BS: Anyone defend US gun law?

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Sep 14 - 04:23 AM

In which case they should understand the stupidity and futility of civilians being at liberty to own firearms without careful and strict controls being placed on them by their government, and should hang their heads in shame for some of the idiotic, testosterone-fuelled horse-shit they've posted on this thread in support of universal gun-ownership and, by virtue of that support, acceeded to the demands of the NRA dumbfucks.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 09:57 PM

And there are those of us to whom such is all too real.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 09:11 PM

Part of what changed is the male population hasn't seen the bloody side of war. When you're sitting in a comfortable chair outside Lake Tahoe bombing the shit out of the Taliban and anyone else who just happens to be inside the blast range as "collateral damage" it stops being real and becomes another computer game, the kind of Hollywood movie where nobody is ever premanently injured or actually gruesomely painfully dead.
The WW I and II infantry saw that, it was their immediate neighbour. They never talked about the nightmares, but made certain it could never come visiting. It started to wander in Vietnam, Rambo's criticism of the Soldier of Fortune mentality is only too real, it's morlocks like that who pulled the prisoner abuses in the Gulf. Too macho, too gangsta, too computer game, where the dead aren't bleeding on your floor. How many points for hitting a politician in your getaway?

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: olddude
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 12:24 PM

I don't know about any other, but I cherish my redneckness. Hell I am a blue blood redneck. I suspect my family invented duct tape they are so redneck. I need a flag

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Lighter
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 09:07 AM

> How many were slaughtered by smallpox-infected blankets distributed to the the Iroquois by the British?

Possibly a few, possibly none:

https://journals.psu.edu/phj/article/download/25644/25413

Not that the idea wasn't considered.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Greg F.
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 08:20 AM

I agree with 1 & 2 100%, Rap.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 07:47 AM

Really?

That would negate all the training the military of every country gives in killing. It would make the work to overcome the natural aversion to killing others ("You shall not kill") irrelevant -- give someone a firearms and they'll kill with it, even if they've never held one before.

I strongly urge you to read titles like Keegan's "The Face of Battle", Grossman's "On Killing" and "On Combat", and S.L.A. Marshall's critique of US marksmanship training before saying more. Make a real study of violence and stop spewing out pre-digested pap.

Then go visit a veteran's hospital and talk with some of the people there. Tell them that the mortar round that took their legs off or the sniper shot that spattered their buddy's brains all over them weren't done by people who intended to kill.

Two things are necessary NOW, in the US and elsewhere:

1. Good, solid mental health programs without the stigma of "crazy" or "weak"
2. and sensible, logical, and consistent firearms laws.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Musket
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 03:06 AM

Let's stick to the absurd " it's people not guns" crap and see what that actually tells us;

It tells me that those who glorify them are the least suitable to owning them.

An inadequate redneck without a gun is less of a danger to society than an inadequate redneck with one.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: olddude
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 01:53 AM

Something changed from the end of wwii until now society wise for people to do things to others like today's world is. Sad, we can debate the tools of violence but some smart psychological study needs done to explain what happened to the people

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 01:47 AM

Mike, the rednecks KNOW the truth. They bring up the 'pipe-bombs' and 'blades' argument to avoid having to admit it. Changing the subject - the last refuge of a man who is absolutely beaten and he knows it.

Only a complete fool defends the indefensible.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: olddude
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 01:39 AM

Well I agree on real gun laws that make sense and I agree that a gun makes it one hell of a lot easier so we need laws but we are missing something. The human aspect of modern violence and I don't have the answer to that.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 01:25 AM

Doubt the pipe bombs. Blades can't cause as much continuous damage in one incident -- see correspondence above. Really see no sort of advantage in guns being freely available, & an ∞ of disadvantages. The "ways to kill" people would find would just not be so destructive within each instance of their setting out to do so. It isn't the people - it's the guns.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: olddude
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 01:15 AM

I honestly don't think that removing all guns in today's world would change much unless people changed. We would just see more pipe bombs and blades. I hope I am wrong and I am being serious. People would find a way to kill. I am probably being a pessimistic person but it is what it is

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: olddude
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 01:06 AM

I guess I really don't know the answer. Rap and I probably are not the best to ask, we both would be most likely not here without the ability to defend ourself but again that was military or government related. Probably why I taught my kids martial arts, sharp edged weapons and to shoot hoping they never needed any of it ever.
The world is too violent and good people need to realize that I think

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: olddude
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 12:59 AM

For some reason in society and not just in America, people have become violent. Guys like solders or X national security had to learn the tools of violence for profession. Civilian hunted and would target shoot. Today they blow up innocent people or shoot them for no reason at all. People changed Mike I think not weapons

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: olddude
Date: 18 Sep 14 - 12:42 AM

But what changed then Mike, it was far easier to get firearms back in the 50 early 60s. You could order war surplus from any catalog no kidding there was never anything like today drive by or school shooting. I can only assume that the people changed and not for the good. I can honestly say I never heard of a violence with a gun growing up in my whole county but Iccan't say that now

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 11:16 PM

It's that last phrase that won't do, ya-no, Dan -- all this sniggeringly disingenuous "Guns are not the problem. People are the problem" -- that sticks in my craw and so saddens me & robs me of my SOH and makes me abusive of dear old windup devil's advocates like that charming old Mr O'C. The problem is ···the people + the guns··· ~~ If the problematic people can't get the equally problematic guns: why, then, game over!...

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: olddude
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 09:57 PM

You are right rap and if I can still put my hand through a cinder block at my age, and I can then why use any weapon. I know you can also. Your point is well taken it does go back to people kill not weapons

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 09:50 PM

My point is that humans can take anything and make a weapon out of it. How many were slaughtered by smallpox-infected blankets distributed to the the Iroquois by the British? How many killed to open the opium trade to China? Range of a weapon is irrelevant to how many it can kill -- ask the victims of Jenghis Khan or Tamerlane or Eichmann, or those dead by gas in WWI.

I can kill more by derailing a tanker car of chlorine than I could with machine gun -- or by flying passenger airlines into buildings.

It is the intent, not the weapon itself, that kills. A 'dud' bomb dropped on London will quietly rust away until it is excavated...humanity itself bears the fault of turning innocent things into weapons.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: olddude
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 09:45 PM

Ebbi . I know hon just playing devil's advocate

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 09:20 PM

Lighter, I once worked for a boss who used your tactic, abstract to a n (in)effable degree of abstraction and then redefine in his terms. It's dishonest, discreditable and disrespectful. The theme of the meme is GUN abuse, so stop trying to prove a case you've fairly conclusively lost by changing the subject.

And if you must go back to that text, there is nothing in common in terms of proclivity to violence when you have to include combing one's hair in an aggressive manner as reportable violence (UK) to achieve your case.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 09:18 PM

Dan, me luv, using a broken beer bottle to kill is violent, and it is effective. However, using that same bottle or even a series of broken beer bottles violent as it is, is not as effective in killing 25 people. I think that is what we are saying: Gun prevalence equates to mass killings.

We know that a gun is not as effective in killing masses as a bomb is but most people don't know how to build a bomb. Most people can figure out how to shoot a gun.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Lighter
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 08:54 PM

In this context, the violent nature of the group is reasonably indicated by the actual incidence of violent crime, not by the power of the weapons (or fists) that are used.

Group X (say 5000 people) has 500 violent crimes. Since they can't use guns, they use things like knives, fists, rocks, etc.

Group Y (say 5000 people) has 400 violent crimes, 50 of them involving guns.

Of the two groups, which contains the higher proportion of violent individuals?

The British claim was that Americans, by nature or nurture, are *as a group* far more violent than the British. There's no way even to guess whether one group or the other, with equal access to guns, would be more likely to use them.

For all we know, if Group X had had guns, they'd have used them far more often than did Group Y. But we don't know and can't speculate. All we *do* know is that Group X has a higher *rate* of violent crime, and by that measure is the more violent group.

Whether the "average" member of Group X is more or less violent than the "average" member of Group Y (i.e., more likely to use a gun if one is available) can't be determined from the evidence.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Greg F.
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 07:51 PM

we can reasonably conclude that the rates of violent crime are similar enough to discredit any assertion that Americans are especially predisposed to violence.

Not at all. We're talking violence WITH FIREARMS as opposed to "violence" ( however that is defined) in general.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: olddude
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 07:41 PM

we need a federal handgun carry standard. the state laws are nuts. some states impossible to get a permit, others like florida, if you can breathe you get one. like i said before we need better laws

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Lighter
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 04:09 PM

> it is hard to compare figures from 2 different systems which don't categorize in the same way.

That is correct, but if the source has any credibility at all, we can reasonably conclude that the rates of violent crime are similar enough to discredit any assertion that Americans are especially predisposed to violence.

At least in comparison with the UK.

We don't need to know the precise degree of equivalence to draw so general a conclusion. (Which, perhaps coincidentally, accords well with common sense.)

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: olddude
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 02:33 PM

I would support better gun laws with loopholes closed not more ineffective laws that protect Noone and that I being serious

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: olddude
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 02:27 PM

Relax Mike I don't hurt anyone

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 02:03 PM

". Bill D refuses to examine his documents:..."

All I was doing was pointing out that 1) it was easy to find what figures are available, and 2) that it is hard to compare figures from 2 different systems which don't categorize in the same way.
My little comment about 'whacking' was the sort of irony I am often accused of not getting myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 01:39 PM

I am genuinely distressed at someone of Dan's intelligence coming out with such indescribable idiocies.

This is not a sarcastic or satirical or ironic assertion; nor a truculent or pugnacious or aggressive one. Just a plain statement of fact. I can't find the words to express how unbelievably sad it makes me.

Sincerely

≈Michael≈

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: olddude
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 12:59 PM

Guy was killed two weeks ago with a broken beer bottle in a bar. Means doesn't. Matter I think. Dead is dead so do we outlaw beer

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: olddude
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 12:55 PM

Would you be more comfortable is bad guys used pipe bombs instead
How about a blade. Both rap and I are regarded as expert's on sharp edged weapons. Samurai sword. You see if one is going to kill the method is meaningless. Guns are not the problem people are

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 12:30 PM

US Gun Law: who has the gun makes the law.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Greg F.
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 12:22 PM

What, ptrecisely, is "THE" U.S. gun law supposed to be?

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Lighter
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 11:37 AM

Who is it, now, who changed the subject?

The question was, "[Does] Anyone defend the US gun law?"

The answer was yes, and several reasons were given.

And that was the end of that particular discussion.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 11:07 AM

Changing the subject is the tactic of someone who knows that, by any normal person's standards, his argument is completely demolished. It's like trying to change the subject to (unverifiable) UK crime stats, when the thread is about the crackpot gun laws in the US, and the gun-death rates there that, by any civilised standards, are utterly appalling.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 10:50 AM

Rap, you just fell foul of another of my points: changing the subject to mediaeval archery doesn't let guns off the hook! And claiming that just because cartridges are physical, it makes them natural is the largesse of a birthday, I guess. I've heard of a gum-tree, but never a gun-tree. The closest I can get is the offspring of a horse, which if argued would mean Samuel was hung - as opposed to hanged, which is what happened to many of his clients.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 09:46 AM

Apologies Michael - I confess I didn't read your post. Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa!

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Greg F.
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 09:44 AM

Bent down, turned round & gave me a wink
Said "I'm gonna mix it up right here in the sink".

Have fun, Rap -

What about pointed sticks and sharp stones?

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 09:40 AM

Ammunition not natural?

Lead is a rather common element. I can make potassium nitrate (saltpeter) in my back yard from old shit (literally, old shit) and sulfur is found in the volcanic remains near here. Charcoal can also be made, and willow (which grows in abundance) makes the best for gunpowder.

Nitrocellulose is simply nitrated cotton (other cellulose could be used, of course). Nitric and sulfuric acids are also made rather easily.

As for ignition, flint and steel (both are, ultimately, common).

Or, more simply, the archers at Agincourt set a pretty good pace in loosing arrows, didn't they? Silent, and an arrow will quite likely pierce a "bulletproof" vest. At a hundred yards or a thousand, you're still stuck.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 09:25 AM

BWM -- If I might point out: not "another point", but the same point I had just made, differently expressed.

Regards
≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 07:05 AM

As ever. Bill D refuses to examine his documents: if he had, he'd have realised the figures quoted are examined in those texts and show the comparatives are chalk and cheese.

When it comes to knife crimes, the sale and carriage of combat knives are legally limited in the UK to those with folding non-locking blades of under 3", with the result that these days most knife crime involves kitchen knives. Even the carriage of these is questionable, they always come zip-tied into sheathes for this very reason.

So suggesting that the UK simply sublimates the urge to violence into knife crime is equally wrong, and worse, a red-herring, as it's based on two wrongs making a right. Whether the UK has a knife problem or not has nothing at all to do with the US gun problem, and the refusal of the gun lobby to take responsibility for its actions. We are pointing the finger here, and saying that the next time you have a massacre, the supporters of the gun lobby here will be every whit as much responsible for it as the shooter. All it takes for evil to win is for good people to do nothing, which is exactly what has happened in the past, and which must stop now. We said so then, and we're saying so now, with the difference that in the past, we didn't personalise the responsibility for the risk. Now we are.

A similar lie was perpetrated a while back in reply to my comment that ammunition and explosives are not covered by the Second Amendment, claiming it is "natural" that the Amendment extends that far. I have nowever discovered ammunition growing on trees, so how can it be "natural"? The Amendment is "to bear arms", to carry weapons, not to shoot them: you can carry them as a club, and be issued with ammunition as your National authorities see fit.

Responsibility for a wrong is not something which is shareable between those responsible for it, it is something each and everyone who could have done something to stop it shares full responsibility for. In the UK, a charge of murder can be levied in its entire weight against every one who was part of the crew who killed someone, it is not "twenty years divided by twenty perps", it's twenty years each, or whatever the judge sees fit.

No, the Gun Lobby has definitively lost the case, and it might be a wise thing dfor the Principal of every school to write to the President of the NRA holding him contingently liable should any of the children in the school be injured. This ducking the blame must stop, can stop, and eventually will stop. The only question is how many innocents must die in the mean time.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 06:44 AM

Another point is that, if you're un-armed and someone comes at you with a knife, there's a chance of defending yourself, even of disarming the assailant (and before the smart-ass small-dicks come in trying to say it can't be done, I've done it).

If you're un-armed and somebody's banging away at you from 20 yards with a gun, automatic or not, you're fucked and you're toast.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 05:21 AM

One 'difference', Ebbie, is that anyone trying to run amok with a knife in a crowded mall would not get very far or have the chance to stab many people before being stopped & overpowered. With a gun, judging by #s of deaths involved in your innumerable instances of such, and our very few copycat ones like Hungerford & Dunblane*, that is a whole lot more difficult.

≈M

*Honestly can't think of any others

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Musket
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 04:21 AM

Jeri, you have a responsibility not to talk bollocks eh?

After all, if the zoo keepers eat with the chimps, the zoo will never make a profit.

Ebbie. Here's something for you. We don't have much crime at all over here by US measuring or we have far more. No idea which is accurate. Before spending time looking at health systems used by Kaiser Permanante and what we might learn from their primary care approach, I made a point of looking at other cooperation studies, and policing was one of them.

Whether US or UK has more or less of anything crime wise is not know and can't be because we measure so much of it differently.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 04:18 AM

Something else worth bearing in mind is that much of our violent crime - shootings, stabbings, beatings etc. - involves attacks by gang-members on members of other gangs in our major cities, it's hardly ever a 'simple' robber/victim incident.

And murder is so unusual here that you can pretty much guarantee that every killing makes the front pages of our national newspapers! and is reported on national TV news - even more so if it's a shooting or a stabbing. I'm certain that's far from being the case in the US.

Although I argued with BillD over one silly issue of UK sovereignty, I'm in complete agreement with his views on changing laws. But, like many other UK-ers here, I'm frustrated by your political system which makes changing gun laws virtually impossible, by the seemingly meek acceptance over there that bringing change about is 'too difficult', and by the idiot small-dicks who think everything there is 'jest fine 'n' dandy y'all'.

Time to take my dog for a five-miler. Sleep tight.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 04:03 AM

Maybe we do, maybe we don't, Ebbie. I don't fell qualified to comment on that.

But what I do know is that much of our crime is very low-level stuff - shoplifting, driving offences etc.. Almost none of our crime involves firearms, or weapons of any sort - carrying what's classed as an offensive weapon (including guns, knives, baseball bats, hammers, screwdrivers, and a lot of other stuff) in the commission of a crime elevates that crime to the 'Aggravated' level, and will result in a doubling of the sentence, should the perp go to court.

And, compared with the US, a minuscule number of crimes here involve anyone being shot. There's a correlation there that only those who are either too stupid, or too wilful, are unable to get into their heads.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 03:41 AM

Frankly, I don't see a great deal of difference between dying of a gunshot or from a knife attack. If it had to be, I suspect I would prefer the shot.

What does make me laugh, however, is the notion that some here seem to hold that the UK is so much more civilised because it doesn't allow guns. It appears that, guns or no, you guys got a LOT of crime. What is so civilized about that?

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Sep 14 - 01:58 AM

Jeri, nobody's saying "Our country's better than yours".

We're saying "Our gun laws are better than yours". The fact that your gun-death rate is 30 times higher than the UK's bears witness to that. We're also saying how frustrating it is that your redneck small-dicks like oldude, rapparee, Stim, lighter et al don't seem to have the intelligence to make the connection.

That's all - not difficult is it? Not for normal people at least.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone defend US gun law?
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 10:23 PM

OK- how about a rueful shake of hands?