Guns, Guns Guns

Hi Tenshinai,

Several of us have tried and failed to to make you understand the reverence of the American People for the Constitution of the United States. Like denunciation of belief in God will by insulting believers cause negative reactions. I have PMs from some saying to just unfriend you so as not to have read your venom.

"But oh dear no. In USA, it goes a step further, a piece of paper is considered THE ultimate thing to be loyal to." In fact in the United States the constitution is the supreme law of the land, it can be amended only with a super majority so, remains rather static as temporary political factions rise and fall. Dissing the constitution is fighting words to most Americans and, you have done it more than once.

Poker

pokermind wrote:Hi Tenshinai,

Several of us have tried and failed to to make you understand the reverence of the American People for the Constitution of the United States. Like denunciation of belief in God will by insulting believers cause negative reactions. I have PMs from some saying to just unfriend you so as not to have read your venom.

"But oh dear no. In USA, it goes a step further, a piece of paper is considered THE ultimate thing to be loyal to." In fact in the United States the constitution is the supreme law of the land, it can be amended only with a super majority so, remains rather static as temporary political factions rise and fall. Dissing the constitution is fighting words to most Americans and, you have done it more than once.

Poker

If I may butt in a bit? I believe he may be trying to say that the paper/constitution is being viewed as sancrosanct, and its being followed in letter more then spirit now. IMO of course

Poker, I apologise for restarting this. I meant to simply show how the western media viewed the NRA actions, not to insult your deeply held beliefs. I hold very different beliefs but should still respect yours. My attitude is that anything written by man should be continually examined and challenged to see if it's still relevant, but I can understand that some people do feel deeply about such topics.
If I was living in the US I'd probably get regularly punched out for my total lack of respect for religion, your (or any) constitution or man made rules.

I listen to a few podcasts, a while ago a guy on one said "The NRA is like PETA, it started out as a good idea then crazy people took over." Remember that the most extreme people also shout the loudest and often don't represent (and/or misrepresent) reality (this counts for all sides on all issues, not just the NRA and gun control).


Just some food for thought.

Hi Daryl

That's the trouble with controversial issues. While not understanding the grief of families loosing their children looks bad, is not the use of their understandable grief to curtail the rights of our fellow citizens not equally bad? The murder killed his mother and stole the weapon used in the shooting. Under current law this mental patient could not legally posses any firearm. He further violated the law bring a firearm on the school grounds. And since no law abiding citizen could have a firearm to take him on to protect the defenseless children due to the above law he had the time to murder so many by law helpless people before the police could respond.

Bad examples make bad law. I had a friend in collage and 8th degree black belt in Tan Soo Do Ex South Koreaian marine who put it plainly, "If you're eight feet away and armed with a firearm I can do nothing, closer I can defend myself."

People on both sides of the issue slant the news to their side. It was my intention to show the feeling on the other side. I like to play devil's advocate and as the conservatives on this forum have been either banned, got warnings of banning or, shouted down to silence it is my duty to keep the faith.

Tenshinai is a friend of mine but, sometime hard headed Swede and equally hard headed Scotch Irishman have words. The trick is to keep it from getting personal Flaming does nothing but cause hurt feelings so I try to keep the rhetoric neutral.



Do you really want to try to take the gun from this old mountain man? The one I'm holding actually fought the British in the Revolutionary war, as did my ancestors.

Poker

Daryl wrote:Poker, I apologise for restarting this. I meant to simply show how the western media viewed the NRA actions, not to insult your deeply held beliefs. I hold very different beliefs but should still respect yours. My attitude is that anything written by man should be continually examined and challenged to see if it's still relevant, but I can understand that some people do feel deeply about such topics.
If I was living in the US I'd probably get regularly punched out for my total lack of respect for religion, your (or any) constitution or man made rules.

Pokermind,
45 years ago my then Tae Kwon Du instructor asked me "What technique do you undertake when confronted with a person armed with an automatic 12 gauge loaded with rifled slugs?". After I suggested several options he told me to put a brick wall between us and run like hell.
I agree with you that laws only stop those who obey them. Still most criminals seek 9mm pistols or 38 revolvers, not assault rifles; and the latter are what causes the most damage in mindless atrocities. I've used many personal firearms, and while I was not happy about having to give up my SKKs and AKs, I've since come to understand that restricting them is not a bad thing.
Loved the Steyr AUG. Little plastic toy that I could average 7/10 kills at 500mtrs with (on the range). Would have preferred it in a bigger caliber though. The Barrett 50 caliber also deserves respect, for a different use.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't intentionally imply the Duckk is banning people based on their opinions.

To my knowledge the no one has been banned because of their opinions. namelessfly was banned because he kept personally attacking people.

I don't know who's gotten warnings but unless you can prove that they were only warned because of their opinions, I'm going to assume that they got warned because of how they were arguing their opinions not the content of those opinions.

pokermind wrote:Hi Daryl

That's the trouble with controversial issues. While not understanding the grief of families loosing their children looks bad, is not the use of their understandable grief to curtail the rights of our fellow citizens not equally bad? The murder killed his mother and stole the weapon used in the shooting. Under current law this mental patient could not legally posses any firearm. He further violated the law bring a firearm on the school grounds. And since no law abiding citizen could have a firearm to take him on to protect the defenseless children due to the above law he had the time to murder so many by law helpless people before the police could respond.

Bad examples make bad law. I had a friend in collage and 8th degree black belt in Tan Soo Do Ex South Koreaian marine who put it plainly, "If you're eight feet away and armed with a firearm I can do nothing, closer I can defend myself."

People on both sides of the issue slant the news to their side. It was my intention to show the feeling on the other side. I like to play devil's advocate and as the conservatives on this forum have been either banned, got warnings of banning or, shouted down to silence it is my duty to keep the faith.

Tenshinai is a friend of mine but, sometime hard headed Swede and equally hard headed Scotch Irishman have words. The trick is to keep it from getting personal Flaming does nothing but cause hurt feelings so I try to keep the rhetoric neutral.

Do you really want to try to take the gun from this old mountain man? The one I'm holding actually fought the British in the Revolutionary war, as did my ancestors.

Poker

I've been following this discussion for the last half of dozen pages alternatively with both shock and amazement (in the negative sense) at extreme polarization on this topic of gun control and especially the irrationality of the opponents of any kind of gun control.

I'm sorry, Pokermind, but Tenshinai is right. From outside US, you all seem crazy, insane to the nth degree to believe is your God-given right to carry large capacity, automatic weapons in public. This is usually the instinctive answer of most of the British and European citizens. After thinking for a few moments, people usually realize that there must be something wrong with the critical thinking skills of the loyal NRA supporters, otherwise how could apparently educated people believe that NRA protects them. NRA is a gun manufacturers organization, it only cares about the profits of its donors. The only use NRA has for you is as customers (preferably repeat ones) and PR sleight of hand in order to pretend that it represents people and not corporations. That's one mystifying point, the small, but fanatical support that NRA can rely on.
The second point is this assertion that the Constitution, Bill of Rights or any other paper is sacrosant. First of all, not all Americans believe this, at least from my conversations with quite a selection of US citizens (bias: mostly middle to upper-middle class expats).

Secondly, nothing is perfect, everything can be improved upon, different times require not necessarily different rules, but different ways of implementing them. The right to bear arms, any kind of arms made perfect sense when the only available firearms were muskets and you could at most kill a couple people before you were rushed and killed yourself. The same rule doesn't make sense now, when more than a dozen people have to rush a madman from different directions to have a reasonable chance of reaching him before being killed (I'll talk about the valid counter-point that you should kill the crazy from a distance with your own weapon in a later paragraph). Plus madmen are not usually stupid, they know about defensive positions and keeping your back to the wall and laying suppressive fire. A better implementation would be to allow everyone to carry semi-automatic pistols and shotguns to city dwellers with hunting rifles as an extra for rural people. The point of this long paragraph is that all rules, papers, sacred books etc. can be improved upon (I actually really like David Weber's idea that the Grayson Book is never closed, new revelations are always added) and should be. Unthinking allegiance to an unchanging idea is just as bad as moral lassitude and cowardice.
Finally about self-defense and killing the crazy from a distance. If you go to most Western European countries, you would find that a significant minority of people (me included) are ok with everybody possessing guns as long as 3 basic conditions are met:
a. the weapon is semi-automatic and you must press the trigger every time you want to fire. The weapon shouldn't be able to lay suppressive fire or work well in a "spray and pray" mode.
b. connected to this point, all gun owners should be obliged by law to spend a minimum monthly time on the range and maintain an acceptable ratio of hits/total rounds fired (at least 75% should be on target on range so when you are under stress you can have a hit ratio of at least half that). I'm sorry, stories of police officers in the States firing 50 bullets to kill 2 drug addled guys who aren't even taking cover makes people dread the chance that shootout could happen in a mall, because half a dozen customers would be killed by the police alone. Would you give a gun to somebody who cannot hit the broad side of a barn? I'm sorry, if a magazine is not enough to kill two people, that you don't deserve to have that gun. And don't get me started on those lunatics (or liars) who say they need semi-automatic rifles (with an automatic switch) in order to hunt . One shot, one kill (or one shot to disable if the animal is charging you, one to kill) otherwise you are a poor excuse for a hunter.
c.finally, the gun lobby idea of unrestricted, unregulated private gun sales is just mind-boggling. I'm sorry, but you are not selling to your friend a lighter, you are giving him a weapon of murder. Yes, you are not responsible for what he does with it, killing or self-defense, but you are responsible for making sure he is not on medication, has a history of beating his wife or children or has been arrested multiple times for fighting with other customers when he is stinking drunk. Background checks should be compulsory and immense fines should be levied on unregulated sales.

As the end to this rant, the valid point that criminals, by the nature of being criminals will not respect the laws and acquire the weapons through any illegal means they can afford. This can be easily overcome by draconian criminal penalties for illegal possession of guns. Organized criminals are not stupid or insane risk takers. Criminals gangs here in UK and in other European countries make do with very few guns (they have a few as insurance policy in case of crazy competitors) because they know a gun killing will up the ante enormously and put a large number of police officers on the case. (The police officers as a group don't like to be afraid of criminals, so they try to make sure that such stupid, but dangerous criminals are behind bars).

In conclusion, is total madness to want to have the people armed, but without holding them to a high standard of training and making sure that those armed are sane. If you want to have power (which a gun definitely is) you must earn it and allow others to check that you are not living in the La-La-La land.

You have many valid points, some of which I agree with.

That said, a few corrections:

It is not easy to get an automatic weapon in the US, beyond simply finding one for sale (since production and sales are rather tightly controlled) there is an expensive fee and background check by the FBI. This has been true for decades. The term "assault weapon" does not have a strict definition like "handgun" or "machine gun" nor does assault weapon = assault rifle. To be an assault rifle it must have the ability to fire more than one bullet per pull of the trigger, which falls under the governmental controls of automatic weapons. What many politicians and people in the media are calling assault rifle are in fact semi-automatic rifles patterned on assault rifles. Politicians and the media use those terms to get attention and manipulate public perception.

Pokermind specifically brought up that the Constitution can be changed upon the approval of a super-majority. Every part of the Constitution can be remove and/or rewritten including both the first and second amendments (though it is not likely).

demosthenes wrote:I've been following this discussion for the last half of dozen pages alternatively with both shock and amazement (in the negative sense) at extreme polarization on this topic of gun control and especially the irrationality of the opponents of any kind of gun control.

I'm sorry, Pokermind, but Tenshinai is right. From outside US, you all seem crazy, insane to the nth degree to believe is your God-given right to carry large capacity, automatic weapons in public. This is usually the instinctive answer of most of the British and European citizens. After thinking for a few moments, people usually realize that there must be something wrong with the critical thinking skills of the loyal NRA supporters, otherwise how could apparently educated people believe that NRA protects them. NRA is a gun manufacturers organization, it only cares about the profits of its donors. The only use NRA has for you is as customers (preferably repeat ones) and PR sleight of hand in order to pretend that it represents people and not corporations. That's one mystifying point, the small, but fanatical support that NRA can rely on.
The second point is this assertion that the Constitution, Bill of Rights or any other paper is sacrosant. First of all, not all Americans believe this, at least from my conversations with quite a selection of US citizens (bias: mostly middle to upper-middle class expats).

Secondly, nothing is perfect, everything can be improved upon, different times require not necessarily different rules, but different ways of implementing them. The right to bear arms, any kind of arms made perfect sense when the only available firearms were muskets and you could at most kill a couple people before you were rushed and killed yourself. The same rule doesn't make sense now, when more than a dozen people have to rush a madman from different directions to have a reasonable chance of reaching him before being killed (I'll talk about the valid counter-point that you should kill the crazy from a distance with your own weapon in a later paragraph). Plus madmen are not usually stupid, they know about defensive positions and keeping your back to the wall and laying suppressive fire. A better implementation would be to allow everyone to carry semi-automatic pistols and shotguns to city dwellers with hunting rifles as an extra for rural people. The point of this long paragraph is that all rules, papers, sacred books etc. can be improved upon (I actually really like David Weber's idea that the Grayson Book is never closed, new revelations are always added) and should be. Unthinking allegiance to an unchanging idea is just as bad as moral lassitude and cowardice.
Finally about self-defense and killing the crazy from a distance. If you go to most Western European countries, you would find that a significant minority of people (me included) are ok with everybody possessing guns as long as 3 basic conditions are met:
a. the weapon is semi-automatic and you must press the trigger every time you want to fire. The weapon shouldn't be able to lay suppressive fire or work well in a "spray and pray" mode.
b. connected to this point, all gun owners should be obliged by law to spend a minimum monthly time on the range and maintain an acceptable ratio of hits/total rounds fired (at least 75% should be on target on range so when you are under stress you can have a hit ratio of at least half that). I'm sorry, stories of police officers in the States firing 50 bullets to kill 2 drug addled guys who aren't even taking cover makes people dread the chance that shootout could happen in a mall, because half a dozen customers would be killed by the police alone. Would you give a gun to somebody who cannot hit the broad side of a barn? I'm sorry, if a magazine is not enough to kill two people, that you don't deserve to have that gun. And don't get me started on those lunatics (or liars) who say they need semi-automatic rifles (with an automatic switch) in order to hunt . One shot, one kill (or one shot to disable if the animal is charging you, one to kill) otherwise you are a poor excuse for a hunter.
c.finally, the gun lobby idea of unrestricted, unregulated private gun sales is just mind-boggling. I'm sorry, but you are not selling to your friend a lighter, you are giving him a weapon of murder. Yes, you are not responsible for what he does with it, killing or self-defense, but you are responsible for making sure he is not on medication, has a history of beating his wife or children or has been arrested multiple times for fighting with other customers when he is stinking drunk. Background checks should be compulsory and immense fines should be levied on unregulated sales.

As the end to this rant, the valid point that criminals, by the nature of being criminals will not respect the laws and acquire the weapons through any illegal means they can afford. This can be easily overcome by draconian criminal penalties for illegal possession of guns. Organized criminals are not stupid or insane risk takers. Criminals gangs here in UK and in other European countries make do with very few guns (they have a few as insurance policy in case of crazy competitors) because they know a gun killing will up the ante enormously and put a large number of police officers on the case. (The police officers as a group don't like to be afraid of criminals, so they try to make sure that such stupid, but dangerous criminals are behind bars).

In conclusion, is total madness to want to have the people armed, but without holding them to a high standard of training and making sure that those armed are sane. If you want to have power (which a gun definitely is) you must earn it and allow others to check that you are not living in the La-La-La land.

demosthenes wrote:I've been following this discussion for the last half of dozen pages alternatively with both shock and amazement (in the negative sense) at extreme polarization on this topic of gun control and especially the irrationality of the opponents of any kind of gun control.

I'm sorry, Pokermind, but Tenshinai is right. From outside US, you all seem crazy, insane to the nth degree to believe is your God-given right to carry large capacity, automatic weapons in public. This is usually the instinctive answer of most of the British and European citizens. After thinking for a few moments, people usually realize that there must be something wrong with the critical thinking skills of the loyal NRA supporters, otherwise how could apparently educated people believe that NRA protects them. NRA is a gun manufacturers organization, it only cares about the profits of its donors. The only use NRA has for you is as customers (preferably repeat ones) and PR sleight of hand in order to pretend that it represents people and not corporations. That's one mystifying point, the small, but fanatical support that NRA can rely on.
The second point is this assertion that the Constitution, Bill of Rights or any other paper is sacrosant. First of all, not all Americans believe this, at least from my conversations with quite a selection of US citizens (bias: mostly middle to upper-middle class expats).

Secondly, nothing is perfect, everything can be improved upon, different times require not necessarily different rules, but different ways of implementing them. The right to bear arms, any kind of arms made perfect sense when the only available firearms were muskets and you could at most kill a couple people before you were rushed and killed yourself. The same rule doesn't make sense now, when more than a dozen people have to rush a madman from different directions to have a reasonable chance of reaching him before being killed (I'll talk about the valid counter-point that you should kill the crazy from a distance with your own weapon in a later paragraph). Plus madmen are not usually stupid, they know about defensive positions and keeping your back to the wall and laying suppressive fire. A better implementation would be to allow everyone to carry semi-automatic pistols and shotguns to city dwellers with hunting rifles as an extra for rural people. The point of this long paragraph is that all rules, papers, sacred books etc. can be improved upon (I actually really like David Weber's idea that the Grayson Book is never closed, new revelations are always added) and should be. Unthinking allegiance to an unchanging idea is just as bad as moral lassitude and cowardice.
Finally about self-defense and killing the crazy from a distance. If you go to most Western European countries, you would find that a significant minority of people (me included) are ok with everybody possessing guns as long as 3 basic conditions are met:
a. the weapon is semi-automatic and you must press the trigger every time you want to fire. The weapon shouldn't be able to lay suppressive fire or work well in a "spray and pray" mode.
b. connected to this point, all gun owners should be obliged by law to spend a minimum monthly time on the range and maintain an acceptable ratio of hits/total rounds fired (at least 75% should be on target on range so when you are under stress you can have a hit ratio of at least half that). I'm sorry, stories of police officers in the States firing 50 bullets to kill 2 drug addled guys who aren't even taking cover makes people dread the chance that shootout could happen in a mall, because half a dozen customers would be killed by the police alone. Would you give a gun to somebody who cannot hit the broad side of a barn? I'm sorry, if a magazine is not enough to kill two people, that you don't deserve to have that gun. And don't get me started on those lunatics (or liars) who say they need semi-automatic rifles (with an automatic switch) in order to hunt . One shot, one kill (or one shot to disable if the animal is charging you, one to kill) otherwise you are a poor excuse for a hunter.
c.finally, the gun lobby idea of unrestricted, unregulated private gun sales is just mind-boggling. I'm sorry, but you are not selling to your friend a lighter, you are giving him a weapon of murder. Yes, you are not responsible for what he does with it, killing or self-defense, but you are responsible for making sure he is not on medication, has a history of beating his wife or children or has been arrested multiple times for fighting with other customers when he is stinking drunk. Background checks should be compulsory and immense fines should be levied on unregulated sales.

As the end to this rant, the valid point that criminals, by the nature of being criminals will not respect the laws and acquire the weapons through any illegal means they can afford. This can be easily overcome by draconian criminal penalties for illegal possession of guns. Organized criminals are not stupid or insane risk takers. Criminals gangs here in UK and in other European countries make do with very few guns (they have a few as insurance policy in case of crazy competitors) because they know a gun killing will up the ante enormously and put a large number of police officers on the case. (The police officers as a group don't like to be afraid of criminals, so they try to make sure that such stupid, but dangerous criminals are behind bars).

In conclusion, is total madness to want to have the people armed, but without holding them to a high standard of training and making sure that those armed are sane. If you want to have power (which a gun definitely is) you must earn it and allow others to check that you are not living in the La-La-La land.

I agree with almost everything you've said. The reason I called Tenshinai out was not because I disagreed with him but because I felt he'd gone from attacking certain views to attacking pokermind with an alternately sarcastic and condescending tone.