Little brother came to visit

[Guest FIST]

Good luck Robert. Great friends seem few and far in-between.

[DaveTN]

Dave, I'm not trying to be a douche. I appreciate your input, It gives me a chance to step outside of my comfort zone.

Honestly, when I read your post prior to this one and was working on my response I found myself starting to respond emotionally to it. I had to stop and review what I was doing. I'm not sure if your intent was to ellicit an emotional response and if I had responded in person I would have made that mistake.

The fact we are both Pro Gun and can differ strongly on the small things is a testament to our overall love for the 2nd amendment. I feel very strongly (part Army, part OCD) about applying exact terms and definitions to small stuff. That doesn't make me any more right than you are. The questions I posed in response to your posts are questions I really would value your answer on. I'm just trying to learn.

Maybe I'm naive with some of my points or counter points and that's where you old timers can help me out. . I may be young (my body is old, thanks Army) but I'm just as stubborn as most of the folks here.

We agree that everyone should be able to have and carry guns; we disagree on where those rights come from and how you address those that want to ban firearms. I think you were getting a little emotional when you told me I don’t know what an assault rifle is. I have learned on here that when it turns away from the issues and targets the individual its best to bail. Since you say you aren’t trying to make it personal or emotional I will try this again. I won’t bore you with my experience, but I can assure you I know what an assault rifle is.

First let’s address the “Rights†issue. As soon as the words “2^nd Amendment†leaves your mouth in an argument on gun rights; you have lost. The rights issues have been resolved recently with both Heller and McDonald. The SCOTUS made the only choice they could make and leave us with any gun rights; they cut the baby in half. You have a right to “keep†arms, but your right to “Bear†arms lies with the state. The SCOTUS or no other government agency is going tell any state that they must allow their citizens to strap on a gun and walk down the street; it’s not going to happen because its unenforacble. They knew that. But they also knew that if they ruled the 2^nd amendment is not an individual right some states would totally ban firearms; they didn’t want that either.

Now let’s address the “assault rifle†rant. A man walked into a theater and in 2 minutes put down 70 people; no “assault rifles†were present. Do you think that anyone will care what name you put on the gun? Do you think that when they want to ban assault type weapons your argument that your AR-15 is not what Wikipedia or ARFCOM defines as an assault rifle will matter? You aren’t really going to try to make the argument that an AR-15 is not a high capacity battle rifle are you?

You fell into the trap of throwing out the “Chicago†scare. You will have cold hard undisputed facts put in front of you that will dispel the myth that cities where guns are allowed are safer. When I said before “one wordâ€â€¦ Memphis. Memphis is always at the top of any list of high crime cities, yet guns are freely available and citizens can carry; what’s up with that? Having said that… I don’t think gun laws have much to do with crime rates one way or the other.

I don’t try to make people think guns are safe, guns are as safe as the people handling them and I have seen a lot of ignorant people handling guns. Battle rifles were designed to kill people. I use them for sporting as target rifles, but that is not what they were designed for. But if SHTF I at least may a chance of protecting myself from thugs or looters that want to kill me.

70 people were dropped by a single gunman in that theater because no one had the ability to stop the threat. Make all the arguments you want about smoke, noise, whatever, but there are people who could have engaged the threat, because they have done it before, and there are those that have been trained that would have tried even if they haven’t done it before. There are people who would have engaged the threat if they had a gun. Those victims were wounded and died because most states have not grasped the concept that the only way to stop an active shooter is with another active shooter. (Or kill him in simpler terms.)

That’s what just happened in Milwaukee. Who knows what the body count would have been if he hadn’t been engaged and killed. Unfortunately they had to wait for someone with a gun to show up.

Edited August 13, 2012 by DaveTN

[Guest FIST]

We agree that everyone should be able to have and carry guns; we disagree on where those rights come from and how you address those that want to ban firearms. I think you were getting a little emotional when you told me I don’t know what an assault rifle is. I have learned on here that when it turns away from the issues and targets the individual its best to bail. Since you say you aren’t trying to make it personal or emotional I will try this again. I won’t bore you with my experience, but I can assure you I know what an assault rifle is.

First let’s address the “Rights†issue. As soon as the words “2^nd Amendment†leaves your mouth in an argument on gun rights; you have lost. The rights issues have been resolved recently with both Heller and McDonald. The SCOTUS made the only choice they could make and leave us with any gun rights; they cut the baby in half. You have a right to “keep†arms, but your right to “Bear†arms lies with the state. The SCOTUS or no other government agency is going tell any state that they must allow their citizens to strap on a gun and walk down the street; it’s not going to happen because its unenforacble. They knew that. But they also knew that if they ruled the 2^nd amendment is not an individual right some states would totally ban firearms; they didn’t want that either.

Now let’s address the “assault rifle†rant. A man walked into a theater and in 2 minutes put down 70 people; no “assault rifles†were present. Do you think that anyone will care what name you put on the gun? Do you think that when they want to ban assault type weapons your argument that your AR-15 is not what Wikipedia or ARFCOM defines as an assault rifle will matter? You aren’t really going to try to make the argument that an AR-15 is not a high capacity battle rifle are you?

You fell into the trap of throwing out the “Chicago†scare. You will have cold hard undisputed facts put in front of you that will dispel the myth that cities where guns are allowed are safer. When I said before “one wordâ€â€¦ Memphis. Memphis is always at the top of any list of high crime cities, yet guns are freely available and citizens can carry; what’s up with that? Having said that… I don’t think gun laws have much to do with crime rates one way or the other.

I don’t try to make people think guns are safe, guns are as safe as the people handling them and I have seen a lot of ignorant people handling guns. Battle rifles were designed to kill people. I use them for sporting as target rifles, but that is not what they were designed for. But if SHTF I at least may a chance of protecting myself from thugs or looters that want to kill me.

70 people were dropped by a single gunman in that theater because no one had the ability to stop the threat. Make all the arguments you want about smoke, noise, whatever, but there are people who could have engaged the threat, because they have done it before, and there are those that have been trained that would have tried even if they haven’t done it before. There are people who would have engaged the threat if they had a gun. Those victims were wounded and died because most states have not grasped the concept that the only way to stop an active shooter is with another active shooter. (Or kill him in simpler terms.)

That’s what just happened in Milwaukee. Who knows what the body count would have been if he hadn’t been engaged and killed. Unfortunately they had to wait for someone with a gun to show up.

"rights" issue. The response you give is exactly what I'm trying to get from this thread. I've never viewed it that way and never had it presented that way. Its a good point and I didn't understand how you where phrasing it till now.

"Assualt weapon" I definetly see where you're coming from on this. I can not agree with all of it however. There are some things that have been engrained into me by the Army, like an M-4 is a carbine and a M16A2 is a rifle. By most accounts it's the same difference but Its sorta like "Once you see it, you can't unsee it". It's true no one will care what the definition is when they want them gone, no argument there. The sad part is, when you used the term "Battle Rifle" the first thought in my mind was, "It can't be a battle rifle, the cartridge is too small" I suppose that's just who I am now, sometimes it makes me come across as an ass.

"Chicago". Good point, no one has ever shot back at that one with "Insert urban #### hole here". I have honestly never looked at it that way, had my blinders on.

"Safety". I completly agree with you, I have been trying to find a way to present "Protection" in an argument. I think this comes down to the fact as stated earlier that Logic based arguments will never win over the emotion based one.

"HCP". 100% agree. What I have been trying to get at here is how to argue it? The answer is you probably can't. It is logical that a shooter could be stopped by an armed citizen. When the Anti responds to that with a refusal to listen its a tough sell.

Some of my response may have been read or interpreted as "emotional". I assure you that I made an effort not to. I suppose when a person is reading a response and it cuases an emotional reaction of any level to you it can effect how we interpit the info and our response.

Thanks for getting back in it Dave, the city response and rights response were great. I attempt to view things from both sides before I decide in an effort to make an informed decision but I find I forget to apply that from time to time. Thanks again.

Fist

Edited August 14, 2012 by FIST

[AU_88]

Meh

Edited August 14, 2012 by AU_88