The Great ILX Gun Control Debate

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (3246 of them)

http://www.reedsway.com/charlton_heston2.jpg

guns don't kill people, soylent green is people

― Milton Parker, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:10 (seventeen years ago) link

sorry

― Milton Parker, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:10 (seventeen years ago) link

"Guns do age and become ineffectual, albeit over a long period of time"

Another wild claim stated as absolute truth! Has ILE always been this factually challenged or have I been sipping too many Long Island Ice Teas in the wee computer hours?

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:10 (seventeen years ago) link

Hahaha Nate one of the funny truths of the gun-control conversation is that you just don't dream of taking away weapons people already own, because there is some very small wacko percentage of them who are not kidding about the cold dead hands, and they are, umm, armed. (Please do not interpret as a slur on the non-small non-wacko percentage who'd be indignant but not get all Ruby Ridge about it.)

Well we don't have to go pry the guns out of their hands all at once. This could be phased in gradually over a relatively long period of time. It would start by issuing a new class of gun license for people who have passed the screening, eventually the old classes of gun licenses would be phased out and people would have to apply for the new kind. If they refused, then, well, they'd be unlicensed. We wouldn't necessarily send the police to confiscate their guns.

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:12 (seventeen years ago) link

maybe you *already* can't get a gun if you have drug convictions or domestic abuse complaints agianst you.

this is indeed the case. Enforcement is a huge issue here though - funny that that's a common tack of the NRA, to argue that there's already plenty of laws that just aren't being enforced properly. Which is totally true, but the argument is used to misdirect the debate away from the possibility of enacting any additional laws.

and yes manalishi I know what the fuck I'm talking about with old guns - no one holds up a liquor store with a cap-and-ball rifle for a reason.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:12 (seventeen years ago) link

(cap and ball MUSKET I should say)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:12 (seventeen years ago) link

"i am sure even the libertarian in roger wouldn't in theory argue with more federal + state funding for outpatient therapy for drug + domestic violence criminals?"

In Roger's America, heal thyself, friend.

Or, you know...get a rope. Either way.

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:13 (seventeen years ago) link

LOL same to you, buddy

― moonship journey to baja, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:14 (seventeen years ago) link

Old weapons do age, but generally only become ineffective due to use. A modern rifle or handgun will outlast us all, and probably our great-great-great grandchildren, if it's not being shot regularly.

Haha seriously, how come nobody here is getting all Nugenty over the fact that I've been issued a special second-rate license on which the government dictates that I'm not allowed to drive without my glasses on?! Why are they all up in my private myopia issues??

As John said way way back - your driving privileges are (legally) more akin to the ability to carry a loaded firearm on the street. In which case you will be tested and given restrictions.

― milo z, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:14 (seventeen years ago) link

I've said this a bunch of times already, but there is a distinction between "license to operate" and "license to purchase", and certainly "license to own", and as long as people keep flipping back and forth according to the point they're trying to make, we'll all keep circling the same things again and again.

Which is going to happen anyway, but at least it'll be more interesting to read my way.

xpost uh shakey, you might have missed my point earlier re: high power shooting and an unmodified model from 1913, but maintained guns don't wear out.

xposts yup, milo is right.

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:14 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.reedsway.com/charlton_heston2.jpg

I has a gun
I has cold hands
I has need bullets
?

― StanM, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:16 (seventeen years ago) link

in terms of "ineffectual" I was thinking more of how weapons tend to get regularly outmoded by, um, deadlier weapons.

Like 50 years from now the standard, most effective weapon for killing people probably won't be a handgun.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:16 (seventeen years ago) link

you know like no one is using unmodified rifles from 1913 to wantonly murder people, commit crimes, etc.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:18 (seventeen years ago) link

Presumably the new class of gun license would also be checked any time someone wanted to purchase ammo. So people with the old kind of license would eventually not be able to purchase ammo.

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Haha dudes I was mostly just being funny about the DMV vision test, but if your response to that is "driving is more like carrying concealed weapons," does that suggest you're fine with psychological testing and opening medical records for c&c permits, or telling people they have to have psychological testing in order to get them? (That's a genuine question, BTW, not a rhetorical one.)

― nabisco, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:19 (seventeen years ago) link

I've never had a psych or medical test for my driver's license. I go up, put on my glasses, and look in the little vision box.

A Texas concealed handgun license is quite a bit more stringent than that. 8 hours of classes, a shooting proficiency test, fingerprints sent to the state police and the FBI for background checks, etc..

My father's got held up for three or four extra months because he'd been arrested for fighting in California. In 1967.

― milo z, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:22 (seventeen years ago) link

I may be mistaken about this, but I don't think ammo has as long as shelf-life as a gun, so the license-check on ammo part would help to address the legacy gun problem.

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:23 (seventeen years ago) link

I wouldn't use old ammo.

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:24 (seventeen years ago) link

Milo you've been tricked: that little vision box is an eye test! It is secretly assessing whether or not you have untreated DIZEEZES of the EYE and BRANE! RUN!!!

― nabisco, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Nope, ammo doesn't last quite as long. Problem is, you can make it yourself, so that won't work either.

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:28 (seventeen years ago) link

You can't make it from scratch, you need to purchase certain things like primers, gunpowder, casings, etc. These would also require a license check.

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:29 (seventeen years ago) link

jesus christ, who knew guns were so boring?

― félix pié, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:29 (seventeen years ago) link

I still haven't seen any statistics on the number of gun-related deaths caused by mentally unstable people.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:29 (seventeen years ago) link

ORLY? I wonder if anyone already has any of those things? I wonder if the casings are reusable? Primers and powder, properly stored, last for a long, long time.

xposts

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:30 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, shit - polygraph tests?? For INNOCENT people? Pardon me, but fuck you.

1) polygraph tests are completely useless at anything besides getting people to confess shit

2) everyone in america having their records accessed or being questioned by police is INNOCENT until conviction

― and what, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:31 (seventeen years ago) link

I still haven't seen any statistics on the number of gun-related deaths caused by mentally unstable people.

Err, isn't – excepting immediate and inarguable self defense / accidental firing – the act of pointing a gun at somebody and pulling the trigger an unstable act?

― remy bean, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:33 (seventeen years ago) link

Any, John J, sure there's going to be some dead-enders who stockpile gunpowder and bullets and so on in airtight, temperature controlled chambers so that when the One World Government comes to stamp the Number of the Beast on their foreheads they'll be ready to stop it like true red-blooded patriots. No solution is going to get rid of every single gun- but it doesn't have to to make a difference for the better.

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:34 (seventeen years ago) link

Dude, tons of people reload and really wouldn't enjoy being characterized that way, and they'd be completely right.

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:35 (seventeen years ago) link

1) polygraph tests are completely useless at anything besides getting people to confess shit

Such as whether they might be purchasing the gun with the intent of killing scores of innocent people?

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:36 (seventeen years ago) link

o. nate, there are also people who shoot a lot (for fun) and want to keep costs down. Buying primers in the thousands at a time isn't unheard of.

― milo z, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:36 (seventeen years ago) link

Err, isn't – excepting immediate and inarguable self defense / accidental firing – the act of pointing a gun at somebody and pulling the trigger an unstable act?

The contortions involved there aren't even worth responding to.

― milo z, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:36 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm not talking about everyone who reloads, I'm talking about the people in John's scenario who would refuse to be psychologically screened and would stockpile their (illegal) guns.

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:36 (seventeen years ago) link

oh great now there's some shooting thing goin on at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh boy. How about ammonia, nate? Can I still buy that without turning my head and coughing? Robitussin? How about that? Do I need to submit to fingerprinting for that?

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:37 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm not talking about everyone who reloads, I'm talking about the people in John's scenario who would refuse to be psychologically screened and would stockpile their (illegal) guns.

-- o. nate, Friday, April 20, 2007 2:36 PM (50 seconds ago)

WHAT?

You know, the thing that's making this whole thread particularly irritating is that a bunch of people keep presenting uninformed "Hmmm, I think this might be true" data as facts.

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:38 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, I realize that the factual statement "Many people buy thousands of primers at a time" is inconvenient for you, but it's still true.

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:40 (seventeen years ago) link

"Any, John J, sure there's going to be some dead-enders who stockpile gunpowder and bullets and so on in airtight, temperature controlled chambers so that when the One World Government comes to stamp the Number of the Beast on their foreheads they'll be ready to stop it like true red-blooded patriots."

You have a lot of strange ass ideas, man. Where do you come up with this shit?

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:40 (seventeen years ago) link

Why are proposing legislating psychological profiling? Have we investigated whether this is actually a significant problem in need of a solution.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:40 (seventeen years ago) link

"You know, the thing that's making this whole thread particularly irritating is that a bunch of people keep presenting uninformed "Hmmm, I think this might be true" data as facts."

This is by far the most sensible thing NOT said by me on this entire thread.

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:41 (seventeen years ago) link

I've tried to avoid speculative generalizations myself - I think the only generalization I've made was about the rarity of people committing mass murder/violent crimes with really old outdated guns

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:42 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh boy. How about ammonia, nate? Can I still buy that without turning my head and coughing? Robitussin? How about that? Do I need to submit to fingerprinting for that?

Obviously guns are quite different in their potential for harm from those things. The idea is to make it harder for the occasional nut job to carry out his murderous fantasy. Guns are by far the easiest way for people to do go on these kinds of rampages, hence why they are so often used for that purpose. Obviously there are other ways people can carry out mass murder - the 9/11 hijackers only needed box cutters to kill thousands - but those incidents are extremely rare, because of the difficulty involved.

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:42 (seventeen years ago) link

o. nate, what you don't seem to be taking into account is that VT-like incidents are themselves "extremely rare" - in terms of overall population, prevalence of firearms and their use.

Which then goes to what Fluffy and I've been requesting - hard numbers on the amount of gun violence related to mental instability/illness/etc..

― milo z, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:44 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, I realize that the factual statement "Many people buy thousands of primers at a time" is inconvenient for you, but it's still true.

Somewhere this train got onto the wrong track. I never meant to imply anything about people who buy primers in bulk. I'm talking about a potential group of people in a possible future scenario that obviously I didn't communicate very well in this thread. Never mind - it's not important. The important point I'm trying to make is that the legacy gun problem will shrink over time.

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Uninformed non-factual things like Roger thinking he can still buy OTC cough medicine without having to sign in a little book if it has any ephedrine in it. :(

― nabisco, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:49 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost Good luck with that, partner.

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:50 (seventeen years ago) link

No solution is going to get rid of every single gun- but it doesn't have to to make a difference for the better.

Wait, I thought you just wanted to keep guns out of the hands of crazies.

Guns are by far the easiest way for people to do go on these kinds of rampages

So why do Palestinians often use bombs instead of guns?

― Kerm, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:51 (seventeen years ago) link

You can get high as hell on Robitussin DM. That's a fact. I can walk into Duane Reade right now and buy a gallon of the shit.

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:51 (seventeen years ago) link

All of the violence I have seen in my life firsthand thus far has not involved guns.

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:52 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, but you live in a world where you can break seven dudes' noses in a Hulk-style group fight, so getting all Steven Seagal Zen-wisdom on us isn't very enlightening.

― nabisco, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:54 (seventeen years ago) link

The important point I'm trying to make is that the legacy gun problem will shrink over time.

this is my thinking too - moving forward make new weapons more difficult to purchase/restrict their manufacture etc., and let time and inconvenience reduce the problem of the guns already in circulation.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:54 (seventeen years ago) link

Skipping 3146 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.