How lethal is mace? How many people can you mace within one minute? At what distance is mace still effective?

Japan has a full on bans handguns, which has been ruled unconstitutional in the US. It is also likely their system wouldn't pass constitutional muster because it places an undo burden on citizens. Please remember we're talking about a right not a privilege.

Do you understand that nearly 1 in 5 Americans suffer from some form of mental illness in any given year? Your proposal is to ban anyone and everyone who has ever had mental health therapy from owning a gun? Why the **** would anyone who wishes to own guns go to a psychologist? Do you really think we would be better off if gun owners or would be owners didn't seek any form of therapy when they needed it? We do have a procedure in place to remove a persons right to own a weapon if they have mental issues. There are judges all over the country who rule whether a person has diminished capacity due to mental illness. Due process is generally the way we remove peoples constitutional rights.

Simply saying assault weapon is stupid. It is a meaningless term. Once again, my AR-15 is an assault weapon as it sits, if I take off the barrel shroud it is no longer an assault weapon. If you went further and attempted to ban an entire class of rifles (not merely the cosmetics) you'd face a constitutional challenge. Personally I welcome such a challenge, gun nuts have already won three major victories in the past few years, I wouldn't mind a few more.

If by 'trying to rape' you mean walking behind you on a sidewalk or staring at you at Starbucks then yea those would be similar statements.

yeah I have no idea what he was trying to say either

well, a gun is meant to protect you and your property, so it'd be more like if they were inside a woman's vagina, right?

just pointing out how god awful the logic you use for your arguments is

Yes. It has been concluded. Guns saves lives , those 20 1st graders would have been 40 nationwide if we did not have the general populace preventing further crime because they are packing.

There are many gun nuts ITF who fantasize about the day someone tries to take their guns so they can go out in a blaze of glory. How many women do you know that fantasize of the day someone tries to rape them so they can use their mace? That love their mace so much they practice using it all the time?

Your posting in this thread continues to be the WOAT

@lowkey

When I start seeing calendars of pinup girls strapped with the latest in mace technology, when tons of internet forums start where people gather to talk about mace, when hs students plot to kill large numbers of their classmates with mace, and when large numbers of movies and videogames start to be centered around mace battles between the villains and the good guys, then I'll start worrying about the "mace culture" in this country... Until these things happen, please stop drawing ridiculous parallels between mace and guns... They aren't even close to the same thing, and our societal views about them aren't remotely similar, ok?

I know there's like one person who remarked about going out in a blaze of glory, and I wonder at times how serious he was, but aside from that one person, I would really love to get me some of that telepathy so many on the anti-gun side have that allows to them to see into the minds of both gun nuts and potential criminals to know what they are thinking and all of their motives.

It must be really fun.

I guess you don't see a problem assuming what other people think, that gun nuts are all foaming lunatics just PRAYING every night that some intruder happens onto their property so they can legally murder them and get away with it scott free

That's the argument you're defending. It's quite insane.

I didn't say "fully implement all of Japan's gun laws", so don't put argument in my mouth that I didn't make. What I said was, that Japan's legal requirement that their citizens bear the burden of proof for establishing their mental state prior to having any gun, is viable here. That our laws would necessarily include handguns in the scope of allowable guns, is not in question.

"A well regulated militia".

I wouldn't keep repeating that, if it didn't bear repeating. The right is not a "regulatory free" right.

Hmmm...lemme see....my wife is a licensed and practicing MFT and Associate Professor of Marriage and Family Therapy at an R1 university. I would have no idea of the scope of U.S populace that has some form of mental illness in any given year, because mental health is never a discussion in our household or among our cohort.

No, that's not what I said. Again, you can stop putting words and arguments in my mouth. "Has ever had mental health therapy" =! "is mentally ill".

But frankly, if you have BPD, or schizophrenia, or are severely bipolar, or have one of a certain class of severe mental illnesses, then yes, you should not ever be allowed to own a gun. That number is nowhere near 1 in 5 Americans.

It's not lack of due process to have to, for example, pass tests to obtain a driver's license. It is not lack of due process to have to undergo a psych evaluation in order to hold certain types of law enforcement jobs.

It is also not "lack of due process" to require an applicant for something, to have the burden of proof of establishing their fitness for that thing.

It would not be lack of due process to require a basic mental health examination in order to allow purchase and possession of an inherently lethal weapon. You can argue that it wouldn't be the right thing to do, but you can't argue it would lack due process. Due process doesn't mean "legal free for all, no legal requirements in order to do something".

Due process is:

So your position is that any type of firearm, in and of itself, is a legal type of firearm to be owned by any individual, am I understanding that correctly?

.50 cal machine guns? Gatling guns? No? I mean, you could in fact kill a dear with either of those, as well. So you'd argue they have a legitimate hunting purpose?

If not, what is your cutoff?

So besides the singular exception of our General Tsao, have we reached consensus that having armed teachers (staff, 18yo students, etc) is flat out bat-poop insane ??

Just arm the janitors imo.

Guns don't kill people; gun-mops kill people and then clean up the mess.

Oh, good, a position that actually has specifics involved. Forgive me for being overly broad, but when you say 'mentally ill' that encompasses a wide range of disorders. What you really meant to say was severe and generally incurable mental illnesses. Very well.

Again privileges vs rights. The burden of proof when removing a right is on the government not the citizen exercising that right.

Why do you give a damn what my cutoff is? You're the one who wants to change the law not me, so give some specifics. What, exactly, do you want to ban?

I think it's past time that you guys realize your position. You are in the same position as the Christian right is on abortion. You might win some arguments on the fringe, but nothing substantial.

@lowkey

I've been around lots of gun owners, and I know that most of them are very responsible with their guns and treat them with the respect that should be given to them. They are safe, sane and careful and if they want to have guns around, I'm totally cool with that. I'm not coming for everyone's guns and I don't think that everyone who wants to have one is a crazy gun nut.

That being said, I also think that there is a small subset of gun owners and wannabe gun owners who want guns because having one makes them feel like a badass who is going to mop the floor with any punk who tries to start something with them. And I think that the NRA and other organizations have prevented us from having a real conversation about guns because they cater to the people who want to play Dirty Harry and get them to believe that any attempt to regulate gun sales will prevent them from being able to defend themselves when the big bad attacker comes to get them while they claim to represent the large group of totally responsible owners.

So, yeah, I don't think that all or even many gun owners walk around fapping to Dirty Harry fantasies, but I do think that that fantasy is driving a lot of our discussion about gun policy in this country and that frustrates me. And no matter how silly that other guy might have been, when you try to compare mace and guns as if one is anywhere as lethal as the other or as if one is as revered/fetishized in our culture as the other is, you just make yourself sound sillier.

I can't for the life of me figure out what you're saying here. 'they' as in guns? If women treated their body the same as homeowners did their property i'd be dead 20x over by now, and i've never raped anybody.

http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...deaths/260189/

Specifics.

I was doing neither of these things. I was pointing out how silly an argument it would be to assume someone wants to be able to protect themselves = someone wants to be attacked.

I don't think you could find many gun owners who actively want to have their home broken into so they could have a chance to use their guns. Similarly, I don't think you could find any women who want to have someone try to sexually assault them so they could have a chance to use their mace.

As I've said, I don't follow the NRA at all. I've only been on their site to see what was involved in a self-defense/safety course, so I'm not familiar with when or where they engage in the above underlined portion. Maybe it's so synonymous with the group that it's taken for granted and I just don't know about that, but are there specific instances of this sort of thing?

they as in the perpetrator. i overuse pronouns. it makes my writing less clear. I'm working on that.

NO AINEC... I know that this is seems harsh, be we accept other far more risky behaviors without question. Behaviors that do not have the same value wrt security, that do not even come close to the same value in the economy.

Establishing mental fitness is a matter of regulation. "Well regulated" yadda yadda yadda.

I don't have a client number to bill it to, so I won't do the Westlaw research, but I'm certain courts have previously ruled that it is not a violation of an individual's constitutional rights to require an individual to pass certain tests of fitness in order to be able to do certain things, particularly those involve risks of life and/or limb to others.

My right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, for instance, does not outweigh society's right to establish my fitness to pilot a 727, prior to licensing me to be able to do so.

I want to know what types of weapons you think are reasonable to categorically ban personal ownership of, if any. As of this moment, it seems your answer is "none", but perhaps I'm mistaken. I'm trying to clarify. Is that so? And if not, what types of firearms do you think are unreasonable for a private citizen to own?

Whether or not someone considers an individual owning a .50 caliber machine gun and deploying it in his own home as a matter of "personal protection" to be perfectly reasonable, suggests a lot about how that person would respond with regard to any firearms-related legislation of any type.

That's not harsh, that's just bat **** insane. Can you elaborate what other behaviors you're talking about?

First level? yes

now if we want to talk about how to help the sort of psychotic that would commit such a heinous act then we can start a dialogue. if your gonna sit there and herp derp about zomg gunz... GTFO