Yes, because we know who is responsible and who is not when we give somebody a gun. No, it isn't that cut and dry. Who is to say some kid isn't going to flip shit as soon as you sell his responsible ass a gun. That is the worst argument I have personally every heard. Also, by adding more security and bullshit, you are adding onto more tuition which students can barely pay right now and are therefore not making education a number one priority. All we can do is move on, and yes this was a cold-blooded murder but don't EVER say shit like this isn't a tragedy.

You don't correct a violent situation by putting people in a potential more-violent situation ie. giving every "responsible" person a gun.

I know this was brought up in the other thread, but we shouldn't let people drive now, right? Because cars are obviously so dangerous, especially for, as you referred to them, "responsible" people. Right?

Personally, some people shouldn't be allowed to drive; but a car's sole purpose is very much different than a gun. You can't compare apples and oranges and that is very much a desperate attempt at doing so. All I was saying is that you'll never know who a responsible person is when the point was brought up that "we should only give guns to responsible people". You can't do it, it is impossible. Next time you try making a point, try not making one against a guy that is apparently agreeing with you.

A joke, huh?
(I'd mention a certain Florida lawyer too, but I'd like to think nearly everyone has learned to ignore him by now.)

EDIT: a nice little coincidence: Reuters released this study yesterday...
EDIT2: then there's thisstory today too...

With tragic events such as these, it takes a disgustingly short amount of time for people to start flinging around their two cents of irrational causes, preventative measures which should have been taken, etc. etc. etc. that they really don't know shit about as it applies in this specific scenario. They weren't in those classrooms, they weren't the shooter, yet they speculate with such a degree of confidence... It's just tiresome and stupid, really. That's what I was trying to say.

i was referring to amd2800barton, not me. personally, i think your point is ignorant -- but that is just my opinion.

darktoaster, i didn't reference your post anywhere, and i saw what you were trying to say.

My bad then, just got mixed up with some other forums I visit that start counting posts after the OP.

berto, following your logic, we should ban all P2P software because people primarily use it to break the law?

I am in no way equating copyright infringement with a massacre, but I am saying this: if the criteria we use to ban something is "is it primarily used to break the law", one, that opens up lots of things to banning and two, we get into debates over just what "primarily used" means.

Nowhere did I give my logic. I was simply stating that he can't compare driving with giving people guns. There is a different purpose for each of these.

Everything I have said has been to emphasis the first and only point i've been trying to make. You don't know who is responsible and who isn't so you can't give somebody a gun based off this (which is what amd2800barton's point was).

Never did I say the criteria of banning something was "it is used to break the law" nor did I ever infer it.

i mentioned elsewhere that i wouldn't define responsible. personally i think if a person is willing to apply for a concealed weapons permit, go through the background check, have their prints taken, and go through a serious safety course - they qualify as responsible.

it seems you think when i say responsible i mean "old enough to drive a car" or some such nonsense.

besides if someone wants to get a gun - they will get one. i feel safer knowing that there are other individuals out there to fight back against these people.

Guns are not primarily used to break the law. Even if you leave cops and soldiers out of the equation, there are between 800,000 (low estimate, by gun control group) and 2.5 million defensive uses of a gun each year, even neglecting the recreational aspect (rounds fired by me as practice/recreation since I bought my first gun three years ago: easily 150,000 rounds. years I've carried a loaded gun in public: three. rounds fired by me in a crime: zero).

Compare that to 9000-10,000 gun murders plus about 130,000 gun robberies plus about 130,000 gun aggravated assaults (many concurrent with the robberies, but we'll just go ahead and add them) you get 270,000 violent crimes per year (according to the FBI).

Let's see, even if you take the minimum, 800,000 number of legal defensive uses of a gun agreed to even by the gun control groups, that's about THREE TIMES MORE defensive uses of a gun than criminal uses. If you go with a middle of the road number like 1.75 million, you have over six times more defensive gun uses than criminal uses. Add in all the recreational uses that are not criminal, and you have a near-zero criminal use of guns compared to the non-criminal uses.



Berto, you can't just give guns to responsible people, but the data clearly show that there are far more responsible people out there than irresponsible. Since the irresponsible people often don't follow the law, it makes sense to just let everyone get a gun and the irresponsible people will at least get shot before they manage to shoot 50 people, since there are far more responsible than irresponsible people out there.

...You do realize that idiots can still go through all the checks and pass before getting a gun correct? The kid who shot up VTech appeared to be pretty upstanding... before he killed 32 and injured ~20 more.

I'll agree that there are probably far more responsible people than irresponsible, but clearly you have to see that there are still flaws in the logic. That is all I have been pointing out.

And giving guns to everyone is completely idiotic, just as a side note. Just because people can legally own it, doesn't mean everyone should have a gun. I've met quite a few idiots in my 20 years of experience.

By "appear to be upstanding" you mean he was committed to a mental institution and was predicted to go crazy by his english teacher? He wouldn't have passed his background check except a judge vacated his mental health records (for some reason - this is normally very difficult to do, and even after it is done the FBI usually still has the information and rejects the background check). It doesn't matter anyway. Crazy people will always get guns, legally or not. The only way to stop the shootings from getting this bad is for good people to have guns where they can stop the crazies.




Flaws in what logic? You haven't been pointing out flaws. You have been saying the exact same thing I've been saying (that "irresponsible people" or as I would say "the bad guys" will still be able to get guns) but you come to the exact opposite conclusion.



Who ever said give everyone a gun? I've known plenty of liberals who were honest enough with themselves and with me to say that they would be completely irresponsible with a gun and probably either shoot themselves or get angry and shoot someone else. I agree that it is completely idiotic to give everyone a gun, because there's just too many people out there who don't own guns for very good reasons. I said that it would be a good idea to let those who have taken and passed an 8 hour training class and evaluation, given up their fingerprints, passed a three month background check, and invested $750-1000 in training, equipment, and permit fees.

I've met quite a few idiots in my 25 years of experience. Including senators, senior NASA managers, and one very racist hockey player. However, I've also met far, far more people who were for the most part responsible. And you're not going to meet a more responsible person than the average CCW license holder.

The person who is willing to invest that much time, money, effort, and invasion of privacy, just to carry a gun legally, is the same type of person who invests years of their life as well as a huge effort to go to college. In fact, most CCW license holders are college graduates. They have never committed any violent crime, have a perfectly clean mental history, never been convicted of a drug crime, never even been charged with domestic violence, and so on. In fact, CCW holders as a demographic are convicted of fewer crimes than police officers as a demographic (nothing against police officers).

I don't understand why everyone arguing against CCW on campus keeps insisting on saying that "giving everybody guns is a bad idea." Nobody but you is saying that. We're saying let those who have proved themselves responsible carry a gun.

My fault, I was unaware of the mental history and just assumed since he did pass his background check, he was okay. As far as the english teacher goes, an english teacher is by no means a doctor.

By saying "let everyone get a gun", it sounds to me like you would be completely ignoring the tests/training/and everything else that comes with it, so that is my apology for misunderstanding you because I do think that if one goes through all the training, pays all the fees, and what-not then they should be allowed to carry it no matter where. And in wording it like that in the first place you wouldn't have gotten a response from me to begin with.

By the way, I have no clue what CCW is, so don't lump me in the category of protesters.