Quote Originally Posted by bicker View Post
Gun supporters just stating their conclusions doesn't contribute much. Gun supporters are frustrated, no doubt, by the fact that they cannot come up with a set of ideas to change things to address the concerns that gun control advocates have raised. Gun supporters practically throw up their hands, effectively telling others to just live with the ramifications of the gun supporters' personal preference. Gun supporters dodge and weave the moral issues raised, marginalize the risks, and even ridicule the perspectives of reasonable people who disagree with them.

It would be idiocy to give anyone who opposes gun control a promotion to inquisitor. Gun control opponents obviously will want to have the "discussion" on their terms and their terms only. -- "Request denied." -- If anyone is to be promoted to inquisitor in this context (and I believe that neither side should be, but if there is to be such a promotion) then let it be those who want the tragedies to be addressed, allowing us to start quizzing you on the moral underpinnings of your advocacy. Ridiculous? No more so than the suggestion that gun control opponent should rightfully be able to demand control over the discussion.

Gun control opponents have yet to prove - definitively - so that gun control advocates agree with them - that doing what the gun control opponents want results in fewer deaths than doing what the gun control opponents, like the Brady Campaign, suggest. That is the threshold for advocacy that is reasonably imposed on the comments of gun control opponents by those concerned about gun violence. This directly parallels the threshold for advocacy that gun control opponents try to impose on the comments of people who disagree with them. Fair is fair.

Gun control opponents have a vested interest in, and work very hard to maintain the fiction of, their insistence on denying the fact that gun control advocates have not ignored the facts gun control opponents tout but rather have determined the facts as inadequate. See above for the threshold of advocacy that gun control opponents would need to meet in order to have their perspective considered worthy by many folks who take a more moral and socially-conscious view of this issue: They have to actually propose solutions to the problems that have been raised. Just whining about the proposals others are making, without proving that the have proposals of their will actually result in significantly fewer tragedies, will invariably be considered an attempt to assert their personal preference.
Bicker - Is the the framework you are referencing?

A few observations:

1) It seems that you already feel that you automatically have the moral high ground in this issue and are the judge and jury of the facts. If you don't agree or are unswayed with a set of facts they are irrelevant and no further discussion is needed. You also seem take on an air that other positions are immoral because you (as the inquisitor) don't agree.

2) Your position is one of imposing restrictions on a portion of society. It seems reasonable to request you support this postion with facts and not just pontificate on the moral superiority of your position.

3) Some of those opposing your position, do in fact agree that some changes need to be made. They just don't agree with your solutions after weighing the pluses and minuses.

4) Lastly, I took the liberty of replacing "gun supporters" with "gun control supporters" and "gun control supporters" with "gun rights advocates" in the above. I didn't post it, but it is an interesting excerise as it sounds just as arrogant coming from the gun rights side. The point is, both sides need to listen and find solutions not laws for the sake of laws.

I'm all for a discussion of the facts. Sometimes my mind is even changed when that happens.