Another shot at the case against gnus

[NuclMan]

Good thing he no longer plays baseball

Jose Canseco accidentally shoots off finger while cleaning his gun
According to a Las Vegas Metro Police spokesman, LVMPD officers and medical personnel arrived at Canseco and Leila Knight’s home shortly after Knight called 911. 'It was determined that no crime occurred and that it was an accident.'

Stupidity is its own reward.

Therein lies the issue - it's all too easy for stupids to get guns.

And so your logic says that the appropriate rectification for this "problem" is to deny everyone guns?

Lol, no. The first step would be to acknowledge the problem exists.

[Seth]

Lol, no. The first step would be to acknowledge the problem exists.

It depends on how you define the "problem." For example, claiming that one stupid gun owner shooting his own finger off constitutes a "problem" for public safety that requires legislation is, of course, asinine.

Now, if 40 percent of gun owners were blowing their fingers off every year, then that might be a problem worth investigating, and the obvious solution would be mandatory firearms safety education of all schoolchildren so that they grow up exercising proper gun safety handling habits, which is what stops such accidents...and I mean factually stops gun accidents as demonstrated by the dramatic drop in gun accidents since 1900, when the NRA began its comprehensive gun safety education programs, resulting in the lowest number of accidental gun injuries in US history today.

The fact is that gun-related accidents are quite rare, which is why they make the news when they happen. We don't see news stories about all the people who cut their fingers with a kitchen knife or who suffer a chainsaw injury caused by carelessness. But if one idiot does something stupid with a gun, anti-gun hoplophobes immediately jump on the incident and try to use it as a justification for infringing on the rights of the other 299,999,999 gun owners who don't shoot their fingers off.

That's stupidity made manifest and we'd be better off banning idiots who make such arguments than we would banning guns.

[Hermit]

Lol, no. The first step would be to acknowledge the problem exists.

It depends on how you define the "problem." For example, claiming that one stupid gun owner shooting his own finger off constitutes a "problem" for public safety that requires legislation is, of course, asinine.

There is a problem: It's not a case of one stupid gun owner shooting his own finger off. Youtube alone furnishes hundreds of examples of people doing incredibly stupid and dangerous things with guns, and those examples barely scratch the surface of what goes on. They only show incidents where a camera happens to record the event and someone bothered to post it on the internet.

Why should it not be a requirement to have licenses for owning and handling guns only after the licensee has been trained and demonstrated competence in the safe handling of them. We do it when it comes to driving cars, for crying out loud, and cars are not even built in order to kill.

[Tero]

Plus, stiff fines for all gun stupidity.

[Seth]

Lol, no. The first step would be to acknowledge the problem exists.

It depends on how you define the "problem." For example, claiming that one stupid gun owner shooting his own finger off constitutes a "problem" for public safety that requires legislation is, of course, asinine.

There is a problem: It's not a case of one stupid gun owner shooting his own finger off. Youtube alone furnishes hundreds of examples of people doing incredibly stupid and dangerous things with guns, and those examples barely scratch the surface of what goes on. They only show incidents where a camera happens to record the event and someone bothered to post it on the internet.

Ah. "Hundreds." I see. How many "hundreds" exactly? And of those "incredibly stupid and dangerous things" how many people were seriously injured or killed as a result? Precisely.

And your assumption that YouTube barely scratch[es] the surface is entirely unsupported with critically robust scientific evidence and therefore may be dismissed as hyperbole.

Why should it not be a requirement to have licenses for owning and handling guns only after the licensee has been trained and demonstrated competence in the safe handling of them. We do it when it comes to driving cars, for crying out loud, and cars are not even built in order to kill.

Because the power to license is the power to deny, and in the US, the right to keep and bear arms may not be denied absent actual misbehavior on the part of the individual that violates some law which is proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law to a jury of one's peers, therefore a government license for the possession of "arms" (fire or otherwise) is a violation of the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution. The constantly decreasing incidence of gun accidents is a testament to the responsibility of the vast majority of law-abiding gun owners and clear evidence that licensing is not required because there is not a problem that licensing would rectify. Stupid people will do stupid things even after being licensed, as the incidence of DUI (among other crimes) proves absolutely.

As for training and competence, I'm all for that, universally, as a mandatory part of educational curricula nationwide. It is fully within the authority of the Congress, under it's power to raise armies, to mandate firearms safety, handling and marksmanship training for each and every student, and it is within Congress' power to mandate demonstrated competency in marksmanship and manual of arms as a condition of high school graduation.

I believe that such an agenda should begin in first grade with safety instruction and should continue every year with increasingly advanced firearms training right through high school, whereupon graduates receive three things from the government: a Civilian Marksmanship Program military-issue battle rifle, a CMP military-issue pistol, and a nationwide-valid concealed carry permit. Graduates would be required to keep the issued arms and maintain proficiency with them from age 18 to age 45 as a part of their national obligation to serve in the military at need. At age 45 the citizen would be granted personal ownership of the arms by a grateful nation for the citizen's service in the Unorganized Militia. So long as the citizen remains a law-abiding member of society, there would be no constraints whatever upon what type or how many firearms that citizen may own or possess and no records of any kind regarding the sale or transfer of firearms would be constitutionally permissible.

So, if every child received at least 12 years of comprehensive gun safety and marksmanship training as part of mandatory educational curricula would you agree to removing all impediments to a successful, law-abiding graduate's possession and peaceable use of any sort of firearms?

[Seth]

Plus, stiff fines for all gun stupidity.

You mean like the stiff fines and jail time that can be imposed if a person handles a firearm wrongfully, carelessly or negligently under criminal and civil laws that have existed for more than 200 years already?

[Tero]

They have to be followed, and reported. It is not common practice. Most end up on Youtube with nothing done.

[Seth]

They have to be followed, and reported. It is not common practice. Most end up on Youtube with nothing done.

And if they hurt no one but themselves, why should anything be done?

[NuclMan]

It depends on how you define the "problem." For example, claiming that one stupid gun owner shooting his own finger off constitutes a "problem" for public safety that requires legislation is, of course, asinine.

Yes, your example is asinine. I define the "problem" as the proliferation of guns combined with the proliferation of stupids; without the reasonalbe checks and balances that are generally viewed as good ideas by the non-stupids.

Now, if 40 percent of gun owners were blowing their fingers off every year, then that might be a problem worth investigating, and the obvious solution would be mandatory firearms safety education of all schoolchildren so that they grow up exercising proper gun safety handling habits, which is what stops such accidents...and I mean factually stops gun accidents as demonstrated by the dramatic drop in gun accidents since 1900, when the NRA began its comprehensive gun safety education programs, resulting in the lowest number of accidental gun injuries in US history today.

, your schoolchildren have enough on their educational plate as it is, amirite Seth?

The fact is that gun-related accidents are quite rare, which is why they make the news when they happen. We don't see news stories about all the people who cut their fingers with a kitchen knife or who suffer a chainsaw injury caused by carelessness. But if one idiot does something stupid with a gun, anti-gun hoplophobes immediately jump on the incident and try to use it as a justification for infringing on the rights of the other 299,999,999 gun owners who don't shoot their fingers off.

That fact is stupidity isn't rare, nor is the bleating of gun fetishists demanding moar gunz and easier access to them.

[Seth]

It depends on how you define the "problem." For example, claiming that one stupid gun owner shooting his own finger off constitutes a "problem" for public safety that requires legislation is, of course, asinine.

Yes, your example is asinine. I define the "problem" as the proliferation of guns combined with the proliferation of stupids;

And how do you define "proliferation" exactly? I would agree that there is a proliferation of guns in the US. On the other hand, the number of "stupids" continues to decline year after year. I don't see the problem at all.

without the reasonalbe checks and balances that are generally viewed as good ideas by the non-stupids.

Problem is the "non-stupids" are actually more stupid than the guy who shot his finger off because they understand absolutely nothing about firearms. They are simply paranoid hoplophobes who need to be placed in rubber rooms before they hurt themselves.

Now, if 40 percent of gun owners were blowing their fingers off every year, then that might be a problem worth investigating, and the obvious solution would be mandatory firearms safety education of all schoolchildren so that they grow up exercising proper gun safety handling habits, which is what stops such accidents...and I mean factually stops gun accidents as demonstrated by the dramatic drop in gun accidents since 1900, when the NRA began its comprehensive gun safety education programs, resulting in the lowest number of accidental gun injuries in US history today.

, your schoolchildren have enough on their educational plate as it is, amirite Seth?

Not hardly. They just have too much of the wrong stuff, specifically Marxist Progressive indoctrination and propaganda.

The fact is that gun-related accidents are quite rare, which is why they make the news when they happen. We don't see news stories about all the people who cut their fingers with a kitchen knife or who suffer a chainsaw injury caused by carelessness. But if one idiot does something stupid with a gun, anti-gun hoplophobes immediately jump on the incident and try to use it as a justification for infringing on the rights of the other 299,999,999 gun owners who don't shoot their fingers off.

That fact is stupidity isn't rare,

Actually it is, and getting more rare every year. Gun accidents don't even make the top 100 causes of death anymore.

nor is the bleating of gun fetishists demanding moar gunz and easier access to them.

Well, you see, the Constitution supports our call for more guns and the Supreme Court has affirmed our right to have them, so it sucks to be you I guess.

[NuclMan]

And how do you define "proliferation" exactly? I would agree that there is a proliferation of guns in the US. On the other hand, the number of "stupids" continues to decline year after year. I don't see the problem at all.

Like a dictionary does, rapidly increasing. And while your IQ scores may be increasing overall, so have the rest of the world's. U.S. education rankings consistently score worse than other industrialized nations, resulting in a net increase in relative stupidity.

Problem is the "non-stupids" are actually more stupid than the guy who shot his finger off because they understand absolutely nothing about firearms. They are simply paranoid hoplophobes who need to be placed in rubber rooms before they hurt themselves.

Not hardly. They just have too much of the wrong stuff, specifically Marxist Progressive indoctrination and propaganda.

Actually it is, and getting more rare every year. Gun accidents don't even make the top 100 causes of death anymore.

,,,anymore

Well, you see, the Constitution supports our call for more guns and the Supreme Court has affirmed our right to have them, so it sucks to be you I guess.

Ya, it sucks not knowing the enjoyment of shopping for bulletproof blankies with the kids.

[Seth]

And how do you define "proliferation" exactly? I would agree that there is a proliferation of guns in the US. On the other hand, the number of "stupids" continues to decline year after year. I don't see the problem at all.

Like a dictionary does, rapidly increasing.

There is indeed a proliferation of guns in the US. But not of "stupids." As I said, the number of gun accidents (and the number of gun crimes) continues its longstanding downward path, which makes your analysis just so much bilge.

And while your IQ scores may be increasing overall, so have the rest of the world's. U.S. education rankings consistently score worse than other industrialized nations, resulting in a net increase in relative stupidity.

Go look up the difference between "stupidity" and "ignorance" sometime, if you're not too stupid and ignorant to figure out how.

[Seth]

And here's the proof:

FBI Report Confirms Crime Fell While Gun Purchases Soared in 2013
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by AWR Hawkins 10 Nov 2014, 9:17 AM PDT post a comment
As gun sales soared in 2013--with the number of background checks for gun sales breaking records--the FBI reports that violent crime fell sharply below 2012 figures, and property crime rates fell sharply too.

On January 6, Breitbart News reported there were 21,093,273 background checks for firearm purchasers conducted in America in 2013. And while this number of background checks represented a record, we explained then that the number of guns sold could be many times higher. That is because background checks are done on gun purchasers, not on the number of guns being purchased.

For instance, if everyone who went through a background check then purchased three guns, the number of guns sold in the retail market alone would have been 63,279,819. That's not even counting the number sold privately.

And what happened as all these guns came into private hands? Violent crime and property crime fell.

According to an FBI report released on November 10: "violent crimes in 2013 decreased 4.4 percent when compared with 2012 figures, and the estimated number of property crimes decreased 4.1 percent [as well]."

These record gun sales and the subsequent reduction in crime square perfectly with a Congressional Research Service report covered by Breitbart News on December 4, 2013. That study showed that the number of privately owned firearms in America increased from 192 million in 1994 to 310 million in 2009. At the same time, "firearm-related murder and non-negligent homicide" fell from 6.6 per 100,000 Americans in 1993 to 3.6 per 100,000 in 2000.

The bottom line: more guns equals less crime.

[Hermit]

Correlation is not causation.

[piscator]

Bottom line: Obama=more guns+less crime