Why we should ban guns now!

[TPaine7]

Now is the time for America to defeat the NRA and all people who believe they have a right to keep and bear arms. Here’s why:

1. The only purpose of a gun is to kill, to murder actually. All killing is murder. All murder is wrong. (Except of course, when our heroic police officers or soldiers kill for defensive or offensive reasons under the authority of the state. It’s not right for us to carry murder weapons ourselves; we should hire others to carry murder weapons for us, to find out who killed us, and to murder kill for us. I understand that some rightwing lunatics think that when a citizen with a concealed carry permit shoots to defend herself or her family, that is justified too. But that’s not how I feel about it. Even if her actions save lives, they’re still murder—unless, of course, she happens to be a police officer.)
   
2. The best laws come from strong emotion—especially anger and fear. After Pearl Harbor, we had the internment camps. After 9-11, we had the Patriot Act. After this horrible crime, we should ban guns. There’s no reason to think through the law very well (or even read it before voting, if you’re in Congress). The law doesn’t need to do anything—government studies have failed to find that the previous 40 years or so of gun control have affected crime. It just needs to make me feel better. Remember the Patriot act? (I know some right wing wackos think the Patriot Act is flawed. They’re wrong. The best legislation comes from fear, panic and groupthink. The best legislation makes us feel better.)
   
3. I have a right to feel safe. If the thought that you might have a gun hidden under your coat—or, heaven forbid, the sight of you wearing one on your hip—makes me feel unsafe, that alone justifies banning guns. My feelings are important. I just want to feel good and your gun disturbs my good feelings. (One right wing lunatic actually said I don’t have a right to feel safe. He claimed I don’t have a right to feel anything if by “feeling” I meant a mood or state of mind. He asked if I invited a girl out, I had a right to feel accepted. He asked if she had to say yes, or violate my right to feel attractive. He asked me if I tried to influence people and they rejected my ideas it violated my right to feel influential. He asked if they didn’t want to hang out with me, they violated my right to feel popular. He said I had a right to not feel their fist impacting my body, but that was the only type of “feeling” related to my rights. He’s wrong. I feel it in my gut.)
   
4. This tragedy affected my feelings and the feelings of my family and friends. That makes it important. (Right wing lunatics will point out that there are many more people who protected themselves or their families with guns than the people that were killed in this tragedy. But that still doesn’t justify their murdering or threatening to murder their attackers. Violence is not the answer (except when society hires people to do violence for them, then it’s ok). Violence never solves anything (except when done by police or soldiers, then it’s ok). And those things don’t make the major, international news. I don’t think the politicians are better than the rest of us, I just think their coverage is. And the importance of an event is determined by its coverage, because coverage influences feelings.)
   
5. We should ban guns in the name of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. We should ban them, not because of her or what she stands for, but for our feelings. Sure she supports gun rights, but she’s beside the point. What matters is the national mood. What matters is how I feel. So right wingers: stop talking to me about Gifford’s stands. They don't matter. She doesn’t even matter. This is all about me.

[Arctic Dave]

1. Fail.

Fear and anger? Really? Kind of like when people buy them.

[davidinalameda]

2. this is sarcastic

or parody or whatever you want to call but you make some great points!

[guitar man]

5. satire

;)

[davidinalameda]

15. thank you

it's late and my brain quit working a couple of hours ago

:toast:

[Glassunion]

21. Hell, mine quit working years ago... I've been on auto-pilot since.

[onehandle]

3. .

[TPaine7]

6. Hey, I'm on your side against the NRA, the gun "rights" folks, and

the uncivilized and unwashed hordes.

Save your snippy remarks for the opponents of sensible gun laws. We're allies!

[onehandle]

7. .

[William769]

8. self delete.

[TPaine7]

9. Check your inbox

[William769]

4. self delete.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

10. Look I like rocks, you like guns. I promise I wont throw any rocks

at you if you wont shoot at me. But really I don't think any of us want to live in a culture where we need to carry a gun to feel safe. Notice I said FEEL safe, that feeling is yours not mine. Like I said I'm into rocks and you're into guns.

[TPaine7]

22. I wish the right wing gun fanatic I debated argued like the ones you've met.

My lunatic says a gun can't make him feel safe; it can only give him a fighting chance in certain situations. He claims safety is humanly impossible.

And he has never used a gun to create a feeling of invulnerability, any more than his fire extinguisher or his seatbelt or his first-aid kit.

I wish he did base his arguments on feelings. Feelings are my turf; I could defeat him easily. Unfortunately, he uses logic. I can feel that he's wrong, but I'm having trouble showing it.

I've tried calling him names, but that doesn't faze him. And it makes me feel bad. For a knuckle-dragging, racist, anti-gay misogynist, he's a pretty nice guy.

PS: we haven't discussed race, gay rights or sexual equality. I know he must hold those positions if he supports so-called "gun rights."

[applegrove]

11. A nut shouldn't have access to a magazine of 31 bullets. A normal gun owner

doesn't need 31 shots in one go.

[YllwFvr]

12. but I need

all plastic high powered guns and armor piercing ammunition, coated in teflon to make it better.

[spin]

13. The strange thing is that I have never heard a shooter say anything like that.

Strange.

[YllwFvr]

18. i have a plastic gun

it shoots little plastic balls that sting.

[PavePusher]

14. Do those really exist? I've been looking everywhere... n/t

[mvccd1000]

16. Me too! Any idea where I can find one?

Since they don't seem to actually exist, except on TV shows that like to broadcast fictional stories?

[YllwFvr]

17. anything can be had on ebay of course!

[beevul]

19. A nut that shouldnt have access to a 31 round mag...

A nut that shouldnt have access to a 31 round mag shouldnt have access to a gun at all. Nor perhaps to a society where owning a gun is a right.

What normal (read:not a nut) gun owners need or want is not for anyone to decide but them.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Francis Marion]

23. System failure.

Background check failed to disqualify the buyer; AZ already has a law to prevent certain persons from buying a pistol. Society failed to identify Loughner as such.

Years previously:
-Institutions, acquaintances, friends, and perhaps family did not intervene. And even if they were going to intervene, how, exactly, does one go about that? And anyway, the argument can certainly be made, compellingly, that mental health professionals can identify and perhaps treat, dangerous people; but what other of our rights do we need to convince mental health professionals that we should be allowed to exercise? A possibly unpleasant precedent to establish.

The untreated mental patient needed to see a psychiatrist, and his odd behavior in public failed, apparently, to generate an interaction with a mental health professional.

The good news is that eccentric people are free to be themselves- harmless- but mentally ill persons' behavior may not trigger treatment.

Which society is preferrable, one where government can place you into a mental health facility at will, or a society where it's possible, but not mandatory, for an 'odd' person to receive mental health care, even forcibly? In the latter case, friends, family and institutions should do... what? Is our freedom intact under the latter structure? Perhaps given due process of law, there is an answer to preserve the rights of the People and yet filter out ill persons...

I wouldn't want to entrust blanket commitment authority to government; there is bad precedent from Soviet and Eastern European history where political dissidents were forcibly 'treated' for 'mental illness.'

We pay some price to live as Free People. It is difficult to balance the rights of the individual against the peace of society, but the structure which preserves personal freedom likewise preserves social order: As Jefferson remarked, those who would give their freedom to achieve security deserve neither. A person deprived of freedom also embraces insecurity.

Cancellation of personal freedom is tremendously helpful for ominous political change toward authoritarinism and centralization of power away from The People.

Any system has failure conditions, tradeoffs, and outcomes predictable only within bands of possibilities. There is no way to prevent all bad outcomes; the best we can do is minimize frequency. And fundamental changes to the system parameters- the Bill of Rights- impose new, sweepingly bad outcome possibilities, I think far worse than that which such remedy is supposed to medicate.

All we have to do, in an atmoshpere of emotion, is kick apart our Bill of Rights to earn a chimera of security, perhaps for months or even a few years. And then, the deluge. We'll endure the same horrors that all persons deprived of personal freedom have endured, indeed must endure, throughout history. We are not special people, somehow immune to the worst abuses. They are ours for the asking- just not while we're free.

[TPaine7]

24. Absolutely,

We need to be be a more caring society--to form societal mental safety nets.

Not everyone who has psychological or mental or social problems needs to lose their RKBA. Many can be helped before they become a threat. Those who can't should be recognized as violent felons or mentally disqualified before guns come into the question. Most such people out themselves long before they graduate to murder.

[BoWanZi]

25. LOL. At first I was peeved. Then I LOL'd. Then I LOL'd again.

Nicely done!

[TPaine7]

26. Thanks, I try...

The strange thing is that none of my allies, who make the very points my OP makes, will join me in defending and propagating them. I can't imagine why, as I'm sure they'll continue to make those exact points elsewhere.