What did this girl have that she needed?

[Blind groper]

If you feel the need to fire guns at targets for recreation, then it is quite possible to join a suitable club, which has a target range, and suitable guns kept under lock and key in a safe, and never permitted off the premises.

[pErvinalia]

That's all the NRA wants. They are so misrepresented...

[Collector1337]

If you feel the need to fire guns at targets for recreation, then it is quite possible to join a suitable club, which has a target range, and suitable guns kept under lock and key in a safe, and never permitted off the premises.

Yes, my property is kept safe and locked up. I don't need someone to do it for me.

[Collector1337]

Typical conservative false dichotomy. It's not about total freedom. It's about more or less freedom and a compromise between freedoms 'to' and freedoms 'from'. The same argument could be given for the "freedom to live (life)".

I'm not a conservative. I think "freedoms to" are more important than "freedoms from." "Freedoms to" often give you "freedoms from."

Apparently unlike you I don't live in constant fear and am not so worried about my "freedoms from." I think your "freedoms from" way of thinking is asinine bullshit.

No it doesn't, in countries that don't already have a problem with firearms. You clearly are less likely to be murdered in Australia than the US.

Do you live your life based on statistics? What about the likelihood of just being victimized in general, not just being murdered? Firearm ownership can protect you from many forms of victimization.

The more guns in society, the more gun crime you will get. It's pretty simple logic.

Bullshit lies. Claiming causation that more guns = more crime is quite a bold statement that is completely false. In the US, firearm ownership has been on the increase, while crime has been on the decrease for decades.

You couldn't be more full of shit.

In America, you can own a tank. You can pay someone who does own a tank to let you drive it if you want even. There are literally Groupons for "drive a tank" services.

And this is supposed to convince me that owning guns is a good thing because why?

You're the one who brought up tanks, not me.

If guns are to be around for recreation then you don't need to have them armed and available at the drop of a hat. In Australia and other sane places that allow firearms for sport or pest control, you have to store the firing mechanism and ammo and the rest of the gun in separate places under lock and key.

I will store my firearms as I see fit. I don't need anyone tell me how I can store things and how I cannot.

And a regime like that would still allow the loony libertarians to overthrow the government when they so such desire.

:facepalm: "loony libertarians?" Sounds like you aren't capable of thinking beyond your preconceived notions and stereotypes.

[hackenslash]

The position itself is dangerous, elitist and conducive to totalitarian regimes. The answer is better education and more genuine, widespread political conversations, not the arrogant dismissal of the "common people", more worthy of aristocrats in bygone days than any modern commentator.

I don't dismiss the common people, arrogantly or otherwise, and I agree regarding the solution, but there's a snag; the solution won't work while we labour under the delusion that voting is the way forward. I advocate meritocracy AND better education.

[JimC]

If you feel the need to fire guns at targets for recreation, then it is quite possible to join a suitable club, which has a target range, and suitable guns kept under lock and key in a safe, and never permitted off the premises.

Yes, my property is kept safe and locked up. I don't need someone to do it for me.

In Oz, this is true for pistols, (when you belong to a club with a range). However, given a shooter's licence, you can have any number of rifles, and there are plenty of places in this big land where recreational shooting and hunting is possible. Many a bunny has shuffled off this mortal coil via my old Ruger .22, back in the day, and there is a plenitude of feral animals to be shot, with an inner glow of ecological righteousness...

[JimC]

The position itself is dangerous, elitist and conducive to totalitarian regimes. The answer is better education and more genuine, widespread political conversations, not the arrogant dismissal of the "common people", more worthy of aristocrats in bygone days than any modern commentator.

I don't dismiss the common people, arrogantly or otherwise, and I agree regarding the solution, but there's a snag; the solution won't work while we labour under the delusion that voting is the way forward. I advocate meritocracy AND better education.

Who decides who merits, and how they make decisions?

A version of meritocracy already exists, although I'm sure it can be improved. Public servants/government advisors should certainly be chosen by merit in their particular field, be it science or economics...

[pErvinalia]

Typical conservative false dichotomy. It's not about total freedom. It's about more or less freedom and a compromise between freedoms 'to' and freedoms 'from'. The same argument could be given for the "freedom to live (life)".

I'm not a conservative. I think "freedoms to" are more important than "freedoms from." "Freedoms to" often give you "freedoms from."

Apparently unlike you I don't live in constant fear and am not so worried about my "freedoms from." I think your "freedoms from" way of thinking is asinine bullshit.

No it doesn't, in countries that don't already have a problem with firearms. You clearly are less likely to be murdered in Australia than the US.

Do you live your life based on statistics? What about the likelihood of just being victimized in general, not just being murdered? Firearm ownership can protect you from many forms of victimization.

The more guns in society, the more gun crime you will get. It's pretty simple logic.

Bullshit lies. Claiming causation that more guns = more crime is quite a bold statement that is completely false. In the US, firearm ownership has been on the increase, while crime has been on the decrease for decades.

You couldn't be more full of shit.

In America, you can own a tank. You can pay someone who does own a tank to let you drive it if you want even. There are literally Groupons for "drive a tank" services.

And this is supposed to convince me that owning guns is a good thing because why?

You're the one who brought up tanks, not me.

If guns are to be around for recreation then you don't need to have them armed and available at the drop of a hat. In Australia and other sane places that allow firearms for sport or pest control, you have to store the firing mechanism and ammo and the rest of the gun in separate places under lock and key.

I will store my firearms as I see fit. I don't need anyone tell me how I can store things and how I cannot.

And a regime like that would still allow the loony libertarians to overthrow the government when they so such desire.

:facepalm: "loony libertarians?" Sounds like you aren't capable of thinking beyond your preconceived notions and stereotypes.

Probably.

You can do what you like, Captain Merka. Shoot the shit out of the joint!!

[Seth]

http://io9.com/on-correlation-causation ... 1494972271

I do not know if Seth is stupid or not, but it is very clear that he needs education in statistical methods and interpretation. He has consistently made statements that make no statistical sense at all, and therefore no sense.

One of his latest is to comment that it does not matter that 24 nations (including the USA) showed a direct correlation between a reduction in the percentage of young men in the population, and a drop in murder rate. According to Seth, because more people in the USA had guns, the drop in murder rate was solely due to more guns. Therefore it was the more guns that lowered murder rate. Duh!!

The reference above shows how correlation can lead to idiotic conclusions if no good scientific sense is applied to them. Seth needs to learn how to use statistics, and how to apply good scientific sense.

Liar. The facts are plain: more guns, less crime, which debunks your theory of "more guns, more crime."

People are not statistics and their right to effective self defense cannot be allocated on a statistical basis, that right is complete and absolute to each and every individual.

[Seth]

Well, it seems that both Seth and hack are pushing the "democracy is a bad idea because the populace is stupid" barrow.

Just shows that strange bedfellow can exist in politics.

The position itself is dangerous, elitist and conducive to totalitarian regimes. The answer is better education and more genuine, widespread political conversations, not the arrogant dismissal of the "common people", more worthy of aristocrats in bygone days than any modern commentator.

I pretty much hold the position that the majority of the population is too stupid in the concepts of civics and political philosophy, not to mention economics, and therefore this is a BIG problem for our "democracies". The difference between the right wing and the left wing is that lefties like you and us usually see the solution being to educate the masses to bring them up to a level on these issues. The neoliberals are THE elitists in society and they want it to stay that way, which is why they are always chipping away at universal education (not to mention health and welfare etc).

Excuse me? Lefties want to educate the lumpen proletariat? You're insane. Leftists want to "educate" the lumpen proletariat about one thing only: Obedience to the Marxist Dialectic. The Marxists in charge of the American (and European) school systems are doing everything they can NOT to educate kids in anything but proper Marxist dogma. "Universal education" in Marxist Progressive Newspeak means, in point of actual fact, "Marxist indoctrination" that has nothing to do with giving any child the ability to reason, because anybody who can reason can see that socialism can do nothing but fail, ever.

You are a paranoid ranting bot. Get to a head doctor, quick.

Can I see yours? No, wait, never mind, he has his hands full dealing with your psychosis.

[mistermack]

Like I've said before, gun lovers are pathetic wankers.
If guns could be kept out of the hands of pathetic wankers, then guns wouldn't be so bad.
But it's the pathetic wankers who want them.

So it should be law that, if you apply for a permit, you should be banned for life from owning a gun.
And of course it should be illegal to keep one without a permit.

[Seth]

Because philosophically speaking freedom isn't and never was supposed to be about solely "freedom to". It's also about "freedom from".

And the coalescence of societies is always going to require compromises. That's essentially the social contract.

Your desire to be free "from" something is dependent upon and subservient to my right to be free "to" do things or possess things that do not pose a genuine and quantifiable risk of infringing upon your right to be free "from" that risk.

Your right to be free from the risk of my rocket-fuel plant exploding and exporting harm to your next-door property has an effect on my right to be free to brew rocket fuel in that location, but only when the risks are both genuine and unreasonable ones. The fact that I brew rocket fuel 50 miles from your house, in a remote area, using the best available technology and safety procedures (to protect not just the public but my investment) doesn't automatically give you authority to prevent me from doing so merely because you have some vacuous, insubstantial and paranoid fear of a rocket-fuel explosion.

Before you can seek to infringe upon my right to keep and bear arms, you must show that my possession of those arms produces a legitimate and substantial risk to you. A generalized, vague and insubstantial fear of guns in general does not overcome the hurdle that exists that protects my right to keep and bear arms so long as I do so peaceably and lawfully. Nor do such fears justify a general ban on anyone having a gun because the conflict of rights is individual, not collective.

Now, if I step out of my house, situated next to yours, and start shooting in random directions for no reason at all, then you have a legitimate complaint that I cannot possess arms in a rational and safe manner and therefore I, as an individual, should be barred from possessing such arms. But that's not an argument for taking away anybody else's weapons if they aren't acting dangerously, illegally or irresponsibly with them.

[Seth]

Like I've said before, gun lovers are pathetic wankers.
If guns could be kept out of the hands of pathetic wankers, then guns wouldn't be so bad.
But it's the pathetic wankers who want them.

So it should be law that, if you apply for a permit, you should be banned for life from owning a gun.
And of course it should be illegal to keep one without a permit.

I'll ask you to repeat that after your wife and children are brutally raped and murdered in your presence because you didn't have a gun.

[Seth]

Because philosophically speaking freedom isn't and never was supposed to be about solely "freedom to". It's also about "freedom from".

And the coalescence of societies is always going to require compromises. That's essentially the social contract.

Sure. What are you trying to free yourself "from?"

There definitely are already compromises indeed. You don't have the freedom to just do whatever you want to people.

But firearm ownership doesn't mean you get to victimize anyone. So, as long as you aren't hurting anyone, then what's the problem?

Freedom from being murdered. A freedom clearly reduced massively when guns are around.

Your right to be free from being murdered, stated as you have stated it, militates for banning cars, cricket bats, hammers and a host of other things that can be used for murder much more plausibly than it militates for banning guns, which can be used to PREVENT your being murdered.

Why not let everyone own a tank?

Everyone can own a tank if they want one, can afford one, and can find one to buy. Why, did you know that you can even own a tank with a live main gun here in the US? All you have to do is fill out a Form 4 (or a Form 1 if you want to manufacture one), send it in with a photo and fingerprints, between 5 and 200 dollars and wait about a year for the BATFE to process the form. So long as you meet the legal criteria for owning a Class III NFA item you cannot be denied a transfer stamp.

Coz it's fucking stupid, that's why.

No it's not. The only crime committed in the United States with a tank was committed by a former National Guardsman, Shawn Nelson who stole an M60A3 Patton tank from the National Guard depot in San Diego in 1995. He got away with it because the doofus at the depot didn't put a fucking padlock on the hatch. Now they remove the batteries as well as locking the hatches.

I knew a guy in Tooele, Utah, who owned the tank used in the movie "1941" with John Belushi.

Every tank seen in "Fury" (the non-cg ones) were owned by private individuals. That's why you never saw more than three Shermans or one Tiger at a time in closeups...because there aren't many left still in operation.

Same with guns.

300 million guns in the US. About 175,000 of them are ever used to commit a crime. That's five out of every 10,000 guns or 0.00058% of all guns. Not much of a risk actually.

Although, as I've said before, I do grant that you have a problem of criminal inertia in your country, and an argument can be made for self-arming to deal with that problem.

Indeed. But then again so do you. You just refuse to acknowledge it. You have a non-zero risk of being the victim of a violent crime. Therefore, according to the Human Rights charter you have the right to defend yourself. You may use any weapon in doing so. Some weapons are more effective than others. Handguns are the single most effective self-defense weapon ever invented or produced.

In order to be prepared to defend yourself against that non-zero risk of violent criminal victimization you need to have a viable and effective means of self defense on your person when the attack occurs. Since you cannot predict when or where such an attack might occur, you need to carry such defensive armament at all times and in all places in order to be prepared to effectively exercise your human right of self defense.

Your possession of a weapon of self defense poses little or no risk to other law-abiding citizens if you are a sane and rational person. You can be trusted to walk to and from the pitch with your cricket bat, so why can you not be trusted to carry it on your way down a dark alley to the pub?

And if you can be trusted to carry a cricket bat, you can be trusted to carry a handgun because you are not the type of person who is going to use either for criminal purposes.

Both the cricket bat and the handgun are inanimate objects which cannot cause any harm unless wielded and operated by a human being. Therefore, fearing a handgun more than you fear a cricket bat is completely and totally irrational.

And fearing that your fellow law-abiding citizens will inexplicably attack you with either a cricket bat or a handgun is simply insane paranoia.

We don't make public policy based on acute paranoia on your part.

[Seth]

Freedom from being murdered. A freedom clearly reduced massively when guns are around. Why not let everyone own a tank? Coz it's fucking stupid, that's why. Same with guns. Although, as I've said before, I do grant that you have a problem of criminal inertia in your country, and an argument can be made for self-arming to deal with that problem.

You can never have "freedom from being murdered." Nor do you need a firearm to murder someone. So banning firearms does not give you "freedom from being murdered."

Typical conservative false dichotomy. It's not about total freedom. It's about more or less freedom and a compromise between freedoms 'to' and freedoms 'from'. The same argument could be given for the "freedom to live (life)".

Not by any rational, non-paranoid person.

I believe you are thinking about it and framing it completely incorrectly. Having a firearm increases your "freedom from being murdered."

No it doesn't, in countries that don't already have a problem with firearms. You clearly are less likely to be murdered in Australia than the US.

And yet, if you are murdered in Australia, your chances of being murdered are one-hundred percent. And, as it happens, people are murdered in Australia with some regularity. Your statistical probability of being the victim of a murder in either place does not factor in to your right to effectively defend yourself should someone try to murder you, even in Australia. Nobody can say "rEv, your statistical probability of being murdered is 0.00034%, therefore you are permitted to carry effective self-defense weapons only 0.00034 percent of the time." While your risk of being murdered may be quite small, if your number comes up, it comes up and your odds go from very small to 100% instantly. At that point it's far too late for you to call a halt to the proceedings and go obtain a means of effective self-defense. If you obey the law and only carry your self-defense weapon 0.00034% of the time, you figure out the odds that the small risk of being murdered and the percentage of the time you are effectively armed for self defense will coincide.

So you die. And our response to your loved ones (if you have any) is "He was a dumb motherfucker, he railed against anybody being armed for self defense because he was so paranoid about other law-abiding citizens being armed that he was part of the movement to disarm everyone, including himself, so he got exactly what he had coming to him."

Freedom is NOT "clearly" reduced when firearms are around. I do not feel my freedom is reduced when firearms are around in any way. That's just a bizarre and asinine way to see things in my opinion.

The more guns in society, the more gun crime you will get. It's pretty simple logic.

Not true. More guns in America in the last 30 years, less crime of every description. Fact.

In America, you can own a tank. You can pay someone who does own a tank to let you drive it if you want even. There are literally Groupons for "drive a tank" services.

And this is supposed to convince me that owning guns is a good thing because why?

No, it's supposed to debunk your ridiculous rhetoric, which it does quite effectively.

Crime is far from my primary reason for owning firearms. My primary reason is for recreation. The protection benefits from firearm ownership is just a bonus.

If guns are to be around for recreation then you don't need to have them armed and available at the drop of a hat.

That's only one of the legitimate reasons for owning a gun, and most guns are kept unloaded and locked up.

In Australia and other sane places that allow firearms for sport or pest control, you have to store the firing mechanism and ammo and the rest of the gun in separate places under lock and key.

Why? Because Australians are universally deranged nutcases who fly into sudden uncontrolled rages and go out and kill dozens of people every other week?

No, it's because you are a slave and your government tells you to because it doesn't trust you to keep and bear arms in a responsible manner.

And a regime like that would still allow the loony libertarians to overthrow the government when they so such desire.

Well, yes, that is the primary purpose of an armed citizenry, to overthrow a despotic regime when necessary. Why is that a bad thing...unless you're the despot or one of his minions?

Are you a minion? You are looking a little yellow, myopic and pill-shaped these days...