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Subject: 
Re: Swift was Right! (He just named the wrong people...)
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Thu, 19 Jun 2003 00:52:16 GMT
Viewed: 
2523 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Marchetti wrote:
   In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys wrote:
   Stop with the fuzzy Hestonesque gun-speak and deal with the actual issue--less
   guns equals less deaths by guns.

Maybe I just haven’t seen the right studies or something, but you have no real proof or data to support that statement, do you? It’s just fuzzy anti-gun speak that doesn’t deal with actual issues but with imagined public safety protections. I mean, it has no more support than would the statement: “less hammers equals less death by hammers.” Right?

-- Hop-Frog

Well, besides being logical and such, there would be less deaths by hammers if there were less hammers. Just as, as John points out, there would be less deaths by cars if there were less cars. Do I need a study to show me the infallible logic of the point?

Oh but wait! (crowd stops dispersing and listens with rapt attention), the point is bigger than that--see, this is a multi-layered arguement, not a “gun lovin’” sound bite--

A hammer is meant to build houses, a hammer is meant to pry nails, a hammer is meant to tack up pictures of my canoe trip on the wall.

A car is meant to get me to work, to the store to buy LEGO, and to help me pick up hot babes...Well, maybe not that last bit...

But their intended function--their base function is not to cause harm. They can be used for things other than that.

And we’re back to the inherent properties of an object. Sure a gun is just metal laying on that table there, but its intended function is to shoot bullets at something, and lo and behold, that’s *exactly* what it’s used for--oh wait, that’s what I said earlier--that’s all it *can* be used for--a gun has no other characteristic besides shooting bullets. What else is there? And when you put that gun in your house, in your purse, in your desk, in your dufflebag, you are *intending* to use that object for its *expressed* purpose of ‘shooting at someone’ in order to ‘protect youself’ at some point in the future. Now if you carry a baseball bat around, we could argue the same thing, but a) the bat’s primary function is not to beat people over the head, nor threaten people, it’s to play baseball and b) you’d have to get real close to me in order to use that bat on me, whereas that gun you’re carrying around, you could be at the other end of the block and ‘git me’.

The second people get that, the better off we’ll all be. Bringing up cars and bats and axes and wooden chopsticks is all well and dandy to say that they cause deaths, too. But so did small pox, and yet we worked hard at ridding ourselves of that. So bringing up other things that cause deaths (like hammers, for instance) is not germaine to the issue.

Boy am I tired, but eh, whatrya gonna do.

Dave K



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: Swift was Right! (He just named the wrong people...)
 
Okay, fine -- if your point is that the purpose of a gun is to kill or destroy a thing, then that's basically an undisputed fact. That it is the only utility of the gun is a separate matter. I still think that the gun's power for destruction is the (...) (21 years ago, 19-Jun-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
  Re: Swift was Right! (He just named the wrong people...)
 
(...) That reasoning isn't entirely sound, and it omits relevant factors. If there are fifty deaths-by-hammer, then we need to ascertain how many hammers were involved. If one guy went on a hammering spree with one ball-peen, then the elimination of (...) (21 years ago, 19-Jun-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Swift was Right! (He just named the wrong people...)
 
(...) Maybe I just haven't seen the right studies or something, but you have no real proof or data to support that statement, do you? It's just fuzzy anti-gun speak that doesn't deal with actual issues but with imagined public safety protections. I (...) (21 years ago, 19-Jun-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

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