JPH wrote:Big Horse, you are tilting with a windmill here. I am not an advocate of banning any currently legal firearms and you entirely missed my points about the certain members of the pro-gun camp.
The logic presented by left-wing gun control advocates is flawed, but I do not see any value in fighting flawed logic with more flawed logic. We have posters saying we need to armed to the level of federal agencies (see: Branch Davidians?) but not to the level of the military because they are not supposed to be used domestically. Say what? Why is that the arbitrary line in the sand? All these imagined threats make my head hurt.
Here is a real threat. Suicidal loners, raised on violence in the media and video games, with hearts full of pain and hate and armed to the teeth with devastating firepower are becoming a growing phenomenon. This is not like the black helicopters of peoples imagination. This is real! My point all along has been that while the issue is much deeper than gun laws, we as gun owners should take a serious look at our role in this and how we might be able to reduce the bleeding in our society. I believe that if we could do this, our answer would be much more effective than the "solutions" brought forward by the opponents of gun ownership. If that opinion makes enemies for me (it has), so be it.
What more is there to say?
The only part I must disagree with is the "raised on violence in the media and video games" portion of the argument. The media portrayed "rap music" as a source of this evil in the early 90's. As a result the music industry was then forced to "rate" all of their music with huge logo's saying there were explicit lyrics or controversial lyrics. After that failed to decrease gun violence the media turned to Goths and Marilyn Manson type music and protests all over the US trying to ban his music and concerts took place because it was "troubling our youth". We have re-done all of the cartoons by Warner Brother because people hit themselves, smoke cigarettes, cigars, drink out of bottles marked with "xxx" to eliminate such things and have gone so far as to replace them with more "educational" TV shows. Shows that then received scrutiny because the teletubbies were "homosexuals" and it would turn their children into such. If restrictions placed on any or all of the above which were believed to be the "cause" of why people would do such horrible things haven't made a difference why should we cave in on any level as it relates to guns until it can be proven? Shouldn't all of these things be repealed and put in their original formats because obviously the ideas didn't work?
The greatest influence in my opinion is the people we surround ourselves by followed by the de-sensitizing of our youth. Is it a perfect system absolutely not, because we all have different ideals and place some morals above others. If generations much older than us didn't have nearly as many of the mass tragedies as we experience today, perhaps video games, violent cartoons, and the media are not the problem.
I agree with you 100% that there is a hate between fellow humans which is brewing more and more tragedies (or at least they are portrayed as happening with more frequency by the media). Whether you say it's related to religion or lack there of or I give a scientific explanation to back up my claim we are on the same page in saying it's a "hate or evil", we're just walking different roads to the same destination.
In summation I do not want ANY of my (or your) gun rights infringed upon until my government can come out with hard evidence that points to the contrary and to this point they haven't, it's all speculation. I think the people who have spoken out about "do not take away a right because it COULD HAVE a positive effect" are concerned and rightly so as history proves. Once you take away or amend that original right there is almost no way to repeal it whether it works or not.
As I stated before, you should be able to own any type/amount of gun, armament, bomb, grenade, RPG, SMG, etc. that you so choose, so long as there is no legitimate reason to say otherwise. To limit the types, amounts, rounds, etc. based on speculation or "for my own protection" is not a valid argument which is what the government is trying to get us to believe through mass hysteria.
