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Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action. |
On January 15 2013 02:22 DeepElemBlues wrote:Show nested quote +To quote Jon Stewart, for some reason, we are for some reason so afraid of some dystopic possible future that we're unwilling to do anything to address our own actual dystopic present. Until we nut up and act, we're going to keep having schools, theaters, malls, colleges, and offices get shot up. . Yeah, and that's the problem. People like you 'quoting' Jon Stewart. 'Quoting' a focus-grouped, processed, artificial viewpoint that plays to your ego and prejudices and requires no facts, just feelings. Do we actually live in a dystopic present? If it feels like it, it is! We must nut up and deal with these horrible feelings by grandstanding on the graves of children and strutting our manufactured self-righteous indignation around and, naturally and most importantly, telling other people what to do. We're going to keep having public places shot up until security gets real. The Newtown shooter entered the school through an unsupervised, unlocked, unsecured side door. Why do most mass-shootings happen in "gun-free zones"? Show nested quote +1 - You want to distract from the argument about gun violence by debating semantics? Fine. The Aurora, CO movie theater shooter fired 30 rounds in 27 seconds. That's horrifying. If the Smith & Wesson MP15 Semi-automatic rifle with a 100 Round Drum Magazine he was firing didn't malfunction, imagine how many more people would have died? There's no emotion in the logic that guns that fire less bullets at a lower rate don't kill people as fast as guns that do. Why are "assault rifles" your bogeyman when a handgun can fire just as quickly as a legal AR-15? One pull, one shot. 1-2 seconds to reload. Size of clip or magazine is totally irrelevant, in the time you can fire 120 bullets from 4 30-round magazines on a legal AR-15 you could have fired 100-110 rounds from a handgun (save revolvers - unless you have a speedloader). It's obvious that you know very little, if anything, about firearms, yet your moral outrage is supposed to give you some kind of expertise and authority on guns in America?
He was talking about an extended 100 round magazine that was apparently used in that specific shooting. I don't think an assault rifles ban would have affect on their use in crime for several decades, but you have to admit that ARs are more powerful than handguns. It's not just the rate of fire, it's the extended clips and what you're firing. A round from an AR can penetrate through 7 walls of a lower-middle class sort of house.
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On January 15 2013 02:27 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2013 02:15 TheFrankOne wrote:
Guns are designed for the sole purpose of killing. Not a "beautiful" response, just semantics. Why is it when discussing guns it's common to bring up how guns are 'designed' for killing? What something was originally designed for hundreds of years ago is pretty much irrelevant today. If a secret new document unveiled that bowling balls were originally designed to smash people's heads in rather than for bowling alley recreation/competition, that wouldn't change how we view bowling legislation. You can discuss how the specific features of something that is being manufactured more recently is designed to optimize deadliness (poisoned bullets for a fictitious example... how do poisoned bullets help people target shoot or defend their home), or the opposite (new type of bumper for a car reduces chances of hit and run being deadly), but what something was originally designed for shouldn't affect the answer to questions like the one in the thread title. In fact, discussions about these 'features' are very difficult because you need to be an expert in order to understand the issue; how many people in this thread truly get all of the major pros and cons of semi-automatic functionality, for example?
I was just pointing out that saying guns are made because there is a demand is a semantic debate, if you substitute designed for made you end up with a slightly better version of the argument TGalore was making. I really don't care if people own guns, I don't believe it is a right but the 2nd amendment clearly establishes that it is legal. (That said, I do own and regularly use guns.)
The bowling ball analogy is terrible though. Today guns are designed to kill, hundreds of years ago they could of been designed for bowling, it doesn't really matter. (Sole purpose is not something I would actually argue, but I would argue that killing has, with some exceptions, always been at the heart of their design.) It's not like I'm going to go bowling with an AK anytime soon.
It's relevant because people make that horrible argument about hammers and cars, one is a tool with many functions other than bashing a face in, the other is a wonderfully efficient mode of transportation. Guns fall into a different category.
Really though, what else are they for? You can say they are designed to move a projectile at high velocities but that projectile will hit something and if shooting non-living targets is their purpose (recreation/competition) then I don't think you can justify having something that happens to kill so efficiently, unlike bowling balls.
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He was talking about an extended 100 round magazine that was apparently used in that specific shooting. I don't think an assault rifles ban would have affect on their use in crime for several decades, but you have to admit that ARs are more powerful than handguns. It's not just the rate of fire, it's the extended clips and what you're firing. A round from an AR can penetrate through 7 walls of a lower-middle class sort of house.
There is very little difference in rate of fire ability between an AR-15 and a handgun. Pull the trigger once, one bullet is fired. Reloading takes 2 seconds max. A little easier with handguns than with an AR to reload.
Also, please, the ignorance is incredible. Guess what will also go 7 walls (or more) of a lower-middle class house? Many calibers / types of handgun ammunition. The AR-15 uses the .223 Remington round which is very slightly different from the 5.56mm rounds used by NATO for the M-16 (AR-15). There are lots of handgun rounds more powerful, and lots that are less powerful.
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United States24569 Posts
On January 15 2013 02:52 TheFrankOne wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2013 02:27 micronesia wrote:On January 15 2013 02:15 TheFrankOne wrote:
Guns are designed for the sole purpose of killing. Not a "beautiful" response, just semantics. Why is it when discussing guns it's common to bring up how guns are 'designed' for killing? What something was originally designed for hundreds of years ago is pretty much irrelevant today. If a secret new document unveiled that bowling balls were originally designed to smash people's heads in rather than for bowling alley recreation/competition, that wouldn't change how we view bowling legislation. You can discuss how the specific features of something that is being manufactured more recently is designed to optimize deadliness (poisoned bullets for a fictitious example... how do poisoned bullets help people target shoot or defend their home), or the opposite (new type of bumper for a car reduces chances of hit and run being deadly), but what something was originally designed for shouldn't affect the answer to questions like the one in the thread title. In fact, discussions about these 'features' are very difficult because you need to be an expert in order to understand the issue; how many people in this thread truly get all of the major pros and cons of semi-automatic functionality, for example? I was just pointing out that saying guns are made because there is a demand is a semantic debate, if you substitute designed for made you end up with a slightly better version of the argument TGalore was making. I really don't care if people own guns, I don't believe it is a right but the 2nd amendment clearly establishes that it is legal. (That said, I do own and regularly use guns.) It wasn't my intention to make it seem like I was responding sharply to the text I was quoting; more to just bring up the issue and that was the trigger.
The bowling ball analogy is terrible though. Today guns are designed to kill, hundreds of years ago they could of been designed for bowling, it doesn't really matter. Wait, you are agreeing with me, and what the analogy intended to show, and yet you are saying it's terrible. The point is that it does not matter what something was designed for many years ago.
(Sole purpose is not something I would actually argue, but I would argue that killing has, with some exceptions, always been at the heart of their design.) It's not like I'm going to go bowling with an AK anytime soon. What does 'at the heart of their design' mean? Guns can be used as weapons, and nobody should deny that. I just don't want people to use the fact that the designers had something in mind to affect how we respond to the title of this thread.
It's relevant because people make that horrible argument about hammers and cars, one is a tool with many functions other than bashing a face in, the other is a wonderfully efficient mode of transportation. Guns fall into a different category. You have not demonstrated why this is, nor have the other people who I indirectly disagreed with.
Really though, what else are they for? You can say they are designed to move a projectile at high velocities but that projectile will hit something and if shooting non-living targets is their purpose (recreation/competition) then I don't think you can justify having something that happens to kill so efficiently, unlike bowling balls. You can make an argument that guns, or certain types of guns, are too dangerous to be in the hands of most civilians. I'm not arguing we shouldn't have that discussion (the same way we don't allow people to have nukes etc). Guns are not in a different category than hammers, but maybe they are more deadly. Let's use the right reasons for having these discussions.
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A typical .223 load is well known for fragmenting and penetrating far less than .40 and up pistol ammo. Try doing a bit of learning before blurting out shit that isn't true to support your argument.
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@ Micronesia: I simply don't see what other uses guns have that justify their ownership by civilians. A hammer and a car clearly do. (Construction and transportation, respectively.) I cannot ride a bullet to work and I cannot use my shotgun to put a nail in a board unless I just use it like a hammer but its an antique and the very idea makes me cringe. The utility of cars and hammers greatly outweighs their relative risk. If you want to go out and shoot at clay pigeons, that doesn't give you a right to have something capable of the damage a shotgun can do.
The thing is that the designers have done a damn good job of creating a weapon that kills. Guns are pretty much only weapons as far as I can tell, it's not that they can be used as weapons, so can many things but most of those things have other obvious purposes.
That is what puts them in a different category. I can't think of anyone arguing they should keep guns for recreational purposes other than hunting. When you hunt, you are trying to kill something and a gun is a damn good way to go about it.
If you can show me what utility a gun has outside of self-defense and hunting (wounding/killing things) that justifies their ownership by civilians, I will agree with you, but I just don't see it.
The bowling ball analogy was bad because guns are, if anything, far better at killing today than they were hundreds of years ago. Bowling balls are about as good as a rock you can't get a solid grip on without putting your fingers in a dangerous place. I'd rather have a cane, a knife, or a rock that's easy to hold.
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If you can show me what utility a gun has outside of self-defense and hunting (wounding/killing things) that justifies their ownership by civilians, I will agree with you, but I just don't see it.
That's your argument? Guns don't have a utility besides killing or threatening killing and you can't see it any other way so that's that?
Incomprehension of an opposing or different view is not a synonym for invalidation of that view.
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First draft of this post was bad.
Edit: I meant to ask for an argument against my point, if that wasn't clear, I apologize.
That line of reasoning is mostly about why guns are different than cars or hammers. So, what other utility do they have that justifies their ownership by civilians? I've been told I'm wrong twice but no one has put forth any sort of argument.
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I don't know why I bother to post here, you disagree with someone politely and all of a sudden you're ignorant and should try learning.
Also, please, the ignorance is incredible. Guess what will also go 7 walls (or more) of a lower-middle class house? Many calibers / types of handgun ammunition. The AR-15 uses the .223 Remington round which is very slightly different from the 5.56mm rounds used by NATO for the M-16 (AR-15). There are lots of handgun rounds more powerful, and lots that are less powerful.
I know that there are powerful handguns but the point is that certain handguns should also be less powerful if you can buy them on the market. ARs are exclusively powerful, so as an entire class of weapon I have a problem with them being widely owned. Do you need a an AR for self defense? I would say that you should only be able to acquire a weapon like that for a necessary purpose, with a permit, etc. Some people brought up killing wild boars, that's fair enough to me.
A typical .223 load is well known for fragmenting and penetrating far less than .40 and up pistol ammo. Try doing a bit of learning before blurting out shit that isn't true to support your argument.
Again, I'm aware that ARs aren't strictly more powerful than handguns. I didn't spout shit, what I said was true about the penetrative power of an AR even if a pistol can be equally powerful. I just don't think that you need to penetrate 7 walls and have the capability to damn-near mow down someone's house for self-defense.
The caveat to all of this is that a weapons ban perpetuates the sale of the banned weapon in the short term. And again, the long-term results of the 10 year AR ban that we implemented in the U.S. yielded, at best, neutral results. So even if we implemented a more comprehensive ban I'm not optimistic that it would be effective at reducing their use in violent crime.
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On January 15 2013 03:44 TheFrankOne wrote:
I did ask for a solid argument refuting my view of it....
I enjoy target shooting. My brother enjoys hunting deer (and usually feeds me for a week each year). My uncle enjoys hunting gamefowl.
There, I've given you a solid argument. Your refusal to accept it does not mean it wasn't given.
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On January 15 2013 03:48 Vul wrote:I don't know why I bother to post here, you disagree with someone politely and all of a sudden you're ignorant and should try learning. Show nested quote +Also, please, the ignorance is incredible. Guess what will also go 7 walls (or more) of a lower-middle class house? Many calibers / types of handgun ammunition. The AR-15 uses the .223 Remington round which is very slightly different from the 5.56mm rounds used by NATO for the M-16 (AR-15). There are lots of handgun rounds more powerful, and lots that are less powerful. I know that there are powerful handguns but the point is that certain handguns should also be less powerful if you can buy them on the market. ARs are exclusively powerful, so as an entire class of weapon I have a problem with them being widely owned. Do you need a an AR for self defense? I would say that you should only be able to acquire a weapon like that for a necessary purpose, with a permit, etc. Some people brought up killing wild boars, that's fair enough to me. Show nested quote +A typical .223 load is well known for fragmenting and penetrating far less than .40 and up pistol ammo. Try doing a bit of learning before blurting out shit that isn't true to support your argument. Again, I'm aware that ARs aren't strictly more powerful than handguns. I didn't spout shit, what I said was true about the penetrative power of an AR even if a pistol can be equally powerful. I just don't think that you need to penetrate 7 walls and have the capability to damn-near mow down someone's house for self-defense. The caveat to all of this is that a weapons ban perpetuates the sale of the banned weapon in the short term. And again, the long-term results of the 10 year AR ban that we implemented in the U.S. yielded, at best, neutral results. So even if we implemented a more comprehensive ban I'm not optimistic that it would be effective at reducing their use in violent crime.
AR's are NOT exclusively powerful. Where do you get this information from? They function JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER LEGAL GUN.
At least you're learning as you go through your post... I don't mean to be rude, but it's hard to take your arguments seriously when you contradict yourself on basic facts. It's clear you don't know enough about the topic to have a strong opinion on the matter.
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If society breaks down eg: currency collapse, nuclear attack, asteroid hits, or any other type of disaster where the government loses control over the population then people need guns to protect their private property or looters, etc.
Seems pretty obvious that guns are absolutely necessary part of life for common citizens.
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On January 15 2013 03:32 TheFrankOne wrote:
The bowling ball analogy was bad because guns are, if anything, far better at killing today than they were hundreds of years ago. Bowling balls are about as good as a rock you can't get a solid grip on without putting your fingers in a dangerous place. I'd rather have a cane, a knife, or a rock that's easy to hold.
Actually that's why it's a great analogy.
You have to objectively look at what they are used for today, not what they were "designed" for. That's exactly his point.
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United States24569 Posts
On January 15 2013 03:32 TheFrankOne wrote:
@ Micronesia: I simply don't see what other uses guns have that justify their ownership by civilians.
What percentage of gun usage does not involve killing humans or protected animals? Whether you measure if by number of bullets fired, number of seconds the gun is held, or any other reasonable metric, guns are used primarily for reasons other than to kill. You personally can't think of a reason why a civilian would reasonably want a gun, but most gun owners would disagree with you. I'm not a big gun user or an owner, but my dad's line is always that he's fired 50 or maybe even 100 thousand rounds in his life, and he's never killed anything. If there's no reason for civilians to have guns then why has he wasted so much time and money?
A hammer and a car clearly do. (Construction and transportation, respectively.) Your subjective opinion of what items do or do not have uses is not really relevant; it's useful for you to create your own categories, but other people don't have to agree with you.
If you want to go out and shoot at clay pigeons, that doesn't give you a right to have something capable of the damage a shotgun can do. As I said earlier, you can make the argument that certain legal weapons are actually too dangerous for civilians to own, as many weapons are already banned, and in many cases they are rarely if ever used in crime. I'm not sure why you chose a shotgun, though.
The thing is that the designers have done a damn good job of creating a weapon that kills. Guns are pretty much only weapons as far as I can tell Even though the grand majority of gun use is not intending to hurt/kill anything? That's an interesting definition of "pretty much,"
That is what puts them in a different category. This is just your subjective, possibly unenlightened opinion.
I can't think of anyone arguing they should keep guns for recreational purposes other than hunting. When you hunt, you are trying to kill something and a gun is a damn good way to go about it. Again, try telling that to the millions of Americans who safely and responsibly use guns for reasons other than hunting.
If you can show me what utility a gun has outside of self-defense and hunting (wounding/killing things) that justifies their ownership by civilians, I will agree with you, but I just don't see it. Well it depends how you define 'utility' but we are now going in the direction you seem to want to that whether or not a potentially dangerous item should be banned/controlled depends not on how dangerous it is but on how useful it is... although I could see an argument for considering both together, certainly.
The bowling ball analogy was bad because guns are, if anything, far better at killing today than they were hundreds of years ago. The purpose of the analogy was to demonstrate that the original purpose of an item when it was first designed many years ago is irrelevant in a discussion of whether or not to control/ban that item today; the fact that bowling balls have evolved less than guns, or in ways that don't increase their potential lethality is irrelevant.
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Well, to be fair to TheFrankOne, what are you going to use a gun for other than:
- Shooting an animal
- Shooting a target
- Shooting a person
?
One of those is solely a sport, the other two are acts of violence (I'm not against hunting, just pointing this out) against living creatures. And you'd better kill what you shoot if you're hunting or you're a pretty despicable sadist.
Here in Philadelphia, I see absolutely no point in owning a gun. Owning a gun is not going to protect me more than avoiding bad areas. In fact, it's more likely to get me killed or arrested than anything else. When I lived in Vermont, I could've seen myself owning a rifle for defensive purposes (wild animals, also living in a secluded area of the U.S. makes it a good idea in case someone tries to rob you, etc.). But most people in the country do live in more suburban and urban areas where gun ownership varies widely in utility.
I think living in a country where nobody could legally acquire firearms without a specific military or law enforcement related license, but America simply has too many guns and too many people interested in owning them (legally or illegally) for that to be a reasonable thing to happen.
I don't think banning a broad category of weapons makes sense, either, beyond the majority of currently illegal ones (i.e. rocket launchers). It'd make more sense for specific weapons to be restricted based on potential lethality and damage. If you miss with a small handgun, you may put a bullet in your floorboards. If you miss with a more powerful one, you may put a hole in your floorboards. Regardless of bodily harm, why would you need something specifically more oriented towards causing physical harm?
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I'm going to move on from the bowling ball analogy, it still makes no sense to me and I don't think it ever will.
On January 15 2013 03:55 BluePanther wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2013 03:44 TheFrankOne wrote:
I did ask for a solid argument refuting my view of it.... I enjoy target shooting. My brother enjoys hunting deer (and usually feeds me for a week each year). My uncle enjoys hunting gamefowl. There, I've given you a solid argument. Your refusal to accept it does not mean it wasn't given.
I also enjoy going out into the woods and killing deer. My guns do a damn fine job of it too. When you are "hunting" you are "looking for things to kill" I'm not sure why people talk as if hunting is not killing things. If you have guns for hunting, you have guns for killing things. This should be obvious. They don't need to be "protected animals" to be alive and then dead when they are shot, in a word, killed. The function of a gun when hunting is killing,
@ Micronesia: Unless your dad was in the military or police, I think his ownership of guns is irresponsible. Owning guns just so you can go target shooting shouldn't happen because the externalities are too high.
I like guns, I like them a lot, I want a fully automatic AK, because it would be cool. The problem is I would have no use for it beyond entertainment. I do not think that justifies my indirectly putting other members of society at risk. If I get burgled, it will be stolen and probably be used less than responsibly. It's not about the impact of any one responsible gun user, it's about how the proliferation of firearms throughout our society has provided easy access to people who commit crimes with them. There is evidence that when property crimes are committed by criminals armed with firearms people die who wouldn't if the criminal had a less lethal weapon and that in a heavily armed society criminals feel like they have to be more armed.
There is a societal cost here, it's a heavy cost, and I don't think target shooting justifies it. I know that most guns do not enter the black market through theft but a lot do, At the end of the day we end up with a gun death rate over 10. (combined homicide & suicide) I will never see that as an acceptable price for people to do target shooting. They can go throw a baseball, or watch a movie.
If you want a gun for self-defense or hunting, that's one thing, but if you want it just to shoot at targets, you are imposing entirely too high of a cost on society because what you are using for entertainment has another function, one that it is damn good at.
I specifically mentioned a shotgun because I was still thinking about the horrible things using it as a hammer would do to my own shotgun.
I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I do think anyone who believe gun ownership is justified by target shooting should go hunting and feel just how easy it is to take an animal's life with a firearm, it's where my perspective on this is coming from. I have conflicted feelings on gun control and don't think it would be reasonable to bar people from buying them unless they had tags or something.
Edit: As someone who comes from a family of hunters, I am used to thinking of target shooting as practice, for when you actually shoot something you intend to kill. That is how I was taught to view it and how hunters I know look at it. It's fun, but that's not really the point.
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On January 15 2013 07:03 TheFrankOne wrote:I'm going to move on from the bowling ball analogy, it still makes no sense to me and I don't think it ever will. Show nested quote +On January 15 2013 03:55 BluePanther wrote:On January 15 2013 03:44 TheFrankOne wrote:
I did ask for a solid argument refuting my view of it.... I enjoy target shooting. My brother enjoys hunting deer (and usually feeds me for a week each year). My uncle enjoys hunting gamefowl. There, I've given you a solid argument. Your refusal to accept it does not mean it wasn't given. I also enjoy going out into the woods and killing deer. My guns do a damn fine job of it too. When you are "hunting" you are "looking for things to kill" I'm not sure why people talk as if hunting is not killing things. If you have guns for hunting, you have guns for killing things. This should be obvious. They don't need to be "protected animals" to be alive and then dead when they are shot, in a word, killed. The function of a gun when hunting is killing, @ Micronesia: Unless your dad was in the military or police, I think his ownership of guns is irresponsible. Owning guns just so you can go target shooting shouldn't happen because the externalities are too high. I like guns, I like them a lot, I want a fully automatic AK, because it would be cool. The problem is I would have no use for it beyond entertainment. I do not think that justifies my indirectly putting other members of society at risk. If I get burgled, it will be stolen and probably be used less than responsibly. It's not about the impact of any one responsible gun user, it's about how the proliferation of firearms throughout our society has provided easy access to people who commit crimes with them. There is evidence that when property crimes are committed by criminals armed with firearms people die who wouldn't if the criminal had a less lethal weapon and that in a heavily armed society criminals feel like they have to be more armed. There is a societal cost here, it's a heavy cost, and I don't think target shooting justifies it. I know that most guns do not enter the black market through theft but a lot do, At the end of the day we end up with a gun death rate over 10. (combined homicide & suicide) I will never see that as an acceptable price for people to do target shooting. They can go throw a baseball, or watch a movie. If you want a gun for self-defense or hunting, that's one thing, but if you want it just to shoot at targets, you are imposing entirely too high of a cost on society because what you are using for entertainment has another function, one that it is damn good at. I specifically mentioned a shotgun because I was still thinking about the horrible things using it as a hammer would do to my own shotgun. I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I do think anyone who believe gun ownership is justified by target shooting should go hunting and feel just how easy it is to take an animal's life with a firearm, it's where my perspective on this is coming from. I have conflicted feelings on gun control and don't think it would be reasonable to bar people from buying them unless they had tags or something.
I understand your opinion, but the Constitution says the average citizen is allowed to have them for the purpose of self-defense. Your suggested changes are undoubtedly unconstitutional, and I really don't see a change to the second amendment coming anytime soon in that regard.
If you're talking about gun control in the USA, you need to understand that whatever proposed rules you have cannot preclude self-defense or hunting. No matter what you're feelings about these activities are. This part is NOT going to change while we are alive.
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On January 15 2013 04:00 BluePanther wrote:
AR's are NOT exclusively powerful. Where do you get this information from? They function JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER LEGAL GUN.
At least you're learning as you go through your post... I don't mean to be rude, but it's hard to take your arguments seriously when you contradict yourself on basic facts. It's clear you don't know enough about the topic to have a strong opinion on the matter.
You have longer barrels and larger cartidges which turns into far greater muzzle velocity. The round is also shaped differently from conventional 9mm slugs. There is a reason you want a "level 3" ballistics vest for protection against 5.56mm but level 2 is fine for most kinds of handgun ammunition. Also, the fact that the round fragments does not help your case at all, other than maybe in the sense that you are less likely to hit secondary targets with secondary damage. 5.56mm does significantly more tissue damage because of fragmentation and tumbling.
On top of that you get way more rounds down range in the general case scenario with a 30 round magasine. The automatic function is a parenthesis at best. The only weapon I know of that you actually want that mode of fire are belt fed machine guns. With a 14 or so inch barrel you get longer effective range as well and better sights. Are you expected to take out several targets at 2-300 yards? Because with an assault rifle you can, and rather easily so.
If I had the intention of killing lots of people with a firearm, I would get an assault rifle every time. Maybe it isn't so common that serial killers use them, but that would be because they are amateurs. The day someone who isn't an amateur gets fed up with life, you are gonna have big troubles.
An AR-15 and its ammunition is designed for war. You could compare having one to having a doberman. It is like other dogs, just wildly more dangerous for everyone involved.
If I lived in a place where I felt compelled to defend myself by killing people, no matter the circumstance, I would just move. It makes no sense to me that anyone would want to live there and it is not like you can "win" by being well protected enough.
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@Bluepanther: I think you should read what I wrote a little more closely.
On January 15 2013 07:03 TheFrankOne wrote:
If you want a gun for self-defense or hunting, that's one thing, but if you want it just to shoot at targets, you are imposing entirely too high of a cost on society because what you are using for entertainment has another function, one that it is damn good at.
I have conflicted feelings on gun control and don't think it would be reasonable to bar people from buying them unless they had tags or something.
From earlier:
On January 15 2013 02:15 TheFrankOne wrote:
I don't believe it is a right but the 2nd amendment clearly establishes that it is legal. (That said, I do own and regularly use guns.)
I don't think I've really proposed any rules, I just don't think gun ownership is justified by entertainment value edit: of shooting at targets.
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The 2nd amendment doesn't exist so that civilians can shoot animals or shoot guns for fun. It exists so that civilians can shoot the government if it becomes too corrupt and threatens freedom.
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