What will the Anti's blame for deaths now?

[JRH6856]

Maybe the anti's can start to blame the "fundamentalist religious mindset" for wanting to own guns

They already are. Ever since folks in Arizona showed up at Tea Party rallies carrying openly.

 

[Elkins45]

They already are. Ever since folks in Arizona showed up at Tea Party rallies carrying openly.

Funny how the last high profile Arizona shooting was done by an insane Marx reader. Don't think anybody could call Laughtner a fundamentalist.

If they can't blame the tool then they will have to demonize the tool's owner...although I'm not sure if they really make the distinction. Most of the antis I know hate the gun owner just as much as the gun itself.

To them just thinking about wanting to own a gun makes you "unclean" or something.

 

[JRH6856]

Don't think anybody could call Laughtner [sic] a fundamentalist.

ISTR. all the news reports started out with that assumption. Until they found out more about him, it was a given on several blogs, that he was a "fundamentalist, tea-bagging, gun-nut." I know some antis who will not be dissuaded and are still trying to reconcile that with Marxism.:banghead:

 

[Impureclient]

it is well within the known tolerances of the system

.....and here lies the problem. Them nutty tolerances.

 

[Romeo 33 Delta]

Trust me on this: "...but if it saves just one life".

They'll NEVER give up ... it's a mental disorder.

 

[JRH6856]

Young earth, old earth, either way, I'm pretty sure neither involves guns so the discussion doesn't belong here.

 

[dev_null]

*redacted*

 

[Double Naught Spy]

What will the Anti's say now that "guns" aren't even involved in the Top 15 of deaths anymore? They really like to say that "guns" are the highest cause of deaths in the US.

I believe you have misrepresented the position of the anti-gun groups. I don't see where any of them are claiming that guns were the leading cause of death. This goes for the LCAV, Brady, and VPC. The CDC doesn't list firearms as a leading cause of death either.

They do make claims that guns are amongst top leading factors in murders, suicides, and violent deaths in the US. This information is about right. The CDC notes that guns are amonst the top 3 injury related deaths.

So just because homicides fell out of the top leading causes of death, there position isn't likely to change. The reduced homicide information is not in conflict with their positions.

 

[EnfieldEnthusiast]

The anti-gun activitsts always see the negitive side of shooting & never want to see the positive sides of shooting.
Below is a link detailing conflicts of interest between Pro-gun Labour party polititions & the left-wing League Against Cruel Sports.Its interesting that not all Labour polititions were as anti-gun,as first though.This was from 2005,during the last governments reign ,when Blair was PM.At least then,some had common sense.

[URL="http://www.airgunbbs.com/archive/indexThe Labour Party supports fishing and shooting and you would be well advised to get used to it.”

The Labour Party supports fishing and shooting and you would be well advised to get used to it.”

Quote from the angry letter,from Martin Salter,then MP for Reading West.Well Martin if Labour supports shooting,why couldn't they give us back handguns in 2005 or earlier? Because Labour wants to appease all the do-gooders it can to get votes & not anger their voters in Scotland,who whine about the Dunblane massacre.

An early draft of the charter contained support for examining the reintroduction of single shot .22 target pistols. Disappointingly, it did not make the final version of the charter, but it is encouraging that the issue is being considered at a senior level in the parliamentary Labour party.

It never happend because of the above reason.It amazes me how gutless polititions are & they themselves deny themselves the freedom to own handguns or semi-auto centrefire rifles.
If I want a rifle to hunt with or to shoot targets with,I chose my gun &should have the freedom to select any type,on the western civillain market.Not be told that a semi-auto centrefire has no useful purpose,because some naffing idiotic minister or anti-gun activit tells me,its inappropriate.
The antis in Britain wanted to ban lever-action rifles and bolts for hunting&target-shooting because they were not essential.Where the naffing hell are these peoples brains? Up their posterias more likely than not.

 

[Tiberius67]

Has it ever ocurred to others that "antis" do actually believe lives will be saved by firearm control and that is their reason for supporting it?

The only people in the Anti movement that believe that nonsense are the superstitious fools who think firearms have magical power...like Sauron's Ring....and compel their owners to commit crimes they otherwise wouldn't have. But they aren't in control of the movement, thier main role is to be used as propaganda. The actual leaders...Diane Feinstein, for example...own guns, they just don't think the rabble should have them. Chicago's Democrat government is violently Anti-Gun yet not only do they own guns the Mayor and City Council gave themselves police powers so they could carry them. Even Sarah Brady has been known to give them as gifts.

Do we really have to demonize them in every way possible, regardless if true or not, just because they hold a different opinion than we do? I want to preserve the 2nd amendment too but I also believe we should be able to do so with a higher level of discourse than is found on AM talk shows. And its been my experience that most pro gun people won't bat an eye to oppose violations of liberties that they personally don't value.

If one looks carefully at what anti's actually do rather than what they say they want...it's pretty clear the leaders of the movement think the only use for guns is to kill one's enemies, and they are projecting that belief onto their enemies, namely the common citizenry. The Democrats have mobilized all of thier assets in the MSM and academe to demonize gun owners, and make them social pariahs on the level of sexual deviants, a goal they have been fairly successful at. If gun people don't push back with all thier might they'll win....just like the Democrats succeeded at demonizing Bush, Goldwater, and many others.

 

[Justin]

There's no need to actually engage in demonizing the antis. As I've previously stated, they're more pathetic than anything.

 

[drcook]

Which is why I get hopping mad when I hear of a gun owner disparaging "those guys;" whether "those guys" are dedicated AR (or "other Assault Weapon") shooters, or a 1911/semi-auto handgun shooter, or the Knob Creek crowd, "those guys" have guns that your typical bolt-action rifle/pump-action shotgun hunter doesn't use, and therefore doesn't see a need for.

I worked with one of those hypocrites. He had a .22 for murdering innocent groundhogs out under his shed, but any other type of firearm was evil because they were designed to kill something (like his .22). He actually was very leftist in most of his beliefs, and "thick headed" in his others.

There are a whole generation of people who absolutely are frightened of inanimate objects and take very actively take part in the "control" aspect, otherwise (at least around here) there wouldn't be such a plethora of those home association neighborhoods where neighbors/the association can control so much of people's lives, meaning down to the color of your front door. I worked with another guy who lived in one of those places and they all had to have the same color front door, in the same architectual style. House after house after house. They all looked exactly the same. I guess it is easier for them to live if every aspect is controlled.

 

[JRH6856]

They all looked exactly the same. I guess it is easier for them to live if every aspect is controlled.

They call it "equality".:banghead:

 

[dev_null]

Lumping all "antis" together is different from lumping all "gun nuts" together... how?

 

[Mike1234567]

^^^ It's different because the antis defend themselves and their families with rhetoric (cowardly BS) and the rest of us defend ourselves and our families with strength.

 

[dev_null]

Not my point, Mike. I'm saying that the rhetoric here often gets just as guilty of stereotyping and blind prejudice as the rhetoric used against us. Not very "high road" in my book. And more to the point, it is just as tactically flawed.

 

[Mike1234567]

You make a good point, D_N. We can all be ignorant and closed-minded at times. Try as I may to not have that weakness... I still catch myself now and then.

 

[Elkins45]

Lumping all "antis" together is different from lumping all "gun nuts" together... how?

Because they all have essentially the same impact on us--they either encourage or tacitly facilitate the infringement of our RKBA. Although their reasons and degrees of toxicity may be vastly different, their impact is functionally the same. And they're all just about equally emotionally-driven and equally resistant to logic.

A pile of six inch rocks may be a delightfully sparkling mixture of sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic varieties, but they all hurt about the same when someone throws them at your head.

 

[Jonah71]

To assume most gun control advocates use logic and honest statistics is a mistake. Almost without fail, on the rare occassion I do find myself wasting time talking to one, they get angry very quickly and end the conversation when verifiable statistic based logic is introduced.

 

[JustinJ]

Feel free to dig up the CDC-WISQARS info on gun deaths and compare it to the number of firearms owned in this country. The bottom line is that, even assuming a different gun is used for every crime committed, less than 1/10 of 1% of all of the firearms in the United States are ever used to commit a crime.

Are you saying that since the vast majority of guns are not used in crime their ownership is justified because not enough are?

Now, if one adheres to the opinion that the only acceptable number of gun deaths in a country is zero*, I suppose that's an opinion, but it's one that is certainly not informed by a realistic view of human nature, technology, or the world in general, as even nations with the most stringent gun control laws still have gun crime. (Nevermind the fact that basic economics and criminal surveys have shown that in a situation absent of guns, criminals will simply substitute another weapon in order to victimize citizens, and will grow more brazen in their victimizations, particularly of the infirm and elderly.)

Crime reduction is not an all or nothing proposition. While some criminals would certainly revert to other weapons if guns were not allowed there are also many crimes that simply could not be committed with out them such as Columbine and other mass shootings.

This is dependent on how willing you are to believe their excuses for failed policies.

Within the United States, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, and California have all experimented with extreme levels of gun control. Internationally, the United Kingdom has gun control that is so utterly strict that the UK Olympic Pistol Team has to travel to France just to conduct a practice session. In Australia, nearly all handguns are prohibited, and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns are banned. In Saddam-era Iraq, the only people allowed to have guns were Ba'ath Party loyalists.

Local gun control can never be effecitve so long as firearms are readily available one state or town over. I absolutely oppose gun control but its not hard to see why city and state laws will never be effective. Using other countries as evidence of how gun control will or won't work in the US is extremely problematic. There are in fact countries with very draconian gun laws that have crime rates much lower than ours. They also have different cultures, governments and economies than us as all countries do. But that doesnt stop both sides from spinning data to support their views. We've all heard the pro gun statstics regarding Australia but many were extremely misleading as the following snopes article explains:

http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp

In all of those countries, enforcement of those gun control laws required actions on the part of the government that, hopefully, would not be tolerated in the United States, including registration, confiscation, and private property searches without so much as a warrant.

Oddly enough, all of these countries still had gun violence.

But even if they didn't, you'd have to be willing to set fire to the 4th, 5th, 9th, and 10th amendments of the Bill of Rights as well in order to enforce an effective gun control scheme in this country.

I agree that the price of effective gun control is not worth the cost to liberty.

You should spend more time at the CDC website. FWIW, there isn't a whole lot of direct evidence that more guns result in less crime, but this country has been experiencing not only a drop in violent crime since the early 1990s, but also a drop in accidental gun deaths as well, and in that time, not only have gun laws become more liberal, gun ownership has skyrocketed.

Causes of crime rate changes is extremley hard to pinpoint and many mistakenly assign cause to effect. There is a very strong arguement that Roe vs Wade had a huge impact on crime reduction. Ultimately, i have a hard time buying the arguement that would be violent criminals are deterred by citizen gun ownership. They just don't think that way as most consider themselves bullet proof to begin with. If being shot by rival gang members wont deter gang bangers from gang activity how would anybody expect the chance of being shot by a law abiding civilian to deter them?

Ultimately, i agree that there are plenty of dishonest anti gun people who will lie and mislead to get their way but i don't agree they are all that way and i also don't pretend no such people exist on our side.

 

[happygeek]

Feel free to dig up the CDC-WISQARS info on gun deaths and compare it to the number of firearms owned in this country. The bottom line is that, even assuming a different gun is used for every crime committed, less than 1/10 of 1% of all of the firearms in the United States are ever used to commit a crime.

Are you saying that since the vast majority of guns are not used in crime their ownership is justified because not enough are?

You could say that as a crime fighting measure it'd make more sense to advocate for parole reform than gun control [after poking around Google for a few minutes I come up with a couple different percentages of parolees who re-offend, so far all much higher than 1/10 of 1%].

While some criminals would certainly revert to other weapons if guns were not allowed there are also many crimes that simply could not be committed with out them such as Columbine and other mass shootings.

You've heard of the Bath School Massacre, the worst school massacre in US history? The perpetrator didn't use a gun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_school_massacre). The worst mass murder that wasn't terrorism in US history didn't involve a shooting either (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happyland_Fire). Columbine for that matter wouldn't have gone down in history as a mass shooting if the perpetrators had been as good at bomb making as the Bath killer. Yes it's awfully hard to stage a mass shooting without a gun, but it's almost as difficult if someone is shooting back; probably why the worst mass shootings happened in "gun free zones".

You also have to make the assumption that gun control schemes actually stop criminals from obtaining guns. The British experienced a spike in homicides in the years following their handgun ban (http://webarchive.nationalarchives....omeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs09/hosb1109chap2.pdf, top of page 18) and noted here (http://www.ligali.org/pdf/home_office_gun_crime_the_market_in_and_use_of_illegal_firearms.pdf) that criminals were still getting ahold of handguns 9 years after the ban. The study was rather interesting, apparently some are manufacturing crude handguns that will still kill you at short range, but it didn't list what I was really curious about; a breakdown of where the smuggled guns had come from that a black market dealer had at arrest.

 

[PastorAaron]

People are weird. My father in law is anti hunting to the point it'd make you sick. He also eats mass farmed beef and cheers every time a goblin gets shot while doing evil. The flaw is assuming that people are reasonable.
I believe in guns, Jesus, a young earth, and an old principle: treat others the way you'd want to be treated. That said, the anti gun wave is in decline around these parts. I'm hoping it stays that way long enough for me to get all the guns on my list into the safe.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

LOL, y'all are still going through and trying to find new ways to bash the anti's, calling them names like ignorant and emotionally-driven when the basis of this thread is out of ignorance and most or a lot of the responses are emotionally-based with a lot of name calling?

Somehow I am not seeing the pro-gun crowd as being any better than the anti-crowd except for the fact that the group I like supports guns and the other group does not.

Thanks to dev_null for trying to point out the vast similarities which are rather ugly when you think about it.

 

[Powerglide]

Then let them do their thing cause I'm surely gonna do mine.In the end, we'll see who fares better, or lives longer.

 

[JustinJ]

You've heard of the Bath School Massacre, the worst school massacre in US history? The perpetrator didn't use a gun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_school_massacre). The worst mass murder that wasn't terrorism in US history didn't involve a shooting either (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happyland_Fire). Columbine for that matter wouldn't have gone down in history as a mass shooting if the perpetrators had been as good at bomb making as the Bath killer. Yes it's awfully hard to stage a mass shooting without a gun, but it's almost as difficult if someone is shooting back; probably why the worst mass shootings happened in "gun free zones".

But they weren't good at bomb making as it is far more involved process that many lack the technical skill to accomplish. However, no such skill or effort is required to go on a shooting spree in a high school. Many people who lack the ability to make effective explosives would be unable to commit mass murder if not for firearms. Obviously some may exist who can and will use explosives so not all mass killings could be prevented by gun control(assuming gun control could limit availability of firearms to those who wish to commit such crimes) but it is a "either/or" logical fallasy to say all mass killings must be prevented to justify efforts to reduce their occurence.

You also have to make the assumption that gun control schemes actually stop criminals from obtaining guns. The British experienced a spike in homicides in the years following their handgun ban (http://webarchive.nationalarchives.g...b1109chap2.pdf, top of page 18) and noted here (http://www.ligali.org/pdf/home_offic...l_firearms.pdf) that criminals were still getting ahold of handguns 9 years after the ban. The study was rather interesting, apparently some are manufacturing crude handguns that will still kill you at short range, but it didn't list what I was really curious about; a breakdown of where the smuggled guns had come from that a black market dealer had at arrest.

Using the gun control model of one country to predict its effectiveness in another is extemely problematic. Depending on how one assigns cause to effect multiple countries can be used to argue in favor of both sides of the gun control debate.