If a person accidentally kills someone...

[Spider]

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.

War on Drugs = mass migration out of south america / central america to the US

War on Terror = mass migration (of cowardly adult men) to Europe and soon a town near you

War on Guns = Yeah, let's see what that gets us lolz.

 

[9andaWiggle]

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...

Not directly, but I've brought up lack of parenting. The above, while not totally the fault of parents, falls into a category where society as a whole is failing to teach our youth and instill in them good moral values that benefit all if society.

 

[Greg T.]

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.

Bunch of liberal bullshit gibberish. Riddle me this: A guy with an AK47 walks up to a large establishment housing, lets say, 500 people. His intent is to kill them all. Suddenly he sees a sign that says "This is a gun free zone. No firearms are allowed on the premises." You mean to tell me this guy will be all disappointed and leave? You're delusional. He'll be salivating at the thought of no resistance. Why do you think 99.9999% of mass shootings take place in gun free zones? No opposition!

 

[JLS]

Greg....A gun needs someone to pull the trigger....And in most of these mass shootings...A fuxxcked up
mommy's boy pulled the trigger...

And that lard ass from Florida is also a mommy's boy...

 

[WAMO]

ANYONE THAT WALKS INTO ANY GUN FREE ZONE TO KILL IS A COWARD.

 

[Greg T.]

ANYONE THAT WALKS INTO ANY GUN FREE ZONE TO KILL IS A COWARD.

Of course they are. But they are also opportunists. Knowing there is most likely no opposition, they have their best chance at success in a gun free zone. That is why I always carry in a gun free zone.