NRA is too radical

[Beskar]

What makes you think that all Americans are a bunch of Hollywood trigger-happy cowboys?

American movies?

[drone]

American movies?

And we all know how accurate these are.

[Brenus]

“Just because you experienced some sort of weird power trip while handling weaponry does not mean that it is a common occurrence.”
May be true, may be true…
But I won’t trust somebody carrying a weapon and who wouldn’t have the feeling of what power he/she is supposed to unleash or control…
And I spoke with colleagues and former colleagues/comrades in arms… The first time you’ve got your weapons, when you are finally allowed to carry a weapon, you feel something, like when the flag goes up the sky…
If you don’t, you miss something…

[Beskar]

And we all know how accurate these are.

Well, he asked where you see Hollywood American Cow-boy Gunho... so they are pretty accurate at doing that.

[drone]

Well, he asked where you see Hollywood American Cow-boy Gunho... so they are pretty accurate at doing that.

No, he asked:

What makes you think that all Americans are a bunch of Hollywood trigger-happy cowboys?

People on this board constantly rail about how Hollywood portrays historical events. Why would you think they portray modern life without spicing it up some?

[HoreTore]

No, he asked:

People on this board constantly rail about how Hollywood portrays historical events. Why would you think they portray modern life without spicing it up some?

Why would one need movies, when you've got people like the 911-call about a guy who told the operator he was going to kill the guys who were looting some stuff from his neighbor? And the tons of people who supported him?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Just a few points:


1. On one very important level, all of this argumentation is moot. The citizens and residents of the USA possess millions of weapons, most of them firearms. To this point, our Constitution has been construed (rightly in my opinion) to protect the personal ownership of arms by US citizens. ANY attempt to alter this would involve, on some level, an effort by government (local or federal) to cofiscate weapons from citizens. As TinCow has correctly pointed out, that simply will not happen. Even were the government to attempt it seriously, a civil revolt of unheard-of magnitude would be the result -- and many of those who bear arms for the government would not support the effort in the first place (and might well line up on the other side of the dispute). So this argument is really on a somewhat hypothetical level anyway.

2. TA makes some good points. However, as has been noted by historical researchers, for example W.E. Hollon's Frontier Violence: Another Look or Hill & Anderson's The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier, suggest that the rate of deadly violence -- by firearm or otherwise -- was significantly lower in the Old West than in a modern city. This despite the fact that firearms were virtually ubiquitous. Does this not undercut your first point?

3. Even if we accept the notion that the prevelance of firearms itself begets violence and more deadly violence, and therefore accept TA's argument that public safety is not better served by individuals protecting themselves, the reason for firearms was not, according to the founders, primarily for the purpose personal protection or of hunting, but to provide citizens with the werewithal to resist tyranny should it arise. It is this latter reason that leaves me inclined toward the opinion that almost any restriction of arms is unconstitutional.

[a completely inoffensive name]

2. TA makes some good points. However, as has been noted by historical researchers, for example W.E. Hollon's Frontier Violence: Another Look or Hill & Anderson's The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier, suggest that the rate of deadly violence -- by firearm or otherwise -- was significantly lower in the Old West than in a modern city. This despite the fact that firearms were virtually ubiquitous. Does this not undercut your first point?

If I remember correctly, in the book Freakonomics, the authors actually claimed that the data doesn't hold up that statement at all but it continues to be repeated because it is such a great talking point politically.

[Tellos Athenaios]

suggest that the rate of deadly violence -- by firearm or otherwise -- was significantly lower in the Old West than in a modern city. This despite the fact that firearms were virtually ubiquitous. Does this not undercut your first point?

Such rates are a function of multiple inputs, one of them being the number of conflicts between people which depends on population density (for obvious reasons). One can surmise that this particular input is of a higher than linear order in population density. To draw a wildly inaccurate analogy here: since in a large modern city like Detroit there live about as many people as in the 13 founding states when the constitution was drawn up together, statistics from that time -- which, by the way, probably do not include figures from Native Indian populations -- are quite meaningless in the context of modern Detroit. A more fitting comparison would be Paris back in the day, with its ban on duels. (And when arms were eventually banned in the city of Paris, it resulted in a marked drop of all sorts of violent crime rates.)

3. Even if we accept the notion that the prevelance of firearms itself begets violence and more deadly violence, and therefore accept TA's argument that public safety is not better served by individuals protecting themselves, the reason for firearms was not, according to the founders, primarily for the purpose personal protection or of hunting, but to provide citizens with the werewithal to resist tyranny should it arise. It is this latter reason that leaves me inclined toward the opinion that almost any restriction of arms is unconstitutional.

This is a completely different argument. You could go down the historical context lane of arguments and then arrive at the conclusion that de-facto this particular argument/issue has been rendered completely and utterly irrelevant for well over a century now. Try and stand up against the tyranny of the USA armed forces & their evil taxes, and see how long exactly your prised weapons will last if they're determined to suppress you... Then the obvious question is: if the wherewithal to resist state tyranny has been rendered de-facto obsolete, why would this reasoning still apply to (fire)arms?

Now, I am not from the states so I might be lacking a certain emotion or attachment towards the USA constitution, but to me the utility of this argument is about as much as of complaining to the Federal Government for being “biased” towards American English when in fact American English is not even an official language of the USA. Or of that register of subversive groups plotting to overthrow the USA Federal government.

[Ice]

And we all know how accurate these are.

Yeah I know. I'm sure all the firearms in the movies the "The Town" and "Heat" were legally obtained.