BoatBanter.com - View Single Post - Bill Moyers on environment, politics and Christian fundamentalists

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 3/8/05 12:35 AM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

I've
lived in Ottawa most of my life and never seen a gun that did not belong
to
a member of a police force.

Just because you haven't seen them doesn't mean they don¹t exist. In fact,
gun ownership in Canada is quite high on a per-capita basis.

I know they exist.

This is my point, it is not a gun culture.

Sure it is.

No, it isn't. We don't talk about guns, unless it's a conversation about
"that idiot with the gun who shot those people in Texas" or something like
that. We don't love guns and talk about the right to have a gun as though it
is more important than oxygen. It's not a gun culture.

Have people been shot here? Yes. Is it uncommon?
Also Yes.

Well, there you go. It's not the guns, it's the people.

There'd have been less people shot without the guns.

Utopian nonsense.

ROFL.

Yup, sort of like claiming there'd have been a lot less home runs without
any baseball bats.

Utopian nonsense.

But at least you don't have many people here who think that they need to own
an assault weapon or that the "right" to own an assault weapon is more
important than the right to not have your neighbourhood shot up with
semi-automatic fire.

Wanna bet?

I understand gambling and guns often go together.

Would be safer if gun loving was a more popular part of our
culture? Not.

Would you be more unsafe?

Yes, most definitely.

You're dangerously wrong. You also show a deep mistrust of your fellow
citizens.

I trust that we don't need to shoot each other.

Would the individuals who ARE shot by
criminals be safer if they were allowed to carry a gun to defend
themselves?

No, and other innocent people would be dead.

So, it's okay with you that people are killed because they are rendered
defenseless by you and your ilk?

Amazingly enough, thus far my walking around without a gun hasn't gotten
anyone killed.

Probably, but the point is that it is immoral for YOU to disarm THEM
because
YOU are afraid of guns.

?

Yes, it's quite clear you don't understand.

Mm.

Nobody moves away from here because they think they'd be safer
somewhere where guns were more prevalent. You'd have to be totally insane
to
think like that.

So why is it that many Canadians are objecting to the draconian gun laws
in
Canada?

You just finished saying that gun ownership in Canada is quite high. How
does that mesh with draconian gun laws?

The ownership preceded the laws, which are being ignored wholesale.

The pearl is in the river, but the elephant won't swim in retail.

Why is it that BC is opting out of the gun registration scheme,
which is WAY over budget and is flatly unsuccessful?

Because a bunch of incompetent bureacrats were given the job, and the fact
that it was a gun registry that they messed up has little to do with why
people are ****ed off. They are ****ed off because they fouled it up and
spent way to much. If the car registry system worked that badly, we'd be
just as ****ed off.

And, it doesn't work.

What do you think the registry is intended to do? How do you imagine it
differs from the registration of cars?

For one thing, it's so damned easy to pick up a gun in the USA! You can
buy
a wicked assault weapon like you are buying a pack of gum.

That is a flat-out lie. It's entirely untrue, and you know it.

What's so hard about acquiring an assault weapon in the USA?

Why don't you do some research and get back to me.

Done. They sell them in stores. You can buy them there.

And then smuggle
it into a country like Japan where the people choose not to worship guns
like they are the second coming of jesus christ.

Do you have any evidence that Americans are smuggling guns into Japan?

That's not what I said.

That's exactly what you said.

Check again. Be sure to quote me where I say "Americans are smuggling guns
into Japan."

No? I
didn't think so. In fact, it's Japanese who are smuggling guns into Japan,
and Englishmen who are smuggling guns into Britain, and Australians who
are
smuggling guns into Australia. And to debunk your claim in advance, no,
most
of those guns are not smuggled directly from the US, many of them aren't
even manufactured in the US.

And many are.

So what? They are a legal consumer product here. Gun manufacturers are not
responsible for what criminals do with illicit firearms.

Yeah, well, if Mexico makes cocaine legal, I don't think y'all will stop
worrying about it.

But you still fail to explain how it is that your Utopian ideal is not
being
met even in Japan.

I don't have a Utopian ideal.

Sure you do.

What is it?

I like to live in a place where people don't get shot.

Who wouldn't.

Then perhaps we have little to argue about.

Problem is that your plan actually gets MORE people shot, and
victimized by violent criminals.

What plan?

I think the only concrete change I've advocated in any of these gun threads
is the elimination of assault weapons.

Other than that, what plan have I put forth?

I happen to believe
that a place where people don't associate their love of guns with their love
of life is a safer place to be.

What a singularly ridiculous statement. According to you, one who loves his
life is wrong to wish to protect it.

That's not what I said.

You think Gandhi was some sort of wimp, wherease
some asshole with a basement full of assault weapons is hot ****?

No, I just think that I'm not going to turn the other cheek, and I'm going
to defend myself using reasonable and necessary physical force when it's
required.

Yup, and every moron with a cache of assault weapons in that special hole in
the floorboards thinks they are capable of deciding what is resonable and
necessary and when it is required, but what actually happens is children,
wives, and husbands end up dead in their own house, shot by a member of
their own family.

Not very often at all

Extremely often.

particularly when compared to the number of times
that those same firearms are used to thwart a crime.

What is the ratio of gun deaths in the US where the dead person was a
relative or friend of the shooter vs a stranger committing a crime?

Bad things happen.
People get killed in accidents every day. More children die by drowning than
are accidentally killed by firearms, and the number of children accidentally
killed by firearms is at an all-time low and continues to go down, thanks in
large part to the NRA.

Heehee. What a group of saints they are.

You should note that Gandhi was killed with a gun, and that even though
Britain is not in control of India anymore, there is a wealth of guns, not
to mention nuclear weapons, in India at the moment, and that non-violence
hasn't gone very far in dealing with Pakistan.

Uh.

And to you this is an argument for a stronger gun culture?

Indeed. When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.

Hold on their pardner.

What happened to the police? And the armed forces?

I don't think you know what is meant by "culture."

You can have a culture that includes guns without having a gun culture.

Peace through superior firepower is even recognized in India, which is why
they have an army armed with firearms, among other weapons.

Why are you pointing out that India has an armed forces? They have from
moment one.

To make it clear that even your utopian icon was wrong.

My utopian icon? Who or what are you talking about now? You mean Gandhi? I
think you brought him up, not me.

But just because the world is a violent place full of gun nuts doesn't mean
Gandhi was wrong...in fact, the state of the world might be proof that he
was right.

Me, I'll achieve peace through
superior firepower. There's a lot of violent people out there hiding in
the
bushes alongside your path. Best of luck with your journey.

ROFL.

The myth of the violent stranger in the bush.

That's not who is going to kill you.

That's who kills most of the people in the world.

Actually, it isn't. It's a relative or other person that is known to you.

Actually, you're spouting long-debunked HCI claptrap again.

Really eh? According to the Journal of Trauma (1998) a gun in the home is 22
times more likely to be used in an unintentional shooting, criminal assault
or homicide, or an attempted or completed suicide than to be used in
self-defense.

22 times more likely.

It ain't the stranger in the bush. It's you - with your gun and someone you
know.

But you sit down there in your safe room with your cache of weapons waiting
for the stranger to pop out of the bush.

Nah, I'll just go about my daily life while carrying a handgun.

Sad.

You and your big rack of guns are more likely to get turned on a member
of
your own family

Not true. This is more HCI claptrap that has been long disproven.

You keep waiting for the stranger then.

Do you have a fire extinguisher? How about accident insurance on your car?

When fire extinguishers and insurance start killing people, get back to me.

- or on yourself.

That would be my right, now wouldn't it?

Oh, and I wouldn't be surprised if you exercise it one day.

And why would that be an issue for you?

It will probably be an issue for you, and the person you kill.

Or you'll put a big hole in some person
you've mistaken for an attacker because you are so damned eager to have
your
chance to be a hero gunslinger.

I doubt it. I've been carrying a concealed handgun almost every day of my
life for more than 20 years, and I haven't shot anybody yet.

I haven't shot anybody either! And I didn't have to carry a gun around for
20 years. Cool!

Indeed. Lucky too. Have you checked that fire extinguisher lately?

There's an awful lot of lucky people.

Nor do the
vast, vast majority of people who choose to be legally armed. The "blood
running in the gutters" hysteria you parrot simply doesn't happen where
concealed carry is made lawful.

Still, I'll take the chance, and I'll take responsibility for every round
I'm forced to fire. Nobody said it was easy or that carrying a gun should
be
taken lightly. Mostly it's a pain in the ass. Guns are weighty, and bulky,
and they seriously constrain your wardrobe choices, even in the heat of
summer. You have to manage your gun carefully *every second* of the day
when
you're in public.

Mhm. And most people don't seem capable of managing a credit card or even
keep their shoes tied.

My, do you have a dim view of your fellow man.

Just the facts. Take a look at the state of personal debt in north america.

It makes me more than a little nervous that they are
carrying around concealed weapons.

Your paranoia is of but little interest. Get used to it because the chances
are that one or more of the people you were around today was carrying a gun.
Most likely, up in Canada, it was a criminal. At least down here, it's most
likely to be a law-abiding citizen.

LOL. Also known as a criminal in waiting. Carrying a gun around allows a
law-abiding citizen to turn into a murderer quite easily.

Take it off at lunch or at the gym and forget it *just
once* and you'll be in deep doo doo with the police. No, it's not for
everybody by any means. But what IS for everybody is the right to CHOOSE
to
be armed, or not to be armed. That is something that NO ONE has a right to
deny them, ever.

I disagree.

And you're free to do so because people with guns secured the right and the
ability for you to do so.

Sorry, gun nuts like yourself have nothing to do with the freedoms I enjoy.

But I take my duty to myself and my fellow citizens seriously, so I choose
to be inconvenienced in order that I am prepared to step up and defend the
defenseless should it be necessary.

You take delusions of grandeur seriously, which is what a big part of
weapons ownership seems to be about.

Dissing people who have courage only proves you a coward.

What is courageous about carrying a gun around? I guess to you the bravest
person in the world is the drug dealer that shoots up the local park.