Summations Only

d.p.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Or "not making crazy shit up" as it is also known. You, Faith, you wish to prate about "spin", when your method of argument appears to be to lie to me repeatedly about what I think and see if you can fool me on this subject? Quite so. You apparently only have variations on one basic lie, you told it, and it didn't work. So if you now wish to fuck off, feel free.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

'Cos his mother wouldn't have owned one. I guess he might have joined the Mafia and risen through the ranks ... it would have certainly been a damn sight harder if his mother hadn't owned one.Consider these illegal fully-automatic weapons of which you speak. Can you think of a case where a school shooter has used one? Me neither. Presumably this is not because they think it would be unsporting, but because they can't get hold of fully automatic weapons. Whereas they can get hold of semi-automatic weapons. You seem to have missed my point. Faith was arguing that there was no point in an assault weapons ban on the grounds that one weapon was just as lethal as another. I was demonstrating the falsity of her claim by means of a reductio ad absurdum. Obviously a law such as I suggest would reduce your capacity for self-defense --- but if Faith was right it wouldn't, and no-one could object to it on those grounds.

I seem to have wandered into an alternate reality. I like the bit where there are no accidental shootings, that's nice, but I'm frightened of being attacked by the magic pixies that live in the gumdrop trees. I think I'll just tiptoe back through the wardrobe before anyone notices I'm here.

You know that Alexander Hamilton was opposed to the very existence of a Bill of Rights, yes? So his ideas about liberty, right or wrong, can hardly serve as an interpretation of the Bill of Rights which was produced by someone else (James Madison) contrary to Hamilton's view that there shouldn't even be a Bill of Rights.

You could always have stabbed the targets with a knife.

No, you're misreading her. She means: by losing a Christian culture we're losing the moral culture we used to have.You remember that? Slavery was right because God said so, inter-racial marriage was wrong because God made the races different, hanging Quakers was good because they weren't real Christians, making Christmas illegal was good because it's not in the Bible ... you remember, the good old days?

So should I stone to death someone who picked up sticks on Saturday? You might call it murder, but God calls it justice. Ah yes ... creationism. If you can't judge God, on what basis can you say that "everything He does is righteous"? That would be a judgement on the morality of his actions, would it not? Whereas those Asian countries are clinging on to their Christian roots?

But this is what you actually do. In fact, it's what you actually keep doing again and again. I respect you personally, but when we talk about gun control that is exactly what you do. You try to make up an excuse so that you can ignore the data.

All data is "questionable" when you look at it hard enough. There are always alternative hypotheses, alternative interpretations. But it does seem like all the "questionable" data points in the same direction. And so you question it bit by bit. On this same thread (IIRC) you have called one data set into question because it controlled for economic factors, and another because it didn't. Both may have been reasonable objections ... and yet, it turns out that whatever way you slice it, guns are dangerous (whoda thought it?)

How about we call him a liar? Because, as Rahvin has demonstrated, that's what he is. Lott lies, fluently and consistently, about easily checkable facts. This is a reason not to trust him.

Who is Sigel Mithers?

The manufacturers.They found a niche and filled it. That's the American way. I guess.

And maybe they could check that the proud American gun-owner is over the age of five.

I was proposing restrictions on the sale of guns, not T-shirts.