BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?

Subject: BS: Do we need stricker gun laws?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 09 Sep 13 - 02:19 PM

107 year old man, Suicide by SWAT?

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricker gun laws?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 09 Sep 13 - 02:20 PM

please pardon title typo.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricker gun laws?
From: Elmore
Date: 09 Sep 13 - 04:16 PM

Do we need stricker gun laws? Hell, I don't know. They just bagged George Zimmerman for threatening his estranged wife and his father- in- law with a gun. Should the police take his gun away?

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricker gun laws?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Sep 13 - 05:03 PM

Well, it's not that hard to understand why a 107 year old man would wish to remain in the home he was accustomed to living in, and why he got defensive about it. If he hadn't had a gun, of course, they'd have busted down the door and taken him somewhere else by force. From his point of view, the way it turned out might have been what he'd have preferred, all things considered. (although that's hard to say after the fact)

He over-reacted. Many seniors become very uncooperative when being asked to move from their home, and I can understand why.

What does it have to do with enacting stricter gun laws? You can make all the laws you want, but this sort of thing can still happen, seems to me.

If it was Indians, back in the traditional times, they'd have left the old man alone to live wherever he wanted to. We live in a society of busybodies now.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricker gun laws?
From: gnu
Date: 09 Sep 13 - 05:09 PM

"Shellie Zimmerman was asking that her husband pay for a permanent life insurance policy with her named as the beneficiary, according to a divorce petition made public last week."

"Last month, Shellie Zimmerman, 26, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour perjury charge for lying about the couple's finances during a bail hearing following her husband's arrest after Martin's shooting."

Both from CBC news.

Hahahahahaa! Let's convict him again without due process. And, if he is found innocent in a court of law, let's not wait to read the trial transcript... let's just hang him anyway.

Re gun laws, hell yeah! Re lynch mobs? Fuck no!

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricker gun laws?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 09 Sep 13 - 05:15 PM

Couldn't a negotiator have been found, an experienced professional, to talk gently to the old man and try to calm him? He was probably terrified, confused and extremely defensive. Was it really necessary to blast him to bits in such a barbaric way? Poor old soul, I hope he's at peace now.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricker gun laws?
From: gnu
Date: 09 Sep 13 - 05:42 PM

Gee... I didn't even read about the old fellah. Maybe I do have an alternative for assisted suicide when it's my turn. I mean, if they are still so screwed up in the head as to not help me f and when I want help going out in a humane way, this might be worth invesigating. I mean, why waste ammo eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricker gun laws?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Sep 13 - 06:01 PM

Indeed, gnu. That's what your neighborhood SWAT team is for, after all. When you're ready to go, just phone them up and say, "There's a maniac in my place! He's got a gun, and he's threatening to kill the whole neighborhood! Please hurry!"

Then just wait for them to arrive. I expect Chongo will resort to this one day when he gets too old to bust heads, romance dames, and drive fast cars.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricker gun laws?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 09 Sep 13 - 06:33 PM

"Well, it's not that hard to understand why a 107 year old man would wish to remain in the home he was accustomed to living in."

According to the article, he had lived there about a month. With that kind of judgement he should not ave been able to buy a gun. IMHO.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricker gun laws?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 09 Sep 13 - 07:12 PM

Tell Chongo if he is willing to do that, I'll pay for the bullets and a bus ticket to Pine Bluff. Heck, I'll even make the 911 call.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricker gun laws?
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Sep 13 - 08:30 PM

I gather from what it says that the owner of the house had invited him to live there with her (perhaps temporarily?) and then a month later found an apartment for him to which she expected him to move.

Calling a 107-year-old person 'elderly' is somewhat of a misnomer, at least in today's parlance. Any person over a hundred years old is OLD and is probably weak in the cognitive department. Not that it can't be otherwise: an aunt of mine died at 104 and by all accounts at her death was as mean as ever. But generally speaking.

However, I agree with one thing: A 107-year-old person has no business with a gun. Wonder if his "roommate" knew he had one?

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 09 Sep 13 - 09:46 PM

There has to be a better way to respond to situations such as this than to send out trigger happy Wyat Earp swat teams! With proper understanding and negotiation the results may have been different! "Shoot first and ask questions later" is the folly of fools!

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Sep 13 - 09:52 PM

I have a friend, Ebbie, who will soon be 90. He sleeps with a loaded .45 automatic by his bed. It comforts him, because it's the same one he carried in the Pacific as a Marine in WWII, on Peleliu (Bloody Nose Ridge) and Okinawa among other places. He hasn't fired it in years, and yes, he has PTSD and no, he won't be treated for it. After all, he is a Marine.

Audie Murphy slept with the light on and a .45 by his bed from the time he left the service until the time he died.

I know far, far too many veterans of Vietnam, Gulf I, OIF, OEF, and Afghanistan who do the same thing.

Was this man a veteran of WWII? He could have been a career soldier, sailor or Marine. Is that why he had a gun, because of the war in his mind? Or did he listen to the news and thought that a firearm was his only protection?

Perhaps, if we lowered the level of violence in our world...perhaps if humanity actually became humane...but violence sells movies and video games and television shows.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Sep 13 - 10:50 PM

Do we need stricter gun laws???

Ask the 100,000 Americans who were shot last year or the 100,000 Americans who will be shot this year and next year...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Sep 13 - 11:25 PM

Ah, Bobert -- the Centers for Disease Control's statistics show 11,078 homicides by firearms in 2010, or 3.6 per 100,000 of the population. For all homicides, the numbers are 16,259, or 5.3 per 100,000.

There were 19,392 firearms suicides, or 6.3 per 100,000; suffocation suicides were 9293, or 3.1 per 100,000; suicides by poison, 6,599 or 2.1 per 100,000. In all, there were 38,364 suicides, or 12.4 per 100,000 -- making suicide the number 10 cause of death in the US.

According to the CDC, the 15 leading causes of death in the US in 2010 were:

1. Diseases of heart (heart disease)
2. Malignant neoplasms (cancer)
3. Chronic lower respiratory diseases
4. Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke)
5. Accidents (unintentional injuries)
6. Alzheimer's disease
7. Diabetes mellitus (diabetes)
8. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis (kidney disease)
9. Influenza and pneumonia
10. Intentional self-harm (suicide)
11. Septicemia
12. Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis
13. Essential hypertension and hypertensive renal disease (hypertension)
14. Parkinson's disease
15. Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids

Homicide (assault) dropped from the Top 15 for the first time since 1965. There were 40,393 drug-related deaths, 25,692 alcohol-related deaths, and 31,672 non-fatal injuries due to firearms.

Wikipedia has a table world firearms deaths, but it is all too often "incomplete" data or data combined from several years or data from years other than 2010. Yes, some countries have data for 2010, but unless we can compare all the comparison would be invalid.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 09 Sep 13 - 11:28 PM

Yup Little Hawk. Busybodies and control freaks. There's always a way around everything but not if people insist that others, especially those who may be impaired in some way or otherwise at a disadvantage, do what they say when they say it. That's the mentality of people who beat children, elderly people or the handicapped when they assert their wills.

I suppose the world would have come to an end if the poor old guy had been allowed to stay in his room and the decision to force him to leave had been deterred to a later time after the situation had deescalated. 107 years old and those people couldn't cut him slack? Police had no choice? Bullshit. There were a lot of choices here. No Plan B?

Calling the police in to handle a situation with a friend or relative is who obviously in a state of mental and emotional distress is surely one of the most ignorant, heartless things one could do. It's nothing I would have ever done. I would have let him win the standoff. Then I would have remained vigilant for an opportunity to get the gun in the near future. Don't know if I could have pulled off this course of action but I would have tried.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Sep 13 - 11:48 PM

Exactly what I was thinking, Suzy. Just leave the old guy alone for a day, don't bother him, wait for him to calm down, and wait for a safe opportunity to remove the gun without hurting anyone. That would be the sensible thing to do, seems to me. All it would require was a little patience. I think he was probably reacting the way he did, simply because he was scared.

Jack - Pine Bluff? Where is Pine Bluff and what is its significance?

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Sep 13 - 11:51 PM

I didn't say "killed", Rap... My stats are correct...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 12:00 AM

And, the way I heard it, the supposed hostages had already escaped...

But fuck that...

Ya' know, there are way too many people being killed by cops... Happens around Charlotte at least once a month... Guy comes out of a house and "makes a threatening move" and bang-bang-you're-dead... That's the way it always is... Details at 11...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: GUEST,Musket being patriotic
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 07:25 AM

But we already have strict gun laws?

Oh. Sorry. Wrong country. Can't help you there.

Keep banging the rocks together.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: gnu
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 08:48 AM

A footnote to my post above. Z's ex went to Z's house "unexpectedly". She changed her story after the police investigated at the scene. Police found no gun on Z and found her father uninjured. She refused to have police arrest him for domestic violence. She and her father have refused to file charges. There's more but I think the thread should address the OP.

Sorry for the interruption.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 09:58 AM

Bobert, where did you get your figures?

According to the news, the old guy seemed "excited" about moving. "Excited" how? As in "agitated"?

As for too many people being shot by cops, well -- the US government doesn't collect such statistics. Very incomplete stats for 2012 show 587 people killed by cops. Other articles seem to show that many or most of those killed by police are mentally ill. The police do have non-lethal methods and they should be used first if at all possible. Too many cops seem to have the "badge & gun" syndrome.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 10:09 AM

Careful, Musket. ;-) They who bang rocks may turn to throwing rocks presently.

There are relatively few gun deaths per capita in Canada (if you leave out suicide)...fewer than in the USA...but I think it's more because of a difference in culture....cultural ideas and expectations... than because of a difference in laws. The whole domestic history of Canada has been sedate and orderly, whereas the history of the USA has revolved around periods of lawlessness (such as in the territories, prior to statehood, for example). It's a different psychology, you see, and it has produced a population with different attitudes.

In the development of Canada, the RCMP (Mounties) and the rule of law always went into frontier territories first and established a very consistent rule of law. The immigrants then followed. There was no chance for gunslingers, whiskey traders, and bandit gangs to establish themselves in the new territories. In the USA, however, the territories before statehood were basically in a state of anarchy, and every sort of organized vice and violence moved into the vacuum and flourished. This tended to produce a culture with much violence, and the law came a good deal later and then tried to cope with the violence.

Look at the history of Prohibition in the USA, and the explosion of organized crime and violence that that produced! During the same period Canada had legal alcohol...and did not suffer the wave of crime that swept across the USA.

The USA seems to have had a tendency on the one had toward extreme laissez-faire lack of legal order...and then extremely puritan over-reaction in the other direction, as evidence in the completely stupid idea of Prohibition, an idea which couldn't possibly succeed in a culture where most people WANT to drink alcohol.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 10:54 AM

Rap,

Google up "Number of Americans Shot Every Year"... This figure is 100% accurate... You are using "murders" rather than "Shot"... This information ain't hard to find... If your Google-ator ain't Googlin' then let me know and I'll find some sources...

Oh, Google "Brady Bill Gun Control"... That oughtta get you where you need to go...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 11:11 AM

I'm quite glad they don't allow guns over here in England, but I do enjoy film with Americans shooting at each other - The Godfather, westerns, Die hard, and stuff like that. Keep it up chaps!

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: GUEST,Colt 45
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 11:13 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 11:21 AM

And all those Patricia Cornwell novels where her lesbian niece is always polishimg her Glock....!

God I'd love to polish a lady's Glock, even if she was a lesbian. You Yanks know how to live all right!

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 11:23 AM

Of course we need stricter gun laws.... but this case is hardly a basis for the argument. In this case we suspect that police over-reacted and made little effort to resolve it without shooting the old guy.

We need to filter and screen applicants to police agencies, just as we need to better screen applicants for gun licences.....and police agencies need to train more about how to disable people without deadly force.

We HAVE lots of guns already out there, with little chance of getting rid of them.....so we need creative ways of dealing with and controlling those who have the guns.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: GUEST,colt 45
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 11:26 AM

What is it with you Americans, The right to bear Arms,
What's that all about ?????????????????
It's Simple if you allow people to walk around freely with Guns, you should accept what goes with that and get on with it.
Personally though I can't see how and why this is allowed but there you go!

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 11:46 AM

It derives from the early history of America, colt 45. In the 1770s, the USA was a land with an extensive frontier bordering on wilderness, and in that wilderness lived numerous tribes of Indians, many of whom were at more or less continual war with the white population which was expanding into their traditional lands. Virtually everyone who live outside the main cities like Philadelphia or Boston or New York needed a gun for self-protection from Indians, not to mention from grizzly bears, which then inhabited pretty much the whole nation, and were extremely dangerous.

Most of the population were small farmers and homesteaders. They needed guns to hunt for food, and to protect themselves in war and when encountering dangerous animals.

This was taken for granted at the time, as it was in Canada too, for that matter, for much the same reasons.

Everyone pretty much walked around freely with guns, and no one thought anything of it. It was totally normal at the time.

Furthermore, the experience of the American Revolution against British rule had made clear the necessity of having an armed populace who could quickly form local militia forces in time of war. This was also the case in Canada (British North America), and in many other places at the time.

And THAT's why the American founding fathers wrote a specific clause in the Constitution guaranteeing the Right to Bear Arms.

Now, however....it's over 200 years later...and the environment is almost totally different. The bulk of the population is living in huge metropolitan areas and suburbs when it does NOT make sense for ordinary citizens to walk around freely with guns. The frontier is gone. The bears are almost all gone. The Indian wars ended in the late 1800s. And yet....the Constitution remains...a document fashioned to meet the needs of the late 1700s!

That is the bizarre situation we have as a result of the changing tides of history.

Now, given that people relate to the Constitution as a more or less "holy" document...and are loath to alter it, specially if it seems to support some desire they have...you have a situation where present day folks are using a very old guarantee of rights totally out of its historical context.

And to answer your question: That's what it's all about! Old tradition is still asserting itself in a land whose founding fathers would hardly even recognize it if they saw it now.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 11:55 AM

BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
No....we need saner people!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 11:58 AM

Why yes! Offering yourself as the standard model?? ;>)

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 12:54 PM

He's perfectly sane, Bill. ;>) I can attest to that from personal acquaintance. He does, however, enjoy pulling various of the greybeards around here now and then.

The main problem is the psychological attitude of the general population...and the attitudes expressed in American entertainment, mass media and the government, all of them violence-obsessed, in my opinion. Create a paranoid, angry, fearful, stressed-out population, many of whom are in acute financial distress, and the probability is very high that some of them will react to a situation in an extreme way and misuse their guns.

In Somalia, you have a considerably more extreme condition of desperation and poverty in the population...and a vast number of guns. See what happens. It's far worse than in the USA.

In Switzerland, on the other hand...

"Gun politics in Switzerland are unique in Europe. Switzerland does not have a standing army, instead opting for a people's militia for its national defense. The vast majority of men between the ages of 20 and 30 are conscripted into the militia and undergo military training, including weapons training. The personal weapons of the militia are kept at home as part of the military obligations; Switzerland thus has one of the highest militia gun ownership rates in the world.[1] In recent times a minority of political opposition has expressed a desire for tighter gun regulations.[2] A referendum in February 2011 rejected stricter gun control.[3]"

And the gun related crime situation in Switzerland...

"Further information: Gun violence and Crime in Switzerland

Government statistics for the year 2010[15] records 40 homicides involving firearms, out of the 53 cases of homicide in 2010.

The annual rate of homicide by any means per 100,000 population was 0.70, which is one of the lowest in the world.[16] The annual rate of homicide by guns per 100,000 population was 0.52.[17]"

*********


See? The real problem is not the presence or availability of guns. The real problem is the social and cultural attitudes of a population...a far more subtle and complex matter than the mere physical availability of a weapon. The social and cultural attitudes in the USA stem from a long tradition of unlawful gun-related violence, and that tradition is perpetuating itself.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 12:55 PM

It goes beyond LH's explanation, Colt 45... America hasn't been as armed as it is today...

Ya' see, the NRA (National Rifle Association) has been peddling fear and that coupled with it's ally, the Republican Party also peddling fear, white America is now armed to the teeth... And here's the strangest part about it... When asked why so many guns are needed in the house, Bubba answers, "So I'll be ready to defend my right to have them when the government comes for them"???

That is delusional thinking... First, the government ain't coming for them, Bubba but...

...even if they did you don't have enough fire power to stop the government... Heck, they just rake you double wide with a helicopter gun ship and in less time than it takes to say, "I like my guns" you and everything in the double wide are shot to pieces...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 01:07 PM

Let me also add this... I was in the NRA from about 8 years old until maybe 13 years old... I was a regular member of a shoot club... I think that the first handgun I ever saw, other than in western movies, was during that time when one of our instructors brought a flint lock dueling pistol to our underground shooting range...

I mean, sure... I had seen cops with holstered handguns but never saw one out of it's holster...

Today, handguns are everywhere... We have wackos who just stuff 'um under their belts and walk around...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 01:46 PM

Yes, there is a climate of fear in the USA now, and that, along with economic distress, is the engine driving gun-related violence.

In Switzerland, where there are a very high number of military firearms in the hands of the civilian population, there is very little gun-related violence, because in Switzerland you don't have that societal climate of fear and economic distress...and you have an orderly and peaceful social tradition going a long way back.

In Somalia the climate of fear and the economic distress are about as bad as they could possibly get, so the profusion of guns there leads to a tremendous amount of violence.

As a population thinks about life, so it will be clearly reflected in what they do. The problem in the USA is a psychological problem related to both past history...and present political, economic, and social forces. The solution is a gradual shift in politics and national psychology, and a more just economic situation, not a few more bandaid laws stuck on the wounded body politic.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 02:05 PM

LH, Bobert -- I've thought for a long, long time that any gun problem the US has can only be solved by a deep, basic change in the psychology and social makeup of the nation. Back around perhaps 1959 we had a chance at establishing a rational, national, system of gun ownership. Even the NRA would have cooperated. Then Kennedy was shot and television brought the Vietnam War into the living room. Movies and television programs became more violent; violent sports (e.g., football) became great social forces. People were gradually desensitized to violence of all sorts. Then came video games which effectively used the same methods of instruction used by the military.

LH, you wrote, "...the rule of law always went into frontier territories first and established a very consistent rule of law." Ah, I refer you to the REASON why the NWMP were founded, to Riels' Rebellion, and other things. Canada was not as violent as The Wilde Weste, true, but most towns in The Wilde Weste had laws banning the carrying of firearms in town (see, for example, Ellsworth and Dodge City, KS and El Paso, TX).

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 02:50 PM

""Gun politics in Switzerland are unique in Europe. Switzerland does not have a standing army, instead opting for a people's militia for its national defense. The vast majority of men between the ages of 20 and 30 are conscripted into the militia and undergo military training, including weapons training. The personal weapons of the militia are kept at home as part of the military obligations; Switzerland thus has one of the highest militia gun ownership rates in the world.[1] In recent times a minority of political opposition has expressed a desire for tighter gun regulations.[2] A referendum in February 2011 rejected stricter gun control.[3]""

And that is just what the founding fathers envisaged in the USA, but they were dumb enough to make the guns a right and make the trained militia a suggestion, rather than both being a legal obligation.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 03:12 PM

The United Federation of Turtles is lobbying right now, to keep guns out of the hands of cold blooded turtle shooters, who have also expressed a psychotic distaste for everyone who isn't a drooling Democrat. Signs of psychosis is they think everybody who doesn't agree with him are all KKKers, and Tea Pot Terrorists. Be on the look-out..we hear he's also stalking George Zimmerman...he heard he gave bad head!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 03:20 PM

I *half* agree with you, Rap...

Yes, we need to change the culture... But as LH pointed out a lot of folks buy guns because they are fearful of other people with guns... The shear number of guns makes it hard to change the culture... It's kinda a chicken and the egg situation...

I truly believe that if Congress had the balls to stand up to the NRA and require background checks (no exceptions, period) and maybe a couple other common sense laws that it would signal to the general public that is fearful of other people who can fr4eely buy guns that Congress is concerned about our safety and that would be a great first step toward changing the culture...

More guns won't do it...

B~

(Note to GfinS... You are making an ass out of yourself)

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 03:27 PM

Do we need stricter gun laws???

It likely depends on who the "we" is aimed at.

As to saner people in the USA - Good luck with arranging to get that one:)

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 03:30 PM

Bobert: "(Note to GfinS... You are making an ass out of yourself)."


Well, an ass is a donkey, which is the symbol of the Democratic Party..and I assure you, I wouldn't do THAT!!!

Oh Oh,..just got a call from North Carolina, warning me that you were at the hardware store trying to buy a hunting license for donkeys!!..and everyone that looks like one...smells like one...talks like one....and hold on to your hats:..Gives head NOT as good as one!!!...YIKES!!..Bobert's riled up, and on the loose!!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: sciencegeek
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 04:03 PM

"And that is just what the founding fathers envisaged in the USA, but they were dumb enough to make the guns a right and make the trained militia a suggestion, rather than both being a legal obligation.

Don T. "

maybe not so much dumb as a little short sighted... after all, at the time there were only militias. No standing army, no draft, no mercenary troops ('cause those guys work for cash & we didn't have any worth mentioning) and a constitution designed to be altered to fit changing times.

as for making life "safer" from guns in the hands of the "wrong" people... take the $$$$ out of drug dealing and watch it slowly shrivel up. Work on the social issues that encourage/drive young people towards violence. Oh yeah... let's go for saner laws if not saner people.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 04:09 PM

There is no way that the Founding Fathers could foresee AR15s in the hands of teenagers...

Back in their day arms meant single shot muzzle loaders... The kind they used against the Brits...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 04:50 PM

I think that what the Founding Fathers did at the time was perfectly sensible in the context of their time. It made good sense. They had no way of forseeing what would happen over 2 centuries later in a much larger and more technological society than their own. Other institutions have arisen to take the place of the citizen militia which they were envisioning in the late 1770s.

"If Congress had the balls to stand up to...."

Forget that idea. Congress doesn't have the balls to stand up to anything that gets in the way of Big Money interests, in my opinion, and that opinion has been borne out time and again. (The same situation prevails in Canada, and virtually everywhere else as well that has an elected assembly.)

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 07:13 PM

A brief history of the USA

:)

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 08:31 PM

Bobert comes closer than anyone to linking the history & culture of the USA regarding guns to the current mentality where so many just **think** guns every day.

Sure... our origins and westward expansion and wilderness made guns a useful thing for many, but once many people lived in urban areas, the very availability and 'mystique' kept the urge to 'mess with guns' quite fashionable... and the gun manufacturers did nothing to discourage it.

Face it... just SEEING guns everywhere exacerbates the idea that one 'ought to have a few...just in case'. If only police and farmers and hunters had them after 1900 or so, we'd be far better off.

All the statistics in the world about Switzerland don't prove anything... except that very few in Switzerland have had any need for them in many years. Switzerland's location, geography and history just doesn't favor gun mentality.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Sep 13 - 10:20 PM

True. What I would suggest is that the Swiss situation is very different, the maturity of their society is much more advanced, it's a more traditional society, it's a smaller, more homogeneous society, and all these things result in Swiss people having a very different psychology about guns than Americans do, which was my point.

Swiss citizens also feel a lot safer than American citizens do. There are many people in Switzerland and Germany who like to hunt with guns...sport hunting for various wild game, but that doesn't mean they own a gun with self-defense being the main thing in their minds, and it appears that self-defense is the main thing in the minds of a great many Americans.

Far fewer Canadians than Americans (per capita) own guns, and most own them with hunting in mind, not with self-defense in mind. Again, it's a different psychology at work, and that is my point.

As for Somalis, they own guns primarily with warfare in mind, as rival warlords carve out their turf. That's an even worse circumstance than what is seen in the USA.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 11 Sep 13 - 02:31 AM

"I'm quite glad they don't allow guns over here in England, but I do enjoy film with Americans shooting at each other - The Godfather, westerns, Die hard, and stuff like that. Keep it up chaps! "

Have you seen, "Snatch?", "Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels?", The two recent "Sherlock Holmes movies"?

They have all the violence you love and you won't need subtitles to fully comprehend the dialog.

Subject: RE: BS: Do we need stricter gun laws?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Sep 13 - 10:41 AM

LOL!!!