An amusing perspective on gun control:
Posted on: January 27, 2007 - 4:05pm
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An amusing perspective on gun control:
Columnist Molly Ivins has said:
"I am not anti-gun, I'm pro-knife. ... Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives."
(Disclaimer: These views do not necessarily reflect those of the poster. 
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-Triften
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That wins.
Isn't there a quote about bringing a knife to a gun fight?
These are not mututally exclusive.
Keeping a knife concealed while approaching them negates this.
More likely stealthiness.
If "great" means "very quiet".
Nor do guns.
People are seldom killed while cleaning their guns. Nearly everyone who walks into a hospital with a gunshot wound saying they were cleaning their gun just tired to mug or rape the wrong victim.
For the record, I carry two knives for self defense. A 7-inch long KA-BAR (Marine Corps knife) and a three-inch folder.
Not a fan of gun control (I see the massive money sink that would be the "War on Guns", creating a thriving black market and new commodity for criminals), just playing Devil's advocate a little... and not very well, I might add.
I think there are a class of murderers who would be unable to murder someone with a knife. A gun can be so impersonal. You just launch some bits of lead at the person at high speed and done. You can do so from yards away.
With stabbing them, you have to be up close and personal. The fact that they are a fellow human (or at least shaped like one) is more in your face.
(Granted, there are people who would murder in any way they could. There are people who would OD on just about any drug they could and I'm still in favor of legalizing drugs.)
And the bullets? Or is that a myth that bullets can ricochet?
Do you have statistics about this? (This being a forum of skeptics and doubters.
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-Triften
That's a stupid reason to oppose gun control. Either you have the right to own things or you don't. If you do, you have the right to own guns. If you don't, you don't have the right to own anything. If you can own some things and not others, then ownership is too inconstistent to be meaningful.
Generally these people don't want to kill someone anyways. They just want to take the money and run. The gun happens to be a convenient tool, but people have and do hold up convenience stores with kitchen knives.
Again, if the goal is not to kill, but to threaten to get someone to do something, as in the vast majority of cases, then this is irrelevant. They will in all likelyhood not attack you if you do not make hostile movements, but if you do, at such close range they're more likely to swing at you with little provokation due to the adreanaline and understanding that you won't be happy about being forced to do something, and they don't want to get hurt. Their avoidance to hurting you is clearly less than your avoidance to hurting them by virtue of their threatening you, so if you try to kill them, they'll try to kill you.
Well anything that is projected can ricochet, thrown knives can bounce off things, etc. A responsible defensive gun user is trained to know that when drawing a gun it should remain pointed at the ground (a safe direction) until on target, and the bullet will lose enough velocity off a richochet off the ground to eliminate it's lethal potential (screwing with the bullet's twist and aerodynamics as well as deformation and loss of velocity).
This brings me to the point that the legitemate/defensive gunowner is ignored as a possibility until dying cleaning guns is brought up. If someone is coming at me with a knife, I know I want a gun, and the range is going to be very useful to me.
No, but the statistics would have to assume that which people actually shot themselves while cleaning a gun and which did not could be easily determined, that people who were doing something illegitemate did not simply lie about it, for instance. If not, statistics are innaccurate and will be weighted toward showing more gunowners shooting themselves. The rate of unpunished crimes in the US is 80%, so a very large portion do not get caught.
Having limits on rights doesn't negate the right completely and the right to ownership doesn't extend to anything. I don't have the right to own a ballistic missle but I can still own a car. I can own a bicycle that doesn't mean I can own a person.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
Yes it does. It no longer becomes a right, but a privilege
If it is scarce, then you may own it.
You have the right to own all these things. Government grants you the privilege of owning the car and the bicycle. They ignore your right to own a ballistic missile (which if you look at what that means, throwing a rock makes it a ballistic missile, but I assume you mean the rocket variety). And if the person is willing to sell themself to you, you can own them. Few people are willing to do so.
Whether you want to call it a right or a privilege the fact is you can't own any weapon you want in any quantity you want and that's a good thing. I don’t want anyone in my neighborhood to have something that can knock down a house.
I am not anti-gun, I own two guns myself. I'm not even really anti-gun-violence. If two idiots want to blow each other away then that's their business. I just disagree with the idea that if you can't own one thing that means you can’t own anything or that your rights have somehow been violated. Or the idea that if you can own something that means you can own anything. I might be misinterpreting it but these seems like extreme views to me. I'm happy living in a world with reasonable limits.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
Morally speaking, yes I can do so without hurting anybody else.
Legally speaking, no, but the law is the arbitrary will of the legislature.
Do not confuse legality with morality. Not all things legal are moral, and not all things moral are legal.
Then get a contract with 'em. If you offer enough reward, they will accept such a contract. Although really, nobody wants them except militaries, people can think of a million better ways to spend that much money.
Did I say you were?
It's not that you can't own something so much as if you own something then a bunch of assholes with guns and SWAT gear will come and kill you. If they come and kill you and you haven't violated anybody's rights, then your rights have been violated.
If you can own, then what you can own is not limited by what other people think of the thing you want to own.
I'm not, and you have no right to force your "reasonable" limits down my throat. If you want to convince me, then motivate me with money and offer a contract. If you want to shove it down my throat, then you cannot do so without violating my rights.
But if that happens then you have violated the law and society has a right to take action against you to vindicate the law you violated.
I know it's limited by the potential harm you can do with what you want to own. If the harm is minimal or can only be done to yourself then other people shouldn't say dick. But if it can cause great harm to others then they can say something.
It's not forcing anything down your throat to expect that you will not increase your destructive capabilities to any level you wish them to be. Other people have the right not to live in fear and the right to not be hit by your projectiles. Where do the rights of other people factor into your 'everybody's an independent contractor' paradigm?
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
OH MY DARWIN I DISOBEYED OUR LORDS AND MASTERS THE STATE OH SHI-
Statutory law is the written will of the legislature. To enforce it is to enslave. Only if one man is another's slave can it be just to enforce the will of one man upon another.
Oh really? How did they get this right?
Imagine the harm that can be done with a 747. 9/11 is a good example. Yet we don't prohibit nongovernment entities from owning 747s. Look at what can be done with fertilizer and diesel. You can do massive amounts of damage if you want to and you have a big truck. The Killdozer itself was perfectly legal. You can burn down huge unoccpied buildings with matches and gasoline, two easily procured materials.
That it is able to cause great harm to others is NOT an excuse to ban ownership of it. If it is, then the number of things which must be banned is immeasurable.
To force shit down one's throat is to impose your will upon me.
To expect that I won't own a missile does not impose upon me.
To enforce your expectation does. To enforce your expectation is to force shit down my throat.
They have the right not to be hit by my projectiles, yes, but they have the right not to be shot at too, that is not grounds to ban me from owning guns.
They do NOT have a right to not live in fear. Fear is an emotion. Only you can control your emotions. Other people are not responsible for making you feel safe. You do not have a positive right to not feel an emotion. That is just absurd.
Their actual rights factor in the same place mine do. I have the right not to have my property destroyed by assholes, and everyone else has the right not to have their property destroyed by assholes like me.
Their absurd rights, like the right to force their expectations down my throat and the right to have nothing around them which makes them uncomfortable or terrifies them, do not come into the picture at all.
I agree that most laws are unnecesary or even absurd or tyrannical but some laws exist to keep people safe from the reckless behavior of others.
I think the difference is that all those things serve non-destructive purposes and when used for those purposes are harmful to no one. Weapons exist for the purpose of either destruction or intimidation. Two things everyone would be better off having less of. So even though a 747 can destroy things It's more reasonable to own a 747 than a bomb which is something that is only useful for destroying things.
When you agree to be part of society (by not leaving) you tacitly agree to consider the concerns of other people. So the shit isn't really being forced down your throat so much as you are willingly eating it so to speak.
I didn't say they have the right to ban you from owning guns. I said they have a right to try to limit the mayhem you can cause.
When I said people have the right not to live in fear I just meant that they have the right to make their communities safe or at least try to. I don't think that is absurd.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
This doesn't rebut the point that statutory law is slavery. Also, to hurt someone else because they might hurt someone else is self-defeating, contradictory, and redundant, in all cases absurd.
Nothing is a weapon until used to hurt someone. A baseball bat is not a weapon until you beat someone over the head with it. A gun is not a weapon until you shoot someone with it. A ballistic missile is not a weapon until you damage someone else's property with it.
Things like buildings you're planning on tearing down, shattering rocks for mining, for explosive targets to shoot at (tannerite is popular on ARFCOM), to move large objects which block your way and you have no reason to care for it's structural integrity, for the fucking fourth of july. A bomb has plenty of good uses that don't hurt other people. It is illogical to assume that something will be used to hurt others before it's inteded use has been made clear or until it has been used.
So if I buy a block of land and hole up, not going out, allowing nothing in or out to the point that I am no longer a part of society, then I can own all the ballistic missiles I want? That would be removing myself from society without meeting the arbitrary condition of geographic location, which is in no way grounds to consider me a part of any society.
Willingness to interact voluntarily with others does not consitute acceptance of any involuntary interactions they see fit.
No they don't. They only have the right to stop me once I start causing mayhem.
They can try to if that means offering me money to remove my ballistic missile. Not if it means depriving me of my life, liberty, and propety.
This proposal would be fine in a world where guns did not exist. In such a world I would imagine an anti-knife lobby arguing for controls on the length of weapons, how sharp they could be and what not.
We end up at the same impasse, ultimately, where a sword takes the place of an assault rifle.
And, unfortunately, we live in the real world.
I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins
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