For or against?

Originally Posted by David4516

I believe that you are either justified in killing someone, or you aren't. The weapon that you use is irrelavlent...

Again, I don't understand this line of thought, that it's "honorable" to kill someone with a blade, but "cowardly" to do the same thing with a bullet... the end result is the same, so what differance does it make?

I think it has mopre to do with how much more easily someone can convince themselves to shoot someone over say beating them to death with a baseball bat. The former jsut requires pulling a trigger form a relatively safe distance whereas the latter means you need to get up close to summon and put a lot of physical effort into ending up with lot more blood and sweat on you as a result. Not to mention the greater physchological commitment required to hit somone over and over as opposed to pulling a trigger once. And the whole fact that guns don't offer a lot of option on how lethal the force is you use. I mean there's really only one option if things have escalated to the point of gun drawing as you can't really just knock someoen out with one.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Gumby

CetteHamsterLa: Hitting someone over and over with a baseball bat to kill them is murder. Shooting someone because they are shooting at you is self defense. You make it sound like I as someone who wants a gun to defend my home that I am just out to kill any jackass who breaks into my home. You are dead wrong. I know when a gun necessary and when it is not. Anyone who has been properly taught about firearms knows this as well. This is another reason why our children should receive gun training.

I was just clarifying the meaning of that statement to david not making a comment that all guns are used for murder. It's simply easier and takes less commitment to kill someone with a gun is all. Which could potentially make someone already inclined to kill more likely to. In say a home defense situation even if you were needing to fend them off with a bat while it is an inferior weapon you have to admit that you can generally stop a person without killling them while there's less of a guarantee of that with a gun.


Hell I'm not even against guns I just don't believe thay're as necessary or as much of a solution to some problems as soem people try to make it. The whole every problem looks liek a nail when all you have a hammer saying causes problems when people replaces hammer with gun. And I've known enough people who seem to feel that way to at the very least make me uncomfortable with just any idiot beign able to get one.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Nor should it that was hardly my point. You can have all the firearms you want it's your choice. I'm just saying maybe at a minimum they should screen more carefully who can get guns and add a higher requirement of courses to get a license. I don't know exactly what the current requirements are I imagine they vary from state to state but they need to make damn sure every aspect of what people need to know and be trained in is covered before the person can lay hands on a gun. And I'm still not sure how much people need say an assault rifle for either hunting or self defence so I'm a might shaky on whether they should be allowable but I must admit they are nifty.

The rest was just clearing things up for david as he was misinterpriting the one Sin City quote as being some bullshit about using honourable weaponry.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

That's interesting I'd never heard of anything like that. I'd think we'd have had something similiar down in Oklahoma as predominant as hunting is here and yet there's nothing like it. Then again we have a terrible education system. It's a good idea I admit but it at the very least needs to be combined with a fairly strict screening process for gun buying.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Gunner K2

Well, being from Texas, I naturally have a pro-gun bias. But I believe gun control is too weak. I also believe that it's sort of missing the point. Allow me to explain.

Many people should not be allowed to have guns. Background and psychological tests need to be more thorough and the process required to own a gun needs to be much longer and more exhaustive. This should help keep guns out of the wrong hands. But criminals can still obtain guns illegally and even if they can't, those intent on murder will just use something else. The real problem is not that we're not doing a good job of keeping guns away from the wrong people. The real problem is that there is an astronomical number of bad dudes out there, compared with crime statistics from the first half of the twentieth century. Corresponding with that is a rise in people who feel aimless in life, the invention of television and mass media, rise in drug use, hippies, irresponsible parents, and a rise in atheism. I don't believe in coincidences. This is all connected and the end result is that there are many people who have little moral guidance and to whom life is cheap and may be taken from someone else. I could write a dissertation on this, but just to illustrate my point I'll give a few brief notes.

Television: many studies have shown alarming spikes in crime that correspond to the introduction of television (especially modern TV) to a region that previously did not have it.

Atheism: When people do not believe there is a god, then all law becomes man-made and subject to revision, as opposed to the eternal law one would expect from a perfect deity. Furthermore, atheists do not see a fellow man as created, they see him as an advanced animal, just a monkey that talks. As a consequence, human life becomes cheap. As a side note, there is no such thing as a true athiest. No matter how much someone tells himself he is an atheist, if you throw him into a foxhole with bullets and shrapnel flying inches from his face, he will yell out to every god he ever heard of to save his life. Why is that?

Poor education: There is not only a poor academic educational system, but teachers also often fail to instill values, ethics, and morals into children. Considering that children spend more waking hours at school than at home, this is a big mistake. Apathetic parents don't help the situation.

Bottom line is the world is fucked up and that's the real reason guns are such a problem. That being so, I would like a gun for protection along with some unarmed combat training and some prayers. I live in Houston and I've noticed that most violent incidents involving firearms are committed by either blacks or Hispanics. With the blacks, it isn't hard to figure out why. Just go listen to rap. Hispanics have a thing with gangs so a lot of kids get pulled into bad company

What the hell I mean really? While I agree that more rigorous background checks and licensing requirements are the solution not outright banning guns most of that posts contains some of the most batshit insane backwoods redneck indoctrinated bullshit I've ever heard. Bloody texans.

I was speaking idiomatically.