I heard this guy on NPR at lunchtime. Interesting argument. As he put it, a mother legally can carry a handgun for protection all day long, but when she comes to campus for a night class, she can’t. After Virginia Tech, you have to wonder what would have happened there if students had been armed.
Va. Tech Killings Underscore Guns-on-Campus Campaign
Some college students are pushing for their schools to allow them to carry guns on campus.
They say they should have the right to protect themselves in the event of a shooting like the one that left 33 people dead at Virginia Tech.
Andrew Dysart, a George Mason University senior, has organized a chapter of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.
The group hopes to convince legislators to overturn a Virginia law that allows universities to prohibit students, faculty and staff members with gun permits from carrying their weapons on campus.
Dysart says that the students at Tech should have had a chance to defend themselves.
Virginia law allows schools to decide whether to allow students with concealed-weapons permits to carry their guns on campus.
One state school, Blue Ridge Community College, does allow it. Schools cannot prohibit non-students or other outsiders from carrying weapons onto campuses if they have legal permits.
>>All worth the 30,000 killed per year. Amen, and pass the gas.
You’re really losing it here, bobster. How many of those 30,000 gun-related deaths were attributable to violent criminals shooting law abiding (or at least innocent) citizens? How many of them might have been prevented if the victims were carrying (or were thought by the criminal to MAYBE have been carrying) a weapon?
And as to the 30,000 killed, that pretty much pales in comparison to the 293,656,842 people killed every year in travel-related incidents. Gun deaths are barely 0.01% of the deaths incurred while traveling. Shouldn’t we be triaging the carnage here, and be banning TRAVEL first? For every 1 gun victim, there are 10,000 travel victims.
#121 – MM
Why not the military? Is it OK for insane soldiers to be aiming their Gatling guns at anything with a heartbeat? Including those who are fighting on their side?
You may be right but I’ve had some personal experience in this area and occasionally it’s a good thing to have some really crazy people on your side.
Now that I’m old, I may be more easily persuaded to include the military in my crazy-testing scheme.
#122 – bobbo
Now, sane as in general sanity, or only sane as to the operation/safety of walking around with a weapon?
How about: sane enough to be President of the United States and not get impeached?
>>How about: sane enough to be President of the
>>United States and not get impeached?
Too low a standard. Look at the looney-tune we’ve got in there now, and the fine kettle of fish HE has gotten us into with his G.I. Joe adolescent approach to armed combat.
#126 – MM,
Tongue firmly implanted in cheek!
I suppose only the large number of posts in this thread is saving me from being roasted on a spit by the NRA right now. Perhaps this thread will sneak off the bottom of the page before they notice.
#123 So what you are saying is that motor vehicles kill more people then guns?
Lets look at that…
Motor vehicles are in common use everyday. For example 3 million people a day ride in a taxi in Shanghai.
Do people use guns as often they use as motor vehicles?
Ah…apples and oranges…
So of course there are LESS people killed or hurt by guns when compared to motor vehicles.
Statistics when used incorrectly give erroneous results.
One needs to compare how many guns were in use and get a percentage of injury or death and compare that to the percentage of people who are injured or die from motor vehicles which were used as a weapon! Opps, that’s right, for one to be accurate one must compare like causes. Damn.
#123 Swing and a miss…
Cheers
>>Do people use guns as often they use as motor vehicles?
Makes no difference; the “strong positive correlation” that Pizza Face is so worried about is still there. Get rid of cars, get rid of car deaths. Get rid of planes, get rid of plane deaths. Get rid of guns (as if this could ever be accomplished), get rid of gun deaths.
On the other hand, insure that only violent criminals (and cops and soldiers) have guns, and I predict that violent crime (including gun deaths) will skyrocket.
Just an opinion, but it certainly passes the common sense test, don’t you think? If disarming people made them safer, we should expand that theory and disarm all cops and military as well.
#110 – Hell, after VT, if you are qualified to carry a concealed deadly weapon, you should carry it. I plan on getting my license before I leave for my second half of college.
Comment by Marthy — 8/21/2007 @ 8:23 am
I don’t care if you ban guns or hand them out on street corners. But that is a, and I’m sorry if this offends, that is a stupid opinion. It’s as stupid as refusing to fly after 9/11 or refusing to drive because you witnessed an accident. Maybe we should stop bathing because people die in bath tubs.
This kind of thinking is why I really wish logic and statistics were subjects taught in schools as early as first grade. The ability to actually make sense of the world is based on an understanding of logical thinking and math. Not this paranoid craziness.
The overwhelming majority of Americans will go from cradle to grave and never witness a violent crime live. Your likelihood of being a victim of violent crime drops significantly on a college campus. There is even a relationship between violent crime and property value… you wealthy and middle class white people really don’t have anything to worry about.
The bottom line… everyday Americans suck at risk assessment. (and math)
#56
Then explain me how a mentally disturbed student like Cho was able to get those guns LEGALLY?
Bobbo –
Wow… anti gun but pro civilian surveillance… wow, you really do like a strong central government with an overprotective paternal quality.
I honestly don’t care one way or the other if you ban guns or mail one to every citizen. They simply aren’t important. They are just hammers. Who uses them and what they are used for is what is at issue.
And further, violent crime has enjoyed a bit of a spike lately, but overall, crime is still down and our lives are actually pretty safe.
I drive a cab, graveyard shift, for three years in a large urban city. I carried businessmen and strippers, parents and crack dealers, cops and robbers… I never carried a gun, or faced a gun, or ever actually felt in danger at all… 6 PM to 6 AM in the city is when most people think I’m just waiting for my number to be up. Well, I live in the city and I have no fear at any hour in any place and I am unarmed.
I say let the gun fetishists have their guns. These guys are just camouflage clad bulletheaded fucktards, but they are harmless. They have their white pride meetings to keep them off the street. Most NRA guys, on the other hand, are just citizens who believe gun ownership is important and they aren’t a threat… in fact, they are good citizens. Most armed criminals are just foolhardy to cowardly and they rarely draw and fire in reality, but they go down fast if they do. The world is a dangerous place on occassion… If you can’t roll the dice, then board up the house and have your groceries delivered.
And any of these conspiracy theorists who insist on maintaining an armory to oppose the government when the time finally comes have read too many bad dystopian novels and will die first when the amazingly well armed military machine comes marching down his street… not that its gonna happen.
I think the Earth would be a better place with no guns, but that’s impossible so why in the hell should I waste energy opposing guns? To me, guns are like abortion. I don’t like them, so I don’t have one. Your mileage may vary. But I just don’t care much about what the rest you decide to do about guns.
Besides, its the First Amendment that preserves freedom in the 21st Century… in fact it always has been. So that’s what I choose to care about.
132:
That’s what I love about this country.
I don’t agree with a thing you say, but I’ll defend your right to say it 🙂
>>occasionally it’s a good thing to have some really
>>crazy people on your side.
Yeah, as long as they’re not so crazy they start shooting at YOU.
If everyone were armed, can you imagine how many road rage shoot-outs there would be?
>>If everyone were armed, can you imagine how many
>>road rage shoot-outs there would be?
Not as many as you’re implying, I’ll bet. If the rageful perpetrator had good reason to think that the little old lady who pissed him off might have a Desert Eagle .50 caliber semi-automatic in the glove box, he’d probably think twice about pinging her car with his .22 belt-buckle gun.
As it stands now, the road rage kook is ALREADY packing a weapon, but the little old lady is unarmed.
You have a good point there.
132–OFTLO==Sorry to miss the invigorating debate, what with Mustard displaying his ignorance so proudly, but I was off trying to make mayonnaise for the potatoe salad. Sucker broke 6 times on me before the same recipe worked. Only variable I can think of is increasing heat from the food processor? Sure is good once its made though.
what did you call me a while back? – – Looking for safety from the Nanny State or some such? I saw the reasons for it. Took me awhile to think it thru. What is driving my attitude? I think it is a desire for the government to be COMPETENT in what it does. So–yes, cameras in public places and no guns for criminals, crazies, and most other folks to with the ultimate goal of no guns for cops either.
I am pro 1 Amendment and anti Government–ie, everything should be reported instantly and transparently and so forth. Don’t trust any of them, or anyone else with power blah, blah, blah, and so forth.
So, the positive correlation is there, Mustard crowing his arguments against the fact he claims to accept. You see MM–the bottom of the curve, that which gives it the strong correlation is societies like England, Scotland, Sweden, Japan and so forth wherein the citizens do not have ready access to firearms. They are safer in their cars and in their homes, and at school and at work than we are. I don’t like them foreigners being smarter at good social culture than we here in the GOUSA. Gun Nuts are very responsible for much more degregation of life than just random murders. The entire fabric has been affected with parks closing at dark and on and on. Course, most of that is our wrong headed drug laws acting in concert with our wrong headed gun laws- – – -and so forth.
So do we continue the madness or make a change? Gun laws stay the same or get worse in 50 years where are we? Gun laws become more restrictive, no change in 5 years, but maybe in 50 years we can see some light at the end of the tunnel. Thiz said it all quite well earlier in the thread.
BTW–we need cars, we don’t need guns. Equivalency of the two avoids that distinguishing fact.
But I want to congratulate everyone here. I never thought we could run a long thread and not have some idiot say guns don’t kill people. Some came pretty close. Progress???
>>what with Mustard displaying his ignorance so proudly
What was that Miles Winsown said way back at the beginning? “You can always tell when a person feels they’ve lost the argument. They start slinging mud”?
Looks like you’re batting about 0.00 in most of the arguments you’ve started, bobbo.
I have presented factual evidence along with some of my opinions (clearly identified as such); all you have done is to beat the same old tired drum of “if there are guns, there will be gun deaths”. Zzzzzzzzz.
I guess your debating skills are right up there with your mayonnaise-making ones. How hard is it to do THAT? I make it all the time, and never have any trouble. Maybe you forgot to add the MUSTARD???
You should stick to those pre-fabricated pizza crusts ( http://tinyurl.com/37q7oj ) that you’re so famous for.
Bobbo, get this past your clown makeup and your rainbow wig, guns are not the only way to kill people. Just sticking with school massacres:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka_school_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster
In that second instance, the perp killed 45 people with dynamite. I suppose we should be thankful that Cho decided to kill with pistols rather than blowing them up, eh? And trust me, in Virginia, with all of the surface mining, a determined man with a flashlight and some overnight time could steal something much more powerful than dynamite nowadays.
But, back to the heart of your ‘argument’, I assert that there is no positive correlation between prevalence of guns and murders. Your entire argument is a farce. The number of murders committed in the Darfur with machetes makes Seattle, with it’s prevalent gun culture, look like paradise. But, if we accept that this correlation is true, so what? Correlation does not equal causation, and thus your assertion that this correlation is the same as causation is a logical fallacy. Do you really want to assert a statistic, with no backing, then building upon that foundation of sand an utterly false argument? Feel free, but I won’t be standing anywhere near that rigged structure, lest it come crashing down.
There -is- a correlation between guns and deaths by firearms, but there is also a correlation between population density and murders of all sorts. By your reasoning, the best way to reduce the murder rate would be to simply sterilize everyone. In a hundred years, when our species is extinct, there will be no crime of any sort. Problem solved!
138-I’ve never heard anybody spot such a load of horse hocky in my life. Seriously.
I hope I don’t ever read about some crazed maniac breaking into your house and beating you with a baseball bat. How would you defend yourself? Wait on the competent government to look into your open windows with their camera and come save you?
I can’t believe you actually choose to pee standing up with such an attitude.
bobbo
Please stop claiming correlation = causation it does not. In addition positive correlation cannot support your hypothesis as my own example in comment #92 shows.
Your 70% gun homicide rate only shows that guns are the current favorite tool for killing. If we didn’t have guns we’d use the next best thing. Just accept that we humans are violent and generally homicidal, we’ve been killing one another for thousands of years and we’re not going to stop for lack of firearms.
#118 Cinaedh said: “everybody should have to prove they’re sane before they’re allowed to purchase and/or carry.”
Thats a great idea, just so long as I can be the sole arbiter of sanity.
Aint tongue in cheek commentary the best?
Your tongue, my cheeks.
Make it so Number One!===To Infinity and beyond. Yeeaaahhh!!!!
>>Correlation does not equal causation
I don’t think they offered Statistics 101 at bobbo’s clown college. It’s clear from his “argument” that he needs some remedial work or tutoring.
>>Aint tongue in cheek commentary the best? Your tongue,
>>my cheeks.
Bobbo, if the “commentary” you’re offering is “tongue in cheek”, you need to work on your delivery a little bit.
I’m willing to cut you some slack on your statistical sloppiness (I know they don’t teach that discipline at Clown College), but you should at least be highly trained in educating the audience. Or are you one of those EVIL clowns, the ones that kids are scared of?
145–Hey MM===”Are You talkin to Me?” Must be pretty boring or nothing thread worthy? I think opinions on taste, culture, and values can be discussed but errors in logic and simple definitions are somewhat difficult to tolerate, atleast for me. You do very well though in that arena.
(RANT!!)
Aren’t kids afraid of all clowns? I think so. And again, while identifing a teachable moment above, I decline the position of teacher. Much prefer the grasshopper. So much still to learn, so little time, especially when time frittered away down the wrong path?
Its true for all of us, regardless of path or goal.
>>I think opinions on taste, culture, and values can be discussed
>>but errors in logic and simple definitions are somewhat difficult
>>to tolerate, atleast for me.
I don’t believe I’ve made any errors in logic or simple definitions, bobbo. If I’m mistaken, please disabuse me of that notion (and don’t bring up that rediculous “Xtheism is not a religion” dead horse, PLEASE; you’ve already been trounced on that one).
You, on the other hand, inssit on perseverating in putting forth the “correlation equals causation” fallacy that most junior high kids learn to avoid like the plague.
Or is there a deep, hidden wisdom to what you say, that transcends your almost laughable inability to conceptualize simple numerical relationships?
“Aint tongue in cheek commentary the best?
Your tongue, my cheeks.”
So, you’re french kissing us? Excuse me while I wash my mouth out with Listerine.
I’ve found a picture of Bobbo.
http://redwing.hutman.net/%7Emreed/warriorshtm/evilclown.htm
>>picture of bobbo
And the description is spot-on
“Evil Clown is very quick with a joke, but his jests always have a barb. He has little patience for in-depth discussions and will often disrupt exchanges between serious forum participants by introducing irrelevant topics, fatuous quips, and offhand comments. His greatest thrill is to taunt and humiliate weaker or more plodding Warriors with his snappy ripostes. Not a particularly powerful Warrior, Evil Clown will attempt to avoid defeat by accusing his attacker of having no sense of humor.”
Unfortunately for bobbo, he hasn’t found too many “weaker or more plodding Warriors”; hence his current standing at the bottom of the pissoir of posters.
#138
> Gun Nuts are very responsible
> for much more degregation of
> life than just random murders.
Utter nonsense is the nicest response I can provide to this remark. Never mind that the country was founded by gun nuts.
Regarding gun laws, I should point out that there have been gun laws in this country for a minimum of 70 years (probably goes back much further). Since those laws have apparently done nothing to prevent gun violence does that mean we should eliminate them? At the end of the day, economics and education probably have far more to do with violence of any type including those involving guns than any other factor.
> BTW–we need cars, we don’t
> need guns. Equivalency of
> the two avoids that distinguishing fact.
Need is relative to the situation. I don’t need food at the moment since I just ate. If a fellow student decides to go on a shooting spree, I need a gun. If I’m about to be mugged, I need a gun. .
> guns don’t kill people.
I again direct you to the Riddle of Steel.
Someone at one point mentioned how this debate was more heated than religious debates. The reason is that the there is no middle ground in this debate. The anti-gun crowd are not satisfied with simply leaving gun owners alone and choosing to not buy guns. Instead, they want to elminate gun ownership entirely and that lack of ground on which they can compromise is what makes this debate so heated.
Bobbo, I’m finding it hard to take any of your statements at face value when you claim the assualt weapons ban expired a few months ago. Could you back that up?