Gun Ownership - are you really safe?

Subject: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: nutty
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 03:14 AM

This thread has been started by someone in the UK who would like the views of Mudcatters from over the water.

It is in no way intended to censure but, in view of the recent massacre in Virginnia, I find it difficult to understand how allowing unstable young people (as well as criminals and others) to own guns can make a community safer.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Peace
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 03:20 AM

Nutty, I think my friends to the south (I'm in Canada) don't 'allow' criminals and unstable young people to own guns. They just procure them despite the general population's wishes to the contrary.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Peace
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 03:27 AM

That said, I have twice had handguns pointed at me, neither time by a properly constituted authority. It makes a guy nervous. The one time I pointed a firearm at anyone, I was out hunting when a fellow spun his rifle by the head of a friend of mine and fired just as the gun cleared his head. I figure the bullet missed by all of two/three inches. I leveled my rifle and told him to drop his. He did. When I'd kicked it away, I lowered mine. Guns aren't toys and should never be treated as such. They are tools. Deadly in the wrong hands, to be sure.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 03:29 AM

The problem surely will always be 'Well how do you measure the level of someones stability'?   The guy who perpetrated this shooting, walked into a gun shop a short while ago and bought his handgun...a simple sale.....possibly having already meditated over his possible future behaviour. I am sure the problem goes a lot deeper than that when it gets down to 'the rights of the people'.
The UK is fast becoming an illegal gun culture so how long will it be before we can rightfully bear arms? If only for our own protection.
Sad to say IMHO it is just another sign of the breakdown in our societies. Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Slag
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 05:49 AM

Right on Peace! A cousin of mine was hunting with my father, shotguns for dove. He swung the barrel around and just cleared my dad's and fired. My dad had a hearing loss in that ear the rest of his life. Could have been much worse. Could have been a very short life! The hunt was over and he never hunted with his nephew again.

Like cars, responsible people try to be as safe as they can. Then you have the idiots and the scoff laws and the out and out criminals.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: GUEST,chris
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 06:32 AM

I think the most worrying thing that I heard on the Today prog on radio 4 was a quote from a man from an american gun magazine that went something like 'If someone else had been there with a gun they could have killed him and less people would have died' he seemed to miss the fact that had NO ONE been allowed guns then NO ONE would have died.
chris

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 06:48 AM

I'm reading a book by theologian Walter Wink called The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium. Wink says the most predominant religious belief in the United States is what he calls the Myth of Redemptive Violence - the belief that violence can accomplish good. He says it is in our literature, our television and movies and music, and in our politics and military policy.

So, in a nation that believes that violence does good, isn't it appropriate that everyone be armed?

Can't say that I believe in the myth myself - but I have to say that it sometimes captures me and takes me where I'd rather not go.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: catspaw49
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 07:11 AM

.........and as the beat goes on...............

In Columbus last evening a 5 year old boy was dead on arrival at Children's Hospital after shooting himself in the chest with a handgun.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 07:24 AM

Handguns are completely illegal here in the UK, nutty, yet anyone in the know can apparantly go out and get one tomorrow! Legality and ownership are not the same thing. I don't believe guns should be made legal for everyone but the current laws only stop responsible, law-abiding citizens from getting them. Maybe if we seriously clamped down on firearms, as in shoot anyone carrying one on sight, we may see a reduction in gun crime? I don't really know and suspect the topic is too complex for us amateurs to solve.

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 08:25 AM

To be honest, I would have some same sort of law for car ownership.

Some people are psychologically unfit to be allowed out behind the wheel of a car - too competitive, short tempered, argumentative, impatient.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: GUEST,Wisdom
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 08:45 AM

If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind, but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards.
Dr Samuel Johnston

helps if you have a stick too.....

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: frogprince
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 09:07 AM

The guns the young man in Virginia used had the serial numbers filed off; that means that, in this one instance, any specific laws about legal gun ownership are beside the point. The question is, rather, whether we can do anything about the fact that the society is so flooded with unnecessary guns that, 1. A criminal can steal one, or buy a previously stolen one, or a previously legally purchased one, at the drop of a hat. 2. A decent citizen who becomes mentally ill, loses his head in anger, or panics at falsely perceived danger, can immediately grab one. 3. It's an everyday occurence for a little child to get hold of a gun for a plaything.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 09:12 AM

I saw statistics (from the UN) that put the US third in the world for gun-caused homicides per million people, at 41. Brazil was first, at (I believe) 213. I can't remember which country was second, but it ranked about 150. The UK was at something like 0.41.

The figures were for 2003.

Nevertheless I will go to work, unarmed. I will visit the doctor, unarmed. I will talk to the AARP, unarmed. I will meet with my Supervisors.* And I'll go back home, unarmed.

I have only rarely been afraid in the US, and then it was because of weather or animals (like my run-in with a mountain goat), not because of other people.






*Well, sometimes I'd like to be armed....   8-)

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 09:20 AM

Filing the serial number off a weapon (and I hadn't heard that) is in itself a crime. Keeping firearms accessible to children should be a crime, since there are LOTS of ways to prevent it. My own firearms are locked up and the ammunition is stored in a seperate locked container.

Do I feel safer with guns in the house?

Since I'd have to run downstairs, unlock the the guns, unlock the ammo, load the gun, and then run back upstairs -- no, I don't have them for "defense."

My old nightstick is far better, since I know how to use it -- and you're not going to do much shooting or stabbing with a broken wrist, kneecap, or elbow.

Were I to run downstairs to get a weapon I'd probably grab my smallsword -- it's hanging on the wall, I know how to use it, and I don't have to take the time to load or reload it.

(At work I have a pencil.)

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Sorcha
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 09:43 AM

Same here, Rap. And, I figure if we have anything they want badly enough to steal it, fine, just take it. Not worth my life.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: catspaw49
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 09:48 AM

CNN reports that two Secret Service Agents were injured yesterday in the accidental discharge of a firearm near the White House.

Yes, guns are safe in the hands of trained professionals.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: saulgoldie
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 09:49 AM

But if we all had guns...First of all, many people would legally qualify to own them who shouldn't for a variety of reasons. Lack of coordination for one. Lack of common sense for another. (And yes, there are a lot of people driving cars shouldn't oughtta be.)

Second, with a gun in every hand, every dispute has the potential for ending in anything form a small disaster to a large-scale disaster. Disagreements escalate, and the next thing you know, someone whips it out. When they fire, they can seriously injure not only the intended victim, but anyone else who unhappily is in the area, or even out of the ares. Stray bullets travel, dontcha know.

And unlike with a fistfight where the injuries are likely to be survivable, the resulting gunfight is more likely not. Imagine this going on all over the place. Imagine this in schools, in hospitals, in shopping malls, on Main Street. In the homes, where isn't there already enough accidental (or intentional!) gun mayhem?

No, I am afraid that the presence of a gun automatically escalates whatever is going on. Gun laws? Well, some of them are too weak, like the allowances for military-type guns that no civilian reasonably needs. And if they were enforced better and waiting periods were honored...

But I realize that I am dreaming. There are too many voters out there who are willing to vote ONLY the gun issue to the exclusion of all other issues. So we are likely stuck with this situation for the duration.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 10:06 AM

I think in America people have figured out that prohibition doesn't work. It didn't work with booze, it hasn't worked with drugs, and there's no reason to suspect it will work with guns either.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Peace
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 10:09 AM

"helps if you have a stick too..... "

I'm of Scottish extraction and Dr Johnson isn't high on my list of those I love. However, I would like to disagree with the quoted statement. If you have a stick and know how to use it as a weapon, good. If not, you are better without the stick.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 10:20 AM

Chris, the person who said 'if somebody else had a gun' was probably referring to the fact that the Luke Woodham killing spree at Pearl High School was only stopped when one of the staff ran to his pickup and grabbed a shotgun and stood the killer down. Another few dozen souls would have perished if that had not happened.

The police aren't protecting us in our 'gun-free' workplaces, shopping centers, schools, etc. where all of us are gun-free except crazy criminals. Unfortunately the police don't rush in at the last minute to save the day like in the movies.   

Guns are the tool but the diseases are criminal lifestyles and mental illness. If we could spend the time, money, and breath on those things we would be better off.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 10:30 AM

My ice axe is hanging inconspicuously by the back door. I know how to use it on a glacier, and I know how to use it as a weapon. (Don't waste your time with a wind-up to swing the axe over your shoulder or head, use it for a direct thrust with the bottom point. It'll do the trick without the warning and frontal exposure offered by a swing).

SRS

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 10:31 AM

that's my point - no use a stick or an ice axe against a maniac in a car.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 10:41 AM

A big part of the problem - if not the crux of the problem - is the matter that Joe Offer alludes to above, and which no one seems to want to talk about: "the most predominant religious belief in the United States is what he calls the Myth of Redemptive Violence - the belief that violence can accomplish good" ...

In other words, if the issue were simply the NUMBER of guns, there would be percentages of gun-deaths in Switzerland and Canada comparable to those of the United States. Michael Moore, whatever you may think of him, gets into this in "Bowling for Columbine".

Consider the extent to which the television and movie industries nurture and prepetuate a little-boy fantasy world in which heroes save the day with spectacular acts of violence. This in combination with the prevalence and social-acceptability of confrontational - or, as we've seen recently, downright abusive - public rhetoric, often with an underlying implied threat of violence, and the ready access to guns, may partly explain the problem.

Just some thoughts I'm throwing out there ...

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 10:49 AM

Right you are, meself. I grew up watching heroes such as Marshal Dillon go after the bad guys and get them, but he did his best not to have to shoot them and to bring them in for "justice" in court. It seems today's heroes are all about how spectacular the use of violence can be portrayed so that is the main element that little kids take away with them. My grandson knows about the Force and the Light in the Star Wars movies, but he much more enamoured with the light sabres and obliterating the bad guys. I was really happy the other day when he drew me a "nice" robot instead of some vicious automaton; maybe his pacifist grandma will prevail.:-)

A better title for this thread, or subject, might be "Are the kids really safe."

ids and Guns: Key Facts

    *

      For every child killed with a gun, four are wounded.[2]
    *

      According to the Centers for Disease Control, the rate of firearm death of children 0-14 years old is nearly twelve times higher in the U.S. than in 25 other industrialized nations combined. The firearm-related homicide rate is nearly 16 times higher for children in the U.S. than in 25 other industrialized countries combined. The suicide rate of children 0-14 years old is twice as high in the U.S. as it is in those same 25 other industrialized countries combined. Interestingly, there is no difference in the non-firearm suicide rate between the U.S. and these other countries. Virtually all the difference is attributable to suicides committed with guns in the U.S.[3]
    *

      Over 3,500 students were expelled in 1998-99 for bringing guns to school. Of these, 43% were in elementary or junior high school. This means that, in a 40-week school year, an average of 88 children per week nationwide are expelled for bringing a gun in school. And these figures include only the children who get caught.[4]
    *

      During 1999, 52% of all murder victims under 18 in the U.S. were killed by guns. In 1986, guns were used in 38% of such murders. In 1999, 82% of murder victims aged 13 to 19 years old were killed with a firearm.[5]
    *

      In 1998, more than 1200 children aged 10-19 committed suicide with firearms. Unlike suicide attempts using other methods, suicide attempts with guns are nearly always fatal, meaning a temporarily depressed teenager will never get a second chance at life. Nearly two-thirds of all completed teenage suicides involve a firearm.[6]
    *

      In 1998, 3,792 American children and teens (19 and under) died by gunfire in murders, suicides and unintentional shootings.[7] That's more than 10 young people a day.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 10:52 AM

weelittledrummer, that's what your brain is for, finding the right defense when called upon. If I'm at my back door with an ice axe, chances are it isn't because a car is trying to break in. I also have dogs that I consider working dogs--they are here for my protection. I have a pit bull and a blue heeler/catahoula mix. More people may be afraid of the pit bull, but I'd put my money on the blue heeler as the dog to do damage to an intruder if I was being attacked.

There are many schools of thought in self-defense. Guns don't trump all of the others, they are a crutch in that they block self-defense intelligence and cause more problems than they solve. That's my point here.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 10:58 AM

"Guns aren't toys and should never be treated as such. They are tools."

Yes, but they are tools for killing people and other living creatures with. This makes them different from other tools, like hammers and screw-drivers, which can be used for violent purposes but are not specifically designed for such purposes.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 10:59 AM

What I'm really saying is - supposing these NRA guys are right.

It isn't inanimate objects that kill people its the person using them - is their argument - as I understand it.

What is true of guns, is doubly true of cars. We need to have a section of the population prohibited from owning guns and cars - those who have trouble controlling themselves.

I bet assholes with cars with kill more people than assholes with guns.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 11:09 AM

Thank you again, SRS..(I thanked you in the other thread)....and to Rapaire, who noted how complicated it would be to defend one's self with guns in the home IF the guns were properly secured in the first place.

...and to catspaw, who gives an example of what happenes almost everyday somewhere. We get all upset when a disturbed gun owner shoot a LOT of people, but barely notice the little stories from little papers all over the country of shootings...one at a time....which FAR outnumber all the mass killings together.

It is time to consider sweeping re-writing of gun laws...and we need responsible gun owners to HELP craft sane measures, and not stand in the way grumping about "2nd amendment rights".

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Peace
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 11:26 AM

"Yes, but they are tools for killing people and other living creatures with."

Yes they can be tools for killing. They are easier than the spear, sling shot, bow and arrow. Longer reach. I'm a meat eater. On occasion I shoot things. People are never on the menu.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 11:27 AM

Absolutely, Bill.

Guns are made for one purpose and that is to destroy/kill/maim. Cars are made for getting from one point to another, just as step-ladders are made for climbing up and down and, black cats for petting and listening to them purr:-). Comparing guns to cars, etc. is a specious argument with no relevance.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: autolycus
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 11:38 AM

When Gandhi visited the mountain hideout of some Indian militants and he saw their guns,he said to them,

   "You must be very frightened."

(quoted in Marilyn Ferguson's The Aquarian Conspiracy,1980)






       Ivor

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 12:25 PM

I have only a couple minutes but please consider these points:

1. Violence and perception of violence as the only solution, not just guns, is at the root of the problem.

2. The gun (and weapon) ownership problem is exacerbated by the increasing urbanization of human society.

Discuss? Right now I have to dash off.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 01:09 PM

look at it another way - most weeks someone threatens you, or tries to intimidate you with their driving.

being threatened by a gunman is comparative rarity for most of us.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Big Mick
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 02:23 PM

Once again I point out that there are a number of legitimate uses for guns, including sport shooting, hunting, etc.

There are many well thought out posts here, and many more that are not well though out. But the winner for succinctness is Patty Clink. Right on, Patty.

I have the ability to legally carry a concealed weapon in my home state. I can count the number of times I have done so on one hand.

Many of you try to shift the premise of the debate to "why should you be able to have a gun? What purpose does it serve other than to kill?" That is not the issue. The issue is "Why should I give up a right that I have always had, I have not abused, I have always followed the law?" I understand folks that have never had weapons as a part of their culture. But in this country, we have always had this right. Hunting and shooting sports have been a part of our culture from the beginning. In addition to the sporting aspect, there are many utilitarian uses for guns, including handguns, in farming and rural areas. I don't expect anti hunters to accept this, and we will have to disagree. But imagine if you are a person who has been raised in the environment that I have been raised in.   Virtually every family in the community has firearms (including handguns) and uses them for hunting, target shooting, farm work, varmint control, etc. There is no violent crime, and in anyone's memory there has only been one accident involving firearms. Then, because an unbalanced young man decides to take revenge for a lifetime of perceived insults and kill as many folks as possible. He chooses a firearm as the weapon of his revenge and his suicide. Folks in my community don't see a gun as the problem. They see a sad case of a young man who was ill and acted out in a tragic way. Tim McVeigh did the same thing. The thought that their weapons were part of the problem never enters their mind, because these weapons aren't part of the problem.

Solve the problems of a society that is starting to run amok. Acknowledge that in our haste to demonize government programs, cut funding on necessary social programs, glorify capitalism to the point that all actions can be justified in the interest of profits, we have created a society where many young people feel lost and hopeless. This is what causes a kid to pick up a gun and kill 32 innocents. When a wonderful and insighful prof tried to tell folks about this kid, nothing was done. Blame the system, and I am with you. Blame a system that failed to note his mental condition and allowed him to buy a gun, OK we can talk. But suggest that I give up a right that I have had all my life? Especially since taking the weapons from law abiding citizens won't materially change the dynamic? Silly, and further, the argument shows intellectual weakness.

Attack the cause of the disease, not the symptom.

Mick

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 02:34 PM

I don't want to pry anything out of anyone's cold dead hand. I just want fewer dead cold hands.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Big Mick
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 02:39 PM

Now there's a well thought out response, Don. Who the hell said anything like that?

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 02:45 PM

Please don't take offense Big Mick...
I said it.
Its my talking point/slogan for the day.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Slag
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 02:48 PM

So many paths. So little time. Criminals, by definition are not going to obey the law. The insane CAN'T obey the law. Restrictive gun laws do nothing but disarm the innocent and the good (as we all want to be good, law abiding citizens). In essence, the anti-gun stance of VT condemned all those students to suffer whatever some criminal or deranged person might inflict upon them. It's such a pleasant fiction to believe we live in an ideal world.

Joe, Redemptive violence? That is a contradiction in terms. Redemption means to BUY back something or exchange one thing for something else. It's pretty easy to make up a term and then attack it (straw man). But, I haven't read it so I must reserve judgment.

Wherever evidence of mankind is found there is evidence of his violence as well as his fear of violence: weapons, bones, shields and walled cities. It is folly to think that we have somehow moved beyond that as a race. Remember, monsters from the ID (Forbidden Planet)? It is always with us. We need religions. We need civilization. These are our first and best lines of defense against those who would otherwise seek to rape, pillage and do mayhem. As in the VT case, passive resistance didn't deter the mad man one bit. The choice is the repugnant taking of some criminals' life or forfeiting our own. Sorry. That's the world we live in. I would that it were not so.

Cars and guns ARE a lot alike. They are machines of useful and good purpose. They serve us well if we are responsible in our approach to them. They are both susceptible to abuse. They are both capable of doing great harm to a large number of people in a short period of time. They are both susceptible to accidentally killing and maiming of people. They both need to be regulated in some fashion and as population density goes up greater controls must be used. Both can be put to criminal use and both can be wielded by a deranged person. Apples and oranges are both fruit. They grow on trees. They are both edible. They are both generally round in shape. Etc. So, to use cars as an analogy for guns IS a legitimate argument.

For any given year, death by firearms runs around 8000 and over half of those are justified homicides at the hands of a sworn peace officers and another 1000 or so are accidental shootings. Cars account for nearly 50,000 deaths a year albeit mostly accidental. More people die in fires, or in drownings, or by poison, or by errant medication prescriptions, or by other medical errors than by firearms. Why isn't the same strident hew and cry raised about these other egregious deaths? That's what you call a "Good Question"! Who would benefit the most from disarming a people? Those who would seek to CONTROL the same. I contend that it is the right of the people to defend themselves that keeps our nation free and if we lose THAT right all the other rights enumerated in our Constitution and in the Declaration are just ink on paper with no force and no teeth.

A free society must put up with and manage a certain degree of abuse of that freedom in order to remain free. Freedom is the right to do the "right" thing, the responsible thing and yet freedom, by its very nature is subject to abuse. That is why we must also police and protect our rights and punish and defend against those who would abuse those same rights and freedom.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 02:56 PM

*sigh* Cars are NOT made specifically to be used to kill. A criminal may steal a car or drive without a license without the intent to kill whereas there is no question when they pick up a gun, they are undoubtedly prepared to kill or be killed. Apples and oranges.

I had read the student was referred after his odd behaviour had been noted:

Around Dec. 2005 after complaints by two students: The police spoke with acquaintances of Mr. Cho's and became concerned that Mr. Cho might be suicidal. Officers suggested to Mr. Cho that he speak to a counselor and he did so. He went voluntarily to the police department and, based on his meeting with the counselor, a temporary detention order was obtained and Mr. Cho was taken to a mental health facility, Carilion Saint Albans Behavioral Health Center.

Neither of the female students who complained about Mr. Cho were among the shooting victims, and the police said they did not know if they were in the vicinity of the shootings.

There were no further referrals to the police before Mr. Cho was named on Tuesday in connection with the deaths of the students and teachers on the sprawling campus.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: nutty
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 04:17 PM

Thank you all for your responses I have found reading then very interesting.
It really is have difficult to understand the need for the right to carry a weapon as it is something that is totally outside my experience even though, like Big Mick, I was raised in a farming community.

When I found myself living alone and in need of extra security I invested in two extremely noisy terriers.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: dianavan
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 04:18 PM

In a country whose economy seems to be based on war and the sale of weapons, civilian gun laws aren't likely to change. The national identity is based on violence.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 04:24 PM

Yes..."the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air"

The USA is a society which venerates war and violence and is damn proud of it too.

Better just get used to the fact that you are not really safe. Life is not really safe.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 04:28 PM

Guns and cars, cars and guns, how about the best of both worlds.

In South Africa many private cars have guns afixed either in a fixed position or on a swivel turret.

Yes the comparison of cars to guns serves no purpose.

I just heard a statement by the female CNN moderator talking to an advocate of strict gun laws ...

"The biggest school murder scene was actually in Michigan when a principal used dynamite to blow up himself along with 44 others, so guns are not the cause of the biggest school murder scene, why single out guns?"

How obscene is that comparison?

The arguement should not be about a weapon of murder as bad, good or best - in comparison to something else be it cars or dynamite.

It is about guns.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 05:02 PM

The argument that had all the students had guns with them the murderer would have been dead earlier is most likely correct but a bit misleading. Spree killing would definitely be more dangerous for the killer. But if all them kids would come to university with a gun, many more killings would result from moments of (short) anger.

Guns lead to a culture of violence in my eyes and make life much more dangerous for the law abiding people. We have criminals and they like to wave with a gun in order to make you do what they want. But they are not prone to fire the gun quickly because they know their victims do not have guns as a rule with very few exceptions.

The threshold for shooting or inflicting bad wounds any other way (with knifes,...) on the victims of a crime is much lower if the perpetrator knows that each of the people at the scene could have a gun and be ready to fire to kill.

Yes, if all honest men have no guns only the not so honest will still have guns. That's true, but they use them very rarely. The mad murderer will not be stopped by his victims having no guns. But the overall number of gun related (and, by changing the culture of violence, other violent) deaths will decrease.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 05:04 PM

We do need a new anthem....judging by the verses we never sing, even.

Some suggestions HERE.

Also, this looks like a worthy organisation to Support for Peace.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Scoville
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 05:06 PM

The Bath School Disaster occurred in 1927 and its perpertrator was, likewise, pretty clearly mentally ill (though he was not the principal of the school). Actually, the mental states and motives, irrational as they were, of the men responsible were probably not that different. (Which doesn't mean I support the gun lobby. I don't. But it was definitely no less obscene than Virginia Tech, if you've read the accounts.)

If anything, it should be a mental health issue. When I was in school, we got three free visits to the mental health center. Three. At a school that had one of the highest suicide rates among U.S. small colleges. So if you couldn't pay, you were high and dry after that. The handful of people I knew who actually did use their visits were at the crisis stage by the time they did so and either forced themselves to go or were hauled in by their parents or by academic probation. That means that either they were still rational enough to realize they had a problem or somebody was watching out for them. There were a lot of other kids who had major problems who quit or took time off. One of my classmates ate a handful of cyanide one morning before our history class; if he had been a more violent kid, he might have killed someone else, but he killed himself instead.

I don't know why this kid wasn't hauled in for serious counseling and why his parents weren't apparently contacted to back that up, but guns or no guns, if you're not in that state of mind, you don't shoot people. I'm all for better gun control, but I can't believe how many warning signs were passed over before this all came down.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 06:01 PM

The "rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air" were from the British fleet, not from the Americans in Ft. McHenry.

I'm in favor of making "This Land Is Your Land" the national anthem.

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 06:16 PM

I second that motion

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 06:20 PM

Let me, as a gun owner, shooter, and someone with a concealed carry permit, give my own answer to the question asked in the thread title.

No, I am not.

But then, I recognize that I am not safe anywhere and neither are you. If you feel that you are safe and secure you are deluding yourself.

But guns are not, and never have been, defensive weapons. Neither is a bow and arrows, a sling, a crossbow, a javelin, or any other projectile or projectile-throwing weapon. You cannot defend yourself with a projectile, you can only defend yourself from a projectile. That's why cops and soldiers wear bullet proof vests ("ballistic armor").

You CAN defend yourself with a stick, a staff, a sword, a shield, a targe, your hands and feet, and even a whip.

But even then, you're not "safe."

Subject: RE: Gun Ownership - are you really safe?
From: Gulliver
Date: 18 Apr 07 - 07:20 PM

I'm glad I've never owned a gun--I could have done all kinds of damage with it!

I was held up at gunpoint a few times (not counting army checks in Northern Ireland) and it wasn't nice. Once by a drunken undercover police officer in Germany. Twice in Naples, Italy, where I lived for a few years, and on these occasions I just jumped on the guy who was so surprised I was able to get away. Then they tried to kidnap me--but that's another story...