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 DutchKillsRambo wrote:
While I am not anti-gun saying its not a weapon when used in a home defense scenario is kind of dumb.

It most definitely is still a weapon. However, killing someone breaking in to your home and going on a shooting spree are both very different scenarios, even though they both result in death.

Guns have 2 uses.

1) as a weapon

2) recreation(hunting or target practice)

Mattman154 wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:

Mattman154 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Yes, because clearly an idiot who mistakes a small child in a costume for a skunk and immediately decides "Hey, I'ma gonna shoot dat skunk!" needs to own a weapon capable of killing people.

/sarcasm

Like a car or something?

A car isn't a weapon you nonce.

It still kills more people per year than firearms. What makes it NOT a weapon?

Gee.

It's almost like there's more cars in the general populace than guns, with more people utilizing cars and being around them far more often.

This kind of flawed logic is downright pitiful when it's used in these kinds of arguments. Context matters, and saying "Well cars kill more people a year than firearms!" without making a note of "more people are around cars than guns for the majority of the timeframe of their day, for quite a bit of time during a year".

Its not a weapon when you hunt with one? Pretty sure when I line a deer up with my .308 I'm trying to kill said animal.

I just dont get why anyone would say a gun isn't a weapon. Its not like weapons are inherently bad if they're used responsibly. But its still a weapon. Your not opening a beer or hammering nails with a gun.

Gun control wouldn't stop accidents like this from happening. Though an argument could be made that a basic gun safety course requirement prior to buying a gun could stop things like this. First thing the teach you is never pull the trigger unless you are certain what your aiming at is something you want to shoot. Overall very sad.

 Medium of Death wrote:
You'd have to argue that more motoring incidents are caused out of malice than being pure accidents, even then a car isn't a weapon anymore than a tree falling in the woods and crushing somebody is a weapon.

A gun is designed for one purpose.

It doesn't matter as it pertains to this discussion.

We are talking about ACCIDENTS. This was a negligent shooting incident, also referred to as some fethhead making a horrible mistake. Similarly most road accidents, are all caused by some fethhead making a horrible mistake.

So yes, the accidental firearm death statistic compared to the motor vehicle accident statistic is comparable. Also comparable is the number of people who drown per year in back yard swimming pools and may I say that number is astonishing.

Well I guess it's just lucky that the guy wasn't in his car when he saw the "Skunk"...

On a side note 254,212,610 cars in the U.S. the estimate on firearms owned by private individuals is any where from 270 million to over 300 million.

Cars are perfectly viable as an improvised weapon. Maybe a little extreme, but effective.

The massive difference being one is designed to kill, the other isn't.

Let me be the first to say...whoever did this the last time...not to post a 100 reasons why its good to own a firearm. Nor to bash those who own a firearm or multiple of fire arms.

Yeah, that post made that thread a pain in the ass to read.

 Medium of Death wrote:
The massive difference being one is designed to kill, the other isn't.

Does the design matter all that much when the outcome is that cars still kill way more people than guns? You can say guns are weapons, you can say guns are tools, you can say guns are both at the same time. And whatever cars are, in the US they still kill a lot more people than guns do.


And as other people have pointed out, guns have more purposes than just killing things.

Guns have no purpose beyond killing things.

At all.

The fact that they can be used in different ways to kill things does not mean they have other purposes.

 Medium of Death wrote:
What other purpose does a gun serve?

Well, technically, some airports use shotguns with modified pyrotechnic rounds to scare aware birds (to prevent bird strikes).

Also, I'd have no problem with being able to own a firearm being contingent upon passing a safety course and showing some basic level of proficiency with it*. If the first amendment isn't absolute, I see absolutely no reason that the second one should be nearly so, either.

*Yes, I know some states already require this.

 Ouze wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:
What other purpose does a gun serve?

Well, technically, some airports use shotguns with modified pyrotechnic rounds to scare aware birds (to prevent bird strikes).

The same thing could be done with fireworks or air horns. It's not necessary.

Fun note though:
Foresty services use a modified pyrotechnic round for starting fires to stop fires. They fight fire by firing fire at fire!

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:
What other purpose does a gun serve?

Well, technically, some airports use shotguns with modified pyrotechnic rounds to scare aware birds (to prevent bird strikes).

The same thing could be done with fireworks or air horns. It's not necessary.

Fun note though:
Foresty services use a modified pyrotechnic round for starting fires to stop fires. They fight fire by firing fire at fire!

Sure, but now the goalposts are moving, right? He asks what other uses there are, I pointed them out.

Personally I think dogs are probably the best choice since I suspect that the guns probably go off on some sort of repeating schedule and I bet the birds get used to them pretty quick.

 Ouze wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:
What other purpose does a gun serve?

Well, technically, some airports use shotguns with modified pyrotechnic rounds to scare aware birds (to prevent bird strikes).

The same thing could be done with fireworks or air horns. It's not necessary.

Fun note though:
Foresty services use a modified pyrotechnic round for starting fires to stop fires. They fight fire by firing fire at fire!

Sure, but now the goalposts are moving, right? He asks what other uses there are, I pointed them out.

True, it is a bit of moving goalposts on my part--but at the same time, I'm sure the major gun designers didn't think "How can we scare away birds to prevent airplanes from sucking them into their engines".

Personally I think dogs are probably the best choice since I suspect that the guns probably go off on some sort of repeating schedule and I bet the birds get used to them pretty quick.

Falcons and hawks, Ouze. RDU Airport actually has a program in place to nest hawks on the grounds to deal with the bird problem.

Fair enough, sure.

I hadn't considered raptors. That sounds better in several ways, chief of which is I bet being a professional falconeer gets you knee-deep in girls. "Oh this? Just my partner, who is a Falcon. No big deal. "

Only if you have a monocle.

Otherwise, people think you're crazy.

It’s true that roughly triple the number of people are killed on the roads than with guns.

If you want to make a useful comparison, though, you would want to look at the following factors.

The amount of use.
Per head of population.
The same statistics from other countries.

This would enable you to see if the US are particularly good shots, or bad drivers, etc.

For example, according to Wikipedia based on WHO data, the road death rate per 1 billion vehicle-km is 5.7 in the UK and 8.5 in the USA, showing that the US are fairly bad drivers in comparison, but better than Spanish where it is 11.7.

Of course it is rather difficult to measure gun use "miles" but perhaps a study could be done based on amount of time using.

I think we all know that all of this is pointless, though. Americans want guns and are not deterred because of accidents and murders.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Guns have no purpose beyond killing things.

At all.

The fact that they can be used in different ways to kill things does not mean they have other purposes.

Sport rifles like those used in the Olympics aren't designed for killing things. They're designed pretty much solely with recreation in mind.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I think we all know that all of this is pointless, though. Americans want guns and are not deterred because of accidents and murders.

Damn right. We have gumption. We're a determined people.

You can buy and own guns from the age of 18, but are still only allowed to buy and consume alcohol from the age of 21, right? And there's a good chance this shooter was intoxicated, right?

I'm sometimes wondering if it would help if these coming-of-age procedures were reversed somehow. Hear me out - Here in Germany, you can drink beer when you're 16. You can get a driver's license when you're 18. This means that, even before you drive a single mile on any road, you have two years of experience around alcohol and know how it affects you and your judgment and how you act and make decisions.

I think the 5-year age difference also makes a big difference in drinking culture between US and Germany, just as an example. When I was an exchange student at the age of...22? in Milwaukee, me and the other Germans had been legally drinking beers (also in public, I might add) for 6 years in Germany, so we toned our partying needs down a bit because we KNEW we don't need to be the biggest drinker in the party to have fun, just be relaxed about it. On the other hand, I don't know how many just-turned-21 US college guys were all like "C'MON CHUG ONE MOAR BRO" - as they were just beginning to test out the world of legally drinking alcohol. (Of course, they drank illegally before like everyone else, but in any case we did that too in Germany around 14, so it kinda evens out.) This "newness" around alcohol might cause more dumbasses than otherwise to do something stupid with their (legally owned already) guns and cars, like shoot at people or forget to look at the road and hit people.

Basically, my proposal is - let people experience alcohol legally and the baaad effects it can have on you BEFORE allowing them to own guns OR cars. Seems to work out pretty well here. (Car related deaths per year and per 100,000: 4.5 in Germany, 12.3 in USA, source: WHO 2002 via wikipedia - though, of course, other factors also play into this.)

Witzkatz....then states would lose most of their federal grant money. Its not a viable option unless the Fed. gov't overturns it, and that doesn't look to be happening anytime in the near future.
Plus, we don't want to be socialists
Nevertheless this was a horrible accident, does it call for gun control? No, this man is likely an idiot...should he have his weapon taken away?-yes

Why is it that because some moron acts like a moron and I need to be penalized for it? I need to be forced to take a sobriety test before I purchase a weapon? I need to have some law governing what I can and cannot purchase, just so YOU can feel better?

I wonder if this guy had ran up to the kid with a shovel and beat him unconscious all the liberal weenies wouldn't be crying out for the stricter control of shovel sales.

And as for the car argument, calling it pointless and stupid doesn't change the facts. People get into THOUSAND POUND pieces of COMPLEX MACHINERY and still act stupid, getting themselves or others killed. Yet, all we're required to do to operate one is renew our license, with no required tests, or checkups. The only thing DMV's do is check to make sure your car doesn't produce toxic levels of emissions. Where are the stringent requirements to own a car? Oh wait, it would inconvenient for the whiners if they had to practice the same gak they preach.

 Frankenberry wrote:
Why is it that because some moron acts like a moron and I need to be penalized for it? I need to be forced to take a sobriety test before I purchase a weapon? I need to have some law governing what I can and cannot purchase, just so YOU can feel better?

I wonder if this guy had ran up to the kid with a shovel and beat him unconscious all the liberal weenies wouldn't be crying out for the stricter control of shovel sales.

And as for the car argument, calling it pointless and stupid doesn't change the facts. People get into THOUSAND POUND pieces of COMPLEX MACHINERY and still act stupid, getting themselves or others killed. Yet, all we're required to do to operate one is renew our license, with no required tests, or checkups. The only thing DMV's do is check to make sure your car doesn't produce toxic levels of emissions. Where are the stringent requirements to own a car? Oh wait, it would inconvenient for the whiners if they had to practice the same gak they preach.

Well you know, you have to go to this thing called driver's ed and like take a driving test and stuff man. And owning one is dependent on your ability to pay insurance, so owners tend to be somewhat more responsible than other members of society(somewhat). So stop doing all caps, no one's gonna take your gun away....cept fer dere gubbermint!

Awesome, I got told off for using caps, cool.

First off, you don't need insurance. You can still buy, operate, and crash a car without insurance. Second, drivers ed is a class designed to show you how to drive or 'use' a car. Any responsible gun owner will do the same with their firearm, so I don't get your point.

And I never said anyone was taking away my guns, I asked questions as to why the law-abiding and responsible gun owners need to be lumped in with the, significantly less, group of idiots that own guns.

 Huffy wrote:


Well you know, you have to go to this thing called driver's ed and like take a driving test and stuff man. And owning one is dependent on your ability to pay insurance, so owners tend to be somewhat more responsible than other members of society(somewhat). So stop doing all caps, no one's gonna take your gun away....cept fer dere gubbermint!

the only thing Driver's Ed does, theoretically, is lower the initial insurance payments for a new driver. I know I never took any DE classes, still got a license, and aside from a couple speeding tickets, never had any problems with driving.


As for the airport guns, when I was stationed in Germany, our airfield had those sorts of guns stationed around (gave me a slight PTSD moment the first time I ever heard them going off) the strip to keep the birds away. The thing is, and I'm sure that this isn't universal, but ours was set for random timers. Each gun was a different "sound" and so the sound frequency, as well as the time frequency was constantly changing, thus keeping the birds away.

Another use, and I'm sure that EVERYONE has seen it, is the gun used to start track events (but this is really starting to get nitpicky, I think we've adequately discussed that there are indeed many uses for firearms, aside from making living things unliving).

Could have saved much debating about gun laws by just saying "People should ban children, they're so small they can be mistaken like this leading to tragedy". I am disappointed, but suspect there's been some victim blaming in here anyway.

There are 10,000 plus people killed in the U.S. By drunk drivers, according to the CDC. How many people here bitching about guns get in their car and drive after having a couple of drinks?

http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html