US Philadelphia Student Carrying Legal Firearm Shoots It Out

[mistermack]

It's all about you isn't it. If you're so fucking perfect, obviously nobody else will go mental with legally held guns.
Any fool can see that.

We ought not rush to make laws that restrict the vast majority when the goal is to restrict the nutters.

Well, there's your answer then. Just make it illegal for anyone who might be a nutter to own guns.
Problem solved.

[Wumbologist]

It's all about you isn't it. If you're so fucking perfect, obviously nobody else will go mental with legally held guns.
Any fool can see that.

We ought not rush to make laws that restrict the vast majority when the goal is to restrict the nutters.

Well, there's your answer then. Just make it illegal for anyone who might be a nutter to own guns.
Problem solved.

You can't own guns if you've been adjudicated mentally defective.

[Coito ergo sum]

Well, there's your answer then. Just make it illegal for anyone who might be a nutter to own guns.
Problem solved.

Or, you could make reasonable and rational regulation, such as a minimum age limit, restrict ownership by those with mental illnesses and those with felony convictions, and you can require various permits and such, which require training and education on gun usage. Those would be some regulations that would weed out some nutters. To have reasonable regulations as needed in the community, however, would be the way paranoid psychotics act, I guess.

Or, you could just ban them all, and use a blunt instrument to do a surgical job. That would probably be the "enlightened" way to do it.

[mistermack]

Or, you could just ban them all, and use a blunt instrument to do a surgical job. That would probably be the "enlightened" way to do it.

Yep. Just like we do with heavy machine guns mounted on cars.

People could always play with toy guns.

[MrJonno]

It's all about you isn't it. If you're so fucking perfect, obviously nobody else will go mental with legally held guns.
Any fool can see that.

We ought not rush to make laws that restrict the vast majority when the goal is to restrict the nutters.

Well, there's your answer then. Just make it illegal for anyone who might be a nutter to own guns.
Problem solved.

You can't own guns if you've been adjudicated mentally defective.

25% of the population will have a mental illness at some point in their lives, do these 25% have the right to carry deadly weapons withdrawn?

[Coito ergo sum]

Or, you could just ban them all, and use a blunt instrument to do a surgical job. That would probably be the "enlightened" way to do it.

Yep. Just like we do with heavy machine guns mounted on cars.

People could always play with toy guns.

Some weapons are best prohibited, true. However, rifles aren't toys, and they are also useful tools. Banning them would be retarded. Ask the Swiss.

[Coito ergo sum]

It's all about you isn't it. If you're so fucking perfect, obviously nobody else will go mental with legally held guns.
Any fool can see that.

We ought not rush to make laws that restrict the vast majority when the goal is to restrict the nutters.

Well, there's your answer then. Just make it illegal for anyone who might be a nutter to own guns.
Problem solved.

You can't own guns if you've been adjudicated mentally defective.

25% of the population will have a mental illness at some point in their lives, do these 25% have the right to carry deadly weapons withdrawn?

Mental illnesses including "adjustment disorders," of course, which occur after car accidents and sometimes after riding roller coasters if one gets really scared. So, yes, many of them ought to have the right to carry deadly weapons. Nobody is questioning their right to have knives, are they? (speaking of deadly weapons).

[colubridae]

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.

So. In what way is that relevant?

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.

Nonsense each time someone has put forward an argument. I’ve refuted it. Check for yourself.

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.

That’s not even close to what I ‘assert’.
I don’t think that everything that applies to guns should apply to cars.
What I do say is that the reason people use for banning guns (i.e. they kill) should also be applied cars (and plenty of other stuff if you like). The sole reason people have for wanting to ban guns is that they are dangerous and kill. Any arguments pro-gun lobby have made that ‘people kill, not guns’ have been summarily dismissed by the antigun lobby. So don’t try using that one.

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

Why It’s a perfectly sound argument?
Ban guns, gun deaths cease.
Ban cars, car deaths cease.
I don’t have to make a better case than that.

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

I still say it. Absolutely avoidable. Ban cars, road deaths cease.
There I said it again. Which part of the above is wrong please?

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.

Actually you are wrong. Claiming that road deaths are human error is nonsense.
Almost all road deaths are caused by driver carelessness/recklessness. Calling that human error is covering up reality. Check with ROSPA if you don’t believe me.
Almost all road deaths involve breaking a highway code rule. So is breaking a highway code rule human error? Don’t be absurd. Breaking a highway code rule requires carelessness/recklessness.

And by the way, so what. Even if it is human error, as you wrongly assert, it doesn’t matter.
Ban cars, car deaths cease – still applies.

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.

So in your view 3000 UK deaths per year is acceptable, simply for the convenience of modern life. Pardon me while I pour disdain and scorn on your moral and ethical code.
And by the way no-one on this thread has said that we ban guns because of a risk/benefit analysis.
The anti-gun lobby want to ban guns because they are dangerous and kill. Well so are cars. So they should be banned.

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.

Pappa’s argument is lame. Rephrase it anyway you like, it’s still lame.
Paying 3000 deaths per year for modern conveniences, is poor morals and ethics any way you slice it up.
That’s funny, I seem to recall reading in the history books that the human race progressed well enough without the automobile.

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.

In this thread, my only point has been that any logic or moral reason for banning guns equally applies to banning cars. The fact that you think the human race can’t survive without cars is immaterial. Actually, as I said before, if find it quite distasteful. The idea that 3000 deaths per year are a valid price to pay for social convenience is repugnant.

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

What idiot said that guns and cars are equal. Only a complete moron would think I’ve said that.
If I’ve even come close to saying that. I apologise. Such was not my intent. My intent is

Ban guns, gun deaths cease.
Ban cars, car deaths cease.


All you have done is paraphrase Pappa’s lame argument. Road transport is there for our convenience, nothing more. Claiming it as a necessary evil is false. If you want to pay 3000 lives per year for such convenience that’s your right. Just allow me to puke on your moral standards.

My whole point is that moral and ethical reasons have been invoked by the anti-gun lobby to validate a gun ban.
Any moral or ethical reason used for such a ban, should be applied to everything else.
Otherwise it’s just an arbitrary viewpoint being forced. Much like religion.

Much like ratz members ganging-up on ‘helpless’ victims because their viewpoint didn’t coincide with the majority.

No-one has given a valid moral reason for banning guns which does not apply to cars, other than modern convenience.

[Clinton Huxley]

Are you STILL not getting it, Col? There's obtuse and there's obtuse...

[Pappa]

Pappa’s argument is lame. Rephrase it anyway you like, it’s still lame.

It's not an argument, nor any kind of avocation of either position. It's merely a statement about how society makes these kinds of decisions based on the perceived risk and perceived benefit. Value judgements are made for all sorts of risks, some we choose to accept, such as alcohol, tobacco, cars, hill walking and sky diving. Other we chose to ban, such as LSD, guns and base jumping.

Paying 3000 deaths per year for modern conveniences, is poor morals and ethics any way you slice it up.

That all depends on the comparative value that society puts on the convenience that car use brings. When the reality of death on the road is fairly remote to us, while the benefit is immediately apparent to anyone who drives or uses public transport, then it's easy to value convenience over and above lives. I can easy see your point of view and agree with it, but we live in a world where cars are now vital (or perceived to be so). Plus.... if you banned everything that causes death, presumably you should also ban everything that causes non-lethal harm too? And then everything that causes harm to animals? You'd end up with a very long list of things that were banned very quickly. Even if you just banned anything that can cause human deaths, where would you stop? Peanuts? Steps? Electricity?

Btw... do you have a link to the stats on the causes of road deaths (I mean the accidental or carelessness/recklessness stuff)? I'd be really interested in seeing them if you can find them.

[colubridae]

Are you STILL not getting it, Col? There's obtuse and there's obtuse...

There’s nothing to ‘get’!
There's argument and rebuttal.

No-one has said anything to remotely dent my argument.
People have said plenty of stuff. It’s either been wrong or irrelevant!

If you want to ban guns for moral or ethical reasons fine, but you must apply those reasons elsewhere.
Otherwise you are just bullying others into doing what you arbitrarily choose, and then covering up your bullying with a camouflage of ethics/morals.

Tell me where this is an incorrect summary of my argument?

(BTW Your sole argument was my olympian logic failure!
This after claiming car's weren't used for mass attacks (irrelevant anyway) and dismissing news reports (including a BBC report) as mere anecdotes. So please don’t call me obtuse
What’s next accusations of trolling. I can’t refute his argument so I’ll call him a troll)

Strangely enough I begin to see Charlou's view now. People do try to bully someone whose views they dislike.


Anyway the proposition stands
The reason the anti-gun lobby want to ban guns is because they are dangerous and kill.
They have no other valid reason.

And therefore, if that’s the case, then they must advocate banning cars, they are also dangerous and they kill.

No invention could possibly be introduced or allowed in the UK if it actively killed 3000 people per year simply by being used.
Please make up an invention which would be allowed, if you can.


edited for readability

[Clinton Huxley]

I don't think you've factored in ho

[mistermack]

Mental illnesses including "adjustment disorders," of course, which occur after car accidents and sometimes after riding roller coasters if one gets really scared. So, yes, many of them ought to have the right to carry deadly weapons. Nobody is questioning their right to have knives, are they? (speaking of deadly weapons).

Knives are in the same bracket as cars. They are something people need day-to-day.
In the UK, it's a serious crime to carry a knife, for the healthy and the mentally ill.

With cars, billions are spent to make them safer. The same should be done with knives.
It should be illegal to sell knives that are clearly designed as weapons.

And other knives should be made as safe as possible. Just like cars.

[colubridae]

I don't think you've factored in ho

Is that you being obtuse?

[Clinton Huxley]

I don't dislike your view, I just think the car/gun comparison is fatuous and unhelpful. I think you've blithely ignored the issue of purpose and intention.

I suppose we could turn the argument around and say lets allow EVERYTHING, as long as it kills fewer people than cars.

As for the weird idea that there are no accidents.....do you work for Claims Direct?
.