Guns

I've never really understood the argument from the anti-gun lobby for any number of reasons. Its so easy to blame it on the gun itself rather than where the blame really lies-- the person wielding it incorrectly.Its a strange dichotomy. Without guns there would be no one shot to death, and yet, we seem to forget that murder was around long before their inception. If there is one thing that could be said of humans, its that they are incredibly resourceful. Prisoners don't have access to weapons, but that doesn't stop them from fashioning them from their ingenuity.So why blame the gun when the gun has no will of its own? The argument, which is incredibly specious in my estimation, is that he bought the gun the perfectly legally, therefore the system is broken. But the fundamental problem is that we are bound by the understanding that there are very real consequences for using guns inappropriately. Cho knew it. But he did it anyway.When we buy a car we know that we are not supposed to use them for vehicular homicide. But occasionally that happens anyway. When it does happen, should we blame the manufacturer or should we blame the person?Buying the weapon maybe perfectly legal, but murder is perfectly illegal. We all know that. Cho knew it. So I say stop trying to place everywhere other than the obvious.Making guns illegal doesn't stop crime because taking it away from people who use it for protection are now disarmed. The bad guys don't play by the same rules. The bad guy will always find a way to arm themselves. So why are you going to arm the bad guy but disarm the rest of us and allow us to be subjected to their tyranny?

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"God is like the sun. You can't look at it. But without it you can't look at anything else." -G.K. Chesterton

I agree that murder from a distance is far more impersonal, but it doesn't it make it any more legal to unjustifiably take someone's life. But really, this doesn't mean much of anything. The point is, as my esteemed colleague, Jon, has already pointed out: Take away guns, criminals will get 'em anyway. Criminalize guns, criminals will get them anyway. Melt all the guns for some recycled, benign use, murder will still happen. The battle is fought in our hearts. If you really want to stop murder-by-handgun, you have to train people how to live in a society conducive to peace. But until Jesus comes and beats our weapons into fishing hooks, I'm gonna be strapped.... 'cause Joe Gangbanger certainly will be.But having said that, of course I am also sympathetic to the anti-gun argument. Its unfortunate that some of our greatest ingenuity has been geared toward destruction and death. Its sad really. But that only reinforces my sentiments that its really about the renewal of our minds rather than simply eradicating guns altogether. The eradication of guns should be representative of our disposition, not the other way around. He had severe mental problems, no doubt. But do insane people methodically chain doors, carry 15 clips, buy a tactical vest, stop in the middle of the siege to film themselves if they are crazy? It seems that he knew exactly what he was doing to me. Therefore, lets place the blame on Cho rather on sweeping indictments against guns, which, ironically enough, was the tool used to stop him from continuing the carnage. Then maybe more emphasis should be placed on the people who released him than on the owner of the gun store. Afterall, we can just turn the argument around on the anti-gun lobby. They say that Cho had access to guns, therefore guns are bad. But if we were to go tit for tat, I could just say Cho shouldn't have had access to the outside world, or at the very least, he should have been flagged in a Federal system that would have prevented him from purchasing the gun in the first place. I agree. So what is your suggestion in ameliorating or amending that? I say that people deemed with serious mental problems should be flagged... Stigma be damned/Political Correctness be damned. Guns are manufactured for the sole purpose of murdering any one. In fact, they are designed as protection from it. But then again, swords have only one function too. Should we outlaw them as well? Or is that a bit extreme? Quite frankly I'm not willing to put that much effort into the debate to go searching for stale statistics when the obvious is as plain as could be. I just don't see why I need to penalized because some gun owners are either stupid or malicious. Edited by nemesis_juggernaut, : typo

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"God is like the sun. You can't look at it. But without it you can't look at anything else." -G.K. Chesterton

Again, another strange dichotomy. It is the threat of nuclear proliferation that is the very thing that keeps us all in check. Now, don't misunderstand me to think that I am advocating nuclear weapons or even guns. Life would be much better if no nukes or guns ever existed... But they do. And bad people will use them whether we do too or not. That's just the plain fact about it. Right, but we do have nukes. So unless you can invent a time machine we have to deal with reality. They exist. Guns exist. We can't undo that. It is what it is. Since that is the case, we need practical solutions, not the far-fetched dream that we can actually disarm the world. We are enforcing that law! But really, this all off-topic. No citizen in the UK is allowed to legally own a gun, right? Do the bad guys get them anyway through nefarious means? I agree that it should be difficult to purchase a weapon. I believe every one needs to be scrutinized, however, I feel that it is extreme to disarm the average upstanding citizen simply because the bad guys are going to get them either way. Obviously there needs to be clear demarcation, which I'm all for. But lets put it this way. The reason why British law enforcement only recently started arming themselves with more than wooden sticks is because the bad guys are carrying firearms, right? So much for the laws keeping the average citizens unarmed. The bad guys still have them. We aren't talking about handing guns out in a dispensary. It should be difficult to legally purchase a gun. But I think it is a disservice to penalize every one who would use it appropriately simply because some people don't. Like I said earlier. The problem is within the mind of the culture. Somebody like Nuggin might promote the nonsense on MTV that about violence. And they condone this behavior. But then they are shocked when somebody actually lives it out. Do you see the mindset? The problem is with the culture. The problem starts when we abandon a moral framework that dictates societal behavior. So we have Nuggin who thinks its a really great idea to defend free speech that includes unmitigated violence with guns... He says nothing about that. But ironically when they live out this fantasy, he blames the gun companies. How asinine is that!?(btw nuggin, I was just using your name generically. I don't really know what you do or don't advocate). Fair enough. That's why we don't allow just anybody to buy mini guns. As far as the police not doing anything about the crime perpetrated against you, its a perfect example of a society gone wrong. I find it terribly ironic that the same people speaking out against violence are the same one's who put it in our living rooms on the tele. But they are shocked when people start living out the fantasy. The cops are becoming just as calloused to the crime as the criminals are. But that isn't a reflection of guns themselves-- that's a reflection of society. And like I said in my first post, until you change somebody's mind you can't change their behavior.If you really want to stop gun violence, stop protesting the guns and start protesting Hollywood. Makes perfect sense to me? If we didn't idolize this behavior there would be no need to act it out.

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"God is like the sun. You can't look at it. But without it you can't look at anything else." -G.K. Chesterton

What do you think should have barred him that on any given day, prior to this event, you wouldn't have ordinarily said that he was being discriminated against? What is it that should have legally prevented him from purchasing a weapon? As best as I can tell, the only thing that would have prevented him is his psychological profile. But the problem is that this kind of information is so highly protected under patient/doctor confidentiality that people would not accept it without first making a big stink.

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"God is like the sun. You can't look at it. But without it you can't look at anything else." -G.K. Chesterton

quote:

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Take away guns, criminals will get 'em anyway.

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There is nothing ridiculous about it, Nuggin. Its common sense that by trying to ban guns, all you really do is ensure the people who don't play by the rules remain armed, while you are disarming those with integrity. I keep hearing you and Nator saying that its way too easy to buy a handgun, but neither of you have offered any solutions or defined what "easy" constitutes in this instance. Explain your rationale to me on why you feel that its easy to buy weapons, as well as giving some suggestions on how to make it more difficult.I mean, past a background investigation and possibly a psychological profile, what should bar anyone from purchasing a handgun? What are the distinguishing characteristics we are looking for, and which you can get around the problem of discrimination. That's because grenades have been highly protected from the beginning. There is already more weapons in circulation than there are people on earth. Please tell me how you plan on making any difference by taking away people's guns? You think most Americans are going to relinquish their arms?I think you run the risk of far more violence beyond separatists hanging out in the backwoods of Montana or South Dakota, waiting for the apocalypse. I think your average American would fight for their right to bear arms-- even police officers. And more violence would incur because they feel that the government is infringing on their right to defend themselves-- something which is an inalienable right.Mao disarmed his people. Hitler disarmed his people. Stalin disarmed his people. What precipitated was genocide on a level so horrific that it could gag a maggot and make Satan blush. So please forgive Americans if they are a little leery of relinquishing their arms given the history on the subject. I see Joe Gangbanger every day, in every single city I've ever lived in. We meet. I mean, Nuggin, you live in LA where people are killed over glances. Maybe Joe would, but my muzzle control is a little better than that. Remind me again who the judge of this debate is?You are just grandstanding. What do you call a person who bitches about something but offers no real solutions, only platitudes? You're doing what many politicians do. You say something appealing to the public that's going to get them fired up, but you carefully avoid how you would implement those plans. You are offering a band aid to an amputee victim. The root of the problem is how society views violence. If you really want to mitigate violence, you have to cut it off at its source. That would entail you protesting Quentin Tarantino films, Tupac Shakur records, and Grand Theft Auto video games before it means that you disarm Americans.I mean, really... Suppose Cho wasn't able to buy a handgun legally? You think Cho would have just said, "Oh well... Guess I'm screwed." Hell no. He would have purchased one on the black market or he would have went berserk with a machete. I think its incredibly obtuse, unrealistic, and unfair to blame the NRA for Cho's disposition, rather than look at the American subculture that is feeding these kinds of inequalities. What? That's the largest strawman I've ever seen. So, for the record, you advocate Cho owning shotguns, just not handguns. Is that accurate? Excuse me??? You have basically placed ALL of the blame on handguns and all those who sell them. But you have not:

Don't you think the psychologists are far more liable than Glock is? But you make no mention of it in your argument. Instead, you try and turn this around on guns themselves, as if inanimate objects have the will to overpower Cho's mind and compel him to kill. In feudal times, a person protected themselves with swords. If a person simply had body armor and a shield, they'd still need to employ the use of a sword to ward off the enemy. Because wielding weapons frightens the public. If you walk around with a sword, the assumption is that you're crazy and you're going to use it. Carrying a small compact weapon discretely ensures that Joe Public won't know any better.

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"God is like the sun. You can't look at it. But without it you can't look at anything else." -G.K. Chesterton

I fully agree with this. My only contention with Nuggin is that he seems to be placing more of an emphasis and more culpability on the gun manufacturers and store owners than he is with the psychologists who actually knew that he was a danger to society.But, yes, I agree. Though there is a risk of being falsely accused or labeled as crazy by crackpot pop-pyschologists. For instance, I was taking a psychological battery for a police officer job about two years ago. The test consisted of about 700 yes or no questions. Most were redundant and phrased differently each time to detect for inconsistency.I was brutally honest on that test-- to a fault even. I was hoping that my honesty would have been looked upon in a positive light. When the test was over, I was flagged for about seven questions to be scrutinized more deeply. The psychologist brought me in and asked me about them. One of them was asking about arson. I answered yes because one time I and some friends took a can of gasoline and lit a portion of a wooded area on fire. I answered yes because, technically, that's arson. Of course, I knew he would bring me in for special scrutiny over answering yes to it. I assumed, (silly of me), that after hearing the story he would have surely understood that I was, ya know, 12 years old, and nothing came of it.He apparently didn't see it that way. So after a few days passed, I get a call from my prospective employer with the typical thanks, but no thanks brush off. They said I didn't pass my psychological background.Naturally, I called the psychologist and asked why I didn't pass the test. He was flustered and tried to explain his decision, claiming that the test was a "complex algorithm" that couldn't really pin down any solid reason why I didn't pass.Yeah right.All it really was, was that I answered some questions that are perceived negatively. And instead of being honest with how much of a crock that test really is, he tries to throw at me all this psychology jargon to divert my attention from what it really was.What the test really was is something that penalizes the honest, but passes the dishonest. I could have lied. I could have given them everything they wanted to hear to make myself out to be the very quintessence of a goody-two-shoes. But that would have been wrong of me to do.This kind of injustice pervades many law enforcement departments where they hire lying dirtbags, but people who might actually make good law enforcement officers get the shaft for some thing they did when they were a child. Its sad.And so, I offer a caveat. Even though someone like Cho was transparently disturbed, some people who are not might falsely be flagged for an illness they don't even have. But, we live in an imperfect world. And even the best of systems have their pitfalls. I'd rather a psychological background bar a few good people than have a whole handful of bad ones make their way through the net. Of course not. Nor should we rely on people to be truthful on their psychological battery. The problem is, how are we to know?

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"God is like the sun. You can't look at it. But without it you can't look at anything else." -G.K. Chesterton