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While there may be some truth to this, there's not as much as you would like to think.
1). As I said above, a gun kept for defensive purposes is being used when it's doing nothing at all. Red herring fallacy. Bringing up the defensive use of guns in no way changes my argument. Add in all the times guns are used to protect someone and there's still no way that amounts to the same use of cars. This is one of those "sounds good as a slogan, but has no practical use to the debate" kind of statements. If you count the times guns are used for the greater good of society, why didn't you count the times that CARS were used for the greater good of society when you started comparing guns to cars? You are not using your standards equally. Stay consistent in your argument.
Also, no one has really any idea how often guns are actually employed in defensive situations? Why? Most probably don't get reported to the police. Some with a gun gets threatened or attacked. They produce the gun, attacker flees. The gun owner goes on their way. Nothing gets reported to the cops. And even if it is, I don't think anything gets tracked and reported unless someone gets shot.
And, surprisingly, the compilation of statistics for self defense shootings in very weak. Unlike criminal shooting and murder cases. State and local PD reporting for self defense shooting (including police involved shootings) is optional. So there are really no good statistics.
2). Again, not as much as you might like to think. Driver training in this country stinks. Other than behind the wheel time (which I could have gotten elsewhere), I don't think I got much more knowledge out of the Driver's Ed course I took than I knew going in. What's the most challenging part of the license exam in most states? Parallel parking. This says a lot. Another red herring. You can have the worst driver ed training in the world and still be better prepared for driving than owning a gun. You also need to pass an eye exam, written test, driving test as well as get your picture taken, then get your car registered in every single state in the nation. Need a gun? You can get one without any of these, and as I showed above, guns are FAR more dangerous than cars. If you want to make a logical argument for guns, you need to stay consistent. You can't possibly argue that just because you personally got bad driver safety training, that's a good reason to do away with training altogether. That's absurd and you know it.
You'd think there would be rioting in the streets with all the training, testing and fees you have to pay to drive a car in this country... where's the outrage there? Oh yeah... guns make you feel like a baddass, so "guns." 'Merica.
And, of course, there is no constitutional guarantee of the right to own and drive a car. No, there sure isn't, is there! You also have no constitutional guarantee to free speech either. Try yelling fire in a crowded theater and see what happens. Try slandering or libeling someone and see what happens. Try making physical threats to someone and see what happens. Try disturbing the peace and see what happens. ALL your constitutional rights are restricted in some way to make society work. These are common sense restrictions. Guns should be no different.
3). I would point out that gun owners discharge millions or rounds a year where no human is affected.
That being said, I don't deny that a lot of people use guns maliciously and/or stupidly. However for that I blame the person carrying out the act (either directly shooting, or, by their stupidity allowing a accident to happen.) But it's ALWAYS a person that's responsible. Well, duh... it's always the person who is responsible. We all know that. That's why common sense gun control would be used to restrict the PEOPLE who use guns stupidly.
The question then becomes what, if anything, can and should be done about that. Looking at the history of the subject, and of other subjects that have been worked in similar ways, not much. You can't effectively outlaw stupidity our maliciousness. You can lock up the stupid and malicious after the fact. But until then laws have not proven a very effective deterrent. Travel the world much? Gun control: After Connecticut shooting, could Australia's laws provide a lesson? That's just Australia. There are many more. Even here in the states, we're better off in states with more gun control... with the lone exception of THIS stupid state! The Geography of Gun Deaths - The Atlantic
You can try to limit access. How well did that work for alcohol during prohibition? Absolutely absurd straw man fallacy there! No one is proposing outright prohibition. Why did you jump to that silly extreme? Could it be to paint the common sense gun control as those evil, big-government commies trying to take away your guns? Nah... you wouldn't stoop so low to win an argument, would you? How well is it working for drugs now? Poorly. (Thanks for that useless "war on drugs," Reagan!) Common sense gun control has nothing in common with our current drug prohibition. Education and drug treatment would be money better spent than the senseless drug war. Imagine if we applied that same mentality to guns and make them available to everybody who can pass a safety course, prove they keep them locked away from kids, etc. etc. A lot of my opinion of this is that I live in a jurisdiction with some of the toughest gun control laws in the country, and there is a daily drumbeat of shootings. I just don't see gun control as being effective in reducing gun mayhem, where you have a large portion of the population who wants access to gun, and feels it's their right. Again, you need to think outside the borders of this country if you need examples. I don't have the time or inclination to prove it, but gun control WORKS. There are too many examples to ignore this truth. Even the NRA talking points against this argument can be "shot down" (haha) over and over again.
And, of course, there's the pesky Second Amendment again. And now no one can use the silly argument that it wasn't intended to confer a right to individuals. The SCOTUS crushed that argument like a bug. Again, every constitutional right you have is restricted in some way. There are no absolutes. Just ask Kim Davis about her constitutional rights right now.... as she sits in a jail cell.
Thank you all for the feedback, I ended buying a cx4 9mm and am loving it. Have gone to several ranges and asked many questions, got quite the education. I am looking for the best and cheapest gun range at this point, hopefully one I can bring my own ammo. If anyone has a suggestion, I would appreciate it. I live in the southwest part of Vegas so the closer the better, but have no problem driving around. Thank you all again.
Point by point. And I'm banging this out quick and dirty late at night. Sorry if there are typos.
Sorry, this is ridiculous. Something is purchased for the purpose the purchaser has chosen, not whatever someone else thinks it's purpose should be. If someone purchases a car to take them to work, shopping, whatever, that's it's purpose. If someone purchases a gun to allow them to defend themself, that's it's purpose. It serves it's purpose by being available to it's owner when it needs it.
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Originally Posted by logline
Red herring fallacy. Bringing up the defensive use of guns in no way changes my argument. Add in all the times guns are used to protect someone and there's still no way that amounts to the same use of cars. This is one of those "sounds good as a slogan, but has no practical use to the debate" kind of statements. If you count the times guns are used for the greater good of society, why didn't you count the times that CARS were used for the greater good of society when you started comparing guns to cars? You are not using your standards equally. Stay consistent in your argument.
The irrefutable point is that, with all the regulation and required training, motor vehicles kill more people than guns. This points to the limits of regulation and training. Even with all the laws, there are still stupid, unskilled, and malicious drivers. And even when shown as such, the system tends to do very little about them.
Another fact, there are somewhere north of 250 million motor vehicles in the US. The numbers I've heard of for guns is that there are around 300 million in circulation. So we're really in the same order of magnitude. Motor vehicles still have a higher number of deaths per year.
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Another red herring. You can have the worst driver ed training in the world and still be better prepared for driving than owning a gun. You also need to pass an eye exam, written test, driving test as well as get your picture taken, then get your car registered in every single state in the nation. Need a gun? You can get one without any of these, and as I showed above, guns are FAR more dangerous than cars. If you want to make a logical argument for guns, you need to stay consistent. You can't possibly argue that just because you personally got bad driver safety training, that's a good reason to do away with training altogether. That's absurd and you know it.
There's a element of expectation. Since the dawn of motor vehicles, they've been heavily regulated. So drivers have just gotten used to it. I do have a feeling if someone decided to make a major political issue over the level or regulation and taxation aimed at drivers, it could get a lot of traction, Someone just needs to get that ball rolling.
And then, or course, there's that pesky Second Amendment again. Try as you, or any/all of your fellow antis might. You can't get around it, and you can't get rid of it. And there's nothing like having the highest governing document of your legal system enshrining a direct individual right, to make supporters of that right feel justified in going balls to wall to defend it.
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You'd think there would be rioting in the streets with all the training, testing and fees you have to pay to drive a car in this country... where's the outrage there?
I dearly thank you for bring up this stupid old shibboleth, especially as it's commonly used to attack gun rights. Think about it. Yes, if you use speech in a way that causes malicious damage, injury and death, you are subject to punishment. If you use a gun to cause the same, you are subject to punishment in the same way. No one has any argument with this.
But just because it's possible that someone might use speech maliciously, doesn't mean you have to register your vocal cords, or have them disabled until your are suitably trained and licensed to use them. You are free to expound any type of speech you care to. You just have to live with the consequences. This is EXACTLY how it should be with guns.
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No, there sure isn't, is there! You also have no constitutional guarantee to free speech either. Try yelling fire in a crowded theater and see what happens. Try slandering or libeling someone and see what happens. Try making physical threats to someone and see what happens. Try disturbing the peace and see what happens. ALL your constitutional rights are restricted in some way to make society work. These are common sense restrictions. Guns should be no different.
I could care less what other countries do about guns. That's their business. And their history and expectations are different. Lots of countries never developed a gun culture. That's fine for them. I don't live there. They can run their countries however the want. So can we.
And I live in one of those high gun control states and cities. Largely the only ones with guns are the cops and the crooks. And the crooks seem to have no problems getting them. So why put in place restrictions that, in the end, only law abiding citizens are going to abide by, when the law abiding citizens are the least of your problems.
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Travel the world much? Gun control: After Connecticut shooting, could Australia's laws provide a lesson? That's just Australia. There are many more. Even here in the states, we're better off in states with more gun control... with the lone exception of THIS stupid state! The Geography of Gun Deaths - The Atlantic
Actually, a good way of analyzing the problem is to look at the probable effect of the most extreme solutions. What would happen if a full prohibition on guns was put into effect? What would happen would be that huge smuggling operations would spring up to supply the demand, which would still most definitely exist. They wouldn't have to even by new operations. The existing drug cartels would be happy to find supplies in the world arms markets and distribute them here.
Okay, so you say your don't want a full on prohibition. Thanks for that. But if the extreme won't work, will half baked half measures? No. Why? Because if they had any effect, they'd be circumvented by the criminal class in just the same way. And laws that try to dictate individual behavior (trying to legislate common sense) will fail the the same way they've largely failed in trying to regulate motor vehicle drivers (see above.) Yes, you get to throw the book at them after the fact (maybe, that is hit or miss at best.) But those laws actually prevent very little.
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Absolutely absurd straw man fallacy there! No one is proposing outright prohibition. Why did you jump to that silly extreme? Could it be to paint the common sense gun control as those evil, big-government commies trying to take away your guns? Nah... you wouldn't stoop so low to win an argument, would you? How well is it working for drugs now? Poorly. (Thanks for that useless "war on drugs," Reagan!) Common sense gun control has nothing in common with our current drug prohibition. Education and drug treatment would be money better spent than the senseless drug war. Imagine if we applied that same mentality to guns and make them available to everybody who can pass a safety course, prove they keep them locked away from kids, etc. etc.
Gun control only works where people don't care much about guns. People bring up places like Japan. You could rescind all the gun they have there, issue everyone there a gun, and the murder rate probably wouldn't budge. Why? There Japanese. I would be impolite to murder someone. And as a culture they're very polite and law abiding. It's just the way they are.
Look at Brazil. This is a country with very strict gun laws. Yet their murder rate is over five times ours. Why, because they have a violent culture, and likely insufficient law enforcement. They also have a raging drug gang problem. All this proves is that culture makes a huge difference, gun laws, very little.
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Again, you need to think outside the borders of this country if you need examples. I don't have the time or inclination to prove it, but gun control WORKS. There are too many examples to ignore this truth. Even the NRA talking points against this argument can be "shot down" (haha) over and over again.
This is going to get exhausting and frankly, pointless (I can tell.) I'm just going to put this up and leave. There's no chance in hell either of us will change our mind.
-Guns kill on purpose. Cars kill on accident. No one outlaws cars. There is no call for car prohibition. Instead, we regulated them. There's no reason why we can't do the same for guns and for the exact same reasons.
-Guns are more dangerous than cars. You use cars far more often and for far more time than guns. There's no comparison. You just compared showering and skydiving again.
-You completely ignored my pointing out that no law is absolute... not even a right in the Constitution.
-Saying other countries didn't have a cultural history with guns is truly being ignorant of history itself. Most did and they grew up. We didn't obviously.
-Saying only criminals will have guns if we make laws is like saying "Get rid of stop lights because criminals will just run them anyway." This is not anarchy. We are a nation of laws. Eventually, we have to strive for a more civil society because what we have today is absolutely horrible.
And now, I'm officially done here. I can't do this anymore because it gets nowhere.
Thank you all for the feedback, I ended buying a cx4 9mm and am loving it. Have gone to several ranges and asked many questions, got quite the education. I am looking for the best and cheapest gun range at this point, hopefully one I can bring my own ammo. If anyone has a suggestion, I would appreciate it. I live in the southwest part of Vegas so the closer the better, but have no problem driving around. Thank you all again.
I use Discount Firearms range when I shoot indoors. $10 for as long as you want and you can use your own ammo.
It's an aggregator site, just pick the caliber and it will list the prices per round for all the sites that are selling it. Sometimes it can get hairy. It has an option to send you a tone when a price per round you have specified is available. Trust me, you have to be quick to get the deals, but you will get the best prices here. And yes, the ammo is shipped directly to your door. Watch out for the suppliers that give you a good per round price then gig you with a huge shipment fee. Overall I have done very well on gunbot.net
ammoseek.com is another site similar to gunbot. I personally haven't used it, but have heard good things. As long as your ammo stays dry, you should be good to go. As stated above, watch for outrageous shipping charges.
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