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. Theoryofrelativity Banned Banned

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    5,595

    I don't know what I'd do, I wouldn't shoot them

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    as you said, I haven't thus far done anything with an alternative weapon. Just sometimes I think...Grrrrrrrrrrr I wanna, wanna zigga zig aaaaaaaaaa (spice girls ). No one knows what they'd do in any given situation until confronted with it. I just wouldn't want a gun around when I feel cross. Hey, maybe I'd blow my own brains out?

    I haven't provoked any attack or initiated one, just defended myself when required to do so. Those assaults I mention....I came out of them ok

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    Don't you worry about that....no gun or weapon of any kind required.

    If I was confronted by someone with gun, I would be entirely passive and quiet and 'thinking' of way out off of situation. First opportunity I'd attempt to disarm them...if I couldn't talk them out of it.
     
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  3. Theoryofrelativity Banned Banned

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    Oh interesting thing (or not)

    Kid was pointing gun at me as I drove along road, some kind of toy thing maybe fired plastic arrows. I did not want to drive past him even though a toy and was VERY cross with stupid kid as toy or not, plastic arrow in my eye while driving not good. Thus I stopped my car and gave him evil eye (its VERY evil) and said ''DON'T", he didn't and looked very sheepish. I felt like taking him by his scruff to his parents.

    Suppose I had a gun......would I have shot him, thinking his toy as real?
     
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  5. Oniw17 ascetic, sage, diogenes, bum? Valued Senior Member

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    I think everyone in the world should have at least one gun. Otherwise, if society broke down one day, a more oppressive government could make anyone of us the equal to a slave. We could not contest it, because the oppressors would have guns and we wouldn't, kinda familiar to something that happened in Africa a long while back. Where I live, everyone has a gun, if we didn't, the crackheads would take everything off of us.
     
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  7. Prince_James Plutarch (Mickey's Dog) Registered Senior Member

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    TheoryOfRelativity:

    So your stance, overall, is simply for yourself? That is, you are anti-gun because you do not want to kill someone out of anger and such? But you would be fine with other people being armed legally which could control themselves?
     
  8. antifreeze defrosting agent Registered Senior Member

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    494
    i too find myself in disagreement with the poll's wording. i am certainly not against guns, but i do not think everyone has a right to them. and as far as design goes, a gun is designed to launch a projectile, just as a pencil is designed to apply lead [or graphite nowadays]. i use my gun to open cans and turn off lights. incidentally, my lightbulb and ceiling repair budget is through the roof.

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  9. TW Scott Minister of Technology Registered Senior Member

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    I did respond and thus your claim rings falsley. It is only ad hominem when I make no other attempt at respond. Since I did, it is simply telling the truth as I see it.
     
  10. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    Does this in any way suggest that the problem is the ideology surrounding the guns?

    - Switzerland is a small country inasmuch as it would fit inside any of a number of states in the U.S.; we have open spaces the size of some small nations, and that makes people feel very lonely and isolated, and consequently afraid.
    - Switzerland, historically, has attempted to remain neutral, at least compared to the American manifest destiny and other imperial tendencies.
    - As I understand it, and I could be wrong here, European societies are not as swayed by the glitzy images on television and the silver screen that make death by gunfire something glamourous and romantic.
    - Switzerland seems to lack the paranoid, belligerent religious tendencies fueling the American "Bible Belt". Again, I could be wrong. But it seems that way.​

    I just spent the most part of a week in "bear country", the kind of place where you see refreshing signs advising that bears "can kill you". Seeing bears and even waking up to the sight of a massive bison, I didn't feel the need for a gun. To the other, I did see a family at Yellowstone, walking through the complex around Old Faithful, and the father pointed out to his son, "Jason, did you see? A fish just--" um, I admit I can't remember the term for it; breaking or breaching or something. But here, in a national park, the guy was just itching for the chance to kill something. Admittedly it was a hook on a string he was talking about, but it did make me wonder if there are some gun folks out there who go nuts at the prospect of all these animals they're not allowed to kill. After all, a beautiful wolf known by the moniker "Alpha Male #10" was illegally shot and killed shortly after his release into Yellowstone. There is a deeply-rooted sense of violence about the American psyche, in part because our patriotism is not so much reverent as it is spectacular: cowboys and indians, "taming" the west, Manifest Destiny, the Civil War ... it touches on many aspects of our culture, including in the present the reasons people have so much difficulty accepting that objections to the war have nothing to do with the soldier. We learned that lesson after Vietnam, I would hope, but it seems that some folks--those who glorify our violent side, mostly--insist on keeping that old wound festering.

    Our nation is "great" because it is violent. Seems strange to say, but think about it: Manifest Destiny, the taming of the west, included biological warfare and attempted genocide, territorial wars and wars to preserve human bondage. It is enough to reject Czoglosz or Berkman, to denounce blacks for gang violence, or blame an Arab when a white guy with a cardboard license plate is responsible. But Haditha isn't much compared to nearly 3,000 dead Americans on 9/11, so our patriotism and community ideology compels us to look past such episodes of violence because it's not fair, apparently, to criticize the soldiers, and it's un-American to criticize the folks who sent them there. Look at our blinders, and what they allow us to see: nothing but fear and imperial blood.

    It's why I show a sympathetic mercy toward the Happy Face Bomber; in his own way, he's a product of our society. It's why I think people over-reacted to 9/11: we knew something like that would happen someday, and the only way we know how to respond is to get even more violent and more paranoid. It's in our heritage, and it will be our great fall. We cling to an old world while pretending to look forward to the new. Neither vision finds roots in reality. Is it any wonder so many Americans are so scared that the most important thing to them is that they possess the ability to kill someone?

    Yes, if I lived on a large plot in Montana or Wyoming, or even the east half of Washington (okay, the eastern two-thirds, to be more accurate), I would probably own a rifle. But it would be more about the dangers of wildlife than the dangers of humanity, and I certainly wouldn't be so quick to shoot to kill as some of my neighbors seem. Apparently, they're happy to waste bullets shooting cans, but not when afforded the opportunity to destroy life.

    I admit I don't understand the gun mentality in this country. It is one of the strangest things I know of. It seems idiot-simple, even though I know not all gun owners are idiots. Much like my complaint about Christianity, it would be refreshing at least to see the "responsible gun owners" tell the NRA and other such wellsprings of paranoia to get bent, and it would be absolutely wonderful to see Americans in general approach issues of crime and fear with something approaching a rational sense. But it ain't gonna happen. Bloodlust is far too gratifying in our culture.

    Seriously, ask folks about "when the disaster comes". For a frightening number of Americans, a gun will be required to ensure they don't have to give a flying f@ck about their neighbors except to kill them. So much for American "Christian" values.

    It's all a bloody mess. We just need to get irie, and then we can lead the world to peace and prosperity.

    In the meantime, it's the Wild West vs. the Republic of Coruscant. Take your choice. We all lose, in the end.

    We should stick that in our flintlocks and smoke it.
     
  11. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    Ad hominem attack, followed by something which did not address the comment it was ostensibly responding to.

    Grow up, TW.
     
  12. Prince_James Plutarch (Mickey's Dog) Registered Senior Member

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    "- Switzerland is a small country inasmuch as it would fit inside any of a number of states in the U.S.; we have open spaces the size of some small nations, and that makes people feel very lonely and isolated, and consequently afraid."

    It is hard to claim that open spaces make one "afraid". People seek open spaces because it is people crowding in on them that make them feel afraid.

    "- Switzerland, historically, has attempted to remain neutral, at least compared to the American manifest destiny and other imperial tendencies."

    Switzerland had no cares for any other country's business, but they were belligerently defensive. To attack the Swiss was to incur their wrath.

    "- As I understand it, and I could be wrong here, European societies are not as swayed by the glitzy images on television and the silver screen that make death by gunfire something glamourous and romantic."

    I think the entire history of Western history disproves this? Look at all the great, violent literature that Europe has spawned, for instance? Where in fact does militarism in the West start? Who fought the World Wars? Who slaughtered millions under Communism? Moreover, look at modern European cinema. Often shockingly violent and sexual, specifically British cinema.

    "- Switzerland seems to lack the paranoid, belligerent religious tendencies fueling the American "Bible Belt". Again, I could be wrong. But it seems that way."

    Switzerland is the home of Calvinism.

    'Nough said.
     
  13. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    Mr. Scott, I won't ask you to "beam me up" if you don't make me break out my green hat.

    To the other:

    #1) There is also such a thing as being paranoid.
    #2) Worrying that much about what is probable and also heinous means we must fear our families and closest friends. See point #1.
    #3) We'd all like to be equalizers sometimes. Of course, the other day I saw a beautiful female that I would have liked to bang, and then I realized she was fourteen. In other words, we all have our fantasies, and it generally behooves us to maintain some decorum therein. If I need to stroke to the memory of a fourteen year-old girl, I'm probably just as screwed up as if I need to stroke to the image of lethal vengeance.

    Calling your notion rational would be akin to a man in his thirties masturbating under the covers in a fever stoked by the memory of a fourteen year-old girl and calling himself an exhibitionist.
     
  14. TW Scott Minister of Technology Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,149
    That's becuase you been programmed to believe that. I credit you with the brains to see beyond that.


    First off let's start with the murders. Yes, 80% of people murdered are murdered by people they know. Murder by definition requires a bit of forthought and knowing your victim, or a person to already commiting a felony when the killing occurs. That is not nearly the same for homocides, rapes, beatings, and muggings. Now having a gun in the home can be of help. That stalker boyfriend might be in for a serious shock when his victim pulls her 9 out and drills him one in the forehead. As for serious impact, I consider one life saved to be significant.

    Now, as for men using guns better than women. I do believe you are just pulling statistics out your arse. Of course it matter little if you are since even without training that raises a womans survival chances by ten percent in such circumstances. Now if we start doing the smart thing and makes each person who legally buys a gun complete a course on combat shooting that will solve that 9 in 10 problem you made up.



    Now your last statement is a lie flat out. The US does not have the highest murder rate in the western world. Hell it is not must worse that Britains at the moment and at least ours is dropping while theirs is rising.

    Number one in the western world, (as of 2004) belongs to Brazil where there were 11,431 homocides among 184,101,109 citizen resulting in a ratio of 1 in 16105.42463. USA Scores little better with 18,233 deaths among 293,655,405 citizens resuclting in a ration of 1 in 16105.7097. Great Britian has soared upwards since their draconiam gun laws to a lofty 3,742 homocides among 60,270,708 unarmed people resulting in a ratio of 1 in 16106.54944. Now previously their homocide rate was lower, much lower. Meanwhile the one in the good ole USA was higher. Which begs the question of why?

    The most glaring difference in my mind comes from the the dual occurences of policy changes. Several US states started 'Shall Issue' policies at the same time Great Britain decides to chuck all guns. Now for those of you who do not know 'Shall Issue' means that if you apply to carry a concealed weapon the state cannot refuse to issue you a license unless you have a violent criminal history, mental illness, or similair problems. Previously you had to prove to the state that you desperately needed the firearm for your personal protection. Now this might sound silly, but I honestly think smart criminals decided that getting out that area was a good thing, and then they see merry olde England disarming everyone, including the cops.


    By the way for those wondering:
    Most Homocides per capitia:
    Indonesia 14,806 per 238,452,952 for a ration of 1 in 16105.15683

    Most Homocides total:
    China 80,647 per 1,298,847,624 for a ratio of 1 in 16105.34334

    Least Homicides per Capita:
    Czech Republic 77 per 10,246,178 for a ratio of 1 in 133067.2468

    Least Homocides Total:
    Liechtenstein 2 per 33,436 for a ratio of 1 in 16718
    Monaco 2 per 32,270 for a ratio of 1 in 16135
     
  15. TW Scott Minister of Technology Registered Senior Member

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    4,149
    Thank you, i knew I respected you for more than one reason.

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    Yes, there is. Paranoia is a mental condition and if you have it, having a gun or not makes little difference. A paranoid is going to be scared of absolutely everything, no matter what. If they are too far gone they won't even buy a gun becuase they'd be too afraid it has been tampered with. So I see no reason why you would bring this up besides an Appeal to Mental Illness, somehow relating guns to mental illness. I would think you are above such arguments.

    Okay so you are implying here that we should not spend a few moments each day seeing to our own safety and secuirity. Would you say that you should not buckle your seatbelt becuase automobile accidents are rare? Would you blithely cross the street without looking? Would you hand your children over to a person you don't know and haven't even performed a background check? No in all theses cases I imagine. Now I am not saying that everyone should carry threee guns or anything as insane as that. However you owe it to yourself and your fellow man to be able to handle attackers. that might mean weightlifting and boxing, martial arts, pepper spray, tasers, or a gun. the option should be left to the individual.

    I am trying to fathom what seeing and desiring a 14 ear old girl has to do with personal protection. Except maybe that girls father should start teaching her how to shoot now. This is perhaps one of your worst arguments, I expect so much more from you. Oh wait perhaps I see it now. I was saying guns are the equilizers not that I want to be the Equalizer from the old TV show. I wonder how you got that misinterpretation, ah well I will put it to my poor writing.

    Here is the truth, many people today need a modicum of self protection that can be easily learned and can be deadly in case you cannot deter your attacker. The gun is it. A few hours practice and you won't even shake when you draw it. Now most of the time the mere sight of it will be enough to make the attacker back off and leave. Then there are the times you might actually have to use it. i.e. drugged up muggers, rabid dogs, homocidal lunatics. All rare I know but in the great scheme of things wouldn't you rather have a gun and not use it or need to use a gun and not have it?
     
  16. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    39,397
    What about gun homicides per capita?
     
  17. TW Scott Minister of Technology Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,149

    Strange, It looked to me that i addressed your comment and quite well too. In fact you are just making it look like you have no counter to it at all. as for the <i>ad hominem,/a> there was none, that type of attack can only be made if there is no type of response to your "comment" which appeared to be nothing more than a mass <i>ad hominem</i> poorly dressed as an argument. However, I at least gave you the benefit of the doubt and adressed your "comment" as if it was a real argument.

    Now please, kindly stop dragging your own argument through the mud and presetn something in your usual style. This kind of debate deserves your best. If you really think that we ammericans are living in a media induced state of paranoia then make a decent argument. Show us what we are doing wrong.
     
  18. TW Scott Minister of Technology Registered Senior Member

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    4,149
    Does that really matter? I mean dead is dead. Does it matter if less people are shot in a country when more people are being stabbed, bludgeoned, choked, poisoned, and drowned? The point to the above is that Britain without it's guns is only a teensy fraction safer from homicide than the US. Not only that but it is getting worse and the US is getting better. So it coes counter to most people assumption that more guns = more death. It just simply is not true. you get the same amount of death or more if you take the guns away.
     
  19. Theoryofrelativity Banned Banned

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    5,595
    No

    my stance overall is I've said, NO GUNS IN UK, I don't care about USA, I don't live there. BUT if I did, I would have been indoctrinated with guns so I'd be like many other Americans and be pro gun. It's easy to say no, when you haven't been raised with them and are not part of that culture, but my culture is laregly no gun thus I'd like it to continue.

    And no, I wouldn't really be uncontrollable with a Gun James, I was making the point that in USA anyone can own a gun and that includes every nutter out there.
     
  20. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    Go and rent a copy of Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine if you're really interested, TW Scott.

    I'm fairly sure you won't do that, of course, because you don't want to hear views which might challenge what the NRA tells you.
     
  21. Neildo Gone Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,306
    Bowling for Columbine was complete garbage (I at least enjoyed Farenheit 9/11). Go watch it countered in Michael and Me.

    It suggests that it's not guns that kill people but rather people that kill people.

    - N
     
  22. Prince_James Plutarch (Mickey's Dog) Registered Senior Member

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    9,214
    TheoryOfRelativity:

    Yet if you do not have any problem in using deadly force when the situation demands, why do you not support giving people in your native country the right to the most effective means of modern self-defense, I.E., guns?
     
  23. Theoryofrelativity Banned Banned

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    5,595

    A gun is only a good means of self defense if you have it in your hand ready and loaded when an unarmed criminal presents themselves...........Thus unlikely.........

    A man in the Uk was imprisoned for shooting dead two teenage thieves. These thieves had robbed his property no less than 50 times, this man was nolonger sane (and understandably so) thus the 51st time they came back, he shot them dead. The result, imprisonment for him. The law here does not protect those who seek to protect themselves or their property. I don't see guns helping anyone, it just means all our criminals would arm themselves and as they KNOW they are about to commit a crime they would always have the upper hand.
     

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