What views are you on?

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I will try to input another couple.

Health care: I feel that people should have access to first aid, preventive care, healing, disability support - utilizing a range of modalities. Health insurance / HMOs are far from the best way to provide these things. Government run health - let's just say I have seen it in the UK and Canada. I feel the Government needs to get healthy itself.

Official US language. Who can answer that? Official lingo for education [at what level?] ? Official lingo for congressional debate? For government documents? For street signs? One language penalizes high percentage minorities. Bilingualism / multilingualism complicates the publishing trade and government docs, adds to misunderstanding - the docs in the two languages never REALLY say the same thing and trials and debates can get snarled, and STILL disadvantages the minorities that do not make the cut. Letting pols speak to congress in ANY language whatever without a standard - there just are not enough UN interpreters.

Not really. I asked for a reason why people need assault weapons. It is quite simple.
They're military weapons, designed for militaries, for military operations.


As I said, I don't really care much about guns. This isn't a thread for debating the topic (a topic I find largely uninteresting), my opinion is military hardware shouldn't be in the hands of civilians, especially most of the civilians who desire assault weapons. I wonder what the demographics of 'who wants assault weapons' are. I have my suspicions.

The less government the better.

ruveyn

Abortion?

Censorship?

Death penalty?
Early stage only. (1st trimester)

Guns?
Pistols only. If a reliable alternative exists, use that instead.

Health care?
Probably private, but I'm not well versed in economics.

Official US language?
Shouting Loudly, with an M-16 pointed at me ?

War on Terror?
A bogus, pointless war. the USA is the aggressor.

Taxes?
I'm not well versed in economics, but I find taxes immoral (due to the involuntary nature). My answer is contingent on where I am a moral absolutist or pragmatist, and I'm not sure.

LGBT rights?
Sure, all the rights anyone else has. Rights for everyone!

Secular government?
Absolutely.

I support publically funded abortion on demand, support the free access of contraceptives, and support reforms that would streamline the adoption process.



Oppose it in all its forms except for cases of an invasion of privacy (people shouldn't be able to publish stolen credit card numbers, etc) and perhaps in severe cases of libel. Oppose hate speech laws but do support the act of the government censuring (rather than censoring) ignorant bigots. Money, however, does not equal "free speech" and restricting financial contributions is not censorship.



Oppose it across the board.



Don't really know or care too much about that issue.



I support publically funded single-payer healthcare administered by decentralized Regional Health Authorities. I oppose an up front premimum system.



Stupid bumber sticker slogan.

Anti-terrorism should largely be the domain of law enforcement rather than military.



Support a comprehensively progressive taxation system in income. Support 7% consumption tax and a carbon tax with the cavet that rebates are given to those making median income or less (the less the person makes, the higher the rebate will be) to offset any regressive features of these taxes. Support a concerted international effort to crackdown on corporate tax havens and fraud.



Support a broad swath of LGBT rights, including freedom from workplace discrimination, freedom of same-sex couples to adopt, freedom to marry and divorce.



Support ammendments to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to remove "God" from the Preamble as well as removing it from the National Anthem. Also support putting "Canada is founded upon the principles of good, secular government..." somewhere in the Constitution. Support abolishing the Monarch of Canada (who, ex officio is also the Monarch of the UK and hence Supreme Governor of the Church of England) and turning Canadian into a secular federal parliamentary democratic commonwealth republic. Also support ending funding for denominational schools.

AoS provided a litany of stats on "assault" weapons and their (non)-use in crime, you're not providing anything other than a vague definition and a jab at who you think might want to own such things. Sure, it's not the point of this thread or anything and just your opinion, but I'm curious as to why someone would hold your particular opinion and continue to defend it when presented with contrary evidence. Basically, can you intellectually justify your opinion or is it just some sort of gut feeling thing?

To address your specific point; what does military origin have to do with anything? My bolt action rifle, my semiautomatic rifle, and several of my handguns were originally designed for the military or based on such designs, while many of my guns were designed purely for civilian use; does that make them any more or less dangerous? The Beretta carried by US forces was originally a civilian/police product, as was the AR15/M16 series of rifle used by armies around the world; should they have been pulled from the market because they were suddenly "military equipment"? Clarify your reasoning for me.

Amen to that.

What contrary evidence? Are you planning on assaulting anyone?

The mountains of arguments I presented on "assault weapons" is contrary evidence which you haven't addressed yet, so how about doing that instead of resorting to ad homs? So the fact that I might want an AR-15 cuz the stock is in line with the barrel, has a direct impingement system which gives it sub MOA accuracy and makes the recoil smoother, is lightweight, and the fact that it is pretty modifiable means I wanna assault someone? This is absolutely ridiculous.

Exactly. Your only reasons for being against "assault weapons" is that they are military rifles and therefore they are meant for the military, but you haven't explained why the design philosophy of military rifles make em somehow more dangerous for civilians and you haven't defined the design philosophy behind em. I've explained that the design philosophy mostly pertains to being able to adapt to all types of environments as well as people of all shapes and sizes. They are also designed to be easy to use under pressure so that you can quickly field strip the weapon with all the adrenaline in your body. Military design philosophy boils down to adaptability. Anyways, I was afraid this might derail the thread so I guess we can either take this debate to PM's or start a new thread.

Abortion?

Yes, but only if there's a good reason. Like problems that will cripple the child's life, dangerous complications, feeling that you simply are unable to care for the child as you think you should, etc.

Censorship?

Only of Neo-Nazism. It's stupid I know, but I simply can't believe that have any rights.

Death penalty?

.. see above. Nazis, nobody else.

Guns?

No.

Health care?

As much is physically possible.

Official US language?

Dude. Not everybody's American, not everybody cares.

War on Terror?

No.

Taxes?

Eat the rich!

LGBT rights?

Yes.

Secular government?

Yes.


.. you should add "Americans only" in the first post.

Asking why people need assault weapons does not constitute an ad hom. I'm not changing my stance on this, if you want to muck around with automatic weapons, join the army, otherwise, as far as I'm concerned, you have no business using them. As to your reply, I just noticed it: and I think the definition of 'assault weapons' needs to be revised. I think of assault weapons more in the vein of assault rifles. A lot of the other classifications are just bureaucratic fluff

I called you out on the ad hom specifically cuz you said "Are you planning on assaulting anyone?" in response to Dox47 saying that I've brought contrary evidence to the table, not cuz you're wondering what people need "assault weapons" for. I couldn't care less about having an automatic fire mode, but I've explained why an AR-15 has advantages over a typical hunting .223 rifle. I don't need automatic weapons, but if anyone else wants em then that's none of anyone's business. Anyways I've said what I needed to say and I'm not going to drag this on and on and derail the thread so that's that.

Last edited by AceOfSpades on 04 May 2011, 2:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That was a joke. Perhaps I should have put a little emoticon next to it. I didn't even notice your reply on the previous page at that point, so when he said 'contrary evidence' I was somewhat confused as I had not seen any

Oh alright, I should've known lol.

First, the term "assault weapon" itself is not a technical term but a political one, and simply harping on the etymology of the word proves nothing except that you've been taken in by the ploy. Even changing the term to "assault rifles" doesn't help, rifles in general are seldom used in crime because they are not convenient to carry and difficult to conceal, the disadvantages outweigh any additional firepower they may bring to a criminal enterprise.
Second, such "assault weapons" as are available on the civilian market are not automatic, they are semi-automatic; automatic weapons are a whole other category that when available require a prolonged and expensive licensing process to acquire, on top of the scarcity and high prices of the items themselves.

To summarize the part in bold, you're going to stick your fingers in your ears and not listen no matter what is said because you've made up your mind and that is that? Can't you come up with ONE valid justification for your viewpoint? Don't you think you ought to know at least a little bit about something before you decide that it should be banned? I never did get an answer in a different thread about what your problem with hollowpont ammunition is either, since HP is used by the police (among others) to increase the safety of innocent bystanders due to it's lessened chance of shooting through a bad guy and hitting someone else. What other than misinformation would make someone come out against safer bullets?

Exactly. I feel the same way but I don't want the thread getting derailed so I think this should either be taken to PM or debated in another thread. I saw the hollow point thing too and he is clearly ignorant about guns and isn't justifying his stance with anything more than emotions. It's one thing if you don't care much about guns, it's another thing to have a stance on em.