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What do you think of the concept "guns don't kill people, people kill people?"

vjohnson51 7 Dec 23
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0

Actually it’s the bullets
So let them keep their 2nd amendment even though none of them belong to a well regulated militia and just regulate or outright ban certain types of ammo

1

It’s correct in essence, but it’s also mostly only used as a red herring to defend gun rights more fiercely than we defend the lives of the nations children. It’s true that the violence problem in America isn’t caused by the existence of inanimate objects; it’s just entirely enabled by them. There’s both an underlying mental health issue to deal with, of toxic masculinity, the romanticization of gun culture etc, and a bunch of seriously ridiculous holes in our gun laws because manufacturers and the NRA convinced a lot of people that the second amendement was the defense of all the others. Coincidentally they didn’t notice us losing all our other rights and the NSA’s violation of the 4th because because they were too busy defending the 2nd, which is what’s supposed to defend the 4th according to them.

On the mental tip, several generations of American males grew up romanticizing gun violence and vigilante justice as the solution to all of life’s problems: countless westerns are about one white man with a gun solving all the problems of a town. I don’t believe TV or media are what cause gun violence either, but they’re parallel examples of where the psyche of the average American is coming from. American culture is a powder keg and you can buy prelit matches with no background check or waiting period at any match show whether you’re a felon, foreign national, or just drunk white n angry.

0

Guns just make people more effective killers. Is that what we really want? Or even need?

1of5 Level 8 Dec 25, 2019

Hunters say "yes"

@Burner because hunting is such a fine thing to do in the city, and i long for a time when people can go to something like a store to get meat far, far cheaper than they could get instead of having to go hunting.

@1of5 cannabalism?

0

People are just using a useless rhetorical question. to avoid the issue of gun violence

1

Ridiculous oversimplification!

0

In "The Monster Club" by R. Chetwynd-Hayes 1975

Eramus The vampire extols on the monstrous credentials of the human race

What can he do?
In the past 60 years Hume's have exterminated over a hundred and fifty million of their own kind!
No effort has been spared to reach this astronomical figure and the methods that they have used must demand our unstinted admiration.
You know Humes began with certain very serious disadvantages but these they overcame with wonderful ingenuity not having a fang or a claw or even the whistle worth talking about they invented guns and tanks and bombs and airplanes and extermination camps and poison gas and daggers and swords and bayonets and booby traps and atomic bombs and flying missiles, submarines, warships, aircraft carriers and motorcars.
They have even perfected a process whereby they can spread a lethal disease on any part of this planet not to say anything about nuclear power.
Oh oh and during their short history you know humans have subjected other humes to death by burning hanging decapitation, strangulation, electrocution, shooting, drowning, crushing, racking, disemboweling and other methods far far too revolting for the delicate stomachs of this august assembly.

0

Cutlery does not eat food, people eat food
Glasses don't drink wine, people drink wine
Plates do not serve food, people serve food on plates

Why is is different when the subject is a firearms? The NRA is not making a fucking fortune off tableware.

0

40% are suicides

1

Guns give the ability to kill it just makes it easier to kill.
People who have the urge to kill will kill by any means at their disposal guns just make it easier for them to do so.

And to kill more people in a shorter amount of time.

3

Someone who’s lived on the dark side of life once told me,
‘The problem with guns is they make it too easy to kill someone’
Also seeing as we’re using music analogies I’d like to add a Spearhead track about fighting:

2

Then it makes sense to keep people from having guns. Problem solved.

3

It's a tired old slogan used by people who don't know how to use basic, simple logic. Stronger regulations lead to fewer gun deaths. This is demonstrably true.

In other words, it's the goddamn guns.

I never knew there were demonstrably true facts that show that tronger regulations lead to fewer gun deaths. Could you supply some of these examples? It would be helpful to fight the NRA.

@godnot A simple Google search of gun statistics shows that countries with the least access to guns have drastically fewer gun deaths. Granted, some of these are due more to poverty than to regulations. However, YOU can fight the NRA. I tried that on Twitter and all I got was a headache.

[npr.org]

[worldpopulationreview.com]

Here's an interesting one: [businessinsider.com]

@JayOleck38 What evidence exists to show that the reason countries that have drastically fewer gun deaths than United States is because they have the least access to guns. If you’re saying that the reason there are so many gun deaths in the United States is because there are 393 million guns in the United States, that is totally irrational. In fact there’s a name for your irrationality. It’s called a non sequitur.

5

It is irrelevant. Countries besides the US who regulate and restrict gun ownership have at most a fraction of the mass shootings that we do, so to reject even a subset of those regulations on the basis that we can somehow regulate people's base impulses apart from their access to the means to act on them, can't be charitably described any other way than that it's irrational and disordered thinking.

It is very difficult for me to imagine people believe Governments are so moral, caring, trusting, and the people in power are the only ones that can be trusted to have weapons. That the people in power are able to decide who can and cannot be trusted with weapons. The people in power are somehow so much better than the average law abiding citizen, they will always do what is right..... guess those in power are demi gods with the power to be able to choose only the most trustworthy people to have weapons and would never turn those people against the citizens..... History would prove different!

@LarryClifford Restricting the ownership of weapons of war, bulk ammo magazines, etc and making sure that crazy people and criminals can't have guns is not "deciding that only the people in power can be trusted with weapons".

I am not of the view that the government can be trusted with them either, not when they are shooting people in the back who are running AWAY from them, etc. Police forces in other civilized countries don't even routinely carry weapons and manage to keep the peace just fine.

@mordant OK, I get it. You believe rights are NOT inherent but granted by Government and Government has the wisdom to decide what those rights should be and who is qualified to exercise a right granted.

@LarryClifford Are you of the view that rights can never be removed or restricted for any reason? Say I have an "inherent" right to a gun and I come after you to kill you with it because, say, I think you are using your car radio to control my mind. Do you seriously think I should not lose my right to own a gun?? And that this is somehow an evil conspiracy rather than just a mundane function of government?

We could have a separate conversation about whether everyone should by default have a right to bear arms, but for the sake of argument, let us concede that point. What (if anything) would legitimately cause that person to LOSE that default right? And who or what would enforce that?

@mordant yes and no. Inherent rights can only be taken away through force (of arms). Protections of those rights can be taken away either through force of arms or cooperative agreement. Your inherent rights do NOT allow you to infringe on the inherent rights of another. Example; you have the right to bear arms, if you exercise that right to take or injur another, you have violated his/her right. If you carry your arms onto anothers property without permission, you have violated that persons rights. Once you have violated another persons rights you can lose your protection but you can never lose a right.

@LarryClifford Again conceding for sake of argument that there is an "inherent right to bear arms" then what I understand you to be saying is that one cannot lose this right, only the obligation of others to protect that right.

This seems to me a distinction without a difference in practice. Presumably in your understanding the government is simply obligated to protect everyone's right to bear arms, but if that right is misused, its obligation is gone. Does it now sit around passively and wait for some unspecified others to assault the miscreant's inherent right? Or do others -- via societal mechanisms like laws -- afford it the job of interfering with the exercise of this right?

Is there any practical difference between interfering with the exercise of a right and taking it away? Does it matter who does the job? Is two guys with guns how this is settled? Or is it delegated? And to who or what?

What we are doing here is tap dancing around a simple fact: if I violate your rights by means of a gun, I can't be trusted (by you, or by society really) with a gun. And someone has to relieve me of the gun. And then effectively I no longer enjoy the right to bear arms. And whether you philosophically regard my right to bear arms as inviolable / inherent or not, it changes nothing. It also does not change the fact that unless you want to be governed by roving gangs of armed people in these matters with no structure or standards of conduct and no training, then this job, the vast majority of the time, is a job best delegated to your duly elected representatives and their agents.

The whole gun control debate comes down to how we deal with the problem of misuse of guns in violation of the rights of others. After all, if there is an inherent or inviolable right, it is the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- that would, I'm sure you'd agree, come before the right to bear arms.

We know, from objective fact, that mass shootings are a problem unique to our country. We have orders of magnitude more of them than other "civilized" countries. Virtually all of these countries solved the problem by restricting guns to people who really, REALLY have business having guns. And this includes the police, who often keep the peace just fine without carrying side arms. All of these countries have hunters and sport shooters, because they get to pursue those diversions subject to reasonable restrictions.

What is YOUR alternative solution to that? Where has it been tried? How has that worked?

The gun rights lobby appears to have nothing to offer but the status quo, implying that all the school and church and public square shootings are an acceptable or at least necessary cost of maintaining the status quo. Do you have anything new to offer here?

@mordant so your saying because someone infringed on anothers rights by using his/her right to do so, Government should take away the protections of not just the individual(s) responsible but everyone because you're not sure everyone can be trusted? Yet you think somehow Politicians are all honest, trustworthy, caring, moral, principled "People" who care more about those they "Serve" and would never consider using the force they control on citizens (Especially unarmed citizens)? Also if you violate the trust you do not lose your right except by FORCE OF ARMS you lose you protection of rights. Rights can NOT be taken away except by "Force of ARMS!" protections of rights can be forfiet.

@LarryClifford I said nothing of the kind. I was talking about a specific instance of someone violating another's rights with a firearm. Let me make it plainer. Let's say that the current laws remain in effect, and everyone is free to buy a fire arm even if they are a raging lunatic -- automatic weapons, giant ammo magazines, whatever. And such a person kills a couple dozen children in a school. WHO OR WHAT does WHAT about that? Don't we delegate responsibility to the police and the FBI and the ATF and ultimately the courts? In a democratic republic, aren't those OUR representatives, and stand in stead, with their training and expertise, for US?

If those entities are corrupt, is it not on US to root that out?

I repeat: Do you have a solution? Where has it been tried? How has that worked? Do you have anything new to offer here?

@mordant What difference does it make if someone loses the right to have a gun? If someone wants a gun they can easily buy one; it doesn’t have to be from a store. So, using logic show that any of the “common sense” gun laws will prevent anyone from buying a gun?

0

Only one response to that - Frenzel Rhomb

Quack?! 😉

1

Technically they both do.

0

Any time someone has to repeat a motto or slogan, they're being sheep. If one were to apply the same logic as "guns don't kill people people kill people," then why not just let Iran and N. Korea have nuclear weapons? I mean, Nucs don't kill people, people kill people, right?

No one thought the way gun nuts do now 60 or more years ago. Your grandfathers or great grandfathers didn't think that anyone or everyone should have assault rifles, or that any regulation on guns was "taking away your rights. It's amazing what enough money and marketing can do to instill fear and sell product

Guns don't kill people, people kill people... Giving nukes to others isn't the same logic... Are you retarded.

@Cutiebeauty when one has to resort to name calling instead of actually responding to an issue with facts, what does that say about their maturity level, or their ability to deal with reality?

@OutdoorsGuy I didn't call you any names...

4

Humans have been inventing new and more efficient ways to kill each other since the beginning of time... We use whatever is available.. Cavemen used sticks and rocks... Today, we use knives, hammers, machetes, bats, cars, etc.. The thing about guns is, it makes it easier and puts distance between the killer and the killed... It's less personal ... Therefore, it's easier... Guns do kill people... How many would be capable of stabbing someone to death? Up close and personal...

There have been several "mass knife attacks," but the relative damage has been much less than with guns.

About the same # who would use a gun to kill sokeone. People do not kill out of convience.

So a gun is easier than a car (if your an execellent shot). Most gun deaths are from hand guns which one needs to be fairly up close and personal, also death from gun accidents is much much lower then death from automobile accidents. Taking guns from law abiding citizens will do nothing to keep gun violence down. It will only prevent citizens from being able to protect themselves.

@OutdoorsGuy that's really ignorant

@LarryClifford, there are examples of the reduction of firearm death with stricter gun control worldwide. Don’t believe the NRA hype. Mass shooting become a rarity rather than a daily occurrence.

@Barnie2years anyone can find statics to support any arguement. Almost all statics are formed out of bias.

@Barnie2years, @Cutiebeauty can you support your claim?

@Cutiebeauty how's it ignorant?

@Cutiebeauty, @LarryClifford people use cars to get to work, buy groceries, transport goods. Guns do none of that. Also, it's not that anyone wants to take "all your guns away." It's not Bianary: no gun control at all vs all guns all of th time. Having sensible gun regulations works in every other developed country in the world. Having the requirement of seat belts, and a license to drive has saved many lives, and is not the same as "taking everyone's cars away."

@LarryClifford, too easy and requires the Internet knowledge of a five year old, but to help you out: [vox.com]

@LarryClifford what claim are you referring to?

@OutdoorsGuy because you compare knives to guns... There's no comparison...

@OutdoorsGuy people use guns for protection, for hunting, to protect from Government tyarrny. No gun has ever pulled it's own trigger. If laws could stop or even reduce bad behavior, why are our jails full? Why is drug use getting worse instead of better? How does a person in prison find ways to kill and or use drugs? No law can control human behavior, it can only punish it after the fact. I guess in acient times people thought a bow and arrow, which can kill from a distance, should have only been accessable to those in power. Then came the cross bow. WOW, can kill from greater distances. Then came the repeating crossbow!! Could kill from greater distances and rapid fire. BY these standards, no one should be able to have owned any of these weapons which we developed to kill people!

@Barnie2years what is sensible to you? We have automobile control yet more people are killed by automobiles every year than by guns by far, including children! More people are killed every year by medical error, including children, believing Governments can and will exercise "Sensible" control over the guns they possess or alow others to possess, is ignorant. What makes you believe Poiticians are somehow more moral, sensible, better qualified to keep and bear arms than law abiding citizens?

@LarryClifford guns were invented to kill.. That's the only purpose.. Automobiles weren't.. You are comparing things that make no sense.. Should we kill all humans that kill? Seriously.. Be more mature..

@LarryClifford so what you suggest is, since regulations don't 100% guarantee that people won't take a high capacity firearms and a bag full of ammo into crowded mall and start shooting people, it's no use having any regulations? Given your examples of failures to do this, I assume that you think there should be no automobile regulation (license, speed limits, stop signs, vehicle inspections etc) since non of these "controls" stop people from killing themselves or others. And since doctors make mistakes, perhaps we should go back to the good old days when anyone choosing to tag themselves as a doctor were allowed to practice, with no oversight, in any place they chose in whatever way they saw fit? After all, why have regulations if they are not 100% effective. Why have any regulations at all? People seem to be able to create pipe bombs, even though they are illegal, why not just let everyone buy the equipment to make them? Why are firearms the only thing the CDC is not allowed to do studies on? Why are gun manufacturers protected from lawsuits more than any other manufacturer?
We have rules for everything even though none of them prevent people from doing stupid things, but without them surely there would be more people doing even worse things more often. Regulating high capacity magazines, silencers, types of ammo, and having waiting periods for purchase as well as age limits are not "taking your guns", they are sensible methods of maybe saving a few more lives every day. I am a gun owner and I have no problem with any of these or many of the other proposed legislation out there.

3

Yes, but guns make it a lot easier for people to kill people. Thats like saying, its not cars, trains and planes that make people go on journeys. They don't, but we would make a lot less journeys if we had to walk everywhere.

No, you would just make shorter journeys. You might plan better for a longer journeys. People walked and rode horseback all across this country before the automobile.

@LarryClifford you don't need a gun for protection. How many times in your life have you ever had to protect yourself with a gun? If your answer is greater than 0, then you would be the anomaly, definitely not the rule. Statistics show that if one owns a gun, the chances of you or someone in your household being wounded or killed by that gun are much, much greater than being shot by a stranger. You're statement about hunting is off base. I own several guns. They are all old, bolt actions, or single or double barrel shotguns. If I can't hunt with those, then I should target practice more. I keep them in a case in the attic; if I so felt so scared that I needed them for protection, I could keep one of them loaded next to my bed; but I don't need them; no one is ever going to tbreak into my home and try to kill me; almost all break-ins are burglaries, in which case the culprits don't want to get caught, and want to grab easy money; they break in when you're not home. I'm ex-military and ex-law enforcement. Having smart regulations on semi-automatic weapons and high capacity magazines is not "taking all your guns away," and no one is suggesting that we do that.

@OutdoorsGuy you totally miss the intent of our 2nd amendment protections. How many times have you needed a fire extingusher? How many times have you needed either Police or Fire Department?
How many of your natural rights ar you willing to relinquish to Government control to "feel safe" from law abiding citizens? If our founders did not have the same types of arms the British had, we would still be under the control of the crown. There are so many things we have we don't NEED and hopefully never will but if we do, we'd be very happy we did!!

@LarryClifford I've missed absolutely nothing. Can you go out and buy an Apache with Hellfire missiles? Can you buy an F-35, or a nuc? If not ( we both already know the answer to that question), then good luck " fighten' that damn government." The federal government is made up of 435 Congress people and 100 senators from all 50 states and very polarized political backgrounds, judges, and a president. The only way that anyone can ever take military action against it's citizens is the one person at the top decided to get into and then maintain control is by weakening the control of voters, Congress, and the media. No president in the past has tried to do that in the past. Well, until recently. The only way for someone to be able to do that would be to decide the country, blame certain groups for all problems under the sun, and to rally those that believe the BS behind him. That's how every dictatorship gains control of a country; not by taking away worthless pea shooters against a modern military.

@OutdoorsGuy people that can afford and maintain the weapons you mention do buy them. Just because Governments are mostly the only ones who can afford them. Guess you never heard of the "Civil" (oxymoron) war. Guess you never heard of Waco Texas, Ruby Ridge, LaVoy Finicum, Bundy Ranch, just to name a few.

@LarryClifford and since most people can't afford them, that means there are fewer of them, which in turn means fewer are used to kill. Less access= less death. If you regulate who and when people can drive cars, there are fewer motor vehicle deaths. If you limit who can have nucs, there is less chance of a nuclear disaster. If you put in place regulations against buying bomb-making materials (like the US did after the OK City bombing), then you lessen the change of another such bomb happening. If you regulate who can get on a plane and with what, you lessen the chances of planes being used in terrorist attacks(like we did after 9/11). And if you regulate guns...

@OutdoorsGuy OK, so you believe Politicians have the power to determine who is a threat and who is not and should have the power to restrict or deny our rights? Politicians should have sole control on who is qualified to self protection. You also believe politicians have the power to provide everyone equal protection from threats and we do not need to protect ourselves? You believe Government would not turn their guns on us? Guess you never heard of LaVoy Finicum, Ruby Ridge, Waco Texas. The Civil (Oxymoron) War, just to name a few. Yup, we should all give up our weapons and trust Government.....WOW!!

3

I don't think you can load a person in a gun and shoot it at another person.
Bullets kill. That's why we should control ammo instead of guns.

I've been saying this for years. California was supposed to start doing this. I wonder how that's going.

@bingst [lawcenter.giffords.org] according to this article the laws are still in place. The usual suspects were trying to appeal them in July, but found no information if that’s done with or still in progress.

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