Cowardly Gun Nuts

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"Coward" is a term used as a shaming tactic to persuade people to do stupid things that get them hurt or killed.

Hey guys, if you are going to promote gun control laws......

I am a conservative, and the second amendment is incredibly important. Here are a few things guns are good for:

stopping a crime (because the police can be too slow to save anyone's life)
overthrowing corrupt governments
zombie apocalypses (JK, but still)

I usually don't say things like this, but if you support gun control laws, you are a moron. There are several reasons. Criminals don't obey gun control laws. Even when few exist, it is always easier to acquire a gun illegally than legally. Those who own firearms legally are almost always law abiding citizens. Also, gun free areas are the best targets for school shootings because no one else is armed. A gunman was stopped in salt lake city by a concealed weapons permit holder before too much damage was done. Imagine what would have happened if they had to wait for the police. And the last reason? Do you honestly want the military, other government organizations, and criminals who ignore gun control laws to be the only people armed? Do you people realize how dangerous that is?

I don't think that either of the principle arguments around firearms restriction are correct.

I see no evidence to suggest that heightened control of firearms can be demonstrably linked to lower rates of violent crime. Injuries and deaths from firearms fall into three principal classifications: intentional discharge at another party, intentional self-inflicted injury and accidental discharge. If you look at comparative rates of firearms injury in different countries, you will find little correllation between levels of gun ownership and the first two, but a strong correllation between gun ownership and accidental discharge. It stands to reason: having more firearms around increases the likelihood of accidental discharge of a firearm. But nowhere do the data suggest that a greater number of firearms correllates to a greater number of intentional injuries or deaths.

So, if you want to get to the root of gun violence, restrictions on firearms are not the way to do it.

However, I think that the other side has elevated the Second Amendment to the status of Holy Writ. When Second Amendment supporters start opposing reasonable limits on firearms acquisition, possession and use, then it polarizes the debate. If we are content to see that all people must pass a practical examination to demonstrate their ability to drive before obtaining a driving license, I do not think it unreasonable to expect the same of people who intend to acquire, possess and use firearms.

If you want to get to the root of gun violence, proliferation is not the way to do it.

What is needed, I suggest, is a cultural shift that moves away from absolutism about the Second Amendment, and moves towards a culture of responsible firearms ownership.

Or he gonna take option two and cleaning up the way with a grenade, bringing deaths on his path.

Hahaha cowardly. It's cowardly of people to disarm others and expect the cops to do the dirty work of wiping all our asses. But anyways that's up to the store owner.

Visagrunt wrote:

First and foremost the right to keep and bear arms is a right plain and simple so, yeah, it is kind of a Holy Writ.

Driving is a revocable licensed privilege, not a right. Reasonable measures of training and verification of competence are a part of that privilege.

I have to ask anyway; where has “reasonable gun control” been of any benefit other than a “feel good” measure for the hand wringers?
We have more than enough of “reasonable gun laws” in existence as it is.

Yeah what exactly is "reasonable"? Banning rifles because their pistol grips and flash suppressors make them look scary despite having the same function as any other rifle? 5-10 rounds which is supposed to be "Enough"? I'm not trying to straw man visagrunt, but I've grown very skeptical of gun control and I would like to see what he considers reasonable.

Last edited by AceOfSpades on 09 Aug 2011, 7:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Property owners have every right to decline guns on their property.

It's neither plain, nor simple. US jurisprudence has tied itself in knots over the second amendment. While Heller has gone a long way to rationalize the jurisprudence, it is, nonetheless, a complex field. It is well established that the right conferred by the second amendment is not an absolute right. Restrictions on the right as it applies to felons, the mentally ill, restrictions on the right as it applies in certain places and restrictions on commercial sale are all clearly constitutional.

So where do those reasonable limits end? There is a valid political argument that says, "there and no farther," but I believe that to be misguided. I suggest to you, again, that a "reasonable" legislative framework for control of firearms is one that promotes a responsible culture of firearms ownership and use. I do not think that you are there. More to the point, I do not think that you will ever get there unless the body politic can retreat from an absolutist rhetoric that rejects all attempts at legislation as unreasonable ab initio.

But until firearms owners and firearms opponents start working constructively together to construct a sound policy basis, there will continue to be a culture in which irresponsibility gets a free pass.

Well, the word "compromise" gets a fair bit tiresome when only one side of a debate is required to compromise and the other always escalates their demands. Yes, people who have proven themselves to not be able to be law abiding citizens should not have firearms. People who are not criminals should not be treated as criminals though. Now, as far as property ownership goes, a person can make whatever random policies they like regarding they places they own and they should also be held responsible for when those policies backfire.

visagrunt wrote:

I’ve read it a time or two and there’s nothing ambiguous in the 2nd amendment to require interpretation or clarification. It’s quite clear as it stands and I’m not going to have some personal agenda driven supreme court judges tell me the sky is green when I can look up and see that it’s blue.
This is something I’ll lay down my life for but you would never understand why.



There’s nothing to work constructively on. Gun control is ineffective and unconstitutional.
Like iamnotaparakeet said, it’s always one side giving and the other side taking and wanting more.
Again, tell me how gun control is effective other than soothing the feeble minds of the paranoid.
We’re waiting…………..

Which he potentially could end up killing himself with his own weapon or blow up what he is trying to steal, not particularly smart.

The constitution means what the courts say that it means. That is the power that is conferred upon the courts by the Constitution, and the power is that is upheld by the rule of law. You can argue otherwise until you are blue in the face, but you are not a member of the Supreme Court.

Now, if you choose to live outside of the law, so be it--but do not pretend to make a legal argument when your position lies partly outside the law.



As for ineffectiveness, "gun control," as you have attempted it may well have been a demonstrable failure. But only a callow chauvinist would conclude that all attempts at control are ineffective merely because you have been such consistent failures.

As for constitutionality, your absolute statement is clearly wrong. Prohibiting felons from owning firearms is, "gun control," and it is clearly constitutional. The question is not whether regulation of firearms is constitutional (it clearly is), but rather how far those regulations can go before they become unconsitutional. Your reaction is precisely the reason that an intelligent, rational debate is elusive.

As for give and take, that is entirely subjective. If your starting position is no regulation of firearms of any kind, then naturally you will view any level of regulatory framework as a "give." But there are doubtless people on the other side, who would favour outright bans, who believe that every failure to regulate is also a "give." Your extremism helps define the issue, but it does not lead to a solution.

Clearly there are other ways to approach the issue. As I have said above, neither regulation nor proliferation are the means the get at the root of firearms violence. Different countries have vastly different experiences with both firearms regulation and their misuse. Canada has relatively high levels of private firearms ownership (just over 1/3 the level of the United States) and significantly lower (about 11%) the rate of intentional firearms injuries and deaths. South Africa has much lower levels of private firearms ownership, and much higher rates of intentional injuries and deaths.

There is an x-factor there somewhere. Surely a mature and rational society can continue looking for that.

Visagrunt wrote:

“the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”

I don‘t need the supreme court to tell me what I just read. If you do then you need to take a close look at yourself.



If you’re correct about gun control being a valid means of crime control let’s look at NYC or Chicago (to name a few).
Since they have such draconian gun laws then they must be just about the safest cities in the US where gun related crimes are concerned…….NOT.

Gun control either works or it doesn’t. Like I’ve stated before, about the only thing it does is temporarily appease the paranoid hand wringers at the cost of honest citizen’s freedoms.

Raptor,
a callow chauvinist (or whatever...... )

I'm trying to decide whether you are being stubborn or stupid.

Felons are not permitted to own firearms. That is perfectly constitutional. If you cannot understand that, then perhaps you do not belong in a society that operates under the rule of law.



Again, it's hard to decide between stubborn or stupid. I have said plainly that your country has demonstrated itself to be an abject failure at using regulation to stem firearms violence. But "it's hard and I wasn't good at it right away," is a lazy approach to public policy.

Your absolutism demonstrates the passion of your position, but it's no way to run a country.

Something that's always bothered me is that there are no true firearms experts on the gun control side, they never seem to have even the most basic understanding of how a gun works and what various features are actually for. The cynic is me imagines that this is not accidental, as even someone with the most rudimentary knowledge of firearms would poke holes in all of their favorite claims, but even so the lack of anyone who seems to know what they're talking about is notable.