The Great ILX Gun Control Debate

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and yeah, i saw grindhouse last night (a little stoned, mind) and while the gunplay itself wasn't disturbing, the accidental suicide and el ray going batshit in the hospital were, at least a little.

i will definitely see hot fuzz, though, shit looks hilarious

― river wolf, Thursday, 19 April 2007 21:04 (seventeen years ago) link

Still going to Hot Fuzz, not sure when. this is the last weekend of the play i've been working on, so who knows when I'll get a chance.

― kingfish, Thursday, 19 April 2007 21:04 (seventeen years ago) link

"non-graininess"?

I'm guessing here that means the figures aren't 'how many people have gun licences' or 'how many people have conceal and carry permits' or 'how many people regularly carry their gun around with them', but are 'how many guns there are', but I've never come across the term before...?

haha Manchester is the place in the UK that has made me feel most uneasy because no-one was on the streets at 10.30pm (or weren't one time when i went: i don't know how common this is): whereas in London, there's always someone around, I don't know why but that makes me feel safer. Actually I feel pretty uneasy in small towns too, maybe it is the absence of aggression in the air, a bit like like being unable to sleep without road noise.

― c sharp major, Thursday, 19 April 2007 21:06 (seventeen years ago) link

i mean that there's not much resolution in the figures: it doesn't make sense to look at NATIONAL figures on gun control, because jesus, we're fifty states stretching across a whole continent with ~300,000,000 people, and a mess of conflicting local, state and federal laws and communities with different patterns, characters and problems

― moonship journey to baja, Thursday, 19 April 2007 21:09 (seventeen years ago) link

ah, okay.

― c sharp major, Thursday, 19 April 2007 21:20 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't really know a lot of people on ILE, I'm such a sporadic poster, but I sometimes hate it when the vast lurking majority remains disappointingly silent in the face of, well, hysteria -- and what happened upthread seemed to me to be just that -- a hysterical fingers-in-the-ears "lalala i can't hear you" in the face of one person's perfectly reasonable point about gun control -- namely, that people be weird so it's probably not a great idea to have a lot of little instant death machines around. He or she, the lurker, even illustrated his or her own point quite nicely, by getting all kneejerk and defensive and heavy handed under the hysterical onslaught. Understandably, probably. A couple of people (most notedly nabisco and jaymc) tried admirably to dial down the righteous indignation factor and someone else said they won't ever speak to them again as a result. I mean, WTF people?

Oh, and I was raped for what it's worth -- at age 8 actually -- and I had no problem whatsoever with the initial analogy, understanding it in the context of the poster trying to establish what kind of "victim" we'd give a pass to if they did happen to harbour intense revenge fantasies. Personally, I've never harboured elaborate revenge fantasies over that, but I was once swarmed by a group of around twelve guys and was hospitalised, and thoughts of (mostly impractical) revenge did cross my mind once in a while, less so as time goes by. It is one aspect of human nature, and we are all capable of it. That's all lurker-person was saying. Anyone arguing against that? Of course it's awkward and unpleasant and weird -- in extremis, we be creepy sometimes. Maybe it's not socially acceptable to discuss some of the more harrowing aspects of trauma outside of the therapist's office, though, who knows?

I know I'm probably missing a whole dimension of ILX relationship history here, but the lengthy thread derail (which I'm adding to now, fuck, sorry) made me feel really sad in some difficult-to-express way, something about the very concept of cliques and bullying which the lurker-pariah was trying to explore, something about wilful misunderstanding, something about loneliness, something about the necessity to root out a hapless scapegoat when we're freaked the fuck out.

I should add that, although I personally had no problem with the rape stuff, I have no more right to speak for another sexual assault survivor than lurker or anyone else.

But, hey, at the risk of having someone on an Internet message board "threaten" to not speak to me, like, ever again... nabisco OTM once again. Really.

― Lostandfound, Thursday, 19 April 2007 23:49 (seventeen years ago) link

LostandFound, your post is exactly how I feel, and you have managed to get it across in a much more articulate manner than I had planned to do.

Reading through the lynching of Lurker made me angry enough to finally register with new-ILX. When things went south with the old code I decided that I would continue reading ILX in the sandbox and new-ILX, but not bother registering. I have a tendency to get quite emotionally involved in topics such as this, and I've found it's best that I just keep my mouth shut. However, when Lost said "I sometimes hate it when the vast lurking majority remains disappointingly silent in the face of, well, hysteria", I felt I had no choice but to show my agreement and support.

I too agree that Lurker's point is completely valid, and to be honest I really don't even find his reaction to the (as Lost put it so well) righteous indignation all that bad. He simply tried to make an analogy and people lost their minds. I find Manalishi's admission that the"Fact is I like guns. I like owning them. I like shooting them. I like how they look and smell. And it's my right to stockpile them if I want to" comments far "creepier" than anything Lurker said.

Lurker, I commend you on your patience in the face of the childish gangbang against you. Again echoing Lostandfound, thanks to Nabisco, Jaymc, Trayce and a few others for actually reading Lurker's posts and trying to make others understand his points.

― Shorty, Friday, 20 April 2007 00:56 (seventeen years ago) link

I agree with the last two posts.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 20 April 2007 01:03 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't.

― HI DERE, Friday, 20 April 2007 01:14 (seventeen years ago) link

childish gangbang

― félix pié, Friday, 20 April 2007 01:18 (seventeen years ago) link

I find Manalishi's admission that the"Fact is I like guns. I like owning them. I like shooting them. I like how they look and smell. And it's my right to stockpile them if I want to" comments far "creepier" than anything Lurker said.

As did everyone who called Lurker creepy, dumbass. (If not creepier then equally creepy.)

― milo z, Friday, 20 April 2007 01:35 (seventeen years ago) link

"dumbass".

Another classy response.

― Shorty, Friday, 20 April 2007 01:38 (seventeen years ago) link

And for the record Milo, wasn't it John Justen who initially called Lurker creepy? Shortly thereafter he said this:

Returning to the point at hand, I would rather see Manalishi/Roger etcetera (even in the (hopefully) exaggerated stance he has chosen to take) have access to firearms, in place of you (again, in the (hopefully) exaggerated stance you have chosen to take) having access to them.

-- John Justen, Thursday, April 19, 2007 5:41 AM (16 hours ago)

Unless you have a different interpretation for the word everyone, it seems my post wasn't as dumb as you would like it to appear.

― Shorty, Friday, 20 April 2007 02:15 (seventeen years ago) link

"Roger's creepy, but you're fucked in the head" is difficult for you to understand, then?

― milo z, Friday, 20 April 2007 02:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Hey guys, I'm back, did I miss anything?

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 02:21 (seventeen years ago) link

JOHN RUN AWAY, IT'S NOT TOO LATE

― HI DERE, Friday, 20 April 2007 02:23 (seventeen years ago) link

Sorry Milo, I must have missed that line in the storm of abuse a bunch of you inflicted on Lurker. The fact is, in both of those quotes it seems to me that Lurker is being held more to task than Manalishi, and that is problematic to me. Manalishi talks about his love for the smell of guns, but someone attempting to make an analogy which validly supports the fear of guns in the hands of private citizens is worse?

But if it continues to make you feel like a man to insult my intelligence because I disagree with you, have at me man!

― Shorty, Friday, 20 April 2007 02:34 (seventeen years ago) link

"validly supports" is wrong

― moonship journey to baja, Friday, 20 April 2007 02:35 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm insulting your intelligence because you seem entirely too dense to understand that finding Roger creepy and Lurker creepy are not mutually exclusive concepts, and that one's feeling toward guns has nothing to do with it.

"someone attempting to make an analogy which validly supports the fear of guns" - not loading the question at all!

― milo z, Friday, 20 April 2007 02:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Calling an opinion wrong, when evidently there are others who agree with said opinion, is wrong.

Milo, you're insulting my intelligence because it makes you feel better. Like a bully. You could have attempted to make your point without resorting to name-calling, but evidently you didn't feel the strength of your logic was enough.

In any case, I fully realize the futility of this. I should have kept my mouth shut after supporting Lostandfound's articulate post.

― Shorty, Friday, 20 April 2007 02:41 (seventeen years ago) link

"Calling an opinion wrong, when evidently there are others who agree with said opinion, is wrong."

Uh

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 02:44 (seventeen years ago) link

Never mind, I'll let you work that one out on your own.

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 02:44 (seventeen years ago) link

Milo, you're insulting my intelligence because ~~it makes you feel better~~ I say things like "Calling an opinion wrong, when evidently there are others who agree with said opinion, is wrong."

― milo z, Friday, 20 April 2007 02:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Guys, I think we're on the brink of some really great results here.

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 02:48 (seventeen years ago) link

"HI DERE" and "John Justen" have both been sockpuppeted for the purposes for injecting confusion into your virtual society. By tomorrow, both will return to non-sensical all caps statements or image posts as previously arranged.

-- John Justen, Wednesday, April 18, 2007 1:03 PM (Yesterday)

I MEAN YOU CAN'T SAY I DIDN'T GIVE YOU FAIR WARNING.

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 02:51 (seventeen years ago) link

Jeez guys, I think it's you who need to check your cognitive reasoning.

The current tag-team attack on me has to do with my (and others) opinion that Lurker's analogy validly supports the fear of guns. As an opinion that other people agree with (Nabisco, Lostandfound, etc.) the jury is still out on whether it is right or wrong. It's a fucking opinion after all. Moonship stated that I was wrong, as if his opinion is any more factual than my own. That is wrong.

― Shorty, Friday, 20 April 2007 02:58 (seventeen years ago) link

nah i question the validity of lurker's methods

― moonship journey to baja, Friday, 20 April 2007 03:07 (seventeen years ago) link

notice that the part i take umbrage with is "validly stated"

it's like, suppose we are having a discussion about fuel economy and cars and the rising price of oil and greenhouse emissions and dwindling supply and so forth ...

and roger gets on thread and is all "well i like my big hummer, yo yo yo, i like to drive it around cause it's big and manly manly, ho ho, so fuck all yall"

and that's bad, but then lurker gets on and is like

"have you ever seen a hummer driven repeatedly over a person's head until it smashes like a watermelon? well have you? have you? huh tough guy? have you seen a baby otter drowned in motor oil?!? have you?"

and that's just bad / offensive / gross internet skillz

― moonship journey to baja, Friday, 20 April 2007 03:11 (seventeen years ago) link

As Nabisco stated in his first attempt to quiet this furor, that's not what Lurker was saying at all.. He was saying something more along the lines of "If I saw someone drive a hummer repeatedly over a person's head until it smashed like a watermelon.... and I had a gun..... I sure would be tempted to blow the head off of the fuckwit behind the wheel of the hummer... so it's a damn good thing that everyone isn't carrying a firearm to act during such an emotionally charged event!"

― Shorty, Friday, 20 April 2007 03:18 (seventeen years ago) link

LOL the willie horton school of policy-making!!

― moonship journey to baja, Friday, 20 April 2007 03:24 (seventeen years ago) link

isn't this sort of like arguing AGAINST nuclear disarmament based on THREAT OF ROGUE PLANET KILLING COMET?

― moonship journey to baja, Friday, 20 April 2007 03:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Ha, okay, Moonship, just for the record, I don't think anyone here said Lurker's been arguing his point very appealingly? All I was saying, anyway, was that I followed his point, and it seemed a little unfair to call him a total psychopath over it. And then we got to some point where it felt like Jaymc and I were being called bad people for following his point and not thinking he was a psychopath, which was a little confusing to me. I would say we've found the "yelling out of cars at people" of new-ILX, but I totally think there's a sensible middle where his rhetoric's kinda whacked but his point's not exactly evil.

ANYWAY, the following is meant to be non-argumentative and mostly just a personal story. I actually have a packet, somewhere around here, of material for a how-to-teach-writing course I was in. It contains lots of sample writing from inner-city kids, mostly around middle-school, some younger, some older. Their teachers make a point of not evading the realities the kids grow up in, so they give them some tough assignments -- things like "write about the most frightened you've ever been." There are thoughts expressed in their writing, non-fiction personal-writing stuff ... there's ugly stuff that's happened to them, and there's ugly stuff they've thought about doing, plenty of it in way worse terms than anyone here. I think maybe that's part of why I didn't react too horribly to Lurker? I'm not saying that to argue a point: these were children I'm talking about, not grown men having a topical discussion on the internet, and you could easily say those children were creepy and disturbed, thanks to having been traumatized by a whole bunch of shit most of us should be thankful to have avoided. (I.e., I don't mean this the way Lurker means his rape-victim argument.) But this whole thing just puts me in mind of reading those and wondering how those students ended up. I'm sure a depressing number of them wound up involved in violence; I'm sure some of them turned out reasonably okay, though. Anyway, when people admit to having momentary violent revent fantasies, but still seem 100% aware of the wrongness and badness of that ... well, I guess apparently I've been trained to be all therapy-style non-judgmental about it? With children, anyway. But even with adults, it seems like people should be able to say "I've had these thoughts but I know they're wrong," and not get too much flak for it. That's why I was a little mystified by everyone using the word "nurturing" before, cause there's a whole lot of ground between nurturing those thoughts and calling someone a psychopath for having them. I imagine therapists and corrections officers of all sorts spend loads of time in that area.

― nabisco, Friday, 20 April 2007 03:54 (seventeen years ago) link

i'm sorry dude, i respect the calm voice-of-reason thing and all that, but i don't log on to ILX to do group therapy with total strangers!! i log on to ILX to hang out with grownups who aren't in the habit of using vivid descriptions of real or imagined crimes against their person to win talking points!

― moonship journey to baja, Friday, 20 April 2007 04:12 (seventeen years ago) link

"hi jaymc and [nabisco], i actually never want to speak to either of you again."

lol @ the nu "i'm off the internets because of you."

jaymc & nabisco & shorty & lostandfound OTM

― gershy, Friday, 20 April 2007 04:13 (seventeen years ago) link

Man alive, and to think I felt guilty because I was so nasty to Roger. This thread has gone beyond my ability to comprehend the reason behind its existence.

― kenan, Friday, 20 April 2007 04:16 (seventeen years ago) link

I sincerely hope that no one on this thread ever gets too enthusiastic about guns, in any sense but the very abstract.

― kenan, Friday, 20 April 2007 04:22 (seventeen years ago) link

What's wrong with how guns smell?

― Kerm, Friday, 20 April 2007 04:57 (seventeen years ago) link

I think old ILX just melted down.

(Cue TOMBOT physically "threatening" someone, ha ha.)

― Lostandfound, Friday, 20 April 2007 05:35 (seventeen years ago) link

http://img01.picoodle.com/img/img01/8/4/19/f_gocry3m_dcfcfd3.jpg

― ghost rider, Friday, 20 April 2007 05:44 (seventeen years ago) link

http://lonestartimes.com/images/Benzion/angry_baby_head.JPG

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 05:49 (seventeen years ago) link

My two cents - Lurker is a pretty twisted fucker. Some people on this board would tell you that such a condemnation from the likes of me is surely the hangman's noose. Oops, there I go with my violent imagery again. I'd better stop or Tombot will accuse me of advocating lynching.

I don't really think I should even dignify this most recent discussion with a response, but I'm awake and I've seen this episode of Little House on the Prairie twice before.

I can only speak for myself here, and I said this upthread, but I never, ever get angry and think "I'm gonna get my gun."

To use an example from above, if I saw seven white kids beating up a mentally retarded black kid for no reason (maybe even if there WAS a reason) I'd do my very best to intervene and, if neccessary, kick the stuffing out of all seven of them. I'd probably risk jail, the ICU, etc, for the opportunity to break a few noses and generally take the focus off the defenseless kid. But I would never, even for a second, entertain the notion of firing a bullet that I could never take back. It just wouldn't cross my mind.

I don't say this to appear self righteous, I say this becaue I truly feel in my heart that most responsible gun owners would tell you the exact same thing, and because I think anyone who gets into a tiff and thinks that torturing someone is an aceptable course of action has problems that run far deeper than any mesaaegboard discussion could ever properly address.

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 06:52 (seventeen years ago) link

THE SAGA CONTINUES

― A B C, Friday, 20 April 2007 07:09 (seventeen years ago) link

HAHAHA YOU ARE THE INCREDIBLE HULK AND I CLAIM MY $5

― nabisco, Friday, 20 April 2007 07:10 (seventeen years ago) link

I think there's a lot that could be done to better regulate gun ownership without violating the 2nd Amendment. For instance:

- More thorough background checking: We have a rather comprehensive system in this country for tracking a person's credit record. Unpaid bills from years ago can affect your ability to get a mortgage. We have nothing comparable to this for buying a gun. One reason is funding. The private sector (credit agencies, lenders, etc.) maintains the machinery needed to track credit histories because it's in their financial interest. Are we as a country too cheap to insist on at least as good a system for tracking warning signs before someone buys a lethal weapon? We should have a system that rates the danger level and applies appropriate conditions to gun purchase. People who had minor mental health issues in their past might still be able to purchase a gun, but perhaps they would be required to go through a psychological screening process first, and their purchases would require notification of local police or other authorities.

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 17:41 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/19/commentary.nugent/index.html

She has since led the charge for concealed weapon upgrade in Texas, where we can now stop evil.

Who doesn't get this? Who has the audacity to demand unarmed helplessness? Who likes dead good guys?

I'll tell you who. People who tramp on the Second Amendment, that's who.

― félix pié, Friday, 20 April 2007 18:00 (seventeen years ago) link

why are they letting Nugent on CNN now?!? wtf.

angry baby.jpg made this thread all better

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 18:04 (seventeen years ago) link

tramp on the second amendment
skank on the fourth
tart on the ninth amendment
harlot ont he sixteenth

― nabisco, Friday, 20 April 2007 18:12 (seventeen years ago) link

I am now entertaining ironic revenge fantasies about Ted Nugent

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 18:13 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIEHI0vfCBk&NR=1

btw guys im going to post entirely in youtube videos from now on ive always wanted to be one of those gimmick poster guys

― deeznuts, Friday, 20 April 2007 18:14 (seventeen years ago) link

The Nuge made me very proud on the Glenn Beck show earlier this week. While not the ideal spokesman for gun rights, he tends to decimate anyone he debates on the issue.

Not that it isn't hard. Gun control debates are usually just knee jerk screeching hysteria vs. cold hard facts anyway. As evidenced by this thread.

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 18:17 (seventeen years ago) link

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