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That's true, most I've talked to don't know the difference. And they don't care what the difference is. They think of it in terms of dead kindergartners, regardless of how fast the rate of fire is.
All I'm saying is it's a waste of time to explain the difference between semi and full auto. It's irrelevant to their beliefs. It's only relevant to OUR beliefs.
To reach a common ground in these discussions, I think we should drop all the technical aspects of firearms. It really doesn't matter.
This is the template that I typically use, and it seems to work well for me:
1. "Why do you want to add more gun laws? Is it to save lives, or you just don't like guns? Either answer is fine." If they answer "I don't like guns", I cut bait. No common ground. If it's "to save lives" or "both", there's enough common ground to continue.
2. "Great, I want to save lives too! We've all heard the phrase "guns don't kill people, people kill people". You'll probably be pleased to know I don't agree with that phrase. I think it should be "guns don't kill people, people with guns or other weapons kill people". Do you agree?" If they agree, then it shows they can be reasonable. If they focus on guns only, usually they're not rational enough to continue, so I'll cut bait there.
3. "Sounds like we're on the same page here then. So we know there are evil people in this world that pick guns to create tragedies. How does adding more gun laws stop evil people from choosing other ways to cause tragedies, like driving cars into crowds of people or bombings like we see all over Europe?" From there, we can go into why more gun laws don't address the root problem. If they say "it's a start" or some such, we can go back to when we agreed that we want to save lives, and a life lost to gunfire is no different than a life lost to an explosion or vehicular manslaughter.
And if they throw a bunch of bad statistics or news articles in the discussion, I ignore them with "we could trade stats or news articles all day. Let's get to the root cause." They can't copy/paste articles that way, since they have to explain things for themselves. Once they do, they start to realize how all those Huffington Post and Mother Jones articles don't really hold water.
What has worked with you guys to reach a common ground? I know, most times it's a total fail, but what about when it wasn't?
For me, common ground is usually only reachable when the matter is discussed in person, with friends or family members.
Anti gun types on on internet forums are usually ideologues who's minds are made up on the subject, regardless of their misconceptions.
But whether you reach common ground or not, you still have to boil the argument down to what I consider the final point.
Instead of debating the technical aspects or how "reasonable" whatever restrictions they are advocating, get to the crux of the biscuit....
"At what point will you be happy with the limitations that you want to place on law abiding citizens from excercizing their 2nd amendment rights?"
Where exactly is the line in the sand that they think should never be crossed? When will enough be enough, regardless of whatever media induced hype is placed on whatever the next mass shooting or whatever it is that sparks their jihad on the constitutional rights of those who have not committed any crime?
Find that out, and you'll know if you're wasting your breath or not.
For me, common ground is usually only reachable when the matter is discussed in person, with friends or family members.
Anti gun types on on internet forums are usually ideologues who's minds are made up on the subject, regardless of their misconceptions.
But whether you reach common ground or not, you still have to boil the argument down to what I consider the final point.
Instead of debating the technical aspects or how "reasonable" whatever restrictions they are advocating, get to the crux of the biscuit....
"At what point will you be happy with the limitations that you want to place on law abiding citizens from excercizing their 2nd amendment rights?"
Where exactly is the line in the sand that they think should never be crossed? When will enough be enough, regardless of whatever media induced hype is placed on whatever the next mass shooting or whatever it is that sparks their jihad on the constitutional rights of those who have not committed any crime?
Find that out, and you'll know if you're wasting your breath or not.
That's another good one. Either way, you're checking to see if they're capable of independent thought, or if they're getting worked up over something they've never looked at with a critical eye.
Why do you have to lie, to distort, to take things out of context? It totally discredits you. Fact is, the Democratic senator was talking about assault weapons, which indeed SHOULD be banned? Try telling the truth fora change. Oh! That's right! You wouldn't have an argument were truth deployed.
I think all guns, every gun should be outlawed. That's my belief, but I'm at least honest about it. Why do gun owners need an external penis in the form of a gun? Lacking in the manhood department?
When people break into your home and threaten the lives of your children, good luck beating them to death with your penis.
When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
I have yet to hear an example of a "common sense" restriction from the Left. Ask any gun hater for an example and they will stare at you like the proverbial deer in the headlights.
Not according to the anti-gunners. They blame guns for suicides.
Most often they are liberals who aren't collectively known for rational debate or thinking on some matters, including guns. Emotion rules their thought process.
Welp, I gave the anti-gunners an entire day. Thought maybe it would give you enough time to look it up, but you all didn't even do that. I can only conclude from this that none of you all have a clue which one of those rifles that I posted images of was an assault rifle.
Too bad, the answer was really, really easy. REALLY easy.
Nonetheless, if you cannot figure out which one of those scary looking guns (zomg!!) is an assault weapon, then maybe you shouldn't be voting on bans. You're trying to ban things that you don't even know a thing about. When you can identify an assault rifle, and explain WHY it's an assault rifle, (the answer is not: "because it's black and scary looking"), then we can talk. Until then, I will continue to tune out every anti-gunner who thinks they have a point.
Which one of these is the assault rifle that you want to ban?
How about in this image, which one is it?
And this one? Choose the gun that is the assault weapon that you want to ban? (Hint: It could be more than one.)
Pro gun people: Do not answer.
.............crickets
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