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MaggieL · 06-09-2002, 01:07 PM

It goes a bit beyond "hyperbole" when used in a sentence like that. This "high-school debate team" level of discourse does get old after a while.

Jag says (or tries to): "We have the same freedoms, we just can't wander around with an M-16".

But the truth is we *don't * have the same freedoms, and I think that's one reason we hear so much sour grapes about how there "must be something wrong" with people who exercize their right to be armed.

It would be *nominally* legal for me to open carry an AR-15 (I'm not about to pay the confiscatory tax we have here on full-auto M-16) and "wander around". (Of course, that's another of jag's favorite images on this issue: gun owners out looking for an excuse to shoot something, like one of those teenage fire brigade volunteers that eventually get caught starting fires just so they have something to put out).

But the actual fact is that "wandering around with an AR-15" anyplace but the state game lands would get me picked up for "disturbing the peace" or "disorderly conduct" in the more populated areas of the state in fairly short order.

Where we *don't* have the same freedoms is when it comes down to the right to carry an effective personal defense weapon. I have that freedom and jag doesn't, so to resolve that dissonance he needs to paint gun owners as a trigger-happy lunatics.

I know *lots* of legal gun owners. As a group, they are polite, mature, restrained, careful, and tend very much to mind their own business. The kind of irresponsible personalities that one could characterize as "trigger happy" spent their youth out blowing up mailboxes (or over in NJ shooting cyclists with paintball guns), and by the time they reach adulthood have usually accumulated enough of a police record that they are no longer allowed to posess firearms legally.

06-09-2002, 01:07 PM	#70
MaggieL in the Hour of Scampering Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Jeffersonville PA (15 mi NW of Philadelphia) Posts: 4,060	It goes a bit beyond "hyperbole" when used in a sentence like that. This "high-school debate team" level of discourse does get old after a while. Jag says (or tries to): "We have the same freedoms, we just can't wander around with an M-16". But the truth is we don't have the same freedoms, and I think that's one reason we hear so much sour grapes about how there "must be something wrong" with people who exercize their right to be armed. It would be nominally legal for me to open carry an AR-15 (I'm not about to pay the confiscatory tax we have here on full-auto M-16) and "wander around". (Of course, that's another of jag's favorite images on this issue: gun owners out looking for an excuse to shoot something, like one of those teenage fire brigade volunteers that eventually get caught starting fires just so they have something to put out). But the actual fact is that "wandering around with an AR-15" anyplace but the state game lands would get me picked up for "disturbing the peace" or "disorderly conduct" in the more populated areas of the state in fairly short order. Where we don't have the same freedoms is when it comes down to the right to carry an effective personal defense weapon. I have that freedom and jag doesn't, so to resolve that dissonance he needs to paint gun owners as a trigger-happy lunatics. I know lots of legal gun owners. As a group, they are polite, mature, restrained, careful, and tend very much to mind their own business. The kind of irresponsible personalities that one could characterize as "trigger happy" spent their youth out blowing up mailboxes (or over in NJ shooting cyclists with paintball guns), and by the time they reach adulthood have usually accumulated enough of a police record that they are no longer allowed to posess firearms legally. __________________ "Neither can his Mind be thought to be in Tune,whose words do jarre; nor his reason In frame, whose sentence is preposterous..."