Democrat buys semiautomatic rifle at Va. gun show in under 10 minutes - Polidicks

Okay well you have the reading comprehension and critical thinking skills of a crack addict so I was just asking.

Your posting quality has spiraled as the thread has gone on. I was going to post earlier and ask you if you even know what you are arguing for anymore. I'm glad I'm not the only one that sees this.

I'm arguing that there should be action about this rather than endless debate about whether there should be action about this. That action on this matter is something that needs be done, can be done, and should be done. My points have remained constant, as have my positions.

For example: This post is complete nonsense. You took what I said, turned it inside out, and then waved this blatant mutilation of truth around like a bludgeon. You did it earlier, too. Either you are at this point willfully attempting some kind of doublespeak campaign or your critical thinking facilities have deteriorated past the point of rational discussion. Because your posts at this point are completely devoid of sense.

So, this is the definition of a 'slippery slope fallacy'. "in which a party asserts that a relatively small first step leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant (usually negative) effect." Please demonstrate how what I wrote is not also a slippery slope.

Doing nothing isn't a slippery slope. A slippery slope is a cascade of doing things wherein the things progressively get worse; you can't have a slippery slope of nothing.

Right. The issue here isn't if something should be done. Literally everyone in the thread is in agreement that something should be done. The issue is with how you think action should be taken, and your wildly outlandish idea of how to go about that. No one is arguing that we should sit on our hands. But like we said pages ago, you want to just shotgun everything at once and somehow formulate this huge uprising of fearing people, and that just is not realistic if you want to actually make progress. Remember how in school they always told you that when you have a big goal in mind that you should break that goal down into smaller goals so it's easier to achieve? That applies here too. You can't just bullrush the issue and think everything is going to work. Hit it smart, methodically, and effectively. Not from the perspective of "we should do anything and everything, even if it saves just one life", because that doesn't accomplish anything except failed attempts and rhetoric.

Choosing to do nothing is a choice to do actively nothing. It is a thing you have chosen to avoid doing, despite things getting progressively worse by your inaction. You are aware of the problem, you have chosen to do nothing about the problem; you are choosing to do nothing. If you continue to do nothing, you are continuing to choose to do nothing; if you think doing something when things get progressively worse is worse than doing nothing, then you have arrived on a slippery slope of doing nothing. Which is worse: Attempting to do everything and maybe accomplishing something or endless debates to seek a perfect solution while ultimately doing nothing? My vote is firmly for the latter.

You guys really should just stop replying to Umbra, he's clearly out of his fucking mind.

I don't need a minute. Here's my concise, firm, and clear statement about what we should do about this issue: Stop having endless debates about it and doing everything we can about it.

Which is worse: Attempting to do everything and maybe accomplishing something or endless debates to seek a perfect solution while ultimately doing nothing? My vote is firmly for the latter so basically you are just here to endlessly debate and accomplish nothing?

When defusing a bomb do you just start snipping random wires and hope for the best? Lives are on the line. What we have right now is not ideal but the murder rate is declining slowly but steadily without us doing anything at all. Introducing random changes to the system as it is could cause spikes or cause the rate to climb. No action should be taken that hasn't been adequately researched when missteps could cost lives. When you are just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks the odds of a misstep are far higher than the odds of getting it right.

The solution to that response is to refuse to accept it as a valid response.

So your answer is "do something". Ok, well I did. I donated to MN GOCRA, attended their protests, and petitioned my senators which lead to infringing bills being shot down in my states congress. But that's neither here or there. Here we're having a debate, and you're trying to pull out with the whole "stop debating, do something" scheme that really just means you failed your argument and are now trying to save face.

Okay well this particular bomb happens to be ticking backwards. If you leave it alone it will eventually more or less defuse itself. But for some reason you are insisting on snipping a wire to see what happens.

Debates exist so that you can make the best decision that you possibly can, this is why scientific debates can go on for decades before reaching a conclusion. Endless debate isn't inherently bad, there is no true sense of urgency to fix this, it's not like america will self destruct in 5 weeks if we don't fix it exactly right now. A poorly informed solution executed poorly is not better than a well informed and well executed solution that happens later.

Senators worry about things which might lose them a seat or their donors. Their voters have at least some firm control of both these levers -- if they can coordinate enough to demonstrate that they can use them. If a movement grows large enough that it demonstrates that it needs to be listened to, they will listen to it.

Well real life don't work that way, we have to put forth our best effort with the best knowledge we have at the time. You're acting as if your ideal world is some perfect utopia that will work. Reality is it will not, we have real resource restrictions such as time, money, and support. Doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff or trying to just see what happens does not work when it comes to legislation and laws. The shit we pass through our gov't has real consequences and can have rippling effects which none of us have seen. Point is, we have to use our resources wisely and ideally make laws based off of facts. Not emotional appeals, not off of what ifs, not for shits and giggles.The whole point is to get away from our political system which throws shit on the wall and sees what sticks, not add more shit to it.

Firgof I would like to point out that your type of panic "do something!!!" regulations resulted in shoestrings being classified as machine guns at some point. Obviously your approach is not adequate.

You're also ignoring the fact that the system is highly rigged and benefits the individual who holds power. Normal people do have a voice, but what you are saying is pretty, naive, people do not have nearly as much power as you think.

I don't think that's a good analogy at all for the problem at hand. Or at least, I hope it isn't. The corollary would be, to that, that 'gun violence will solve itself because there'll be nobody left to shoot a gun'. It's not going to defuse itself because that corollary isn't what's going to happen by any likelihood. I'm insisting that we snip a wire rather than endlessly debate on how to disarm a bomb. If we have zero idea what doing anything could do because we can't understand the full nature of the bomb, the only logical course of action is to do something and hope to learn what to do from that action, picking the best option we can theorize from the options we have to choose from.

I sold my Glock on Armlist. Super easy.

I didn't say there weren't restrictions. I'm saying the main restriction is how much you're willing to fight for something.

So once again you're saying "do something". Guess what, where you didn't we did. You just didn't get the outcome you desired, because obviously the majority side with your opinion and so what is must be wrong. Or its because those of us who actually did something happened to do so in favor of upholding our rights and you can't believe that others don't side with you. Either way your "do something" argument is a piss poor example as to how to win people to your side.

There is a bomb sitting on my desk that has yet to explode. This is because it was disarmed by a professional who was trained after much research on how to safely disarm this particular bomb. Now it's a cool looking paperweight. If someone untrained did no research on how to disarm this type of bomb that person would almost certainly be dead. The murder rate is already well within margin of error. ~5 in 100,000 and it's only that high because of certain extreme outlier regions (which have already banned guns). The "gun problem" is highly, highly overstated. Despite this I think we could further improve on the situation. You haven't asked me what I think could be done yet, only dictated my positions to me and argued at phantoms.

My position is not that we should stop debating. My position is that we should choose a course of action and walk it while we try and figure out how to solve all the other things we're debating. It feels most like people are jockeying constantly what 'must be addressed first' and therefore saying 'so this should wait until this other thing gets addressed' and so on. We can do multiple things at a time. Also, good for you. If more people were actively doing things like that, I feel this would be much further along and not nearly so stuck in the mud.

Your position is "do something". That's it. We are. So instead of trying to deflect the argument with your position of "doing something" try staying on the task at hand. Believe me when I say the folks debating against you have already and continue to "do something", so repeating your position is literally contributing nothing to the debate we are having here right now.

There are many bombs sitting in evidence lockers which exploded because the defuser 'froze' in a decision-lock where they couldn't get themselves to take any action - and so wound up taking no action - and so the bomb exploded. Inaction can be just as deadly as bad action.

You're still avoiding the point. And you still haven't asked me what I think we can do.

I feel like I directly addressed your point. I thought you already stated a few pages back a few things that you thought we could do; or, rather, things you felt we shouldn't do I guess. For instance, you're not for a general gun ban. You're against making illegal the private sale of arms (or at least that appears to be what you think). You think that there should be a nuanced (presumably selectively targeted) set of laws regarding gun control - and that those policies should neither put a heavy burden on present gun owners nor restrict historic firearms (or at least I would assume given your expressed thoughts on historic firearms) What other courses of action would you suggest?