After Las Vegas massacre, Democrats urge gun laws; Republicans silent
853 replies, posted
You can kill far more people by running them over with a large truck than you could feasibly do with a gun over a short period of time. Should we ban large trucks? A plane can take off and dive into a crowd of people long before the air force has time to react, should we ban private aircraft?
The founding fathers couldn't predict the vast majority of modern technology and trying to gauge how they'd react is dumb and unproductive. Everything has become more lethal since the 1700s. Muskets became rifles and machine guns. Carts and carriages became cars and large trucks. Singling out guns is asinine.
[QUOTE=EcksDee;52749358]Yeah no, not what I'm saying.
[/QUOTE]
What a well thought out and educated rebuttal.
[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;52749445]To stand a chance against their government people would need drones, m1 abrams tanks, javelins and MRLS.
You talk cost benefit a musket was OK because its damage was limited you could shoot and kill up to 3 people per minute so the damage is mitigated. An AR-15 or even a glock could kill far far far more than that. Back then there were no police so self defence was regarded differently and much of the country was frontier with much less government control. So the costs and higher and the benefits are lower.
Also by what grasping-at-straws definition or convention is "fight back against their government" a human right? The price of a print goes up, can I choose "fight back against my government" because it's "my human right". Lame argument mang
You can be anti gun control without resorting to these paltry points.
US already has so many guns a recall would be near impossible. US has a load of politicians who've made it their platform to keep guns (almost like its a political card they use to dupe people into voting for them) and its a part of your culture, not just shooting but in expecting people to have guns. In the US cops shooting civs is much higher than the UK (per capita) because in the US the cops can reasonably expect the person to have a deadly weapon. For better or for worse guns are there to stay. That's better than trying to justify it with nonsense.[/QUOTE]
I'm specifically going to address your first point mainly because the next points were not directed at me
[I]To stand a chance against their government people would need drones, m1 abrams tanks, javelins and MRLS. [/I]
This point hinges on the assumption that given the order to fire on the US population at large the military would do so. A weak assumption at best but i'll let it slide. The number of people that own a gun in the US is roughly 106 million (33% of the us population of 323 million which is a conservative estimate that doesn't take into account people that aren't legally allowed to own a firearm) that makes gun owners in the US the largest standing army by a ratio of 46:1. (using china's enlisted number of 2.3 million) The rebellion of the people against the government isn't necessarily the argument here it's the threat of said rebellion what government wants to A. attack it's own people and B. attack it's own people when the armed portion of that populace outnumbers the countries armed forces by a ratio of 75:1? more so if you take into account desertion upon being given the order to fire upon the US's citizens. You talk about a cost benefit analysis in your second point that is a clear example of the cost outweighing the benefit
[QUOTE=EcksDee;52749284]Sorry but you already have a tyrannical government that sells its citizens to those who can make the most profit with them and I don't see you or Mr. Cletus with his 15 shotguns doing anything to stop it.
Even if you did pick up arms, it'd be you against predator drones with hellfire missiles that can kill you and your gathering of Sic Semper Tyranis dudes in the blink of an eye.
The "Defense against a tyrannical government" excuse is the weakest line I've ever seen anyone say about anything ever.[/QUOTE]
While our government is shitty, it is shitty as a result of our own doing. It isn't tyranny, as everyone still adheres to the rules set forth. We can absolutely vote them out if we can ever dislodge our collective heads from our ass.
[QUOTE=EcksDee;52749284]Sorry but you already have a tyrannical government that sells its citizens to those who can make the most profit with them and I don't see you or Mr. Cletus with his 15 shotguns doing anything to stop it.
Even if you did pick up arms, it'd be you against predator drones with hellfire missiles that can kill you and your gathering of Sic Semper Tyranis dudes in the blink of an eye.
The "Defense against a tyrannical government" excuse is the weakest line I've ever seen anyone say about anything ever.[/QUOTE]
Will it be a smart idea to call in a hellfire missile strike in a metropolitan area surrounded by buildings, infrastructure and civilians just to kill a few rebels?
[QUOTE=GunFox;52749876]While our government is shitty, it is shitty as a result of our own doing. It isn't tyranny, as everyone still adheres to the rules set forth. We can absolutely vote them out if we can ever dislodge our collective heads from our ass.[/QUOTE]
Anyone who says the time for violent overthrow of the US government has come is a moron. We still have some semblance of a democracy, we still have some semblance of a government that serves the public trust and the will/needs of the people. We do not have police officers forcing Democratic party leaders into vans at gunpoint. We don't have the National Guard deliberately firing machine guns into crowds of protesters (and I can promise you that if such a thing were ordered, compliance would be low at best). We are not dying en masse of famine or plague. We absolutely do not live in a dictatorship, anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool. (I do happen to believe we're sliding towards a plutocracy, but that's a subject for another thread.)
The pathways to peaceful political change are still open, slow and congested though they might be. We still have hope. Until those pathways are closed and the government ceases entirely to serve the interests of the people, as in Venezuela, it is morally imperative that we follow those paths to change.
War is the ultimate evil we can inflict on one another as human beings. Those who pursue war wantonly are the monsters of history, and wherever possible, ought to be punished for crimes against humanity. Those who would start a civil war instead of pursuing the legal alternatives deserve to be called traitors. Traitors, not just to the government, but to their people and their nation as well.
[QUOTE=Talon 733;52749386]I'd like to see some evidence to support that claim
also we're still waiting for the /s[/QUOTE]
I mean, you guys do have the biggest and most powerful military in the world.
If the government decided to go to war with its citizens, there wouldn't really be much neither Cletus or Joe Average would be able to do
[QUOTE=gokiyono;52750033]I mean, you guys do have the biggest and most powerful military in the world.
If the government decided to go to war with its citizens, there wouldn't really be much neither Cletus or Joe Average would be able to do[/QUOTE]
Why is it that everyone keeps assuming our military would be A-Okay with killing US citizens.
[QUOTE=EcksDee;52749284]Sorry but you already have a tyrannical government that sells its citizens to those who can make the most profit with them and I don't see you or Mr. Cletus with his 15 shotguns doing anything to stop it.
Even if you did pick up arms, it'd be you against predator drones with hellfire missiles that can kill you and your gathering of Sic Semper Tyranis dudes in the blink of an eye.
The "Defense against a tyrannical government" excuse is the weakest line I've ever seen anyone say about anything ever.[/QUOTE]
The Hunger Games, while it takes place in the United States, isn't a reasonable comparison of how the real world government would handle an uprising.
[QUOTE=Ridge;52750071]The Hunger Games, while it takes place in the United States, isn't a reasonable comparison of how the real world government would handle an uprising.[/QUOTE]
why use such analogy, just look at countries occupied by USSR or in sphere of influence ...
so many crushed uprising and attempts to gain freedom, by force
[QUOTE=UncleJimmema;52741923]Take everything you just said, then apply it to any other right.[/QUOTE]
It's silly that guns are a right in the first place. They should be a privilege.
[QUOTE=Dwarden;52750094]why use such analogy, just look at countries occupied by USSR or in sphere of influence ...
so many crushed uprising and attempts to gain freedom, by force[/QUOTE]
That's not a great argument as the ratio of gun owning civilians in russia versus the russian military is less that 1:1 whereas in the US it's 75:1 in favor of the citizens
[QUOTE=AaronM202;52750038]Why is it that everyone keeps assuming our military would be A-Okay with killing US citizens.[/QUOTE]
Adding onto that, why do people think the ONLY purpose the 2nd amendment exists is for an armed insurrection? I mean sure it's probably one of the bigger reasons for its enactment but I said it was for the defense [B]of the country[/B], as in regardless of whether the threat is from within or outside of the country.
Also in times of disaster or civil unrest, the logistics of the government, law enforcement and other services which provide aid will be severely affected. In the meantime while everyone is trying to get their shit together and restore order, you're pretty much on your own. In cases where food is no longer readily available, firearms also allow people to be self reliant whilst having a means of defense against looters.
Saying the 2nd amendment is outdated is like saying there's no reason to prepare for major storms.
[QUOTE=Dwarden;52750094]why use such analogy, just look at countries occupied by USSR or in sphere of influence ...
so many crushed uprising and attempts to gain freedom, by force[/QUOTE]
If I'm remembering it correctly, those were occupations by an outside power, rather than a national government moving to suppress its own citizens. I doubt Russian conscripts had any ties to the people of Hungary, Georgia, Armenia and so on before arriving in those countries.
Try ordering a group of 19 year old kids to march into their hometowns, drag their families and neighbors out of their homes and shoot them in the street. I can guarantee you compliance will be low, at most.
[QUOTE=Psychokitten;52750144]If I'm remembering it correctly, those were occupations by an outside power, rather than a national government moving to suppress its own citizens. I doubt Russian conscripts had any ties to the people of Hungary, Georgia, Armenia and so on before arriving in those countries.
Try ordering a group of 19 year old kids to march into their hometowns, drag their families and neighbors out of their homes and shoot them in the street. I can guarantee you compliance will be low, at most.[/QUOTE]
just look at former USSR ...
half of the states were acquired by force and form of occupation for decades
of course you can't sent soldiers from same city do bad things unless you get something fanatical
that's why soldiers and secret police from east regions were cleansing the west and so on ...
[QUOTE=Amber902;52749478]You can kill far more people by running them over with a large truck than you could feasibly do with a gun over a short period of time. Should we ban large trucks? A plane can take off and dive into a crowd of people long before the air force has time to react, should we ban private aircraft?
The founding fathers couldn't predict the vast majority of modern technology and trying to gauge how they'd react is dumb and unproductive. Everything has become more lethal since the 1700s. Muskets became rifles and machine guns. Carts and carriages became cars and large trucks. Singling out guns is asinine.[/QUOTE]
Trucks are vital to the economy, guns are (I assume) not.
[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;52750237]Trucks are vital to the economy, guns are (I assume) not.[/QUOTE]
Another important distinction to make in that stupid argument is that trucks are designed for transporting goods while guns are specifically made to be efficient at killing shit.
[QUOTE=Dwarden;52750181]just look at former USSR ...
half of the states were acquired by force and form of occupation for decades
of course you can't sent soldiers from same city do bad things unless you get something fanatical
that's why soldiers and secret police from east regions were cleansing the west and so on ...[/QUOTE]
British empire did the same thing with "black and tanned" in Ireland. China did same thing in the recent Hong-Kong protests.
Infact America was the same when dealing with student protests against the Vietnam War, the police were taken from an area with poor education who resented the priviledged cosmopolitan students, brutally beaten protesters were the result.
This is a counter point to the guy who responded to me, a whole population wouldn't take up arms against a government, apathy and sympathy (with the ideology) would probably mean the activists who take up arms would be a minority. People turn on one another, without the army support a rebellion would quickly collapse, especially against the USA
[editline]5th October 2017[/editline]
So yeah fantasies of fighting tyranny with an ar15 are exactly that, fantasies
You know what kinda bothers me.... no one really likes the Trump Administration, right?
People often throw the word around tyrannical regime and refer to him in various other ways for taking away the protections of our citizens (fascist, nazi, authoritarian). These are the same people say that about the gov't and want guns to be taken away because we should be able to trust our government to protect us....
[QUOTE=darkrei9n;52748515]Chicago does have a system like this. I believe it was found to hbe ineffective.[/QUOTE]
Minneapolis has a system like this as well. They're fine for giving you a rough area, but they don't exactly pin-point where a shot is coming from. In downtown Minneapolis it's practically useless because everything echos so much, so it's really only used outside of downtown.
[editline]5th October 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=AlbertWesker;52750140]Adding onto that, why do people think the ONLY purpose the 2nd amendment exists is for an armed insurrection? I mean sure it's probably one of the bigger reasons for its enactment but I said it was for the defense [B]of the country[/B], as in regardless of whether the threat is from within or outside of the country.
Also in times of disaster or civil unrest, the logistics of the government, law enforcement and other services which provide aid will be severely affected. In the meantime while everyone is trying to get their shit together and restore order, you're pretty much on your own. In cases where food is no longer readily available, firearms also allow people to be self reliant whilst having a means of defense against looters.
Saying the 2nd amendment is outdated is like saying there's no reason to prepare for major storms.[/QUOTE]
See Koreans during the LA Riots.
[QUOTE=RichyZ;52750888]You have outliers but most of the dudes saying trump is a tyrant arent the kind of people to own guns[/QUOTE]
That's his point, the same people calling Trump a tyrant also turn around and say we should surrender our arms to the Government. And seeing as elements of the left has also been rather anti-police lately, it gets even more ironic.
[QUOTE=AaronM202;52748175]No, i bet they couldnt accurately predict the exact types of weapons we have today, but to say they were so fucking stupid as to not understand that weapons technology would continually advance in the future is rather shortsighted. In the same way i can imagine weapons will continue to advance and we'll probably end up with a bunch of weird energy based shit like railguns, but i cant accurately describe what they'll really end up as.
Even at the time in the 1700's, they could probably compare their own arsenals to that of the natives or Europes own history of basic bows and axes and hammer and swords vs. big ass war boats, muskets, and cannons and shit.[/QUOTE]
You do realize there was a time when they almost closed the Patent office, because they thought that everything that [I]could[/I] be invented already [I]had[/I] been? And this was at the turn of the 20th century when we had a bit of a technology boom thanks to the Industrial revolution.
You're also talking about a time where a simple concept like the Franklin Stove was considered ingenius, and while they did have weapons that could fire multiple shots very quickly, they were considered unwieldy for their time and impractical, and that was using the most advanced technologies they could muster at the time (not just mechanisms, but manufacturing, metallurgy, and chemistry). We can envision laser weapons and railguns in the future because the technologies for those weapons [I]already exist[/I], the primary obstacles for deploying them are cost and feasibility. Hell, we've had professional aviation engineers build aircraft 60+ years ago that most laymen at the time would look at and say "There's no way in hell that thing can fly", and yet fly they did.
You can find visionaries from all epochs (da Vinci, Jules Verne, HG Wells, Issac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, etc.), but to assume that everyone shares that vision or believes they can become true is every bit as naive as those who said "everyone will have flying cars 50 years in the future!" 50 years ago.
[QUOTE=AaronM202;52748198]Also, i dont even understand what point you're trying to make.
The 2nd amendment has a bunch of applications but the general intent was generally a method for retaliation against a tyrannical government, yes?
So what does it even matter if weapons technology advances and escalates in that context? If anything it'd more of an argument for the proliferation of advanced weaponry, not to take them away.[/QUOTE]
My understanding of the statement saying that a well-regulated militia was crucial to the defense of the state implies that a militia is necessary to defend the nation from hostile forces, domestic or otherwise, as standing-armies weren't a thing in the US until about 70-ish years ago when The Red Menace showed up and perceptibly threatened democracy as we know it. Because standing armies are expensive, yo.
[QUOTE=PandaJuggernaut;52750114]That's not a great argument as the ratio of gun owning civilians in russia versus the russian military is less that 1:1 whereas in the US it's 75:1 in favor of the citizens[/QUOTE]
Hypothetically speaking, if the armed forced WERE to turn on its own civilians, they'd have the advantages of:
Satellite imagery
Air power (they would dominate this hands-down)
Armored columns
Just to name a few.
It takes more than a gun to make an army these days.
[QUOTE=MR-X;52750340]You know what kinda bothers me.... no one really likes the Trump Administration, right?
People often throw the word around tyrannical regime and refer to him in various other ways for taking away the protections of our citizens (fascist, nazi, authoritarian). These are the same people say that about the gov't and want guns to be taken away because we should be able to trust our government to protect us....[/QUOTE]
it's less that people feel their government will protect them, and more them not wanting to get shot with a gun by someone who goes around shooting people with guns.
funnily enough, those who don't like the trump administration and are also calling for gun regulation (in this particular example, a [I]lot[/I] of minorities) find it riskier to own a gun than not, because you constantly end up with shit like "Black Man, Who Had A Gun, Shot On Sight By Police" even though the state's an open carry state and they were walking around in a store, just shopping for groceries or whatever, or they have all the proper licenses to own that gun and it was just in their car's glovebox, etc, etc....
some people in this country can't safely exercise their 2A rights, whether it's for self defense or hobbies, and the way gun culture has built up in america combined with how no other country seems to have this particular issue, it's not surprising people want this stuff more strongly regulated
This video I think does a reasonably good job summing up the current issues.
[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfVY7hFD0pQ[/media]
[QUOTE=Psychokitten;52750144]If I'm remembering it correctly, those were occupations by an outside power, rather than a national government moving to suppress its own citizens. I doubt Russian conscripts had any ties to the people of Hungary, Georgia, Armenia and so on before arriving in those countries.
Try ordering a group of 19 year old kids to march into their hometowns, drag their families and neighbors out of their homes and shoot them in the street. I can guarantee you compliance will be low, at most.[/QUOTE]
Boy you should check out the Khmer Rouge
People were killing their own families.
[QUOTE=cebceb44;52751120]it's less that people feel their government will protect them, and more them not wanting to get shot with a gun by someone who goes around shooting people with guns.
funnily enough, those who don't like the trump administration and are also calling for gun regulation (in this particular example, a [I]lot[/I] of minorities) find it riskier to own a gun than not, because you constantly end up with shit like "Black Man, Who Had A Gun, Shot On Sight By Police" even though the state's an open carry state and they were walking around in a store, just shopping for groceries or whatever, or they have all the proper licenses to own that gun and it was just in their car's glovebox, etc, etc....
some people in this country can't safely exercise their 2A rights, whether it's for self defense or hobbies, and the way gun culture has built up in america combined with how no other country seems to have this particular issue, it's not surprising people want this stuff more strongly regulated[/QUOTE]
So basically your excuses because a small minority firearms are used in crimes and a small portion of criminal elements misuse their firearms we have to go full nanny state and take away guns?
Then on top of it you state that the institution that we're bound to is corrupt and again your response is to disarm the people?
[QUOTE=download;52751246]This video I think does a reasonably good job summing up the current issues.
[/QUOTE]
The problem with her "solutions" are that the ones who feel compassion for their fellow man are often the ones making the emotional arguments one or way the other after tragedies like this. Unless you assume that every gun control move is a veiled effort to centralize force of arms in the state, you have to concede that at the very least most of the people calling for less guns are doing it from an angle of compassion.
[QUOTE=Ignhelper;52751275]Boy you should check out the Khmer Rouge
People were killing their own families.[/QUOTE]
Or the Red Guard in China, for that matter. Point taken.
You have to admit though, setting up shit like that takes a lot of work. Doesn't happen that often. What I keep seeing in civil wars like Libya, Syria and so on, is a large chunk of the national army breaking away and siding with the rebels when the central government orders them to open fire on protesters.
[QUOTE=AaronM202;52750038]Why is it that everyone keeps assuming our military would be A-Okay with killing US citizens.[/QUOTE]
Isn't that what happens in totalitarian shit holes?
But if the military would never go after it's citizens, why would you need guns to defend yourself from the government?
[QUOTE=gokiyono;52751644]Isn't that what happens in totalitarian shit holes?
But if the military would never go after it's citizens, why would you need guns to defend yourself from the government?[/QUOTE]
Post above yours:
[QUOTE]What I keep seeing in civil wars like Libya, Syria and so on, is a large chunk of the national army breaking away and siding with the rebels when the central government orders them to open fire on protesters.[/QUOTE]
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