Can we please just admit that maybe gun control is a good idea finally?

Perhaps not the best example, since polls have fairly consistently found that at least a quarter of Republicans are straight up Birthers and about another third are Birther-curious.

The point isn't the numbers. The point is that it remains a distinctly fringe group, despite the best efforts of it's adherents to proselytize.

I have a hard time defining 50%+ of a political party as "fringe".

I'm not trying to sound like an asshole, but it really doesn't matter what you define as fringe. The birther movement, as a singular phenomenon, has accomplished literally nothing in terms of stated goals/aims.

If we were talking about how it reflects widespread attitudes towards races, et al., I would certainly agree with you, but that's not the sense I'm bringing up in this particular conversation.

The President of the United Fucking States had to hold a press conference and hold up a copy of his goddamn birth certificate. Sure, they haven't accomplished anything in terms of getting him out of office, but their opinions are parroted on major news networks and by people who hold national office.

I'm sorry, it's just not an apt comparison.

Yeah, I have to agree with Jibble here. The birthers haven't accomplished their goal because their accusations are baseless, but they have been taken seriously by an alarming number of people and they've gotten enough traction to get an official response and rebuttal, which is more than something that insane deserves. You can split hairs over the definition of "fringe" if you want, but apparently scores of millions of people are at least willing to entertain the notion that Obama is ferrin, which sets it apart from positions and beliefs that are truly out there in terms of popularity.

That's weird, why did I question the notion of reproductive rights being in the DNC platform?

Oh wait, that's right, it's because that's not what you asserted at all. Not even close. What I asked for a citation of was:

Got one?

Okay, point taken - so, level with me here and possibly save me some grief. Is it actually the generalizations that are unacceptable here, or generalizations combined with an underlying political message you don't agree with? I lurked in this thread for a number of pages before posting and statements like "ever notice how conservatives love reagan but not his gun control", "gun rights advocates are huge cowards", and various comments implying that gun owners are culturally racist were apparently fine. So honestly, if this is just a case of tightening up my arguments, I'm totally willing. But if there's a double standard here where the majority can say whatever and people smirk/high-five, but a minority opinion results in wagon-circling and a chorus of "cites".... Well, it would be useful to know before I become invested.

I could have made that point clearer. Short version: revolvers and racism has a longer history than you idly speculate. People get upset when you whip them, Samuel Colt had a solution for that.

EDIT:

For kicks, here's the list. Note that before the Dragoon, he was selling a thousand here and there where he could land contracts with various military and police forces. Then he got the bright idea to sell guns to civilians. Result: thousands of Dragoons sold; other versions sold in the hundreds of thousands.

You realize this tangent started with you misunderstanding my use of the Birthers as a concept, right? I'll not deny you your catharsis, but let's be clear - ArtificalKid's original point was that citing the DNC meant he was speaking for all democrats. The fact that Birthers are an enormous fraction of the Republican party doesn't change the fact that not everyone agrees with them, even within their own self-described party. Sure, sometimes I generalize about Birthers by picking and choosing which conspiracy theories I can laugh at with the least amount of intellectual involvement, but I don't post about it on a politics forum.

If other people make invalid statements that you find objectionable, call them on it in a sound manner. If you need help understanding validity, soundness, and how to critique an argument in such a way as to be rationally consistent, I'm sure this board has a sufficient number of pedants to manage that.

(Also, "Ever notice how conservatives love reagan but not his gun control" is a reasonable statement. Unsourced, but certainly not outrageous to claim.)

The far left of the Democratic party does not particularly influence the day-to-day politics of the nation. The Tea Party effectively controls, through primary challenges, the positions of the Republican Party. That's the difference.

I mis-typed. It should have been "Birthers" as the identifying factor, not Tea Party.

Because the point was that picking and choosing who you are comparing matters. Fluff like the party platform that nobody gives a shit about in the first place doesn't measurably affect the national conversation until someone edits out the most important thing of all. You're confusing attention in the national media with actually affecting things, and the Birthers, despite forcing Obama to give a press conference, have not affected anything. Yes, there is cross-contamination with Tea Partiers. Yes, a lot of those people are dragging primaries to the right. But they are doing so as Tea Partiers, not as Birthers. The identifying concept I was trying to stick with was measurably dead in the water, and no amount of headlines managed to change that fact.

Don't listen to Jestintime. This is Sanctum Santorum, where broad sweeping generalizations are all cool and shit. And fuck the pedants, say what you want to say, because this imaginary fine line that others are saying you should tread is actually a muddled puddle of feces.

I don't think your previous statement needed a cite, either, so tell extarbags to shut the fuck up.

Rago is muddling puddles between lowest common denominator conduct that is obviously permitted in the forum, Mr Molecule's weirdly threatening post notwithstanding, and what is a good idea if you want to have a conversation about difficult subjects. What I was saying was targeted towards the latter, because I don't think it's unfair to tell someone that x dog won't hunt. The corollary to that is that this both the Sanctum and a heterogenous group of posters in terms the relative quality of arguments; when you see "gun rights advocates are huge cowards" go largely unchallenged it's because of a mixture of approaches to ignoring tired patterns from people that are Known Internet Idiots on the topic. This can all be confusing to new posters and of limited value in terms of gauging proportional responses, so the safest bet is usually to avoid padding what you want to say with problematic, distracting rhetorical gestures like "some people somewhere say" or whatever.

However, things definitely got out of hand, and it's probably better to just take a step back before an important but small point of order turns into needless drama.

And here was getting my popcorn ready. Why'd you have to go and be all reasonable here?

That's a nice like/post ratio ya got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it.

Please don't mistaken me for an American.

Sir, I take umbrage at your definition of pedantry

I'm sorry, but I'm unable to take your umbrage seriously, because this is the Sanctum Santorum. If you want a pedantry slapfight, we'll have to take it to Debate & Discussion.

I think AaronSofaer and Lizard_King said it pretty well insofar as explaining that an unchallenged statement is not necessarily an adopted statement, and that if you want to raise the challenge, better to do it soundly rather than just repeat the same errors in reverse. I'm pretty new here myself, at least relative to most of the other posters, but my impression is that a good-faith attempt to discuss these types of issues is going to result in a high percentage of thoughtful responses, rather than summary dismissal due to your political stripes.

Edit: Also, I'm a bit suprised at the accusations of "group-think" on this issue. While the numbers probably slew more towards pro-control positions here, there have been a fair number of posts questioning the merits of at least some of the pro-control arguments. So, yes, if your position is lock-step with the NRA, you probably are going to encounter more skepticism here then, say, a position that some types of weapons and/or modifications should be restricted. I'd say make the argument anyways and have a thick skin for constructive rebuttals. I'm fairly confident, though, that pejorative responses will be few to none.

A good summary of Canadian gun control laws (or the lack of them until 20 years ago)

And the list of massacres in Canada (or the lack of them).

Little thing in CP about the Sandy Hook conspiracy people. Who knows, maybe they'll get to join the truthers and birthers and become another permanent fixture of the public discourse.

Please don't.

I spent an absurd amount of time on the FAU campus without ever hearing of James Tracy. But look, he's famous now! For being an idiot on his blog.

The whole notion of actors standing in for Sandy Hook family started here. Even Tony Hawk gets in on the action! The site would be hilarious if there weren't so many people who think they believe it.

I got angry when a buddy posted the video on Facebook.

The fucking idiot who made the video is a fucking idiot (sorry I'm still upset at these assholes who harass the parents of the dead kids). The video said that it would take a "professional shooter" to kill the kids in their classrooms. They were unarmed defenseless kids huddle in a corner less than 5 meters away from the door. A blind person could hit them by the sound of their screams.

Then another part says that the rifle was in the trunk of the car. The fucking idiot clearly doesn't know how an AR-15 functions because the cop was clearing the chamber from the right side (the AR-15's charging handle, made to be used by your left hand, is at the back and top near the stock).

I didn't bother watching the rest because I got sick from disgust.

And don't mistake all Americans for that.

You're trolling for a BrettMCD like, aren't you? Well, you got it. Congratulations.

If you're not trolling, then you're as big a fucking idiot as the god damn jackass on my FB list that posted this:



Hey, dipshit, we regulate the fuck out of those too.

I've started blocking/removing people on Facebook for posting this type of stuff. Here is another: Urgent! How do six kids shot fleeing Soto's class wind up on Sandy Hook grandpa's lawn? My favorite part of the article is "My first thought on this strange story is why didn't grandpa call 9/11?" Well, because 9/11 is a date, not a phone number... oh, you were trying to remind the readers that the government was responsible for the WTC thing too. Right... go away.

I'm sorry you disagree with my question. However, calling me an idiot doesn't prove any point you're trying to make. I can't see what your jackass friend posted either.

We regulate the fuck out of them, impose heavy artificial limits on their performance, disallow them outside of designated areas, insist on mandatory yearly inspections in most areas, maintain ownership and title records, mandate insurance, fine unsafe usage, etc etc etc.

I would be totally fine with saying "Yeah, guns and cars are pretty similar in terms of usefulness as a tool versus danger when misused. SO LET'S MAKE SOME FEDERAL LAWS!

The reason this usually fails is people then fall back to "it's a right" vs "it's a privilege" because they suddenly realized their car analogy is shit.

If you're not trolling and your question was made in good faith, then you pretty clearly don't have much of a nuanced grasp on the issue or what people on the pro-gun control side are saying. If you come into a 36 page thread and ask a stupid question, expect to be called stupid.

But he asked on page 1...

The point is that you're a god damned moron.

And it's still fucking stupid 36 pages later.

and promptly left the discussion once I realized it wasn't going to be healthy.

And yet you're still here.

Pardon me for trying to understand the different sides to this issue and asking questions.

When I see an alert response to a post I made a month ago, well sometimes my curiosity gets the best of me.