Since you own a gun...

[piercehawkeye45]

I think people should be allowed to keep guns but spreading them will do nothing to prevent crime.

If I bring a gun to protect myself, will it really protect me? If someone robs me at gunpoint it is most likely that they want the money and NOTHING ELSE. Sure there are some fucked up souls that do it to scare, hurt, and that shit but the majority just want the money and doesn't want anyone to get hurt. Now if someone robs me at gunpoint and I falsely assume that the person wants to kill me and I pull out my gun, most likely one if not both of us will end up dead or seriously injured. Are we any better off then when we started? Even if I do have a gun on me when I get robbed at gunpoint I would not pull it out unless I am sure that my life is in danger. I will sacrifice my $50 to not scare the criminal and possiblily getting me killed.

As I said before I am in favor of keeping guns but using them as self-defense is a death sentence.

[mrnoodle]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

I think people should be allowed to keep guns but spreading them will do nothing to prevent crime.

If I bring a gun to protect myself, will it really protect me? If someone robs me at gunpoint it is most likely that they want the money and NOTHING ELSE. Sure there are some fucked up souls that do it to scare, hurt, and that shit but the majority just want the money and doesn't want anyone to get hurt. Now if someone robs me at gunpoint and I falsely assume that the person wants to kill me and I pull out my gun, most likely one if not both of us will end up dead or seriously injured. Are we any better off then when we started? Even if I do have a gun on me when I get robbed at gunpoint I would not pull it out unless I am sure that my life is in danger. I will sacrifice my $50 to not scare the criminal and possiblily getting me killed.

As I said before I am in favor of keeping guns but using them as self-defense is a death sentence.

Owning a gun isn't a cure-all. You have to have awareness of your surroundings, a level head, and training. The complete package is what will save your life, not simply a piece of hardware.

At first, your last sentence boggled my mind. But you're right. If you don't have some basic safety training to go with your gun, you're probably going to get hurt or hurt someone else accidentally. However, if you DO get proper education (which I think should be mandatory for ownership), suddenly the mystique and danger disappears.

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

As I said before I am in favor of keeping guns but using them as self-defense is a death sentence.

So you are ok with state murder but not self-defense or the defense of family, children or others? Yeah, you make perfect sense.

The way I look at it is that I don't know that a criminal is not going to kill me. My life and the life of my family is not worth that gamble under any circumstances. The criminal chooses to place themselves in the situation where I have to decide to trust that they are not going to kill my family or I... I don't trust that and would be a bad husband and father if I trusted them more than my instincts and logic.
Logic says if they are a threat you must eliminate it in the most efficient and final way possible so the threat does not return so my I and/or my family no longer has to deal with said threat. It is simple.

BTW, I am not ALLOWED shit... it is my right and no one has fuck-all to say about it. "allowed to keep...."

Molon Labe

When the Greeks came to Sparta they told the Spartans to lay down their arms...the Spartans replied "Molon Labe"...
"Come and take them"

HURRICANE KATRINA GUN CONFISCATIONS
November 8, 2005

No phone. No power. No 911. No police. No way to get help.

You're totally cut off from the rest of the world. Armed, predatory gangs are roaming the streets and committing violent felonies at will. And with nothing to rely on except yourself, you have no choice but to stand at the ready, day and night, to defend your family, keep looters out of your home, or even prevent a murder or rape.

More than a week later, when police and National Guard troops finally arrive, you feel relief... Until they make it clear that they've come to confiscate your guns under sweeping "emergency powers" laws.

As hard to believe as it sounds, the situation I'm describing is exactly what law-abiding citizens of New Orleans faced -- just days after Hurricane Katrina struck.

Two weeks into the disaster, high-ranking politically-appointed police officials set out to turn nature's assault into a government assault on our rights -- and destroy the last remaining thing that Katrina couldn't touch... The RIGHT guaranteed by our Second Amendment to keep and bear firearms for self defense.

The signal for citywide gun confiscation came from New Orleans Superintendent of Police Edwin Compass, who declared: "No one will be able to be armed. Guns will be taken. Only law enforcement will be allowed to have guns." In a statement to the Associated Press, Deputy Police Chief Warren Riley underscored this profound betrayal by stating, "We are going to take all the weapons."

And with these announcements, law enforcement officials began a massive house-to-house search -- confiscating lawfully-owned firearms that, in the days and hours before, had been used to prevent countless murders, robberies, looting and rapes.

Just that quickly, every notion of justice, freedom, and common sense that you and I have ever believed in was turned completely inside out.

In the eyes of the government, the good guys -- true heroes who had defended not just themselves but their families and neighbors -- were now bad guys.

And the bad guys -- who had exploited the tragedy and chaos to go on a sickening spree of murder, looting and rape -- were effectively given government protection to commit any crime they wanted, no matter how heinous.

In a place where 25% of the police force inexplicably vanished from their jobs... Where helpless people were ordered into the Superdome by the mayor, some reported to be murdered and raped while denied police protection... Where hospitals were looted for drugs... Where gunfire erupted every night on the streets... Where government officials played the blame game for days around an expanding circle of mayhem and death...

...The police were dispatched into the homes of law-abiding citizens with orders to disarm them -- by force if necessary.

Fox News caught one of these violent episodes against peaceable citizens on tape when police entered the residence of an elderly woman, Patricia Konie, and demanded that she evacuate her home. Konie pointed out that her street was dry, she had plenty of food and water and, if looters came, she had a gun.

But when she showed her revolver, held in her palm with the cylinder open, no finger on the trigger, the police mercilessly body-slammed the elderly woman into a wall sending dishes flying -- then confiscated her firearm and dragged her from her home.

No one will ever know how many violent crimes were prevented by law-abiding citizens with lawfully-owned firearms when New Orleans erupted into total chaos and anarchy.

No one will ever know how many violent crimes were committed after law-abiding citizens were forcibly disarmed in the citywide gun sweep. But I do know one thing with absolute certainty:


THIS PRECEDENT CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO STAND.


We must ensure that never again will government officials take the Second Amendment into their own hands.

And we must ensure that never again will our fellow law-abiding Americans be disarmed by the government for the "crime" of defending their homes and loved ones -- NEVER.

What we've seen in New Orleans is a 100% vindication of our longtime defense of the Second Amendment.

Every gun-ban lobbyist who ever claimed that we could rely on the police and the government to protect us was proven dead wrong. The politicians who said, "Trust the government to provide for your safety," were nowhere to be found.

And those citizens of New Orleans who misguidedly bought into the "It Takes A Village" gun control philosophy of Hillary Clinton, Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein were the first in line to become victims of violent crime when disaster struck.

When civilization crumbled away, when all else failed, the Right to Keep and Bear Arms was all that stood between life and death for innocent people.

To steal that right by unilateral, arrogant decree... taking guns from law-abiding people who have no other means to protect themselves against the worst elements of society... is not just legally wrong -- it's morally wrong at the deepest level...

[glatt]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

However, if you DO get proper education (which I think should be mandatory for ownership), suddenly the mystique and danger disappears.

This is the first time I've heard any pro-gun person voluntarily express a desire to limit the owning of guns. Did you really mean to say this? Or did you simply mean that getting training is a good idea? I agree with you that all gun owners should be required to get proper training before they can own a gun.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

...The way I look at it is that I don't know that a criminal is not going to kill me. My life and the life of my family is not worth that gamble under any circumstances. The criminal chooses to place themselves in the situation where I have to decide to trust that they are not going to kill my family or I... I don't trust that and would be a bad husband and father if I trusted them more than my instincts and logic.
Logic says if they are a threat you must eliminate it in the most efficient and final way possible so the threat does not return so my I and/or my family no longer has to deal with said threat. It is simple.
...

What happens to your family if a jury determines you were in the wrong when you killed what you thought was a criminal? What effect will seeing his father kill someone have on your son? When is it worth taking another person's life?

It seems to me that in most serious life-threatening cases you won't have the opportunity to use a sidearm. Unless you have a gun in a holster at your belt there'd be no time to get it. There's a knock at your door. You answer it and the door is pushed in - three guys with pistols pointing at you. Can you draw and kill all three? Is it valiant to go down in a hail of bullets, leaving your family to fend for themselves? How does having a gun help you?

True story: My friend's brother picked up a girl in a bar. When he got her home, he found out it was a transvetite. They struggled. My friend's brother went to his bedroom to get his pistol. The transvestite wrestled the gun from my friend's brother and killed him.

With. His. Own. Gun.

Rk, how do you reconcile your distrust of the law with your trust that you'll be exonerated by the law after killing someone?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Your friend's brother's conduct was the problem, not the gun.
He was stupid to threaten the transvestite with a gun he had no intention of using. If he had, they wouldn't have been wrestling for it.
I'd bet dollars to donuts, he said he was going to get his gun, too.
The purpose of a gun in this case, is to preclude hand to hand combat, keep them at bay while calling the police, if they refuse to leave.

[Shawnee123]

So you should HAVE a gun, but you shouldn't USE the gun? Is there a manual, or a flipchart, or flowchart, we could use in these situations to figure out the "right" thing to do?

[Ibby]

Common sense, I would think. Personally I can see few situations where, even if I were willing to use a gun, I would be able to. Most of the cases where it would be useful you wont have time to get at it, and almost all the rest using or even having it will simply escalate the situation... But I can see that, in the small fraction of cases where you need it and can get to it, it can be a literal lifesaver... And a liftaker, too...

[Shawnee123]

I agree with you in many ways, but how does common sense enter into a life or death situation? It's like saying Capital Punishment is a deterrent: most crimes are crimes of passion, anger flaring, uncontrolled emotions, robberies gone awry (is that redundant?) etc and so on.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Very simple. A gun is not the answer, it's an option. If you can't handle that, don't have one.

[mrnoodle]

Originally Posted by glatt

This is the first time I've heard any pro-gun person voluntarily express a desire to limit the owning of guns. Did you really mean to say this? Or did you simply mean that getting training is a good idea? I agree with you that all gun owners should be required to get proper training before they can own a gun.

When I say mandatory, I don't mean the government should regulate and restrict your ownership. I mean that if you don't know how to use a gun safely, you have no business owning one. Same with a chainsaw, a ladder, or a salad shooter.

It should be common sense, but if the buyer lacks it, the pressure should come from the citizenry and from the gun shops, not the government or the manufacturers.

If I owned a gunshop, I would offer first-time buyers classes on general gun safety at no charge. Unless they demonstrated knowledge of the subject at the time of purchase (i.e., before I ran the background check), I wouldn't send them out the door with a weapon. If they don't have the knowledge, I'd explain the (posted) store policy, schedule a class with them, and happily transfer possession upon their successful completion of the course.

The government has no involvement in my scenario.

[Undertoad]

Spexx,

I'm not sure I take the right lesson of your morality tale.

Through the course of a few short sentences your friend's brother became a violent felon. The outcome of getting shot by his own gun is probably one of the best possible. At least he did not kill or seriously hurt anyone else, and society didn't have to work too hard or pay too much to clean up his mess.

In order for this tale to be anti-gun, we have to have more concern for this guy's life and safety than he did.

We have to notice that the innocent person being attacked was probably unarmed.

We have to notice that the attacker had time and room to choose any approach, including calling the cops if he felt there was a threat; and so, he would have been a violent homophobic killer with a knife, if that were the favored method of violent homophobic killers everywhere.

We have to not put his face on the statistics that say you might be shot by your own gun. Sure, if you are a violent homophobic felon bringing home TVs from bars, you might well get shot by your own gun. If you don't behave like that, your chances become miniscule.

Meanwhile, if I have to be around violent homophobic felons, I will want to have a gun.

It's harsh because you have some connection to this person, but this person was too stupid to live free, and was inches away from landing on death row no matter what the outcome of that night.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

True story: My friend's brother picked up a girl in a bar. When he got her home, he found out it was a transvetite. They struggled. My friend's brother went to his bedroom to get his pistol. The transvestite wrestled the gun from my friend's brother and killed him.

With. His. Own. Gun.

Rk, how do you reconcile your distrust of the law with your trust that you'll be exonerated by the law after killing someone?

I don't think there is nearly enough information in this description of the incident to make assumptions such as:

[PART QUOTE PART SNIPS]1)We have to notice that the innocent person being attacked was probably unarmed
2)We have to notice that the attacker had time and room to choose any approach, including calling the cops if he felt there was a threat; and so, he would have been a violent homophobic killer with a knife, if that were the favored method of violent homophobic killers everywhere.
3)We have to not put his face on the statistics that say you might be shot by your own gun. Sure, if you are a violent homophobic felon bringing home TVs from bars, you might well get shot by your own gun. If you don't behave like that, your chances become miniscule.[/PART QUOTE PART SNIPS]

We weren't in that room. The friend's brother or the TV could have been the initial attacker. The friend's brother or the TV could have been the initial attackee. We just don't know.

I understand the point you're making but I don't think we have enough info to attribute those points to this particular story.

[Undertoad]

If he leaves the room there is not a continous struggle. If there is not a continuous struggle he is not threatened with deadly harm. If he is not threatened with deadly harm he should not threaten with deadly harm. If he does, he is a violent felon. That's my reasoning and I'm stickin to it.