And some people think that ...

[TWPonKubuntu]

Guess what else...
The guys in the red shirts are not really star ship personnel.

But... but... but, what about the Federation Space Academy in San Francisco? That must be real! Look at all the space cadets coming out of California! Proof positive, it exists. "MemesAreUs" (TM)

Remember: Those who cannot laugh at themselves, are laughed at by others...

[GregM]

No one is calling for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment?
Yes, they are.
The image at the top of the article shows a 17th century musket above an AR-15, with the subtitle being that the musket was in use when the 2nd A was written.

And that musket was the direct equivalent of what the existing army had which is what the framers had in mind. The idea being that citizens had the right (and duty) to defend this country from enemies (governments) both foreign and domestic, should said government(s) get "out of hand".

What many on the left (not caring about history or causes) also say is that those who wrote The Constitution (2A) had no concept of semi-automatic weapons which is also untrue.

Pictured/linked is an explanation of The Puckle gun.

[SpecialEd]

I'm fairly sure that most people here understood the use of the meme, and GregM's comment connecting it to the Brady Campaign.

He didn't "connect" it to the Brady campaign, he falsely attributed it to the Brady campaign. There's a difference. False claims weaken your argument and more importantly your credibility.

Personally, I though it was apropos and (ahem) on target. After all, that is what memes are all about.

Fine, then present it as a meme and not a real ad from the Brady Campaign.

[GregM]

He didn't "connect" it to the Brady campaign, he falsely attributed it to the Brady campaign. There's a difference. False claims weaken your argument and more importantly your credibility.

Fine, then present it as a meme and not a real ad from the Brady Campaign.

I guess I gave some too much credit thinking that seeing star trek guys in a picture might give them a clue that it is slightly tongue in cheek.

"Those that cannot argue substance, argue syntax"

[TWPonKubuntu]

I take exception to the use of the phrase "...give them a clue...". That has already been used in a TV game show from decades past. Proper credit should be given and the use of the actual phrase changed to "... get a clue...".

I'll stop here, not wanting this to devolve into a flaming match. <exit laughing, stage right> AHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA

Sorry, couldn't resist when such obvious tropes are being offered.

Remember to laugh at yourselves, people. Consider the alternative. It could become illegal soon.

[SpecialEd]

I guess I gave some too much credit thinking that seeing star trek guys in a picture might give them a clue that it is slightly tongue in cheek.

"Those that cannot argue substance, argue syntax"

And those that can't hit the mark, move the goalposts.

[GregM]

Do you think it is possible for you to talk about the topic of the thread?

[SpecialEd]

It takes two to have a debate or argument Greg. You've been going tit for tat with every comment I've made so for you to accuse me of hijacking the thread is disingenuous and basically, a cheap shot. I'm done.

And 3...2...1...

[GregM]

Sorry I can't hear you.
I have placed you on my ignore list.

[Bings]

According to your story that violent 7% equals 259,000 per year, 719 per day.

In a country of 326 million. It's a statistically small amount.

The three people in the video were only running because they were being shot at.

Nevertheless, in a lot of countries shooting people as they flee does not count as self defence.

My house is not empty.

Then you're far less likely to be burgled.

If my front door does not keep out intruders, what chance does a fence have?

I wasn't proposing using a fence in lieu of a front door. I'm not talking about a 2 foot high picket fence either.

Please site stats on "if you have a gun in the house it is more likely a burglar will get their hands on it than the householder in the situation." I'd say the home owner needs more practice.

Those statistics are in the link in the previous post. Nearly 3/4 of burglaries happen when the owner is out. It doesn't matter how practiced you are, if you're not there that burglar has your gun.

What value did you list for your wife on your contents insurance?

I quite clearly made the distinction between defending people and defending property.

I have no "cheap Chinese made electronics"... So your defense there is to not have anything that is worth anything?

My point was that there is no inanimate object worth taking a life for.

So you are saying burglars that want to steal stuff they can sell for their next fix, do not go to upscale neighborhoods? Are you listening to yourself?

I am not saying that, the US Department of Justice is saying that as well the other studies that have found that criminals tend to commit more crimes in their own neighbourhoods.

And now the mayor of London wants to make it illegal to own a knife. I'm sure when that doesn't work it will be screw drivers, trucks and eventually hands.

Do you have a citation for that?

[GreyGeek]

... Your first news article shows a guy gunning down three teenagers armed with knuckle dusters and knives, big man.

And you think brass knuckles and/or knives are not lethal? Tell that to two people who died here in Lincoln, each after a single blow to the head by bare fists. Oh, you can't. They're dead.

Here are examples of people killed by thugs using just about everything. The only common denominator is that the victims didn't have access to firearms.
http://gunssavelives.wpengine.com/?s=why+i+carry

The second video shows a women shooting someone dead who was running away. That's actually illegal in a lot of countries because it's not really self defence, it's dispensing arbitrary justice.

That's your opinion which, thankfully, is not law in most states in this country. And, you can guarantee that the thug wasn't going to regroup and come back? There are many examples of thugs coming back a second or third time. Sometimes only a few minutes later. Sometimes days later. That dead thug will connect to the other thugs and they will probably be apprehended.

Secondly, in the first video the guys house is much like a lot of US houses http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-resident.html. Zero fence. I mean, if you are at risk of being burgled a decent fence is way more safer for everyone than waiting till they get on top of you with weaponry. What would have happened if the house was empty, these three would have waltzed in his house and made off with his AR-15, great news for the area.

A "decent" fence? Like the one on our southern border? LOL! Have you seen videos of police chases when the perp abandons the car and runs away? They seldom have problems clearing fences as tall as they are. I'm 6'6" In my youth I had no trouble clearing fences 4-6 feet tall.

You are assuming, of course, that the AR-15 is laying around, unsecured. Everyone I know who owns weapons keep them in a gun safe, unless they are carrying concealed, for which they have a CHP. Most ALWAYS carry concealed where ever they go. Even at home. Paranoid? Hardly. Experienced. Some, like myself, were either LEO's or investigators and were responsible for the incarceration of several people, some murderers. When you get a letter from the secretary of the Board Of Pardons stating that because of a recent SCOTUS ruling a person you helped convict of 1st Degree murder may be pardoned or released on time served, and the psychiatrists who testified said he should never be released because of his psychotic hatred of women, and he made threats in that past that if he got out he would kill his step parents, their children and those who aided in his conviction, will you just laugh it off or dismiss it as unlikely? If you're not mentally ill I doubt it. And, I should remind you that the SCOTUS has ruled TWICE that the police have no responsibility to protect any specific person from threats of death even if they know in advance such threats are valid! So, that old slogan, "to serve and protect..." was and is a lie.

Depend on police? Most attacks are over within 3-5 minutes. After you call the police, IF you are physically able, they will take another 9 minutes (average) to come to where you are. They'll take your statement, if you are alive, and take measurements and collect evidence on the hope that someday they'll be able to capture the perp. When seconds count, police are just minutes away, IF they come at all. What if your girl-friend, wife, whatever, told you that she was a victim of sexual assault in her own bedroom when she was eleven? And she asks how you can protect her from that happening again? Show her a bucket of rocks, or a sharpened pencil?

I'm not a take everyone's guns person by any means but this "defend my house" stuff is horse****. The viewpoint is that it's ok to shoot and kill someone just so your xbox doesn't get stolen and I don't agree with that. Which is an ideological point, much like the US gun control debate. Which is a state control ideology on one side and some big corporation financed scare campaign on the other.

You may think you are not, but you are certainly sliding down that slippery slope and someday may find yourself unable to secure your own safety. One only has to look at the EU to see what happens when the police are more concerned about PC and enforcing laws against dissenting opinions, which are now classified as "hate" speech, than protecting the populous from violent attackers.

IF it were merely about stolen XBoxes I would agree with you. But it's not. Most home invasions rarely start and end with "Hello, I'm an addict and I need your stuff to sell it for dope because I won't hold a job and welfare doesn't pay enough. So, now that I've put all your stuff in my truck I'll be leaving. Thank you, and goodbye! Oh, and after your insurance pays off and you replace your stuff I'll be back to make another withdrawal!". You'll be paying higher insurance rates, if the insurance company doesn't cancel your insurance. Thugs usually BEGIN with assaults that could be lethal, deliberate or not, and also usually end that way.

As far as your state control vs big corp scare campaign dichotomy, you totally misunderstand the mindset of those who support the Rule Of Law under the Constitution versus some fuzzy Socialist Utopian paradise. If your rule of measure is the abuse of "scare tactics" then the Left wins hands down.

[GregM]

...for that Bing person
It's all over the news since the last public stabbings in London, but if you are too lazy to look it up.
Here you go...

By the way I understand liberal tactics and I will not do your leg work for you from this point on.

You and I will never agree since you have no value for your life or apparently anyone else's or your private property and as I have said several times go for it, it is your life.
Crooks will not have such an easy time at my house.

[GregM]

And you think brass knuckles and/or knives are not lethal? Tell that to two people who died here in Lincoln, each after a single blow to the head by bare fists. Oh, you can't. They're dead.

Here are examples of people killed by thugs using just about everything. The only common denominator is that the victims didn't have access to firearms.
http://gunssavelives.wpengine.com/?s=why+i+carry

That's your opinion which, thankfully, is not law in most states in this country. And, you can guarantee that the thug wasn't going to regroup and come back? There are many examples of thugs coming back a second or third time. Sometimes only a few minutes later. Sometimes days later. That dead thug will connect to the other thugs and they will probably be apprehended.

A "decent" fence? Like the one on our southern border? LOL! Have you seen videos of police chases when the perp abandons the car and runs away? They seldom have problems clearing fences as tall as they are. I'm 6'6" In my youth I had no trouble clearing fences 4-6 feet tall.

You are assuming, of course, that the AR-15 is laying around, unsecured. Everyone I know who owns weapons keep them in a gun safe, unless they are carrying concealed, for which they have a CHP. Most ALWAYS carry concealed where ever they go. Even at home. Paranoid? Hardly. Experienced. Some, like myself, were either LEO's or investigators and were responsible for the incarceration of several people, some murderers. When you get a letter from the secretary of the Board Of Pardons stating that because of a recent SCOTUS ruling a person you helped convict of 1st Degree murder may be pardoned or released on time served, and the psychiatrists who testified said he should never be released because of his psychotic hatred of women, and he made threats in that past that if he got out he would kill his step parents, their children and those who aided in his conviction, will you just laugh it off or dismiss it as unlikely? If you're not mentally ill I doubt it.

And, I should remind you that the SCOTUS has ruled TWICE that the police have no responsibility to protect any specific person from threats of death even if they know in advance such threats are valid! So, that old slogan, "to serve and protect..." was and is a lie.

Depend on police? Most attacks are over within 3-5 minutes. After you call the police, IF you are physically able, they will take another 9 minutes (average) to come to where you are. They'll take your statement, if you are alive, and take measurements and collect evidence on the hope that someday they'll be able to capture the perp. When seconds count, police are just minutes away, IF they come at all. What if your girl-friend, wife, whatever, told you that she was a victim of sexual assault in her own bedroom when she was eleven? And she asks how you can protect her from that happening again? Show her a bucket of rocks, or a sharpened pencil?

You may think you are not, but you are certainly sliding down that slippery slope and someday may find yourself unable to secure your own safety. One only has to look at the EU to see what happens when the police are more concerned about PC and enforcing laws against dissenting opinions, which are now classified as "hate" speech, than protecting the populous from violent attackers.

IF it were merely about stolen XBoxes I would agree with you. But it's not. Most home invasions rarely start and end with "Hello, I'm an addict and I need your stuff to sell it for dope because I won't hold a job and welfare doesn't pay enough. So, now that I've put all your stuff in my truck I'll be leaving. Thank you, and goodbye! Oh, and after your insurance pays off and you replace your stuff I'll be back to make another withdrawal!". You'll be paying higher insurance rates, if the insurance company doesn't cancel your insurance. Thugs usually BEGIN with assaults that could be lethal, deliberate or not, and also usually end that way.

As far as your state control vs big corp scare campaign dichotomy, you totally misunderstand the mindset of those who support the Rule Of Law under the Constitution versus some fuzzy Socialist Utopian paradise. If your rule of measure is the abuse of "scare tactics" then the Left wins hands down.

When I was working with the police in Seattle the stats on solving murders were 1 in 5.
Not that that is a comfort (or not) since you are dead.

[woodsmoke]

This article is very long and complex BUT it really DOES at least "seem" to take a pragmatic approach as opposed to an agenda driven approach "from either side btw", the nut of the conclusions are in the ... Conclusions.

Here is a thumbnail:

Our brief review suggests that connections between mental illness and gun violence are less causal and more complex than current US public opinion and legislative action ALLOW.

US gun rights advocates are fond of the phrase “guns don’t kill people, people do.”

The findings cited earlier in this article suggest that neither guns nor people exist in isolation from social or historical influences. A growing body of data reveals that US gun crime happens when guns and people come together in particular, destructive ways. That is to say, gun violence in all its forms has a social context, and that context is not something that “mental illness” can describe nor that mental health practitioners can be expected to address in isolation.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/

the article is from 2015.

We can add to the "social context" "when guns and people come together in particularly destructive ways"

I.E, the lefty meme ( smokey gun totin' red neck BARS)

the now current righty meme of: "alienation" and possibly "opioid crisis"

( medicated crazy kid meme)

woodhmmmmsmoke

[GregM]

It is my belief that you would pretty much have to be insane (not know right from wrong) to go kill someone regardless the weapon.
Unless in a time of war or in self defense when you fear for your life or the life of a family member.