This is a little background on the History of Guns, Gun Laws, and things of that nature.
Gun History
Molon Labe
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NPR tries to school the right on something NPR knows little about: in this case anything to do with guns (or canons), or History. Which begs the question, "Why do we have to subsidize them"? It's not that I dislike NPR, but whenever I hear them on conservative issues, they usually fuck it up, big time. Like this example on where Molon Labe comes from, and why it's wrong to use it with AR-15's instead of a canon.
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2nd Amendment was about the militia
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There are a few late 20th century inventions in the war against civil liberties (and the 2nd), but few as virulent and wrongheaded as that the 2nd amendment was about "the militia" and the militia meant "National Guard" (something that wasn't invented until 1903). These assumptions fail at Logic, English, History, and Constitutional Law, and there were the founders words, Supreme Court rulings, and experts in language and history that all but unanimously disagree with them. Of course mere facts won't prevent the determined from demonstrating the Dunning-Kruger effect, but hopefully the evidence can deter a few of them from demonstrating their willful ignorance in the future.
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2nd Amendment was for muskets
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There’s a common argument (fallacy) that the Second Amendment didn't project changes in armament / technology, thus it couldn’t have been intended to apply to modern pistols and rifles (most of whose designs actually go back to the 1800’s or early 1900’s). This argument completely fails on the intent of the 2nd (which was about balancing power), but it even more strongly fails on understanding gun technology and history. At the founding of the country they had 8-shot revolvers, 9 shot "repeaters", 11-shot field artillery pieces, Jefferson even had a 22 shot repeating rifle. Not to mention "burst mode" automatics that fired up to 20 rounds with a single pull of the trigger. And during the remainder of their lives, not one of the founding fathers came forward to complain that technology was advancing beyond the intent of the 1st or 2nd Amendments.
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DGU
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Defensive Gun Uses (DGU's for short) is how many times guns are used for good (to stop a crime, or for "defense") as opposed to doing harm. If you don't know how many times a gun is used for good, then how can have context on the good-to-bad ratios? In other words, if guns are used for good, far far more often than they're used to commit crimes, or for bad uses, then gun control could easily do more harm than good.
Best estimates on both are that guns are used in ≈9,000 murders per year (only about 1/2 to 2/3rds of murders are with a gun), but they're used about 2.2 million times a year to stop a crime. That means if you outlawed all guns (pure gun control), and you're naive enough to think that would stop 9,000 murders, you'd probably increase crime (including violent crimes) by a couple million more cases a year? Whether that is a net win for you is based completely on your irrational fear/hatred of an inanimate object (hopolophobia).
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Discussion with a Gun-Controller
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Almost every discussion with a gun-controller looks the same, I show them how if they really cared about lives, crimes, or the things they claim they care about, they would be putting their energies elsewhere. The evidence seldom changes their minds, but it often irritates them into never wanting to discuss the topic with me again.
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Good guys with guns
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The news never likes to talk about GGWG's (Good Guys with Guns), and the many, many more cases, where responsible adults save lives, using guns. This is just a small sampling of the millions of DGU's (Defensive Gun Uses) that happen each year.
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Gun Quotes
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Here are my favorite gun quotes. This quote sums up the key problem with gun-controllers arguments: they're unintentional hypocrites or fools. You can’t eliminate a tool, or knowledge of it. All that you can do is decide whether there should be a balance of power, or none. Some believe in that balance, others believe that the state is never wrong, especially if you ignore the History of all the times they’ve been wrong in the past. Liberty • Militia Meaning • Militia Dependent • Founding Fathers • Legal • Famous People • Opponents • Obama
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Magazine Limits
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Magazine limits have never been shown to have any impact on gun crime, crime, or casualties in mass shootings. Democrats demand low capacity magazines either knowing that (and not caring), or being ignorant of the topic they're trying to legislate. Persecuting someone knowing that your law can't help is kinda the definition of asshole.
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