I never said you advocated preying on others. I said you stated that the lives of thieves don't matter- which you did not qualify (let me know if you need an explanation of what that means), and then followed that up with basically saying that you agree with my statement, "I value life and you don't." And then stated, "There isn't a shortage of people, and there's nothing intrinsically valuable about people." I value the lives of people, period. For those that prey on others, they deserve to be punished. They do not deserve to die. If you feel the latter, then you would by definition have to agree that those who embezzle, cheat on their taxes, steal cable services for free, steal a radio from your car, etc. all deserve to die- they are all predators in their own way and fit directly under your definition. If someone steals my car radio, am I going to be pissed? Hell yes. If I catch them, I'm probably going to tackle them and deck them. But am I going to shoot them? No- and there's one very simple reason why- I'm not a psychopath. The problem is that you do not have the mental capacity at this point to think through your statements. When you advocate extreme behavior, this is the risk you run. When you say thieves and predators deserve to DIE, you have to include everyone in that category, including all those I mentioned above. I have a sneaking suspicion that you would singing a different tune if asked whether or not Madoff should be executed.
Also, I know it's probably over your head, but saying that there's no intrinsic value to human life isn't the same as saying that there is no value to any human life. If you think you can make a case otherwise, by all means, go for it.
We are not talking about armed home invasions here. We are talking about 1) A crazy lady that decided to open fire in a packed parking lot with cars & people at a fleeing shoplifter.... Hell, it's not even her property that the thief stole.. 2) A crazy dude that caught a guy stealing his car radio & decided to grab a knife from his apartment and chase down the thief for a block and stabbed him to death.
Shoplifting from Home Depot is not deserving of the death penalty even with a trial. It's certainly not worth some bystander firing in a parking lot at the supposed perp. If my car was damaged because some idiot did this, I'd go after her in court. If a family member was endangered because they were in the parking lot when the idiot opened fire, I'd sue and confront her personally. This is pure idiocy
The action is the most meaningful thing to regulate, not the least (second most meaningful is the caliber/ammunition). That is kind of the point. They are defining assault weapons not on how the gun functions, but on meaningless distinctions like whether or not the gun has a pistol grip. The assault weapons ban (and some state laws based on it that are still on the books) mean that this is illegal: but this is not: Both shoot the same rounds, have magazines of the same capacity, etc. The big difference in their legality is that one has a pistol grip, while on the other the grip is integral to the stock. That is why the assault weapons ban is ridiculous.
I can understand that. The assault weapons ban was one of those "feel good" moves that are made after a mass shooting or whatever to make people feel like they did something. My disagreement with you was that an M4/AR-15 like you have pictured in the top photo is one of the main weapons used by military in the US and across the globe. It's one of those weapons that was targeted by the assault weapons ban. Anyway, it was just a minor disagreement with one line of something you said. I do agree with you on the larger point that laws like the assault weapon ban are ridiculous but at this point I'm not worried about one since I own all of the AR-15's and assault rifles I'd ever need in my life already and I don't go to public shooting ranges since I have my own.
Most gun violence is done with 100 dollar .380. If you want to do something about gun violence, ban any gun you can stuff into your pocket. The ban on assault rifles was and is stupid.
