jazzy

Are you confused by my tree diagram or something? I'm telling you that America is a federal presidential republic, which runs on democracy. It's a democracy. Who's close minded again?

Ok, because you don't understand, here is a tree diagram: Democracy Direct Democracy (nobody exists here) Representative democracy 200 versions of parliaments, republics, etc Federal presidential republic United States of America Many other types of democracies Do you understand why the US is a "democracy" now?

Dudes like "Why can't I convince the guy who I told America isn't a democracy that we should keep our guns" You should travel outside of America sometime, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Nobody tell him. Also I think you keep conflating my argument that I want to ban all guns. I certainly think we can ban 90% of firearm types, but 10% can be left under strict control. We were talking about changing/removing 2A, which is a test of democracy. If Americans aren't willing to amend amendments, this whole thing is fucked.

Well my opinion is that america really isn't that much different from the world. Just because you have 5% more X and 10% more Y and 15% more Z doesn't really sway my opinion that it relates to gun control. Neither does our form of government (despite not being that different from many other countries) really have an effect on me either. Guns still work the same on US soil as they do Canada. And there are still crazy people willing to shoot kids in all countries. The US is just the only country that makes it the easiest. You mentioned something about governments not giving rights to their citizens. It's really just not true. Plenty of governments give citizens their rights. edit: or maybe rather I should say citizens inherently have rights to many things in most countries. This whole "the government gives you rights" vs "the people give themselves rights" is a rather annoying argument and I'm not really interested in arguing weird ass constitutional technicalities like this. The end result is the people have rights, and these people are citizens of many different countries. Are we still talking about gun legislation? Do people on the right not think diversity is a great thing? Filibuster So do bans work do they not work? You said you're in favor of stricter gun control, but this sentence seems to imply it's futile because they will find a way anyway? Which is it man? Does gun control work or does it not? You're making conflicting arguments and expecting me to rationally argue both of them, how can I when you yourself don't even know what your argument is? I've said 300x this thread that the guns that are better at killing people should be restricted, and some guns can remain, IE the same as other countries with restrictive gun laws. But thanks for the misquote. Also isn't it funny how we ban almost all explosive ordinances for "personal usage" because "dur hurr explosives kill people so lets get rid of explosives." Sometimes it really is that simple dawg. Incorrect. Except maybe we're the only ones with the electoral college, but that's probably because it's a stupid system and everyone else realized that. Plenty of countries have an eerily similar structure as the US... In fact we've even "helped" quite a few countries make their governments. We are an indirect democracy, that's a type of democracy... Obviously I know we elect representatives and do not directly vote on all legislation. Serious question- are you baiting me with statements like this to get me to insult you? So you know what you're saying is a logical fallacy but you're still trying to use it as an argument? Ok let me use this exact same argument: Unless our country is a 1:1 mirror of another country who's banned guns that then turned into a tyrannical government, then you have no evidence to suggest it would happen at all. Can you let me know if you think that makes sense? Gonna need to elaborate on that. Ok, but you said "in the majority of other countries" not all of them. There are countries with similar structures as US. The US was an outlier 200 years ago, not really the case now. If the majority of Americans want legislation to happen, and/or amend the constitution, and a minority group of people disagree and are determined to wage war over it, that isn't a valid reason to avoid doing so. If you were truly a fan of the "american experiment" you would understand how absurd it is to avoid democracy for the sake of convenience. Wouldn't you agree? I'm really not interested in debating prohibition in this thread, just I wanted to let you know the argument of prohibition = bad is not as clear cut as you intended to make it. I never believed you did. Fully aware there are differing views? I'm also very aware we're at an impasse! Tag Gentoo back in, he was more entertaining

It's hard to show data when nobody collected data. I'm not arguing the point of prohibition because there's no data, but I am arguing the point of post-prohibition because there is data, and it shows alcohol usage was down post-prohibition for many decades. I mean it's a pretty insurmountable point of evidence that the rest of the world has implemented it and we haven't. Are you gonna call any argument anyone makes a hasty generalization because I didn't write a paper on it? How can I gather enough fact based evidence that the entire world has implemented gun control before you're happy? I doubt I could ever convince you because you're adamant on this whole "american experiment" thing. The american experiment was literally the test of democracy, like 200 years ago. What experiment are we running now? There are more countries that are more democratic than us. There's literally a "freedom index" and we're not even top 10 dude. Also, this entire situation is humorous at best, if you want to figure out what the American population, this "diverse" country wants to do, why not just check and see how it polls? This was even before the most recent Uvalde shooting.. I'm sure once Pew Research Center drops more research it's going to be higher again. So, serious question- why does this whole american experiment matter? If the majority of Americans support restrictions, why are we so bent on protecting an amendment that's designed to be changed? Someone said it earlier, the constitution is a living document. Prohibition was an amendment, and then it wasn't. You're trying to say all this shit about "no we're different we're different we're different." Bullets work the same here as everywhere else man. Why does culture or history matter? What matters is the present, and what the people want. Though I guess for people like Gentoo, it's not what the people want, it's what he wants.

Your opinion of an inarguable right doesn't give you grounds to kill someone else just because they want to govern you. You realize you sound like a maniac right now? How are you any different from these people who shoot up city halls because they don't want to pay taxes? So can I defend myself with a dirty bomb arsenal and a grenade launcher? Also I'd like to be able to buy an F-16 with working missiles. Everyone has a right to defend themselves but there's no inalienable right you're allowed to any weapon you choose. edit: Just to clarify, nobody is taking away your ability to defend yourself. They're taking away highly potent weaponry that can kill dozens in a matter of minutes.

Missing the point. What makes your rights inarguable but others not? You're a hypocrite.

Right, so just inferring here but I'm thinking here's your thought process: Gun is a human right > Someone is attempting to take my human right away > I kill them, because it's my human right The flaw in your logic is it's your opinion owning a gun is a human right. Just the same, wasn't it your opinion in another thread that abortion isn't an inarguable right? Sure is funny how abortion is arguable but gun rights aren't. Weed's illegal federally and it's still regulated better than guns are. Just wanted to point out how hilarious that is. Also I think most people don't give a shit about weed given if your kid finds your weed stash they just get high. They find your gun they can kill someone. That's probably why everyone's so relaxed about it, you know? Big claim here- any validity to it? There's no federal register of gun owners in the US. But estimations come at around 30% of people polled as owning a gun. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/the-demographics-of-gun-ownership/ Is it really part of "everyone's" lifestyle? They're certainly part of everyone's life, but lifestyle is an important distinction to make. You're using what's called backwards induction. You're taking the end state of one thing and working backwards to prove the argument (Weed is still highly used despite being banned, therefore banning something doesn't work). There's nothing inherently wrong with backwards induction, except you're actively cherry picking the argument. Can a ban be circumvented? Sure, but just because something isn't 100% flawlessly reduced doesn't mean we shouldn't try. I also would be careful of invoking prohibition into this argument, I don't really want to get into it too much but prohibition definitely worked, even after it was abolished. It wasn't a popular public opinion at the time, and it happening around the Great Recession helped create a lot of variables, but the science before and after prohibition doesn't lie: drinking levels were at an all time high in America pre-prohibition, and it took several decades to hit above that level. Prohibition curbed drinking, whether you want to add as many asteriks around that as you like, the data is there: On a smaller scale? Other countries? Bro, try the rest of the world. There are only like 4 other countries in the entire world that have as relaxed gun laws as we do. What makes you think the US is more different than the entire world?

So just to post this in the thread because you dodged it in discord. If the people of this country and the republic of this country held a majority vote to ban guns and it passed, would you abide by the law set forth and give up your guns? Or would you use violence to prevent the state from taking them? It's not a 2 year process. We banned full auto guns before you were born and as a result it's almost impossible to obtain a modern full auto gun legally. It's a multi generational process to slowly eradicate the use of most weaponry in the US. Almost all of these mass shootings are done by legally acquired guns that are acquired in a short period of time (see most recent hospital shooting where gun was acquired same day, and Uvalde shooting where gun was acquired within the same 2 weeks). We can make it harder to acquire most guns by creating due processes. Most people don't know how to illegally acquire certain objects, and when acquiring illegal items it is a lot easier for the government to find these people due to honeypot measures. Basically- the idea of giving up before even getting started is rather silly. Delirium said it earlier- many countries implemented universal healthcare, when we have not. Many countries have additionally enacted stricter gun control. What we're trying to accomplish isn't some impossibility. It's a herculean task for a herculean problem.

You're failing again, because once again we're back to the same point I made- if everyone democratically voted for me to not be able to have kids, how would me having a gun resolve this issue? Would I take up arms and kill everyone who voted Yes on preventing jazzy from having kids? Do you think this actually would result in me being able to have a kid? This is the root issue with your entire philosophy- you can never actually leverage your weaponry against the state. Because ultimately if your goal is to retake your rights, your rights are going to be taken anyway when the state inevitably kills you for trying to retake them. You're not actually in control by owning a gun, you've just given yourself some illusion of choice in the matter. Now on the other hand, Delirium is at least right on one thing- guns are a great way to defend yourself in your home... from criminals. If you're trying to use your gun to protect yourself from the state enjoy being dead. And if you arm an entire population and still promote democracy and democratically the people out majority the other people, the minority having guns doesn't somehow magically make them right. Serious question- why do you participate in society at all? Honestly this is such a side tangent and the foundation for your arguments aren't based on reality, they're based on hypotheticals your paranoid brain has concocted to rationalize why you think gun clutching is actually a way to live. Earlier in this thread you were legit using a logical fallacy (appeal to probability) as a basis for your argument, which you're once again doing. What's next, multiverse arguments? Please ground yourself back into reality. I never said they were? I never said it wasn't? In fact, one of my first replies: You know some other models working in other areas of the world? Gun control. So then you're aware that these countries also have lower rates of gun violence? Are you just avoiding this point or what? You said afterwards: So what part defined your belief I was uneducated on the subject? I noticed you still did not answer this question I'm going to highlight a few things I'm going to hold to you because you keep avoiding them: I should've said weighted rating system- basically a system to identify characteristics in guns that afford mass shooters more efficient opportunities over other guns. I mean, does reloading not take time? Not to mention they do have some heft to them, even if they're low capacity So are you implying banning certain weaponry/modifications has no impact on the ability to get these items? Or would you agree that banning something reduces the availability? Well your opinion is not founded in reality. Plenty of countries banned >90% of guns decades ago but allowed certain guns in certain scenarios and these countries have significantly lower gun violence than USA (as shown in BoM's post)

So if the government is fucking me over and you have voting rights, should I use my 2A rights to take over the government and violate the rights you used to vote? You just said you won't vote with me, even though you think the government is fucking me over. So when are we supposed to exercise our 2A against the government?

I mean, yeah, that's my stance vs yours. This is exactly my point from earlier, this whole "govt vs the people" doesn't end up like this. Americans have owned guns for 200+ years and it hasn't stopped anyone in government from fucking over people at certain times. Additionally, you fail to acknowledge the obvious fact. I am able to own a gun right now, and I'm being "fucked by the government." How would me having a gun help the situation? Should I hold up a pharmacy every 8 weeks for my next dose? I guess I'd probably get shot by one of those good guys with a gun tho. I literally said stop jailing people at the drop of the hat, for example. Who's got a one track mind?

I mean he used the word "will" I had wanted to bring this up in the last thread but it got locked but just my 2c on this whole thing is that it won't happen like you think it will happen. I think mentally people assume that it's "govt vs people" when never in the history of ever has that ever happened. Someone else brought up the whole "we can't ban guns cuz big fight" this was literally the whole problem with abolishing slavery, and everyone pussy footed around it to avoid the ensuring war that it just bubbled to the top and exploded. When civil war came nobody in the North, backed by the (real) federal government was saying "yeah we're the autho bad guys hehe." Everyone in the North fighting to abolish slaves (hurr durr states right) didn't feel authoritarian, but the South worked hard to paint them as such. And ultimately when the North won did the US government become an authoritarian regime? Not really. In many ways, the fight over slavery, the argument of rights and who's rights are whose, and the considered "benefits to society" are all something to think about. Slavery was a human rights violation to benefit select members in society at the suffering of many. I think we've moved further enough long in the argument that nobody has really disputed a key point I made- certain guns are much, much better at killing people than say a knife, or a car. When we narrow in on that and accept that guns may provide some teeth to the citizens, does the net benefit of possibly preventing authoritarianism outweigh the societal punishment for having them by enabling people to continue to leverage them to kill those within society? I mean, just as a reminder, these guns are being used to kill kids. Kids, who are 'legally bound' to come to school (unless the parents can get them homeschooled), who cannot legally arm themselves, and who cannot legally vote (hey wait weren't we just talking about authoritarianism?). I think we have to make a pretty solid choice here... Are we, as a society, putting kids as lambs to the slaughter on the basis that we need to retain some right that most countries don't even have or give a shit about? The graph posted in page 1 was clear - firearm related incidents are the #1 killer of children in America. I would argue it's one of the biggest problems plaguing adolescence today. And I think that ties in decently into my next discussion (this is out of order): I wonder what the pound for pound is on "mental heath" when as a kid the number #1 killer of yourself and your friends is being shot. When I went to school all I was worried about was my acne and people making fun of it. Now we got motherfuckers with legally purchased "assault rifles" walking in and shooting everyone in a locked room for an hour. I'm sure that's healthy for kids' mental well being. Color me skeptical on this whole mental health discussion cuz I'm stuck in the healthcare world here and have to pay like $10k/yr in insurance shit and w/o insurance my drugs cost $13k/mo. Sir will you sign my petition on M4A? How about Medicaid/Medicare expansion in my state? My state still hasn't expanded Medicare/Medicaid, is it any surprise my state is red, and my governor spoke at the NRA convention? But more seriously, sure, I think you and a couple other people are trying to hype up mental health awareness and that's great but we're slowly rotating the dial back to this whole "America isn't the only country with bad mental health." I think someone mentioned it in another thread about how "it's a parenting problem." Which I totally agree with, but does anyone think the government can regulate parenting? More importantly, perhaps we could stop locking up people all the time and they might have some parents We might have a lot mentally healthier population if we quit locking up every fucking person who breaks even the smallest crimes, and even additionally, stopped locking them up in a place so fucked up that every single American believes male prison is filled with sexual assault crimes. Seriously, the scariest thing about prison should be being locked in a prison for X years to serve a sentence, prevented from the leisure of freedom, not whether or not you might get raped. Which I really think you wanted to say was "Does anyone here who's not pro 2A, actually know about guns?" but instead you used this weird roundabout way to try and be like "Aha, you don't own a gun, therefore you aren't an expert on the subject!" which is a pretty silly, given the last time we talked about this I think I adequately depicted a gun owner, who really didn't know how to use a gun. So to answer, what I think your question should've been, is: Yes I know how to use a gun and have a small amount of hours firing them at a range and out in the country, using guns I do not own, nor have ever owned. And just to narrow in on what I said earlier, can you actually tell me what made you believe I'm 'uneducated' on guns? You didn't actually debate the point, you just tried to gatekeep me out of it. Like seriously- "You're uneducated and I will find it hard to be persuaded by someone who I don't believe is educated". So what were the arguments you weren't persuaded by exactly? Was it the part where I said certain guns are better at killing people than other guns... Do you not agree with that? What's the basis for such an argument? (See BoM's post from pg1) Oh and just one small side note: I think BoM posted graphs, or were we thinking these are appeal to emotion too (I noticed you never engaged him on any of this data):

I mean I guess it's true I don't really have much thought either way about the mental faculties of these shooters. Not sure I really find it that important. If they didn't have a gun they'd probably just use another tool to kill them so from my perspective it's irrelevant. I understand we should work towards reducing mental health issues, etc, but I think you can agree there's not possible to 100% narrow out stuff like that. Something something as long as there is two people in the world, someone is going to want someone dead. At the end of the day I really don't think the high end guns, the ones that have qualities and efficiencies beneficial to kill people at a faster rate than other guns should be legal. (sorry typo) edit: and just to iterate further when I say high end I don't just mean "high caliber" or anything. Mostly a weight system where certain weaponry/ammunition/gear is more useful to harm civilians than it is to "protect yourself from da gubbament" I'm personally anti gun on like 99% of weaponry but I'm realistic that won't happen in my lifetime. I think a lot of "gun people" like to jerk themselves hard and go after "not gun people" over small discrepancies in their argument like is X an AR or is Y a clip or stupid stuff. Just acknowledge that a lot of guns are better at killing people than other guns and many Americans are now wondering if those are really necessary in modern society. At the core I think we just have completely conflicting belief systems. You believe that without the 2nd amendment, the government can and assuredly will become autho, and guns one of the major tools to prevent this Has anyone responded in this thread been in a mass shooting? Just wondering...

So just to preface this I brought up that we reasonably can't reduce murder to 0 because that is what a few of you were talking about- because when someone said "gun control" people were saying "well what about cars?" The point of gun control isn't to reduce the number of murders to 0 for all things all the time. We all acknowledge this is pretty much completely impossible today. The point I was making is that guns are too effective in the hands of psychopaths. It's a little annoying you dodged that entire point. You can't disagree that guns are more effective as tools than almost all other tools (aside from maybe explosive ordinance), so you latch onto a very side tangent. And just on this discussion you're half correct at best. I'm not sure I agree that crowding increases antisocial behavior (compared to what scale?), but even if crime is up in dense metropolis areas, why are some of the most densely metropolitan areas in the world inside gun controlled states and those gun controlled states have low gun violence rates? India, China, Taiwan, Japan, S Korea, etc... Bro we used to bonk each other with rocks in trees. Like 200 years ago there were people rationalizing slavery, we still have people rationalizing slavery today. I think if you're asking me when people started being sociopaths you should probably read some cave paintings.

Are we talking about gun control or slavery I honestly can't tell. So you guys (and others) are all making the same argument so I'll just say this: The root problem is obviously not guns, it is murder. However, I've yet to see anyone figure out how to make people stop murdering others, so we can probably cross that one off. The root problem is mental health, but I think Republican's whole charade of "mental health" is kind of fictitious in nature because we're probably not going to prevent people from going literally insane in our lifetime, and wanting to kill kids. It's just a universal constant with humans at this point. Not saying we can't improve the lives of people substantially to prevent them from WANTING to do that, but yeah, you guys can guess where I'm going with this. So anyway the reason most of us don't really like guns is because guns are really fucking good at killing people. Like so good the military is like "we should use guns." So I'd guess guns are pretty effective. And when we talk about the mind of a murderer most of them want to use the tool that murders people the best. The first person I quoted, Autistic, said that after guns were banned stabbings went up. That's true, but I'd probably wager it's a lot harder to stab someone than shoot them, considering I also need to be pretty dang close to stab someone. So what do you get when you create a tool that's really efficient at killing people, really easy to acquire, really easy to use, really easy to transport, decently cheap to buy, and has almost no oversight by da gubbament? Well you have the mass murderer's favorite choice. If remote detonated bombs were legal in America I bet those would be way more popular, but they're banned, so they're not as used. Everyone in here seems pretty smart so it's kind of like the analogy if you prevent people from dying to preventable diseases like polio and shit, more people die of cancer (because they live longer). But would anyone really make the argument that why use the polio vaccine if they're just going to get cancer 10 years later anyway? I mean that's a stupid argument. Just the same, if you banned guns and gun violence went down by knife violence went up, would that really be THAT BAD? I got it- I assume you will stop posting in this thread. (Does that mean it will happen?)

Waffles have way more opportunity, you guys gotta experiment, find a place that makes authentic Norwegian waffles and you'll lose your mind. Here's a couple waffles. My wife and I go to this local place that serves brunch with specialty waffles. Mine was a spicy egg/bacon mix, hers was a smoked salmon/cream cheese/onion mix.

I never said "allow." Read my post again. A marriage license doesn't give you the ability to shoot people, because it's not a gun, yet 2 years in the USCIS system and thousands of dollars proves it's harder to get married to an immigrant than get a gun, a weapon capable of killing dozens in a matter of minutes. It's incomprehensible how we've decided this makes sense.

Ok, well I'm glad we can continue down this path of complete paranoia on some illogical basis that the government went autho so hard the entire population rose up and threw down. Meanwhile the rest of the civilized world moves on without needing to tool up the entire population once over and lives without kids being shot in the face on a bi-weekly basis. We're back to point A where I tell you this happens all across the world and America isn't the only one with people suffering these issues. But seemingly America is the only one with the school shooting epidemic. I think you could throw out some statistics I could agree with that point to this idea that Americans could potentially suffer more on average (incarceration rates, bankruptcy rates, for instance) but there are many statistics that don't align with your argument. For instance, the suicide rate, sex crime rate, serious assault rates. These all fall near or around other 1st world countries per capita. Should we work to stop bullying, abuse, neglect? Of course, but we can do both. We can curb the ability for people to rapidly buy guns and use them for violent acts. Like bro I got married to a foreigner and had to pay over $2k in filing fees, she had to interview at an Embassy (read: interrogated), go to the border and get questioned (read: interrogated), then we had to travel to ANOTHER STATE and had to get interviewed (read: interrogated) at the same time. Meanwhile this kid can walk into a gun store and buy a gun on his 18th birthday? Make this shit harder, seriously. I had over 200 pages presented to the feds to prove I was in a legitimate marriage with my wife and you fuckers can buy an AR15 in 20 minutes. I can't mow down 20 kids with a marriage license.

I'll admit the picture was more memery bullshit and it was out of pocket

Bro literally said any other country is irrelevant like you're the only country with freedom Most americans don't own guns despite us having more guns than people in this country Most americans who do own guns, own multiple, and most guns owned in America are pistols Most americans are unsuitable to actually use firearms There are literally counties in EU with mandatory military service, high gun ownership, and high ownership of high powered rifles Legitimately countries like Finland are better trained, per capita more armed (because they have a higher SPREAD of guns rather than all the guns being owned by a select population in America), and per capita better armed than Americans because they don't have a gun fetish and own real rifles. Does anyone here actually think small calibers used in guns like pistols do anything at all if they were up against the Guard or the military? Here's just how dumb the average American gun owner is. They actively spend thousands per decade on guns that would be used to fight the government while literally spending thousands more than that on taxes used to fund the military to have superiority over their own population. Does anyone here ACTUALLY think if the government went full autho that the population would even have a remote chance? Bro you literally armed them with the best jets, tanks, kevlar, rifles, tacticool gear, drones, satellites. Oh and after the military gets done with all that shit they give it to the local police forces in your very county so THEY have some of the best gear that's only 10 years old. Americans really are the dumbest fucking people in the 1st world. Legit talking about preventing government authoritarianism while actively ensuring it would be successful if ever implemented. So anyway, here's the average gun owners in America, dumbasses who stand on their porch and aim their guns at black people with the finger on the trigger: The capitalists and government control you no matter what, and if you actually stepped up and tried to use guns to serve your personal needs you'd end up like the dead miners at Blair Mountain. Or more recently Waco. edit: And sorry just to finally loop and tie this all up to my first post. The problem here is you can get a gun in under 24 hours. You could literally be going thru a manic episode, get a gun, kill a bunch of kids, and then kill yourself. The only guns sold in America should be high powered rifles useful against military hard targets and not dumb shit like high caliber/high capacity pistols that are easily concealable and very useful against soft targets. If people do need pistols for self defense in dangerous parts of America the highest caliber should be .22 with max capacity of 5-7 bullets and require yearly gun safety training. If you have children you must also show receipt/proof of a proper gun storage safety locker.

American exceptionalism at work to think we're the only country in the world with an overpopulation of people with intolerant or manic views. The difference is they can easily arm themselves with firearms here.

the good old days:

If the fetus is alive, and the mother must host it (assuming abortion is illegal), is this not slavery? Just curious.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?sort=-current_status_date&congress=117&status=6,7,8 16k pieces of legislation in 116th congress with ~300 enacted, and that's just 1 session of congress. These days most legislation is about really edge case stuff because the "important" laws have already been passed. Most legislation is brought about to lawmakers by their constituents, based on stuff that's affecting them. This is literally the point of the republic.