Topic: Assault weapon bans - page 29. (Read 36627 times)

A pointless question to ask, and a pointless question to answer, given that the chance of one finding themselves in said situation, and the chances of someone actually knowing what they would do in said situation are limited.

The truth of the matter is, the burden one carries with themselves when carrying a gun all the time subtracts from one's freedom. True freedom is not thinking about carrying a gun, because one isn't carrying a gun, nor feels the need to, and doesn't fear being without a gun.

Gonna answer you two ways.

A.  Bring a gun to a knife fight?  Hell yes!

B.  No one who has actually had to pull them triggers has much interest in talking about it.  Particularly with people that knows it all.

If the options are shoot, or surrender, I'd certainly shoot.  No good will come to either of us by surrendering.

M

How can I project a feeling which I do not possess? Those are merely insinuations of yours.
I do not own a gun and never did. I have some experience, and some negative experience also. As a kid I made a shot in heavily populated area, which could cost someone's life.  Also had a loaded and cocked gun pointed at me, which is not a nice feeling. Hell, even empty gun, or a prop gun gives that feeling.
I have a bow, crafted by myself, which may seem similar to having a gun, but I do not show it off to anyone, and would never give it to anyone, even to hold. I shoot very rarely, as there's no suitable areas around, and cause arrows are a pain to make. I love my bow, but from mere woodcrafting perspective, to be able to make something good, by my own hands. If I had a gun, I would probably be as "withdrawn and calm about it" as you are trying to seem here.

Have you EVER had the NEED to take your gun out, or use it? I guess no.

Also everyone talks about self-defense here. Imagine a situation, where some sort of brawl/robbery is happening and one of the subjects has a knife in his hand, wiling to use it on another subject. Would you whip out your gun, and when attacker refuses to comply with your verbal warning, shoot him (aiming for the leg, hand, torso, whatever)?

I can match that and maybe better it.

An illegal alien, a Communist, and a Muslim walked into the bar.

The bartender said:

"What'll you have, Mr. President?"

Wait, you folks serious belief the government sanctioned lie that 9/11 was caused by a bunch of terrorists who couldn't fly planes?  And the indestructible black boxes didn't survive, yet one of their passports did?  And jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel, yet somehow it did?  And WTC7 (I think that's the one, it's been a while) came down without a plane with the incredibly hot burning fuel hitting it?  And never before have sky scrapers fallen down from burning?  And if you compare the buildings' collapse with building that are controlled imploded, you don't see any difference?  And what about the eye witnesses who said there were explosions at the bottom of the buildings?

Seriously?  I know the alternative is one helluva scary thought, but that doesn't mean you should accept the official story.

M

Again, the cause isn't the gun.  The cause is moral degeneration.  If those folks didn't have a gun, would they have done something else malicious with some other dangerous weapon?  Probably.

M

Apparently you are incapable of having an argument where you don't project your own attributes onto others. I've already told you to not to do that.

Given that I know a guy who was seriously, day and night trying to figure the riddle out a week before 9/11 I simply have to call "TOTAL BULLSHIT" on your armchair general, after the fact hindsight is perfect criticism.

You might want to look back at exactly what I said.

The EXACT information to prevent 9/11 was certainly not in our hands.

You earlier stated 'there was no element of surprise'.  Like I said, there was nothing BUT SURPRISE.  Arguing that someone, somewhere knew one part and maybe another knew another part does not make this untrue.

The key phrase is 'actionable intelligence.'

This is no different than WWII Axis..."we know the Allies are going to attack...but WHERE?  WHEN?"

Normandy.

I wasn't asking for bigger agencies--your friend was sectioned off in one of these agencies, not getting the story from another agency...my point is that the agencies don't work. The information to prevent 9/11 was certainly in our hands months in advance, it was just not taken "seriously" for whatever reason (conspiracy theorists can jump in here).

Yes, and one of them was a friend of mine....he they were desperately trying night and day to find out where/when/how 'flying airplanes into buildings' might occur.

So there certainly was an element of surprise.  That's what the entire attack methodology was predicated upon. 

Knowing part of something isn't enough.  Sometimes knowing all of something isn't enough, because for it to be actionable it needs to be verified as factual, which means multiple sources.

Arguing that bigger and better bureaucracies would have prevented 9/11 is an error of a different sort.  Please let's not go there, it's too early in the day for me to start drinking....

There was no element of surprise, we just have idiots in the "Intelligence Agencies" that do not talk to one another, and at least one branch knew months before it happened that there was a plan to make it happen.

Well, what did the Soviets learn about Finland in WWII?

Don't fuck with Finland...

What you need to understand is that here in the US we don't have a uniform society about which simple generalizations can be made, but perhaps fifty different cultural milieu with different characteristics, including attitudes about guns.  I shift between several daily.  

But this doesn't transfer well to media depictions of the USA.  This means in a literal sense that multiple things can be true at the same time, of those subcultures.  Did the teens that shot the guy live in a rotten society (eg their subculture) HELL YES THEY DID!

Nope, Finland's a warzone right now!

I'll quietly edit my post

Holy shit! Is that a typo? 

I think that might be true at times.  On the internet it's called (slang) "gun porn".  Kind of like, here, I'll post pictures of mine and you post pictures of yours.  And some people do have some pretty amazing collections.  Those are no different than collectors of stamps, antiques, old cars.  They are proud of their "stuff".

Mine, I have almost zero of the characteristics you describe with a couple of exceptions.  The fully functioning replica of the Texas Ranger 1848 six shooter, I certainly will pull it out of the closet, show it to people and talk about it.  I also have an exact replica (weight, function, size, operation) of Glock 23 that shoots airsoft 6mm pellets, and that is something I will pull out and show people stuff with, let them handle it or shoot it in the backyard.

But normally, with the typical firearm and the typical owner, there is no "huge pride baggage" as you describe.

Cite your source?

Because the facts say otherwise..

Top 5 guns per capita countries and violent deaths per inhabitant:

1. US: 94.3 guns per 100, 4.8 violent deaths per 100,000
2. Serbia: 58.2 guns per 100, 1.2 violent deaths per 100,000 (although keep in mind that they just murdered 100,000+ people in the 90s)
3. Yemen: 54.8 guns per 100, 4.2 violent deaths per 100,000
4. Switzerland: 45.7 guns per 100, .7 violent deaths per 100,000
5. Finland: 45.3 guns per 100, 2.2 violent deaths per 100,000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#United_States

This may be one of those Correlation <> Causation things. More guns could just be a symptom of more violence. I mean, look at wars. In war areas, the number of guns per inhabitant is highest, and the amount of violent deaths is highest. Does that mean that guns cause wars?

Good point. And I can't speak for everyone, undoubtedly some fool out there can't keep it in his pants. That is very bad form IMO.
I think of it like rock climbing. I only climb with seriously safe climbers, and most climbers do take it seriously. But when I meet someone who is "self taught" or otherwise learned to climb outside of climbing culture they may do lots of stupid things. It is like that in gun culture also. You can tell if someone is trained in firearms from the moment they handle a gun.