Biden "Obama to bypass Bill of Rights, doesn't care"

[Terralthra]

Guns can not be used for self-defense at all. They are a purely offensive weapon.

Someone breaks into your house. You shoot them, rendering them physically incapable of continuing their attack. How is that not self-defence?

If you consider your DVD player part of your body, then I guess it's somewhat similar to self-defense. Of course, the unarmed burglar you just shot in cold blood might have a different perspective.

[Agent Fisher]

Well, personally, the tv and blu-ray player and all that stuff is in a different part of the house. If someone starts coming down the hall to the bedrooms where I am, I don't care if they're just there to take the tv, they shouldn't be in my house and I'm not gonna wait and see if they're just gonna be a nice person and not try any violence towards me.

[Civil War Man]

Just for the record I would like to point out that the raving mad man there is Alex Jones. He has been the head cheerleader for the 9/11 truth movement and other wack-a-loon conspiracy theories for years. If he can feed off of people's paranoia to sell a book or DVD set, he will, and has. To say that he represents moderate, sane gun owners is insulting at the very least.

Perhaps, but he is a visible figurehead for the extremist gun owner population, and many people jump all over moderate muslims for not denouncing extremist muslims enough.

You can't really regulate a $2 piece of metal with a spring. And turning standard capacity mags into hi-cap ones or making your own isn't that difficult and certainly not outside the realm of someone willing to commit mass-murder anyway. You're also fighting the fact that the standard 30-round AR style mag, that fits dozens of different .223/556 models, is literally everywhere and that the US military probably has millions stamped a year, good luck.

...

I doubt you'll find many gun owners who aren't in favor of harsher penalties against those who sell guns illegally either knowingly or negligently. Same with people against background checks or actually fixing the way authorities routinely fail to report involuntary commitment to mental institutions. But those aren't the types of proposals brought to the table.

Wasting millions of tax-dollars to ban dangerous steel plates and their accompanying springs isn't worth discussing if you're concerned with actually fighting crime. But if you already put law-abiding gun owners just one inch above mass-murdering psychopaths on the morality scale, banning stupid shit like magazines looks sane.

So, are we in a situation where we are only allowed to consider restrictions on guns if they will be 100% effective? Because a hypothetical ban on high capacity magazines won't prevent someone who knows what they are doing from illegally modifying a magazine to hold more bullets, then we should just let them buy the high capacity magazines stock?

Perhaps such a ban wouldn't be effective, but it's asinine to dismiss it out of hand and claim it's not even worth discussing because someone might illegally circumvent it. By that logic, we shouldn't do anything to make it harder to produce crystal meth.

[Terralthra]

Well, personally, the tv and blu-ray player and all that stuff is in a different part of the house. If someone starts coming down the hall to the bedrooms where I am, I don't care if they're just there to take the tv, they shouldn't be in my house and I'm not gonna wait and see if they're just gonna be a nice person and not try any violence towards me.

"I don't know if they intend violence toward me at all, I'm going to shoot first." Thanks for proving my point about guns not being defensive weapons.

Also, you just shot your teenage son trying to sneak in after curfew without waking you.

[Agent Fisher]

Uh, no, I didn't cause I know how to ID my target before shooting, which is one of the basics of gun safety.

EDIT:
By that I mean, I have a weapon light on my handgun, so when I see that dark shadowy figure in the hall, I won't just shoot, I'll illuminate the target first. And I guess I should add, with the various tools I carry for my job, I could make a reasonable attempt to even arrest the person who was breaking into my house, but as always, the option for deadly force to defend myself or my family is present and completely viable from my point of view.

[Flagg]

Uh, no, I didn't cause I know how to ID my target before shooting, which is one of the basics of gun safety.

And no one panics and does stupid shit out of fear and adrenaline, am I right?

[SCRawl]

Oh, here we go. Yes, of course it's possible to use a firearm to defend yourself. If you want to say that a weapon can only be used for offensive purposes, and that it can therefore be useless for self-defence, well, I suppose you can, but it's an asinine argument. By that logic every weapon which can be used to harm someone is by definition an offensive weapon, and therefore useless for defence. I suppose you could stretch things a bit and say that a sword can be used to parry as well as thrust, but let's face it: you don't need a sword to fend off another swordsman, you need an appropriately shaped steel rod.

The only real question is whether or not allowing civilians to hold weapons suitable for self-defence is justified by the negative consequences of doing so. (This is ignoring the 2nd Amendment, of course, but I'm not sure why we need to argue laws in a discussion about logic. And anyway, this is an arcane document we're talking about. Are your slaves worth more or less than 3/5 of a person?)

[Terralthra]

Yes, a sword, staff, club, etc. can be used to defend against a strike as well as strike others. A gun can only be used to shoot others, not protect against being shot. It can also be used to intimidate those who would attack (that's the "strategic" defense I mentioned earlier), but it can't actually defend against an attack in progress.

Many weapons can be used for offensive or defensive purposes. Firearms (pistols especially) are not one of them. I suppose you could use a rifle barrel to deflect a melee attack?

[SCRawl]

That's a losing argument. You're debating semantics when you should be debating logic or utilitarianism. It will get you nowhere.

The most useful way to measure a defence is its effectiveness. "Was this tool able to help me in avoiding an undesired outcome?" is the question that must be answered when determining this. It is true that a firearm can only accomplish defence by removing an adversary's ability to do harm, but this still achieves the operational goal, which was to avoid the undesired outcome (which is, in this case, getting killed or injured by that adversary). If you want to argue that this is not (in the strictest sense of the word) defence, well, fine, but it doesn't get you anywhere useful. I am safer if I have an offensive tool with which to defend myself, because I can use that tool to render an assailant unable to assault me. Again, you can argue that because I can't use that tool in a purely defensive manner it is not suitable for self-defence, but then you're ignoring the goal of self-defence, which is, you know, to not get harmed by someone who is determined to harm you.

To make a successful argument here, you'll need to show that the needs of society are better served by denying civilians access to firearms for the purpose of self-defence. You seem to be saying "it's not *really* defence, since the guy with the gun isn't defending anything" which ignores the reality of the situation in favour of quibbling over definitions.

No, this is not an argument that can be won by arguing semantics, and the sooner you stop beating that horse the less time you'll waste.

[TheFeniX]

Is your approach to simply mock what you think I said in hopes that if you misrepresent my argument and make it seem like what I said didn't make sense, everyone else will simply not read my post?

Misrepresent what? Your giant red herring talking about ICBMs and MAD or your complete lack of knowledge of the literal and legal term: self-defense? You honestly believe that anything that can't physically defend an attack can't be used in self-defense, which would also cover shit like tasers and mace? This is beyond stupidity really and I have to wonder if you're just shitting up the thread for kicks at this point.

So, are we in a situation where we are only allowed to consider restrictions on guns if they will be 100% effective? Because a hypothetical ban on high capacity magazines won't prevent someone who knows what they are doing from illegally modifying a magazine to hold more bullets, then we should just let them buy the high capacity magazines stock?

Maybe we should instead focus that money instead into strengthening a system that keeps the actual gun away from that guy. No wait, that requires actual work rather than calling up magazine manufacturers and saying "10 rounds only." What, you thought hi-cap mags were actually illegal to own while the AWB was in effect? No.

This doesn't even mention the stupidity of other aspects of the AWB, such as owning an aperture, pistol-grip, and telescoping stock were perfectly legal in most states, yet putting them all on one rifle then made it illegal. So, the cops could kick down my door 100 times and see the parts and say "whelp, he's clean" and I could then spend 5 minutes attaching them all to one gun and suddenly be a felon.

Perhaps such a ban wouldn't be effective, but it's asinine to dismiss it out of hand and claim it's not even worth discussing because someone might illegally circumvent it. By that logic, we shouldn't do anything to make it harder to produce crystal meth.

Your claim that I'm dismissing it out of hand holds no weight. I gave you reasons why it's dismissed as worthless. You're talking about regulating the cheapest and most easily created part of an automatic firearm. To use your meth example, it's like regulating graduated cylinders and scales instead of targeting shit like people buying large amounts of over the counter medication from multiple pharmacies.

[Kamakazie Sith]

I'm all for talking about a solution that involves all the issues. I'm even willing to throw the hardcore anti's a bone with mag restrictions, though I have no confidence it will change anything. A mag change is literally seconds, less if you really practice.

How did the thread go from hilarious legal nonsense to you and your hilarious use of language? Perhaps you are unaware you have radicalised and are now unproductive?

EDIT - uh oh

I've seen you say people are being unproductive several times just because they take a stance that you deem to be extreme. Surely, you realize that people have different opinions on what is considered extreme but that's not what I wanted to ask you about.

I don't recall you listing a set of changes you would like to see. Obviously, you support some kind of gun control. What is it? I did attempt to search through the other threads using the search function but it wasn't working properly.