Drive-bys and a gunless world argument...

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PaladinX13

New member
Advocating the pro-gun stance in a debate is great because logic, precedence, statistics, and morality to back one up... the problem comes when time or attention spans limit the fight to sound bite and emotional calls where the weight of the evidence can't come to bear. When that happens, we're force to fight with sound bites of our own... hoping they resonate with the person who only wants to think a little bit about the issue.

With things like gun control, registration, etc. the retort that resonates the most, I feel, is that criminals- by definition- don't obey the law. This argument is short, simple, and works. What do you do when they say:

"We don't have drive-by clubbings or people getting massacred by a lone swordmen... guns make it so much easier to kill. The world would be a better place if there were no guns at all." That's the common and basic argument. What's the quick "soundbite" response?
 
"After all, no one ever died a violent, horrible death before guns were invented!"

"Of course! How ever would two burly men possibly overpower and rape a small woman without guns?"

"Hmmm... A quick bullet or a long, slow stabbing... Do I really have to answer right away?"

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"..but never ever Fear. Fear is for the enemy. Fear and Bullets."
10mm: It's not the size of the Dawg in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog!
 
All good responses but don't seem strong enough to me. I mean the complete and correct response would be to show the statistics behind gun related crime, gun defenses, and violence crime... but they usually stop listening by that point. The "criminals don't obey laws" is- more or less- impossible to argue against. I'm looking for something that, sort of ends the argument on a point (meaning they can't expand their argument).

1. They'd argue it's an issue of magnitude... an individual can massacre with a gun and not a sword.

2. "Now weak men can and do rape too!"

3. "...allowing you to quickly kill dozens."

Now, I'm not saying I can't argue back the above three points (1,3 are issues of effectiveness which can introduce bombs- though I hate to argue "evil vs evil"- and #2 is stat backed and an argument for defense- "if it equalizes criminals it can for citizens")... but the point is to NOT get into braching debate, if possible, so that your maximum # of effective points come across before the discussion is shut down. All of your retorts are great if you have the time to back them up, but is there anything that "argues itself"?

(Don't mean to be picky, just trying to generate more answers!)
 
The argument is fallacious and pointless. You can't uninvent technology, and you can't make all the existing guns disappear, either. Anybody who proposes a prohibition of all firearms as a logical and workable solution is out of touch with reality. Look at the War On Some Drugs, or the Prohibition, and let them explain why those attempts didn't work, but a prohibition on guns has a better chance of success.

The pointlessness of the argument aside (you may as well ask the counterquestion "Wouldn't it be nice if humans had no capacity to kill each other?"), getting rid of guns--assuming it was possible, and nobody even knew how to make a zip gun--will only accomplish one thing: the weak will be at the mercy of the strong, the few will be at the mercy of the many, and the old at the mercy of the young. People do bad things with guns, but anyone who says that guns can't be used for good purposes has yet to reason convincingly why, then, the police carry guns.

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"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice." -- Albert Einstein
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Glock/Benelli/Enfield -- the all-purpose threat management system.
 
Within the last year or so a madman in a church did more damage with a longsowrd than is done in most crowd shootings.

Even in the U.S. the weapon of choice of rapists is a knife, be they large or small. (rapists and/or knives)

Drive by clubbings, spearings and arrow squerings have been around since before Roman Chariots.

Two arrow homicides in Orange County, CA in a short period of time bout fifteen years ago.

One accidental death by arrow at an international archery meet Orange County, early 90s.

Probably more arrow deaths, I just happened to be in the area for the above three.

Homicide by car, malicious hit n run, is not all that rare.

A large percentage of the gun deaths among children are gang bangers doin in other gang bangers. Yet bangers do more bangers with clubs, chains, knives and stompings than with guns.

Sam...somebody ate my jellyware spell cheker.
 
The only reason they could argue "issue of magnitude" is because of ignorance.

There have been, I believe, three sword-toting whackos in the UK in the last year who killed and maimed several victims apiece. One victim was a Minister of Parliament. In his own office!

An astonishingly small pack of my sub-literate, non-bathing, overly-exuberant and extroverted ancestors, led by one Godfrey of Bouillon and armed with nothing more powerful or 'high-tech' than sharpened steel bars stormed Jerusalem in 1099. They slaughtered the entire Moslem population that didn't manage to flee in time, so that Old Jerusalem's quaint, Iron Age alleys ran ankle deep with blood in places. Then, apparently just to prove their lack of bias and despite a total lack of firearms of any type, they managed to corner all the Jewish citizenry who hadn't fled yet in the city's Synagogue, and burned it to the ground. (Of course, this was all done in the name of the Prince of Peace; apparently these guys slept through Sunday School... :( )

Despite the same area still being rife with the same millenia-old quarrels, and now being awash in Uzis, Galils, and Uncle Ivan's Surplus Boomsticks, they seem to be avoiding a repeat on such a grand scale...

...even though guns would make it so much easier!

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"..but never ever Fear. Fear is for the enemy. Fear and Bullets."
10mm: It's not the size of the Dawg in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog!

[This message has been edited by Tamara (edited October 15, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Tamara (edited October 15, 2000).]
 
This is an easy one.

First, agree with them. Then show them Philip Luty's book "Expedient Firearms, the 9mm submachinegun" and delecately explain how any dim-bulb with a hacksaw and a drill can make one.

Second, ask them how many people they think you can get with your SUV on a "drive-through"...
 
say, " Yeah, prohibition worked really well for alcohol and it's working really well for narcotics. You never see or hear about drugs in this country at all!"

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Those who use arms well cultivate the Way and keep the rules.Thus they can govern in such a way as to prevail over the corrupt- Sun Tzu, The Art of War
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by C.R.Sam:
Within the last year or so a madman in a church did more damage with a longsowrd than is done in most crowd shootings.

Even in the U.S. the weapon of choice of rapists is a knife, be they large or small. (rapists and/or knives)

Drive by clubbings, spearings and arrow squerings have been around since before Roman Chariots.

Two arrow homicides in Orange County, CA in a short period of time bout fifteen years ago.

One accidental death by arrow at an international archery meet Orange County, early 90s.

Probably more arrow deaths, I just happened to be in the area for the above three.

Homicide by car, malicious hit n run, is not all that rare.

A large percentage of the gun deaths among children are gang bangers doin in other gang bangers. Yet bangers do more bangers with clubs, chains, knives and stompings than with guns.

Sam...somebody ate my jellyware spell cheker. [/quote]

And don't forget that in the LA riots that truck driver was permanently disabled with a brick. The Judge in the case ruled that "bricks are not deadly weapons" so the assault w/ a deadly weapon charge didn't stick. Shortly thereafter a convienience store in, I think, Pennsylvania was robbed. The perpetrator used a brick as his weapon of choice.

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... But as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
 
All good responses, I think in terms of 'magnitude' I'll say something along the lines, "People don't kill because of the ease or difficulty of it." Then cite bombs, mass poison, & knife stats if need be... by the logic that ease of killing incites use, then we'd all be nuked by now, right?

I like the prohibition/drug war argument but I'm hesitant to bring it up because 1. It frames guns in the same light as alcohol and drugs... as if innately evil 2. I bet most antis want to continue the drug war, their response "So we should just give up?! Let our schools and neighborhoods be flooded with drugs?!"

Sigh. I'd hate for it to end on that note, because then you'd have to start debating the drug war. I guess they'd argue it's not a matter of effectiveness but of principle, casting me as the cold-hearted utilitarian.
 
To answer that one, you have to think about why people do drive-bys in the first place. Why do they? It's inaccurate and most of the time stands as good a chance of killing some poor innocent kid as the guy they're after.

So why do they do it? Because it allows them to keep their distance and get away, because the target may be armed with a gun himself. If there were no guns, there would be no NEED to do a drive-by. You could use the older knife methods of ambushing someone and get out of knife range as quickly as a car gets you out of gun range. But the same people would still be killing the same people just as dead.
 
If you think that an absence of firearms in a society makes that society non-violent, I suggest that you spend a few days with the general population of a prison. Not a single firearm around, not even the guards, but still an extemely violent society.
 
Some possible responses:

1) O.J. Simpson killed two adults. There was no gun involved.

2) Would you, personally, rather be killed by a gun or by a baseball bat?

3) How do you intend to accomplish getting rid of all those guns? Pass a law? It's already illegal to kill people.

4) Would you really feel safer in a world where only the lawbreakers are armed?

5) They didn't have guns in the Dark Ages. Do you think the world was less violent then than it is now? (Note: this will only work when talking to a person with some basic understanding of history.) Follow up: Guns civilized the world.

6) Are you any less dead when killed by a knife than you are when killed by a gun?

7) How do you plan to protect yourself and your family from violent criminals? Listen to whatever answer: locked doors, better society, reasoning with him, karate skills, etc etc. Then: if you think your planned method would really work, then why do you care whether the violent person is armed with a gun or not? What difference does the presence of a gun make?

8) A gun owner might kill someone with his gun; you might decide to use your car to run over somebody you don't like. Should we take cars away from everyone because some people will misuse them?

9) Would you call the police, if you could, when confronted by a violent person who intends to harm you or your family? Why would you call the police? Because they have the tools to stop the bad guy? What tools do they have that you don't have? Do you think the police will always show up with those tools in time to stop your wife from getting raped at knifepoint?

10) My daddy can beat up your daddy! :p (uhhh, sorry, that was another debate.)

pax

"We want the facts to fit the preconceptions. When they don't, it is easier to ignore the facts than to change the preconceptions." -- Jessamyn West
 
Stick to the basic "criminals don't obey the law" theme. In D.C., it's illegal to have any kind of weapon. They have to be "imported." In every state, it's illegal for most of these gangbangers to have weapons. They have to be acquired illegally. So, people who want to do drive-bys in a "gun-free" world will be free to do so, after they have illegally imported their weapons. Of course, fully automatic weapons are easier to acquire overseas than "semi-autos" (I hate that term) so you'll see far more deaths as gangs go "high-tech."
 
Drive by shootings are nothing new. Besides a brief revival during the Roaring Twenties, it was practiced for centuries with the chariot riding archer. Remember, archers atop of elephants or on horseback didn't count.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mort:
The quick response? Two words:

Gavrilo Princip.[/quote]

Huh? He used a gun.

pax

"People don't ask for facts in making up their minds. They would rather have one good soul-satisfying emotion than a dozen facts." -- Robert Keith Leavitt
 
Any bad Saturday night in your average Third World country gets you hit-and-run stabbings and clubbings left and right.

Whatsername, the Gorillas in the Mist lady, was hacked up by a machete. As was one or both of the Born Free couple.

Lots of Rhodesian, excuse me, Zimbabwe, farmers could give you examples of blade vs. firearm, but I understand a lot of them are only present in spirit.

In south Africa, the assegai and the bolo have a respectable track record against AK47-armed opponents.

When you think of the Ghurkas do you think of their issued M16's, or their khukris?

LawDog
 
Gavrilo Princep was not a drive by artist. Rather, his victim and his wife were driving by when Princep filled them with holes; thereby setting off a chain of events which gave us World War I.
 
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