by my Ron Paul friend (yeah, I know, I know) for suggesting there be background checks before someone gets a gun. He began with this argument:
Spoons and forks don't make people fat. Lack of exercise, poor nutrition, and the over-consumption of crappy food makes people fat. Cars don't cause car accident. Bad drivers who drive too fast with their eyes on their cell phones cause car accidents. Guns don't cause school shootings. Crazy people with emotional problems who are on Prozac and have watched one too many Rambo movies and played one too many shoot'em up video games, cause school shootings. Banning guns won't lower the amount of school shootings that happen. Criminals who don't follow the law will get the guns they want no matter what the law says. Even if there were no more guns on the planet, a crazy guy could get a sword and hack people up instead of using a gun. The problem is crazy people in a degenerate society, not gun laws.
I wasn't going to comment, until someone else responded about how the
same thing happened in China yesterday as well. All I did was point out none of those children died because they were stabbed, not shot. That alone was enough to set him off, by asking me if I've ever fired a gun. Of course, this is meant to distract from the argument. I called him out on it, and finally, he explained:
Because it just goes to show that most people who haven't actually used a firearm are the ones who are usually the most against it. And I'm pretty sure you haven't. So I'm just exposing the realities of how our society works. [BruinKid] has a personal emotional opinion, therefore he should go lobby government and have his goons in the government violently enforce it on millions of peaceful people.
OK, game on. Below the fold is a mostly intact back-and-forth argument that we ended up having. (I reference
Ezra Klein's post on 12 gun facts in the linked graphs.)
Me: And I have a lot of friends who HAVE used firearms who are just as against it. LOL, if you're only allowed to talk about something only after experiencing it firsthand, no one who wasn't alive in 1832 should be allowed to talk about the gold standard. And most Americans agree with me on SENSIBLE restrictions.
Him: I don't agree that you have the right to violently take away something that I use for self defense. And yes, it has everything to do with it because I didn't realize the value of a firearm until I actually used one. I don't care about your friends. What you do isn't talk about something. What you do is take a personal emotional belief and try to turn it into a coercive law that takes away from the rights of free individuals. I know you hate freedom. But don't take away MY right to freedom.
How hard is it? STOP IMPOSING YOUR PERSONAL EMOTIONAL OPINIONS ON ME THROUGH VIOLENCE AND COERCION. Fascism is alive and well in America. How do you ban guns? More laws. what do more laws do? Create more criminals. I am free. If I want a gun, I should be able to have one. Who are you to tell me I can't have the right to defend myself? Or who are you to tell me how I can or cannot defend myself? Is this not a huge societal problem that we have people acting like kings with their personal opinions and attempting to impose their beliefs on entire populations...?
Me: How is passing a background check or not letting people diagnosed as mentally ill from buying them taking them away from YOU?? Unless you can't actually pass a background check.......... You're setting up a straw man by PRETENDING I'm arguing for banning guns, which is nowhere near what I'm proposing, and the above chart shows almost nobody in America wants that either.
Oh, and your earlier comment "in every area where there is strict gun control, things like this happens and in every area where there isn’t strict gun control, the exact opposite happens" is a debunked LIE. Look at Japan. Or go back a few months when I responded to another post of yours about Australian crime rates with the actual FACTS, after you reblogged someone else's MADE UP LIES about the numbers there and pretended they were real. They weren't, and you were trying to lie to all of your friends to push your agenda.
(Hmm, it seems that at some point since 8pm PT on Friday night, he went back and deleted that post that I'm quoting from. Coward.)
Him: What are "sensible restrictions" to you? Or is it my fault that you said sensible restrictions and expected me to know what you meant then made the claim that I'm setting up a straw man based off your usual claims that we need more laws to fix problems?
Me: Look at the chart above. How about just those 4 measures that SIXTY PERCENT OR MORE of Americans support? Or is what the people want no longer important in a democracy?
Him: Hey, was I talking about Japan or Australia? No. I'm talking about the freest nation humanity has ever seen (far from freedom but still closer than any other government)... America.
Hey, I remember that debate, you stopped responding...Like you always do when you get owned. So I'll just keep talking till you continue your already circular arguments that you dodge when asked any real question that would debunk your fascist way of thinking.
Me: Oh, and not even in other countries, look at the 50 states. States with more gun control laws DO have fewer gun-related deaths. There IS a positive correlation, so again, what you said is simply WRONG.
Him: Yeah, hey, this was a Constitutional Republic. Not a 50% +1 is right. Hey, the Nazis had the majority too. Guess they were right. Just because you have the majority doesn't mean it's right. And if I'm wrong, which I'm not, the difference between me and you is that you believe that you and your majority of sheep should go force others to do what you want because you have 50% +1...Yeah, that makes it legit. A Republic is supposed to represent the minority against the TYRANNICAL majority which is the exact mentality you project. The fascist what I say goes mentality.
Me: YOU brought up Australia a few months ago in another post. Don't think I forgot about that, even when you couldn't respond after I did the research and posted the actual facts about gun crime in that country. And YOU were the one making the claim that places with "strict gun control" have more gun deaths, so I brought up Japan to show you're WRONG there as well.
You can have your own opinions, but you cannot MAKE SHIT UP ABOUT GUN DEATHS.
Oh, and since you brought up cars as well in the original post, here.
Him: LOL, you're the one who banters about your bull shit then goes in hiding for another few months until you deem it necessary to come back out of your hole and write some more bull shit...Then, you'll get owned again because of your fascist views and stop commenting like you always do...Just to come back again in another few months on a thread where you feel like you have some backing and try to push your opinions again with your government statistics and then disappear. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Me: And what about representing a majority against a tyrannical minority, like you see in so many dictatorships and plutocracies? Like it or not, we elected our leaders with not even a majority, but with just a plurality state by state. And over 90% of Americans want background checks. Are you seriously telling me you're AGAINST that??
Him: Problem is this: Do we need more laws? Answer is this: No. How do you fix societal problems? NOT laws. You believe that the government is good and great and is the savior of the world. Similar to an Obama line of thought. He will push fascist agendas in whatever he thinks is right and support the mass murder of children across the globe, but be against people at home using weapons 1/10000 of the power.
And there is a process to obtain firearms...And that 90% statistic is bull shit.
Me: No, because it's useless arguing with an ideologue. When you have mathematically proven something to someone, and they still don't get it, at some point, you're just wasting your breath. I've given you the numbers, and yet you don't care about them. If you don't want laws, just go move to Somalia already. Then you'll have your libertarian paradise with all the guns you want.
Him: Do you really think MORE gun control is going to fix the problem? Clearly all the gun control in the past hasn't solved these problems? This is a very simple issue. People will get guns regardless. More laws on guns will not help stop guns. Just like more drug laws don't stop drugs. If you want to shift society, you have to show them that your ideas are worth accepting. Not going to the government and saying THIS IS WHAT I BELIEVE IS RIGHT SO I'M GOING TO FORCE IT ON ALL OF YOU!!!!
Other friend #1: that is simply not true though.
Him: hahaha you think it's useless arguing with an ideologue because your ideology is so weak and violent that the only way you can push your ideology is through the force of government. [BruinKid] has such good ideas that instead of showing soceity why it is right, he has to go to government and force them to do it. The debate on guns IS an ideological one.
LOL... He just told me to move to Somalia LOL
Me: Again, you're just wrong. Why is it so difficult to understand that if you make it harder for bad guys to get guns, SOME actually either give up, or get something less lethal. It WORKS in other countries. Oh look, here's Israel after they stopped letting soldiers take guns with them back home. Suicides dropped by 60%. Gee, I wonder why. Anyway, I'm done with this post. I've posted the facts. You keep on with your conspiracy theories.
Him: Yeah, the kids in Pakistan that Obama massacred are still dead too. But [BruinKid] supports that 100%.
Me: Sigh... you know I don't, but you keep lying about that. OK, now I'm done with this.
Him: All teachers and administrators should be armed. There's the solution.
You don't? Then why support a mass murderer named Obama? If you vote for him, you support him. And you are #1 Obama supporter.
(I had left the conversation by this point.)
Other friend #1: No, that is as stupid as saying lets all ban guns.
Other friend #2: Obama?!? Let's stick to one topic please!
Him: I'm willing to. I just don't know when [BruinKid] will get up and leave then come back later in a few months. Looks like he already did. Yes, facts. I am free. If you try to take my right to self-defense away from me, I am not free and will defend my freedom. Simple. I'm such an ideologue. Yes. You aren't an ideologue at all, [BruinKid]. You believe government is good and great and that they should do everything. That's not ideological at all lmao
[BruinKid] says guns should be regulated more because other countries do something. Don't worry, he's done because we're ideologues unlike him. we don't stick to facts. MORE SAFETY. THE GOVERNMENT MUST GIVE US MORE SAFETY. [BruinKid], do you agree?
Other friend #1: No, that is not the argument, that is what you guys are turning the argument into, which I personally think is quite disingenuous especially for intelligent people like you.
Him: If you didn't support mass murder, you wouldn't vote for it. Pretty simple. But hey, who's counting!
I'd prefer you over [BruinKid]. He's a fascist sympathizer and the states most profound goon. The one who supports the state no matter what they do. Even if it means mass murder. They don't support it...But they support it...
There's over 280 comments there now, and I left before #100. Geez.
Now... you may be asking by now, why the hell do you even bother engaging these people? You're not getting anywhere with him. True. But he also has almost 1,800 friends on Facebook that can read his posts. Not all of them are libertarian, not by a longshot. I may not convince him, but someone else reading it may learn a thing or two. In fact, the guy he says he "prefers" to me (friend #1) actually liked my posts and also said that I made some really good points he hadn't thought of before.
BTW, the reference to Australia was when he linked this right-winger's piece on how Australian gun murder rates had dramatically skyrocketed since their gun ban.
Gun control advocates...here you go: "Since the gun ban in Australia, armed robberies are up 69%, assaults with guns up 28%, gun murders increased 19%, and home invasions jumped 21%. More proof that not only does gun control not work, it makes it safer for the criminals at large. In their words: “The cost of lost liberty can be measured in the loss of life”
Except... it
hadn't. Every single statistic he cited there was an outright
fabrication. This was my response to him back in August:
I mean, if those statistics were actually true, and not pulled out of someone's ass, then yeah, you'd have a point.
Gun murders increased, if by "increased", you mean "fell by half". There were 66 gun murders in Australia in 1996. In 2008 (which is the last report we have from Australia), there were only 31, even as the population's grown since then. Here. Read the damn report for yourself. You have to manually calculate the number of gun homicides per year from combining Figures 1 (total homicides) & 9 (% killed by guns) in the report.
I also like how that "news" report in the video never cited any source for those numbers when they flashed on the screen. But the woman speaking does so in a concerned voice, so it's gotta be true!
Look, there are legitimate anti-gun ban arguments to make. But when you cite FALSIFIED data, you're not helping make your case. Here's Snopes debunking a similar argument about Australia from 2001. Crime has gone down more significantly since then.
And here's a summary of the actual crime data from earlier this year.
Question: Why did you assume the link you read was true? What happened to trust, but verify? :-)
Also, thanks to Kossack marigold for
pointing out to me that
FactCheck.org had debunked a similar chain e-mail back in 2009 with again falsified numbers and percentages that were pulled out of someone's ass (probably Wayne LaPierre's).
Well, he's already moved on by sharing this graphic from a Facebook group called If Guns Kill People, Do Spoons Make People Fat?.
WHICH OF THESE SIGNS WILL PREVENT ANOTHER TRAGEDY?
1. ALL WEAPONS ARE PROHIBITED ON THESE PREMISES
2. STAFF HEAVILY ARMED AND TRAINED - ANY ATTEMPT TO HARM CHILDREN WILL BE MET WITH DEADLY FORCE
Sigh... actually, the correct answer is... NEITHER ONE. This person is thinking through the prism of rational thought, in which you ask yourself which one would YOU rather face. But you're not a deranged mass murderer. They think... differently. Today's killer and the Aurora killer both were wearing forms of body armor and protection. Now, why do that when everyone is unarmed? Bottom line, they armed themselves heavily enough that they wouldn't give a shit if the teachers or some movie theater patrons
were armed. They were still going to go through with it, and they'd have the element of surprise on their side.
And if you got to the end of this, congrats. You may also be thinking that I'm anti-gun. I'm actually not. It's like, I'm actually rather conservative, but the GOP has gone so far to the extreme, I seem like a raging liberal. :-) Same with guns, I'm actually quite moderate, but the NRA has gone so far off the deep end in opposing any sensible law, I seem like someone who's anti-gun, when I'm not.
What do I mean by moderate? Well, for instance, let's look at that chart again from this August CNN poll (.pdf) about how the American public responded to each proposal. In every one, I side with the majority of Americans.
96% of Americans support background checks; so do I.
57% support banning semi-automatics like the AK-47; so do I.
60% support banning high-capacity clips; so do I.
91% support preventing convicted felons and the mentally ill from owning guns; so do I.
54% disagree with limiting how many guns a person can own; so do I.
76% support requiring all guns to be registered with the local government; so do I.
89% disagree with banning guns altogether; so do I.
But I'm the fascist. Riiiiiiiiiiight. :-)