Sorry, I have to start a gun thread. Only to call out lunatics.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/29/gun-enthusiasts-stalk-and-threaten-ceo-after-she-develops-weapon-only-owner-can-fire/?utm_source=crowdignite.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=crowdignite.comI realize there's a more-or-less-matorium on these, but there's already one story on this, and I want to speak up.
So, A:
I feel confident saying I have presented a consistent and (IMO) well-argued pro-second-amendment position for basically all of my time at DU.
B:
Shit like this is exactly what people talk about when they say women are being kept down. They are. Death threats are not things to shrug off.
C:
This woman developed a technology that many of us gun owners have been asking for for years: if I could limit my guns' firing to the proximity of a bracelet, I would actually be much, much happier.
This woman is an entrepreneur with a pretty compelling idea... and she gets stuck with death and rape threats. For people who doubt the existence of the patriarchy, here it is, and appallingly (to me) it's claiming to act in support of a right I believe in. But the fact is, assaults like this are the greatest threat to the legitimate right for civilians to keep and bear arms that there is.
To put it more broadly, as one who believes in the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA): there is no greater threat in the long term to the RKBA than Wayne de la Pierre.
I do believe, in general, in the civilian right to bear arms. I even think it's important, for several reasons. But the fact is, that de la Pierre and his GOP cronies are going to keep pushing every extreme limit they can, until the backlash is such that there is no recognized right to keep and bear arms.
So, that was my gun thread. Women shouldn't be threatened with murder or sexual assault online. Women shouldn't be threatened for developing a technology that many many gun owners have been asking for for years. The general civilian right to bear arms is legitimate, but the people who claim to defend it are doing more harm to it than good. There is a better way.
= new reply since forum marked as read
It goes with the whole pseudo "tough guy" culture that the NRA pushes. The bigger jerk you are, the closer you are to getting your "man card." 
The rule you noted is meant as a guideline for the purpose of keeping GD discussions civilized, so as long as things don't get out of hand, you should be okay. But ultimately it's a decision arrived at by a consensus of GD hosts. 
...and then banning them?
Assault-weapon bans are not the go-to, default, knee-jerk reaction to any shooting that makes the news?
Bear in mind that the rifle used in Newtown, which was supposed to be the "wake-up call", was not an "assault weapon" at the time it was bought or the time is was used in the slaughter at Sandy Hook Elementary. There has been an AWB in Connecticut since September 14th, 1994; it was originally the Federal ban, which Connecticut put into state law before the Federal ban expired a decade later.
And yet... immediate response? "We need to ban assault weapons!"
I guess making even more guns "assault weapons" (by legal definition) wasn't done by the Democrats, but by the six-armed aliens that live on Ganymede.
Democrats continue to lack credibility when they talk of regulating guns. Too many people are effectively clueless about guns and what laws like "assault weapon bans" really do. Too few people get worked up for making something they don't own and don't care to own tightly regulated; in contrast, lots of people get worked up when others make something they own more regulated. This is particularly true with the "feel good but effectively useless" legislation that is popular with, say, the VPC. And too many anti-gun people are just supporting any gun law that is proposed simply because it strikes a blow at the hated "gun culture".
Not that the Republicans are a joy to behold; their constant rhetoric about domestic insurgency and rebellion and "Second Amendment remedies" and "taking our country back" are, frankly, disturbing.
But the central issue is that owning a gun has become a political statement because Democrats are trying to wage a culture war against gun ownership. So gun owners become dragged into politics based on this issue, while non-gun-owners tend to not give a shit, or to at least give it a much lower priority, than gun owners.
Response to Recursion (Original post)