US Supreme Court upholds individual right to gun ownership

[Asher]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
There are limits to free speech. You cannot state libel. There are no absolute rights to anything, and that includes the right to bear arms.

Thank you for stating the obvious as well as reinforcing my point to your friend DD. Perhaps you could sit him down and explain that to him.

The burden is on those who are drawing the line to justify withholding the weapons, not on those who wish to own the weapons. You would have to come up with a compelling case as to why the line drawn should not permit handguns.

Do you know how stupid this is? You've said the only way to make a compelling case is to ban it then compare the results, yet you say we need such results before we can ban it. Are you this stupid or do you think we're all stupid?

[Ben Kenobi]

Do you know how stupid this is? You've said the only way to make a compelling case is to ban it then compare the results, yet you say we need such results before we can ban it. Are you this stupid or do you think we're all stupid?

That's the problem with taking away rights Asher.

You said I was inconsistant, how can you justify taking rights away from people just because you are personally opposed?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
That's the problem with taking away rights Asher.

You said I was inconsistant, how can you justify taking rights away from people just because you are personally opposed?

So is this why you're in favour of gay marriage? I always thought you were opposed to it. That's funny.

The problem with me, Ben, is I'm a thinker. I've got what the scientists refer to as a "brain" and I can use this "brain" to analyze a situation. I can gather statistics, sure, but that doesn't tell me enough. I need to go back to square one: what is a gun? Well, a gun is an instrument designed to kill. Then I think, "What purposes do guns have?".

So, one purpose is assisting in apprehending criminals or eliminating threats to public safety. That sounds like what we have law enforcement for. I think they should have guns.

Another purpose is sport hunting. I'm personally opposed to that, but at this point I don't think rifles or even shotguns should be banned. Let people get their rocks off owning mother nature with technology they bought at the store. I think they're pathetic, but that's their business.

But what about hand guns? Handguns are not for hunting. Handguns are for concealing from other people and for shooting other people with the intent to kill. There's no other purpose to them. Why should citizens have a device whose only purpose is to kill other people, when killing other people is a crime? Fundamentally, any intelligent person should realize this is not conducive to lowering crime rates and protecting public safety.

The fact that all the statistics we have show remarkably lower murder rates in comparable countries that do have far stricter gun laws is a nice plus, but it's not really central to the argument since statistics can lie and we can't show a definitively causal relationship. Even if we put one state in theoretical isolation and somehow magically removed every firearm, gun advocates such as yourself would find excuses -- "oh, the socioeconomic status changed", etc. Nothing would ever satisfy your requirement, which is exactly how you want it.

In some cases, Ben, we need to just think. I think the country would be worse off if we allowed citizens to use nuclear weapons, and I also think the country would be worse off if we allowed citizens to use handguns. Whether you don't mind that tens of thousands of people are dying every year from handguns when they absolutely would not all be dying without them is your problem and rests on your conscience. I would say that a true Christian with true Christian morals should be opposed to handguns since all they do is kill.

I do find it funny from that respect -- here I am, an anti-religion crusader who also happens to be homosexual is probably representing more of God's wishes than you are, since you seem to not mind weapons of murder in your hands or the hands of those around you.

[Elok]

Sorry, Asher, but you have to be substantially more obnoxious than you are to qualify as an anti-religion crusader. Right now you're around "contemptuous atheist" level. On Poly, at least. Perhaps you're more annoying and shrill IRL, but if BK isn't enough to get you into a rampaging, self-righteous hissy-fit, I can't imagine there might be people in Canada, of all places, who could.

[Asher]

I'm not even an atheist.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Mr Snuggles

Just why do we have a police force if this isn't their job?

Um, more often than not, police arrive at a crime scene AFTER the crime had taken place. They're rarely able to arrive in time to help protect the victim(s).

[Asher]

Originally posted by MrFun


Um, more often than not, police arrive at a crime scene AFTER the crime had taken place. They're rarely able to arrive in time to help protect the victim(s).

I know that, but the solution to reducing violence is not to arm everyone to the teeth. That doesn't deter crime, it escalates it.

[Deity Dude]

Did anyone notice that Asher did not logically address any of the points or statistics I brought up:.

Countries without gun ownership have the highest crime rates, crime rates went up after countries instituted gun ownership laws, states with gun ownership laws have lower crime rates, crime rates went down and continue to go down in states that liberalized gun ownership laws, over 30% of felons admitted that the idea that someone they were going to commit a crime against might have a gun deterred them from committing the crime, 99.9% of the time a gun was used in self defense noone was killed, among others.

No instead he threw out insults and claimed to be the one who looked at things scientifically.

WHAT A JOKE. Asher is the definition of a close-minded person. i.e. A person who, no matter what facts they are shown or how many different ways they are proven wrong, still will not accept facts that they are not
comfortable with.

I'm surprised you don't think the world is flat because it looks that way to you.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Deity Dude
Did anyone notice that Asher did not logically address any of the points or statistics I brought up:.

I discredited your statistics which is what your points were based off of.

In fact I spent several posts dismantling your posts with statements like "Countries without gun ownership have the highest crime rates".

You are right that this must be a joke. Did you not see my posts, or do you not comprehend that by invalidating your manipulated, misleading statistics it thereby invalidates points you've flimsily constructed on top of those stats?

So while I've posted about half a dozen posts in direct response to your points, you've ignored my counter-points entirely and in your single post since then actually had the balls to call me:

A person who, no matter what facts they are shown or how many different ways they are proven wrong, still will not accept facts that they are not comfortable with.

Are you capable of seeing the hypocrisy? You're still standing by your claim about higher Canadian crime rates despite the rebuttal I've provided, for instance. Same with your statements about Australia's crime rates after guns were banned, which I've provided concise and to be honest, completely accurate rebuttals to. You refuse to acknowledge that the foundation of your argument has been shattered, and you've got the balls to accuse me of dodging the issue and being close-minded.

And you can **** right off. I will sleep well knowing you have to live in Detroit, and I do not. You must be suicidal to not care about gun control if you live in Detroit, and that's fine by me.

[Will9]

Originally posted by Mr Snuggles

You are right that this must be a joke. Did you not see my posts, or do you not comprehend that by invalidating your manipulated, misleading statistics it thereby invalidates points you've flimsily constructed on top of those stats?

Let me get this straight, when you post evidence invalidating one piece of evidence in an argument that means all the evidence in an argument is invalidated?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Will


Let me get this straight, when you post evidence invalidating one piece of evidence in an argument that means all the evidence in an argument is invalidated?

When all relevant "evidence" an argument is built on is invalidated, the argument is no longer valid.

It's a pretty simple concept.

[Will9]

Originally posted by Mr Snuggles


When all relevant "evidence" an argument is built on is invalidated, the argument is no longer valid.

It's a pretty simple concept.

You proved the Australia thing was false, but you failed to provide anything disproving these:

Originally posted by Deity Dude
Countries without gun ownership have the highest crime rates, crime rates went up after countries instituted gun ownership laws, states with gun ownership laws have lower crime rates, crime rates went down and continue to go down in states that liberalized gun ownership laws, over 30% of felons admitted that the idea that someone they were going to commit a crime against might have a gun deterred them from committing the crime, 99.9% of the time a gun was used in self defense noone was killed, among others.

[Asher]

You don't think the Canada thing applies to that at all?

The Australia thing is what he references in that one as well, eg:

crime rates went up after countries instituted gun ownership laws

And I'm also not sure of any state that has banned handguns -- I know DC tried to but there's well-documented problems there (proximity to other states and ease of access, tons of remaining guns still, etc).

Basically, his entire point comes down to:

Countries without gun ownership have the highest crime rates

Which he actually didn't make until his tirade and as I see it, is wholly unsupported by anything he quoted. His original point was actually this:

Among industrialized nations the highest crime rates were amongst countries with strict gun control.

After Australia and England and Wales, the highest prevalence of crime was in Holland (25 percent), Sweden (25 percent) and Canada (24 percent).

Which, as you can ably figure out yourself, I disproved by discussing Canada in particular as I'm intimately familiar with that.

Like every other statistic or piece of evidence he has provided, it was deliberately misleading and not a valid basis for his argument.

So yes, not only did I refute his points, but he completely ignored my rebuttals and tried to pretend like they weren't there whilst claiming I was doing that very thing. That's just classic.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
If a guy is banging at my door at 2am in the morning, and is drunk and wasted, my first response is to let him in?

Tell him to piss off and call the police. Shooting him would be well out of order.

My friend once got drunk and decided to walk home. The problem was he walked to his home of two years ago. Oddly enough, the sliding doors were open so he crashed on the couch, only to be woken in the morning by people asking what the **** he was doing there. "I live here", he said. "No you don't", they said. Hilarity ensued.

They made him breakfast and sent him on his way. Said it was the best laugh they'd had in ages.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Mr Snuggles
There's nothing wrong in that sentence from a punctuation perspective, either.

Yes there is, but you're simply not up to the task of seeing what it might be.

After all, you litter your posts with the ghastly usage:

'off of'.


Ugh, if only there were some equivalent of an hermetically sealed grammatical environment- even isolating it like that just doesn't seem harsh enough.