Brady Campaign to America's Hunters: "All your rifles are belong to us"

[Sesshoumaru]

Well that thread's closed (and I missed it, damn college not letting me access the nuklear power domain), and what I really want to discuss is the organizations behind gun politics, not the laws themselves. As well as making sure that more people learn for themselves the actaully facts of the issues, instead of being fed mountains of steaming dog crap...so maybe discussion wasn't the best place for this thread, as I was more interested in a 'public service message' type post. But hey, we already have an ok discussion going, which is not wholey unrelated to what I was originally intending.

Anyways, Krylo's right int hat mandating gun ownership is also bad. The idea is that someone can own and carry a firearm for defense, target shooting, hunting, shooting evil tree rat bastards, preparing for the zombie apocalypse, whatever; if they want to. Private gun ownership goes FAR beyound the issue of the second amendment, among the other rights I elaborated were affected, the right to property ownership was overlooked. However, that too comes into play, gun control is so insideous because it stomps on so many rights that if you allow it, you open the door for the government to basically mandate whatever they want (I believe I also mentioned the citizen vs serf issue as well). "Guns are dangerous", well duh, so is driving a car; hell the gasoline you use to drive the car is at least as dangerous as a firearm. The fertilizer you use in your garden can be used to kill dozens of people, does that mean we should lock up allt he green thumbs that stock up on fertalizer? Obviously they must be planning a bombing spree. Are we to be considered innocent until proven guilty? Or will every good man and woman suffer because of the actions of a tiny minority of twisted individuals?

[Magus]

Man, we're talking about guns AGAIN? Well, I'll just reiterate that I agree with the second amendment, which people translate their own way every which way to back-up their own opinion based on the placement of commas (which since you can translate the emphasis a myriad of ways, ends up being a meaningless argument). However, I believe we do have this thing called PRECEDENCE where for a hundred and fifty years it was considered to protect the right of individual citizens to own guns, besides our ability to form militias. So there.

Since you said you wanted this topic to be about pointing out how annoying the leadership of the Brady Campaign is, I wholeheartedly agree. Heck, citing Times articles that use such sentences as, "In 1994, enough politicians felt the public’s fear to respond with a 10-year ban on assault-weapons that was not perfect but dented the free-marketeering of Rambo mayhem." points to fairly opinionated journalism. Besides their definition of "the public" which, I assure you, very few politicians pay any actual attention to.

[greed]

Originally Posted by Sesshoumaru

Austrailia's violent crime is also skyrocketing, after they banned most guns.

Yeah the thing about that.
Yes assault has risen, however the vast bulk of this is from domestics or street fights between teenagers, neither of which would be affected positively by gun ownership, and among the Aborigines who wouldn't be able to afford firearms anyway sadly. As such the increasing rate of sexual and regular assault I believe lies more with the decreasing conditions of the poorest in society thanks to the conservative govt elected in 96 which held til late last year and a general underfunding of the education/judicial system by them backed by the usual corrupt handling of the police and schools by the states. Also keep in mind however we have increased in population significantly since 96. Homicide on the other hand has steadily dropped, and robbery has stayed relatively the same. Interestingly non-violent property crime has fallen significantly, indicating that armed owners probably aren't much of a deterrent.

All in all it hasn't done much either way. So I retain my normal stance on gun control which is general apathy and wondering why the hell people get so worked up about it, I mean they shouldn't be illegal(note we don't have a total ban here either, they just have to registered and kept locked up so they can't easily be stolen or used by children), but prior to our control laws a retarded schizophrenic legally purchased several automatic shotguns, and that's WAY too far in the other direction.

My view is guns should be legal but regulated like cars(ie eye tests so you don't shoot the wrong thing, gun safety so you don't shoot yourself, no excons or crazies), and nothing concealable, automatic or armour penetrating. Personally I plan on getting one later, cause the work I'm planning on getting from my degree means I'm gonna live out in the country either here or another county with lots of mines and farms(so the US and Canada are also a possibility) and they're useful out there.

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by Sesshoumaru

twisted individuals

Originally Posted by Sesshoumaru

hmmm, I wonder why they still want police to have them then? I guess the magical badge tailsman makes them much superior to us unwashed peasants

Originally Posted by Sesshoumaru

you got a a large kitchen knife? FIEND surely such a large knife has no other purpose than killing people!

Originally Posted by Sesshoumaru

The 'assault weapon' bullsh** is just the latest in a 30 year campaign of lies and perfidy

Since you couldn't bother going and actually reading the rules thread after Krylo already warned you, allow me to quote directly:

This is the Discussion forum, not the Outraged Swearing and Insults forum. We all know that Bush / Pelosi / Cops Who Use Tasers / Happy Meal Lady are ridiculous stupid crazy irrational hyperpartisan fucking bitch thug idiots, but saying so really doesn't get us anywhere. In pretty much every case it's possible to make an argument that something or someone is wrong without slurs, invective and insults so please do that.

No sarcasm in this forum. It's just unnecessarily passive-aggressive hostility that ends up pissing people off and there's no point you can make with sarcasm that you can't make by just saying whatever it is you have to say.

In general, hostility, anger and attitude are a no-go in this forum. If you find that a subject makes you too angry to post about it calmly then you need to step away from your computer and go do something else until you calm down enough to post about it calmly.

You kind of have a history of problems re: Discussion Forum and followin' rules so I am gonna give you the extra-strength super De-luxe treatment of a one-month ban from any Discussion-forum posting and hope that makes the point this kind of thing ain't ever gonna be tolerated.

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Originally Posted by Krylo

The government shouldn't be forcing me to buy anything.

FWIW that's at least not significantly less of an imposition than, say, car insurance.

[Magus]

Well, that is something you have to buy to own a (road-worthy) car, whereas there is no state that is forcing you to buy A CAR in the first place (although with some argument that it is a basic necessity in today's world, I'm surprised some states don't just to make money--Michigan would basically be helping itself.)

There are some states that are going to start fining people ridiculously high amounts of money if they don't have health insurance, though. I'm looking at you, Massachusetts. I'd file that under annoying, especially since the idea of universal health care is to make it so affordable people would be stupid NOT to get it, not to just make it illegal to not have it (like certain presidential candidates I could name...) But I suppose that is another topic.

The only way the government should officially mandate that you HAVE to have something is when it is for OTHER PEOPLE'S good. So car insurance is to protect other people's cars when you wreck into them (that's why the cheapest insurance just covers the other guy and not your car), but forcing people to buy a gun, which can really only be used to protect one's self or someone in the immediate vicinity, and which are fairly expensive, is silly. Health insurance goes along the same lines in my opinion (maybe not for dependant minors like some people argue), but for individuals it's kind of silly to say they HAVE to have health insurance because they're only hurting themselves by not having it (on the assumption that they couldn't get someone else to foot the bill, which I'm sure happens all the time in real life).

[Fifthfiend]

Dude, that thing about insults goes for silly, too.

I mean you know --

but for individuals it's kind of silly to say they HAVE to have health insurance because they're only hurting themselves by not having it

-- I could sit here saying how you're silly for apparently not knowing that, y'know, many diseases are communicable. Or for that matter, that people actually in many cases rely upon on other people, and are adversely affected when those people are unwell.

But I do not! Cause that would be pretty obnoxious, and as such, is prohibited by discussion forum rules!

Callin' this your officially-unofficial not-really-a-warning warning cause what the hell I ain't gonna get that mad over the word "silly". But seriously enough of that.

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Fifthfiend

FWIW that's at least not significantly less of an imposition than, say, car insurance.

Which, as much of a tangent as this is, I feel is a criminal misuse of legislation as well. The government has no right to force you to pay a private company for a service that you may very possibly never need. I feel the same way about this "let's just make it a law that everyone has to have health insurance" idea a lot of the current presidential candidates are trying to push. If the problem is that people don't have the money to afford a service, why is making them obligated by law to pay for it a solution?

As to how this relates to legally mandating people to own guns on a national or even just statewide scale is more or less on the same principle. Having the right to bear arms also means having the right not to.