What Flabbyturk and Skipper don't realize is that there's a reason why we don't have forty-nine decapitated bodies in America. We're not a society that's run by gangs. It's taken us a while to get to this position, but we got there through good government and responsible citizens.
Cenk thinks prohibition on alcohol was a failure, and we are seeing it now with marijuana- buy hey, gun control- that’s all good. It was wrong for the US to force the war on drugs onto Mexico, but totally cool for Mexico to force its gun bans onto us.
The gun control proposal that comes out of this debate is prohibition of "assault weapons". Do you not agree? They say, "We've banned assaulty guns. Now the cartel gets their assaulty guns from you, so you should ban them too."
I'm not buying the idea that Mexican gangs get their guns from us, but let's assume that it's true for sake of argument. We'll make a deal: We'll stop sending them guns when they stop sending us drugs and illegal immigrants.
Dead is dead. Period. Decapitation, shot in the head, throat slit - it is all dead. Get over it, Cenk. The more interesting part is what other body parts are missing which is the tell-tale sign of why Las Zetas murdered them. Not hard to figure out what a missing tongue means.
The entire problem can be laid onto government prohibition. Period. Vices are not crimes. The situation with the gangs did not escalate and was mostly under reasonable control (bribery)until that dumb ass Calderone got elected and sent Mexican army troops and federales to the frontera. That was the beginning of this horrible situation. orlin sellers
Mikeb, are you aware that legal and heavily regulated prescription drugs are often abused? Call it prohibition or control or what you will, it won't work.
Gun control is more like identifying those who are unfit to own guns legally and disarming them. The remaining gun owners can be constrained through proper legislation to hold onto their guns better.
TS, You're playing tricks with words. When we say "prohibition" we don't mean vodka is outlawed and you can drink everything else. We mean ALL alcohol is outlawed.
When you gun fanatics use words like "prohibition" and "ban" they have loaded connotations. It's dishonest because no one is talking about prohibiting ALL guns, nobody except you that is.
What would be the point of banning vodka, if gin is still legal? "Assault weapons" are the same as other semiautomatic rifles. They just have insignificant cosmetic differences. If you can ban one, the other can be banned as well. In addition, people on your side do talk about banning all firearms. That line slips out from time to time.
Mike, you are the one playing a trick with words. When you say the word “ban” or “prohibition” in your mind you think these words can only be applied to totality. Well, there is no such thing as totality. Alcohol prohibition still allowed some alcohol- whether it be “medicinal alcohol” or for religious sacraments, or simply the privately held liqueur before prohibition was enacted. We know that when you say you are not for prohibition of firearms, it means you are willing to enact a number of partial bans on classes of firearms or accessories so long as it doesn’t include every firearm from every person. Who does that appease? What I don’t get is that this type of campaign seems to be aimed a appeasing guns owners that are ok with various bans so long at they are left with something that goes “bang” and fires a projectile. It is not 1994 anymore. You are losing the Fudds.
MikeB: “It's dishonest because no one is talking about prohibiting ALL guns, nobody except you that is.”
I thought we have argued long enough that you know me better than to use this line on me. Look Mike, I believe you when you say that that you don’t want to ban every single firearm from all civilian hands. But that line is going to appeal to somewhere near 0% of gun owners. Somewhere in between what we have now and total prohibition is a line that you would draw. I also have no doubt that if you reached that line, you would probably re-evaluate and move it a little more, but ultimately not reach totality. To use Greg’s analogy, you would finally come to the realization that vodka is no different than gin, so we might as well ban gin too (which would frustrate the hell out of us, because that was the argument that WE were making when you were just trying to ban vodka). The point is the line you want right now is already way past what is acceptable to me, so I fight these levels of prohibitions- and it seems I have a lot of company judging by the other commentators on your blog. These partial prohibitions are just that- they are blanket prohibitions on everyone. It is not about criminal access while protecting the rights of good citizens, it is about taking something away from everyone. And I fight that. Ultimately I don’t care what your end goal is because your current goal is beyond acceptable.
And by the way, I was being very clear with my words. I said “prohibition of ‘assault weapons’”, which is exactly one of the things proposed in light of Mexico’s ban on “assault weapons” that doesn’t seem to be working. So how is that a trick with words?
In other words, even the best intentioned of gun control advocates, like me, would get caught up in their own slippery slope. Your solution is to draw the line even sooner than you believe it needs to be. That's why you're the unreasonable ones. You're drawing the line too soon based on a guess about what would happen in the future if...
No Mike, I thought I was pretty clear. I don't fight "assault weapons" bans because of where they might lead- I fight them on their face (though I do think that more bans will follow). Do you really think there all these gun owners out there fighting against various bans ONLY because they fear the next one? Or perhaps they just don't want "assault weapons" or magazines over 10rds to be banned? Yes, end goal projections get brought up a lot by our side (and many are exaggerated), but that doesn't mean those people support current proposals. Slippery slope arguments get used often in debate- and universally the rebuttal to them makes a wild assumption that these people would be for it if not for where it might lead. It happens all the time outside of the gun debate as well.
What Flabbyturk and Skipper don't realize is that there's a reason why we don't have forty-nine decapitated bodies in America. We're not a society that's run by gangs. It's taken us a while to get to this position, but we got there through good government and responsible citizens.
ReplyDeleteCenk thinks prohibition on alcohol was a failure, and we are seeing it now with marijuana- buy hey, gun control- that’s all good. It was wrong for the US to force the war on drugs onto Mexico, but totally cool for Mexico to force its gun bans onto us.
ReplyDeleteTS, That's an inaccurate comparison. Prohibition of alcohol was a failure. Gun control today does not propose prohibition.
DeleteYeah, right.
DeleteThe gun control proposal that comes out of this debate is prohibition of "assault weapons". Do you not agree? They say, "We've banned assaulty guns. Now the cartel gets their assaulty guns from you, so you should ban them too."
DeleteI'm not buying the idea that Mexican gangs get their guns from us, but let's assume that it's true for sake of argument. We'll make a deal: We'll stop sending them guns when they stop sending us drugs and illegal immigrants.
DeleteDead is dead. Period. Decapitation, shot in the head, throat slit - it is all dead. Get over it, Cenk.
ReplyDeleteThe more interesting part is what other body parts are missing which is the tell-tale sign of why Las Zetas murdered them. Not hard to figure out what a missing tongue means.
The entire problem can be laid onto government prohibition. Period. Vices are not crimes.
The situation with the gangs did not escalate and was mostly under reasonable control (bribery)until that dumb ass Calderone got elected and sent Mexican army troops and federales to the frontera. That was the beginning of this horrible situation.
orlin sellers
Legalization of drugs is the answer. Meantime, we need to control the guns better.
DeleteMikeb says, "Meantime, we need to control the guns better."
DeleteDo you mean like they need to control the drugs better?
orlin sellers
Mikeb, are you aware that legal and heavily regulated prescription drugs are often abused? Call it prohibition or control or what you will, it won't work.
DeleteGun control is more like identifying those who are unfit to own guns legally and disarming them. The remaining gun owners can be constrained through proper legislation to hold onto their guns better.
DeleteThat's a far cry from prohibition.
Read what I said above. The cry from gun controllers in response to Mexico is PROHIBITION of "assault weapons".
DeleteTS, You're playing tricks with words. When we say "prohibition" we don't mean vodka is outlawed and you can drink everything else. We mean ALL alcohol is outlawed.
DeleteWhen you gun fanatics use words like "prohibition" and "ban" they have loaded connotations. It's dishonest because no one is talking about prohibiting ALL guns, nobody except you that is.
What would be the point of banning vodka, if gin is still legal? "Assault weapons" are the same as other semiautomatic rifles. They just have insignificant cosmetic differences. If you can ban one, the other can be banned as well. In addition, people on your side do talk about banning all firearms. That line slips out from time to time.
DeleteMike, you are the one playing a trick with words. When you say the word “ban” or “prohibition” in your mind you think these words can only be applied to totality. Well, there is no such thing as totality. Alcohol prohibition still allowed some alcohol- whether it be “medicinal alcohol” or for religious sacraments, or simply the privately held liqueur before prohibition was enacted. We know that when you say you are not for prohibition of firearms, it means you are willing to enact a number of partial bans on classes of firearms or accessories so long as it doesn’t include every firearm from every person. Who does that appease? What I don’t get is that this type of campaign seems to be aimed a appeasing guns owners that are ok with various bans so long at they are left with something that goes “bang” and fires a projectile. It is not 1994 anymore. You are losing the Fudds.
DeleteMikeB: “It's dishonest because no one is talking about prohibiting ALL guns, nobody except you that is.”
I thought we have argued long enough that you know me better than to use this line on me. Look Mike, I believe you when you say that that you don’t want to ban every single firearm from all civilian hands. But that line is going to appeal to somewhere near 0% of gun owners. Somewhere in between what we have now and total prohibition is a line that you would draw. I also have no doubt that if you reached that line, you would probably re-evaluate and move it a little more, but ultimately not reach totality. To use Greg’s analogy, you would finally come to the realization that vodka is no different than gin, so we might as well ban gin too (which would frustrate the hell out of us, because that was the argument that WE were making when you were just trying to ban vodka). The point is the line you want right now is already way past what is acceptable to me, so I fight these levels of prohibitions- and it seems I have a lot of company judging by the other commentators on your blog. These partial prohibitions are just that- they are blanket prohibitions on everyone. It is not about criminal access while protecting the rights of good citizens, it is about taking something away from everyone. And I fight that. Ultimately I don’t care what your end goal is because your current goal is beyond acceptable.
And by the way, I was being very clear with my words. I said “prohibition of ‘assault weapons’”, which is exactly one of the things proposed in light of Mexico’s ban on “assault weapons” that doesn’t seem to be working. So how is that a trick with words?
DeleteIn other words, even the best intentioned of gun control advocates, like me, would get caught up in their own slippery slope. Your solution is to draw the line even sooner than you believe it needs to be. That's why you're the unreasonable ones. You're drawing the line too soon based on a guess about what would happen in the future if...
DeleteNot sooner than it needs to be, Mikeb. The line is already too far your direction. We're pulling it back. We won't stop, and we won't compromise.
DeleteTS, keep up the good fight.
No Mike, I thought I was pretty clear. I don't fight "assault weapons" bans because of where they might lead- I fight them on their face (though I do think that more bans will follow). Do you really think there all these gun owners out there fighting against various bans ONLY because they fear the next one? Or perhaps they just don't want "assault weapons" or magazines over 10rds to be banned? Yes, end goal projections get brought up a lot by our side (and many are exaggerated), but that doesn't mean those people support current proposals. Slippery slope arguments get used often in debate- and universally the rebuttal to them makes a wild assumption that these people would be for it if not for where it might lead. It happens all the time outside of the gun debate as well.
ReplyDelete