Gun Control

[The Grand Nudger]

I wonder how many gun-rights supporters on this board have ever been present when a fellow human being was shot to death.

Boru

Could start a poll.  What sorts of correlations do you think we might find?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I wonder how many gun-rights supporters on this board have ever been present when a fellow human being was shot to death.

Boru

Could start a poll.  What sorts of correlations do you think we might find?

As a wild guess, people who have seen someone shot to death might be less likely to keep a firearm in their home.

Boru

[Whateverist]

Um, I don't think that would always be true, especially if the person in question .. *cough* *Rhythm* *cough* .. was the one doing the shooting. Crazy as it sounds, I'm actually not too worried about the guns in his possession. But the moment he dies I suggest someone pry them out of his hands and get them off the street.

[Pyrrho]

I wonder how many gun-rights supporters on this board have ever been present when a fellow human being was shot to death.

Boru

Interesting question.  My father-in-law is a retired police officer, who also worked as a guard at a hospital emergency room some years ago.  I am sure that he saw gunshot wounds, if not on the job as a police officer, on the job as a security guard at an emergency room (though in that case, he would only be looking at the results, and not be present while the person was being shot).  He did not like having a gun, but it was required for his job, and as soon as he got home, the first thing he did was empty the bullets from the gun, and lock up the ammunition in one strongbox, and lock up the gun in another strongbox.  He did not want his children (or anyone else) getting their hands on either the gun or the ammunition, and he was not living in fear that someone would kick down his door and murder him, as the odds of that are pretty low.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I wonder how many gun-rights supporters on this board have ever been present when a fellow human being was shot to death.

Boru

Interesting question.  My father-in-law is a retired police officer, who also worked as a guard at a hospital emergency room some years ago.  I am sure that he saw gunshot wounds, if not on the job as a police officer, on the job as a security guard at an emergency room (though in that case, he would only be looking at the results, and not be present while the person was being shot).  He did not like having a gun, but it was required for his job, and as soon as he got home, the first thing he did was empty the bullets from the gun, and lock up the ammunition in one strongbox, and lock up the gun in another strongbox.  He did not want his children (or anyone else) getting their hands on either the gun or the ammunition, and he was not living in fear that someone would kick down his door and murder him, as the odds of that are pretty low.

Your father-in-law is the perfect example of how people should own, maintain, and use firearms.  If that was a universal norm instead of the all-too-rare exception, my issues with gun ownership would vanish like a fart in a typhoon.

Boru

---

Um, I don't think that would always be true

Nor do I, which is why all the qualifiers in my statement.  I'm sure that there are a fair number of people around who would see someone shot to death and think, 'That was soooooo cool!!'
The technical term for these people is 'fucking lunatics.'
Boru

[Pyrrho]

Interesting question.  My father-in-law is a retired police officer, who also worked as a guard at a hospital emergency room some years ago.  I am sure that he saw gunshot wounds, if not on the job as a police officer, on the job as a security guard at an emergency room (though in that case, he would only be looking at the results, and not be present while the person was being shot).  He did not like having a gun, but it was required for his job, and as soon as he got home, the first thing he did was empty the bullets from the gun, and lock up the ammunition in one strongbox, and lock up the gun in another strongbox.  He did not want his children (or anyone else) getting their hands on either the gun or the ammunition, and he was not living in fear that someone would kick down his door and murder him, as the odds of that are pretty low.

Your father-in-law is the perfect example of how people should own, maintain, and use firearms.  If that was a universal norm instead of the all-too-rare exception, my issues with gun ownership would vanish like a fart in a typhoon.

Boru
...

I have no problems with responsible gun ownership.  The problem is, as you say, that there are too many irresponsible idiots with guns.

(As an aside, if my father-in-law ever pointed a gun at me, I would be very afraid, not because he might accidentally shoot me, but because I would know that he intended to shoot me if he ever did such a thing.  That is the responsible way with a gun; never, ever point it at anyone unless you intend to shoot them and are fine with killing them.  That idea applies regardless of whether it is "loaded" or not.  Anyone who points an "unloaded" gun at someone as a joke is a fucking idiot who should never be allowed to have a gun.)

[CapnAwesome]

When the 2nd amendment was written, it was some 230 years ago.  They said they wanted a well regulated militia because it proved the best way to defeat an enemy.  Guess what we have a well armed militia and we spend billions on them every year.  If you are so afraid of the government, why do you elect right wing nut jobs that give this much fucking money to our militia?  It makes no sense.  You drive around with the mercian flag and talk about pride in merica but you are afraid of the government?

We need to take the amendment in context of the time they were written.  The next amendment or commonly known as the 3rd amendment is the one that gives you the right to not let soldiers occupy your home.  We really don't have a problem with that, just like we don't have a problem with a well armed militia.  I know it is hard, but we have to understand that the constitution and the amendments were written by men, not "gawd" so there is a chance albeit a slim one that we need to think critically about the time that these documents were written and apply the meaning in todays term.

The funny thing about this argument is that people have been saying that from pretty much a generation after the constitution was written. Does free speech not matter because it was concieved hundreds of years ago? Or Freedom of the press, or rights against search and seizure? You could use that argument as a blanket argument to strip us of all our rights. Also I think that the thing about the soldiers is actually an important right. It's a protection of the citizens against the military, the same as the second amendment. Of course we don't have a problem with it, because we made a law against it.

[Cinjin]

This thread got me thinking about making a poll .... Click to vote and comment.

[nihilistcat]

We spend a meager $4.8 billion per year on cancer research (we used to spend more, but we cut research funding). while we spend hundreds of billions on police and prisons, and trillions in the name of terrorism. For perspective, we lose about 10,900 people each year to gun violence, if we were to average out how likely getting killed in a terrorist attack is, we would find that it's less likely than being struck by lightening, while we suffer nearly 600,000 deaths each year due to cancer, nearly 8 million deaths per year worldwide, well over 100,000 deaths per year are attributed to poverty in the US (millions worldwide die each year because of poverty and hunger and preventable disease), while the DNC and RNC has their chickenhead disciples blithering on about spooky brown men, jihad, and gun control.

It seems like this sort of partisan posture is more about tribalism than substance (as an atheist, I find it sad that a bunch of self-proclaimed atheists are suckered by tribalism just as easily as the average religionist). I'm pretty sure everyone here is smarter enough to know better. 

I can see supporting the dems as the lesser of two evils (although I'm not even sure how sound that strategy is, considering the dems manage to placate the public and quell popular resistance), but otherwise, don't get your panties in a bunch for the DNC, as George Carlin said (I paraphrase), THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think that the general consensus is that we don;t have to choose between solving any single one of those problems - we could make an effort at all of them...however, I agree with you..that we seem to devote inordinate amounts of attention to some problems and mystifyingly little to others.  I don;t think that doing so actually promotes an environment in which we can make that good faith attempt at all of our problems.  I think it provides an angst dump, and a ready made opportunity to stump to your constituency - and nothing more.  

Look at the last big attempt to reduce gun violence/crime.  Such an impressive failure that the DOJ..not traditionally an organization in the habit of relinquishing power or authority once granted....was not interested in it's renewal.  I can't help but suspect that it's failure was due to a flaw in how we approach the problem, personally.