Armed America

[Jordan]

The only way that any child could get a hold of my firearms is to either take the key from my keychain or else break the glass. As I've already stated, I only have the two guns and they're kept in plain sight. I would notice right away if either were missing. Also, an innocent person would not be prowling my property and no one should never EVER pull out their gun unless you KNOW you may need it.

I can easily defend myself and property with a shotgun, the rifle concept is rather foreign to me.

I never shot AT them, merely discharged into the ground. That generator also supplied power to an eightyish great grandmother next door. This is the same woman who feeds the neighborhood cats went shopping for me and made me chicken soup while i was ill last week. Thanks to the cold front that came after the storm, the only things she had drawing on my generator were her refrigerator and a ceiling fan. IF there had been no cold front, and IF I had not scared away the thieves, she would have had serious issues with the heat and humidity in the aftermath of the storm.

Motion lights? Do they have raccoons or opossums where you live? Bullet proof vests don't do anything to defend the home. Tasers require you to get too close and when you're talking two or three to one odds, I'd like to keep things as much in my favor as possible. FYI: Tasers can and are used to commit crimes, they're simply not as "popular".

Do you truly think that by signing a new amendment into place abolishing firearms, the criminals will simply cease to carry them in the next ten to twenty years? Do you know the laws they have against rape, drug possession, distribution, spousal abuse, child abuse...? Yet these crimes continue, why is that? Possibly because in order to first be a criminal one must first make a conscious choice to break the law. If we have people that are willing to break the law in order to commit all of the above and NONE of the aforementioned crimes require firearms in order to commit them, then it stands to reason that none of these crimes would be prevented by abolishing firearms.

Abolishing firearm sales in the United States will only mean that they will be smuggled in from Mexico, Puerto Rico or Canada by criminals. That means that law abiding citizens such as myself and many others would be at even MORE of a disadvantage against them.

Oh yeah, your argument that others should loose their property for someone elses negligence holds no water. Should you lose your car because someone went out and purpousfully ran over their mother-in-law? They aimed their weapon, pressed the "trigger" and took someone's life. I reserve the right to own a gun and a car, others have guns and cars, both are used to commit crimes and both are involved in lethal accidents.

Let's abolish cars as well.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Would you have killed someone - taken a life - over a generator that you use once every 2-3 years?

Absolutely, scum that prey on people trying to survive in the wake of a natural disaster deserve to die. Shooting looters has always been Standard Procedure for all levels of government and should be followed by the citizens.

Your concern for this lower than whale shit, predator that causes untold suffering and possibly death to people in trouble, is foolish. You remind of the guy that went, unarmed, to live with the bears because they were just misunderstood creatures doing their thing. He was 100% right. Their thing was to eat him.

[Jordan]

Concern for human life should always be applauded, the issue is when excessive force is taken. I would backup anyone that shot the people trying to steal their generator. That would be out of basic principle, you can not discern what an individual's mindset is at the time of crisis. The best you can do in that particular situation is interpret their actions and act, which is what I did. A mandatory curfew in effect, my neighbors lawnmower in my yard and my AC unit no longer functioned, I "interpreted" that they were stealing my generator. IMO, their lives are worth no less or more than my own, I was merely defending my property as I deemed I should. Personally, I could not make the decision to shoot at them and so chose to scare the crap outta them and call it in.

I applaud Sexxvet for her (his?) vigilance and agree with many of her/his views, I simply lack the optimistic idealism to believe it would ever work. I came into this debate in the middle, and apologize for stepping on anyone's toes in the process.

[Hippikos]

Just saw a program about US home videos. There was a footage of a guy who was angry that his neighbour walked on the porch of his house to get to the street.

He was waving a gun at the neighbour who was yelling "Yeah, why don't you shoot me". He did shot him, 3 times. The neighbour was dead. All on video...

[Jordan]

Ouch - Something tells me there might have been more to the story than just that simplified version. Even so, you don't bait someone waving a gun by screaming "shoot me", and you don't go waving a gun at someone just to prove a point.

This is why there are laws about keeping your firearms locked up and secured. The trigger happy SOB should get life in prison and the dead guy's probably been punished enough by now. The jail time won't bring the dead guy back, but maybe he shouldn't have been antagonizing his gun wielding neighbor... Just my $.02

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Absolutely, scum that prey on people trying to survive in the wake of a natural disaster deserve to die. Shooting looters has always been Standard Procedure for all levels of government and should be followed by the citizens.

So you would and could take someone's life for material things?

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Your concern for this lower than whale shit, predator that causes untold suffering and possibly death to people in trouble, is foolish.....

You've got me wrong. I was asking to find information, it was not a rhetorical quetsion, though I'd rather see a non-violent resolution to the conflict. Jordan resolved the conflict without violence. Well done. And I'm glad they were caught and punished.

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Right but wholly irrelevant.

A) The world cannot be sterilized from danger, nor would you want to live in such a place. But more importantly,

B) I caution, resist the urge to solve politics with equations. It seems like it would work that way sometimes, but math is perfect and humans are imperfect.

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

In exactly the same way that someone with no hands is less likely to shoot you than someone with any. Fantasy-land scenarios are a waste of time.

Completely true, but my point right from the start, far from 'ban guns!', was...

Guns don't scare me. People who are obsessed with them do, the same way that corpses dont scare me but people who fuck them do. Anyone who is that downright religious about their guns just puts me on edge, makes me wary, the same way someone who raises pit bulls or carries chainsaws does. They may be perfectly sane, but if they turn out not to be, or flip out, or convince themselves that all 'communists' need to die...
Fuck.

Therefore, the statement that people with guns are more dangerous than those without them applies only to the extremes in politics, not to the criminals - which is exactly why I dont want to ban them in the first place.


Are you done arguing with me yet? I'm NOT anti-gun. I'm not for gun control.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Jordan

The only way that any child could get a hold of my firearms is to either take the key from my keychain or else break the glass.

But not every gun owner is as responsible or thorough as you are.

Originally Posted by Jordan

...
Motion lights? Do they have raccoons or opossums where you live? Bullet proof vests don't do anything to defend the home. Tasers require you to get too close and when you're talking two or three to one odds, I'd like to keep things as much in my favor as possible. FYI: Tasers can and are used to commit crimes, they're simply not as "popular".

Or as "lethal". My point is that there are plenty of things you can do to protect yourself and your home besides having a handgun at the ready to kill someone. Isn't that true?

Originally Posted by Jordan

Do you truly think that by signing a new amendment into place abolishing firearms, the criminals will simply cease to carry them in the next ten to twenty years? Do you know the laws they have against rape, drug possession, distribution, spousal abuse, child abuse...? Yet these crimes continue, why is that? Possibly because in order to first be a criminal one must first make a conscious choice to break the law. If we have people that are willing to break the law in order to commit all of the above and NONE of the aforementioned crimes require firearms in order to commit them, then it stands to reason that none of these crimes would be prevented by abolishing firearms.

So you're saying that laws against rape, drug possession, distribution, spousal abuse, child abuse don't stop those crimes, so laws against gun posession won't stop gun crimes, is that right? By that logic, we should revoke the laws against rape, drug possession, distribution, spousal abuse, child abuse - after all, they're not stopping those crimes. Let's just not even attempt to stop those crimes, the way you want to not even attempt to stop gun posession. I do not support legislating the abolishment of firearms, I support voluntarily giving them up.

Originally Posted by Jordan

Oh yeah, your argument that others should loose their property for someone elses negligence holds no water. Should you lose your car because someone went out and purpousfully ran over their mother-in-law? They aimed their weapon, pressed the "trigger" and took someone's life. I reserve the right to own a gun and a car, others have guns and cars, both are used to commit crimes and both are involved in lethal accidents.

Let's abolish cars as well.

Actually, you lose "property" for other people's negligence all the time. Car insurance rates increase in proportion to the likelihood of your "group" getting into an accident. Same with health insurance. Your buddy's doughnut eating is increasing the cost of your health insurance. Go figure.

When you reserve the right to own a gun, you reserve the right of others to own a gun... others who may use those guns for criminal activities or who allow children to have access to them.

I've heard the "(insert ludicrous object here) kill people, and nobody wants to outlaw them" argument before. I'm sure somebody's been "spooned" to death before, so let's outlaw spoons. Bottom line: Handguns were made for killing people. (Quick, someone jump in and say how they are used for sport or protection from dangerous animals.) They were made for killing people. The world would be a better place without them.

[Jordan]

So I should voluntarily pay the price for someone elses negligence? Now we're back at the "let's all give up our car" theory, around and around we go lass.

You show me something that's as accurate as a handgun at 20 feet with 100% of the same stopping power and, (after a bit of judicial research), I'll be the first one applauding.

I never said the laws against rape, drug possession, distribution, spousal abuse, child abuse etc don't help to prevent these crimes. What I did say was that none of these violent crimes require a gun and that those who make a conscious choice to break the law would do so regardless of the time they must spend in jail. I never advocated eliminating those crimes from the dockets. By all means, let's increase the penalties on them.

But again I say, your argument holds no water. I reserve the right to drive and own a car, for dinner tonight we all had steak, potato wedges and spinach with a desert of lime sorbet. Does that mean that "Average Joe Citizen" will pay for our health care if we all come down with cholesterol induced heart failure? Incrementally speaking, sure, but somehow I doubt it. Yes, increments amassed can lead to much more; the same way many creeks may lead into a stream and several streams will form a river.
IMO: That river never formed in any of your arguments. Show me how we can prevent criminals from obtaining their guns via our Mexican/Canadian borders and I'll be the first to sign up for your Utopian Society. You're correct in saying that handguns were made for killing, but it's the person who dictates what the target is.

Again I say that I'd rather have it and never need it, than need it and not have it.

[xoxoxoBruce]

So you would and could take someone's life for material things?

In the case of looters, absolutely.

No. There are plenty of defensive tools. Motion lights, alarms, tasers, bullet-proof vests, and all kinds of behavior. Most of them can't be used to commit crimes or hurt others.

Then you'll be canceling your insurance, life and home owners, since you have all these defensive tools, right?

[busterb]

If you're screwing with my property, me on my property. You are subject to get shot at.

38

[deadbeater]

Hell, if you are so adamant about bearing arms, how about pocket nukes for everyone, man, woman and child? If that isn't a deterrent, I don't know what is.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Jordan

You show me something that's as accurate as a handgun at 20 feet with 100% of the same stopping power and, (after a bit of judicial research), I'll be the first one applauding.

How about a shotgun, ma'am?

Originally Posted by Jordan

...
But again I say, your argument holds no water.
...IMO: That river never formed in any of your arguments. Show me how we can prevent criminals from obtaining their guns via our Mexican/Canadian borders and I'll be the first to sign up for your Utopian Society. You're correct in saying that handguns were made for killing, but it's the person who dictates what the target is.
...

And your argument is held in a seive.
Regarding guns:
"Show me how we can prevent criminals from obtaining their guns via our Mexican/Canadian borders and I'll be the first to sign up for your Utopian Society"

Same logic:
Regarding drugs:
"Show me how we can prevent criminals from obtaining their drugs via our Mexican/Canadian borders and I'll be the first to sign up for your Utopian Society"

Regarding rape:
"Show me how we can prevent criminals from obtaining their penises via our Mexican/Canadian borders and I'll be the first to sign up for your Utopian Society"

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

In the case of looters, absolutely.

Just curious, have you ever killed anyone?

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Then you'll be canceling your insurance, life and home owners, since you have all these defensive tools, right?

Who said I have all those things?

[rigcranop]

Spexxvet, I've followed this thread since it's start and re-read it from beginning to present. Yet, I haven't grasped your definitive opinion yet. Would you answer some questions directly and concisely?
1. Do you think there should be an amendment to the constitution to remove guns from American civilians?
2. Do you think guns should be legislated out of the hands of American civilians?
3. Do you think American civilians should voluntarily give up their firearms?
4. Do you think any of the above alternatives will have a major impact on violent crime figures?
5. Do you think Americans who are opposed to gun ownership are more civilized than Americans who own guns legally?