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Why? Because of some archaic, outdated constitutional amendment that has absolutely no relevance in 2012?There's a ban on weed in my state. Am I less free because of it? Maybe. Am I NOT free because of it. Absolutely not.Not going to happen, they go hand and hand.
Your belief doesn't fix the problem.
I'm not sure I agree that those distinctions are all that important. Seems to me that there are a lot more similarities than differences. Lots of people really like to use drugs and alcohol and are accustomed to using them. Lots of people really like to own guns and are accustomed to owning them. Telling lots of people they can't do what they really want to do, and they've been doing their whole lives, doesn't seem to work out very well. Yeah, a ban would destroy the domestic manufacture of guns, but that would just mean more guns getting smuggled into the country. I don't think there's a lot of cocaine or heroin produced domestically, but that hasn't stopped people here from obtaining it.
I think you are confusing freedom with entitlement.Not going to happen, they go hand and hand.
How about me owning a nuclear weapon? Do you have any idea how foul a mood I wake up in sometimes following a good night of partying? I'd feel much better if I knew I could just nuke it all away if the impulse struck. Or if the government came to take my family like they tend to do in a western republic. We will not be free until I can own a nuclear weapon legally.Not going to happen, they go hand and hand.
And in many, many cases, without the gun it doesn't happen. That's what many pro-gun people refuse to acknowledge.
What happens when they get banned from FBG?
What about the fact that other countries have been successful in imposing very restrictive gun laws? Do you think that's due to the practical differences between the two, or is it more cultural (the way Muslim countries have been effective with very restrictive drug/alcohol laws)?
Who exactly is advocating for this????
Otis, ChopMeat, shader, General Malaise. That's just off the top of my head.
I think it's mostly cultural and also somewhat due to the fact that we're not as densely populated as the restrictive gun countries in Europe. For whatever reason, lots of Americans love guns. I don't get why and I never will, but it doesn't make sense to deny it.
Forgot Chopmeat and Shader. Really I think most that want a full ban are just misinformed or not familiar with them. It's ok, but please do research before siding either way.
What about Australia? I don't know about their affinity for guns, but their population is not dense, and they have enacted very effective gun control laws.I get that there are cultural differences, but I think you can't ignore the practical differences between alcohol/drug regulation and gun regulation. There are significant differences in production, ease of detection by authorities, conspicuous use, etc. that, IMO, make the Prohibition analogy a bad one.
I assume you don't really mean to compare abortion with simple gun ownership. Are you trying to compare abortion with killing someone with a gun? Maybe get that straight first.
Keeping in mind that "Pro-Choice" and "Pro-Life" are stupid monikers. Choice, alone, does not justify anything. Committing a crime is a choice. Nobody is "Pro-Choice" with respect to armed robbery.I can't speak to the entire abortion rights movement, but my feelings are informed by what aspects of "human-ness," for lack of a better word, we typically protect. To me, those are qualities of self-awareness, self-determination, consciousness, and the ability to recognize and empathize with those qualities in others.On the other hand, I feel even less qualified to speak to any side in the gun rights debate. I believe there is some right to self-defense that extends throught the castle doctrine in common law, and that this right pre-dates the 2nd Amendment (and I believe that the original intent of the 2nd Amendment is largely irrelevant now). I believe that the presumption in favor of most rights is strongest in the home or as it relates to our own bodies or thoughts. I think that presents a somewhat unified way of understanding the Bill of Rights, but that's another discussion for another time. Suffice it to say, however, that I don't perceive any inconsistency in supporting abortion rights and also supporting at least some gun control legislation.
Fewer guns around, fewer opportunities for the mentally unstable to get a gun.We are all "punished" for going through extra security and patdowns at the airport since 9/11. You'll never lose the ability to own a gun to defend yourself. If you lose the ability to own assault rifles or not have the hunting rifles you want... I don't know. tough ####?
Is it really any different than banning guns?
I read the piece you linked. I've also seen stats that show areas with concealed carry have lower crime rates. The fact is we have a lot of gun laws on the books, and people still break the law. We don't need more laws. We need to identify the behaviors that cause these types of crimes, and stop it before they crack and kill all these innocent people. You personally aren't blaming gun owners, but many others are.'Matthias said:
Well, I've never been to Australia and I don't know anything about their history of gun culture other than what I just read this morning in this article on slate.com. But that article leads me to believe Australians didn't love their guns nearly to the degree that Americans do. There's this quote:
90%! I'd be surprised if we could top 50% support for similar laws here. Is there a single mainstream politician saying that we should disallow the use of guns for self-defense? And the former Australian Prime Minister says pretty much the same thing about American gun love:
I think it's reasonable to ban anything that allows someone to kill 10 or 20 people in a few minutes. Clip size, assault rifles, ammo... whatever it takes.
Well I guess so. If there arent any bullets around, I suppose the Adam Lanza's of the world could still use their automatic rifles as a blunt instrument and cause some damage. I just thought that it was a nice compromise so gun nuts could still at least worship their metal death toys even if there's nothing to shoot out of them.
There really isn't any type of person I hate more than ####kicking white trash.
I think that's if you have an incredibly small johnson.
Sure, completely reasonable to equate adult beverages and high efficiency death weapons.
Actually 3 in the past week. You missed the dude that went into the hospital in Alabama. Thy shot his ### dead before he could kill.
Completely baffling to me.
Only in the good ol' U S of A. :salute!:Not going to happen, they go hand and hand.
I know. Ridiculous. One of these kills way more people than the other.
Or we could ban guns so that criminals would have to fling bullets like paper footballs. Less damage that way.
I can think of a number of reasons. For one thing, civil protection (in the form of police) is more readily available in public. The potential harm of a weapon is minimized when confined to the home. For authorities, it aids enforcement. See a gun in public, you've got probable cause.At the very least, we might limit the right to self defense in public to the defense of your person and extend the right of self defense in the home to defense of your property.
Not with a finger pistol he doesn't.
Well that's a lie.
Why don't you and the other supporters of gun ownership in here stop attempting to respond to straw arguments? There's a few posters in here that are spewing crap about banning guns and changing the 2nd Amendment, but for serious minded people, that's not where the debate is. Instead, the REAL debate centers around 3 very specific proposals:1. Revive the assault weapons ban.2. Limit the capacity of magazines to 10 bullets.3. Remove the private sales "gun show" loophole.Personally I lean against #1, and am very much in favor of #2 and #3. How about you? If you oppose these ideas, then give us reasons why. But stop acting like you're the victim here and that we want to "punish" you.
I'd vote for this. Sounds logical to me. Why can't gun nuts meet the anti-gun nuts halfway?
