The Gaming Den

For NO REASON WHATSOEVER the right wing has suddenly flipped out this week over Obama taking away their precious metal dicks even though no one is even talking about any kind of gun control.

I'm really past the point of giving a shit about this. This issue, like nothing else, causes certain segments of the population to squeal like shaken babies--I mean, you can't even get a reaction like this over abortion. Keep your fucking penis replacement toys, we have bigger fish to fry.

But no. Wingnuts have to wig the fuck out if someone even mentions gun control and derail any kind of sensible discussion. What the fuck, jackasses?

The week before that, someone was going to take away their dollar. And the week before that someone was going to make them have to share the airwaves with liberals.

All proposals of laws we've had in the past, which stood until liberals decided they weren't worth the trouble.

Which was like, twenty, thirty years ago.

I know, it's weird.

-Crissa

Think about your post for a bit. You said that guns were penis extensions for them-how would you feel if you thought someone was going to chop off your dick? I mean I don't really care about that but actual men seem to value theirs rather highly.

Think about your post for a bit. You said that guns were penis extensions for them-how would you feel if you thought someone was going to chop off your dick? I mean I don't really care about that but actual men seem to value theirs rather highly.

In the greatest irony of all, hysterical male conservatives will not see the irony of their position.

Once you accept the big lies, the little ones can even be rational. I mean, if Obama really is Satan, everything he does is obviously to further Evil, regardless of how innocuous it may seem. All you have to know is that he's doing something, and you can be pretty much certain that he's doing it because he hates you.

Every time there's a high profile shooting, gun control discussions start up again all over the country. It's natural, even sensible.

So the Wingnuts get all panicky every time one of them shoots up some place, because they are afraid it's the last straw and they'll finally hae their shit taken away.

-Username17

So it'd be correct to say that, above the fact that shootings are bad for everyone in general (as you never know if you, or someone you love, is going to be the one killed), the gun-nuts should be especially concerned about mass shootings and trying to stop them?

Or do they simply do nothing about the issue, then go all-defensive (and indeed, offensive) when someone says "You know, maybe we SHOULDN'T be handing out assault rifles to any idiot who asks for one?" and start grasping for reasons why they totally need to keep their own twin-linked autocannon with underslung incendiary cluster bomb launcher?

Because it'd be much easier to respect them if they said "Okay, mass shootings are a problem. Let's find ways to stop this kind of thing while still letting sensible people own firearms."

Koumei wrote:start grasping for reasons why they totally need to keep their own twin-linked autocannon with underslung incendiary cluster bomb launcher

well of course, I'd totally want my penis extension to have three massive barrels.

Koumei wrote: Because it'd be much easier to respect them if they said "Okay, mass shootings are a problem. Let's find ways to stop this kind of thing while still letting sensible people own firearms."

There's their problem with your proposal right there.

Discussing politics on the Internet is even more dangerous than discussing gaming theory, but I will give it a try.

First, let me say that I do not own a gun. Actually, I do, an antique .22 longarm, and it is serviceable, but we have no ammo for it. It is a family heirloom and is cared for but unused. I was taught to shoot and care for firearms as a kid but never really caught "gun fever". With that said, I think gun control mechanisms are a waste of valuable resources. Everyone likes to leap on the anti-assault weapons bandwagon because there really is no point in owning them, but they aren't really the problem, are they? It isn't right wingers shooting people with semi-automatics with expanded clips (probably the most likely sub group in the US to own such a device) that causes the death toll, it is the handguns, and that is a much different story. Firearm homicides are caused by the illegal use of guns, not the safe use of guns, regardless the type of gun. And thus to reduce firearm homicides we would need to disarm those most likely to commit acts of violence with them. By far and away that would mean targeting the Black population and the poor, hardly a noble pursuit. So I am against a ban because if it were to be an effective ban designed to eliminate firearm homicides it would disproportionally affect people that already have a tough life and could use the money the government is spending on the ban in more productive ways.

I am also against a gun ban because, while firearm deaths are a tragedy, they are hardly a leading cause of death. They aren't even in the top 10. Medical issues like heart disease, cancer, and plain old pneumonia far outstrip deaths by firearms on a per capita basis, sometimes by an order of magnitude. If we want to really save lives, we should instead invest the money in suicide prevention, cancer and heart-related research and education/prevention programs. Or maybe we could invest in safer technology for vehicles which still cause many time more deaths per capita than firearms. All of these are more likely than death by firearm and are no less tragic if it is your loved one that is lost.

Because of these issues, I do not support gun ban laws, even the "edge case" of assault weapons, though I guess I could be persuaded to vote this way if the cost were quite minor.

My major problem with gun control laws runs like this:

Criminals don't have to obey the law. It's part of the job description.

I mean, yeah, the average citizen wouldn't have a gun, and therefore wouldn't have the means to shoot somebody when he's pissed at them.

But he'd still have the means to kill them.

One of my anthropology teachers did his fieldwork in Belize, and said he was interested when he heard firearms were illegal in Belize. Then he got there and found the most common murder weapon was the machete, which most households own more than one of.

Point is, people are going to murder each other, with whatever they have handy. And if I had a choice, I'd rather be shot or stabbed/slashed to death.

That being said, gun nuts weird me out. I just can't get excited by firearms, despite actually owning a couple (well, actually, they're currently in my dad's closet right now).

Maxus wrote:That being said, gun nuts weird me out.

I imagine they'd find your obsession with role-playing gaming pretty strange as well. But, yeah, the obsession with implements of death does seem to bring out the worst in people. At least with martial arts, there's often pseudo-mystical pacifist bullshit & fitness to temper the fact that it's nothing but knowing how to harm others.

Say any way to find out the number of successful self defense cases from firearms to compare them to the number in house incidents involving them or other accidental victims?
That would seem to me to express the net benefit to risk ratio of private gun ownership for personal protection

Lago PARANOIA wrote:For NO REASON WHATSOEVER ?

Um, did you miss the right wing neo-nazi up the street from me wasting 3 cops with his AK on saturday morning?

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09095/960749-53.stm

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09095/960750-53.stm

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09097/961072-53.stm

It's kind of a big deal around here.

And as PA is the ancestral homeland of the Pro-Gun Democrat, no laws are likely to change:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com:8000/x/pi ... 19685.html

"He always said that if someone tried to take his weapons away he would do what his forefathers told him to do and defend himself. He never threatened violence. He preached self-defense."

They were surprised that he murdered police officers? What the fuck? He literally said he planned to do exactly what he did!

As to the now-expired Clinton assault weapons ban

1. It made absolutely no sense as written
2. It worked - in that it reduced gun crime
3. It cost Clinton's party control of congress

Point 1: Seriously, the factors that determined whether a gun was legal under the ban included place of manufacture and shape of the grip. Neither of these are really salient to the use or destructive potential of a firearm.

Point 2: Reconciling this with point 1 seems impossible, until you realize how our legal system functions. The somewhat arbitrary nature of the restrictions frequently gave prosecutors additional charges to bring against criminals.

But Point 3 is what's most relevant to the potential of future legislation. Obama is no dummy, and he has too many other crusades, he's not about to expend the sort of political capital it would take to enact any major gun-control laws nor will he risk losing congress for an issue he didn't even campaign on.

Lich-Loved wrote:Everyone likes to leap on the anti-assault weapons bandwagon because there really is no point in owning them, but they aren't really the problem, are they?

There were a few incidents before the ban that suggest that they can be a serious problem.

Maxus wrote:My major problem with gun control laws runs like this:

Criminals don't have to obey the law. It's part of the job description.

True if and only if: by "gun control" you mean "total gun ban".

When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns
BUT
When guns are slightly more restricted then only the slightly less impulsive will have guns

Point 1) That was written by the gun lobby, so it's facetious for them to complain about it.

And one of the reasons criminals have guns is because guns are so readily available to be stolen. The price of a gun on the American black market is dirt compared to a nation with a gun ban like Japan or the UK.

Strangely, the gun lobby works against laws securing weapons or licensing weapon owners as well... Kinda like they want guns to be stolen or used inappropriately.

-Crissa

Crissa wrote:Strangely, the gun lobby works against laws securing weapons or licensing weapon owners as well... Kinda like they want guns to be stolen or used inappropriately.

This is one of the things that I think is inane about our gun laws. If we are going to sell guns, the people buying them need to be licensed and trained and tested by an independent authority. We don't let people drive cars without a basic competency test and the same should go for guns of any kind. Granted, cars are deadlier than handguns per capita, but society as a whole benefits a great deal more from the utility of a vehicle, which can be put to many lawful and even profitable uses. "Handguns are made for killing, they ain't good for nothing else" as the song goes, and warrant at least the same scrutiny we place on automobile drivers.

Yeah, I'm okay if the tracking of gun sales is somehow independent of licensing users... But if joe blow has a frickin' weapon, I want him part of a well regulated militia, not just hanging his shotgun on his bed.

-Crissa

Crissa: Why is that? The guy with the shotgun over his bed is not the problem. The 17 yr old crack dealer is the problem and he owns a handgun or three. If you prevent the guy from having his shotgun in his truck/bedroom, you are effectively disarming only the law abiding citizens. It's like you think that rednecks are the cause of firearm fatalities in this country. That is clearly not the case.

If you are really interested in saving lives and want to focus on guns instead of where the real problems are in society (medical issues), focus on disarming the inner city minorities (as unfair as that would be) where firearm deaths are the #1 cause of violent death.

But the guy with the shotgun by his bed is responsible for as many deaths, accidental or self-inflicted or intentional. And his unsecured weapon is the target of thieves, who then sell it to the guy on the street corner.

He ought to have the thing locked so that it cannot be used against him or stolen, and therefore not sold to the criminal.

If we didn't let so many weapons go from legal to criminal owned, would criminals have weapons? It's not like criminals buy them from the factory.

The supreme court just ruled that we cannot disarm cities, even voluntarily, which really pisses off the law-abiding citizens of New York City and Washington, DC, who didn't want guns slung from beds in their municipalities.

-Crissa

LL wrote:Why is that? The guy with the shotgun over his bed is not the problem.

Of course he is. People who have guns in their homes are more likely to shoot other people both on purpose and on accident. Their homes are more likely to be robbed, and those robberies are more likely to end in injuries and fatalities. People who literally have guns over their beds are even more so because those weapons aren't locked up. Furthermore, these people are noticeably more likely to attempt suicide than the rest of the population and they are substantially more likely to succeed in doing so. And if they have children in the house those children are substantially more likely to have a deadly accident than children in an unarmed home.

People owning guns makes people less safe. First of all it makes the people literally owning the firearms the most less safe. But it also makes their family and neighbors less safe as well.

That is the problem. The problem is that statistically owning a gun is a safety liability not only for the person owning the weapon, but for everyone around them. Now while I will grant that this is substantially more true for pistols than it is for shotguns, but the safety record of all firearms is universally bad.

A majority of people who commit a crime with a firearm get it from family or friends. Guys who have guns in their house are ultimately the problem in the majority of cases.

---

Of course, less than 10% of the violent crimes in the US are actually committed with a firearm, but the fact remains that those crimes that are lead to a disproportionate number of injuries and fatalities. Which is the key to this entire discussion. Yes, people punch and kick and throw bricks, and whatever. But when people have guns at all, more people die. That's just a cold hard fact.

-Username17

Crissa wrote:But the guy with the shotgun by his bed is responsible for as many deaths, accidental or self-inflicted or intentional.

Actually, he is not. Here are a few things I dug up on the 'Net concerning firearm violence in the US. All data is from the CDC WISQARS system and the US Census Bureau and is for 2005, the last year for which these systems contain records:

Total population: 298,757,310
Total firearm homicides: 12,352 (#2 cause of violent death )
Per capita: 4.1 per 100,000

Of these homicides:
Black victims (includes Hispanics identifying as black): 6,703
White victims (includes Hispanics identifying as white): 5,266
White deaths per capita: 2.4 per 100,000 (white population 221,457,175) (#4 cause of violent death)
Black deaths per capita: 18.1 per 100,000 (black population 36,969,063) (#1 cause of violent death)

This means that black men and women of all ages have an incidence rate 9 times that of white for homicide by firearm. I do not suppose you are suggesting that the rednecks are the ones shooting the blacks at this rate; it can only be the black on black crime that is behind this appalling disparity. Additionally, the #6 leading cause of all deaths (intentional and unintentional)for blacks is homicide where as it is the #20 cause of death among whites.

Regarding accidental death by firearm (again for 2005 only):

Total Incidents: 789
Per capita: 0.26 per 100,000 (15th leading cause of death)

Whites incidents: 601
White per capita: .27 per 100,000 (16th leading cause of death)

Black incidents: 154
Black per capita: .42 per 100,000 (11th leading cause of death)

Once again, "white guys with shotguns by their bedsides" are not accidentally killing themselves at some prodigious rate. The rate of accidental gun death is right where you would expect it to be, in the armed camps that deal with gun violence as a way of life. Additionally, it doesn't take much analysis to see that to prevent the 789 accidental death by firearms (or hell, all 13,00 or so firearm related deaths in 2005) would cost a tremendous fortune, one that might be spent investing in better cures for pneumonia (at 63,001 deaths in 2005 it is the 8th leading cause of death).

Crissa wrote:And his unsecured weapon is the target of thieves, who then sell it to the guy on the street corner. He ought to have the thing locked so that it cannot be used against him or stolen, and therefore not sold to the criminal.

This is true to a point, but should we really lock up this guy's gun to prevent the true criminals from getting a hold of it? While the argument may be a bit of a strawman, you might also say we might want to ban cars to stop drunk driving deaths. If you won't accept that approach, then look at it this way: our country already has a Prohibition going on: the War on Drugs. How much does that cost us and could the money be better spent? How effective is it? How much does it unfairly target minorities and the poor? Are you saying a Prohibition of one sort or another on guns is going to improve things? I think not. And I do think that forcing decent people (of any race) to lock their guns up is a prohibition; they might as well not have them at all.

Crissa wrote:If we didn't let so many weapons go from legal to criminal owned, would criminals have weapons? It's not like criminals buy them from the factory.

Reference the car ban to stop drunk driving. Simply because we have criminals doesn't mean we should punish everyone that acts responsibly.

Crissa wrote:The supreme court just ruled that we cannot disarm cities, even voluntarily, which really pisses off the law-abiding citizens of New York City and Washington, DC, who didn't want guns slung from beds in their municipalities.

Yes I recall that now that you mention it. I am actually glad this was done, because enforcing a Prohibition on something popular (for whatever reason) has lead to failure repeatedly in this country. It didn't work with alcohol, it isn't working with drugs and it certainly will not work with guns. I am not saying that the Court used this reasoning (they undoubtedly went to the 2nd amendment), but the practical impact of the ruling was the same.

It isn't right-wingers or rednecks that are the source of the firearm carnage in this country. Your posts here and the posts above indicate that this is the case when it clearly is not. I agree that any sort of homicide is deplorable, but do not think that a Prohibition that will cost billions, is doomed to fail as other Prohibitions have in the past, would disarm the law abiders and empower the criminals and unfairly target minorities and the poor (should a miracle occur and the prohibition be effective) is the answer. Those billions could go to improving health care for the poor and save far more lives than the 13,000 lost to all gun violence in 2005.

I understand you feel passionately about this topic and am not disagreeing with you to raise your ire, but to get you to at least consider the other side of the argument. And for the record I am not a republican. I despise them as I do all of the political "choices" I currently have, so I have no ideological axe to grind here.