If a person accidentally kills someone...

[Greg T.]

I THINK THE LIST OF GUN DEATHS IS WAY TO LONG TO BLAME JUST MENTAL ILLNESS.

How do you figure? The guns are killing people on their own? Only a fucking retard would kill another human unless his life was in danger. That being said, how can the list be too long? The only answer would be guns acting out on their own.

 

[WAMO]

HOW WOULD ONE DETERMINE WHEN A COMPLETLY SANE GUN OWNING INDIVIDUAL MIGHT BECOME A RETARD? IT HAPPENS.

 

[Greg T.]

HOW WOULD ONE DETERMINE WHEN A COMPLETLY SANE GUN OWNING INDIVIDUAL MIGHT BECOME A RETARD? IT HAPPENS.

You can't penalize someone for they MIGHT do. You can't tell when someone is going to snap. You have no way of knowing when someone will build a bomb and take out an entire neighborhood, nor can you tell when someone will get drunk and run over 25 people in a crowd with their car. You can't tell when someone may feel generous and give away their fortune. Yet, in every case, the nutcase is blamed, until a gun is involved. Then it's the gun's fault.

 

[WAMO]

TOTALLY AGREE G. NO ONE KNOWS WHEN SOMEONE MIGHT SNAP AND DO SOMETHING STUPID. BUT LIKE YOU SAID, A CAR IS MEANT TO DRIVE, A GUN IS MEANT TO KILL. I DONT REMEMBER HEARING OF A DRUNK DRIVER TAKING HIS SUV INTO A CLASS ROOM AND RUNNING OVER AND KILLING 9 STUDENTS. NOR DO I REMEMBER OF A BOMB GOING OFF IN A CLASS ROOM. AND I DO NOT BLAME THE GUN. BUT WOULDNT STIFFER GUN OWNERSHIP LAWS HELP PREVENT, IF ONLY A SMALL NUMBER, SOME OF THIS NONSENCE?

 

[Greg T.]

TOTALLY AGREE G. NO ONE KNOWS WHEN SOMEONE MIGHT SNAP AND DO SOMETHING STUPID. BUT LIKE YOU SAID, A CAR IS MEANT TO DRIVE, A GUN IS MEANT TO KILL. I DONT REMEMBER HEARING OF A DRUNK DRIVER TAKING HIS SUV INTO A CLASS ROOM AND RUNNING OVER AND KILLING 9 STUDENTS. NOR DO I REMEMBER OF A BOMB GOING OFF IN A CLASS ROOM. AND I DO NOT BLAME THE GUN. BUT WOULDNT STIFFER GUN OWNERSHIP LAWS HELP PREVENT, IF ONLY A SMALL NUMBER, SOME OF THIS NONSENCE?

No, but I have seen footage of drunk and/or insane drivers purposely driving into huge crowds of people and killing very many and injuring dozens. Plus, they could have easily had an explosive with them.

 

[Greg T.]

 

[livespive]

I would have to go with Greg on this one. The tool use is determined by it's owner. It doesn't have to be mental illness, but in the end it is the owner that is in control.

A car can be used for transportation, crushing other cars or racing.
A gun can be used for hunting, defense, trick shooting, target practice. Not all involve killing so you can't say the gun was made just to kill. Anything that has a prjectile would fall into that category then.

TOTALLY AGREE G. NO ONE KNOWS WHEN SOMEONE MIGHT SNAP AND DO SOMETHING STUPID. BUT LIKE YOU SAID, A CAR IS MEANT TO DRIVE, A GUN IS MEANT TO KILL. I DONT REMEMBER HEARING OF A DRUNK DRIVER TAKING HIS SUV INTO A CLASS ROOM AND RUNNING OVER AND KILLING 9 STUDENTS. NOR DO I REMEMBER OF A BOMB GOING OFF IN A CLASS ROOM. AND I DO NOT BLAME THE GUN. BUT WOULDNT STIFFER GUN OWNERSHIP LAWS HELP PREVENT, IF ONLY A SMALL NUMBER, SOME OF THIS NONSENCE?

 

[Robadat]

TOTALLY AGREE G. NO ONE KNOWS WHEN SOMEONE MIGHT SNAP AND DO SOMETHING STUPID. BUT LIKE YOU SAID, A CAR IS MEANT TO DRIVE, A GUN IS MEANT TO KILL. I DONT REMEMBER HEARING OF A DRUNK DRIVER TAKING HIS SUV INTO A CLASS ROOM AND RUNNING OVER AND KILLING 9 STUDENTS. NOR DO I REMEMBER OF A BOMB GOING OFF IN A CLASS ROOM. AND I DO NOT BLAME THE GUN. BUT WOULDNT STIFFER GUN OWNERSHIP LAWS HELP PREVENT, IF ONLY A SMALL NUMBER, SOME OF THIS NONSENCE?

There's been plenty of instances where drivers have intentionally run over people with the intent to kill them. There have been many school bombings.

As there is currently no requirement for Mental Health Providers to report mentally unstable people to authorities (and Hippa laws expressly forbidden it) tougher gun ownership laws will not prevent them from acquiring guns.

GTGT, I would state that it is an inalienable God given human right to self-protection. Any attempt to curb or restrain that (ie, gun ownership for the purpose of self-defense) is a limitation on that right.

 

[9andaWiggle]

How do you figure? The guns are killing people on their own? Only a fucking retard would kill another human unless his life was in danger. That being said, how can the list be too long? The only answer would be guns acting out on their own.

I do disagree with the idea that only mentally ill people kill. Fighting and even killing is a natural instict in the wild to protect territory, claim breeding rights, ensure strength of the group and safety from outsiders. Like it or not, people are animals. "Civilized" behavior has to be taught. Little kids are mean as hell until they're taught to behave by their parents - and they're not mentally ill. They're just doing what nature has programmed them to do until they learn the rules of society.

So once again, it goes back to my opinion that the moral decline in our society falls squarely on the shoulders of parents. They are not properly teaching children how to behave and react as civilized human beings, so our man made morals are being lost to animal instincts.

 

[livespive]

Agreed, but I think Greg's point is that the rifle hanging over the fireplace, or in the cabinet is not running through a crowd killing folks.

I do disagree with the idea that only mentally ill people kill. Fighting and even killing is a natural instict in the wild to protect territory, claim breeding rights, ensure strength of the group and safety from outsiders. Like it or not, people are animals. "Civilized" behavior has to be taught. Little kids are mean as hell until they're taught to behave by their parents - and they're not mentally ill. They're just doing what nature has programmed them to do until they learn the rules of society.

So once again, it goes back to my opinion that the moral decline in our society falls squarely on the shoulders of parents. They are not properly teaching children how to behave and react as civilized human beings, so our man made morals are being lost to animal instincts.

 

[WAMO]

THEY DONT REALIZE THEY ARE RUNNING PEOPLE OVER. THEY ARE TO BUSY REACHING FOR THEIR GUNS.

 

[WAMO]

SORRY ROB AND GUYS. MY POINT WAS THE SCHOOLS. I KNOW PEOPLE ARE GOING TO KILL PEOPLE ONE WAY OR ANOTHER. DRIVING AN SUV INTO A CLASS ROOM AINT GOING TO HAPPEN. I WAS JUST THINKING THAT BETTER GUN LAWS OR CONTROL MIGHT KEEP GUNS OUT OF SCHOOLS. AND THATS ALL I MEANT ABOUT HELPING CURTELL GUN DEATHS. AND WHAT EVER IDIOT CAME UP WITH WANTING TO ALLOW STUDENTS TO CARRY GUNS ON CAMPUS, TOTAL RETARD!

 

[Greg T.]

SORRY ROB AND GUYS. MY POINT WAS THE SCHOOLS. I KNOW PEOPLE ARE GOING TO KILL PEOPLE ONE WAY OR ANOTHER. DRIVING AN SUV INTO A CLASS ROOM AINT GOING TO HAPPEN. I WAS JUST THINKING THAT BETTER GUN LAWS OR CONTROL MIGHT KEEP GUNS OUT OF SCHOOLS. AND THATS ALL I MEANT ABOUT HELPING CURTELL GUN DEATHS. AND WHAT EVER IDIOT CAME UP WITH WANTING TO ALLOW STUDENTS TO CARRY GUNS ON CAMPUS, TOTAL RETARD!

Explain something to me, if you will. How will making more laws, stricter laws, inhibiting laws keep the guns out of schools when the people doing the shootings are not obeying the laws now? How will making MY guns tougher to own keep guns out of schools? Remember....when guns are outlawed, only the outlaws will have guns.

 

[WAMO]

IM SORRY G, I DONT HAVE THE ANSWER FOR THAT, BUT THERE HAS TO BE ONE.

 

[livespive]

NO but there was the guy earlier this year that drove the car through a campus running people over.
I think it was in CA, I will need to did out the news report.....

THe point is, it doesn't matter, when that "person" desides that they are going to do something
it doesn't matter, they will use what ever they can get their hands on.

SORRY ROB AND GUYS. MY POINT WAS THE SCHOOLS. I KNOW PEOPLE ARE GOING TO KILL PEOPLE ONE WAY OR ANOTHER. DRIVING AN SUV INTO A CLASS ROOM AINT GOING TO HAPPEN. I WAS JUST THINKING THAT BETTER GUN LAWS OR CONTROL MIGHT KEEP GUNS OUT OF SCHOOLS. AND THATS ALL I MEANT ABOUT HELPING CURTELL GUN DEATHS. AND WHAT EVER IDIOT CAME UP WITH WANTING TO ALLOW STUDENTS TO CARRY GUNS ON CAMPUS, TOTAL RETARD!

 

[Good Times Good Times]

http://www.armedwithreason.com/rebu...biding-citizens-argument-against-gun-control/

"Myth

“The bad guys, the criminals, don’t follow laws and restricting more of America’s freedoms when it comes to self-defense isn’t the answer.” – Sarah Palin

“…The challenge with gun laws is that by definition criminals do not follow the law. For example, Connecticut’s gun laws, some of the strictest in the nation, were not able to prevent this atrocity.” – Alex Conant, Marco Rubio’s spokesman

“Thus the classic slogan — when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns — isn’t only a word play; it is a fundamental insight into the folly of gun prohibition. Such an approach means the bad guys are well-armed while law-abiding citizens are not.” – Jeffrey Miron

“Gun bans don’t disarm criminals, gun bans attract them.” – Walter Mondale

Overview of Pro-Gun Arguments

• The main point of this argument is that criminals do not follow laws; therefore laws restricting gun ownership and types of guns would only hurt those who follow them.
• This implies that areas with more restrictive gun laws should have more crime given that an armed populace deters criminals.
• This notion is connected with the idea of “gun-free” zones and that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

The Lawbreaker Paradox

The statement that “criminals do not follow laws” is true for the same reason it’s completely irrelevant to a substantive discussion on gun reform– it’s a tautology. It says exactly nothing about the proper course of action a society should take to improve social outcomes.

Definitionally, criminals don’t follow laws. This is no more a meaningful statement about social realities than the observation that dogs bark or cats meow, so it is baffling that gun proponents view this as an acceptable rejoinder in political debate.

Though it may seem like such an obvious point may not need mentioning, it has become increasingly popular among those who oppose gun reform to argue that such legislation only hurts law-abiding citizens, making it more difficult for innocent civilians to get the guns they need to defend themselves. Criminals, after all, don’t obey the laws that burden law-abiding citizens. I will term this position the lawbreaker paradox—a paradox because it axiomatically reinforces the idea that laws, though created with the intent to improve social outcomes, hurt the people who follow them.

The paradox is as follows:

1. Law-abiding citizens obey the law
2. Criminals are lawbreakers, and thus do not obey the law
3. Laws impose restrictions on the behavior of only those that follow them
4. Laws, therefore, only hurt law-abiding citizens

Without exception, every law could be refuted with the lawbreaker’s paradox, and societies would swiftly descend into anarchy if it weren’t for reasonable policymakers. Laws against rape, murder, and theft, for example, are rarely followed by rapists, murderers, and thieves, but the fact that such people exist in society is the reason behind such regulations in the first place.

Among gun advocates forwarding this line of argument, there seems to be a serious lapse in moral intuition that privileges expediency over human lives. To think that the minor inconvenience of gun reforms such as background checks, waiting periods, and assault weapon bans is more burdensome than the death of thousands of innocent civilians each year (which such reforms seek to redress) reflects a miscalibrated sense of what matters in the world. After all, when gun advocates say that they are being ‘hurt’ by gun control, let’s be clear what the actual implication of this statement is: my right to not be bothered in the least by regulation outweighs the right to life for thousands of innocents who die in the absence of said regulation. Not only can such gun reforms reduce the number of homicides, but there is very little controversy about the tremendous effect they would have at reducing suicides. So, the belief that laws aimed at saving lives “hurt law-abiding citizens” is completely incompatible with any sane definition of right and wrong.

Why have any laws at all?
Not only is this conservative sound-bite irrelevant to gun reform discussion, it’s also socially untenable and dangerously naïve. If we were to accept that a law is justified only if it has a 100% compliance rate (this is, necessarily, the logical extension of any position that renounces legal reform under the pretense that ‘criminals don’t obey laws’), then we could systematically dismantle every existing law until nothing remains but the state of nature. Laws against murder, rape, and theft would be abandoned out of fear that criminals wouldn’t follow them, and that they would thus hurt law-abiding citizens who ostensibly murder, rape, and thieve out of self-defense. Taking this argument to its logical endpoint, even the most hardened of libertarians would be reticent to accept a world where property crimes can be used to abrogate property rights.

Not to mention that there are already plenty of weapons that have been banned which criminals aren’t using– RPGs, machine guns, anti-tank weapons, surface-to-air missiles, and so on. Just because something is illegal doesn’t mean that criminals automatically have a desire to use said weapons, or have access to a black market that could supply them."

What is being argued is a paradox: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Paradox

And with that folks, I'm good on the gun control / wild west debate. I know minds aren't going to be swayed in the face of evidence.........that's where I begin wasting my time. It's been real.

I will now look for boobies-type threads which unite us and do not waste our time.

 

[WAMO]

I TIP MY HAT TO YOU GT. VERY WELL SPOKEN. ITS FRIDAY, YES, BRING ON THE BOOBIES!!!!

 

[livespive]

I do like this argument, but once again once a person decides they are going to do harm they will do what it takes.

http://www.armedwithreason.com/rebu...biding-citizens-argument-against-gun-control/

"Myth

“The bad guys, the criminals, don’t follow laws and restricting more of America’s freedoms when it comes to self-defense isn’t the answer.” – Sarah Palin

“…The challenge with gun laws is that by definition criminals do not follow the law. For example, Connecticut’s gun laws, some of the strictest in the nation, were not able to prevent this atrocity.” – Alex Conant, Marco Rubio’s spokesman

“Thus the classic slogan — when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns — isn’t only a word play; it is a fundamental insight into the folly of gun prohibition. Such an approach means the bad guys are well-armed while law-abiding citizens are not.” – Jeffrey Miron

“Gun bans don’t disarm criminals, gun bans attract them.” – Walter Mondale

Overview of Pro-Gun Arguments

• The main point of this argument is that criminals do not follow laws; therefore laws restricting gun ownership and types of guns would only hurt those who follow them.
• This implies that areas with more restrictive gun laws should have more crime given that an armed populace deters criminals.
• This notion is connected with the idea of “gun-free” zones and that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

The Lawbreaker Paradox

The statement that “criminals do not follow laws” is true for the same reason it’s completely irrelevant to a substantive discussion on gun reform– it’s a tautology. It says exactly nothing about the proper course of action a society should take to improve social outcomes.

Definitionally, criminals don’t follow laws. This is no more a meaningful statement about social realities than the observation that dogs bark or cats meow, so it is baffling that gun proponents view this as an acceptable rejoinder in political debate.

Though it may seem like such an obvious point may not need mentioning, it has become increasingly popular among those who oppose gun reform to argue that such legislation only hurts law-abiding citizens, making it more difficult for innocent civilians to get the guns they need to defend themselves. Criminals, after all, don’t obey the laws that burden law-abiding citizens. I will term this position the lawbreaker paradox—a paradox because it axiomatically reinforces the idea that laws, though created with the intent to improve social outcomes, hurt the people who follow them.

The paradox is as follows:

1. Law-abiding citizens obey the law
2. Criminals are lawbreakers, and thus do not obey the law
3. Laws impose restrictions on the behavior of only those that follow them
4. Laws, therefore, only hurt law-abiding citizens

Without exception, every law could be refuted with the lawbreaker’s paradox, and societies would swiftly descend into anarchy if it weren’t for reasonable policymakers. Laws against rape, murder, and theft, for example, are rarely followed by rapists, murderers, and thieves, but the fact that such people exist in society is the reason behind such regulations in the first place.

Among gun advocates forwarding this line of argument, there seems to be a serious lapse in moral intuition that privileges expediency over human lives. To think that the minor inconvenience of gun reforms such as background checks, waiting periods, and assault weapon bans is more burdensome than the death of thousands of innocent civilians each year (which such reforms seek to redress) reflects a miscalibrated sense of what matters in the world. After all, when gun advocates say that they are being ‘hurt’ by gun control, let’s be clear what the actual implication of this statement is: my right to not be bothered in the least by regulation outweighs the right to life for thousands of innocents who die in the absence of said regulation. Not only can such gun reforms reduce the number of homicides, but there is very little controversy about the tremendous effect they would have at reducing suicides. So, the belief that laws aimed at saving lives “hurt law-abiding citizens” is completely incompatible with any sane definition of right and wrong.

Why have any laws at all?
Not only is this conservative sound-bite irrelevant to gun reform discussion, it’s also socially untenable and dangerously naïve. If we were to accept that a law is justified only if it has a 100% compliance rate (this is, necessarily, the logical extension of any position that renounces legal reform under the pretense that ‘criminals don’t obey laws’), then we could systematically dismantle every existing law until nothing remains but the state of nature. Laws against murder, rape, and theft would be abandoned out of fear that criminals wouldn’t follow them, and that they would thus hurt law-abiding citizens who ostensibly murder, rape, and thieve out of self-defense. Taking this argument to its logical endpoint, even the most hardened of libertarians would be reticent to accept a world where property crimes can be used to abrogate property rights.

Not to mention that there are already plenty of weapons that have been banned which criminals aren’t using– RPGs, machine guns, anti-tank weapons, surface-to-air missiles, and so on. Just because something is illegal doesn’t mean that criminals automatically have a desire to use said weapons, or have access to a black market that could supply them."

What is being argued is a paradox: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Paradox

And with that folks, I'm good on the gun control / wild west debate. I know minds aren't going to be swayed in the face of evidence.........that's where I begin wasting my time. It's been real.

I will now look for boobies-type threads which unite us and do not waste our time.

 

[9andaWiggle]

I like the argument. However, I do wonder, if they outlawed all guns, would we basically just be repeating the prohibition fiasco all over again? Otherwise law abiding citizens (I'll use Greg as an example) would be turned into criminals because we all know he and millions of others just like him will stash away weapons rather than turn them in. Further, IF crime started to increase (home break ins, for example) a black market would certainly develop. Or perhaps people would start making their own rickety firearms with whatever they could find to make them with.

 

[Spider]

I haven't read all the postings, but has anyone touched upon the cultural aspect? We have first-person shooter games and of course TV / movies which glorify and encourage killing with little regard. It's too easy to blame the "tool". Taking freedoms doesn't make sense when careful thought is employed...