US Philadelphia Student Carrying Legal Firearm Shoots It Out

[Wumbologist]

@KLR Actually I think the term phobia is still valid in this context.

If one is fearful of a gun, but not fearful of cars (a machine much more likely to kill you than a gun) then that would qualify as irrational, perhaps not a phobia, but not far short.
So my colloquial use of the word phobia still stands.

Unless of course the individuals objecting to the term phobia are more fearful of cars.

The type of people who would be afraid to enter my home if they knew I owned guns, would probably have no objection to letting me drive them back to their homes in my significantly more complex and much more likely to experience a potentially dangerous mechanical failure automobile, so that they could get away from those scary guns.

[Wumbologist]

I see. You're good. You should be helping the police with their enquiries.

It doesn't take much in the way of conversation to tell the difference between someone who has a decent handle on rational thought, and someone who thinks "rational" is what happens when there's not enough of something so everyone just gets a little bit.

[MrJonno]

I've known people who wouldn't knowingly step into a house with guns, not necessarily because of the gun owners, but literally because they're afraid the guns might somehow go off by themselves and they'd be in the line of fire and die. That's not a rational fear.

Sounds pretty rational to me, not particularly likely but definitely rational

No, it really isn't rational. Guns don't magically go off by themselves. Especially not guns that are stored away and not even loaded. If you think that's rational, it speaks volumes to the credibility of your arguments.

British military machine guns in Iraq had a serious issue with them going of at random mainly due to bumps in the road, how would anyone know if your guns were loaded or where they were pointing.

Same way a hand grenade isnt meant to go off unless you take the pin out but what possible benefit would it be for me to go anywhere near one?.

Its a risk benefit problem isnt it go anywhere near a machine designed to kill is the risk, the benefit none at all.
I can see the point of cars which can kill (but don't drive as I don't want that level of responsibility) but there is absolutely none for a civilian owning a handgun

[mistermack]

I see. You're good. You should be helping the police with their enquiries.

It doesn't take much in the way of conversation to tell the difference between someone who has a decent handle on rational thought, and someone who thinks "rational" is what happens when there's not enough of something so everyone just gets a little bit.

Well done you. Some of the most highly qualified psychiatrists can't tell. So you certainly are something special.

[Wumbologist]

British military machine guns in Iraq had a serious issue with them going of at random mainly due to bumps in the road, how would anyone know if your guns were loaded or where they were pointing.

Loaded, ready to fire guns, likely in condition zero (safety off), in a war zone. Not exactly the same thing as the guns in my safe. As far as how anyone would know if my guns were loaded or where they were pointing, plenty of people who enter my house have no idea I even have firearms, but they're in not in a billionth of a percent more danger for them being there than they would be if they weren't. The people who know I have guns are people who I know and trust well enough, and who know me well enough to know I'm not the kind of person who would store my guns loaded. Only one that EVER stays loaded is the one that I carry, which I've specifically selected for being next to impossible to accidentally discharge.

Its a risk benefit problem isnt it go anywhere near a machine designed to kill is the risk, the benefit none at all.
I can see the point of cars which can kill (but don't drive as I don't want that level of responsibility) but there is absolutely none for a civilian owning a handgun

The benefit is that I'm capable of defending myself from threats of violence, should they arise. The risk is negligible in the hands of a competent and responsible gun owner.

[Wumbologist]

I see. You're good. You should be helping the police with their enquiries.

It doesn't take much in the way of conversation to tell the difference between someone who has a decent handle on rational thought, and someone who thinks "rational" is what happens when there's not enough of something so everyone just gets a little bit.

Well done you. Some of the most highly qualified psychiatrists can't tell. So you certainly are something special.

I'm talking about rational thinkers, not potential secret psychopaths. I'd say we're not on the same page here, but I'm beginning to wonder if you're even reading the same book.

[mistermack]

I'm talking about rational thinkers, not potential secret psychopaths. I'd say we're not on the same page here, but I'm beginning to wonder if you're even reading the same book.

I don't think we are.
If someone said to me that they didn't want to visit, because of the guns in the house, I think I would know what they meant, even if they said it wasn't ME that they were worried about.

If you actually believe it's an irrational fear of guns going off on their own, then you will clearly believe anything.

Which doesn't suggest you have any great mind-reading skills.

[MrJonno]

I'm talking about rational thinkers, not potential secret psychopaths. I'd say we're not on the same page here, but I'm beginning to wonder if you're even reading the same book.

While only a limited number of people's natural state is violent psychopath (only one obvious example on this forum and I'm not thinking of you) absolutely anyone is capable of losing it after a few drinks, after a hard day at the office, after a stupid row over something trivial, after finding their wife in bed with someone else , or just being fed up with the weather.

Don't see the world in terms of the good or bad guys just lots of flawed human beings all of which are capable of being violent with any tools that are avaliable so you put a restriction of what is avaliable

[Wumbologist]

I don't think we are.
If someone said to me that they didn't want to visit, because of the guns in the house, I think I would know what they meant, even if they said it wasn't ME that they were worried about.

And I've already explained that you didn't understand what I was saying in the first place. I've talked to people who have expressed such opinions about guns in homes who didn't know I owned guns, hell, before I owned guns in the first place. The ONE issue I've ever had with this personally, was quickly resolved after explaining that the guns aren't loaded and are safely locked away. If you want to pretend I've been talking about anything else, you go right ahead.

[Coito ergo sum]

And you can't insult hunters. They are below anything I might say.

If you're not a vegetarian, you're a giant hypocrite.

Have I ever posted anything against farming? Or factory farming? You want to sort out your logic.
I'm against the killing of animals for fun. EVEN if they get eaten.
I used to fish and hunt when I was juvenile. I don't any more, even though I enjoyed it.

So, by your logic, it's o.k. to kill the animals for food, as long as nobody enjoys the sport of it?

[PsychoSerenity]

Sorry for taking quotes from several of your posts. I could have answered this before but I didn't really want to get involved with this thread.

No-one has yet given a valid reason for banning guns other than some convoluted version of “guns kill people”.

No-one has ever sided with me, despite being utterly unable to counter my points with valid criticism.

First of all, just because you assert that nobody has or can answer your points, does not make it so. Several people have replied to you with what most people would agree are perfectly valid points - simply refusing to accept them does not win you an argument.

If you wish to ban guns, then all logic demands that you should ban cars.

All I point out is that a gun ban perforce demands a plethora of more restrictive bans against machines that cause death, otherwise it’s just an anti-X lobby forcing their phobia onto others.

Here, your claim of what "all logic demands" is wrong. You have categorised both guns (A) and cars (B) as machines that cause death (C). Just because A is C and B is C does not mean that everything that applies to A also applies B.

If you want to make the argument that banning guns also requires banning cars you will have to do better than that.

However, I will still answer your question (or at least re-answer it, because it has been answered at least once before.)

Banning guns will end gun deaths (practical absurdities aside)
Banning cars will end car deaths.
Where is the difference?

First, you say that road deaths are "avoidable":

Cars killing by 'accident' is nonsense. The deaths are avoidable. They are caused by recklessness/carelessness. Very few are unavoidable accidents (eg mechanical malfunction).

If you are not more outraged by the far higher numbers of avoidable road deaths then you lose those points.

In what way are they avoidable? What you call "recklessness/carelessness" is often described as Human Error and is widely considered an unavoidable part of being human - to the extent that particularity for critical situations e.g. military or space missions, effort is taken to precisely measure the likelihood of the human error and systems are specifically designed to reduce it where it is considered too high - and this is done with the systems for road travel too - highway code etc.

If your claim is that they are avoidable by the banning of road traffic altogether then we move on to your question, and I will restate Pappa's argument, since you didn't seem to like it the way he stated it:

The closest that any one came to a valid reason for not banning cars, when guns are banned, was pappa’s lame version of ‘car deaths are what people accept for car usage’

What Pappa actually said was "risk/benefit value judgement" - and your assertion that such reasoning is "lame" does not hold up. A vast number of decisions made in society are based on, or involve, some form of risk-benefit analysis. It works.

And it's fairly easy to see the reason why societies consider the benefit of road transport to out-way the risks - to the extent that I'm surprised you even needed to ask the question.

If all road transport was stopped, most modern western civilisations would collapse within a fortnight.

In this country when there is heavy snow and most of the minor roads are closed for a few days, it causes real problems. People can't work, children can't get to school, the ill or injured can't get to hospital, and in places that are cut off, supplies rapidly run out. If it was ever bad enough that the major road networks closed down as well, and it lasted for any length of time, it would be a catastrophe. Tens of millions would die.

Road transport is a critical part of our civilisation, and while effort is taken to reduce the negative effects of it, any solutions to the problems that have worse effects than the problems themselves (e.g. outright banning) will not be implemented.

Compare to the likely effects of, in a country that has them, guns being banned. - There would probably be a small temporary rise in gun crime as those who refuse to surrender their weapons take advantage of the situation, which would gradually reduce to lower levels than before, as guns become very much harder to acquire. There wouldn't necessarily even be an increase in gun deaths, as, knowing that their victims are unarmed, criminals would have no reason to shoot first.

I think that explains why cars and guns are not equal.

[Coito ergo sum]

I've been considering the points of the pro-gun side and reconsidering my own stance. Not necessarily changing my personal preference, but understanding the other point of view better.

That’s mighty big of you, considering that:-

1 No-one has yet given a valid reason for banning guns other than some convoluted version of “guns kill people”.

I'm not sure anyone has even advanced the notions that all guns should be "banned." I'm pro-gun, but I am for banning the private ownership and carrying of M-60's, M-2 Machine Guns and M249 SAW's, and I'm pretty sure I can come up with some good reasons for that. I don't think roof mounted M-2's on jeeps and SUV's would be a great idea. I think the state should be able to ban them.

2 Given this reason for a gun ban, when I made the point that “if that’s the case why aren’t cars banned?”. All I got was insults and drivel. Especially from ClintonHuxley, who performed the most amazing logic contortions whilst accusing me of “Olympian logic failures”!

If I were playing Devil's Advocate and answering that question, I would say that cars are generally used for driving and transporting goods, and therefore there is a greater societal need for cars than for guns. Guns are used for killing people and other animals, and are not necessary for the functioning of our modern society, whereas without cars we would have no modern society.

The closest that any one came to a valid reason for not banning cars, when guns are banned, was pappa’s lame version of ‘car deaths are what people accept for car usage’

Someone actually said “well guns were invented for killing”. Really? Well in that case why ban smoking in public places?
Smoking was not invented with the intention of killing. No smoker ever went into a room thinking “when you absolutely, positively have to kill every motherfucker in the room - Malboro Lights, accept no substitutes”.

Again, Devil's Advocate here, but, cigarettes don't serve a useful purpose, and they are a product that people use not expecting it to hurt them, and it does. And, cigarettes are addictive, reducing the freedom of choice of individuals with respect to using them. The state steps in to protect the people against deceptive conduct on the part of cigarette marketers, and to protect people against the addictive and harmful properties of the cigarettes. Guns and cars are not addictive, and neither of them in and of themselves hurt people, although they can be used to hurt people.

True there is a component of unpleasantness in the smoking ban, but it is as much to do with ‘smoking kills’.

The ban on smoking is political, because there has been a successful movement to vilify cigarette smoking, so people don't care if smokers are bothered by such laws and nobody cares if their rights are limited in that way. People have been convinced of the logic that they have the right not to breathe air into which a smoker has exhaled cigarette smoke.

But I never really got the ideology that some people seem to hold that if there are bad things happening in the world, therefore it's okay to happen more bad things.

perfectly valid point except completely arse about face. That’s my point! Ban guns because they kill - ok, but then utterly refuse to use the same logic for a much more serious loss of life e.g. road deaths.

I think, from my perspective, I would ban guns that are too powerful. Like, I don't want teenagers driving down the streets with miniguns on the roofs of their cars, able to fire through the walls of houses, and destroy cars and other property in seconds, and able to shoot 700 rounds per minute. Now, a single person with a Remington hunting rifle can't do that kind of damage, and there are plenty of good uses to put such a rifle.

To me, it's kind of a balancing arrangement. In the US, the rule is that individuals have a right to own guns, because a well regulated militia (the citizenry who can be called upon for service in the military) is necessary for the security of a free state. Well, the words "well regulated" have to mean something, and to me that means that there are restrictions on the manufacture and use of the arms that the citizenry can have. I don't think the 2nd Amendment in the US means that home cannon are a constitutional right. Clearly, there is some understanding of what an "arm" was at the time it was written. Generally, it means, to me, a handgun or a musket/rifle/shotgun. I really don't think that James Madison and the gang would have agreed that there was a right to own guns that could fire hundreds of rounds of armor piercing ammo every minute, with no regulation or control of any kind.

I don’t expect (or want) a car ban. All I point out is that a gun ban perforce demands a plethora of more restrictive bans, otherwise it’s just an anti-X lobby forcing their phobia onto others.[/quote]

[mistermack]

I don't think we are.
If someone said to me that they didn't want to visit, because of the guns in the house, I think I would know what they meant, even if they said it wasn't ME that they were worried about.

And I've already explained that you didn't understand what I was saying in the first place. I've talked to people who have expressed such opinions about guns in homes who didn't know I owned guns, hell, before I owned guns in the first place. The ONE issue I've ever had with this personally, was quickly resolved after explaining that the guns aren't loaded and are safely locked away. If you want to pretend I've been talking about anything else, you go right ahead.

Yeh, and you super confidently diagnosed an irrational fear, even though you've shown that you're no better than anybody else at knowing what people are thinking.
YOU think it's irrational. YOU claim to know that they mean exactly what they say.
I think that it's rational. If you don't like guns, and don't trust gun owners, and want to be polite, just say you're scared of guns, period.
I wouldn't knowingly go to houses of gun owners. I don't WANT to have the conversation you had, that the guns are out of harms way etc etc etc. I still wouldn't want to be around them, or their owners.
Because talk to ANY gun owner, they will ALWAYS says that THEIR guns are safe, and probably believe it.

MY mind reading skills tell me that people are just being polite, and you brow-beat them, rather than convinced them.

[Wumbologist]

Compare to the likely effects of, in a country that has them, guns being banned. - There would probably be a small temporary rise in gun crime as those who refuse to surrender their weapons take advantage of the situation, which would gradually reduce to lower levels than before, as guns become very much harder to acquire. There wouldn't necessarily even be an increase in gun deaths, as, knowing that their victims are unarmed, criminals would have no reason to shoot first.

I think that explains why cars and guns are not equal.

No offense, but it drives me nuts when people refer to "gun crime" in threads like this, as if it's something special compared to other types of crime. Sure, gun crime might go down if there are less guns, but what we really need to know is whether the total rate of violent crime is affected. Does the number of murders, or forcible rapes, or assaults, or robberies decline? Or are there just as many done with other tools? The answer I've seen has been that violent crime is generally not reduced when a nation bans guns.

[MrJonno]

So, by your logic, it's o.k. to kill the animals for food, as long as nobody enjoys the sport of it?

I would go with that a neccessary evil to kill for food, once we have vat grown meat which is going to happen in the not so near future I would think any sort of killing animals for food would be pretty morally unacceptable.

Taking any sort of please in killing is pretty scary stuff, in the same I have no problems in killing lab animals for medical research but I wouldnt want to see scientists have a competition to see who could snuff the most rats in an hour