Active Member
Of course she is trying to buy votes.Originally Posted by allegro
My argument is that she doesn't understand the basics of the device she has spent years of her life trying to ban, doesn't understand how her legislation would impact things, and doesn't understand the basics of how her legislation is supposed to work. That's a gigantic fail, not even close to nitpicking.
Bite me
It is if I'm very obviously being sarcastic but you're so puffed by this that you've lost your sense of humor.
I'm just too cynical to care either way.
Active Member
lol. dammit
I don't think I am ever going to be able to get over politicians who propose federal legislation in any other situation than after doing some research on a topic and having something that they legitimately believe will help. Workplace incompetence pisses me off but it goes to a whole other level when your job has this much direct influence on how people live their lives.
Quiet Member
Civilized culture obviously requires laws. We have laws regulating gay marriage, abortion, and freedom of speech.
My concern is that when you start restricting peoples rights....It's quite a slipper slope. Once you've established that people are too stupid to have a right to own firearms. The president is set.
Bite me
Oh, God, not the slippery slope argument, again. *sigh*
Here, go read this and then we'll talk. Meanwhile, I'm going to go enjoy this beautiful sunny day!
Last edited by allegro; 04-06-2013 at 10:02 AM.
Active Member
Fuck all that. Access to guns is one of the highest rights. Very few governments trust their people with guns. That's one of the big reasons I choose to own one. Our government used to trust us with guns. What changed? Was it the government, the people, both?
Throbbing Member
How the fuck is owning a gun one of the highest rights? Screw that. I like the freedom *from* gun culture too much to buy that bullshit. Please tell me why I should feel that I need a gun as much as food, clean water, shelter and healthcare.
Active Member
"why should I need"
Your issue is that you look at rights by their utility. That's now how freedom works.
Throbbing Member
If it's about utility then I don't see how the system we having in Australia of having to get a permit (which can be issued for a variety of "utilitarian" reasons such as farming, sporting, hunting etc) and abide by the associated conditions and regulations, necessarily violates said freedom. Just like it's difficult to argue the freedom to drive a car is unduly impinged by having to have a licence and abide by road rules.
And it seems completely mind-boggling to me that the freedom to wield a weapon is more valued than the right of everyone to have access to healthcare regardless of financial means. Especially when mental health has been a big talking point in the discourse surrounding gun violence.
Add Violins
The "utility" of citizen-owned guns in our current society is non-existent, regardless of how anyone feels about gun control. Most people purchase them as a symbolic gesture, not because they actually have some serious pressing need for them. They might have fun at the shooting range, or maybe they actually take hunting trips, but those are just leisure/sport activities. No one can honestly say "Look, I absolutely NEED a gun by next week in order to___"
Active Member
I thought I'd share some argument from an anti gun-control perspective for a change.
This is from Rep. Louie Gohmert:
"I had this discussion with some wonderful, caring Democrats earlier this week on the issue of, well, they said ‘surely you could agree to limit the number of rounds in a magazine, couldn’t you? How would that be problematic?’ And I pointed out, well, once you make it 10, then why would you draw the line at 10? What’s wrong with nine? Or 11? And the problem is, once you draw that limit, it’s kind of like marriage when you say it’s not a man and a woman anymore. Then why not have three men and one woman? Or four women and one man? Or why not, somebody who has a love for an animal? There is no clear place to draw the line once you eliminate the traditional marriage and it’s the same once you start putting limits on what guns can be used; then it’s just really easy to have laws that make them all illegal.”
This was too good to not share with you.
Active Member
this just in - two people of the same sex in a consensual relationship is effectively the same as someone committing bestiality
If a politician in the UK said something that, they would be fucking finished
Active Member
And why would you start off with that when I just said it's not about the utility?
Throbbing Member
Sorry, must have misread your post. I thought you meant I *should* be looking at rights by utility (as opposed to "need"). I've heard that same reasoning before ("it might not be necessary, but useful to have" etc). Still, I stand by all of the points I've raised.
"Freedom" is too subjective a concept for there to be any hard and fast mechanism to determine that it works a certain way.
Should people have freedom from the negative externalities wrought by others exercising their freedom?
Active Member
Another incident happened last weekend.
"A pistol in the hands of a 4-year-old boy went off Saturday and killed Josephine Fanning, the 48-year-old wife of Wilson County Sheriff's Deputy Daniel Fanning.
The deputy and a relative went into a bedroom to look at some of the lawman's guns, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Kristin Helm said.
Josephine Fanning and the boy walked into the room later.
At some point, the boy picked up a loaded pistol from a bed, she said. The gun involved was Fanning's personal weapon, not his service pistol, she said."
Just keeps getting better and better.
*edit*
It does keep getting better...
A 6-year old accidentally shot by 4-year old.
Last edited by Deepvoid; 04-09-2013 at 10:59 AM.
Active Member
That's a great way to go about it if your goal is an authoritarian system. Your approach is, unfortunately, very common. It's what happens when you grow up in a world that focuses on authority. "what the people are allowed to do" is the model for most government models that have existed through history and that exist today. It's ingrained into everyone.
Why should you need some concrete determination that grants you a right? fuck that. How about needing a concrete determination for telling people what they CANNOT do. All your rights are implicit if there isn't an implicit restriction. Any time you want to reduce freedom, you need to have exhausted all other options. Reduction in freedom should always be the last option.
This is one of the core differences in how the USA was modeled.
The Lurker Abides
In somewhat related news, http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/09/justic...html?hpt=hp_t2
Guy stabs 14 people at a university in Houston, aiming primarily for the face and neck. How is this story related, may you ask? Every comment section on the internet and many, many people that I know are using this as a platform to scream, "Well I guess we need to ban high capacity assault knives now! Hyuck Hyuck Hyuck I'm so goddamn funny! But seriously, if everyone on that campus had been armed, this guy wouldn't have stabbed anyone!" It's exhausting to hear/read.
His parents were next door at a neighbors. A 4 year old was able to get access to a loaded gun (apparently with ease), take it outside, and shoot his friend in the face. Fuck. I have a pistol and if I was EVER fucking stupid enough to leave it lying around where my 5 year old could have access to it and use it to kill someone, I should be charged with fuckin murder.
Last edited by hollowed_point; 04-09-2013 at 09:24 PM.
Bite me
In other gun news, the husband and I are getting a couple of BB-gun pistols plus some Camo Ammo and we're gonna do target practice in the back yard. Our friends (both intellectuals, one an art professor, the other an IT geek) do "Hillbilly Holiday" out back in the summer with their BB guns and we are totally jealous. Looking forward to setting up the cans and targets and firing some BBs. Because target practice with environmentally-friendly camo BB's are more fun than bullets; and cheaper, too!
(alternative motive: asshole neighbor behind us installed a giant hillbilly headlight on the back of his $750,000 house and now he's fucking with us because I asked him politely to tone it down but he was an asshole so now we're gonna practice "shooting out the lights" so to speak. In between hiring a fence company and planting new Thuja Green Giant grow-to-50-feet-anti-asshole-evergreen trees).
the world would be a safer place with less bullets and more BB's.
edit: and less assholes
Last edited by allegro; 04-10-2013 at 11:14 AM.
Hierba Gatera
Chas Tenenbaum would disagree.
Throbbing Member
All well and good, but kind of tangential to where I'm coming from. Still, at least you're telling me what your view of "how freedom works" is.
My point is that there are ways people exercise freedom that have negative impacts ("externalities") on others. How should these be taken into account in your view?
Exercising my freedom to drive a car can have negative impacts (injury, death, property damage) on others if I do so in a reckless manner.
Exercising my freedom to speak freely can have negative impacts (defamation, incitement of racial hatred) on others if I do so with malicious intent.
Exercising my freedom to run a company can have negative impacts (pollution/environmental destruction, inflicting of physical and psychological harm on customers and employees) if I put profit ahead of ethical behaviour.
(Note: I am far from advocating the banning of any of the above activities, just illustrating the benefit of regulation in curbing undesirable by-products).
My view is that gun regulation fits in with the above relatively uncontroversial (I hope...) areas where a central authority balances the rights of the individual with the rights of society as a whole. Another facet of the licencing system for guns here in Australia is the requirement to join a club and demonstrate responsible, safe use and storage of guns. Surely law-abiding gun lovers wouldn't find this too difficult - I'm sure many meet those requirements as is.
Active Member
This one is easy. Define a set of rights that must never be infringed by others. AKA "you can do whatever the hell you want as long as it doesn't harm others. Harm is defined as: x, y, z" You'll have to also include a hierarchy of rights for the edge cases where securing one right may impede another. If someone ever impedes on those rights, there must be harsh penalty.... especially if negligence or malicious intent are involved.
It would be silly to universally remove access to cars because a fraction of people have issues responsibly owning them. Even a smaller portion of people have issues responsibly owning a gun yet many seem more accepting of removing some/all access due to a perceived lower utility of a gun vs a car. That's exactly why I was saying that utility should have no part in determining a freedom/right. It's the *reduction* of a right that needs to be heavily examined and weighted.
Yea sure, there are some people who then talk about regulating guns in the same way that cars are regulated. This completely misses the point in the above paragraph. I personally wouldn't mind that sort of regulation but... The first step has failed if you are using one regulation to justify another. You need to examine all other routes first. If all other routes fail, THEN examine a reduction in freedom VERY stringently. Saying "but cars are regulated" is just lazy. It also ignores the fact that guns are explicitly defined as a right and cars aren't (thus making them a higher right with a higher bar when impeding them) but again... comparing the two is a lazy way to produce justification.
tempus est umbra in mente
and so now Breitbart is citing a survey of law enforcement personnel asserting that 79% feel that "universal background checks will have zero impact on violent crime."
While I don't understand the logic behind that at all, why the fuck would police officers be opposed to background checks?! I know I know, it's Breitbart, and you can't trust a goddamn thing they say, but what the hell is going on here, and what could possibly be the rationalization behind that stance?
Why would anyone, least of all a police officer, disagree with the idea of universal background checks?!?!?!
Last edited by Jinsai; 04-10-2013 at 05:13 PM.
Add Violins
I think the "concrete determination" in this case would be our pressing need to reduce gun violence in this country. The risk-to-benefit ratio of our current gun laws isn't where we want it. They're failing at what they were designed for (ensuring safe gun use), so naturally they need to be revised.
Active Member
"risk-to-benefit ratio" ... again with the perceived utility as justification.
It's interesting that you have to focus on utility for your stance to not fall apart. If you focused on just risk, your desire to increase regulation (or even ban) guns would be ridiculous. There are a lot of things that are higher risk that you could go after but those things don't tie into your fears. Fear seems to be the primary motivation behind much of the gun control. Fear is not rational. Fear is not a concrete determination. Fear almost always makes bad decisions.
Last edited by DigitalChaos; 04-10-2013 at 07:05 PM.
Active Member
You mean like fear of being killed by gun-toting intruders? You mean bad decisions like buying guns?
Active Member
This has nothing to do with the removal of a right. You are perfectly free to make any bad decision you want as long as it doesn't impede on someone else's right.
How hard is it to understand that you do not have to justify rights? The removal of rights is what must be justified. Why is this such a foreign concept to people? Anyone take US history or US government classes? Fuck...
Contrary to popular belief, we don't live in a country where the government LETS you do things or grants you rights. The justification lies in the removal of rights. It's a similar thought pattern to "innocent until proven guilty." Coincidentally, that is also starting to be eroded. What you are doing when you use the utility of a right is the equivalent to "well, you can't prove you are innocent so that means you are guilty"... It's both wrong and fucking lazy.
Active Member
You mean bad decisions like leaving loaded guns around where there are kids? You mean someone else's right to not be killed?
http://gothamist.com/2013/04/10/6-yr..._shot_by_4.php
Also, let's talk about the circularity of these self-perpetuating "rights." We only believe that you need a gun to protect yourself because there are so many people with guns out there already. So it's the saturation of guns that has created this "right," by which self-protection entails also the possession of a gun.
Your right to self-protection would not extend to gun ownership unless gun ownership were already an established norm. Which it is, and which it shouldn't be, because it 30,000 dead people a year is a lot of collateral to perpetuate the so-called right to own a gun.
You have no right to mass murder.
Active Member
Authority and the idea that government grants rights is so ingrained into that you literally cannot grasp what I am saying. Pretty amazing.
You are continuing to prove my point.
Active Member
Second amendment? Government-created and granted.
Other than that...right to self-defense? Like I said, it only is considered to extend to guns because other people have them, hence the circularity of the argument.
Rights do not exist in any objective way, they are narratives we agree upon, which are then coded into law.
As for human rights...the community is merely extended to mean the globe: a standard is set, then the law follows.
Bite me
Libertarians only care about guns when the government cares about guns.
Last edited by allegro; 04-10-2013 at 10:18 PM.
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