Guns dont kill people?

[i_am_the_swammi]

So, effective Nov 10th 12:55 EST, detlef has removed himself from the gun control debate.

 

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5 Members: Sox, i_am_the_swammi, TimC, detlef, tbimm

 

[detlef]

5 User(s) are reading this topic (0 Guests and 0 Anonymous Users)

5 Members: Sox, i_am_the_swammi, TimC, detlef, tbimm

 

So I can't even watch?

[Caveman_Nick]

Come on now, CN. Look at this:

 

8 y.o. boy + Uzi = Liberty

 

Really? Is this the argument you want to make?

 

WV already made a good argument for this, but I will add:

 

I already condemned the conduct of this boy's father.

 

You want to add controlling legislation that you hope will control stupidity.

 

There is no need for a law here. This is one isolated incident. Point out to me the rash of 8 year olds having machine gun accidents because lawful gun owners handed one over to jr. so he could shoot his eye out.

 

The people involved in this incident used terribly bad judgment, and pretty much everyone sees that. Explain to me how some half cocked law that is just another way for a regular person to become a felon will change that?

[Caveman_Nick]

I'll tell you what, the more I get involved with these arguments, the harder time I have getting too fired up about increasing gun control. At the end of it all, it continues to boil down to idiots screwing up. Last I checked, that's been happening since the dawn of man and will continue to happen until someone is stupid enough to take all of us down with them.

 

I believe that "control" still needs to exist to some extent (though likely no more than currently does) and I believe that anyone who screws up using a gun should be punished to hell and back (which it seems they typically are). When someone goes cowboy like that old fecktard who defied the instructions from the 911 operator and shot those two guys running away, dude should be punished, and severely so.

 

However, as long people are given free run to screw their lives, and the lives of others up in a multitude of ways, I don't see why there's much reason in choosing seemingly random places to draw the line.

 

I don't know enough about guns to even know if there's a line worth drawing within that realm. My guess is that the law abiding people who are hell bent on having automatic weapons are just sort of weird and want to have them. Whatever. Seems strange to me but they probably roll their eyes at me spending $100 on a bottle of grape juice. To each his own. If the dude was crazy enough for me to be concerned about him having an uzi, my guess is that he could figure out some other way to wreck my life if he wanted to. I mean, if I've got to worry about him randomly turning his uzi on me, couldn't he just pipe bomb my house or something?

 

Again, whatever. I've always lived my life in a manner that accepted that, someday out of the blue some crazy chight could go down and take me out. It's because of this that I don't want to devote untold fortunes to the US acting like we're at war at all times. I suppose I'm having a hard time reconciling that inclination to accept risk with my former position on guns.

 

So, effective Nov 10th 12:55 EST, detlef has removed himself from the gun control debate.

 

 

You didn't remove yourself, you just made a very cogent argument as to why it shouldn't exist, or at the very least why gun control should be very limited.

[The Irish Doggy]

You're making a straw-man argument dude. Average only exists as a statistical conceit. Anyone can crack at any time. But the solution you propose is to limit everyone because of one incident? This is the very antithesis of freedom.

 

Well, I guess I did mistate the argument. Perhaps this is more accurate.

 

8 y.o. boy + no Uzi = no Liberty

 

And I believe you have set me up on the straw-man. I have not proposed limiting everyone or anyone. For the record, I was using bows and .22 rifles under age 10, though I do not currently own either. I have no problem with those activities or teaching gun safety to our young guns. However, the notion that limiting the type of weapon a 8 yo can learn is somehow infringing on our freedom just doesn't make sense when most of the pro gun crowd acknowledges that the average 8 yo probably can't handle it. As Swammi has pointed out a number of times in this thread we limit our children on all sort of activities by law, and rightly so. I'd have to see a lot more evidence on deaths in the manner of the original story to be strongly for legislation, but to deny the possibility on this liberty argument isn't holding water.

[Caveman_Nick]

Well, I guess I did mistate the argument. Perhaps this is more accurate.

 

8 y.o. boy + no Uzi = no Liberty

 

And I believe you have set me up on the straw-man. I have not proposed limiting everyone or anyone. For the record, I was using bows and .22 rifles under age 10, though I do not currently own either. I have no problem with those activities or teaching gun safety to our young guns. However, the notion that limiting the type of weapon a 8 yo can learn is somehow infringing on our freedom just doesn't make sense when most of the pro gun crowd acknowledges that the average 8 yo probably can't handle it. As Swammi has pointed out a number of times in this thread we limit our children on all sort of activities by law, and rightly so. I'd have to see a lot more evidence on deaths in the manner of the original story to be strongly for legislation, but to deny the possibility on this liberty argument isn't holding water.

 

While I know you will not recognize this, it is still the major reason why a singular isolate incident like this should not necessitate the legislation of a new law:

 

Government is always looking to increase the control it has over situations and populations. You look at this as "just one little law that will prevent a child from killing himself with a machine gun".

 

Then it becomes a ban on machine guns, because a child got his hands on one somehow and killed himself anyways.

 

Then a child gets his hands on a pistol and shoots himself. Lets ban those too.

 

These instances are rare, and conduct restricting laws are not going to stop them from occurring. All out gun bans will keep children of law abiding citizens from picking up guns and having accidents. Nothing short of an all out ban will stop that.

 

Of course, that won't stop unsupervised kids from dreaming up all kinds of other ways that they can injure or kill themselves and others with accidental stupidity. It also won't make idiot parents supervise their kids in the manner that they are supposed to. And most of all it will be a beacon to the unlawful that they now have free reign because the population is disarmed and can't defend themselves.

 

If we get rid of all the useless restrictions and encourage education and safety, that would have a wonderful impact on accidents while ensuring that American citizens can attend to their own safety against violent crime.

[gbpfan1231]

people who grow up shooting guns have a MUCH greater respect for them. Assuming they don't have a dumass parent like in the original post.

 

I have taught both my kids to shoot bb guns and bows. We go through safety precautions well before they even pick them up. They both know the danger in "messing around" with them. My daughter is now 7. She is excellent with a bow, but unsteady with a rifle. Therefore, we have been talking about taking her to the range after her 8th or 9th birthday once she gets better with a gun.

I get that teaching kids about guns and letting them shoot guns at an early age can be beneficial. I just don't understand why parents teach them how to shoot rifles and shotguns at such an early age.

 

I grew up shooting BB guns and learned about gun safety and had a blast doing it. As a kid under the age of ten I had a blast shooting a can off of a fence and did not need to blow the can apart with a rifle or shotgun.

 

I never said there should be laws against it I just kind of wonder why people like to put things that are inherentally more dangerous in and around young kids.

[detlef]

While I know you will not recognize this, it is still the major reason why a singular isolate incident like this should not necessitate the legislation of a new law:

 

Government is always looking to increase the control it has over situations and populations. You look at this as "just one little law that will prevent a child from killing himself with a machine gun".

 

Then it becomes a ban on machine guns, because a child got his hands on one somehow and killed himself anyways.

 

Then a child gets his hands on a pistol and shoots himself. Lets ban those too.

 

These instances are rare, and conduct restricting laws are not going to stop them from occurring. All out gun bans will keep children of law abiding citizens from picking up guns and having accidents. Nothing short of an all out ban will stop that.

 

Of course, that won't stop unsupervised kids from dreaming up all kinds of other ways that they can injure or kill themselves and others with accidental stupidity. It also won't make idiot parents supervise their kids in the manner that they are supposed to. And most of all it will be a beacon to the unlawful that they now have free reign because the population is disarmed and can't defend themselves.

 

If we get rid of all the useless restrictions and encourage education and safety, that would have a wonderful impact on accidents while ensuring that American citizens can attend to their own safety against violent crime.

I am very familiar with the manner that "one more restriction" can get pretty out of hand. Health Dept. codes are certainly being designed more and more in an attempt to make restaurants idiot proof but are proving no more effective. For instance, once upon a time, you needed just one or two prep sinks. Just enough to allow enough sinks so that nobody would use sinks intend for pot washing to process foods. Then, apparently, more people got sick from cross contamination than the government was happy about, so they decided to require all restaurants to have enough prep sinks to devote one each for vegetables, red meats, poultry, and sea food. Well, there's two major problems with this. First off, that's a massive expense and requires insanely large kitchens. Two things that will ultimately drive most non-chain restaurants out of the industry. Secondly, there's absolutely no follow up to determine whether or not people are using each sink specifically for what they're intended. They simply require you to have them.

 

This doesn't even address the fact that, considering that they're stainless steel, you simply need to thoroughly wash them with hot water, soap, and sanitizers and it doesn't matter what was last in the sink. Nor does it lessen the need to continue to do that in most cases. However, now the Health Dept feels like they made progress in the right direction. And who besides the people trying to make a living doing this are going to argue about any legislation if it seems, at least to the public who have no idea what is actually going on, a logical step in the right direction. That it is basically an ineffective measure that carries with it a very, very major cost is apparently lost.

 

This is just one example of the very random nature of this government body. If they would simply punish the hell out of those who don't run a clean shop rather than create this moving target of random rules, a fine balance could be struck between protecting the public from food born illness and not creating undo expense for responsible operators.

 

BTW, this doesn't mean that a ton of their rules both in build out and operation aren't completely needed and logical.

 

Oh and thanks for reminding me, NIck, that I'm not done with the discussion, just taking a different stance.

Edited November 10, 2008 by detlef

[Caveman_Nick]

This is just one example of the very random nature of this government body. If they would simply punish the hell out of those who don't run a clean shop rather than create this moving target of random rules, a fine balance could be struck between protecting the public from food born illness and not creating undo expense for responsible operators.

 

Exactly. This is exactly the same kind of legislation that does not serve to make anything better.

 

BTW, this doesn't mean that a ton of their rules both in build out and operation aren't completely needed and logical.

 

Absolutely. I have no issue with laws that make general sense like safety courses, licenses, background checks to keep guns out of the hands of known criminals, etc..