debatable... but not worth the debate. I don't have an issue with low velocity weapons on private property, specifically for that purpose ('cause odds are, at least in the states, the burglar has a gun too on the presumption there is an armed homeowner home at the time). Public presence untrained wannabe Punishers (who really would run into that school shooting... jsut ask'em!). Here's the thing though, if someone is close enough to be a physical threat, you're probably not going to get much of a chance to reach for it, let alone use it without impediment. Seriously... describe to me the scenario that calls for (potential) lethal defense-intervention is a separate category. How close are they to you? Are they armed/have they produced a weapon? I've mentioned the speakeasy I run... I'm far less worried about someoen getting shot than the meatgrinder it would turn into with people running for the exit.
Someone only has to be a credible threat, they do not have to be at your throat before you can act. They do not have to have a weapon for you to be credibly threatened.
IOW, "Meesa scared! Meesa jumping at shadows! Meesa more likely to shoot the neighbor's dog than any real threat!"
Don't know who you're referring to. For the umpteenth time, I'm not scared of guns, just psychos with guns. Can you guess what's the single most often stolen item during home break-ins? It ain't your grandmother's pearls, Sparky.
Q.v. Post #31. You know what's saddest about this conversation? You used to be rational and engaged in actual discussion. Nowadays you're just a spieler of cliches, an arcade fortune teller. I guess that's what clutching your guns like a teddy bear does to people. Let me know when you return to the world of intellect and debate.
Whattaya think? Think the gunlubbers begged him to come back because they felt the quicksand slipping out from under them? Can @Storm be far behind? Tick, tick, tick...
Never left it. Most of you get the quality of response you deserve. We've already seen that reasoned argument converts not the reality-impaired. So I choose instead to mock.
Kindly link to the last time you presented "reasoned argument" on the gun issue. Unless, of course, you mean "my way or the highway" to be considered "reasoned argument," in which case you keep on looking for that asteroid.
Hmmm . . . guess I didn't post this one here, just on Facebook and my blog. Right after the demonstrations a couple weeks ago. Very emotional day around the country today. Marches and speeches and signs, celebrities, songs, all the usual stuff associated with demonstrations. The target? Gun violence. Multiple mass shootings in the last decade or so have pushed this issue right into everyone’s faces. Now we’ve a bunch of high school kids leading - well, appearing to lead - a massive new push to rein it in. On the one hand I find this to be just and proper, citizens exercising their First Amendment rights to assemble peaceably and make their voices heard. This is how it’s supposed to work when an issue is getting insufficient attention from the government. On the other hand, a lot of what I heard today comes straight out of the leftist playbook. Lots of references to corrupt authority (read: established authority that the protestors disagree with), the currently popular “fake news” meme (which seems to mean not news that is false, but rather news that contradicts the Preferred Narrative), calls for greater government intervention. Which means greater government restriction of personal liberty. Restriction of choice. A further retreat from personal responsibility and into the comforting embrace of nanny-state government. I understand the source of these impulses, I do. The world can be a scary, complicated place and it’s just ever so much easier to turn the hard parts over to someone else. Let the government make the decisions for you. Let them . . . take care of you. That’s what government is for, right? Make the Bad Things go away and let us live in a world of sweetness and light, lollipops and puppy dogs where nothing bad ever happens. The root of this issue is the Second Amendment. About 250 years ago, our ancestors fought a war with a distant government that had become unresponsive and tyrannical. The lessons learned in that hard-fought struggle were applied to the new federal government formed by the several states. Looming large among those lessons was the need for a free people to be able to protect their essential liberties from a government grown corrupt and oppressive. And although the Second Amendment is written in such a way as to refer to the people’s right to keep and bear arms, what it actually recognizes and guarantees (the Constitution does not grant rights, it recognizes existing intrinsic rights and restrains the government from infringing upon them) is the right of self-defense, both individually and collectively. The First Amendment is the pivot of the entire American experiment, but the Second is the foundation upon which that pivot is balanced. Without the right and capacity to defend yourself, your community, your inherent rights, no other right can exist. And make no mistake, should the Second Amendment fall, the others will be right behind it. It’s a very short step from banning guns to banning talk about guns . . . see Youtube’s recent actions to remove firearms-related content from its service for a splendid example and hint of what’s to come. Today’s protests are dressed up in the all-to-familiar refrain of “think of the children.” But the people behind these protests, those providing the funding and the scripts and the support, they’re not interested in the children except as pawns to advance an authoritarian agenda. Human beings are not individuals to these people. Individuals have no worth. Only the collective matters, the labor it can provide, the wealth it can create to be exploited, the power it can grant. Leftism, at its core, is a philosophy of childish petulance and fear. Those who adhere to its collectivist ways always see themselves as the elite who should by right be making the decisions for everyone else. Because they’re just so much smarter than anyone else and we’d all be better off if only we had the brains to see things the way they do. Never mind that their ideas only work when enforced by guns and hobnailed boots. A gun is a thing. An object. An inanimate device. It’s very easy to put your hands on such a thing and take it away from others. It’s a simple fix to a complex problem. Never mind addressing the root causes of the violence we see unfolding, let’s just take the guns away. It’s quick and satisfying. We will have Done Something and the world will be better. And if liberty dies a little bit more in the process, what’s the harm? We’ve too much of that stuff anyway. People think Incorrect Thoughts, espouse Incorrect Opinions, point out Inconvenient Facts that conflict with our desired world view. Once we’ve turned all that messy stuff over to the government so that the Right People can make the decisions, we’ll be better off. The naughty people with their own ideas will be made to toe the line. Then we’ll be safe.
That's reasoned argument. But as the comments on the Facebook version attest, the folks on the other side just don't wanna hear it. Guns are bad, people who have guns are bad, and GOVERNMENT must control them. Libertarian: I don't like guns. So I won't own any. Statist: I don't like guns. So no-one should own any.
Reasoned argument doesn't contain the phrase "right out of the leftist playbook". It just reveals itself about another partisan influenced opinion, which is exactly what this is. An anti-liberal scree dressed up as a supposed moderate comment on the gun issue.
Very nice. Of course it has fuck all to do with the original article linked in the post. So why not make a reasoned argument against what was in the post?
No, realize your audience is trapped in an unalterable worldview. As your own posting demonstrates, you're the one hurling accusations of "too stupid to see the truth."
I have done nothing of the sort. I have posted a link to the article and asked for comments on the material included in it.
Given the state of hyper partisanship in America do you honestly think the solution is pointing at the partisan side opposite you and continuing the "it's all their fault!" approach? How do you guys ever hope to come to a consensus on any issue if you think creating wider divisions and not "wasting effort" on discourse is the solution?
Personally, I am more than willing to talk with anyone about possible ways to ease this problem. The 2nd Amendment is not going anywhere, but I think Heller offers a framework that's pragmatic and workable.
No. Reason exists in dialogue. Your monologue could be the beginning of a reasoned argument, if you start a thread with it and are prepared to seriously discuss it and the many ways in which others disagree with what you said. Just as you could have a reasoned argument in this thread if you were prepared to seriously discuss the reasonable opening in the first post.
or possibly a better counter argument even than that: I have a gun, and am "good" aand will only ever do good with it Just as I will only ever do good with a fire extinguisher which I own for a similar reason. Across the street, that fellow also owns a gun and a fire extinguisher. But he is not good. Which of these might he choose to be bad with?
How is what my neighbor chooses to do my fault in any way? How will restricting my rights and proprty prevent him from misbehaving? What reason would you have to restrict his rights and property absent previous bad behavior? How do you know he is "not good"?
