Gun control

[dodint]

Dodint, what exactly are you agreeing with me about?

You make incorrect assumptions about me, fabricate a logical fallacy to put in my mouth, troll me, then complain that you cannot have a conversation in here to your satisfaction. Oh, then you go on to troll everyone else who does not like guns.

Have you considered that you might be the problem, as in, you are the reason you cannot have a civil conversation in here?

I'm having the same exact discussion right now at a much bigger and more diverse forum and it's going fine. My moderate views on gun control look absolutely reactionary conservative in the climate of the GTXF.

Who the problem here is relative. You see me as a problem because you (come across as) holding a radical view about a explicit Constitutional right. Carlo's above post is right on the mark. I'm interested in finding solutions within that framework. You seem to be interested in ignoring the constitution and demonizing legal gun owners.

I'm not trolling at all. This is where the discussion went off the rails:

It is not fair to compare gun deaths to car deaths. A gun, when used it the manner for which it was designed, will kill something. A car, when used in the manner for which it was designed, should not hurt anything.

That's an absurd statement. 86 people were killed and 458 people were injured in Nice, France last year by a truck used as a weapon. The Charlottesville Riots peaked with an extremist driving a Dodge Challenger into a crowd killing a woman. It's prolific enough that there is a Wikipedia page documenting the instances: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-ramming_attack

So I own a gun, which you characterize as a killing machine. Meanwhile you happily own a car that, when used in the manner for which it was designed, absolutely can and does kill people. So often that every jurisdiction in the country has a vehicular manslaughter code.

Yet I'm the bad guy here for taking offense? A gun is designed to send a projectile to a point or area target at some distance. As with any kind of tool what is done with it is up to the person wielding it. Of all the ammo sold in the United States in a given year how many rounds do you think are fired at people? I'm betting the ratio is incredibly low. To characterize all guns as killing machines is intellectually dishonest and when called on it you began having fits.

I can't get satisfaction here, as you put it, because the question is too difficult for this or any forum to tackle. It's an emotionally charged subject and those that speak the loudest about it tend to have the lowest information; thoughts and prayers.

I'm a legal gun owner that recognizes the obvious problem that proximity to guns contributes to gun violence. I believe that can be reduced over the course of a few generations through market restrictions, grandfather clauses, and attrition. In the absence of a 2A repeal, which I would support, that's the best I could hope for. In the meantime if we treat the cause of the violence (mental illness, poverty, ending the 'War on Drugs', recreational drug legalization, undereducation, etc) we can reduce gun violence in our time. But I'm not willing to demonize law abiding gun owners who are exercising their constitutionally protected right.

I enter these discussions because I find it interesting from a policy and constitutional perspective. My position as expressed above is too conservative for this board, but if you divorce yourself from the emotion for thirty seconds you'll see that it's a very practical and moderate position.

I'd love to talk to you (all, not just Cam) about it with the understanding that it's for our own enlightenment; nothing we say in either direction will make a bit of difference to anyone that can effect meaningful change. My position on a great many things over the last 15 or so years has changed, in large part thanks to the diverse opinions I encounter on this and other forums (UBI, for instance, is a complete 180 for me).

I am sorry that I upset you Cam, I didn't think your characterization of firearms and by extension the motives of their owners was fair. I argue in a very flippant and conversational style and don't always consider that it may not, in text, be taken as I am trying to express it. If we're going to have hard feelings about it I'd rather just stick to cars, video games, and art and leave the policy debates for other venues.

[Freude am Fahren]

"truck used as a weapon"

Notice you never have to say "Gun used as a weapon"

[Cam]

My problem with this discussion is not your stance on guns. It is the fact that you are making up complete fabrications about who I am and what I believe about the topic.

This is my one post about the topic, "It is not fair to compare gun deaths to car deaths. A gun, when used it the manner for which it was designed, will kill something. A car, when used in the manner for which it was designed, should not hurt anything."

This is "off the rails?" That makes me "radical?" You think that's "a fit?" Wow, that is a big stretch. I never mentioned a constitutional right. I am not ignoring the constitution. I did not demonise gun owners. You implied I am irrational. You implied that I, "...daydream about an America with no 2A..." I do not think that everyone that owns a gun is a murderer. You seem to think I have an agenda. (Seriously? What does that even mean? ) You imply that I am posting based on emotion. You assume that I never owned and operated a firearm. All complete fabrications. Then, you have the audacity to say I'm being intellectually dishonest. I can only guess you are trolling me because that shit is just so out there.

Of course I enjoy intellectual discourse with the people here I consider to be friends, but you have to stop making up bullshit about me and others.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Calm down guys.

If you're truly trying to have a rational intellectual discussions, need to make sure your emotional mind is really calm.

Stick with your points and don't go off on implied tangents.

Sometimes you'll also have to just agree to disagree.

If you feel people unfairly implied shit on you, just let them. If there's no shit on you, then there's no shit on you. If there's really shit on you, other people will smell it.

[Crazed_Insanity]

"truck used as a weapon"

Notice you never have to say "Gun used as a weapon"

Gun is indeed a weapon. No argument there.

However, it is still a tool... like a car or truck.

We can drive for fun, just as we can shoot for fun.

We can drive to make a living..., likewise we can hunt to eat and use it to protect our properties.

We can definitely use both for evil acts.

So in a way, tools we created are very similar that way.

But of course right to bear arms don't include nuclear bombs. There's no reason for all of us to be able to buy nuclear weapons. Similarly these weapons mass shooters were able to purchase or modified is really too much. If you really want to play with them, please join the military... or perhaps NRA should start up some sort of privately owned military camps or something so those gun lovers can just shoot each other inside their own compounds or somethings. There's really no reason why we need these things inside a home.

[dodint]

"truck used as a weapon"

Notice you never have to say "Gun used as a weapon"

In the post above this one I said "I'm a legal gun owner that recognizes the obvious problem that proximity to guns contributes to gun violence."

Of course guns are used as weapons, I never once said they were not. It was stated that automobiles "should not hurt anything" which was the point I was addressing; car violence is so systemic the penal code has specific provisions to cover it.

I only brought up the car/auto thing because it's an easy way to understand that absolute scale of the impact of gun deaths by contrasting the statistic to something familiar to this community. I know gun types like to say "Ban firearms?!?!?!, why not ban cars too?!?!!?" and the kneejerk reaction by abolitionists is to call that argument stupid, which is what happened here. That's why I specifically spoke to the metric and not the mechanism; Cam did the opposite, did not acknowledge the metric but instead provided biased commentary on both the purpose of guns and vehicles. That is where it 'went off the rails.'

I admitted up front that I haven't read this thread in months and clicked on it by accident. Through the first part of this discussion I literally though I was discussing this with Brian because I wasn't paying attention. Of course I'm operating from presumptions and characterizations, fair or not. I know you (Cam) have come at me hard in the past on philosophical differences so it's very likely that when I consider you as a whole I presume too much. I'm really only interested in the policy implications and not your individual actions, maybe I'm setting you up as a strawman for the sake of this thread. I certainly don't watch your videos or read your other posts and think you're quietly a radical 2A abolitionist just biding your time until the revolution starts. Here is my honest presumptions about Cam:

radical: Practical? No. Would like to see the 2A abolished at the expense of legalized gun ownership? I assume so, yes.
a fit: You're taking this very personal and I don't know why; purposefully or not you've made this entire exercise about you and me and not policy issues.
ignoring the constitution: I have no idea; I attribute the position of 'no guns for anyone' to Jason more than you specifically.
demonize gun owners: You're characterization of 'guns as killing machines', to me, demonizes gun owners. That is how your words impacted me.
agenda: Your agenda, I presume, is for there to be less guns in the US. Anti-gun measures generally hurt law abiding gun owners, not outlows, so this agenda is inherently anti-gun owner. This is something I'd like to explore.
daydream no-2A: See above.
LAGO as murders: Okay, good, I appreciate you saying I'm not a wannabe murder; no snark intended.
emotion: You seem emotional, either about guns, Florida, or my tone, something.
firearm operation: I have no idea and it's not really relevant and I don't think more/less of you either way whatever the truth is. Many people I encounter who are 2A abolitionists have never held a gun. It's like if Keith were to lecture about the dangers of alcohol; while technically correct it loses some of its weight due to the complete lack of experience behind the position.
intellectually dishonest: I think you are/were by choosing to ignore how the statistic was presented and going right for the prepackaged talking point.

In drafting this response I see that I've taken the overall position that most Left GTXFers seem to have about gun ownership and applied them to you, Cam, the person. You're right, it's not fair. It wasn't intentional, I didn't fabricate anything or attempt to troll you out of malice. I wasn't considering your exact (and unknown, by your assertion) position on the matter because I don't genuinely care what you choose to do, I just wanted to discuss policy. I'm not here to persecute you, or Brian, or Jason, or anyone. I'm just here to talk policy and now I'm trapped in this devolution of an already contentious thread. From my perspective, you've (collectively) managed to drive out the one person that showed up with something other than the hive mentality.

Without going back through the thread to find your position I'm not sure what more I could've done. That's on me. But I didn't intend on taking on Cam the man, I wasn't even considering you as a person in these replies. It would be tiresome to have to needle out every persons reply line by line but maybe that's what's needed for this audience.

I honestly don't know, and the issue isn't even that important to me to suffer this much grief over it.

[Cam]

I am sorry I caused you grief, really. I thought I was being matter-of-fact. Obviously, tone is lost in text. I do not feel that I am the one overblowing things here.

Really, I am with Jason and novi on this. Guns are here to stay and there is nothing I can do about it, especially considering I am not allowed to vote. I do not like guns, but I understand they are a necessary evil. I agree that there needs to be some way of keeping them away from the crazies. Unfortunately, I have no realistic ideas on how to do that.

[dodint]

I feel bad when anyone here feels bad, you're all great people. I don't provoke anyone for fun, I just have poor tone. I feel bad that John and Justin and other people are not here anymore in part because of how things can escalate. I found out today the Keith is still harboring resentment over the 'Switch gimmick' conversation from last year. Law school hasn't helped as we're trained to communicate in short, pointed statements.

You didn't cause me grief, per se. I don't think you're malicious at all, just frustrated at my inability to communicate my thoughts effectively. On a personal level I'm at what I believe is a 12 year emotional low so I'm not exactly receptive to being challenged, either. I should know my limitations and not engage in the first place.

[Tom Servo]

Aside - I always enjoy replacing "per se" with "with a spatula", as it makes almost any sentence more entertaining. Anyway, back at it.

[dodint]

Authorities had four opportunities to intervene with this individual. The school district twice (they expelled and banned him from the premises), the FBI who acted on a credible tip, and the local police who spoke to him about torturing animals. Through none of those interventions was he compelled to seek mental health help.

Details about the FBI's inaction are starting to come out: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/02/16/p...ter/index.html