OMG.... stupidest pro-gun argument ever:

[CanuckAmok]

From an automotive forum I visit.

This forum isn't all RWers, either. It's about 50/50 Liberal/Con, and neither side has its extremists. But there's occasionally a gun discussion in the "lounge", and it always polarises people.

Get this, from an otherwsie sensible subscriber:

"The school killings can be avoided by allowing teachers to carry. Our schools here are "gun-free zones." nothing says "sheep", "easy target", etc. like "gun-free zone" to a criminal."


What can you say to that? Nothing! It's just too fucking stupid to address.


:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

[billyskank]

1. What do you mean stupidest? All pro-gun arguments are like that

Every killing that happens with guns happened because there weren't enough guns. If everyone had a gun, nobody would ever shoot anyone. It's simple.

I would say ;) but they really think this. :(

[alarimer]

3. everyone had guns in the Wild West

Which is why they called it the Wild West. If everyone had a gun, wouldn't more people get shot. If you get into an altercation with someone and you have no guns, a few punches might get thrown. It hurts, but it probably won't kill you. With guns it might be a different story.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

34. Teachers didn't have guns ...

They were proper young ladies buried under a mountain of petticoats.

I'm sure that's how it really was, too.

:rofl:

[struggle4progress]

45. Actually -- a number of "Wild West" towns required folk to hand in their guns ..

.. as soon as they got to town and didn't return em til ya wuz leavin

[flvegan]

2. Considering how overpaid teachers are

(I mean, they DO get paid for a WHOLE year but get summers off) I think it's a great idea. They need a little more stress and responsibility, and should be ready to deliver some little miscreant to Valhalla in an instant.

Of course, each year there will be a story about some teacher, pushed WAY too far, that just loses it. "I said NO PASSING NOTES IN MY CLASS!!!11" KA-BLAM!

Do I need the sarcasm smilie? Didn't think so.

[Little Wing]

5. No, you didn't. I knew that from the subject line

Sadly, I knew it from the overpaid comment.

[AwakeAtLast]

54. A story every year? HA!

That would be one every DAY! There's a reason they don't give guns to us! ;)

:D

[Maine-ah]

4. .

:popcorn:

[Fleshdancer]

6. Ha! so using that logic we could stop the violence in Iraq by arming everyone

:wtf:

:rofl:

[flvegan]

7. A pre-emptive arming of everyone in Iran BEFORE we invaded, then

would keep this sort of thing from happening there, I'll bet.

[ForrestGump]

27. I thought we already did that

[Fleshdancer]

28. good point. n/t

[sasquatch]

8. Man that's pretty fucking bad

The good news is that my last college PoliSci class would turn into Tombstone everyday, deffinetly make politics more intersting for the unpolitical.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

9. Heh, I can so see my skinny 27 year old religion teach packing a Glock

[Rabrrrrrr]

10. It's "Homoousia", not "Homoiousia", you heretical SON OF A BITCH! BAM!

FUCKIN' GNOSTICS!! BAM! BAM!!

[Oeditpus Rex]

11. Wouldn't be ChevyTalk.com, would it?

I left that board a long time ago because it was teeming with Freepers.

Can't figure out how people who love cool, old cars can be such assbuckets.

[CanuckAmok]

16. Nope.

It's a Toyota forum, and it's probably the only gearhead group I've ever been on where there are rational RWers. There are some very learned liberals there, too, and unlike FordMuscle (from which I've been banned but who still solicit my annual subscriber fee), the libs aren't afraid to pipe up.


Other forms I've made the mistake of chatting in (the aforementioned Ford site, for one), I was the only pinko with the nads to say anything against the widespread dittoism and hate. I'd always get a few PMs saying "right-on", etc, but nobody wanted to upset the status quo by backing me up.

There are even a couple of fairly rightist guys there who I enjoy yakking with, because they *think* about what they're saying; I don't agree with them, but I enjoy their posts. And they tend to slap-down the stupid dittoheads as much as the "liberals" do, which is always fun to watch.

[Katherine Brengle]

12. I agree that was a foolish argument, BUT...

I honestly don't believe that gun laws are very effective.

I'm still in favor of some things, I think that waiting periods are fine (though probably ineffective, but since no one gets hurt it can't hurt to make 'em wait) and I think anyone who wants to purchase a gun should have to take a safety class etc.

[Bright Eyes]

13. someone once told me

that if EVERYONE was required to carry a gun, there would be much less crime.

yeah, like there'd never be shootouts over getting cut off in traffic.:)

[alarimer]

14. Talk about Road Rage!

People already shoot each other over it.

[TheBaldyMan]

15. guns are useless, only dimwits carry them

[Maddy McCall]

18. I carry a gun. I'm not a dimwit.

[TheBaldyMan]

35. what possible use do you have for a handgun?

[Maddy McCall]

36. Protecting myself and my son.

Violent ex-spouse who continues to stalk me. Death threats from that ex-spouse. Finding him sitting in my driveway. Too many reasons to list.

[TheBaldyMan]

37. and being able to shoot him makes you safer, how is that

[Maddy McCall]

38. You have to ask?

How does it NOT make me safer?

[TheBaldyMan]

40. having a gun around is inherently dangerous - not a safe situation

I honestly can't understand the place that handguns have in US culture, to me it is symptomatic of a deeply sick society. A hunting rifle is one thing but a pistol has been designed and built for one purpose, shooting another human being. The latest models are marketed with improved lethality as a selling point.

[Maddy McCall]

43. So?

I don't have a gun because it's "sexy." I have a gun because I need protection. I didn't buy the gun because of marketing. I bought a gun that will take down anyone who attempts harm to me or my child.

Until you know the situation with my violent ex-husband, then your opinion means nothing to me.

[Billy Ruffian]

44. My pistols must be defective

I've had a loaded pistol at hand in the house for 25 years. I've carried a pistol almost daily for about 12 years.

I guess I've misused them, since I've fired thousands of rounds through my pistols. Never fired one at a human yet. Hope I never have to, but will if it's necessary.

My most terrible injury was a pinched thumb re-assembling one.

Improved lethality? Care to cite that, please.

[pokerfan]

46. Mine's not working right either

Owned pistols for thirty years. No dead people.

I must be doing something wrong.

[Dukkha]

57. I own a so-called "Assault Weapon"

Locked away under the bed. Comes out about twice a year for fun at the range. Safety and precautions are held with the utmost seriousness. But I must be a madman for owning something I don't "need".

[TheBaldyMan]

47. check S&W website and check out their handguns n/t

I guess all those people who are injured by guns in the US must have been shot by divine intervention of some form, couldn't have been the handguns discharging.

[benEzra]

50. I OWN a Smith & Wesson (a 9mm LadySmith)...

and "improved lethality" is BS. 9x19mm was invented in 1902, 104 years ago. My pistol is exactly as lethal as a 1902 Luger. .45 ACP dates from 1905, 101 years ago. Now, S&W does make some new hunting revolvers that are nearly as powerful as a deer rifle, but those aren't "more lethal" against humans.

.357 magnum was invented in the early 1930's and kicks the butt of any newer pistol cartridge from a self-defense standpoint, even .40 S&W.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_mm_Luger_Parabellum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.45_ACP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.357_Magnum

Now, 9mm pistols got smaller after 1994 thanks to the "assault weapon" bait-and-switch (which raised the price on over-10-round magazines, thereby encouraging pistols to be downsized to fit 10-rounders), but they didn't get any more lethal.

You want to know why categorizing gun owners as "dimwits" is a DIMWITTED thing to do?

http://dispatch.third-way.com/articles/2006/01/25/taking-back-the-second-amendment

There probably is no political issue that progressives handle more poorly than guns. Our problems begin with some basic misconceptions about who owns guns and why they own them.

So let’s get a few facts on the table:

* Nearly half of the voting population of America has a gun in the home. That’s right — half.

* And these aren’t hunters. The vast majority of gun owners possess firearms for self-protection, not sport.

* Gun owners don’t live in trailer parks. In fact, gun owners are generally wealthier and more educated than the rest of the population.

* They are not right-wingers. Politically, gun owners are only slightly more conservative than non-gun owners. Their views on hot-button culture issues like abortion and gay marriage are just a tick to the right of all other voters. They attend religious services at the same rate as non-gun owners.

* Most don’t belong to the NRA. Even if the NRA actually has the 4 million members it claims, there are 69 million gun-owners in America.

* They do, however, vote overwhelmingly Republican. Often that’s because they feel like progressives look down their noses at them. In 2004, John Kerry lost gun owners by 27 points and won non-gun owners by 14 points, a 41-point gap. Al Gore fared even worse with a gap of 44 points. In congressional races the gun gap was 37 points in 2004 and 36 points in 2000.

For progressives, it is not earth-shattering news that they have problems winning the support of gun owners. However, the progressive solution to their gun problems is to simply clam up and not talk about the issue.

But we have found that on the gun issue, silence isn’t golden, it is an admission of guilt. Gun owning voters already have a preconceived notion about where progressives stand on guns, and it is entirely negative.

* 59% of gun owners say that Democrats do not respect them and their values.

* 55% of gun owners believe that Democrats “blame law abiding gun owners for America’s crime problem.”

* And the overwhelming majority of gun owners and non-gun owners believe that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to own a gun — a position that only 15% of Americans believe is shared by Democrats.

Now, Kessler's policy recommendations contradict everything he just said (the policies he seems to recommend target the law-abiding, not criminals, and I'm corresponding with them on that), but you can't argue with his characterization of the issue above.

Your "gun people are dimwits" comment just plays into the Rovian "Dems'll-take-yer-guns" meme. And THAT is dumb.

Dems and the Gun Issue - Now What? (written in '04, largely vindicated in '06, IMO)

Alienated Rural Democrat (2004)

[TheBaldyMan]

52. owning a handgun IS stupid, let me list a few reasons why

Only in America, a country with one of the worst crime rates in the world, can someone claim with hand on heart and a straight face say that guns discourage crime.

This is completely false. Other countries with comparable levels of gun ownership manage to have much lower crime rates.

The problem is not guns, it is not crime, these are red herrings. The problem is American culture. The gun has been endowed with some sacred power in the American psyche, as a nation you have turned the handgun into a fetish. You will all continue to pay the price in lost and ruined lives until the collective madwess is cured.

The US is a large country, a spread out population can easily find an unspoiled area to hunt. The argument for having a rifle or shotgun is strong. However the handgun does not have such a justification. Why does anyone hold a pistol? The gun you mention may be an old design but that doesn't mean that it can't kill.

Convince me that burglary should carry a death sentence and I'll concede the argument. Convinve me that having a potentially lethal device lying around the home instead of locked up in an armoury is safe and I'll concede again.

I live in a country where firearm licences are automatically issued by the local police force (contingent on a criminal record check and a rarely exercised local government veto). The British aren't very keen on gun ownership and it certainly hasn't reached the near-legendary status the it has in the US, we just don't bother with guns. Of the tens of millions that could quite easily obtain a license a few thousand sports enthusiasts and farmers actually do.

Petty crime is a damn nuisance this side of the Atlantic but I think shooting burglars is a disproportionate use of force. Concealed carry and the like as symptomatic of how sick your society is. "USA doesn't have universal healthcare but don't take away my guns, I'll have nothing to shoot my neighbor with", this refrain is echoed unthinkingly from coast to coast. Americans seem to have a singular disregard for their own. That is at the root of your imbecilic notion that it is good to have a six-gun swinging at your hip. A romantic notion that does nothing for the coherence of your society.

Elsewhere in the world, there are countries whose citizens would be puzzled if you offered them the chance to own a firearm. In my own case I can't think of a single reason to own one, wtf would I do with it?

[benEzra]

53. I appreciate your perspective, even though I disagree with it...

IMO, the UK represents the other extreme of views on civilian gun ownership; the attitude toward guns in Germany, Switzerland, Finland, even Australia (until recently) fall much more in the middle. And I would point out that the UK's low homicide rate predated its gun controls, and that our suicide rate is even lower than that of most industrialized nations (meaning our overall violent death rate is not too far from that of most first-world nations, despite our higher homicide rate).

Americans are of quite a different mind than most Brits about the desirability of lawful civilian gun ownership--and it's probably relevant that the first shots fired in our war for independence from Britain were fired at British law enforcement who showed up in Lexington and Concord to confiscate some farmers' guns, on 4/19/1775. Note that this was more than a year before our Declaration of Independence, back when those farmers still considered themselves to be subjects of the British Crown.

Having said that, some of our states with the highest gun ownership rates do have low homicide rates comparable to Canada or European nations, and some of our states with very strict gun control (e.g., Maryland) or even absolute gun prohibition (District of Columbia) have the highest rates. The big issues driving our violence problem here are income disparity, lack of inner-city opportunity, our insane paramilitary approach to the problem of drug addiction (and the corruption/crime it spawns), lack of mental health care, and the legacy of slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws, and centuries of institutional racism.

Here's the thing--those problems will never be addressed if Dems try to ban people's lawfully owned guns. Dems owned the House, the Senate, AND the presidency in 1992, had a chance to do something about the causes of inner-city hopelessness, and threw it away over silly restrictions on rifle styling in 1994. The U.S. is NOT the UK, and attempting to disarm Americans of their nonhunting guns would precipitate a civil war, as in 1775; it will NOT happen, and any party that tries it will find itself tossed out of Congress and onto its arse, as in 1994. Dems will not make progress on health care and poverty and racism if they insist on messing around in people's gun safes, and the party began to wake up to that truth after the 2004 debacle. Remember that it was pro-gun-owner Dems that took back the U.S. Senate in '06...

IMHO, for a responsible, educated adult with a clean record, owning a handgun is neither dangerous nor stupid. But it's not handguns the U.S. gun-control lobby is fighting to ban, anyway; they're quixotically after rifles, which account for less than 3% of U.S. homicides.

[TheBaldyMan]

56. I agree with your point about responsible gun ownership

if all gun owners were responsible, i.e. trained in their use and stored them safely, that would be a huge improvement. Sadly the are a lot of assholes in the world and some of them get their mitts on firearms.

btw we always have had a low homicide rate but it wasn't pre-gun control, we have never really had any controls. After the Dunblane massacre handguns were banned but before this there were always a lot of 'souvenirs' from foreign wars kicking around as well as legally held firearms.

Nobody took our guns away. There are still occassional amnesties where people can voluntarily hand in illegally held firearms and other weapons. You are guaranteed a surprising assortment turned in. These periodic amnesties are usually in response to a series of violent incidents in an area and everybody comes round to thinking that we are safer without weapons in our communities.

I think that is the difference between our countries. In the UK a public appeal to get guns, knives and other weapons off our streets meets with a surpisingly enthusiastic response. I don't know how that would play in Washington DC, especially in the most deprived areas that are inevitably the ones that suffer the most from violent crime. It is an appeal to the community to consider each other as people that are worth giving a damn about. I can't concieve that Americans would rather live in a heavily armed hellhole than make a small move towards a safer enviroment for everybody to live in. I definately agree with you on compulsion to give up arms, in order to make any lasting headway it would have to be voluntary and based on a communual decision made locally.

To be fair I didn't mention Northern Ireland but even there the gun culture has begun to be dismantled, it'll take time to return to normality but they'll get there.

[sammythecat]

59. Good for you! My ex-wife is in

a situation very similar to the one you describe. She's afraid of guns, but I'm trying to convince her that if she got one and became familiar with it, she could relieve herself of a lot of anxiety. Those suspicious noises in the middle of the night will still be scary, but at least she won't feel completely vulnerable and helpless. I'd bet my house she'd never have to use it, but I know, from my own experience, the extra peace of mind is well worth it. It's just common sense to me.

If not for her own protection, she still needs to think of her son. She needs to assure her own protection for the sake of her son. He needs his Mom. He needs her alive and healthy, not dead or traumatized.

Crazy ex-husbands are not to be taken lightly. It seems every day there is a story somewhere of a crazy ex and dead people. It's late at night, he's been drinking, he screeches to a halt in front of the house, gets out and comes toward the house in an obvious rage. She knows him and she knows this is dangerous. She dials 911. The police will come, and they will be bringing guns with them. 10, 20, or 30 minutes AFTER he's been in the house.

[Kali]

19. only dimwits carry guns? useless?

only a real dimwit would make a statement like that.

[Katherine Brengle]

25. If I had a license to carry, I would carry one. nt

[sammythecat]

60. You can get a license to carry in your state.

I think the cost is $100 and you have to take a gun safety course. Here in Pennsylvania the cost is around $30 and no course is required, which I think is stupid. A gun safety course should be required in all states allowing concealed carry.

[Katherine Brengle]

61. I know, I just don't have one yet --

maybe this summer.

[PittPoliSci]

31. useless?

i always thought of guns as really useful for shooting things.

[Katherine Brengle]

33. lol nt

[NDN_Liberal]

17. It's like saying

the only way to prevent child abuse is by giving 9 year olds machine guns.

[YankeyMCC]

20. That was a Daily Show bit

there was a school board member somewhere - I think in OK - that wanted to allow Teachers to carry guns.

There was another board member or maybe it was someone on the school administration that felt that was a foolish idea - He said it made much more sense to require text books to be kevlar covered so students could use them as shields.

You know a sane, rational debate about the issue of school violence and guns.

:eyes:

[TheMightyFavog]

24. It wasn't a school board member...

It was a Wisconsin state Assemblyman Frank Lasee. (a Rethug, of course)

I happen to be pro-gun, and I think that both

[LostInAnomie]

21. If more guns = more safety...

... then the US should be the safest country in the world.

[terrya]

22. Christ...it would be a Columbine a week.

I agree....it's just too stupid to even respond to.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

23. Yea, except the teachers would be the ones shooting.

[zanne]

26. "You didn't finish your homework"? BAM!

[mduffy31]

29. I have said this before,

as a son of a teacher that is exactly what I want in my mother's school...crossfire.

[Taverner]

30. Guns will not make you safer. Taking guns away will not make you safer either

Both sides will hate me for this, but guns make very little difference. If teachers had guns, we'd have to worry about student shootings by teachers. Likewise, if we took away all the guns, criminals would get the guns anyway.

[Katherine Brengle]

32. Guns *can* make you safer --

but taking them away really doesn't make a difference. Most people who have them legally will never need to use them to protect themselves, but at least they feel comforted.

[terrya]

39. Well, one point Michael Moore made in "Bowling for Columbine"...

was addressing the culture of violence in this country...how we are so subsumed with violence in our culture. And when you have so many guns and so relatively easy access to them. It all fits in.

[Taverner]

41. America is tied in with its lizard brain

More so than other countries.

But no reason to legislate against them.

[Orsino]

42. If they'll fall for "cut taxes to increase revenues," they'll fall for...

..."more guns = fewer shootings."

[regnaD kciN]

48. When outs are gunlawed, only gunlaws will have outs!

:hippie:

[Kerrytravelers]

49. If they armed me in my classroom, I'd end up shooting my own foot.

I've never shot a gun and personally, I have no interest in ever shooting one. I can't imagine what I would do with one in the classroom. Hell, I lose the roll sheet half the time. I can't imagine having to keep up with a gun.

Now, I could definitely go for a water gun!

[Maine-ah]

55. lol, supersoakers!

that would get their attention :rofl:

[benEzra]

51. Stupidest anti-gun argument ever:

"Because so many people are murdered every year with illegally possessed handguns, we need to outlaw rifles with handgrips that stick out." Even though according to the FBI, rifles are almost never used in homicides.

Which is even dumber than saying that because drunk drivers in SUV's kill so many people, we need to ban Honda Civics with wings...

[derby378]

58. Man, my head hurts after reading that...

I need some hot chocolate now.