The Great ILX Gun Control Debate

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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

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

There's something she's not telling us. Did he fart in the kitchen or eat her Pop Tarts?

― 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

http://www.selfdefensesupply.com/catalog/images/acu482pc.jpg

blowgun resurgence starts now

― milo z, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:29 (seventeen years ago) link

w/r/t abstraction: archery's been successful simply because it's inefficient, now, for mass killing. when we invent laser guns or whatever people will think of sport shooting the same way they think of kyudo

― river wolf, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:30 (seventeen years ago) link

It seems that it would make sense to mention the fact that there are people with the same feelings/attitudes as me involved in competitive handgun shooting, so trying to separate long-guns from handguns along those grounds isn't going to work either.

― John Justen, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:34 (seventeen years ago) link

John, I'm not saying this is necessarily a legitimate distinction (or advocating it), but of course the reason people are more comfortable with rifles is that their design and purpose is less suited to sudden aggressive violence: the style of use trends slightly more toward careful, deliberate concentration. (That's less an argument from me and just saying it makes sense as people's perception -- I imagine they'd tell you people can get their shooting kicks with rifles, so they wouldn't be THAT much deprived by not doing it with handguns.)

― nabisco, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:43 (seventeen years ago) link

that's weak nabisco.

― Dandy Don Weiner, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:46 (seventeen years ago) link

the reason people are more comfortable with rifles is that they are harder to conceal.

― Dandy Don Weiner, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:47 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah, sorta weak sauce there: i mean, get one ar-15

― river wolf, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:48 (seventeen years ago) link

too late!

― milo z, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:49 (seventeen years ago) link

we were just having a discussion of how if guy had been armed with a rifle instead of a handgun it'd be more likely to have a kill count approaching 50 instead of 33 and a lot fewer in the hospital

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:50 (seventeen years ago) link

Not sure that's entirely true - there are a lot of variables (ie how were they killed, distance and so on) - and it would have been much more difficult for him to get across campus carrying a rifle without anyone noticing.

― milo z, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:53 (seventeen years ago) link

the getting across campus thing is the key here. i'd rather not really get into the rest.

― river wolf, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:53 (seventeen years ago) link

There are many legitimate uses for explosives, but we regulate them heavily. I'm sure this makes things difficult for many people, businesses and enthusiasts alike. Certainly, I am not at liberty to create or use explosives in any but the most exceptional circumstances and under close scrutiny by the state.

If there is sufficient reason (and I am not necessarily saying that there is), public safety would outweigh the individual liberties of potential gun owners/users.

I'm not for eliminating guns, but just because people have legitimate uses for guns does not necessarily mean that the argument is closed.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:56 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm just referring to people's perceptions of sport/hunting rifles here, not anything approaching assault rifles or whatever. Maybe I'm just gun-ignorant on this issue (happy to be wrong), but it seems like the types of rifles no one has any issues with are hard to conceal, bulky to hold, take slightly more situating yourself before firing, etc. -- i.e., rifles developed for longer-range situations where you have time to prepare a single, precise shot (e.g., hunting)? Whereas handguns can be deadly very quickly at close range? Anyway, point being it seems like people without lots of gun experience (right or wrong) are comfortable thinking of gun use in that first mode, and get uncomfortable with the second (even if handgun users are every bit as careful and deliberate as a sharpshooter -- just talking about impressions of the weaponry here).

― nabisco, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:58 (seventeen years ago) link

the guys at work had to keep v v close tabs on their shots, as well as igniters, or else the ATF (i think?) would come a-knocking

― river wolf, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 19:59 (seventeen years ago) link

This is sort of a moot point though, isn't it? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but sport rifles are designed for sport shooting, not for killing people. Right?

So comparing a handgun and a sport rifle is sort of specious if we're going down this object-use-design route. I'm more afraid of handguns than I am of rifles not because of the size or how long it takes to load or aim or anything, but because people don't buy handguns to compete in the Olympics. They buy handguns to kill people.

― max, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 20:03 (seventeen years ago) link

Part of the competition I was talking about was a round where you fired 10 shots in 60 seconds into a target from 200 yards away with the highest level of accuracy/point-scoring occuring in a 3 inch center circle. This was also with iron sights (no scope or magnification) and I did it with a bolt-action rifle (to clarify, this means that between each shot, you had to actuate the reloading mechanism by hand).

So, no, "deadliness" outside of concealment should not be used as a discerning factor here.

xpost max, did you even read what I wrote a few posts ago about competetive handgun shooters?

― John Justen, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 20:04 (seventeen years ago) link

Oops--sorry, I didn't.

― max, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 20:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Charles Whitman used a rifle and until recently, held the record for school shootings.

― sexyDancer, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 20:05 (seventeen years ago) link

They buy handguns to kill people.

If you're concerned about defending your home or your family, you buy a shotgun to kill people. Your grandfather's old duck shotgun is rather more effective than any handgun in existence when it comes to killing.

― milo z, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 20:06 (seventeen years ago) link

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