Every day, 20 US Children Hospitalized w/Gun Injury (6% Die)

[iNow]

I'm sure iNow knows this. In fact he is very much in favor of the Supreme Court making precedent setting rulings.

My comments have focused on what is factual, not what is preferred.

 

I've also requested this of you before, but will repeat that request here now. Please try to avoid speculations about my intentions or preferences and attempt to comment solely on what I actually post. I will share my preferences openly and honestly and I will defend them or even change them in the face of a well formulated counter argument. No need to guess at my stance or cast implicit aspersions.

 

To that end...

• I'd prefer us to update the existing language within the 2nd amendment to ameliorate these never ending arguments around interpretation.
• I'd prefer we find a smarter approach to gun ownership in the US that respects individual liberties while protecting more of the innocent in parallel.
• I'd prefer if we could agree that unfettered unrestrained access to firearms and ammunition is problematic and that certain checks and balances and protections should be involved throughout the firearm and ammunition purchase>ownership>usage>transfer lifecycle.
• I'd prefer if we could leverage some of the best practices already in place and proven successful in other nations like Switzerland and/or Canada to achieve these ends.
• I'd prefer if we could collectively accept that smart regulations and protections are entirely valid and allowed even within the existing constitutional framework and text, and I'd prefer if we could acknowledge that this is true even absent any changes or edits.
• I'd prefer if more people would approach this discussion in good faith with a common objective of being more intelligent in our approach overall.
• I'd prefer if more people would approach this issue with a shared desire to minimize needless death while also concurrently protecting liberties, as opposed to the consistently-ideological pseudo-religious-extremist stay-on-target-Gold-leader pry-it-from-my-cold-dead-hands mentality that so many like you seem determined to maintain and obstinate to amend.

I promise that I respect and even share many of your feelings regarding this topic. It's a real shame, however, how infrequently that understanding and respect is reciprocated and how your version of compromise entails getting more of what you want and refusing to even consider changing anything at all. Edited July 30, 2015 by iNow

[waitforufo]

My comments have focused on what is factual, not what is preferred.

 

I've also requested this of you before, but will repeat that request here now. Please try to avoid speculations about my intentions or preferences and attempt to comment solely on what I actually post. I will share my preferences openly and honestly and I will defend them or even change them in the face of a well formulated counter argument. No need to guess at my stance or cast implicit aspersions.

 

To that end...

• I'd prefer us to update the existing language within the 2nd amendment to ameliorate these never ending arguments around interpretation.
• I'd prefer we find a smarter approach to gun ownership in the US that respects individual liberties while protecting more of the innocent in parallel.
• I'd prefer if we could agree that unfettered unrestrained access to firearms and ammunition is problematic and that certain checks and balances and protections should be involved throughout the firearm and ammunition purchase>ownership>usage>transfer lifecycle.
• I'd prefer if we could leverage some of the best practices already in place and proven successful in other nations like Switzerland and/or Canada to achieve these ends.
• I'd prefer if we could collectively accept that smart regulations and protections are entirely valid and allowed even within the existing constitutional framework and text, and I'd prefer if we could acknowledge that this is true even absent any changes or edits.
• I'd prefer if more people would approach this discussion in good faith with a common objective of being more intelligent in our approach overall.
• I'd prefer if more people would approach this issue with a shared desire to minimize needless death while also concurrently protecting liberties, as opposed to the consistently-ideological pseudo-religious-extremist stay-on-target-Gold-leader pry-it-from-my-cold-dead-hands mentality that so many like you seem determined to maintain and obstinate to amend.

I promise that I respect and even share many of your feelings regarding this topic. It's a real shame, however, how infrequently that understanding and respect is reciprocated and how your version of compromise entails getting more of what you want and refusing to even consider changing anything at all.

 

I have also been very clear about my position. I am very protective of my rights. Erode one, and you erode them all. Eliminate my ability to protect my rights, and my other rights will likely fall more quickly. I don't care if that hurts your feelings. I don't care if you paint me as extreme. Extremism in defense of my rights is no vice. I don't care if those that take a position different then my own view me as unreasonable. The constitution is on my side. Natural rights is a philosophical concept not a religious one. A philosophical concept held by the founders of our nation. If you don't know that, get a better education. If you don't like me or my posts all I can say is na-na boo-boo stick your head in doo-doo.

[dimreepr]

I have also been very clear about my position. I am very protective of my rights. Erode one, and you erode them all. Eliminate my ability to protect my rights, and my other rights will likely fall more quickly. I don't care if that hurts your feelings. I don't care if you paint me as extreme. Extremism in defense of my rights is no vice. I don't care if those that take a position different then my own view me as unreasonable. The constitution is on my side. Natural rights is a philosophical concept not a religious one. A philosophical concept held by the founders of our nation. If you don't know that, get a better education. If you don't like me or my posts all I can say is na-na boo-boo stick your head in doo-doo.

 

 

Care to answer my question?

Edited July 30, 2015 by dimreepr

[waitforufo]

 

 

Care to answer my question?

Here is a tip. If you think I have missed one or your questions, restate it.

[iNow]

...get a better education. If you don't like me or my posts all I can say is na-na boo-boo stick your head in doo-doo.

Ah, yes. Clearly, a point well made. I hadn't previously considered such a nuanced, mature, and robustly defended stance on this issue. Thanks for gracing us all with that. I genuflect in your general direction, sir.

[waitforufo]

Ah, yes. Clearly, a point well made. I hadn't previously considered such a nuanced, mature, and robustly defended stance on this issue. Thanks for gracing us all with that. I genuflect in your general direction, sir.

One of my prouder moments. Thank you.

I thought it was much more directly to the point than these self aggrandizing, pseudo intellectual, attempts at insults.

... as opposed to the consistently-ideological pseudo-religious-extremist stay-on-target-Gold-leader pry-it-from-my-cold-dead-hands mentality that so many like you seem determined to maintain and obstinate to amend.

I don't think I could have been more clear.

Edited July 30, 2015 by waitforufo

[iNow]

The larger point, friend, is that lack of clarity is not the issue here. The issue here is how unwilling some people are to even consider looking for ways to improve the current status quo.

[waitforufo]

The larger point, friend, is that lack of clarity is not the issue here. The issue here is how unwilling some people are to even consider looking for ways to improve the current status quo.

Red Leader, this is Gold Leader. The issue I see is how unwilling some are to even consider that the status quo is as good as it gets.

 

Gold Leader out.

[overtone]

The issue I see is how unwilling some are to even consider that the status quo is as good as it gets.

The status quo is insane. The status quo has some obvious and serious problems that anyone resaonable can see their way to fixing.

 

Your choice is going to be how this is accomplished. Cooperation with the reasonable is in your best interest.

Edited July 30, 2015 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

Red Leader, this is Gold Leader. The issue I see is how unwilling some are to even consider that the status quo is as good as it gets.

 

Gold Leader out.

"as good as it gets " in the very real sense that practically every civilised country in the world does better.

A dead kid every day is "as good as it gets".

This is "as good as it gets"

[waitforufo]

The status quo is insane. The status quo has some obvious and serious problems that anyone resaonable can see their way to fixing.

 

Your choice is going to be how this is accomplished. Cooperation with the reasonable is in your best interest.

Cooperation. How much cooperation should we have on abortion rights? How much cooperation should we on gay marriage rights? How much cooperation should we have on voting rights?

 

How about this. In order to register to vote you have to supply your own weapon, ammunition, pass a safety test, and qualify on a shooting range. Your voter registration card would now be multi purpose. It would act as your gun registration, concealed carry permit, and guarantee that our militia is well regulated. Can't supply your own weapon, ammunition, pass your safety test, and range qualify, well then you can't vote. So how do you like compromise now?

 

Sorry rights are not up for compromise. Yeah Red Leader can provide all his data from other countries that he likes. Those other countries have never been as dedicated to human rights as we have been. From the "shot heard round the world", (not Bobby Thomson, the other one) those other countries have always considered our passion for rights to be extreme. Who cares what they think? Yeah some people will abuse there rights and lives will be lost. We have a name for that. It's called crime. Those lost lives are the price we pay for keeping all of our rights thereby enabling the rest of our population to achieve their full potential as human beings. Freedom isn't free. Americans have always understood that.

Edited July 30, 2015 by waitforufo

[iNow]

The issue I see is how unwilling some are to even consider that the status quo is as good as it gets.

Reality disagrees.

 

 

 

 

[waitforufo]

Reality disagrees.

 

 

 

 

 

Red Leader you were probably composing the above masterpiece and did not see my proceeding post. Here it is again for your viewing enjoyment.

 

Cooperation. How much cooperation should we have on abortion rights? How much cooperation should we on gay marriage rights? How much cooperation should we have on voting rights?

 

How about this. In order to register to vote you have to supply your own weapon, ammunition, pass a safety test, and qualify on a shooting range. Your voter registration card would now be multi purpose. It would act as your gun registration, concealed carry permit, and guarantee that our militia is well regulated. Can't supply your own weapon, ammunition, pass your safety test, and range qualify, well then you can't vote. So how do you like compromise now?

 

Sorry rights are not up for compromise. Yeah Red Leader can provide all his data from other countries that he likes. Those other countries have never been as dedicated to human rights as we have been. From the "shot heard round the world", (not Bobby Thomson, the other one) those other countries have always considered our passion for rights to be extreme. Who cares what they think? Yeah some people will abuse there rights and lives will be lost. We have a name for that. It's called crime. Those lost lives are the price we pay for keeping all of our rights thereby enabling the rest of our population to achieve their full potential as human beings. Freedom isn't free. Americans have always understood that.

 

Gold Leader out.

Edited July 30, 2015 by waitforufo

[John Cuthber]

" How much cooperation should we have on abortion rights? How much cooperation should we on gay marriage rights? How much cooperation should we have on voting rights? "

We could start with enough cooperation to stop killing people.

 

You need to realise the killing isn't a right; it's a wrong.

"How about this. In order to register to vote you have to supply your own weapon, ammunition, pass a safety test, and qualify on a shooting range. Your voter registration card would now be multi purpose. It would act as your gun registration, concealed carry permit, and guarantee that our militia is well regulated. Can't supply your own weapon, ammunition, pass your safety test, and range qualify, well then you can't vote. So how do you like compromise now? "

That's not compromise though, is it.

You are just being silly.

"Those other countries have never been as dedicated to human rights as we have been. "

Waterboarding. Texan 3 necked flasks Etc. Shucks it took you this long to legalise gay marriage.

[dimreepr]

Cooperation. How much cooperation should we have on abortion rights? How much cooperation should we on gay marriage rights? How much cooperation should we have on voting rights?

 

How about this. In order to register to vote you have to supply your own weapon, ammunition, pass a safety test, and qualify on a shooting range. Your voter registration card would now be multi purpose. It would act as your gun registration, concealed carry permit, and guarantee that our militia is well regulated. Can't supply your own weapon, ammunition, pass your safety test, and range qualify, well then you can't vote. So how do you like compromise now?

 

Sorry rights are not up for compromise. Yeah Red Leader can provide all his data from other countries that he likes. Those other countries have never been as dedicated to human rights as we have been. From the "shot heard round the world", (not Bobby Thomson, the other one) those other countries have always considered our passion for rights to be extreme. Who cares what they think? Yeah some people will abuse there rights and lives will be lost. We have a name for that. It's called crime. Those lost lives are the price we pay for keeping all of our rights thereby enabling the rest of our population to achieve their full potential as human beings. Freedom isn't free. Americans have always understood that.

 

 

What about the right of today’s dead child, to life?

 

America may be a developed nation but while this blatant disregard for human life is not addressed, it can’t call itself a civilised nation.

If you can’t see that the right to life trumps your right to a gun, I pity you.

Edited July 31, 2015 by dimreepr

[waitforufo]

 

 

What about the right of today’s dead child, to life?

 

America may be a developed nation but while this blatant disregard for human life is not addressed, it can’t call itself a civilised nation.

If you can’t see that the right to life trumps your right to a gun, I pity you.

Well, I pity you for believing that the human condition can be improved by giving your rights away to a noble cause. The only result will be suffering. People like you will only realize this when you wake up one day and all your rights are gone. How eagerly you anticipate your chains.

[dimreepr]

 

 

What about the right of today’s dead child, to life?

 

 

 

What about this question?

 

 

Here is a tip. If you think I have missed one or your questions, restate it.

 

 

 

Worth a try I suppose.

Well, I pity you for believing that the human condition can be improved by giving your rights away to a noble cause. The only result will be suffering. People like you will only realize this when you wake up one day and all your rights are gone. How eagerly you anticipate your chains.

 

 

I haven’t given away my rights; I have merely accepted my right to a firearm comes with a condition that means a gun isn’t just given to people that are unable, through mental illness or ignorance, to comprehend the dangers.

 

Your inability to come to terms with the above just shows how selfish you are; you’d rather people die than submit to a simple test, your shame is pitiable, whereas I wear your pity with pride.

 

I have little doubt you’ll fail to understand that, so yet another reason for my pity.

Edited July 31, 2015 by dimreepr

[John Cuthber]

Well, I pity you for believing that the human condition can be improved by giving your rights away to a noble cause. The only result will be suffering. People like you will only realize this when you wake up one day and all your rights are gone. How eagerly you anticipate your chains.

Every day I fail to exercise my right to jump of a tall building.

I relinquish the right to own a gun for the same reason.

[Arete]

Those other countries have never been as dedicated to human rights as we have been.

 

Then why does the USA rank as a 'medium' on the global human rights risk survey for 2014?

 

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/country-chapters/united-states

http://reliefweb.int/map/world/world-human-rights-risk-index-2014

https://maplecroft.com/portfolio/new-analysis/2013/12/04/70-increase-countries-identified-extreme-risk-human-rights-2008-bhuman-rights-risk-atlas-2014b/

 

You're always welcome to your own opinions, but not your own facts. Once you start basing your opinions on falsehoods, they become trivially dismissable.

 

Now I say the following as a gun owner (Ruger American in 308):

 

The original purpose of the Second Amendment seems rather unequivocal - to allow the civilian population to violently overthrow any government of the USA which ceased to represent the will of the people through democratic elections. However, this amendment was written into the Bill of Rights at a time where the muzzle loading musket was at the pinnacle of military technology and obviously military technology has changed considerably since that time.

 

Forms of weapon control are already in existence which ensure that the semi-automatic AR15 which a US citizen can buy is no match for the equipment used by the US military. Thus the US civilian population is unlikely to be able to overthrow a military dictatorship by means of force, and I think one would have to be somewhat deluded to imagine that the Second Amendment is still functional in its originally intended purpose. This renders the Second Amendment a symbolic right important in the fabric of American identity and history.

 

The context in which this symbolic right is interpreted is not in the context of a militias capable of overthrowing a military-industrial complex with a nuclear arsenal, aircraft carriers, stealth bombers and a budget ten times that of the next 10 largest military powers combined. The framework which forms the context of gun ownership in the US is case law which clearly demonstrates that Second Amendment rights are very, very far from absolute and continually revised and updated. The staus quo on how the Second Amendment is interpreted, implemented and limited can and is regularly changed. To claim it cannot be is simply untrue.

 

Hopefully this dispels any argument that gun laws in the US are enshrined in iron clad constitutional rights and cannot be revised in any way, and open a discussion as to whether laws like the Castle Doctrine and Stand your ground are really the precedent in which we wish society to function, why people are so scared of each other we feel the need to have loaded guns in the house, whether or not home protection is in the spirit of the Second Amendment, etc.

 

I also think a lot of misconception exists among gun owners that gun control = banning guns. A lot of regulations have nothing to do with taking people's guns away.

[waitforufo]

You asked...

 

What about the right of today’s dead child, to life?

 

 

I believe this response answers that question.

Those lost lives are the price we pay for keeping all of our rights thereby enabling the rest of our population to achieve their full potential as human beings. Freedom isn't free. Americans have always understood that.

Edited July 31, 2015 by waitforufo

[MigL]

I do believe that America has a gun problem, and I don't think it has to do with gun ownership.

Just like we don't give anyone a licence to drive, as a car could kill a lot more people than a handgun, we should have laws that make sure you are fit to possess and handle such a destructive weapon.

 

Some of the arguments are bordering on the ridiculous though.

Dimreeper's comment ( sorry to single you out ) stating...

 

" If you can't see that the right to life trumps your right to a gun, I pity you."

 

Now, where it says 'gun', substitute the word 'abortion'.

Does it still make sense ?

[dimreepr]

 

Now, where it says 'gun', substitute the word 'abortion'.

Does it still make sense ?

 

 

Not in a thread entitled "every day, 20 US children hospitalized w/Gun injury (6% die)".

You asked...

 

I believe this response answers that question.

 

 

Think again.

Edited July 31, 2015 by dimreepr

[iNow]

Trying to return us to a less emotional approach. I have a sincere question.

 

I understand the need to protect liberties. Why, however, do so many people feel that smart / limited regulations are an unacceptable appalling affront to said liberties when they're discussed in context of firearms, but not other freedoms? We all know that our speech can be limited and in some ways regulated. We accept that our practice of religion can be limited and in some ways regulated. Likewise, we have countless examples of our press being limited and in some ways regulated.

 

So, my questions is: Why not our firearms? Why do so many people feel ANY limitations or regulations of guns equates to tyranny and represents only the complete evisceration of freedom, when we don't equally approach discussion of nearly any other item with that mindset (many of those items themselves protected by an earlier amendment, and hence arguably even more important)?

Edited July 31, 2015 by iNow

[John Cuthber]

You asked...

 

I believe this response answers that question.

So, let's be quite clear about this.

" Those lost lives are the price we pay for keeping all of our rights thereby enabling the rest of our population to achieve their full potential as human beings. Freedom isn't free. Americans have always understood that. "

 

You really think that dead children are not as important as your "right" to carry a gun?

You might want to think carefully about that before you answer, because many people will see an affirmative reply as utterly perverse.

Every now an then, a facebook meme actually nails it.

[dimreepr]

“Your paranoid fantasies about fighting a rebellion against a theoretical future fascist government takeover”

 

The arguments moot anyway, given that any authoritarian government, worth its salt, will seek out and eliminate any potential threat to its governance.