bikeryder85

@Sscottt: to your points...Yes gun-culture is over the top here (but so is most marketed culture, including bike culture)...I can agree with the facts of the data from Europe, and appreciate your view, but that is still an apples-oranges argument, and doesn't address the liberty/law balance act that we try to play here. My replies were to simply offer a counter-argument to the anti-gun radicalism that loves to build a straw-man out of guns/gun owners while failing to look at the failure to enforce current law in favor of banning civil liberty. Again, the discussion should be had...but that should lead to compromise...on BOTH sides. But enough of that, I will gladly bow out and get to bikes :)

@gnarlysipes: this...i wish we lived in a world where that was a possible solution...but I see the world for what it is.

@Obidog: you're right, there is no quick fix. But I'm against taking away people's freedoms. The conversation does need to be had, and I'm not saying that gun control can't be made better. But outlawing them is not the answer. If you outlaw guns in a nation like ours then only gangs and criminals will have them. There are plenty of cities that have outlawed them, to very poor results. My argument isn't that everybody should have guns, my argument is that there needs to be a discussion, not shoving a gun-free Utopia on to those who disagree. You guys can download me all you want, but I promise you guns will not be the last thing that people will come for.

@Kainerm: my guess is you've never been in a situation that has required it, we live in a country that is not an island and one of the bordering Nations is a lawless gang-controlled Badland. So yes, it is required in a lot of places to defend yourself properly. To think that the criminals don't have guns is naive.

@Nokin: as a former police officer, that is false. Yes there are dangers to differing situations, but that is NOT how things are done. Guns are not the issue, insane people and a corrupt justice system is. Mental health and the degradation of the family system is the most prominent issue, but since it doesn't #fitthenarrative you never hear about it. There is an insane about of violence in the country, and guns are just a small part of it. Handwaving the issue and blaming the only means of a sane person to protect themselves from those who would do them harm doesn't help the issue. Removing the freedom from all just because of a few bad actors is the same faulty logic that the Sierra Club used to keep us off trails....and can be used to take anything from us.

@dgwww: came here to say this

@thenotoriousmic: stop with all the logic....modern man cannot handle the truth....

All of these writers/philosophers who are pushing this form of "altruism" are deeply flawed, whether they realize it or not. The system they buy into depends solely on some obscure source to their good deeds, which in the end, are selfish and not good at all. When you ask for the money/power to go to the already rich and powerful for the "good of humanity", then who are you really serving? We are all deeply flawed humans, so what makes one idea better than the other? If the author is a secular humanist (as most of these types are), then "might makes right"...and that is a truly terrifying foundation. What we the readers need to ask these "moralists" is not what they think we should do, but what is their foundation for that belief. By what standard do they hold to those ideas, and do they hold up, with consistency, in their own moral economic system. I would argue that most, in fact, do not.

:levy

@brianpark: levy