for the record (re: guns thread)

Alright Jon, since reasoning with you gets us nowhere. Since posting clearly gets us nowhere. Since repeating ourselves gets us nowhere. And since, pointing out your problems aparently gets us banned. I'm going to play your game.I will answer your questions, then I will ask you questions and you will either answer them, or I'll be forced to assume that you realize that your position is _still_ undefendable. Well, you see, Jon. When you leave a dangerous item like sharp knife or a gun out where a child or a crazy person can get to it, there's a good chance that someone is going to get hurt. Well, when there is a child or a crazy person in the room, and there is a gun on the table, then the child or crazy person has "easy access" to the gun. That is to say, that the can "access" the gun "easily", or in other words, there is not a barrier to their access. There's nothing keeping them from getting their hands on it. Does a gun being put in the hands of a crazy person increase the number of guns in existance? no. But it does has an effect on the location of that gun in particular. In this case, that gun would be in the hands of a crazy person. What? I'm gonna have to rephrase this question, because as it is written it doesn't make sense to me."If no one bought a gun, regardless of society's rules, would there be the same lethal levels of violence?"No.Would there be violence? Yes.
Would there be the same number of violent incidents? Probably not, but let's say "yes."
Would these incidents still be as lethal? No. Of course not.Now here's some questions for you:1) Do you believe that every violent act that takes place in the US is premeditated?2) Do you believe that someone who wishes to do violence may "cool" down over time?3) Do you believe that when someone who wishes to do violence has access to a handgun, they are able to do more damage than if they didn't have access to a handgun?4) Do you believe that you need to conceal a weapon in order for it to provide you with "protection"?5) Do you think a criminal is detered by the presence of a gun in the home?
5a) Do you think a criminal is less detered by the presence of a shotgun than the presence of a handgun?6) Do you STILL think that any of us are arguing that "guns cause violence"?7) WHY? When we've quoted ourselves to you about 20x do you still continue to put up the same strawman over and over and over again?There, no stupids. Other than that 1 stupid. Oh crap, that's 2!

If you believe this to be true, then it stands to reason that you believe the same thing for grenades, landmines, etc. As these are all "arms" and you are unwilling to distinguish one type of "arm" from another.Should we repeal existing laws banning personal ownership of landmines, hand grenades, etc?If not, why not?

In the case of the Swiss, the "citizens" are actually about equivalent to our National Guard.They go through training, they are assigned weapons as part of their gear for the roll they play in national defense.No one is saying that the national guard should not have weapons.Hence the Swiss are a poor analogy. Quite possibly. I don't know enough about Swiss culture to tell you one way or another. Do the Swiss have a habit of randomly firing guns into the air when they are excited or drunk?

Now you are contradicting yourself.Either the constitution gaurantees the right to own arms or it doesn't. Either landmine and machine guns are in, or they are out.You don't get to say that we can't draw a line between one weapon and another, then turn right around and start drawing your own arbitary lines.Retract!

Sorry Mod, but you are just wrong.Jon said: It's in the original post, quoting him from the previous string.This is him making up a quote from us. He's proclaiming that this is our position. As such, he doesn't get to dither about the terms.You can't say "Oh, I meant "murder"" when you are quoting someone else.AND, even if he did mean murder, the quote would then be: "A claim that has been made here over and over again is that increased guns = increased murder" which would STILL be a strawman of our position.As has been said before, and will no be repeated for the 50th? 100th? time -Easy access to guns (particularly those which hold a lot of ammo and can fire repeatedly) causes existing violence to yield more deadly results.That is NOT what Jon is quoting us saying. It IS however what we have had to repeat adnauseum to Jon.

You are bringing up old points which have already been addressed. It leads me to believe that you have not completely read all 500+ posts in the combined threads.To save you some time, I'll give you a quick answer.44,000 deaths from cars. How many Americans use a car? How many hours a day are they in their cars?I'll round down the numbers I'm seeing:
300,000,000 Americans - but not all drive, so lets say 200,000,000 (a number which I'm sure we both can agree is outrageously low, more than 2/3 of the US ride in cars.)
500-1000 hours - average amount of time/year an average american spends in their cars. Let's go with the low end and say just 500.so that's 100,000,000,000 manhours of "car time" per year. Out of that time, 44,000 deaths.Now, why don't you go ahead and calculate how many manhours of "gun usage" is going on. Given that it takes a second to pull the trigger, I really don't think you've gonna come up with a ratio anywhere near the deaths/manhour of cars. Why is it that you can only repell Government attacks on your person with either a fully automatic pistol or a submachine gun?Why can't you use a shotgun or a hunting rifle? Didn't you post earlier about how good you were with a bolt action?

At this point, it is obvious to me that you are incapable of getting out of your own way.Since you continue to spew these lies despite the fact that you are in a thread dedicated to the lies you are spewing, I see no point in continuing this conversation.You need to get help.

I am completely unconcerned with what Jon meant in his posts.What I am concerned about is what he claims we were saying. His obviously false statements to that effect are very clearly on the record despite repeated attempts to correct him.He does not get to say "I meant murder" when he's attributing a quote to someone else. That's not how quoting works.The fact of the matter is - the simple point that weapons which are more lethal yield more casualties when used in violent acts remains unassailable.Jon can't have that, so he lies about what our original position is, then attacks the lie. That's a strawman.You don't get to retroactively go back and claims you meant something else when you lied.If he got the content wrong but the intention right, then none of his strawmen attacks would make sense in context. But since they do make sense in context, he was clearly lying in the first place.

You're right, I didn't mention it, as it's not something for serious consideration.If you honestly believe that the "Government" intends genocide within the US, then you are already a member of one of those militias, and you're not really going to be able to add much to this debate other than bumber sticker wisdom like "pry it from my cold dead hands", a statement I give equal weight to as "My other car is a piece of shit, too" and "honk if you like fat chicks".

Actually that wasn't frog, that was me saying that I thought you were wrong.And yes, I do honestly think that Jon REALLY means that his opponents are saying that "guns lead to increased violence". I just went back and read the tail end of the previous thread, as well as a good portion of this thread and some of the admin thread.He is consistantly trying to corner people into some sort of "more guns = more violence" argument, while Nator and myself have had to repeatedly state: "More powerful guns make existing violence more lethal."If Nator had said it 1x, or hand to say it a 2nd time some 50 posts later, that would be one thing. But Jon has repeatedly called for an explaination.Further, when Nator answered his demand for information with a refrence to an earlier post in which she had already answered the question she got a flurry of f-bombs and a personal attack.1 mistake is an oversight, 2 mistakes is a busy poster typing to fast, but this has been systematic and ongoing.I don't care if Jon NOW says that he meant murder. He was mischaracterizing the argument at the time, as he had already done, and as he continued to do.Further, the way he makes the statement is also misleading. There is a difference between: "More guns cause more murders" and "More powerful guns cause existing violence to yield more lethal results."The simplistic one implies that the guns are causing the acts resulting in the murder, whereas that later one only describes the lethality of the act.Go back and read Jon's posts - particularly the one about how lakes don't kill people.He's talking about the object being the cause of the result, not the object being a tool influencing the outcome.

Hey Mod,As per admin orders, gonna stop this line of discussion. But I still want to discuss with you, will look for you in chat some time.

Once again...
We are not talking about the causes if violence, nor are we suggesting that guns cause violence.Violence occurs. It has many different causes. Population density is surely one of the factors.The issue at hand is - Why do we need weapons which can allow people to spray bullets willy nilly? Doesn't think increase the body count in cases of violence?