The Wussification of America

[Jenksismyhero]

Is it absurd to not enjoy being lectured about bravery by a lawyer? I'm sorry, but to me, lawyers define gutlessness and cowardice. You and Balta have prejudices against gun owners, I have them against lawyers. So I told him what I thought about him talking about what makes a real man. Because that is something he knows nothing about.

 

What's your beef with lawyers? I'm a lawyer. I'm a gun owner/user/supporter. Am I like, half a limp dick then?

[The Sir]

In the real world we have laws. When you buy a home, do you want your rights protected during the sale? Oh that's right, you'll just pull out a gun at the closing and solve any of those problems like a real man.

 

You are so unequipped to live in a civilized society with laws.

 

Geez, I've even been trying for several posts to tone down the rhetoric and have a civilized debate with you, and you come along with this.

 

So keep judging me. Then ask yourself all self-righteously why we don't get along and I act like a jerk to you.

 

Do you not see the hypocrisy?

[Texsox]

Maybe this sounds cliche, but it's so true...

 

Please explain to me how the same logic made drugs hard to get.

 

Ah, the billions is enforcement we spend? Customs? Border Patrol? ATF? FBI busting smugglers? If they were legal people could produce Meth out in the open, grow marijuana in their gardens.

 

Now I assume in your world drugs are easy to get, but over here, the laws have made it harder and cause prices to increase.

 

Again, not having a law because criminals will not follow them is a silly argument that would eliminate all laws.

[Texsox]

Geez, I've even been trying for several posts to tone down the rhetoric and have a civilized debate with you, and you come along with this.

 

So keep judging me. Then ask yourself all self-righteously why we don't get along and I act like a jerk to you.

 

Do you not see the hypocrisy?

 

Then I will tone it down also. In the real world there are laws. They protect yours and my rights. To protect those rights we use attorneys. Have a dispute with a credit card company, we use lawyers. Get injured on the job\, we use lawyers. Get arrested by mistake, we hire lawyers. We live in a world here with lots of laws that protect our rights. To assure those laws are followed we have courts and yes, lawyers.

 

How are you planning to protect your rights since you don't seem to have any use for lawyers and courts?

[Soxbadger]

Please explain to me how the same logic made drugs hard to get.

 

As a law abiding citizen how do you have any personal experience buying drugs from the black market?

 

Sorry Ill take my intellectualism elsewhere. I wouldnt want you to give credit to those pesky lawyers who came up with the 2nd amendment.

 

Damn them and their book reading ways!

[The Sir]

Ah, the billions is enforcement we spend? Customs? Border Patrol? ATF? FBI busting smugglers? If they were legal people could produce Meth out in the open, grow marijuana in their gardens.

 

Now I assume in your world drugs are easy to get, but over here, the laws have made it harder and cause prices to increase.

 

Again, not having a law because criminals will not follow them is a silly argument that would eliminate all laws.

 

Go back to my point about mala en se.

 

Also, you got me interested...would you say the War on Drugs has worked?

[The Sir]

Damn them and their book reading ways!

 

Good grief you're pretentious.

 

And no, I don't myself have any experience buying drugs. But I went to high school and college. I also live in El Paso. The s*** isn't rare. Would you suggest that it is?

[Jake]

I'm against an assault weapons ban. Wholly. First, none of the things offered by the 1994 ban or the new version affected the functionality of the weapon. Second, it is a very limited amount of crimes that are committed with those rifles (1994 AWB had no noticeable affect on crime). Frankly, the AWB just comes off as a sort of lame idea to get rid of scary looking weapons.

 

Magazine restrictions, nope. Most killings are not spree killings. Killers don't need massive amounts of bullets to do what they want to do, normally.

 

I'd be OK with honing the background check system. What I'd be against is deliberately using it to look for reasons to prevent people from having guns. I had depression a few years ago. But I came back and proved myself capable of deploying. Should I be deprived of buying new guns?

 

You might think this is paranoid, but I absolutely believe that registration is step one for confiscation. The government doesn't need to know who has guns and who doesn't. Besides, look at that paper in New York publicizing who had permits in a given area. If there is a right to privacy to cover abortion, I absolutely believe in a right to privacy on gun ownership.

 

I'm against straw purchasing. I'd honestly be shocked if someone in my camp favored straw purchasing. It's already illegal anyway, if I'm not mistaken (I've never thought about it because I'm not a straw purchaser).

 

Also, to understand my viewpoints on this, I think it's only logical that criminals will not follow these laws. They'll obtain "assault weapons". They'll obtain high capacity mags. They won't register their weapons. And they'll continue to straw purchase and evade background checks. So it won't affect them, but it will punish me and my friends. And I don't see much point in that.

 

Well I suppose there are two things to consider here.

 

I agree that an assault weapons ban would probably have little demonstrable effect on overall crime rates, even if it is better implemented. As you said, I have a feeling very few of the Chicago murders were committed with that sort of weapon. With that said, we are also concerned with how many people a single deranged individual can kill at once. This is where magazine restriction and "assault weapons" come in. In these mass killings it'd be great if we made these people demonstrate their wares well enough to reload, aim a short-barreled weapon, etc. You may recall that the Arizona shooter was disarmed while in the process of reloading and had his been magazine been restricted to 10 (IIRC) shots, two lives would have been saved.

 

So there are two issues being addressed. Killings and mass killings. These have different causes.

 

As far as background checks go, you're right to see that it must be delicate. Lots of people go through things in their lives, and we should not de-incentivize seeking professional help for fear that you'll lose your rights. The process will have to include perhaps second opinions and very formal questioning on the part of the doctor -- would you allow this individual to wield a firearm? If not, why? If so, when? Would Doctor X agree? Because we'll ask him too.

 

The registration of guns would make it easier to confiscate them...but I really don't ever see a gun confiscation happening. We would literally lose a lot of lives in that process. There are a ton of people that would fight to the death if the government confiscated all guns. This is not to mention that you'd still have to check every household if there was a confiscation because in a country like this, people will have guns from a time before registration and/or just won't have followed the law in transferring or purchasing.

 

Straw purchasing is legal in most places as I understand it. For the most part, sales between individuals requires no paperwork or anything like that. My brother traded a stereo speaker for a Glock on Craigslist...called the Sheriff to see if he needed to do anything, and they told him not to worry about it. The background check system is seriously undermined if these individual to individual sales are not monitored. This is why a huge portion of gun sales occur at gun shows and why those guns are disproportionately more likely to be involved in crimes. I live in Memphis -- I wonder why a city with a USA high murder rate has gun show billboards in its worst neighborhoods?

Edited February 4, 2013 by Jake

[Soxbadger]

Good grief you're pretentious.

 

And no, I don't myself have any experience buying drugs. But I went to high school and college. I also live in El Paso. The s*** isn't rare. Would you suggest that it is?

 

They are harder to get than legal drugs, which is the entire point.

 

There is an argument that the govt should not restrict people's freedom to take drugs.

 

But its a faulty argument to suggest that making drugs illegal hasnt made it harder to get illegal drugs. It has.

[Texsox]

And no, I don't myself have any experience buying drugs. But I went to high school and college. I also live in El Paso. The s*** isn't rare. Would you suggest that it is?

 

Do you suggest that making them legal would not change the amount that is available?

[The Sir]

Then I will tone it down also. In the real world there are laws. They protect yours and my rights. To protect those rights we use attorneys. Have a dispute with a credit card company, we use lawyers. Get injured on the job\, we use lawyers. Get arrested by mistake, we hire lawyers. We live in a world here with lots of laws that protect our rights. To assure those laws are followed we have courts and yes, lawyers.

 

How are you planning to protect your rights since you don't seem to have any use for lawyers and courts?

 

I didn't say I absolutely don't need lawyers. I said I don't like them. People don't generally like car salesmen either, and yet we all have cars. So yeah, I don't like them. I also don't like listening to their lectures on bravery.

 

I would like to live in the civilized world where everything is decided by reason and logic. I want our society's laws to be determined by Congress and the judiciary and our voice and votes that affect those bodies. I don't want violence to come in to play.

 

However, I don't trust most people. Throughout their entire history, people have done evil to each other. And while I think America is a great country, I by no means think we are excused from the barbarity that plagues much of the world, such as where I am now. It can happen in our country. And if it does, my arsenal is going to at least give us the chance to be free of those horrors. It will prevent any other entity from having an absolute monopoly on force with which to control our lives.

 

That's not why I own guns. That day is far off. But it's there nonetheless, and I would like to prepare for it as best I can.

[Texsox]

Again, do you see where the logic of criminals will not follow the law so we should not have the law fails?

Do you see where making drugs illegal does restrict the supply and make them harder to get?

 

You seem to have skipped past that.

[The Sir]

Straw purchasing is legal in most places as I understand it. For the most part, sales between individuals requires no paperwork or anything like that. My brother traded a stereo speaker for a Glock on Craigslist...called the Sheriff to see if he needed to do anything, and they told him not to worry about it. The background check system is seriously undermined if these individual to individual sales are not monitored. This is why a huge portion of gun sales occur at gun shows and why those guns are disproportionately more likely to be involved in crimes. I live in Memphis -- I wonder why a city with a USA high murder rate has gun show billboards in its worst neighborhoods?

 

I don't think we agree on what straw purchasing is.

 

To me, a straw purchase is when I, as a decent citizen with no criminal history, buys several firearms in a short period of time and turn around and give them to drug cartels. Or gang bangers. Or some creepy high school kid. Using my clean past to deliberately supply criminals or other sorts who couldn't otherwise obtain them.

 

What you're talking about is private sales. Perhaps there is a way to set up a system so that citizens can call in easily and scan other private citizens. But its hard to force people to do that. I guess you could ban private sales but I don't see how that'd reduce the actual dangerous private sales. So that's a tricky one.

 

Also, I agree with you that gun confiscation will go poorly and probably not happen. That doesn't mean I'm prepared to cede to what is the first step on that road.

[StrangeSox]

Can you name one law that criminals follow? Isn't that why we call them criminals?

most of them?

[Jake]

I don't think we agree on what straw purchasing is.

 

To me, a straw purchase is when I, as a decent citizen with no criminal history, buys several firearms in a short period of time and turn around and give them to drug cartels. Or gang bangers. Or some creepy high school kid. Using my clean past to deliberately supply criminals or other sorts who couldn't otherwise obtain them.

 

What you're talking about is private sales. Perhaps there is a way to set up a system so that citizens can call in easily and scan other private citizens. But its hard to force people to do that. I guess you could ban private sales but I don't see how that'd reduce the actual dangerous private sales. So that's a tricky one.

 

Also, I agree with you that gun confiscation will go poorly and probably not happen. That doesn't mean I'm prepared to cede to what is the first step on that road.

 

I am somewhat intentionally conflating the terms. I like what you said -- it doesn't make much sense to ban you from selling or transferring things you own to other people, but I'd like that to become part of our background checking process. We can all become an accidental straw seller because many of us sell things to people we don't know. Obviously you aren't arrested in this case, but instead of having people accidentally helping gangs or whomever else...we can require checks.

[Texsox]

It doesn't take long for an honest sale to end up in the hands of criminals.

[Balta1701]

It doesn't take long for an honest sale to end up in the hands of criminals.

The proposal out there to have gun shows and dealers start offering background checks as a service sounds entirely reasonable to me and would generate some additional revenue for those businesses while at it.

[EvilMonkey]

Again, do you see where the logic of criminals will not follow the law so we should not have the law fails?

Do you see where making drugs illegal does restrict the supply and make them harder to get?

 

You seem to have skipped past that.

More like criminals don't follow the laws already, so why make more laws that only serve to f*** with the law abiding people even more and do nothing to actually help the situation that you are so SURE the government needs to fix to begin with. Gun magazine restrictions will do NOTHING to prevent crime or murders. All they will do is now make criminals out of otherwise law abiding people who don't want to give theirs up. My Glock came with a 17 round clip. That is not 'high capacity', that is standard capacity.

[Balta1701]

More like criminals don't follow the laws already, so why make more laws that only serve to f*** with the law abiding people even more and do nothing to actually help the situation that you are so SURE the government needs to fix to begin with. Gun magazine restrictions will do NOTHING to prevent crime or murders. All they will do is now make criminals out of otherwise law abiding people who don't want to give theirs up. My Glock came with a 17 round clip. That is not 'high capacity', that is standard capacity.

Have you ever been in a situation where, for any reason, you've needed to fire off more than 10 bullets consecutively?

[EvilMonkey]

It doesn't take long for an honest sale to end up in the hands of criminals.

Out of how many total, Tex? Or are you assuming that they all go bad? You going to screw with hundreds of thousands of private sales because of a few bad ones?

[EvilMonkey]

Have you ever been in a situation where, for any reason, you've needed to fire off more than 10 bullets consecutively?

Who are You to judge what I NEED? Seriously, it is none of your business. YOU are not the arbiter of magazine size, or of what I need, or want.

[Balta1701]

Who are You to judge what I NEED? Seriously, it is none of your business. YOU are not the arbiter of magazine size, or of what I need, or want.

That's not what I asked at all.

 

I asked for you to judge whether you had ever been in a situation where you needed to fire off more than 10 rounds consecutively. I offered no opinion.

 

Based on your reaction, I think the answer is clear.

[EvilMonkey]

That's not what I asked at all.

 

I asked for you to judge whether you had ever been in a situation where you needed to fire off more than 10 rounds consecutively. I offered no opinion.

 

Based on your reaction, I think the answer is clear.

My answer is that your question doesn't matter. Strawman. My 'need' doesn't figure into this.

[Soxbadger]

Who are You to judge what I NEED? Seriously, it is none of your business. YOU are not the arbiter of magazine size, or of what I need, or want.

 

Who is anyone to decide what I need?

 

When you are part of society there is an implied contract between the person and society, whereby the person agrees to let society make rules that the person will follow.

 

And Id venture to say that there is almost no such thing as a "law abiding citizen". I have personally never met a person who has not broken 1 law (speeding, parking meter, whatever). What you really are saying is that you have made an imaginary line in the sand for what you consider to be "criminal."

 

 

[Balta1701]

My answer is that your question doesn't matter. Strawman. My 'need' doesn't figure into this.

No, it figures into this directly.

 

Because 99% of the mostly BS excuses for why people need guns have been as "Protection", neglecting the additional risk that having it puts the owner in completely.

 

But if people can't envision a situation where having more than 10 shots available prior to reloading is necessary, even from the "pro gun side", then you've made the case expertly for why they're unnecessary.