Originally I wasn’t going to bother responding to your previous post but I decided to add one more comment to the thread explaining why this will probably be my last one. I’m finding it very difficult to have a productive conversation with someone who, in my opinion, purposely misquotes me, purposely misses the point, purposely ignores questions and attacks me personally in an attempt to discredit me.
Now I’m going to go through your post one point at a time.
For the record- you did concede to my opinion, here’s the quote, “Very well, there are circumstances where an automatic weapon is useful”. If you want to flip flop and take back what you said- that’s fine. To say that you never conceded is simply not true.
We’re in agreement that guns are out of control and a huge overhaul is needed- with respect to mental health I think we agree that something needs to be done.
What I strongly disagree with you on is how to go about this.
As I mentioned in my previous post I never wrote that there’s a common use for automatic weapons. I never mentioned a single case in recent history where a civilian used an automatic weapon for a good reason where a regular small pistol wouldn’t have sufficed because I don’t know of any offhand and that’s not the point- the point is that there can be a reason- even if it’s only one in a billion. I think it’s wrong to deny someone who can prove to be responsible the ability to defend themselves for that rare situation if they want to take on the responsibility (and consequences) of owning a weapon. Take for example the owner of a luxury store that is going through a smash and grab by a group of a dozen or more thugs who are high on drugs. How long will it take for an innocent bystander to be seriously wounded or killed if one of the thugs feels threatened? I personally feel that the owner of the store would be allowed to use lethal force with an automatic weapon to protect his employees and customers, something he may not be able to do with a weapon that can only hold six bullets. The knowledge (or a warning sign) that the owner has an automatic weapon and is justified in using it may be enough of a threat to keep them away altogether. If you don’t agree- there’s not much more I can add and we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this.
“Stopping growth is also reduction.” Sorry- I don’t agree with you on that one. Most things don’t last forever and when an illegally obtained weapon breaks the owner is not just going to give it to the government to melt down if they can’t easily get a replacement. They’ll get creative and come up with their own fix, purchase parts online, make the part themselves or repurpose the parts from something else. Did you ever see pictures of what cars look like in Cuba? In the US when a car gets old and too expensive to maintain, the owner scraps it and buys another one. In Cuba where new cars aren’t as readily available they get creative in keeping the old ones running. Besides for me not agreeing with you that this is an effective way of reducing the number of illegal weapons- you still haven’t explained how it will stop new ones from flowing across the border. (I explained how the supply will increase as the demand increases and the demand for illegal weapons will increase as it becomes harder to get them legally but you ignored that.)
You brought up a statistic- I’m going to describe what was going through my mind as I read that. First off- you quote a “statistic” without saying where you got it from or who conducted it- so as far as I’m concerned it’s irrelevant. But OK- let’s go on. You’re the one quoting it and I’m thinking that you’re only going to quote a “statistic” that agrees with your agenda so I don’t know how many other “statistics” you skipped over as they don’t agree with your mindset. But let’s look at the “statistic” itself. I’m wondering how “average sentence” is defined- is it the amount of time some actually spends in prison or the amount of time some one is sentenced to regardless of if they get out in three months? There’s also no definition for “violence”. Is “violence” when someone gets injured, when a weapon is used in the crime or even if a weapon is brought to the crime regardless of whether it’s used or not (i.e. is the threat of violence considered violence). Was the “statistic” combined from one “study” in the UK and one in the USA and the author merged the two (this can cause the same word to be used differently in each “study” but supposedly represent the same thing in the “statistic”). I find it hard to believe that the average violent offender spends 25 years in prison for violent crimes when many are repeat offenders (many times over) for violent crimes before they even reach 25.
But let’s say somehow the “statistic” is accurate. I think what you’re trying to say is that this proves that the extra violence in the US is caused by the large number of guns in the country compared to the UK. Fine- I’ll agree with you on this- but it’s too late, the illegal guns are here and, in my opinion, you haven’t come up with a reasonable way to get rid of them or even significantly reduce the number.
Why would you even bother to quote the NRA? I don’t trust radical groups on either side. The heck with my NRA studies? What’s that supposed to mean? Are you attacking me with false accusations to try and discredit me because you can’t answer my questions? You look at actual data and draw your conclusions based on that? You’re not fooling me- you look for data that fits the conclusions you want to see and discard everything else- then you make your conclusion. I know nothing about the NRA besides that they advocate for the right for citizens to arm themselves, I don’t ever recall reading an article published by them and definitely never intentionally quoted them.
I made an elementary comment based on my own logic (that you finally attempted to explain the fallacy but didn’t succeed) and you claimed that I was quoting the NRA near-verbatim. You NEVER pointed out which statement from any of my posts were nearly word for word from the NRA. You may have made a mistake and you had numerous opportunities to correct yourself but you didn’t. In English I’d call that a lie. And besides- even if I did accidentally quote them word for word (which I still believe I didn’t) – does that mean that I stand behind everything that say? You quoted Ben Shapiro near-verbatim (“facts don’t care about your beliefs or feelings”)- does that mean you agree with everything he says? (Do you know where he stands on automatic weapons?)
At this point- it’s been great conversing with you but unless you bring up something new I have nothing else to add.
As a parting piece of advice- if the only way you can defend your opinion is by misquoting others, missing the point, ignoring questions you can’t answer and making up false accusations about someone else to discredit him- it may be time to rethink your opinion.
Feel free to not respond or go ahead and respond to get the last word in.
Hatzlacha!