If you're seeing this topic then another mass shooting hap…

On April 11 2013 02:54 Kaitlin wrote:


First, I disagree with your assumption that someone will still break into your house, regardless of knowing you are armed. Unless the burglar is trying to steal guns, they will avoid any household where they know the homeowner is a) home and b) armed. They also avoid homes with dogs, alarms, lights on, etc. Nobody whose objective is to steal some jewelry to pawn for some cash for drugs is going to choose a gunfight over no gunfight.

Second, little old ladies who are seen as victims for purse snatching, etc, are much safer in areas where, even though see may not be armed, the 50 civilian bystanders in the immediate proximity are armed. No mugger is going to strike at an open carry demonstration, for example.

As for your example with drunk college kids, gun ownership / concealed carry is a tremendous responsibility. Any responsible concealed carry citizen makes decisions about where they go, and whether they go armed based on this responsibility. It's very irresponsible to go out to a frat party armed. Anybody with common sense will avoid such a situation if they know alcohol, guns, and idiots are going to be combined.

Your refutation of common sense gun ownership is pretty much entirely based on illogical assumptions and outrageous strawman situations that have no bearing on responsible gun ownership / possession. Your college party comparison is basically comparable to an argument to ban fire because somebody could light up at a gas station.

On April 12 2013 03:28 DeepElemBlues wrote:


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/irony

Surely the majority of ethicists would not make such a double mistake as appealing to both authority and majority in the same paragraph.



Kant, Locke, Hume, Montesquieu, Aquinas, "Publius," etc. I don't have much preference for more modern thinkers. And your paragraph is an excellent example why I do not. You can point to the fact that it was men who wrote and so it is not God-given or natural but a construct of man, but the men who wrote it did not think that. They were aiming for a higher ideal. You can say complications create exceptions and things get turned on their head, and you can do so by breaking it down structurally, and what do you get? Less happiness, less freedom. What you get is a sick society that eats itself. Our society today. I'm still stuck back at the American and French Revolutions, I have little truck with the advancements - if you can call them that - in philosophy in general and ethics in particular since then.

I'll find more worth to humanity in a single page of the Federalist Papers than I will in positive prose that does not support its normative conclusions.

On April 12 2013 02:46 Thieving Magpie wrote:


I promise you that after you lay down 50-100 mines it simply takes 1-2 of them to go off before you are perfectly safe

On April 12 2013 09:47 Quexana wrote:


Sure, and the neighbor kids who chase after frisbees they accidentally throw in my yard will be much less of a problem too.

On April 12 2013 14:28 Thieving Magpie wrote:


Without those frisbees, how will people know!

Its for the greater cause--my rights and liberty. I mean, they're just kids, they literally grow on family trees just pop em out like rabbits.

On April 12 2013 15:45 Quexana wrote:


I'll just keep some sod in the garage to fill in the craters and buy a gas powered leaf blower to blast the remaining chunks of children into the gutter. At least I'll be safe, well, I'll be safe until I have to mow.

On April 12 2013 09:41 Quexana wrote:
It's funny you people believe there is such a thing as "natural rights". If there were such things as God-given rights then God himself would defend them instead of leaving people with that exhaustive task. If life were a right bestowed by God he would miracle bullets out of the path of innocents. If gun ownership were a "natural right" then God would conjure AK-47s for every man woman and child. These rights you speak of are little more than part of a contract negotiated between our Government and its citizens. Contracts can be renegotiated, have provisions put in after the fact, ripped up entirely, ignored, and often such things happen. If the government didn't violate the constitution from time to time our whole nations history would be different. The Louisiana Purchase, Japanese Internment, The Iran-Contra Affair, the U.S.'s involvement in the overthrowing of several world leaders including Premier Mohammed Mosaddeq of Iran, Salvador Allende of Chile, and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya are all of the U.S. acting unconstitutionally and not giving a damn about it.

The truth is that the American Government right now is the most diseased it's ever been. It is entirely dependent now on Big Money. What used to be called bribes are now called campaign contributions. Corruption has not only become pervasive, but a necessary component of how governments function. When it costs several million dollars to earn a job that pays several hundred thousand like it does to become a U.S. Senator, only corrupt people are going to enter that line of work. Politicians are beholden to the people who put them in power, and they will do what Big Money tells them to do, constitution or no constitution. And before you go telling me to put on my tin-foil hat, look at what's happening in Michagan right now. They are literally overthrowing local democracies (city mayors, councilmen, etc.) and putting whole cities in the hands of so-called Emergency Managers. Who are the Emergency Managers? Usually they're campaign contributors or people who work for businesses who contributed heavily to the campaign of the Michigan Governor. Sure, people protest. The constitution says that people have a "right" to protest. But does the government actually protect that "right". No, it does everything it can do to disenfranchise, delegitimize, and out right ban the protests. Look at what the government did to the Occupy movement that tried to protest this Big Money ownership of Government, and that was to a movement that actually largely supported the party in power. The fix is in. The game is over. The bad guys won. The only thing Big Money fears at this point is a Middle-East style revolution taking root in the U.S. at some point in the future. Yet Big Money can stop that from happening well before it starts. They just have to get the guns.

Tl, DR--Notions like "Ethics" and "Natural Rights" don't mean squat, the powerful tell the powerless what "Rights" they have and don't have.

On April 12 2013 22:53 Thieving Magpie wrote:


It's my Allah given rights as a mercan! What I do with my weapons on my property is my business! People shouldn't tresspass!

On April 12 2013 06:52 mcc wrote:

Men at that point in time also thought a lot of other stuff that was shown wrong. You pick their opinions because they suit your preconceptions, not because they are factually better. Ethics that I am describing at least has something to justify those rights (even though it also shows instances when they are not applicable) other than just saying : "because it is so". Which is exactly what the whole concept of natural rights is. Until someone shows me any justification for why I should even pay attention to the mythical entity called natural right I see no reason to. It is an empty concept created by people who were actually smart, but so was Newton and he was also basically wrong, even though not completely. There is plenty of modern philosophers that are inferior to those that you mention, does not mean everyone is.

And in one fell swoop you have abdicated from the foundational theories on which the preponderance of American/English common law is founded upon without addressing a single point outside of contentious exceptions.

Yes, in the end Rights derive from those in power willing to allow them. In practice. But what about the very feelings of anger and disgust which propel men to take up arms in the first place and defend their "rights"? Are such feelings not "natural" when placed under unnecessary duress? That is to say, that "Might makes right" is nothing more but a dullards facsimile of Natural Right.

I think you're taking a very one-dimensional approach to what a right is and where it derives from. And trust me, I love to ride the pessimism train. It's my favorite part of the day as a matter of fact. But to be completely dismissive of an idea based on a singular interpretation of it? Nonsense.

Practice is what counts, yes. But repeated action begets practice, and thought begets action. If you truncate yourself at practice, you tacitly surrender everything else (which has been proven to work as persuasive tools) to any opposition which have no such scruples.

On April 13 2013 02:24 Quexana wrote:


When the foundational theories on which the preponderance of America/English common law is founded upon is complete BS, of course I abdicate them. You can call my views pragmatic to a fault if you wish (I admit guilt on this) but they aren't wrong. The founders were very a very thoughtful, practical group (except for maybe John Adams and Thomas Paine, but I digress) but they were also outstanding PR men. They were trying to sell America on the reason for a split from not just the British King, but monarchy altogether (Monarchy being the predominant means of governance at the time). An acceptable way to do this for the time is to claim that the "rights of man" do not come from a King, but from a power higher than a King. They came up with a slogan of a government whose sole intention is to preserve the liberty of it's people. In the founders words it was to "ensure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare and ensure the blessings of liberty". While at the same time they intended to only allow landholders the right to vote, maintain the slave industry, and consolidate their holds on Indian-held territories. They founders were the men you're talking about, who in your words had "feelings of anger and disgust which [propelled them] to take up arms". They took up arms, and they won. Against enormous odds, they managed to overthrow the powerful and become the powerful themselves. Then they set about the task of defining what is a "right" and what is not a "right" for the rest of the American people. If feelings of anger take hold in this country to the degree that another revolution breaks out, the revolutionaries will get to decide the "rights" for the next generations of Americans, that is if they win. Right now, the powerful are the corporate elite. They have more power over American's lives today than the Government does, and even what power the government does have is largely used to serve the corporate elite. American's "rights" are fading. As I said in my earlier post, look at the overthrow of local democracy in Michigan. Look at the YouTube videos of people in West Virginia who can literally set their tap water on fire due to natural gas drillers in the area. They have no right to sue or address their grievanses in a court of law because President Bush signed an executive order (not a law voted on by congress) forbidding them to be able to. Look at the tar sands oil spill in Arkansas, where the freedom of the press is being violated by Exxon who is trying to control media coverage of a 23 foot crack in an oil pipeline that is spewing tar sands oil and other contaminates into peoples homes and water supplies. Children at a school near the leak have been having to be sent home due to vomiting and dizzyness, it's okay though, because a doctor hired by Exxon has stated that the fumes aren't dangerous. They also aren't liable for any of the clean-up costs since according to the government, tar sands oil isn't the same as crude oil, so Exxon doesn't have to pay into the federal fund set up to help clean up oil spills. This is probably why Exxon's efforts at cleaning up the disaster have involves little more than Dawn dish soap and paper towels. It's going to be the taxpayers job to clean up the mess that Exxon made. Do you still think the government works for the people, that it gives a damn about the peoples "rights"?

On April 13 2013 01:06 DeepElemBlues wrote:


That's the biggest useless throwaway line in the world. You just pick opinions that suit your preconceptions. The same could be said of any opinion ever held ever. The instant you step away from describing bare facts, you are drawing on either preconceptions or interpretations, all of which end up justifying what you believe, even if that changes. Later on, your new opinion is just another preconception. Maybe the facts changed while you weren't looking. Maybe you were just wrong the whole time. Maybe you encountered a whole new philosophy that completely changed the way you think about everything. One could never escape from this charge, ever, and no one could ever fairly hold an opinion.

Men today also think a lot of things that will be shown in the future to be wrong. So? We're humans, we're supposed to be able to discern, aren't we?

The concept of natural rights is not just "because it is so." "Because it is so" is one of the conclusions, not one of the rationales.

It doesn't really matter if you believe in this "empty" concept or not, it's still the foundation of the relationship between governments and citizens in the civilized world. To steal from Michael Crichton, can you bring me some self-esteem on a plate? Empty concept. They're all empty if you're going to say no concept exists independent of men's belief in it. You also seem to be picking opinions that suit your preconceptions, oh well I won't believe in anything until someone shows me some justification... but that isn't a bad thing, remember?

We seem to agree on the theory, but disagree in practice.

I agree that it's a cycle, but the presentation of that cycle influences its implementation. Imagine it as an oscillation where by the wavelength is a resultant of the public's understanding of the explanation provided.

Other than that, yeah. Any group which cries "oppression" is just some group waiting to be the oppressor. But not all oppressor's are equal in practice

For the record: I am in no way endorsing nor defending what I view as the single most damaging and complete Orwellian Mind-control state ever conceived. It is dangerous because it was an emergent system of socially enforced conformity which appeared and maintains itself through its 3 primary institutions: Academia, Media, and Politics. WW2 was nothing but a conflict between 3 different (inevitably, though mostly unintentional) totalitarian "Thought-crime" states.

I am not endorsing it. I do however believe that there are alternative explanations and opportunities to reclaim the language in a fashion conducive with practical application. This sort of language will never be defeated or driven away. So it should be mastered and made specific, to a fault.

On April 13 2013 23:42 sc2superfan101 wrote:
God, I just love moral relativism and how it so nicely worms it's way into every facet or every debate concerning human behavior. And the best part is the moral fervor with which it's proponents fight for it. The religion of no religion. The righteous anger of amorality. The propositions masquerading as conclusions. Everything turned upside down and inside out and suddenly you're barely talking about the subject at hand at all, instead you're just talking about... the foolish ideas of foolish old men who almost universally had problems getting females.

Should guns be allowed? What is the law of the land?

On April 12 2013 05:48 WedRine wrote:


well since everybody is armed[theoretical], but the the burglar still needs to make a living, he/she'd would have to choose an armed house hold whether that means gunfight or not, the only difference is that you are almost 100% certain that someone is going to die every time a burglary is taking place if everybody owns guns.

theres also that story of a dad who shot he's own son because he thought he's son was a burglar, I guess well hear a lot more of those stories if everyone is armed

little old ladies getting robbed in front of 50 people on open street are highly unlikely and if it happens at least 1 Of the 50 bystanders are probably going to do something anyways... armed or not.

drunk college kids are not exactly known to be responsible in the first place, and i could definitely see people feeling "threatened" to go to parties armed precisely because alcohol and [probably armed] idiots are going to be combined.

I just feel like i would be more scared walking around the streets knowing that every single person walking around could legally carry a fool that could take my life. im not afraid to admit that it might be me thats wrong and every single person should be able to legally posses a tool exclusively used to kill people, it just sounds wrong to me.

On April 14 2013 03:15 Millitron wrote:

This is simply false. Having a gun does not guarantee someone will die. There are between 100,000, and 4 million defensive gun uses every year in the US, depending on who's stats you believe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_gun_use

There are only 30k gun deaths in the US every year. Even if all of those gun deaths (which isn't true) were from Defensive Gun Uses, its still only 30% at most.

Simply brandishing a gun can scare off a criminal, and even if you are forced to shoot him, modern medicine is amazing. He has pretty good odds that he'll survive.

The story about that dad shooting his son is sad, but its anecdotal. I can find just as convincing anecdotes about people using guns to defend themselves or their children. The thing is, the news only ever reports about the former, not the latter.

Drunks are already not allowed to carry guns. Even if they've got a CC or OC license, they can only carry when they're sober.

Are you scared walking the streets now? Every car that passes you is a tool that could take your life. And guns are not used exclusively to kill people. I've fired hundreds of rounds, and I've never killed anything. There are thousands of people like me.