BS: I'm scared of Americans and Guns

Subject: RE: I'm scared of Americans and Guns
From: MarkS
Date: 20 Apr 00 - 06:32 PM

I was all set to jump in with a response to Lizzies comment on "wanting the right to own guns" but I figure this thread is long enough already! Peace MarkS

Subject: RE: I'm scared of Americans and Guns
From: Amergin
Date: 20 Apr 00 - 09:30 PM

Forgive me for being rude or anything but, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.............................

Subject: RE: I'm scared of Americans and Guns
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Apr 00 - 10:01 PM

Homeless, you said, " a gun is only a tool, like cars, knives, computers, fire, sledgehammers." The difference is that cars, knives, computers, fire, and sledgehammers are not made specifically to kill

Kim C....I live in Wyoming, have lived in the West for all but ten years of my life. Noone HAS to hunt here to get their food; a lot of us are vegetarians. (Ya ever tried to rope a wild carrot?*BG*) We know a lot of people who live out in the boonies, used to live out there ourselves. The poeple who do live out, relish those weekends when they come into the "big city of 50,000" to go to the stores and buy all the grub they need to fule their bods for the next month or so.

As for crime, not a day goes by that I don't read about another drug bust, usually involving weapons; or a wacked out spouse shooting up their partner; or any number of other violent crimes, right here in lil ole Wyomin'. I don't know how long ago you visited Cody, but there is death and destruction a'plenty, esp. in the domestic violence department and don't you know...most of 'em have a gun they can turn on the one they love.

Sorry, Kim, I don't mean to pick on you, these are just subjects I write a lot about and see, firsthand, everyday out here.

Subject: RE: I'm scared of Americans and Guns
From: GUEST, Saddam Hussein
Date: 20 Apr 00 - 10:08 PM

I think you should all be put up against the wall and shot.

That'll stop you arguing about it

Subject: RE: I'm scared of Americans and Guns
From: Kelida
Date: 20 Apr 00 - 11:02 PM

Thank you, Saddam. However, I am still going to shamelessly throw a few more thoughts into the ring.

1. For everyone that thinks that crime in America is going up. Yes, it probably is. This, however, is because the bozos running our country keep making more laws. Almost everyone is a criminal these days if you get right down to it. Maybe the answer isn't in the creation of new laws, but in the enforcement of the old laws?

2. Guns don't kill people. People kill people. Now to explain that trite, cliche little statement. Yes, yes, I know that eliminating guns completely would eleminate the problem of gun violence, but the complete elimination of guns is a very unrealistic hope. Personally, it breaks my heart that people in general are so obsessed with killing machines. If we're not killing other people, we're killing animals or the environment. I would love it if EVERYONE believed in all that "love thy neighbor" bs, but that is soomething else that is unrealistic. I admit freely that I don't love everyone, and there are some people who I would shed no tears for if they ceased to exist. However, something that IS realistic is justly punishing EVERYONE that is convicted of a crime. The biggest problem with the American justice system is that they keep trying to reform everyone. Mostly, though, they only succeed in reforming criminals into bigger, tougher badasses than they were before. Oh, some people do reform, but most people don't, and even if someone does become a reformed, upstanding citezen after murdering or raping someone else, it doesn't negate the fact that they committed a crime and should be punished for it. 25 years should mean 25 years, but now it means 7 or 12 or some other ridiculously low number. Life should mean LIFE. If someone is reformed after 10 years of a 20-year sentence, they should still be reformed (and maybe even more reformed) after finishing out the rest of their time. If they aren't reformed, that's 10 years longer that they won't be out on the streets committing more and maybe worse crimes.

3. Now for something I've always wondered about: why is it that someone who embezzles $300,000 spends more time in jail than a murderer or rapist? Is money really that important in today's society? Hackers and phreaks also spend an exceedingly long time in jail compared to killers. What's with that? Is the entire world just crazy?!?!?!

Peace--Bridget

Subject: RE: I'm scared of Americans and Guns
From: Gary T
Date: 21 Apr 00 - 02:55 AM

Sometimes it is crazy, Keli. There are places where it's easier to get out of a murder charge than to get out of a traffic ticket. Doesn't make much sense.

Subject: RE: I'm scared of Americans and Guns
From: Kelida
Date: 21 Apr 00 - 02:58 AM

And some people think I'm strange. I swear it's not me, it's the rest of the world!!!

Peace--Keli

Subject: RE: I'm scared of Americans and Guns
From: kendall
Date: 21 Apr 00 - 08:00 AM

Some years ago, here in Maine, I was reading the court news. A man was fined $25.00 for carrying a concealed weapon, and, in the same court another was fined $50.00 for driving an overloaded truck. The state will always have enough people, so, I guess it's ok to knock off a few, but, it will never have enough money. It's really sad that it is more serious to screw the state out of a few tax dollars than to carry a concealed .25 automatic.

Subject: RE: I'm scared of Americans and Guns
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Apr 00 - 09:15 AM

"it's a bit difficult for a hunter to bring down a deer by shouting "Bang! You're dead!"

Robin Hood never had a rifle...People have been been hunting deer for thousands of years, and it's only the last few hundred years anyone's had guns. A few years on and the National Raygun Association will be saying we need disintegrator pistols to hunt rabbits...

Subject: RE: I'm scared of Americans and Guns
From: Gary T
Date: 21 Apr 00 - 10:34 AM

Could be, McGrath, especially if "that's no ordinary rabbit!" (a la Monty Python)

Subject: RE: I'm scared of Americans and Guns
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 21 Apr 00 - 10:59 AM

I agree with those who commented about the priority of money over human lives.

The problem is with the theory that the Government is too invasive for me is this. Who will reform if the Government doesn't do it? The "Churches" haven't managed to accomplish this. State Governments are just as corrupt as the Feds are perceived. Many gun-toting parents don't seem to have taken the responsibility for keeping guns away from kids. The NRA surely isn't helping. The issue has reached an impasse.

How do you legislate responsibility? It's a big problem.

The problem of gun owner responsibility is tied into other issues such as stewardship of the Earth, child abuse, corrupt elected officials and campaign contributions, abusive practices by the police, disenfranchisement and marginalizing of poor minorities, civil rights etc. etc.

I read somewhere that America is a low-context culture. The tendency is to focus on one issue without considering the other issues that impact upon the one. We have created for ourselves, in the words of Erich Fromm, "logic-tight compartments" where we can focus on a limited aspect and evade other issues.

Frank

Frank

Subject: RE: I'm scared of Americans and Guns
From: Kelida
Date: 21 Apr 00 - 11:51 PM

I'm not normally a violent person, much more of a pacifist, but sometimes I honestly think that there are some poeple who are completely useless as human beings and would maybe be more useful as, oh. . .say, fertilizer? There are only going to be lazy, irresponsible people as long as people themselves take no action. Big Brother only has so many eyes and arms, so no matter how much legislation gets passed, there are never going to be enough people to enforce it all. The problem is (and I will always maintain this) that the government doesn't have enough conviction to enforce the laws that already exist, and their theory seems to be that making more laws will prevent the old crimes from happening. Well, it won't. It only creates more crime, and sometimes makes criminals of honest people (especially all the gun legislation going around). The way to stop crime doesn't lie in creating more of it--in fact that seems a little counterproductive. . .

Peace--Keli

Subject: RE: I'm scared of Americans and Guns
From: Gary T
Date: 22 Apr 00 - 12:14 AM

But Keli, if you can create more crime you can then get more tax dollars to spend trying to fight it. You just aren't a big thinker, eh? (VBG)

Subject: RE: I'm scared of Americans and Guns
From: Kelida
Date: 22 Apr 00 - 12:27 AM

Hmmmmm. . . They don't spend those tax dollars fighting crime. It all goes into the CIA's drug business. . . and to keep the aliens a secret. . .

:^)--Keli

Subject: RE: I'm scared of Americans and Guns
From:
Date: 04 Aug 02 - 01:17 PM

Lizzie

This thread seems to have run itself out .. howerver, there is one thing that remains to be addressed....

I'm afraid of hair brained Brits that come to America and try to import their tyrannical Parliament's equally hair brained ideas about gun control into this country.

My reasons for bein scared are well founded ... dispite your near complete "gun control" in un-merry old England, your crime rate has soared to new heights, in that your Parliament has now provided the common criminal with no more than a victim-rich, risk-free working environment, where in your citizens are six times more likely to be murdered, raped, robbed, assaulted, or to have their homes invaded than we are here in the good ole gun-totin USA.

Considering that England is only about the size of our State of Oregon, that's a pretty pathetic record ... you in fact now have more crime in England than we have in the entire USA ... a record that most recently has been proven to be even worse than originally believed, in that the law enforcement agencies in Britian have been caught "cooking the books" concerning their methodoligy of keeping track of their soaring crime rates, which they have proven incapable of coping with.

The Brits, by US standards have always has a reputaion for being a "little slow and totally bass-ackwards" and you have proven it admirably, by recently earning the title of "The Crime Capitol of the West" in that your criminal activities, in light of your citizens inabilities to protect themselves, has now exceeded that of every other industrialized nation.

In that you seem to be totaly unaware of these FACTS, obtainable from your own government crime statistics, via Interpol and elsewhere ... then I must assume you are equally unaware of the FACT that in the USA, in those municipalities, counties and States which have the most liberal gun laws, such as the "right to carry" (concealed firearms), that our crime rates are the lowest on record.

You may "feel scared" of Americans and thier firearms ... and that is primarily YOUR problem ... most people indeed feel afraid of things that are ufamiliar to them ... and you obviously know little or nothing of the issue of "gun control" and the horrible results it has had on the people of many nations down over the past century, when they found themselves unprotected from tyranny and genocide.

But rather than "scolding you" I'd like to suggest that you contact someone here in the States and go to a gun range with them to become familiar with that which "scares you" so darn much ...

You will find that we American gun owners are by and large some 80 MILLION strong ... 5 million of which belong to the National Rifle Association and NONE of which are ever engaged in any illegal, or dangerous activities with our estimated 250 MILLION privately owned firearms ... some of which are legally registered and (horrors) fully automatic sub-machine guns and (golly jeepers) even some fully automatic .50 Calibre machine guns.

So go out and have some fun ... knock down a few metallic targets with a hand gun ... punch out some minute groups at 50 feet with a .22 target rifle and a high powered scope in gallery shooting ... hit a running deer target at 100 yards with a high powered rifle ... put together a quarter inch group of shots with a varmit rifle ... bust some clay pigeons at the trap or skeet range or better yet the newer "sporting clays" games ...

If you want to be scared of American's ... then let me suggest American Motherhood in conjunction with bathtubs and swimming pools ... where more of our infants drown each year than are ever killed or injured with firearms.

The main point is this ... become informed ... and become involved ... even if you never take up firearms, at least know what you are talking about, and your fear will leave you ...

Except for one small problem ... once you find out what the whole story is, I doubt that you will want to go back to England ...because you are safer here than you ever were there ... but then we are used to it ... the doors have been open to your "muddled asses" ever since they put that proclaimation up on the Statue of Liberty a number of years ago.

Papa

Subject: RE: I'm scared of Americans and Guns
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 04 Aug 02 - 01:31 PM

I'm British and I have grown up around guns. I am NOT scared of Americans or guns themselves. I am scared of the damage that guns can do if they are in the wrong hands. Any person of any nationality can cause irrepairable damage. Guns can be used for sport, hunting and used as a deterrant but they are used for killing by all nations not just the Americans.

Cat

Subject: RE: I'm scared of Americans and Guns
From: X
Date: 04 Aug 02 - 01:38 PM

Here we go again. Oh-Hum.