How do you feel about guns?

well seen as i have a gun myself i dont see the problem in guns themselves but the people who use them, just because i have a rifle doesnt mean im not going to shoot someone or rob a bank

 

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You're being too presumptuous of yourself, lol.

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Fezzini: Inconceivable!
Inigo: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. - The Princess Bride

- N

 

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I love saying the word presume, I totally elongate it, so it's like

presuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmme and adopt a phony posh accent.

I do not presume to know why though?

 

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Figures. You really don't have any clue what you are talking about.
Feel that.

 

Not that we have any idea what you'er babbling about. I have a team of eight cryptographers, eleven linguist, 3 Psychologists, and one hillbilly trying to decipher your inane posts. So far they have come up with "Are you sure that isn't a thousand monkeys typing?"

 

I know you are but what I am! Infinity!

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- N

 

Two kids in, I think, Kentucky pulled a fire alarm and shot kids as they exited the building. They got the rifles from one of their grandparents who was a cop. No gun law would have prevented that.

 

Neildo,
That's one of my favorite movies ever. I love that line. I even named my cat Inigo Montoya, Monty for short.

One day my wife and I were driving thru Chicago on the way back from a show or something and my wife needed to use the bathroom. Her sister lived in Chicago at the time so she suggested I call her to see if she could stop by for a bathroom break. Well when I called, I got her answering machine. I figured there was no point in leaving a message asking if we could use her bathroom, so I said {in a cheesy accent}:

"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

and hung up. My sister in law gets the message and thinks it's a real death threat and is ready to call the police! Fortunately she first played the message to her boyfriend who burst out laughing! After that, she soon figured out it was me.

 

Yes it would have. You've just got to belieeeve. Have faith, my brotha.

Our weaponless society will be utopia, especially after we genetically modify everyone so that they're the same height, weight, and have the same fighting skills so that people won't get physically attacked with no weapon in hand.

No weapons means no more violence! Believe!

LoL, hilarious!

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Fezzik: We face each other as God intended. Sportsmanlike. No tricks, no weapons, skill against skill alone.
Man in Black: You mean, you'll put down your rock and I'll put down my sword, and we'll try and kill each other like civilized people?
Fezzik: [brandishing rock] I could kill you now.
Man in Black: I think the odds are slightly in your favor at hand fighting.
Fezzik: It's not my fault being the biggest and the strongest. I don't even exercise. - The Princess Bride

- N

 

Guns? Guns... is good.

 

Man in Black: Why are you smiling?
Inigo: Because I know something you don't.
Man in Black: What's that?
Inigo: I'm not left handed.
Inigo: Why are you smiling?
Man in Black: Because I'm not left handed either.....

 

Troll.

 

Well, y'know ....

I was using a more colloquial context, but ... whatever works. And yes, having a gun makes a certain difference.

Would you shoot someone for a car? I have, in fact, encountered that mentality; I can't even verify that the "suspect" in question was actually tampering with the car. But sure enough, he was close enough to the car for the car's owner to pull a gun.

How about for asking directions? Would you shoot someone because they were trying to ask you directions? Would you shoot them through a closed door? Happened in Texas. The man apparently yelled, "Freeze!" from behind a closed door, and then shot the exchange student who didn't speak solid English for failing to heed a colloquial warning issued behind a closed door.

In the colloquial context, at least, this is what we would call "paranoid" in our friends.

Would you shoot someone for failing to get down on their hands and knees and deliver your every wish? My former partner told me that when we argued about our familial responsibilities. She was upset because I wouldn't get a job to pay for her liquor expenses. She explained to me that maybe she drinks so she wouldn't f@cking shoot me. And yes, she is the textbook example of colloquial paranoia. In the ten years we were together, communication was especially difficult. If you're not perfectly happy with her eccentric arrogance, you're abusing her.

You wrote that, "There is such a thing as being careful." Careful is teaching your children to not get into cars with strangers, and watching what they do and where they go when, say, your three year-old is running around outside. I put an additional lock on my door at home not to keep other people out, but so I could get some sleep without my daughter busting out and running free. To the other, though, it is beyond simply being careful to imagine that every face I see is out to hurt me or my daughter. There is, indeed, such a thing as being careful; and there is such a thing as going too far.

And just to make the point:

This point of yours is tinged with that colloquial paranoia. An appeal to mental illness, perhaps, but not this time. In fact, I would wonder why you take me so clinically on this point, but that's my own failing to account for your literalism. M'apologies.

Why would I say that? Where do you get that? I responded to the point, "You know, worrying about the things at are pretty probable and quite heinous." Again, I can fear every face I see, or I can go on with life. Statistically, I have more to fear for my daughter's safety from her mother, her mother's boyfriend(s), or her maternal grandfather than I do some stereotypical Chester-the-Molester in his hooded sweatshirt, sunglasses, and primer-gray Dodge van.

For instance, let's put two issues side by side. What do you think is more important to my daughter's safety and security?

- That Daddy quits smoking, or ...
- ... that Daddy buys a gun to protect her from all the bad people in the world?​

A minor comparison to consider would be that the last person to steal from my home was a drinking buddy of my former partner's, who she invited back to the house for ... uh ... I don't know why. But hey, any bleary-eyed twenty-two year-old who introduces himself by three or four different names depending on who you are, who shows up to drink at the bar in house slippers, is someone you really want to introduce to your daughter, eh? Or perhaps I should recall the guy known to my former partner's drinking circle as "The Predator"? That was his reputation, a pervert who liked it when women said no. And we had a gun in the house at that time. I would say my daughter's mother is more dangerous than any fear of a child-snatcher or such. What good would a gun do me?

Seeing to our own safety and security is an issue. But your perspective seems a little skewed:

Seatbelt logic: no; that's a ridiculous assertion to make. Crossing the street? I have before, and I probably will again. Handing over my daughter? Well, that becomes a complicated process. In fact, the only people I choose to hand my daughter over to are people I know and trust.

Furthermore, are you seriously comparing buckling a seatbelt to shooting someone? Or looking both ways before you cross the street? Is checking up on the facts truly comparable to taking someone's life? How about those things compared to preparing to take someone's life?

What about reinforcing cooperative community values instead of fostering the myth that violence is the first solution?

Not as gratifying? Not as immediate? Harder to see the result of compassion, communication, and faith in our fellow human beings than a bleeding corpse?

I knew a guy who was shot (buckshot) over a car stereo. Yes, only assholes like him steal car stereos, but is it really worth shooting someone? I mean, think about it: if the thief hadn't been drunk, the owner wouldn't have known. No car alarm, no exterior lights, and too much crap in the garage. Can't get an alarm, can't light his driveway, can't clean the garage, but sure as hell can shoot randomly into the dark when some drunken idiot stumbles into the garbage cans.

Something about taking a few moments seeing to safety and security?

I have in my mind a list of people I've encountered in my lifetime who would call themselves "responsible gun owners" who "owe it to themselves and their fellow man" to not possess, carry, or use firearms. And, as with your argument, they would compare the safety of tying their shoes (so as not to trip over the laces) to shooting someone. I admit, this mentality doesn't make sense to me, and only ensures that there will always be someone out there feeling righteous enough to kill someone else.

Strangely, the TV show has nothing to do with my point. There are, indeed, times that I would like to be an equalizer; typically that would mean kicking the shit out of someone. But vigilante fantasies, like pedophilic fantasies, are best avoided.

As a principle, I would suggest that killing someone should never be an easily-learned faculty. To the other, we return to the statistical truth: Do I really need a gun to protect my daughter and myself from my family and my closest friends?

Example, drugs: In my fifteen-year association with illicit substances, I have never encountered violence or danger. The worst I've seen it is my dealer being unsympathetic when a client thought the quality was down. The horrible, horrible response? "Find someone else to get your stuff, then." Oh, the humanity! It's real simple: I don't do business with those kinds of people. I don't buy from guys in alleys on streetcorners. I don't have gang or mob connections. I don't sell (per se; every stoner has moved a bag for a friend at least once). Sometimes, taking a few moments to protect yourself simply means not putting yourself in danger.

It depends on who you are and what your situation is. But for all the nasty, dangerous stuff I've apparently done in my life, I've never come across a situation where a gun was truly necessary.

The illusion of courage speaks nothing of the knowledge and understanding of why one uses it. I watched a fight break out a couple weeks ago over the issue of a handshake: two (colloquially) paranoid people feeling trespassed upon by the other. I'm damn glad neither of them packs heat. It took three neighbors, an angrily departing girlfriend, and a rottweiler to settle that issue. Sadly, I can see how either one of them would have felt threatened; two illusory machismos collided for no good reason. No blood, no foul.

Drunken stepfathers ... cracked-out boyfriends ... Grandpa Sex Predator .... Again, we come back to the statistical realities of violent crime. Which brings us to your final point:

I do have a knife, actually, that was manufactured for defense. Strangely, it's hidden away in the one part of my apartment that my daughter can't get to, which makes it very inconvenient for defense. But the fact that it is hidden away is not the strange part. My kitchen knives aren't hidden away. That's what's strange. (I'll have to figure something out, but that's a separate issue for now.)

I would propose that you go to the home of a bereaved family whose child has just died in an accidental shooting. Ask them a couple questions: "How many criminals did you stop with that gun? None? Well, at least you had it in case you needed it, eh?"

Really, that'll cheer them up. At least they were doing something for their children.

 

Vizzini: I can't compete with you physically, and you're no match for my brains.
Westley: You're that smart?
Vizzini: Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?
Westley: Yes.
Vizzini: Morons. - The Princess Bride

- N

 

Mod Hat - My Contribution to Waste

(I dare you, and then no more after that, please.)

No more Princess Bride, I mean it!

 

"Westley: As you wish.
Grandpa: [voiceover] "As you wish" was all he ever said to her."

----

"Buttercup: [pushes Westley down the hill]
Westley: [rolling down the hill] As you wish!
Buttercup: Oh my Westley! What have I done?" - The Princess Bride

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- N

 

It's nice to see these trolls throw their little tantrums.
Keep it up.

 

And yet you continue to respond, LoL!

Hi, kettle.

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I got the last word, neener neener!

- N

 

Gun ownership should be a basic right. If it is illegal for guns to be purchased, then only outlaws will have guns, and that is not a very good situation.

 

It will not just be outlaws, but also the military and the police.