Here’s a sure-fire way to annoy me: write and explain to me how I got the details of some stupid gun wrong. Har, har, it’s semi-automatic, not fully automatic. Don’t you know nothin’? It’s 7.62mm, not 7.63mm. The muzzle velocity is…
Just stop right there, go find a nice quiet place, and masturbate happily to your copy of Guns & Ammo. I’m not interested.
Henceforth, the official name of all guns and rifles and whatever fine distinction in the title you want to give them is irrelevant: they are all called Shooty McShootface. You can announce that their purpose is to shoot clay targets, or Bambi, or to look fine on your mantlepiece — I don’t care about that. Their purpose is to kill people. Got that? They are devices to hurl small pieces of metal at lethal velocities that are intentionally aimed at human beings to do them harm.
Your obsession with them is sick.
At least Samantha Bee knows how I feel.
Except…a plague of boils? That’s letting the NRA off easy.
I’m going to pull a strategy out of Donald Trump’s bag. I say we ban all semi-automatic rifles for a period of, oh, 20 years. (He wants to ban all Muslims, so I think we can ban inanimate objects.) We also restrict all handguns to a maximum of three rounds. Then let’s see if the number of massacres dips.
Why would a civilian need a semi-automatic gun in the first place? They would be ineffective for hunting purposes and are overkill for self defense purposes. I cannot think of any rational for allowing citizens to walk into gun shops and buy weapons which can kill scores of people in a few minutes. Such weapons should be banned.
I think there are meaningful distinctions between different kinds of firearms and ammo. Some are going to be much better suited to things like home defense and some are much better suited to mass shootings or getting rounds to pass through cop car doors. If people want to own firearms that are best suited to home defense and they are willing to do some training and own a lock or safe I don’t think it’s generally a problem. If someone wants to own a machine pistol or an assault rifle, I think they shouldn’t be able to take them outside of a shooting range.
DO NOT ARGUE ABOUT FUCKING DISTINCTIONS IN SHOOTY MCSHOOTFACES.
Really. If this turns into another thread with assholes lecturing us on what kinds of lethal weapons are just fucking fine to have in our houses, I will start banning people.
Jebus. Miss the point much?
@ 2 Cause ‘MURICA and FREZE PEACH.
Because the second amendment enshrines (white) American citizens’ God-Given right to Vendetta.
When I was a kid, we all wanted a Daisy
BBMcShootface.None of our parents got us one, so we had to be content with sticks and stones.
The second amendment simply isn’t necessary.
Strange how you have to go to the comedy programs to get the sensible news commentary.
Saad @8.
More than unnecessary, the 2nd is a liability to the country. It’s just that gun and ammunition manufacturers would be out of jobs and profits and so would the politicians whose pockets they line. Merchants of death and their lackeys.
Perhaps we ought to tell the hoplophiles that gunpowder was a Chinese invention refined by the Arabs and the man-portable handgun was invented in Italy. These people tend to have an aversion to all things Chinese, Middle Eastern and European – maybe that will stop them.
I’ll give it a try. If you have a Shooty McShootface in your home, its more likely to be used to McShoot yourself or a family member than an intruder. If you feel the need to own a Shooty McShootface, you should take a step back and reevaluate your priorities and lifestyle choices. No one should have to worry about getting Mcshot because some angry asshole feels the need to own a Shooty McShootface. I like this new term.
I like the idea, but Shooty McShootface trivializes guns, it makes them sound cartoony and fun. I usually go with killstick.
Killstick works, but I think murder tool is more accurate.
Killstick… sounds kinda like a cigarette. Good association: both dramatically increase your risk of death and both have a powerful lobby doing its best to keep any sort of safety measures passed.
But the difference is that we can actually pass laws restricting the sale of cigarettes.
Personally I like to save McFace for happy positive things. I call my bike Bikey McBikeFace. Guns I just call killing machines. Add my name to the list of people who have had it up to here with arguments over what exactly is an assault rifle, or the difference between a clip and a magazine. I do know those things but I have. stopped. caring. about them.
When the boils heal, Wayne LaPierre should have “Sandy Hook” tattooed on his forehead.
And Samantha Bee continues to be all kinds of awesome.
And fuck you, Colbert, for having Bill O’Reilly on for a “fair and balanced” discussion. Douchebag.
I’ll go with Murderer MrSmallDick myself.
You know, I also don’t care very much about what disparaging nickname you give Shooty McShootface. Murderer MrSmallDick, Killstick, Penis Substitute, whatever, they’re all fine.
I propose that we keep the second amendment, but limit it to the kinds of killsticks that were available in the 18th century. (As a MacX myself, I refuse to go along with the X McY meme.)
2. Kayden
Why would a civilian need any type of gun or crossbow or whatever? They are for killing other beings. Just because they *can* be used for other stuff, does not negate the fact that killing animals, including humans, is the very reason of their existence.
The hunting excuse is not an excuse. Hunting is not an acceptable human activity. Yes, we still kill animals for nourishment. Yes, it is cruel. No, hunting is not an acceptable way of doing that. We are civilised now, we are no longer a bunch of mindless brutes.
Instead of ‘Destroy all humans’, the game should be ‘Destroy all weapons’.
All these names remind me of something…
https://youtu.be/RFHlJ2voJHY
“Gristle McThornbody”
I am a licenced shooter (I live in Australia, so becoming licenced is no trivial matter)
I got my gun licence because I do wildlife rescue work. Sometimes an injured animal is beyond help. We are not permitted to carry euthanasia drugs with us without an attending vet, and police response times for such matters are very slow. A means is required to to put a desperately injured animal out of its misery. And a wild animal is unlikely to cooperate in allowing a rescuer to come close enough to euthanase it using another method – a kangaroo with a leg fracture or hip dislocation will still manage to outpace a human in its panic, and will inflict more pain on itself in the process.
I do not currently own any guns – for various reasons relating to the organisation I volunteer for I have not needed them for a while, and I see no reason to have a gun around unless it is needed. (I handed my guns in to the cops, for those who were wondering how I got rid of them) The self-defence argument is garbage, a gun securely stashed in my gun safe with ammunition locked up separately (as is required by law here) is not a useful self-defence device even if I needed one – when we did have issues with a problematic individual some time back the police told me to keep a golf club near the front door and, if matters came to a head, to swing for the kneecaps and then run. But I have, at times, legitimately required a tool for killing animals at a distance. I know others who do similar work to me who own guns and use them to cull foxes, rabbits, and feral cats for environmental reasons.
Guns are tools for killing. It’s my least favourite part of wildlife work (even worse than the politics), but sometimes killing needs to be done. But if you buy your guns with ‘self-defence’ etc in mind, then you’re purposefully buying them as tools for killing PEOPLE. If you’re buying them cos you’re a ‘collector’, you’re keeping killing devices around your house as … a hobby? I’ll never in a million years understand that. Guns are tools for killing. If you don’t have a legitimate, routine need to kill, then you shouldn’t have one.
I think the black panthers were correct to use murdersticks when police refused to protect them and some were activity murdering them.
Bart @22:
(My bolding). Do you actually read what you write? Raising animals in utter misery and suffering is civilized, but hunting them is mindlessly brutal? Also, tell that to various First Nations and Inuit people in Canada who rely on hunting.
I agree with that. I am only monitoring roadkill and even I have to dispatch an animal once in a while, usually because it was avoidably and severely harmed by a ruthless cyclist. I feel terrible every time, but when it is necessary, it just is. I always hope someone will have the compassion to deliver me from my suffering if and when that time comes. Unfortunately, just as is the case for self-defence, the probability that a shooter will be available and willing at that time is almost zero.
My family grew up on moose and venison, most years. It’s called hunting and not shooting, so some years there was no free range, hormone and anti-biotic free, lean, and low in cholesterol meat in the freezer. Those were usually the years we did not go on a vacation due to costs of meat. I have frequently shared a meal with First Nations people, whose nearest grocery store maybe over 100 miles away, and who depend on hunting and fishing for food.
Get off your high horse. I suspect you haven’t been in the real wilderness and nature outside perhaps a national park. It isn’t all Disney shows; Bambi’s dad couldn’t give a shit about the lil’darlin.
26. Rob.
I think you are overextrapolating what I wrote, Rob. I’d never want to claim that the way food animals are raised and dispatched is in any way humane. It must be banned. Just because I still eat eggs, meat and so on, does not make it acceptable to me. But the hunting excuse is just that, an excuse. I am well aware that First Nations people often rely on hunting as their only/main food source. They shouldn’t have to. Our society is failing them in a big way, and the fact that they are required to hunt, is a disgrace. “We” are sending food “help” to other continents, but the indigenous people on this contintent are essentially left to fend for themselves with little or no help, or worse.
28.
Maybe not. And just because nature is cruel, we should do the same? That’s precisely the type of thing Richard Dawkins has been talking about for decades. Yes, evolution brought us biodiversity. No, evolution is not an acceptable way to organise society.
Think about it: we have no resources to ban weapons, but we do have resources to send flowers and teddy bears and candles after shootings. What about not sending those things after the fact, and banning the guns before the fact?
#3 Matthew Ostergren
Do you know how insane that sounds to many of us who were born and raised outside the USA? Down the fucking rabbithole on rocket-powered jet-ski insane.
Even this(#2 kayden),
jars because it implies that there is a form of firearm that wouldn’t be overkill for self defense purposes.
You cannot have a safely stored firearm in your home that would be effective for any self defense situation that is reasonably likely to happen. And even in those situations where you did in fact have time to unlock your gun, load it, and go to confront the source of the disturbance that caused your concern, the most likely outcome is you end up shooting a family member who happened to be having trouble sleeping.
Look, I grew up in Canada and now live in Australia. Places where gun culture is minimal. But I also grew up in a situation that programmed me to be fearful. Between my unstable alcoholic father and neighbourhood bullies I spent much of my childhood in a near constant state of fearful vigilance. It takes very little to push me into a panicked adrenaline state.
A couple of months ago I had a confrontation with the new tenant of the rental property next door. He came to my home, smashed on my door and when I opened it he threatened to slit my throat with the knife that he was waving around. Fortunately, and I say that ironically, I have had experience with being threatened with knives.
I once worked in a bad part of town and was robbed several times at knife point. I won’t say I’m used to this situation, but my experience is such that I can keep my shit together long enough to get out of the situation without injury. I talked him down and no one got hurt. A good outcome except for the aftermath. I was left with months of unfocused anxiety that fluctuate from low level dread to full on panic attacks.
Please understand I’m not telling this story for the sake of sympathy. My point is that even I, a person undergoing a massive, prolonged anxiety event never once considered getting a gun. I don’t want anyone to get hurt, not me, not my family, not even the guy who threatened me. The best outcome is the one I managed to pull off, everyone walking away intact.
America has a problem besides the ready access to firearms. Somehow their cultural has come to accept that the best solution to threats is potentially deadly violence. Stand your ground laws anyone?
And yes, I know that there are people here who feel the same way. There are aggro shitheads everywhere. But the need to arm oneself is a much less common attitude here. The majority of people who are on the advantaged end of Australian society don’t feel the need for deadly weapons. There are never conversations, at least in my experience, of what type of firearm would be “…overkill for home defense.” Hell, in the eight years I’ve been here I haven’t had even one conversation about home defense. Not even since I was threatened. Sure, there’s been lots of macho posturing about what they would have done in my place, but no one has suggested I get a gun.
Fucking insane, that’s how this talk of home defense sounds to someone not raised in the toxic stew of American violent rhetoric.
Indeed. All one gets is a bunch of brutes posturing and escalating into violence and more people getting maimed and dying.
Bart @29:
Our society has
failedfucked them over in myriad ways. What they don’t need is more paternalistic bullshit about how they should or shouldn’t live their lives.I have zero hope that the US will ever change the way we treat guns.
We did fuck all after Sandy Hook. We watched as fucking LITTLE WHITE CHILDREN WERE FUCKING MURDERED AND WE DID ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING ABOUT IT!
I cannot even pretend to think there’s any fucking hope at this point. We, collectively, as a society, have decided that the right to own a fucking gun is more important than the right for everyone to fucking BE ALIVE.
And who gives a shit about the NRA at this point? Everyone likes to point to the NRA as the the problem. And yes, they are. They absolutely fucking are. We should be fucking ashamed that the NRA is even a fucking thing that fucking exists. But let’s say we get rid of them…
So fucking what?
We still have to deal with fucking millions of fucking gun fetishists who will actually shoot and kill fucking everyone before they’ll give up their fucking guns.
I’m sorry… but I just don’t see shit changing in this country over guns any time soon.
In the weeks after Sandy Hook, I got numb.
I remember posting this on Facebook after the shoot at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon:
I still feel that way. Numb, and fucking livid that I’m numb. I don’t see how we can ever change the gun fetish culture in the US. I’m pretty sure it’s fucking impossible at this point.
We’re going to blame Islam, radicalism; we’re going to be told to “pray”… anything and everything to avoid the reality that we live in a country that had no problem legally selling a gun to a fucking radical homophobe who fully intended to murder people. This isn’t about fucking “criminals” at this point.
I just… what can be done at this point… at all?
Bart B. Van Bockstaele
Racist.
Fucking racist.
and what Rob said @33
35. chigau
僻
I suspected you had no idea what the word means. Thank you for making it abundantly clear.
No, they have it clear, you don’t. It was racist, in the bigoted sense.
When you make such statements you will be called out, like now. Are you capable of learning?
Nathan wrote:
I’ll just link Stephen Colbert’s video from The Late Show: Despair Is A Victory For Hate
Nathan @34:
Wait until some hate group starts targeting wealthy white conservatives. You can bet they’ll suddenly become interested in gun control if guns actually started being used against them.
FYI
The word “Fuck” has been known to make Bart B. Van Bockstaele lose consciousness.
link.
@ck
I already know. I know that paralysis is a failure, that despair does nothing.
I have signed petitions, donated to campaigns, written and called my representatives and senators, gotten into arguments and full-on fights over it…
And yet I see nothing. Literally nothing. Except for more shootings, more death… and more despair.
I won’t stop signing petitions. I won’t stop donating to campaigns. I won’t stop writing and calling my representatives and my senators, applauding them for not being funded by the NRA and getting F ratings from them, or berating them for the opposite. I will never stop doing the little I feel I can do to, maybe, contribute just a tiny bit to some kind of change.
But that doesn’t stop me from feeling hopeless.
oh how I wish there was a simple answer to all of this guns and violence and hate. war on terror. liberation and choice.
I remember hearing or reading something about there always is a simple answer for everything but it is usually wrong
Bart @29:
Do you realize how many people would suffer and die if raising animals for food were banned? There are millions (if not more) people around the globe that have no other alternative but to raise animals for food.
Welcom to this brave new world where Cracked has more meaningful articles about Daesh than the New York Times
@ B.B Van B.
First Nations people are not “required” to hunt — they have a right to hunt, as their ancestors have been doing for thousands of years. This right is written into their treaties and has been upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Your idea that we are “failing” them by not flying factory farmed meat 500 miles from the nearest slaughterhouse into remote communities at prohibitive cost when there is free wholesome meat for the taking in the woods nears home is so laughably and culturally ignorant.
Bart @36:
The two portions of your comment that chigau quotes in their @35 support the claim that you’re being racist.
1. You said hunting for food is not an acceptable activity.
2. You said we (humans) are civilized, not savages.
3. You said you are aware that First Nations people often rely on hunting for food.
Since you don’t understand why you’ve been called racist, let me spell it out:
You’ve just called First Nations people uncivilized savages.
Crap. Wish I could edit comments here. This:
should read this:
2. You said we (humans) are civilized, not mindless brutes*
*although ‘savages’ would be synonymous, it isn’t literally what you said.
And before you say it, Bart, intent is not magic. Maybe you didn’t intend to call the First Nations people uncivilized savages, but that is what you did. It was racist, regardless of the intent.
PZ:
This is a good place for Cherelle Nika’s prototype. It’s an excellent summary of the problematic gun culture in uStates.
Also, on my response to ck… I am sorry. I won’t allow my hopelessness to paralyze me or make me weak on this issue. I never will. I just find it very very hard to feel otherwise.
Since I am getting used to being misinterpreted, let me add this:
Our male ancestors have been raping women for thousands of years, and there are still countries where it is not illegal to do so. That doesn’t make it acceptable. The same is true for killing. Killing is wrong. For any reason. Just as rape is.
Bart B. Van Bockstaele #51
Now you are just trolling
be careful
PZ doesn’t like that
Bart:
You aren’t aware of jack fucking shit. A great many indigenous people are working tirelessly to help the people of their tribes/nations to get away from the horrors of a colonial diet, which has proven to be an ever constant danger, one which contributes greatly to poor health, high incidence of various diseases, and early deaths.
You’re just another asshole colonialist, thinking you’re oh so superior to us poor, stupid savages, who just don’t know better, and we really, truly need white assholes to show us the way, with a pat on the head, and if we try hard enough to assimilate, to be white, well then we’ll be alright.
There aren’t enough fuck you’s in the universe for what you have said. White colonialists have done enough fucking damage to us Indians, we don’t need your “help”. Oh, and because you’re one of those so very special assholes, here’s a little reminder for you – we aren’t all dead, we aren’t all in some sad corner, sitting in a tipi, all sad because we are so fucking clueless about the world. A whole hell of a lot of use are right here, and we can see what people like you think. Can’t stop you from thinking, but we’d sure as hell be happier if you shut the fuck up, wačhíŋtȟuŋ šni wičhánata háeče.
I can’t find the report in English, but for those of you here who can read German, this is a report from Bavarian Broadcasting about the risks of lead poisoning from sport shooting.
http://www.br.de/nachrichten/2016-bleibelastung-schuetzen-104.html
Dr. Rudolf Schierl of the University of Munich’s study revealed that sport shooters had on average 555 micrograms of lead in their bloodstream, more than double the level above which acute health problems can be expected.
Dr. Schierl commented “Je mehr Blei, umso weniger IQ”; the more lead, the lower the IQ.
This is an American thing. The one and only only first-world, advanced economy with this problem. A gift from your exceptionalism.
I wish I could honestly say you are “better than that”. I really, REALLY do. You’re admirable in so many ways, but your mythology regarding this is fucked-up.
Westerns. The “equaliser”. “An armed society is a polite society”. Guns keep you safe.
(Scary)
Bart B. Van Bockstaele, #29:
Wow, cultural imperialist much?
That’s basically the gun-centric version of the Courtier’s Reply.
Jake Harban, sure. Because I should care whether the person confronting me has a Lee-Enfield or an AR-15.
(What part of “a deadly weapon is deadly” confuses you?)
*wooosh*
@51
Let me misinterpret that for you: So now you are equating First Nations people and their ancestors to rapists?
(Posted in the same hyperbolic (non)sense as the original.)
*wooosh* Jake
not John
feck
bed
[It’s cool, chigau. The timing is not your fault.]
Thanks, John.
But we both know the PrimeDirective:
Refresh Before Posting
@57 @58
I read that as Jake saying the people spouting the gun details are the Courtiers.
“Henceforth, the official name of all guns and rifles and whatever fine distinction in the title you want to give them is irrelevant: they are all called Shooty McShootface. ”
I was gonna call them “Gun Wank”, but whatever.
I should clarify I would call THE MAGAZINES that cover guns “Gun Wank”. Thank you very much.
@64
Indeed, as did I.
“You can’t criticize guns because you cant tell a semi-automatic rifle for an assault rifle” maps pretty well to “You can’t point out the emperor is naked because you cant tell velvet from velour”
Trickster Goddess @64, possibly.
Thing is, the Courtier’s Reply highlights there’s no there there.
Alas, there’s definitely a there there — the issue of whether a particular weapon is deadlier than another weapon is quite a difference to whether the purported
weapon actually exists — which is very much the point of the Courtier’s Reply.
(Does it really matter whether it’s a lumberjack’s axe or a battleaxe, when one is confronted with an axe? An axe is an axe)
See, I always figured the relevant part of the courtier’s reply was the “you need at least x amount of (irrelevant info on the topic at hand) before you can talk on the matter” part.
Like, the “you need to read some theology before you can criticize biblical claims” version of it.
Vivec:
Close. FWIW, PZ’s Courtier’s Reply has actually entered the public domain.
Again: Issue here is whether the distinction between deadly weapons and deadlier weapons is significant in relation as to whether they are deadly, not whether their deadliness is in question. The Courtier’s Reply basically mocks the claim that one can’t know whether they are deadly unless one is schooled in their minutiae.
OMG
PZ
pls xpln
“Coutier’s Reply”
or is it too late?
i was going to try and make a humorous comment on the subject of axes about how there are many types of axes depending on what they are designed to do and on where they were made and conclude that it would make very little difference what kind of ax it was if someone were to hit you in the head with it hard enough to get it stuck but I wont because I ain’t a comedy writer .
I think the nit picking argument over gun control really just boils down to not “regulating ” the guns I like just the other kind and those who put up most of the money just want to keep selling them. They have little interest in allowing any kind of effective armed populous to really resist the enforcers of order.
They have for some time used the propaganda of extreme anti-gun plots to stimulate more sales. If the argument could some how be separated from the interests of those with a vested interested in seeing that the business of gun sales grow we might be able to come to a more rational understanding and maybe a more workable solution.
I also think there is some kind of psychological link or similarity between these mass shooting where 1 or 2 people shoot a large number of people and the police shootings where the police shoot the suspect dozens of times before they stop firing .
uncle frogy
If you find yourself constantly being “misinterpreted” by a number of different people, you should at least consider the possibility that the problem lies with you.
That’s what I was hoping for. If the individual in the mirror is the cause, the problem is easy to fix.
#3 Matthew Ostergren
In 50-plus years of living mostly in Australia I have never once heard anyone talk about desiring a gun for “home defence”. What you have is an American problem, and it’s your noxious gun culture.
I’ve been thinking about what it is that appeals to men about guns. I suppose it’s largely something to do with power projection, or power enhancement, the same reason we like fast cars, axes, knives and so on, not to mention lawn mowers, and a nice set of spanners.
To be fair, it would be much harder to kill multiple people with a heavy logging axe made to split wood — basically a blunt object — than with an axe designed for battle, which will tend to have a have much thinner, lighter head with a curved cutting edge and a different haft and…
Oh, sorry.
75. thecalmone
Racing bicycles (“road bikes) can also be added to this mix.
That would be compatible with my personal experience. I have always been called a wimp, when it transpired that I was not interested in those things at all, and was prepared to wash dishes in a restaurant to pay for the nth interesting book or microscope or computer.
@8 Saad
It’s not only unnecessary, it’s outdated. It should have been removed when the National Guard was formed, which made obsolete the whole “militia” concept the 2nd was designed to protect.
I actually do own a gun. Just one. It’s an old 22 bolt action (Remington I think?) rifle that my Dad used when he was a kid in Nevada hunting jack rabbits. It doesn’t even have the bolt anymore (which is sad). I’d like to get the bolt replaced, have it refinished and mounted in a glass case just because, well, family history. No need to ever buy bullets.
I have no problem with single-shot bolt action hunting rifles. None at all. Nor do I with hunting so long as it’s well regulated. I used to hunt when I was a kid in NH. Never actually got anything, not that that mattered.
The very idea that people will turn their backs on the violence allowed due to ease of access of semi-automatic assault weapons… it’s disgusting. The more people that die the more they dig their feet in saying “If only there were MORE weapons then this wouldn’t have happened!” Bullshit. You know what you get when you have more weapons? Even more collateral damage when people who have never had a bullet fired at them in their lives panic and start shooting towards everything that moves because they have, in a nutshell, no combat experience. More people will die when “good guys with guns” panic and become uncontrolled bullet sprayers. No one thinks about this on the gun side. They assume every “good guy with a gun” will become Clint Eastwood from the movies with perfect aim, taking out the bad guys with single shots while they stand in a crowd of panicking people. They are so wrong.
79. Grumpy Santa
Indeed. And let’s not forget that dogs also shoot their owners: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/27/a-dog-shoots-a-person-almost-every-year-in-america/
It is hilarious, but it is also tragic. Yes, it is *only* one person a year for the entire US, but it is one person too many. I have a problem when a society is more strict about peanut butter than it is about guns.
John Morales, #55
That sums it all up perfectly.
Americans aren’t special creatures with unique needs. Your homes aren’t being invaded. The British warships aren’t coming. Canadians aren’t interested. You’ve killed all the indigenous people already. There’s about to be a wall. Calm the fuck down and enjoy life.
81. Saad:
[laff]
I think you forgot the terrible issue of reptilian illuminati ^_^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_kB-reQOcE
[/laff]
That was the idea. Maybe I should have quoted only the line about gun minutia itself?
Sort of. The Courtier’s Reply is an indirect form of begging the question— rather than directly assuming your conclusion to be true, you instead assign the benefit of expertise based on the assumption that it’s true (ie, assuming its truth is necessary to be considered an expert in determining whether it’s true).
That PZ denies the legitimacy of gun wankery rather than the physical existence of it doesn’t change the underlying principle; the minutia of guns are irrelevant to the legitimacy of gun wankery and of concern only to the gun wankers themselves, therefore the person who objects to PZ’s position based on his lack of knowledge of those minutia is implicitly demanding that only gun wankers be considered qualified to discuss the merits of gun wankery, which is the same basic fallacy as the Courtier’s Reply.
The Courtier’s Reply is not a fallacy, since it does not pretend to prove anything. It does illustrate something though, and does so very well.
Re: guns. America, how the heck did you get this crazy?
Re: Bart B. Could we please stop allowing him hijack the threads? Let him stew in his own juice.
Grumpy Santa @79:
The “good guy with a gun” trope is so ridiculous as you pointed out. The fetishists think that they live in a movie fantasy land where the bullets have eyes and never hit the good guys.
I will probably be repeating much that has been said by others, if so apologies.
Shooty McShootface – too cheery, I could actually see this being made into an NRA sponsored animation
Killstick – OK -ish but it reminds me of the old names for cigarettes, coffin (coughin’) nails and cancer sticks, which were used without irony by nicotine addicts (like me 11 years ago).
My preference is murder flags.
Hunting – yes some, few, people still need to hunt but equally some people need to walk for 5 days to get medical treatment; it may be traditional and even necessary but that does not make it a desirable behaviour.
Factory farming of animals – cruel and, frankly, unnecessary. We do not need to eat the amount of animal protein that we do and the only real purpose is to make money for the big food companies.
“Organic” or traditional farming of animals – can be cruel but mostly is not during the lifetime of the animals. Ideally we should not even need this input of animal proteins but at the present state of food technology there isn’t an alternative. That said as far as I am concerned the best argument in favour of vegetarianism is pigs whilst the best argument against vegetarianism is pork.
Technological food production – we are on the cusp of being able to produce, by industrial methods, animal protein that is nature identical in texture, structure and nutritional value; so let us get on that bandwagon.
rietplum #84
“Pretending to prove something” is in no way a requirement for a statement or aguement to be considered a fallacy.
When car fanatics talk about performance specs, they’re talking about the car’s maximum limits and staying alive. It might be boring to some and offensive to environmentalists, but at least there’s some interesting physics involved.
When gun fanatics talk about performance specs, they’re talking about the gun’s minimum limits for killing people and maybe animals. That’s talk one expects from sociopaths.
Then what fallacy would the Coultier’s Reply be? False equivalence is the only one I can think of, but this particular equivalence happens to be undeniably true.
The biggest problem begins with the notion that a firearm can be “home defense”, because at that point, someone has decided that there is an okay situation to murder someone. After that point, it’s just been the murderers in our society trying to inch up when it’s acceptable to kill someone. Oh, is it okay to murder someone who simply breaks into my home (most likely because they’re on something or trying to nick some property)? Well, what about murdering anyone who even trespasses, like technically on my property because I lured them there? What about murdering people on the street who threaten me? What about stalking and murdering people I don’t like because of their skin color? Hot damn, what else can I get away with?
Home defense is a meaningless garbage term. A gun does not defend jack shit and the data on guns stored for “home defense” have more instances of being used in mass shootings than in “defending” against some mythical probably brown home invading rapist. And way way more used in suicides, accidental deaths of family members, and acts of domestic violence. Hell, more people have had a home invader murderer use their own guns to kill them than have used them to stave off a murderer.
And when the wrong type of person defends themselves from death (women killing a baterer, trans people even just fighting off a bashing with their fists, black people protecting themselves against murderous police), then the legal system is quick to throw the motherfucking book at them.
But once we allow that in-road, we get down the road of this easy access to more and more deadly overcompensation deathsticks and every hateful abusive toxic masculinity enfueled piece of shit gets to turn their animus into a body count in the dozens.
Like, for context, the Boston Marathon Bombing, which was a bomb in a crowded area killed 3 people. This one motherfucker killed 50. Like we were nothing. Laughing at us as he slaughtered us.
And I am so so done with everything. I want the Black Panthers to come back, because pretty much only the regular image of black men and women carrying AR-15s everywhere is going to get our racist shitlords in Congress to actually do something about how fucking easy it is to get a deathstick.
At this point, I’m ready to ban all guns, period, because fuck it, gun owners failed to even approximate safety and responsibility for them, so bye bye to your toys. I mean, fuck, we recall every other toy when it kills a single child, much less 20 of them in one day. Just fucking done.
rietpluim, #89
This is my fault, I should have been more clear. I wasn’t taking a position either way as to whether or not the Courtier’s Reply was a fallacy or not. I haven’t ever tried to categorize it in that way.
My point was rather that a fallacy doesn’t necessarily have to attempt to prove something on its own in order to be a fallacy. It can instead merely attempt to misdirect, confuse, obfuscate, switch-and-bait, or any other number of things that aren’t necessarily an attempt at proving something right. That is to say it can be used instead solely to cast doubt on another argument.
But, to answer your question – thinking about it on a cursory level I would say the Courtier’s Reply would probably be ad hominem and/or argument from authority. “You do not have the expertise to understand this, therefore your argument is invalid”.
Unless I have forgotten the Courtier’s Reply thoroughly enough to have summarized it wrong, which is possible. But whatever, I might be derailing rambling as I am, so I digress.
The interesting thing about that “we must pray” response — I think I first saw this pointed out here, in fact — is that when it comes to issues like (for instance) abortion… the Republicans are all about having a legislative agenda. When they actually want to stop something, they absolutely do try very hard.
Prayer, on the other hand, is like goggles.
IT DOES NOTHING.
I have no problem with people keeping firearms as a keepsake or for a collection, as long as they plug the barrel and remove the pin. That way, if they are ever stolen they can’t be used in furtherance of a crime. I will likely inherit an antique revolver of my father’s at some point. I will never fire it. I will however, keep it from firing again and build a lovely display case for it.
I guess the question could be: Does an individual right to own some Shooty McShootfaces outweigh everyone else’s right to be, or at the very least to feel, safe?
Framed that way I think the answer is no.
I will see your plague of boils and raise you a fatal dose of necrotizing fasciitis – if anyone deserves to be eaten alive by a near untreatable disease it is the gun fondling arseholes of the NRA and their various fellow travelers who clearly prize their penis-substitutes over the lives of innocent people.
The sheer depth of mendacity and misdirection on display from the gun fondlers is disgusting. The bodies of the victims in Orlando are barely cold, and people are trying to craft ‘gotcha’ arguments over the minutia of firearm terminology? That is an almost unbelievably spectacular lack of proper priorities that makes it abundantly clear that they care far more for a cold hunk of metal created to be a literal killing machine than they do for their fellow human beings.
As for the idiots claiming that the most important response to this horror is prayer, that is no more than an appeal for apathy and a strategy to insure inaction and the maintenance of gun-privilege.
I’ve heard it said here before often enough, but it bears repeating;
Prayer – quite literally the least you can do…
Don’t assume this is entirely an American problem. I doubt there is a Western country that doesn’t have its minority of people who’d love the laxest US style gun laws in their country. They probably use terms like “victim disarmament,” and claim that people in their country are slaves because they don’t have enough guns to overthrow the government at a moment’s notice.
timgueguen @ 96;
True enough. I know there were people who made that claim in France after the Bataclan massacre, and even in the UK there were some fringe lobbies trying to introduce US style gun laws (or rather a lack thereof) after the July 7th 2005 attacks on London. In both cases, you will be unsurprised to learn that the lobbies in question transpired to have financial backing tracing back to US gun fondlers.
@#90, Cerberus is working overtime at the outrage factory
…That was an amazing comment. Saving that one right now.