Mark Steel on NRA reaction to Boston bomb. Genius

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Young teenage boys don't have enough knowledge about suicide methods,

guns are quick and final, doesn't give them a chance to reconsider, they just do it.

Most people that consider suicide, will reconsider if given the oppertunity and chance.

Your reasoning seems very callous, especially given the number of people here who would have considered suicide here at some time.

Good place for you to stay, then.
.

I agree, we have a lower death rate from guns, and lower suicide rate. We also don't have the death penalty, so that when mistakes are made with convictions, we can release them rather than just say sorry over their grave.

You talk a lot about it but you don't display much understanding either..

and what tell me, is the fear of a weapon plus an unstable lunatic behind the trigger?.

I sense hostility rising here. Is that what you resort to when you can't bring anything of substance to a debate?

And you're the one that baited me with this

Context, context context.

Now which of the following raptors do you think i could have meant, considering there was a damn dinosaur in the opening post? Don't flatter yourself sparky.

I swear I think I’ll just go back 5 years and copy and paste my posts in all of those gunz-r-bad threads into a word document and re-use them instead of re-typing everything each time.

I agree in part but not that guns cause suicide.


My reasoning is at least based on reality and not emotion. Calling me callous doesn't phase me a bit because I am what I am.



I'm not going to bother looking into Australia's crime or death statistics because I don't live there and I'm not planning on relocating there.
If you do in fact have lower crime it would still be that way whether there wasn't a firearm to be found anywhere on the continent or if everyone had at least one.
A high or low crime rate reflects the moral health of a nation, not the availability of any inanimate objects.
By the same token obesity can't be blamed on the availability of forks and spoons.
Does having a book of matches make someone a pyromaniac?

You're new here so take some friendly advice while it still is friendly.

I keep meaning to do that, and then get side tracked on other things. I also found Larry Correia's excellent "an opinion on gun control" essay, that makes many of the same points I do, and is better written to boot, and figured if I ever got lazy enough to resort to copypasta alone I could just crib from him.

On your earlier points:
I have never heard it said that guns cause suicide, and did not say it. They just make it easier and quicker to do.

I agree that having a box of matches does not make you a pyromaniac, but you must admit that have a flamethrower would make it much easier to start lots of fires if you were so inclined.

Just as having a automatic rifle with large capacity magazines makes it much easier to kill lots of people quickly, again if you are so inclined.

Cheers

Damn good essay!
The guy definitely has some excellent credentials.
I haven't read it all yet but I'm in the process of it.

2. You Have To Understand What You’re Regulating

This is common sense for any sort of regulation, but especially when you’re dealing with something specifically protected in the Bill of Rights. Unfortunately, it has not been the case.

New rule: If you don’t know how guns work, you don’t get to craft legislation about them. There is nothing so embarrassing as watching a Democratic politician who has never held a gun in their life attempt to talk about why and how they should be regulated.

This is not a new problem. I included this classic video in my article on the assault weapons ban, which shows how a senator doesn't even understand what's in her own legislation.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rGpykAX1fo[/youtube]
Added to the list over the past several months has been die-hard gun control advocate New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg not understanding the difference between automatic and semi-automatic firearms.

”Pistols are different. You have to pull the trigger each time. With an assault weapon you basically hold it down and it goes ::machine gun noise::”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV5E30ZY1kQ[/youtube]

This is a man that has built a cornerstone of his career on gun control legislation. He has headed and commissioned panels on guns. He runs a whole group of pro-gun-control mayors. This is an issue he has supposedly been devoted to for a long time.

He doesn’t know how guns operate. He doesn’t understand basic terminology. He doesn’t know what an “assault weapon” is, even though he supposedly was involved in drafting legislation. How is this possible? And how is it possible that we who actually understand the topic are supposed to cede to his judgment on it?

He’s not alone in his utter baffledness about this. Obama recently told donors at a Democratic Congressional Campaign committee meeting that students at Sandy Hook were gunned down by a “fully automatic weapon”. From the White House transcript:

”I just came from Denver, where the issue of gun violence is something that has haunted families for way too long, and it is possible for us to create common-sense gun safety measures that respect the traditions of gun ownership in this country and hunters and sportsmen, but also make sure that we don’t have another 20 children in a classroom gunned down by a semiautomatic weapon – by a fully automatic weapon in that case, sadly.”

This is the President of the United States, who has been personally touring the country pretending to understand the issue of how guns function in society. This person has had entire panels and committees at his disposal specifically to educate him on this topic (so we’re told). There is no excuse for ignorance of this magnitude to be centered around conversations involving civil rights specifically enshrined in the constitution. (It is either astounding ignorance or dishonesty. I’m being generous and assuming the former.)

But the award for atomic facepalm goes squarely to Democratic representative Dianne DeGette of Colorado. During one of the many public forums on gun control that took place across the country recently, Dianne explained to the panel and a stunned audience that magazines and ammunition were the same thing, and therefore all the “high-capacity” magazines would soon be used up.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbel4SASUPQ[/youtube]

This person is making laws about the very thing she is completely ignorant of. How can people who actually understand the issue be brought to the table and expect to have productive, meaningful conversation when the people sitting across from them are this clueless?

These are a few selected, higher-profile incidents that represent a vast culture of ignorance in the mainstream Democratic left when it comes to even the basics of gun use and policy. I shouldn’t have to say it, but: Until people know what they’re talking about, none of us should care what they have to say.

[ ^^^^^ a bit early to start getting nasty isn't it. I suppose I'm lucky there are no guns around

I maybe new here, but I have been on the internet since the 70's, and saw the NRA propaganda then as well.

On your earlier points:
I have never heard it said that guns cause suicide, and did not say it. They just make it easier and quicker to do.

I agree that having a box of matches does not make you a pyromaniac, but you must admit that have a flamethrower would make it much easier to start lots of fires if you were so inclined.

Just as having a automatic rifle with large capacity magazines makes it much easier to kill lots of people quickly, again if you are so inclined.

You were on the internet 20 years before it was available to the public, eh?

You clearly imply that an inanimate object is a major contributing factor in suicide or crime.

Are you trying to say semi-automatic rifle?
Let's assume you are.
As many as their are in private hands right now, which has been record high in the past three years, the streets should be running red with blood.

Nope, just a few school yards.

Sorry, you left yourself wide open for that

it is virtualy impossable to get a gun permit in boston.boston has its own set of gun statutes as separate from massachusetts as a whole.a standard mass fid card is semi meaningless in boston.by boston i mean only the proper city itself,in the suburbs regular mass gun laws apply.

it no wonder a terrorists felt safe in boston.think about the mattapan masacare that killed 4 children last year and the record number of cops killed in the last couple years.

bostonians are defensless against terror and crime

it is virtualy impossable to get a gun permit in boston.boston has its own set of gun statutes as separate from massachusetts as a whole.a standard mass fid card is semi meaningless in boston.by boston i mean only the proper city itself,in the suburbs regular mass gun laws apply.

it no wonder a terrorists felt safe in boston.think about the mattapan masacare that killed 4 children last year and the record number of cops killed in the last couple years.

bostonians are defensless against terror and crime

they didnt look so defenceless when they had an entire battalion of SWAT cops hunting down a teenager curled up in someone's garden bleeding to death.