CreateDebate is a social debate community built around ideas, discussion and democracy.
If this is your first time checking out a debate, here are some quick tips to help get you started:
Arguments with the highest score are displayed first.
Argument replies (both in favor and in opposition) are displayed below the original argument.
To follow along, you may find it helpful to show and hide the replies displayed below each argument.
To vote for an argument, use these icons:
You have the power to cast exactly one vote (either up or down) for each argument.
Once you vote, the icon will become grayed out and the argument's score will change.
Yes, you can change your vote.
Debate scores, side scores and tag scores are automatically calculated by an algorithm that primarily takes argument scores into account.
All scores are updated in real-time.
To learn more about the CreateDebate scoring system, check out the FAQ.
When you are ready to voice your opinion, use the Add Argument button to create an argument.
If you would like to address an existing argument, use the Support and Dispute link within that argument to create a new reply.
You can share this debate in three different ways:
#1
#2
#3
Paste this URL into an email or IM:
Click here to send this debate via your default email application.
Click here to login and CreateDebate will send an email for you.
An intruder breaks into your home with an illegal gun. How's that steak knife doing?
Sometimes I wonder why Progressives and Democrats are such peasants who want a big controlling Government to run their lives. They watch as the police come to our homes after the intruder has killed everyone.
Maybe you have missed almost every mass killing, or missed all the killings from intruders in our homes.
THE COPS COME AFTER THE KILLING IS OVER!
Our schools, our homes, etc. need to be protected by every means possible including THE GUN!
Why would he buy an illegal gun when he can buy a legal one?
This is what I find so frustrating about gun-nuts. Nobody wants to take away the right for a sensible human being to own a gun: someone who is mentally stable, has shown that he can safely use and store his weapon, and makes a point of being law-abiding. What people DO want is to stop making it so that a psycho can legally get a gun easier than a Kinder Egg.
It's not about banning all guns. It's about ensuring, as much as is humanly possible, that there is a national sense of responsibility regarding guns. If you are going to support the ability for anyone to get a gun without any sensible restrictions whatsoever, then you are as a member of a democracy informed by voters, complicit in the deaths of every child that died as a result of a psycho being able to get himself an auto without so much as a mental health exam.
Listen to your own words, and let me show you your total pious hypocrisy to everything you just said!
You said and I quote...... "It's not about banning all guns. It's about ensuring, as much as is humanly possible, that there is a national sense of responsibility regarding guns. If you are going to support the ability for anyone to get a gun without any sensible restrictions whatsoever, then you are as a member of a democracy informed by voters, complicit in the deaths of every child that died as a result of a psycho being able to get himself an auto without so much as a mental health exam."
Now I will replace the word gun in your response with alcohol. Let me repeat what you just said with that small change.......
It's not about banning all alcohol. It's about ensuring, as much as is humanly possible, that there is a national sense of responsibility regarding alcohol. If you are going to support the ability for anyone to get alcohol without any sensible restrictions whatsoever, then you are as a member of a democracy informed by voters, complicit in the deaths of every child that died as a result of a repeat DWI driver being able to buy alcohol in public places and drive without so much as an identification for prior DWI's.
DO YOU EVER GET THE POINT?
There are far more children killed by repeat DWI drivers, and all gun control fanatics can do is worry about guns in these mass shootings, which kill a fraction of kids compared to the weapon of alcohol.
So I ask you, are you complicit in the many more deaths of children by drunk drivers when you refuse to push for back ground checks in bars and nightclubs before selling alcohol without so much as an identification?
Before you waste our time with ludicrous excuses of how we already have alcohol restrictions, DON'T!
We already have gun restrictions as well. We can't buy guns or alcohol underage.
People who want to hunt must pass tests to make sure they understand the safety issues with guns.
Where's the test for responsibility when it comes to alcohol consumption?
Yes we have laws against drinking and driving just as we have laws telling people they can not kill each others. People still do it!
If you actually believe the Left's goal is not to ultimately take our guns as they have done in Europe, Australia, Arab nations, Asian nations, etc, etc, then you truly are a moron! Many Liberals have admitted this is their final goal.
We don't trust one word out of their mouth and they have already proven our fears with the New York State so called "Safe Act".
This new gun law did not single out so called assault rifles. It made it illegal to have hunting rifles in our homes that held more than seven rounds! That law would have made our hunting rifles illegal and we would have to turn them in or face jail.
I am fine with laws keeping criminals from getting guns. I am fine with no longer making so called assault rifles if they defined them in a way that would not prevent hunting rifles holding ten rounds of ammo as being illegal.
These politicians never make simple common sense laws. They always add things such as creating a data base of every American who purchased a gun. In this way they will know who has hunting rifles when they finally get enough Democrats in control to make them illegal.
Do you drink? Do you want a back ground check when you buy a drink in a public place?
PUT YOUR INCONVENIENCE WHERE YOUR HYPOCRITICAL MOUTH IS IS YOU TRULY WANT TO SAVE LIVES OF CHILDREN!
Nobody wants to take away the right for a sensible human being to own a gun: (Well, some people do.) someone who is mentally stable, has shown that he can safely use and store his weapon, and makes a point of being law-abiding.
What you are saying is absolutely reasonable. We need to keep guns out of the hands of nutjobs, scoff-laws, addicts, and especially irresponsible dumb-shits.
This issue presents the challenge of balancing freedoms with responsibilities for safety. I think we agree on where the balance might be.
Moreover, it presents the challenge of implementation in the real world. The last to mass shootings revealed inadequate implementation of the restrictions and checks that are already required.
It's about ensuring, as much as is humanly possible, that there is a national sense of responsibility regarding guns.
Why only regarding guns?
If we actually care about safety and responsibility, then we need to develop a national sense of responsibility regarding cars.
We need to prioritize car safety over gun safety for the simple reason the car wreck fatality and injury problem is far greater than that of guns. (Traffic deaths: 37,000 people in 2016, vice gun homicides:11,800 in 2016.)
In addition to all the deaths, paraplegia, quadriplegia, car wrecks cause much higher property damage, and much greater cost in terms of time. One car wreck that backs up major freeway (in LA for example) for two hours could cost an accumulated loss of time equal to an entire lifetime worth of hours. It is like distributing one death over tens or hundreds of thousands of people.
We need to apply the same rules and restrictions you suggest to cars, also.
Certainly it does not have to be one or the other. I think that it makes sense for the "common sense restrictions" to be the same for both cars and guns.
- The same checks, and similar training and testing.
- Any violations of safety requirements (including operating either while intoxicated, using a cell phone while driving, or any threats) or issue regarding mental health (or medications that affect mental function or the ability to operate gun/car safely) should result in loss of of rights/licenses to possess/operate either pending a mandatory review.
If you think it is going too far to apply the same standards to cars as to guns, consider that there is no Constitutional right to any particular mode of transportation.
However, as I said before, the main issue is implementability.
We may do better to focus the implementation on car owners/drivers, since that presents the greater demonstrated risk to public safety.
Thoughts?
If you are going to support the ability for anyone to get a gun without any sensible restrictions whatsoever, then you are as a member of a democracy informed by voters, complicit in the deaths of every child that died as a result of a psycho being able to get himself an auto (semi-automatic rifle or car?) without so much as a mental health exam.
This is an fallacious statement because it states that mere disagreement is tantamount to murder. It is the ultimate ad hominem: equating an opinion/view to a moral failing. There are plenty of sound and moral reasons to disagree:
- Differing values and priorities.
- Differing assessment of the root cause of the problem, or even of what the problem is.
- Differing assessments as to whether the restrictions are able to effect any actual change.
- Differing results of comparative risk assessments for various factors.
- Differing cost-benefit analyses.
- Differing interpretations of Constitutional law.
It is much more useful to address practicality and effectiveness of various solutions.
You are speaking common sense, but i think these people fixated on only one weapon ignore common sense.
They don't want to be inconvenienced when it comes to their pleasures in life..... cars, alcohol, etc., that kill many thousands more people. We have told them these simple truths many times, and they totally ignore it.
It's only the gun they worry about.
It truly is a waste of time trying to debate these people. They lack the simple intellect to get it, or work for the Democrat Party.
It doesn't state that disagreement is tantamount to murder. That's reductive and without context. It states that if you support no-restriction gun sales then you are as a member of a democracy informed by the wishes of the masses complicit in the results of that policy, one of which is kids getting shot up in schools.
It's morally repulsive to support no restrictions on guns, given the results.
You're a moron if you want to compare a car purposes for travel to a weapon purposed for killing.
Drink driving is illegal. Yes, speed limits should be reduced, yes pedestrians should be given right of way, yes cars are dangerous. But this is a debate about guns, things which are expressly designed to cause fatalities. Nobody is plowing a car into a school full of kids.
It doesn't state that disagreement is tantamount to murder. That's reductive and without context. Actually what you are saying is that disagreement with you implies a moral deficit, which includes being "complicit" in the shootings, and is therefore tantamount to murder.
You double down on it with the statement "It's morally repulsive to support no restrictions on guns, given the results."
You are saying that when people disagree with you about no-restriction gun sales, they are being "morally repulsive." That is an ad hominem. Not only do you insert that logical fallacy into your argument, but you use it in place of potentially valid arguments.
You have not demonstrated, for example, that the current restrictions have actually reduced the frequency of gun homicide, or prevented any shootings.
You have not demonstrated, for example, that gun control legislation would be any more effective in preventing deaths than the legislation against murder.
You have not demonstrated, for example, that any of these shooters would only have committed murder with a firearm. You say that, "Nobody is plowing a car into a school full of kids," as if it is not fortunate that these bastards have chosen to use guns instead. At present, we are very lucky people have chosen the less effective killing device between the two.
It's not about their disagreement per se, it's about the logical and moral validity of their specific argument. If a person supports no restrictions on guns, then they are supporting the reality that a violent school shooter or a domestic terrorist can get their hands on a gun as part of their constitutional rights. That specific stance is morally repulsive. That view is morally insufficient. That idea is defective.
Disagreement with me does not automatically mean that a person is morally repulsive, however, a person who asserts that a culture which imposes no restrictions on the ability to acquire a highly effective, purpose-built deadly weapon like an AR-15 is preferable to one that doesn't, is a person who has a morally deficient argument compared with a person who thinks that acquiring such a weapon should be out of the question for those of evidently violent character (such as one who continually speaks of guns, posts pictures of dead animals on social media, and makes online comments about their desire to shoot a school up).
Demonstration of the effectiveness of such a person being unable to garner a highly deadly weapon is largely unnecessary if common sense is applied: a gun is a weapon that fires a projectile faster than sound, which is capable of afflicting fatal injuries upon a child for-all-intents-and-purposes instantly. An assault rifle fires a large number of rounds per minute, making it ideal for mass murder and the infliction of severe injuries on a large number of people in a very short space of time. If these weapons were extremely difficult -- almost impossible -- for those with violent propensities to obtain, it would by force of reason drastically reduce their capability to inflict death upon a large number of people in a densely populated setting like a school. It would also yield a higher probability of them being caught in attempts to procure this weapon by less savoury means, given that the investigative framework necessary to catch offenders was established prior to any such proposed legal restrictions being imposed. A knife, as an example of less effective weapons than AR-15 assault rifles, would be rendered ineffective against simple concrete walls and wooden doors.
How many of those children were killed by penetrating bullets? How many less would have been killed had the weapon been a blade?
There is a reason those police officers on scene wouldn't enter the school at first: it is because they too understand that an assault rifle's killing capability is of a higher order than that of a knife or a stick. Had it been a knife, they would likely have had no hesitations. (On this point, also: what makes Cheeto-In-Chief think teachers are better equipped to handle this than trained police?)
It's not rocket science. it doesn't need to be drawn on a board and deconstructed, or written and examined in a lengthy peer-reviewed paper. It's simple common sense.
A car is not a more effective killing weapon than a gun. If that were the case, the US military would be buying Chevy Corvettes instead of M4 assault rifles, and every North Korean would have access to a Soviet-era lead-sled. There are simply more instances in everyday life in which a person comes into dangerous scenarios involving cars and other automotive vehicles than there are where a person comes into dangerous situations involving firearms. Limiting the frequency of those scenarios and limiting the specific facets of those scenarios where fatality is more likely is central to reducing deaths. And that goes for both issues - cars and guns.
Ammonium nitrate used in bomb-making was severely restricted in Northern Ireland and the result was a sharp decrease in fertilizer bombs being used to kill. Handguns in the Uk were banned for civilians following the Dunblane Massacre in 1996 and there hasn't been a single mass-shooting since. Japan, after banning guns for civilians hasn't experienced a single mass killing. In fact, last year, the entire country's police force fired a total of eight rounds. That's not eight per person. That's eight, in total. For the whole country.
The UK banned drinking before driving and the number of automotive accidents per capita resulting in fatalities has plummeted. Northern Ireland banned phoning and texting behind the wheel and the results were similar.
Restriction of firearms works. Just like the restriction of cluster chargers, or the restriction on production of weapons-grade plutonium, or the restriction on drink driving. It works.
You're a moron if you want to compare a car purposes for travel to a weapon purposed for killing. Another ad hominem? Come on, Sean, stop being so lazy. I have seen you make solid arguments before, so put in the effort on this topic.
Make an actual argument that demonstrates how the purpose of the tool (gun or car), or the intent (drunk, careless, or murderous) is more important than the results (dead kids who never get to show their parent what they would become).
Personally, I am concerned with results, and I am reasonably sure that most other parents also want their children to grow up, give them grandchildren, and grow old. MADD mothers do not sit around and say, "Well, at least by baby wasn't killed in a school shooting." Parents whose kids die of cancer don't thank some god that their child died after months or years of painful disease and excruciating treatment, so long as it wasn't in a school shooting.
If the result we want is having the maximum possible number of our kids grow old, then it is only logical for us to prioritize what impacts that outcome the most, and then direct our limited resources accordingly.
On the other hand, if we don't care about how many of them die as much as we care about how they die, then we can rest easy in the knowledge that cars kill three times as many people as guns.
So, if you had a 13 year-old little girl, which cause of death would cause you the least regret about missing her smile and hugs, and the chance to see her grow up into a woman?
The debate is about gun crime, not cars. And you conflating the two only dilutes the potency of an argument against insufficient gun control.
We could talk all day about how America ought to be pedestrianised and jay-walking ought to be decriminalised and the right of way ought always to rest with the pedestrian except on freeways and how speed limits in metropolitan areas ought to be drastically reduced and how congestion charges would ease traffic and stricter seatbelt laws would save lives and they are all valid points but this debate is about guns and it is being undertaken in light of America's current gun problem.
Car safety is important of course, but this isn't about that for you. It's about you trying to minimise the issue of gun violence by pointing to another issue that results in more deaths. It's an attempt to make anyone who is outraged about this look or feel silly in light of "the bigger problem".
That's morally corrupt.
Both issues are important, but we aren't debating car fatalities here, we are debating gun fatalities due to the decimation of a school by a nutcase who got a gun many many times easier than he could get a driving license.
Personally, I would find it a hell of a lot harder to cope knowing the extent of the fear and suffering my child felt prior to being deliberately murdered than I would find it if they had been in a car accident.
There's a reason we jail murderers and not people whose cars hit a patch of black ice or aquaplane across a piece of tarmac. It's because one is a deliberately sadistic act and the other is often a product of chance.
Yes, stupid irresponsible drivers who cause collisions or run over kids are tantamount to murderers. Yes losing a child is horrific under any circumstance. Yes it would eat me up either way for the rest of my life.
But negligence and downright murderous intent are very different and are regulated emotionally by loved ones in very different ways.
I disagree. This debate is about safety and how to achieve it.
The whole premise behind background checks and restrictions is to limit the havoc and pain caused by people who disregard law and the well-being of others, regardless of whether it is due to malevolence, selfishness, insanity, ignorance, or carelessness.
I work in an industry that depends on background checks, and I worked for 15 years in another profession that also required them. NEITHER job has had anything to do with firearms, but both were VERY concerned with the safety of all those people affected by the enterprises.
Background checks are always about the exact same issues because safety is ALWAYS about the same issues:
I'll concede that safety hinges on similar principles. However, if that's what you believe, then why attempt to minimize-by-conflation others' efforts to propagate that applying stricter safety controls to guns is a good idea?
HE DOESN'T NEED AN ILLEGAL GUN YOU SILLY CHILD-BEATING PSYCHOPATH.
HE HAS A LEGAL ONE HE BOUGHT AT FUCKING WALMART!
HE DOESN'T NEED TO GO CRAWLING THROUGH THE DARK WEB LOOKING FOR EX-KGB AGENTS BECAUSE HE CAN WALK INTO ANY CANDY STORE, BUY A QUARTER OUNCE OF SHERBET STRAWBERRIES, A PACK OF GUM AND A KALASHNIKOV.
It's sad that you really don't grasp that the point of "illegal" gun is to point out that you can get a gun regardless of the law. But, you have been a dumbass since day one on here. What did I expect?
The number of people killed by gun wielding hone invaders is almost zero in the USA. Look it up.
While the number of mass shootings be psychos who should never ever ever been able to get their greasy blood stained crazy ass hands on an assault weapon continues to grow by the dozens every month.
Get a grip....if the founding father's came back today and saw all these mass shooting from Columbine till Lakeland they would rewrite the second amendment in a Philadelphia minute. And you know damn well that's true.
While the number of mass shootings be psychos who should never ever ever been able to get their greasy blood stained crazy ass hands on an assault weapon continues to grow by the dozens every month
Firstly, this sounds like a good reason for me to arm up.
Secondly, if you could magically erase all guns, they'd start using more creative methods like bombs. It's a lot easier to sneak a bomb into a crowd than a gun. Don't tempt them.
If the founding fathers came back to see what the Left has done to the right to life of our most innocent babies, they would rewrite the Constitution clearly spelling out the unborn right to life.
Spare us all your pious hypocritical concerns for people killed by guns, when you support the purposeful legal killing hundreds of thousands of innocent babies every year.
