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Another Mall Shooting

ponderingturtle said:
What you basically admit that you do not believe what you are saying. Add to that the idea that you need to legalize more destructive weapons in the hands of a citizenry if the government gets worse. The whole point is that you need those weapons in the hands of the people to prevent the government from banning them and becoming more restrictive.

Your position as stated is nonsensical.
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I think the nonsense is all in your head.

I advocate keeping guns legal, in accordance with current interpretations of the 2nd amendment. I have not and do not advocate legalizing more destructive weapons. If armed insurrection becomes a reality, it's a given that the citizenry will be ignoring the laws of the established authorities en masse. At that point, I expect there would be an effort to acquire larger weapons; it only stands to reason. We are not at that point, nor do I think we are likely to be in the foreseeable future.

I do believe what I'm saying. If you think one of my statements contradicts another of my statements, feel free to point out the contradiction.
 
ponderingturtle said:
It flows from your argument. You believe in the right to bear arms specifically for overthrowing the government. Then you need weapons that are most effective for overthrowing the government in the hands of the people at all times. You wait for the government to actually become one that you think needs to be overthrown and the tools for that will not be then legalized by that government.
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Ah, I see why you're confused.

Yes, I believe in the right to bear arms specifically for overthrowing or neutralizing the government. I don't think that requires tanks or rockets, simply because the government has tanks and rockets (and nukes) at its disposal.

I'm not going to get into specific military strategies, but I will note that there are many areas around the world which support the view that tanks and rockets are not effective in capturing and controlling territory where the majority of people are armed in opposition to an occupying army. Rifles, on the ground, in the hands of a large population, CAN be effective in that case.

If that same population is unarmed, a few soldiers on the ground with rifles can control them very effectively. In Africa, soldiers armed with machetes were deadly against an unarmed population.

I neither advocate nor see the need for RPGs in the hands of civilians today.
 
ponderingturtle said:
And by many arguments presented in this fashion and using many quotes by say Jefferson, you can show that McVeigh was by those definitions the greatest patriot in modern times.

"The tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots" and all that.
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Jefferson lived in a time in which tyrants were commonplace. Now, among western countries, they have virtually disappeared. While I don't think that guns deserve all the credit for this, I think they are a useful insurance policy that we shouldn't be quick to abandon.
 
bokonon said:
I think the nonsense is all in your head.

I advocate keeping guns legal, in accordance with current interpretations of the 2nd amendment. I have not and do not advocate legalizing more destructive weapons. If armed insurrection becomes a reality, it's a given that the citizenry will be ignoring the laws of the established authorities en masse. At that point, I expect there would be an effort to acquire larger weapons; it only stands to reason. We are not at that point, nor do I think we are likely to be in the foreseeable future.

I do believe what I'm saying. If you think one of my statements contradicts another of my statements, feel free to point out the contradiction.
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The contradiction comes from your position that one of the main reasons to have an armed citizenry is to support an armed rebellion. But you are not for having the weapons available for an armed rebellion until there is actually a rebellion.

Well guess what, that same rational works no matter what level of weapons are in society, if you want an armed rebellion you then buy the weapons illegally. It does not justify keeping an armed populace in general though.
 
ponderingturtle said:
And the term is has been expanded into including explosively forged projectiles and other advanced mines.
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explosively formed (shaped charge forms the plate into a projectile and forces it in the way that it should go.):)
 
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Here's a thought:

Let's ban emo music.

It is the state of mind of a person that most influences a decision to pull a murder-suicide. Emo is classic own wrist slasher music. If it can be shown that this loser listened to emo, I'd say we have a more effective method of idiot prevention, banning emo and putting all emo performers through large wood chippers.

Wasn't it back in the 90's that Heavy Metal was accused of causing suicide?

Emo, so derivative and lame.

Sorry, I think I got carried away there. :p

DR
 
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cloudshipsrule said:
P.S. Guns aren't designed to shoot people. They're designed to shoot, period.
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Some are, some aren't. In this case, the weapon of choice most emphatically was designed to shoot people. But I think we probably agree that the distinction is meaningless - what does it matter what they were designed to do? It's what they actually do and any potential legislative response to this that needs discussion.

I've made clear in the last spree-killing thread that I do not in general agree with banning weapons, but recognise the validity of the argument to take away relatively lethal legal weapons to minimise the chance of killings like this from happening. The best counter argument to this is that whilst it's clearly tragic that people are occasionally killed in small numbers by nutters with (almost invariably legally held) guns, they are not statistically significant. I agree with this PoV*, the majority in the UK do not, hence, we have most types of firearms either illegal or heavily restricted.

*because after all many more people are killed by other means that are not legislated against, and because it wouldn't in any case be practical or desirable to do so, e.g. cars, sporting accidents, emo/rock music ;) etc.
 
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Michael Redman said:
I would guess that there are more than 30,000,000 people in the US who have access to a hunting rifle and know how to use it. No government, foreign or domestic, could occupy this land and impose its will on a people determined to resist.
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...Mexicans seem to be doing a fair job of this, according to some reports... ;)
 
Despotic governments?? Peh! We just voted one out; it was easy. No guns required or used.

But the US, according to some, it seems, can only get rid of them by retaining huge battalions of heavily armed civilian militia. What were those comments about "democracy" again? ;)

(We really DO need some sarcasm smilies...)
 
Doesn't rationality go out the window when the almighty "right to bear arms" is questioned?

The Virginia Tech tragedy, like so many others and probably this one, occured when someone who happened to have easy access to powerful semi-automatic weapons just snapped. Yes criminals will get guns-always have-but I am not talking about gang killings. We had mass killings here before the ban on semi-automatic weapons but none after. I do not think this is a coincidence.

Some people on this thread have spoken about how "law abiding" citizens carrying weapons could "take out" a maniac shooting people in a Mall. Funny that I don't recall reading about this. Examples please, and not from the mists of time.

And the idea of people forming a disciplined, well trained and commanded force to combat the army is just laughable.
 
Zep said:
Despotic governments?? Peh! We just voted one out; it was easy. No guns required or used.

But the US, according to some, it seems, can only get rid of them by retaining huge battalions of heavily armed civilian militia. What were those comments about "democracy" again? ;)

(We really DO need some sarcasm smilies...)
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Or maybe we just need to keep the furriners from commentin' on that which don't concern them.

Hey, I think I hear a dingo eating your baby.
 
Wait the lefties are saying that the US Armed Forces cannot possibly defeat a few thousand armed Iraqis, yet could easily take out a few million americans?

ok
 
pipelineaudio said:
Wait the lefties are saying that the US Armed Forces cannot possibly defeat a few thousand armed Iraqis, yet could easily take out a few million americans?

ok
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As I said, rationality out the window. A few thousand armed Iraqis? You did a count? And you think that Americans would fight with the suicide-bomber ethos of jihadists? I think you have been watching too many John Wayne movies.
 
ponderingturtle said:
The contradiction comes from your position that one of the main reasons to have an armed citizenry is to support an armed rebellion. But you are not for having the weapons available for an armed rebellion until there is actually a rebellion.

Well guess what, that same rational works no matter what level of weapons are in society, if you want an armed rebellion you then buy the weapons illegally. It does not justify keeping an armed populace in general though.
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Uh, the weapons ARE available, they're called "guns." If it's necessary to get bigger weapons, guns give you better leverage than bananas. If the guns themselves are enough to do the job, the job is done.

A handful of uneducated nobodies mounted a pretty successful assault on the Pentagon with nothing more than box cutters and the element of surprise. I think a couple of hundred million guns in the hands of a couple of hundred million angry Americans defending their freedom is probably enough to prime the pump if it ever comes to that.
 
Zep said:
Despotic governments?? Peh! We just voted one out; it was easy. No guns required or used.
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No, you didn't. Anybody who's willing to allow himself to be voted out is not a despot. I'm glad you got rid of whoever it was you didn't like, but your example is really irrelevant.
 
lionking said:
And the idea of people forming a disciplined, well trained and commanded force to combat the army is just laughable.
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Who says it has to be disciplined, well-trained, and commanded? The thing can be effective even if it's disorganized and chaotic. Like the internet, or a plague of locusts.
 
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