Guns

[quantumpunk23]

Please sayonara, let me know how i flamed anyone. I would love to know. It doesn't really matter anyway because this forum is pretty much a waste of time anyway. From what I gather the majority of it is filled with trekkies asking questions they wouldn't even understand the answer to anyway. And whats worse, the answers they receive are offered up by people not qualified to give them. This site is a joke. There, now I have flamed the entire forum and all its users. Happy now!?

[-Demosthenes-]

You know what I think that was flaming.

 

 

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

quantumpunk23 said in post # :

It doesn't really matter anyway because this forum is pretty much a waste of time anyway. From what I gather the majority of it is filled with trekkies asking questions they wouldn't even understand the answer to anyway. And whats worse, the answers they receive are offered up by people not qualified to give them. This site is a joke.

They are qualified. Just ask them what degrees they have.

I learned a lot here, too.

[YT2095]

-Demosthenes- said in post # :

You know what I think that was flaming.

 

 

with little gems of wisdom and insight such as that, it`s hardly any wonder he feels the way he does!

talk about making bold statements of the bleedin` obvious LOL

[Sayonara]

quantumpunk23 said in post # :

Please sayonara, let me know how i flamed anyone. I would love to know.

Obvious jibes notwithstanding, I consider antagonistic replies that are patronising and condescending towards the posters who have been active in a long thread and actually read the arguments presented in it to be flaming.

 

After all, if you just read the conclusions and not the justifications, you can't really be interested in the issues and therefore there's no reason we'd care what you think unless you make it into an attack.

 

Do you see? FLAMING. That's what it is.

[Crash]

Qunatum, dig upwards *sigh*

and what degree would you have if ya dont mind me askin?

[tyler]

We have guns in my house for protection. Not protection from people, but from bears. I think that is a pretty good reason why I should be allowed to own a gun.

[-Demosthenes-]

He has a good point. There are alot of reasons to own guns, and alot of very valid and good reasons. If a law was made it would have to be carefully made so that it doesn't conflict with those reasons. If the logic is that if no one has any guns then no one will need them to protect against them(not that that is the logic that your using, just an example), then they have to consider the use of guns to protect from wild animals out in the country, and change the law to incude those peoples rights.

 

PS: um, you wouldn't consider adding to my repution for this post would ya? PLZ?

[Glider]

as an advocate of gun ownership, I personaly would not with to own a fully automatic weapon, Sure I`de love to have a go with one and try and spray as many bullets as possible at a target and get a score in KAZILLIONS (or not), yeah it would be great fun!, that I cannot deny, but I`de insist that someone else pay for the ammo! )

It's not that much fun really. With all the automatic weapons I have used, if you get the first round in the target, chances are the second and third will hit too, but that's it. All you end up with after that is a sore cheekbone, a ringing in the ears, coughing on cordite fumes (I still love that smell though) and lots of wasted ammunition. The only way you have a hope of staying on target is controlled bursts of two or three. I heard that's why they had to redesign the M16 to lock after three rounds. It was easier than training the US troops to release the trigger before the magazine is empty

 

One time in Cyprus, we went to the ranges and were told we had to use all the ammunition we had brought (a budget thing; if you don't use it, it's cut next year). This equated to a box of a thousand rounds or so per station, six or seven stations. Using LMGs it took a surprisingly long time to get through the boxes. One man loading magazines like mad, the other firing long bursts (standard targets, 300m range), the gun-teams swapping over every two or three magazines. The only way to hit the damn targets were to aim at the ground well in front, and then follow the splash, guiding it onto the targets. Even using that method, the hit rate was absolutely pathetic. Using two or three round bursts, we would have been there all bloody day.

 

At the end of the day, the barrels were white, we were all deaf and our right eyes had all closed up due to being smacked in the cheekbones 180 times a minute. Back at the barracks, we couldn't strip the weapons for cleaning because they were so coked up, the bloody barrels were locked on. We spent all night in the armoury trying to get these buggers apart. The armourer went nuts! Nearly punched out the RSM (upon whose orders we had so abused his precious charges).

 

Funny thing about the LMG. It's braced on a bipod at the front. As you fire, this skips forward and locks in the dirt. As the next round goes, it skips forward again. If you fire a protracted burst, the bugger starts 'walking' forwards, so you get a completely out of control weapon charging forwards whilst loosing a wall of full metal jacket at everything in front, dragging some hapless and totally out of control gunner behind it. Hysterical in retrospect. Quite painful at the time.

 

Just a li'l anecdote there

[Sayonara]

We have guns in my house for protection. Not protection from people, but from bears. I think that is a pretty good reason why I should be allowed to own a gun.

This is just the same false dilemma as the "I have to have a gun to protect against intruders" one.

 

"Get killed by bear" or "shoot bear dead" are not the only two options.

[Sayonara]

He has a good point. There are alot of reasons to own guns, and alot of very valid and good reasons. If a law was made it would have to be carefully made so that it doesn't conflict with those reasons. If the logic is that if no one has any guns then no one will need them to protect against them(not that that is the logic that your using, just an example), then they have to consider the use of guns to protect from wild animals out in the country, and change the law to incude those peoples rights.

I don't know if you noticed, but for the past few hundred posts this thread has been about people demanding reasons why the average member of the public needs a gun, and they have not yet got a satisfactory answer.

 

So if you're going to solicit reputation points (which I'm pretty sure is just going to make people less likely to oblige anyway), try and do it with posts that don't say "hey let's ignore the body of the thread and just repeat the earlier problematic premise".

[Sayonara]

Hey Demosthenes. I don't understand why you gave me negative rep for reply #356 but with the comment "right on!".

 

That doesn't really tell me anything dude

[YT2095]

on the subject of bears and protection, a gun isn`t all that good! there are better weapons that are used and reccomended for use when going out hiking in bear country, it`s like a half litre can of pepper spray with a 20 foot range, NO BEAR will come near you! I`ve seen it demonstrated, and these things make the police pepper spray look like toys, the bear ones are about the size of a car fire extinguisher.

it has 2 advantages over a gun, One; it`s garaunteed to work!, Two; it`s non lethal even in accidents.

 

Glider, a semi auto is as close as I`ve got and did simulate fully auto, but it was only .22 mini mags, so the recoil was never a prob, cool story though

[Dave]

In a lot of instances, if you shoot a bear and don't get it right, the bear won't die; it'll just want to attack you more.

[Sayonara]

Tranq guns own teh bears.

[YT2095]

tranx are ok at a distance and you have 5+ minutes to hang about, but if you come out of a clearing right into the middle bear owned area with cubs, you`ll be half eaten before mommy has an afternoon nap

[Sayonara]

Right, so the best option is to wander around wooded areas until you intrude upon a mother and her cubs, then shoot her dead when she tries to protect them.

[Dave]

Distinctly unnice. Co-incidentally, we had a lecturer who talked about bears more or less every lecture. He even ran a competition to see who could come up with the funniest drawing/cartoon of one.

[YT2095]

no, I`m dead against killing of anysort unless it`s to eat or survive. that`s why I and many others including rangers reccomend this pepper spray instead. a gun is pretty much useless when you`re on top of pack, the spray will make them run! and wear off in 30 mins, plenty of time for you both to get some distance and keep your lives

[Dave]

I know what you mean. Pepper spray is definately a better way of getting out of a sticky situation with a bear than shooting and possibly killing/maiming it. It's more or less the ideal solution; you get away unhurt, and the bear isn't permentantly hurt (and certainly not dead). I can't understand people that would deliberately want to hurt and maim animals (i.e. fox hunters, things like that).

[tyler]

Here's a reason why I wouldn't want to use pepper spray: an average grizzly weighs about 600-700 lbs (with the larger ones weighing over 1200 lbs) and can run over 30 mph. I don't think pepper spray has enough stopping power to handle a charging bear.

 

Maybe you're using a different type than what is marketed here in Alaska, but the effectiveness of our stuff is highly questionable. The smell of it has actually been shown to attract bears. I guess you could just spray your buddy with it and hope the bear prefers spicy food.

 

Generally when I go hiking or fishing I almost never carry a gun with me, as 19 times out of 20 (I just pulled that figure out of my ass, I don't know the actual statistics) the bear doesn't want any trouble either. However, there are some times when it is a good precaution to carry a gun, and a .44 mag is barely adequate protection against a angry/wounded/starving bear.

 

Also, what you might call bumbling around in a wooded area I call walking to the outhouse or sleeping in my bed. Many surprise encounters with bears happen around people's houses. We have had a bear come through our house on two occasions. Thankfully, we weren't home either time. Once my mom kicked what she thought was our neighbors big black dog off our back porch in the middle of the night, the black bear took exception to being kicked and nearly made it into the house. Most people I know have had similar things happen to them, and many have had much worse.

 

We have many extremely liberal, pacifistic, tree-hugging vegan hippies up here (I don't mean to sound insulting, I'm just trying to make a point) and even most of them own guns. My cousin used to go to anti-gun rallies all of the time. Last summer when he came up here from Florida to work at my uncle's gold mine, my uncle's 12 guage became his best friend very quickly.

 

sorry about the long post, when it gets late I start to ramble.

[YT2095]

dude, I`m an advocate of gun ownership!

just read back through the posts, but in THIS instance, the spray that I saw is FAR MORE effective than any gun would be if you were caught by surprise or with yer pants down!

[Sayonara]

We have many extremely liberal, pacifistic, tree-hugging vegan hippies up here (I don't mean to sound insulting, I'm just trying to make a point) and even most of them own guns.

Are those the only people who don't keep guns, or is that what all the people who don't keep guns get called?

[tyler]

That's not what I meant to say. I know people who are against gun control, but don't own guns. I also know people who don't like guns but own them anyway. It just seems that most people who want to ban all guns fall to the far left ( the pacifistic, tree-hugging vegan hippies) and the people who think we should be allowed to own grenade launchers (the beer guzzling, government hating, kill a commy for Jesus before breakfast redneck crackers) usually fall to the far right.

 

A few points I will concede:

 

We don't need automatic weapons. (Except during tourist season, those buggers are quicker than you'd think.)

 

I don't agree that you can defend yourself against an armed intruder with a butcher knife or baseball bat. I don't think an old lady with a bat is going to be very intimidating to a criminal with a gun. However, tasers, and to a lesser extent, pepper spray, can be effective. These also are not of risk to your neighbors if you live in an apartment building. Another exception is if you have special training, like that guy with his sword (sorry I can't remeber you're name).

 

Suicide is another problem. As you probably know many suicide attempts fail because the person doesn't really want to die. It is pretty hard to botch a suicide with a shotgun.

 

I do not agree with banning guns, but I am in favor of tightening down regulations. I wouldn't have a problem with background checks, mandatory safety courses, long waiting periods (I can wait a year for my gun), proof of license to purchase ammunition, even a psych test every couple years.

[Sayonara]

That's the kind of approach I'd favour.

 

I don't particularly hate guns or gun owners, nor do I base every decision I make around some weird political compass that was made up to categorise people. I just think a lot more reasoning needs to go into the decisions surrounding gun ownership; both from the authorities allowing the public to have guns, and the individuals who feel they need them.