[Lune]

Originally Posted by Lurikeen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Actually, I was making the same point earlier. Your point over not wanting "armed criminals and lunatics" is a red herring. Nobody posting in this thread has advocated arming "criminals and lunatics."

The claim isn't that they are advocating arming criminals and lunatics, but that they are resisting the implementation of barriers against that.

Originally Posted by Lurikeen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You say, "I just want to make it more difficult" and the point I made earlier is that it is already pretty difficult. Did you miss that post I made about how one has to fill out forms and go through a NICS check at a bare minimum, just to buy a gun? As a gun owner you should know that, but your retort was some generalization that it is so easy to by pass the system and get a gun. Your extreme example simply proves the rule by exception. More often than not the system works. So why would anyone want to make it more difficult?

In some states NICS is the only form of background check and does not apply to sales between private individuals, creating a massive private sale loophole. (Ie, one gun nut to another). That the system works is a patent falsehood. Everyone here in Northern California knows what a joke it is to get around our laws; you just go to Nevada or buy from a private party. Guy I knew from high school was the center of the largest drug bust in our county's history-- he now owns an AK47. I know many more similar examples, and it's a well-recognized issue, with 96% of Americans in support of universal background checks.

Originally Posted by Lurikeen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The anti-gun lobby wants to make it more difficult because they want to disarm everyone. Because like you, they don't think gun ownership is a right. As you said, "Then stop thinking about gun ownership as a right instead of a privilege. It isn't 1783 anymore and a musket is not an assault rifle."

No. I will continue to think of gun ownership as a right because notwithstanding the claim of gun owning liberals such as yourself, gun ownership is our right. It goes along with property ownership and being in a position to protect ones property, family, and neighbors.

What is also telling in your claim I quote above is that you are a missing the significance of the fact that when the American Revolution was fought, many of the guns used were privately owned. The Brits would have loved it if they could have fought an unarmed population. This gets to the heart of the second amendment and the point that gun ownership is not a "privilege" as you say. Our founding fathers had the common sense to understand that an assembly of citizen soldiers might be needed in the future to fight off another tyrannical government rising up against the people. Where do you think such a "militia" is going to get their guns, if they already don't own them or possess them?

Gun ownership is a right and the regulations the federal government have in place today, restricting gun ownership, are plenty. We don't need any more.

I don't find this reasoning compelling. In the 1700's, there was far more parity between an armed populace and the federal government. If you think a bunch of obese rednecks with firearms will ever be the only thing standing between the most sophisticated military machine that has ever existed, and tyranny, I don't think you're being realistic. If a tyrannical government ever rises against the people in the USA, it will be silent and nonviolent, and due to voter apathy... as is currently occurring. (Most of our representatives literally do not even represent the interests of their constituents.) What are you going to do, go down to DC and shoot a corrupt politician?

If you really cared about keeping the government in line, and weren't just exploiting the notion to defend your guns, you wouldn't be so quick to simply abstain from voting and let it all go to hell. That attitude is 10x more dangerous than the populace not having guns. Instead, you're content to sit in your room and wait for the Feds to come in so you can blast them, because I guess you think that's a better way to defend your liberty?

Also note I don't even want to take your guns away. In spite of your slippery slope fallacy, making our joke regulations actually function isn't some ploy to eventually take everyone's guns. It may be that way for anti gun liberals, but not for me. What I'm in favor of wouldn't even affect you, and you wouldn't care if you weren't a radical.