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| whiskeypriest |
 Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 6:16 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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Joe Vitus wrote: Thanks, Carol. I think the restrictions should definitely be beefed up. I disagree with you about what weapons we should be "allowed" to have. Guns exist largely for defense. That reads less politely in most cases as "they're for killling people." And honestly, if it comes to a burglar/rapist/kidnapper entering an innocent person's house with intent, I'm not in that much of a moral quandary about it. Wouldn't be my choice (I don't own a weapon of any kind, doubt I ever would), but I accept it as a viable choice for others.
But I don't expect to change anybody's views on the issue. |
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| daffy |
| Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 6:46 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 1939
Location: Wall Street
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| Off-topic (sorry): Do any of our computer jockeys here know anything about "Microsoft Security Essentials"? Is it any good? Lifehacker seems to love it. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 7:10 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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gromit wrote: All rights come with limits and responsibilities.
Which is why I think the restrictions should be beefed up. Never said anyone anytime should be able to purchase this, or any, weapon. |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 7:11 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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It seems to me that a lot of people are very selective about what rights they think are important. Want to tax rich people and profitable corporations so that poor people can get hospital treatment, want to terminate your pregnancy, want to express your political feelings by burning the America flag, want to 'whack off' (as some Americans say) to internet porn, want some man on man action, want to take ecstasy at a rave; I don't get particularly exercised by any of these propositions. However, I think you'll find that many of those who think they should be allowed to get drunk in a bar while carrying a gun are much less keen on others doing their own thing.
Without getting to deeply into the philosophical arguments as to what point individual freedoms can be curtailed to ensure the welfare of the many, I do not regard owning an automatic weapon as a critical human right. Sadam Hussien thought Iraq, as a soveriegn nation, should be allowed to try and build its own nuclear weapons. Well we put him striaght on that one, didn't we.
Wanna fuck a dead person or keep fissile material in your refrigerator or a lion in your back yard or torture bunny rabbits for kicks in the privacy of your own home. None of these activities directly harms another individual, but I'm glad we have laws that prevent people from doing them. |
Last edited by jeremy on Tue Jan 11, 2011 7:51 pm; edited 1 time in total
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My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 7:16 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| I agree with you, as usual. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 7:17 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| But that corpse was asking for it. |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
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| Marj |
| Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 11:20 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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daffy wrote: Off-topic (sorry): Do any of our computer jockeys here know anything about "Microsoft Security Essentials"? Is it any good? Lifehacker seems to love it.
Sorry, daffy. I've never heard of it but I'm hardly a techie. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 7:50 am |
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Guest
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Happy Birthday to Dolores Weeden.
Still with Billy, she deserves a medal.  |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 8:07 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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marantzo wrote: Happy Birthday to Dolores Weeden.
Still with Billy, she deserves a medal.
She's still asleep but I will alert her and give her the medal asap.
Wow, thanks for remembering. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 10:06 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| Happy Birthday Dolores! |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 1:16 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6945
Location: Black Hills
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Oh my eyes!
Jeremy, regarding....
Quote: Without getting to deeply into the philosophical arguments as to what point individual freedoms can be curtailed to ensure the welfare of the many, I do not regard owning an automatic weapon as a critical human right. Sadam Hussien thought Iraq, as a soveriegn nation, should be allowed to try and build its own nuclear weapons. Well we put him striaght on that one, didn't we.
Wanna fuck a dead person or keep fissile material in your refrigerator or a lion in your back yard or torture bunny rabbits for kicks in the privacy of your own home. None of these activities directly harms another individual, but I'm glad we have laws that prevent people from doing them.
I approach the philosophic from a gut feeling -- that I can't be the one to decide if someone else lives or dies. Any gun is a formidable weapon that gives you the power to make that decision. When my wife was attacked by a purse-snatcher (drug addict) in our driveway, and punched and knocked brutally to the ground when she tried to resist, I had just stepped out onto our second floor balcony. It crossed my mind later, that though I didn't have time to get downstairs (barefoot and half-naked) and defend her, or give chase, it would have been so easy (and so tempting) to grab a gun and put a hole or two in the bastard. Compare/contrast such a decision, with administering a bloody nose by means of one's fists. I could easily do the latter to such a person, with not the slightest regret, and taking satisfaction in delivering some instant karma. But I just can't see that the lethal option is ours to deliver. Yet the reality of guns, automatic or otherwise, seems to be that most deaths administered by them, in civil life, are not acts of self-defense against a lethal threat. The rationale of gun owners is, therefore, a kind of fantasy, constructed from our culture's fairy tales of justice and retribution, and the hideous spectre of the murderous home invader, that statisically almost-nonexistent creature.
A lion in the backyard, however, would have been kind of handy. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 2:02 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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[...The rationale of gun owners is, therefore, a kind of fantasy, constructed from our culture's fairy tales of justice and retribution, and the hideous spectre of the murderous home invader, that statisically almost-non existent creature. ]
Excellent points; the discussions have been framed in such a way that we rarely pause to ask whether it is a good idea to empower homeowners to execute intruders. I don't know whether American law has the concept of reasonable force. In Britian, shooting a purse snatcher, say, or even a burglar, would not would not be considered proprotionate without extenuating circumstances. I know the gun laws in the UK are very different, but just having a loaded gun (even if licenced) availble to confront a criminal could be taken to imply a degree of premeditation. |
Last edited by jeremy on Wed Jan 12, 2011 3:54 pm; edited 1 time in total
_________________
I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 2:51 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 5:31 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| Befade |
| Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 7:10 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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I've changed my mind. I think I like David Brook's slant on Tucson more than Keith Olbermann's. I think Sarah Pallin is repulsive and stupid and totally insensitive (blood libel) but I don't think she's respoonsible for the unravelling of a mentally ill man.
I think she's responsible for using incendiary invective......along with alot of others on the right......and I think the climate needs to change.......I don't buy that it's just good, old American free speech.
I think the issues here are: how this country deals with the mentally ill. (Did you know there is a hot line to call in AZ if you suspect someone is mentally ill? In this case noone did.) And how this country needs to pull back on permissive gun laws. Watch Rachel Maddow talk about how there are plastic guns banned by congress.......except Dick Cheney wanted them available. |
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