Is someone who is for gun rights “pro-killing”?
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janbb (
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August 7th, 2019
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I am a gun owner, and I pray I never need to use it.
Sometimes. Though I believe it’s obviously less seldom than routine.
Response moderated (Off-Topic)
No—every registered gun owner is in it for defense.
@janbb That’s a good question actually. It’s not defensive, (i.e, scared of facts) etc., just thought provoking.
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Flo this is general and you have totally derailed this thread.
I am for certain gun rights, I have a gun, but I hope to never have to aim it at anyone or anything. I don’t believe that my nephew should have been allowed to go spend his graduation money on an AK rifle. At 18, he is not mature enough to handle it.
Response moderated
I think the two are totally separate. There are a few people out there who I believe really want to kill someone or something. But not all of them are gun owners. There are millions of legal gun owners in this country, but every one I know hope they never have to use it to kill a person. I know many hunters that enjoy getting a deer or some other prey, but it is the hunt that excites as much as the kill. A kill means you will enjoy the meat or maybe have a trophy. I personally have never understood the need to put an animal head on my wall…but that is a bit off topic. So just owning a gun does not really mean you are pro-killing. I do believe that most gun owners will kill if they have to, but most hope it never comes to that.
^^ I agree and think maybe some parallels could be drawn.
If you own a gun and keep one in your house you have probably already imagined circumstances in which you might need to use it. You have moved one step closer to killing someone.
Most “pro gun ownership” people are probably not pro-killing. Is that similar to “Pro abortion” does or does not mean pro killing (fetuses zygots, just for fun)? No, because the fetus/ zygot didn’t do anything to the woman, rape incest, financial inability to raise the baby etc. (it’s an innocent bystander) or the person who got her pregnant. Self defence does not apply. Gun ownership most likely is about self defence.
@flutherother I own a gun and keep it in my house. I have indeed imagined circumstances where I might need to use it. For example, if someone broke into my home and was attacking me or my family, I might have to use it to defend us. So that might put me a step closer to killing someone. Maybe it puts me a step farther from being killed. But either way, I don’t WANT to kill anyone…I hope my gun gets to sit until it turns to rust before I need to use it to take a life. So from that aspect I am not pro-killing.
That would never occur to me. I don’t think of pro-gun people as being pro-killing.
I own several and they all have their purpose. I will probably never have to use one against a person, the odds of this are extremely low as it would have to be a home invasion and the invader is threatening me or my family, just stealing shit is not enough to justify action. I’m mostly ready for that if it happens. I own a couple for dispensing with pests and for hobby shooting at the range. I have a couple antiques that are sort of an investment and I enjoy tracing their history as they’re a century old and have a story to tell. I don’t really like dispensing with pests either but it is at times needed. The red tail hawks nesting nearby have been doing it for me lately.
There are frankly too many restrictions for me to carry one around and even if there were not restrictions I probably would not out of convenience. I’ll carry pepper spray in areas where I feel the need to carry (all gun free zones) The only time I “carry” is camping/backpacking in the backwoods where it is legal and I’m completely vulnerable.
I am in no way “pro-killing” I’m actually anti-war and I don’t really hunt for sport or food but I’m not against it as I feel it’s more humane than factory farming. I’m pro 2nd amendment but I feel some of our laws are sideways and need reform. I’m the typical gun owner you’ll find in the south. The stigma and spin just are not what people have been lead to believe.
I have seen the typical “gun nut” but they’re not as numerous as you think. It’s usually people with extreme right wing leaning who are gun owners for a political statement. Most of us see these people out on the range on occasion, yeah we don’t like them. They’re a stain on the whole gun owning community. They mostly keep them locked in a safe and never bring them out but they’ll talk all big about them.
are people who are in favor of abortion rights and freedom to choose pro-killing?
No, and for the same reason.
Pro-killing. Perhaps its more willing to kill than wanting to.
Many of my liberal friends and family here also have guns, and I know they’d kill to defend their families.
PS Guns in closets without being cleaned, oiled and no target practice doesnt spur my confidence in your self defense capability folks. Dont water it down too much for our liberals here.
I am not a gun owner and do not pretend to be able to speak for them, but let’s examine the possibilities.
A person could be in favor of killing only as self-defense when someone is trying to kill them.
A person could be in favor of using a gun to disable but not to kill.
A person could be in favor of having a gun only for the purpose of scaring someone away without intending to fire it.
@KNOWITALL Guns using modern smokeless powder do not require much cleaning or oiling. Target practice isn’t required for people who already know how to shoot that piece.
@LostInParadise “A person could be in favor of using a gun to disable but not kill.” This attitude violates one of the principal rules of proper gunplay:
You ALWAYS shoot to kill.
Because anyone only wounded testifies against you in court and you have to pay the medical/therapy costs. So you had best kill them.
“A person could be in favor of having a gun only for the purpose of scaring someone away without intending to fire it.” This also violates one of the principal rules.
NEVER pull a gun on someone unless you are ready and willing to kill.
Because they might have a gun and may take your threat to them more seriously than you take their threat to you.
I would only shoot someone, if I thought they were going to injure, or kill me. My weapon of choice, is a pump action shotgun. The main reason, is because I just have to pump it, and the sound alone has always scared off any potential threat. My first two shells, are actually just bird shot. Although the rest are double odd buckshot. I also have 5 slugs, on a piece of the side of the gun.
I do load hollow points, in my handguns. But, I only have those in my car, and stashed around my house. A pistol, is only to be used to get to my shoty…
I trust what you’ve said earlier about being able to kill someone, @MrGrimm888
I’ve been shot in a robbery once and robbed at gunpoint twice.
I do not think carrying a gun, while nothing wrong with it, is the all-in-all solution. If someone wants to kill me with a weapon, they will sneak and use great stealth, and I recognize that I cannot be drawn and ready and alert at all times.
It is best to know how to disarm or surprise an assailant or personal attacker tham have a weapon. Guns in public should be used primarily if you plan to be prepared to take out an active shooter.
Yeah. I don’t usually carry a knife anymore either. Weapons will usually make a bad situation worse. I hate fighting. But I’d rather go hand to hand with someone, than use a weapon.
@MrGrimm888 I work around a lot of crackheads, so I have a bat in my car, hard plastic. A mad redhead with a bat seems to work…ha!
Is this thread making guns gzillions of them anyway, as harmless?
@KNOWITALL . A bat is a pretty good weapon. I would rather you have mace. But you’ll definitely get no argument from me, about yall redheads…:)
If you have a gun for self defense, you have to be willing to kill if you are threatened. If not, you will just be waving your gun around (as seen in many movies) and the bad guy will take it away from you and shoot you with it.
@Grimmy I need to get mace, you told me that last time. I also got bad girl eyes and swag when I walk in and out.
Guess what? In Springfield, MO a 20 yr old white boy waljs into walmart, gets a vart, full vest and auto across his chest. People freak, mgr pulks fire alarm, dude never opens fire just walks thru mouthing off with his phone up.
So an off duty firefighter with cc, pulls his gun, dude is calm, bad guy just chills and goes to jail. No one hurt. Crazy.
@flo I don’t think so. People recognize how dangerous guns can be. Owning a gun and wanting to use it to take a life are not the same thing. Owning a gun and recognizing the danger that it could take a life is the rule.
@KNOWITALL . Etreemely bothered me. Only up close. But I’d rather toy have different protection. That’s all. I’d take your bat
Msce, is still your best deterrent.
@KNOWITALL actual mace is a regulated thing…not super easy to get. Wasp spray will do just as well, shoots up to 20 ft, and can be bought pretty much everywhere.
@chyna Actually I believe Bass Pro has little canisters you put on your key chain now.
I actually have a mean streak to me that wants to buy a bunch of habanero peppers and throw it in a juicer. Then go get some poison ivy and throw it into the juicer as well. Take the mixture and put it into a super soaker. That would be the mean form of home defense.
@seawulf575 and probably 100% legal. How could a prosecutor seriously consider bringing suit against someone with a vegetarian defense weapon?
I’m sure it’d be called a chemical weapon.
Yes. It would likely be considered, a weapon. Just like an explosive device, made from other household chemicals.
Mace and pepper spray are not the same thing.
@seawulf575 Maybe that’s the rule, and sounds good in theory but, I’m referring to just the accidental deaths and suicides caused by guns, on top of the homicides (whether it’s one victim or mass shooting related).
Pepper spray, mace, are similar…
@flo One of the problems of the gun debate is that it makes gross assumptions to get to the point where you can realistically say guns are being used irresponsibly outside of a few incidents. It starts with the argument that there are 30,000 gun deaths in this country each year. Yes, that is true. But when you start breaking down those numbers you find that 20,000 of them are suicides. So automatically the assumption has to be made that if it weren’t for guns, these people would not have killed themselves. Of the remaining 10,000 deaths, about 7,000 are gang related. These are committed by people that aren’t going to follow the law anyway. And, as with MS-13 as an example, we know they will find some other horrific way to kill someone So now we are down to about 3000 deaths. Toss out another 1000 that are police shootings. Now we are down to 2,000. Out of that 2,000, you include accidental shootings, shootings in self-defense, and yes, murders. But let’s be generous here and say all 2000 were murders. And let’s say that all 2000 were individual murders and all committed by different people…2000 normally law abiding citizens killed someone. There are about 240,000,000 gun owners in this country. That means that 0.0008% of the gun owners might kill someone with their gun.
So to get to the hysterics of claiming guns are the problem, you have to make the assumption that suicides would not happen without a gun, that gangs would not kill people without a gun, that there are no accidents and no one ever kills anyone else in self-defense, and that merely by owning a gun, a person will suddenly become violent and have the irresistible urge to kill someone.
There are other ways that people kill others. Knives kill more people each year than rifles…even those evil AR-15 type. We had the guy in France that took his truck and began a rampage that killed 84 people in one sitting. ISIS used a truck to kill 3 in London. Even in this country, we have 30,000 vehicle deaths each year. But we don’t try talking about banning knives or trucks or cars. The Boston Bombers used a pressure cooker as a base for a home-made bomb. We don’t talk about regulating pressure cookers. There were 70,000 drug overdose deaths in 2017, but we don’t talk about trying to punish drug users…we just want to get them help…help that will only work if they want the help. Most don’t. We act like drug dealers aren’t really hurting anyone and we have seen efforts to decriminalize or at least minimize the penalties for it. We have tried to release thousands from prison. There are all these things that kill people…yet we want to focus on guns instead of the reasons for the killings. What is it about these people that do mass shootings (or drive a truck through a crowd, etc) that makes them want to do that? As soon as the idea of dealing with the causes instead of the tool, the left starts screaming about deflection or gun nuts.
^Goddamnit it. Here we are, in agreement again…
statistics around this are horrible and frankly so full of B.S. it’s hard to take anyone who states them seriously. Say in your county “gun crime” is up 25% Sounds huge but out of half a million people last year there were three gun arrests or citations and this year there were four. Did not even have to be violence related just someone crossed an arbitrary line or was dove hunting with four rounds instead of three. To get to the truth you have to dig deeper.
@seawulf575 , Even if the only consequence of gun restrictions was to reduce those 20,000 suicides, that would be sufficient justification.
@Lost Disagree, not until assisted suicide is legal. Many people here with cancer or incurable disease want to go out on their own terms. While I dont condone it, I respect their right to do so.
My older cousin did it this spring. Bad cancer. His family understood.
Okay, so let’s ask: of those 30,000 yearly shootings with the tiny percentage assigned to mass murder, are all of those numbers and percentages on their way up, or will the further saturation of the country with military grade weapons have no effect on the mass murder rate. What would you expect?
@stanley Military grade weapons like what? I dont know that those have increased, do you? Just curious what you mean by that exactly.
AR-15s, AK47s, Uzis, battlefield weapons.
In some places, Mace is illegal.
In some places, its USE is illegal even though it itself is not.
One of the advantages to wasp spray is, you can always claim you just bought it and happened to have it with you,
@stanley True, theres a lot. People like me, no. People I know, about 1 in 50.
@LostInParadise Again…that is a gross assumption. It assumes that if you got rid of 100% of the guns in the world those 20,000 people wouldn’t commit suicide. That is such a silly assumption I think I will ask you to defend it. If someone gets to the point of wanting to kill themselves, they will do it. I have known several people that killed themselves. One hung himself with a coat hanger. One jumped off a bridge. People poison themselves, OD, cut their wrists, run their cars into bridge abutments or trees, I even heard of one guy that put ankle and wrist weights on, put on a heavy lead vest, and walked into a pond. In fact, I’ve only known one person that shot themselves. The point you make is 100% supporting my argument. We don’t want to deal with the cause, we just want to address the tool.
@stanleybmanly you are, again, trying to conflate things with the anti-gun rhetoric. Military grade weapons are not particularly on the rise and are almost never (if at all) used in any of the mass shootings. AR-15’s are not military grade. They are styled after military weapons but are semi-automatic and have other changes that make them civilian weapons. AK-47’s have been banned in the US since 1986. There are knock-offs that are not fully automatic that are sold to civilians. Uzis are likewise banned. And again, there are knock-offs that aren’t military grade and can be owned by civilians. Basically, these “legal” guns look similar, look scary to anti-gunners, and are called assault weapons and battlefield weapons by those same people. Now it is possible with a whole lot of hoop jumping for a civilian to obtain an actual military grade weapon. But that requires a whole lot of paperwork, background checks, you have to show a need, there are special licenses that are needed, you have to submit fingerprints and picture to accompany your application, you are required to notify the ATF if you move or if you travel and take your weapon with you, etc, etc, etc. And the cost of these automatic weapons is pretty steep. Replacement parts alone cost a fortune.
So to answer to your question, I need more information. How much have actual military grade weapons sold to civilians gone up?
I regularly saw guns that looked like uzis in North Memphis near the Porter Leath center in my volunteer work there back in the early 1990s, and also in the vicinity of North Hollywood and Jackson.
Are you going to go into these neighborhoods and take their guns?
I don’t think any of these on the left can fathom how armed-to-the-teeth these inner city gangs and drug cartels are. And what kinds of weapons they carry even in public.
Instead, the drive is to go after the legal gun owners, most of whom have a very good reason to be armed.
Any time the government wants to take guns from legal, law-abiding gun owners but are not addressing the root causes, or even addressing the problem where tens of millions of guns and homicides occur (the inner city) ... I have my suspicions that they are trying to nullify the citizens right to defend themselves, like in Venezuela, Cuba, or the Soviet Bloc countries.
Anti gun rhetoric? Why not ignore your thoroughly comprehensive list of the tedious hoops and endless paperwork required to obtain what YOU regard as a military grade weapon and concentrate as we are in this discussion on the military grade results these shooters obtain with so-called “civilian weapons”. As your ally Yellowdog just admitted above, lethal weaponry is moving from mere pistols to much more effective means of taking out crowds. You and the NRA insist that the mass shooting coverage is excessive as though the ramping up of such incidents should be ignored. That parallels precisely the most absurd argument you parrot from those dummies that firearms deaths are irrelevant to the numbers of firearms out there. Just plain dumb!!!! As Yellowdog notes, the dummies have already won. There are already too many guns loose for any possible confiscation scheme, and those of the crowd spraying variety are DEFINITELY on the uptick. The results speak for themselves.
@seawulf575 But while solving the root causes of violence (whether the tools are knives trucks into crowd or guns) what can be done? Are AK-47, AK-15s and the accessories (bump stocks etc.) etc. the answer?
@stanleybmanly so you still can’t admit you were wrong. amazing. Now you want to try saying these fools got “military grade results” using civilian weapons? Well amazingly, so did the idiot in Nice France that drove his truck through the crowds. And the idiot that just went on the robbing/stabbing spree. He got military grade results out of his knife, didn’t he?
And I understand how flustered you get when I prove you wrong. I get it. Your ego hurts. So you continue to rant and ramp up the anti-gun rhetoric. It must be what the liberal playbook says to do when cornered by facts.
@flo I guess the problem I have is that I have seen how bureaucracies work. They will try to pass laws that will do nothing but impact law abiding citizens. The effort isn’t to make people safe, it’s to ban guns. And once they do that, they will pat themselves on the back and tell themselves what a good job they did, and they will never do the hard work of trying to figure out why these things happen. And when they continue to happen, they will try to find more ways to remove our rights….never actually getting to the real issue.
All I know is this OP has proven my point. That the term pro gun is used by the the OPer, means there is no “Don’t call us “pro gun” since we’re not pro killing, don’t mislead the public call us “pro-choice”.
@stanleybmanly Soldiers are not going to the battlefield with what civilians are able to purchase here. They have true battlefield weapons. If you ban “assault rifles” A.K.A. ” semi-automatic rifles” you’re pretty well targeting guns in general. It never ceases to amaze me just how much people want to hate on the scary looking ones. Go ahead and ban them, the bulk of the rest work the same. Frankly they’re less effective. Just wait until someone goes to Walmart and shoots the place up with shotguns loaded with buckshot. You’ll go after those next. Then handguns like the Virginia tech shooting, you’ll go after those too. How about hunting rifles like the mini 14 (same operation as the scary AR15) You want those too?? Of course you do. Last thing you want to address is the motivation behind these people. If they don’t have guns they’ll find something else. It’s not the implements it’s the people that need to be addressed. That’s the harder road and people just need something to blame rather than actually do something right.
@seawulf575 please answer my question. Is there a need for AK-47 AK 15 and the bump stocks and you add to the list of things that have nothing to do with self defence?
And trucks and knives are not made for the purposes that the weapons mentioned above are.
And to be perfectly transparent, knives kill more people each year than AR-15s. More deaths by knives than by all rifles together. So while they might have other uses, it is that use that seems to get a pass.
@seawulf575 Re. your post before last, it looks convincing. I would leave it to those of you who know more than me to debate this topic.
Re. your last post, I’m sure the other side would have the opposite stats? I don’t know.
…But what can be done about knives and trucks though, it’s not like ban them right?
Bump stocks, or fully automatic weapons, are actually FAR less accurate, than semi, or single action guns. And, they heat the weapon up far faster, making temporarily useless. Banning them, really has no positive effect, on mass shootings, as far as casualties. The faster rate of fire, the quicker the weapon becomes unusable.
I own a mini-14 (semi-auto.) If I run two 30 round clips through it, quickly, the wooden stock starts to catch on fire. Composite weapons, have even less tolerance for high rates of fire. That’s why Glocks, aren’t a great law enforcement weapon. The composite stock, will actually start melting, after quick firing. That’s why the Vegas shooter had multipleweapons, and also how he was caught. The high rates of fire, set off his smoke detectors.
The A-10 Warthog, has a 30 mm gatling gun. But if it’s fired, for more than about 20 seconds, the barrels will melt off.
Just some education, for those, who don’t know what they’re talking about.
The higher casualty rates, in most mass shootings, have more to do with the killers planning/execution, than the weaponry. I’m not saying that the weapons play no part, but they aren’t the main variable.
@seawulf575 Cornered by facts? To sit here and pretend that that killers are using cars and knives to the extent of firearms in mass executions proves only that you are a hopeless idiot.
@ARE you kidding me Once again, I am telling you that I Am not advocating the confiscation of firearms. For the simple reason that IT IS TOO LATE. You & seawulf should get it in your heads that the gunners have already won. The debate over legislation is a waste of time. The sheer volume of the things renders control of them all but impossible. The gun lobby and its proponents have assured the country’s destiny as a free fire zone shooting gallery, and if you dummies want to stand In front of those 30,000 annual firearms deaths and declare that it is the press and liberals giving guns a bad rap, go right ahead and enjoy your freedom to exploit the “benefits” of our cherished 2nd amendment. I swear before God, it would be impossible to invent a more obdurate crowd of idiots than the collection permeating this country.
I am advocating that you WAKE THE FUCK UP AND RECOGNIZE WHAT IS IN STORE FOR YOU!!!!!!
@stanleybmanly You have not offered any solution, nor have you addressed anything that may be causing people to go off the rails. Basically you’re just calling everyone “dummies.” So my friend, just what do you propose we do here.
Make crazy people illegal?
I propose that you gear up for carnage as you’ve never seen and would not believe possible. Moreover, when (if ever) the casualty rate climbs to the point when people recognize they’ve had enough, the fatalities will continue to climb for decades beyond any remedy enacted. And finally, the rest of the world which regards us as lunatics should be less smug. As determined as we are to continue accumulating these weapons, they are dead certain to show up elsewhere as surely as we exported rock and roll.
^I guess, I have no.argument for that…
And still @stanleybmanly you offer nothing. No suggestions no solutions. Nothing.
@stanley So watch the world burn. Thats what I keep saying, too, inevitable implosion. I dont blame guns though, they are simply tools used for good or ill, by people. Wild West returns, see why no one wants to give up guns?
Listen. Once again, i propose no viable remedy to check the ratcheting gun deaths that would yield results quickly enough for you to notice. The mass shootings of today are the harvest of guns accumulating for years. How many unregistered weapons do you imagine are adrift among us? What would you even guess? I say there is no point in seeking the flaws within us which lead us to kill one another, as gun proponents will tell you, we’ve always done it. All I am promising you is that the easier it is, the more it will happen. And there is NOTHING which renders mass murder more convenient than a country bulging with weaponry.
Guns have been the same for half a century. When will you realize there are other elements at play that need to be addressed also.
Of course there are other issues, but what is the one HUGE factor in our love affair with firearms that distinguishes us from every other place on the planet?
If you want to hurt a lot of people, yes, guns are the low hanging fruit. But I agree with Aykm. And I agree with you Stan, that it’s too late, to ban guns here.
My only possible solution, is to teach coexistence. Not fan it’s flames….
@MrGrimm Says the most self-admitted violent guy here who owns guns. And fits the profile. Just sayin. No offense.
@stanleybmanly Cornered by facts again? Can’t actually provide a solution other than to let the deaths continue to happen? Sad. Meanwhile, I have suggested we stop looking at the tool used and focus on the why of the act. To continue to blame the tool is lunacy.
Meanwhile, you try to deflect me by trying to attribute a statement to me that I didn’t make. AND you try personal attacks to shut me up. When will you learn that never works with me? ” To sit here and pretend that that killers are using cars and knives to the extent of firearms in mass executions proves only that you are a hopeless idiot.” So let’s dissect this statement and see exactly where you have tried rewriting history. I don’t pretend that killers use cars and knives to the extant of firearms in mass executions. I have never made a statement that even vaguely resembles that. But what I have said is that when someone wants to do a mass killing, they can AND DO use other tools. And you cannot even debate that. 84 dead with a van far exceeds the number killed in our deadliest shooting. The Las Vegas shooting was the largest death count at 58. But vans have been use in Nice, London, Barcelona, Toronto, and other areas to kill dozens more. 7 in London, 10 in Toronto, 14 killed in Barcelona..but they are by far not the only cities. So there are a lot of deaths attributed to these attacks. Yet you want to ignore all these lives lost and focus on the evil guns which you know nothing about.
@seawulf575 , I never said that regulating guns would eliminate all suicides, but it would eliminate quite a number. In many cases suicide is an impulsive act. The presence of a gun makes it easy to turn impulse into an act of violence. There are a lot of stories of people who were stopped from killing themselves and who did not ever attempt suicide again.
@Lost I dont think anyone disagrees that people diagnosed with mental illnesses like depression, would purchase a gun. If we have opioid databases, it makes sense to flag a background check for mental issues.
Trump says the NRA is not cooperating. It needs to be done, but mental illness and other issues related to the poor, are often ignored. I sure dont hear and Dems screaming for it in media.
@LostInParadise I somewhat disagree. Very few people have a spur of the moment thought that it is time to end it all. That is something that builds over time. There have, indeed, been people that have been stopped and never attempted it again. But many of those had someone intervene like a suicide hotline or a psychologist or someone in the family that was worried and helped that person get professional help. But in each of those cases, the potential suicide was looking for help.
I think if you talk to those that were talked out of committing suicide, you would find they thought long and hard about how to do it. Having access to a gun only offers another method. Interestingly, it is the method of choice for mainly men. Women are pretty well split between firearms, suffocation/hanging, and poisoning/drug OD.
But my thinking is that if guns were suddenly no longer in existence and were not a factor, you would find other methods rising to the top without much of a change in the overall number.
@KNOWITALL . I have been made to be violent. And I’ve admitted that it is something I’m ashamed of. I have also said, that I retired from law enforcement, BECAUSE I don’t like hurting people.
I guess, I just wish I was never born… I did not get to choose my specialty. I don’t belong here, in this world, that needs people like me. I’m not a violent person. But that is the path, the world has made for me. I’d trade anything, to just be a normal person. I’m ashamed that I come off, as a violent person. I’m sorry… That’s just what I’m good at. It’s a fucking curse…
I’m trying to change my ways. I retired from law enforcement. I don’t carry any weapons anymore. I’m just trying to play the hand I was dealt. If you had the slightest clue, of how I am trying to seek employment, without having to hurt people, or who I actually am, I think you’d have a different opinion of me. But I don’t blame you for your assessment of me.
I wish, I was never born… That would fix everything. I’m sorry to be me… All I can promise, is that I’ve never hurt anyone, who I couldn’t talk down. And I’d rather kill myself, than hurt anyone else… I’m working on my problems. But that’s all I can do. If it makes you happy, you made me cry, by your comments…
@MrGrimm I’m sorry Grimmy. I dont speak truth to wound, but to make you think.
I am sure you have a good heart and every life has value. Yours included.
I just wish ya’ll would stop making us feel bad for wanting to protect our own, too. It doesnt have to be us against them but thats how its turning out because you’re making us choose.
I do not have an effect, on either side.
@seawulf575 of course I can’t provide a solution, and neither can you. You want some simple facts that corner us all? Let’s start with 2. The United States leads the world by far with guns per capita. The United States leads the world by far in shooting deaths and injuries. Now to argue that those deaths and injuries would occur somehow minus the guns is dubious enough, but to stipulate that the numbers of weapons is irrelevant to the numbers of shootings is outright STUPID. I’m sorry, but there is just plain no way around it. There is not a nickels worth of difference between our shooting epidemic and our opioid or speed epidemics. You flood the country with any of them, and all the laws in the world will not spare you exploding casualty rates.
@stanleybmanly I have suggested a potential path to a solution. Stop looking at the tool and look at the reasons for the shootings. What is playing into these peoples’ psyches that makes them want to go kill someone. So far that has been a great big hole in the entire discussion.
As for your facts, you are probably right…we do probably lead the world in number of guns per capita. Legal guns, anyway. But where your facts start to fall apart is where the gun deaths come from. A murder is not the same as a suicide. If you translate things into murder rates (taking out the suicides), the US drops way down the list of countries in the world.
And there is another interesting statement you make. The part about opioids. Opioids destroy lives and not just of the users. Yet there is always a push (mainly from the left) to treat opioid crime as being a victimless thing. Maybe if we treated it as a severe crime instead of making excuses for it, people would think twice before going crazy on it.
In my previoius to last post “Re. your post before last, it looks convincing.” (to @seawulf575‘s “Ar-15’s have been used for self defense many times.” I was wrong. Just because something has been used for defence doesn’t change anything. Knives etc. can and have been used for self defence too.
…But at least knives can’t be used to kill tons of people in seconds.
@seawulf575. Probably right? I’m dead right on both facts and YOU KNOW IT. And to state that one has nothing to do with the other is dangerously close (once again) to that stupid line. If you treat addiction like a serious crime, there aren’t enough jails in the country to hold the “criminals.” “Opioids destroy lives and not just the users” Guns don’t???? Now you can’t claim that we don’t treat shootings as serious crimes, but already there are not enough jails to contain the unregistered gun holders in this country.
@flo You are correct…knives can’t be used to kill tons of people in seconds. But as we just saw, a guy with a knife can rack up a body count.
@seawulf Ninja stars and throwing daggers. If you had amazing aim. RPG’s, land mines. C4
@seawulf575 But that would take time, much much more time than whatever the las Vegas guy used or the lesser ones.
@stanleybmanly you need to wipe your chin…you got some froth there. I mentioned the opioids destroying lives as a way to show how we deal with different threats in our country. There are over 70,000 opioid related deaths each year. That’s 70,000 deaths and doesn’t count the other lives destroyed along the way. Yet we don’t want to treat it as a crime. So there will never be an end to it. We don’t want to stop drugs coming across the border, we don’t want to treat drug sellers as felons, we don’t want to do anything to users that are busted over and over and over again. Meanwhile, gun related murder is, and always has been, treated as a crime. In fact we are trying to push for stronger penalties for it. And don’t act like you are concerned about not enough jail space. We could create jobs building and staffing new jails. But let’s avoid that discussion since it won’t help your frothing issue. I’ll tell you what…when you start acknowledging that it isn’t the tool but the reason for the murders that is the issue and when you start acknowledging that a single murder is a huge loss and an impact on a community instead of treating them as inconsequential, then you will start realizing how out of touch you really are.
I am not saying or treating ANYTHING as inconsequential. I am simply stipulating that gun deaths parallel gun numbers. That IS NOT anti gun. This is a discussion about mass shootings. The reasons for the murders? Pay attention PLEASE. What you are saying in effect is that you would prefer a discussion on mass shootings which doesn’t mention guns. The mere association of the tool with the crime is anti gun! You must understand how preposterous it is to insist on anything so blatantly STUPID .
So if gun deaths parallel gun numbers, then we should never have a downward trend. Yet we do. How do you explain that one without actually saying you were wrong? And you are wrong on part two…this isn’t a discussion about mass shootings. It is a discussion about whether someone that is for gun rights is automatically pro-killing. So you are wrong twice in two statements. Let’s keep going…You claim it is my opinion that the mention of guns in a crime is automatically anti-gun. I have never said that. But what I have said is that without the gun, many deaths would still occur. And I believe it is more important to focus on the “why” of the attacks instead of the tool used. We have focused ad nauseum on the tool and we have seen no real improvements. So you must understand how preposterous it is to insist on rehashing this same discussion. It is blatantly STUPID.
Why should we never have a downward trend. Does global warming mean we shall never see another winter? What you have said is that to concentrate attention on guns in a discussion of mass shootings is anti gun. You would prefer to substitute the word murder for shooting. But these are mass shootings like it or not, 3 in a week impossible to duplicate with a car or knife. Sure you can kill people without a gun, but what is undeniable is that without a gun THESE deaths would not have occurred. My original answer to this question stands. It wasn’t I who shifted the conversation, nor invented the truly asinine proposition that you of all the knuckleheads available could corner me, an idea so ridiculous, I should shoot you myself, so convinced am I that no jury would convict me.
There are over 70,000 drug-related deaths per year. Addiction is a mental health issue. Stigmatizing them creates a barrier to the resources they need to break the cycle. No one wants to be dependent on a substance. No one wants to hurt the people they care about most. No one wants to overdose.
@Raum…that is the standard answer. Yet the only way someone can get better is if they want to. They have to hit rock bottom usually. And before they get there they destroy all sorts of lives and most of them clock out on OD. As long as we say it is a mental health issue and don’t actually address it, we create a tacit acceptance of the situation. We send users to jail, the DA argues to put them into rehab and the judge thinks its a great idea. They all go back to their lives feeling like they are doing something good. But rehab only works if the person really wants to get help. Being told you HAVE to go isn’t the same. I have first hand knowledge of how addicts affect those around them. So the addict goes through his/her rehab and generally starts using again before they are out. They try going to NA meetings, but all the dealers know where and when those are and they show up to help supply the drugs. And the cycle starts again. I have seen people that got arrested over and over and over again and very few ever break the cycle alive. I have first hand experience on how to get them clean again. Putting addicts in jail might sound bad, but it is harder to get drugs in jail and so they go into a forced detox and have time to actually think about where they want their lives to go.
@stanleybmanly Again…you can’t defend your own stupid statements. You stated this: ” I am simply stipulating that gun deaths parallel gun numbers.” You also made the statement ”... or will the further saturation of the country with military grade weapons have no effect on the mass murder rate.” which means you believe that the number of guns is going up in this country (which is probably a fact). But the two together mean that as gun numbers go up, so do gun deaths. And since nothing is driving down the number of guns (by your own words they are going up) we should never see a decrease in gun deaths. But that doesn’t hold with reality. We HAVE seen a decrease in gun deaths. At the same time gun numbers have gone up. So now you are trying to dodge again.
@seawulf575 I recently joined this organization Not yet the “standard answer”, as you claim. But I hope one day that it will be.
There are better ways to help than stigmatizing the people that need the most help.
My brother was a meth addict that was in and out of jail his whole life. He did “clock out on OD” as you stated. But I don’t think it has to be this way.
We have seen a lull in gun deaths. Most demographers attribute the overall decrease in crime to the aging of the postwar population bulge passing through the python. But even with the reduction in shooting deaths, the mass shooting epidemic gallops merrily ahead defying other declining crime numbers as the headlines indicate. Only time will demonstrate the truth of what I am saying, but what I am saying is common sense and we have the wild west to prove it.
@stanleybmanly Okay, so you were entirely wrong when you said gun deaths parallel gun numbers? Funny that you won’t say that you were wrong.
@Raum, I am sorry to hear about your brother. My step-daughter was a heroin addict. She actually clocked out twice. Thankfully there was someone there that knew how to bring her back. But I learned a lot through her years of usage. My wife and I attended the Narc-anon meetings…the meetings for the family and friends of the users. Every story was the same. The names and some of the details changed, but they were all the same. Person starts using and starts doing bad things…getting in trouble with the law, stealing, etc. The family attempts to help and the parents especially do things to ease the user’s stress thinking it is helping. The addict gradually amps up the bad things until the family finally cannot do anything else and is entirely fed up. At that point they say “I’m done. You need to get out. I cannot deal with you and the drugs any longer.” At that point, the story gets one of two endings. Either the addict ODs and dies or they finally hit rock bottom and realize they need to do something better and they actually seek help because they want it. And every one of the stories that ends with that second option has a post script…the addict comes back to the family member and tells them that was the best thing they could have done and it was the action that actually made them look hard at their life.
But along the way, we had my step daughter incarcerated. She spent 50+ days in jail for stealing all my wife’s jewelry. We weren’t as concerned about the jewelry as we were about her and figured if we had her incarcerated we would at least know where she was, that she had a roof over her head, that she wasn’t doing drugs 3 times a day and had someone watching over her. And that time in jail showed her that she wouldn’t die from withdrawl and that as time went by her mental faculty would return. But we couldn’t have had her incarcerated for heroin usage or possession and gotten the same result. Our county (and several around us) have taken the “kinder, gentler” method. Someone gets busted for drugs and at their first appearance in court, if they plead guilty they are released on their own recognizance so long as they attend a 30 day outpatient rehab. The recidivism rate from this treatment is huge. All they are doing is cycling the same people through the system over and over again. The local news did an expose on it and found one guy that had gone through this 7 times in just a short period…like 2 years. Shortly before the show hit the airwaves, the guy died of an overdose.
Now you are pissinng me off @seawulf575 . We agree on too much….
@seawulf575 It had gotten to a point where my mother would hide in the bathroom when he came home with his addict friends to ransack their house. I was the one who called the police to do a well visit. And more or less pushed to get him out of the house.
Brother went with Option One. And my father likes to tell me that I more or less killed my brother. Good times.
I do often wonder if it would have made a difference if I had pressed charges in the earlier years. Identity theft, fraud, outright stealing. There are too many what-ifs.
I want to get trained to carry and how to administer Naloxone. If I am ever in the right place at the right time, I want to give someone else a second chance to choose Option Two.
As terrible. And relevant it is to the thread, I would opinine, that isn’t something that should be in General.IMO….
@seawulf575 I was not one bit wrong, and the proof is that the lull in killings ended a couple of years ago. Firearms deaths in the United States topped 40,000, last year as reported on the front page of the New York Times. It’s a record. As with the consequences of climate change, there will be sporadic drops and rises, but the overall trend is decidedly and UNDENIABLY up.
So gun deaths DON’T parallel gun numbers. Which is it? Either they do and you are wrong or they don’t and you are wrong. Can’t have it both ways. Because the gun numbers have always gone up and we have had pretty significant downward trends in gun deaths.
The rise in shootings parallels the rise in weaponry. The fact that that there might be a drop tast year and a climb the next does NOT invalidate that statement and you know it. In 2018 that casualty figure rose 10,000 victims beyond the 30,000 you chose to quote from the pre teen decades. You can pick all the nits you want. But gun deaths are up, and gun numbers climb as well. To deny that the two facts are inextricably linked is beyond plausibility.
The rise in gun deaths (which is what you said) peaked in about 1996 and then dropped over the next couple decades. Yet during that time, the number of guns in the hands of the populace went up, not down. So your statement that gun deaths parallel the number of guns is entirely wrong. It is amazing to me that you cannot admit this even though the facts are there. You were wrong. Your statement was contradicted by facts before you even made it. And given your statement, that would mean that regardless of what we do, we would never have a decrease since gun deaths parallel gun numbers. Unless we suddenly destroyed a significant number of guns, the number of gun deaths would remain constant or go up, depending on what the number of guns do. This is simple A=B and B=C so A=C. You were wrong and continuing to try twisting it so you can somehow be right is just a pitiful exercise. Makes you look desperate.
^I couldn’t get the link to work.
I’ll try to research it myself.
Ah. I remember that case. I thought the outcome was ridiculous.
Ok. And regarding my previous to last post?
^I’ll gladly/genuinely respond, but I’ll need clarification there, as well. To give you my true opinion. I tried reading back, but couldn’t correctly identify what you’re asking me.
The lady burned by the coffee, was indeed terrible. But, TOTALLY her party’s fault. As much as I hate McDonald’s, I think the case was ENTIRELY the victim’s fault. Am I to sue every time I burn myself in my oven? Or should I have been more aware of the situation?
@JLeslie I was a bit confused by your question as well. The McDonald’s case had people on both sides…some thinking it was a stupid law suit and an even more ridiculous outcome and some thinking it was about time that corporate America had to account for their actions. But I’m struggling to tie that to the debate over gun ownership.
@JLeslie ???? The one you referenced….Liebech v McDonald’s Restaurants.
Oops! Sorry…it was @Flo that referenced it. My bad.
@seawulf575 and @MrGrimm888
Each side (the pro gun control side, and the pro gun side ) thinks the other side is ridiculous.
So, is it “if you don’t see how ridiculous it is to sue McDonalds, then when it comes to guns/mass shootings etc., you willl…
or is it:
“If you don’t see how ridiculous it is that McDonalds was for selling hot coffee, (very or not very hot) then ...
By the way if anyone is confused by my question/s, ask me immediately?
^Ok. I see your correlation now…
I think my beliefs on these situations is pretty much the same. I buy a gun…I have the responsibility to use it responsibly…it is not the gun manufacturer’s fault if I shoot myself or someone else. In the coffee case, I buy a coffee…I have the responsibility for using (drinking) it responsibly…it is not the restaurant’s fault if I spill it all over myself. Now, in both cases, if some bogus manufacturing were the cause of the problem such as a gun blowing up in my hand due to a defect or a coffee cup crumbling the first time I pick it up, then it becomes the manufacturer or the restaurant that is responsible since they are selling faulty products.
No one would disagree. That isn’t where the argument lies. My argument for the zillionth time is that the easier it is to shoot people, the more people will be shot. That isn’t anti gun. It’s simply the truth. By the same token The more guns available to fall into the wrong hands, the more of those guns WILL fall into those hands, the easier it will be to shoot people and the more people will be shot. There is nothing anti gun or biased in those statements.
@stanleybmanly So given your logic, you could also say that most mass shootings happen in gun free zones so the more of those that exist, the more shootings will happen. So maybe we ought to have a nationwide conceal carry law…making it legal to conceal carry everywhere you go…no exceptions.
@seawulf575 , @stanleybmanly ‘s answer is based on logic and yours is based on statistics. The problem with statistical answers is that correlation is not the same as causation. Firstly, there are variations in the definition of gun free zone. Is a private residence, where a good proportion of mass shootings occur, to be considered gun free? Many mass shootings occur in public venues which try to protect themselves by being gun free. Maybe it is the case that a mass shooting is highly likely to occur at a public venue, like a sports stadium, and that public venues are more likely to be gun free. That does not elevate being gun free into being a cause of mass shootings.
Why not make gun toting mandatory, subsidize the arming of toddlers, post bounties on crowds and declare open season on civilians? Why place the onerous burden of government regulation on guns? Abolish registration laws as unconstitutional and mandate that automatic rifles be dispensed from vending machines. Let’s watch and see how YOUR logic works out?
By the way what I meant by bringing up the hot cofee case is that it’s no brainer to reduce the number of guns out there just like it’s no brainer to have people not even imagine suing a coffee seller or knife seller or whatever else.
@LostInParadise Good effort, I give you that, except gun free zones are dictated by the law…places where it is illegal to carry guns. Sandy Hook…guns were banned. Pulse Nightclub…guns were banned. Go all the way back to Columbine…guns were banned. Even Ft Hood…it was not legal to carry a gun if not on duty. Dayton was outside a bar where it is illegal to carry a gun. All the shootings in California….illegal to carry guns. Aurora CO…illegal to carry a gun. The list goes on and on. Paris, London….all over the world where these mass attacks have happened…gun free zones. Even in Las Vegas…the hotel the shooter was positioned in was a gun-free zone.
As for your claim of a good proportion of mass shootings occur in a private residence…your citation? What I can see proves that false. There have been some that were considered mass shootings when the cops were called to a private residence, but they were not a large proportion of the total. Most were at public locations. Certainly the largest proportion were. So my statement was based on logic as well….given the available data and the application of @stanleybmanly‘s “logic”. Besides… @stanleybmanly has also made the statement that gun deaths parallel the number of guns in society and that is blatantly false. So his logic is suspect from the start.
You keep supporting @stanleybmanly ‘s argument that gun laws are irrelevant to mass shootings. Why are gun laws irrelevant to mass shootings?
Speaking of yourself in the third person? Seems a bit odd. But gun laws are irrelevant because they are not the problem. Actually, they may contribute to the problem. But think what you are saying when you want more gun laws to combat the problem. Murder is a crime…one of the harshest crimes we have. Yet the shooters don’t stop because there is a law against it. The argument of more gun control laws being the answer is just foolishness. As I pointed out, many of the shootings have happened in gun free zones. The shooters know they can shoot a long time with little chance someone will return fire until the cops get there.
In other words, regardless of the laws, it is relatively easy and trouble free to shoot into a crowd. There is nothing in my logic implying that more shootings should occur in gun free zones. My very point is that designating an area gun free is both meaningless and ineffective, as are all other gun laws and restrictions. Such laws will remain useless if weaponry flows freely from Texas or the Carolinas into Chicago or Baltimore. Outlawing guns in California is meaningless if the state is bordered by Arizona and Nevada. We don’t disagree that gun laws are pointless. We disagree on the reasons WHY they are useless. My point is that Americans are no more defective than people elsewhere. They simply have widespread and easy access to guns and the results speak for themselves. That is not an anti gun argument. It is simply the truth.
So we agree that gun control laws are not the answer to stopping the gun violence. So any and all efforts in that direction are a waste of time since those committing these crimes have shown they don’t care about the law already. And in many cases the guns were obtained legally which includes background checks. So all that is left is the “why”. Why do these people decide to kill a bunch of people? What are the triggers? Are there similarities between the offenders that can point to what might cause another shooting? Basically, they need an honest personality profile. Political leanings should not be a part of it since it distracts. And as we know, shooters have been right wing, left wing and apolitical. However focus on politics might be a factor.
Once again all remedies are pointless in the face of a sea of weaponry. The laws have a chance if the numbers of weapons can be limited. From a theoretical standpoint, laws are unnecessary if possession of firearms can be restricted to stable responsible individuals, and our shooting tallies are direct evidence that in this we fail miserably. To project the prospect that the number of weapons out there has nothing to do with the resulting carnage is preposterous and patently dishonest. There is no mystery to the why. The why is that ANYONE can get a gun.
You 2 are wasting your time.
That’s another inescapable truth.
I have a very interesting article about the McDonald’s coffee case. I’ll try to find it tomorrow or later.
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