• @RaoulDook
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      21 year ago

      They are useful for defending a medium sized area, versus pistols which are useful only for defending a small area. They are simply more effective defense machines.

        • @RaoulDook
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          01 year ago

          I explained it well enough already. But since you want to be pedantic about it, defense would be using the rifle to eliminate threats to your life or the lives of others.

            • @RaoulDook
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              11 year ago

              We are all doing fine as for me and mine, so you have no need to worry about us. The overall society is something I have zero control or influence over, so it’s basically none of my concern.

              You seem to be looking at the big picture like you’re meditating on it from Cloud 9 and imagining the way things could be if you had the powers of a magical genie to reform everything into a peaceful Zen tranquility. That’s simply not reality, it’s wishful thinking.

        • @RaoulDook
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          11 year ago

          I explained it well enough already. But since you want to be pedantic about it, defense would be using the rifle to eliminate threats to your life or the lives of others.

    • @SupraMario
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      11 year ago

      Target shooting? Pretty sure more ammo is spent putting holes in paper every day than ammo spent trying to kill someone. So yea…common use says, target practice.

      • @[email protected]
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        21 year ago

        more ammo is spent putting holes in paper every day than ammo spent trying to kill someone

        That’s probably true, but what percentage of that shooting range ammo is used in preparation for shooting people (whether offensively or defensively)?

        • @[email protected]
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          1 year ago

          Hold on I did some similar math to this the other day…

          How many gun owners become mass shooters? Lets see, 333,287,557 people, 50% (generous, it isn’t quite 50 but for easy math) ownership for 166,643,778.5 people owning guns, and I’ll be generous and include gang shootings (because I know the number) at 547 for the year, turns out, 547 is 0.00032824507756826% of 166643778.5, meaning 0.00032824507756826% of gun owners are likely to pull off a mass shooting in any given year.

          S’not exactly what you asked but we have almost no way to ever figure out the answer you seek. We’d need to know how many range trips they make and count their ammo off video surveillance, assuming we can get the angle, and they never shot off camera on private land or something. Or look at their ammo purchases, find a roundcount from their shooting, find out what’s at home, and the difference is the estimation. That stuff just isn’t tracked like that.

          • Flying Squid
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            01 year ago

            How many drunk drivers end up killing people? Considering how often I see the parking lots of bars full, I’d say the vast, vast majority don’t. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make drunk driving illegal.

            I don’t think guns should be illegal, but that’s not a good argument.

            • @[email protected]
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              1 year ago

              Your making this into an argument about what the legal status of guns should be, and that is a good and separate argument to have, but the entire point of my original comment was just pointing that the article’s use of the words “sole purpose” is opinionated and inflamatory (and objectively wrong). “Sole” means “one and only” and so that’s obviously ludicrous given that the vast majority of gun owners aren’t using them for their supposed “sole purpose”.

            • @[email protected]
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              31 year ago

              Of course, murder is illegal, I wasn’t suggesting we legalize it. I’m saying we don’t need to ban alcohol simply because some people drive drunk, and we don’t need to ban guns because .0003% of people who have them “mass shoot.”

              • Flying Squid
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                -21 year ago

                And I’m saying we regulate cars and part of that regulation is taking away people’s right to use a car when they do reckless things with it. That is becoming less true of guns with virtually every high court ruling. I would say that most Americans do not want guns completely banned, we want them to be out of the hands of people who would go out and kill innocent people with them. And that can be mitigated with regulation.

                • @[email protected]
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                  41 year ago

                  And we also take people’s guns for doing reckless things with them. Hell, if you are reckless enough with your car to get a felony they’ll take your guns about it, and they don’t take your car if you have a negligent discharge with your gun.

                  • Flying Squid
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                    -21 year ago

                    And yet we keep having stories about reckless people getting ahold of guns, even if they have been diagnosed as mentally ill.

        • @SupraMario
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          01 year ago

          Way way way less than .00000001%

          People don’t practice suicide at the range

          Cops who on average kill 1k civs a year also practice very little

          And gangs and drug violence is the same… you’re not seeing them go to the range.

        • @SupraMario
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          11 year ago

          Better ban alcohol then, it kills more people than rifles of any kind used in homicides by around 5xs the numbers…knives as well, since they kill around 2 times what rifles of any kind do… hilarious that you bring up lawn darts though…do you want to wrap everyone in bubble wrap? Let’s keep all drugs banned as well since they kill basically more people than anything else.

          Living life to it’s fullest can be dangerous…if you want to live in a nanny way, do it to yourself but leave the adults the fuck alone.

      • @mriormro
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        11 year ago

        I mean, what are you practicing for?

        • @SupraMario
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          21 year ago

          I shoot long range mainly, it’s a lot of fun trying to hit a small target at hundreds of yards. It’s not easy at all. It’s a hobby, people shoot bows for hobby as well, or slingshots or air rifles.

          I also hunt and own a farm. I keep an AR10 in the utv Incase of wild boar, which are fucking scary… I’d rather face a bunch of pissed off coyotes than a single wild bore.