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Who Is More Afraid? The One Who Feels He Needs a Gun? Or the One Who Doesn't?

Who is more afraid? The one who feels he needs a gun, or the one who doesn't?


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it is quite logical to establish a common sense line based on what the government considers suitable for civilian employees of a civilian agency to use in a civilian environment for self defense against the same criminals who prey on other civilians. It also is based on an estoppel argument

While it may be a agency over civilians, police officers are NOT civilians and you have been provided with countless definitions which specifically state that. But lets get beyond that and look at your claim of a logical connection in your belief.

In point of fact it is not logical. Police have the tools they do because they do a specific job. You and I DO NOT do that job.
 
Your imagination runs away from you a lot. For some reason, you are an all or nothing guy. There are degrees. Restrictions, checks and registrations are not bans.

I told you before, the world has choices beyond just 0 and 1.

Just the other day in a gun thread somebody on that side make the remark that there is no middle ground on the gun issue. Such thinking is indicative of an extremist who sees it just as you described.
 
Just the other day in a gun thread somebody on that side make the remark that there is no middle ground on the gun issue. Such thinking is indicative of an extremist who sees it just as you described.

Sadly true. The extremism displayed is to me an indication of obsessive compulsions and paranoid delusions.
 
When the time comes you really need a gun nothing else will do. The same goes for insurance. Damn near everyone has insurance. Everyone hopes they'll never need it.

When your safety has been violated, when you have been harmed, when you are threatened with extreme violence the first person you call for support and protection has a gun.

Y'know, you might have a point...if there weren't so many nations where guns are not nearly so plentiful as they are here in America, where the homicide rates are MUCH lower than it is here.
 
Not a very thoughtful question, I'm sorry to say. The decision to carry a weapon is a situational consideration. For most of my life I have not carried a weapon. On some occasions I chose to be armed, a couple of times very heavily. During a couple of tours of duty I had a 12 gauge shotgun within reach at my bed each night. Etc., etc. A firearm is a tool. If it suits the work at hand then you should have one.:peace

Actually, you're right - it was not a thoughtful question, and that was my mistake. You're not the first to point that out in so many words...but it's time I owned up to it.
 
Sadly true. The extremism displayed is to me an indication of obsessive compulsions and paranoid delusions.

I would agree. Its really those things and a form of willful dissociative disorder resulting in living in an alternate reality other then the USA the vast majority live in.
 
The issue is that FEAR is widespread enough to be a strong motivator on all sides of this issue.

Oh, so now you want to come back to the OP. As I said, the only fear I have is to not be ready to defend my family. I abate that fear by staying armed and in good health.
Anyone doing anything short of that is no kind of father or husband.
 
I think there are millions of Caspy Faintheart's out there that only feel secure if they're packing. They need a shrink to adjust their self esteem issues and instead buy a gun. I don't think the therapy works. Same thing goes for cops. Take away their guns and give them the English style billy clubs. There is mace, stun guns, pepper spray, and innocents are being shot by cops everyday. The culture has gone bad. Too militarized.

I strongly agree - and I believe the reason why the cops are becoming more violent is because they can't make an arrest without assuming that the perp is packing. That kind of stress and fear can - will - affect not only their individual psychology but also their organizational mentality.

It's sad that I can walk down the street in a Manila slum and feel safer than if I walk down the street in Seattle or Memphis.
 
I would agree. Its really those things and a form of willful dissociative disorder resulting in living in an alternate reality other then the USA the vast majority live in.

i see, so those who do not share your vision, the reality you project, have mental disorder.

this is a way of calling people "nuts", who do don't share your passion for federal intervention into the 2nd amendment.
 
1) tell that to people in DC, NY, CT. its a lie. lots of guns have been banned including all automatics made after may 19, 1986. I don't buy that lie and it is a lie

2) dems adopted gun control to stave off attacks by people like nixon who claimed dems failed to stem the tide of mostly black street crime in the 1960s. Gun control was based on false motives and now has morphed into attacking pro gun rights groups because they told the truth on what the Dems were doing If car alarm lobbyists mainly supported the GOP, I suspect the Dems would target them too

1) If they are intelligent, they know all guns have not been banned. Your only quibbling over regulations, not complete banning.

2) That's just nonsense. Paranoid nonsense.
 
You ask an excellent question. Over and over and over again in gun thread after gun thread after gun thread the toadies and sycophants of the gun lobby who want a guncentric America keep insulting people who disagree with them peering down the edge of their nose, wagging their judgemntal finger and dripping with faux superior condescension proclaim that people who want reasonable gun regulation are AFRAID. The mock and laugh and say such folks are motivated by fear and emotion.

There is an old saying that when you point an accusatory finger at others you have three more of your own pointing right back at you. The gun community is so motivated and so obsessed with fear that it is the life blood of their ideology. They are afraid of crime. They are afraid of The Other. They have delusional fantasies of fear that the mean old US government is going to ship them off to the camps in Malibu.

FEAR FEAR FEAR.

It makes up their very fiber of being and chokes all off reason and common sense with them.

Here's an article I wrote for Blogcritics a few years back. It turns out that studies show that a person with a larger amygdala (a certain part of the brain) is significantly more likely to be conservative. Thing is, the larger the amygdala a person has, the more alert and oriented towards threats that person generally is. And IMO that's probably why the fear and conspiracy-theory claims are so prevalent in right-wing media and punditry - all of their ludicrous claims, accusations, and conspiracy theories are so silly to you and me...but to those who are more threat-oriented, such might well be very credible. This would explain why they simply don't see through all the silly crap they're being fed by right-wing media.

But what really sucks is that the research about the amygdala shows there might be a biological basis for all that. This biological basis doesn't make them better or worse, just more oriented towards threats.
 
The claim was that they were bought out of fear of crime. So? Has nothing to do with lethality. Has to do with motivation to own/employ.

The reactions do. And that is what I was discussing with TD, the reactions by people to restrictions. No one wants to restrict guns for just being. They are often motivated by lethal events. Right or wrong, they can point to those. They can't with car alarms.
 
yes - the things you cited are also aided by fear. As to being "completely fear based" ... I doubt it althought I suspect it is significant.

Really? How else do you look at house fires? Or my other example about preparing you kids so they are not kidnapped by strangers?

Home security alert systems with panic buttons are not about property....they are about people.
 
if the government can arbitrarily limit your weapon to ten shots based on nothing more than picking a number
what is to stop it from limiting your gun to one shot

are you familiar with what Cuomo did in NY? what was the instigating crime that caused him to push for a 7 round limit


Here is a solution-citizens in a given state can have the same capacity weapons as the police. how about that

But our constitution says we have the right to bears arms, and never said what type or kind of arms. Should we take that as meaning everyone can own a Howitzer or a RPG?

Should the gubbermint have the authority, be it state or federal to write laws governing firearms, or should we just interpret the constitution any which way an individual pleases?
 
Yes, that is 100% true. Which is why it is so amazing when people on the gun lobby side attempt to insult people who disagree with them calling them things like "fear driven" or accusing them of being emotional rather than factual when the emotions of gun supporters and in fact the entire industry is significantly driven by their own fears and emotions. They are guilty of the very thing they accuse their enemies of.

I believe it's about feeling like you are in control of your own fate....as much as that is possible. A firearm may increase your chances of choosing your own fate. "(How dare the govt try and restrict your ability to protect yourself and your family? It's obvious the systems they have in place cannot.")

The govt trying to take guns or even restrict them, is also associated with control....if they can come and take something that is Constitutionally recognized as your right...or even seek more control over it....then what stops them from doing so with your other rights?

As a matter of fact, there is one expression that I've read that says the right to keep and bear arms enables us to preserve all the others.
 
So you do not support the constitution? Since its inception the rights provided within are said to be "god given".
And what? I could make any statement I please. God didn't write the Constitution.
 
Did God wink into existence healthcare, because some think they have a right to that?
Amend the Constitution to support that belief and it becomes the word of God, or so I'm told.
 
I wonder why recently people fear the gubbermint? Don't they know of the checks and balances it would take to pass constitutional amendments or to change wording in that? Seems people are acting out of not knowing and desperation over what people talk about on MSM and talk radio, seems they're being fed bad pablum.

Why do you say 'recently?'
 
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Why do you say 'recently?'

Okay, ya got me on that. As a person who was cornfused about joining the hippie movement peace, love and all that in the 60's, I opted for military service, man were some military people paranoids! Hippies I knew sat around all day long, when they weren't working, blowing weed, drinking MD 20/20 and Ripple, talking about how scary the US gubbermint was. Maybe because they got their booties kicked by cops for staging sit-ins?
 
I strongly suspect it has to do with history and the role government plays in our nation. During the Gilded Age government power was firmly and deeply on the side of business, corporations and the wealthy and you rarely saw anything about the big bad government. Then in the Progressive era starting at the turn of the century, government became more of an impartial referee in some areas and the wealthy did not like that. Then many saw the New Deal as putting government far too often on the side of the average person and that seemed to be the straw that broke the camel back of the far right.


And do you not see how unaware they were of who was running the show? Just because they felt that they were 'better' off but were more like pet finches in those gilded cages? The regular people didnt cause the Depression....the luck just ran out for a lot of 'Big Business' and the regular people suffered too. But they blamed the govt? Yes....but as you say, BB was pretty much running the show.

Just because people 'believe' something doesnt make them correct.
 
But our constitution says we have the right to bears arms, and never said what type or kind of arms. Should we take that as meaning everyone can own a Howitzer or a RPG?

Should the gubbermint have the authority, be it state or federal to write laws governing firearms, or should we just interpret the constitution any which way an individual pleases?

why is this stupid argument constantly repeated? if you actually read the Bill of Rights, the 2A and the documents contemporary with it, the idea was weapons of a militia man or infantry regular.

we should interpret the constitution as the founders intended. And there is nothing in the constitution that gave the federal government any authority to regulate small arms owned by private citizens

the issue that now arises is that state governments DID have the power to regulate-consistent with state constitutions-small arms but now that the 2A has been applied to the states, there is potential conflict
 
On one level it is part of this entire "I am more of a manly man that you are" nonsense. Just yesterday in a gun thread it was alleged that men who did not own guns were "timid men" and had obvious "inadequacies".

I know the gun community hates it when they are good naturedly teased bout penis metaphors and their guns but you cannot help but think about it when you read comments like that.


How about 'Americans' see how limited anti-gun people are with allusions like that? Since so many of us are indeed women, Democrat, liberal, etc.
 
So the fact that guns are the main weapon of choice in thousands upon thousands of deaths and injuries each year in this country has not a damn thing to do with peoples fear?

You mean cars? No. Oh wait, people dont choose those as weapons, they just accidentally use them that way.
 
I would speculate that if baseball bats were the number one weapon of choice in murders each year that yes indeed people would fear them. What right do you have to pass judgment upon what people fear and what they should not fear? The fact that you take this tact tells me volumes about your ostrich like head-in-the-sand denial of basic reality on this issue.

ROFLMAO

Annnnnnddddd /scene
 
1) If they are intelligent, they know all guns have not been banned. Your only quibbling over regulations, not complete banning.

2) That's just nonsense. Paranoid nonsense.

1) you are making the incrementalist argument

2) its absolutely true. it has been well documented that the dems started pushing for gun control after the Nixon attacks on Dems for being soft on crime and the fact that the public wanted the party in power to do SOMETHING about black street crime and the assassinations of the Kennedys.

http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1142&context=srhonorsprog

Cramer: Racist Roots of Gun Control (1995)

The Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed not to control guns to but control blacks, and inasmuch as a majority of Congress did not want to do the former but were ashamed to show that their goal was the latter, the result was that they did neither. Indeed, this law, the first gun-control law passed by Congress in thirty years, was one of the grand jokes of our time.(56)
 
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