I love a story with a happy ending.

Originally Posted by Pladio
Sam, are you posting these stories to prove anything ?
Or just to illicit an emotional response from people ?

For the first one, I've already explained that anecdotal evidence isn't proof of anything more than wha occurred during that one story. Unless you can explain how having a gun was good for the father that killed his own son ?

For the second one then go right ahead.

I think it's fairly simple and tremendously reasonable. Y'all have held up Sandy Hook victims and claimed that they'd be alive today if only all the guns would magically go away. Sammy's links illustrate the people that y'all will kill by taking the guns away. Anecdote for anecdote, accusation for accusation. Plea for emotion to match plea for emotion. I figure all you enlightened folks could follow that easily enough. Maybe y'all ain't quite so brainy smart as y'all think, eh?

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
P.S.: "Badmofo" - you really need to change your screen name. Youre almost as big of a wuss as Jemy, make no mistake he's truly in a league of his own - but youre getting there.

Geez I'm being lumped in with Jemy now? I've found myself agreeing with DArtagnan lately too - maybe it IS time for some self reflection.

It's just called getting old mate!!

Originally Posted by dteowner
I think it's fairly simple and tremendously reasonable. Y'all have held up Sandy Hook victims and claimed that they'd be alive today if only all the guns would magically go away. Sammy's links illustrate the people that y'all will kill by taking the guns away. Anecdote for anecdote, accusation for accusation. Plea for emotion to match plea for emotion. I figure all you enlightened folks could follow that easily enough. Maybe y'all ain't quite so brainy smart as y'all think, eh?

You're still missing the same things over and over. Yes, it's a sacrifice to take away weapons for self defense - but the key is that once guns are no longer easily available, there will be MUCH fewer incidents involving guns and self-defense. That's what those numbers we've seen indicate, unless you take out your brain and come up with bullshit like "look at Mexico", which might as well be a different planet.

Is poverty or standard of living a major factor as well? Indeed it is - and I'd be MORE willing to deal with that first than taking away guns. But that's not going to happen in a capitalistic society where greed flourishes. I do believe it's a much, much larger issue than gun availability though.

There will always be examples or anecdotes - even when you get to the point of civilised countries like the ones low on the murder scale. ALWAYS - and in a nation as big as the US - we're talking dozens and dozens, even without access to guns for ordinary people.

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
Youre almost as big of a wuss as Jemy

You are the wuss. You are obviously terrified, actively engaging in fantasizing about your self in battle with dark forces. This whole thread is about you seeking support for your identity. You seek out anecdotes to boost and support your worldview but then you share them in order to get social confirmation and react very strongly when this confirmation isn't given to you. You haven't been able to counter any fact against your position in this thread, you always react by polarizing against the messenger, sorting them into a fuzzy category which you then describe with derogative labels and speculation about their morality.

Anyone claiming to be brave online without a very good context is a joke. Calling someone a wuss because he doesn't want to kill people needlessly would be a joke as well - if it wasn't so sad.

I'd say there's a good chance SamX is among the most cowardly here - as if that was relevant to the discussion at all.

Originally Posted by JemyM
You haven't been able to counter any fact against your position in this thread, you always react by polarizing against the messenger, sorting them into a fuzzy category which you then describe with derogative labels and speculation about their morality.

You haven't been able to counter any fact [such as a complete rebuttal of your proposal in Chicago] against your position in this thread, you always react by polarizing against the messenger, sorting them into a fuzzy category which you the describe with derogative [since you were so helpful with my spelling error, I'll return the favor- "derogatory"] labels and speculation about their intelligence.

Wow, why don't you just spend a few hours coding an autoreply application, and you won't have to personally invest in any debate ever again. Well, not that you're investing much now - but it can be minimised even more!

DA lol

Why, do y'all find it uncomfortable when your idiotic, self-aggrandizing proclamations are mirrored back to you? Y'all have clearly decided that you know what's best for the world regardless of any evidence placed in front of you, and you've chosen the tactic of dismissing the messenger rather than dealing with the message. That's certainly well within your rights and I volunteered for the insults by my continued participation, but I think it's completely reasonable that you at least be honest about it. You dismiss my words out of hand, so I'm pretty much left with mirroring your words back. Either y'all dismiss your own words when it's presented back at you, or the hypocrisy is evident for all to see. I don't really care which way it goes.

Perfesser JemyM is what he is, but I must admit that I'm disappointed you'd debase yourself with that sort of half-assed bullshit approach to a discussion.

Well, I haven't dismissed what you said, you just seem not to have time to reply to my posts or decide to ignore them over and over again. So DA's comment seemed well in place for that too, even though I took it more as a joke than anything else.

Originally Posted by badmofo
Makes sense to me. I think it comes to down to the greater good. The majority of gun owners are responsible I'm sure, but like you say it's a numbers game. The more guns going around mean a higher risk of people getting shot. So those responsible gun owners need to make a sacrifice, for the greater good.

It's like justifying driving a big 4WD because "it's safer". But safer for who? For the driver maybe, but what about everyone else on the road? It's putting your safety above others, which is not civilized.

The 'greater good' is often used to deny people their rights. The 'greater good' would do a way with privacy rights and the 4th amendment, because wouldn't it be better if the government could just sieze anything that might be illegal without worrying about warrants or probable cause? Wouldn't it be better for the 'greater good' if the government could just monitor all of our communications, web viewing history, etc. to catch terrorists and not worry about any legal justification for it?

Originally Posted by Thrasher
These morons who think they need guns in case da gobernment comes after them, are too insane to realize they could never defend themselves against an army of troopers, tanks, and bombers, and other paranoid delusions…

Tell that to Sryia and Libya.

Originally Posted by blatantninja
The 'greater good' is often used to deny people their rights. The 'greater good' would do a way with privacy rights and the 4th amendment, because wouldn't it be better if the government could just sieze anything that might be illegal without worrying about warrants or probable cause? Wouldn't it be better for the 'greater good' if the government could just monitor all of our communications, web viewing history, etc. to catch terrorists and not worry about any legal justification for it?

No, because that would be against the greater good.

Originally Posted by Pladio
No, because that would be against the greater good.

"Greater good" is subjective and relative, to the point of being meaningless. Makes for a lot of empty warm fuzzies, though. Can't say I'm surprised you'd drag it out as some sort of justification.

Dte, I'm done discussing with you, for the simple reason that you are not discussing with me. I've posted something which you have ignored and you've done this again and again. I'm tired of it. You then decide to say things which have nothing to do with what I have said and blame me for starting to say something which I haven't (I didn't bring up the greater good). So, since discussing with a wall is only fun for a little while, I am done discussing this issue with you.

You keep ignoring all the major points and simplifying everything else. You ignore my posts until I have to actually re-quote them twice. So I'll act like a wall this time. You can keep quoting me, but regarding guns, I will not be discussing anything with you after this post. (At least until I forget I've said this)

Originally Posted by blatantninja
The 'greater good' is often used to deny people their rights. The 'greater good' would do a way with privacy rights and the 4th amendment, because wouldn't it be better if the government could just sieze anything that might be illegal without worrying about warrants or probable cause? Wouldn't it be better for the 'greater good' if the government could just monitor all of our communications, web viewing history, etc. to catch terrorists and not worry about any legal justification for it?

Informal fallacy.
Greater good is a key argument for reducing rights, yes and the rationality is that there are some things that needs knowledge, responsibility or both. The fact that this have been used to regulate things that doesn't need regulation doesnt change that it's probably not legal to store a lot of toxic waste in your backyard in leaking barrels, store a large amount of explosives in your garage or do any medical surgery without a license.

@ Pladio: You seem to be running into a problem I fight from time to time—getting lumped in with folks you don't actually agree with (in your case, the "ban all guns" folks; in my case, the social conservatives). You're kinda trying to run a sidebar with me and I'm using the sidebar in the broader conversation without actually participating in the sidebar much. Guilty as charged. Sorry for that.

Originally Posted by JemyM
Informal fallacy.
Greater good is a key argument for reducing rights, yes and the rationality is that there are some things that needs knowledge, responsibility or both. The fact that this have been used to regulate things that doesn't need regulation doesnt change that it's probably not legal to store a lot of toxic waste in your backyard in leaking barrels, store a large amount of explosives in your garage or do any medical surgery without a license.

Somewhere hidden in the impressive polysyllables, there must be a point. You're agreeing with bn, then completely ignoring the critical aspect of whether gun control would fall under "used to regulate things that do[n't] need regulation", and then wandering off into the weeds about toxic waste. What the hell are you trying to say?

Originally Posted by Pladio
No, because that would be against the greater good.

DTE is right, 'greater good' is very subjective. Some of the worst acts of humanity were for the 'greater good.'