billwill
Friday 19th February 2021 3:56pm [Edited]
North London
6,162 posts
Quote: DaButt @ 19th February 2021, 2:28 PM
Neither do we - in most situations. But when you're faced with an imminent threat to your life, "kill or be killed" is the name of the game. It's basic human nature. A fundamental right, even.
Mayhap, but all too often it seems that there is no actual threat to your life, just a presumption of a threat.
Quote: DaButt @ 19th February 2021, 2:28 PM
"Suicide by cop" is not a new phenomenon, and a mentally ill person is just as capable of killing an officer as a sane person. A cop has seconds at best to protect himself against a person charging with a knife. It's a fraction of a second to defend against someone with a gun. Cops do not deserve any punishment whatsoever if they kill someone in self-defense, even if the dead person was mentally ill.
This is a fatuous argument., because all to often it seems that presumption of danger is wrong. Yes I agree that genuine self-defence that doesn't need punishment, but shooting people from some distance away when that person has hands up in the air needs to be tried in court as thoroughly as any murder case,
Quote: DaButt @ 19th February 2021, 2:28 PM
Switzerland would last about a week against a determined enemy.
Aye just like the Taliban, they were easily defeated in about a week. Or were they?
Quote: DaButt @ 19th February 2021, 2:28 PM
As for school massacres, they are fortunately very rare. Nothing will stop a determined killer. The Las Vegas concert shooting in 2017 was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, with 60 people killed. The 2016 terrorist attack in Nice killed 86 people. The weapon was a truck.
Simply saying that there are other weapons that could be used instead of a gun is not a valid logical arguement. You could always drop a shower of coins from a high place onto a crowded street if you couldn't find a lethal truck.
The worst terrorist attack used Air-liners as far as I am aware, but at least Air-liners have other purposes. As far as I am aware most school shootings have not been terrorist attacks, but have been done by distressed/mixed-up schoolkids who have 'borrowed' weapons belonging to licenced members of their family.
Quote: DaButt @ 19th February 2021, 2:28 PM
I don't want to participate in guerilla warfare, I want to protect myself and my property from dangerous criminals. 
Are you implying that despite being licenced to have guns you would not use them to defend the USA from insurgents? In other words you want to use a later court interpretation of the Second amendment while ignoring the main thrust of the paragraph.
Quote: DaButt @ 19th February 2021, 2:28 PM
We've discussed this before, but the primary function of a gun is to fire when the trigger is pulled. Anything that complicates that process will only result in failure at the critical moment when the owner finds himself in a life or death situation. Batteries will fail. Fingerprint readers will be stymied by blood/dirt/sweat. Gun owners will die.
Gun owners often die anyway shot with their own weapon. The most common cause seems to be lack of training in the use & maintenance of guns, often being cases of young children playing with parent's guns. It's no good arguing that you personally always train your relatives & friends to be careful with guns and their maintenance because it is clear that a significant number of licenced gun owners do not do this. You are not the problem, those careless owners are just as much to blame as the criminals you blame for everything. But any attempts to tighten down the laws to reduce the risk of guns being fired by the 'wrong' persons gets shouted down, especially by the NRA.
With modern technology, if development of personal-fire-control systems was enabled to continue, it is certain that the failure rate (that you mention) could be brought far below the rate of accidental injurious/fatal shootings that exist at present. Any person who doesn't follow the proper maintenance procedures, (including changing any batteries at scheduled intervals), shouldn't be allowed to own a gun anyway, badly maintained guns are lethal. If the USA can build robots that can autonomously land on Mars and transmit pictures back to Earth, they can surely devise a viable personal-fire-control system. Of course there would be a long time to get people to change-over to owner-only weapons and eventually there would have to be a ban on weapons that did not have that feature. Don't lump all the issues together. There's no point in exclaiming that the criminals would still have the old-fashioned weapons, the situation has to be tackled one point at a time. Personal-Fire-Control is for the prevention or reduction of accidental shootings, Deliberate shooting by criminals will need a different reduction/prevention method.
Accidental Sootings:
Quote: DaButt @ 19th February 2021, 2:28 PM
That number is too big if it's more than zero, but it's actually very small in comparison to the thousands who are murdered by criminals every year.
As I said, tackle that as a problem in itself, don't wrap it up/confuse it with the separate problem of criminal usage.
Quote: DaButt @ 19th February 2021, 2:28 PM
"Suicide by cop" is not a new phenomenon, and a mentally ill person is just as capable of killing an officer as a sane person. A cop has seconds at best to protect himself against a person charging with a knife. It's a fraction of a second to defend against someone with a gun. Cops do not deserve any punishment whatsoever if they kill someone in self-defense, even if the dead person was mentally ill.
We manage well enough in the UK without presuming and killing mentally-upset or mentally deficient people. Unfortunately your cops seem to have a mental fix that: A person is behaving erratically, he must have a weapon, shoot him, my life is more important than his, so the tinyiest risk to my life must be eliminated.
blokes so far as they are worth taking any notice of whatseover (B) women including dark witches (C) nothing - just not bothered (D) cross dressers, lovely, but not religious per se or (E) just himself and God with him enjoing nightly wanking?