Gun Ownership

[fenix144]

Can you elaborate?

You disagree that armed citizens would scare bad guys?

...or you disagree that we should be trying to scare the bad guys?

I disagree that having guns makes one safer.

 

[leftrightleftrightleft]

You're right they don't occur, because people don't keep themselves prepared.

And crime is decreasing...regardless of their preparation. Citizen's arrests are not contributing to the decrease in crime rate.

Not a strawman, that would be setting up a false premise that's easy to refute. I wasn't refute anything I was just stating fact when I mentioned that prisoners get free college and that people have gotten sued by burglers.

Your premise is that its common to be nice to bad guys these days and then you used two ridiculous examples that have neither truth or validity but are so exaggerated that they become easy to attack. AKA strawman.

It's paranoia in the same way that wearing a seatbelt is paranoia, if we want to label preparation as paranoia.

The crime rate is going down. Why did you think it was going up?

Slippery slope.

To what?

So the way parents raise their kids doesn't impact how they behave as adults?

I didn't really see you drawing the connection between parenting and gun ownership. Sorry. Perhaps you could spell it out...

"I see kids getting away with things that would've gotten me a whipping when I was a kid. Now, a kid doesn't buckle down in school or decided to goof off rather than study, parents can't punish them anymore, they have to call in team of doctors to diagnose the child and lump them in with what's apparently the biggest fluke case of ADD per capa than we've ever seen in our history Trying to solve the problem with the pill instead of the paddle."

Please point out in this paragraph as to how it relates to gun ownership...If it was implied, I missed it.

You you can read their minds now???

No, its just that most hold-ups don't turn into murder scenes. Clearly the criminals have motives beyond murder...as such, you aren't the "target" when the robber walks into the store. The money in the cash is the "target". He'll ignore you so long as he gets his "target".

You're right, I'm not a cop, a cop would take 10 minutes to get to the scene and handle it

Indeed, so you can try to be the hero and see how much more damage is caused.

Another poster made reference to this point earlier, but I think it was a good point: Why is it that you hear of gas station hold ups fairly often, but never here of anyone holding up a shooting range?

What would he want at a shooting range? Also, I think the area where you shoot would be separated from the area where you pay anyway. I think there's other reasons for why shooting ranges don't get held up...

Also...California Couple Suspected In Shooting Range Robbery Arrested After Wild Police Chase | Fox News

and...'Unique' rifle could help solve Wagoner County gun range robbery, shooting | Tulsa World

I guess it does happen after all

 

[Bubblies]

A typical gun-control debate:

Pro gun-control = Canada, UK, Australia,...

Anti gun-control = USA

This one is no different.
I didn't mean that in a bad way at all by the way, just pointing out a trend I notice in every gun control conversation I see lol.

 

[acropolis]

I get the impression that people who own guns are constantly being attacked by armed thugs pretty much everywhere they go, but people who don't own guns have never had an issue with that. Maybe the thugs will stop stalking you if you sell all your guns?

 

[ThatRobGuy]

A typical gun-control debate:

Pro gun-control = Canada, UK, Australia,...

Anti gun-control = USA

This one is no different.
I didn't mean that in a bad way at all by the way, just pointing out a trend I notice in every gun control conversation I see lol.

No offense taken, I agree 100%.

I go to my family's cabin up in Canada 3 times a year, and I can tell you that the people are a lot nicer up there and I really haven't seen any bad neighborhoods in any of the major cities I've stopped off in. It's funny because when you talk to the locals, they describe the "bad parts of town you want to stay away from" I went to those parts and all I could think was "this bad part looks better than the goods parts of most of our major cities".

The gun control laws up in Canada (at least how they were described to me) was more along the lines of restricting what would be considered an "assault weapon". The guns we'd use for defense down here would be completely legal up there. (IE handguns with clips of 6 like what I use for concealed carry)

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I get the impression that people who own guns are constantly being attacked by armed thugs pretty much everywhere they go, but people who don't own guns have never had an issue with that. Maybe the thugs will stop stalking you if you sell all your guns?

Depends on the neighborhood your in. The city I work in is an interesting case. It's nice in the corporate district, but you drive 3 miles in any direction and you're in a spot where white people aren't thought to highly of, and once the sun goes down, it's not abnormal to get a shove "hey you better watch it" or start start having people get in your face simply by glancing in their direction "what are you looking at, you got something to say?" For doing nothing more that walking down the block. You hear of people getting beaten up and having their wallet taken more frequently than you'd like to in some of those areas. I also have to go to cleveland a couple times a month and if you read up on the stats, at one point, that was the 3rd highest crime and mugging city in the nation just behind detroit and one other city that I can't remember (not sure if that's still the case)

I've been in a gas station that's been held up, I have to go to a city with a high rate of that sort of thing on a regular basis (with my computer bag in hand for my job)...I'm not going to be a victim...whether anyone disagrees, thinks I'm paranoid, or irrational, let them think it. I've worked hard to make the kind of money I make and I'm not going to hand it over to someone.

 

[leftrightleftrightleft]

No offense taken, I agree 100%.

I go to my family's cabin up in Canada 3 times a year, and I can tell you that the people are a lot nicer up there and I really haven't seen any bad neighborhoods in any of the major cities I've stopped off in. It's funny because when you talk to the locals, they describe the "bad parts of town you want to stay away from" I went to those parts and all I could think was "this bad part looks better than the goods parts of most of our major cities".

Maybe my views on guns being unnecessary come from me being Canadian

Its strange how the culture can be so different in this respect...

 

[leftrightleftrightleft]

I've been in a gas station that's been held up, I have to go to a city with a high rate of that sort of thing on a regular basis (with my computer bag in hand for my job)...I'm not going to be a victim...whether anyone disagrees, thinks I'm paranoid, or irrational, let them think it. I've worked hard to make the kind of money I make and I'm not going to hand it over to someone.

How many gas stations have you been into in your life?

How many gas stations have you been in that have been held up?

5 Logical Fallacies That Make You Wrong More Than You Think | Cracked.com

See number 4 on this website.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

How many gas stations have you been into in your life?

How many gas stations have you been in that have been held up?

5 Logical Fallacies That Make You Wrong More Than You Think | Cracked.com

See number 4 on this website.

Just because something's not likely doesn't mean I don't want to be prepared.

The same could be said with the statement,

How many cars have you been in?
How many car accidents have you been in?

It's rare, but that doesn't stop me from wearing my seatbelt.

I'll have to read the link later (darn websense on our office network has it flagged as "tasteless" for some reason )

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Maybe my views on guns being unnecessary come from me being Canadian

Its strange how the culture can be so different in this respect...

Indeed.

I actually wouldn't mind living up there by my family's cabin (except for those winters, I was up there in late November and just about froze)

If I lived up there year round, I'd probably still target shoot but wouldn't bother carrying one for defense as I can honestly say I've never felt threatened when I was up there, everyone went out of their way to be nice anytime I've met strangers up there.

However, as my outlook would change moving up there, it'd be an interesting social experiment for a Canadian to try a year living down here and have to work in an area like East Cleveland and see if their outlook changed.

Now, I don't carry in the city I live in as it's a nice area, but unfortunately I have to drive to one that's not so nice (and the stopped the work from home program so I have to be on-site now)

 

[leftrightleftrightleft]

Just because something's not likely doesn't mean I don't want to be prepared.

The same could be said with the statement,

How many cars have you been in?
How many car accidents have you been in?

It's rare, but that doesn't stop me from wearing my seatbelt.

I'll have to read the link later (darn websense on our office network has it flagged as "tasteless" for some reason )

I recently started a thread called "Is it better to be prepared for the worst?" It was basically a thread in response to this thread because your views got me thinking.

I think my thread got lost in the pile. Its on page 2 of the the E&M subforum if you want to check it out.

I guess I just disagree that you should always be prepared for the worst.

Ironically, the people that are prepared for the worst (aka most prepared if something goes wrong) also tend to be the ones that worry most about that bad thing happening. But if it happens, then they'll be prepared, so they shouldn't worry in the first place!

Meanwhile, unprepared folks like me are the ones that are the least worried about something bad happening so we're the least prepared. But if that bad thing did happen, we'd be so unprepared that perhaps we should be worried about it!

I think its a bit of a catch-22. I rely on statistics. If I end up being the one in a million who gets shot by a total stranger on the street...so be it. I guess it was my time to go. I just can't be bothered to prepare for that one in a million chance.

 

[leftrightleftrightleft]

I actually wouldn't mind living up there by my family's cabin (except for those winters, I was up there in late November and just about froze)

If I lived up there year round, I'd probably still target shoot but wouldn't bother carrying one for defense as I can honestly say I've never felt threatened when I was up there, everyone went out of their way to be nice anytime I've met strangers up there.

However, as my outlook would change moving up there, it'd be an interesting social experiment for a Canadian to try a year living down here and have to work in an area like East Cleveland and see if their outlook changed.

Now, I don't carry in the city I live in as it's a nice area, but unfortunately I have to drive to one that's not so nice (and the stopped the work from home program so I have to be on-site now)

That would indeed be an interesting social experiment.

BTW, I just looked at the weather for Cleveland vs. Calgary. We're sitting at +10 while you're chilling out at -2. (Although I think we may have broken a weather record today...so don't start thinking this is normal )

 

[Robbie_James_Francis]

No you can't, we have anti-cocaine laws where it's completely illegal to have it. They can drag them in and change them with posession, right? If that system works, then why is it still on the streets and available?...there goes your theory about how making something illegal magically removes it altogether. The same can be said for alcohol and prostitution. The government tried to outlaw those things, but it didn't work, did it.

I never said it would get rid of guns. Of course it won't. But it could certainly reduce their number.

If you want to view the constitution as irrelevent in this century, then I guess you're okay with taking away free speech, freedom of petition, and freedom of religion since those were all concepts for our government drafted at the same time by the same people. Don't pick and choose which ones you like, then say that the rest no longer apply to this era.

Why not? If you believe the Constitution is sacrosanct, you can't pick and choose, but I don't believe that. It is a document written by flawed human beings like you and me, themselves defined by their socio-economic and historical circumstances. I do not elevate any document, even those I fully agree with, to the level that they cannot be interpreted, contextualised or questioned.

To take an example, Marx says in the Communist Manifesto that there ought to be a re-balancing between the urban and rural populations. Pol Pot took this from a fundamentalist perspectives, and one of his many atrocities was to forcibly evict millions from the cities and send them to their deaths. Now, despite the fact I am a Marxist, I see no contradiction in saying that, whilst most of what he says remains relevant, the redistribution of the population made sense in 1848, at the start of the Industrial Revolution, but is no longer feasible or desirable.

I for one never let myself be so dogmatic or beholden to others' opinions as to accept their analyses or solutions unquestioningly. That way lies fundamentalism, and a good deal of the conflict we see in the world. I can think for myself, thank you very much.

As far as the "nutters" are concerned, must be lingo I'm not familiar with. You make it sound as if gun owners only own them for their own violent tendancies which simply isn't the case. I notice that when you went on your rant to attempt to debunk the law abiding majority "myth" as you called it, you tossed out a list of offenses that have nothing to do in any way with gun ownership.

The point was that talk of criminals vs. law abiding citizens is an oversimplification.

Nowhere did I say that all gun owners have violent tendencies. In fact I said it is not wrong to own a gun, just that they should not be so widely available.

While you're correct that most people have exceeded the speed limit and tried weed, that hardly supports your argument that everyone who has a gun is itching to kill someone.

Again, I do not believe, nor have I said, that all gun owners are "itching to kill someone", though I would say that the ready availability of a deadly weapon might not be great when someone is pushed to the edge by an extreme situation.

What you're saying sounds like typical liberal propaganda to me:
1) Target the group you oppose (in this case gun owners)

I oppose the law more than those who take up what it offers, but OK. And I'm not a liberal.

2) Find the worst possible person you can that happens to be in that group (in this case people who commit random murder)

Didn't do that.

3) Proceed to lump everyone in step 1 with step 2

Didn't do that.

4) Provide irrelevent statistics about completely unrelated crimes

Didn't do that.

5) Use the Red Herring and Slippery Slope techniques

Didn't do that.

6) Change the meaning of The Constitution to make it say what you want according to your whims and preferences

Didn't do that. In fact, "Given that a well regulated militia..." was my entire point. If, as now, we have a situation where the People cannot fathomably militarily protect themselves from the government, the point becomes moot.

Here's the text:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed

No where in this text is there a clause that says "until 1950" or "unless a guy on a message board disagrees with it" or "unless .005% of the population doesn't know how to use them responsibly"

And if you take the US Constitution as Gospel, I can see you might have a problem. But some of us have the foresight to avoid ascribing infallibility to fallible documents.


Do you really believe the rabid defence of gun ownership and the astronomical rate of gun-related violence in the US aren't related? It's just a statistical anomaly that you have far more guns and far more gun murders than any other developed country? Sorry, but coming from the other side of the Atlantic, we often wonder if your inability to make this obvious connection is down to something in the water tampering with your ability to use logic.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I never said it would get rid of guns. Of course it won't. But it could certainly reduce their number.

Do you really believe the rabid defence of gun ownership and the astronomical rate of gun-related violence in the US aren't related? It's just a statistical anomaly that you have far more guns and far more gun murders than any other developed country? Sorry, but coming from the other side of the Atlantic, we often wonder if your inability to make this obvious connection is down to something in the water tampering with your ability to use logic.

Yes, it would reduce them number of guns, but it wouldn't take them away from the people who you really want them taken away from (IE: the criminal underworld, gangs, theives, etc...) The only people it would disarm are the the regular citizens.

Yes, they are related...the high amount of violence has cause people to want a gun for defense.

You're looking at gun ownership as a cause rather than a symptom.

You might understand if you lived here. It reminds me of the comedian Bill Hicks telling his story about flying to London during the gang riots in LA and a local trying to console him "Don't worry Bill, crime is horrible here, last night some hooligans turned over a dustbin on the west end of town"

As I mentioned to someone else, I might have a different outlook if I lived in Canada and Europe.

If you want to look at a real cause, we started being too nice to our criminals. We don't have anything in the public legal system to make people afraid to commit crimes. 90% of offenses in our country end up getting 90 days of "probation" which is a joke...anyone can behave for 90 days. Killers now can't be executed in some states, we (the taxpayers) have to pay to put them up on early retirement/vacation...and by that I mean, we have to pay for their lodging, 3 meals a day, and a free college eduction when we should be reverting back to lethal injection. We've created an environment in the US where people aren't afraid of the law. They figure "hey, I'm going to shoot up a bank and take all the money and it's going to end up one of two ways: a) I get away with it and now I'm rich or b) I get caught and now I get free food and and a free place to stay for the rest of my life"

Stealing gets you a $75 fine and a slap on the wrist and we have laws stating that if someone picks a fight with you, you have to wait until they hit you twice before you can swing back and call it self-defense, if you don't then you end up with the assault charges.

The liberals in the US (and I specify US because when I read about liberals in other countries, they don't seem as bad as ours lol) have created an era where they care more about the rights of the criminal than the do about the rights of the victims.

We've got to do something to put criminals in their place and detur would-be criminals from starting that lifestyle.

 

[Harry3142]

miniverchivi-

I also own firearms, all obtained legally, with all the paperwork processed according to the laws of this state and the USA.

I have debated others who insist that all guns must be banned, including some on this website. However, what causes me serious concern is how they replied when they were asked what should be done if our homes are broken into and our families attacked. Their reply was that we must do nothing to prevent the attack or save our own family members, but instead leave them in God's hands. They used as their reasoning a twisted interpretation of the order to turn the other cheek, found in Matthew 5:38-42.

As for myself, if I saw someone attacking a member of my family, or even a neighbor, with deadly intent, the only reason I would turn the other cheek would be to take better aim. That order was never intended as an excuse to permit evil men to harm our loved ones, but instead was intended to 'head off' the escalation of what might have started out as a petty squabble into a feud involving major injury.

As for gun control's leading to a safer environment, England thought that as well. But in the year following their almost total ban on firearms crime went up by 300%. They found out after the fact that the 'bad guys' were obtaining their firearms through the black market smugglers transporting them from eastern Europe to England, and so were unaffected by the ban that crippled only those who intended to abide by the laws of that nation.

 

[Harry3142]

From reading the actual wording of an argument that was used in court ostensibly in an attempt to curtail gun ownership, I suspect that they are using the second amendment in a 'bait and switch' gambit. The argument forcussed not on firearms, but on the men who wrote our U. S. Constitution. The argument stated that since they were 18th century landed gentry, some of whom even owned slaves, their societal focus could not be seen as relevant to our modern age. Therefore anything they wrote must be seen as solely relevant to their time period, while for us these same writings were to be seen only as archaic ideas of a bygone time.

If this argument were approved by the U. S. Supreme Court as it stands, then the result would be the total censure of the constitution, including all ten amendments listed in the original Bill of Rights. And this would be a boon to politicians, as it would in reality 'gag' all news communications. There would no longer be a first amendment guaranteeing them their freedom to report what they have discovered, but instead there would be government 'advisors' telling them what they are to report, and the 'slant' that they are to take on what they are permitted to report.

Through the years the media has embarrassed political administrations on numerous occasions, as well as bringing to light the blunders of individual politicians. We have Clinton&Lewinski, Reagan&Iran-contra, Ford&his falling down the steps of his plane, Nixon&Watergate, Johnson&The Pentagon Papers, JFK&his womanizing, Ted Kennedy&Chappaquiddick; all of these reports would have been severely limited if the politicians could only have had the power they wanted over the news media that informed us of them.

So the special-interest groups, including those wanting a total ban on firearms, are being manipulated by politicians with their own agenda in mind. They tell each group, "I'm fighting for your cause," but in reality they're fighting only to increase their own power over everyone else, and those groups who fail to notice what they're doing will be among the first to be crushed under their weight if they achieve their goals.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

miniverchivi-

I also own firearms, all obtained legally, with all the paperwork processed according to the laws of this state and the USA.

I have debated others who insist that all guns must be banned, including some on this website. However, what causes me serious concern is how they replied when they were asked what should be done if our homes are broken into and our families attacked. Their reply was that we must do nothing to prevent the attack or save our own family members, but instead leave them in God's hands. They used as their reasoning a twisted interpretation of the order to turn the other cheek, found in Matthew 5:38-42.

As for myself, if I saw someone attacking a member of my family, or even a neighbor, with deadly intent, the only reason I would turn the other cheek would be to take better aim. That order was never intended as an excuse to permit evil men to harm our loved ones, but instead was intended to 'head off' the escalation of what might have started out as a petty squabble into a feud involving major injury.

As for gun control's leading to a safer environment, England thought that as well. But in the year following their almost total ban on firearms crime went up by 300%. They found out after the fact that the 'bad guys' were obtaining their firearms through the black market smugglers transporting them from eastern Europe to England, and so were unaffected by the ban that crippled only those who intended to abide by the laws of that nation.

Thanks for posting!

You did a much better job of wording that than I could have.

It's one of those laws that reminds of me of the old saying "making outlaws out of honest people"