US Philadelphia Student Carrying Legal Firearm Shoots It Out

[mistermack]

I don't have gunfighter fantasies. I sincerely hope that I never have reason to so much as point a firearm at another person, let alone to have to pull the trigger. I take reasonable, common-sense precautions to avoid situations that might lead to that happening. I carry a firearm as an absolute last resort measure, for if all else fails. If you're not going to contribute anything to this thread besides personal attacks about the mental state of gun owners and straw man arguments about how we all think we're John Wayne, please grow up or go away.

I'm afraid that the mental state of gun lovers and the gunfighter fantasy is right at the heart of the matter.
If it's embarrassing you, it's meant to, and so it should.

The last resort argument is silly. If everybody carried guns as a last resort, there would be a lot more death. It's only the good sense of the majority that keeps it sane.

One section of society is on the unreasonable side. You can't both be right.
From the evidence of the people I've met, I know which which lot are reasonable.

[Wumbologist]

I'm afraid that the mental state of gun lovers and the gunfighter fantasy is right at the heart of the matter.
If it's embarrassing you, it's meant to, and so it should.

No, it really isn't. You're speaking from a position of willful ignorance. You don't know many, if any gun owners at all. Yet you feel qualified to comment on their mental state because the media has told you guns is scary bad, you've read some stuff on the internet, and this one guy on a message board had different opinions than you do and he likes guns. I, on the other hand, am a gun owner myself, have friends who are gun owners, family who are gun owners, and have met and conversed with many other gun owners at the range and elsewhere. The only person with a fantasy here is you, and that fantasy is that your opinion is worth of any respect or consideration from any logical and rational person.

The reasonable precaution argument fails, unless you think that all of the people who DON'T walk around with concealed guns are unreasonable.

False dichotomy. I believe that carrying a concealed firearm is a personal choice to be made by individuals. I have weighed the risks/costs against the benefits, and decided that carrying a concealed firearm makes sense for myself. It is not unreasonable for others to weigh those factors against their own personal lives and circumstances and decide that they don't want to carry a concealed firearm. I own a car, that doesn't make people who don't own a car unreasonable to me. I own a TV, but there's nothing unreasonable about someone who doesn't feel the need to have one. This argument is illogical and extremely stupid and you should feel bad for making it.

One section of society is on the unreasonable side. You can't both be right.
From the evidence of the people I've met, I know which which lot are reasonable.

The world isn't as black and white as that. It's entirely possible for two sides of an argument to both have their own merits, and I don't think that people who don't want or like guns are unreasonable people, unless their views are presented in an unreasonable manner, as you have done. Furthermore, it's entirely possible for personal firearm possession to make more sense in one country than another. I've never been to the UK, maybe it truly doesn't make as much sense there. I've made no claims to know what's best for the UK in that regard, and I quite simply am not qualified to do so, any more than you are qualified to make claims about whether personal gun ownership makes sense in the US.

As far as the people you've met, how many gun owners have you met? I can just about guarantee that I have met an exponentially larger number of gun owners than you have.

[mistermack]

As far as the people you've met, how many gun owners have you met? I can just about guarantee that I have met an exponentially larger number of gun owners than you have.

If you are brought up in a lunatic asylum, it's not surprising that you end up thinking they are normal.
The more of them you meet, the more normal they seem.

[Coito ergo sum]

What it proves to me is that the US has a ludicrous addiction to guns, based on the wild-west fantasy of the gunfighter.
Americans get fed this rubbish from an early age, and "grow up" believing that they need guns to save themselves from the baddies. It's John Wayne and Clint Eastwood producing a national delusion.

As knives don't feature strongly in the national fantasy, nobody has objected to sensible laws governing them.

What your post proves is that you haven't the first clue about Americans. The real adherents to wild west fantasies are Europeans and other non-Americans, who think that they know what the wild west was (but, they don't have a clue) and who think that the U.S. is currently like their misconception of the "wild west."

Your post also proves that you don't know the first thing about what Americans are fed, rubbish or otherwise, and that instead you feel quite content spouting your own "rubbish" about Americans and what you mistakenly think they are fed.

Not too many people object to sensible laws governing guns. What most folks object to are laws that don't make sense. Laws may be different in other countries than here in the US, and it may make sense for that to be the case, as all legal systems need not be the same and they may take into account differing needs of differing cultures. It takes a peculiar brand of arrogance for one to suggest that everyone else must live as one does, or they are crazy, paranoid, or brainwashed. News flash: we have gun laws in the United States.

[Coito ergo sum]

As far as the people you've met, how many gun owners have you met? I can just about guarantee that I have met an exponentially larger number of gun owners than you have.

If you are brought up in a lunatic asylum, it's not surprising that you end up thinking they are normal.
The more of them you meet, the more normal they seem.

There's that peculiar brand of arrogance again...

Yes, the US laws are not quite as strict as the British laws, and therefore it's a "lunatic" system. You ought to at least acknowledge that people can have guns in the UK - they just need to apply for a permit, and if you say you want to go skeet shooting or that you need the gun for pest control, and you don't have a criminal record or a mental issue, then you'll get one. What a pack of lunatics you are over there....

[mistermack]

Yeh, right Coito.

So all of those western gunfighter movies were made for Europeans, right? Not appealing to the domestic market at all then?
How very strange. I thought it was the other way around.

[Wumbologist]

As far as the people you've met, how many gun owners have you met? I can just about guarantee that I have met an exponentially larger number of gun owners than you have.

If you are brought up in a lunatic asylum, it's not surprising that you end up thinking they are normal.
The more of them you meet, the more normal they seem.

I wasn't brought up in a lunatic asylum, and to address the point you're insinuating, I wasn't brought up around gun owners, either. I didn't see a gun outside of a police officer's belt until I was 21. I grew up in a relatively anti-gun part of the country and in an anti-gun household. I've met plenty of gun owners who were perfectly good, reasonable people.


You are an embarrassment to your side of the debate. There have been plenty of people who have chimed in on this thread with rational, polite disagreements with my opinions and I respect them for that. You, on the other hand, have contributed absolutely nothing to this thread other than a string of immature and childish posts chock full of logical fallacies, particularly strawmen. Every word you have typed has been utterly divorced from logic and reason.

[Coito ergo sum]

Yeh, right Coito.

So all of those western gunfighter movies were made for Europeans, right? Not appealing to the domestic market at all then?
How very strange. I thought it was the other way around.

Europeans are the only ones I've ever heard who have thought they were an accurate reflection of "the wild west."

Of course western gunfighter movies were made for the US market. Spaghetti Westerns - made in Italy - and marketed in Europe and the US. The language in which the movies were originally released was Italian, but most of the films featured multilingual casts and sound was invariably post-synched. But, the classic "Western" that created the myth of the "wild west" - that was Italian. Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), were Spaghetti Westerns. And, so you can take your "fistful of traveler's check" analogy and chalk that up to Eurotrash mythos about an old west in the US that they fantasized about, but about which they of course didn't know dick.

It's important to note that "Fistful of Dollars" was a remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1961 film Yojimbo starring Toshirō Mifune. That's a Japanese film. So, the big film that you analogized with your silly traveler's check thing was an Italian remake of a Japanese film. Nice job, Einstein. Care to spout some more European wisdom?

Like war movies, though, I am able to distinguish fantasy from reality, and I understand that Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns bear as much resemblance to real western life in the 19th century as "Sahara" with Humphrey Bogart bears on the North African campaign in World War 2.

Don't talk about being "fed" a line of B.S., when you're the one thinking the wild west was real and that it's what Americans go around thinking. You don't know the first thing about the US, and it takes a peculiar brand of arrogance to talk as much out of one's ass as a lot of Europeans seem to do.

[Wumbologist]

Yeh, right Coito.

So all of those western gunfighter movies were made for Europeans, right? Not appealing to the domestic market at all then?
How very strange. I thought it was the other way around.

We also produce movies about killer clowns. This doesn't mean Americans have killer clown fantasies every time they go to the circus. Movies are pretend. Not real. Perhaps if you're incapable of understanding this basic point, it's your mental status that should be in question rather than that of American gun owners.

[mistermack]

Hmm, I think Coito, that you are taking what I said far further to try to negate it.
I didn't say people believed the wild west myth in all it's glory.
I was pointing out that bits of it rub off, when you encounter it from childhood.
And that that's where this belief in the need for guns comes from. You see baddies, armed to the teeth, having gun battles constantly on tv and at the cinema.
A little rubs off, and people believe that they need a gun of their own, because the baddies are everywhere.
And they read the headlines from a nation of 300,000.000 and that seals it.
It's a national fantasy. To pull out your gun and defend the goodies against the baddies.

[Coito ergo sum]

Hmm, I think Coito, that you are taking what I said far further to try to negate it.

No - you talked about how Americans were essentially brainwashed from a young age. Then I called you on it, and you then offered as proof the "American" western movies. I merely illustrated how full of shit that assertion is.

I didn't say people believed the wild west myth in all it's glory.

No, you went further than that. You said that Americans are brainwashed from an early age to have gunfighter fantasies, and that's why we are "addicted" to guns. If all you said was that (some) people believed in the myth of the wild west, I wouldn't really argue with you, except over semantics. But, the fact that you offered up western movies as proof that that is what Americans are "fed" proves you don't know the first thing about the United States.

I was pointing out that bits of it rub off, when you encounter it from childhood.

So what about the bullshit you were fed from early childhood? Europeans don't watch t.v? Believe me, I've been around Europe and you have plenty of bullshit on your televisions.

And that that's where this belief in the need for guns comes from.

You don't know what American kids watch. Westerns were popular with kids in the 1950s and 60s in the US, but when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, adults watched the westerns and kids didn't watch them much.

You see baddies, armed to the teeth, having gun battles constantly on tv and at the cinema.
A little rubs off, and people believe that they need a gun of their own, because the baddies are everywhere.
And they read the headlines from a nation of 300,000.000 and that seals it.
It's a national fantasy. To defend against the baddies.

It's not a national fantasy. And, everything you said smacks of talking points that you've been fed. It sounds like somebody who hasn't set foot in the United States is talking, and trying to come up with a pop-psychology theory on what Americans think about guns, by starting with an erroneous assumption about what Americans do, watch and think, and then proceeding from that to invent a bullshit explanation for something they know nothing about.

[mistermack]

It's not a national fantasy. And, everything you said smacks of talking points that you've been fed. It sounds like somebody who hasn't set foot in the United States is talking, and trying to come up with a pop-psychology theory on what Americans think about guns, by starting with an erroneous assumption about what Americans do, watch and think, and then proceeding from that to invent a bullshit explanation for something they know nothing about.

Well I have, and I've met the more extreme examples of fantasists, and nobody thought that they were mad.
That's the difference, what you think of as "normal".

[Wumbologist]

Hmm, I think Coito, that you are taking what I said far further to try to negate it.
I didn't say people believed the wild west myth in all it's glory.
I was pointing out that bits of it rub off, when you encounter it from childhood.
And that that's where this belief in the need for guns comes from. You see baddies, armed to the teeth, having gun battles constantly on tv and at the cinema.
A little rubs off, and people believe that they need a gun of their own, because the baddies are everywhere.
And they read the headlines from a nation of 300,000.000 and that seals it.
It's a national fantasy. To defend against the baddies.

Shifting goalposts much, are we? Now we don't have full-on gunfighter fantasies, just a little that rubs off. Boy, that was quick.

You're still making a stupid argument. Again, we know perfectly well that TV isn't real. If I were to believe the last season of Burn Notice, I would think that you can't walk down the streets of Miami without a car or building blowing up next to you. But it's fiction. Pretend. Imagination. In reality, the city of Miami has a somewhat high crime rate that isn't unreasonable compared to comparable cities.

The "baddies" aren't everywhere, but they do exist. The odds of me needing to defend myself against attack are fairly low, and I recognize that. However, the stakes are high enough (my life and well-being) that I feel it is reasonable to take precautionary measures. As far as "armed to the teeth", it doesn't matter how armed they are. We're not talking about mutual combat, we're talking about unprovoked attack from a criminal aggressor. In that situation, I have every right to be better armed than he is.

[Coito ergo sum]

It's not a national fantasy. And, everything you said smacks of talking points that you've been fed. It sounds like somebody who hasn't set foot in the United States is talking, and trying to come up with a pop-psychology theory on what Americans think about guns, by starting with an erroneous assumption about what Americans do, watch and think, and then proceeding from that to invent a bullshit explanation for something they know nothing about.

Well I have, and I've met the more extreme examples of fantasists, and nobody thought that they were mad.
That's the difference, what you think of as "normal".

And, you have that peculiar form of arrogance wherein you claim that you are immune from any sort of similar brainwashing or madness on your side of the pond...what's on your side of the pond is sane, and what's on our side is "mad" and only we don't know the difference because it seems "normal" to us. How does it feel to have that much conceit?

[Wumbologist]

It's not a national fantasy. And, everything you said smacks of talking points that you've been fed. It sounds like somebody who hasn't set foot in the United States is talking, and trying to come up with a pop-psychology theory on what Americans think about guns, by starting with an erroneous assumption about what Americans do, watch and think, and then proceeding from that to invent a bullshit explanation for something they know nothing about.

Well I have, and I've met the more extreme examples of fantasists, and nobody thought that they were mad.
That's the difference, what you think of as "normal".

Let's follow the illogic of your incredibly stupid train of though about gunfighter fantasies for a moment.

Let's say that your hypothetical American who has watched a bunch of Westerns really does believe the world is full of baddies. He decides, from this illogical belief, that he should get a gun and carry it to protect himself. He gets a license to carry, and a firearm, and becomes a member of a portion of society that, as Seth pointed out a few pages ago, is exceptionally law abiding by nature. Even IF this hypothetical American decided to carry a gun for the illogical reasons you've laid out, considering that he is statistically more likely to be a law-abiding and safe citizen than pretty much any other sample of the population that you'll find, what's the harm?