Another Gun Control Thread

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Please don't give me adolescent crap about going soft in my old age. In the current war in Iraq about 120 veterans commit suicide each week (http://directaction.org.au/issue4/the_h ... ies_of_war) and these people have seen what war is about. Aside from the suicides which is an extreme reaction thousands suffer for the rest of their lives for what they have had to do. Any schmuck with a gun may think it's fun to play soldier but the reality is something else entirely.

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Last edited by claire-333 on 30 Nov 2008, 5:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sand wrote;

Agreed on the first part, I could have worded the “old age” thing more eloquently or just left it out.
However, I still think that your post that I first replied to about guns was shallow and lacked intellect and there’s no other way to put it.
It implies that guns have only one purpose and that it takes no creativity to design one nor brains to use one. I have several firearms, both old and new. Some of them were designed solely for punching holes in paper in a very precise manner, some for hunting, some for personal defense, and some were designed strictly for warfare. Most of them either are the results of a very fertile and creative mind and the ensuing engineering that made them possible or are the descendants of those other such designs.
Having a gun does not imply that I think it would be fun to play soldier. My point is that I'm willing to do what needs doing to protect myself and mine or die trying if it comes to that. It is not something I take lightly or just dreamed up to sound tough, either.

As for the war in Iraq it is a tough topic to tackle. Unfortunately, there are no quick and clear answers to it.
It is a topic in itself that could fill volumes.

And, for whatever it’s worth, I haven’t qualified to be an adolescent recently.

As an artist and a designer I fully appreciate the beauty of armaments. I am a former New Yorker and have spent many hours admiring the section of the Metropolitan Museum devoted to medieval armor and armaments and I appreciate the economy and beauty of many guns. But that is not the point. To kid yourself that guns, whatever the side uses may be, are designed for anything else than killing people is a terrible illusion. This easy way of inflicting death is obviously seductive for someone who feels threatened and there is no doubt that it would be comforting to have some way to protect yourself against some idiot who is intent on hurting you and your family. But the danger of a gun is that it gives you a sense of false security. If you are not a trained user of armaments your overconfidence can easily place you in real danger. I have spent a long life in the US and other countries and never needed a gun nor wanted one. I had the good sense to stay away from places where I might be in danger. Not having a gun heightened my good sense and that is important. The recent incident in India is something you cannot expect or protect yourself against. If anyone there had a gun to fight back they probably would not have lasted long.

If you are worried about a totalitarian US government then engage in political action to stop it. That's what democracy should be about.

Well, given that the Hicks skit was of pretty limited scope (referred exclusively to certain then-current events that are no longer considered important by pretty much anyone) it's not likely that someone who came after its time would recognize it. So yes, I think it's fair to say that one of the major literary figures of the past century is more important and historically relevant than some comedy routine about how the media was portraying something at a given time. Eric Arthur Blair's writings are relevant to more than his immediate situation, and even the piece he wrote that was about specific events in his lifetime (Animal Farm, about the Bolshevik Revolution) was about something important enough that it's still studied today. The first Gulf War is a footnote today, in a century it will have sunk into obscure oblivion. But the Bolshevik Revolution, and all the other things Orwell wrote about, will still be important and relevant centuries from today. If you're going to reference any comedy sketch from before your audience's time, the safest bet is probably Monty Python. Brits are better at humor than Americans, and always will be.

And yes, I recognized your "fight them on the beaches" quote. I'm a history major, and I like quotes. I've read that particular speech before. I just don't think it was very apt in the context you placed it.

I'm inferring that your point here is that we'd all be safer if no one had guns, but even if you were right, which I don't think you are, how would you accomplish that? I think my previous post did a pretty good job of listing just a few of the difficulties facing someone intent on disarming just America, so unless you have a time machine and a neuralizer handy, what is the practical application? Guns won't just go away, and even if they did people would simply go down the technological ladder to the next most effective weapon, or invent new ones that are even more efficient. I think that is where some people have such a problem with guns specifically and not other weapons, the efficiency. No other existing weapon is as suitable to empower the individual against the group, as even a lone gunman has a chance against a group of lesser armed attackers, or even groups of other gunmen given certain circumstances. Regardless though, sticking your fingers in your ears and wishing them away isn't terribly effective, no matter how many times you click your heels together.

It sounds like then that your quarrel is with politicians and generals, as they are the ones that make the decisions that turn otherwise interesting and worthwhile people into enemies. Blaming the tools of war for causing the war makes no sense at all, you carried a gun for years and look at your attitude, obviously it didn't have any corrupting influence on you. Would it make you feel better if guns were harder to use? You seem to keep emphasizing the ease of use of them like it somehow alone turns otherwise docile people into killers because pulling that trigger is so easy, would difficult to use weapons somehow changes people's violent nature? I obviously don't buy that, as some of the worst savagery ever seen has been committed with hand to hand weapons that require much more effort to use, as well as being up close and personal with your intended victim and seeing quite viscerally the results of your actions. Both in medieval times and present day Africa, getting their hands dirty hasn't stopped people from committing horrible acts of violence upon each other, often for the most petty or nonexistent of reasons. In Africa especially, even lack of weapons hasn't stopped people from chopping each other up with whatever was expedient, if anything giving them all guns probably would have caused less suffering, since death by gunshot is generally preferable to death by machete. There are even a few documented cases during the Rwandan genocide of lone men with an old gun successfully defending sheltering civilians because the farm implement wielding mobs didn't want to risk their own hides against a gun. To return to my point though, a gun does not make a man into a killer, but it takes a man to turn a gun into a killing tool.

Really. Listen to Hicks before you dismiss him as only relevant to x or y time period. The media kneejerk reaction to things still happens, so it will always be relevant. Gulf War 1 - The Persian Gulf Distraction - is as much of a footnote as the Suez Crisis or the Hungarian uprising. Nice to know you think that the 91 conflict is no longer important to anyone. An event that occured in the living memory of pretty much everyone from 19/20 upwards. Just because you were only 1 does not make it irrelevant or unimportant.

It surely signifies something.. though I am unsure what.. that you seem to believe the only comedy that will be recognisable from the past is a) British and b) Python.

Even assuming I accept your thesis, does that mean that any technology derived from research into warfare is somehow "tainted"? Nylons and microwave ovens are just two technologies that came out of wartime research that, by your logic, whatever it's individual purpose was, collectively was done to improve the efficiency of killing people. That a particular knife was designed to be used as a weapon does not prevent it from being used to rescue someone or otherwise save a life, nor does the fact that a baseball bat was designed for sport prevent it's use in beating people to death. This idea of assigning morality to inanimate objects is simply ludicrous, people use what tools are available to them whether the job is pounding a nail or killing someone, and don't put much thought into whether or not that is the "intended" use of the tool at hand.



You're assuming that most people that buy a gun simply shove it in their waistband and call it good, my experience has been that most people who go through the trouble of attaining a carry permit learn to use the things. In many states you are required to take training classes as part of the permitting process, and these usually include live fire drills. I'd wager that the dangers of overconfidence are fairly easily avoided, whereas if violence manages to find you unarmed avoidance is far more difficult. If anything, carrying a gun ratchets up my situational awareness several notches simply because the weight on my hip is a constant reminder to pay attention. It also reminds me not to go looking for trouble, since if something were to happen I'd bear the brunt of the legal scrutiny, as well as be held to a higher legal standard than the average citizen on the street.



Lucky for you. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to always avoid bad situations, for some people walking from their front door to the bus stop is a high risk activity.

As far as India is concerned, yes you can be prepared for something like that, it's just a matter of how far you are willing to adjust your life to be prepared for anything. Like my previous post stated, no one tries this sort of attack in Israel anymore because they kept getting shot before they could do their damage. As it happened everyone was completely helpless and had no chance at all, and were consequently shot down in the streets like dogs. Even a handful of armed civilians could have made a difference, because the attackers would not be expecting that. We saw what an unarmed populace leads to, almost 200 dead at the hands of 10 attackers while the police struggled to respond.



We already do that, but if the day were ever to come when the government decided to set aside democracy, we're prepared for that as well.

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Last edited by claire-333 on 30 Nov 2008, 5:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

As you're female, I'd suggest it's very unlikely you'd be able to subdue even an unarmed male with just a blunt instrument, especially within the confines of a dwelling where you may not have room to swing it. If the guy's got a gun then you'd be suicidal to even try.

Daft assumption. You have no idea how big/small/strong she is. And have you ever been beaten in the head with a length of wood? No matter how small the assailant it hurts like f**k and can have some terrible effects.

Like most American comics (at least the important ones) he thrived primarily on cynicism. But it any case, I was only rejecting the relevance of this particular skit, not dismissing Bill Hicks entirely. He had some witty and insightful things to say that are still relevant.


The skit was not important to me because of its highly limited nature. The Gulf War itself is, in the historical view, of very little importance. The Suez Crisis and Hungarian uprising signified more major things in world politics. The Gulf War? Kuwait was invaded, we destroyed the invading army. It took a few months. Not really a big deal, and not something that history students will learn about a century from now. That it happens to be fresh in your memory is the only reason you know anything of it or consider it important.


It signifies very little, other than that I have seen that Monty Python is just about the only comedy that has remained in the popular consciousness so long. Python is a classic, and seems to be just about the most enduring comedy, probably because it did not delve too deeply into contemporary politics. Comedy in general just will not be remembered as well as literature or history, because comedy loses its power when it is no longer fresh or when the events it is mocking have ended. We'll still be familiar with classics like Abbot and Costello, or the Three Stooges, but aside from some snippets of a select handful, most comedy simply is not enduring enough to be made into legitimate allusions as you were trying to do.

In close quarters, a bat may even be better than a gun. Don't have to aim so much, just swing. And unless she is exceptionally weak, most people would not want to get smacked in the head by a baseball bat.

Not really, Macbeth. Most females aren't very strong -- biological fact -- compared to males. More likely than not she'd have it used on her once the intruder got the upper hand. And as I suggested, you're likely to not have room to swing the implement within a room of a house. Of course, she may be built like a brick outhouse and have military training, but if she has, then why not just get a gun, if that's legal?

No, Orwell.