LadyTevar wrote:I agree with your Mom, YB. Handguns are for killing humans
Even if that were true, there are still legitimate uses for weapons only useful for killing or injuring people. Many gun owners in the United States purchase for self defense or home defense. For your house a shotgun is probably better, but if you're planning on walking through the streets it's sort of hard to conceal a boom stick.
But as it stands, handguns are useful for all sorts of things other than "murdering people".
A scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: 'What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, 'What is the tortoise standing on?'
'You're very clever, young man, very clever,' said the old lady. 'But it's turtles all the way down.'
LadyTevar wrote:I agree with your Mom, YB. Handguns are for killing humans
I live in semi-rural Canada where you can cause your normal stereotypical Canucks to instantly rage out in Rush-like fury by mentioning the words "Long Gun Registry", but even they agree with this point.
Alyeska wrote:So without access to NRA membership lists, how the hell did they manage that?
The article says that it was 401 NRA members out of a total of 832 gun owners. It's possible that they did a random sampling, the first question was "Do you own a gun?", and did not include anyone who answered "No" in the final analysis.
According to the questionnaire and responses here, the first question asked was if they owned a gun. A no answer was an immediate terminate. The second question was if they were an NRA member. A no answer was a terminate after 400 no answers had been collected (obviously they slipped a bit).
That said, Luntz has had issues in the past. He was found in violation of the American Association for Public Opinion Research's code of ethics in 1997, was censured by the National Council on Public Polls in 2000, fired by MSNBC for questionable polling practices in 2004, and criticized on Bullshit! in 2006 for saying that the key to survey polling is "to ask a question in the way that you get the right answer."
Stanley Hauerwas wrote:[W]hy is it that no one is angry at the inequality of income in this country? I mean, the inequality of income is unbelievable. Unbelievable. Why isn’t that ever an issue of politics? Because you don’t live in a democracy. You live in a plutocracy. Money rules.
aieeegrunt wrote:
I live in semi-rural Canada where you can cause your normal stereotypical Canucks to instantly rage out in Rush-like fury by mentioning the words "Long Gun Registry", but even they agree with this point.
I think thats more because it was a complete and utter clusterfuck then an actually useful program.
As for the sidearms=murder machines thing going on, others have commented in the thread that there are plenty of handguns designed for hunting or competition. Hell I'm eyeing up a Josey Wales clone to get into the cowboy competitions.
Not that I disagree with having either a registry for handguns/long arms, only that it was a boondoggle.
M1891/30: A bad day on the range is better then a good day at work.
