Well, that sounds like arguing semantics to me. The issue is deaths and injuries from firearms.
It may be arguing semantics, but arguing semantics is very important when it comes to this issue. This is because of the image that is conjured up in the average person's mind when you use the term "gun violence". That image being one of people intentionally shooting other people for malicious reasons. So by lumping all deaths caused by firearms under the category of "gun violence" it makes the problem of criminal activity involving firearms (the image that makes people think we need more gun regulation) seem much worse than it actually is.
It also confuses more than just the gun issue. If you lump suicide-by-gun deaths into gun violence statistics in order to push for more gun regulation, you take attention away from the real issue of suicide prevention. Increased gun regulation isn't going to stop people from killing themselves. If someone wants to die, they are going to do it so we should be focusing on finding ways to make them not want to die rather than trying to limit the ways in which they can kill themselves.
We need to do more than wail and rend our garments after a bunch of children are murdered.
And no one really disagrees with that. All we disagree on is what should be done. Obviously I do not believe "take the guns" is the correct answer.
First of all, I notice you sidestepped the question of whether you personally consider the illegal immigration problem "a myth" or not, based on the "small and insignificant" number of homicides committed by illegals... which was my actual point. I think your avoidance of the question in favor of snark on a red herring like whether its a "gotcha", proves my point. Your cognitive dissonance prevented you from responding to the question.
There is no cognitive dissonance. You are ascribing a position to me that I, myself, have never advocated. You are operating under the assumption that I think illegal immigration is a major problem which is why you are trying to bring it up. I avoid the question because the question isn't relevant to the topic at hand and you are only asking the question to divert attention away from the point I'm making and trying to have a little "see you do it too!" gotcha moment.
So yeah, keep asking irrelevant questions and I'm going to keep ignoring them. If you'll notice, I've answered every relevant question you have asked. Keep up with being disingenuous though and I'm just going to ignore you altogether.
Why should anyone answer your questions when you don't answer the ones that are posed to you?
Again, because the questions I asked are actually relevant to the topic and not a disingenuous diversion to an irrelevant topic. Also, hobbs is a big boy and can speak for himself. He doesn't need you to hold his hand and protect him. Then again, maybe he does since he apparently can't answer the simple questions I posed.
Anyway, the purpose of those questions was to demonstrate that laws that do the things in those questions exist in at least one state, and all of those laws have, to some degree, taken guns out of people's hands in order to bring them into compliance with the law. Sure, there's never been anything dramatic like a SWAT team kicking in someone's door to confiscate their guns, but that doesn't mean people haven't had their guns taken away. For example, a lot of people in California had to sell their ARs or get rid of them in some other way because they were no longer legal to possess in the state due to certain banned features they had. Forcing someone to sell or get rid of their guns because they are no longer legal certainly counts as taking someone's gun away just as much as a SWAT team kicking in doors would. So the whole "no one is trying to take your guns" argument falls flat when, yes, you are trying to take my guns and have taken people's guns in the past. If you support a ban on semi-automatic rifles, then you are trying to take someone's guns. It doesn't matter if the law allows them to still buy a shotgun or bolt-action rifle to replace it, the fact that they have to give up one type of firearm they already own to replace it with a government-approved replacement still means guns were taken away.
That's the point I was trying to get across to hobbs. Plus, apparently hobbs didn't hear about the ban on semi-automatic rifles in Deerfield, Illinois in which violators would be fined $1000 per day of non-compliance and would eventually have law enforcement sent to their house to forcibly confiscate their guns if they remained in non-compliance for over 30 days. That ban was supposed to go into effect 2 months ago, but thankfully a judge put a hold on it until the legal challenges to it have been resolved. But still, it shows an attempt by an actual government to forcibly confiscate firearms from people without compensation. This isn't some random blogger or former judge calling for a repeal of the 2nd Amendment that ultimately will be ignored. This is the government of a town trying to confiscate legally-owned firearms from law-abiding citizens. So for hobbs to sit there and say no one wants to take our guns shows he is either woefully misinformed on the issue or is being intentionally dishonest.
I'll "protect" who I want and "hold hands" with whoever I want, thanks
