Saltpork545 t1_jb8gcfe wrote on March 7, 2023 at 5:20 AM

Reply to comment by Bright-Lion in What are some good gun shops in town? by mungermoss245

Cool. Good luck changing anyone's minds who actually owns a rifle designed before the pocket calculator. Really, go look it up.

If you drink alcohol, smoke, drive a vehicle or eat a burger, including veggie burgers, you are complicit in the senseless murder of thousands. That's how idiotic your whataboutism sounds.

Bright-Lion t1_jb9uoj1 wrote on March 7, 2023 at 2:49 PM

Oh shit they were designed before pocket calculators? Well damn. I guess they can’t hurt anybody then. Nothing made before the 1970s can hurt people. This is a meaningless talking point.

I mean you are partially right. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. All of those activities involve the coercive labor of others. And obviously driving comes with its own set of physical and environmental risks. And the meat industry is also a real problem, both for the treatment of animals and environmental problems. And actually it’s pretty bad for the treatment of workers too. So yeah. Any time we do any of those things, we should be thinking about who made the product we are consuming, whether they are being paid a living wage and treated fairly, and how we can safely engage in that activity to keep ourselves and the planet safe. But gun production is not like these in that the gun possess the direct (and in fact designed) capability to kill another person (many other people). Saying that we should be mindful of the harm of driving a car does not mean that we shouldn’t be mindful of the dangers of guns. That actually is whataboutism.

Saltpork545 t1_jbd6f3j wrote on March 8, 2023 at 4:42 AM

> This is a meaningless talking point.

No, genius, you missed the point that these things have been around long enough to be C&R(that's curio and relic) weapons and there's legit millions of them that have been around since the 1960s. It's not that they can't be dangerous, it's that they're common. Keep up.

>There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. All of those activities involve the coercive labor of others.

facepalm
This isn't your fucking poli sci class. My point on your whataboutism is that people who are doing behaviors that others do to excess, misuse, abuse or outright use for criminal purposes shouldn't deny the regular use for everyone else. You're accusing people you don't know for being "complicit in the senseless murder of thousands". That completely removes agency from people and it's borderline idiotic.

To say this another way: Did you prepare food today? Use a kitchen knife? You're complicit in the murder of millions going back to the first cases of bladed weapons and the death of humans. Monster. You have the bodies of dead children on your hands because you checks notes cut vegetables. That's the essence of your argument and why no one takes you seriously.

It is not the fault of a bar or a casual drinker that there are alcoholics who drive drunk and do unjust harm to others. The same holds true for guns. That's my point and you turned that into 'capitalism bad', then try to use the logical fallacy you used to accuse me of the same after completely missing the point, again.

You don't want to see the reality of firearms. A large majority of guns and gun owners don't kill anyone. Have fun holding signs and calling people murderers and wondering why they don't listen to you.