The Great ILX Gun Control Debate

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holding a gun in your hand makes you understand that it's just a machine, and that what you do with it is a seperate conversation

Isn't that stating it a bit strongly? I mean, that's true of anyphysical object isn't it?

Is there anything difference between a gun and a toaster, because I could be bludgeoned to death with a toaster.

I think that it isn't stating things strongly, because any argument otherwise implies intent to an object, which is flawed, and leads to the sorts of presumptions that keep popping up on this thread about the psychology of people who own/collect guns.

― John Justen, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:25 (seventeen years ago) link

I feel like in any other context this would be totally obvious, and anyway no matter how we hash it out here, people are still totally going to think that.

I don't think it's that obvious, but I don't think most people do a very good job of judging other people based on the little information they have about them.

There are so many things that can factor into one's motivation for a gun collection.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:27 (seventeen years ago) link

x-post to JJ--That's more or less what my little highly-misinterpreted anecdote was getting at. Holding a gun, I realized that I had a choice of what to do with it. I could kill somebody or I could shoot the target. If I extend that choice to all gun owners, and if I believe (as I still try very hard to) that there are a lot of basically rational people out there, gun possession took on a different kind of meaning.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:29 (seventeen years ago) link

As logically obvious as that is, I had never really thought about it until that moment.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:30 (seventeen years ago) link

hysteria: the girl that lived with my roommate before me basically moved out because she was uncomfortable with the fact that he had a gun that was locked up in his closet.

like, was fine living there before, moved out once she discovered that he had a .22 varmint rifle used almost exclusively for shooting cans every, oh, i don't know, 5-6 months.

― river wolf, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:30 (seventeen years ago) link

then again, he's also pretty irritating sometimes, so maybe i'm not really being fair

― river wolf, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:34 (seventeen years ago) link

I was going to mention the movie-watching as a far more life-threatening situation.

― John Justen, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:35 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost

Some of you are coming close to pretending there's not intent in the design of an object, though. I mean, it's not just "a machine," it's "a machine designed to injure humans and animals from a short distance." Agreed that objects themselves don't have intent, but let's not stand around with an egg whisk saying "it's just an object, I could sculpt with it, or use it to store orange juice."

(C.a.d., for the record, I actually do have faith that the vast majority of gun owners in this country aren't ever going to do anything crazy with them; I've lived in places where everyone hunts and known countless rational gun owners, both sport shooters and home-defense holders. So yeah, I don't seek reassurance on that point; I worry more that given how many guns are floating around this country, even a "vast majority" of sensible still leaves a really significant population of not-sensible.)

― nabisco, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:35 (seventeen years ago) link

Ojects are designed for a purpose and guns are designed to be held in the hand and propel projectiles at high speed in the direction that the gun is pointed.

The projectile will damage whatever it comes into contact with.

river wolf, I completely respect the gun owners I know and I've fired a few guns myself, but I don't think the girl was hysterical.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:36 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, why do we go to war with guns instead of cotton balls wielded with deadly intent?

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:38 (seventeen years ago) link

oh she was, trust me, but she's a pretty irrational person anyway, and i was being unfair on purpose.

― river wolf, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:42 (seventeen years ago) link

wait.. you DON'T use cotton balls!? /canadian military

― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:45 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm guessing the first knives were designed with the intent of stabbing living things with them, but when I see a dude with a bunch of Wustofs on his kitchen table, I don't back slowly towards the door.

― John Justen, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:49 (seventeen years ago) link

i sit down and wait for him to prepare me dinner

― river wolf, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:50 (seventeen years ago) link

Right, so... we should wait for the guns that are used to make scrambled eggs?

― max, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:52 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.davedouglass.com/illustrator/SALADSHOOTER.jpg

― ghost rider, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:53 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost - Actually pretty sure blades were used first for cutting things in parts, but anyway you're kinda fudging: seeing as you can't cut your steak with a gun, a better analogy would be the machete on the kitchen table I mentioned earlier. And like I said, if someone silently put a machete on the table, I would totally be alert, weirded out, and very attentive to what was happening.

Haha, Fluffy, egg whisks are designed to be held in the hand and used to agitate liquid-like substances to produce various states of emulsion, suspension, or mixture -- but mostly to whisk eggs, you know? I'm trying to think of what you could claim the whole history, engineering, and refinement of most gun-types are for, if not for shooting people/animals, but there's not much there: from low-power rifles for practice shooting to range targets with, umm, pictures of people on them, it's all at least a very slight abstraction of the original point. (But fair credit to that realm of competitive long-range rifle shooting that actually manages to feel like a pure technical challenge, like guns were invented for that competition and people only figured out later that they could fight with them.)

― nabisco, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:54 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean this doesn't hit on the scary things about guns to any of you guys? Most other common weapons--say, knives or axes--are designed to do more than kill people/animals (including skinning those animals, preparing dinner, cutting string or trees or whatever).

Maybe I don't know that much about guns, but I can't think of a single other use they might have besides killing living things. (Blasting the lock off a door?)

And to say "I like shooting at cans"--well, why not get a BB gun? I mean, if all you want to do is shoot projectiles at immobile/nonliving, what's the matter with an airsoft or a Red Rider?

― max, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:56 (seventeen years ago) link

(Single other use besides the competitions that Nabisco talks about, I mean, which are as he points out abstracted from shooting living things)

― max, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:56 (seventeen years ago) link

how about bbq?

http://www.neatorama.com/images/2006-06/hand-gun-shaped-grill.jpg

― river wolf, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:57 (seventeen years ago) link

i don't think anyone has denied that guns are only designed for killing things

― river wolf, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Knives kind of scare me, too, to be honest.

― jaymc, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:58 (seventeen years ago) link

No--they haven't--I'm just wondering out loud why some people are OK with that and it scares the shit out of others.

― max, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:58 (seventeen years ago) link

(xpost to rw)

― max, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:58 (seventeen years ago) link

To keep the irony from growing too thick in here for the people who know me IRL (re: nabisco's last post), I was actually a competitive high-power rifle shooter of the exact type he speaks of, which is a considerable part of my stance on this issue.

many xposts

― John Justen, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:00 (seventeen years ago) link

nabisco, I was making the same point as you, re the nature of the tool, but I was being a little more general. I wasn't arguing with you.

way xpost

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:01 (seventeen years ago) link

well, and this is a bit disingenuous, BUT: guns are, I guess, designed to throw little bits of metal very fast. which happens to be very good for killing.

like, what do you guys think of archery?

xp no wai

― river wolf, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:02 (seventeen years ago) link

i could really get into archery, i think

― river wolf, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:06 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.qwipster.net/weatherman.jpg

― river wolf, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:06 (seventeen years ago) link

I guess I just grew up with mentally ill people instead of guns so I'm a little more disinclined to be relaxed around tools that are created to destroy whatever is in front of them, relying solely on the intent of the operator.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:08 (seventeen years ago) link

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:08 (seventeen years ago) link

HI I'M JOHNNY KNOXVILLE AND THIS IS 'THE GREAT ILX GUN CONTROL DEBATE'

-- ghost rider, Wednesday, April 18, 2007 3:05 PM (2 minutes ago)

― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:08 (seventeen years ago) link

lock it up

― river wolf, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:09 (seventeen years ago) link

Well, now that I've outed myself on the issue, I'll say this. I NEVER thought of the targets as anything other than targets, not substitutes for anything (by the way, not all targets are shaped like Osama Bin Laden). It takes supreme concentration, you have to be able to slow down your heart rate to keep your pulse from interfering, and various other things that actually helped me to be a much calmer and healthier individual than I would be otherwise.

To me and almost everyone else I knew who was a serious competitor, it had nothing to do with firepower or violence or anything of the sort. It was like an incredibly intricate and physically demanding game of pool.

― John Justen, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:11 (seventeen years ago) link

i don't think you need to defend yourself, dude!

― river wolf, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:13 (seventeen years ago) link

"I'm still on! I'm still on!!"

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:13 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.archeryhaven.com/Archers/Pictures/GeenaDavis.jpg

― river wolf, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:13 (seventeen years ago) link

No, I'm not defending myself, I'm just willing to offer myself (yay me!) as an example of how the assumptions people make about guns and gunowners and whatever can be completely wrong-headed, and that's why arguments like this usually suck.

― John Justen, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:14 (seventeen years ago) link

Is that N Cage?? Because raowrrrrrrr.

STEP OFF GEENA DAVIS, SHE'S MY GAL.

― Laurel, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:15 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost - Actually pretty sure blades were used first for cutting things in parts

blades came from spearpoints and arrowheads, and all tools descend from weapons, just ask the monolith

― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:19 (seventeen years ago) link

spearpoints and arrowheads come from chisel-type things used to scrape the fur off the meat, which in turn come from pointy rocks used to bludgeon animals.

― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:20 (seventeen years ago) link

also don't forget no handguns = no industrial revolution

― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:21 (seventeen years ago) link

guys, archery

― river wolf, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:22 (seventeen years ago) link

To me and almost everyone else I knew who was a serious competitor, it had nothing to do with firepower or violence or anything of the sort. It was like an incredibly intricate and physically demanding game of pool.

Obviously, you know that I don't think anything to the contrary. I just feel that a gun is an incredibly dangerous weapon that can also be used in non-violent sport.

Let's be clear, I like firing guns. What's more, I enjoy playing paint ball and laser tag, which, psychologically speaking, is more fucked up because I am actually shooting projectiles at live people, emulating the act of killing them , whereas, in competitive shooting, the activity is almost completely removed from any sense of violence.

That said, I would be a lot more at ease around someone handling a paint-ball gun than someone handling an actual fire-arm.

As an aside, I wouldn't try to whisk eggs with a paint-ball gun either.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:23 (seventeen years ago) link

killing animals was originally done with hands and teeth

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:24 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, sorry Fluffy, the xpost pileup made me misread you back there. Also John, I think what with the Olympic imprimatur and all hardly anyone is at all uncomfortable with your kind of shooting -- some people might say "gun owners" too generally when they're thinking of specifics like handguns and semi-automatics, but if you clarify sport and hunting rifles I think even most gun-averse people have no problem.

I was thinking about archery back there: there's one that history has abstracted successfully. Or anyway bowhunting is very "I'm hunting (somewhat) traditionally," and one-on-one people-killing wasn't ever a focus (or anyway not so much as you and bunch of others firing volleys into a crowd). People collect some wicked modern crossbows, I guess, and I've seen a few news stories where some crazy goes after someone with a bow, but something about it seems fairly whacked-out and non-intuitive. Maybe that's to the archer's benefit -- I'd be more scared of someone coming at me with a bow than a gun, if only cause I wouldn't imagine the gun guy making jerky out of me.

― nabisco, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:24 (seventeen years ago) link

G Davis might be my favorite Amazon.

― Laurel, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:25 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost yes obviously, tom - but which came first - tool to kill animals or tool to scrape meat? i know it is under debate, i think the last thing i read said animal-killng came before meat-scraping but i'm not an anthropologist.

hey what do you all think of regulating 1st person shooter video games as tightly as p0rnography??

― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:26 (seventeen years ago) link

Archery looks like fun, but it's even more difficult to find a place to practice that than shooting for some reason.

― milo z, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:27 (seventeen years ago) link

also i thought the new thinking was that neanderthals and cro-mags and early men spent much more time foraging than hunting, so maybe acorn-smasher was an even earlier tool than monkey-smasher

― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:28 (seventeen years ago) link

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