BS: Shooting tragedies and guns

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: pdq
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 07:21 PM

BTW, there is another thread specifically about the Newtown incident.

This thread is more generic and was started so the ususal suspects in "gun grabbing" could vent without being disrespectful to the Newton victims.

I doubt that anyone posting here knows what the Federal gun laws really say.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 07:18 PM

"...,private gun ownership is guaranteed by the US Constitution... "

That is one interpretation of what the 2nd amendment says!

It also says "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State"

The entire POINT was that competent citizens were expected be part of a **militia** when the NEED arose... and they were expected to bring arms, because there were no mass-produced standardized weapons at that time! Those who wrote that amendment had NO idea what would happen after 1865 or so when guns began to be made that would take mass produced ammunition!
In 1790, guns were seldom used except to defend home & country or to hunt.
Now, that vaguely worded document is interpreted in such a way as to allow any yahoo who is of age and not a felon or 'proven' crazy to stock up on assault rifles! And conservative presidents appoint judges who uphold that silly old idea! The framers would be appalled!
We HAVE a militia! And they are ISSUED the guns they need at the appropriate times!

Sadly, we also have thousands of wanna-be militias who just 'like' owning big, fancy things that go "BANG". It is a HOBBY! A BELIEF! Not a NEED!
They lie to themselves about the reasoning ...until they believe it, so they can pretend to 'tell the truth' to everyone else!

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: kendall
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 07:17 PM

I've said this before and I'll repeat it; if I had my way there would be no such thing as a semi auto or full auto firearm.

If I could do it, I would make every gun in the world disappear. I am NOT a gun nut, I AM a realist.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: kendall
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 07:06 PM

leveler, I'll match my IQ to yours or anyone else on this forum.
Greg I'm NOT in that category! I've said it may times the NRA is trying to scare people into thinking their right to own a gun is in danger, HELL NO!

Guns dont kill people   god damn it People kill people! Use your frigging head! No gun gives a shit whether you live or die, that whacko behind it might.

I suggest certain people lay off the insults, you know damn well they are not allowed here. If you can't make your point without insulting someone, shut up.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 07:06 PM

Most parents aren't fit to raise a gerbil.
I want a gun to protect myself from their children.
=(:-( l)

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: pdq
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 06:45 PM

Thank you for reading that article, Howard Jones.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 06:41 PM

If the 2nd Amendment is ended,

Stop with the bullshit, PeeDee - no one is talking about "ending the second ammendment".

Try to at least hold on to a modicum of reality.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Howard Jones
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 06:32 PM

The Kennesaw, Georgia example is interesting. I live in a village of about the same size where householders are prohibited from owning firearms without a stringently-controlled licence (and where handguns are banned outright) and I would guess that our crime rate is probably the same or even less. We haven't had any murders either, so far as I'm aware, and don't seem to think that this is in any way remarkable. There have been a few burglaries, but I'm 100% confident that the burglars won't have carried guns.

I realise we are not comparing like with like, and this is a simplistic comparison. Nevertheless the fact remains that it is possible to live safely without having guns, if a society chooses to do so. America seems reluctant to make that choice, even in the most appalling circumstances.

And yes, we do understand it's about the 2nd Amendment. However you're no longer a frontier society, you're the richest country in the world, with the most powerful military - you don't need a militia any more to keep the redcoats away. Isn't it time that, as a society, you started to grow up?

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 06:29 PM

Same worn out argument about the 2nd amendment...

Reality is that the NRA has cherry-picked the 2nd amendment all to hell and back... They refuse to ***allow*** for a full discussion of the entire amendment or the fact that the 2nd amendment is a single sentence...

No, all we hear is the same old worn out blah, blah and more blah from the NRA and it's supporters...

In other words??? The only discussion we are going to have is our talking points, not anyone elses, and we have the money to shut you up or have you voted out...

The NRA way or the highway...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: pdq
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 06:22 PM

If the 2nd Amendment is ended, there will be no reason to give civilian gun safety classes. Logical, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 06:19 PM

""I owned many when I hunted deer, moose, rabbit, etc. I hope that answers your questions.""

Oh come on Bruce. How many deer, moose, or rabbit did you shoot with a Sig Sauer 9mm, or a Glock, or an AR 15?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 06:15 PM

Go to the NRA's site. What they talk about first and foremost is "protecting the second amendment."

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: pdq
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 06:09 PM

The statement is about private organizations and that should be obvious.

The military and law enforcement play by different rules and you know that.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 06:04 PM

No, pdq, the United States military trains more people on the safe and sane use of firearms, followed by the various police academies...

The NRA runs a distant 3rd and guess what??? It pisses off more people than it could train who want no part of them...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 06:02 PM

100% with you on that one, Dorothy.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 06:00 PM

This group covers the bases:

"September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
Andrea's reminder that guns are only part of the problem:

Yesterday's tragedy strikes at our hearts and leaves us - again - shattered with pain for the shear needlessness of it. There are no words that will assuage the victims' families grief. The wounds will remain. It will take a very long time to know how to hold the sadness and the rage and also, eventually, learn to go on living with the loss. We struggle to understand what happened out of our need for an explanation of what has violated all sense of rightness.

We need to understand that the gunman and his family are victims too. Perhaps victims of the society we have responsibility for.

This tragedy did not come out of nowhere. We need to frame our thoughts as we go forward around the the fact that guns are an expression of the violence we as a culture condone. We do not want to divide over whether we campaign for gun legislation OR focus on the culture that promotes violence which cuts spending for mental health, education, and ending poverty and includes justifications for foreign policy decisions and the support of a war machine that produces and provides weapons to governments as well as homegrown gunmen. It trains young people to kill primarily innocent people in wars that bring no peace and then come home broken in body and mind, changed by what they've seen and done. It promotes as news and entertainment that which normalizes and glorifies violence. It is big business!

There are many many forms of violence. Guns and the culture of violence are of a piece. Eliminating the tools of destruction is only part of the solution."

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 05:52 PM

I just read an article that said each of the kids--6 or 7 years old--was shot three to eleven times with a rifle. The first person killed was the principal.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: pdq
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 05:34 PM

...from the NRA website:

NRA offers America's preeminent shooting, training, education and public service programs that foster the safe, responsible ownership and use of firearms.

Some of you folks don't quite "get it", but private gun ownership is guaranteed by the US Constitution and the NRA demands that we keep the traditional standard of "reasonable restrictions" in place.

The NRA educates more people about the safe and sane use of firearms than all other US organizations combined. Sorry they ain't perfect, you know, like the Post Office, FEMA or Microsoft.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 05:16 PM

"1. What is a gun designed to do?"

Shoot projectiles a long distance with sufficient force to penetrate an object.

"2. Why do you own a gun if you're not prepared to use it for the purpose for which it was designed?"

I owned many when I hunted deer, moose, rabbit, etc. I hope that answers your questions.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 05:15 PM

I am fed up of the pathetic guns don't kill people, people do line.

fOr the brain dead....

The ownership of guns means that those who have the propensity to kill people makes it easier to kill people, and/or kill more people.

So, repeating what I said in another thread.


Dear NRA,

Are you celebrating your latest wonderful acheivement? You must be proud!!!!

WELL????

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: theleveller
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 05:10 PM

"gund don't kill people, PEOPLE kill people"

Same old shite we get time after time. Listen, moron, just ask yourself two simple questions:

1. What is a gun designed to do?
2. Why do you own a gun if you're not prepared to use it for the purpose for which it was designed?

To my mind every single person in the US who owns a gun is responsible for this atrocity. I hope you can live with that.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 05:03 PM

Please, Kendall - nobody's talking about "taking your gun" - that's NRA propaganda to whip up hysteria among those that don't know any better. I wouldn't have placed you in that category.

And by the way, guns don't kill people - BULLETS kill people.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Ron Davies
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 04:55 PM

It's certainly true that it's no longer about the sportsman--if it ever was.   Why would a sportman need a pistol anyway? I understand that in the UK, for target shooting, the weapon is borrowed and returned.   A much more civilized approach than ours.



The NRA needs its teeth pulled. This can only be done if enough citizens pressure their reps to stand up to that group and its obsession with the 2nd Amendment.

We can start by pointing out that the 2nd Amendment has lost any usefulness it ever had--and its theory of national defense via militia was a disaster from the start.

Instead of a sensible situation, we have the idiocy in which you can order guns--not just rifles--from a catalogue. ( Jan gets one of these.)   What kind of security is that for the general public against nuts with guns?

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 04:49 PM

We don't want ***your*** gun, Capt'n...

That's the knee-jerk reaction any time anyone talks about making a few sensible changes to gun ownership...

"Obama is going to take my gun away!"...

No, he's not... He might ask you register it and prove you know how to handle it safely...

Too much to ask???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 04:46 PM

Jeri, here's a crash course on how to read gnu's fingers.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: kendall
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 04:43 PM

John, most of the things you listed are in effect and have been for some time.
The problem is bad guys don't give a squat about laws!

It's not just a mantra, gund don't kill people, PEOPLE kill people.

I don't have the answer, but taking my gun aint it.
BY the way, Olddude, I was also a federal lawman.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: gnu
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 04:34 PM

I couldn't be arsed to research any of it (I am a Canuck) but surely there must be a group of reasonable people who are trying to get the USA feds to make some good gun laws? If not, why don't youse take up the cause? A website don't cost much... the expertise exists among you... oh... wait... I said this before a couple of times... nevermind... just like NObody did before.

Oh... yeah... until you whiners and compaliners get off yer collective asses and DO something, I'll give up my guns when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers on accounta if you lazy, unorganized sods can't get your shit together on something as important as saving 5 year old children from being shot... read my finger.

Go ahead... make my day.

Jeri... how's THAT or dirty talk? Hehehehee.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: olddude
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 04:10 PM

I was a certified NRA handgun instructor till I told them to shove their membership up their kaboose also years ago. It ain't about the sportsman anymore. It is now about power and money

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: olddude
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 04:09 PM

Greg
lawmakers that will do the right thing and not cave in to the NRA pacs
sadly I don't think that will happen. We have few lawmakers that look at the good of the people anymore, just those who care about getting elected and the money it costs to run

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 04:02 PM

Yeah, Greg... In essence that's what I did with my NRA membership card, too... In reality, I just ignored them...

Today's NRA is not the one I was proud to be part of in the 50s and 60s... Back then the NRA was 100% about safety and responsibility... Today's NRA is 100% about $$$ and political power...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: olddude
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 03:58 PM

We can't Greg, the freedom of speech works for good guys and shits also sadly. I try to ignore his crap.

Jack
Kendall was a state law enforcement officer. He has forgotten more about firearms and their safe use then you could ever learn. Knock it off cause you are talking about something you know nothing at all about

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 03:57 PM

I dunno, Dan - how the hell do we organize effectively to promote a rational approach & reasonable legislation ???

Been wondering this since I took my NRA life membership card 35 years ago, sent it back to them, and told 'em to shove it up their arse.

ASny suggestions appreciated!!

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 03:54 PM

Huckabee is a complete asshole, Bruce. Always was, always will be.

Problem is, there are a several million assholes just like him - ignorant, fundagelical, bain dead demagogic opportunists & their followers.

Howinhell do we neutralize THEM???

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: olddude
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 03:52 PM

The solution is to take the responsibility of handgun law and control out of the states and into a federal handgun carry law and ownership law. Then we see consistent effective control.   Greg is right, some states you are required nothing, others it is very hard .. But again as long as there are gun shows you can keep making laws with a huge loophole that negates all of them. That is what we have now

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: gnu
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 03:48 PM

"(or maybe you just like it when I talk dirty)"

Ooooh baby, oooo baby... don't stop! Heheheheee.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 03:30 PM

After reading Huckabee's crap about god being taken out of schools and so 'that's why these things happen' I went looking for this:

"Oakland, Calif., April 2, 2012

A gunman kills seven people and wounds three in a shooting rampage at a Christian college in Oakland."


I think America has got to

1) publicly destroy the NRA
2) publicly destroy FOX

It ain't perfect, but it's a start.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: John P
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 03:24 PM

There's an interesting article in the Seattle Times today that looks at some facts about guns. It seems to show that gun control works to reduce gun violence.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 03:20 PM

A friend of mine in Canada--out west--on the day he first heard about gun registration in this country said, "I wonder what the government is going to do that I won't like."

He loaded his own ammunition, kept his handguns and rifles locked up, used them only on a target range. Hell, he didn't even hunt. He collects guns and uses them on the range, that's it.

I think in America that people don't trust their government. I can't blame them. They have allowed organizations like the NRA to actively influence politics.

I grew up with an unloaded rifle (.22) kept in the shed along with hammers, screw drivers, nails, drills, etc. It was just another tool. Until I was deemed to be responsible enough by my Uncle Bob I was allowed only a single shot rifle and only allowed to use .22 shorts. Later, after demonstrating I could carry the firearm safely and handle it safely I was given the privilege of having a .22 with a five-round magazine. I was also allowed to use a pump .22, but he trained me to count the cartridges being loaded, and god help me if after a few hours of being in the woods looking for rabbits or squirrels and taking the odd shot or two at a stump or dead tree I couldn't tell him exactly how many shots I had left. I lost track once--thought I had seven left but had six (something like that) and that was it for hunting or target shooting for a few months. He was an ex paratrooper and took firearms very seriously, .22 rifle or not. The mindset with guns today is very different than it was in my childhood. It does worry me somewhat.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Jeri
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 03:04 PM

Gnu, I was thinking more of troll groupies, and we have a cluster of them... maybe a couple clusters. They're "anybody's". You're a guy who gets pissed off sometimes. (or maybe you just like it when I talk dirty)

Automatic weapons aren't much good except when you can't take the time to aim. Semi-automatics are actually pretty effective, because you can adjust your aim without stopping to chamber another round. I can't remember what firing a weapon that isn't at least semi-automatic is like, though.

I'm still thinking about this issue, and I likely will be for a while. Civilization often requires us to do things we may not want to do for the good of the many. Many people regard capitalism as evil. I think it can be ok if people voluntarily give up their "right" to make ridiculous amounts of money. I think we have to let common sense be more important than defending our "rights".

I don't have any hope that people are willing to do that. Not to pay taxes, not to make stricter gun control laws, not to cut back using fossil fuels, not to do anything inconvenient to them.

Jeri Crabbypants

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: John P
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 02:59 PM

I keep hearing that "no responsible gun owner would do this" or "no responsible gun owner would do that". The problem isn't the responsible gun owners. It's that we let irresponsible people have guns. There are a few things we could do that would allow responsible gun owners to keep their guns, but let the rest of us have a little more confidence that the person next to us on the freeway or behind us in the grocery line isn't both mentally unstable and carrying a gun:

A requirement for extensive training for all gun owners.

Extensive background checks and a demonstrated need before we give concealed weapons permits.

The right to sell a gun should be very difficult to obtain. A fascination with guns should probably be a disqualifier.

No automatic firearms of any kind.

Any gun that's confiscated gets destroyed.

All guns should be securely locked up when not in use. Stolen guns get that way because they aren't adequately secured.

Allowing a gun to fall into the hands of your unsupervised child should be a felony.


As for the statement that if guns are illegal only criminals will have guns, I would like to point out that if guns are illegal, someone has to become a criminal before they use a gun. The way things are now, many crazy people who shoot others don't become criminals until they open fire. If the criminality happened earlier in the process, we'd have a better chance of keeping it from getting to the shooting stage. Also, most people are law-abiding and wouldn't buy a gun if it was illegal to do so. The problem is the ones who buy them legally and then go crazy or allow their guns to be stolen by other people who go crazy. Besides, if only criminals have guns, it will be easier to tell who they are.

There are statistics that show that a gun in the home is four times more likely to be used on a friend, neighbor, or family member than on an armed intruder. It makes me want to quiz people about gun ownership before I visit them. It makes me angry that people are allowed indiscriminate gun ownership anyway.

As soon as the gun lobby can convince me that all gun owners are responsible, I'll support the so-called right to bear arms.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: gnu
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 02:42 PM

Just a reminder... machine pistols and rifles (automatic fire weapons) can be turned into "machine guns" in about five minutes with a file and screwdriver but they are not the weapon of choice for a crazy person with their feet on the ground.

And... yes, yet again (sorry)... the weapon of choice for sane citizens is good gun laws.

Jeri... "trollfuckers"... excellent term. I may put that on a post-it and stick it on my monitor. Not that I won't but if it stops me just once, that's a good thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: pdq
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 02:37 PM

"And the two handguns were a Glock and a SIG Sauer both 9mm, both semi-automatics that fire up to 5 bullets per second."


"Semi-automatic pistols, as opposed to fully automatic pistols, fire a single shot each time you depress the trigger until the gun's magazine is empty."


Well, even a realistic rate of one bullet every one or two seconds would do two things: empty a 9-round clip very quickly, and hit nothing (a good idea, in this case).

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: kendall
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 02:14 PM

One more point. Consider this,as I said, every Swiss man has a gun. What would our homicide rate be if EVERY American man had a gun?
That was my point, and still is.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: kendall
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 02:12 PM

Jack Campin, apparently, the stats I had are out of date. I just found some new one at the Guardian web site.

To call someone a liar when they were simply mistaken calls for education, NOT name calling.
I admit to being wrong, are you man enough to apologize?

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Jeri
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 02:04 PM

OK the nuts factor is already through the roof, and I'm probably included. Have fun beating the figurative crap out of each other...

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Jeri
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 02:00 PM

They just said 3 guns were found IN the school.

I'm beginning to think this will only get better when people who want a gun just because they WANT a gun because they maybe one day might have to shoot someone to save a life start believing that their right to do so is not worth even one child's life.

or maybe, just when there's a link between the two things.

It's the whole culture of being entitled/having the right to own something whose sole purpose is to kill.
...just in case
    ...because the person WANTS a gun.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 01:58 PM

PeeDee, give up on the automatic(machine gun) Vs. Semi-automatic bullshit- so some folks aren't conversant with firearms design & function. Doesn't really matter to the point under discussion.

Its a smokescreen & doesn't advance the rational discussion of solutions to the continued policies of idiocy in the U.S. at the behest of the NRA, those they are able to scare into hysteria, and those with cold, dead brains.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: kendall
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 01:49 PM

Jack, who the hell are you to be calling me a LIAR? I quoted the stats I have at hand, AND I was comparing them to OUR murder rate.
I demand an apology.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 01:48 PM

Headlines on CNN this morning say that **4** handguns were found in the school... yesterday they said that the boy had 'access' to 5 guns.

It seems he had more than he needed.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 15 Dec 12 - 01:44 PM

The weapon found (in the car, I think) was a .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle -- which has absolutely no purpose other than combat.

Why was it one of the weapons registered to the shooter's mother? And the two handguns were a Glock and a SIG Sauer both 9mm, both semi-automatics that fire up to 5 bullets per second.

Expensive, too. All of 'em. And registered to his mother.

Linn