The Great ILX Gun Control Debate

i mean, are e-cigarettes having an easy time catching on, despite having nicotine on its side? vape-ing is just culturally... weird.

tbh i have no idea, but i'm guessing that ppl in the US using assault rifles to ~actually kill people~ are more in the cold/calculated camp (ie - their "job" requires owning an assault rifle), so yeah they're gonna get their hands on em anyway. teens dont find dad's uzi and accidentally mow down their friends, and ppl don't often kill themselves with AKs, you know

if u ban handguns, dad's buying the AK dude.

also feel like banning handguns takes away from the "I own a gun for self-defense" narrative - like "I own an uzi for self defense...and for the ability to kill dozens of people in seconds should I feel like it"

and if you ban the Ak then everyone will be buying rocket launchers.

also, really? like, citation please? i mean say what you will about handguns or w/e, but i am pretty certain that even an expansive reading of the constitution couldn't conclude that the 2nd amendment doesn't specifically allow for people to bear arms? as alfred suggested, it seems about as cut and dried as the 1st!

i dunno, read stevens' dissent in heller? five of the most conservative justices in history came to a 5-4 decision; that's not exactly consensus.

self-defence against... people with guns

xxp

hate to break it to you but people using guns in self defense is not actually an out and out myth - yeah its less likely than some would believe, but so are most of the situations were talking about on this thread xxposts to dayo

i remember being amazed, having heard abt "the right to bear arms" for so long, at finding out that the amendment starts "a well-regulated militia being necessary to the health of the state" or whatever it is

why? amazed that that seems to circumscribe the right to own a gun more tightly, or that there's an expectation literally spelled out in the constitution that the gov't will probably have to face civilian insurrection from time to time? the explicit recommendation of citizen militias seems the most o_O part to me, but its obv a product of the time, and still makes sense in a purely abstract way (like ok there could in theory be a time when obama imposes a nwo police state or w/e)

xp thx kev, i don't really follow the court much, it just seems like str8 reading of the 2nd allows for ppl to have, at least, an old shotgun in the attic or something

and if you ban the Ak then everyone will be buying rocket launchers.

u do not wanna fuk w sawed off rocket launcher, no matter how simple it seems when u drunk

i do think its sad that gun control debates tend to get (on both sides) into pretty much a fingers in ears nah nah i cant hear you situation - theres a lot of factual stuff that can be useful but everybody ends up being so emotionally invested that it kinda sinks below the noise and grand pronouncements.

dude there was no standing army, militias were handy

i do think its sad that gun control ILX debates tend to get (on both sides) into pretty much a fingers in ears nah nah i cant hear you situation - theres a lot of factual stuff that can be useful but everybody ends up being so emotionally invested that it kinda sinks below the noise and grand pronouncements.

― O_o-O_0-o_O (jjjusten), Monday, January 10, 2011 12:51 PM (47 seconds ago) Bookmark

lets ban standing army

ban the bfg-9000 imo

yeah i didn't mean to call anyone a "fake liberal" i was just kinda reacting to what i see as iffy recieved wisdom that the consititution clearly proscribes banning the possession of handguns.

xps

the assault weapons ban is a great example of that because honestly most dudes that knew a bit about guns kinda realized that it was 90% empty legislation (magazine capacity could maybe get argued although uh 10 bullets is plenty to do bad stuff with) but it sounded very satisfying if most of the info was outside yer comfort zone.

xpost to uh myself i guess?

ew "received"

this is a big derail but e-cigarettes are super popular in the southwest at least... it doesn't hurt that there are a few mid-level-marketing schemes set up to sell them.

amazed that something ppl refer to as so cut & dried actually isn't, is possibly conditional on being part of a well-regulated miltia, whatever that could be, whether some archaic notion of raising an army or jefferson's idea abt how revolutions shld reoccur that i read abt on a jane's addiction sleeve

and honestly i think gun debates are way worse than most ilx stuff - like the religion and vegetarian threads can be a chore but these moments seem to strike a particularly bad and dismissive vibe most of the time.

note: i stay far away from the politics threads so i would not be surprised if they plumb the same depths

i do think its sad that gun control debates tend to get (on both sides) into pretty much a fingers in ears nah nah i cant hear you situation - theres a lot of factual stuff that can be useful but everybody ends up being so emotionally invested that it kinda sinks below the noise and grand pronouncements.

― O_o-O_0-o_O (jjjusten), Sunday, January 9, 2011 10:51 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

yeah i guess this is the only reason these debates still provoke me at all. it's like...i'm open to having my mind changed on any of this, but i'd prefer some empirical reason for it, not just "guns kill ppl, ban guns, q.e.d". esp since you literally cannot just do that, and maybe shouldn't, for all sorts of reasons that aren't rooted in masturbatory gun fantasies. but when ppl roll with "guns are barbaric" and pithy one liners i just sort of assume that no one is even interested in why exactly ppl are getting killed by guns in this country. because it isn't merely because they're legal, that's just a part.

Everything I read about the assault weapons ban convinces me it was the shittiest legislation of all time but did it really address the cosmetic issues when it allowed guns that looked exactly the same to still be sold?

"e-cigarettes are super popular in the southwest at least..."
see this is what worries me.

many xposts:

I asked two pro-gun lawyers who are sort of 2nd amendment hobbyists about the whole problem that there's no way a guy with even a basement full of ammo was going to be able to stand up to some theoretical police state. One of them tried to argue that, you know, primitively armed rebels all over the world have been able to hassle full-scale armies for years. The other one just shrugged and said, basically, who cares? i.e., the practical application of the amendment doesn't matter, what it says is what matters.

gbx, I don't think anyone itt has said 'ban all guns' or assumed that banning all guns will end gun crime.

gbx, I don't think anyone itt has said 'ban all guns' or assumed that banning all guns will end gun crime.

― goldenarsehat.jpg (Schlafsack), Monday, January 10, 2011 12:03 AM (27 seconds ago)

i have actually, as has iatee. people don't need them, sorry

no, we have xp

"ban guns" that is

The argument about standing up to tyrannical government is pretty silly - if we ever get to the point that Bad Guys have won over the military, we're all fucked.

But on a smaller scale, a gun could be used to stand up to small scale abuses by the state (or someone else).

my mistake xxxp

I feel ya gbx and yeah I'm not gonna look on this thread a year from now and be like "my finest work" on ILX. basically my objection to guns is this: guns are not a priori necessary to the functioning of any developed country. there are plenty of examples of developed countries in the world w/o guns that get along just perfectly fine.

my second objection is that there are afaict no other forms of entertainment that can be so easily misused to inflict harm and death on other people.

and of course I hold these beliefs while fully cognizant of the role that guns have played in the history of the US, that it's built into the constitution, etc. and realistically, I think you and me are on the same page - stricter laws about gun ownership, mandatory training, harsher vetting, etc.

and I'd like a pony.

wait what is 'small scale abuses by the state'

sheriffs abusing black citizens?

right but at this point in history we have better ways to deal w/ that than guns

was trying to think of ways to involve race in this argument xp

so it's like if yr gonna go to the mat and pass some g-d legislation, is "ban guns" what you want to ride for, or are there other policy prescriptions that might do the job with less gnashing of teeth and more efficacy? and while this might seem like a cynical dodge ("why not just make guns illegal AND fix healthcare??"), it's only that if you think that the actual existence/legality of guns is, like, a moral issue. which it patently is not (it really isn't, guys), which is why dudes like milo bring up "metaphysical objections" to guns and get irate about it. cf something like abortion, which imo IS a manifestly moral issue, and one i can't compromise on. ditto healthcare, and so on.

blah blah blah guns don't kill ppl, ppl do, and so on. say what you will, but that's the truth, and i think we'll have more luck and less aggro as a nation if we get to the bottom of why ppl are killing ppl instead of pretending we can cram the genie back into the bottle---we can't. (nb - nukes on the other hand, are a genie that we should do everything we can to cram back into the bottle...but that's not because nukes are evil, it's because even a single gun is wildly dangerous to millions of people at once, while a gun...isn't).

xp hella xps

it's only that if you think that the actual existence/legality of guns is, like, a moral issue. which it patently is not (it really isn't, guys), which is why dudes like milo bring up "metaphysical objections" to guns and get irate about it.

to clarify, and to get maddeningly meta at the same time: like if a single gun sits somewhere in someone's closet, it's not an affront to nature or my sense of morals. it's if it gets used. whereas if a single person is executed by the state or barred from an abortion or w/e, that is an immediately immoral thing. imo.

right but at this point in history we have better ways to deal w/ that than guns

was trying to think of ways to involve race in this argument xp

to clarify, and to get maddeningly meta at the same time: like if a single gun sits somewhere in someone's closet, it's not an affront to nature or my sense of morals. it's if it gets used. whereas if a single person is executed by the state or barred from an abortion or w/e, that is an immediately immoral thing. imo.

― ullr saves (gbx), Monday, January 10, 2011 1:10 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

I think that's where I would disagree. like so far nobody has demonstrated that there is. a need. to have. a gun. that this need exists for all citizens of a country. *shrug*

is it immoral if there's kids in the house and the gun is loaded sitting in the closet?
xpost

I feel ya gbx and yeah I'm not gonna look on this thread a year from now and be like "my finest work" on ILX. basically my objection to guns is this: guns are not a priori necessary to the functioning of any developed country. there are plenty of examples of developed countries in the world w/o guns that get along just perfectly fine.

my second objection is that there are afaict no other forms of entertainment that can be so easily misused to inflict harm and death on other people.

and of course I hold these beliefs while fully cognizant of the role that guns have played in the history of the US, that it's built into the constitution, etc. and realistically, I think you and me are on the same page - stricter laws about gun ownership, mandatory training, harsher vetting, etc.

and I'd like a pony.

― dayo, Sunday, January 9, 2011 11:06 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

word, high five. and i'm pretty sure the one thing that this thread does to bring us all together is to make us all a little sheepish in one way or another.

i didn't mean that come out dickish. i see what you're saying - but not all the way with the moral/immoral divide.

xpost

I asked two pro-gun lawyers who are sort of 2nd amendment hobbyists about the whole problem that there's no way a guy with even a basement full of ammo was going to be able to stand up to some theoretical police state. One of them tried to argue that, you know, primitively armed rebels all over the world have been able to hassle full-scale armies for years. The other one just shrugged and said, basically, who cares? i.e., the practical application of the amendment doesn't matter, what it says is what matters.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Monday, January 10, 2011 12:01 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

it really depends on what kind of scenario you cook up - a compound filled with gun nuts isn't gonna do much, but some kind of nation-wide resistance movement? the afghanis fought off soviets with old ass rifles (and a few RPGs we gave em, but even taking hinds out of the picture they were still doing rugged shit like rolling boulders down mountains and knocking tanks into ravines) - plus we have the survival guide known as Red Dawn to go off of

lol i just saw this post for the first time in 3 years

i will say this: ilx is not the place to look for level-headed debate on gun control -- the prevailing attitude* here is that guns are bad, full stop, and debate is unlikely to change many minds

*a gross generalization, sure, but i'd say 5% of ilxors have even handled guns

― river wolf, Tuesday, April 17, 2007 1:44 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark

some things never change

boom

thermo: w/e dude

dyao:

I think that's where I would disagree. like so far nobody has demonstrated that there is. a need. to have. a gun. that this need exists for all citizens of a country. *shrug*

― dayo, Sunday, January 9, 2011 11:13 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

yeah i mean my point wasn't about demonstrating an actual human need, just that one of ilx's favorite responses to pragmatic political arguments (cf deej v. the world) is that you shouldn't sacrifice your ideals in the name of political expediency. if you think guns are inherently wrong then by god you should fight for that. but i'm personally of the mind that guns, as objects, are just things, and if i'm going to fight to eradicate an entire class of thing from the world for the betterment of humanity (and risk not being effective elsewhere because i'm w/o compromise) then i'm gonna aim higher than "guns." it's just....it seems sorta irrational, is all. like seriously lets work on disease and landmines first dudes

xp lololol hoos, the more things change

yeah who was that guy

river wolf... arooooooooooooooooo

xp oops sorry about that "w/e dude" thermo, didn't see your followup