Politcal Views: Gun Control

requiem
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Politcal Views: Gun Control

Hey Guys (or Girls). I am gathering opinions and since this seems like a well read collection of individuals I would like to ask you:
What do you believe about gun control in America?
Do you believe there should be more or less?
Do you believe higher or lower taxes should be given to gun salesmen and manufacturers?
Do you believe it is wiser for most people to have guns or very few?

I look forward to your responses.


Vastet
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Try to keep my statements in

Try to keep my statements in context please. My previous post mentioned something about timing. A knife is incapable of being a wmd. Anyone who was so ninja'd up that they could kill a couple dozen people in less than a minute with a knife is a wmd themselves, and hardly needed to use a knife.
Can you do better than a six year old?

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Cpt_pineapple
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Beyond Saving
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Vastet wrote:Try to keep my

Vastet wrote:
Try to keep my statements in context please. My previous post mentioned something about timing. A knife is incapable of being a wmd. Anyone who was so ninja'd up that they could kill a couple dozen people in less than a minute with a knife is a wmd themselves, and hardly needed to use a knife. Can you do better than a six year old?

 

Ok, so a knife isn't a WMD, but which gun isn't? If you are going to kill 24 people in 60 seconds (which apparently is your magical line into being a WMD), you would be unwise to attempt to do so with a weapon set on fully automatic. The recoil alone is going to make your shooting too inaccurate to have a chance at that kind of success unless everyone in the room was standing in a cheer leading style pyramid from floor to ceiling. The only kind of gun that really benefits from full auto as far as max kill per minute is something mounted (which negates the recoil) or a really heavy gun such as the M-60 mounted on a tripod, which at 23 pounds for the gun alone, isn't very practical anywhere other than a warzone- the cops are going to see you walking around with it.

 

With a gun like the AK, if your sole goal was to kill 24 people in 60 seconds, you would be best off using single shot and simply being amazingly accurate and maybe benefiting from a crowd thick enough that a few shots are going to kill two people. Of course, once you started shooting people would run, so you are shooting at running targets. That would be a great feat of marksmanship although theoretically possible. But it is also theoretically possible for many other guns.

 

 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


Vastet
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There's no magical line, I

There's no magical line, I was simply giving an example. And don't try to tell me that recoil will spoil your efforts, death isn't required for damage to be done.

You really aren't going anywhere. You just love your toys. That's fine. Everyone who has wmd are proud of their toys. It doesn't disqualify them from being wmds. A guy with a pistol isn't nearly as dangerous to a crowd as a guy with a AK. That's why they were invented in the first place. Any attempt you make to prove otherwise falls painfully flat.

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Beyond Saving
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Vastet wrote:There's no

Vastet wrote:
There's no magical line, I was simply giving an example. And don't try to tell me that recoil will spoil your efforts, death isn't required for damage to be done. You really aren't going anywhere. You just love your toys. That's fine. Everyone who has wmd are proud of their toys. It doesn't disqualify them from being wmds. A guy with a pistol isn't nearly as dangerous to a crowd as a guy with a AK. That's why they were invented in the first place. Any attempt you make to prove otherwise falls painfully flat.

No, a fully automatic weapon was designed for and is used to provide suppressing fire, not efficient kills. They were initially designed to fire at massive amounts of charging people where accuracy is impossible/irrelevant. From a military standpoint, you use full auto when you cannot see your target, and therefore are relying on sheer luck anyway, when you want to encourage the enemy to stay behind their cover, attract attention, or you are firing from a moving platform such as a helicopter (although a really talented shooter can learn to accurately hit single shot from a moving platform). When it comes to actually killing a target, single shot or three round burst is preferred. 

 

If a person set out to commit a mass killing, they would be far more effective using single shot and aiming rather than using full auto and spraying bullets around randomly. Now, once the cops arrive and you want to keep them behind cover and are less concerned about the number you kill, switching to full auto might be practical. But if you have any concern with trying to get away with it, a rifle using single shot from a distance would be the preferred method imo.   

 

For example, compare the North Hollywood shootout http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout#Shootout where the bank robbers used AK's and an HK91 loaded with armor piercing bullets. They fired over 1000 shots and wounded 18 people (killing no one) compared to the Fort Hood shooting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_shooting#Casualties where Hassan caused 13 deaths and wounded another 30 more using only 214 rounds and an semi-automatic pistol. My point is that more bullets being fired does not necessarily translate into more damage, and in fact, the opposite is often true. The shooters skill has far more to do with the number of deaths.  

 

I'm not arguing the definition of wmd with you. I think your definition is ridiculous, but there is no reason to argue semantics. What I am arguing is your belief that an AK should be illegal (and I assume any other automatic weapon) but you apparently have no problem with a hunting rifle or pistol and then use the justification that an AK can kill a lot of people. So can a hunting rifle, or pistol and I would argue that in most real life situations, a semi-automatic gun set at single shot and shot accurately would kill more people than a gun set to full auto, even though the latter might seem more scary. So why draw the line at an AK? It seems rather arbitrary to me.    

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


Vastet
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Beyond Saving wrote:No, a

Beyond Saving wrote:

No, a fully automatic weapon was designed for and is used to provide suppressing fire, not efficient kills. They were initially designed to fire at massive amounts of charging people where accuracy is impossible/irrelevant. From a military standpoint, you use full auto when you cannot see your target, and therefore are relying on sheer luck anyway, when you want to encourage the enemy to stay behind their cover, attract attention, or you are firing from a moving platform such as a helicopter (although a really talented shooter can learn to accurately hit single shot from a moving platform). When it comes to actually killing a target, single shot or three round burst is preferred. 

Irrelevant. I already stated that death wasn't a requirement for damage. That includes efficient kills. And thanks for proving my point. ie: initially designed to fire at massive amounts of charging people where accuracy is impossible/irrelevant

I also never drew the line at an AK, I mentioned it with two other fucking weapons, as examples of weapons that can cause mass damage. You've devolved to 4 years old.

Clearly you aren't interested in a rational and adult debate on the subject, and neither is anyone else arguing your case. So I'm going to stop wasting my time on you and go back to the theists, where the irrationality is expected.

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ProzacDeathWish
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Vastet wrote:ProzacDeathWish

 

Vastet wrote:
You can be a smart ass all you like. Fact is fact.

 

 Wow, simply disagreeing with you makes me a smart ass ?

 

Vastet wrote:
No. Being a smart ass makes you a smart ass.

       

  just speaking to you in your own language,  smart ass.

 

[ProzacDeathWish].... for someone like you who repeatedly employs highly condescending and insulting language when responding you've got really thin skin.

 

Vastet wrote:
If you say so. *Rolls eyes*
 

  

Funny, I thought I just did ?

 

 

ProzacDeathWish wrote:
Here's some facts for you ( ie, real facts, not Vastet facts )   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/weapon_of_mass_destruction

 

Vastet wrote:
Good for you. Now pull out a dictionary while I laugh at your failure to prove me wrong. Just because an AK can't destroy a city with a single round doesn't disqualify it. Any weapon which can be wielded by a child and wipe out a few dozen people in less than a minute is a WMD. Period.

 

  God, you're thick.  Did you even read the link I provided you that defined what constitutes WMD's ?  Why would I pull up another definition if you're just going to ignore it  ?

  You're laughing at me ?   Jesus Christ, are you sure you're not really Matt Shizzle ?   You self perception borders on delusional.  Go ahead and laugh but it's the meaningless laughter of someone who is absolutely out of touch with reality.


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Well Vastet, you made a

Well Vastet, you made a statement initially and I wanted to see where you were going with that. In all honesty, I thought that you were going with the fairly nebulous concept of an “assault weapon” and not some personal definition of WMD.

 

In any case, you seem to have some personal definition of WMD which is not on the mainstream. I find that to be of equal interest. Out of curiosity, would you be willing to try to clarify the matter for us?

 

Vastet wrote:
There's no magical line, I was simply giving an example.

 

OK, so I can work with that. When you said “dozens” before, you were really meaning “lots” and there is not a really good idea here of what the test should be for that. Fair enough. We can look at large killing events all day and never really come up with anything useful though. For a while back in the 90's there were a bunch of school yard shootings in the USA and the shooters in each event had different types of weapons. Ditto the whole “going postal” thing.

 

So would you call any weapon where lots of people died an example of WMD?

 

Then I see a problem at hand because the specific definition would have to do with the way that a weapon is used and not with the exact nature of the weapon in a larger context. Really, when someone goes nuts and brings a shotgun into work to kill everyone he can manage, is that shotgun a WMD under your definition?

 

This is a problem because you already allowed that hunting weapons are acceptable, just not in this context. I would agree with you to some extent, in that it is not acceptable to bring a shotgun to work for the purpose of mass killing. The problem here is that to declare a weapon to be of a certain class shows not much at all about the weapon so much as it shows about one specific use of that weapon.

 

If someone shows up at the mall during xmas time and sprays into the crowd, that is a problem but it is a problem with the individual, not with the specific weapon at hand. Really, if someone was to shoot into a crowd with a shotgun, well the exact case depends on the ammunition rather more than the gun that it came out of.

 

On the other hand, would a suicide bomber be an example of WMD because the bus he goes off in represents a captive set of targets? If so, then a stick of dynamite is WMD. However, the same stick of dynamite used to remove a stump would not be WMD because it is used differently.

 

 

 

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ProzacDeathWish
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Beyond Saving wrote:Vastet

Beyond Saving wrote:

Vastet wrote:
A weapon capable of mass destruction, be it a city or a few dozen people, is a weapon of mass destruction. Period. End of story.

Using that ridiculously broad definition, exactly what kind of weapon isn't a WMD? Pretty much any weapon is capable of killing a few dozen people, and certainly any firearm is if the shooter is accurate, including the hand guns and hunting rifles you said you couldn't argue against. 

 

    Yes, by vastet's "wmd's are whatever I say they are !!! " rationale even a fucking automobile is a WMD because within the span of a few seconds they can easily maim and destroy large groups of people simply by plowing into a crowd at high speed.   


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Cpt_pineapple wrote:  

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

   Dude is wrong about a couple of things.  Bofors is a Swedish company, not Austrian and generally any auto firing gun 20mm and above is considered an automatic cannon. Still I'd like to have one.


Gauche
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Gun control is an

Gun control is an interesting issue because it's a question of the point where ones own security creates an unjustifiable risk for others. It's often met with indignation in the US though because people in American like to be unencumbered by obligations to their fellow citizens. I think it should probably go by community standards.

 

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"Gun control" is fine where

"Gun control" is fine where it is. Penn and Teller explain the second amendment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GNu7ldL1LM

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