Bang, Bang, Yer Dead!

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Re: Bang, Bang, Yer Dead!

Post by FBM » Thu Aug 23, 2012 2:37 pm

Woodbutcher wrote:
FBM wrote:Indeed, people at both ends of the spectrum tend to foam at the mouth. Centrists are largely ignored for the very reason that they don't. :ddpan:
I agree. You should be able to own guns. I see no problem with that. Also, there should be some qualifications for obtaining same, maybe a minimum number of teeth....:teef:
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Ah still got most 'uh mahn, bah th' way. Over half, anyways. ;)
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Re: Bang, Bang, Yer Dead!

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Thu Aug 23, 2012 2:39 pm

Woodbutcher wrote:
Gawdzilla Sama wrote:WB, that response is not limited to handgun owners. And it's a reminder that we will protect our liberties. You want 'em, come get 'em.
My problem is that I do not see a threat anywhere to US citizens owning fucking near any firearm imaginable; yet some of you do. And some are foaming at the mouth at some of these "threats". I find that amusing. I'm sure that if somebody was found in possession of a nuclear cruise missile, the NRA would fight like hell to enable him to keep that; after all, if the government can have one and if the people have to overthrow the government, they require such weapons for protection. Also chemical and germ warfare should be legalized for NRA members.
FBM wrote:Indeed, people at both ends of the spectrum tend to foam at the mouth. Centrists are largely ignored for the very reason that they don't. :ddpan:
And a lot of that "foaming at the mouth" is solely in the eye of the beholder. :coffee:
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Re: Bang, Bang, Yer Dead!

Post by colubridae » Thu Aug 23, 2012 2:47 pm

JimC wrote:As long as there's no jokes about gin...
Nothing like having one set of rules for me and another set for you…


It’s just that a large part of the world looks on in bemused disbelief at someone putting a dangerously addictive personality altering drug into oneself. The consequences when this is abused can be and often are horrific.
One nods one’s head in smug self-righteous… etc. (with correct amount of dewy-eyed innocence).
JimC wrote:I repeat, it's up to you folk, of course, but it may be useful to be cooly objective of the consequences of the current gun alcohol status quo...
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Re: Bang, Bang, Yer Dead!

Post by Seth » Thu Aug 23, 2012 2:59 pm

FBM wrote:I agree, Woodbutcher. A lot of gun owners are paranoid and in need of a reality check. But most aren't, in my experience. The increased scrutiny of people buying guns might help to weed out the ones who are most likely to go off the deep end some day.

And, yes, if you think you need a gun for everyday protection, there is a problem. Maybe you live in a safe area and you're imagining the threat, in which case you need some professional attention. Or maybe you're sane and are simply responding reasonably to an unreasonable situation. No single answer fits everyone at all times. I'm afraid there's no categorical imperative available for this one.

It's different even for different people in the same city. In East Knoxville, TN, gangs run the place. Shootings there don't even make the news unless an innocent bystander, such as a child, gets hit. If I lived, worked or had to travel though there, damn straight I'd carry.

But North Knoxville is all gated communities with security guards. The chances of needing a firearm there are negligible. A hyper-vigilant, gun-toting type there would almost certainly be someone who isn't psychologically fit to carry, unless s/he were hired to do so.

You just have to keep in mind the wide variety of social environments one is exposed to, and then judge each situation on its on merit, I think. Throwing a blanket condemnation or a blanket commendation on gun-owners everywhere is just lazy and sloppy reasoning, imo.
Of course it seems to have escaped you that people who live in North Knoxville don't spend their lives in North Knoxville and they might need to travel east or some other direction, into an area where you admit it's perfectly prudent to carry a gun.

Here's another example: Louisville, Kentucky. I've been there a few times, once for the NRA convention and several times for the Knob Creek machine gun shoot. I have friends who live there. My first trip, they told me to be sure to see downtown Louisville with its historic buildings and jazz clubs, but they sternly warned me NOT to venture south of 12th Street, where Louisville turns from being a quaint, old and stately city into a third-world shithole where shootings are common, particularly of white tourists who mistakenly venture into the ghetto.

Had I not been warned of this, it's likely that I would have gone that way while touring the area. The good news is that Kentucky honors my CCW permit, so I was armed, but it was nice to know where to stay away from.

The same situation applies in most big cities, like East Saint Louis, where it's easy for tourists to get off the Interstate by mistake and end up in a very bad part of town.

So, just because you might have hired armed guards to secure your home in North Knoxville, that's no protection at all when venturing outside that gated community, and the need to be armed for self defense remains a perfectly valid and rational aspect of life anywhere in the world...including London and Glasgow.
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Re: Bang, Bang, Yer Dead!

Post by Seth » Thu Aug 23, 2012 3:02 pm

FBM wrote:I respect your position, mozg, but my approach is a practical one aimed at reducing the number of firearm deaths in the US, not an abstract, ideological, emotional or political one. My suggestions are aimed only at keeping firearms out of the hands of people who are so potentially dangerous as to justify having their right to ownership limited, and hopefully saving lives in the process. I have zero interest in restricting the rights of law-abiding citizens. Yet, in the current system(s), there seem to be too many people with criminal intent who are getting their hands on guns legally. This needs to stop.

But waaaayy before that, we need to focus on getting illegally acquired firearms out of the hands of active criminals. Until that happens, I wouldn't spend much time pushing for tighter restrictions on legal ownership. Criminals first. Potential criminals a distant second.
The best way to get illegal firearms out of the hands of criminals is to catch them and lock them up for a long, long time, in large numbers.

Oh, wait, that's exactly what we do, which is why our crime rate continues to decrease while our prison population continues to rise.

It's an automatic five-year federal felony rap to use a firearm in a crime.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S

"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.

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Re: Bang, Bang, Yer Dead!

Post by FBM » Thu Aug 23, 2012 3:02 pm

Seth wrote:
FBM wrote:I agree, Woodbutcher. A lot of gun owners are paranoid and in need of a reality check. But most aren't, in my experience. The increased scrutiny of people buying guns might help to weed out the ones who are most likely to go off the deep end some day.

And, yes, if you think you need a gun for everyday protection, there is a problem. Maybe you live in a safe area and you're imagining the threat, in which case you need some professional attention. Or maybe you're sane and are simply responding reasonably to an unreasonable situation. No single answer fits everyone at all times. I'm afraid there's no categorical imperative available for this one.

It's different even for different people in the same city. In East Knoxville, TN, gangs run the place. Shootings there don't even make the news unless an innocent bystander, such as a child, gets hit. If I lived, worked or had to travel though there, damn straight I'd carry.

But North Knoxville is all gated communities with security guards. The chances of needing a firearm there are negligible. A hyper-vigilant, gun-toting type there would almost certainly be someone who isn't psychologically fit to carry, unless s/he were hired to do so.

You just have to keep in mind the wide variety of social environments one is exposed to, and then judge each situation on its on merit, I think. Throwing a blanket condemnation or a blanket commendation on gun-owners everywhere is just lazy and sloppy reasoning, imo.
Of course it seems to have escaped you that people who live in North Knoxville don't spend their lives in North Knoxville and they might need to travel east or some other direction, into an area where you admit it's perfectly prudent to carry a gun.

Here's another example: Louisville, Kentucky. I've been there a few times, once for the NRA convention and several times for the Knob Creek machine gun shoot. I have friends who live there. My first trip, they told me to be sure to see downtown Louisville with its historic buildings and jazz clubs, but they sternly warned me NOT to venture south of 12th Street, where Louisville turns from being a quaint, old and stately city into a third-world shithole where shootings are common, particularly of white tourists who mistakenly venture into the ghetto.

Had I not been warned of this, it's likely that I would have gone that way while touring the area. The good news is that Kentucky honors my CCW permit, so I was armed, but it was nice to know where to stay away from.

The same situation applies in most big cities, like East Saint Louis, where it's easy for tourists to get off the Interstate by mistake and end up in a very bad part of town.

So, just because you might have hired armed guards to secure your home in North Knoxville, that's no protection at all when venturing outside that gated community, and the need to be armed for self defense remains a perfectly valid and rational aspect of life anywhere in the world...including London and Glasgow.
What do you think my point was? If you're in a place like North Knoxville and still carry a gun as if you were on the East Side, you've got problems. But if you live in North Knoxville need to go to somewhere like Austin East, it makes perfect sense to pack. What's the difficulty? :dunno:
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Re: Bang, Bang, Yer Dead!

Post by FBM » Thu Aug 23, 2012 3:06 pm

Seth wrote:
FBM wrote:I respect your position, mozg, but my approach is a practical one aimed at reducing the number of firearm deaths in the US, not an abstract, ideological, emotional or political one. My suggestions are aimed only at keeping firearms out of the hands of people who are so potentially dangerous as to justify having their right to ownership limited, and hopefully saving lives in the process. I have zero interest in restricting the rights of law-abiding citizens. Yet, in the current system(s), there seem to be too many people with criminal intent who are getting their hands on guns legally. This needs to stop.

But waaaayy before that, we need to focus on getting illegally acquired firearms out of the hands of active criminals. Until that happens, I wouldn't spend much time pushing for tighter restrictions on legal ownership. Criminals first. Potential criminals a distant second.
The best way to get illegal firearms out of the hands of criminals is to catch them and lock them up for a long, long time, in large numbers.

Oh, wait, that's exactly what we do, which is why our crime rate continues to decrease while our prison population continues to rise.

It's an automatic five-year federal felony rap to use a firearm in a crime.
I'm all for that. It may take some time, but eventually I hope dimwit criminals with guns figure out that it's a whole lot better for them to not have or use them. And eventually, in my dreams, law-abiding people who feel the need to go armed purely for self-defense reasons may no longer have to shoulder that burden. But I'm still not interested in forcefully taking firearms out of the hands of law-abiding citizens who want them and know how to use them safely.
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Re: Bang, Bang, Yer Dead!

Post by Seth » Thu Aug 23, 2012 3:09 pm

mozg wrote:
FBM wrote:In TN, before I could get my concealed carry permit, I had to take a half-day-long class in firearm safety and laws, then pass a written test on it. Then in the afternoon we went out to the range and had to qualify on targets. I chose my 9mm Taurus instead of my .45 because the recoil is more manageable when there is a time limit. This combination of class time plus practical qualification is the "training" I was referring to. In MS, no classes or practical qualifications are required. Anybody can just go in, pay their license fee and walk away with a permit. I don't think that's the way to go about it. Firearms and cars are equally lethal, yet we require a lot more education and training for a driver's license than we do a firearm. It's ridiculous, and I can see why foreigners looking at us say so.
Let's just say that we disagree a lot. I live in PA. There is no training or test required for a license to carry firearms. I prefer it that way. I see 'training and tests' as turning what is my right into a privilege. You are aware that driving is considered to be a privilege are you not?
The "scrutiny" I was referring to is a scan of the person's medical (psychological) history in addition to his/her criminal background. I think that's reasonable. If the person has no psychological medical background, a psycho check along the lines of what's required of police officers is reasonable, in my opinion.
I don't think that it's reasonable to open people's medical records to governmental scrutiny, no. It's already illegal for anyone who has ever been adjudicated mentally defective or involuntarily committed to a mental institution to possess firearms. I do not see how any good can come of stripping the rights of people who have voluntarily sought medical treatment for medical problems, but I can see it discouraging people from ever getting treatment because they know it will mean forfeiting their rights.
And that's exactly why many cops go off the rails and either commit suicide or otherwise manifest mental illness. Going to a shrink is a death-sentence for a police officer's career, and if you disqualified every cop who is taking Prozac on the side, you'd have a police force a quarter the size of what we have now.

Here in America we don't engage in prior restraint of the exercise of civil rights, we actually wait till someone violates the law or presents a clear and present danger to himself or others before restraining their rights. Yes, that means that some people, like the Aurora shooter, slip through the cracks and engage in deadly psychotic behavior before they can be detected and stopped, but we value liberty and due process of law enough to bear those risks. And if ANYONE in that audience had been armed, the outcome might have been much different. And that's why I never go to the movies (or anywhere else) without my HK .45 USP Compact. The chances that I'll encounter somebody on a psychotic mission of murder is quite small, but it's worth the trouble to me to be prepared to respond to that unlikely event, not to mention the more prosaic street mugging.
Last edited by Seth on Thu Aug 23, 2012 3:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.

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Re: Bang, Bang, Yer Dead!

Post by FBM » Thu Aug 23, 2012 3:12 pm

Wtf. I wouldn't go to a theater in most places in the US without a sidearm, either. And y'all are comparing me to fucking Sarah Brady? What a bunch of empty, twisted political rhetoric. Get a fucking grasp on reality for a second, please. Jeebus fucking christ on a pogo stick. How about reading what I actually wrote instead of super-imposing your political agendas in a knee-jerk-like fashion? Fuck it, never mind. There will be no reasonable middle ground in this debate, looks like. :roll:
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Re: Bang, Bang, Yer Dead!

Post by Robert_S » Thu Aug 23, 2012 3:15 pm

I really oppose a mental health check for firearm ownership.

Evaluator: Do you want to own a gun

Applicant: Yes, that's why I'm here.

Evaluator: ZOMG!!! He's crazy!!! :hairfire: Don't let this person have a gun!!!!!
What I've found with a few discussions I've had lately is this self-satisfaction that people express with their proffessed open mindedness. In realty it ammounts to wilful ignorance and intellectual cowardice as they are choosing to not form any sort of opinion on a particular topic. Basically "I don't know and I'm not going to look at any evidence because I'm quite happy on this fence."
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Re: Bang, Bang, Yer Dead!

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Thu Aug 23, 2012 3:16 pm

Robert_S wrote:I really oppose a mental health check for firearm ownership.

Evaluator: Do you want to own a gun

Applicant: Yes, that's why I'm here.

Evaluator: ZOMG!!! He's crazy!!! :hairfire: Don't let this person have a gun!!!!!
I wouldn't object.


I already have mine. :levi:
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Re: Bang, Bang, Yer Dead!

Post by Seth » Thu Aug 23, 2012 3:16 pm

FBM wrote:
Seth wrote:
FBM wrote:I agree, Woodbutcher. A lot of gun owners are paranoid and in need of a reality check. But most aren't, in my experience. The increased scrutiny of people buying guns might help to weed out the ones who are most likely to go off the deep end some day.

And, yes, if you think you need a gun for everyday protection, there is a problem. Maybe you live in a safe area and you're imagining the threat, in which case you need some professional attention. Or maybe you're sane and are simply responding reasonably to an unreasonable situation. No single answer fits everyone at all times. I'm afraid there's no categorical imperative available for this one.

It's different even for different people in the same city. In East Knoxville, TN, gangs run the place. Shootings there don't even make the news unless an innocent bystander, such as a child, gets hit. If I lived, worked or had to travel though there, damn straight I'd carry.

But North Knoxville is all gated communities with security guards. The chances of needing a firearm there are negligible. A hyper-vigilant, gun-toting type there would almost certainly be someone who isn't psychologically fit to carry, unless s/he were hired to do so.

You just have to keep in mind the wide variety of social environments one is exposed to, and then judge each situation on its on merit, I think. Throwing a blanket condemnation or a blanket commendation on gun-owners everywhere is just lazy and sloppy reasoning, imo.
Of course it seems to have escaped you that people who live in North Knoxville don't spend their lives in North Knoxville and they might need to travel east or some other direction, into an area where you admit it's perfectly prudent to carry a gun.

Here's another example: Louisville, Kentucky. I've been there a few times, once for the NRA convention and several times for the Knob Creek machine gun shoot. I have friends who live there. My first trip, they told me to be sure to see downtown Louisville with its historic buildings and jazz clubs, but they sternly warned me NOT to venture south of 12th Street, where Louisville turns from being a quaint, old and stately city into a third-world shithole where shootings are common, particularly of white tourists who mistakenly venture into the ghetto.

Had I not been warned of this, it's likely that I would have gone that way while touring the area. The good news is that Kentucky honors my CCW permit, so I was armed, but it was nice to know where to stay away from.

The same situation applies in most big cities, like East Saint Louis, where it's easy for tourists to get off the Interstate by mistake and end up in a very bad part of town.

So, just because you might have hired armed guards to secure your home in North Knoxville, that's no protection at all when venturing outside that gated community, and the need to be armed for self defense remains a perfectly valid and rational aspect of life anywhere in the world...including London and Glasgow.
What do you think my point was? If you're in a place like North Knoxville and still carry a gun as if you were on the East Side, you've got problems. But if you live in North Knoxville need to go to somewhere like Austin East, it makes perfect sense to pack. What's the difficulty? :dunno:
No, you're AVOIDING problems by carrying a gun. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that crime only happens in East Knoxville, which is wrong to begin with. You also fail to understand that merely carrying a concealed weapon doesn't mean you will ever have to use it, or will ever want to. But it's just like fire insurance or a fire extinguisher, you have that because there's an unlikely chance your house will burn down or your car will catch on fire, but the consequences of that happening, no matter how remote, are so significant that it's a reasonable assessment of risk to carry insurance and have an extinguisher.

A concealed handgun is absolutely no different. I'm very, very unlikely to get into trouble where my gun will be needed, partly BECAUSE I carry a gun and therefore pay closer attention to my tactical situation than most people and therefore tend to avoid dicey situations before they get out of control, but I carry it anyway, and have needed it on several occasions, which vindicates my decision to be prepared.
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"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

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Re: Bang, Bang, Yer Dead!

Post by FBM » Thu Aug 23, 2012 3:17 pm

Robert_S wrote:I really oppose a mental health check for firearm ownership.

Evaluator: Do you want to own a gun

Applicant: Yes, that's why I'm here.

Evaluator: ZOMG!!! He's crazy!!! :hairfire: Don't let this person have a gun!!!!!
Applicant is being interviewed for the very reason that s/he wants to own a firearm. That would not be a disqualifying criterion.
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Re: Bang, Bang, Yer Dead!

Post by FBM » Thu Aug 23, 2012 3:18 pm

Seth wrote:No, you're AVOIDING problems by carrying a gun. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that crime only happens in East Knoxville, which is wrong to begin with. You also fail to understand that merely carrying a concealed weapon doesn't mean you will ever have to use it, or will ever want to. But it's just like fire insurance or a fire extinguisher, you have that because there's an unlikely chance your house will burn down or your car will catch on fire, but the consequences of that happening, no matter how remote, are so significant that it's a reasonable assessment of risk to carry insurance and have an extinguisher.

A concealed handgun is absolutely no different. I'm very, very unlikely to get into trouble where my gun will be needed, partly BECAUSE I carry a gun and therefore pay closer attention to my tactical situation than most people and therefore tend to avoid dicey situations before they get out of control, but I carry it anyway, and have needed it on several occasions, which vindicates my decision to be prepared.
You're not even reading what I'm writing.
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"We ain't a sharp species. We kill each other over arguments about what happens when you die, then fail to see the fucking irony in that."

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Re: Bang, Bang, Yer Dead!

Post by Seth » Thu Aug 23, 2012 3:23 pm

FBM wrote:
Robert_S wrote:I really oppose a mental health check for firearm ownership.

Evaluator: Do you want to own a gun

Applicant: Yes, that's why I'm here.

Evaluator: ZOMG!!! He's crazy!!! :hairfire: Don't let this person have a gun!!!!!
Applicant is being interviewed for the very reason that s/he wants to own a firearm. That would not be a disqualifying criterion.
You fail to understand the point. If the government has the authority to demand a "mental evaluation" of an otherwise law-abiding citizen prior to granting them permission to own a gun, the government WILL abuse that authority by, for example, defining the desire to own a gun as a mental illness sufficient to deny the permit.

This is EXACTLY what the left-wing medical community is lobbying for. They want to declare "gun violence" a "public health emergency" that will give them the power to ban and confiscate guns based on THEIR assessment that owning, or wanting to own a gun is "pathological."

This is why the right to keep and bear arms is a pre-existing right, not permission granted by the government. Since it's a right, one is free to exercise it as one chooses unless and until one does so in a manner contrary to the law or public safety, at which point that right, like all rights, may be reasonably regulated.

Mere possession of a firearm, or even the carrying of one in public, is not automatically a danger to the public. It's what you DO WITH the firearm that determines whether or not the government has authority to regulate that possession.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S

"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth

© 2013/2014/2015/2016 Seth, all rights reserved. No reuse, republication, duplication, or derivative work is authorized.

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