Political stereotypes you hate

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wow.

ok.

Dox47 was saying that it is a stereotype (not making a general statement). Along the lines of "the only reason one person would buy a gun would be to kill another". Your post is correct so long as you completely ignore the purpose/subject of the thread, "political stereotypes you hate"; that being the context in which the author is placing his words. Nobody's asking you to read between the lines, it's all...well...a little explicit you could say.

Also, the person in his avatar is holding a gun, FFS.

I'm not quite certain of what to make of this post, in some ways it seems to be feeding into the very stereotypes that I'm often found discrediting, but the language is off enough that I'm having a hard time determining intent. Based on prior experience, I suspect that if I really ripped into some of these, it would completely derail the thread, so I'll hold off until clarification is provided.

That person would be me, and at the moment I'm sporting a Walther P22 fitted with a sound suppressor. My avatars are always me, only the gun changes...

Apparently, if one is liberal then they want to take everyone's guns away. I'm liberal but I have no desire to take away people's guns.

The gun people have it pretty right in that it is people who are the dangerous element in weaponry, not the weaponry. Unfortunately they do not follow through in demanding that those entrusted with dangerous weaponry be very, very thoroughly tested and controlled so that they do no damages with the privilege of holding death dealing instruments.

I think that twittering while brandishing a loaded firearm should be a misdemeanor.

ruveyn

"Liberal" is a pretty vague term really, when I use it in an insulting way I'm generally being ironic, I tend to refer to anti-gun people specifically as "morons". What causes even more confusion on this issue is that people like me will fight fiercely against incremental restrictions, viewing them as steps on the path to a total ban or ever more stringent laws, which is probably why people who are moderately anti-gun think that we think they're out to ban all firearms, we react to every step in that direction as if it's a full fledged assault. This is a deliberate strategy, from observing other country's paths to gun bans, we know that they didn't just pop up overnight, they required baby steps at first, so we will fight tooth and nail against things like "assault weapons" bans, mis-characterizing weapons like .50 caliber rifle and handguns, and gun licensing or registration.

Further, many elements of firearms are deeply misunderstood by their detractors, e.g. ballistic "fingerprinting". The markings that a gun leaves on a fired casing and bullet are not unique, and they change over time with normal use of the gun as the parts wear down, or they can be easily changed deliberately or by repair or customizing of the gun. Therefore, ballistics databases are a waste of time and money that don't solve crimes, and the statistics from the states and countries that maintain such databases bear this out. That doesn't stop anti-gun people from demanding ballistic "fingerprinting" of all guns sold, which for me pushes both my firearms advocacy and government wastefulness buttons. But I digress.

I wouldn't characterize it quite like that, it's more that I'm willing to trade some of my security away in the name of liberty, and would happily take responsibility for my own well being and would prefer that others do the same. Misuse of weaponry is going to happen no matter how restrictive the laws, better to allow as much leeway as possible to the law abiding than to punish them for the actions of the relatively few guilty and leave them easy prey for same.

And misuse of automobiles is also a great source of death and misery. But no one objects to standards set and held for people to have a driver's license which are far stricter than gun restrictions. Nobody raises hell because people are tested and regularly retested for the privilege of driving a car or claims that the government is taking away their right to drive.

Ahh, but there aren't any requirements to purchase a car, only if you want to drive it on public roads. Guns are treated similarly, generally you are free to purchase one if you haven't disqualified yourself, but carrying it in public typically requires a license that at the minimum involves submitting to fingerprinting and an extensive background check. I most certainly would not agree that guns are less controlled than cars, every time I purchase one my information is run against a national database and I have to fill out reams of paperwork informing local law enforcement of who I am, where I live, and what I just bought, where as a car can be bought anonymously in 15 minutes using craigslist.

Also, there are not organized anti-car groups who's stated goals are to deprive you of your vehicles, nor are you viciously stereotyped if you have an interest in automobiles, and there are not millions of people spreading disinformation about cars in order to make them seem frightening to the general public. There is not a historical precedent of increasingly stringent car restrictions leading to eventual outright bans, and car registration has not been used as a smokescreen for eventual confiscation, as happened in both the UK and the Philippines with guns, to name but two examples.

Basically, it's an invalid comparison, cars do cause far more misery in developed countries than guns, but they don't cause the same visceral emotional response in their detractors, plus their user base is far more widespread for anyone to seriously oppose them. Again, all reasons why people like me tend to view any restrictions on firearms ownership the way we would an outright ban, because they always lead there in the end.

registration? insurance?

Not required to simply own the car, only if you plan on driving it on public streets.

We're not talking the .1% exception who are rich enough to buy a car, have it towed/trucked to a location of their choice, and stored but never used.

So? You still don't NEED those things to buy a car, and that's the issue under discussion. I doesn't matter that the car is of no practical use to most people if they are not allowed to use it outside of private property, the point is that they are not prevented from buying the car if they don't possess a license, registration, insurance, etc.

Shouldn't we align this discussion to the real world?