Guns

Laws to protect citizens from armed lunatics = "Fascism". Oh boy. I'm moving.

Dave Q: didja ever read that Frank Herbert story — mid-60s, forget the title — in which a proto-Libertarian high-tech discovers he's invented the Pockert Nuclear Ray or some such... and rather than let it be co-opted by the Govt, he announces the details at a televised hearing abt boundary markers (or something piffling, anyway). And thus tells the world on TV how to make their own (which can be done from materials you havbe in yr garage). The senator running the realises what's going on, and tries to stop the broadcast: the cameraman — who is of course technically minded — says, er, nope, this stays on air. Cuz this I wanna hear.

Never worked out if it was a parody of Mutually Assured Destruction (everyone gets their own bomb = peace and love forevah) or its logical extension...

Real question you have to ask isn't What wd that undereducated nutball do with a gun? — easily if often mistakenly answered — it's What wd *I* do with a gun?

I do often think though, that you could solve the Northern Ireland decommissioning problem by bringing in US style gun non-control laws, thereby legalising the IRA arsenal at a stroke.

Does the right to bear arms extend to semtex?

I read Tiger Tiger once (jaunting,. right?) but never owned it.

I think I detect a slight whiff of sarcasm wafting off that last epithet.

And pray do tell dave, how many people are shot each year in Switzerland?

And while I've got this bee in my bonnet I'll just point out quickly that the internet was designed as a communications medium which could route around a nuclear attack when other comm media have failed. Hence it's an invention that's supposed to act as a defense against weapons.

And how are we to do this by reducing even the simplest scenario to fight or flight? Shoot or Scoot? Yes, a lot of the time people need a push to think about more than just themselves, but arming everyone is going to bring about the exact opposite response. Unless by "morally evolve" you mean some sort of Ubermensch last-man-standing sort of thing. But that seems rather pointless and amoral to me.

I'm no fan of the US military and cops often abuse their authority but I don't think the answer is arming everyone c. 1776. There's too much "collateral damage"- dead schoolchildren, dead family members, dead McDonald's patrons, etc. Even if we cooked up some fantasy about the army mutinying even AK-47s are gonna be useless against Stealth bombers. The whole premise is too absurd. For illustrative examples see Waco, Ruby Ridge, etc.

Equally people who don't know how to make radios should not be allowed to listen to them.

Laws to protect citizens from armed lunatics = "Fascism".

Yes, and those laws work oh so well, considering.

I like the Chris Rock line on gun control, make bullets cost $5000 each. Then if someone gets shot, you can just go, "Well that poor bastard musta really deserved it, someone spend $5000 on that bullet!"

At Waco and Ruby Ridge (and plenty other times too), the State Fired First. Legend of Koresh's aresenal helped him not at all: FACT of his arsenal (= smaller than govt apologists claimed) neither here nor there, really.

What is percentage of US cops killed by badly aimed fire from their own side? Ans = higher than you think.

I have only held a real gun of any kind in hands but the once. I was frightened beyond coherent address. Owner = Phill Niblock, NYC noise-minimalist and avant space-curator, who likes guns.

As you can perhaps tell I am totally all over the place on this.

As for personal defense, arming only the police and military won't work. The governmnent can't stop all the psychos out there; it only deals with them after the fact. If you are under immediate, serious physical danger from an attacker, that is the only situation in which I would condone gun use. I think hunting for sport and the way men use it to bond is disgusting.

Individuals do have to make ethical choices because of American gun laws, and many of them choose not to have guns at all. Many of them do, and I see this as a freedom. If people shouldn't be able to have guns, someone can convince them that's true, but don't just take them away. That's fascist.

Babe, I really don't want to get into this argument. I am posting semi-sarcastic confusing quips to just be a bit of a jerk.

I have no problem with people owning guns. People should be trained to use them, licenced, and registered. It should be freely available though, IMO, after training. You should be able to prove you can use it properly.

I mean, I do not trust the police at all. Police are crap imbeciles who deserve to be shot themselves half of the time. After living in AZ for a while...argh. It's shocking. There was one incident where a jumpy female cop started shooting out a stolen vehicle that was parked in a parking lot, it had the man who stole the car plus his unrelated-to-the-incident girlfriend in the passenger seat. Both were unarmed and hadn't done anything to make them be viewed as a threat to the police. Guess which side of the car was shot out more? It was something like 78 shots from about 4 cops! The girl was blasted to pieces. Add onto this all the incidents in NYC with psycho cops...why should they be the only people who have guns, they seem like the people who should have them the least.

Put on top of that that criminals have guns, being as they are criminals and as such happily go around the law...I do think there is something to be said for Switzerland.

That's like way more than I wanted to say, I'm going to get in trouble. Be advised it's not really an opinion I care much about, other than the police = psychotics thing. My dad has like a fucking arsenal of guns, they'd make me wicked ass nervous a while back, after I had been shot at. Now I don't care, I learned how to shoot (poorly). The AK47 still worries me though :P

I guess my point is: if it's OK for the Feds to be armed, it's OK for everyone. If not, not. Waco is an argt for the non-arming of the police, more than it is an argt for the non-arming of foax at large.

Or so they say. I mean, it's a convenient excuse - "Well, we thought Diallo's wallet was a gun". How does a trained professional mistake a wallet for a gun? I never have. It's like Proven Worst Person Ever, Roger Clemens, claiming that he threw a baseball bat at Mike Piazza because he thought the bat was a ball. First off, throwing a ball at someone full speed isn't exactly good behavior either, but secondly YOU HAVE PITCHED YOUR WHOLE LIFE! I KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A BAT AND A BALL! YOU SHOULD TOO!

Ahem.

My point is that government forces are all liars, I think.

If all of society had a gun, then would the police be so trigger happy?

I tend to steer away from seriously argued conspiracy theory in favor of covering-one's-ass after the fact justifications, which I think explains Waco more than anything else.

Live in that environment, you learn to hate police :)

My fear of concealed weapon laws is one of few political positions I have that are completely personal and have nothing to do with any overarching principle or logic -- my fear is the knowledge that if people anywhere near a major city are allowed to carry handguns, a whole lot of young black men will get shot for doing nothing. I've been kicked in the crotch for walking up behind a woman at an ATM too quickly; I've had mace pulled on me for passing people in the street late at night; I'd rather avoid the part where I get shot.

>>> Yet another paradox - a lot of Brits, Europeans etc really hate Americans for whatever reason. The same people also criticise American gun laws. Well if they hate Americans so much then why do they object to them wasting each other?

Which just shows what a Beloved Entertainer he is. Don't stop now, geezer.

BUT why did DQ drop 'Tarden' alias? IL* Focus Group decided earlier that this was a BAD BRANDING MOVE.

“But for a deep-seated belief in God and firearms, this country would not be here today,”

“I don’t see a thing wrong with having a loaded gun in there,” Mr. Hillerich said. “If the pastor’s in there and he’s got a concealed weapon and somebody comes in and starts shooting people, he can take him out. That’s his right.” He added: “I think everybody should carry a gun.”

This is the third blog post about an event that encouraged people to bring unarmed guns to a church. Here was an account of the event from Saturday night and a previous day’s look at the gun debate.

a do what now?

i guess unloaded? although that would seem counter to the spirit of the thing.

loaded with the safety on?

aha, explained in the original story:

The celebration will feature lessons in responsible gun ownership, Mr. Pagano said. Sheriff’s deputies will be at the doors to check that openly carried firearms are unloaded, but they will not check for concealed weapons.

“That’s the whole point of concealed,” Mr. Pagano said, adding that he was not worried because such owners require training.

probably safe to assume this nytimes blogger reporter knows jack shit about guns, then.

I can't have a gun, I'm a nervous nellie around them. However, my family was rural and came from gun country (liberal, though) and I follow gun stories faithfully, albeit from a liberal perspective.

Federal appeals court takes another look at New Orleans gun rights lawsuit