This organization against guns opened a gun store in NYC to make a point.

[AntiBlitz]

Assume two cities, both with trustworthy and reasonable equipped police-force.

Only difference of the two cities is: one city allows people to carry firearms and other lethal weapons with nearly no control. You must assume that everyone you meet potentially could be armed and therefore one must consider to get armed as well

The other city has strict controls on ownership and transactions with firearms and other lethal weapons. You can assume that people on the street are not armed - and if you meet someone who is armed it is only natural to be deeply alarmed an run for cover and call for help.

I would still prefer the city with strict controls on weapons. I dont want to get armed myslef.

And for those who still hang to the argument that also a car can be used to damage and hurt others:  firearms do this job a lot easier and effective.  Point and pull the trigger. Its really not much of an effort to bring pain and death - even accidentally.

I appreciate the spirit of the original video. Only legal place for firearms in my opinion is in lawenforcemnt, professional hunt and war.

if you look up the difference between say Texas, and Maryland, to states with rather opposite views on gun control, youll see that actually the statistics show Maryland, with the most gun control in nearly the entire nation has higher stats then Texas.  Stricter gun control does nothing to stop the crime, it just restricts the law abiding citizens.  Im sure there are other factors that also interact with the stats like poverty, but either way, Baltimore, the murder capital of America doesnt get that title for nothing, and its gun laws dont seem to do much.

I still would prefer that ownership of weapon is a criminal act on itself (with exception of lawenforcemnt, professional hunt and military).

the ownership isnt the problem, plenty of people own them, its carrying them on your person while about the town thats is the issue, i could care less if you owned a bazooka, as long as you werent carrying the bazooka in your pants while i worked.  This in turn is up to the state, but most states have laws in place about the possession of the weapon on your person without licensing, though like i said before, it doesnt really matter, as its more so just a hindrance to law abiding civilians while the criminal carries it anyways.

Never forget, we do have our "fredums" so you can simply just chose not to own them and like you said, live in the area that feels ideally the same and with the laws you approve of.(like California, bunch of hippy fucks with crazy gun laws, or New jersey)

[Christo]

This "two cities" example is interesting.

What keeps me from smuggling a fuckton of guns from the loose town to the stricter one, and go for easier, unarmed targets?

Seems fucked up if I look at it this way.

[Kafein]

Your nuclear bomb thing is just a slippery slope fallacy.

It's not even that, it's just wrong. What something is "designed for" does not matter, only what it actually is does matter.

[BlindGuy]

...i could care less if you owned a bazooka...

You realise that this means you do care, right? The phrase you're looking for is "I couldn't care less"

[Xant]

It's not even that, it's just wrong. What something is "designed for" does not matter, only what it actually is does matter.

It is also that (SSF), but it's a lot of other things as well. And yes, indeed.

Also, there have been states that were super strict about gun ownership and had high crime, then when they loosened up the gun laws crime went down a lot, as did murders.

[Kafein]

Also, there have been states that were super strict about gun ownership and had high crime, then when they loosened up the gun laws crime went down a lot, as did murders.

I think it's obvious that there's no "one size fits all" here, and I'm ready to put my money on some significant demographic differences between pros and antis gun regulation.

[Xant]

I think it's obvious that there's no "one size fits all" here, and I'm ready to put my money on some significant demographic differences between pros and antis gun regulation.

I think the demographic of the area is the most important thing here. Loose guns laws in a state with tons of ghettos and derelict cities = predictable results. State that consists of upper class whites in their nightmarishly well-maintained and boring neighborhoods and no gun control = predictable results.

[Clockworkkiller]

lets all go to my thread and talk about boogers

[Swaggart]

It's not even that, it's just wrong. What something is "designed for" does not matter, only what it actually is does matter.

Maybe I used the wrong word. Replace designed for with engineered to do. To me, what a product is engineered/designed to do defines what it is.

[Xant]

Maybe I used the wrong word. Replace designed for with engineered to do. To me, what a product is engineered/designed to do defines what it is.

For you, maybe, but that's just objectively wrong. Sometimes the two are the same, but far from always.

[Kafein]

Maybe I used the wrong word. Replace designed for with engineered to do. To me, what a product is engineered/designed to do defines what it is.

That's still wrong. Things that are, simply exist, no matter the "cause" of their existence. Purpose is a human abstraction, it cannot define anything.

[Swaggart]

No Xant if anything it's subjective to suggest a gun is anything but a gun. To me a gun is a gun because it is declared by the manufacturer as such. It is classified by laws and regulations as a gun. It will never be a book end or a toothbrush even if you use it like one. The fact that to someone else it might be something else is entirely subjective. But I'm seriously not going to argue about philosophical nonsense about what something is and isn't. It so far removed from practicality that it's a complete waste of time.

[Oberyn]

Society itself is built around the implicit threat of violence. If you can't see a gun as a tool with a very clear purpose in that situation, you're just not looking at a big enough picture. Usual disclaimer about different perceptions of guns depending on whether the context is densely populated urban or sparsely populated rural apply as always, as in any arguement about gun control.

[Xant]

No Xant if anything it's subjective to suggest a gun is anything but a gun. To me a gun is a gun because it is declared by the manufacturer as such. It is classified by laws and regulations as a gun. It will never be a book end or a toothbrush even if you use it like one. The fact that to someone else it might be something else is entirely subjective. But I'm seriously not going to argue about philosophical nonsense about what something is and isn't. It so far removed from practicality that it's a complete waste of time.

Who was suggesting a gun isn't a gun? What? How does that even make sense? A gun is, by definition, a gun. I have no idea what you're going on about.

[Kafein]

but you cannot deny that one is functionally designed to be good at a certain task that the other is not designed to be good at.

Designed to be good doesn't equal to actually being good. Plenty of things not designed to kill do kill more effectively than weapons.

No Xant if anything it's subjective to suggest a gun is anything but a gun.

Well that's exactly what we're telling you.

To me a gun is a gun because it is declared by the manufacturer as such. It is classified by laws and regulations as a gun.

An object is called a gun because that object corresponds to the definition of the word "gun". Manufacturers, laws and regulations may use other definitions of "gun", yet for communication to be effective we only need to declare one of them as accepted.

It will never be a book end or a toothbrush even if you use it like one.

Again, I agree but you seem to be contradicting yourself. What about the engineers who created a gun with the intent of making something you can brush your teeth with?

The fact that to someone else it might be something else is entirely subjective. But I'm seriously not going to argue about philosophical nonsense about what something is and isn't. It so far removed from practicality that it's a complete waste of time.

Semantics are important. If we accept multiple meanings for the same words, communication breaks and detecting fallacies becomes exceptionally difficult.

Society itself is built around the implicit threat of violence. If you can't see a gun as a tool with a very clear purpose in that situation, you're just not looking at a big enough picture.

Yet that's not what people arguing pro-guns will actually use as an argument. They will say guns are mostly used for self-defense (against humans and animals), hunting and recreation. The threat of violence merely refers to the guns used by the authorities, not that of the public. Seems completely irrelevant to me.



The main point is that because a gun is "designed to kill" doesn't make it an undesirable or useless thing by definition. First off, hunting guns aren't designed to kill humans although some of them can. Regardless, being designed to kill doesn't mean it cannot be used as self-defense or even merely deterrence. Conversely, some weapons and equipments such as sniper rifles and silencers are difficult to justify selling to the public, no matter how hostile their environment is.