BaronMax said:
I'm sure that you know the answer to that, why did you bother to ask it if not to just stir up the shit?
If your sense of context was stronger, you would have your answer already.
Likewise, this:
Legal regulations and training to carry a concealed gun in public is a WHOLE lot different than what "gun control" in this nation actually means! By gun control, the liberals want to keep us from being able to buy or own guns, not just to carry them concealed. You didn't know that? ...and yet you're arguing on this topic???
As long as you keep tilting political windmills, it will be difficult to find any substantial common ground. The basic contrast is the notion, variously expressed, that "any gun control violates the Constitution" vs. the question of what is meant by the phrase "well-regulated militia".
See? Now you're back to wanting to take my guns, whether they're carry-guns or not!? What the fuck are you arguing????
How so?
And if you ever actually wonder
why I find gun owners and advocates creepy, perhaps you might look at your own paranoia. Yes, it worries me that such reactionary, oversensitive, frightened people want to pack lethal force. Protecting against threats is one thing, but being scared of everything under the sun is another. Paranoia, not liberalism, will destroy ya.
I hope you educate yourself a little bit more about the two distinct issues ...because they ARE different issues ...and not the same as what is commonly termed "gun control" in the USA.
Sigh. This is what happens when we let the paranoid set the discussion? Stuff the attitude problem, please, and try something a little more dignified. When you demonstrate better comprehension of the issues, you won't need such a vile, self-superior attitude; when you understand humanity a little better, you won't be so frightened of every little thing it does, thinks, or wants.
Neildo said:
Uh, what? How do you get mandatory education and all that from the phrase "trained to arms"? Ever hear of shooting ranges? Ever hear of ranches? People train all the time with em. They're part of daily life in many areas. That's not gun control, that's simple knowledge.
An honor system, then? Okay, consider this piece of rhetoric about gun control: "You can't punish
responsible gun owners."
Anyone care to define what is a "responsible gun owner"?
Do responsible gun owners rally up a posse when an accountant breaks out of a minimum-security prison, only to have the local tavern waitresses call their wives some hours later so the drunk posse can be picked up and taken home instead of wandering around in the street with their weapons strapped to their backs? How about the responsible gun owner who gets drunk and goes shooting in the backyard with nothing to stop rounds that miss their targets? Ooh, how about the responsible gun owner who gets drunk so as not to shoot her partner? After all, both the partner and the child exist for the pleasure and benefit of the responsible gun owner. Hmm, maybe the responsible gun owner who leaves a loaded rifle under the bed, leaves the children home alone, with the result that the five year-old shoots the three year-old in the face for disobeying an arbitrary command?
No, these folks don't necessarily represent the whole of gun owners, but they do remind us of the reality that a phrase like "trained to arms" has as many definitions as there are people who consider it.
Gun owners train and regulate themselves. It's no different than knowing how to drive a car, ride a bike, or use a knife in the kitchen.
When you drive to work on your gun, or julienne carrots in the kitchen with your gun, you might have a point. It is important to regulate drivers of cars because cars
can cause injury and death; guns, on the other hand, are not designed for transportation. Guns are designed for killing. Cars are not.
And yeah, I have no problem with simple tests to show someone has the knowledge to use em as that's common sense, but most of you here are calling for the outright ban of guns saying they're nothing but pure evil and well, that's just a bit too extreme like a fanatic religious nut
"...but most of you here are calling for ...."
How about this: I call for you to get real.
Just like Baron Max, you're tilting windmills instead of dealing with the points I'm putting forward. Though won't kill you, Neildo; that's another difference between guns and other things. Thoughts aren't fundamentally designed to destroy life.
Maybe if gun owners and advocates didn't feed a vicious cycle of "every man for himself, think only of myself", they wouldn't sound so damnably creepy. Seriously: the neighbors have a party, get the gun? After all, they might just be celebrating a black mass shortly before they attempt to sacrifice you to Yog-Sothoth.
It's one thing to lament the decline of trust between humans, it's another to accelerate that decline. And yet another to be selfish and unreasonable in pursuit of abstract gratification through lethal power all because it's simply easier to take part in the mad rush to the Abyss. Stop thinking about yourselves so much and think about your communities. The Universe doesn't care whether any of us live or die. I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't either, but if you spend your life worrying about dying, you're not really living. I would rather you be happy than frightened. If that's such a horrible outlook for you to countenance, well, that's your problem. Your lethal need, however, makes your problem
our problem, as in the rest of humanity and not just political liberals. If you don't want to deal honestly with yourself, why should you oblige other people to try?
