I've been waiting a while for something as well-stated and succinct as this. I agree with it in all respects and add some of mine at the end The term "gun nut" is a direct quote. http://americablog.com/2012/12/its-time-to-ban-guns-completely.html Some additions of my own. We have, by a pretty far measure not seen even close to the kind of massacres we should expect if this keeps up. Russia, which has, if anything, stricter gun control laws than ours, was introduced to the problem by a hostage taking incident that resulted in the death of over 300 school children when they tried to rescue them. (And PLEASE no silly arguments about how they were actually killed by gas, the gas wouldn't have been used if they children were not all being held hostage by guns) How many more of our citizens and children must we sacrifice before something is done? Keep in mind that this type of massacre is probably the major threat on your life by a gun that you cannot avoid by the application of reasonable caution and common sense. You can tell your kids not to join a gang or hang out in back alleys, you can't tell them not to go to the mall, get a job, or go to church. Anybody who advocates the continued arming of private citizens is threatening your life and that of your childen, indirectly, perhaps, but dead is dead. I am also not "afraid" of guns, except as much as I was once told was proper by the NRA itself. I have handled guns and admit their fascination, but I now believe it is an interest properly confined to a book or a museum. At one time I thought the gun advocates were mainly legitimate sportsmen and hobbyists, rightly upset that someone should try to ban what they see as a harmless and interesting hobby. I have become convinced that most of them are now twisted fetishists or at the very least, quite content to let a bunch of twisted and murderous ideologues speak for them. If you really are the, IMO, semi-mythical "responsible gun owner" who truly just likes to go hunting or target shoot, find another hobby and get over it. It is time that we cut this cancer out of our society before it metastasizes into something that will make us all very, very sick. Having expressed my opinion in what I think is as civil, rational and by-the-rules manner as I can, I now await the plethora of comments on my sexual preferences (male and strongly hetero btw,) ancestry, and various other habits along with several thinly veiled and some quite open threats on my life from gun owners proving how "responsible" they really are. I will ignore them and maybe report them. If you wish to try the extremely challenging endeavor of trying to make a rational case for the continued gun policy we now have I await and welcome your responses.
250 million guns in America.... I'm sure everyone would comply. I'll turn mine in when I am convinced that all the criminals have turned theirs in first.
http://www.fightthebias.com/resources/gundebate/history_of_gun_control.htm Even if this source is 1/2 right, it makes my case. We can't trust any government with absolute power over the people. The founding fathers intended the 2A to be the ultimate check on federal oppression. Crime happens in gun free areas more often, especially mass shootings. The media has joined on the gun witchhunt to demonize the gun instead of the person pulling the trigger and they expect us to be good sheeple and give up our best means to defend ourselves from armed thugs. Criminals will still get guns. Mexico has proven that and not all Mexican guns are coming from America. Millions of Americans are carrying guns daily, myself included, and crime has gone down in most places where CHLs were introduced.
As predicted, the anti gun crowd is "making the most" of every shooting. Before Sandy Hook, these things were not in the news as much. Now, it's constant news. The antis push hard for more extensive background checks, as if this would make it OK. That's the cover story for developing an even more extensive database than the one that is already in place with the Brady system. Of course, by law, the Gov. can't retain any info from the Brady system, but by law, the NSA can't do most of what they were established to do. The Gov. demonstrates that they can't be trusted. This demonstrates the NEED for an armed citizenry, to keep our lying Gov. in check. Argue that? In Sandy Hook, the Colo. theater shooting, the one in Santa Barbara, the one by J. Loughner and on and on, it was already known that these people had severe mental issues. Their backgrounds were already known, and in most of those cases, people had tried very hard to have them deemed a threat to society and to themselves. The record demonstrates that it is NOT the aim of our society to do anything about these mentally incompetent persons. This, in turn, demonstrates that the aim of more stringent background checks is NOT to control the wackos, but rather, the aim is to establish that database of ALL gun owners. Is it such a leap of awareness to understand that those who hold power in America realize that the task of controlling a free people is a social oxymoron? To them, our freedom, or what tiny caricature of it that remains, is the whole hindrance to their control. The whole system of institutions for the mentally ill proved to be unworkable. "They" accept that there will always be that element in society. To those who control the world, and this country, the elimination of arms in society is the means to a path of less resistance. This whole thing could be better approached with efforts to improve the overall quality of life, and the mechanisms are very familiar. The big problem with developing society as a whole is that the DOW average would be much less impressive, and those who "have" would have much less. To them, this is NOT an option. Look at any, and ALL of our social ills. One is hard pressed to name a single one that doesn't spawn from the womb of ALL social ills. This womb is the birthplace of greed and corruption. As long as our leaders cling to this, we will live in a sick society. Fix that.
Not a problem and not at all a challenge. I am a free man. I am a law abiding, tax paying citizen. You, your ilk, and the author, have no right to remove my freedoms protected by a document we've agreed to, by proxy, be governed by and written by men smarter that your ilk. You are not my master, I am not your slave, any more than you are mine. A free society contains risks. We must accept those risks in order to remain free. Attempts to remove those risks are an affront to individuals freedom. Fix what is wrong with those who would harm others but do not advocate the removal of freedoms for all in the vain attempt to do so. You have no right to. .
I think a lot of people would turn them in if they faced a life sentence for keeping one, like they do in Hong Kong, where they also send the Army out to track down armed robbers. Yes, even then they do still have some criminals with guns, but it's very, very few. But the kind of crime that affects me and my family, the kind that I cannot avoid, has risen precipitously and continues to do so. I now say farewell to my loved ones and wonder if I will ever see them alive again. The chances they would be gunned down by a madman used to be remote beyond imagining. It is still very unlikely but no longer next to impossible. Anyone who believes that the 2nd amendment was designed as a check on government also believes, by definition, that it gives them the right to settle their arguments with murder. And the gun advocates think this is a reason we SHOULD arm them? It's constant news because it's going on constantly. I have heard gun advocates suggest we should forbid media coverage of this so an not to encourage others. Imagine that, people are being killed and these lovers of freedom are apparently proposing we now forbid their relatives from mourning them so as not to make the gun advocates feel guilty Now gun advocates are proposing paranoia as an excuse for arming madmen among us You may rest easy on that score. I am proposing no databases except perhaps of inmate numbers of those we catch with guns I agree that background checks won't help. Therefore, NOBODY who is not an official of the government should be allowed a gun. The rest of your paragraph is a little off topic. It sounds interesting but I think it would just distract from the subject at hand to discuss it. Indeed, yours too. This is particularly evident in your gross misinterpretation of the document you refer to. You and your ilk are not free to harm me and mine nor to own something that endangers me and my family by its very existence in your possession. All societies have risks but the whole purpose of a society is to alleviate these risks somewhat.
All emotional fluff and scare tactics without ever understanding the real facts. It will never happen. What is the next step?
When all elected officials relinquish 2A, I will respect the same. After all, elitist are not in the Constitution.
Keep telling yourself that. Common sense will prevail eventually and the next step will be that we live much more safely.
1) Incorrect. My interpretation is consistent with the writings of the authors of said document. 2) You are correct in that I've no right to harm you unprovoked, however, I have every right to own something that endangers you (of course you meant- if used improperly). Those items you fear virtually surround you and I both as we speak. Over 120,000 Americans die each year from unintentional accidents. That's 10X the number of total deaths by firearm. The very existence of my weapons have not once endangered anyone in the 40+ years I've possessed them. This illustrates what most anti-gun people lack; Perspective. 3) Subjective opinion at best. The document we have been talking about is my societal guide. Protection of individual rights from those who violate them.
You are trying to empower these madmen. They might not be able to gun you down if you disarm everybody, but they can attack your family in numbers and do it with confidence knowing you can't fight back. Settle arguments with murder? What are you smoking? We have laws that cover starting an argument that escalates into gun violence. I've walked away from arguments with a gun on my hip where the guy thought I was afraid of him. I don't argue with people on the roads and am far less aggressive when I am armed. I value my freedom and acting like an idiot isn't good for my freedom. The bottom line is you are afraid of a gun and you want big brother to take everybody's freedoms away to make you feel better. Law abiding people are not threatening you. In fact, you benefit from their guns. People don't rob your house because they are afraid that it is my house. You're welcome.
My question to the OP: Is overall violent crime important to you, or only gun crimes? Because if 'gun crimes' are all you care about, then your agenda becomes clear and further rational discussion becomes impossible. The anti-gun narrative I hear over and over focuses on 'gun' crimes, and ignores all other violent crime. The Aussie contingent here (with one notable exception) LOVES to point out how much lower their 'gun crime' rate is than ours, but they don't want to talk about the rise in overall violent crime since their bans went into effect. You cannot fairly and accurately gauge the effect of gun owners on our society without taking the OVERALL violent crime rate into account. The truth is, our overall violent crime rate (including gun crimes) has plummeted in the last 10 years, while at the same time CHL holders and gun ownership have skyrocketed. While the drop in violent crime can probably not be solely attributed to the rise in gun ownership, the correlation cannot be ignored. At the very least it proves that 'more guns' do not mean 'more violence'. I honestly have never seen a thread about this here at PF that wasn't agenda driven. Will this one be different?
Completely false assumptions. Spend a few minutes on the FBI Uniform Crime Report Table 1: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/uc...and_rate_per_100000_inhabitants_1993-2012.xls Table 1 is a table of US national crime statistics for the past 20 years (in this case, 1993 to 2012, 2012 is the last complete UCR release). Note that violent crime has dropped 48% from 1993 to 2012. Murder has dropped 51%. Rape, robbery, and assault have all dropped. To get a sense of the propaganda being employed by the gun banners, look at Table 20 (Weapons used to commit murder): http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/uc..._20_murder_by_state_types_of_weapons_2012.xls Rifles, which includes so called "assault weapons", are used the least in murder. Hands & feet kill more people than all rifles. Violent crime in the US is very closely associated with the city size, the larger the city, the higher the violent crime rate (Table 12). If you don't live in a big city (and really in the inner city), then you are quite safe. ********* Mass murder is a rare event that gets hyped for political and medai purposes. You can see a list of the mass murders here http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map?page=2 ********* You should not be afraid of guns. The biggest mass murderers in the US did not use any firearms. Ted Bundy killed 36 known and possibly around 100 by strangulation, beating, and drowning. Its not the one time shooter you have to worry about, its the methodical serial killer that kills one or two at a time, for decades.
You Statists are all alike. Tyranny of the few over the many under the false impression that tyranny will somehow make you safe.
Seems to be all they can do for some reason. They don't actually evaluate and analyze statistics, rather letting the media and emotional hype be their guide. Any truly thought provoking discussion on the topic of violence and gun violence would include discussion and dissemination of FBI and other statistical crime data without including all of their emotional tirades that are just wash, rinse, repeat regurgitations of media talking points. And I always wonder how they come to the conclusion that giving more power to the state could in some way enhance their lives. All they have to do is look at the past 10 years and consider just how much better off they are today than then.
This would have serious blowback from the world community when a civil war starts because of such extremism. Also, it is already a life sentence to commit homicide, but it happens many times a day. Why would a life sentence make a difference to all the gang bangers out there that are creating most of the murder stats. Our government could already change the homicide statistics by 80 percent if they would crack down on inner city gang activity. Why do you think they don't go after them? The same reason they wouldn't go after them if the passed the law that you propose.
Darn Well Said! I really think there is nothing more to add except for the reminder that those that are willing to give up their rights for security gain neither.
Can I please ask what laws would stop the people and kids committing these crimes from happening? I agree we have a problem but there are already laws on the books for background checks and that penalize those that use weapons in crimes. Havent they all ready decided to break the most severe laws when they decide they will kill some one? What law will be severe enough to stop some one who already is prepared to die?
This is the pertinent question. It is, after all, already against the law to shoot up a school. How does proposing more restrictive laws have any affect on the lawless? Banning guns will not make them go away, just as banning alcohol did not make it go away, just as banning marijuana did not make it go away, just as banning prostitution did not make it go away, etc, etc..... (need I carry on?). That said, the people who are doing this are martyrs to their own cause. They are OUR suicide bombers. They all want to die, they want their 15 seconds of fame, and they want to take as many innocents as they can with them. They will do this using any tools that are available to them. The real answer to the problem is identifying the conditions that are making people want to die and kill, and identifying these people so they can be helped before they snap and go postal.
The idea of banning guns only bans guns from people that can legally own them. It does nothing to stop illegal ownership. Meet the Army Veteran Who Could Once and for All Destroy One of the Left’s Key Gun Control Arguments
1. We must agree to disagree, as to what the document says. That is how the US works and fine, as long as we both stay alive to argue. 2. But I do have the right to some protection, question of degree, you cannot store large quantities of fireworks in a small apartment because you like to go off and hear loud noises on the weekends. 3. Your subjective opinion vs mine. Majority will rule and more and more people are on my side every day. They are quieter than yours but more numerous.
You do have protections, there are background checks, laws that regulate who can own weapons, laws on how and where they can be used as well. What law or protections can be applied that would work in making you not just feel safe but actually be safe?
Typical. Specious argument couched in high sounding language. When you have an "active shooter" of bloody course it's better to have as many armed men as you can to stop him. My proposal is aimed at preventing the "active shooter" in the first place. I'll happily concede your silly point, now answer mine. How and someone shoot a gun that isn't there?
