Oregon Shooting

[CrucifyCindy]

Is it possible to be a gun owner, one who owns assault weapons no less, to be in favor or reasonable gun control measures, or are we all just crazy bastards to the antigun crowd?

Many in the anti-gun crowd believe that no one should have guns except the military and the police. They are the crazy bastards not us.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I was asking more or less sarcastically. It seems some anti-gunners like to characterize the gun owners as all crazed lunatics who don't care about gun violence. I see it pop up every time this debate comes up, and it gets highly annoying.

The extreme ends of any debate do tend to make the most noise.

[hrdlr110]

I did not make the claim that it balances out. I simply showed that the statement in question is false. If you're going to make an argument, tell the truth.

Are you making the claim that its ok to lie/distort facts in order to support your argument so long as the true facts you're distorting/lying about wouldn't solve the problem in question?

It was somebody else's truth, and I did go to your link and it would seem that your number is also a lie. Many of those were off duty, but not untrained civilians. Three in the first 6 I read. So your number is also wrong! Bottom line, the more untrained people packing the more dangerous the situation. None qualified to identify the first shooter, where does that leave a handful of people with guns out ready to shoot?
There was no link supporting the figure I read, but it would appear to be much closer to the truth than your lie - which if you read, means that you knowingly lied......hypocrite!

[Johan]

That would be YOUR strawman, not mine.

Not a strawman. Just didn't understand the point of your post since I never made any claim about one balancing out the other.

[Johan]

It was somebody else's truth, and I did go to your link and it would seem that your number is also a lie. Many of those were off duty, but not untrained civilians. Three in the first 6 I read. So your number is also wrong! Bottom line, the more untrained people packing the more dangerous the situation. None qualified to identify the first shooter, where does that leave a handful of people with guns out ready to shoot?
There was no link supporting the figure I read, but it would appear to be much closer to the truth than your lie - which if you read, means that you knowingly lied......hypocrite!

Oh for fucking fuckity fuck sake. I said AND I FUCKING QUOTE not true. That is THE ONLY FUCKING CLAIM I FUCKING MADE and I posted a link which shoes what I said TO BE FUCKING TRUE!. Get the fuck over yourself.

[hrdlr110]

Oh for fucking fuckity fuck sake. I said AND I FUCKING QUOTE not true. That is THE ONLY FUCKING CLAIM I FUCKING MADE and I posted a link which shoes what I said TO BE FUCKING TRUE!. Get the fuck over yourself.

What's the matter? I point out truthfully that you're a liar, and a hypocrite and you spit the dummy? I'll add asshole and crybaby to your list of credentials. Get the fuck over YOURSELF! Dick.

[Shiranu]

Many in the anti-gun crowd believe that no one should have guns except the military and the police. They are the crazy bastards not us.

How so? Tell me one document that says owning a gun is an unalienable right, a basic tenant of human rights.

[CrucifyCindy]

How so? Tell me one document that says owning a gun is an unalienable right, a basic tenant of human rights.

I don't need a document to tell me that a human being or community has the unalienable right to protect itself from harm by others (including those in authority) by any means necessary. All people have the right to self-determination and self-defense.

[Shiranu]

I don't need a document to tell me that a human being or community has the unalienable right to protect itself from harm by others (including those in authority) by any means necessary. All people have the right to self-determination and self-defense.

Fair enough. But your rate of being killed increases significantly once you own a gun, particularly if you are a woman. Statistically speaking, by buying a gun for self defense you are only putting yourself at a far greater risk. If you are actually interested in protecting yourself, you would buy a lock and some steel bars for your windows, not a gun... or just live in 99% of the United States that isn't so dangerous you would feel the need for even that. There are very few places in the United States a middle-class male needs to fear locking his door, much less owning a gun.

As for authority; good luck stopping the government with a 9mm or even an assault rifle. Shit, good luck stopping them with a full-on RPG. You do have to realise they have drones and tanks and a whole arsenal of weapons that have been specifically designed to make sure that nothing stands a chance.

Buying gun is not an act of self-determination, nor is it statistically an act of self-defense. It is a privilege, and good on us for having it... I like being able to go shooting whenever I want. But I also realise that, as a privilege, it really is not necessary in the least and if we want to be serious about protecting people's lives then we would ban guns tomorrow and never look back, because far too many "responsible gun owners" kill their wives, their children, themselves or other's in bursts of emotion. And, being a privilege, one person killed is one person too many to realistically let people keep it.

[Cocoa Beware]

So then you're not thoroughly anti gun. You'd become part of the problem instead of part of the solution. And in the US, for every time a gun is used for protection of self or ones family,  it's used 44x against those very people it was meant to protect. In 30 years of mass shootings, the number of times a shooter was neutralized by an armed civilian is zero.

Let me rephrase, I should have said I'm not entirely anti-gun.

Depending on where you live, there are circumstances under which I cant begrudge people for acquiring a gun. Its only human, as there are certain urban sprawls where you may feel it is mandatory.

I dont blame them, as it is a situation not of their making.

Guns being readily available to criminals, that is the real problem.

Woefully inadequate registration measures, that is the real problem.

The NRA, with a long history of preventing studies that show the true insanity of the situation from being published, while spinning their own dishonest agenda;
Making outrageous and illogical claims such as the statement that more guns mean less crime;
Who stand to make a lot of cash by insuring they continue to have the final say on gun legislation in congress;

They are most certainly the real problem.

[Mike Cl]

Beating a dead horse.  Corporates and their toadies (called congress) will not allow any changes.  Too much money being made. 

I'm not against owning guns.  But I have not seen any real reason why the general public needs to have military type weapons--assault weapons with 20/100 rounds per clip.  Or why a reasonable registration procedure and requirements system can't be established.  With as much money as is involved, common sense seems to not have a chance. 

[CrucifyCindy]

Fair enough. But your rate of being killed increases significantly once you own a gun, particularly if you are a woman. Statistically speaking, by buying a gun for self defense you are only putting yourself at a far greater risk. If you are actually interested in protecting yourself, you would buy a lock and some steel bars for your windows, not a gun... or just live in 99% of the United States that isn't so dangerous you would feel the need for even that. There are very few places in the United States a middle-class male needs to fear locking his door, much less owning a gun.

As for authority; good luck stopping the government with a 9mm or even an assault rifle. Shit, good luck stopping them with a full-on RPG. You do have to realise they have drones and tanks and a whole arsenal of weapons that have been specifically designed to make sure that nothing stands a chance.

Buying gun is not an act of self-determination, nor is it statistically an act of self-defense. It is a privilege, and good on us for having it... I like being able to go shooting whenever I want. But I also realise that, as a privilege, it really is not necessary in the least and if we want to be serious about protecting people's lives then we would ban guns tomorrow and never look back, because far too many "responsible gun owners" kill their wives, their children, themselves or other's in bursts of emotion. And, being a privilege, one person killed is one person too many to realistically let people keep it.

My chances of being killed was already significanly increased by the virtue that I was born a person of color. Who am I to trust in regards to ensuring my right to self-determination and my right to personal safety if not myself and my community? Am I to trust the government? Well they are doing a piss poor job when it comes to protecting the rights of people of color. In fact for people of color the governemtn constitutes an oppressive force that has historically caused us harm. It is very easy for a white person to make statemetns like you have because you just do not have the experiences that people of color have.

[baronvonrort]

Is it possible to be a gun owner, one who owns assault weapons no less, to be in favor or reasonable gun control measures, or are we all just crazy bastards to the antigun crowd?

We had a 15 year old muslim kid with an illegal unregistered pistol shoot a Police accountant on Friday, the Lindt siege muslim used an illegal unregistered outlawed sawn off pump action shotgun.
Both these cases have the Police baffled as to the origins of their illegal firearms, ammo is also highly regulated in Australia they had no trouble obtaining ammo.

Canada and New Zealand have both abolished long gun registration as it's costly it doesn't solve or prevent crimes, they say the money is better spent putting more Police on the street.
In Australia gun registration shows criminals are not using registered firearms.

Here is a Canadian politician who was for firearm registration when they first considered it and now he explains why it's a waste of time and money.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbBezsr2PEI 

For those who claim Australia has had no mass shootings since our 1996 gun laws they should check out the Monash University shooting, the worst mass murders on the east coast of Australia were done by lighting a fire, the Childers backpacker fire and the Quakers hill nursing home fire.
Our second worst mass shooting was done with a single shot bolt action .22lr.

New Zealand has had no mass shootings since 1996, New Zealand allows hunters to have semi auto centrefire rifles with silencers for hunting.
Perhaps regulating who can have guns is more effective than regulating what they can have.

[mauricio]

It is very easy for a white person to make statemetns like you have because you just do not have the experiences that people of color have.

Yes nice racebaiting ad hominem there. I guess I as white person would also have trouble understanding the need to own weapons for self defense because i live in a third world country in a city where people have been stabbed for pieces of bread and hatred towards white people is significant among the criminal population, and it's actually fueled by this type of bullshit rhetoric of "muh historic oppresion" "muh white devil" Maybe you should actually argue your point without the racebating ad hominem bullshit. Because your sentence clearly implies that his race makes it harder to for him understand because he has not personally lived it which is retarded, since we can construct reasonable arguments about a wide variety of topics even if we have never lived it, because we can actually study things. And the only pertinent response would be to address the argument not the race of the speaker, which is you know kinda... racist. So check your privilege.

[Shiranu]

It is very easy for a white person to make statemetns like you have ...

I mean, I had a Latin Surname (diDio, eventually changed it because of harassment), I have a "foreign" first name, before I was adopted I was raised by a mother who's family was only about 10 years off the boat, grew up around Mexicans (who were culturally more similar to me than the whites), I had best friends whom's parents were illegal and lived in fear of deportation, who lived in shacks of two small rooms and about 6-7 people...I got harassed by the whites for not being "white" like them growing up (and often by the Hispanics for not being brown like them), grew up on the ghetto/bario side of the tracks... all in a town where I got to see rather constant drug related violence and don't think I went more than a year or two without one or more class mates getting shot... and once got to see a black man get pulled down main street with a rope around his ankles while the white guys driving hooted and hollered... a town where I was pulled over multiple times for "looking suspicious" and to do "routine drug searches"...

But yeah, tell me more about my life, please. Tell me more about how "white-y" me couldn't possibly have a clue about the plight of minorities. I understand there is a huge difference between the situation of African Americans and Hispanics, and I also realise that having grown up in two different cultures... I had it comparatively easy, my adopted family didn't struggle as bad and I am grateful for that....

But don't fucking come in here telling me about who I am or where I came from, when you don't know jack shit about me.  And arguing because I have light skin I can't possibly be able to know or even sympathize with minorities? Fuck off with your racist bullshit.