The latest school massacres

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

In 2013 there were 8,454 homicides with a gun. Cops estimates 80% of those are gang/drug related, which are mostly in urban slums. Other people have a 0.000530%, or 1:188,700, chance of being killed with gun. Each year you statistically have a greater chance dying falling down stairs 1:180,000, or riding a bicycle 1:140,000.

See the problem? Numbers can be manipulated to support any position. Gun violence is something most people only see on TV news. It couldn’t happen here in my safe town/city. When it does, it’s a horrible thing, until the media assails you with the next horrible thing.
...

That pretty much negates the claim that people need guns to protect themselves. The chance they'll need to protect themselves is very slim.

If anyone in the "I accept carnage so that I can have all the guns I want" camp offered ANY ideas for ending mass shootings that didn't include gun control laws, I would listen.

My question to all the conservatives who, in the last two days, have said "we have to fix the mental illness problem", is will you increase taxes on the wealthy to finance the programs?

[tw]

Originally Posted by traceur

The point isn't a pro life one, but rather that anything which gives us the means to impact others becomes the business of others who don't want to be negatively impacted, regardless of the level of agency in the process of acquiring it, and regardless of whether we try to deal with it on a case by case basis through life or organize around it as a society.

Since my thoughts and words can affect others, then others should have the right to regulate my thoughts and words?

That reasoning stands on a very slippery slope.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

WaPo

I believe there are many gun owners in this situation, and I have met some at field dog trials,
I have sometimes asked if they are a member of the NRA, and do they subscribe to the various NRA magazines.

This is where the NRA gets it's "membership" numbers, and a some of it's political power.
The NRA counts all magazine subscribers as "members" and is speaking for them.

There is a very simple and powerful way to voice opposition to NRA's political positions - write a letter to voice your opinion and
CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS and maybe your NRA MEMBERSHIP.

.

[Griff]

The Catholic Church cooks their numbers similarly. It may be a common tactic across the board to make the general public think these are not tiny minorities of people making demands.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by traceur

Let's imagine a scenario where one of the states requires to pass some actual training before getting a gun license. Early on there would be a big hoopla about gun control and whether it's constitutional.

But if it stands, then over a few months you are going to have a new rising group of gun owners with an exclusive club mentality - they feel like they earned it, where gun owners in other states did not. This can be a potent viral strain to infect american gun culture with - remember how the american republicans defended the patriot act and phone tapping and so on? If you don't have anything to hide, you have nothing to worry about. Much the same can happen here internally - within the NRA culture - if you don't want the tests it's because you don't think you can pass.

Nope, I don't give a rats ass about what they do in N J, or Ohio, and certainly not NY. The argument isn't whether you can pass a test or not, it's how much information you want the government to know about you and your guns. When the government representing the "thems", come in the night to grab the guns and children, send you to the camps, and turn the elderly into soylent green, will you be prepared?

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

That pretty much negates the claim that people need guns to protect themselves. The chance they'll need to protect themselves is very slim.

Not at all. The chances of me setting myself on fire don't dissuade me from keeping a fire extinguisher. Actually the need to defend the castle, is a slogan, a canned catch all, a conversation ender. The reality is defense is only a small part of the equation, there are other reasons and uses. Personally, I like the benefit of longer, stronger boners, but that's just me, your mileage may vary.

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

I believe there are many gun owners in this situation, and I have met some at field dog trials, I have sometimes asked if they are a member of the NRA, and do they subscribe to the various NRA magazines.

This is where the NRA gets it's "membership" numbers, and a some of it's political power.
The NRA counts all magazine subscribers as "members" and is speaking for them.

There is a very simple and powerful way to voice opposition to NRA's political positions - write a letter to voice your opinion and
CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS and maybe your NRA MEMBERSHIP.

This has always been my opposition to lifetime memberships. Once you're in, you're in. You can't quit, even if you die you're still on the books.

Originally Posted by Griff

The Catholic Church cooks their numbers similarly. It may be a common tactic across the board to make the general public think these are not tiny minorities of people making demands.

Yes, think of all the people on the mailing list for the insurance seller, AARP. When I approached 50 they offered an 8 year membership for $40. Silly me, 15 years after it expired, they still contribute heavily to my trash. I'm sure I'm counted in their powerbase.

[it]

Originally Posted by tw

Since my thoughts and words can affect others, then others should have the right to regulate my thoughts and words?

That reasoning stands on a very slippery slope.

I am not saying it generates rights - whether your reaction to how it can effect you has a right to be forceful or part of social organized force is another matter altogether - even if only women had a vote for "womb regulations" it would still be an application of organized force by whoever side won over the side that didn't, whether they had a right to do so would still have the same questions and problems, and is not granted by the fact they'd all be women.

Rather, I am saying that the "if you aren't x you don't get to decide comment or have opinions on things related to x" line of arguments is nonsense - you don't have to be something to have invested interest in it, whether it's womb owners or gun owners.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by traceur

I am not saying it generates rights - whether your reaction to how it can effect you has a right to be forceful or part of social organized force is another matter altogether - even if only women had a vote for "womb regulations" it would still be an application of organized force by whoever side won over the side that didn't, whether they had a right to do so would still have the same questions and problems, and is not granted by the fact they'd all be women.

Rather, I am saying that the "if you aren't x you don't get to decide comment or have opinions on things related to x" line of arguments is nonsense - you don't have to be something to have invested interest in it, whether it's womb owners or gun owners.

I agree - I have never really liked the 'if you don't have X experience then you don't get a view' argument. I have never been a soldier, but I'm damn sure I have an opinion on what my country's soldiers do when they are in someone else's country. I don't drive, but I have an opinion on the state of the roads.

My only real problem with the earlier points was the equating of vaginas and guns. Women's bodies are routinely objectified in a way that male bodies are not. Time and again I hear people make the argument that girls and women should take precautions against rape, for example, by equating the woman's body to an unlocked car or house risking burglary and theft.

I get what you're saying about men having a sense of the child as theirs, in arguments over abortion - but the 'get out of my vagina' argument is not just about the right to an abortion - it's about contraception, family planning, and enforced and medically unnecessary procedures for women who are seeking abortion as a way to make those abortions more difficult to obtain. And, probably more importantly, it's about recognising the awesome power over another person's body that this implies.

Self-defence is also a matter of power over one's own body - I can see that part of the equivalence - but, classic's snarky comment about transgender women aside, we don't get to choose our gender it is something we are born with. The reason the 'get out of my vagina' trope came about is that there is a profound gender imbalance at a political and law-making level. And this is just where we are now - coming from a historical perspective where that imbalance has generally been much more profound and women's bodies far more a matter for male legislation and ruling.


I don't, as it happens, believe that men should not have a say in issues around abortion. That's ludicrous - it is a thing in the world that they live in. But I am sick of women's bodies and the things that are done to them being equated with inanimate objects and the things that are done to them.

[sexobon]

And that's why we have school massacres, because kids today can't refrain from agenda drift. Interesting demonstration.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by traceur

I am saying that the "if you aren't x you don't get to decide comment or have opinions on things related to x" line of arguments is nonsense - you don't have to be something to have invested interest in it, whether it's womb owners or gun owners.

This is the first thing you've said which I agree with ... no I am questioning myself.

[it]

Originally Posted by classicman

This is the first thing you've said which I agree with ... no I am questioning myself.

Awww, I am sorry, I thought of it as such a casual thing... If I knew I was taking your being right virginity I would have tried making it a little bit more special.

[xoxoxoBruce]

He didn't say he was wrong, he said you were right for a change.

[it]

Back off the poor guy, he just had his first time and now your rubbing it in his face that he didn't go again? That's mean.

[classicman]

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[it]

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[classicman]

#FAIL
ALL THE BETTER TO FIT RIGHT IN YOUR TITLE SAKE FROM LEAKING