How do you feel about guns?

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by lixluke, Jul 31, 2006.

?

Guns

  1. Have no place in this world. Should be abolished like slavery.

    33 vote(s)
    36.7%
  2. Are every human's right.

    57 vote(s)
    63.3%
  1. Oniw17 ascetic, sage, diogenes, bum? Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,423
    Ban metal. Enfroce it. No metal, no guns.
     
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  3. Nickelodeon Banned Banned

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    10,581
    Ban bullets.
     
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  5. Oniw17 ascetic, sage, diogenes, bum? Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,423
    How can you enforce a ban on bullets effectively? ?What device will you use to detect bullet? Banning metal and scanning each home throughly is the only way to expell guns effectively from our society. If that's too much of a sacrifice, then we shouldn't ban guns, especially since there's no way to enforce such a ban.
     
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  7. Nickelodeon Banned Banned

    Messages:
    10,581
    Amputate everyones index finger.
     
  8. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

    Messages:
    24,066
    gun control!
     
  9. TW Scott Minister of Technology Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,149
    I can make a gun out of ceramics, plastics, stone or even glass. Beside ban metal and then we have no plumbing, electricty, TV, computers, cars, artificial joints.....
     
  10. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

    Messages:
    24,066
    Alright then: euthanasia of all who desire a gun.
     
  11. TW Scott Minister of Technology Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,149
    Nah, I got a better one: Euthanasia of all people who actually believe it is the gun that creates the violence. The euthanize the ones who believe guns increase violence.

    or

    Euthanize everyone
     
  12. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

    Messages:
    24,066
    It's the person with the gun that creates violence. I'm quite happy to let you have as many guns as you want safely locked away. That's called gun control.
     
  13. TW Scott Minister of Technology Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,149
    And I am quite happy you are a moron and in charge of absolutely nothing. It is people who cuase violence. Control all guns and they swtch to bows, ban bows, and they switch to knives, then baseball bats, chunks of lead pipe, chain, and so on, Violence is not going to be solved by taking things away, ever.
     
  14. azizbey kodummu oturturum Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    129
    whether we like it or not, sometimes we have to have guns.
    imagine; a woman at home by herself, and a man breaks in. how she will protect herself without a gun?
    a world without a gun is what we want perhaps, as long as there are no bad guys...
     
  15. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

    Messages:
    24,066
    Who is the moron here. I said I am willing to let you have as many guns you want. Nobody mentioned anything about taking guns away from you.

    fucking retard.
     
  16. TW Scott Minister of Technology Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,149
    I didn't say you took the guns, but you did (in your model) take away the right to carry them and have them at easy (for a responsible adult) access.

    And don't talk about yourself that way.

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  17. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    Well this has degenerated into pathetic name calling.

    Responsible gun owners need to be just that. Responsible. In fact all gun owners need to take full responsibility and be fully accountable for their weapon and ensure that it does not get into the wrong hands. And if it does, the gun owner needs to be held accountable for it. Parents who's kids take their guns to school, etc, need to be held fully accountable for the actions of their children. The same goes for gun owners who do not have their guns in a safe (as an example) and such a weapon is then stolen and used in a crime, be it by a family member or stranger. If you wish to carry the damn thing then you need to be fully accountable for that weapon and all others in your possession or ownership.

    For example, do you carry your gun with you (if you have a permit to do so) when you go out for a night on the town and possibly get drunk? After all, you are not allowed to drive a car when intoxicated, the same should apply to guns. You should not be allowed to carry a weapon, regardless of a permit to do so, if you are intoxicated.
     
  18. ReighnStorm The Smoke that Thunders Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    510
    Does anyone posting here know someone that has been shot and/or killed by the bullets propelled from the weapon gun?
     
  19. TW Scott Minister of Technology Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,149
    What? I said he shouldn't insult himself.

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    I have to amend this. That is punishing people becuase they are not rich. Now if your kid takes your gun to school and some one is injured theri should be an investigation to see if you took all reasobale precautions. if you have then you are not to blame and not responsible. Your kid gets nailed as an adult though. As for stolen weapons, do we make the owner of a car responsible for any crimes commited with his stolen car? No. Adding that restriction to guns is a propoistion with no legs to stand on.

    I might agree with this, but more along the lines of you shouldn't use a gun if drunk. If your drunk you can sit in your car and not break any laws if you are not the operator. If you do not draw your weapon drunk then there is nothing to bitch about.

    We need to become a nation of empowerment and actual responsibility, not restriction and 'It-ain't-my-fault-I-was-<fill in the balnk>'
     
  20. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    Yes. My parents best friend's child (9 years old at the time) was shot by his cousin who had accessed his father's rifle and they were playing a game of cops and robbers when he was shot in the head and killed instantly. The gun was in a safe but the gun owner had opened the safe in front of his 12 year old son, who remembered how to do it himself.. the child thought it'd be fun to show his little cousin his fathers gun and did so.. and kids being kids they thought it'd be cool to play cops and robbers with a real gun. The father had packed his rifle away loaded.
     
  21. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

    Messages:
    24,066
    children like you definitely shouldn't be allowed near guns.
     
  22. kazakhan Registered Abuser Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    915
    An ex-neighbour and some old school friends were involved in some drug related shit, two of them I knew quite well. One, my old neighbour was murdered by a shot to the back of the head with a homemade pistol and his mate who was bashed with a baseball bat. The other friend was an accessory to these murders and was stabbed to death within days of his release from jail.
    When I was in high school my best friend who was also neighbours with the victim above lost his father who was shot at a party with a shotgun. And just recently an entire family of people have been locked up for shooting to death a guy I used to drink with.
     
  23. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,882
    C'mon, Neildo ... show us what you want us to see

    For all you resent the characterizations of gun owners you read in my interpretations of gun owners' arguments, you don't do much to advance your cause. I've been attacked before. And I've never needed to kill someone over it. We return to the idea of family and crime. Would it have been an appropriate response for a friend of mine to shoot her father to death? "Being shot is an appropriate response"? That's quite a blanket statement. But, in a certain way, I'm not surprised:

    I'm sure you did not intend to sound as stupid as that does. But, and here's the important part, so I'll boldface it for you, according to the circumstances of the thefts of my car, your argument is offensive and ridiculous. To be more specific:

    Do you want to know why your car was stolen TWICE? Because of people like you who would basically let the thief go free.

    Okay, so ... how, exactly have I "let the thief go free"? By failing to get a gun and shoot the thief? In that argument, in addition to making a car more valuable than human life, you're also proposing that I not only arm myself with lethal force, but also maintain a 24-hour vigil over those things I consider my possessions or responsibility. Remember, this is according to the argument of my car. That is, according to the circumstances of the example you chose.

    Now ... come on. That's not just a little creepy? Me in my rocking chair with a rifle across my chest and a handgun strapped at my hip? Peering down from my third-floor terrace? Or am I being immoral and contributory to thievery by living on the third floor?

    What? I mean, you're kidding, right? If you don't like my negative interpretation of gun advocacy rhetoric, please don't make a point of contributing to it. I mean, that's a deliberate point you tried to make. Why my car was stolen "TWICE"? Because people like me ...? You've got to be kidding. You obviously don't consider yourself paranoid and creepy, so why are you wasting rhetoric acting that way? No, Neildo. My car is not worth the gaining of a firearm and the loss of my life's joys. Seriously, what does your point mean, if not 24-hour vigilance over my goddamn crap? At this point, the infamous assessment comes true: "Property is robbery."

    This is not what society is for. This is not why human beings come together in functioning collectives. This is not what we strive for when we work toward a civilized or free collective. This is not what civilization is for. And you make a quasi-moral argument about "people like me" who "let the thief go free"?

    How? How do "we" let thieves "go free"? By failing to shoot them? How? Circumstantially, that's the most viable interpretation. Do "we" refuse to prosecute? No. Do "we" refuse police intervention, advice, and assistance? No. What else should "we" do? Watch over every little possession 24 hours a day? Keep them in eyesight? Develop intricate patrol routes so nothing is out of our vision for more than 30 seconds? What are you proposing ought to be done?

    Because, and this is important--I don't want to see you quoting around this in order to avoid the point--by the circumstances of the event in question, I would have needed to actually know my car was being stolen in order to do something about it. "Club" devices and alarms are one thing, and there's something to be said about allowing a target, but that is (A) a degree of social policy you don't seem to think relevant to the discussion, and (B) a far cry from "letting thieves go free". So, in the latter case, such prevention involves sitting up all night and watching for anyone who goes near my car. (What then? Shoot? Call the police? Wake the neighbors?) In the former, it would have meant getting paid to ignore my job and watch my car in the freaking parking lot at the mall. Can you see how that degree of vigilance can be an inhibitor to other living functions?

    We haven't even gotten yet to your generalization "a thief is a thief". You seem to propose that a moral assertion is justification to kill:

    A thief isn't just being shot over a car stereo. Why not? Because thieves don't just take one car stereo. A thief is a thief -- they steal multiple things from mutiple people.

    Yeah ... well, a car stereo isn't of the same value to me as a human life. Perhaps you think it's worth shooting someone over a car or its stereo, but thieves are created at least as much by society as nature itself. (Or, all by nature since we must consider that society is a part of nature.) And given that humans can influence certain demands of nature, it seems rather simplistic to me to say that, simply, "a thief is a thief" when one segment of society's luxury depends on maintaining a growing portion of another society expected to live subpar. When affluence depends on injustice and poverty, it seems rather simplistic to say, "a thief is a thief", and attempt to build a moral position out of that. If the thief is being shot because "a thief is a thief", or the theft victim thinks he knows anything about the thief and his habits, then the thief is being shot on a moral assumption. If I say a stereo isn't worth it, and if you say it is, who's to say a freaking lollipop or slice of pizza is or isn't worth shooting someone for? ("He deserved it. Taking a lollipop from a child!")

    I find that particular path a rather warped exploration.

    So considering the notion of "what the victim chose to do" and someone "committing a violent crime": Once when I was in junior high school, there was the "fat, retarded kid". Now, most were unjustifiably cruel to him, and while I claim no moral high ground, I preferred to simply ignore him. Once upon a time, a difficult situation developed in which kids in the PE locker room were giving him a hard time because there were not so much "racing stripes" on his underwear as cakes of shite. This obviously did not develop well. As we stood in line catching a well-deserved, red-faced, furious lecture for our lack of restraint or dignity, one of our class who was sent to see our Vice-Principal for being an instigator of the incident came bolting back to the gym: "Dude! Jamie's beating the shit out of Benedetti!" The teacher was left stunned as we all departed en masse. In the office, the obese and challenged child was, indeed, throwing a major physical tantrum against our well-built V-P. The man simply stood there and took it.

    Now: this is an extreme example, but assault is a violent crime. Would gunfire be an appropriate response? I don't think so, and I doubt you would. (But, who knows?) My point, lest you miss it once again, is simply this: one must differentiate. I was, literally, assaulted once, and even had I carried a gun, I would not have shot my attacker. After all, I would have been shooting the vessel carrying my child. More importantly, though, without the gun that made her tough enough to threaten my life a few years later, she cannot do me serious harm. A bruise? No, definitely not worth any violent response. A chance-shot, stumble-on-the-pavement broken jaw? No, not worth it. Absolutely, positively not.

    Are these examples of how "people like me" let criminals "go free". Don't friggin attack people? Given the broad range of what people consider an "attack", that's a difficult rule to go by. The result is that the only safe option is to be afraid of everyone, because you never know when someone will feel assaulted. You may disdain me for my "liberal" tendencies, but I also reject the notion that I ought to cross a street to avoid walking "behind" a woman (whether that's by ten or a hundred-ten feet). Should I be shot? Seriously: there are people who consider such behavior threatening.

    Get off your moral bandwagon:

    Setting aside for the moment that you seem to be ignoring certain other parts of my discussions in this topic (e.g. avoidance and vigilance),

    (1) It's nice to know you equate a broken bungee with a woman who dressed too sexily for the bar she chose to drink at.
    (2) I'm really not sure what to say to the proposition that someone trying to shoot me equals my trying to end my own life. Don't get me wrong, my father's philosophy, distilled to a high proof, would equal that it was my fault I got shot for failing to duck. So I'm having a hard time thinking around the obvious expletive. For instance, one night, a friend of mine was playing a show at a particular bar. I'd never heard her sing before. Getting to the show, I had to walk down pimp row, often considered "a bad part of town". Seeing a friend sing, or perhaps failing to calculate the best odds of a route to the club free of any criminals whatsoever, is in some way tantamount to "trying to end my life"?​

    You think I'm defending criminals?

    I'm aware of it. Your own response, however, raises issues for another topic: shouldn't religious people at least be honest? We can worry about it another day.

    I will revisit something I wrote earlier in this post:

    "Club" devices and alarms are one thing, and there's something to be said about allowing a target, but that is (A) a degree of social policy you don't seem to think relevant to the discussion, and (B) a far cry from "letting thieves go free".

    I stand corrected on (A). My bad. To the other, I'm rather surprised at your tack on this one. Or maybe not. Perhaps it's thedegree that surprises me. If I don't ask my friend, "Why didn't you shoot your dad?" it is for two reasons that may puzzle you. First, there is the simple dignity of the question; or, rather, the utter lack thereof. I mean, frak, Neildo. Really. Would shooting one's own father spare someone mental anguish and confusion? Or simply trade one form for another? If you dare suggest it is as simple as her knowing she did the right thing in shooting him, I will laugh with malice and condescension, and also call horsepucky. Secondly, there is the simple fact of the answer. Life is worth more to her. It always has been. Certes this was an indoctrination in childhood, but the path she has followed has reaffirmed that faith with an understanding more akin to knowledge. I already know the answer. At best, it would be, "You're kidding, right? Why would I have done that?" That question of why would not expect an answer, as there is no dignified answer.

    I stand with (B), however: it's a far cry, Neildo. You're reaching. Don't pull a muscle on this one.

    Catharsis? Wow. Gotta admit, I didn't expect that one of you. At best you're pleading mass hysteria. Otherwise, you're generally pleading catharsis to greed. Really, most people aren't weeping for the dead, but their own sense of loss.

    After the catharsis answer, I'm not surprised. That's part of the problem with what seems to be the natural tendency of people to consider themselves exceptional. Think about what people are weeping for, and then go back and read that portion of the discussion again. Understanding, of course, that you are vastly superior to them in that you're lethal and enlightened.

    Reconsider this part:

    One need no particular spiritual outlook to recognize and affirm that humans are part of nature. I take that back: one needs a lack of spiritual outlooks that assert otherwise.

    That many people do not lack such outlooks is no reason to abandon them; it is no reason to presume them dangerous.

    Does that make sense to you? I suppose I could twiddle a pronoun or two in order to clarify, but you need to be able to count 1, 2, 3, or recite A, B, C, or something similar. You need to be able to connect dots. You need to be able to see constellations. You need to be able to look beyond the most apparent features of a vista. And this is, in the end, all I really ask of the gun advocacy rhetoric. If you don't like "people like me" thinking of "people like you" as simplistic, frightened savages, then please don't waste either your time ours making such an effort to characterize yourselves as such.

    If you are capable of a more subtle, discriminating, and comprehensive perspective, let's deal with that. Because it can't possibly represent you any worse than your current fashion. And, I'd be willing to bet, being more complete and considerate, it would probably lend much toward a more appreciative interpretation, one which sees not celebrations of simplicity but, rather, an argument attempting to deal with reality.

    For instance:

    Retreating to slogans when your argument runs short does not equal dealing with reality.

    It's an interesting point, I'm sure, but your statistical contrast has nothing to do with reality.

    Unless, of course, you really do expect me to sit up all night watching my car, clutching my gun, knowing that the bad guys are out there somewhere, and if I don't make sure they don't get me, it's the same as shooting myself.
     

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