The Sir

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 10:01 AM) Then I will tone it down also. In the real world there are laws. They protect yours and my rights. To protect those rights we use attorneys. Have a dispute with a credit card company, we use lawyers. Get injured on the job\, we use lawyers. Get arrested by mistake, we hire lawyers. We live in a world here with lots of laws that protect our rights. To assure those laws are followed we have courts and yes, lawyers. How are you planning to protect your rights since you don't seem to have any use for lawyers and courts? I didn't say I absolutely don't need lawyers. I said I don't like them. People don't generally like car salesmen either, and yet we all have cars. So yeah, I don't like them. I also don't like listening to their lectures on bravery. I would like to live in the civilized world where everything is decided by reason and logic. I want our society's laws to be determined by Congress and the judiciary and our voice and votes that affect those bodies. I don't want violence to come in to play. However, I don't trust most people. Throughout their entire history, people have done evil to each other. And while I think America is a great country, I by no means think we are excused from the barbarity that plagues much of the world, such as where I am now. It can happen in our country. And if it does, my arsenal is going to at least give us the chance to be free of those horrors. It will prevent any other entity from having an absolute monopoly on force with which to control our lives. That's not why I own guns. That day is far off. But it's there nonetheless, and I would like to prepare for it as best I can.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 10:18 AM) Damn them and their book reading ways! Good grief you're pretentious. And no, I don't myself have any experience buying drugs. But I went to high school and college. I also live in El Paso. The s*** isn't rare. Would you suggest that it is?

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 09:58 AM) Ah, the billions is enforcement we spend? Customs? Border Patrol? ATF? FBI busting smugglers? If they were legal people could produce Meth out in the open, grow marijuana in their gardens. Now I assume in your world drugs are easy to get, but over here, the laws have made it harder and cause prices to increase. Again, not having a law because criminals will not follow them is a silly argument that would eliminate all laws. Go back to my point about mala en se. Also, you got me interested...would you say the War on Drugs has worked?

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 09:40 AM) In the real world we have laws. When you buy a home, do you want your rights protected during the sale? Oh that's right, you'll just pull out a gun at the closing and solve any of those problems like a real man. You are so unequipped to live in a civilized society with laws. Geez, I've even been trying for several posts to tone down the rhetoric and have a civilized debate with you, and you come along with this. So keep judging me. Then ask yourself all self-righteously why we don't get along and I act like a jerk to you. Do you not see the hypocrisy?

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 09:36 AM) By making high capacity magazines illegal we begin to restrict the number that are available. Maybe this sounds cliche, but it's so true... Please explain to me how the same logic made drugs hard to get.

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 09:36 AM) First of all, I own guns. Second of all, your point is since criminals will not follow the law, then we should not have the law. Criminals murder people, why have laws against it? Criminals steal things, why have a law against it? Criminals drive drunk, why have laws against it? See the flaw in the logic of only having laws that criminals will follow? Murdering someone is mala en se. Stealing something is mala en se. Driving drunk is a little fuzzier, but without getting into it, it can be considered mala en se as well. Owning guns is not mala en se. It can lead to things that are, but so can a lot of things. And until you prove that you are the sort of person who would do something evil in and of itself with a gun, I do not believe your rights to a gun should be infringed.

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 08:23 AM) Can you name one law that criminals follow? Isn't that why we call them criminals? That's the point. Criminals don't follow laws. Why are we trying to stop their actions with more laws? I don't see how you can run to the gun control side with this one. This concept goes one way.

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 08:12 AM) By your own admission you don't live in a world where things are decided by rational arguments. You have spoken quite force-ably against people like lawyers who think for a living versus real men like yourself. Those are your words, not mine. I was just drawing the conclusion based on your words. Is it absurd to not enjoy being lectured about bravery by a lawyer? I'm sorry, but to me, lawyers define gutlessness and cowardice. You and Balta have prejudices against gun owners, I have them against lawyers. So I told him what I thought about him talking about what makes a real man. Because that is something he knows nothing about.

QUOTE (Jake @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 07:53 AM) So all the yelling and stuff is great, but I'd like to ask GLI real questions about the present debate. Are you wholly against an "assault weapons" ban? Thoughts on magazine restrictions? Would you submit to a more well-rounded background check system, possibly with a more rigorous mental health screening process? This could affect you and your colleagues in the military a fair amount given the increasing prevalence and awareness of PTSD. Thoughts on a comprehensive gun registration program, where a legal gun owner's guns would be tracked from factory to retailer to residence? Straw purchases? I hope this can be more constructive for us instead of an argument about guns and phalluses. I'm against an assault weapons ban. Wholly. First, none of the things offered by the 1994 ban or the new version affected the functionality of the weapon. Second, it is a very limited amount of crimes that are committed with those rifles (1994 AWB had no noticeable affect on crime). Frankly, the AWB just comes off as a sort of lame idea to get rid of scary looking weapons. Magazine restrictions, nope. Most killings are not spree killings. Killers don't need massive amounts of bullets to do what they want to do, normally. I'd be OK with honing the background check system. What I'd be against is deliberately using it to look for reasons to prevent people from having guns. I had depression a few years ago. But I came back and proved myself capable of deploying. Should I be deprived of buying new guns? You might think this is paranoid, but I absolutely believe that registration is step one for confiscation. The government doesn't need to know who has guns and who doesn't. Besides, look at that paper in New York publicizing who had permits in a given area. If there is a right to privacy to cover abortion, I absolutely believe in a right to privacy on gun ownership. I'm against straw purchasing. I'd honestly be shocked if someone in my camp favored straw purchasing. It's already illegal anyway, if I'm not mistaken (I've never thought about it because I'm not a straw purchaser). Also, to understand my viewpoints on this, I think it's only logical that criminals will not follow these laws. They'll obtain "assault weapons". They'll obtain high capacity mags. They won't register their weapons. And they'll continue to straw purchase and evade background checks. So it won't affect them, but it will punish me and my friends. And I don't see much point in that.

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 07:59 AM) Well, perhaps that is the problem. back here that is the world. We don't pull out weapons during a business meeting. You don't go into a car dealer and punch the guy out or call him a limp dick to get a better deal. Do you really think you will go into your kid's school and say "I'm tired of this p**** telling my kid he has to do his homework"? You can't control your anger on the internet, and you expect people to support your right to carry a gun? You are incapable of being elected to any office, you'd tell citizens to go f*** themselves. You can't even be trusted to attend a government meeting. That's the real world. I carry a gun all the time. Have I ever done anything illegal or harmful with it? Getting lectured over the internet makes me angry. I won't deny that. But there's a long way, for me, between getting angry and deciding to physically hurt someone. Your world back there, like everywhere else, has crime. I carry a gun so that when I encounter crime, I'll still have a means of dealing with it.

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 07:47 AM) We understand that thinking and discussing just isn't your strong part. You criticize me for using insults and then drop this? Hilarious.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 07:28 AM) Seriously, you couldn't write a better joke. "You treat us like idiots" followed by "You're an urban elitist pig!". You don't get it. I'm not going to list all the ways that I have proven myself as a decent, intelligent person. I shouldn't have to. Neither should you. But I am a law-abiding, accomplished citizen. I'm sure you are too. When you tell me that my gun ownership is going to hurt my family, you're treating me like an incompetent. And then you tell me that you don't trust gun owners' judgments because I brought up a fairly common scenario. That is lecturing and professorial. We might be willing to listen to you. But when you say things like that, and POTUS claims that we cling bitterly to our guns and religion, we don't want to come to the table. At that point, we see you as what I called you, "urban elitist pigs". Proceed at your own risk. Right now, your exclusionary rhetoric is causing the gun conversation to go nowhere. If you want to keep treating gun owners like they're stupid, that's fine. Just don't expect us to play along.

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 07:30 AM) It sarcastically showed that when you get tired of an intellectual battle you begin thinking of violence instead of walking away. You start tossing insults, calling people limp dicks, pompous, and jackasses and then say that is what being a real man is. Your concept of a real man shouts insults across the internet and rejects thinking in favor of violence. When people (gun owners and non owners) think about other people who should *not* have guns, they believe it is people like you who have a short temper and believe violence is better than thinking. I'd like to live in a world where everything can be discussed with intellectual thoughts and ideas. That'd be nice. But we don't live in that world. And I am real tired of guys like that telling me that guns are for p*****s. It especially pisses me off while I'm in Afghanistan. So sorry, I have a nasty reaction to some pompous lawyer dude from Chicago telling me that my way of life, which doesn't affect him a damn bit, is for weak and cowardly people.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 07:16 AM) I would not be opposed to carrying a gun if I were backpacking in bear country. That's your choice. You having a gun isn't a bad thing in and of itself. If you don't want one, fine. If you want one, that's cool too. But I hate this idea that you should be scorned for hiking with a gun or I should be scorned for having one in the nightstand.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 07:06 AM) It's willingness to ignore everything else that happens with guns and focus solely on the one, incredibly rare situation of successful home invasion defense that makes us not trust the judgment of gun owners. Tell me who's been hurt by my weapons. Can you do that? Once again, you prove your greatest trait to be that of professorial jackassery. Estimates for defensive gun uses a year range anywhere from 55,000 to 2.5 million. Which, even on the lower end, is quite comparable to the 300,000 or so violent crimes committed every year with a firearm (and far outweighs the homicides at 11,000 or so). Also, it's credible to think that this number in underreported because the researchers themselves admit that often times brandishing a firearm is enough to end the encounter. I don't give a s*** if you trust my judgment or not. That's more jackassery on your part. And once again, you're too stupid to understand that this is exactly why millions of law abiding gun owners have no interest in negotiating with the pigs.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 07:05 AM) If that was the case, then you wouldn't have a gun anywhere near your family. You carry a gun because emotionally you feel stronger. To the point where you're willing to ignore the piles of dead bodies, the study after study that says youre putting every one of your family's lives in jeopardy, and so on. But again, we get the emotional reaction. The "I know I'm safer and you're dumbasses, look how manly I am, everyone should be scared of me!" response. Maybe you're in a place where you have to shoo away coyotes, fine, have one locked up and used as a last resort. Great. But you said the word "Carry". Could you be any more pompous? Point to the piles of dead bodies caused by MY weapons. Can you do that? Point to the piles of bodies caused by 99% of gun owners firearms. Please do that. Or are you only capable of treating strangers like imbeciles? I practice firearms safety. I practice it rigidly. So does any serious gun owner. You can lecture me with your arrogant statistical bulls*** when I hurt someone I love with my firearms. But it won't happen. So get the f*** out of here with your hectoring crap. It's funny. You treat us like absolute idiots and then wonder why we don't wish to negotiate with you. Well, I don't negotiate with urban, elitist, liberal pigs. And that is exactly what you are.

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 06:52 AM) Yeah, real men don't think! They don't have ideas! They kick ass, punch people and shoot guns. f***ing thinking is for women. We'll never catch you with ideas or thinking. No sir, you're a real man. What the f*** does this post have to do with anything? He challenged me to put down the guns and be a real man. I'm tired of this argument, because it's pleading with me to gamble with my life so I can be enlightened like him. I hope I never have to draw my gun. I really do. It's there for situations when true danger arises. I'm a firm believer in the idea that it's better to have a gun and not need it than to need it and not have it. So I hope I never "need" it, but if I ever do, I'm not gonna be caught with my pants down because some lawyer jackass thinks real men operate based on mere intellectualism. Yeah. Tell your home invader that you're a real man because you make deep thoughts. See how that works. It's thoughts like that which make liberals seem like pompous elitists living in a fantasyland.

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 06:50 AM) So do we need guns to protect us from the military or not? How scared are you of American citizens with weapons kicking your Army ass in a battle? I wouldn't be in that battle. But for the soldiers who are, they should worry about an American insurgency as much as they worry about the Taliban insurgency or the Viet Cong insurgency.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 19, 2013 -> 02:15 PM) Guns are a hope for the weak and scared, for those that think somehow a weapon under their pillow will keep them safe from all the monsters in the night. You might as well put up a dream catcher while youre at it. You want to be brave, you want to be a real man, put down the weapon, you dont need it. More dumbassery. I don't carry a gun to be cool. I don't carry it because I'm a weak man who can't fight with his fists. I don't carry it because I want to be a real man (I'm in the army, you're a f***ing attorney, GTFO with this real man s***). And I don't carry it because I want to be brave (I'm in Afghanistan and you're still a lawyer, so GTFO again with this bravery s***). I carry a gun because my life and my family's lives are the most important things to me. I hope I never have to shoot anyone in self defense. That would be awful. But when the threat arises, I'm not going to pin our survival on a fistfight, no matter how strong I might be or how well I know how to fight. I'm not going to hope that he is unarmed so I can overpower him or so I can run away like a little girl. When that threat comes up, I'm going to know from the second it arises that I have the upper hand. I'm not gonna leave any doubts about that. And I'm not gonna put down the weapon so I can show some limp-dick like you what a "real man" I am. This isn't about bravado or machismo. This is about my life. This is about my wife's life. I'm getting tired of this "guns are for p*****s" argument from society's actual p*****s. Have you done a brave thing in your whole stupid life? You wanna talk about real men. YOU'RE A f***ING LAWYER. Repeat that to yourself. You wouldn't know a real man if he walked up and punched you in your damned face.

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Jan 19, 2013 -> 11:55 AM) Simply put this is not true at all. Wow. Confidence. May I ask what makes you so sure? Were you in the military?

QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 19, 2013 -> 11:29 AM) But mainly...why are we afraid of a government takeover? Do you realize who runs the government? Who populates the military? The only way to "take over" is to win a war of ideas. I'm dubious that a radical change in ideology is possible in the information age, but regardless at this point the way gun advocates talk about their guns just alienates people. It alienates me, who wants to own guns. What a dumb, dangerous thought. This is part of the reason why I own guns. You can actually sit there and tell us that the only way to "take over" is to win a war of ideas? Are you kidding me? Do you have no understanding of history whatsoever? I can't believe someone said something this ignorant. I couldn't care less if I alienate some goofball who just wishes people put down their guns and trust the government more. So be alienated. If that helps you leave me alone and let me live in peace, then I'm all the better for it.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jan 19, 2013 -> 02:51 AM) A gun free population isn't helpless nor completely controlled. Neither is an armed one. You know why? "Oh, deed-a-lee-doo, just gonna go rebel against the country today. I have an assault rife, I'm ready." Army: "Air strike ready? Oh, it's done? K, let's go get lunch." Some quick comments against this: 1) I'm in the Army. Therefore, I know who's in the Army. And when the order comes out to shoot at American citizens on behalf of a tyrant, we're leaving. It'll be the last thing that "ruler" ever does. 2) Your attempts to be funny are overly simplistic. Ever heard of something called guerrilla warfare? Yeah, it happens all the time. Successfully, I might add. If the conditions ever fall into place, it will happen in America too. And any force trying to suppress that insurgency would have a hell of a time.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 14, 2013 -> 06:24 AM) Fwiw any gun control legislation is going to grandfather in existing stock Not to be snide, but that doesn't change my point. Good idea on your part, nonetheless. Gun confiscation would go poorly.

I decided a long time ago that I wasn't going to post here anymore, but moving to central Asia for nine months makes a man really bored. So, here it goes. This whole David Gregory thing is a win for conservatives. Think about it. One argument conservatives make against weapons bans is that owning a gun, or a high capacity magazine, is not a bad thing in and of itself. I use my firearms and corresponding mags for home defense and target shooting. Ted Nugent uses his for hunting or waving them around like a maniac during rock concerts. David Gregory borrows high capacity magazines and waves them around in DC media studios to argue against owning high capacity magazines. It's silly, and I disagree with his point, but Gregory didn't do anything evil, even though he violated DC law (mala en se vs mala prohibita). So this absurd situation gets even better when Irvin Nathan comes along, and lets Gregory go free, referring on multiple occasions to his intent. Isn't that the point? Intent doesn't matter when it comes to product bans. My intent with high capacity magazines is not an evil one, but in banning these items, they'd demand that I turn them in or be sentenced like an actual criminal. My intent, decent though it were, would do nothing to save me. David Gregory shouldn't be any different. So while we could harp on other parts of this controversy, such as Nathan being friend's with Gregory's wife, or why the law doesn't apply equally, I think the best part is that this liberal journalist came along with this dumb stunt and proved our own point. Beautiful.

This is on Alexei. I'm really starting to think we should look for a decent shortstop at the deadline. That was totally inexcusable.