It Has Happened Again...

[CFLarsen]

Uh, no. If I am handling a gun, I am in control of the gun. If I am driving while drunk, my judgement and coordination is impaired. I am not in control. I can use a gun 10,000 times and never injure myself or anyone else as long as I follow proper safety procedures. Driving drunk does not afford me that choice, because by definition, I am not in control.

And yet, people do drive whilst drunk, without accidents. And yet, there are accidents with guns. Not all gun deaths are deliberate.

By your logic, we should never drive cars, because hurling oneself at 100 kph down a street will get you killed if you hit a tree. We should never handle fire, because fire could burn your house down and kill people. Many things we use frequently are dangerous if used improperly or unsafely.

You are using Slippery Slope again.

Can you drink alcohol without losing control?

Can you shoot just a little bit?

 

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

You are using Slippery Slope again.

Can you drink alcohol without losing control?

Can you shoot just a little bit?

I am not using "slippery slope," you are incorrectly attempting to frame the issue as one of degree as opposed to one of manner. I can use alcohol in a safe manner. I can use a gun in a safe manner. In the case of alcohol, safety happens to involve amount of substance consumed, and what it is used in conjunction with. Gun safety is based solely on the manner in which it is used. Your "slippery slope" accusation is irrelevent. I also can't skydive "just a little bit." That doesn't mean I can't skydive safely. I can't drive 75 kph "just a little bit," but that doesn't mean I can't drive on the highway safely. I also can't cross the street "just a little bit." That doesn't mean that there isn't a safe way to cross the street.

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Where the $%^& does a 13-year-old get an AK-47??!?!?!?!

[nitpick]

described his weapon as a Mac-90, a replica of an AK-47 assault rifle.

MAC-90's are semi-auto only, have no bayonet lug, nor flash suppressor. They are merely based off of the AK action and styling.

 

[CFLarsen]

I am not using "slippery slope," you are incorrectly attempting to frame the issue as one of degree as opposed to one of manner. I can use alcohol in a safe manner. I can use a gun in a safe manner. In the case of alcohol, safety happens to involve amount of substance consumed, and what it is used in conjunction with.

But you can't fire a gun just a little bit. Ergo, you can't use the use of alcohol as an analogy.

Gun safety is based solely on the manner in which it is used. Your "slippery slope" accusation is irrelevent. I also can't skydive "just a little bit." That doesn't mean I can't skydive safely.

Sure you can. Just don't go very high up.

I can't drive 75 kph "just a little bit," but that doesn't mean I can't drive on the highway safely.

Cars have various speeds, depending on use. But you can't fire a bullet without it coming out at a very high speed.

 

[The Painter]

The difference is that there is no safe use of a gun.

That’s the biggest load of crap I’ve heard. Target shooting is very safe. At the sporting clay course I go to, there has never been a shooting accident. This range has been open since the 1920’s


There are 20,000 gun laws. Do you think 20,000 and one will make a difference?
Making guns illegal will not solve the problem. Drugs are illegal and yet we still have a drug problem. I could buy some crack in less than one hour from now. I have to wait 3 days for a legal gun.

 

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

But you can't fire a gun just a little bit. Ergo, you can't use the use of alcohol as an analogy.

That is rediculous. The question is safety, not how the safety is achieved. Because I can drink a lot of alcohol or a little alcohol does not change the fact that people can and do use alcohol in a dangerous manner, and get people killed because of it. Guns can be used in a perfectly safe manner as well.

Sure you can. Just don't go very high up.

If you are using a parachute, then you are jumping from a high enough point where you can be killed. That is why it is called skydiving, not "jumping from my coffee table." So we should ban jumping from any height in which you are likely to be killed?

Cars have various speeds, depending on use. But you can't fire a bullet without it coming out at a very high speed.

Hence why I said "drive on the highway." So in your opinion, then, we should ban all driving at any speed that, if an accident occurs, will lead to death? So that puts maximum speed limit at what: 25 kph? Should we ban all cars that can go faster than that?

The list of stuff we need to ban is getting awfully long.

 

[CFLarsen]

That is rediculous. The question is safety, not how the safety is achieved. Because I can drink a lot of alcohol or a little alcohol does not change the fact that people can and do use alcohol in a dangerous manner, and get people killed because of it. Guns can be used in a perfectly safe manner as well.

But you can't shoot just a little bit. That's the difference.

If you are using a parachute, then you are jumping from a high enough point where you can be killed. That is why it is called skydiving, not "jumping from my coffee table." So we should ban jumping from any height in which you are likely to be killed?

You are making my point for me: Because you have a parachute. What safeguards do you have after you have fired the gun? None.

Hence why I said "drive on the highway." So in your opinion, then, we should ban all driving at any speed that, if an accident occurs, will lead to death? So that puts maximum speed limit at what: 25 kph? Should we ban all cars that can go faster than that?

We do ban cars faster than a certain speed. Why? Because it is way more dangerous to drive at 200 km/h than 25 km/h.

The list of stuff we need to ban is getting awfully long.

Slippery slope again.

Do you have something new?

 

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

But you can't shoot just a little bit. That's the difference.

It's a difference, but you have yet to show how it is a relevent difference.

You are making my point for me: Because you have a parachute. What safeguards do you have after you have fired the gun? None.

The safeguard is what you are pointing the gun at, and what precautions you took prior to firing the gun to ensure there was nobody in the area of where the bullet is going. Similarly, once I jump out of an airplane, if I have not properly packed my parachute, there is nothing I can do from that point on. I am falling. So much like a gun, safety in skydiving is completely contingent on what I do prior to jumping. Once I'm out of the plane, I'm out.

We do ban cars faster than a certain speed. Why? Because it is way more dangerous to drive at 200 km/h than 25 km/h.

And it is also way more dangerous to drive at 80 kph than at 25 kph. In fact, if I crash into something while going 80 kph, I'll probably be killed. Yet we do not ban cars that can go 80 kph, and it is perfectly legal in many places to drive 80 kph. So I ask again: if I am driving on the highway, can I drive 80 kph "a little bit"? Is driving safely at 80 kph contingent on being able to drive at 80 kph "a little bit"?

Slippery slope again.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Do you have something new?

Come up with a satisfactory response for these points first, and maybe I will move on to something new.

 

[CFLarsen]

It's a difference, but you have yet to show how it is a relevent difference.

The safeguard is what you are pointing the gun at, and what precautions you took prior to firing the gun to ensure there was nobody in the area of where the bullet is going. Similarly, once I jump out of an airplane, if I have not properly packed my parachute, there is nothing I can do from that point on. I am falling.

Moving the goalposts. If your parachute doesn't work, then you had no safeguard at all.

So much like a gun, safety in skydiving is completely contingent on what I do prior to jumping. Once I'm out of the plane, I'm out.

The point is not the precautions you took before you fired the bullet. The point is, once you use the gun, you have no safeguards whatsoever.

And it is also way more dangerous to drive at 80 kph than at 25 kph. In fact, if I crash into something while going 80 kph, I'll probably be killed. Yet we do not ban cars that can go 80 kph, and it is perfectly legal in many places to drive 80 kph. So I ask again: if I am driving on the highway, can I drive 80 kph "a little bit"?

The point I keep explaining is that you can only "drive" (operate) a gun at dangerous speeds. You can't fire a bullet at slow, safe speeds. Once you fire it, it is very dangerous.

You accept this, because otherwise, you wouldn't be so keen on pointing out just how much gun safety you need. Yet, people get shot and killed by guns by accidents.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I am very aware of what it means.

Come up with a satisfactory response for these points first, and maybe I will move on to something new.

I am sorry if you cannot see the faulty logic you are using. If that is all you have, then I see no reason for you to continue.

 

[CFLarsen]

Violent Death Among Children Linked to Household Firearms

A new study from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) found that in states and regions with higher levels of household firearm ownership, many more children are dying from homicide, suicide and gun accidents. The differences in rates of violent death to children across states are large. The higher death rates in high gun states are due to differences in deaths from firearms. This elevated rate of violent death to children in high gun states cannot be explained by differences in state levels of poverty, education, or urbanization.

And:

This study focused on children aged 5 to14, and compared data across all 50 states over a 10-year period (1988-1997). In one table, the authors compare the five states with the highest gun ownership levels with the five states with the lowest levels. While these states have equal numbers of children, they have very different rates of violent death. In the 10-year period, 253 children died from firearm accidents in the high gun states, compared to 15 in the low gun states. While the numbers of non-gun suicides were similar, 153 children killed themselves with guns in the five high gun states, compared to 22 who committed suicide in the five low gun states.

Can we please drop this idea that people will find other means, if there aren't guns available?

Further:

Children in the high gun states were also at much higher risk of being murdered with a firearm. During this 10-year period, 298 children aged 5 to 14 were murdered with guns in the high gun states, compared to 86 in the low gun states. The non-gun homicide rates were fairly similar (a little over 100 non-gun homicides in both sets of states).

Miller emphasized that, while no study that is a snapshot of the U.S. over a short period of time can prove causation, the strong and robust association between gun ownership and children’s violent death is compelling.

And, to nail it:

These results are also consistent with international comparisons. The U.S. level of private firearm ownership is much higher than in other developed nations and U.S. children aged 5 to14 are far more likely to be murdered, commit suicide, and die from gun accidents than children in other developed countries. Indeed, for children aged 5 to 14 in the United States, death from firearms is the third leading cause of mortality, following only motor vehicle crashes and cancer.

Drop these pretenses and phony arguments that guns are good for you. The hard data shows otherwise.

 

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

Moving the goalposts. If your parachute doesn't work, then you had no safeguard at all.

I have no idea how that entails "moving the goalposts," but your use of cliches seems to keep you happy. If I skydive, all my safety precautions occur prior to me jumping. If I screw one up, once I jump out, I am dead. The same concept applies to firing a gun. Once the bullet is out, it's out. But there are plenty of things I can do prior to firing to make it safe. Why is that a hard concept to understand? By your logic, every time someone fires a gain, someone else should be getting shot and killed. Obviously that is not happening. Obviously, millions of people safely use guns every day. Everything else you are throwing out about firing a gun "just a little bit" is semantics, and nothing more.

The point I keep explaining is that you can only "drive" (operate) a gun at dangerous speeds. You can't fire a bullet at slow, safe speeds. Once you fire it, it is very dangerous.

I get your point. It is completely irrelevent. It does not illustrate anything relevent to the conversation. What exactly are you trying to prove? You cannot prove that guns can never be used safely. The only way to prove that would be to prove that every time a gun is fired, somebody gets injured or killed. That, obviously, is silly. Next week I have to go requalify on a firing range. Not only will I use a firearm, I will use it safely. Nobody will get shot or killed.

So there, I just proved that guns can be used safely. Shooting "a little bit" or not is completely irrelevent to that question.

I am sorry if you cannot see the faulty logic you are using. If that is all you have, then I see no reason for you to continue.

On the bright side, faulty logic is better than no logic at all. So I guess that puts me ahead.

 

[CFLarsen]

On the bright side, faulty logic is better than no logic at all. So I guess that puts me ahead.

How about evidence?

 

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

Indeed, for children aged 5 to 14 in the United States, death from firearms is the third leading cause of mortality, following only motor vehicle crashes and cancer.

Drop these pretenses and phony arguments that cars are good for you. The hard data shows otherwise.

 

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

How about evidence?

Evidence for what? That guns can be used safely? Sure, here is the evidence:

I have been shooting hundreds of times. I have never had a single accident of any form.

So very clearly, guns can be used safely. If they couldn't, I or someone near me should have been killed.

 

[Mephisto]

Just a quick aside, Civilians have always been able to legally purchase semi auto-matic versions of military rifles (i.e. pull the trigger back once, one round is fired) here in the USoA. Civilians can not purchase either fully automatic weapons (i.e. the lead hose), or weapons that may fire of a “burst” of several rounds per trigger pull, without a serious amount of red tape and hoop jumping in the way of licenses that is intended for museums and the like to own and display full military versions of firearms.

It is easy and legal for anyone with a clean background to purchase a semi-automatic ar-15 or ak-47. There are not cheap “pos” but may be made by the government contractors that provide the military with them (such as Colt), by the original designer (Armalite), or by smaller gun manufacturers (like Bushmaster), without having to talk to dark figures from the underworld. I would be surprised if most gun stores did not offer some of these rifles. I could be wrong, but I think Wal-Mart and K-mart quit selling firearms of all types sometime after the assult weapons ban, and the negitive press that it generated.

There are ways of these “semi-automatic” rifles to be fully automatic, of course, but then since the technology behind them is not complex, and widely understood, how could there not be? Anyone with the know-how, and the access to a machine shop, can build all kids of things of questionable legality.

I did not read anything the news article that mentioned that the rifle was a fully automatic one, I would assume that it was a legal, “semi-automatic” one. Since the student is 13 years old, it is illegal for him to purchase any firearm. Unfortunately it is likely that Tricky hit the nail on the head and it was stolen from dad’s gun safe, or someone else that the boy knew.

Thanks for that!

I was wondering how far down in the thread I would have to read before someone correctly clarified the difference between an automatic weapon and the legal semi-automatic. The distinction is ALWAYS blurred by the media and most people don't know that many hunting rifles, shotguns and handguns are semi-automatic which doesn't make them any more or less dangerous than a single-shot .22 rifle (a single-shot must have every bullet loaded into the chamber one at a time because it has no magazine, the .22 caliber is the smallest round commercially available).

To reiterate: SEMI-AUTOMATIC WEAPONS ARE LEGAL AND ARE NOT MACHINE GUNS!

 

[CFLarsen]

Drop these pretenses and phony arguments that cars are good for you. The hard data shows otherwise.

Cars are not built to kill.

Are you just going to ignore the study?

 

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

Cars are not built to kill.

Nor are guns. Guns are built to fire projectiles. They don't inherently have to be used to kill anything. I can shoot glass bottles with them.

Are you just going to ignore the study?

Sure am. Didn't you mention something earlier about "moving the goalposts"? Here is your original assertion: The difference is that there is no safe use of a gun. There is no moderate use of a gun.

Citing a study that shows that people get killed by using guns in an unsafe manner does not prove that guns cannot be used safely. It just shows that when not used safely, they are dangerous -- like cars, and books of matches, and alcohol, and just about anything else. Nobody has ever claimed that there would not be gun-related accidents.

Do you have a study that shows that guns can never be used safely? If you do, I'd love to see it.

 

[Zep]

Claus, I happen to think you are using the slippery-slope yourself. Or perhaps more like arguing that one represents the whole.

There are indeed a number of legitimate uses for guns that are highly unlikely to result in death or injury to the user or other people. Just the same as for car usage.

There are indeed many legitimate users of guns who follow safety procedures properly every time they handle the weapon, and who as a result remain perfectly safe throughout. Just the same as car usage.

I do not think you can argue that the totality of gun usage is highly fraught with uncontrolled danger. Just as you can't argue that the totality of car usage is highly fraught with uncontrolled danger.

In both cases, the POTENTIAL for danger CAN be high if safety procedures are not followed (such as consuming alcohol which impairs judgement and motor skills). The only difference is the intended purpose of each mechanism: Guns are designed to extend force from the user; cars to transport the user quickly. When not controlled properly, the gun MIGHT cause injury or death to to "victims" or to innocent third parties, but less so to the user. When not controlled properly, the car MIGHT cause injury or death to the user, but less so to "victims" or to innocent third parties. Not hard-and-fast rules, of course.

 

[Katana]

The problem with this argument is that we don't see school killings with pipe bombs. They find a gun - or more - and go on a rampage. They don't collect knives, or build pipe bombs.

The kids in Columbine came to school with backpacks full of 30+ pipe bombs only a few of which they had a chance to use. However, early on, they had set up a couple of large propane-tank bombs to go off that would have partially destroyed the cafeteria, collapsed the library above it, and killed most of the 500ish students in there.

Rocky Mountain News

Two FBI evidence recovery specialists moved slowly amid a sea of backpacks on the flooded floor of Columbine High School's cafeteria.

Then they stopped.

At their feet lay two large dark gym bags, bigger than the packs terrified students had abandoned 48 hours earlier when gunshots exploded just outside the lunchroom. One bag bore scorch marks, and the ceiling tiles above it had melted.

The FBI agents delicately looked inside the bags -- and instantly understood the true intentions of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris: death, by fire, for hundreds of their fellow students.

The gym bags each held a large bomb fashioned from a barbecue grill propane tank, a gasoline can and other fuel cylinders. Each was wired to a pipe bomb. A two-bell alarm clock served as a timing device.

Had both bombs not failed, explosives experts concluded, the 660 kids in the cafeteria at 11:20 a.m. April 20 likely would have died -- nearly four times the number killed in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Fortunately, for the students there, the bombs failed, so the two boys had to resort to shooting.

From an article describing the website of Eric Harris:

Harris's Web site included a lengthy document on how to make bombs. It began, "Pipe bombs are the easiest and deadliest ways to kill a group of people or destroy a few things." Later, it said: "Shrapnel is very important if you want to kill and injure a lot of people."

 

[CFLarsen]

Nor are guns. Guns are built to fire projectiles. They don't inherently have to be used to kill anything. I can shoot glass bottles with them.

Guns are built to fire a projectiles at a very high speed at a deadly force.

Sure am.

So, you ignore the hard facts and focus on faulty logic.

Didn't you mention something earlier about "moving the goalposts"? Here is your original assertion: The difference is that there is no safe use of a gun. There is no moderate use of a gun.

Citing a study that shows that people get killed by using guns in an unsafe manner does not prove that guns cannot be used safely. It just shows that when not used safely, they are dangerous -- like cars, and books of matches, and alcohol, and just about anything else. Nobody has ever claimed that there would not be gun-related accidents.

Still continuing with your fallacies.

Do you have a study that shows that guns can never be used safely? If you do, I'd love to see it.

I'm sorry, but I'll stick to this study. If you want to argue anything else but faulty logic, let me know.

Claus, I happen to think you are using the slippery-slope yourself. Or perhaps more like arguing that one represents the whole.

There are indeed a number of legitimate uses for guns that are highly unlikely to result in death or injury to the user or other people. Just the same as for car usage.

There are indeed many legitimate users of guns who follow safety procedures properly every time they handle the weapon, and who as a result remain perfectly safe throughout. Just the same as car usage.

I do not think you can argue that the totality of gun usage is highly fraught with uncontrolled danger. Just as you can't argue that the totality of car usage is highly fraught with uncontrolled danger.

In both cases, the POTENTIAL for danger CAN be high if safety procedures are not followed (such as consuming alcohol which impairs judgement and motor skills). The only difference is the intended purpose of each mechanism: Guns are designed to extend force from the user; cars to transport the user quickly. When not controlled properly, the gun MIGHT cause injury or death to to "victims" or to innocent third parties, but less so to the user. When not controlled properly, the car MIGHT cause injury or death to the user, but less so to "victims" or to innocent third parties. Not hard-and-fast rules, of course.

Guns are designed to extend deadly force from the user.

Do you want to comment on the study?