I am a radical (and therefore numerically insignificant)

The gun debate continues to enrage me. I keep seeing people pushing back against it and in the process metaphorically urinating on the graves of the victims.

I keep hearing talk of a "responsible gun owners."

What the hell is that? Sounds mythical to me.


I know if I had a gun it would only be a matter of time before it would turn to tragedy. I just would never, ever trust myself to not misuse one in a horrible manner. That's why I stay as far from them as possible. It is just best for everyone.

But knowing so many others have them continues to scare the beejeezzus out of me.
 
Travis said:
The gun debate continues to enrage me. I keep seeing people pushing back against it and in the process metaphorically urinating on the graves of the victims.

I keep hearing talk of a "responsible gun owners."

What the hell is that? Sounds mythical to me.
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According to this page, there are 70-80 million gun owners in the US. If responsible gun owners were a "myth," the death toll would be rather high.

I know if I had a gun it would only be a matter of time before it would turn to tragedy. I just would never, ever trust myself to not misuse one in a horrible manner. That's why I stay as far from them as possible. It is just best for everyone.
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If you feel it's best that you stay away from firearms due to poor impulse control, anger management issues, depression, or whatever, good for you (seriously). However, not everybody has those issues.
 
Brainster said:
Travis, you are not a radical. You are an idealist. You want to live in a world where [insert idealistic notion here]. Most of us skeptics are pragmatists; we attempt to deal with the actual world on its own terms.

Yes, I am sure you would love it if the government could get the guns out of the hands of the citizenry. Guess what? Barring a totalitarian government that would trample a lot more rights than the Second Amendment, it ain't going to happen.

It's good that you're an idealist; you're young and haven't been beaten up enough. Don't confuse where you are now with your destination, however.
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Japan: totalitarian governmen.
 
Travis said:
The gun debate continues to enrage me. I keep seeing people pushing back against it and in the process metaphorically urinating on the graves of the victims.
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That's it? Why do they get off so easy? Usually disagreement with your fringe views means conspiring to murder millions of people and/or put them in concentration camps.

Your nonsense certainly is numerically insignificant in a lot of ways, but you can turn your radical views and conspiracy theories into a lucrative career, just ask Alex Jones.
 
Travis said:
The gun debate continues to enrage me. I keep seeing people pushing back against it and in the process metaphorically urinating on the graves of the victims.

I keep hearing talk of a "responsible gun owners."

What the hell is that? Sounds mythical to me.


I know if I had a gun it would only be a matter of time before it would turn to tragedy. I just would never, ever trust myself to not misuse one in a horrible manner. That's why I stay as far from them as possible. It is just best for everyone.

But knowing so many others have them continues to scare the beejeezzus out of me.
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Sorry, but your rage and bewilderment are not an argument. A lot of people are just as angry and afraid as you are about the prospect of the government breaking down their doors, taking their weapons away, and subjugating them after they're powerless to resist. They may be wrong about that, but their strong feelings are just as valid as yours- and in neither case is it a sound basis for public policy.
 
Sam.I.Am said:
That won't happen outside of a Constitutional Convention. And that won't happen because everyone knows how much of a mess that it would quickly become.

But let's imagine for a second that for some reason the 2nd is repealed. Then what? You've just made millions upon millions of otherwise law abiding people criminals with the stroke of a pen. And they are armed with many of them being unwilling to voluntarily giving up their guns. Lets say that you then use gun registrations as a basis for a warrant to go to their houses and take their guns by force if necessary (assuming that the courts allowed that, which I doubt that they will). What about the millions of unregistered guns out there that are legal under our current laws? What about the criminals who (now) have illegal weapons? What are you going to do about them? Go door to door into every residence, business and shed and toss it from top to bottom looking for guns (including yours of course because at this point the assumption of innocence has been tossed out of the window)? Ignoring the logistics of doing that for a second that would be breaking the very tenets of what this country is supposed to stand for in the hopes of preventing a very tiny minority from doing "Something bad". You might as well shred the entire constitution.
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Amnesty with collection for, say, three months and then criminalization.
 
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ravdin said:
Sorry, but your rage and bewilderment are not an argument. A lot of people are just as angry and afraid as you are about the prospect of the government breaking down their doors, taking their weapons away, and subjugating them after they're powerless to resist. They may be wrong about that, but their strong feelings are just as valid as yours- and in neither case is it a sound basis for public policy.
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I'd be in favor of all that if it takes away their guns.

Cleon said:
According to this page, there are 70-80 million gun owners in the US. If responsible gun owners were a "myth," the death toll would be rather high.



If you feel it's best that you stay away from firearms due to poor impulse control, anger management issues, depression, or whatever, good for you (seriously). However, not everybody has those issues.
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Somehow I can't really comprehend the idea that other people don't deal with the issues I have.
 
Cleon said:
According to this page, there are 70-80 million gun owners in the US. If responsible gun owners were a "myth," the death toll would be rather high.
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What bothers me is the fact that everyone seem to be a Responsible Gun Owner until the point when they murder a few people.
 
uke2se said:
What bothers me is the fact that everyone seem to be a Responsible Gun Owner until the point when they murder a few people.
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Again, though - if every gun owner was about to "murder a few people," the death toll would be much higher than it is. Do you really think most gun owners are about to kill someone? Be serious, now.

There is a valid argument, though, in the NRA's implicit claim that there are two distinct groups of people: "Responsible Gun Owners" and "Criminals." Yes, there is some overlap there and the line between the two isn't always clear and well-defined. For some people, it takes very little to shift them from Responsible Armed Citizen to Gun-Toting Thug.
 
Or, you can do what I do and assume they are all gun toting thugs.
 
Travis said:
Or, you can do what I do and assume they are all gun toting thugs.
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Which appears to be causing you a great deal of stress. Perhaps you should reconsider? If you've been reading a lot of the gun arguments then you know of several posters who are not thugs, yet own and use firearms. I believe this describes most of Norway.
 
Travis said:
The gun debate continues to enrage me. I keep seeing people pushing back against it and in the process metaphorically urinating on the graves of the victims.
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I might find it easier to take your outraged "sympathy" seriously, if you weren't also saying crap like this:

Travis said:
Well I've never had issues with the police having guns. So if they use guns to disarm the citizenry even if it means widespread bloodshed (not all gun owners are giving them up willingly) I don't see it as a problem.
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So "metaphorical" urinating on graves is more of an outrage than actually putting people in graves. You need to get your priorities straight, Travis.
 
If you're not trolling, then I think it's a pretty important responsibility for you in order to help prevent violence in society to find a mental health professional and describe these feelings the way you described them here.

I know it seems classless to say that and I apologize for that but I think one of the lessons is that they are warning signs and that they shouldn't be ignored.
 
Cleon said:
Again, though - if every gun owner was about to "murder a few people," the death toll would be much higher than it is. Do you really think most gun owners are about to kill someone? Be serious, now.
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Everyone has the potential to murder someone, and a gun owner has an advantage. I don't think all gun owners are about to go on a killing spree, but there are gun owners that do, on a weekly if not daily basis it would seem.

Cleon said:
There is a valid argument, though, in the NRA's implicit claim that there are two distinct groups of people: "Responsible Gun Owners" and "Criminals." Yes, there is some overlap there and the line between the two isn't always clear and well-defined. For some people, it takes very little to shift them from Responsible Armed Citizen to Gun-Toting Thug.
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In fact, as we have seen in a recent case, a person can believe himself to be a Responsible Armed Citizen while in reality being a Gun-Toting Thug.
 
ravdin said:
Yes, and it's a terrible bother. Many politicians would like to do away with these amendments as well.
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If the amendments really protect lawbreakers from the law, I can understand why politicians (or any sane person, for that matter) would want to do away with them. What were the people who passed such amendments smoking?

ETA: After reading up at Wikipedia, I understand that none of these amendments really protect lawbreakers, and thus have nothing to do with my proposal regarding collecting all guns.
 
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tyr_13 said:
Which appears to be causing you a great deal of stress. Perhaps you should reconsider? If you've been reading a lot of the gun arguments then you know of several posters who are not thugs, yet own and use firearms. I believe this describes most of Norway.
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My Swedish girlfriend seems to think Norway is a bunch of thugs. But I think there is some history there.

However I find your wording odd. You claim these people own guns but are not thugs. How does that work?

Ziggurat said:
I might find it easier to take your outraged "sympathy" seriously, if you weren't also saying crap like this:

So "metaphorical" urinating on graves is more of an outrage than actually putting people in graves. You need to get your priorities straight, Travis.
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I don't think I said it was "more" of an outrage.

Cylinder said:
If you're not trolling, then I think it's a pretty important responsibility for you in order to help prevent violence in society to find a mental health professional and describe these feelings the way you described them here.

I know it seems classless to say that and I apologize for that but I think one of the lessons is that they are warning signs and that they shouldn't be ignored.
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Well back in my youth, when I had nice health insurance, I had mental health professionals to talk to. That's why I know enough now to stay away from guns.
 
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