<p>Quote from Emilybee-
Nonsense. Neither the countries of Eastern Europe or France could stop the Nazi’s from invading and taking and you believe that if the Jews were armed they would have been able to stop them? Oy vey.</p>
<p>I absolutely do not believe that an armed Jewish population would have stopped the Nazi army, did I say that? You keep thinking I am insinuating things every time I say something, I am saying exactly what I mean and nothing more. I think it makes it much more difficult for the Nazis, and they have to expend many more resources than they did. I think we loose less Jewish people and more Nazis that way though. I also think that an armed population slows down the Germans somewhat and that it might be less difficult for the Allies to win the war.</p>
<p>On a side note, how do I quote other people’s responses?</p>
<p>You don’t need to go as far back as the Warsaw uprising to find cases of armed citizens defending themselves en masse. I remember the LA riots of 1992 very well. The city was in anarchy. The police just could not handle it all. Arsonists were burning down entire neighborhoods. Some 60 people were killed. Drivers who ventured into the wrong area were pulled out of their cars and beaten. It was simply out of control. Store owners had to get on the roofs of their stores with high powered guns to defend their businesses. It took three or four days before the National Guard could be mobilized and sent to LA where they lined the streets so decent people could return to work and come out of our homes where we had been hunkered down in fear. Riots like this could easily happen again.</p>
<p>For all the folks here who aren’t “gunners” - I would suggest that it is folly to try to reason with folks like the NRA leaders who are driven by a deep seated and fundamentally irrational impulse. If you look at the silly “arguments” posed in post 547, for example - comparing banning gasoline, a substance which has a central role in modern society, and without which (under current circumstances) significant suffering would occur because some mass crimes have been committed with it with banning guns, which have a marginal, at best, impact on the functioning or modern society, and which contribute to thousands of injuries and deaths per year - you get an idea of the extent to which you’re beating your heads against the wall. The implicit view that there’s an equivalency in the cost/benefit analysis for banning either item demonstrates a lack of either seriousness or basic rationality. </p>
<p>And actually reviewing what the Clackamas Mall “good guy with gun” said about what happened, and the objective facts of what happened, would lead any rational person to conclude that it is unlikely that the presence of the good guy’s gun actually had any impact on what happened there whatsoever. But try to tell that to a gunner? There’s an entire scenario written about what happened there from the gunner’s fantasy point of view -including what the now dead bad guy was thinking during the events, which gunners lap up. It’s nonsense. The good guy with a gun at Clackamas saved no lives. (Not a criticism of him, by the way - he did the right thing by not trying to shoot the bad guy - kudos to him. It’s just that his primary contribution was to not makes things worse.)</p>
<p>People who love guns are driven by emotion - they’ll deny it vehemently, insisting that they are far more rational than their foils - but in fact, just like smokers and folks who refuse to wear crash helmets and seatbelts – they are given to rationalization. People who don’t have a strong emotional feeling either way are at a disadvantage in such a discussion, because they don’t understand that rational analysis is, in the ultimate analysis, irrelevant to those who are defending an emotion-based position. Even something like Bl4ke360’s paranoid belief that the media are suppressing all of the “good guy with gun saves lives” stories is widely held among gunners - because that makes so much sense for the media financially, right?</p>
<p>I’ll say it again. The LA riots. Those with guns defended their businesses from being burned and looted when the police were no where to be found.</p>
<p>The high capacity magazines thing is yet another canard. They jam frequently because the springs are feeding under a lot of pressure. The Aurora shooter James Holmes had his semi-auto (NOT ASSAULT WEAPON) jam because of the clip size and had to switch to a shot gun. If he had smaller clips then he may have killed many more people. </p>
<p>In the case of Newtown, Lanza had handguns and a shotgun to in reality the whole thing is moot. But you cant depend on rationality with gun grabbers. Once again the whole high-capacity magazine thing is a red herring and even if such a law existed it would have made zero difference. </p>
<p>*" He fired about 150 rounds in all during the classroom-to-classroom spree and rapidly changed clips, sometimes after firing only half of the magazine’s rounds. </p>
<p>Privately, investigators wondered whether the reloading habit was influenced by the endless hours the quiet, withdrawn loner spent playing violent, first-person shooter video games, the Courant reported. "
*</p>
<p>He was already changing magazines without regard to them being exhausted, so banning them would make no difference whatsoever. </p>
<p>On the other hand where is the discussion of banning violent video games? I thought the standard is that we are fine trampling Constitutional rights if we can save one life?</p>
<p>And Hollywood just nominated Django Unchained, a violence porn, for best picture. That should be as helpful to the mental health of some of these nutters as was Oldboy. When are we going to crack down on violence porn? Or would that be too disruptive to Harvey Weinstein’s wealth?</p>
<p>People who hate guns are driven by emotion - they’ll deny it vehemently, insisting that they are far more rational than their foils - but in fact, just like smokers and folks who refuse to wear crash helmets and seatbelts – they are given to rationalization. </p>
<p>Fixed it for ya.</p>
<p>This is equally true.</p>
<p>It’s an emotionally charged issue. There’s a lot of fear involved, and it’s understandable on both sides.</p>
<p>It is understandable to be wary of those who have power over you - it’s wise even. That’s WHY we have a system of checks and balances and WHY we have a right to keep and bear arms. The guys who set up this republic were wary of those in power.</p>
<p>It is understandable to be afraid of firearms (especially if you don’t know a lot about them, and have fear already) when horrible things happen and they are used to kill multiple innocents. It’s completely understandable.</p>
<p>Wow, seriously cross-posted with zoosermom! :D</p>
As opposed to what, Kluge? People who oppose guns are equally driven by emotion. It is an emotional topic, your namecalling aside.</p>
<p>I am not a “gunner” and I have never seen an actual gun in my entire life, but it is clear to me that those of you who are so desperate to impose bans aren’t thinking particularly rationally and some, frankly, aren’t quite honest. You are scared and horrified by the murder of beautiful, innocent children, which is an understandable emotional reaction, but you have to think about what would have saved them and what would not. </p>
<p>I also note that at least one person on this thread wasn’t particularly interested in the lives of gang members or, seemingly, of their victims. I find it horrifyingly funny that Rahm Emmanuel is going to Washington to discuss gun control. Maybe he should worry a lot more about illegal guns than the legal ones.</p>
<p>“Because the Constitution was written in the 1787.”</p>
<p>And look how many tyrants have risen in how many nations since…but not here. And look how many countries have been invaded and taken over by force…but not here.</p>
<p>The right to bear arms is there for a reason.</p>
<p>There is some research where interviewed convicts stated that the threat of encountering a victim with a gun would deter them from committing a crime upon that person. This is a very logical, rational (not emotional) finding, that comports with common sense.</p>
<p>A good way to tell if your argument is valid is to put yourself in the shoes of a jew in Germany during WW2, and ask yourself if you’d rather have a gun to defend yourself or not.</p>