Originally Posted by KaiserD2

I regard the "10 minute problem" as extraordinarily hypothetical. It came out in an earlier discussion of this issue here that the NRA does not keep or release statistics on the numbers of people who actually use guns for legitimate self-defense in a given year. That can only be, I would suspect, because there would be so few such cases among average citizens--far fewer than the deaths caused by accidental and intentional shootings of family members and suicides. I don't have a solution for being a on a plane that has a serious mechanical malfunction, either, but I regard that as about as likely as needing a gun for self-defense.

If you don't like hypothetical scenarios, then I suspect that a simple Google search will net you more self defense stories than you can read in a day.

Originally Posted by ASB65

My point is that most rational people who own guns, use them properly. It's only the irrational people who are dangerous with a gun in their hands. But then, I've also heard stories of people who went crazy and hacked up their families with knives. You don't need a gun to kill someone.

I disagree; I think this is inconsistent. If someone with a knife can go crazy and hack up a family, someone with a gun can do the same, and the gun makes it easier. And it happens frequently, because too many people have guns.

I take your point about the bear. How about hikers taking stun guns? I would wager most people who run into bears and lions don't get hurt. But it is possible.

Hunting seems to me irrational. Why should we should keep such dangerous toys around? Americans don't seem to be very creative in finding ways to amuse themselves. What's wrong with sports, or playing music, or even watching TV? To those who hunt, I say, find other amusements. Don't kill things.

But if you don't want to follow my advice, go ahead and do what you want. I can't stop you. I just wish you would stop resisting people in NY and CA from trying to get pistols off our streets, by supporting the NRA. I don't mean you specifically, Amy.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

A cultural thing, I guess. I hope you get over it. But whatever.

Us sportsmen are one of the largest pro-environment forces in this country. I was taught to treat Nature with proper respect.

Your west coast snobbishness is showing.

Originally Posted by Odin

Us sportsmen are one of the largest pro-environment forces in this country. I was taught to treat Nature with proper respect.

Your west coast snobbishness is showing.

Respect it by killing it, I guess. No thanks, I'll be a snob instead.

Originally Posted by jadams

Just like a sociopath can kill a lot of people, a sociopath with a sick idea can infect a lot of people. I wonder if Milton Friedman was one of her set.

We know that Alan Greenspan was, according to the author I heard interviewed on the radio. NOt a slavish devotee, but still highly influenced by her. But he finally renounced a lot of his views in 2008. He learned his lesson; America did not.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Hunting seems to me irrational. Why should we should keep such dangerous toys around? Americans don't seem to be very creative in finding ways to amuse themselves. What's wrong with sports, or playing music, or even watching TV? To those who hunt, I say, find other amusements. Don't kill things.

But if you don't want to follow my advice, go ahead and do what you want. I can't stop you. I just wish you would stop resisting people in NY and CA from trying to get pistols off our streets, by supporting the NRA. I don't mean you specifically, Amy.

Eric, I am neither for or against gun control. Just simply stating what I have seen with those who own guns. I can see both sides of the issue.

But I do think that everyone is an individual and we all have different interests and hobbies. Just because someone likes to paint, doesn't mean everyone has to. I see nothing wrong with hunting as a hobby as long as it is done responsibly. I have never had any interest what-so-ever in hunting. And when my husband did kill a deer I wasn't exactly pleased with the dead animal hanging upside down in the carport while it drained. I think that is pretty gross. But I do understand this is a passion of his, just like playing guitar is another one of his passions. I would never suggest he give up something he loves like hunting, anymore than I would ask him to give up playing guitar. I certainly wouldn't like it if he told me I had to give up something I truly enjoyed just because he didn't like it...The only thing I refuse to do is cook or eat venison. I don't care for the taste of it...But I'm not a vegetarian, so I eat meat that someone has killed.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I disagree; I think this is inconsistent. If someone with a knife can go crazy and hack up a family, someone with a gun can do the same, and the gun makes it easier. And it happens frequently, because too many people have guns.

I take your point about the bear. How about hikers taking stun guns? I would wager most people who run into bears and lions don't get hurt. But it is possible.

Hunting seems to me irrational. Why should we should keep such dangerous toys around? Americans don't seem to be very creative in finding ways to amuse themselves. What's wrong with sports, or playing music, or even watching TV? To those who hunt, I say, find other amusements. Don't kill things.

But if you don't want to follow my advice, go ahead and do what you want. I can't stop you. I just wish you would stop resisting people in NY and CA from trying to get pistols off our streets, by supporting the NRA. I don't mean you specifically, Amy.

I myself do not own a gun, Eric. At this point in time, I do not see any clear, real need to have one. In the absence of such a need, I am indeed concerned more with the possibility of accident, than of a bad situation developing and me not being armed.

I do, however, strongly support my Second Amendment right to keep a firearm. My late Uncle Don (GI, 1917-1968) was NRA, btw... and I am far from ashamed of it.

I do not hunt... but if it became necessary to keep meat on my family's table, then I'd become a hunter... and do it well. No one has the right to tell me I cannot, simply because they themselves prefer vegetables.

But most importantly, if the crime rate in my community were to even come close to what I saw in Newark 35-40 years ago, you better believe I would arm myself to the teeth, learn to shoot and shoot well, and DARE them to come. And if they did, be assured they'd get bullets right between their eyes... as many as I could take down with me before (presumably) being killed myself. When I claim Bernhardt Goetz as a hero of mine, I assure you and everyone else I am NOT being facetious... in fact, he may indeed be the only one I'd call that.

Do you honestly feel that the people in L.A. and N.Y. should be sitting ducks, Eric... for the street thugs who will always find access to guns? I cannot believe that.

Well, that's my radical centrist $0.02 (can anyone remember when the "cents" symbol key disappeared from keyboards?!).

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Uh, whatever dude. You said you own some such sort of crazy weapons in your safe. I could care less which ones they are. You are crazy for even having even one of them.

I won't debate the rest of your post as I have devoted enough time to this already, however I would like to ask you a question on this statement.

Please explain what in your opinion is "crazy" about an AR-15 rifle?

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

Well, that's my radical centrist $0.02 (can anyone remember when the "cents" symbol key disappeared from keyboards?!).

It's still there if you know where to look. ¢2

Press and hold the alt key, then type (in sequence) 0162 from the keypad on the right side of your keyboard (not the top keys), then release alt. It should input all the ¢¢¢¢ you want.

All special characters (in Windows) can be found under Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Character Map. Selecting the character should show you the special keystroke to use at the bottom of the window.

Originally Posted by ASB65

Eric, I am neither for or against gun control. Just simply stating what I have seen with those who own guns. I can see both sides of the issue.

But I do think that everyone is an individual and we all have different interests and hobbies. Just because someone likes to paint, doesn't mean everyone has to. I see nothing wrong hunting as a hobby as long as it is done responsibly. I have never had any interest what-so-ever in hunting. And when my husband did kill a deer I wasn't exactly pleased with the dead animal hanging upside down in the carport while it drained. I think that is pretty gross. But I do understand this is a passion of his, just like playing guitar is another one of his passions. I would never suggest he give up something he loves like hunting, anymore than I would ask him to give up playing guitar. I certainly wouldn't like it if he told me I had to give up something I truly enjoyed just because he didn't like it...The only thing I refuse to do is cook or eat venison. I don't care for the taste of it...But I'm not a vegetarian, so I eat meat that someone has killed.

My brother-in-law says this gun culture is a reflection of the fact that we havent had a "good war" in 60years. He says we need a real draft (all hands on deck), and a real war to ... not sure how to he put it ... thin the herd? No, that's not it. He says we are predators and predators tend to produce predators, and too many of them get in the way of civil society, so basically you need wars to drain off some of the testosterone. Well, that's not exactly what he said, but whatever. I figure it's a man thing. Maybe you understand the idea.

I just have one more thing to add about killing people with or without guns. Just to be the devil's advocate, because like I said I honestly don't have any real strong opinions one way or other when it comes to gun control. But here is a true story. As a matter of fact, this happened in the town I grew up in the last year.

So there is this couple. I'm guessing they are in the late 50's to early 60's. They had been married for years with a grown child. He was an upstanding business man in the community and one of the leaders of his church. I know this couple personally. So his wife discovers that he had been doing some shady and illegal stuff in their business. She confronts him and they have a big fight. Later that night, while she is sleeping, he goes into the bedroom and clubs her several times in the head with a baseball bat. Then he drags her body and pushes her down the basement stairs. He was attempting to make it look like she died from accidentally from falling down the stairs...Well, she didn't die. He is now sitting in prison for attempted and premeditated murder...I don't know whether or not the guy had access to a gun or not. But if he did, he wouldn't have used it because his whole plan was to make her death look like an accident. That wouldn't have been as easy to do if he would have shot her.

So yes, disturbed people do kill or try to kill others without guns all the time.

Originally Posted by jadams

My brother-in-law says this gun culture is a reflection of the fact that we havent had a "good war" in 60years. He says we need a real draft (all hands on deck), and a real war to ... not sure how to he put it ... thin the herd? No, that's not it. He says we are predators and predators tend to produce predators, and too many of them get in the way of civil society, so basically you need wars to drain off some of the testosterone. Well, that's not exactly what he said, but whatever. I figure it's a man thing. Maybe you understand the idea.

Yes, I get it. It is a guy thing. Well, unless you are Sarah Palin. Guys just like guns. I have two sons. The will pick up anything, a stick, a lego, whatever and turn it into a gun. I've figure it's just part of their DNA.

My husband has similar theories to your brother-in-law about guns, the draft and gangs in the inter-cities. He said, when he had wars and the draft, we just drafted them and sent them to war. Now we don't do that, so they these young men are just shooting each other up in the streets.

Originally Posted by Dedalus

I wish I still believed that. I think that, to start with, with basically have decent people elected to congress. Some arrive jaded already from state politics or corporate politics. The good ones, the Mr/Ms Smiths of the bunch, come to Washington all full of ideals and how they are going to make a difference and everything. And then they are subtly subverted.

They could be corrupted very quickly. They are going to see huge amounts of cash flowing to the re-election funds of more-orthodox corporatist types and find that to be more effective at exercising power, they had better sell out to Corporate America.

First, they get the welcoming committee, the office in the capitol building, the staff, the luncheons, the hobnobbing with power brokers. They get called to meetings with bigwigs in the party, maybe the president himself, they are treated graciously by these people. They feel important. Then a big vote comes up, and maybe they feel like the party line isn't correct, or they haven't read the legislation. They get the call from the whip making sure they are going to vote "correctly" and if they aren't, the pressure starts. They delude themselves that this one vote won't matter, and boom, it starts. Soon they are in the fold and part of the bloc. Maybe they campaigned against earmarks, but now they are told this is how the game is played, you have to play ball, here is a perk for your district so that your people are taken care of... Just vote this way on this bill for this company or industry, and you will have nice comfy seat on the board when you retire with a salary you barely have to do anything for... and it gets to even the best of people. Power corrupts.

Politics is a money machine, and lobbyists are the conduits. Some are going to find where the money came from and get greedy. Some will sell out their low-tax, low-spend principles and start doing "you scratch my back, I will scratch yours", and in come earmarks.

Big business is not inimical to big spending. If the big spending is on lucrative contracts and on business subsidies, big business has no qualms about big government. But as tempting as contracts and subsidies are, the really-big money might be in selling off the public sector cheaply to entities that know how to squeeze every possible profit from it.

I don't know about this new class of representatives, these Tea Party folks. They were elected for their principals I'm told. I wonder how long it will take for them to be seduced by power?

Principles? Everyone has a price, especially if one thinks that one can get away with something. Just take a cut, and nobody will notice. Set up a foundation in which you will eventually be the well-paid director. Or even become a lobbyist yourself, which will be one of the ways of making a living that the Congressional representatives defeated in November 2012 will find very attractive.

Now, I could be wrong about all of that, but I am a Joneser/Xer, so I am naturally pessimistic.

It may be a new cause, but the old vices remain as seductive as ever. Power. Wealth. Fame. Revenge.

Originally Posted by ASB65

So yes, disturbed people do kill or try to kill others without guns all the time.

Evil, even.

Isn't that the point? It's not the guns -- or any weapons -- that are evil, it's the people using them to kill or maim other people.

The nuts are the ones trying to anthropomorphize the guns in order to make the discussion emotional instead of rational. Guns aren't macho, they're not evil, they're not going to jump up and kill you because they're in the same house. It's a freaking piece of cold metal!

Our educational system has seriously failed us when we allow ourselves to be told these things and believe them. And our society has failed us and allowed us to become slaves -- literally or figuratively -- when we are told how we can and cannot protect ourselves.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I'm pretty good with a .22 semiautomatic pistol. Maybe not as sexy a killer as Ms. Palin, but close.

Links to any pictures would be appreciated to verify this claim.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

That is not the issue at all. Safety is subject to opinion and conjecture.



Doubtful. How many criminals do you suppose show up at the local gun range to practice? Police? Well, if you know any police officers, just ask them how much they train shooting live ammunition. I bet you will be surprised by the answer (hint: with rare exceptions it isn't very often).

And frankly given the track record of overzealous police operations gone wrong, I can't say I am impressed or even interested in their brand of "public safety":

http://www.cato.org/raidmap/



Um, I do not own a "machine gun" nor did I ever say I did. I merely discussed the laws with which I am familiar. If I did own one it would be because I was licensed to do so. I can assure you that every weapon I own is legal according to both my state's and federal law, so I do have every right to own them whether you like it or not. And that being the case Eric, why would the police invade the home of a law-abiding citizen? Do you support home invasion of innocent citizens?



I may be killed in a freak circus accident. We can get into hypotheticals all we want. I may also hear a burglar breaking a window in the living room while I sleep. He may be carrying a knife with the intention of slitting my throat and raping my girlfriend. I may wake up and greet him at the bedroom door. I may use the weapon to intimidate and subdue him or if that doesn't work, I may defend my life and the life of a loved one by killing him. See how easy hypotheticals are?

With no way of knowing how life will turn out I can only prepare for possible eventualities and give myself a better chance of survival.

Oh and just so you know there are no laws here that state I can't keep my revolver where I keep it, in the manner I keep it. You are ignorant and irrational to even assume otherwise.

Oh and to your last point, none of my weapons have ever been used in a violent manner. But besides that, I made my peace a long time ago that human beings are violent creatures, always have been and always will be. It's in our nature. It's even in your nature Eric.

And that Eric is why I own firearms and will continue to own firearms until the day I die.

But you Eric appear to be getting more and more irrational by the minute. You are sick Eric. I would suggest that you seek some help for that. Maybe get some good meds. I would hate to see you make the news someday holding someone hostage in your underwear.

A large dog can overpower any person. It really is above us 'mere' humans in the food chain. All that separates it from big cats, bears, hyenas, and crocodilians, or for that matter the wolf, is that it is more predictable.

Dogs are powerful, agile, cunning, stealthy, and swift. If it has affection for you, then all of those traits become harmless. But if it fears what some intruder might do to loved ones, every one of those traits becomes a weapon. A knockdown by a dog puts one at the mercy of the perfect wrestler -- one that also bites and scratches.

Dogs have good night vision (unlike ours)and keen scent and hearing. They can read people and they usually figure out who is up to no good. Most crooks have fear of detection by a human, but a dog? A large one can disrupt some serious attacks and impose the primal fear of meeting the worst possible end -- becoming prey. Dogs aren;t man-eaters? They can be very convincing.

If one gets hit from behind by a large animal that makes a leap at 30 mph, then one just might not get to execute the rest of the nefarious plan. But even at that, "Woof! Woof!" is usually adequate warning to abandon a criminal action.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

-yawn-

"America" isn't a thing, and doesn't do things (nor is 'your military', for that matter). Many American people have done many things at any particular period of time. Some of them good, some of them not. Certainly some people engaged in both good things at some times and bad things at other times.

The fiction that there is an "America" as a meaningful moral actor, distinct from the people who acted under its banner, is absolutely no different from the fiction that there is (was?) an "Enron" as a meaningful moral actor, distinct from the people who acted in its name. That is, it serves only to insulate privileged wrongdoers from the consequences of their actions.

Trying to have a discussion with a radical libertarian is sometimes unfruitful.

So . . . when the person, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, requested that his subordinates tell their subordinates (and they tell two friends . . .) to kill people they all regard (fictitiously or not) as Nazi military personnel, was he being immoral?

And I would appreciate restraint on your part regarding the use of "weasel words" -- I think you know what I am trying to ask.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Originally Posted by Zarathustra

So why stop at semiautomatics? Wouldn't you be even better at protecting yourself (and me) if you had something even more powerful?

Tell you what. Go down to a local gun range that rents fully automatic weapons. Shoot a full magazine at a target on full-auto, then another on semi-auto. Look at the results and then come back and ask me the question again.

So you're saying semiautomatics are good enough? Fully automatic would be, er, overkill?

Seriously, why not stock up on grenades or RPG's? I mean, if you're going to be taking on the US armed forces for your sake and mine, wouldn't more be better? Yes, I know they are illegal, but do you not have the right to bear arms because you need to have enough to fight off the government if need be?

I am serious, why do you stop at semiautomatics? Is it because it is the most you can legally get away with? Help me out here.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I see someone has answered you for me. I'll leave it at that.

I never said you would hold someone hostage in your underwear. Wish I had, but I didn't.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Respect it by killing it, I guess. No thanks, I'll be a snob instead.

Hey, as long as he eats it, who cares? That's my take.

Originally Posted by Odin

Your west coast snobbishness is showing.

Heynow. The west coast consists of more than just california. And the pac NW is full of hunters. Coast range deer are tastier than the inland crap anyway... better forage out here.

---

PS.

Grow up, Zar.

Nazis? Seriously?

Originally Posted by jadams

Wow, this was great. Even if it's half true, it's amazing. I always thought Rands views stemmed from her familys experiences during Russian revolutionary period. Never knew about her obsession with this killer.

What a weird connection! But at that, horrible crime, whether committed by a 'superman' criminal like Ted Bundy or the industrial-scale exterminations of a Hitler or a Stalin, is absolutely fascinating. It is much more interesting than the garden variety of crime, let alone the routine drudgery of productive or servile toil.

I have long had the idea that Ayn Rand was a mirror image of a Marxist, incorporating the Marxist practice that people are expendable objects in the ultimate service of historical inevitability and the rejection of any religious tradition as a foundation of morality -- while accepting that the ultimate end of history is something diametrically opposite the Marxist objective of a system that creates unprecedented wealth for all -- one that creates unprecedented wealth, but almost exclusively to the benefit of some economic supermen who can then treat everyone else as a slave to basic needs.

Maybe atheism and agnosticism don't create amorality and immorality -- but a complete lack of empathy does.

Now I know everyone on this forum likes to be real serious, but I can't resist the gossip. Of course Rand had many well documented lovers and many devoted followers. One was Alan Greenspan whom it is said was her lover for a time in the 50's when he was 20 years her junior. When I saw him testifying about our economic collapse and his contributions to it, he seemed sincerely befuddled and said something about how he never believed something like this could happen, that something "must have been wrong with his belief system". He said he sincerely believed that the free market would solve all our problems.

But Alan Greenspan was doing what he thought was right given the economic choices then available. Social justice wasn't one of the available choices, at least in the perverse 3T. Ayn Rand was dead before the 3T began, but her ideas had permeated the MBA programs. One might more wisely ask whether George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were infected with the ideas even if Dubya could claim that he was a 'real Christian'.

At the time I though he and the rest of Wall Street were caught in some sort of shared psychotic disorder (when a stronger disturbed personality with delusions forms an intense relationship with a weaker personality and that person begins to demonstrate the same delusions). Then I thought it was some kind of group think. Put if indeed he did have a highly charged relationship with a sociopathic personally and he became an acolyte, it it explains his stunned shock.

Groupthink. Collect a bunch of people of similar background, education, values, and purpose (even if it is so selfish as "Get all the wealth and power that I can when I can, and $crew the rest of humanity!) and put them in charge of some dominant institution, and all sorts of crazy things can happen.

Just like a sociopath can kill a lot of people, a sociopath with a sick idea can infect a lot of people. I wonder if Milton Friedman was one of her set.

Randism supplanted Friedman's Chicago-school economics before 1980. But I can see Ayn Rand pulling the wool over people's eyes, wondering how many influential people she could fool because she could tell them exactly what they wanted to believe -- that other people are nothing but the means of getting what one wants.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Grow up, Zar.

Nazis? Seriously?

Okay, people they perceive as members of the Imperial Japanese army. Answer the question.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Hmm..

I've not really weighed in on what would be okay or not. Really, the only point of that story was that the person who was shot was someone who had consistently not only advocated, but actually taken concrete steps to cause violence against and harm to real people (that's what the bullshit phrase 'advocate a military presence' actually means in the context of a person of power). The application of violence or the infliction of harm against such a person strikes me as at worst an ethically grey (if not a positive benefit, depending on specifics).

And yet, an attack against such a person is treated as a primary wrong to which the murder of a child is no more than an "plus, also".

Justin, I think you might be letting your self diagnosis-ed pedantic tendencies get the best of you.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

No gun laws with any teeth. The bans on assault weapons don't have any teeth either. Someone is smuggling arms over the border to them from the USA. The other weapons you mention are illegal everywhere. Your fantasy that people could "defend themselves" if they were armed is false. Regular folks with pistols are outgunned and outskilled.

My thought is to ban handguns, or at least tax them outrageously so as to make them difficult to obtain and valuable so that they would be looked after. It is much harder to sneak up on someone with out them noticing if you have a rifle. Also, owning a nine millimeter will not deter the storm troopers if they come for you. Handguns are no deterrent to tyranny and of no military value. They are however quite useful to common criminals and assassins.