I have a moral issue with liberal attitudes to gun ownership and would like to see the opinions of other people

[Fenixgoon]

Always amused at the bad 'semi-auto' rhetoric. A semi-auto works by one trigger pull equal one round fired. A revolver works as a semi-auto. Pull the trigger... bang. Pull it again... bang.

When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. Then we go down the path of the UK, where even knives are tightly regulated, and there is a push to ban all 'pointy' knives. Murder rates in the UK are not down, in fact they are growing, even with very strict gun laws.

I own guns, I have a concealed carry permit, and I carry. To obtain my CC permit I had to demonstrate competency with a firearm, and pass a test regarding the laws regarding carrying and self defense. I will defend my life, safety, home, and family with lethal force.

I get very tired of many who claim it is a god given right, or a constitutional right and cannot be infringed in any way. That is bullshit. We also have the 1st Amendment that guarantees freedom of speech. Well take that freedom and threaten the life of the president and see how that works out.

Rights are not a freebee, they come with responsibility.

exactly, so the rate of fire with a semi-auto rifle is just as fast as a semi-auto pistol -as fast as you can pull the trigger. the bonus to a rifle being lower recoil and better control. if we ban "AWBs", the next kid is just going to grab a semi-auto pistol.

pistols are used for the vast majority of murders in the US, because hauling around a rifle to cap someone is pretty damn obvious. so it makes sense to do that. banning semi-auto rifles (or at least the tacticool ones) is to prevent school shootings, because i'm real tired of seeing the onion headline of "no way to prevent this in only nation where this happens again and again".

yes, school shootings are a symptom of a much larger problem, but if you're in pain because of a broken limb, the doc is still going to give you meds while your bone heals. so it makes sense to address the symptom as well, while we try and address the larger root cause of why school shootings happen in the first place.

pump shotguns, bolt-action rifles, and revolvers can still function just fine for personal protection/CCW, home defense, hunting game of all sizes. i don't have any issue with CCW, though i personally would never do it. i think open carry is stupid because you're essentially violating a social norm - no one else visibly carries a firearm around.

mind you i have firearms of my own (even did my own 80% AR15 build), but i'm at the point where i don't see the harm in further regulation.

at least we both agree that "shall not be infringed" does not mean "cannot be regulated"

 

[Muse]

I'll go with that. Putin loves the NRA- the fear mongering, the hatred, the divisiveness & millions of armed & gaslit Americans thinking they'll have to shoot each other, because Freedumb.

Exactly, and I'm not buying it. I can't tell you how much I hate Putin. The torture of Navalny a few weeks ago (he's still in a coma, probably will never be a human again) really freaks me out. I woke up last night thinking about it, it gives me the creeps that shit like that happens in Russia. I hope Trump is so goddamn stomped in November. We've got to get super tough on Russia, and hold our nose and move on post haste from the Trump years and hope the stench goes away.

 

[Vic]

What's insane to me is supporting a party because of their stance on the 2a who also happens to be the party that loves trillion+ dollar military budgets and giving the police surplus military vehicles. Most who support the 2a do it because of fear of an oppressive government they are enabling. Talk about irony.

I find it hard to believe that those people fear an oppressive govt when they are arguing that govt agents have the power to extrajudicially execute on the spot any citizen who does not immediately comply with their orders.

 

[Muse]

exactly, so the rate of fire with a semi-auto rifle is just as fast as a semi-auto pistol -as fast as you can pull the trigger. the bonus to a rifle being lower recoil and better control. if we ban "AWBs", the next kid is just going to grab a semi-auto pistol.

pistols are used for the vast majority of murders in the US, because hauling around a rifle to cap someone is pretty damn obvious. so it makes sense to do that. banning semi-auto rifles (or at least the tacticool ones) is to prevent school shootings, because i'm real tired of seeing the onion headline of "no way to prevent this in only nation where this happens again and again".

yes, school shootings are a symptom of a much larger problem, but if you're in pain because of a broken limb, the doc is still going to give you meds while your bone heals. so it makes sense to address the symptom as well, while we try and address the larger root cause of why school shootings happen in the first place.

pump shotguns, bolt-action rifles, and revolvers can still function just fine for personal protection/CCW, home defense, hunting game of all sizes. i don't have any issue with CCW, though i personally would never do it. i think open carry is stupid because you're essentially violating a social norm - no one else visibly carries a firearm around.

mind you i have firearms of my own (even did my own 80% AR15 build), but i'm at the point where i don't see the harm in further regulation.

at least we both agree that "shall not be infringed" does not mean "cannot be regulated"

Pardon me, but you gun nuts are a tiresome bunch.

 

[Jhhnn]

i think open carry is stupid because you're essentially violating a social norm - no one else visibly carries a firearm around.

It's an implied threat to the people around them.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

It's an implied threat to the people around them.

It's supposed to be an implied warning, should only be a threat to those who would wish them harm.

Of course, all this goes out the window when the wolves are among the sheep, and the sheepdogs have outsourced their job to ever more wolves.

 

[nickqt]

It's supposed to be an implied warning, should only be a threat to those who would wish them harm.

Of course, all this goes out the window when the wolves are among the sheep, and the sheepdogs have outsourced their job to ever more wolves.

It's an implied threat to the people around them.

There's no implied in there.

It's direct intimidation. Anyone who goes to Costco with an AR-15 strapped to their chest is actively trying to intimidate everyone around them.

People who carry weapons to defend themselves without intimidating others do it concealed. Concealing a weapon is to actively not intimidate others around you.

 

[Jhhnn]

It's supposed to be an implied warning, should only be a threat to those who would wish them harm.

Of course, all this goes out the window when the wolves are among the sheep, and the sheepdogs have outsourced their job to ever more wolves.

So, uhh, I'm supposed to believe that people packing iron in suburbia aren't crazy as fuck?

 

[Jhhnn]

There's no implied in there.

It's direct intimidation. Anyone who goes to Costco with an AR-15 strapped to their chest is actively trying to intimidate everyone around them.

People who carry weapons to defend themselves without intimidating others do it concealed. Concealing a weapon is to actively not intimidate others around you.

It's still nuts AFAIC.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Pardon me, but you gun nuts are a tiresome bunch.

Not sure how I came off as a gun nut, though I used to be very into guns (and my older P&N posts reflect that). Not really anymore. Haven't been to a range in well over a year, and I am very much in favor of further firearms regulation.

 

[nOOky]

Huh. I'm definitely voting Democrat this time around. I'm fairly liberal, although I'd vote for a decent conservative if it was the better option in my mind. I also own several guns, was in the military, etc. In today's political climate then I can't possibly be a Democrat, because I have guns. I guess I can't go to church either, because I spend my free time dismembering late term babies at the abortion clinic when I'm not looting and destroying shit at a BLM demonstration.

 

[repoman0]

What is your fantasy here?

I don't even own any guns, but if you don't see how this country is falling apart and could easily end up in violence and/or splitting apart then I guess good for you. I'm 30 so we have a long way to fall within the next (hopefully) 50+ years of my life.

Or maybe the Fox News watching Boomers will just finally fuck off and die and we'll be good. We'll see.

edit:

I'll go with that. Putin loves the NRA- the fear mongering, the hatred, the divisiveness & millions of armed & gaslit Americans thinking they'll have to shoot each other, because Freedumb.

for you too. My news sources are The Atlantic, NPR, WaPo and NYT in that order, and I don't have a Facebook. Thanks for the pointless insult though.

 

[Jhhnn]

I don't even own any guns, but if you don't see how this country is falling apart and could easily end up in violence and/or splitting apart then I guess good for you. I'm 30 so we have a long way to fall within the next (hopefully) 50+ years of my life.

Or maybe the Fox News watching Boomers will just finally fuck off and die and we'll be good. We'll see.

edit:



for you too. My news sources are The Atlantic, NPR, WaPo and NYT in that order, and I don't have a Facebook. Thanks for the pointless insult though.

I did not address you with that comment.

 

[repoman0]

I did not address you with that comment.

My apologies then

 

[Muse]

I don't even own any guns, but if you don't see how this country is falling apart and could easily end up in violence and/or splitting apart then I guess good for you. I'm 30 so we have a long way to fall within the next (hopefully) 50+ years of my life.

Or maybe the Fox News watching Boomers will just finally fuck off and die and we'll be good. We'll see.

edit:



for you too. My news sources are The Atlantic, NPR, WaPo and NYT in that order, and I don't have a Facebook. Thanks for the pointless insult though.

You've got to ask yourself, how to you want to spend your next 50 years? Scared of your neighbors and stroking and cleaning your guns?

There's violence now in America, there's been violence from the beginning, there will continue to be violence. Splitting apart? The civil war happened already, slavery was abolished, there's no issue that's gonna tear this country in half.

You watch the news and you see violence. There have been demonstrations for 100 straight days in Portland and it gets media attention but it's a very small thing compared to violence tearing the country apart. That's not happening.

 

[Puffnstuff]

This dem says that 2A is for everybody and guns that comply with existing laws should not be touched. If you want to own a gun it's your right just like overeating or buying a high horsepower sports car. The founding fathers wrote 2A to help the people resist fascism.

If you don't like the legal use of guns stop doing things that force their use. I do not support the illegal use of guns or people who illegally possess them.

 

[repoman0]

You've got to ask yourself, how to you want to spend your next 50 years? Scared of your neighbor and stroking and cleaning your guns?

I literally just said I don’t own any guns. I love my neighbors and my fellow New Englanders. You seem really confused here about what I’m saying. If Trump wins again IMO we will descend pretty fully into fascism and oligarchy and there’s no telling where we go from there. Sane parts of the country could pretty easily decide they don’t want to be a part of it and it would seem wise to be armed for it.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

So, uhh, I'm supposed to believe that people packing iron in suburbia aren't crazy as fuck?

Nah, it definitely means they are, nowadays.

 

[MtnMan]

I'll go with that. Putin loves the NRA- the fear mongering, the hatred, the divisiveness & millions of armed & gaslit Americans thinking they'll have to shoot each other, because Freedumb.

Of course Putin and Trump love the NRA. They don't give a fuck about guns, but are a political action group. Many years ago I joined, and it took me about 3 weeks to determine that was a big mistake. In disucssions on gun related forums, there are many gun owners that are not NRA members, for the simple fact they are not gun advocates, but political activists, corrupt greedy ones at that.

 

[Greenman]

It has helped to cause this scenario. An Armed society is more prone to Extreme Violence. When the Armed portion of Society becomes convinced they would be better off without the existence of other portions, then Pacifism becomes foolishness.

True enough. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[ondma]

Personally disagree. Per @Thump553's anecdote, there's just too many fucking stupid people. We don't have a gun problem, we have an education problem.

Can be both, right? Too many guns available to too many stupid people?
As for guns for self defense, I feel pretty confident that the number of people accidentally killed far outweighs the number of lives saved by "self defense".

 

[pmv]

I find it hard to believe that those people fear an oppressive govt when they are arguing that govt agents have the power to extrajudicially execute on the spot any citizen who does not immediately comply with their orders.

It's an odd mirror-image of far-leftists who talk in terms of class warfare and the violent seizure of the state, but in practice support gun-control laws. You do get far-leftists who want and own guns (all those antifa types one sees posing with them) but it's not so common in Europe, where that contradiction is often stark.

Both left and right seem inconsistent on the issue. Much of the right wanting to give greater-and-greater power to the state they claim not to trust, and the left also distrusting the state but not wanting an armed population either.

At the same time it struck me when someone posted a list of 'deaths resulting from the BLM-protest-related disorder', that, aside from arguing over whether right-wingers, cops or 'protestors' were responsible for more deaths, one thing that seemed very clear is you get a heck of a lot more deaths when such disorder occurs in a country with widespread gun-ownership than you do in other countries.

There have been outbreaks of civil disorder and violence in many European countries over many different things, but the death toll seems much higher in the US.

I suppose it all depends how much faith you have in the idea that problems can be solved peacefully or not.

 

[dank69]

Two small points to add:

We create what we fear.

Even if Democrats went full NRA guns for everyone, people would still believe to their core that Democrats are anti-gun.

 

[Muse]

I literally just said I don’t own any guns. I love my neighbors and my fellow New Englanders. You seem really confused here about what I’m saying. If Trump wins again IMO we will descend pretty fully into fascism and oligarchy and there’s no telling where we go from there. Sane parts of the country could pretty easily decide they don’t want to be a part of it and it would seem wise to be armed for it.

I fully realized you said you did not own a gun. However, you did not declare an intention to not arm yourself. My statement was in no way confused/confusing. You simply took it wrong.

 

[Muse]

Two small points to add:

We create what we fear.

Even if Democrats went full NRA guns for everyone, people would still believe to their core that Democrats are anti-gun.

It's because the NRA are so political and self serving. They know the GOP is more on their side, so they side with them. Republican voters are notoriously ill-informed, easily swayed.