Quote :

"We did create a wonderful serious of mesothelioma commercials tho, so.. kudos to that"

except the only thing that causes mesothelioma has effectively been made illegal to the great benefit of public health

10/3/2017 11:55:30 PM

Quote :

"I’d wager : Is advocating for that"

arm the homeless

10/3/2017 11:56:50 PM

^^ yah I was abdicating mesothelioma in a tongue and cheek fashion because his other examples were so wildly inappropriate.

10/4/2017 12:01:55 AM

you literally copy and pasted the first paragraph you saw when you googled smoking deaths in the US

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/cig_smoking/index.htm

Quote :

"And the Flint water crisis as well as lead levels in basically every New England state show how amazing we’ve done there."

the Flint water crisis has nothing to do with regulations. the city officials to go the cheap route and change water sources, choosing a source that hadn’t been kept up properly.

besides that, citing lead in those waters isn’t an argument against regulation.

there is no doubt that the air and water in America is better now than in previous decades, thanks to regulations.

10/4/2017 12:41:54 AM

Quote :

"because his other examples were so wildly inappropriate."

Wildly inappropriate? Federal regulation has helped produce exceptionally clean air and water when compared to many other countries/20-30 years ago, and if you'd like to argue federal regulation hasn't made automobiles safer than they were 20-30 years ago I'd love to hear it. Cigarettes are probably his weakest argument, but it's pretty damn far from "wildly inappropriate."

10/4/2017 12:46:48 AM

I stick by wildly inappropriate for clean water and smoking. We have made great advances in car safety, and I’ll call it a push on air quality cause I don’t recall many environmentalists lauding our progress but I’m not informed enough to have an opinion either way.

But the real question is... are you two just arguing to argue now? Are you having trouble sleeping? The first thing I said in this thread is “I am for gun restrictions”. IE federal regulation on the legal purchase of fire arms. What the living fuck are y’all arguing?


I don’t think it’ll work, that’s a fucking opinion, and I’m allowed to feel that way. Is this bizzaroland? The fuck are yalll aggressively agreeing with me for? You think regulating the purchase of guns is good, I think regulating the purchase of guns is good. Move on.

Time to get back to yelling at Elusis for being a crazy

[Edited on October 4, 2017 at 1:13 AM. Reason : .]

10/4/2017 1:11:52 AM

Quote :

" The first thing I said in this thread is “I am for gun restrictions”"

Quote :

"I'm for gun restrictions, especially for the mentally ill...however, it just feels fucking pointless."

That's not much of an endorsement, and completely shits on all existing firearm regulations.

Quote :

"I don’t think it’ll work, that’s a fucking opinion, and I’m allowed to feel that way."

Feel however you want to dude, but existing regulations have worked to a degree. Would you like to remove them all because you think they're "pointless?"

Quote :

"I stick by wildly inappropriate for clean water"

I appreciate [read: lol at] you retracting your argument on the other items, but unclean water not a mountain you want to die on just because Flint is in the news.

10/4/2017 1:21:25 AM

Quote :

"Would you like to remove them all because you don't think they don't work?"

no... because I’m not a moron, so this all or nothing nonsense doesn’t work with me as every situation has some degree of nuance. For instance, I believe regulations concerning finance and loan procurement should be in place... didn’t stop people from swindling billions out of Americans and dropping the bottom out of the housing market in the 2000s.

I believe regulations on food safety and purchasing should be in place. Didn’t stop Chipotle from buying sub standard meat (and violating those regulations) and giving thousands of people E.Coli and possibly renal failure.

Do you see a trend? Regulations are good. Bad people will still ignore them. This is the way of the world, and an unfortunate truth in a complex situation.

Thought experiment : if we enacted gun legislation tomorrow that dropped the rate of murders and mass shootings by 25% ... would you be thrilled? Or would we still be lamenting the 75% of that population that still died. For me... the later.

I treat patients daily with lead poisoning issues... I don’t need to “read about it in the news”. It’s hard to remeber not everyone in the wolf web is a middle manager.

[Edited on October 4, 2017 at 1:36 AM. Reason : .]

10/4/2017 1:31:30 AM

Quote :

"no... because I’m not a moron, so this all or nothing nonsense doesn’t work with me as every situation has some degree of nuance."

except you called gun restrictions pointless.

10/4/2017 1:41:32 AM

Will gun regulations stop murders and mass shootings yes/no?

10/4/2017 1:43:48 AM

Now who's ignoring nuance? Obviously, no.

They have reduced those events, and could further.

10/4/2017 1:46:11 AM

Quote :

"Thought experiment : if we enacted gun legislation tomorrow that dropped the rate of murders and mass shootings by 25% ... would you be thrilled? Or would we still be lamenting the 75% of that population that still died. For me... the later."

I get the idea that you're lamenting the latter, but don't understand your approach of shitting on gun control and ignoring the former.

As was said if you actually care about this issue "you can’t just throw your hands up in the air and say “I don’t know”

[Edited on October 4, 2017 at 2:03 AM. Reason : ]

10/4/2017 1:54:33 AM

Making murder illegal hasn't stopped all murder therefore murder should be legal

10/4/2017 6:47:59 AM

Guys. We must pay the price for ssclark's freedom. So what if we have to die. He has a right! And we can't possibly slightly regulate that right in case some who's right should be revoked anyways be infringed upon.

Quote :

"Thought experiment : if we enacted gun legislation tomorrow that dropped the rate of murders and mass shootings by 25% ... would you be thrilled? Or would we still be lamenting the 75% of that population that still died. For me... the later."

I can tell you one thing, IT WOULD BE A GODDAMN GOOD PIECE OF LEGISLATION IF IT SAVED EVEN ONLY 1%.

All lives matter, right?

[Edited on October 4, 2017 at 8:50 AM. Reason : .]

10/4/2017 8:48:39 AM

10/4/2017 9:37:52 AM

What if we enacted gun legislation that reduced gun violence by 1% but increased knife violence by 5%

10/4/2017 9:52:06 AM

Quote :

"Didn’t stop Chipotle from buying sub standard meat (and violating those regulations) and giving thousands of people E.Coli and possibly renal failure."

less than a hundred people got E. Coli and the cause was never determined

10/4/2017 10:20:13 AM

I don't understand why so many people assume gun control means the govt is taking away all your guns. Do people really think its a bad thing that being able to purchase weapons like assault rifles be restricted further or taken away?

Sure we all know that bad people will get ahold of things like this if they really want to but let's take this case. What if after purchasing so many weapons you end up on a watch list? Maybe the cops start keeping an eye on you or asking why you feel you need such a large amount of weapons? This guy supposedly purchased all of these legally right? Let's say these weren't legal to purchase now... does the guy instead go the black market route or does he just decide that all of the trouble isnt worth it now and this never happens or the guy just shows up with a hunting rifle and instead of killing 58 he is only able to kill 5 before he is stopped.

I understand the default argument always goes back to well if we cant have guns like that and criminals and the cops/govt do then how can we defend ourselves from the cops and govt and I guess that is a valid point. I guess it boils down to do we really think that is legitimately going to happen? I guess those who don't are able to see past that argument and those who think everyone is out to get them aren't.

10/4/2017 10:59:16 AM

Quote :

" Do people really think its a bad thing that being able to purchase weapons like assault rifles be restricted further or taken away? "

yes. do you think we should just give up free speech and freedom of religion because some members of society don't agree with them?

10/4/2017 11:22:58 AM

The problem is most people are arguing for some restrictions and your counter argument is we give up things entirely.

If I made up a religion that said it was ok for me to walk up to you while eating dinner and shit in your sandwich and make you eat it and you just had to accept eating your shit sandwich and do nothing about it would that be fine with you or do you think there should be some restrictions on what your religion allows you do that is also acceptable to society in general?

10/4/2017 11:40:11 AM

^^I hate to break it to you, but we limit speech all the time. Religion is a lot harder to limit, because people can worship and pray in many different types of ways. In fact, you can never know if someone is offering thoughts and prayers, because they may very well LOOK like they're doing absolutely nothing.

I might be sitting on my ass and scratching my balls to the casual observer, but in my heart and mind, I'm offering up all sorts of thoughts and prayers right this second. DON'T INFRINGE ME, BRO.

Quote :

"I stick by wildly inappropriate for clean water and smoking."

I hate agreeing with anything TGL says, but he's right. The war on smoking might as well be declared over at this point. Yeah, people will still smoke, but it's costing smokers a fortune and kids today aren't picking up the habit. Many people are trying to go after the vaping companies now, but while it's not a perfect solution and vaping can definitely mess up your lungs, it's not even close to being as harmful to the user or society. Another reason why throwing out an imperfect solution to a problem is dumb, defeatist thinking.

[Edited on October 4, 2017 at 11:47 AM. Reason : .]

10/4/2017 11:44:05 AM

Quote :

"yes. do you think we should just give up free speech and freedom of religion because some members of society don't agree with them?"

neither speech nor religion are unrestricted

gun regulations are constitutional, this has been confirmed in even gun friendly court decisions

10/4/2017 11:45:12 AM

Quote :

"The problem is most people are arguing for some restrictions and your counter argument is we give up things entirely"

your argument is that we should give up our rifles entirely to end stuff like this, when handguns account for the vast majority of homicides and violent crime. Giving up any ground whatsoever just invites the anti-gun crowd to take more ground the next time their legislation fails to do anything at all, until eventually there's nothing left. There are officials in Britain right now pushing for harder gun regulations over there on the few pump action shotguns and bolt action rifles they have left because of what happened in Vegas.

That's why the only proper stance for any gun owner to take is to not give up anything.

10/4/2017 12:11:16 PM

Want an example of regulations working? See acid rain. Or rather, don't see it because it's basically non-existent in the continental US anymore. Catalytic converters on cars and emission caps on power plants basically eliminated it. It is an indisputable fact that the EPA and especially the Clean Air Act has literally saved millions of lives and billions of dollars, possibly trillions.

[Edited on October 4, 2017 at 12:15 PM. Reason : .]

10/4/2017 12:13:43 PM

and that's why you gun nut morons are all psychopaths

10/4/2017 12:14:12 PM

Quote :

"your argument is that we should give up our rifles entirely to end stuff like this"

No, that wasn't his argument.

10/4/2017 12:17:06 PM

acid rain regulation caused us to switch heavily to natural gas for fuel, exacerbating the fracking problem. It also caused us to catch the fly ash and collect it on the ground until fly ash pits burst out and contaminated entire waterways.

10/4/2017 12:17:41 PM

^^yes, it literally was

Quote :

"Do people really think its a bad thing that being able to purchase weapons like assault rifles be restricted further or taken away? "

10/4/2017 12:18:23 PM

I can at least understand that argument and why people feel that way but you have to understand where a lot of other people are coming from. I think we all understand we are past the point of return as far as just taking away guns entirely so that is never going to happen and so most reasonable people also understand there is no way to eliminate gun violence. I just want the pro gun crowd to understand why most reasonable people don't understand the need for a regular person to have access to weapons that a lot of people would consider overboard. I have never owned a gun but I would also argue against those people who think everyone should give up all of their guns either. Surely there is some middle ground that both sides can come to that surely will help more than it hurts things.

10/4/2017 12:23:42 PM

He is correct for me personally I see no reason any private citizen should be allowed to own an assault rifle and I know the argument is they aren't different from hunting rifles etc and its a never ending circle. There is a reason I generally stay out of these debates because its full of people at both far ends of the spectrum all or nothing sorta deal and its hard to argue with either side.

10/4/2017 12:29:16 PM

Quote :

""Do people really think its a bad thing that being able to purchase weapons like assault rifles be restricted further or taken away? ""

Nuance man. Shit's difficult! He's clearing talking about assault rifles, not all rifles as depicted in your strawman.

And after the or he's clearly saying taking away the ability to purchase assault rifles, not the actual assault rifles [from your cold dead hands], and not all rifles[from your cold dead hands].

10/4/2017 12:33:15 PM

he literally just shit all over you in the post before yours. He literally meant take them away, Australia style.

10/4/2017 12:34:53 PM

Lol I don't think you know what literally means, and no he didn't. Your strawman (one of many) is still a strawman.

10/4/2017 12:47:33 PM

So what eluesis is trying to communicate here is that the 58 dead and 500+ injured (in this one instance) are just a price we need to pay from time to time so he can go to the range with his collection of ARs.

Gotcha, thanks for clearing it up man.

10/4/2017 12:48:30 PM

at least he has realized he had to drop the "shall not infringe" argument because it was a bad one


despite the fact that gun control is currently becoming more gun friendly, eleusis believes in a silly slippery slope argument where allowing even minor gun control means black helicopters are going to show up at his house to take his guns.

10/4/2017 12:50:59 PM

I bet people in Australia thought slippery slope was a logical fallacy argument too.

If the only thing that comes out of this is the government banning slidefire stocks and gatling triggers, than I'd be perfectly fine with that. I usually leave the range when I see those things appear. But no on in this thread can say with a straight face that the anti-gun voices of America will be happy with just those being banned.

10/4/2017 12:58:13 PM

just because one side wants something doesn't make it magically happen

one side is willing to discuss this issue, the other side says absolutely no discussion and makes sure that the federal government isn't even allowed to study the issue

10/4/2017 1:01:28 PM

Quote :

"But no on in this thread can say with a straight face that the anti-gun voices of America will be happy with just those being banned."

Who cares if they're happy? Doesn't mean they can get anything through congress.

10/4/2017 1:03:49 PM

It's a tough issue especially when there are so many that if you tried to take away any part of their arsenal they would rather just die fighting you than give up some of their weapons. I would even be perfectly ok with gun ranges and stuff being able to have access to this stuff so people can still go shoot them for fun I just dont believe my neighbor should be able to have assault rifles to pull out when he decides to go batshit crazy like this guy appears to have.

10/4/2017 1:35:36 PM

I see reports the guy bought 33 guns in the past year. At the very least should someone like that be put on some sort of list? Like there should be some amount of guns or ammo over a time frame that triggers something for the police to show up and at least ask some basic questions like why do you need this many weapons or something to at least get people like that on law enforcement radar? Your right to own guns isnt infringed upon in any way but at least potential problems are being looked into.

10/4/2017 2:33:51 PM

Any person who uses the argument that the 2nd amendment is necessary to protect a tyrannical government is a useless, shit-swallowing cunt and should not be taken seriously.

10/4/2017 3:00:31 PM

anyone who argues the purpose of the 2nd amendment is so they can hunt and punch holes in paper is a useless shit swallowing cunt that should not be taken seriously.

10/4/2017 3:11:41 PM

Good. So we're in agreement. There's no intellectually honest defense of the 2nd Amendment

10/4/2017 3:13:25 PM

Quote :

"But no on in this thread can say with a straight face that the anti-gun voices of America will be happy with just those being banned."

Do you apply this logic to all aspects of legislative action? You're basically providing an argument for why no one should ever compromise on anything because you know you won't be giving the other side EVERYTHING they want and therefore they'll never be satisfied. Where would we be as a country if this is how all sides operated all the time?

[Edited on October 4, 2017 at 3:58 PM. Reason : as]

10/4/2017 3:57:55 PM

it only takes one side to operate like that, we are already there, and it's awful

10/4/2017 4:08:13 PM

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-think-gun-control-was-the-answer-my-research-told-me-otherwise/2017/10/03/d33edca6-a851-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html

10/4/2017 8:00:57 PM

I'd argue that if you believe it is reasonable and rational for every single individual to have the right and the means with which to defend themselves from criminals (but far more importantly, from tyrannical groups of people such as corrupt governments) then what we're really looking for here is agreement on an acceptable balance between the capability to defend one's self and the capability to inflict damage on a massive amount of people.

In the 1700s, governments had cannons and muskets. The people had muskets and could fairly easily gain possession of cannons. Both sides also had horses and knives. And that's about it. Parity on both sides.

Fast forward to today, the government has stealth fighters, bombers, cruise missiles, tanks, helicopters and nuclear weapons.

If you argue strictly on the side of self defense, then your logical conclusion is that all people should have access to all weapons, as far down the line as nuclear weapons, no matter the risk to other people.

If you argue strictly on the side of "anti-gun" then your logical conclusion is that people should have access to no weapons at all and by extension, to no tool that could inflict any harm whatsoever.

Argument A means terrorism wipes out this planet.

Argument B means we still live in mud huts and eat berries.

The only way to get to a compromise is to appreciate both sides of the arguments which really just means coming to an acceptable level of loss potential.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States

Quote :

"Gun violence in the United States results in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries annually.[1] In 2013, there were 73,505 nonfatal firearm injuries (23.2 injuries per 100,000 U.S. citizens),[2][3] and 33,636 deaths due to "injury by firearms" (10.6 deaths per 100,000 U.S. citizens).[4] These deaths consisted of 11,208 homicides,[5] 21,175 suicides,[4] 505 deaths due to accidental or negligent discharge of a firearm, and 281 deaths due to firearms use with "undetermined intent".[4] Of the 2,596,993 total deaths in the US in 2013, 1.3% were related to firearms.[1][6]"

So 2.6 million people died in 2013 and 1.3% were due to firearms.

I fail to see the problem with existing gun laws (going strictly off of numbers as balanced against what I believe to be an important right - the ability to defend ones self both from criminals but more importantly, tyrannical governments.

I have heard the argument that even if we keep weapons, we couldn't fight a tyrannical government that has tanks and planes. Ask any Marine or soldier that fought in Iraq or Afghanistan how true that is.

I have also heard the argument regarding the fact that we should at least work harder to deal with problems related to preventable (non age-related) deaths, firearm deaths being one of them. I have yet to see someone make an argument along the lines of "preventable deaths" that explains away the lack of effort to eliminate many other types of preventable deaths that occur in far greater number and that would be far easier to solve.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preventable_causes_of_death#/media/Filereventable_causes_of_death.svg


What I'd really like to point out here though is this - every time a tragedy (and this absolutely is one) like this happens, it get turned immediately into either a pro or anti-gun battle. In my opinion it's pretty disrespectful to anyone who is affected by said tragedy. It started (in this thread) five posts in.

[Edited on October 4, 2017 at 9:21 PM. Reason : a]

10/4/2017 9:07:22 PM

Quote :

"In my opinion it's pretty disrespectful to anyone who is affected by said tragedy."

Oh please. Plenty of people "affected by said tragedy" jump immediately to gun control arguments. Are we just supposed to post "thoughts and prayers" over and over after these incidents?

Quote :

"If you argue strictly on the side of self defense, then your logical conclusion is that all people should have access to all weapons, as far down the line as nuclear weapons, no matter the risk to other people. If you argue strictly on the side of "anti-gun" then your logical conclusion is that people should have access to no weapons at all and by extension, to no tool that could inflict any harm whatsoever ... ..."

In the scheme of things, very few people live at these extremes.

Quote :

"So 2.6 million people died in 2013 and 1.3% were due to firearms"

Cool meaningless stat.

10/4/2017 9:54:16 PM

I wasn't saying we should patronize and just offer kind words over and over and over. I really just meant having the same discussion over and over is pointless and just pisses people off on both sides causing them to spend more time fighting with each other rather than empathizing with the victims.

I also didn't mean only pro-gun people start the arguments. It comes from both sides. It's an instantaneous reaction on both sides.

Agree entirely that very few live at those extremes. I'm simply saying that by acknowledging that would assist in getting to a solution.

Not a cool stat nor is it meaningless.

10/4/2017 10:08:38 PM

Quote :

"I really just meant having the same discussion over and over is pointless"

While I don't agree that it's pointless, that's a better take than calling the discussions disrespectful to those affected.

Quote :

"I'm simply saying that by acknowledging that would assist in getting to a solution."

I usually think it better to ignore the extremists when considering policy, but in three short pages our resident pro-gun extremist eleusis has changed his stance on restricting sales of full auto mods from "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" to "I'd be perfectly fine with that" so maybe that's not the best approach.

Quote :

"Not a cool stat nor is it meaningless."

It's incredibly meaningless to pull some dumb stat like that to attempt and minimize the impact of gun violence in our country. OH BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CANCER AND THE DIABETES? Pretty hypocritical to call anything disrespectful with hot takes like that.

10/4/2017 10:35:01 PM