How do you respond to anti-gunners?

[Boberama]

Here are some common questions asked:

Oh - One thing, don't use the Second Amendment, only one country in the World has that, so it's a useless argument to an anti from any other country.

1. Having a gun makes you less safe and more likely to be murdered.

2. Assault weapons are designed to kill people, there is no valid use for them.

3. Nobody needs a high capacity magazine.

4. You have to register your car, your birth, your business - why not your gun?

5. Why shouldn't people who carry guns have to prove they are able to use them?

6. Keeping your cat indoors increases it's lifespan and decreases risk of disease, death and other injuries.



I am really, really disturbed by the last one. Damn!

 

[fireside44]

I'll play.

1. Having a gun makes you less safe and more likely to be murdered.

I dunno, I get quite the feeling of comfort. Since you probably don't own a gun I doubt you are even capable of having an accurate opinion.

2. Assault weapons are designed to kill people, there is no valid use for them.

Assault weapons use weak intermediate cartridges to accomplish their job. A good bolt action hunting rifle puts an "assault rifle" to shame in terms of pure killing ability. You should really research this stuff more before making such uninformed statements.

3. Nobody needs a high capacity magazine.

Nobody needs two cars, a three bedroom house, a 1,000 acre ranch, a set of fine china, triple ply toilet paper, and a case of beer to drink everyday. As you can see "need" has little bearing in today's world.

4. You have to register your car, your birth, your business - why not your gun?

I don't believe in registration of my car, my birth, or my business, so I guess I can't really comment on gun registration then either.

5. Why shouldn't people who carry guns have to prove they are able to use them?

Great point. I think gun safety should be taught in every school starting with our elementary aged kids and ending with comprehensive pistol and rifle training by the time they finish high school.

6. Keeping your cat indoors increases it's lifespan and decreases risk of disease, death and other injuries.

That's why that flea bitten, mange ridden little bugger gets the boot all night.

 

[Deanimator]

1. Having a gun makes you less safe and more likely to be murdered.

Nobody has ever been able to explain to me how being helpless to resist a violent attack makes me SAFER from that attack. Similarly, does dousing oneself in gasoline and discarding all extinguishers and smoke detectors make one safer from fire?

2. Assault weapons are designed to kill people, there is no valid use for them.

Sometimes it's necessary to kill people. Certainly all of the most effective means of defending from the use of deadly force entail substantial risk of death. Stopping (and potentially killing) someone who is trying to maim or murder me is the most "valid" use I can imagine.

3. Nobody needs a high capacity magazine.

1. Define "high capacity".
2. Does that include the police?

4. You have to register your car, your birth, your business - why not your gun?

Tell me how I'd go about "registering" my guns if I were to move back to Chicago to help my cousin with her mother who's suffering from dementia.

Registration of firearms has no purpose apart from facilitation of future bans and confiscation.

5. Why shouldn't people who carry guns have to prove they are able to use them?

How? By firing five shots at a paper plate at seven yards without shooting yourself or anyone else, while hitting the plate three times out of five? Or by placing in the top five at the Steel Challenge or in the Olympic pentathlon? Should the police have to do as well?

6. Keeping your cat indoors increases it's lifespan and decreases risk of disease, death and other injuries.

I hate cats. My not owning a cat increases its lifespan and decreases risk of disease, death and other injuries.

 

[The Bushmaster]

To hell with this game...

I have two barn cats that live outdoors year around. In fact they are up to their ears in snow today. One is 2 years old and the other is 14 years old and a damned good mouser...

 

[sv51macross]

Anyone have an answer for my dad's latest argument? (not smart enough to come up with an answer myself).

Q: Well, if the 2nd amendment is to let the people defend against a [potentially] tyrannical government, how are small arms supposed to defend against soldiers with trauma plates, tanks, and fighter jets with bombs?

 

[Neocode]

Anyone have an answer for my dad's latest argument? (not smart enough to come up with an answer myself).

Q: Well, if the 2nd amendment is to let the people defend against a [potentially] tyrannical government, how are small arms supposed to defend against soldiers with trauma plates, tanks, and fighter jets with bombs?

Tactics!

 

[mjkten]

Hopefully a truly tyrranical government would be so hampered by widespread noncompliance that an organized resistance wouldn't have to deal with a functioning military on home soil.

 

[shockwave]

Sometimes it's necessary to kill people. Certainly all of the most effective means of defending from the use of deadly force entail substantial risk of death. Stopping (and potentially killing) someone who is trying to maim or murder me is the most "valid" use I can imagine.

That's a very good answer. Agreed in full.

Question 5 isn't that unreasonable. However, guns are extremely dangerous tools, yes? That is, if misused or mishandled they can cause grave destruction and damage. Well so can a circular saw and you don't have demonstrate your proficiency with one of those, or a chainsaw, or an axe.

Yet, that said, I would advise anyone unfamiliar with firearms to take the NRA safety course and obtain training if desired. If you're going to have weapons, learn how to use them effectively and accurately.

 

[JoeSlomo]

When discussing firearms with those unfamiliar with them, or those opposed to them, I use logic and reason to the best of my ability, and try to clear up misconceptions so often times portrayed in movies and TV.

1. Having a gun makes you less safe and more likely to be murdered.

This is simply not true. A firearm enhances my safety by providing me with a tool that will allow me to overcome size, strength, or numbers disadvantages. A 100 pound female, or a 170 pound man, is going to be at a significant disadvantage if confronted by a 250 pound man intent on violence. A firearm is a tool that helps reduce the disparity.

2. Assault weapons are designed to kill people, there is no valid use for them.

I never had the desire to own an "assault rifle" until I moved into a hurricane zone and experienced the loss of service and police support that followed. There were THRONGS of people with ill intent and NO policing agency available to curtail them. An "assault rifle" is a tool I can use to defend my family, and my neighbors from the gangs of criminals that may roam in such dire times, and I will never again be without one.

3. Nobody needs a high capacity magazine.

High capacity magazines are more often used in competition than in any other aspect of firearms use, however, they afford me a greater degree of protection by providing more ammunition if I have to use a firearm as a tool to defend myself against one or more attackers.

4. You have to register your car, your birth, your business - why not your gun?

Firearms are tools that can provide security from not only criminals, but also from a criminal state. The registration of firearms will allow the state to identify and remove the only tools available that citizens can effectively use to defend their rights from a criminal tyrannical state apparatus. It has been proven again and again throughout history that criminal regimes gain and maintain power through terror and taking away the arms of the oppressed so that they can't fight back.

5. Why shouldn't people who carry guns have to prove they are able to use them?

For the same reason one doesn't have to "prove" he can use his hands, or a knife, or a baseball bat, or a chainsaw.

 

[Mikhail Weiss]

some tongue, some cheek, some seriousness

1. Having a gun makes you less safe and more likely to be murdered.

Wrong.

2. Assault weapons are designed to kill people...

Correct.

There is no valid use for them.

Incorrect. See above.

3. Nobody needs a high capacity magazine.

Wrong.

4. You have to register your car, your birth, your business - why not your gun?

Having to do something is no indication of its being right, or even a good idea.

5. Why shouldn't people who carry guns have to prove they are able to use them?

Why?

6. Keeping your cat indoors increases it's lifespan and decreases risk of disease, death and other injuries.

Prisoners are well maintained at state expense.

Now, removing tongue from cheek, let's look a little closer.

Fist one, that only pertains if you're a criminal. Personal anecdote time: was once assaulted in my home by a home invader guy bent on doing me harm. Not having a gun certainly did not make me safer. In fact, it may well have had the opposite effect.

Second one, if by “assault weapons” you mean weapons of war, well of course they're designed to kill people. That's how you win wars and keep peace. You either kill more of their people than they kill of yours, or you possess the means by which to do so, which deters their aggression. Assault weapons are but one part of the equation. As personal arms, “assault weapons” are a great means of stopping or deterring threats of great number or at great distance. Witness the LA riots and how armed shop owners saved their businesses while unarmed others were victimized.

Third one, all machines are designed to operate at optimal efficiency. Machines that do not do so aren't as useful as ones that do. “High capacity” magazines yield optimal operational efficiency. This is important when it comes to self defense or protection of others, two uses for which firearms are optimally suited. (Also, that sweeping “nobody” includes the very police one might call if, say, a gang of ruffians were to drive circles around one's home, shouting and shooting at said home.)

Fourth one, having to do something is no indication of its being right, or even a good idea. Free people should seek less state scrutiny, not more. In fact, free people do not seek the permission of the state to do anything, whether to wipe their noses, own cars, bear children, or own guns. It is the state that must ask the permission of its citizens for what it may or may not do. (This a pointing out of the ol', Don't get this whole who's in charge thing backwards, now.)

Fifth one, demonstrations of competence are never a requirement for the exercise of natural rights. (I put it that way, as opposed to, “Demonstrations of competence are never a requirement for the exercise of a right,” in an attempt to lessen any potential confusion as to whether the argument leaned upon the 2A or not, per your earlier proviso.)

Sixth one, there is no perfect world, nor a perfectly safe one. The cat has an immune system, sharp claws and sharp teeth to keep it safe outside the (protective) home, but keeping it too much in the home diminishes its very catlike nature, which is to need those claws and teeth, which is to keep its wits so that it may feed and, most important of all, so that it might live. One does not deny the nature of the beast and expect it to thrive.

 

[Mikhail Weiss]

sv51macross
Anyone have an answer for my dad's latest argument?

Q: Well, if the 2nd amendment is to let the people defend against a [potentially] tyrannical government, how are small arms supposed to defend against soldiers with trauma plates, tanks, and fighter jets with bombs?

A: 1. Guerilla warfare is to strike by stealth and speed, to remain elusive, and to seize increasingly more potent weapons. This is sometimes called “up-arming.” (Club a guy to seize his knife. Knife a guy to seize his gun. Use a gun to seize a mobile artillery piece. And so on. Lest your father doubt that this can be used successfully, consult 20th century conflicts for recent examples ranging from Cuba to Vietnam to Kosovo to Bosnia...usw)
A: 2. How many U.S. soldiers would willingly turn their weapons against U.S. Citizens?

 

[mbt2001]

1. Having a gun makes you less safe and more likely to be murdered.

No. It doesn't. To say that means that the criminals are shooting in self defense when they see you armed with a gun. Do you believe that??

Also, paying people protection money isn't my idea of living. I do not want to have to pay people off to do business, live or love.

2. Assault weapons are designed to kill people, there is no valid use for them.

Hitler coined the phrase "assault rifle" BTW. True military rifles are not for sale in the U.S. We can buy older ones if they are registered and we are licensed and have $10,000 laying around or if they are of a more primitive design.

The Assault weapons that you are a referring to are not the same thing. They are simply guns that have been made to look cool, but function no differently than any other gun that you don't have a problem with.

3. Nobody needs a high capacity magazine.

Well, the law exempts police and military. Apparently THEY NEED them. There is the myth in the world about guns that somehow I can get by with a musket, while a LEO NEEDS an automatic weapon. I disagree. I face the same threats, maybe not as often, but it isn't like 2nd or 3rd class criminals come after us and the 1st string go after the cops.

Imagine trying to by a table saw or sports equipment and the clerk saying to you, "sorry sir, you are not a licensed professional, so you do not NEED that saw or golf club. You can get by on old outdated clubs and tools."

4. You have to register your car, your birth, your business - why not your gun?

Illegals drive, people with revoked licenses drive, drunks drive, criminals do business, use business to launder money. The government has created this idea that THEY have oversight and that bowing to their authority and relinquishing your freedom can gain you something. Licensing drivers hasn't stopped any of the above from happening, nor has licensing business or stock brokers or banks.

It is just a way to keep people from opening businesses or driving or owning guns and a better way to tax those events. It does nothing else and serves no other purpose.

5. Why shouldn't people who carry guns have to prove they are able to use them?

A gun is the generally the best kind of weapon we have. It doesn't take years of mastery and training to wield, it can be used at a distance, etc... So, if you USE a gun in self defense, you merely used the best tool available for the job.

You do not use a hand saw to chop a tree do you? Why? Chainsaws are better, that is why.

Self Defense is necessary in this world. If you cannot defend yourself, people will take your food and you will die. A gun gives you the best chance to defend yourself and walk away alive. Feel free to use a knife, but when you use it, you will be asking "why is the government keeping me from defending myself with the MOST efficient weapon for the task."

6. Keeping your cat indoors increases it's lifespan and decreases risk of disease, death and other injuries.

Putting us all in a medically induced coma at the hospital would keep us all safe and sound; however it would also deny us the very experiences that we were created / adapted, or however you want to look at it, to have. We wouldn't be human anymore, but flesh plants.

 

[mbt2001]

Q: Well, if the 2nd amendment is to let the people defend against a [potentially] tyrannical government, how are small arms supposed to defend against soldiers with trauma plates, tanks, and fighter jets with bombs?

So his alternative is to live under a tyrannical government?

My small arms might not accomplish a lot, but we either win or die and for anyone that has truly lived under a tyrannical government, those are BOTH victories. Further to that, the rules of war haven't changed, you pick your battles, you strike where it is least expected, you use mobility to gain surprise, your disrupt the movement and formation of the enemy and you win. You do not do it and allow them to do it to you, you lose. Tanks be damned.

Anyone who knows war knows that tanks were designed to counter trench warfare. They increased the mobility of the infantry, but that are not a cure all to the problems of war. If they were, the Soviets would have steam rolled Afghanistan.

 

[lions]

Q: Well, if the 2nd amendment is to let the people defend against a [potentially] tyrannical government, how are small arms supposed to defend against soldiers with trauma plates, tanks, and fighter jets with bombs?

Don't forget sheer numbers, there are a lot of guns and gun owners. Also think of the number of soldiers that would not fight and kill their countrymen. Some might just sit it out, others might come to our side and bring their big toys with them. Tactics is also key, guerilla warfare is tough to beat. We have a wealth of knowledge from retired military members who have seen it first hand and know how it's done.

 

[Fred Fuller]

OT for S&T...

lpl