Guns at the Republican Convention - Why not?

[Loren Pechtel]

So if you don't think open carry should be allowed there, then it is you who are hoping for bloodshed and death. Why do you want these poor people to be defenseless against anyone who might want to do them harm?

Nice redirect, too bad you missed your target. I am not advocating for or against carrying at the GOP convention. I'm merely noticing how many people here in this thread at Talk Freethought think it would be a good thing if delegates at the GOP convention were to be shot. Don't you people like Underseer anymore?

More like gun nuts at the GOP convention.

 

[Sarpedon]

I do not think it would be good for them to be shot.

However, as mass shooting after mass shooting, tragedy after tragedy, has failed to move the gun-idolaters, I wonder if a different sort of incident might open their eyes. You see, they never see themselves as being a possible perpetrator or victim of these shootings. Despite the fact that so many of these shooters have similar manifestos and mindsets to gun-idolaters, they always imagine that they are different by more than just degree. They fail to see how their activities and culture give rise to these shootings. They also never see themselves as possible victims, because they always imagine themselves as the hero in any hypothetical incidents, ignoring the fact that armed 'good guys' often get killed in shoot outs.

If, through their own actions, they bring about a situation where they shoot one another, it might be illuminating to the survivors, at least. While I dislike seeing people shot, and I definitely would forbid guns at the convention were I in the position to do so, I don't think that saying 'let people receive the fruits of their own actions' is the same as 'it would be great if these people were shot.' Gun idolaters subscribe to the belief that political violence is acceptable; as a common refrain of theirs is that they are armed against the government. We have seen extra political violence in this election-unprecedented in modern times. Why not wish that violent people inflict the violence on each other, rather than on the innocent? Anyone who would carry a weapon to a political meeting is in effect advocating political violence. Why should violence not befall them? "He that lives by the sword shall die by the sword."

If it were in my power, I would simply disarm them, not shoot them. However, the choice is not mine, but theirs. If they would rather shoot one another, so be it.

We are seeing in this election the Republican Party reaping what it has for so long sown. The gun movement has long tacitly encouraged racial and political violence. The fact that their party is now divided against itself means that the very things it has used against others they are now using against each other. Is this not just? You may not like it, because you aren't used to it, and you sanctimoniously blame us for what we are NOT doing, but that your people are doing. All we are doing are standing by and letting you do what you will do. We have long lived in fear of the gun-idolaters. How many times have they threatened us? How often have I had to worry that some aggressive person I met going about my business might be armed? How often have I scanned the rooftops while I walk down the streets? And I have been more fortunate than many.

Conservatives have always been for freedom for themselves; including the freedom to intimidate and threaten others. Now they are quarreling, and instead of threatening people who respond with calls for calm and reason, they are being met threat for threat, opening the door for serious escalation. And somehow, that is our fault. It is very typical of conservatives to blame the negative consequences of their own choices on others. You are all for personal responsibilty when it suits you.

 

[Ford]

So if you don't think open carry should be allowed there, then it is you who are hoping for bloodshed and death. Why do you want these poor people to be defenseless against anyone who might want to do them harm?

Nice redirect, too bad you missed your target. I am not advocating for or against carrying at the GOP convention.

And I'm going to take a wild guess and say you won't state your opinion either way here.

But my target wasn't necessarily you personally. It was the people - NRA endorsed - who believe that there's just about no place where a firearm is not appropriate, and just about no situation that can't be resolved by the judicious discharge of a firearm.

School shooting? More guns in schools!

Theater shooting? More guns in theaters!

Shooting at a grocery store? Pack heat at the Safeway!

Shooting at a church? Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!


Again, the case made by the people who imagine they're defending the 2nd Amendment is that guns make everything better...except when they don't. If they had the courage of their convictions, then they wouldn't have the Quicken Loans Center be essentially a "gun free zone."


Again, I prefaced my post with "if you buy the NRA logic..."


If you do, then having attendees to the convention carrying - either openly or concealed - would not only not represent a threat, but would make the event markedly safer.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

When I drop a steel ball bearing, there is something in my mind that hopes it will fall according to the rules of gravity. There is a part of my mind that hopes that the world doesn't erupt in tentacles and spiders whenever some kid draws a pentagram on the ground, as much as I would probably be able to cope with that.

When things go according to a rational understanding of nature, we cheer. We hope this happens. Do we think it would result in a BETTER world? Probably not. But there is a certain value to the world operating in a sane and predictable way, and we recognize that with our subtle hope that mixing guns and a crowd with divisive conflicts results in violence. If it doesn't, that would mean something really fucked up is happening and the world stops making sense.

Absurd. You are saying that a bloodbath is as inevitable as gravity.

No, the hope for a bloodbath isn't hoping for gravity to work, it is hoping that people who are despised will die. It's not physics, it's psychology. It is not the psychology of the "hated other", it is the psychology of those in this thread doing the hating.

A couple minor comments.

1) The Secret Service is involved, so no guns, this won't be allowed.
2) This would be the right-wing going to war with the right-wing. You know, causing a disruption of sorts.
3) Who the fuck in their right mind thinks that it is a good idea to have a bunch of armed men at a political convention? That has parallels to what Hitler and his party actually did.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Thunderdome convention?


I like.

Eight hundred and seventy nine men enter.

One man leaves.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I'm impressed with how many people are actively hoping for bloodshed and death.

It is a political party that openly and enthusiastically hopes for bloodshed and death to befall people like me. Not only hopes for, but does everything possible to make it happen, and in the not so distant past has actually CAUSED it to happen through deliberate action.

It isn't all that impressive for a huge group of people to look at a pack of gun-toting rights and wonder if the karma train is about to make a stop.

 

[arkirk]

Why not open it up for the Republicans. They can prove their loyalty to the gun by letting in a couple of fully equipped squads with machine guns for all I care. That oughta keep the speakers on the podium on their toes!

 

[ZiprHead]

Republican convention with guns - "Put the darkies in front."