Do I Have a Constitutional Right

[BH]

In Vegas they were.

As has been pointed out several times, and dishonestly snipped several times, the right to bear arms does not include the right to use them aggressively.

I've seen it before, this weird argument that if you take Sane Citizen and give him a gun he automatically becomes a Slavering Psychopath, but if you take away that gun he reverts back to Sane Citizen.

This morning my 9 mil made me bacon and eggs for breakfast. They don't become killers if you raise them right.

My .22 rifle makes my bed every morning after I get up.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Yes.......

So a sane society would not let anybody have em to prevent the people who don't give a shit from using them.

Your conclusion does not follow from your premise. Your use of the word "sane" is inaccurate.

 

[untermensche]

So a sane society would not let anybody have em to prevent the people who don't give a shit from using them.

Your conclusion does not follow from your premise. Your use of the word "sane" is inaccurate.

It sure does.

If having the right to some weapons lets people who do not give a shit kill a lot of people a sane society looking to prevent heinous crimes would take away that right.

As much of the civilized world has done.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Your conclusion does not follow from your premise. Your use of the word "sane" is inaccurate.

It sure does.

And I say it doesn't, so there.

If having the right to some weapons lets people who do not give a shit kill a lot of people a sane society looking to prevent heinous crimes would take away that right.

If you really want to stop those who do not give a shit from killing a lot of people you will need to restrict a lot more than guns.

As much of the civilized world has done.

Your use of the word "civilized" is as questionable as your use of the word "sane." But answer me this ... in your anarchist-communist utopia will I be allowed to own firearms? If not, who will prevent me?

 

[untermensche]

If having the right to some weapons lets people who do not give a shit kill a lot of people a sane society looking to prevent heinous crimes would take away that right.

If you really want to stop those who do not give a shit from killing a lot of people you will need to restrict a lot more than guns.

Stupidity.

Just because perfection cannot be achieved is no reason to not do something reasonably productive in itself.

As much of the civilized world has done.

Your use of the word "civilized" is as questionable as your use of the word "sane." But answer me this ... in your anarchist-communist utopia will I be allowed to own firearms? If not, who will prevent me?

That you say anarchist-communist displays ignorance of both.

In a sane society sane restrictions can be enacted.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Since you keep trying to insert moral opinions as if they are already agreed upon, I will have to state this very firmly.

My position is the sane position. My position is the civilized position. My position is the reasonable one. You disagree with my position. Therefore you are not sane, not civilized, and not reasonable.

And you didn't answer my question about your utopia.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

In Vegas they were.

As has been pointed out several times, and dishonestly snipped several times, the right to bear arms does not include the right to use them aggressively.

The right to bear arms implies the ABILITY to use them aggressively. This is very similar to the way a person's right to privacy implies the ability to hide evidence of crimes or commit criminal conspiracy.

The question before you is, at what point does the ability to use weapons aggressively outweigh the utility of the right to bear arms? For all PRACTICAL purposes, this can be quantified as: "As soon as gun-related homicides cause more death or injury than private gun ownership would otherwise have prevented."

In some cases, the tradeoff is pretty obvious: private ownership of machineguns would not have prevented the Las Vegas massacre, therefore private ownership of machineguns is not a practical extension of the right to bear arms.

Private ownership of semi-automatic rifles would not (and in fact, DID NOT) prevent the Sandy Hook massacre, and therefore private ownership of semi-automatic rifles is not a practical extension of the right to bear arms.

Concealed handguns are an ambiguous case, because police officers often use them as a deterrent, as do private citizens (store clerks, homeowners, etc) in self defense of home or property. On the other hand, handguns are BY FAR the most common means of homicide in this country, so without solid data it's very hard to tell if private ownership of handguns prevents more injuries or deaths than it causes.

Shotguns and hunting rifles are very rarely used in crimes; I saw a statistic (I can't find the source anymore) that bolt action rifles were used in exactly THREE homicides in all of 2015, while shotguns were involved in 27, the majority of which were self defense. If this is true, then rifles and shotguns would indeed prevent more deaths than they cause, on the whole.

I've seen it before, this weird argument that if you take Sane Citizen and give him a gun he automatically becomes a Slavering Psychopath, but if you take away that gun he reverts back to Sane Citizen.

That's not the argument, though. The argument is that there are certain times in every man's life -- conditions of stress or despair or rage or other form of transitive weirdness -- in which he should absolutely NOT have access to firearms. By the same token, there are also certain people who should, under NO conditions whatsoever, EVER be trusted to have access to firearms. The latter category is described under the umbrella term "mental health." But the Adam Lanzas and Steven Paddocks of the world are actually better examples of the former: deeply troubled but otherwise rational people who decide, for reasons known only to them, to do something terrible with guns.

You cannot guaranty that you will always be of sound mind, make rational decisions, exercise the best caution and self control at all times. You, who cannot know the future, certainly cannot guaranty that you will never ever use a firearm recklessly or irresponsibly or act out of anger, or fear, or despair, or under the influence of drugs or alcohol. There is no way you can guaranty any of that to anyone's satisfaction. There IS, however, a simple way I can guaranty that if you DO decide to do something terrible with a firearm, the amount of damage you can do will be relatively small. I can do this by limiting your access to firearms and/or restricting the type and number of weapons you are allowed to legally own. So that if one day you get pushed over the edge and snap, that you will not have the tools at your disposal to easily pull off a massacre.

 

[untermensche]

Since you keep trying to insert moral opinions as if they are already agreed upon, I will have to state this very firmly.

My position is the sane position.

Nothing sane about allowing that guy to have those weapons.

My position is the civilized position.

Tell it those people he killed.

My position is the reasonable one.

Your position is to do nothing about the ability of sick individuals to do more damage than any human should be allowed to carry out.

You disagree with my position.

Because it is immoral, insane, and uncivilized

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Since you keep trying to insert moral opinions as if they are already agreed upon, I will have to state this very firmly.

My position is the sane position. My position is the civilized position. My position is the reasonable one. You disagree with my position. Therefore you are not sane, not civilized, and not reasonable.

Because it is immoral, insane, and uncivilized

But I've just defined my position as sane, civilized, and reasonable, therefore you can't define it otherwise.

See how it works? If you try to insert disputed moral judgements as if they are settled, I get to do so as well.

Maybe you should try not doing that and stick to the facts. I know facts are anathema to ancoms, but you should try anyway.

Oh, and in your ancom utopia, what would prevent me from owning firearms?

 

[untermensche]

Because it is immoral, insane, and uncivilized

But I've just defined my position as sane, civilized, and reasonable, therefore you can't define it otherwise.

You can define allowing that guy the ability to kill those people any way you like.

It is still insane, immoral, and uncivilized.

If we allowed people to own nuclear weapons is that insane?

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

But I've just defined my position as sane, civilized, and reasonable, therefore you can't define it otherwise.

You can define allowing that guy the ability to kill those people any way you like.

Thank you, so now we agree that my position is moral, sane, civilized, and reasonable, and that makes your immoral, insane, uncivilized, and unreasonable.

Or we can stop attaching disputed moral judgements as if they are already settled and agreed upon.

If we allowed people to own nuclear weapons is that insane?

I'll answer yours if you answer mine.

It occurs to me, I think you actually do not realize that I'm simply doing the same to you that you have been doing to others. You asserted moral qualities, so I asserted moral qualities. You actually don't see that.

 

[untermensche]

You can define allowing that guy the ability to kill those people any way you like.

Thank you, so now we agree that my position is moral, sane, civilized, and reasonable, and that makes your immoral, insane, uncivilized, and unreasonable.

It is not.

But with the immoral and uncivilized and insane you cannot reason.

If we allowed people to own nuclear weapons is that insane?

I'll answer yours if you answer mine.

I don't care what you think. Make some sense or be stepped over.

If we can limit nuclear weapons we can reasonably limit any weapon we choose.

And if some weapons can do more damage than any human should be allowed to carry out and if it is reasonable to remove them they should be removed.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Uh oh. The thread is skipping.

 

[untermensche]

Uh oh. The thread is skipping.

All we have to do is look beyond the borders of the good ol' insane USA.

What is the rest of the civilized world doing?

In health care?

In terms of firearms?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Because it is immoral, insane, and uncivilized

But I've just defined my position as sane, civilized, and reasonable, therefore you can't define it otherwise.

Well, he just did. And he provided a criterion by which one can objectively judge it as such. You, on the other hand, define "sane and reasonable" quite literally as "Whatever I happen to like" which is not what either of those words mean. We had this discussion before too: just because a solution is the optimal one for a particular outcome doesn't make it the "sane and reasonable" one.

There is not, for example, a "sane and reasonable" way to ruin someone's life. There is an EFFECTIVE way to do this, there is an EFFICIENT way to do this, but there is no SANE AND REASONABLE way to do an insane and unreasonable thing.

Your position is immoral, insane, and uncivilized. Arguing that it is efficient or even (for whatever reason) preferable does not change this fact.

If you try to insert disputed moral judgements as if they are settled, I get to do so as well.

Morality isn't subject to relativism within the context of a society, mainly because we all agree on the same GENERAL moral code. Within this context, it is agreed that there is a threshold of risk in which public safety takes precedence over individual rights. Exactly where this threshold lies with gun ownership is a matter of some debate, but it is not nearly as ambiguous as you are making it out to be, and your position is CLEARLY well beyond what we would consider a morally acceptable threshold of risk.