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Total ban

3 (5%)

Strict laws, harsh penalties, strict regulation and record-keeping with check-ups every so often

23 (38.3%)

Something in between

9 (15%)

As it stands now

6 (10%)

Total freedom

17 (28.3%)

Abstain

2 (3.3%)

Total Members Voted: 59

[Sonlirain]

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

I'm starting to believe that the gun lubby guns are so deeply ingrained in US culture that trying to make them less prevalent would cause the country to fall apart and turn into a central africa equivalent with its populace enslaved by Mexican immigrants crime lords.

[piratejoe]

They aren't even that hard to make.

... mate, have you ever actually made a gun? Been around someone that did? 'Cause I've actually helped out a gunsmith before, a bit. It's a pretty extreme deception to call a gun easy to make. A shitty gun is easy to make -- a modern firearm, that's accurate and not substantially more likely to jam or explode on you, is not even remotely easy to build. It's actually pretty bloody hard! Fairly precision machining involved, and a good amount of skill. Factory setting can stamp 'em out due to being specifically tooled for it, but outside of that, not so much.

Shoddy pipe guns or whatever aren't too difficult, sure, but those are also generally less dangerous than a ruddy knife. If folks were limited to home-made firearms, you could pretty much guarantee there'd be a lot less dead people involved when they start getting fired off.

I was talking about home made guns, but if guns where banned, i would not be surprised if the same thing that happened during prohibition happened again, just replace booze with gun.

[Frumple]

Ahhhh yes. I'm not American either, can you edit the list Frumple? So:

Done.

I was talking about home made guns, but if guns where banned, i would not be surprised if the same thing that happened during prohibition happened again, just replace booze with gun.

See, having known a gunsmith and being somewhat aware of what goes into making a gun besides, I very much would be surprised if anything even remotely resembling the scale of the prohibition happened. The materials and setup to make a gun worth a damn is a lot harder to hide than a still up in the mountains or out in the woods. Actually making one in a home shop instead of a factory also tends to take a fair amount of time. Single batch of alcohol did, too, but it only took one or two people to produce sizable batches. Firearms manufacturing is... not quite as easy to scale up. Unless you're suggesting there's going to be people hiding gun factories en masse.

Which... if that was a state of things that could happen and be maintained, we'd probably have a hell of a lot more problems than a gun equivalent of the prohibition.

[Strife26]

But what you are doing isn't a debate.  It's a public display of edginess.

THE IRONY!!!!

Mainiac is the only one competent enough to be a philosopher-king and determine what discussions are in poor taste, apparently.

Dammit, there goes my mostly-agreeing-with-Mainiac streak too.

[mainiac]

Mainiac is the only one competent enough to be a philosopher-king and determine what discussions are in poor taste, apparently.

It's flattering of you to say that but it's probably not the case.  The fact that other people use poor logical frameworks doesn't mean my logic any better.

[piratejoe]

Mainiac is the only one competent enough to be a philosopher-king and determine what discussions are in poor taste, apparently.

It's flattering of you to say that but it's probably not the case.  The fact that other people use poor logical frameworks doesn't mean my logic any better.

Well your most recent batch of "Logic" was more in line of a 12 year old cod player getting his ass handed to him and getting angry about it.

Ahhhh yes. I'm not American either, can you edit the list Frumple? So:

Done.

I was talking about home made guns, but if guns where banned, i would not be surprised if the same thing that happened during prohibition happened again, just replace booze with gun.

See, having known a gunsmith and being somewhat aware of what goes into making a gun besides, I very much would be surprised if anything even remotely resembling the scale of the prohibition happened. The materials and setup to make a gun worth a damn is a lot harder to hide than a still up in the mountains or out in the woods. Actually making one in a home shop instead of a factory also tends to take a fair amount of time. Single batch of alcohol did, too, but it only took one or two people to produce sizable batches. Firearms manufacturing is... not quite as easy to scale up. Unless you're suggesting there's going to be people hiding gun factories en masse.

Which... if that was a state of things that could happen and be maintained, we'd probably have a hell of a lot more problems than a gun equivalent of the prohibition.

In the prohibition the bigger family's had large scale brewery's similar to, if not actually in, a factory. so yeah. I'm getting my multi tool in self defense now, so glad it has a knife end.

[mainiac]

Well your most recent batch of "Logic" was more in line of a 12 year old cod player getting his ass handed to him and getting angry about it.

Hey dude, I'm doing fine.  I dont need you to make my argument for me.

[Sheb]

Mey, mainiac, you car to fill the policy list thingie?

[mainiac]

Mey, mainiac, you car to fill the policy list thingie?

No, I'm fundementally opposed to it.  We shouldn't allow our crude prejudices and wishful thinking to be what this debate is about.  We dont collect the sort of basic government statistics on this issue that we should.  No proper opinions are possible.

[Sheb]

So, no opinion on any of those, except "life the CDC research ban" and "yell at people trying to debate"?

[mainiac]

So, no opinion on any of those, except "life the CDC research ban" and "yell at people trying to debate"?

yell at people treating stupid arguments like "but it's not possible to take guns away guys".

I just want some goddamn honesty.

[Antioch]

I am in favour of gun restrictions, but what I think contributes way more to the US homicide rate than guns is the lack of a welfare state like we have in Western Europe.

[Frumple]

Lots of stuff contributes more to the US homicide rate than guns, ant. Has never really been a question about that.

[mainiac]

Like have you ever met an american?  You would probably want to kill us too.

[SirQuiamus]

Because I'm a lazy debater and kinda tired of flogging dead horses, I'm just going to link to an edgy blog and enjoy a momentary rush of intellectual superiority.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I had never seen this ad, because the ad was not for me. The ad targets men who need a gun to feel like a real man, the gun validates their masculinity-- or so the ordinary, pseudo-feminist deconstruction would go. Except that's not what the ad says. It says, quite clearly, that the highest validator of masculinity isn't the gun, it is the card. 

You've been trained to look at these things in terms of gender, forget it, the pathology of the generation is narcissism, the ad knows about, and works only on, a society eyeballs deep in narcissism, that requires its identity broadcast by branded objects but validated by other people. Because what this ad says, explicitly, is that owning the gun doesn't make you a man; when you own the gun, some other omnipotent entity will declare you a man. 

I'm not saying that gun owners need to show their guns off, I'm saying this ad assumes that. There was a time where merely possessing the fetishized object was enough to self-identify ("I'm awesome, I'm having sex with a blonde"; "just having my 9mm inside my jacket makes me feel bad ass"), but this is no longer sufficient, it is no longer powerful enough to penetrate your thick skull, you have to be able to show it to someone else, to watch their eyes light up in recognition for you to know you have convinced them of who you are. 

Is it cosmetic? Note the logic has evolved from "you'll feel better about yourself" to "other people will see you as more competent."

tl;dr: As far as advertising is concerned (and advertising is all there is to American culture), guns are for men what make-up is for women. If you are a "woman," the fantasy is that wearing make-up makes other "women" acknowledge you as a legitimate peer and competitor, thereby validating your identity as a Woman. If you are a "man," the fantasy is that carrying a gun makes other "men" (i.e. The Big Gubmint Daddy, in particular) acknowledge you as a legitimate peer and competitor, thereby validating your identity as a Man.

It's pretty funny, really. Although western countries have already banned all lethal toxins in cosmetics marketed to women, the same rules just don't seem to apply to the lethal male cosmetics called "guns."