Stop the Madness

Eeyore wrote:

Of course, even the motor vehicle fatalities pale in comparison to the number of deaths (over 1 million) caused every year by cardiac disease and diabetes—in other words, sloth and gluttony. So if we really wanted to save lives, should look into laws eliminating foods high in sugar, fat, and cholesterol. And maybe we should pass laws mandating physical exercise, too. Think that’s going to happen anytime soon?

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Diabetes != gluttony

I'm 5'10", weigh 155 pounds, climb mountains, and hike dozens of miles at a time for fun. My grandmother has complained that I never eat enough since the day I was born.

What I ate prior to being diagnosed with Diabetes has nothing to do with actually having it.

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Change the word "machines" to "devices" or something similar. Guns are not perceived as machines. Otherwise it was pretty good. It reminds me of a story from high school called the "tale of the Rac." A story of a primitive culture that worshiped the Rac. Children were allowed to operate the Rac once they reached 16 years of age and had training. These Racs were known to cause fatalities and had to be treated with care. The story is quite long and involved, but made the students think about what type of a culture this could be. Once it was revealed that the Rac was CAR spelled backwards the lights all went on.

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bigdaddy1 wrote:

Change the word "machines" to "devices" or something similar. Guns are not perceived as machines. Otherwise it was pretty good. It reminds me of a story from high school called the "tale of the Rac." A story of a primitive culture that worshiped the Rac. Children were allowed to operate the Rac once they reached 16 years of age and had training. These Racs were known to cause fatalities and had to be treated with care. The story is quite long and involved, but made the students think about what type of a culture this could be. Once it was revealed that the Rac was CAR spelled backwards the lights all went on.

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Along those lines, there's a classic essay called "body ritual among the Nacirema" (American spelled backward)

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You know there is a fallacy in the argument that you carry because there is always a cop or any other snide remark, please remember that. It's basing that you carry your gun in order to protect yourself, because there is no cop. Why is this a fallacy? Because it makes the Right to Bear Arms not about the RIGHT, but instead your personal feelings, or personal desire to defend yourself or even worse, your fear that a police officer wont protect you.

If we are to believe that 2A gives us a right, under the Constitution of the United States, it has nothing to do with our personal feelings, any more than the BradyFolks fear of guns has to do with it.

I'm going to say this over and over until I turn blue. While there are reasons to often point when guns save lives, that they aren't "as bad" as the media makes them, the real reason that we have a RIGHT to bear arms, is because... well.. we have a RIGHT to bear arms. The founders of the US Constitution saw that it was important that the PEOPLE of the United States of American be able to bear weapons for a variety of reasons and it was so important that it was the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

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There are approximately two million defensive gun uses (DGU's) per year by law abiding citizens. That was one of the findings in a national survey conducted by Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminologist in 1993. Prior to Dr. Kleck's survey, thirteen other surveys indicated a range of between 800,000 to 2.5 million DGU's annually. However these surveys each had their flaws which prompted Dr. Kleck to conduct his own study specifically tailored to estimate the number of DGU's annually.
Subsequent to Kleck's study, the Department of Justice sponsored a survey in 1994 titled, Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms (text, PDF). Using a smaller sample size than Kleck's, this survey estimated 1.5 million DGU's annually.
There is one study, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which in 1993, estimated 108,000 DGU's annually. Why the huge discrepancy between this survey and fourteen others?



Subtract from that the few thousand that are killed by firearms. Reduce that by almost 50% by removing suicides.....
It's always tragic when a human life has to be taken, but is it not more tragic for a women to have her life ruined by rape? Or a man have his life ruined by the loss of a child or limb or what have you?

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PMed to clarify

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