Gun control is coming

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
It is one thing to say “handguns are for killing people”.

It is another to admit that not all are so made. However, for the sake of minimizing death and injury, legislating that reality is difficult. That at least is a better-faith basis for implementing sweeping handgun bans.

But I reject the wholesale demonization of the handgun when it requires ignoring the exceptions. It is not good to base policy on a distortion ultimately based in sentiment.
 

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
Most is not all. The oversimplification is irreducibly a falsehood.

Intelligent nondogmatic gun policy needs to accommodate that fact imo. I retract the bit about mischaracterization. A theory is not true if it has exceptions. The theory needs to be aligned with them. That is not something for which one “falls”, suggesting that it is incorrect and that I am wrong to believe it.

To ignore the exceptions is dogma and not realism.
You are focusing on unimportant minutia that does not disprove what I said. Handguns are designed to kill people. Just because a few are designed for hunting large animals does not mean that statement is not true.

Regarding theories. A theory can be useful even if its not true. Newton's theory of gravity is not true but it is useful. I make the statement that handguns are designed to kill people because it cuts through the crap and so its useful. Watering it down as you insist, turns the statement to mush. Something like: While at times a handgun may be used to kill pigs and very large caliber handguns are carried instead of rifles in grizzly bear country that can possibly even kill a bear but are not very good at killing people, the vast majority of handguns are not designed for those instances and instead are often purchased by people for use in self defense which when used for that purpose can kill people but quite often, much more often, handguns kill people not in a manner that can be described as self defense.

So, I'm not in favor of becoming a didactic prude who insists that every statement be perfectly true and instead prefer to use language that has meaning.
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
You are focusing on unimportant minutia that does not disprove what I said. Handguns are designed to kill people. Just because a few are designed for hunting large animals does not mean that statement is not true.
it does, actually.
Regarding theories. A theory can be useful even if its not true. Newton's theory of gravity is not true but it is useful.
. This betrays a misunderstanding of Newton. He had no theory of gravity. What he formulated were laws i. e. precise numerical correlations.
I make the statement that handguns are designed to kill people because it cuts through the crap and so its useful. Watering it down as you insist, turns the statement to mush. Something like: While at times a handgun may be used to kill pigs and very large caliber handguns are carried instead of rifles in grizzly bear country that can possibly even kill a bear but are not very good at killing people, the vast majority of handguns are not designed for those instances and instead are often purchased by people for use in self defense which when used for that purpose can kill people but quite often, much more often, handguns kill people not in a manner that can be described as self defense.

So, I'm not in favor of becoming a didactic prude who insists that every statement be perfectly true and instead prefer to use language that has meaning.
Not when it is intellectually dishonest.

I am not saying what I am saying to undercut handgun bans. I am saying it because sentiment, dogma, aesthetic considerations (many people consider handguns ugly. That’s fine but not a valid basis for legislating.) are not a robust basis for why to make something law. Otherwise you open yourself to challenges by e. g. the hairsplitting attorneys of the NRA.

By founding the reasons for gun laws in reason, you make them stronger.
Remember: “a beautiful hypothesis ruined by one ugly fact”. Accommodate the inconvenient facts, and people like myself are much more likely to go with necessary law.

Calling my valid counterassertions prudery seriously injures your position. They are not. They are a necessary part of a healthy discourse, one that discharges prejudice before it can threaten the desired outcome.

Bad premises make bad policy. The policy can still be attained honestly.
 

PadawanWarrior

Well-Known Member
Quite a bit of that in the anti crowd. My favorite one is of a lady describing how Barrett rifles could fire anti material rounds capable of tracking heat signatures and down aircraft by locking on to the engines.

My guess was they were trying to say that a Barret rifle was just a dangerous as a laser guided shoulder fire rocket system, so they should be banned.



Our president has about the same amount of gun knowledge as the people who made that ammo chart.
 

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
it does, actually.
. This betrays a misunderstanding of Newton. He had no theory of gravity. What he formulated were laws i. e. precise numerical correlations.
Not when it is intellectually dishonest.

I am not saying what I am saying to undercut handgun bans. I am saying it because sentiment, dogma, aesthetic considerations (many people consider handguns ugly. That’s fine but not a valid basis for legislating.) are not a robust basis for why to make something law. Otherwise you open yourself to challenges by e. g. the hairsplitting attorneys of the NRA.

By founding the reasons for gun laws in reason, you make them stronger.
Remember: “a beautiful hypothesis ruined by one ugly fact”. Accommodate the inconvenient facts, and people like myself are much more likely to go with necessary law.

Calling my valid counterassertions prudery seriously injures your position. They are not. They are a necessary part of a healthy discourse, one that discharges prejudice before it can threaten the desired outcome.

Bad premises make bad policy. The policy can still be attained honestly.
I'm satisfied if you understand my meaning. Your demand that I salsify your requirement to make a statement filled with unimportant minutia will simply go unmet.
 

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
it does, actually.
. This betrays a misunderstanding of Newton. He had no theory of gravity. What he formulated were laws i. e. precise numerical correlations.
Not when it is intellectually dishonest.

I am not saying what I am saying to undercut handgun bans. I am saying it because sentiment, dogma, aesthetic considerations (many people consider handguns ugly. That’s fine but not a valid basis for legislating.) are not a robust basis for why to make something law. Otherwise you open yourself to challenges by e. g. the hairsplitting attorneys of the NRA.

By founding the reasons for gun laws in reason, you make them stronger.
Remember: “a beautiful hypothesis ruined by one ugly fact”. Accommodate the inconvenient facts, and people like myself are much more likely to go with necessary law.

Calling my valid counterassertions prudery seriously injures your position. They are not. They are a necessary part of a healthy discourse, one that discharges prejudice before it can threaten the desired outcome.

Bad premises make bad policy. The policy can still be attained honestly.
I don't mind clarifying what I say when people misunderstand. I'm not advocating banning handguns or taking guns away from people for no good reason. .
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
I don't mind clarifying what I say when people misunderstand. I'm not advocating banning handguns or taking guns away from people for no good reason. .
We agree there. All I am saying is that generalizations painted in primary colors have significant liabilities.
 

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
Mischaracterization of what I’m saying. Reinforces my perception that we are bandying about dogma.

It’s the difference between
“most handguns are made to kill people”

and
“handguns are made to kill people”.

The difference should not be swept under the rug in order to satisfy a sentiment.
when you can find a way to guarantee that those handguns designed for a different purpose CANNOT be used to kill people, then they should get an exception...
 

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
We agree there. All I am saying is that generalizations painted in primary colors have significant liabilities.
I understood your meaning, you didn't have to repeat yourself. I simply disagree. So now I will repeat myself. People do not need all the modifiers you insist upon to understand a what I mean when I say handguns are designed to kill people. Same with the dumbass minutia gun nuts insist layering upon the words assault weapon. They are so eager to deflect the topic to discussing minutia about what the words mean that I've stopped using that term in its simple form and default to "assault weapon as defined in prior legislation". I hate using clumsy language but I hate even more when people depart from the meaning of a statement and dive into irrelevant minutia. So I'm pushing back on your didactic assertion that people can't understand what I mean when I say handguns are designed to kill people without adding clumsy language.

I'm not for banning assault weapons as defined in prior legislation either, I simply advocate making them less useful as mass murder machines. Hence my advocacy for banning the sale of large capacity magazines as called for in Oregon measure 114. 10 rounds is a fair compromise that gun nuts are unwilling to consider.
 

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
I understood your meaning, you didn't have to repeat yourself. I simply disagree. So now I will repeat myself. People do not need all the modifiers you insist upon to understand a what I mean when I say handguns are designed to kill people. Same with the dumbass minutia gun nuts insist layering upon the words assault weapon. They are so eager to deflect the topic to discussing minutia about what the words mean that I've stopped using that term in its simple form and default to "assault weapon as defined in prior legislation". I hate using clumsy language but I hate even more when people depart from the meaning of a statement and dive into irrelevant minutia. So I'm pushing back on your didactic assertion that people can't understand what I mean when I say handguns are designed to kill people without adding clumsy language.

I'm not for banning assault weapons as defined in prior legislation either, I simply advocate making them less useful as mass murder machines. Hence my advocacy for banning the sale of large capacity magazines as called for in Oregon measure 114. 10 rounds is a fair compromise that gun nuts are unwilling to consider.
i would support you in every day use, but when it comes to things like the wording of legal contracts and laws, i would be behind canna...
we understand what people mean, but when you get a lawyer involved, suddenly wet means submerged, sodden is half submerged, and wet is damp...and they don't apply to the letter of the law equally...
JACK CADE. I thank you, good people:– there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.
DICK. The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
JACK CADE. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment, that parchment, being scribbl'd o'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings; but I say 'tis the bee's wax, for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since.
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
I understood your meaning, you didn't have to repeat yourself. I simply disagree. So now I will repeat myself. People do not need all the modifiers you insist upon to understand a what I mean when I say handguns are designed to kill people. Same with the dumbass minutia gun nuts insist layering upon the words assault weapon. They are so eager to deflect the topic to discussing minutia about what the words mean that I've stopped using that term in its simple form and default to "assault weapon as defined in prior legislation". I hate using clumsy language but I hate even more when people depart from the meaning of a statement and dive into irrelevant minutia. So I'm pushing back on your didactic assertion that people can't understand what I mean when I say handguns are designed to kill people without adding clumsy language.

I'm not for banning assault weapons as defined in prior legislation either, I simply advocate making them less useful as mass murder machines. Hence my advocacy for banning the sale of large capacity magazines as called for in Oregon measure 114. 10 rounds is a fair compromise that gun nuts are unwilling to consider.
sigh
 

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
i would support you in every day use, but when it comes to things like the wording of legal contracts and laws, i would be behind canna...
we understand what people mean, but when you get a lawyer involved, suddenly wet means submerged, sodden is half submerged, and wet is damp...and they don't apply to the letter of the law equally...
JACK CADE. I thank you, good people:– there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.
DICK. The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
JACK CADE. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment, that parchment, being scribbl'd o'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings; but I say 'tis the bee's wax, for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since.
exactly. These gun nuts are all tied up in knots over minutia that is not only unimportant to the discussion but prevents having a sane discussion with them over what measures to take that will save lives.

It is an aspect of Republicans, criminals and crime gangs have in common. Use legalese to beat the system. And so, laws/regulations/building codes, etc. quite reasonably need to be written by people who know the issues, the law and how to write legislation. Insisting on unimportant legalese in a post on a pot board doesn't make sense.

The measure currently under scrutiny is Oregon's measure 114 -- a very sensible law that I was happy to vote for. It was written, checked and cross checked so that it would have a good chance at passing through the courts and is based on what is known to save lives in other states. Even so, a circuit court judge in Harney county (pop 7,575 people /108,000 cattle), an elected official in a blood red county, made a ruling that, on the face of it, seems to have been made without reading what is written in measure 114. He's now stalling the measure by withholding making a final ruling after which the measure can be moved on to higher courts. This will happen with every proposed gun regulation no matter how sensible it is for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking on when the next school mass shooting takes place. >:(
 
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