If you want to argue against 'magical' verbal action at a distance, you could try taking on hypnosis, which is an actually controversial topic.

There's nothing magical about it. It implies just what you agreed to in this context, necessary but not sufficient conditions for acting. This argument seems to boil down to nothing more than you not liking the word 'influence', which is fine but not worth arguing with anyone over.

You have a point. But maybe it's apt that random silly stuff goes here so the Shoutbox has more room for food talk.

A necessary condition but not a sufficient condition. — NOS4A2

That's what's known as 'influence' in this context.

So this would be the time to buy cryptocurrencies I guess. — ssu

Yes, sentiment is super bearish, which indicates to me most sellers have sold or been liquidated. Caveats are to buy quality, the bottom may not be in, and the bounce may not be immediate. But for educated investors looking long term it looks like a good time. Ethereum is what I'd be looking at with the merge supposedly imminent.

Disclaimer: Not financial advice. Never base financial decisions on what some internet rando says + most cryptocurrencies will go to zero.

Then you can admit that words influence actions while also holding they are not fully determinative of actions. In other words, we can all exit the rabbit hole and agree on the blindingly obvious.

All I know is that if I am ever confronted with an armed robber or murderer, I would like to have a gun. — NOS4A2

Sounds reasonable, but I'm not so sure. In the case of an armed robber, having a gun makes you a deadly threat and its presence might cause the criminal to kill you before you kill him/her. It's probably better just to be robbed than significantly increase the risk of being killed. As for murderers, most don't announce themselves and challenge their victims to a duel. They kill unexpectedly. In addition, gun accidents are more common than gun murders. Putting all of that together, it's not clear to me having a gun is more helpful than harmful except maybe in an exceptionally violent environment. My suspicion is we underestimate just how violent our surroundings would have to be for a gun to actually make us safer rather than increase our risk of being harmed.

And anyone suggesting our government might try to kill us would honestly raise mental health alarm bells.

Not all violent crime requires a gun to deal with if you train your police properly. We have special armed units to deal with exceptional cases. Anyhow, I never in my entire life here felt I would need a gun to protect myself and I can't ever remember it even being a topic of conversation. It's certainly not a matter of political debate. Any political party suggesting we should infuse our society with deadly weapons to make it safer would be considered morons and immediately lose power.

Thanks for the reminder. See above.

The Argument

This plan is based upon a belief in universal, rational gun control by the state. The main aim of state-based gun control is the raising of gun literacy throughout society. Success entails the general public, en masse, taking a giant leap forward in their knowledge and skill with respect to the proper use, maintenance and storage of guns.

The motivation for this plan is, firstly, the knowledge that guns are established in America as an essential protector of liberty at both the individual and collective levels. Secondly, it is motivated by the belief that a gun is a special instrument because of its power to kill. Given the fact of this power, a gun is a useful instrument that cannot be counted as a general purpose, household appliance suitable for classification along with the microwave, the big-screen tv and the lawn mower.

In order to maintain a civil society of responsible individuals pursuing happiness individually and collectively, two exercises of power are essential: the power of the individual to choose to own a gun; the power of the state to regulate gun ownership.

The special status of guns therefore demands strictly rational control by a neutral party sanctioned by the polity. Logically, such rational control will be maintained primarily for the sake of public safety. Best candidate for this job is the duly elected state power.

State regulation of gun ownership need not be a devilish political controversy if civil society understands that such regulation must have as its main goal maintaining gun literacy at the highest possible levels.

A civil society informed about guns, both in theory and in practice, possesses the greatest capability for successful pursuit of happiness under the rubric of respect for liberty and its essential protector, individual gun rights.

The Plan

The design of this plan is based upon configuring gun control in a parallel with state control of motor vehicles.

Just as now we have the Department of Motor Vehicles, operated at the state level, this plan will establish the Department of Firearms, also operated at the state level.

Just as now we have a two-part course of instruction for motor vehicles i.e., a classroom part (theory) and a roadside part (practice), this plan will establish a two-part course of instruction for guns i.e., a classroom part (theory) and a shooting range part (practice).

Classroom instruction will introduce students to the handgun, its operating parts; breakdown and re-assemblage; pertinent gun laws

Firing range instruction will introduce students to handling and operation of the handgun; handling of ammunition; techniques of marksmanship; storage

A state might maintain firing range facilities if its legislature so ordains. Of course private firing range facilities will also be available according to preference.

Just as now we have a state-based licensing system for motor vehicle operators, this plan will establish a state-based licensing system for gun operators.

The gun operator will be issued a DFA photo ID. It will hold, as with the DMV photo ID, essential status as universally acceptable ID.

The DFA photo ID, like the DMV photo ID, will create a database of verified owners accessible to state and national law enforcement.

Just as now we have high-performance vehicle licenses for operators of larger, more complex vehicles (tractor-trailers), this plan will establish high-performance licenses for more complex and powerful guns (semi-automatic weapons).

High-performance DFA licenses will require additional training and practice qualifications.

Just as now the DMV license operates on a four-year renewal cycle, the DFA license will operate on a four-year renewal cycle.

Note – One important difference between the two systems is that gun operators must re-qualify for every license renewal. Regular, mandatory re-qualification will help insure gun operators stay current on gun laws and gun technology. This higher standard of qualification rigor is tied to the special status of guns.

While, of course, operation of a gun is determined by personal choice, for those who choose to become operators, qualification for such status under this plan will require a DFA license. In this way, state power shall fulfill its duty to protect public safety, to bind gun rights to education and to champion liberty.

Social Impact

A civil society operating under the foundational principle of individual and collective liberty must be an informed society.

Since the essential status of gun rights in America is a given, maintenance of maximal gun literacy, like maximal verbal literacy, becomes an essential function and duty of state power.

Best argument for public safety amidst the steady proliferation of guns in America is universal gun education.

Establishment of the DFA answers the crying need for universal gun literacy in America.

When a disturbed individual seeks to become a one-person killing machine in a public venue, thus threatening the lives of multitudes with high-speed destruction, a universally gun literate public, with right-to-carry gun laws supporting it, will best be able to quickly respond to such threats with an effective plan of nullification.

This is best answer to America’s pressing need for DIY peace officers who can step to the plate under duress of in-progress gun calamities.

Likewise, best answer to gun-fueled domestic violence calamities is universal gun skills possessed by members of the nation’s households.

Best answer also extends to gun literacy forestalling calamities stemming from improper storage of guns and ammunition.

Conclusion

Liberty does not mean anything goes. Just as the liberty afforded by motor vehicles does not mean anything goes regarding operation of said vehicles, the liberty afforded by gun rights should not mean anything goes regarding operation of guns.

Good parents know their children are happiest – and most free – when they’re guided by the strong hand of common-sense discipline. A spoiled child, lacking self-discipline, soon makes a mess of his-her life.

A society dedicated to liberty, and committed to its protector, gun rights, dissipates its potential with anything goes gun rights that cause proliferation of gun calamities rooted in ignorance and vanity. — ucarr

Merged OP. Please tag ucarr rather than respond to me.

But: ONE TIME SOMETHING HAPPENED SO IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN! YOU ARE NOT RESPONDING TO HIS ARGUMENT!

@Tzeentch

You are not going to be taken seriously nor do you have any actual argument unless you can provide a plausible sequence of events that would lead to the outcome you fear that takes into consideration a cost analysis for the parties involved. The powerful tend to act in their own best interests. That's how they get to be powerful. And that's a presumption that should form the basis of any analysis of their future behaviours, not morality or immorality or anything else. They are not out to get you, they are out to get something from you. So, whatever oppression they inflict is likely to be a bit more subtle than knocking you off.

History is full of lots of things that aren't coming back. You know, theoretically, we could all go back to riding horses and buggies everywhere instead of using cars, but being concerned about that happening to the point where you feel the need to build a stable in your backyard because IT HAPPENED BEFORE SO IT COULD HAPPEN AGAIN would be irrational. Similarly, if you know anything about how modern governments work, their relationships with business and the creation and directing of wealth, the idea that they would randomly decide to throw all that away so they could kill the consumers that keep laying golden eggs for them is if anything batshit crazier than us all going Amish.

When I get to a desktop, yes.

This discussion was merged into The American Gun Control Debate

Besides, if your government killed y'all who would be left to buy guns? This whole misadventure sounds bad for business, which apart from anything else, guarantees it won't happen

If you lived up a mountain or in the middle of a forest, it might not be too easy to take you out, though I doubt you'd survive long there anyhow, and 99% of Americans don't live up mountains or in forests; they live in urban areas or on open land. In the amazingly unlikely event your government went nuts and decided to wipe you all out and the military said, 'fine, let's do it', it would take an even more amazingly unlikely scenario for you stand a hope in hell against them. Anyhow, the fact that you spend more than milliseconds of your time entertaining this is suggestive of an inability to rationally assess risk. You're more likely to be killed by a shark in your bathtub than to live out this fantasy.

Government serves us by enforcing a system of social relations that's conducive to mutually beneficial interaction and general personal security. The cost is we play ball and obey the law. Overall, it's a reasonable trade. Fretting about Mad Max scenarios, or fantasising about vanquishing tanks and planes with guns is a sad and delusional way to live, and completely unnecessary.

Can you explain how making it easy for people in violent neighbourhoods to get guns makes them less violent? It seems you are making the argument for gun control here.

The police don't carry guns here because they don't need them and neither do we because we don't have a gun culture. So, it's not an issue.

If trained soldiers came to your door, you would shit your pants and surrender immediately. We know it, you know it, so no idea who you think the act is convincing here.

Can't imagine being more neutered than being so scared all the time I have to carry a gun everywhere.

We are sacrificing tens of thousands of lives to firearms each year in order to shelter an adult fantasy. — Maw

It's not just the fantasy of being able to take on the U.S. military that's disturbing, it's that the fantasists believe they represent or could ever represent 'the people' rather than a small minority of extremists thereamong. This invalid self-identification also serves to extirpate as non-people the real enemy, the democratic majority, who disagrees with them, and highlight that it's democracy per se their guns are aimed at.

Daddy social must get turned upside down and have the crucifixes and pornography shaken out of his pockets every now and then lest the whole lot go to his head. Or do I have it backasswards?

I've deleted dozens of posts just in the last couple of days and I've had enough of baseless complaints we're not moderating the thread, especially by someone who needs moderation as much as anyone else here. Future comments on moderation will be deleted. Stay on topic or stay away.

If a response offends you, flag it, and then, most importantly, don't just copy the exact same tone, that just so offended you, in response. — Isaac

We don't spend every moment of our day watching this thread, therefore moderation not being instant is not evidence that it won't be forthcoming. You can expedite the process by doing the above.

It would be unrealistic to expect non-partisan moderation. The moderators are human beings; they have friends here, and you and I do not feature among them. — Olivier5

Hate to interrupt your martyrdom, Jeanne d'Arc, but same applies to you. Further complaints can be directed to feedback or PM.

Not always... :halo:

Or we can point out that nothing fundamental about Russian culture has changed since they were the world's heroes for overthrowing communism.

And you do seem to regard Russian society as somehow defective and inferior, and therefore in need of being "corrected" by you. — Apollodorus

E.g. That's a better way to make the point.

It's right to point out prejudice, which was on display in Christoffer's post, but all of you are looking for excuses to make each other look as bad as possible.

A lot of that back and forth is just going to get deleted anyhow and I don't know who's bullying who but there's not much in the way of charitable interchange going on for sure.

It's a nice one for the newspapers for a week or two, but other than that it's a big zero

The problem in your comments as I see it is the overgeneralization. Critiques of culture require nuance and objectivity, which you've lacked. You are not the only one who does that and I wouldn't call it racist, but it's clumsy and unhelpful, just like some of the criticisms of America, the West, and NATO have been. I've been guilty of that myself too at times, and the consistency and intensity of the prejudices on display here remind me why sometimes I just need to keep my hands off the keyboard.

Much as this Mark-of-Cain-for-Ukraine-Nazi-thesis-perpetrators sounds like fun, I think Big Bird will probably be against it.

Anyhow, the vitriol on this thread does nothing for its quality is all I'll say.

Posters should argue in good faith. But if we were to mod everything we thought was false, we'd not unjustifiably be accused of censorship and bias.

I said I'd judge that reaction when and if that comparison becomes valid. My argument is against the validity of the specific comparison, not against Western complicity in the war in Ukraine. Separately, I've already put the West on the hook for helping to cause and extend the war. That was probably the main argument I've made during this discussion.

I don't know, why did Big Bird kill Snuffleupagus? What is the relevance of this to anything I said?

The vast majority of people would never have heard of Ukraine if all that happened was what's happening in Somalia. You used an example because it was current not because it was apt in order to make a point that has some truth to it. But it's not as if there aren't tons of better examples, e.g. Yemen as you mentioned.

We call it a lollipop for all I care. It's irrelevant. What is relevant is the differences in the circumstances. When and if the U.S. send hundreds of thousands of troops along with heavy armour and air support into Somalia and kill tens of thousands of Somalis, I'll gauge Western reaction then and judge hypocrisy or lack of it on that basis.

Nothing I said involved taking a position on U.S. troops in Somalia. It's consistent to be absolutely against that move and recognize that the US hasn't launched a massive invasion of the country, that there aren't tens of thousands of U.S. troops there, that they're not bombing cities there or trying to overthrow the government etc. Maybe they will. That's also irrelevant.