Really?


Then you talk about protection and how you're really only using your guns for making loud noises and making your feel better. I mean... how much more can you say "I don't really need these guns, I just like them, and because I like these things no one has the right to make sure I'm not murderous. My hobbies trump public safety. The things I like can kill people, but fuck you all."


Why do you believe you have the right to own deadly weapons without the public having a concern about that? I'd be concerned if you had a tiger in your house. I'd be concerned if you were cooking meth in your kitchen. I'm concerned if you've got lots of rats on your property that are posing a health risk.

You could have the safest tigers, never had any accidents cooking your meth, and your rats could be pristine and clean. As the public I have the right to verify that and make sure that is in fact the case, because you do not have the right to endanger others simply because you want to.


We're all so happy for you and your housemate with the deadly hobby.

"In my spare time I make pipe bombs and collect nuclear material. I study reports on how to best harm humans without actually killing them, because suffering is cool. But hey! Don't try to judge me! I'm perfectly safe! It's all in good fun!"

...But hey, let's not discuss society at large suggesting we verify all this. It's completely unreasonable that someone would regulate and come in to make sure people who have intrinsically deadly hobbies aren't plotting a personal mass murder apocalypse. How dare anyone step up and say "Get a new hobby. The one you're doing, sometimes shit goes wrong."

/sarcasm

Your roommate doesn't need a rocket launcher either, but most people aren't in favor of letting her have one because rocket launchers are dangerous. They kill people. Or rather, people with rocket launchers kill people with rocket launchers, which generally amounts to more people dead than if your roommate went crazy and started attacked people with her bow, or a fork, or angry words. Even if you were the world's greatest rocket launcher enthusiast ever, it wouldn't change the fact that rocket launchers are weapons. And honestly, I'm all for letting people who really, really, really want rocket launchers, or longbows, or guns, have them as long as we're also enthusiastically telling people who wake up one morning and think "You know what would be pretty cool? I could kill some people. That would be boss," to go stuff themselves.

Those guys are still off and if they're really, really, really nefarious they'll get past just about anything and still end up with something to promote their fountains of blood and rivers of death agenda. But if only a fourth of the people who want guns for the purposes of killing people were denied weapons by background checks and extra regulation that would be several thousand people alive at the end of the year that statistically would be dead otherwise, all because you and your roommate really "like" your guns. I "like" my computer, but I don't think I'd get a pass for owning my PC if my ownership was causing me to have this stupid moral disconnect that was getting thousands of people dead each year.

Honestly, the obstinacy on the part of gun owners wonders what sort of moral dysfunction you guys have. Each year we try to make our cars safer. We keep hiring police to make out neighborhoods safer. We cook food to prevent e coli, because that makes it safer. You look both ways before you cross the street, because that's a reasonable thing to do to prevent yourself from getting run over. But say one word about just putting more checks and balances onto owning a gun, which is a tool designed specifically to kill things with? You get some person diverting the conversation to crossbows. For the record, if thousands of people were being killed with crossbows? I'd be coming for the damned crossbows too. You do not have the unrestricted, holy and sacrosanct right to own things for your hobbies when those hobbies are contributing to the deaths of significant amounts of people. You being sad because someone would make it harder to own a gun is not a compelling argument against people living who otherwise would die. Basically you own guns and weapons because you have a lark for them. Someone says "These are bad, they kill people. People look to steal these and kill people with them," and you basically throw up your hands and defend murder in the name of your hobby.

I'm not even saying you shouldn't have your hobbies, just that the rest of the world doesn't owe you the right of that hobby being easy to pursue. How many people have to die before owning a gun stops being so neat that you think you deserve to have one without everyone else being concerned?

I don't think iCad has ever said anything that could be interpreted as, "no one has the right to make sure I'm not murderous." Based on my quick re-read of her recent posts, I'm pretty sure she's said just the opposite.


Because a minority causes shit to go wrong, no one gets to do that hobby, ever. Sometimes shit goes wrong with bungee jumping and sky diving, too. Some people race cars for fun and shit goes wrong there, too. They're prohibited from racing on public streets for the safety of others, but that's analogous to people being allowed to shoot at ranges (i.e. particular places designated as okay to do the dangerous activity in a controlled environment). Yet you (general you) don't say they shouldn't be allowed to own cars at all, that they're obviously unstable for even owning for than one in the first place, that because a few people still break the law to race illegally, no one anywhere ever should be allowed to race.


That's some fine false equivalency. Yes, because owning a gun is exactly the same as collecting nuclear material or proactively studying how to torture people. Exaaaaactly the same. Especially since the statistics show that every gun owner became a crazed sociopathic torturer-murderer before their deaths, right?


People generally aren't in favor if people having a rocket launcher not because it's dangerous and can kill people (again, cars! or kitchen knives or bricks or garden shovels or chains or electric drills...). It's excessive firepower for a simple hobbyist or hunter, and it's more difficult to set aside safe places to practice using it.


Uh... has anyone in any gun debate ever suggested it would be cool to go murder people? (And I do mean murder, as opposed to "kill," which could include the oft-cited situations of lethal self defense.) That murder wasn't bad or wrong if it was done with an a-okay gun? I mean, I'm skeptical here. No one tells people anything other than to "go stuff themselves" for thinking murder is coolio. I'm not sure why you'd even jokingly suggest otherwise, and I certainly doubt your disclaimer that you'd actually be cool with people owning whatever weapons.


You're sort of arguing about two different things here. Do you want to see more regulation over gun ownership, or do you want to see no one allowed to own any guns at all? I'd presume that both iCad and her roommate are not and have not killed any people with their assortment of weaponry. Them "liking" their guns and legally owning and using them does NOT contribute to the murders of other people. Owning a gun, in and of itself, is safe and legal. How it's used is the sticking point.

And you know what? I bet that if your (specious) assertion about all the people going out and getting guns expressly for the purpose of killing people -- not that they buy them for one and on some later date go crazy for someone, but that they're only buying guns just to go kill someone-- ...well, murder is already illegal. If there are a significant portion of gun-owners who only own guns just to kill someone, chances are not having a gun is not going to keep many or most of them from killing that someone.


Again, iCad has never said anything, to my recollection, that any checks and balances on gun purchases was awful. No one has. You are here constructing and fighting a strawman.


Constitutionally-protected right. Until that is changed, actually, people (Americans, anyway) do kinda "deserve" to have guns of some sort. Again it sounds like you're conflating gun control with gun abolition, btw. Which are you actually arguing for? (Keep in mind that it's not as though there is zero gun control as it is at present, so really I guess it's a matter of more gun control vs. abolition.)

Also, while not a perfect comparison, I realize, yet still I turn to it: cars kill crap tons of people each year. When will car-owners stop thinking they're so neat and turn to public transport to reduce the number of cars on the roads and therefore the number of fatal car accidents? Even with all the safety efforts you mention, more people still die in car accidents than by firearms. (Actually, apparently more people are poisoned to death than die by firearms.)

@Mistermook: I was going to write a big old point-by-point rebuttal...but I don't have to because Tempscire said pretty much everything that I was going to say, particularly the stuff about that big ol' strawman you built there, plus some stuff about faulty equivalency. And she did so likely more concisely than I would have. If you're going to put words into my mouth and say that I said things that I never said or meant anything other than what I actually said and then imply that I'm out to kill people or that I advocate allowing people to kill other people, then there's really no point in continuing this conversation with you because, for whatever reason, you're just not hearing what I'm saying.

I thought this was an interesting opinion piece on the topic - Drawing the Wrong Lessons from Horrific Events
I liked the end -