The Great ILX Gun Control Debate

I don't even get the NRA's position at this point. I mean, I am in No way surprised that they don't support a gun ban, but to respond by suggesting the solution to the overarching problem is introducing more guns, you're basically saying "We need to wait until the gunman is on the doorstep, and then deal with him", you know, never mind the fact that by the time any armed officer intervenes, several people may have already been mowed down, and that you are inviting a gunfight to happen on a school campus, one which may strike down bystanders.

Not that I'm saying "OMG an armed officer on campus is a really terrible idea", but that it isn't a solution to anything. My middle school had one of them. There was no gun violence, but it had little to do with him, and everything to do with the fact that it was a relatively peaceful community with no real history of crime or violence...and half the time, he was occupied far away from the students on the other side of campus.

yeah i don't get why an organization that is supported by the gun industry would suggest something that would introduce more guns.

what an incredibly oblique position

it's not like they're actually lobbying for it though, it's just 'a solution' to exist as a counterpoint to everybody else's solution.

like it exists purely to clutter the 'set of proposed solutions to this problem' - that it's not credible doesnt matter so much

it's like there's a massive wildfire and we could definitely slow it down with some planes dropping water and ppl are like "actually let's set some other fires, like controlled burns" and to those who would insist on at least trying the water solution they're like "as if water could actually put out a fire"

we all have our opinions, some people think water is the best way, some people think fire is the best way, some people think adding gasoline is the best way. it's a subject w/ a lot of nuance and we don't want to put all our chips on one seemingly easy solution.

and of course the only viewpoints that get any attention are the gasoline and the fire ones. cockburn would be proud

maybe proud isn't the word

“It’s a challenge to see how well you can do,” Mr. Andrews, 58, said of target shooting. “It’s like bowling or any other kind of sport. You want to see if you can do it better the next time.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/us/owners-of-assault-weapons-dismiss-idea-of-federal-ban.html

the 'athleticism' on display must be pretty breathaking

I hiked to the top of Doe Mountain today (don't be impressed...it's only 500ft elevation gain from the parking lot). Here's the view (that's not me)

http://www.pjmweb.com/photos/2008-Arizona/N7027-From-Doe-Mountain.jpg

As I sat at a similar spot to that, contemplating the beauty of nature and all that crap, enjoying the peacefulness a temperate Arizona winter afternoon, BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM...BOOMBOOMBOOM...BOOM rang out across the valley for about 30 minutes, off and on. Knowing that some outdoorsman was getting pleasure from letting off round after round, that certain pleasure that only a firearm can provide, well that just amplified my own sense of well being and relaxation.
(all this to say that even when they are not being used to kill things, they can still be fucking annoying and unsettling. Made me recall how I'd go play tennis, unwinding from the stresses of a work week, and then CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK...oh yeah, there's a gun club range just behind those woods. Super.)

well you should have brought a gun along. if you had let off some rounds of your own, you'd have barely noticed those shots across the valley.

Not sure which of the many gun/shooting threads to post this on, but from my old hometown:

http://gawker.com/5970973/gunman-shoots-firefighters-responding-to-large-residential-blaze-in-western-new-york

christ. i have a lot of family in webster. (i'm from binghamton)

firefighters need guns

http://awesomegifs.com/wp-content/uploads/there-was-a-firefight.gif

nice

Made me recall how I'd go play tennis, unwinding from the stresses of a work week, and then CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK...oh yeah, there's a gun club range just behind those woods.

it's like you don't know how fucking irritating my neighbors ball machine is at 7:00 am/pm.

jk i don't have that kinda neighborhood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Lyj-Ua2pSY

This was an email. It's a post now. I'm self-plagiarizing!

Fuck gun people. I mean really, fuck them. I come from skeet shooting back country rednecks and grew up most of my life in the heart of goddamn dixie. I've shot skeet with an 18 gauge and a .38. I qualified on an assault weapon and cleared a jam in the middle of my last magazine while doing so. I work with a large number of people who really, really enjoy the hobby of target shooting. Guns are incredibly powerful tools. For murdering other people.

The vast majority of guns bought and sold today are expressly designed for killing other human beings. If you want to hunt animals for sport, frankly, we have all kinds of fancy bows and arrows that are actually better for hunting than noisy, smelly rifles. If you want to kill humans as expediently as possible because Red Dawn, or some other flavor of fantasy Bourne/Taken/Death Wish/Punisher/Walking Dead crap has taken over your lobes, you should be in a pit with other people like yourself. Fuck gun people.

If you must shoot birds for fun and/or sustenance, a 20 gauge pump action shotgun can be your friend. If you must shoot in the general direction of a herd of deer to clear a road, the same weapon will suffice. There is absolutely no reason for a civilized human being to desire an arsenal on par with their local SWAT. If you really believe that every citizen deserves the right to arm themselves with military grade weaponry, please move to one of those shitty fucked up joints in Africa where it might come to pass that a 9 year old orphan pops you and your entire family for living in the wrong shack on the wrong day. I'd prefer to live in a country that doesn't let that happen.

Fuck gun people. I'm a dad now and I'm done pretending I give a flying fuck about the insipid "rights" of people who think their privilege to keep a collection of murder weapons in their own home overrides my privilege to go to my office, to send my child to school, to run errands, without fear.

Fuck gun people.

That sets up a false dichotomy between "arsenal on par with their local SWAT" and "20-gauge pump shotgun." Pump shotguns, for instance, are very much a police weapon and there's very little real difference between a 20-gauge and a 12-gauge.
What does "military grade weaponry" mean?

why don't we try an experiment where we actually make a legislative difference between the 20-gauge and the 12-gauge, or any other number of measures of firearms anybody can have and firearms only the cops and military can have, and see if there's "very little real difference?" because this country doesn't know yet. Frankly any pump shotgun is better than a fucking assault rifle as far as public safety is concerned, but I'd like to start negotiating as far to the UK as possible.

What do you think I mean by military grade weaponry? Your guess is half as good as mine.

If it's designed to kill avians and ungulates, one at a time, and miss a lot, and resist being operated by a neophyte, that's fine.
If it fails to resemble any of the above criteria, it's a murder weapon, and it should be illegal.

So the pump action shotgun you refer to (all shotguns, actually) should be every bit as illegal as the "SWAT arsenal." False distinctions are pointless. Everything that shoots a metal object out one end at a high rate of speed is fucking dangerous.

Pump-action shotguns are responsible for more crime than 'assault rifles.'

so?

So sentiments like "frankly any pump shotgun is better than a fucking assault rifle as far as public safety is concerned" are rather absurd.

But your stances aren't?
The point is there is no legitimate reason any civilian should own a fucking assault rifle, so let's start there with banning.

If you want to ban 'assault rifles' because they're scary and look similar to military rifles and "no one should own one" and blah blah blah, good for you. You literally cannot be argued with - you've decided they're evil, so the argument is over.

But when others choose to bring in things like "public safety" and comparisons to shotguns and such, statistics and uses matter.

yes, i've "decided they're evil", what a close-minded fool I am. How can a man of logic and reason even discuss the matter with me?
The only reason people are discussing anything other than "guns are fucking awful, let's get rid of them" is because idiots have poisoned the debate to where that is too "extreme" a position ("think about people's investments! the awful consequences to law-abiding citizens!!" blah blah blah) and so we're left with "ok fine, let's get rid of the military/swat-grade weapons"...but then there's men of logic and reason who argue with even that so...fuck gun people.

Shotguns, bolt-action hunting rifles, handguns of all types, semi-automatic rifles - they're all, quite literally, "military-grade" weapons. That's why it's a pointless and useless distinction.

Granny, while I question acknowledging you, I didn't insult you. I stated a fact - you're a decided party and you openly state the reasons for your stance. Those reasons cannot be argued with or changed.

But you are not a decided party? Your reasons can be argued with or changed? Gimme a break.
Certain firearms have capabilities that surpass those needed to "designed to kill avians and ungulates, one at a time". These are military grade/murder weapons/assualt weapons/WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT TO CALL THEM. Certain cars possess more powerful images, better suspensions, lighter frames which are not needed to carry out the driving tasks of ordinary people. We call these "sports cars". The dividing line can be blurry, but still, sports cars exist. No one can make a valid argument that they need to go 0-60 in 3.4 secs to take the kids to soccer practice.

It's not because they're scary or because I think they're evil or blah blah blah, it's because there's no legitimate reason why any civilian should be allowed to one one imo. The less guns the better, and this is where we start.

About 20 people have argued with you about this for the past 2 weeks and you haven't budged one iota. But yeah, I'm the decided party here, you're the man of logic and reason just waiting for a good argument to sway his mind.

Yes, I'm a decided party. Not once have I suggested that I'm not. I've been arguing numbers and uses. Not once will you find that I've argued guns are a god-given right or a key to our ability to stand up to the evil, commiefascist government, or any of the drivel that is your right-wing counterpart.

Second paragraph of your first post there just highlights that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about when it comes to guns and "capabilities." Not only are you implacable for reasons you've set in stone, you may simply be too dim to even consider things on a factual basis if you wished to.

What would you consider a reasonable restriction to come from all of this, milo?

So the pump action shotgun you refer to (all shotguns, actually) should be every bit as illegal as the "SWAT arsenal." False distinctions are pointless. Everything that shoots a metal object out one end at a high rate of speed is fucking dangerous.

Pump-action shotguns are responsible for more crime than 'assault rifles.'

agreed with all of that!

milo makes the best arguments for why guns should be banned, seriously

Everything that shoots a metal object out one end at a high rate of speed is fucking dangerous.

but not inherently dangerous, see.

I've beefed with Milo before, enough to drive me into this once-a-week conceit in fact (a conceit which is now dissolving, Slothrop-like, assimilating into the All, the everything-and-nothing welter, finding oblivion through multiplication, its own Counterforce).........but if you want my two cents, gun control isn't the primary issue here, it's a secondary concern, and the focus should be elsewhere. Namely, upon the extent to which young men* can become isolated within society, cast adrift and left to gather their fears, insecurities and grievances into an inexorable ball of aggression, which can be let out in numerous ways, not all of which involve guns. Banning guns (and I am not a fan of any sort of prohibition) will close one avenue - a potentially lethal avenue - but it will not close others. And it will enable the criers of society to congratulate one another on a job well-done, whereas in fact the problem, holistic and debilitating, will go unaddressed.

I know that the visceral atrocity of gunned-down children is shocking, abhorrent and completely disgraceful to any kind of cogent moral outlook. I know that a blanket ban of guns would make such a spectacle rarer, if not entirely absent (would be interesting to examine the prevalence of European gun-rampages, whether by truly dedicated evildoers like Breivik or acts of incoherent despair like MOATY). But it won't stop hammers to heads, knives to chests, or the endless means of suicide, which is more tragic (if less atrocious, senseless and evil) than murder. The problem lies deeper, and it lies with a lack of fellowship, community, respect or company. Things which have been partially atomised in our age, as we've been reduced towards our own anointed demographics and encouraged to worship individual progress. Troubled individuals need the help of all around them. They need empathy, care and understanding. And then there won't be these abysmal killings.

*or anyone else, but young men in this case

Ta-Nehisi Coates round table discussion on guns.

but if you want my two cents, gun control isn't the primary issue here, it's a secondary concern, and the focus should be elsewhere. Namely, upon the extent to which young men* can become isolated within society, cast adrift and left to gather their fears, insecurities and grievances into an inexorable ball of aggression, which can be let out in numerous ways, not all of which involve guns. Banning guns (and I am not a fan of any sort of prohibition) will close one avenue - a potentially lethal avenue - but it will not close others. And it will enable the criers of society to congratulate one another on a job well-done, whereas in fact the problem, holistic and debilitating, will go unaddressed.

how is this an either/or? go ahead and take steps to address isolated young men*, which to me would seem a exponentially more difficult issue, and and incredibly vague at that. in the meantime, take concrete steps to reduce the number of fucking dangerous (but not inherently dangerous) killing machines in the United States. do both. i wouldn't worry so much about the criers self-congratulating because a)they do that anyway, no matter what, for eternity, and b) they're not even doing anything about guns in the first place. their strategy is not to do something meaninful about guns and ignore isolated young men* while they self-congratulate - it's to stall until about 1-2 weeks from now, when the entire gun issue is completely forgotten again. until the next time some one murders a few dozen people again.

oawia it's worth nothing that 'isolated young men' exist in p much every society everywhere but it's only in america that they can also go to wal-mart and get guns via a cursory background check

xp it's deliberately vague - i don't want to be prescriptive as to how we can install a worldwide pastoral care network but there's a movement to be opened up in there somewhere

banning guns 'until we have a society more conducive to mental stability' might be a bandaid measure but it would create so much opposition and an illegal market, all for something that 'truly dedicated evildoers' will find a way to override anyway. i loathe the symbolism of guns and gunplay - the veneration of instant death, grotesque hits of testosterone (see my post on having killed something with a gun - momentary sense of achievement and subsequent tasty flesh consumed eventually by nauseous realisation of immaturity) but if they're what keep some people happy then surely some kinda spooky Orwellian solution like microchipping every gun and sending an automatic alert to the feds if they get within 500m of a school/university is preferable

strikes me that purchasing a gun should require the same kinda show of dedication and good sense that purchasing a car does. both kill lots of people in the wrong hands aye

it would create so much opposition and an illegal market

we won't really know if this will happen until we try so let's just try and see, okay?

'why don't we just fix the simple and easily solvable problems that are poverty and social alienation and psychological illness instead of laying all the blame on guns'

memetic worldwide drive towards fellowship. expressed crudely, 'think of anyone left behind? pay them a visit. give them some of your time'*. youtube, popstars chanting it. catchphrases. the COMMODIFICATION of COMMUNITY, ironic huh, well use the tools of the oppressor, they're there right

*fine line between this and condescension or even 'clowning of the loner', needs refinement

Jeffrey Goldberg is such an idiot that I can't read more than a few sentences of that "round table".

as zs said, there is nothing either/or about this oawia.

yes we should attempt to have a more lovey hippie whatever society, yes we should have better mental health services, ps we should ban guns because they greatly intensify whatever violence there is in a society, and there always will be a certain element. there is no solution that can't be made 'even better' by also banning guns.