BS: Gun control

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 05:48 PM

Technologically beyond us yet, but it would seem that the Star Trek "hand phaser" permanently set on "stun" would be the ideal weapon for self-defense and law enforcement. The nearest thing we have to that so far is the taser, but even these are controversial. The claim is that, in some people, the electric shock they impart could precipitate a heart attack. But it strikes me that a possible heart attack is preferable to a bullet through the vitals.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 06:13 PM

The other criticism that has been levelled at the taser is that in the hands of the wrong kind of people in official positions, it can be used as a means of torture and punishment in circumstances where shooting would not be permitted.

That is probabaly a rather stronger point in the case of police forces which are required to make relatively minimal use of firearms, as in the UK.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Big Mick
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 06:50 PM

Bill, I think you just don't get it that I do understand your position. I just disagree on a very fundamental level.

I think I am with you. We have beat this to death.......again.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 06:57 PM

Using a firearms inside a house isn't usually a good idea. Bullets tear up furniture and the woodwork, bloodstains are hard to remove from carpets -- all in all, a lot of hassle.

More importantly, most modern bullets can penetrate the walls of a house and injure people outside, especially bullets from high-powered rifles and high-powered handguns. (I've shattered a concrete block with a single round from a .357 magnum pistol. I hasten to say that this was on a range, and done as part of a safety demonstration. It's not something I do as a regular thing.)

I have said elsewhere, and I stand by it, that I would far rather have my hardwood nightstick for self-defense inside my home than a pistol. I know how to use it, and if I have it and you point a gun at me, you'll end up with at least one badly broken wrist. And yes, if need be I could kill you with it. And while I would have little hesitation about shooting someone who was threatening death or serious injury to me or mine, I would have NO hesitation about using the nightstick. Of course, you have to learn to use it properly....

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: kendall
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 08:19 PM

When the bad gus have AK 47 assault rifles, to suggest the cops should use a taser is silly. When I was in law enforcement, all I had was a .38 S&W while the bad guys had 30.06 automatic rifles. I think I was right in feeling undergunned.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 09:24 PM

Kendall, I wasn't suggesting that the police use tasers to go after someone armed with a bazooka and/or a Mack-10. I mentioned it mainly because Seattle police have recently been armed with tasers in addition to their service pistols (I think most of them carry Glocks). For most civilian self-defense, a taser would probably be adequate for just about anything that one might run into in terms of burglars, muggers, and such.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: beardedbruce
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 09:34 PM

Don,

As to tasers, they would be useful against someone who was not expecting it- there are effective countermeasures available, which I will not discuss in a public forum.


There was a story during the last century.... The end line was "All men are created equal- Samual Colt made em that way."

The original idea of personal firearms was to equalize the weak and strong, giving the weak a chance to compete instead of being forced to go along with whatever the strongest wanted.

The number of handguns used in colonial times seems to be about 10 % the number of longarms, from the known production of gunsmiths of the period. One might suspect that after the British made it illegal to have a firearm, the number of (concealable) handguns became a larger percentage of available guns.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: beardedbruce
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 09:39 PM

Rapaire,

Anyone who uses other than frangible bullets inside of a dwelling is either incompetent or desperate.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 09:44 PM

People who try and justify having children AND guns in their homes are worrying beyond belief. Doesn't matter how often we hear about the gun being under lock and key and the ammo being stored elsewhere. Accidents do and will happen.

They are the very same people who look for safety tested cots and car seats. Their brains wouldn't merit a kitemark.

They say they want society's thinking to change? They should start the process in their own homes.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 12:56 AM

"I believe that as long as society has this many careless and flawed people mixed with this many guns, we DO need more than a set of rules posted."

And the many careless and flawed people mixed with this many automobiles? I believe they kill more than the gun owners. I'd support a 45 mph speed limit. Seriously. Would you?

I didn't say do nothing about guns. I do say education is better than prohibition laws. I don't think the 18th amendment& the Volstead Act cured any alcoholics. Do you?

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: kendall
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 06:56 AM

Does speed really cause accidents? Seems to me that driver inattention, and aggression causes the smashups

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 09:43 AM

BB, I'd venture to guess that damned few (<2%) of those who keep a gun by the bed "for defense" even know what a frangible bullet is. Now, if I REALLY wanted to use firearm inside for self-defense (and as I said, I would if I had to, though I'd prefer not to) I'd load my side-by-side double 12 gauge with either #4 or double-ought buckshot and tear 'em in half ("Buckshot means buryin'", as the old saying goes).

Back when cops were under-armed with 9mm pistols, the Illinois State Police had to go up against a guy who was murderously high on PCP. Two cops fired 30 bullets and hit him 28 times -- and he still kept coming. Finally, they "put him down" with one shot from a 12 guage -- and the ISP recalled and re-gunsmithed all the 9mm pistols that had just been issued, jacking their "power" up to +P+. They no longer carry them, using .40 caliber Sigs instead.

"How would you clear a room in which a shooter was?" the Deputy Sheriff asked me once in conversation. "Toss in a grenade and...." "No, no -- you can't DO that!" he said. "I'm a peaceful guy," I responded, "and I don't like violence AT ALL. But if it's me or him, I'd rather it was me."

And I most sincerely hope that the Seattle Police are NOT carrying Glocks, for reasons I won't go into in public.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 01:11 PM

I don't know that for sure, Rapaire. I think the individual officers can have a choice of sidearms, within certain guidelines. I know a few of them carry Glocks. One I know carries a Sig-Sauer and another a Beretta. So I think the SPD recommends, but there is a certain level of personal choice allowed. Most of them have been issued tasers, however. In addition to the sidearm.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 01:56 PM

"Does speed really cause accidents? Seems to me that driver inattention, and aggression causes the smashups"

True. But the more speed the longer & farther it takes to stop when you get in trouble, and the harder you hit.

Of course, excessive speed is usually due to driver inattention, aggression, and stupidity, so we're back to the need for education.

I was trying, clumsily, I guess, to draw a parallel with gun restrictions & point out that deaths by car are somehow more forgivable than deaths by firearm. Teddy Kennedy's Chappaquiddick adventure got him in trouble, but if he'd killed Mary Jo Kopechne while demonstrating his quickdraw we wouldn't be seeing as much of him now.

No difference to Mary Jo, though.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 05:26 PM

So if there's an inalienable right for Americans to walk round wearing swords, how come you never see people doing that these days? Or is it just that this is hushed up by the media? Because it never seems to happen on the telly. (Alright, from time to time you get some nutter on the news who's gone ape with a samurai sword, but I mean as a normal part of daily life, as a kind of fashion statement.)

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 06:42 PM

Bruce,

It's worth pointing out that guns in the hands of ordinary cops over here in the UK did not start until the IRA terrorist campaign on the British mainland in the 70s.

Back in the 50s our police were armed with an eighteen inc wooden truncheon, and gun crime was so rare that the shooting of a policeman in West London, was front page headline news for a couple of months, and caused a storm of public outrage. The killer was hanged.

During that decade, the average number of murders in the whole UK was about 200 a year, and guns featured in a tiny percentage of that. I think I'm right in saying that that figure was less than the number in New York City for the same period.

Having armed our police, we now have a gun crime situation that is rapidly approaching American proportions.

I don't expect any pro gun US citizens will admit it, but I know what I make of those facts.

DT

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 07:06 PM

"...we now have a gun crime situation that is rapidly approaching American proportions."

That really is pushing it a little, Don.

The official Home Office statistics give the overall level of gun crime in this country as less than half of 1 percent of all crime recorded by the police – and in the year ending 31 March 2004, there was a 15 per cent reduction in homicides involving firearms, and a 13 per cent reduction in robberies involving firearms.

If we get the impression from the media that the reverse is the case, that's largely because shootings make good news stories. But if we stop a little and think it shouldn't take long to realise that the level of media attention given to horrible shootings, like the one for which four young men have recently been jailed for life, reflects the fact that these things are still pretty uncommon.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: susu
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 08:03 PM

Don I agree with you that police being armed with tasers is a good idea, and several police officers that I know feel the same way. They would rather use a taser in leiu of a gun in any circumstances that warrant it.
As for heart attacks, a majoriy of those occur because of several (usually unknown) factors:

1) heart condition in the person being tased
2) drug use in the suspect
3) a combination of the first two
4) the improper training of police when using tasers (can be solved)

Tasers are a better choice than stun guns because you have to be in close proximity with a subject with the use ofa stun gun while the taser can be used from a relatively safer distance using darts that will penetrate several layers of clothing, yet if they miss, it can still be used as a stun gun. Stun guns are virtually ineffective through layers of clothing.
Now back to the drug user, people on PCP tend to be superhuman, and unfortunately mace doesn't even phase them and usually tasers don't either. But at least they have a better chance of subduing the person and then getting them into custody without causing their death instead of shooting to kill. Just ask the mother of a 16 year old who just got in with the wrong crowd which she would rather have, a phone call from the jailhouse, or one from the M.E.s office. You have no chance of helping the one that died. Just MHO. I could be wrong. Susu

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 09:11 PM

"So if there's an inalienable right for Americans to walk round wearing swords, how come you never see people doing that these days?"

People don't walk around carrying visible guns much either; it's considered gauche, I guess. There aren't even many sword-weilding nutters. There's more nutters who drive cars into crowds.

And it's hard to get in a car or walk through a crowded mall when you wear a sword. People do wear swords to "Renaissance Faires" but thtey are generally required to be peace-banded.

But there are some who have a sword on the wall for fantasy defense against an intruder, & I knew a storekeeper who kept a very large Bowie knife on a shelf under his cash register.

Swords, within their range, are probably more deadly than pistols but they need skill, and space, and they're not much good for target practice or hunting. Pistols aren't always weapons but swords don't have any use except as weapons aside from cutting wedding cakes.

clint

As I recall Winston Churchill carried a pistol in the cavalry when most were carrying sabers because he thought it worked better.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Amos
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 10:13 AM

Bob Herbert, writing in the NY Times, says among other things on this topic:

" I had coffee the other day with Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, and she mentioned that since the murders of Robert Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, well over a million Americans have been killed by firearms in the United States. That's more than the combined U.S. combat deaths in all the wars in all of American history.

"We're losing eight children and teenagers a day to gun violence," she said. "As far as young people are concerned, we lose the equivalent of the massacre at Virginia Tech about every four days."

The first step in overcoming an addiction is to acknowledge it. Americans are addicted to violence, specifically gun violence. We profess to be appalled at every gruesome outbreak of mass murder (it's no big deal when just two, three or four people are killed at a time), but there's no evidence that we have the will to pull the guns out of circulation, or even to register the weapons and properly screen and train their owners.

On the day after Christmas in 2000, an employee of Edgewater Technology, a private company in Wakefield, Mass., showed up at work with an assault rifle and a .12-gauge shotgun. Around 11 a.m. he began methodically killing co-workers. He didn't stop until seven were dead.

An employee who had not been at work that day spoke movingly to a reporter from The Boston Globe about the men and women who lost their lives. "They were some of the sweetest, smartest people I've ever had the chance to work with," he said. "The cream of the crop."

The continuing carnage has roused at least one group of public officials to action: mayors. "We see the violence that is happening in America today," said Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston. "Illegal guns are rampant. Go into almost any classroom in Boston — sixth and seventh grade, eighth grade, high school — and 50 percent of those kids know somebody who had a gun."

The mayor noted that since the beginning of the year, more than 100 people have already been killed in Philadelphia, and nearly 80 in Baltimore. Most of the victims were shot to death.

Last year Mayor Menino and Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, at a meeting they hosted at Gracie Mansion, organized a group of mayors committed to fighting against illegal firearms in the U.S. "It is time for national leadership in the war on gun violence," Mr. Bloomberg said at the time. "And if that leadership won't come from Congress or come from the White House, then it has to come from us."

The campaign has grown. There were 15 mayors at that first gathering. Now more than 200 mayors from cities in 46 states have signed on.

When asked why Mayor Bloomberg had become so militant about the gun issue, John Feinblatt, the city's criminal justice coordinator, mentioned the "human element." He said: "I think it's because he's watched eight police officers be shot. And because, like all mayors, he's the one who gets awakened, along with the police commissioner, at 3 in the morning and 4 in the morning, and has to rush to the hospital and break the news that can break somebody's heart."

Those who are interested in the safety and well-being of children should keep in mind that only motor vehicle accidents and cancer kill more children in the U.S. than firearms. A study released a few years ago by the Harvard School of Public Health compared firearm mortality rates among youngsters 5 to 14 years old in the five states with the highest rates of gun ownership with those in the five states with the lowest rates.

The results were chilling. Children in the states with the highest rates of gun ownership were 16 times as likely to die from an accidental gunshot wound, nearly seven times as likely to commit suicide with a gun, and more than three times as likely to be murdered with a firearm...."

---

I greatly respect many people who keep weapons.

But I submit that the culture of violence, and its dramatization by firepower, must be cured.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 12:50 PM

I am getting old....I didn't remember this thread, even though I made SUCH well phrased arguments in it...*wry smile*

I think I'll just trace it and post a link from now on instead of typing a lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Dickey
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 01:06 PM

Amos: first of all, I don't own a gun.

Now that you are discussing gun deaths going back in history as far as the JFK assasination, why not go a little farther or is 1963 your cut off date for anything that matters today?

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 01:15 PM

causes of death

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 01:32 PM

"going back in history as far as the JFK assassination" - that's ancient history to you, Dickey?   Set against a million killings it's a pretty short time, it seems to me.

In fact Amos said Robert Kennedy and not John - but then all these old-time things get mixed up, don't they - Genghis Khan and Attila, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas...

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Dickey
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 03:29 PM

I stand corrected. Is 1968 the cut off date for anything revelant Amos?

The reason I am asking is because Amos immediately claims my postings about are irrevelant because they cite things in the past.

Also percentages, deaths per 1000 or per capita should be cited instead of total number of deaths.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Dickey
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 03:30 PM

"...Asked the primary cause of gun violence, far more Americans blamed the effects of popular culture (40 percent) or the way parents raise their children (35 percent) than the availability of guns (18 percent). In no population group does more than about a fourth cite the availability of guns as the chief cause of gun violence..."

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3068449&page=3

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 03:35 PM

"...Asked the primary cause of gun violence, far more Americans blamed the effects of popular culture (40 percent) or the way parents raise their children (35 percent) than the availability of guns (18 percent)."

So, Hillary was right. It takes a village, or maybe a gulag...

Lets take the kids away from their parents, put them into government camps and control what they learn, and raise them as the government determines will make them good citizens. THEN the gun violence can be reduced, I betcha.

Can't complain about rights if it makes us safer, you know.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 04:03 PM

The implication of "it takes a village" (which of course Ms Clinton didn't invent herself) is that even the best parents in the world are still quite likely to end up with kids going really badly wrong, if other parts of the rest of the environment are rotten - and that certainly seems to be borne out by experience. Every day we read about it happening, and I'm sure a lot of us know second hand, or even first hand.

I find it very strange that anyone should object to that expression.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: saulgoldie
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 12:51 PM

http://www.alternet.org/rights/50697/?page=2

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Stringsinger
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 04:57 PM

The proponents of gun ownership who yell the loudest at gun control are those who are actively supporting the greedy gun lobby and gun industry. Those who feel it is necessary to have a weapon for protection are drinking the Kool-aid of the NRA and the affiliate gun runners who are making a big profit off of gun ownership. The net result of lack of gun control are more guns. In the US, gun owners are comparitively irresponsible to Canada, Switzerland or other countries wh are more rational about this issue. The US has one of the largest homicide rates in gun violence in the world.

There is a procedure for obtaining a driver's license involving testing, showing that the applicant is capable of being responsible for this license. Nothing like that exists in the US today for guns. Anyone can have a gun easilly.

The the argument that guns will always be with us and there's nothing anyone can do to stop their misuse is a "self-fulfilling prophecy". It is a form of denial and apathy.

Those who buy weapons to protect themselves can show no real evidence that this protection works. Most who purchase this kind of weapon do not know how to even use it. Any seasoned criminal who does know how to use it can disarm those who attempt to protect themselves with it. There are instances of those who have used guns to protect themselves who have been shot and sometimes killed.

BTW, the article on the World Health Organization does not mention gun violence as a major cause of disease.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 05:24 PM

saulgoldie, thanks for the link to the excellent op/ed piece.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: GUEST,whassisname
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 01:25 AM

You want to SEE the best reason to own guns, watch this video clip:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2007/160407Jam.htm

Taped by a group that shows up at Ground Zero in New York City every month on the 11th. They just hold up banners that say 9/11 was an inside job. On this day, thugs who work for Larry Silverstein (owner of the only 3 bldgs to come down in the WTC complex on 9/11, who made between 5-7 billion in insurance on the deal), his thugs and the NYPD confront these guys. In the ensuing exchange you can hear the police JOKING about one of the young men having a "bomb" in his backpack. He calls the man a "terrorist." The keep trying to get the camera shut off so they can beat the crap out of the guys.

Americans who want to entrust their safety to cops are I-N-S-A-N-E. The founding fathers just went through this with the Brits, and now you want to let it happen AGAIN? You women...watch this video. You want THE COPS in this film to be the only ones on the streets carrying guns? Even if criminals COULDN'T get guns, how safe would you feel with these thugs treating YOU like this?

Several years ago a man drove a pickup into a restaurant here in Texas and opened up with his firearms. Killed a couple dozen unarmed people. The state immediately passed a concealed handgun law. People can now eat with peace of mind in public places. Violent crime has dropped over 20% since that shooting. Carjacking was skyrocketing, but it CEASED the day the new law went into effect. Carjackers suddenly didn't know who did and did not have guns.

Then, a couple of years ago, the legislature passed a law allowing people to carry concealed handguns in their cars (without going through the registration, training process). The reasoning is that when you're in your car, it's more or less an extension of your home, and you have the right to protect yourself at home. Only one additional shooting has happened on the zillion miles of roads in Texas because of this change in law, and that one was ruled justifiable.

Quit buying in to the brainwashing. Criminals will always have guns, cops rarely get there in time, and if they do, more and more are like the ones in the video.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Dickey
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 02:44 AM

"There are instances of those who have used guns to protect themselves who have been shot and sometimes killed."

There are even more instances of those who have not used a gun to protect themsleves who have been shot and killed.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 03:26 AM

What a shitty place the USA must be, when everyone needs a gun to protect themselves from everyone else. Thank f**k I live in a peaceful country.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: GUEST,whassisname
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 12:21 PM

Protecting yourself if the price of freedom. Dictatorships usually ARE peaceful, most of the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 02:18 PM

Dictatorship?

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 02:40 PM

USA, Afghanistan - in some countries people seem just to be set up that way. No point arguing about it really from outside.

Is there a word meaning negative role model? Very useful people.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 03:03 PM

American Gun-Freak? (Sorry McG, I realise that's three words) :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 06:55 PM

I meant in general terms - actually role model can mean positive role model or negative role model, I just read - it's just that when the qualifier "positive" or negative" is left out it tends to be assumed that positive role model is intended. But that's just an assumption that can be wrong.

So it really is true to say that the USA gun laws do at any rate provide the rest of the world with a very valuable role model.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: kendall
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 07:40 PM

America is NOT a shitty place to live. I can't quote a figure offhand, but I know that the overwhelming numbers of killings by guns here are done by people who know each other.

And, when you say "America" keep in mind that there are many Americas, and there are dangerous places, just like in England, and there are safe places just as there are in England.

In India, if you don't like your wife you set her afire. Here, we shoot her. If you had to choose, which would it be?

Just for the sake of balance, I have to admit that there are too many guns here, and if we could eliminate all of them, it would be safer for all of us. I've never heard of a "drive by stabbing."

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 02:38 AM

Hi Kendall. I know that of course, been there several times and loved every minute (and coming back for more in June). My words were simply a way of saying "I don't believe you people over there REALLY DO need to protect yourselves from everyone else - the danger's only there BECAUSE a lot of you have guns". I intended the irony to be self-evident, guess I failed dismally.

Apologies for the generalisation 'Americans' - you know us Brits well enough to understand that's a term reserved here for 'Citizens of the United States of America' - even though there are indeed many Americas we mean 'US Citizens' when we say 'Americans'.

For the sake of balance also, I didn't like my first wife, but I didn't choose either to burn or shoot her, I took the peaceful route and divorced her! That's what we generally do here! :-)

S:0)

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Dickey
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 03:37 AM

Yanks mate, Yanks

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: kendall
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 08:26 AM

Gottcha Johnnie. Sorry for the over reaction. The real problem is not so much that everyone here has a gun, but rather that too many nut cases have guns. If they became illegal to own, the law abiding citizen would turn in his weapon but you know the criminal and the nutters wouldn't. What would that do? it would make the law abiding citizen vulnerable to the crooks.

A few years ago in Florida, there was a rash of robberies and shootings. It got so bad that tourists stopped going there. I was one of them.
Then, the state legislature passed a "right to carry" law, and the crime rate went into the cellar. The bad guys knew that his "victim" might well be armed too, and they don't like an even playing field. Without that advantage of a weapon, they are nothing.

In NYC the Sullivan Law forbids carrying a gun, yet they have a very high crime rate. Why? because the crooks couldn't care less abut the law! They are law breakers anyway. Added to the problem is the fact that anyone can walk into a gun store in Georgia and buy a gun, or a dozen guns, and you don't have to prove that you are sane or don't have a criminal record. Many of those guns find their way to NYC in spite of the law.(Witness the recent massacre in Virginia)

Guns are also against the law in Washington DC, the city with the highest murder rate in the whole country. Again, guns travel well.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 02:19 PM

True enough, having tight gun control in one part of a country and not in others is a bit like having a section of a swimming pool where pissing isn't allowed.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 02:21 PM

No problem Kendall - I have occasionally been known to over-react myself! LOL!

I truly do understand the arguments for allowing guns, and I can see that there's a certain comfort-blanket value to having one, I just believe that being 'safer' packing a gun is a matter of perception rather than fact - 12,000 homicides by shooting per annum are pretty strong proof of that. In truth, EVERYBODY (that's emphasis, not shouting BTW!) would be far 'safer' if there were NO guns.

And yes, I'm sure you're right that the bad-guys will hold on to their weapons while the good-guys hand 'em in, but I just can't help feeling that 'we have to start somewhere'. It's difficult but, if people in days gone by had allowed difficulty to prevent them taking great steps, Columbus would never have discovered America, and man would not have walked on the moon! :-)

Cheers fella, and good wishes to your lady.
S:0)

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 02:27 PM

My impression is that it isn't primarily the bad guys you have to worry about - it's the people who'd previously been good-enough-guys who, for some reason or no reason anyone understands, turn killers. Family, friends, workmates, fellow students... "I know that the overwhelming numbers of killings by guns here are done by people who know each other.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: kendall
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 03:05 PM

We have to start somewhere. Ok, good, I agree, but we don't start with the good guys. Bad guys are the reason the good guys have guns.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Midchuck
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 04:55 PM

Bad gyus are the reason the good guys have guns.

Gyus? Oh well, he's from Maine...

The point is well taken, though. Everytime you point out that the slogan, "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" is perfect, simple, truth, someone says, "Yes, but look at the rednecks who have it on their bumpers! Those people didn't even go to college! How can they possibly be right?" They appear to think that that shows it's not so.

Actually, it's even worse than that. As Edward Abbey pointed out, if guns are outlawed, only outlaws and the government will have guns. We'll get it from both sides!

Peter

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 05:24 PM

But the people who are most likely to shoot you aren't the bad guys or the government. They are too busy shooting other bad guys or other governments, more often than not. Bad guys and the government, touch wood, I can live with.

The danger comes from the people you thought were good guys, but, for some reason or other, they have taken it into your head that you are a bad guy. Fortunately, where I live, they are very unlikely to have a gun.

Subject: RE: BS: Gun control
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 30 Apr 07 - 07:53 AM

Exactly.