Clearly the right-wingers do not understand the concept of "trade-off" or "cost vs benefit" (which is odd since they are usually so supporting for the market which is all about that stuff).

And yes they (right wingers) understand the idea of trade-offs. Don't talk to people like they're stupid. You might feel all high and mighty, but that's a fantasy. (Or did you think you were actually convincing? I don't get your behavior. Why would you act so stupid so deliberately?)

Anyway, the cost of removing the freedom to own a machine gun/grenade launcher/hand gun is small since almost no-one will ever use such and item for useful purposes and most people have no desire to own one.

To say that you have the right to bring men with guns and lock people up in cages who have not harmed others because you "calculated" that this policy produces a more optimal society is complete conceit on your part. Also, to actually carry out that act is immoral.

Do you have any questions about this concept and why some consider it true?

Another thing that you should ask yourself (since you're a utilitarian, you need to figure out precisely what is worth optimizing) is whether you value lives too much. If you could mandate that everybody do one hour of work each in order to collectively save 50 people's lives, would you do it? How about thirty minutes? Five minutes? What if we had the option to pay ten dollars? One dollar?

(Hint: The actual utilitarian answer depends on how old the person is that you're saving. And a dollar each is too high a price.)

Suppose scientists estimate (or if they're sociologists, suppose they pretend to estimate) that fifty lives per year (in the US) could be saved from mad gunmen if we outlawed assault rifles. (Yes, I know, this is an unrealistically high number, but this is just an example.)

So my question for you is, are you willing to pay a dollar for the right to use assault weapons?

I hear you can save the life of a starving Ugandan child for 11 cents a day. Suppose assault rifles are legal and 10000 of them exist in the U.S. Therefore each is responsible for 1/200th of a death. In that case, a tax of $0.20 a year could be paid for each assault rifle you own, which will go to starving Ugandan children. Hey, let's round it up to $1.00. We'll save over 250 Ugandans.

Would you support such a scheme, or are American lives worth more than Ugandans'?

I watched something on this not too long ago. There is an entire new purse line that has been started because of the law. Not really a line but more of a manufacturing change which adds a secret easy reach in gun compartment to purses.

wtf?!?! what do you need a machine gun for?

By the definition of the anti-2nd ammendment crowd, ANY semi-automatic weapon and most anything that's not a muzzle loader is a "machine gun".
Fully automatic weapons are already banned nationwide (or almost), which is in itself probably a violation of the 2nd ammendment.

And yes, it's quite possible to NEED a fully automatic weapon.
The 2nd ammendment exists in part to allow the citizenry to defend themselves against an oppressive government trying to take away their constitutional rights, that citizenry will need weapons of similar power to those posessed by the government to successfully do so, which includes automatic weapons.

You won't see most people who are in posession of heavy weaponry (M16s, AKs, FALs, etc.) walk around town with them unless maybe they're on the way to a gunnery range or gunsmith (and they'll have them in cases or bags when they do), so don't try to sidetrack the issue which is sidearms, meaning pistols and revolvers.

Banning those by law from any public or private place is a violation of the 2nd ammendment, a violation of the basic rights of residents of the United States.
It also invites crime, especially shooting sprees, as people intent on killing others will know their intended victims will be unable to defend themselves.
This, not having guns in the hands of law abiding residents, is what causes high school shootings (and similar shootings elsewhere).
The shooters at Columbine had to break over a dozen laws to get those weapons, for example. So did those at most other such incidents (those where people used their legally acquired firearms after "snapping" are very few and far between). Arming the citizenry and training them to respond to such incidents as they unfold can save a lot of lives. Had for example the teachers (and students of legal age) at Columbine been armed, the shooters there would likely never have tried what they did or would have been killed after firing only a few shots, instead of being able to methodically kill or maim dozens.

commented: Thank goodness people argue things I'm too lazy to myself. +0

The 2nd ammendment exists in part to allow the citizenry to defend themselves against an oppressive government trying to take away their constitutional rights,

Bull! 2A has nothing to do with protection against the government itself.

And the point is? Don't just link something with no explanation. We all know what the Oklahoma City bombing was. Presumably the point was to find a bomb that did go off and killed more than 127 people. Noted.

no, the point (utterly lost on you, as predicted no doubt) is to show that anything can be turned into a weapon to kill people.
Here a rental truck, a few sacks of fertiliser, a few cans of petrol, and a plastic (probably) drum were used to create a car bomb.

According to your logic all those should therefore be banned.

Bull! 2A has nothing to do with protection against the government itself.

WRONG! That's exactly that it's meant for, as written... To be able to rise up against oppression, the way the colonies rose up against the British oppression.

Bull! 2A has nothing to do with protection against the government itself.

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.-Thomas Jefferson

The right to have arms in English history is believed to have been regarded as a long-established natural right in English law, auxiliary to the natural and legally defensible rights to life.[9] The English Bill of Rights emerged from a tempestuous period in English politics during which two issues were major sources of conflict: the authority of the King to govern without the consent of Parliament and the role of Catholics in a country that was becoming ever more Protestant. Ultimately, the Catholic James II was overthrown in the Glorious Revolution, and his successors, the Protestants William III and Mary II, accepted the conditions that were codified in the Bill. One of the issues the Bill resolved was the authority of the King to disarm its subjects, after James II had attempted to disarm many Protestants, and had argued with Parliament over his desire to maintain a standing (or permanent) army.[10] The bill states that it is acting to restore "ancient rights" trampled upon by James II, though some have argued that the English Bill of Rights created a new right to have arms, which developed out of a duty to have arms.[11] In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court did not accept this view, remarking that the English right at the time of the passing of the English Bill of Rights was "clearly an individual right, having nothing whatsoever to do with service in the militia" and that it was a right not to be disarmed by the crown and was not the granting of a new right to have arms.[12]

The above was quoted from here

>> no, the point (utterly lost on you, as predicted no doubt) is to show that anything can be turned into a weapon to kill people.

I'm well aware of that argument and can follow it. It's not "lost on me". MY point is that he didn't actually MAKE a point, he just lazily posted a link that we've all read before. It added nothing to the discussion.


>> According to your logic all those should therefore be banned.

Straw man argument. I never made that argument or anything approaching it. I certainly don't think that. I never said we shouldn't sell stuff that a skilled (or perhaps even a semi-skilled) person can turn into a weapon. Obviously you need to be able to buy fertilizer. My point is 1) most people could never have pulled off what McVeigh pulled off. Most homemade bombs fail to detonate. 2) The vast majority of people can't turn a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic weapon. Certainly there are people who CAN do it. 3) If they were legal, guys like Harris and Cho would have bought them and killed way more people.

So yes, anything can be turned into a weapon to kill people... if you're MacGyver. Fortunately most of these clowns aren't or we'd have far more dead people.

And no, no one kills over a hundred people with a NON-automatic weapon. I'd love to see a link of THAT.

>> no, the point (utterly lost on you, as predicted no doubt) is to show that anything can be turned into a weapon to kill people.

I'm well aware of that argument and can follow it. It's not "lost on me". MY point is that he didn't actually MAKE a point, he just lazily posted a link that we've all read before. It added nothing to the discussion.


>> According to your logic all those should therefore be banned.

Straw man argument. I never made that argument or anything approaching it. I certainly don't think that. I never said we shouldn't sell stuff that a skilled (or perhaps even a semi-skilled) person can turn into a weapon. Obviously you need to be able to buy fertilizer. My point is 1) most people could never have pulled off what McVeigh pulled off. Most homemade bombs fail to detonate. 2) The vast majority of people can't turn a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic weapon. Certainly there are people who CAN do it. 3) If they were legal, guys like Harris and Cho would have bought them and killed way more people.

So yes, anything can be turned into a weapon to kill people... if you're MacGyver. Fortunately most of these clowns aren't or we'd have far more dead people.

And no, no one kills over a hundred people with a NON-automatic weapon. I'd love to see a link of THAT.

Why the arbitrary sentinel value? I've not seen your argument that it can be done with an automatic weapon either, or perhaps I've missed it? Also, I don't think it's fair at all to assume an automatic weapon can be used to 'kill moar people!'.

Not to mention, as far as killings go, governments have pretty bad reputations in that department.

On a side note, I'd like to not belittle the meaning of the word "Murder", which is when you kill a human instead of an animal.

"It also invites crime, especially shooting sprees, as people intent on killing others will know their intended victims will be unable to defend themselves.
This, not having guns in the hands of law abiding residents, is what causes high school shootings (and similar shootings elsewhere)."

Rubbish, most shooting sprees end in the shooter shooting themselves so clearly the risk to themselves (from their intended victims) does not enter their equation. If your hypothesis was true then the UK should have far fewer per-capita shootings that the US (since almost no-one has a gun even the cops so there should be nothing stopping those shooters). Unfortunately reality has to step in here with the opposite conclusion, the US has far higher rate (per-capita) of shootings than the UK.

Considering that most bullets fired from a gun do not hit their intended target (even from cops who are trained to use them) I don't see how having victims shooting back at the bad guys will reduce the total damage done. (particularly if the victims/killer are crowded together as they usually are in these cases). Chances are the victims will accidentally hit each other more often than they hit the bad guy.

>> Why the arbitrary sentinel value?

I believe frogboy picked it a while back. Yeah, it's arbitrary. We can rephrase the issue as... "Can an unskilled gunman kill and wound more people by firing an automatic weapon into a crowd than he can with a semi-automatic weapon before he's overpowered by people in the crowd?" I think yes, but it's mostly conjecture since, well, again I can't think of the last time any of these guys had an automatic weapon. According to Wikipedia, Baruch Goldstein killed 29 and wounded 125 with a Galil Automatic weapon before he was stopped in 1994 in Hebron.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Patriarchs_massacre


With 140 bullets... I'm a little suspicious of the source now. Not counting massacres in wartime where they line people up and machine gun them, he has the record as far as I know, but I guess that nut in Norway just surpassed that record this year and I don't think he even had an automatic weapon, not for lack of trying, which is sort of the point. HE certainly thought an automatic weapon would have helped, as most of these guys do.

"Not to mention, as far as killings go, governments have pretty bad reputations in that department."

I don't think they should have these weapons of mass destruction either.

"Not to mention, as far as killings go, governments have pretty bad reputations in that department."

I don't think they should have these weapons of mass destruction either.

To paraphrase the bumper sticker:
If the US doesn't have these WMDs, only our enemies will have them.

"To paraphrase the bumper sticker:
If the US doesn't have these WMDs, only our enemies will have them. "

Only because international politics is such a mess, I realize weapons are necessary under anarchy (international relations) but I'm not happy about it. And considering that the US is still the only country to use the atomic bomb and they did it twice (the second time for no good reason) I'm not fully convinced only the enemies of the US having them is such a bad thing....

"To paraphrase the bumper sticker:
If the US doesn't have these WMDs, only our enemies will have them. "

Only because international politics is such a mess, I realize weapons are necessary under anarchy (international relations) but I'm not happy about it. And considering that the US is still the only country to use the atomic bomb and they did it twice (the second time for no good reason) I'm not fully convinced only the enemies of the US having them is such a bad thing....

I don't agree with that, so long as American politicians don't sink as low as most of the braying idiots talking about "pulling the troops out and making a lake afghanistan with nuclear weapons". I've heard the same idea more than once from a group of idiots, "pull troops out" and "lake afghanistan" seem to be the most prominent ideas amongst them.

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