How do you feel about gun control?
Posted by stargeezer 10 years, 1 month ago to Government
http://www.nraila.org/media/10835251/fei...
I'm asking how you feel about the issue. There's no need for this to get argumentative since we aren't likely to change each others mind. Just tell us how you feel and why.
I'm asking how you feel about the issue. There's no need for this to get argumentative since we aren't likely to change each others mind. Just tell us how you feel and why.
Previous comments...
Yep, get the law abiding folks to roll over and ignore the real problem.
JFK Democrat - saw this getting worse every time we bowed to the idea.
I'm a Constitutionalist at heart.
However, if you use weapons in a criminal action, you forfeit your right to own them. While I believe that government should not have any control over what you can or can not possess as far as weapons, I do think that they do have the right to preserve domestic tranquility and aggressive use of weapons against innocent citizenry should be dealt with harshly.
If "all" guns were banned, except for those in the military and law enforcement, then there would be a thriving business in black market guns. They would still be out there, and mostly only criminals would have them. You and I would be defenseless and totally dependent upon either a strong and omnipresent law enforcement group, or pay protection money to a "private enforcement group" called the mob or gang. Either way, we would be totally dependent upon others for our security.
When I heard a law enforcement officer from northern S.C. ask what UN Agenda 21 ase, because he felt uneasy about it, but was being asked to "use guns against US citizens to enforce UN Agenda 21", that is all I needed to know.b Those within our own government plant to use guns against citizens, or at least train others to do so.
Now, locally, we have a Sheriff who wants to put guns in the hands of 100+ teachers, in case a shooter comes to the school. I see it as a ruse. Law enforcement personnel are trained in high stress situations, teachers trained to fire are not. This can only lead to more anti-gun measures when it all goes south. It will be but another reason to disarm citizens. Teachers by nature are touchy feely, and may well get people killed. Quickly implemented conceal carry permits are not training in standoff situations.
As a political issue it works. The NRA has become the point of the right wing spear.
What everyone misses is that we need to respect everyone's fights. Freedom in recreational drugs, abortion, speech, and lots of other things that have limits simply because others can limit them.
The only limits that should be set are where someone is hurt. Everything else among consenting adults is OK, including carrying a firearm.
The concept is that we are all Americans, to be trusted to obey laws until we don't. Laws should not be enacted to take away freedoms to prevent crimes.
An analogy is one's immune system. Our cells protect each other, and exist with minimal limits against each others existence, if they have matching DNA. Would anyone submit to mass injections of HIV, because the Government has eradicated disease, and we no longer need self protections? A well-meaning socialist might say "...but one's immune system never killed anyone else." Quite right, but AIDS has. Perhaps we should round up all people with AIDS, isolate them and "prevent" the spread of this horrible disease.
In my mind AIDS is just like gun control. It will kill the real host.
Fortunately, she needs more than 51 votes in the Senate to make an amendment to the Constitution...except that our Supreme Court want to legislate, not defend legislation.
Fortunately 'the crazys-on-the-left' have come out in full swing recently so gun owners are gaining support instead of losing it. Just be smart and reasonable about your arguments and I’m behind you one-hundred-percent.
To me, a profound hubris is exhibited by government officials who believe they can choose for others how life should be lived. Gun control is merely one aspect of this hubris/arrogance and is particularly dangerous in two respects.
The first is in presuming that they have the reach and control to be able to control crime. This can only be achieved through complete and utter control - not through freedom. It takes profound humility for a government official to recognize that they are not all-powerful.
The second is the presumption that only the lives they deem to protect are worthy of such - that no right of self-defense exists! This underlies even the right of the citizen to respond to government tyranny, for a government official is nothing more than another citizen with a fancy title.
I can not condone any infringement on the rights to self-defense or self-determination, and the gun control debate at its heart consists of an abrogation of those two fundamental principles.
I believe though the whole militia argument will fall way side sooner or later; technology will make projectile defense obsolete and primitive. Buck Rodgers, anyone? We are just spinning our wheels in the mean time.
Before the projectile weapon goes the way of the dodo, however, there are four modern projectile weapon advancements that may be of interest to those who follow such.
The first is a firearm which can shoot around corners. The barrel is mounted on a stock which can pivot up to 90 degrees and has a sight that follows so that someone can peer around a corner - and even shoot - without exposing themselves. The military are starting to train/equip soldiers for urban warfare using these.
The second isn't as much a gun but the projectile - the military now has bullets that can be programmed on firing with a delayed fuse - similar to artillery or heavy HE shells designed as penetrators for bunkers/tanks, etc. These bullets are made so that the explode a certain time/distance AFTER making first contact. They are designed to defeat cover through penetration. They are quite expensive, however.
The next is also a new type of projectile that is made to sense cover and explode just after passing a programmable point. Also meant to defeat enemies hiding behind cover, the bullet is programmed on firing with a delay so that it will go off a certain number of feet after the bullet passes cover.
The last is a weapon system created for the common joe (if you can call a $10K price tag that) that auto-targets. It's billed as a hunting rifle that can make any hunter a pro. You sight your target in and the scope locks on, takes a few measurements like wind speed, angle, distance, etc., and then when you squeeze the trigger, it will compensate and wait for the muzzle to be projected along the correct path until it fires.
I agree that arguments are won by facts and figures - but those facts and figures should be used correctly. The simplest statistics, supposedly designed to help people see that having a gun in the home is dangerous, are skewed before using. When discussing firearms being kept in the home, the anti-gun side says that people are more likely to be killed with that firearm by someone they know than by a stranger. Unsettling - but that number of people killed with firearms kept in the home include both suicides and self-defense killings [battered women or men who have had enough]. Thus, a true statistic, but with a skewed purpose.
At the end, I'm not sure what you mean - "they" are saying it's too challenging to be an American? I don't see the connection with guns - what would the argument be, and just what would you be trying to achieve with it?
I'd really like to continue this discussion, if we may. As my honey points out, it's my bedtime. [Oh, he also points out the requirement for ice cream beforehand!]
g'night
I saw a vid around here somewhere of Eric Holder saying that we have to brainwash children about guns --that he was going to work with the Department of Education to make sure the subject of guns was discussed daily. He even used the term brainwash a couple times.
I didn’t realize that schools were teaching our children to use guns inappropriately in the first place. Wouldn’t that be the only justifiable reason for him being allowed to pursue this course of action? Have schools caused the cultural love of guns? Of course not! That would be absurd. We have always had a gun culture. You could blame Hollywood for making it look cool, I guess. Holder isn’t addressing the problem. He is trying to raise a generation of americans that will look on gun ownership as something to be feared and unwanted. He is teaching our children to hate a part of our culture that makes us uniquely american. An overwhelming majority of Americans supported the National Firearms Act of 1934. But if we really think about it, did they do so because of the type of weapon or because they abhorred being victims of mob-rule? It was about a loss of freedom. Americans should have the final say on whether or not they should have guns. When guns really take too much away from us, we will know and respond in kind. Nobody should be talking to our kids.This method may backfire. How has the thirty years of the DARE program worked in keeping our children away from drugs and alcohol? It hasn’t. If anything, it has introduced the culture of drinking to a younger age, exposing them to imagery they would have been sheltered from for a few years more anyway.
Hope you enjoyed your...ice cream. :)
Lets look at violent crime since the anti gunners all claim that they want guns gone so that crime will drop. Look at the graph at the bottom of this page - http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cri...
That's quite a drop in just five years and it's very odd that this happened AFTER the 2004 expiration of the 1994 assault weapons ban which the anti gunners promised us was going to lead to open war in the streets.
To get a better understanding of just what weapons are used to commit violent crime - sine the anti gunners tell us it's the tool not the person - we need to see just how that breaks down. It's not surprising to see that most violent crime is committed with firearms. Nobody says that people who are going to harm another person won't use a gun if they have one, but the anti gunners tell us all the time that they don't really want to ban guns, just those evil black guns. This page shows us just how violent crime breaks down by the weapon chosen. http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cri...
Assault rifles are lumped into the list called "Rifle", which accounts for a total of 323 murders in 2011. Nobody says that this should be ignored, but the weapon chosen is germane to this discussion. Slightly more murders (356) happen with shotguns - but anti gunners tell us that they don't want to ban shotguns and hunting, they only want to get rid of those "weapons of war". Humm. If that's the case, let's ban weapons that accounted for 728 deaths - hands and feet. Silly? Sure but so is wanting to ban a tool that was used in half as many crimes. Or how about a weapons used in 1694 crimes? Knives.
Since we don't know how many of the 323 rifle deaths were caused by assault weapons, it's a bit harder to say that getting rid of them will affect these numbers, but since assault rifles are outnumbered by traditional hunting rifles 8 to one, I think it's safe to assume that they are not used in very many violent crimes.
The crime stats for 2012 have just been released and I have not listed those because they are still being reviewed. However, in case somebody might think I'm hiding something or not wanting to show how Sandy Hook affected things, here is the link - http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/cri... As you can see, even WITH the horrific crime by that insane person, deaths by rifles DROPPED even further to 322 in 2012.
So how do these numbers relate to causes of death by ALL causes, not just crime? The CDC published this PDF and page 13 lists some enlightening numbers. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/misc/atlasr...
According to that table 44,056 people were killed in automobile accidents per year 1988-1992. While just 15,769 were killed by all firearms per year (not including suicide - 18,184) in the same period. I'm certain there are more up to date numbers someplace, I just didn't find them in the time I wanted to spend looking. (I've got a life too) However the FBI crime numbers list total murders by firearm in 2011 at 12,664 so I think we can assume the DROP in deaths was somewhat consistent.
The point is that the very guns that DiFi and the Bloomberg gun grabbers and the poor MOMS want to ban simply are a token. There is no clear data that indicates that these weapons CAUSE crime by their existence or that they drive people to mass murder. Subtracting the emotion and hype from the gun argument seems to totally deflate the issue.
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