[Trayderjoe]

There have been some great posts, some drifting off of the original topic, which I would attribute to my corollary.

Ultimately the bottom line, in my opinion, is that people are not being held accountable for their decisions. There are many examples which would take this discussion way off topic, but if we did a root cause analysis, we might find a commonality that points to personal accountability. Is this a contributory cause or a root cause? I suppose that is another debate.

Back to my original post. A woman was killed, one of approximately 29 that day due to alcohol related driving, yet we hear nothing because it is not sensational enough. Is there another reason the media, the pundits, or the Screen Actors Guild is not speaking up? And if not, how sad is that?

[Polar Bear]

Originally Posted by Trayderjoe

So, because of the proposal by myself or Kenswing that cars can be used as weapons just like guns, you would chose to not to be a potential advocate for improvements for reducing/eliminating driving under the influence? Or am I reading something wrong here?

Yes, you are reading something wrong in what I've said in my previous replies...

First off, I am very much in favor of the improvements you suggest. Absolutely.

However, the statements "cars can be used as weapons" and "cars are as much a weapon as guns" are two totally different statements. I agree with the first. I would never agree with the second. And personally I think your cause suffers when you try to equate the two.

[Trayderjoe]

Originally Posted by Polar Bear

You make some good points, and then you blow it with a statement like that.

So anything, such as a <fill in with absolutely any item on the face of the planet> is as much a weapon as a gun because it can accidentally or when used by an evil person kill somebody.

Yeah. Right.

Originally Posted by Polar Bear

Yes, you are reading something wrong in what I've said in my previous replies...

First off, I am very much in favor of the improvements you suggest. Absolutely.

However, the statements "cars can be used as weapons" and "cars are as much a weapon as guns" are two totally different statements. I agree with the first. I would never agree with the second. And personally I think your cause suffers when you try to equate the two.

Thanks for your reply, however we are going to have to agree to disagree. The statements are separate, but no less true statements. I go back to your post (highlighted in bold red) where you speak to an evil person using something to kill. In that case, it is the weapon of choice by the perpetrator of that crime to kill/harm all of those people. We don't know why they chose to use a motor vehicle, but regardless, they chose to drive that vehicle into a group of people with the sole purpose of killing people. By definition alone the vehicle is a weapon and as such, is as much a weapon as a gun.

[billethkid]

Originally Posted by Trayderjoe

There have been some great posts, some drifting off of the original topic, which I would attribute to my corollary.

Ultimately the bottom line, in my opinion, is that people are not being held accountable for their decisions. There are many examples which would take this discussion way off topic, but if we did a root cause analysis, we might find a commonality that points to personal accountability. Is this a contributory cause or a root cause? I suppose that is another debate.

Back to my original post. A woman was killed, one of approximately 29 that day due to alcohol related driving, yet we hear nothing because it is not sensational enough. Is there another reason the media, the pundits, or the Screen Actors Guild is not speaking up? And if not, how sad is that?

Very simple!!!
Because there is no personal gain for them.
And it is insignificant to their political/special interest/minority/lobbyist agenda.

[Trayderjoe]

Originally Posted by billethkid

Very simple!!!
Because there is no personal gain for them.
And it is insignificant to their political/special interest/minority/lobbyist agenda.

Thanks, i couldn't agree more.

[Polar Bear]

Originally Posted by Trayderjoe

...By definition alone the vehicle is a weapon and as such, is as much a weapon as a gun.

The gun is designed to shoot things. It is used for nothing else. The automobile is used for...naaahhh...I'm not going to complete saying something that is so patently obvious.

By the way, I noticed your avatar. You know dogs kill a lot of people. And yet you display those weapons as though they're just some innocent objects.

[Trayderjoe]

Originally Posted by Polar Bear

The gun is designed to shoot things. It is used for nothing else. The automobile is used for...naaahhh...I'm not going to complete saying something that is so patently obvious.

By the way, I noticed your avatar. You know dogs kill a lot of people. And yet you display those weapons as though they're just some innocent objects.

Thank you for once again making my point for me. Yes dogs can and have killed people, and when they are used by people to kill or hurt someone, at that point they would be considered weapons. As to my two little guys, they might think that they are larger breeds at times, but unless someone has an absolute fear of dogs, I find it hard to believe that either of my dogs would strike fear in the heart of a perpetrator.

Please show me where I even alluded to guns not being designed to shoot, or that cars were designed to kill?

Yes guns shoot and cars do not. Your position appears to be that the design/intent of the object is the basis for whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. Is this correct? Please tell me when and where an honest, law abiding citizen has taken a gun and randomly shot someone?

Or is your position that the presence of guns makes it easier for the "evil" person to obtain them? If that is the case, then please explain:

1) The use of vehicles to kill more than 1 or 2 people at a single time (note that there were two separate examples already provided in earlier posts). Why didn't the perpetrators of those crimes grab assault rifles and use them instead? Perhaps they thought that the criminal penalties would be less since they didn't use a gun?

2) Chicago, which has very strict gun laws, still has over 500 gun related homicides a year. I am sure that if every gun, or even a narrow majority of the guns used by the bad guys were obtained legally, that would be part of the headlines. Oh and by the way, the vast majority of those killings involve a handgun, not a rifle.

I will again return to the original topic of this string which has to do with driving under the influence. Why do you continue to refuse to accept that when a car is being driven by someone who is intoxicated and not able to drive the vehicle in a safe, law abiding manner, that they are in possession of a potential weapon? Once they hurt/kill someone, by definition the car was the weapon used, or is Merriam-Webster wrong in regards to the definition of a weapon? Remember that the offender in this case not only was speeding, but also DUI, and driving under a suspended license. This person would appear to be in callous disregard not only of the driving laws, but of the lives of other people on the road. Please explain how his motor vehicle was not a weapon.

How can you continue to argue that something involved in 29 deaths per day is not a potential weapon? My point is you can't.

Why is this not being addressed in as rabid a manner as the anti-gun campaign? Are the lives of people killed by drunk drivers less worthy than those killed by a gun?

Automobiles are a way of life so they get a "pass". No enforceable regulations or safety devices to prevent criminals from repeatedly drinking and driving. Cars get a "pass" because if Joe Smith had to blow in a breathalyzer each time he went to turn on the ignition, well that would be inconvenient and add to the costs of the car purchase. Perhaps if instead of a slap on the wrist, a drunk driver spent a significant amount of time in jail, including a life sentence when they take a life, things will change. If only the anti-drunk driving campaign had as rabid a base as the anti-gun campaign, perhaps we would see changes. Maybe if there was the same type of regulations for drinking and driving that there were for owning a gun, that might make a difference as well-or not. There will still be people who don't follow the law, be it a gun law or drinking and driving. In either case, when they are not obeying the laws, we are talking about criminals, not law abiding citizens.

[GoodLife]

Originally Posted by Polar Bear

The gun is designed to shoot things. It is used for nothing else. The automobile is used for...naaahhh...I'm not going to complete saying something that is so patently obvious.

You are fixated on guns as murder weapons. What do you think people used to kill each other before guns existed? Do you think murder rates were lower before guns were available to the masses?? Tricky question to answer because you need a country that kept murder stats pre gun and post gun.

One such country is England.

Professor Stone has estimated that the homicide rate in medieval England was on average 10 times that of 20th century England. A study of the university town of Oxford in the 1340's showed an extraordinarily high annual rate of about 110 per 100,000 people. Studies of London in the first half of the 14th century determined a homicide rate of 36 to 52 per 100,000 people per year.

By contrast, the 1993 homicide rate in New York City was 25.9 per 100,000. The 1992 national homicide rate for the United States was 9.3 per 100,000.



After examining coroners' inquests, Barbara A. Hannawalt, a professor of medieval English history at the University of Minnesota, concluded that most slayings in medieval England started as quarrels among farmers in the field. "They were grubbing for existence," she said. Insults to honor were taken seriously, and violence was the accepted method of settling disputes, since the king's courts were slow, expensive and corrupt.

The knife and the quarterstaff, the heavy wooden stick commonly carried for herding animals and walking on the muddy roads, were the weapons of choice. "Everyone carried a knife, even women," she said, since "if you sat down somewhere to eat, you were expected to bring your own." Given the lack of sanitation at the time, even simple knife wounds could prove deadly.

Historical Study of Homicide and Cities Surprises the Experts - NYTimes.com

I am sure there was a "great uproar" against knifes and quaterstaffs back in the day!

And round and round we go

[billethkid]

I think it was an Alfred Hitchcock episode where a woman killed somebody by beating them with a frozen leg of lamb......then served it for dinner that evening!!!

The discussion of what is OR what can be a weapon really has only one conclusion....some devices were designed and built to be a weapon everything else can be.

Now we have an accidental shooting in a school.

Alabama: 1 dead, another student hurt in school shooting

[ColdNoMore]

And the rabid, gun-obsessed crowd continues to strain credulity and expose their desperation...with inane comparisons.

If meaningful and reasonable regulations couldn't be passed after the slaughter of FIRST-GRADERS at Sandy Hook...what have we come to?

I mean cripes, even after Las Vegas and the overwhelming support from the public of banning bump stocks...it still HASN'T come to pass.

Why is that?

[graciegirl]

Originally Posted by ColdNoMore

And the rabid, gun-obsessed crowd continues to strain credulity and expose their desperation...with inane comparisons.

If meaningful and reasonable regulations couldn't be passed after the slaughter of FIRST-GRADERS at Sandy Hook...what have we come to?

I mean cripes, even after Las Vegas and the overwhelming support from the public of banning bump stocks...it still HASN'T come to pass.

Why is that?

Because new laws would only affect law abiding citizens.
Because new laws would only affect law abiding citizens.
Because new laws would only affect law abiding citizens.

You cannot legislate morality.

[billethkid]

Originally Posted by ColdNoMore

And the rabid, gun-obsessed crowd continues to strain credulity and expose their desperation...with inane comparisons.

If meaningful and reasonable regulations couldn't be passed after the slaughter of FIRST-GRADERS at Sandy Hook...what have we come to?

I mean cripes, even after Las Vegas and the overwhelming support from the public of banning bump stocks...it still HASN'T come to pass.

Why is that?

Politics!!!!!!!!!

Lobbyists + special interest groups + minority groups =
RE-ELECTION.

Condoned and allowed by we the people, as evidenced by the nothing happening since any of the mass shooting ferver goes away.
Very consistently!!!

[ColdNoMore]

Originally Posted by graciegirl

Because new laws would only affect law abiding citizens.
Because new laws would only affect law abiding citizens.
Because new laws would only affect law abiding citizens.

You cannot legislate morality.

So let's do nothing.
So let's do nothing.
So let's do nothing.


Since legislation is ineffective...why have ANY laws?