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Matt_SE • 8 years ago

Whenever these nuts publish a manifesto that details the coming attack, they point out that they seek out gun free zones because they don't want to be stopped. The left proceeds to ignore this.

Rick Caird • 8 years ago

This is so blatantly obvious, it defies the imagination that even a liberal cannot figure it out. The guys never attack an open gun store. When they start to, maybe we can discuss the benefit of gun free zones. But, until then ....

Aptidude • 8 years ago

No need to attack gun stores. That's where mentally ill people go to get the weapons to kill women and children in movie theaters.

Terry "OldFox" Seale • 8 years ago

Lefties reveal their immaturity and anti-intellectualism by resorting to ad hominem attacks, grammar school-yard rank-outs, and evasions when their Government Trained imaginations prove unable to counter or present any cogent argument whatsoever.

That's why they rarely emerge from their echo chamber of Kool-Aid gourmands.

Aptidude • 8 years ago

This is an ad hominem attack on the left, not an argument. Gotta love the irony.

Paul of Alexandria • 8 years ago

The liberal arguments that I get basically say that "if we remove all guns, the bad guys won't be able to get them either". Any counter-arguments would be appreciated. (Of course the bad guys that already have them will turn them as requested /sarc)

Achaerone • 8 years ago

The idea that we can "remove all guns" is a juvenile fantasy. Even if Sarah Brady could wave her Harry Potter wand and cause every firearm in the world to suddenly disappear, the technology is several hundred years old, and anybody with an Internet connection and a reasonably-equipped garage has access to all of the knowledge and tools necessary to produce at least crude firearms.

(This is to say nothing of people with access to machine shops and, increasingly, 3D printers.)

People who want guns badly enough will get them, full stop. Anybody who refuses to concede as much isn't going to be reasoned out of something they were never reasoned into.

Paul of Alexandria • 8 years ago

Also, of course, you don't need firearms to kill large numbers of people. Bombs are quite illegal, and there are no shortage of people making them.

savannahchimp • 8 years ago

Why make any weapons illegal?

Presumably bad guys can get their hands on grenades, flame-throwers, anthrax, armor-piercing bullets, whatever. They can mount guns on drones. There was a gun amnesty program in the UK a few years ago where somebody dropped off a rocket launcher.

If the conservative argument is that "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun", how does that argument not rationally apply to weapons of ever-increasing destruction?

Paul of Alexandria • 8 years ago

I have to be careful here. A personal "arm", which could be a sword, bow, or club, but pistols or rifles are more likely examples these days, are those weapons which the head of family is likely to be able to afford and use routinely. I could safely use any of these to defend my home and family against 99% of the threats that we're likely to face.

My possession of a "arm" does not and should never be interpreted as negating the need for police, the FBI, or other tools of justice. I don't have the money or time to gain the levels of training or the weaponry that they can. The problem, of course, is that just like the fire department, the law-enforcement agencies take time to respond - time that I as an intended victim of an attacker may not have. Thus, just as the fire department asks that we all have fire extinguishers and smoke alarms - to give us the time to protect ourselves before they can arrive - I need to be able to defend myself before law enforcement can arrive.

Personal armaments aren't really reaching levels of "ever increasing destruction." Criminals don't have ready access to military-grade weaponry, and that's a strawman argument. However, I should point out that the other reason for the 2nd Amendment is - and this is quite strongly spoken about by the founders - to enable the people to fight a revolution against a tyrannical government, as a last resort.

So, let me answer your question with a question: how would you fight a tyrannical government? What level of armament would you feel secure having, should the government reach the stage where armed revolt is the only option? This has happened before, it will happen again?

savannahchimp • 8 years ago

"Thus, just as the fire department asks that we all have fire extinguishers and smoke alarms - to give us the time to protect ourselves before they can arrive - I need to be able to defend myself before law enforcement can arrive."

That's a pretty good argument.

"Criminals don't have ready access to military-grade weaponry, and that's a strawman argument."

Mexican cartels do, and I can't imagine it's beyond their capability to move them across the border.

"So, let me answer your question with a question: how would you fight a tyrannical government?"

I think the days of citizen militias outgunning the American military are long gone. How would you deal with air strikes, for example? It looks like anti-aircraft weaponry isn't included in your definition of "arms". One Blackhawk attack copter could easily wipe out a whole encampment of survivalists.

So to answer your question: as a citizen, I wouldn't try to fight a war against a modern military. I'd surrender, or become a refugee, or join up with an opposing nation's military.

Paul of Alexandria • 8 years ago

"Mexican cartels do, and I can't imagine it's beyond their capability to move them across the border."

That's why I said that one has to be careful. It is, of course, the Federal government's responsibility to secure the border and handle such things, but what does one do when the government falls down on the job? One of the purposes of the 2nd Amendment is to allow for self defense, but frankly it shouldn't be necessary for any individual to have to defend himself to that level!

"I think the days of citizen militias outgunning the American military are long gone...." It was never a case of them outgunning the military, of course they are supposed to be the U.S. military. The citizen militias are supposed to be the feedstock for the regular military.

Frankly, I wouldn't see an "encampment of survivalists" fighting the military. If it gets to that level, we've lost anyways. What I do see is a state militia, say the Texas National Guard, standing up to the DHS in a face-off between the President and the Governor. Remember, the power in the U.S. is supposed to reside in the state government, with the Federal government taking what's left over and only doing those tasks that the lesser levels cannot do. The term "militia" in the Constitution doesn't refer to guerrilla bands but to the regulated state militias, which the citizens are supposed to form into.

The best thing that we can do is to become involved in local and state politics and press for the 10th Amendment. Join the National Guard and put as much political pressure on the Governor to fight for your rights as you can. Push for Mark Levin's "Liberty Amendments", including the repeal of the 17th. (Reference: http://www.usconstitution.n...

savannahchimp • 8 years ago

Hi Paul! Thanks for the lengthy reply. I am knee-deep in offline activities at the moment, but I did read and consider your post.

Terry "OldFox" Seale • 8 years ago

In Re Fighting a tyrannical government:

https://www.google.com/sear...

Hypothetically, if a nationwide tyranny in the US were to task US military with "treasonous" or "unConstitutional" operations against the civilians of the nation, sufficient True Patriots in the military ranks would split off like what happened in the Lebanese Civil war to the army there, or would somehow coalesce into different allegiances as in Cromwell's English civil war. We have state national guards ostensibly under command of governors, but Ike managed to use them against a gov. of Arkansas, I believe. Under Nixon, we saw "Four Dead in Ohio," but that gave even Hawk Nixon pause to reflect on our national values, or political expediencies, at least.

No, we cannot envision all contingencies, but we'll hold our weapons just in case, like the Swiss do. A nation that has never been invaded (that I know of) and has allowed, yea required, every male to be prepared with military grade arms and ammo, no? Aren't ALL arms now or at some point in the past "military grade?"

Sianmink • 8 years ago

That wasn't a rocket launcher, it was an inert M72 LAW tube, a harmless piece of decorative milsurp that can be purchased anywhere for about $200.

savannahchimp • 8 years ago

Thanks for the details!

Matt_SE • 8 years ago

There aren't 200 million tanks on the open market, nor rocket launchers.

Paul of Alexandria • 8 years ago

Perhaps more importantly, if things degrade to the point where rocket launchers are required by the average civilian, things have gotten totally out of hand. See posting above. Self defense is one thing, conducting a personal war is another.

Aptidude • 8 years ago

Google search "man stockpiles weapons" and get 1470 articles on the news. Here's one from Massachusetts, a state with pretty strict gun laws and record of enforcing them: http://talkingpointsmemo.co...

Stockpiling weapons is really easy in the U.S.A. -- because gun regulation is so weak and because the laws are not enforced well. Right now it tends to be right-wing extremists; it used to be the left wingers who laid up stores of weapons.

Try the same search at Google in the U.K. and you get very different results - most of the reports of stockpiling are about how it takes plac ein the U.S.

IMHO, things are already out of hand.

Guest • 8 years ago
Matthew Mueller • 8 years ago

Depending on your definition of rudimentary and grenade, not hard at all. Molotov cocktail takes alcohol, a rag of some kind, and a lighter and done.

savannahchimp • 8 years ago

"The rules you're attributing to conservatives are in fact liberal in a nature."

Sorry, what rules? I listed one argument, which is definitely one that I've heard from conservatives and never from liberals.

Aptidude • 8 years ago

You misunderstand the liberal argument. The liberal argument includes the fact "good guys" vs "bad guys" is a categorical error. A bad guy with a gun was a good guy with a gun who decided to use it to murder someone -- he switched categories. The easy availability of guns simply facilitates the process.

It also includes the fact that arming citizens in order to protect public safety doesn't have a very good track record, especially in the prevention of mass shootings by madmen. Madmen find the idea of deterrence laughable, as they INTEND to go down in a hail of bullets/glory.

Paul of Alexandria • 8 years ago

"It also includes the fact that arming citizens in order to protect public safety doesn't have a very good track record,"

Actually, it does. Note that nearly all of the recent shootings occurred in "gun free zones" where the "madmen" could shoot as many people as possible before getting shot themselves. There have also been a number of attempted shootings that didn't get very far because somebody in the vicinity was armed.

Don't forget, deterrence depends on the bad guy not knowing precisely where the defense is. If Mr. X goes into a "gun free" theater, he knows that he has at least 10 minutes until the cops show up. If he tries this in an area where somebody could potentially be armed, he might get lucky, or he might not.

"The liberal argument includes the fact "good guys" vs "bad guys" is a categorical error."

True, but in reality, that's irrelevant. If one person is legally carrying concealed than anyone could be, and the deterrence rule definitely applies.

Conservatives tend to believe that most people are good - although as Christians we know that this can only be pushed so far. However, as Reagan said: "trust but verify". Anyone could turn out to be a bad-guy (although mass killers tend to share certain characteristics), but the majority of any given group will not be.

Aptidude • 8 years ago

That recent shootings took place in gun-free zones may just indicate that deterrence doesn't work in gun-free zones AS WELL AS in zones where guns are allowed. Proving that limiting gun regulation decreases deterrence is pretty difficult. Historically, when business owners wanted to avoid "gunplay" in their establishments, they often required that guns be checked in at the door. See http://www.dallasnews.com/o...

Note what Reagan said about gun control in this passage from the op-ed: "...while the modern gun rights movement is usually regarded as a conservative construction, Winkler writes that it was actually born of liberal extremism. It seems that in 1967, a heavily armed group of Black Panthers showed up and walked brazenly into the California statehouse — there were no metal detectors — as a group of children were readying for a picnic with the new governor, Ronald Reagan.

The Panthers saw this as an exercise of their constitutional rights. Reagan and other conservative Republicans saw it as a threat and crafted laws to stop it from happening again. The future president said, “There’s no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.”"

Terry "OldFox" Seale • 8 years ago

I left NY long ago. Whenever I drive through NYC, DC, Chicago, even Atlanta, I realize why these cities are full of people who are afraid of guns. They are afraid because with all the frustrations, unliveability, degeneracy, road rage, no parking, no-right-on-red, can't-answer-the-phone-in-the-car, anger-honking, wildly cutting-you-off taxis, alternate-side driven traffic jams, 8-minute-tow-truck bounty-hunting, idiotic bike messengers, distracted, drunk, and belligerent pedestrians, pistol-packing and surely water-buffalo meter maids, local the residents there realize with great conviction that--if they possessed a handgun--they would be themselves vicious MURDERERS! Fuggetaboudid! Can't deny it.

They are afraid of THEMSELVES with a gun. "If I had a gun, I wudda murdified that fogging sombitch, I swear!

Aptidude • 8 years ago

So you have no arguments or evidence here. Just your opinions and personal experience.

Terry "OldFox" Seale • 8 years ago

If you ever spend any time, any time at all, watching criminal trials you will find that every piece of admissible evidence and a good deal of inadmissible evidence is adduced through the sworn testimony of people based on their personal experience. Only expert witnesses are permitted to give their opinions, and only counselors admitted to the bar are permitted to present arguments to the trier of the facts, whether it be the judge or the jury.

Experience, the Government Teachers might have taught you in the Government Workforce Training Schools, always trumps a theory.
Got anything else?

Aptidude • 8 years ago

So basically, the only data you bring to the discussion is one tiny piece of your own experience and a bad analogy.

Public policy is not decided the way criminal trials are decided, and the standards of evidence are different. Also, data doesn't equal theory.

I didn't study in a Government Workforce Training School. But there's a big difference between having lots of objective, reliable evidence (that is, data) and theory. That you confuse the two makes me think that you don't know what you're talking about with respect to the use of evidence and theory.

Terry "OldFox" Seale • 8 years ago

Public policy is decided by elected officials with party connections, chits and debts to other elected officials, strained through an unelected staff, authorized and/or opposed by well-paid lobbyists and ultimately nothing more than a compromise between Government Employees sitting on committees.

It has been said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee.

Another quote I treasure comes from Martin Luther Kings letter from jail: to paraphrase, "Just as one has a duty to observe just laws, one is obliged to disobey unjust laws." I can accept that philosophy without one single piece of datum.

With respect to firearms, thousands of people in this country have experienced incidents in which their firearm protected them or others and terminated a violent thug's aggression. I am one of them, and we are not going to be persuaded to agree with public policies or academic hogwash from ivory towers that is no more than advocacy research to support a bankrupt theory. [See the source https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...]

Aptidude • 8 years ago

Shorter Terry: I don't need facts.

Terry "OldFox" Seale • 8 years ago

Emotional decisions are good enough for you. Thanks for sharing.

mikegiles • 8 years ago

When is someone - anyone - going to sue one of these "gun free zones"? If you forbid legal weapons, then you take on the responsibility of protecting your customers.

Charles Meaux • 8 years ago

Well said!!!

Terry "OldFox" Seale • 8 years ago

By rights, yes, but not by law. The government, the police, the prosecutor have absolutely no duty to protect and defend anyone. They all and each one have wide discretion when and when not to act. If you TRY to make them act (and it has been done) the judge, or the appellate judge, or the highest judge) just refuses to override the prosecutorial, or police discretion. They can charge or not charge, Release or re-arm anyone they like. It is for that reason that I like Civil Law and Civil Remedies for Criminal Acts. Of course you can't really punish, incarcerate, or avenge a criminal with rules and methods intended for civilized men (and women, if I must), but you could force them into depositions, admissions, and decrees, even if unenforceable. OJ has his pension, fine and dandy, but a jury found him guilty and decreed to the entire world that he was culpable for the unlawful death of two human beings. And his daughters, agents, fans, the Kardashians know it, too.

You're 100% right: Govt SHOULD be liable, like any private citizen is, for maintaining an "attractive nuisance" that, like excavation sites to children, invite, encourage, and facilitate through negligence dangerous, perilous foreseeable risks to innocents. Actual damages PLUS pecuniary damages, and if you make it 42 USC 1983, attorneys fees as well.

Mind boggling to consider the lawsuits that Sandy Hook would generate, if anyone was actually killed, that is.

hscer • 8 years ago

Meanwhile, here's what happens when you decide to commit a violent crime in the opposite of a gun-free zone: http://community.seattletim...

Paul of Alexandria • 8 years ago

That sort of thing actually happens fairly regularly, but we never hear about it.

artk • 8 years ago

Actually, the reason its news is because it happens so infrequently,

mikegiles • 8 years ago

By infrequently, do you mean most crooks are stupid; but not stupid enough to try and rob a gun store. And of course, the ones who ARE that stupid, only try it ONCE!

Matt_SE • 8 years ago

You got any studies or links to back that up?

ricoliv • 8 years ago

OK. Let's see if I have this down correctly: So rape on campus is a big news story these days-- but that's only because rape on campus occurs so infrequently that it's newsworthy. Yet we're told by loud-mouthed SJW crackpots that campus rapes are as common as Sunday lunches-- as numerous, let's say, as those black men who are shot routinely by white cops. So the SJW loons and their feminazi cohorts really are as delusional as we thought they were. Did I get that right?

Ben Harper • 8 years ago

It wasn't a gun-free zone. Obviously someone had a gun in that theater.

MyVaginaHurts • 8 years ago

its ok Luke O'Neil

when someone stabs you to death on a train, I will be sure to keep quiet and keep my bullets neatly tucked away under my jacket, knowing full well you would have been upset at my trying to save you with a gun...

so when you die, inevitably by your own belligerence.

I will cry that it was a waste of a knife or a bat or whatever did you in.

oh look. more people, have STILL been killed by alcohol-related car accidents... than gun-related murders...

as its been since people started drinking and driving...

but but BUT... where are the liberals with their alcohol banning?

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

nowhere to be fucking found.

Alan404 • 8 years ago

Surprising, even amazing isn't it that nut cases and criminals somehow fail to abide by Gun Control Laws, and the stated preferences of some proprietors. Absolutely amazing, but I suppose that, at some distant point in time, people will come to realize that THAT'S THE WAY THE COOKIE CRUMBLES. Disarming the law abiding, the sane, the level headed serves only to give the nut cakes, the criminals, a clear field in which to operate. Is this really what our rulers, our elected things, our business leaders really want to do? I wonder.

Achaerone • 8 years ago

Anxiously awaiting the gun-control nitwits swooping in to explain how the movie theater's no-guns policy wasn't actually intended to prohibit people from carrying guns onto the premises, but was instead meant to make threat assessment easier for law enforcement, and that by pointing out the policy didn't actually work Sean's making a ridiculous straw man argument.

Terry "OldFox" Seale • 8 years ago

Jill Dando (the Barbara Walters of Britain) was shot to death in a Gun-Free Zone-- England. John Lennon was shot to death in a Gun-Free Zone--NYC. Ronald Reagan was shot in a Gun-Free Zone--the District of Columbia. Kitty Genovese (can you remember) was shot in a Gun-Free Zone--NYC.

When I was a kid, they had zip-guns in the Gun-Free Zones of NYC. When you worked your way up the ladder in the gang, you became a soldier for the gang, earned your "respect," and were given a real gun. Sullivan's Act never stopped anyone who abided by the law.

savannahchimp • 8 years ago

I'm a pretty liberal guy even by Canadian standards, and it seems obvious to me that gun control won't work in a country with 300 million guns. You simply can't legislate away that much firepower, or hope to keep guns out of the hands of children and mentally unstable people.

I think America is pretty much stuck with weekly mass shootings and an absurdly high murder rate. When I visit I try not to do anything that would mark me as a tourist, because tourists are unarmed and therefore easy targets.

Paul of Alexandria • 8 years ago

All things are relative, and subject to scrutiny. If you look carefully, the "absurdly high murder rate" is largely due to inner-city crime, largely due to, shall I say members of a particular ethnic persuasion killing others of the same culture. Subtract them, and the U.S. Actually isn't too bad. Also, like not just at the murder rate but at the violent crime rate. As I posted in another topic, the UK has one of the highest violent crime rates in the world, and the U.S. one of the lowest-in large part because we can defend ourselves and they can't.

As has been noted before, guns cannot and do not kill on their own, nor do they brainwash people into using them. If the would-be mass murderers in the U.S. weren't using guns, they would be using knives, cars, bombs, or chlorine gas. The problem is the mindset that leads a person to want to murder in the first place and the ability for such people to roam freely-a situation for which we can, in large part, thank liberals! It is very difficult to institutionalize a severely deranged person or to cut down his movements in any way (it should be noted that several of the recent shooters could not legally hold guns).

The current "victimization" culture doesn't help either. When a white man sees every other<\i> group blaming him for their troubles - let's just say it doesn't help stress levels.

savannahchimp • 8 years ago

"If you look carefully, the "absurdly high murder rate" is largely due to inner-city crime, largely due to, shall I say members of a particular ethnic persuasion killing others of the same culture."

Toronto is very multicultural and the murder rate doesn't reach American levels. The same can be said of many European cities as well.

"The problem is the mindset that leads a person to want to murder in the
first place and the ability for such people to roam freely-a situation
for which we can, in large part, thank liberals!"

Every other Western country has people with the same mental issues. We don't have the same level of slaughter, and it's not because we're locking everybody up.

"The current "victimization" culture doesn't help either. When a white man sees every other<\i> group blaming him for their troubles - let's just say it doesn't help stress levels."

No. Being a white man is still the easiest life you could lead in America. The constant stream of white men slaughtering people en masse is in no way justified by the "stress" of being asked to face your privilege.

ricoliv • 8 years ago

Canada's geography may dwarf that of the US, but its demography certainly does not. As so often happens with Alien Liberals, you believe that unequivocal comparisons can be made between a country with a population of 35 million (Canada) and a country of 320 million (USA). That is a ratio of nearly 10 to 1. I feel the need to point this out to someone who insisted (as you did in a previous post) that three mass shootings in as many weeks can be validly generalized as "weekly mass shootings"-- with complete disregard for the overwhelming number of weeks in which there were no mass shootings at all.

You point to Toronto as though its "multiculturalism" is comparable in quality and character to that found in such American cities as Los Angeles and New York. which are "sanctuaries" for all and sundry. I suspect immigration control in Canada is a lot more stringent than it is down here in the less enlightened USA, where there is believed to be a lunatic on every street corner and a gun in every pot. Thus, a deadbeat criminal such as "San Francisco" Sanchez can "find space" to offend, re-offend, and re-re-offend until it takes a murder to bring him down Canada may enjoy its less virulent form of liberalism because it does not have a porous southern border. Such US-style liberalism provides a conduit for any third-world criminal or drug-cartelista looking to make a killing (sometimes literally) in the Land of the Freebies. To suggest that Toronto's cherry-picked multiculturalism is on a par with the anything-goes pluralism which characterizes LA is the straw with which some "men" are made.

I could go on, but I lack the patience to address such pearls of sophistry as "the constant stream of white men slaughtering people" and "the current 'victimization' culture" = "a white man sees every other group blaming him for their troubles."

I will say this much for you oh-so--civilized Canadians, though: You may suck when it comes to doing math, but your bacon rocks, you play a mean game of hockey, and your accent is kinda cute.