A Motion - re: The Term "Assault Rifle"

[Vern Humphrey]

JustinJ are you sure you aren't descended from the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland?

 

[Certaindeaf]

How about "Defense Rifle/Carbine".

 

[JustinJ]

JustinJ are you sure you aren't descended from the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland?

Not sure i follow? Off with your head?

 

[Warp]

Depends again one how one defines a death as not being bad? In my state i can legally shoot somebody to prevent them from fleeing with my property at night. If i do so there would likely be no murder conviction but was that also not a "bad" death?

If the laws of your state rule that it was justified, it was legally justified.

Is it common for this to happen in your state? How many examples of somebody being shot while fleeing with property at night do you have?

It is deceitful to intentionally mislead people by including justified homicides in the same one size fits all categories with murder.

And the term "gun related deaths" is not only used when discussing statistics. Again, how much are the statistics skewed by inclusion of "good" deaths? 1% if that?

Like many terms the exact meaning can change based on context. In common usage most are referring to gun related homicides, accidents and suicides.

What makes a homicide "gun related"?

What i recall of John Lott is he made a very questionable and controversial model of how concealed carry affect on crime reduction which even Gary Kleck had issues with. Just because you agree with their findings does not make them gospel.

It was not very questionable and it was only "controversial" because the antis didn't want people to believe it. My favorite was when they knowingly and intentionally deceived people (there is a serious pattern of this) into believing that he was funded by a firearms/ammunition manufacturing company due to the pure coincidence of a similar name.

Another commonly stated argument is that gun related crimes are extremely high in states with strict gun control. Okay, but where are those guns coming from? Of course the gun control will fail when the next state over guns are readily available.

What state's gun control laws do you believe are being undermined by the nearby state? Can you cite at least one specific example of: The state with gun control laws, specifying exactly what the gun control laws are...the adjacent state without those gun control laws...and the crime statistics showing crimes being committed with the guns that are illegal in the control state but legal in the adjacent state?


If we get past that hurdle, the next topic to discuss will be: Why does the gun control state have such an excess of violent criminals, and if you believe what you are saying why do the residents of the gun control state choose their own state to commit their violent crimes, rather than the neighboring state? Is it because they know the citizens of the neighboring state are actually able to legally defend themselves with firearms and they prefer an disarmed populace upon which to prey?

 

[JustinJ]

If the laws of your state rule that it was justified, it was legally justified.

So everything legally justified is good?

It is deceitful to intentionally mislead people by including justified homicides in the same one size fits all categories with murder

.

Once again, the term is not only used in discussion of statistics.

Second, the percentage of total shootings being self defense(pretty much the limit of good deaths) is between .2% and .8%! To claim it is willful deceit to not separate out such a small number, given it would almost certainly have no impact on anyone's views, is a big stretch.

What makes a homicide "gun related"?

I'm not playing this game. Remember, i'm the one who is saying semantics is a waste of time. If there is some point you are trying to get to just make it.

It was not very questionable and it was only "controversial" because the antis didn't want people to believe it. My favorite was when they knowingly and intentionally deceived people (there is a serious pattern of this) into believing that he was funded by a firearms/ammunition manufacturing company due to the pure coincidence of a similar name.

Funny, because i would bet they would say you are only supporting it because you want people to believe it. I recall some very serious issues with his methodology and some major signs of bias. His other work is no different and he has come to some pretty absurd conclusions on other issues.

What state's gun control laws do you believe are being undermined by the nearby state? Can you cite at least one specific example of: The state with gun control laws, specifying exactly what the gun control laws are...the adjacent state without those gun control laws...and the crime statistics showing crimes being committed with the guns that are illegal in the control state but legal in the adjacent state?

Give me a break. You are well aware there are states that make legal purchases of firearms, such as private sells, much more difficult, if not impossible, and uncommon. And there are also nearby states with far less restrictive laws. I can play the "i'm being difficult game" too with but i expect others to have better things with their time than look up specific statutes state by state.

If we get past that hurdle, the next topic to discuss will be: Why does the gun control state have such an excess of violent criminals, and if you believe what you are saying why do the residents of the gun control state choose their own state to commit their violent crimes, rather than the neighboring state? Is it because they know the citizens of the neighboring state are actually able to legally defend themselves with firearms and they prefer an disarmed populace upon which to prey?

If you believe criminals choose where to live based on gun laws you are living in fantasy land.

 

[Warp]

So everything legally justified is good?

Since terms like "good" are open to individual interpretation some kind of standard needs to be used. The law of the jurisdiction in question is a very good standard to use. I believe it is deceitful to knowingly and intentionally mislead people by mixing murders in with justified shoots.

Second, the percentage of total shootings being self defense(pretty much the limit of good deaths) is between .2% and .8%! To claim it is willful deceit to not separate out such a small number, given it would almost certainly have no impact on anyone's views, is a big stretch.

Citation?

I'm not playing this game. Remember, i'm the one who is saying semantics is a waste of time. If there is some point you are trying to get to just make it.

You are the one introducing and using terms that you are unwilling to define. If you are unwilling or unable to define a term you probably shouldn't use it.

Funny, because i would bet they would say you are only supporting it because you want people to believe it. I recall some very serious issues with his methodology and some major signs of bias. His other work is no different and he has come to some pretty absurd conclusions on other issues.

Feel free to post about the very serious issues with his methodology. I haven't yet seen any issues raised that 'held water' IMO.

Give me a break. You are well aware there are states that make legal purchases of firearms, such as private sells, much more difficult, if not impossible, and uncommon. And there are also nearby states with far less restrictive laws. I can play the "i'm being difficult game" too with but i expect others to have better things with their time than look up specific statutes state by state.

If you are unwilling or unable to support your claim, you probably shouldn't make the claim.

Making a claim and then writing something like the above paragraph to wiggle out of backing it up just makes it look like you are pulling things out of thin air without any proof or evidence of any kind...which makes it look like what you are saying is false.

If you believe criminals choose where to live based on gun laws you are living in fantasy land.

Good thing I never said that. Do you have answers to any of my questions??

Do you have citations or evidence you can give us to support, well, any of your claims?

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Not sure i follow? Off with your head?

"When I use a word, it means what I intend it to mean."

You're playing silly word games -- for example:

So everything legally justified is good?

That starts to sound like you feel we have a duty to die -- that is allow an assailant to do his will, rather than defend ourselves.

 

[Warp]

"When I use a word, it means what I intend it to mean."

You're playing silly word games -- for example:

That starts to sound like you feel we have a duty to die -- that is allow an assailant to do his will, rather than defend ourselves.

I'd settle for getting definitions to terms.

In order to have a conversation/discussion/argument/etc with any meaning at all a definition of terms is fundamentally critical. When people introduce terms without defining them there's not much to be done.

I predict a thread closure due to going in circles/spinning wheels, shortly. Lack of definitions being part of the problem.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

[-snip-]

Like many terms the exact meaning can change based on context. In common usage most are referring to gun related homicides, accidents and suicides.

"Gun related" is semantic poisoning. If you eliminate all guns, you will not have eliminated violence or violence crime. And then you can eliminate all pointy knives . . . and there will still be violent crime. And then you can eliminate whatever is next . . . and there will still be violent crime.

There is no amount of Nerf or bubble wrap that will eliminate violent crime, but if we avoid "violent crime" as a term, and focus on "gun related" [deaths/crime/violence], we can keep people looking in the wrong direction.

[-snip-]


I agree. The Assault Weapons ban was absurd. But that does not equate to all gun control has no effect. Another commonly stated argument is that gun related crimes are extremely high in states with strict gun control. Okay, but where are those guns coming from? Of course the gun control will fail when the next state over guns are readily available. Also, those areas with high incidence of crime also tend to have much more gang and drug activity. Those things are there regardless of gun control. Again, i'm not arguing in favor of gun control but not because i believe it can't reduce gun related crimes.

I'm less interested in "where ... those guns [are] coming from" and more interested in where those gangs are coming from.

Sure. If you eliminate guns altogether, you will eliminate "gun related" crime, "gun related" self defense, "gun related" hunting, and a whole host of "gun related" sports.

Of course then you have places like Britain, where gun control is nearly complete. Not only are there next to no handguns in the general population, they're going after the knives, too. And yet, mysteriously, they still have a high rate of gun related violence. Well, it can be argued, they didn't actually eliminate guns. That's true. They did, however, eliminate all the legal avenues by which a private citizen may have a gun for self defense -- in fact, "self defense" isn't even a valid defense in a homicide case.

What they've done is create a paradise for bullies and violent criminals. And still the discussion so often includes "gun related" in describing the inevitable violence. It somehow never occurs to them that removing all the normal barriers to predation actually encourages predation.


Until someone can answer the question, "where are all these criminals coming from?" in some kind of meaningful fashion, discussing violence in terms of "gun related" anything is worse than pointless.

Gun control reduces guns in the hands of victims. Gun control reduces guns in the hands of hunters and sportsmen. Gun control reduces the number of guns in the hands of citizens committed to the preservation of human rights.

Gun control does not reduce guns in the hands of criminals.
Gun control does not reduce guns in the hands of tyrants.
Gun control does not reduce guns in the hands of invaders.

Oh, sure, gun control reduces "gun related" deaths of muggers, rapists, and murderers at the hands of citizens defending themselves. And if the objective is simply to eliminate "deaths" then helping keep the bad guys alive certainly supports that goal.

However, I have no brief to save the lives of violent predators, so those are some "deaths" over which I will shed no tears.


So, back to my question, "where are all these criminals coming from?"

They're not being manufactured by Colt, Kimber, Remington, Ruger, or Beretta. Those are companies that make equalizers for those who would otherwise be "the criminals' prey and the tyrants' playthings."


Where is this criminal factory? What changes were made to our culture that led to this surge in criminal production?

What can we ban that will reduce "criminal related" violence?

 

[ArfinGreebly]

JustinJ are you sure you aren't descended from the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland?

(Pssst, Vern, it's Humpty Dumpty. Good point, wrong character.)

 

[Vern Humphrey]

What can we ban that will reduce "criminal related" violence?

Lock them up and keep them locked up.

There are plenty of studies on the recidivism of violent criminals -- they're just like child molestors, in that they can't be "reformed." And there are studies that show the cost of letting them prey on the people is several times higher than the cost of keeping them locked up.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

(Pssst, Vern, it's Humpty Dumpty. Good point, wrong character.)

Well, I never was much of a student of the classics.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

I consider my M1 carbine and Yugo M70AB2 to be my "US v Miller 1939 compliant militia training rifles"--military issue for many of our allies and enemies, therefore proper for civilian marksmanship practice.

Quote: Having said that, let me refer you to the work of John Lott and Gary Kleck as a starter -- they clearly show that gun control has no beneficial effect on crime.

What i recall of John Lott is he made a very questionable and controversial model of how concealed carry affect on crime reduction which even Gary Kleck had issues with.

Two different things. Effect of gun control on crime and right-to-carry on crime.

One. As the sunset of the AWB approached in 2004, CDC and NAS did reviews of the academic research on gun control and in their reports essentially found what academics James Wright and Peter Rossi ("Under the Gun" 1983) found: no empirical research shows measurable benefit from gun control laws. John Lott and Gary Kleck seperately have published articles and books reaching the same conclusion.

Two. The Lott study on right-to-carry is an econometric regression of the sort used to measure effect of policy on behavior, which include statistics crime rates for over 3,000 counties weighted by thirty-some factors believed to effect the crime rate. Those who have "done the math", about 29 academic articles as of yet, tend to show some reduction in crime, about a third show no statistically significant effect, and three (all with John Donohue as author or co-author) claim a temporary but small increase followed by an accelerated downward trend (using Donohue's hybrid model that combines Lott's seperate level and trend models). Gary Kleck's issue was that IF people who got permits to carry under shall-issue were already carrying without permits (a lot of folks did carry under the "I'd rather stand before a judge and explain rather than lie before a coroner and say nothing" rule), there may have been no change in actual carry. (FWIW I did not carry on my person for defense until after I got a carry permit.)

 

[michaelbsc]

Well, I never was much of a student of the classics.

But you've got a great sense of humor.

 

[1911Tuner]

By definition...excluding those intended specifically for target...all rifles are assault rifles, though a rifle can be used in a purely defensive role.

A rifle is an instrument that is typically used for attack, most often at some distance greater than pistol range. This, whether the target is two-legged or four. We attack with the rifle and defend with the pistol.

In 1863, the rifled musket was an assault rifle. Then came the Trapdoor Springfield and the '73 Winchester and then the Krag Jorgensen...the '98 Mauser, and so on.

Don't know if any of those points will make any difference in an argument with a dedicated anti, but they're worth a try.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

By definition...excluding those intended specifically for target...all rifles are assault rifles, though a rifle can be used in a purely defensive role.

A rifle is an instrument that is typically used for attack, most often at some distance greater than pistol range. This, whether the target is two-legged or four. We attack with the rifle and defend with the pistol.

In 1863, the rifled musket was an assault rifle. Then came the Trapdoor Springfield and the '73 Winchester and then the Krag Jorgensen...the '98 Mauser, and so on.

Don't know if any of those points will make any difference in an argument with a dedicated anti, but they're worth a try.

Permit me a single exception.



The M1 Carbine. It is my understanding that it is the only military rifle ever actually designed for defensive applications, for use in rear echelon environments in preference to pistols, because they gave defenders a better stand-off distance and required less dedicated training.

Well, okay, maybe a couple of exceptions.



I have a Beretta CX-4 carbine. It, too, was designed as a defensive arm.

*Ahem*

I think I'll stop there. That's got "rabbit hole" potential.


But otherwise, yeah, I'd say rifles pretty much fit the "attack" rather than "defense" role.

 

[1911Tuner]

Permit me a single exception.



The M1 Carbine.

Granted. The War Baby was really neither fish nor fowl. They're fun, though.

 

[JustinJ]

Warp:

Since terms like "good" are open to individual interpretation some kind of standard needs to be used. The law of the jurisdiction in question is a very good standard to use. I believe it is deceitful to knowingly and intentionally mislead people by mixing murders in with justified shoots.

If the term good is open to individual interpretation then no standard is possible. Whether or not you believe it to be misleading is in reality inconsequential since the total amount of people shot by defenders pales in comparison to those shot by criminals. Again, does anybody really believe that removing legal shootings from the total shootings count will make somebody say, "oh, well then that number is acceptable"?

Unfortunately i do not have more modern statistics available and the disparity could be somewhat less today but below is a link to the citation:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1615397/?tool=pmcentrez
And, once again, terms like gun violence are not used only in discussions of statistics.

You are the one introducing and using terms that you are unwilling to define. If you are unwilling or unable to define a term you probably shouldn't use it.

I'm not introducing anything. I'm discussing commonly used terms and the complaining about them.

If you are unwilling or unable to support your claim, you probably shouldn't make the claim.

Making a claim and then writing something like the above paragraph to wiggle out of backing it up just makes it look like you are pulling things out of thin air without any proof or evidence of any kind...which makes it look like what you are saying is false.

I pulled nothing from the air. Practical knowledge and reason allows one to see the validity in my statement. I too can set standards of unnecessary detailed citation against those i argue with but its an absurd tactic. It does not require a law degree to understand how the state laws of one state can undermine those of another. I'm not arguing one state has an obligation to set their laws for the interest of their neighbors or that national gun control should be implemented. But what i am arguing is that no existing or previous gun control laws of the US prove or disprove gun control can positively effect crime rates. While i won't go digging through individual state statutes for you a quick google search provided a page of sufficient evidence to support my statement:
http://www.tracetheguns.org/report.pdf

Quote:
Originally Posted by JustinJ
If you believe criminals choose where to live based on gun laws you are living in fantasy land.

Good thing I never said that.

Okay, but that seemed to be what you were implying. Please elaborate then.

Vern Humphry

You're playing silly word games -- for example:
Quote:
So everything legally justified is good?

That starts to sound like you feel we have a duty to die -- that is allow an assailant to do his will, rather than defend ourselves.

First off, no, i'm not the one playing silly word games. I'm not the one trying to claim things like, "gun violence is not a real term" or "nobody says knife violence". Nor am i the one quibbling about how the term gun violence is wrong because how you count it can change the numbers(by a fraction). Silly word games is "guns don't kill, people kill". That's like saying "nukes don't kill, the people who detonate them kill".

Second off, my point regarding the statement "legally justified does not equal good" is that what you, i or somebody else considers a "good" killing will never all be the same. Yeah, it would be nice if common language had the precision of technical terminology but it simply doesn't. Complaining about that is a pointless endeavor and appears very diversionary.


Arfin

"Gun related" is semantic poisoning. If you eliminate all guns, you will not have eliminated violence or violence crime. And then you can eliminate all pointy knives . . . and there will still be violent crime. And then you can eliminate whatever is next . . . and there will still be violent crime.

If people wear their seatbelts, there will still be car fatalities. If we have doctors, there will still be people dying of illness. Are you really trying to argue that since all violence can't be stopped there is no sense in any efforts to reduce it?

Of course then you have places like Britain, where gun control is nearly complete. Not only are there next to no handguns in the general population, they're going after the knives, too. And yet, mysteriously, they still have a high rate of gun related violence. Well, it can be argued, they didn't actually eliminate guns. That's true. They did, however, eliminate all the legal avenues by which a private citizen may have a gun for self defense -- in fact, "self defense" isn't even a valid defense in a homicide case.

Or you could take, Singapore, with very strict gun laws and extremely low crime rates of all type. The only thing one can really know about gun control's affect on crime is that almost nothing is really known and it works both ways.


Just because i support gun rights that does not mean i am obligated to adopt every argument for them, regardless of how poor i think one is. I'm not a big fan of only accepting information that supports the opinions i hold or not being open to change my views.

 

[Warp]

Warp:


If the term good is open to individual interpretation then no standard is possible.

Then we don't have a problem to address, so gun control, as a term, shouldn't even exist.

 

[Warp]

Warp:


Unfortunately i do not have more modern statistics avilable and the disparity could be somewhat less today but below is a link to the citation:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1615397/?tool=pmcentrez

They surveyed people 12 years and up. Obviously when you are surveying 12 year olds you are going to have a lower % of respondents who have used a firearm in self defense.

Of the 6 crimes used for the survey, fully half of them (3) had fewer than 10 instances. Do you believe it is accurate to draw nationwide conclusions and extrapolations based on fewer than 10 reported incidents? I don't.

Further, in order to really make use of data I think it should apply across a span of time during which gun laws have changed, to see if stricter control or more firearms access/ownership has an effect. And/or it should apply across multiple jurisdictions (lets say states) with differing gun control laws.

And, once again, terms like gun violence are not used only in discussions of statistics.

I'm not introducing anything. I'm discussing commonly used terms and the complaining about them.

Within this thread, within this discussion, you are introducing those terms.

Can you define "gun violence", as used, by you, in this thread?

I pulled nothing from the air. Practical knowledge and reason allows one to see the validity in my statement. I too can set standards of unnecessary detailed citation against those i argue with but its an absurd tactic. It does not require a law degree to understand how the state laws of one state can undermine those of another.

So you are claiming that this happens simply because you think maybe it could?

Do you have any evidence, any data, any quantitative information that is leading you to your conclusion?

Okay, but that seemed to be what you were implying. Please elaborate then.

You opened this aspect by saying that states with strict gun control laws continue to suffer because adjacent states have less strict laws. Can you support this claim in any way?

First off, no, i'm not the one playing silly word games. I'm not the one trying to claim things like, "gun violence is not a real term" or "nobody says knife violence". Nor am i the one quibbling about how the term gun violence is wrong because how you count it can change the numbers(by a fraction). Silly word games is "guns don't kill, people kill". That's like saying "nukes don't kill, the people who detonate them kill".

It is not "silly word games". In order to have anything resembling a meaningful conversation or debate the participants must first agree to a definition of terms. If you are using terms and I don't know what they mean, we have nothing to talk about.

Second off, my point regarding the statement "legally justified does not equal good" is that what you, i or somebody else considers a "good" killing will never all be the same. Yeah, it would be nice if common language had the precision of technical terminology but it simply doesn't. Complaining about that is a pointless endeavor and appears very diversionary.

Then pick a reasonable standard and use that. The criminal law for the jurisdiction in question seems the most logical and reasonable source. If it's justified, it's justified. If it's not, it's not. I won't even try to use the words good or bad, I will ask that you not lump justified uses of force in with unjustified/criminal uses of force.

 

[happygeek]

Can you define "gun violence", as used, by you, in this thread?

I'd define it as homicides by firearm, which isn't the definition the VPC/CSGV/Brady Campaing generally use. They like to go with 'gun deaths' since that includes everything from suicides to people shot by the police. Additionally, since the majority of 'gun deaths' are suicides, and the % of suicides committed with a firearm tend to correlate with the % of households who own a firearm [to the point where Cook & Ludwig have used % of suicides with a firearm to estimate gun ownership in a given area] and gun control laws tend to lead to fewer people legally owning a gun, gun control indirectly leads to a lower % of overall suicides comitted with a firearm. Voila, gun control lowered 'gun deaths'.

In 2010 there were 8,775 homicides with a firearm (http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/uc.../crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10shrtbl08.xls), although the linked to Bloomberg study claims on page 5 that "these firearms contribute to the more than 12,000 gun murders in the US each year".

On a sidenote, the FBI lists homicide offenders by age, gender, and race (http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/uc.../crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10shrtbl03.xls). I'll let everyone draw their own conclusions, but IMHO, looking at those numbers, guns aren't the issue.

Looking through that Blomberg study I also see that 30% of 61% of firearms crossed a state line before they were submitted for a trace. That's 18% of firearms where a trace was attempted. The study is going by guns that were recovered in a different state than original purchase at retail. If someone bought a shotgun in WA, later moved to OR, then later was arrested for growing pot under a heat lamp in his garage and his shotgun was submitted for a trace then that shotgun would be in Blomberg's study. The study isn't talking about homicide guns, or even guns that were actually used in a crime. The guy could be found innocent, his gun would still be in that study.

When someone puts out a study of where the guns came from that were in the trunk of a guy who was selling on a streetcorner in Chicago I'll be very interested to read it. I've got more Googling to do, but I haven't found such a report yet. I'd be very interested to read where 'The Guns of England' are being imported from, espicially those Mac 10s (http://library.npia.police.uk/docs/hors/hors298.pdf).

 

[JustinJ]

They surveyed people 12 years and up. Obviously when you are surveying 12 year olds you are going to have a lower % of respondents who have used a firearm in self defense.

So at what age would you propose they start? And more importantly, do you really believe exclusion of twelve year olds would make any significant difference in the total number of justified shootings vs criminal?

Of the 6 crimes used for the survey, fully half of them (3) had fewer than 10 instances. Do you believe it is accurate to draw nationwide conclusions and extrapolations based on fewer than 10 reported incidents? I don't.

First off, the survey admits its own shortcomings. Second, the sample size is far more important to statistical signficance than incidents of specific responses. And again, do you believe it would truly alter the difference in justified shootings vs unjustified? Or to the point of convincing someone that the unjustified uses are now acceptable when before they felt they weren't?

Further, in order to really make use of data I think it should apply across a span of time during which gun laws have changed, to see if stricter control or more firearms access/ownership has an effect. And/or it should apply across multiple jurisdictions (lets say states) with differing gun control laws.

Okay, i agree. But that's not relevant to this discussion. The topic is whether or not removing justified shootings from total shootings would have any actual impact on people's opinions.

Within this thread, within this discussion, you are introducing those terms.

Can you define "gun violence", as used, by you, in this thread?

What does my personal definition have to do with this discussion, assuming i even have one. I 'introduced' the term gun violence in post 128 by the following statement:
"As much time as we spend complaining about terms such as "assault rifle", "high capacity", "gun violence","arsenal" etc. its no wander we get accused of avoiding the real issues associated with firearms."

My point has been all along that complaining about how others use these terms is not constructive. So again, what does my personal definition of "gun violence" have to do with this discussion?

And if you are so concerned with exacting definitions then you obviously must object to the term "anti" or even "2nd amendment rights" because there is no clear consensus as to their meanings but they are thrown around on these boards constantly. So please direct me to where you have demanded users clarify their definitions of these terms.

So you are claiming that this happens simply because you think maybe it could?

Do you have any evidence, any data, any quantitative information that is leading you to your conclusion?

Do you want the link again?

Then pick a reasonable standard and use that. The criminal law for the jurisdiction in question seems the most logical and reasonable source. If it's justified, it's justified. If it's not, it's not. I won't even try to use the words good or bad, I will ask that you not lump justified uses of force in with unjustified/criminal uses of force.

I'm not trying to debate what shootings are or aren't good so i have no reason to "pick a standard". For the umpteenth time, the standard of what is good or bad differs for everybody. If your standard is good equals legal that's fine but many others don't share it. Only that like a ton of other terms there is substantial ambiguity and always will be.

If somebody does not accept that all legal shootings are good ones that is not proof of their intent at deception.

 

[Warp]

And if you are so concerned with exacting definitions then you obviously must object to the term "anti" or even "2nd amendment rights" because there is no clear consensus as to their meanings but they are thrown around on these boards constantly. So please direct me to where you have demanded users clarify their definitions of these terms.

The difference is that if I use the term "2nd Amendment rights" (where did that come from? Did I use that in this thread??) I would be more than happy to offer up what I meant by that.

If the definition of "2nd Amendment rights" was fundamental to the discussion I would ask people what they meant.

Do you want the link again?

What link?

 

[Warp]

I'm not trying to debate what shootings are or aren't good so i have no reason to "pick a standard". For the umpteenth time, the standard of what is good or bad differs for everybody. If your standard is good equals legal that's fine but many others don't share it. Only that like a ton of other terms there is substantial ambiguity and always will be.

If somebody does not accept that all legal shootings are good ones that is not proof of their intent at deception.

Then would you mind explaining why...

Seriously? A few recent mass shootings such as the Aurora shooting, temple shooting, etc. come to mind. That in addition to the relatively high number of daily gun related murders, suicides, and accidental deaths all seem like important issues to me. Acknowledging there are issues does not equate to advocating further gun restrictions. Whether or not we like to admit it guns do facilitate some very heinous acts. Complaining about terminology on the other hand is trivial and evasive.

...these are issues?

What standard are you using that determines that these things happening constitutes an issue that needs to be addressed?

Is this just your own personal opinion that might not be shared by anybody else?

 

[JustinJ]

The difference is that if I use the term "2nd Amendment rights" (where did that come from? Did I use that in this thread??) I would be more than happy to offer up what I meant by that.

If the definition of "2nd Amendment rights" was fundamental to the discussion I would ask people what they meant.

Great. So we agree the definition will vary from person to person. If you debate somebody about what limits of gun control there should be then its fine to ask them what their definition of "2nd amendment rights" or what their definition "gun control" is. Or if you discuss "gun violence" its fine to ask them their definition. I'm not trying to debate those topics. But i think it's not useful to complain about the use of those terms or broadly accuse all those of using them as being deceitful.

What link?

The one in post 168: http://www.tracetheguns.org/report.pdf

...these are issues?

What standard are you using that determines that these things happening constitutes an issue that needs to be addressed?

Is this just your own personal opinion that might not be shared by anybody else?

Because we all have different definitions of what good or bad is does not in any way mean there are not commonalities. Mass shootings are for the most part universally considered a bad thing.