Well, I suppose he should get points for not looking directly down the barrel.

(shakes head)

This guys a complete idiot-Crap knowledge of the weapon, terminology and with his finger constantly on the trigger, forgets he chambered a shell.....Someone needs to take Billy's boom stick away till he turns big- person age.

Or its highly insightful commentary on youth gun culture. Either way, bravo for uploading yourself kid; might change some parents' minds on a couple things.

and this is why there is a need for gun control. not for the responsible owners, but for the irresponsible.

I've got no problem with gun ownership, just prove me to me you're not going to be an idiot like this guy. Rights and responsibilities go hand in hand.

periodic re-testing for competency and safety. If it's ok that we do this for cars, it should be certainly ok to do this for firearms.

Why would one go ahead an post their failure?

Comedy gold, if only he'd fallen over after or ceiling plaster had fallen on him.

Amen brother.

"this gun has a cool feature where you press the trigger..."

and projectiles fly out of the barrel?

not showing it was safe when the vid started, finger on the trigger, pointing it everywhere, LOADING it!, then when I thought he couldn't get any worse BOOM goes the dynomite!!

"it increases relybity"

@VoodooV Interesting point, but won't people be less inclined to be responsible if they have less freedom?

Rights and responsabilities go hand in hand, I agree. That means when you screw up, you're held responsible, you pay for your actions.

With gun control, you want to take people's freedom away to stop them from screwing up in the first place.

Doesn't seem to me like that would make people more responsible.

How exactly are they less free?

Am I taking people's freedom away if I have them pass a test before they can use a car?

Am I taking peoples' freedom away If I take away their license if they were driving drunk or doing something else stupid? Yes, but this is universally considered acceptable.

You guys love to compare guns to cars so I'm shoving the analogy down your throat.

Do people generally complain about taking away the freedom of criminals when they do a criminal act? nope. Again, it is universally accepted that it is OK to take rights away if someone is a demonstrated menace to society

These are the *choices* people make. Freedom isn't about unrestricted access, It's about the freedom to make choices. You can make any choice you want as long as it doesn't infringe on the freedom of choice of others and you are willing to accept the consequences of said choices.

Can you at least agree that there are certain responsibilities attached to owning a gun? So why is regulation of weapons to ensure those responsibilities are adhered to such a foreign concept to you? Even the NRA "claims" to be interested in firearm safety. Was the idiot in this video being safe?

You have the freedom to go to college...IF you have the grades and money.
You have the freedom to imbibe alcohol...IF you are a certain age and can demonstrate that you can use it safely
You have the freedom to have a certain job, IF you have the skills and education required.
And according to the right, you have the freedom to vote....IF you can provide an ID.

This is not exactly unprecedented to require certain things before a specific freedom is granted. Are people less responsible because of these restrictions? I think not, so how come guns are special?

Are we taking away someone's freedom if they're not qualified to have a certain job?

And having a gun, or a car, has a significant risk to infringe upon other's freedoms so it's not unreasonable to ask that you demonstrate proficiency and safety before using said items.

The idiot in this video has DEMONSTRATED that he is unsafe with a weapon. Where are the repercussions? When does he pay for his actions as you say.

its a viral video to make money, he did this in another video with a pistol. "oh shit my mom is going to kill me".
notice the yellow "Shot gun" shell ? it's usually red. herp derp. its not a real.

but please. don't let common sense stop you from wall posting some text about some bullshit.

LOL that was my first thought seeing it too but I wasn't sure. It's when theres no ceiling raining down that I wondered. Edit: also wasn't loud enough.

awww...poor baby. Does reading about significant issues of the day, regardless of how you feel about the subject, hurt your widdle bwain?

sorry, not everyone checks to see if every video on the internet is fake or not

@VoodooV who's "you guys"? What happened to arguing ideas?

Your understanding of freedom is quite puzzling to me. I'm not even questioning whether gun control is right or wrong.

Going to college or getting a job are not things people are entitled to (supposedly), there are no rights involved, so no freedom is being denied. Apples and oranges.

A driver's license is not about owning or using a car, but about driving in public venues. I could be wrong, but we don't need a license to drive a car in our own backyards, do we?

In any case, I don't think it's reasonable to just use the existence of a law that infringes on a person's freedoms as justification for a proposed law that restricts it even more.

Crime is on a whole other level, because it's usually a violation of someone else's rights.

Simply owning a gun, on the other hand, not only isn't a violation of anything, it supposedly provides protection against these violations.

How is making it harder to acquire or own a gun going to make people more responsible using them? That's all I was asking.

>implying this is significant
>implying this is only pertaining to THIS particular date

protip: no one cares

at least my post wasn't some dribble you hacked up between youtube videos. I actually watched the video and applied basic knowledge. Hell I don't even watch CSI and I figured this shit out.

please walk into traffic sir

"but won't people be less inclined to be responsible if they have less freedom?"

You're making a claim that people will be less responsible. *you* need to prove that. I don't need to disprove it, however I have given plenty examples of how existing requirements on existing freedoms don't seem to lead to increased irresponsibility. Burden is on you.

"With gun control, you want to take people's freedom away to stop them from screwing up in the first place."

Again, I asked how people are less free by requiring something prior to exercising that freedom. You failed to answer that.

"How is making it harder to acquire or own a gun going to make people more responsible using them? That's all I was asking."

No, you're changing your argument. But I'll go ahead and pretend that you weren't attempting to dodge and answer it anyway. There is never any guarantee that anyone will be magically safer by taking a magic class or spending time with an instructor. It's a strawman argument to say that it would. There has never been any guarantee that any law will make anyone safer. We do it anyway because the public demands it. Will of the people and all that. Over 50 percent of the nation were in favor of SOME form of increased gun control post-sandy hook.

You're right, not all of those things I mentioned are necessarily rights, or at the very least, could be argued. But I also noticed you conveniently ignored the part about voting...which is a right. And even if an ID is never required to vote. You still have to register in order to vote.

There is no guarantee that requiring a test makes someone a safer driver. There is no guarantee that I'm going to survive the day if I get out of bed.
We don't legalize murder because some people ignore laws. We make it illegal anyway and incarcerate/execute those that break those laws and hope it provides an example of why not to do it. It's kind of what civilization is based on. If you've got a better answer, then you should publish some papers and get recognized as someone who revolutionizes sociology and criminal justice.

I'm going to play the odds and guess that you won't though.

The comments on this thread besides my own would seem to indicate otherwise.

It's not really relevant that this particular video is fake. It's not like there are tons of other videos on youtube of idiots doing stupid things with guns. Many of which are here on the sift. The subject remains quite relevant.

Your inability to make an argument without getting unhinged and your ability to ad hom is noted however.

"We'll sell guns to any idiot who walks through out doors" Is not a particularly good message to promote a firearms business with.

He mentioned it was bird shot... If this video is real, thank goodness it was bird shot. More substantial rounds could fly through walls or floors at that range.

I hope this video is fake... People being stupid with firearms is downright scary.

Regarding the other conversation: Whether or not people should pass a test before exercising one of their rights... I'm not sure. Yes, it makes total sense that people should demonstrate firearm safety knowledge in order to own and operate a firearm. But it's not a matter of making sense, it's a matter of "rights" and "principles."

I don't know about other states, but in Michigan you actually have to take a hunter's safety course before you can get your hunting license. (I took one a long time ago... then never ended up ever actually using my license...)

So in certain contexts, we do require people to be relatively knowledgeable about safety. It seems this is limited to where we can impose reasonable, enforceable limits.

But operating a firearm does happen to be a right, not a privilege...

Then again, we're already being subjective with things... You can't own just any kind of firearm... So where do you draw the line?

This topic is a bitch.

@VoodooV Isn't responsibility about making your own decisions and accepting their consequences? I mean, if you're not making the decisions, doesn't make sense to be held responsible for them. Freedom goes hand in hand with responsibility, it's about the power to make your own decisions, being held responsible seems like a necessary consequence.

So, less freedom = less responsibility, wouldn't you agree?

I'm sorry, I don't know how else to put it, it seems quite obvious to me, I'm not sure what you want me to prove.

About voting, I don't know, I guess being registered is a requirement for the voting process? Like the right to life requires... being alive?

Gun control, on the other hand, doesn't seem like an actual requirement to owning a gun. Again, seems like apples and oranges.

You want someone else making stricter decisions as to whether someone can carry a gun. Not letting people make that decision for themselves takes freedom away from them.

If I made decisions for you, I could make you act more responsibly, but that's not the same thing as making you a more responsible person.

You keep avoiding answering the question. What are you so afraid of

You still keep making the leap of gun control = less freedom, yet you still have yet to demonstrate how anyone is less free because of periodic safety/competency testing for firearms when we already accept these sorts of requirements for other freedoms and rights.

We already accept that you have to have a permit to buy a weapon and there are minimum age restrictions to purchasing a weapon. Is this less freedom too? I have asked you to explain this but you appear to be unwilling.

That's some interesting math you have there. You keep using the words Freedom and rights interchangeably and I'm not sure that you can. Even if I were to accept that, Making the leap from "freedom goes hand and hand with responsibility" to making them equal to each other, thus lowering one lowers the other doesn't seem to stand up to scrutiny. Just because you can demonstrate a relationship between freedom and responsibility doesn't make them equal. That is some pretty big false equivalencies there.

Equating registration to merely existing?...yeah...you're going to have to show your work on the math there too.

Gun control is actually a requirement to owning a gun currently. As I already said. We already accept SOME gun control in the form of permits and age restrictions so that seems to destroy that argument too.

And again, you're making the same gun control = less freedom claim without actually backing it up and ignoring that we already accept certain requirements for other freedoms and rights and you have yet to demonstrate why firearms are exempt from this precedent.

Once again, this notion more rules = less freedom is rather fallacious. If that were the case, we should be living in an anarchy. Sorry, but that's kindof the basic price you pay for living in a civilized nation. We all agree not to kill each other or take each other's stuff We all agree to pay taxes so that we can have infrastructure and other services. Just because some people ignore those rules doesn't mean we throw out the rulebook. You can wrap your ideas in the flag of freedom all you want, but by living in ANY nation, you do accept certain rules and consequences in order to enjoy the perks. So in the end, it just really boils down to the argument that freedom is an abstract, not an absolute and you're using it to evoke emotion in a manipulative fashion.

If you're just going to make the same claims over and over without backing them up and dodging my questions, then I think it's safe to say this conversation is at an end.

Nice food-court English.
"C'mon men, we're gonna, you know, kinda like, ambush a trench. Or whatever."

@VoodooV Am I daft, or is yours the Platonic stance which renders a reasonable outcome to the discourse previously referred to at an end as a win???....Because why??

You simply have a problem with guns as far as I can tell, shall we "Argue that!?"

Try me-I'll keep you twirling for days...

Answer this question please-

Do you regard guns as icky as spiders or maybe kinna like that squooshy-stuff on yer feet at the seashore??

Please, make it your mission to answer each point in the above solicited inquiry in some internationally recognized form and with complete sentences that anyone would give a fiddler's fuck about picking apart to feed to squirrels!??

Afford me this indulgence if you would, after my having spent otherwise wasted time reading your particular view from the precipice??

-Jesuscornbread and a rusty badge, ad infinitum

Don't know where you live, happy to find out more about ya-I own guns as well as millions like myself and you might regard yourself more comfortable in the knowledge of that fact as you tuck yourself into bed tonight until planet perfect is created in a laboratory somewhere in another paradigmn. mn...mdgm

His next video: "How to load your shotgun. On Salvia."

@VoodooV Wow, why are you being such a bully? You're not actually stopping to think.

The question you say I'm avoiding is the one I'm trying my best to explain on every post, yet you're constantly avoiding it yourself (as if there's something inextricably cryptic about the relationship between freedom and responsibility), all the while accusing me of being a coward. Like saying it repeatedly will make me or anyone else believe it.

Are you also placing on me the burden of thinking for the both of us?

If you want to own a gun, you buy, steal or make your own gun, there, you have a gun. The gun won't stop working if you don't have a permit! Is that math too hard to understand, is being overly antagonistic and close-minded your "debate strategy"?

The voting process, on the other hand, seems to be something that requires registration (again, I'm not an expert on voting, so forgive me if I'm wrong), otherwise we end up just shouting to ourselves, "I vote for X"!

I don't think rules inevitably destroys our freedoms, let's make a more refined distinction:

- If a rule is meant to stop people from infringing on each other's freedoms, if it's a rule that makes people less likely to coerce each other, it's a good rule because we end up with less coercion happening (even counting the coercion necessary to enforce the rule), we end up with a more civilized society. There are not many of those kinds of rules around.

- If it's a rule that imposes some regulation because we don't trust that people will be responsible enough to do what's best for them regarding something unrelated to coercion, we not only restrict their freedom by coercion (in this case, coercion by the government), it doesn't make coercion less likely, so it's likely a bad rule.

If I impose stricter gun control, as a government, I'm coercing people to comply with more rules, that means a little more coercion ends up happening in society, from government towards the people. Not counting that kind of coercion (necessary to enforce any rule), stricter gun control doesn't seem to make people directly less likely to coerce each other, does it?

My question was, "won't people be less inclined to be responsible if they have less freedom?". Like I said, if I make decisions for someone, I can make them act responsibly, but that doesn't make them more responsible, because I'm still the one making their decisions.

Freedom is a good teacher. If I let someone make mistakes and pay for them, they'll most likely avoid them all by themselves, eventually. If I make decisions for them though, they end up with less freedom, and, therefore, tend to act less responsibly, wouldn't you agree?

jeez guys. take a hit and relax...

Dumb argument is dumb. We need to regulate internet comments. I propose a competency test. No more comments until you correctly report the number of jelly beans in this jar.

The trick is, there is no jar presented.

Anyways on the video, I'm not sure if the guy is that stupid to post a video like that without a trolling intent, or that maybe he really is an idiot.

OMFG, this fake video is everywhere. This troll should thank the morons the go to his youtube channel.

sorry, no hable chingalera

learn to speak like a normal human person please. I don't have time for your pleas for attention. I'm not your mommy

Um...what? Didn't the pot just call the kettle black here?
Shall I ask you chingalera to please make it your mission to stop trying to look intelligent by either using words you don't know or instructing others on the rules of grammar that you can't follow yourself. Your rambling is not in complete sentences, or is in run on rambling sentences without a complete or cojent thought. Your punctuation is atrocious. I am fairly intelligent and well educated, but I can't follow your disjointed writings enough to adequately "pick it (them) apart and feed it to the squirrels".
Try again.

Ahh, but you ignore the idea that the "stricter" gun control most likely to pass does not make more rules, it simply requires that the existing rules be effective EVERYWHERE.
To reuse the auto analogy, the no background check at gun shows is like saying you don't need a license to drive if you start your drive on toll roads because they are "private" roads. This loophole exists no where because it's ridiculous, dangerous, and impossible to enforce.

To your second point, freedom would only be a good teacher if every crime committed was successfully prosecuted. Because most crimes go unsolved, freedom becomes a disinterested substitute teacher showing a 1960's film strip.

FYI, all 20 gauge shells are yellow. 12 Gauge is usually red, but I've also seen some that were black, green, blue, gold, and clear... depending on the type of load, it's entirely up to the manufacturer except for 20 gauge, which is mandated to be yellow.

Awww bully? poor @renatojj Unable to make good arguments so in an act of desperation plays the victimhood card. Boo hoo hoo...the gun lobby has a stranglehold on our gov't but we're being victimized and oppressed!! If only there was some way for you to...opt out which would end all of this. Freedom is a bitch isn't it?

Nothing cryptic about the relationship between freedom and responsibility. I'm the one who introduced the concept in this argument after all. That's not my complaint dummy. Responsibility is not the same as freedom. You're claiming (once again without anything to back it up) that freedom and responsibility are the same and that if you lower one, you lower the other. I'd ask you to back it up again, but you won't.

If you steal a gun, sure not having a permit doesn't stop you from using it, but you're in danger of losing those precious freedoms you seem to hold so dear. Again, you're changing the argument.

You like to use these loaded terms like freedom. How are you measuring freedom? Is it an objective measurement? Are there SI units for freedom? does a upstanding citizen have say..23 KWas (kilo-Washingtons) but maybe a convicted meth dealer only has 420 mWas? (milli-Washingtons) You seem to be the arbiter of what is freedom and what isn't so please, share with us your math!

Coercion??!! Again, you're using this loaded language to emotionally manipulate us. I think George Carlin called it "Spooky Language!" Which laws are coercion and which ones aren't? How can you tell? When I obey traffic laws, am I being coerced? When I decide to not kill someone with a gun because the law says it's bad, is that coercion too??? Your two examples you give are really bad. There is no difference between the two except for loaded language. One example has positive language, the other one negative. If only there was some objective measure other than your truthiness.

To your last point, but I already answered this in my previous post, by that logic, we shouldn't have ANY laws and thus we would become SUPER-Responsible!! It's a nice theory and all, but the reality is that life would degenerate into mob rule. How many other people have to pay for your "mistakes" before you learn your lesson? How much suffering and anguish does it take to "learn your lesson?" Sorry. I think you're not a student of history otherwise you'd know that this has already been tried in the past...the distant past. It doesn't work...that's why we have laws in the first place. The jury is in on this one. People generally like it that we have laws and an enforcement arm that attempts to stop the infringement of peoples' rights *before* it happens so that people don't have to "learn their lesson" at the expense of someone else's suffering.

You're a selfish sociopathic dick if you think otherwise.

It's all fun and games until someone infringes on *your* rights then suddenly, your stance changes. Or are you volunteering yourself to have a criminal come in and kill you and your loved ones. But hey, its ok. Freedom will teach the criminal a lesson...so it's all cool!!

Either you didn't already know this or you're just living up to your avatar pic. I'm starting to think it's the latter.

@newtboy again, the "freedom doesn't work unless perfect condition X". You don't need perfect circumstances for freedom to work. Many people abuse freedom of speech to say terrible things or spread the worst lies. Some are prosecuted, some aren't, big deal. Still, most americans believe in freedom of speech, in the sense that people tend to become more responsible when they have it, not only about what they say, but also not believing everything they hear, and heavily regulating each other much more wisely than any government censorship ever could.

@VoodooV don't be flattered when I call you a bully, it means your posts are mostly attempts at intimidation, you trying hard to come out on top of an internet argument no one cares about. Calling me names only convinces me you understand your own beliefs so poorly that you resort to personal attacks as substitute for critical thinking.

The way you counterargue is mostly by taking whatever I write out of context and poking fun at it, calling me names, or pointing out something completely irrelevant as reason to invalidate it.

Like, "if you steal a gun,...", you intently misinterpret me, then, of course, flip the tables (why not?), and accuse me of "changing the argument". Here's the argument: demanding registration for voting is not an impediment to voting if it's required for the actual process. It's unlike gun control, imposing arbitrary rules to own a gun are far removed from the basic requirements of owning an actual gun.

Now, do I need to define "requirements", "arbitrary", "gun" with some kind of measurable unit before we continue? Are you going to resort to shifting focus to the loaded words I use, as excuse not to deal with the arguments they form?

This all started with a simple question, "won't people be less inclined to be responsible if they have less freedom?", and you did everything from claiming not to understand it, to insist that I "prove" that assertion, only to incessantly bicker at my naive attempts to indulge you.

I don't know what's more disappointing, that no one ever showed you what a productive debate looks like, or that you're trying so hard to avoid one. It's pointless.

No one likes to watch this, I'm sure you and I are the only people reading this far into our own posts. So stop with the chest-thumping, everybody left by now, and I'm not the least bit impressed. Also, stop quoting my entire posts, it's annoying.

awwww..did the big bad man on the internet hurt your feelings? How can you have possibly survived the internet for this long with such thin skin. Your "hurt" feelings are just another attempt at distraction and use of emotional manipulation.

No one cares about this argument eh? hrm, that's funny, *you* cared enough to reply to perpetuate it. Again...and again....and again. So, another failed argument. You have a decision to make. I hope you make the correct one.

Lets summarize shall we? You haven't demonstrated how more gun control makes anyone less free, you haven't defined what freedom is or how you even measure it. You keep attempting to evade these questions and tug at heart strings by using words like freedom, and coercion to attempt to manipulate the argument. You make repeated false equivalencies. And you have made no attempt to justify why the right to bear arms is exempt from requirements and other controls the same way other rights and freedoms have requirements and controls.

I answered your question yet you continue to pretend otherwise. I showed you numerous examples of requirements before freedoms and rights are granted and no one is claiming they are less free because of them. You make the claim that people are less free because of gun control but you REPEATEDLY fail to demonstrate how other than to suggest we should be an anarchy. Who cares how many people suffer, they'll learn their lesson eventually right?? right?? Sorry, we tried anarchy, didn't work..we moved on. Just because you wrapped your claim in the form of a question doesn't mean shit other than you're really to play Jeopardy with Alex Trebek. You're still making a claim that people will be less responsible with less freedom. Its your claim, you need to prove it. I've said this before and you still haven't done it.

Debate??!! Who said this was a debate? This is an internet forum. This is merely someone calling another person out on their BS I guess we can add strawman to the list of your logical fallacies now. That and you're making another attempt at distraction. There are actual rules in debate. Oh wait, you think rules take away freedom so I guess you won't be participating.

Don't cry foul, don't whine about name calling...be an adult and own up to your role in this. Suck it up. You chose to step into this and I called out your faulty logic. You made your bed, now lie in it. You claim it's pointless...yet you keep responding and asking for more. You can continue going in circles and bending and twisting your rationalizations as you go, or you can make an alternative choice. Put up or shut up.

Take your own advice. You have freedom and it appears that you have made a mistake. I am awaiting you to learn your lesson.

It's up to you amigo.

@VoodooV as much as you'd like to fantasize about me being hurt and crying in a corner, I assure I'm just pointing out that you're wasting time trying to troll me instead of arguing like someone with the least bit of intellectual honesty, so you'll hopefully realize it doesn't work.

I guess you didn't, and now you're just being juvenile, even quoting my entire post after I asked you not to. This begs the question, why haven't you insulted my mom yet? Seriously, it's the logical next step. Why can't you be honest about being a troll? I already have the thumbnail, is this the best you can do?

There are no rules for us talking, you can do whatever you want, really, just troll like you've been doing since all this started, I won't be impressed. You think debating requires enforceable rules? Rules that involve some kind of coercion, like a fine, maybe prison time? Is that why you've been acting like a brat, to illustrate the need for what... censorship?

As much as I'd like to see you booted from the videosift community, I can't pull any strings around here, but that wouldn't be coercion if I did, because no one has a right to post on videosift. Censorship, on the other hand, would involve sending a police officer to your house and arresting you for excessive trolling. Can you see the difference? Does that example help illustrate what "coercion" means?

When I say no one cares about this internet argument, I'm hoping you'll stop trying to impress the huge crowd you think is reading this BS you've been posting. You do realize your antics are useless on me, right?

What emotional content am I resorting to when I use the words "freedom" and "coercion"? I dare you to prove to me how I'm being emotional about them. Prove it. PROVE IT. lmao

My initial question didn't involve gun control at all, it was broader, I was asking, "won't people be less inclined to be responsible if they have less freedom?", it's about how having less freedom makes people tend not to be so responsible.

Over time, when we take people's freedoms away, they tend to be less responsible about the decisions we're not letting them make. There's no way they can learn about any different (good or bad) outcomes related to decisions they couldn't make, and they can't be held responsible for them either, so they can hardly become more responsible.

You keep avoiding this simple explanation and shouting about everything else. What are you so afraid of?

P.S.: if you want to admit to trolling me, just quote my entire post again. I dare you.

Ut oh, There are so many contradictions in your post. It honestly looks like you're starting to become unhinged. See this is why I quote your posts. I want you to be able to see what you say...makes it easier to spot those contradictions and makes it more certain that I am responding accurately.

It is strange though. It does appear that none of your arguments in your most recent post have anything to do with my recent response. You're making new arguments again without settling our original ones. I can only assume that means you're conceding my points.

You've asked me to prove your emotional manipulation due to your usage of "freedom" and "coercion" Oh...I'm sorry Ren, but you have missed it, but I already responded to that. Here, let me quote it for you:

"Coercion??!! Again, you're using this loaded language to emotionally manipulate us. I think George Carlin called it "Spooky Language!" Which laws are coercion and which ones aren't? How can you tell? When I obey traffic laws, am I being coerced? When I decide to not kill someone with a gun because the law says it's bad, is that coercion too??? Your two examples you give are really bad. There is no difference between the two except for loaded language. One example has positive language, the other one negative. If only there was some objective measure other than your truthiness."

There, I hope that clears things up amigo.

Ut oh, again, you referred to your original question. But Ren...I've responded to this numerous times? Did you forget? Here, let me quote those too:

"This is not exactly unprecedented to require certain things before a specific freedom is granted. Are people less responsible because of these restrictions? I think not, so how come guns are special?"

and..

"You're making a claim that people will be less responsible. *you* need to prove that. I don't need to disprove it, however I have given plenty examples of how existing requirements on existing freedoms don't seem to lead to increased irresponsibility. Burden is on you."

and...

"To your last point, but I already answered this in my previous post, by that logic, we shouldn't have ANY laws and thus we would become SUPER-Responsible!! It's a nice theory and all, but the reality is that life would degenerate into mob rule. How many other people have to pay for your "mistakes" before you learn your lesson? How much suffering and anguish does it take to "learn your lesson?" Sorry. I think you're not a student of history otherwise you'd know that this has already been tried in the past...the distant past. It doesn't work...that's why we have laws in the first place. The jury is in on this one. People generally like it that we have laws and an enforcement arm that attempts to stop the infringement of peoples' rights *before* it happens so that people don't have to "learn their lesson" at the expense of someone else's suffering. ""

and finally...

"I answered your question yet you continue to pretend otherwise. I showed you numerous examples of requirements before freedoms and rights are granted and no one is claiming they are less free because of them. You make the claim that people are less free because of gun control but you REPEATEDLY fail to demonstrate how other than to suggest we should be an anarchy. Who cares how many people suffer, they'll learn their lesson eventually right?? right?? Sorry, we tried anarchy, didn't work..we moved on. Just because you wrapped your claim in the form of a question doesn't mean shit other than you're really to play Jeopardy with Alex Trebek. You're still making a claim that people will be less responsible with less freedom. Its your claim, you need to prove it. I've said this before and you still haven't done it."

There. I'm really sorry, I thought you read all that already. That should clear it up. I'm sorry you thought I was avoiding it.

Unfortunately, you've contradicted yourself my friend. Earlier in your post, you admit there are no rules for us talking, but at the end of your post you put forth a rule for me...a dare..if you will. I don't think it's very fair that you don't have any rules, but I have to be...coerced into following your rules, do you?

If you do honestly think I'm a troll, I apologize, that certainly wasn't my intent, but you know, there is one rule that is known for dealing with trolls. Oh crap, my bad. You don't like rules, you think they take away your freedom, my bad.

I certainly hope that clears everything up buddy. Hopefully this does conclude our discussion. But then again, I thought we were done some time ago, but you kept bringing up different arguments and other distractions so I was compelled to correct your errors. HTH

PS. It is rather contradictory to accuse me of being juvenile, but you end your post with a dare. Oops! That must be so embarrassing for you!

WALL OF TEXT CCCCCCCCCOMBO BREAKER

Apparently freedom does not help in comprehension. What I wrote was 'freedom is not a good teacher', not 'freedom doesn't work'. Try again.

@VoodooV Like I've been saying all along, your posts are mostly attempts at intimidation. I enjoy answering some of your questions, because it helps me question my beliefs, something I think is constructive and that you seriously shouldn't be afraid of. We are all supposedly looking for the truth anyways. All this could be settled by answering my simple question, whether you'd agree or not, it wouldn't even necessarily be an argument against gun control. I was pointing out the apparent conflict between wanting people to be more responsible by taking their freedoms away, when taking their freedoms away might not contribute to making them responsible people in the long run. An unpresumptuous suggestion meant to be taken as food for thought.

Instead, you resort to being juvenile and making fun of me, while writing huge posts with my entire posts quoted afterwards as an attempt at making me turn away in horror at the sight of a huge wall of text. Sure, it takes me time to sift through all of it to see what really matters. You're trying to muscle your way through, and it's a waste of everyone's time. I actually take the time to make my posts short and to the point, did you notice that? I happen to think it's a good habit to have some consideration for the reader, why am I not surprised you have none for me?

So, instead of appreciating that I don't waste your time by making an effort at being succinct, you accuse me of avoiding some of your arguments. It's true, I avoid a few of them because I think they're irrelevant, it's called being selective. Now I know that was a bad idea. I'm terribly sorry. I won't do it anymore. I will take the time to answer the most points I can to the best of my ability, and if that my makes my posts tiresomely long and wastes my time, so be it.

I bet you're trying to flood me with words because this isn't about any truth, is it? It's about discouraging and distracting me from something. Ever heard of picking your fights? It's about being reasonable about yours and other people's times. After all, I do assume you have a life outside of this internet topic on videosift, don't you? Anyway, let's get to it:

- About emotional manipulation, you FAILED to prove it, and here's why:

When you obey traffic laws, you are being coerced if there is coercion as consequence for not obeying them. Will you get arrested? Will you get your car, which is your property, impounded if you disobey? Then yes, they are coercive laws.

When you decide not kill someone because the law will coerce you if you do, you're being coerced into not killing, even if you freely decide not to kill out of good morals and empathy for fellow human beings, the option of killing is always there in reality (you can always kill anyone if you really want to), but not legally. If you kill, you're under the threat of going to prison. The positive or negative language seems completely irrelevant, what matters is what happens when you disobey the law. If coercion ensues, the law is coercive, or, more accurately, its enforcement. I'm not actually making the distinction right now if it's a rule related to coercion itself (a rule that makes coercion more or less likely to happen), just pointing out the irrelevance of your distinction between negative and positive language.

Now, I have to admit that there is divergence when it comes to defining coercion, but there is no emotional content here as far as I can tell. I'm using it in the sense that people have a right to their life, property and freedoms, and when you take or threaten to take away any of those things (and have the power to do so), THAT is coercion. There is no emotion here, I am offended that you would think that I would resort to that, because I don't even have to. Coercion has a meaning to me, I'm just using the concept as it is. If there is an emotional content, SHOW ME what emotion that is. Up until now, you have FAILED to do so.

- About requiring things before freedoms are granted, I think you FAILED to make your point, here's why:

To type boring senseless posts on the internet, you require a keyboard. Maybe, if you could type with voice recognition, like I do, you wouldn't need a keyboard, but what matters is that you use something to type or produce characters that will be submitted to the videosift website and become a useless post. So, for the sake of argument, let's call this an "actual physical requirement".

Now, with a gun to your head, if I require that you, VoodooV, jump through actual flaming hula-hoops positioned vertically on an intricate obstacle course before typing in your videosift comments, the world would be a better place (at least videosift would). However, my requirements would be arbitrary in the sense that it imposes something not actually physically necessary to enjoy the hypothetical "freedom to post inane ramblings on videosift" (we are assuming it's a right), can you spot the difference?

So, requiring things that are not necessary to enjoy a freedom is not something that makes the freedom better or is in any way justifiable just because history is littered with the precedent of assholes like kings and despots requiring stupid things before we can enjoy freedoms that we supposedly already have. When it comes to guns, a law says we have a right to bear them. Any laws that restrict that supposed right are infringing on the freedom that comes from having that right.

- About the claim that people will be less responsible if they have less freedom:

"If I made decisions for you, I could make you act more responsibly, but that's not the same thing as making you a more responsible person."

"Over time, when we take people's freedoms away, they tend to be less responsible about the decisions we're not letting them make. There's no way they can learn about any different (good or bad) outcomes related to decisions they couldn't make, and they can't be held responsible for them either, so they can hardly become more responsible."

- About your reduction to absurdity claim that removing all the rules would make us "SUPER-Responsible":

"I don't think rules inevitably destroys our freedoms, let's make a more refined distinction:

- If a rule is meant to stop people from infringing on each other's freedoms, if it's a rule that makes people less likely to coerce each other, it's a good rule because we end up with less coercion happening (even counting the coercion necessary to enforce the rule), we end up with a more civilized society. There are not many of those kinds of rules around.

- If it's a rule that imposes some regulation because we don't trust that people will be responsible enough to do what's best for them regarding something unrelated to coercion, we not only restrict their freedom by coercion (in this case, coercion by the government), it doesn't make coercion less likely, so it's likely a bad rule."

The problem with removing all rules is that, without rules related to coercion, people would be too subjected to the threat or actual coercion from other people around them, society would be less civilized. Would that make them more responsible? That's a good question. On one side, they would have a lot more responsibilities if they had to worry about their own lives and safety every frickin' day, and all the terrible worries that comes with the unstable chaos of anarchy. However, given that they would enjoy less freedoms due to the constant coercion of others, they would likely end up being a lot less responsible, because they would have far less choices.

That's why I took the time to explain the difference between rules related to coercion and rules that just infringe on freedoms.

- About your examples of requirements before freedoms and rights are granted, here's a list of your "numerous examples" and my reply to each of them:

VoodooV: "You have the freedom to go to college..."
VoodooV: "You have the freedom to have a certain job..."

"Going to college or getting a job are not things people are entitled to (supposedly), there are no rights involved, so no freedom is being denied."

VoodooV: "You have the freedom to imbibe alcohol....IF you are a certain age and can demonstrate that you can use it safely"

I don't know about using it safely (what does that mean?), but regarding age restriction, I don't agree with those laws. I know, very "liberal" of me, but I think children are the responsibility of their parents, so it's a law that steps into parenting territory.

VoodooV: "And according to the right, you have the freedom to vote..."

About voting, I don't know, I guess being registered is a requirement for the voting process? Like the right to life requires... being alive?

"The voting process, on the other hand, seems to be something that requires registration (again, I'm not an expert on voting, so forgive me if I'm wrong), otherwise we end up just shouting to ourselves, "I vote for X"!"

VoodooV: "And having a gun, or a car, has a significant risk to infringe upon other's freedoms so it's not unreasonable to ask that you demonstrate proficiency and safety before using said items."

A driver's license is not about owning or using a car, but about driving in public venues. I could be wrong, but we don't need a license to drive a car in our own backyards, do we?

Simply owning a gun, on the other hand, not only isn't a violation of anything, it supposedly provides protection against these violations.

- About me supposedly contradicting myself, saying "there are no rules for us talking", then proposing a dare:

Did I shoot you in the face when you failed my dare? So I guess it's not the kind of rule in the sense that I didn't threaten to coerce you if you failed it. Do you understand what kind of rule I was talking about? Do you even understand what a contradiction means, or are you just taking advantage that not everyone that reads your posts knows exactly what you're referring to make yourself look smart even though you can't point out a contradiction if it rested flat in your deepest held political beliefs?

On the subject of contradictions, strictly speaking, there's no contradiction between calling you juvenile and being juvenile myself, even if I did so afterwards, and in retaliation, to give you a taste of it.

Ooooooooh... must be very embarrassing for you not to know what a contradiction stands for.

Here's your entire post quoted, because, why not?

@newtboy my bad, no need to be rude. You could take into consideration that, with time, conditions change. An environment where people enjoy freedom also gives them more incentive to come up with solutions to problems that arise.

You say freedom is not a good teacher, ok, it's not entirely unreasonable to assume you're right. So, what would be a better teacher, then? Making decisions for people while they learn to mature and become more responsible, then give them freedom afterwards. You know, like we do with children?

It's not a bad idea, but it's kind of condescending considering that we're talking about adults here.

Responsibility is a good teacher, but only when it's enforced. Rules and laws are responsibilities, you still have the ability to make your own decisions as to whether to be responsible. Society has the responsibility to punish you for being irresponsible. That simple.
You have the "freedom" to break any law/rule you want, you'll only "learn" it's wrong to do so if you have to be responsible for your actions. Removing responsibility removes incentive for learning.
The solutions people have come up with to solve the ever changing issues that arise from "freedom" are called "laws"...and you want to remove them? Um....
The original point here was that removing the gun show loophole does not remove freedom or add rules, except the freedom to escape responsibility for improperly using a gun thanks to it not being registered to you.
edit: or the freedom to easily possess an unregistered firearm when you are legally prohibited from owning any firearm.
I don't see an issue with asking citizens to demonstrate in some way their level of responsibility when operating any dangerous item (at least items that can be dangerous to others when operated improperly). We do it for cars, we do it for knifes (if you intend to use it on a person, you must be a DR.), we do it for planes and boats. Sadly just getting a person to admit they purchased a firearm and proving they aren't legally insane is too much responsibility for some. You have said that somehow that instills responsibility with out ever explaining why or how.
I didn't think I was rude in the least, I explained humorously that you completely missed the point and asked you to try again. When you did, you agreed with me, mostly.

@renatojj


I think you're wrong.

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