“Moms” March Over Brooklyn Bridge for Gun Sense Next Saturday

Heretostay: “Bah! Humbug!”
C’mon Heretostay, this is a great cause and hopefully raises money and awareness.

If they were for gun safety, they would be pushing for gun safety classes in every school. Unfortunately, they are not for “gun sense”, they are for gun control. History has proven that gun control does not work any better than the “War on Drugs” has. Both are utter failures.

Actually, there is now a significant pushback going on. Australian gun control has not decreased the number of firearms in private hands-it’s actually increased them. Same goes for European gun control which is unenforceable as there are now no internal border controls. If they were for true gun sense, they would promote safety, education and reasonable access laws.

True, When I was 12 and a Boy Scout at local Troop 1, we would go once a month to the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s firing range to shoot .22 rifles. It was not only fun, it taught us strict firearms safety, respect and responsibility. It also got the curiosity of firing a gun out of a city boys system. So much safer and productive than the fear and ignorance approach of today.

Actually, many idiots who are pro-gun bring up that argument. So the low blow is by them, not by me countering that delusional and disgusting argument.

Perhaps some of the
“pro gun” idiots do, but most of the intelligent, pro 2nd amendment rights, activists know that even though it is a fact; The Nazis did make it one of their first priorities to confiscate firearms from all those they deemed “unfit” to possess weapons, the Holocaust would have still occurred.

Here I go, disregarding my earlier comment…

The fallacy, as I understand it, is that the occurrence of the Holocaust and any alleged confiscation or prohibition of firearms were two entirely unconnected phenomena, much like the obsolescence of the idea that American individuals with guns would be capable of thwarting some kind of unwanted military action by the US (or other) government, or of overthrowing the government. If every Jewish family in Europe had been armed with rifles they’d have been overpowered with tanks, bombs, aircraft, etc…and the Holocaust was a systematic rejection of the humanity of several groups by many others, not a battle between one side with arms and one side without.

Look, to be candid, I don’t like guns, and I don’t approve of violence as a method of conflict resolution under virtually any circumstances. But that’s a privileged position I hold; I don’t live in a violent place, in fear for my life, without the ability to deescalate conflicts verbally. I’m not well versed in Krav Maga and if I was I still wouldn’t be bulletproof.

Gun violence also isn’t just one phenomenon that regulation can solve or even alleviate. It’s more like three or more separate phenomena, and regulation can only hope to address one or two of them. Better, more long-lasting solutions, if they exist, would be economic, cultural, educational. E.g., close the income gap, de-schedule narcotics, propagandize guns as a shameful taboo rather than as a symbol of masculine autonomy, etc…

Would be the first time Krav Maga has been described as a “nice touch”!

Actually, the problem is in the reporting. Numbers of licensees is always smaller than the number of weapons as generally, multiple weapons may be held on one license. Also, please note that the number of rifles has not significantly declined. Also, please note that if you insist on labeling law abiding gun owners as idiots or other names, we will be less inclined to negotiate. Firearms ownership in the United States is a right.

First, I didn’t use the word “idiot” or any other name so I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Second, even if there’s a problem with the reporting of ownership — a fact I dispute — there’s no rational way there would be a reporting problem with the number of gun deaths. And the number of gun deaths dropped about 65% pretty much overnight in 1996 when they passed their new gun laws.

So the way I see it, there are most definitely rational laws one can pass that allow for gun ownership while still making a substantial difference in the carnage caused by gun owners.

You should know I only eat locally grown, artisanally sourced ideals.

Just curious, what didn’t you agree with?

see below

Why not? If a valid pro-gun argument involves defense then I don’t see why guns should be any sexier than airbags or seatbelts, and from a non-proliferation standpoint it would benefit everyone if they were as socially acceptable as child porn.

Just because a fledgling American government, their ears still ringing with the traumas of colonial rebellion, decided to write into law a provision that reinforced one (very chronologically specific) means by which they achieved their independence, doesn’t make gun ownership—and especially the prevalent culture of masculine autonomy now associated with gun ownership—any less immoral than child porn; and as a side effect of even the most lawful pockets of gun ownership, certainly many more lives are destroyed per year.

To extend the analogy, the camera and the computer are tools primarily used for creating, processing, and distributing forms of information (in fact you and I, in having this discussion, are using the same tools as the child pornographer). The gun, on the other hand, is a tool designed with the sole purpose of causing death. If a tool was introduced whose sole purpose was to temporarily disable—without killing or seriously injuring—someone, then I’d say everyone absolutely should have a legal right to possess such a tool in order to defend themselves. But I don’t think you can make the argument that everyone, by divine right, should be allowed to run around with instruments of instant death while simultaneously making the argument that such a circumstance is a moral imperative and may not be regarded with disgust.

Taking a life is a shameful act; even when done in self-defense it perverts the course of justice and creates years or decades of psychological trauma for both the assailant and the victim, if s/he is so lucky as to survive the incident without serious bodily harm. When one’s finger is on the trigger of a firearm every choice is a Hobbesian one. And what I never seem to hear from proponents of proud, lawful gun ownership is the dread of ever having to make that decision, but instead an eagerness to skip it entirely and bravely kill the bad guys with the twitch of a finger.