In light of the most recent gun control debate that has begun, I thought I’d share some of my own actual debate experiences.
Some of these debates are so predictably cliche that were it not for their paranoid stupidity, I would have probably yawned myself to sleep by now.
I tried as best I can to deliver these exchanges more or less verbatim.
Here we go:

Gun advocate: You’re not going to take my guns away - don’t even try!
Me: Do you understand the difference between regulating and prohibiting? Something about your hysterical inability to distinguish between these two terms reveals more about your fearful nature than you probably bargained for. And this, ironically, puts you in the aggressive and paranoid category of people who probably SHOULD have their guns taken from them.

Gun advocate: You can have my gun, right after you pry it out of my cold dead hands.
Me: (rolling my eyes) That’s interesting you’d say that because that gun of yours is much more likely to kill you than save your life, (or be stolen and used in a crime to kill someone else you care about). So be careful what you wish for.
Tragically, as it happens right now, most of the cold dead hands belong to little first graders.

Gun advocate: Guns don’t kill people. people kill people with guns.
Me: (rolling my eyes and sighing) Yes, and knives also don’t kill people - as we all saw in China when a madman attacked 22 children outside a school and no one died. People attack people all over the world - guns make the biggest difference between assault and murder.
Also, Innocent bystanders don’t get caught in the crossfire during knife fights; no one has ever been fatally struck by a knife or club ricochet; and there’s no such thing as a drive by stabbing. And no - no knife or club or broken bottle wielding psycho has ever managed to kill 26 people in a few short minutes. It is indeed people who kill people - there are just way - WAY - more of them who do it with guns rather than with any other weapon.

Gun advocate: Why are you trying to throw away my right to self defense?
Me: I’m not. And I can respect the fact that you THINK you’re protecting yourself. It’s just that it’s long been proven that any given gun has a much - MUCH - higher chance of being involved in a wrongful shooting rather than in a rightful act of self defense. It is, in fact, YOU who is at this very moment throwing away MY right to pursue happiness and safety by contributing to this country’s leading cause of murder. 10,000 people are killed in gun related crimes every year to perpetuate the myth of the right to self defense. Owning guns in order to protect yourself from other people’s guns is like trying to cure a hangover with more booze; except the booze is actually a semi automatic assault rifle.

Gun advocate: Cars also kill many people. Why not ban cars?
Me: (sighing) Did I say anything about banning guns? I’m talking about REGULATING them. And thank you for the car analogy, because my point is that in the same way we regulate car ownership, and license the right to drive them, we should regulate and license people’s right to own and use guns.
Also, you might want to consider that a vehicle is intended and designed for transporting people and goods. many people die in vehicular accidents in the same way swimming pools and electric sockets also accidentally kill many people. The difference is that a gun is solely intended and designed for the purpose of killing human beings. And high capacity assault rifles are designed to kill many human beings - as is evident in too many recent mass shootings. So let’s indeed regulate guns in the same way we regulate cars.

Gun advocate: The US is a dangerous place. All you can do is have the tools to protect yourself.
Me: The US actually has a much lower violence rate than many other countries, like England and the Czech Republic. The difference is that when crime occurs in those countries, people don’t usually die. The US, on the other hand, has 88 guns for every 100 people - the highest rate on the planet by far. So while the number of violent crimes is lower here, these crimes much more often result in death because of the involvement of guns.

Gun advocate: The blood of those children hasn’t even dried yet and you’re already politicizing this whole thing.
Me: Well the blood in Oakland, Texas, Oklahoma, Milwaukee, Aurora, Portland and the other ten mass shooting sits this year has long dried. And the only politicizing I’m trying to do is stop more children and innocent people from getting shot.

Gun advocate: If you take guns away from law abiding citizens, only the criminals will have them.
Me: That certainly sounds like a logical argument - right until you give it a moments thought and look at some evidence. Australia got very strict with its gun regulation after the 1996 massacre there. And since then, there’s been a 50% reduction in homicides. Even the suicide rate has gone down there, believe it or not. Pretty much the same can be seen in New York City in recent years with a steep decline in gun violence after that city too got strict on guns. The evidence is pretty clear - less guns, less people getting killed.

Gun advocate: The real problem here isn’t guns, it’s all those violent movies and video games that have desensitized so many people, and that have created so much violence in our society.
Me: Let’s overlook, for a moment, the fact that no study in the last 40 years has conclusively backed up that claim. Let’s just for argument’s sake grant this claim the assumption of truth. Still, you can find every one of the violent movies and video games we have in this country in every other country as well. And yet, we do not find the same murder rates in these other countries since it is much more difficult for people to get their hands on guns. This only proves my point, as it shows that violent movies and video games are ubiquitous, and therefore cannot be the deciding factor that distinguishes between this country’s high murder rate and other countries’ lower rates.

Gun advocate: If more people had guns, it would be safer because teachers in that school or people in that theater could have returned fire.
Me: (shaking my head) Do you understand that it isn’t only that particular school or theater that will have guns - it is every one of the hundreds of thousands of schools and theaters and colleges and malls and temples and restaurants that you are saying should have people with guns in them. Do you honestly think that a preposterous idea like that would result in LESS deaths in a given year? If so, why not double down on it and allow law abiding people to own heavy machine guns and rocket propelled grenades? In fact, why stop there? Why not allow people to own tanks and helicopter gunships? Shouldn’t that make us that much safer?

Gun advocate: Guns aren’t the problem. It’s a mental health issue. Adam Lanza didn’t even own those guns; he stole them from his mother before he killed her. Making more regulations for responsible sane people will do nothing.
Me: Well, since it doesn’t seem very likely that we’re going fix everyone's mental health issues in this country, maybe it’s better if there are simply less guns around for mentally disturbed people to take advantage of. Nancy Lanza didn't have any mental health problems; and yet, would it have been better or worse if she never collected all those guns? This, once again, shows you just how much more likely it is for a gun to be misused for a crime rather than used properly for self defense. There are people with mental health issues all over the world. The difference in this country is how easily they can get their hands on a gun - either by purchasing it themselves or by stealing it from any number of friends or relatives who own guns.

Gun advocate: I still think that if one of those teachers was armed, they could have ended it before it even started.
Me: Let me see if I got this straight, you’re trying to say that more teachers need to be armed in order to shoot attackers who might have very well stolen the weapons of other gun owning teachers. Yup, that sounds about right...

Gun advocate: The second amendment enshrines my right to bare arms. This isn’t a law, it’s a right, and you can’t take it away.
Me: The constitution was written at a time when the only guns people had were muzzle-loaded muskets. You might also want to consider that at the time of writing, people had a right to own other people, and women DIDN’T have the right to vote. It took many decades for the 13th amendment to take away people’s right to own other people and for the 19th amendment to give women the right to vote. Times change and so do rights. The 18th amendment took away your right to produce, sell or drink alcohol, and the 21st amendment brought it back - times change and so do amendments. This is a natural thing - dare I say, an American thing to do. It really isn’t beyond our logical, not to mention legal, capacity to reevaluate and change laws and rights when need be.

Gun advocate: Banning assault rifles is stupid. The constitution gives me the right to bare arms, and assault rifles are arms that are protected by the constitution.
Me: In that case, so are heavy machine guns, landmines, rocket propelled grenades, tanks, helicopter gunships and nuclear bombs. Are we going to allow everyone to own these too? Or maybe - just maybe - we should use our logical thinking brains to come up with something ever so slightly less insane.
(Believe it or not, I actually have had gun advocates reply that they think it WOULD be a good idea to allow people to own the above mentioned weapons for the purpose of preserving peace and liberty)

Gun advocate: An unarmed populace is a vulnerable one - it is a population that pretty much invites foreign powers to invade it. One of the most deterring things about the US for invading foreign enemies is the knowledge that so many people here are armed and ready to defend their homeland.
Me: (holding back visible signs of laughter) So you’re telling me that a foreign military that is strong enough to defeat the the biggest and most powerful military on the planet by far, is going to think twice and be deterred by your Glock-19 and AR-15. How cute...
In the meanwhile 10,000 people have to die every year in order to maintain this fantasy as well.

Gun advocate: Look, I’m a military vet and I know very well how to take care of weapons, how to store them, how to operate them safely, and I try to teach my family that these are not toys and that they should not be misused. Why should I have my right to bare arms taken away from me? The problem isn’t guns, it’s irresponsible, untrained, people misusing them.
Me: It sounds like you are exactly the type of person who probably SHOULD be allowed to own a weapon. My problem isn’t with you, it’s with all the people who aren’t like you. Why should all those irresponsible, untrained, and imbalanced people be on the same level as you? Why not regulate this to make sure that only good and responsible people like yourself can legally own weapons? I would think that you of all people would welcome such a thing. Let’s by all means make sure that no one can get access to these destructive tools unless they are trained responsible individuals. Let’s by all means distinguish between the people who should and shouldn’t get their hands on guns, and make sure that only people like you are licensed to own them.

Gun advocate: Look at places like Israel. Look at how much safer their schools and streets are because so many people are armed there. If more people were armed here, violent attackers wouldn't feel so free to come into our “gun free zones” knowing no one can stop them.
Me: (knowing a thing or two about Israel; having been born and raised there) Israel is actually a good example of a country where citizens DON’T have a right to bare arms. Every single legally armed person in Israel is licensed - be it military, law enforcement, government, or private citizen. If a citizen wants to own a gun, he/she needs to apply for a license. The citizen then needs to prove that he/she actually needs a deadly weapon in order to protect themselves, and have a police or government official vouch for them before they can qualify to get themselves trained on the weapon. Then - and only then - you might be granted a license for a gun - as in ONE handgun. Would that we could have such strict laws in place here too. We would indeed be much safer.

Gun advocate: You just don’t understand anything about guns and how they work, and this is why you’re so frightened of them.
Me: You’re quite correct about me being frightened of guns, but it’s precisely BECAUSE I know so much about them and about their capabilities that I’m so afraid of them. I actually served in the military (in Israel) and had my very own assault rifle which I carried day and night for three years. I have also been in combat situations and have seen some of the deadly results of using weapons. Perhaps if you had this type of experience, you too would be less enthusiastic and a bit more scared about enabling every Tom, Dick and Harry to own deadly weapons, and about selling such things in sporting goods stores.

Gun advocate: Don’t you think that protecting yourself and your family is important enough? By the time the police arrives it’s usually too late. You’re just choosing to make victims out of you and your family.
Me: Once again, if you look at the statistics, you’ll realize that your gun is many many times more likely to hurt your family than protect it. I know how counter intuitive it sounds - that you’re safer without a gun rather than with one, and I realize it goes against your protective instincts. It goes against mine as well. But if you truly want to be responsible and do what’s best for your family (to say nothing of other families), you should follow the evidence rather than resort to paranoid knee jerk reactions, that ironically defeat their purpose by putting you and your family in more risk rather than less. You need to force your beliefs to conform to the evidence of reality, rather than the other way around.

And so it continues...


http://www.examiner.com/article/replies-to-gun-advocates

Don't forget that Obummer is all with the UN on the small arms treaty.

the UN, Im pretty sure, isnt committing the mass murders in america,,,,

perhaps another thread can be started on the topic of the UN

I believe there's a word for people who think they need pseudo assault
rifles, and multiple large capacity magazines, to "protect
their families".

Maybe they aren't committing mass murder but their agenda is to commit mass genocide.

There is... One of the many used is Patriots!

http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/cgc-criminals-for-gun-control-t5293.html

You bring up one very valid point in there. That is that yes, the Constitution is a living document that can change, but that isn't what is trying to be done here. No one is proposing a new amendment to remove my right to keep and bear arms. The reason is very simple, it actually requires not only a passage by a 3/4 vote of Congress, but also by 3/4 of the voting populace. What is being debated now in the halls of Congress, is actually in violation of the "Congress shall pass no laws" section of the amendment.

Now, I know you don't like the idea of an armed populace, but your previous argument that the citizenry is not intelligent enough or trained enough to own these weapons is a moot point. Legally, we should have the right to pass guns out at the local insane asylum if we so choose, but we've allowed for regulations to say that we shouldn't. We've also allowed for regulations that say we shouldn't have fully automatic weapons - one used to be able to get a Thompson sub-machine gun out of the Sears catalog, they used to be advertised as great ways to rid your farms of coyotes. While I think it would be cool to be able to have one of those, they were inaccurate enough that I understand why we don't, and really, I don't need a fully auto weapon to defend my home from foreign or domestic threats.

I do think that is sufficient though. According to the crime statistics to which you like to refer, you are five times more likely to get killed with a baseball bat than with a gun. You are using only crime statistics to base your argument, so I think its fair to say that guns aren't the problem in violent crime. Want another statistic? Here's one 45% of all weapons purchased in the United States have never been fired. They sit in nice safes or closets and will remain there.

The problem here is that you are wanting to take away the rights of law abiding citizens because of the actions of only a few people acting outside of the law. What you have forgotten is that the rights of a free society are not given, but a price must be paid for them, and that price is always paid in blood. Sometimes it comes while defending it from an aggressor, sometimes it comes while defending it from a tyrant, and other times it comes when defending it from ourselves. That is the cost of a free society, the more freedoms one has, the less security. And when you are willing to trade freedom for security, you will end up with neither. I for one am tired of trading my rights for a police state, and it is becoming one that even Stalin or Hitler would be jealous. You mistakenly believe that everyone has the right to "feel" safe. Well, no you don't, and you shouldn't. Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. That means you should be on your guard and worried that one day they'll take it from you.

The same people preaching gun bans for the actions of a few, want to bomb a country or two for the same reason!

Guess peace through superior firepower is only ok in the hands of a gov't that can't fix anything, and accepts women and children as collateral damage, and acceptable, in "defense" of their own.

I simply can't see the logic of promoting on one hand what you are protesting on the other...

The lunatics control the asylum!

oblama is the only president to hold a seat on the UN council while president....

Which is serving 2 masters.... and if I remember correctly is labled treason within the text of the constitution.

Amen to that.

The question was:

Do you understand the difference between regulating and prohibiting?

The answer is:

Yes, regulating comes first. It is the inch that you give them before they take the mile.

As for the rest of the O.P.

What a crock of propaganda.

I must admit, this is well stated and deserves recognition

please enlighten me where the constitution requires a 3/4 vote from the people,,,,,,

I dont think the constitution mentions the UN at all, let alone in a definition of treason,,,,

but most likely a POTUS who usurps the US Constitution in Favor of some "World-Body" is definitely committing Treason

It requires a 2/3 vote from both houses of congress to modify an amendment and 3/4 vote of state legislatures. You can google it.

that's a provision I'd like to see here,in addition to what we have already!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum#Switzerland