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2012 Presidential Election

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  • No, it's because a non-trivial amount of gun owners are fucking stupid. They also do not have the required training to handle high stress situations. Going to the range once a month does not make you qualified to handle this sort of situation and you are far more likely to get more people killed than to actually help.
  • No, it's because a non-trivial amount of gun owners are fucking stupid. They also do not have the required training to handle high stress situations. Going to the range once a month does not make you qualified to handle this sort of situation and you are far more likely to get more people killed than to actually help.
    So criminals are not part of that subset..?

  • Criminals with guns are known threats. You can at least try to rationally act when you encounter one. Getting shot in the back by Joe Dumbfuck ccp is a completely unknown variable.
  • No, it's because a non-trivial amount of gun owners are fucking stupid. They also do not have the required training to handle high stress situations. Going to the range once a month does not make you qualified to handle this sort of situation and you are far more likely to get more people killed than to actually help.
    I agree that it takes much more training than the average law-abiding gun owner posses to safely stop an armed attack before 0-1 people are shot at. However, when I hear of these lunatics shooting 10, 20, or more people I think the possibility drastically rises that a law-abiding gun owner could greatly improve that outcome.

  • Criminals with guns are known threats. You can at least try to rationally act when you encounter one. Getting shot in the back by Joe Dumbfuck ccp is a completely unknown variable.
    I think this requires an assumption that criminals are competent crime commiters.
  • It's not a stretch. The people that commit these sort of large scale sprees spend months planning and learning how to use their guns. They are in a prepared mindset. Fatass in the theatre comping on nachos is just going to fuck up.
  • RymRym
    edited July 2012
    I'm not worried about criminal gun owners because they're both a tiny minority of the population and clearly not deterred by laws against their behavior. You can't regulate them away, and they're similarly difficult to deal with as co-called "closed door" murders.

    But in New York? ANY use of a gun, criminal or in self-defense, runs a major risk of bystander casualties. Guns are a terrible self-defense tool compared to stunguns or tasers.

    More importantly, murder is extremely rare in the United States. So few people are murdered per year, coupled with the fact that most people murdered are so killed by someone intimate to their personal lives anyway, that the idea of carrying on one's person at all times a lethal weapon just in case one of those ultra rare stranger-murders occurs is ridiculous.

    I don't care if people outside of the cities own guns and go shooting. But carrying a handgun for self-defense on the streets in New York is an idiotic idea.
    Post edited by Rym on
  • Criminals with guns are known threats. You can at least try to rationally act when you encounter one. Getting shot in the back by Joe Dumbfuck ccp is a completely unknown variable.
    How many reports are there of this scenario? I'm not saying it hasn't happened or can't happen, but I hear much more of these types of reports:
    1) Gun owner leaves gun to be found by someone untrained to safely handle it (usually a child) and said individual shoots self or other bystander. Tragic.
    2) Criminal uses gun to kill other(s) and often self. Sad, but at least deliberate and if you take the gun away (which isn't realistic in the U.S.) another method would be sought out.
  • edited July 2012
    How many reports are there of this scenario? I'm not saying it hasn't happened or can't happen, but I hear much more of these types of reports:
    Linky
    Edit: You forgot the following

    3) Adrenaline filled man shoots relative/friend X at night thinking they are an intruder when really they just wanted a midnight snack.
    Post edited by Andrew on
  • NeoNeo
    edited July 2012
    I'm not worried about criminal gun owners because they're both a tiny minority of the population and clearly not deterred by laws against their behavior. You can't regulate them away, and they're similarly difficult to deal with as co-called "closed door" murders.

    ...

    I don't care if people outside of the cities own guns and go shooting. But carrying a handgun for self-defense on the streets in New York is an idiotic idea.
    To your first point, the fact that criminals are not deterred by laws is exactly why gun control does not have the desired effect. It simply takes a privilege away from law-abiding citizens and does not have the desired effect of removing a tool from criminal use.

    I can't argue against your last point, I fully agree with that logic especially since you have qualified it with the allowance for other forms of self defense.

    I think gun-control discussions could be split into two sub-topics: sport shooting and every-day carry in public places.
    Post edited by Neo on
  • I think that if you make guns difficult to get, school shootings are going to become school bombings instead. I'd much rather my kids' teachers be carrying than that. Even if they're carrying tasers/whatever instead of a firearm.

  • To your first point, the fact that criminals are not deterred by laws is exactly why gun control does not have the desired effect. It simply takes a privilege away from law-abiding citizens and does not have the desired effect of removing a tool from criminal use.
    I don't want law-abiding citizens carrying handguns on the streets of New York. They're way more dangerous to me than any criminal.

    Thus, I don't care what the federal or state regulations are: I simply enjoy my own pragmatic local restrictions. The fact that there are very few guns in Manhattan, even legal ones, is probably a good thing.

  • How many reports are there of this scenario? I'm not saying it hasn't happened or can't happen, but I hear much more of these types of reports:
    Linky
    Edit: You forgot the following

    3) Adrenaline filled man shoots relative/friend X at night thinking they are an intruder when really they just wanted a midnight snack.
    I'd like to see a study that analyzed news reports over the last 30 years and classified death/injury due to firearms into these three categories (or more) so we could see if one of us is giving undue weight to events we remember or can find via a Google search.
  • http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/colorado-shooter-identified-as-james-holmes-24/2012/07/20/gJQAWkdrxW_story_1.html

    This story is SUPER ambiguous about whether the mother was saying "You have the right person [, my son is definitely the shooter]" or "You have the right person [, that's my son who's been charged.]"
  • Does anyone here believe concealed or open carry of handguns in a dense urban center is still a necessary right if both ranged and personal electric stun weapons were available for self-defense purposes?
  • NeoNeo
    edited July 2012
    Thus, I don't care what the federal or state regulations are: I simply enjoy my own pragmatic local restrictions. The fact that there are very few guns in Manhattan, even legal ones, is probably a good thing.
    That's not what Law & Order leads me to believe, it seems like there are guns everywhere in Manhattan :) /sarcasm

    I'm just joshin' with you. Point taken.
    Post edited by Neo on
  • Does anyone here believe concealed or open carry of handguns in a dense urban center is still a necessary right if both ranged and personal electric stun weapons were available for self-defense purposes?
    I'm super leery of the stemming of ANY rights given the dystopian march of the last 12+ years. Pragmatically speaking? Probably not. But the slippery slope looks pretty slippery to me lately.
  • Does anyone here believe concealed or open carry of handguns in a dense urban center is still a necessary right if both ranged and personal electric stun weapons were available for self-defense purposes?
    My only concern about less-lethal defense weapons is that they may earn even less respect than that people show firearms. I have no evidence to support this, other than a general "if people are stupid with something as dangerous as a gun, they'll be even dumber with something 'non-lethal'."

    I do agree with different gun restrictions based on locality. NYC is simply too densely populated for me to be comfortable with relaxed CC regulations.
  • While I am pro-gun, I also agree with Rym that guns purely for self-defense are actually a negative unless someone is properly trained. Sport shooting/hunting/etc. is a different case entirely. Restrictions on using guns in crowded areas like NYC seem pretty reasonable if balanced by saying "you can still own a gun for sport shooting by keeping it in a locker at Joe's Licensed Basement Shooting Range" or even a gun locker in your own home, provided you don't walk around the city with it loaded (some provisions must be made to let you take it, unloaded, to Joe's Shooting Range or perhaps your weekend hunting lodge in Vermont or whatever).

    Teachers with guns in schools are a bad idea in general, unless the teacher is a retired Marine or something (we had a couple in my high school). Again, I can't trust that the average, untrained teacher is capable of accurately shooting a gun at an assailant in a crowded classroom without accidentally shooting an innocent. Accredited training, either from a independent instructor or from military/police/etc. experience, should be mandatory for anyone who wants a CCP, no matter where you live. Even so, I'd still feel uneasy about someone with civilian training carrying around a gun for personal defense purposes.
  • I think it has to be a given that any government employee (like a teacher) who is going to be carrying a gun would have to be trained and certified up the ass in order to qualify for the program.

    Still, tasers would do.
  • Gun control is better left to state and local governments to regulate. The necessity for certain firearms and environment is vastly different between NYC and Bumfuck Nebraska.
  • Gun control is better left to state and local governments to regulate. The necessity for certain firearms and environment is vastly different between NYC and Bumfuck Nebraska.
    True, so long as the restrictions are not completely unreasonable. Exceptions such as the "Joe's Shooting Range locker" example I gave above are a good balance between maintaining the safety of a crowded city and allowing a sport shooter to own a gun for his/her hobby.
  • Are they blaming the Batman shooting on video games yet?
  • edited July 2012
    Are they blaming the Batman shooting on video games yet?
    Yes. Also, the tea party, Trekkies/Geek culture, Guns, Athiests, bullying and depression, and Occupy wall street.

    Honestly? I think the fact that it was a good twenty minutes before I knew what had happened, but knew something had occured because of the fucking flood of gun control tweets and posts I saw around, that tells you something about the attitude of many people regarding this tragedy - They don't give a fuck about the people killed, or pay them lip-service at best. The important thing to them is the advance of their political agenda, and they're perfectly happy to shoehorn a few more dead bodies into it, before said bodies have even had a chance to cool.

    Post edited by Churba on
  • Bane Capital is clearly responsible for the shootings.
  • Bane Capital is clearly responsible for the shootings.
    image
  • The shootings are a hoax. Had there actually been a shooter, Batman would have materialized out of the film reel and taken him down. Batman ain't letting anyone's parents die at a theater.
  • Gun control is better left to state and local governments to regulate. The necessity for certain firearms and environment is vastly different between NYC and Bumfuck Nebraska.
    I'd agree, but Phoenix, AZ has proven that such trust is a bad idea.
  • Gun control is better left to state and local governments to regulate. The necessity for certain firearms and environment is vastly different between NYC and Bumfuck Nebraska.
    I'd agree, but Phoenix, AZ has proven that such trust is a bad idea.
    Phoenix, AZ is for Phoenicians to deal with.
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