"Some say a gun is a killing instrument. Man is a killing instrument. The gun is only a tool, from which we have the pure mechanical force which can keep one alive or take a life. As a tool it is as weak or as strong as he or she who hold it, as good or as bad as the collective soul that keeps it in working order. The guns I own are defenders of good, soldier's weapons, officer's weapons, my weapons. "
-Brigid
RTWT!
Brigid sums it up eloquently as she always does. That undeniable truth seems so simple to us, and yet there are those who will never allow themselves to understand it. A Sig on my hip is no more a "killing instrument" than is the folding knife in my pocket or the fire extinguisher down the hall. Is my Sig a more effective tool for both legitimate self-defense and criminal behavior? Yes, but it's purpose and the outcome of its use are dependent entirely upon me. The weapon is irrelevant. The will of the user is what ultimately matters.
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+1 A great challenge for that is grab a gun from a police evidence locker, one that's killed at LEAST one person, more would be better. Give that gun to one of us, and require us to keep it loaded ALL THE TIME.
Next grab a person who's murdered at LEAST one person (more would be better) take them out of prison and have the person keep them unarmed ALL the time, but always nearby.
Which group would experience a homicide first?
As Robb said in a less-eloquent way, intent is non-transferrable.
Inaninate, non-sentient, unaware lumps of metal are completely and absolutely incapable of having intent. They just sit there. It is the user who has the intent, the user who takes or saves a life, the user who, appropriately enough, uses the tool to his or her purpose.
I am not sure I will ever understand why this is such a hard concept for anti-rights advocates to understand. Do they anthropromorphize everything, or just firearms? Why?
No one is anthropomorphizing anything. You guys are the ones who keep harping on this "gun is a tool" thing. No gun control person I've ever heard says the gun makes the person kill. Only you guys keep saying that.
I suppose you think that by exaggerating our position to a point where it becomes ridiculous, you can win the argument. Keep telling yourselves that. It must be working for you.
What I say is some of you guys can't be trusted with a gun. SOME. That's the problem. And yes, would I want to inconvenience the majority for the sins of the minority? Yes.
Yep some people who shouldn't have guns get them (the number IS very small) because this country believes you are innocent until proven guilty.
That goes for anything. A Child Molester can work at a daycare so long as he has never committed a crime of sex abuse, or hasn't been caught.
A Murderer can become a police officer so long as the murder or murderous intent is unknown to the authorities.
The burden of proof resides on the shoulders of the lawmakers.
But on top of that criminals like you MikeB can get guns despite the law prohibiting them from ever touching guns, and committing crimes with them, they get them anyway. Also dispite it being a crime they can do evil things to good people with cars, sticks, rocks, and knives.
I carry a gun because I trust a person with a clean background who just MIGHT not be an upstanding guy than a known criminal who doesn't give a shit what the law says.
No gun control person I've ever heard says the gun makes the person kill. Only you guys keep saying that.
Then you either have not been paying attention, or you are outright lying - neither of which would greatly surprise me, actually.
And, in point of fact, on a comment thread over at Mr. Huffmans', I pointed out exactly where an anti-rights advocate was directly implying that handguns were making people break laws... or have you forgotten that already?
As for stripping the rights of the majority for the sins of the minority (do not mince words, MikeB - you are not talking about "inconveniencing", you are talking about abridging and infringing on individual rights), that simply does not work in a free society. As Weer'd said, the burden of proof is upon you if you want to take my rights away. Once you can adequately prove I should not have those rights, you can certainly take them away, but depriving someone of their rights before they have ever committed a crime is simply unacceptable.
As are most of your arguments, actually...
"would I want to inconvenience the majority for the sins of the minority? Yes. Left unsaid outright, but still quite obvious, is that I also don't have any problems letting that dangerous minority walk the streets to molest and predate upon the population at will."
Bitch as loud as you want, Mr. Child Pr0n Enabler, but we all know that's exactly the way it is.
No one is anthropomorphizing anything.
Wrong yet again, Sparky.
"The Strange Story of the Gun that Murdered McNair"
"...Federal authorities haven’t said when the gun was born, but they know who made it - a now defunct California firm called Bryco, and later renamed Jennings, after a lawsuit involving an accidentally-killed 12-year-old boy, bankrupted the original firm.
"The gun was a 9mm and by 2002 it had made its way into a Tenn. pawn shop, where it likely sat under locked glass, flickering fluorescent bulbs shining off its metal skin."
"When the gun was born"? "Metal skin"? So among other things, "anthromorphizing" also has a different definition in your fantasy world, I see.
ack! *anthropomorphizing*
Great quote. Always nice to see eloquent words in the favor of firearms.
It's a bit harder to walk into a university and kill 31 people with a knife or fire extinguisher, no? Glad it was noone in your families that took a bullet to the head from a lunatic with two Glocks.
It's a bit harder to walk into a university and kill 31 people with a knife or fire extinguisher
Not necessarily, considering many of the reports of the VT massacre stated no one fought back. No one did ANYTHING with what they had to work with. I doubt things would have been any different had that madman been using a different tool.
"There are no obsolete tools...only obsolete tactics."
Yup, a University where everyone shot that day was disarmed by law, allowing Cho to slowly and methodically shoot people as they cowered and begged.
Yes, some tried to fight back, but they lacked the effective tools to do so, since they followed the law (and VT policy) prohibiting guns & other weapons.
Gun laws ensured their status as defenseless victims. They didn't do a damn think to keep a mad man from executing people in what was supposed to be a "safe" "gun free zone."
I see where you're coming from here, Mike, but I was thinking more along the lines of what LawDog said right as the news was hitting:
"...I am speaking of the putrescent evil which convinces good men not to fight back; the sordid filth of the soul which allows one bad man to prevail against fifty -- or 25,000 -- good men because good men have been systematically denied the mindset required to meet with, engage and defeat evil -- even if all you have is fingernails and rage.
"One man. On a campus of 25,000 people. 25,000 people surrounded by fire extinguishers, book bags, pencils, pens, drafting compasses, chairs, broom handles, power strips, ceramics, chains and everything heavy and/or sharp."
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