A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:
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 donąt 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.
Just because YOU don't talk about it doesn't mean other people don't.
Clearly you don't know everybody in Canada. Besides, your definition of "gun
culture" is specious.
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.
Which is true, until it's not.
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.
But your advocating that other people not be allowed to walk around with
guns almost certainly has.
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?
It's intended to facilitate the confiscation of guns. It can have no other
purpose, because no other purported purpose, particularly the ostensible one
of reducing criminal access to guns, can possibly be accomplished by a gun
registration program. You see, criminals don't register their guns because
it's already illegal for them to possess them. The only people who register
guns are law-abiding citizens, and there is absolutely no purpose whatsoever
for having law-abiding citizens register guns except as a precursor to
eventual bans and confiscations.
How do you imagine it
differs from the registration of cars?
The government has no intention of confiscating 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.
Can you buy them there like you're "buying a pack of gum?"
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?
That'll do.
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.
That's what you implied.
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.
How often, exactly?
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?
You made the claim, so you tell me.
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.
Indeed.
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?
Well, in a disarmed society, they most often become tyrants.
I don't think you know what is meant by "culture."
I do. But the question is whether you do or not.
You can have a culture that includes guns without having a gun culture.
Since you have yet to define "gun culture" your statement is non sequitur.
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.
Er, no.
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.
Which is a long-debunked and biased report based on cooked books.
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.
No, happy. And free. And unafraid to walk down the street after dark.
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.
You miss the point, again...predictably.
- 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.
Um, I believe we're talking about suicide here, so the only person killed
would be me.
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.
Yup. Some not so lucky though.
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.
Which has absolutely nothing to do with the issue.
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.
So does driving a car, only more so. Your wife has a vagina, which allows
her to turn into a prostitute quite easily. Should we therefore conclude
that she is a prostitute?
Strawman argument that has been conclusively disproven by facts and history.
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.
Wrong.
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?
It's not the carrying, it's the willingness to use it, at significant risk
to one's own safety, to protect others that's courageous.
What's cowardly is refusing to take responsibility for either your own
safety or show any concern for the safety of others. By refusing to provide
for your own safety, you put off your responsibilities onto the police, or
on other armed citizens who aren't going to inquire about how much you
deserve to be protected (or not) at their risk before they put their safety
on the line to save your pathetic, cowardly ass. That's immoral and evil and
cowardly.
I warrant that you, faced with the situation Wilson faced, would fall to the
ground, cower in fear and **** your pants, all the while hoping that
someone, anyone with a gun would stand up and save your life.
The irony is that the vast majority of armed citizens would do exactly that,
for you, one who can do nothing but denigrate and demean the gallant
sacrifice of someone who had no legal duty to intervene, but did so because
it was the right thing to do. And he got killed for his altruism. Pity you
weren't in his place, because he deserves life far more than someone like
you does. People like you are a festering boil on the ass of society. You
take from others and expect them to do for you that which you are unwilling
to do for yourself, and then you insult them when one of them makes the
ultimate sacrifice for others. Despicable.
I guess to you the bravest
person in the world is the drug dealer that shoots up the local park.
Yes, that would be your guess.
--
Regards,
Scott Weiser
"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM
© 2005 Scott Weiser