Specifically, in response to a comparison of guns to cars, I posted that the primary purpose of cars is not violent.
Then, to clarify, I posted the definition of "violent" that I meant, and said "I didn't specify justfied or non-justified..."

Somehow, from this, you got: "You can always delete your post."

My mistake. I'm not a gun enthusiast, so I thought machine guns were outlawed when really they are just heavily regulated. That proves my point even more though. If heavy regulation keeps a certain kind of gun out of a criminal's hands, then outright banning it will do an even better job.

Your drug example is a poor one, because drugs can be easily manufactured by individuals and are therefore hard to control. Guns require a factory. They are also much heavier and bulkier. Much harder to smuggle.

So...what is your point then? that people shouldn't own guns because they are designed to cause harm? what about knives? Guns don't cause harm they are used by irresponsible criminal people to cause harm. That is no reason to condem the lawful citizens who feel more secure because they have a gun or use them to hunt. My comparison between the gun and car was simply to show that it isn't the design of an item that causes the problem, it is the person irresponsibly using it.

my emphasis.

Girl - without the guns, he probably would have killed a girl. While he was stabbing, beating, whatever, the first girl, the others could have run away.

How do we resolve the "mental" problem? I think many people are crazy, starting with W, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. Would the "this person is crazy and needs to be dealt with before he commits a heinous act" turn into "mental health McCarthyism?"

I will if you will. You go first. :p

I don't have a major issue with hunting or rifles. While handguns can be used for hunting, you have to admit that it's not their primary purpose. You don't have to conceal your weapon from a deer. You also have to acknowledge that a single person can do a lot more damage with a gun than a knife. How much damage would have been done in Columbine if the two kids had been armed with knives? Not as much as they caused with guns, is my guess.

"Law abiding citizens" may feel more secure if they have a gun, until it is used on them, or stolen and used in a crime.

Ok, but I've never heard of a person being "spooned" to death, or killed by being beaten with a roll of toilet paper.

reply #1: okay then, on the count of three...
reply #2: nah, mine are okay, yours are the crap ones.
reply #3: :::shoots you:::

:::launches furious internet search campaign, to cite example of death-by-toilet-paper-beating:::

That cars and guns are not in the same catagory of items, for the reasons I stated. NOTHING MORE, NOTHING LESS.

Flint you are using that sentence out of context...it is a part of a whole. To reiterate, I compared guns and cars to show that the original intent or purpose of the item is not the problem, or the cause of violence.

Okay, the full context: You asked me what my point was and then you answered your own question by providing my point for me.

"How much damage would have been done in Columbine if the two kids had been armed with knives? Not as much as they caused with guns, is my guess." they caused and that is my whole point. The people with the guns caused the damage...not the guns.


"Law abiding" responsible citizens are not likely to have their guns stolen or used on them. And their children are not likely to get possession of the weapon.

The possibility is there...

It seems to me that what you're saying, and the only thing you're trying to say, is that I cannot compare the potential violence, in the possession of an irresponsible and/or criminal person, of guns vs cars just because they aren't the same thing?

I honestly can't imagine how you managed to attribute such a specific multi-part meaning, of your own design, to me, with nothing that I've ever posted even resembling any part of it. It may "seem" that way to you, but you've got to ask yourself: why do I "seem" to be saying something that I never said? Where is it coming from? Me, or you? Or, from some association with a post/posts made by other person/persons that are also not me?

I know....the gun can't hurt anybody if it isn't wielded by a person, right? Ok. Let's have a showdown. I'll use a gun, you use a knife, OK?

Just as a gun can't do as much damage without a person, a person can't do as much damage without a gun. :eyebrow:

Using that logic, heroin shouldn't be illegal. It can't do any damage without a person doing something with it, right?

National Security Alert! Heroin supports the Taliban, you support Heroin, therefore you support the Taliban!
:::nabs you in the middle of the night, holds you indefinitely without trial, ships you overseas to be tortured in secret prisons:::

Maggie is certainly capable of a reply but I thought I might throw my thoughts in here.

When a person carries a firearm legally with a permit, it changes you and how you might do things.

First off, the last thing that you would like is some type violent confrontation because regardless of the circumstances, YOU will be going to jail. That might be a short stay or a long one but until there is some type of investigation to establish your innocence, you'll probably be in the cooler.

Your vulnerability is no longer from physical attack and you dont want any legal troubles so you tend not to get overly upset. Yelling, screaming any hostile body language tends to disappear from your normal routine ( if it ever was present before ). You dont want to be misunderstood or to appear threatening in a situation that is not threatening your life ( which is 99.99% of them ), so you might over communicate and pay more attention to your tone.

In short, you're a wonderful smiley, polite person that has had check after check after check to make sure that you are up to the responsibility of carrying a firearm that might well be enough to wipe out your neighbors and in some cases, give law enforcement a run for their money.

The armed citizen is also not panicked in situations that may if someone is NOT carrying. If you feel totally vulnerable, it changes your attitude. Many times it makes people act overly aggressive as a defense.

Just my observations here. No citations or criminal studies.

Gun toters less likely to be a criminal? Probably. Just from the background check alone. Someone that knows how to avoid troubles of all sorts? Absolutely.

And who may be secretly planning to murder some nice innocent Amish girls...:worried:

Did he have a permit to carry a handgun? You tell me, I dont know.

I would be fine with not having my guns as long as NO ONE ELSE gets to have them either, ever... that means cops also.
Until that time... they stay.
BTW, I grew-up on a ranch and my side-arm was used as protection against snakes, boar and a myriad of other things. Not just humans. But, poachers were also an issue.
That you have a problem with people protecting themselves is suspect in my eyes.

Deer in the US are overpopulated, as are many other species, culling is nessicary... hunters are also the major supporters of most of your green, environmentalist, groups. Get educated.

There is a lot that you don't understand about the "gun culture."

An awful lot.

May I in return condemn you for owning clothing and CDs and DVDs and luxury food items that you don't need?

I wouldn't oppose that.

You, obviously, have spent very little time with legitimate collectors. Most enjoy their guns for the engineering, aesthetics and comparing them to others in a series or time period. The idea of power never enters into it... if that was it, they would just upgrade to higher and higher powered weapons, which is rarely the case.

Though, my weapons are just tools. What I have are just for utilitarian reasons.

Observation: There is no call to ban cars every time a drunk driver kills a family of five.

I do not carry a gun for the purpose of going out and randomly shooting people. I carry a gun for the purpose of defense.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold illegally obtained guns, and used them to commit an illegal act.

I don't want you having things you don't need either... oh, wait... what country do I live in again?:eyebrow:
Nevermind... its NONE OF MY DAMN BUSINESS!

Regulation certainly hasn't kept full-auto out of criminals hands. It's made it somewhat more cumbersome only for the lawabiding in comparison to other firearms. But I think the real reason you don't see more full-auto is it's usually not worth the hassle...unless you have a logistics train supplying you with ammo and acquire the additional skill of using it effectively, it offers not much advantage. That's pretty much why not every infantryman is issued a full-auto weapon.

Full-auto is the wet dream of gun grabbers and gang bangers. And those two loons in body armor that died holding up that bank in LA.

Your prohibition scenario is still a fantasy. I also think you're vastly underestimating how difficult it is to make a gun; it certainly doesn't require "a factory", nor are they terribly difficult to smuggle. In fact, this debate was done here once before, with Jaguar in the role of "gun prohibition does work, no, really".

“I ask, Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.”
George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 425-426, June 16, 1788

“And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the Press, or the rights of Conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.”
Samuel Adams, Debates & Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 86-87 (February 6, 1788).


“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.”
Patrick Henry, 3 Elliot, Debates at 45 (Virginia Convention, June 5, 1788).

“If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person
were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified
in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would
be justified in silencing mankind.”- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard
even his enemy from opposition: for if he violates this duty he
establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. ”- Thomas Paine,
Dissertation On First Principles Of Government

“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.” - Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)

No weapon can do any damage without a person. And a person can defend themselves more effectively with a gun.

If you were able to actually eliminate all firearms, we'd be back in the realm where bigger/stronger people could effectively threaten smaller and weaker people by wielding a club or edged weapon. But that doesn't worry me, because you can't eliminate all firearms. In fact, I recently saw a collection of firearms manufactured *in prisons*. What does worry me is liberal dilettantes with little knowlege and less thought who want to use the government to disarm me because they think it might help them "feel better".

Yes, I'm aware that there are hobbyists who make guns in their basements.

My point is that there are no criminals who make guns. Criminals are mostly stupid and lazy, and they don't have the discipline to make anything. If they could make a gun, they would have a skill and a temperment that would allow them to lead a law abiding life. It's a numbers game. Criminals need the law abiding populace to have a large number of guns, so they can steal a subset of them.

It may be easy to smuggle one or two guns, sure. But the number of guns in use by criminals today to commit crimes is astronomical. It's too many to smuggle easily. Dope can be stuffed into teddy bears and vases and fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars. A gun can be smuggled for what, maybe as much as grand? It's too difficult, and the economics that would drive the smuggling are just not there. Criminals don't invest in tooling to commit crimes. They get a stolen gun for $50 and rob somebody and toss the gun. Again, it's a numbers game.

I'm not arguing in favor of banning guns. I just don't buy the lie that banning guns won't reduce the number of guns available for criminals. That's a crock.

:luv: :madhop: :apistola: :bong: :hide: :rattat:

I love a good gun thread. :)

You're really batting 0.000 on this. I just got done telling you about the guns made IN PRISON.

I'm sure ATF will be interested in your theory that "there are no criminals who make guns", because they arrest people for making guns in ways ATF doesn't approve of fairly frequently.

Banning guns would have the same effect on availability of guns for criminals that banning drugs and banning alcohol did. It might raise the price, but that's about it.

Since you claim it's a numbers game, tell us how many crime guns there are per year, so we can see exactly how "astronomical" it is, and how impossible to smuggle/manufacture them. Bear in mind that many crime guns are used in multiple crimes, so a simple count of gun crime won't cut it. Also remeber that in this day of NC machining, a gun design is basically software. (In fact, my carry piece was made on NC milling machines in a shop that does other work besides firearms manufacture.)

But don't you see that the precise reason smuggled drugs can fetch a high price is because they are completely illegal?? If guns were banned, you could not buy one for $50 and toss it. The economics would shift such that smuggling was by definition profitable. A car trunk full of guns would be just as expensive and just as easy to sell as a car trunk full of cocaine.

You're all missing the point.


Columbine, the more recent shootings and the amish massacre were not committed by criminals with illegal guns.

You do understand that stealing a gun from someone else A.) means you almost certainly do not have a permit for a gun, and thus it is illegal for you to own; and B.) makes you a criminal, both for having possession of it at all and for stealing it in the first place?

Since it's illegal here to have a gun in a school without a legal purpose, the perps were in fact criminals, and the guns illegal.

were you ever in the military? you have all the attributes of the barrack-room lawyer...

A leadership sighting this afternoon. Gov. Rendell was served up the opportunity to connect the Amish shooter's crime with new gun control legislation. Ed Rendell is one of the most anti-gun politicians you will find. But instead of taking the political road, scaring the public in order to move the legislation, he flatly shut the connection down with his honest response: no, even our hardest gun control won't stop the crazies.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...03/cnr.03.html

MaggieL again ignores facts. Those who carry guns for defense more often have that gun used against them. Cops carry a gun as an offensive weapon. When called to defend another, the cop goes offensive. Guns for defense is reasoning based only upon emotion, speculation, and in direct contradiction to statistical reality.

Second fact from history. As number of guns increase, then number of violent murders increase accordingly. This was documented many years previous in the Cellar.

We license drivers and cars. Dangerous items require the user and machine to be carefully trained and maintained. That is the purpose of licensing – responsibility. MaggieL does not demand requirements for responsibility. She advocates rights. But responsibility is secondary and sometimes ignored. No wonder she also advocates extraordinary rendition, torture, violations of the Geneva Convention, violations of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights, nonsense called 'unlawful enemy combatant', and eliminating the writ of Habeas Corpus. A complete denial of responsible attitude – what some call American morality.

Responsibility is secondary to rights? Who often suffers when carrying the gun? MaggieL forgot that fact.

No one is talking about banning guns. But then need for responsible gun owners is somehow spun into myths about eliminating all guns. Included is a myth that more guns means safer streets - a complete lie.

Everyone working in a Post Office should carry a gun? Good. Then the wacko need not go home - realize his mistake - before shooting his manager. A perfect solution to underfunded pension funds and social security.

Ever heard of a zip gun, Glatt? Criminals (mostly teen gangs in the 50s and 60s, when gangs were social and protective gatherings rather than a means of transporting and selling drugs) made them all the time.

Today there aren't a lot of hollow car antennas with the diameter of a .22 available.

And you don't look as cool as a dude who holds a Glock sideways.

Dude - relax.
Because cops..??

You couldn't have done that with a shotgun or rifle?

I don't. Buy a bulletproof vest, a burglar alarm, a knife, a rifle, a bodyguard, whatever. Why does defense/protection have to mean a handgun?

I said I don't have a problem with hunting for food.

Who, here, has ever had to use a gun to protect themselves? I am 47 years old, and have never needed a gun to defend myself. I am alive, never been robbed, haven't been in a fistfight since high school. Why do you pro gun folks feel like it's the only way to protect yourselves?

Because most defensive uses of handguns occur within less that 7.5 feet, IIRC (I pulled that particular number out of my ass, rather than spending the time to look it up, but I'll bet it's correct). My rifles are made to shoot at distances up to 1000 yards.

Do you use a sledgehammer for all of your small home improvement projects?

The handgun, incidentally, is there when all other options fail. Bulletproof vests are heavy, unwieldy, uncomfortable, only protect your center of mass, and are illegal in many jurisdictions.

I don't go strolling around in crack neighborhoods for fun at night, just to see if someone hassles me enough to justify shooting them.

As others have stated, most legal handgun owners go out of their way to avoid overtly dangerous situations. Safety is as much a matter of pre-planning as it is response.

Unlike a lot of people here I get credibly threatened fairly regularly. I can go so far as to say that I collect death threats the way most people collect baseball cards.

Once read that in Canada you can get a gun almost as easy as in the US, yet gun related deaths are much less. Both countries have the same historic frontier spirit. But in Canada the frontier iconic is the Mountie, while in the US the heroes are outlaws.

There is more going on than just access to deadly weaponry. US culture has a latent violence and many of these crazies indicated that they were inspired by violent movies or TV series. Also the media plays a part in the recent rage. It's a known fact that paranoid people are inspired by the extensive coverage and think "that's a guy like me and that is his solution to his problems".

Ah, yes. Unreliable single-shot zip guns, which are just as likely to blow up in your hand as fire in the general direction of where you are pointing the thing. Would the gunman who killed 5 Amish girls have been able to do that with a single shot imprecise weapon?


I assume you are talking about gunsmiths who modify guns or make guns. Now you are relying on semantics and Bill Clinton style arguments that have to do with defining words. They are otherwise law abiding citizens who only become "criminals" when they make a gun with the wrong features. These guys aren't generally drug users looking to mug someone to get money for their next fix. Nice try.

You keep repeating that, but you ignore how easy it is to make alcohol and drugs. They are very easy to smuggle and also manufacture in our own border. I'm not going to, but I could make both myself. Making a real gun isn't nearly as easy, and smuggling them, while possible, isn't easy either.

You can do your own research. Do you deny that gun use in crimes is widespread? After all, you own guns to defend yourself against others, so clearly you must think some bad guys have them. Maybe "astronomical" was a bad choice of words. You probably had a mental image of Carl Sagan saying "billions and billions." :)

That's true. Drugs are worth a lot of money because they are illegal and because they can be sold for an affordable price once you cut them into smaller portions. You can't cut up a gun to spread the cost around. If the cost of a smuggled gun is $1000, who will buy it?

My point that I'm arguing is that gun regulation will, in fact, reduce the number of guns in criminals'* hands. A more expensive gun will mean fewer criminals will be able to afford them. Criminals are usually poor.

*criminal=someone who is a criminal because they commit a crime and the gun is just a tool to use in that crime.

Before firing a single shot, he had his victims isolated and bound, so yes.

Except the cops outside would have gotten him after the first one or two.

Once he's got them bound he doesn't have to use the zip gun at all.

So...we need to outlaw . . . rope? (Or duct tape?) oops I meant "regulate" not "outlaw" . . .

Would have been able to bind them if he hadn't been wielding a gun?

Would have been able to move the people he couldn't overpower physically out, using the threat of the zip gun;

Would have been able to bind the remaining weak young girls without even using the same threat;

Would have been able to kill them quickly using a knife, ballpeen hammer, plastic bag or many other means;

Use your imaginations folks, the bad guys do.

The conversation is about guns because guns are the best tool for the job. Just ask the gun enthusiasts on the board why they are enthusiastic about guns, and not ball peen hammers.

Everyone who wants to live in a country where only the cops and the military have guns, raise your hands...

BANG! ha ha ha

:)

Ok, everybody wants everybody else to obey the law. And if those others don't obey the law, they should be shot, right? You don't want the bad guys to have guns, you don't want only cops to have guns. What the fuck would make you happy? Back to the old west? Everybody has a piece in their holster, and let the law be with he who draws fastest?

You're missing the point again. It's over there, off to your right, about ten feet away.

Obeying the law isn't all that hard, Spex. Don't steal from others, don't do physical harm to others, don't damage property not belonging to you (if it's your own car you want to smash the window of and steal your own stereo just for kicks, go right ahead).

The movie gunslinger hairtrigger shoot a varmint fer lookin' atcha funny Old West is, as far as I know, the stuff of Hollywood fantasy, although, based on recent news reports, that's what owners of illegal firearms are doing in our urban settings.

Didn't you read the crime stats Maggie provided regarding folks registered to carry firearms legally?

An armed society is a polite society, so saith the sage, Robert A. Heinlein.