your adrenalin spikes and your life is in danger. Even cops freeze in situations.

The skill of the person doesn't matter when it comes to criminal finding a victim. If they think the person has no defense, they will go for them. Think about it. If russia had invented the nuclear bomb instead of the US, and the US had not been able to develop it, do you really think we would be here? Russia would have either taken us over or bombed the fuck outta us, because we couldn't fire back.

[Rammses]

there is a big difference between banning guns, and restricting their sales. Banning guns altogether is a horrible idea , Australia has proven that. Their government banned and destroyed over 650,000 firearms in the late 1990s, including handguns, .22cal rifles, and shotguns. The Prime Minister at the time said "personal defense" was NOT a reason to own a firearm. Here are the numbers one year after the guns were LM-17'd...

# Countrywide, homicides are up 3.2 percent;
# Assaults are up 8.6 percent;
# Amazingly, armed robberies have climbed nearly 45 percent;
# In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent;

So what were the statistics 10 years after? 20 years after? 50 years after? 100 years after?

If russia had invented the nuclear bomb instead of the US, and the US had not been able to develop it, do you really think we would be here? Russia would have either taken us over or bombed the fuck outta us, because we couldn't fire back.

THOSE DAMN COMMUNISTS

[guartz]

So what were the statistics 10 years after? 20 years after? 50 years after? 100 years after?

Speaking of communists, guns were illegal in Russia for almost 100 years now. I remember reading Pravda that guns would simply go missing from factories even with troops stationed there just to prevent that sort of thing.

It gotten to so bad around early 1990s that criminals had more and better guns then cops.

That's because instead of guns fading away because of their illegal status, the high profitability drove a huge black market. Making criminals very wealthy. It wasn't Russia's only flaw that lead to such a high crime rate, but things added up and corruption was huge. Cops were bribed, judges were bribed, government owned weapon factories were owned by criminals etc. Law enforcement became a joke in that country. This is a reason why ak47s are so common around the world.

As it stands now, it's easier, cheaper and safer to actually buy a gun off the street then actually seek a permit for one. Unless you have connections and know whom to grease.