Would you like to provide a link to back up your claim then? Please show workings. I should like to check any figures you wish to present.Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonyvop
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Would you like to provide a link to back up your claim then? Please show workings. I should like to check any figures you wish to present.Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonyvop
That is an incredibly ignorant assumption.Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
You just don't understand that "free" and "built with tax money" are mutually exclusive terms do you? Just because the government does something does NOT mean it is free.Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
You get it. Please explain to ioan the difference.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rollo
What is a 'slackler'? This is not a word.Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonyvop
Yes, I most certainly did dismiss it. And if the thread goes back to a thread where people mostly just keep restating their concrete ideologies and trading insults, then I'd rather enjoy my evening doing something else.Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
I have no issue with joking around a bit to keep things light. But my days of "playing the dozens" (you'll have to look that up) are mostly behind me. I've found that life is too short for that.
Her dislike of guns has nothing to do with her objectivity. It would be hard to pass a girl off as objective when she has more money tied up in her shoe collection than some people have in their 401k retirement plans. She just didn't grow up around guns - though she has fired her fair share of ammo since we've been together. It's pretty basic and simple: just as I don't like to hang out at the mall, she doesn't like guns that much - even though she'll go shooting with us from time to time. So it's not like a religious/ideological thing, it's just a personal preference. It has nothing to do with any sort of deep philosophical or analytic thought.Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
I guess humor and sarcasm don't always translate well on the internet. Uh, I'm joking about the bear and leaving her (well, unless I really HAD to :vader :) . Grizzlies are a totally different story, but unless it's a mother with a cub, most black bears (what we have in my area) can be frightened off by making loud noises - unless you're hunting bear, then you need to stay quiet (good tasting meat, BTW). Coyotes, they're not so easy to avoid if they're in a pack, as I've found. So I do carry a pistol if I go onto parts of my land where they den later in the evening - especially when I kept livestock that had young ones. Same with snakes and rabid foxes. And we're now getting mountain lions in this area. Depending on the circumstances, they will attack humans... usually from behind. So this is why I'll start having the little miss walk 10 paces behind me from now on. But seriously, do I feel the need to walk around locked & loaded all the time? No. But that's me.Quote:
The best way not to have to use a gun against a bear is to avoid the bears cause if you get in a situation where one of them threatens your life then the gun will not save you anymore. Where I grew up the bears were visiting people's yards on a regular basis, yet no one needed a gun. I remember when we used to go for camping in the mountains and every night the bears were roaming through the camp, when the fire was going out, in search for food leftovers, never needed a gun, just kept sleeping and they left in peace every time.
Nice try. But that's not what I said, now is it? ;) But why do the police need guns? Didn't I say that most of them are unlikely to ever fire their guns over the course of their careers? I don't know what the situation is now, but wasn't there a time when cops in Great Britain didn't carry firearms? We'll just ban everyone from possessing firearms and all will be well?Quote:
Good to see that you know that objectively guns are absolutely not needed for people other then police and army.
Generally speaking, I don't tell other people what they need, don't need, what is practical for them, what isn't practical for them, what they should have or shouldn't have... and no one tells me either. The herd mentality just aint' for me. Sorry.
Hmm, well, there's more than enough disinformation, misinformation and brainwashing being provided by organizations other than just the NRA. ;) Many here want to discuss the ideology and culture behind American firearms ownership, with the Sandy Hook tragedy as nothing more than a backdrop. That's unfortunate. But as many times as I've mentioned realistic, practical solutions, I continue to hear crickets chirping. There are a lot of posts here now, so maybe I've missed something, and I apologize if so. But if the anti-gun lobby's only solution is to JUST put some more words (most of which are "ban") on more pieces of paper, I think that has FAIL written all over it. Simple solutions for complex problems seldom succeed. Please, humor me... try: realistic... practical. Let's talk about something real and substantive, instead of the same old same old ideological crap.Quote:
IMO you should not feel unable to explain people these things cause otherwise they might never come to understand and deal with their unfounded fears, especially when one sees the amount of brainwashing their are subjected to by organizations like the NRA.
Yeah, I just buy her an iPad, jewelry and some Gucci shoes every now & again and she (says she) loves me.Quote:
As long as you find someone who can stand you, you can still be a happy man.
I just accepted a new job offer, but anytime the government wants to hire me and will meet my price, I'd be happy to try. Have laptop, will travel (to D.C.).Quote:
If you don't try you will never know.
I have seldom read a more muddled set of arguments than yours on this point, Tony. At once you say that nothing can be a right that costs money, and that 'cost has nothing to do with a right'. This is inherently contradictory, even if one accepts your definition (which I don't). According to your argument, cost certainly has something to do with a right, i.e. you don't feel that something that costs is a right.Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonyvop
In that case, do you advocate the free provision by the state of guns?Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonyvop
Rubbish. You have, over the years, had pointed out to you on these forums many examples of how the application of free market principles to public services has proved far more expensive than would have been the alternative. You choose to forget or ignore these.Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonyvop
In the same vein, do you not find it difficult to trust the opinions of gun enthusiasts who are clearly confused of mind, irrational of thought and incapable of stringing together a coherent sentence in their home country's language? These, more than anything, are the gun enthusiasts that worry me. Certainly — and, again, I say this with no desire to make a cheap point — I would have no problem with you living next door to me with a legal firearm in your possession, despite my view that the general possession of firearms is, in practical terms, utterly unnecessary. The same I would never say of the likes of anthonyvop and Roamy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior
I find the attempt to equate 'liking guns' full stop with liking going shopping a little troubling, I must say. Liking shooting as a sport I can completely, utterly understand. But I would never like guns per se. At guns themselves I draw the line.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior
Most policemen in Britain remain unarmed. I feel decidedly uneasy when I see an armed policeman — to my mind it's a means of placating a certain section of public opinion in the face of a security threat that is, in percentage terms, unlikely directly to affect the vast majority of people. Certain events of recent years have shown that little trust can be placed in the ability of the police to use their firearms responsibly. Given that, how could I ever think that a 'have-a-go' member of the public, not subjected to extensive training, could be any more responsible with their firearm — especially given that, in the UK, it would be a matter of extreme paranoia to feel that possession of a firearm for protection is necessary or desirable?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior
Into which category falls, to my mind, the very basis of widespread US gun ownership.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior
Society of itself and corporations generally do not act any different to how they are already doing unless the outcome is either incentivised or a negative outcome is actively legislated against with punitive measures.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior
I have also asked the question of whether or not society, ideology and culture is shaped by legislation or not and have equally been met with glib responses.
Obviously the eventual outcome is a safer society; this does not happen with a prevalence of increasing numbers of firearms. If you think that placing words on more pieces of paper has fail all over it, yet are not willing to concede that words on a piece of paper created this weird blind devotion to firearms in the first place, then sadly yes, FAIL is written all over it.
I personally think that the time to act has passed. There might have been a solution but there is certainly no will to enact it. There are 51,438 retail gun shops, 129,817 licenced firearm dealers and with the the gun and ammunition manufacturing industry in the United States estimated at around $6.7 billion in combined yearly sales, I wager that it is impossible to put any substantive incentives or punitive measures in place that would make any difference.
Of course you continue to hear crickets chirping... that is the wish and desire of the people.
This is a hard one to answer. Do we believe, for example, that paedophilia would be socially acceptable were it not for legislation? Or, indeed, slavery? I could pick other examples.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rollo