How or why do firearms advocates feel that everyone should have access to semi-automatic weapons and why would a "regular" person need semi-automatic weapons?

How come 10 years later there is still not a national ban on box cutters the very weapon that enabled terrorists to hijack 4 airplanes and kill over 3,000 innocent people on 9/11?? Where does weapon bans start and end?? Seriously?

@Cruiser You can’t take box cutters on a plane. But people use box cutters in the normal course of business every day.

The only people who use a semi automatic in the course of business everyday are killing people. That is what they are designed for and all they are used for. Weapons bans start with weapons whose sole purpose is to kill people. Like handguns and assault weapons.

There just can’t be moderation with some people. Collecting guns is totally different, of course, but there are some people that really stock up on guns because they feel they will really need them some day. After Obama’s first election, gun sales sky rocketed because a bunch of rural conservatives and the like thought Obama had the power to somehow ban guns.

Just because he’s a Marxist doesn’t mean he can override the constitution…lol.

It’s just not going to happen. And also….in the situation one does need to defend themselves with a fire arm, will they have the time to put such a weapon in condition 1 before it’s too late? It’s unrealistic. Hand guns are just as effective and easier to get ready.

Gun lovers believe that if they let assault weapons be controlled, then hunting rifles and shotguns and even bb guns will be next. Besides, they want access to bazookas and other larger weapons. They need to keep their militias well supplied, I believe.

They’re great bullies, you know. They love guns. Love ammo. Love explosions. Love the power they feel with a gun and the feeling that they are safe.

If you dislike guns It might be because you believe there is no other use for them than to murder people. That is your choice. You have the freedom to think like that and nobody will knock you for it. But if you believe a firearm can be used for good than it makes perfect sence to want what works best for you. Semi auto firearms are here to stay and they are the weapons of this time period whether you like it or not. Some people like revolvers better because it is a personal preference for them. But anyone who is seriously committed to defending their family will opt for a semi automatic weapon because it makes sense to have them. Really…if you have to ask, you won’t ever understand. Not putting you down, but this has been beaten into the ground so much it gets really old doing it over and over.

The search option will find you tons of threads here about this same thing.

@wundayatta Just curious, have you been bullied by anyone ever, who you knew was a gun owner….ever?

I’m getting this feeling there will be people posting on this thread who don’t know a thing about firearms much less ever seen one. Why is that?

Yes, @woodcutter, I find most gun advocates to take a bullying approach in these conversations.

I’ve never seen such a gun. I don’t need one. I doubt you do, either. I live in a city, where there are far too many guns, and most are used for crimes. If people don’t have guns, they will use less deadly weapons. You love semi-automatic weapons. Next, you’ll want something bigger, with more stopping power. There can never be an end to an arms race, except if we get rid of the arms.

I think that they should. With the way that our government is heading, I think that guns will be needed in the future. Especially if the government decides to become all commie (in which I don’t think can happen, but it just may) and take away our Constitutional rights one-by-one right from under our noses. How can we stand up for ourselves if they take away the weapons and use them against us?
Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Those that commit crimes should be adequately punished and that’s that.

Whenever someone suggests using a specific event as justification for making sweeping changes to the law, I like to take a moment to think about how we got the USA PATRIOT Act.

I made a similar statement on a previous thread concerning the Aurora shootings, and it seems to me that what many people are engaging in now is the same sort of reaction. Honestly, it seems to me that we’re just going to wind up saying the same things as were said before. And while everyone argues about the guns, the issue of mental health care will fall to the wayside.

Whenever a lunatic goes on a rampage with guns, it is worth remembering that the “lunatic” part that is just as important as the “gun” part. Yes, it’s worth considering how to lessen the damage that can be done by rampaging lunatics, but it’s also worth considering how to prevent such rampages in the first place. This is the part we always lose in all the politicking about guns that follows these tragedies.

But if both sides of the debate agree that mental health is an important issue, they might as well come together to do something about it now and return to the gun argument later. Gun control advocates in particular should be worried about giving up the issue in order to focus on guns. If they do that, then "mental health is the real issue" will just become another stalling tactic for their opponents.

@Blackberry “Semi-automatic” doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means. There are semi-automatic pistols as well as semi-automatic rifles. Indeed, while all three of the weapons Lanza had on him when he died were semi-automatics, only one was a rifle. The other two were pistols. “Semi-automatic” and “handgun” are not mutually exclusive.

Obviously, if you’re not in the military, para-military, police or security industry you probably don’t “need” high-powered semi-automatic weapons. So what? We don’t “need” HD television, broadband Internet or camping gear, either, to name just a few. But some people like those things, and used responsibly they don’t hurt people.

It’s undeniably true that there are too many guns in the hands of too many people who are irresponsible. It’s unlikely that “a law” will change that. It’s perfectly obvious that banning weapons won’t keep them out of the hands of those who are determined to do bad things with them. Even some people who own guns legally apparently do not store them responsibly, which can lead to their theft and misuse by the truly irresponsible, criminal and insane.

We need some cultural change, but that doesn’t come from any legislature.

@BBawlight Punishment is after the fact, and useless in most cases, especially when the perp is already dead.

We need prevention. Keeping the tools of death out of people’s hands is one way to prevent future deaths.

Anyone who thinks they can take on a modern superpower with a neighborhood militia is seriously delusional. Semi-automatic weapons are no check to government. We the people are. No government can stand against a totally united citizenry, weapons or no. What fun is it to govern a country with no people left in it? What does killing all your own citizens do to your tax base?

Here’s some facts to consider. In the USA, firearms related deaths are 20 times the rate of any other industrialized nation. So would having even more people even more heavily armed make us safer? How much freedom are 200 million guns in America winning us when a 6-year-old child isn’t free to go to school without the risk of being gunned down in class?

16 years ago, Australia enacted strict gun safety regulations in the wake of a 1996 mass shooting that left 35 dead and 24 wounded. They have not had one mass murder in the last 16 years. We have had 16 mass murders this one year. Are more guns the answer?

Ever heard of the Pearl river shooting in Mississippi? Of course not, because when the 16 year old showed up to murder his classmates, the assistant principal got the .45 out of his truck and stopped it.

The gun free zone around the school did not stop it.
Did the gun laws stop it, no!
One man with his legal gun put a stop to it with no one getting killed.

The same thing happens all the time, but the leftist liberal media won’t report that. Crime does not happen because of guns, crime is stopped by guns. Crime happens when guns are outlawed, because then only outlaws will have guns.

@wundayatta True… But maybe death is the best possible punishment, if not protection from those that kill.

@ETpro Everyone runs the risk of being murdered. Everyone. I’m not totally safe. You’re not totally safe. There will always be those people that find some way to murder something. Be it for publicity or pure psychological disarray, murder is still murder. There’s no way to stop it. If they take away the guns, people will use knives, if they take away the knives, they’ll use something else if they are truly dedicated. Anything can be used as a weapon against humans. So if they take away the weapons, we’ll have nothing left.
Bottom line: People will kill no matter what.

@DrBill Would you provide proof that the same thing happens all the time. If that’s so, why are you 20 times more likely to die of gun violence in the heavily armed USA than in any other industrialized nation?

@BBawlight That’s another favorite right-wing “We have this problem and nothing can be done—it’s utterly impossible to change anything.” falsehood. Name me one mass murder in the US or around the world carried out with baseball bats, coke bottles or the other usual suspects. I mentioned Australia’s success. There was NO spike in murders with beer bottles, pillow smothering, stabbing, choking, hanging or any other method. What did happen is deaths from gun violence dropped 59% and deaths from suicide using a gun dropped 65%. It helps to debate with facts rather than memorized rhetoric drummed into you by some greedy industry who doesn’t mind how many die so long as profits keep soaring.

If they take away the guns, people will use knives

Knives are just as deadly as guns. It’s a well-known fact. That’s why the US Army and Marines gave up pistols and rifles in favor of knives a few years ago. It’s saved the taxpayers a bundle of money.

Honestly I think the whole militia argument is total bs. If this were 200 years ago, fine. But seriously, if it came down to it and there was revolution, how much good would your AK-47 do against a tank or a drone?

@ETpro anyone who can look outside their box can see it, and we both know if I give you 5 examples it will not be enough for you, if I give a hundred examples you will still say more.

And to answer the asinine question, other countries have crime also, like the killing spree in China where the idiot killed 20 students with a knife the same day as Newtown , a lack of guns did not save them.

@DrBill The statistics speak for themselves. You speak in generalities and insults. Instead of nationwide numbers over a space of years, you pick one sensationalized instance and claim it proves everything and all other facts need to be ignored, because this is the fact that fits your ideology. Then you claim you don’t have an ideology, and I do. PLONK.

@ETpro That still doesn’t stop people from murdering in other ways. They still do it, do they not? Just because you don’t hear about it doesn’t make it impossible. If it brought down the percentage of gun related deaths, how did that effect the overall murder rate? How much of a percent do guns have in any form of murder, suicide or not. You also have to take in the culture. We are not Australia, what works for them might not work for us.

@ETpro if I’m on your plonk list you have no reason to respond.
if I were addressing people of intelligence, they would realize I am not insulting anyone, just relaying facts they are too scared to admit. And dear sir, you have no right to call anyone insulting.

If some fool was shooting any kind of gun at me, then I would like a semi automatic weapon to defend myself.

With respect I think @woodcutter @Savoir_Faire have a point. The people prpo gun control on this thread have no actual knowledge of guns and they’re uses.

@BBawlight Actually, we keep statistics on all murders and what weapon was used. Here it the breakdown for the USA. Here’s how we stack up to other first-world countries. Lacking as many guns, they obviously are not using knives, blunt objects, strangulation and beatings anywhere near as often as we are using guns.

I am not a gun hater. I like to shoot. My son and I are signing up for a firing range as this goes down. I just know we can institute some common sense gun safety regulations that will help keep guns out of the hands of the insane and felons. Currently at least 40% of US gun sales are with no background check. And there is no good reason why civilians need clips with 30 to 90 rounds, and an assault rifle to handle them.

Remember The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act which is an Act of the United States Congress that instituted federal background checks on firearm purchasers in the United States.

It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 30, 1993, and went into effect on February 28, 1994.

I think it is time for another law which might be a compromise of sorts between thiose who are pro or con gun control. I think people have a right to bear arms – for both protection and hunting/target practise. I own a gun and I am familiar with many types of firearms.

I think it is time to limit gun ownership and control it – not ban it.

You hunt: you may own a hunting rifle.
You want to protect yourself? You may own a handgun.

Not an arsenal of unlimited semi-automatic rifles which are good for neither hunting or protection – unless you hunt people and are in a gang.

For personal protection, a handgun, one handgun, is enough. 2 magazines tops. License renewal annually showing you can fire 50 rounds into a target.

I am not an American citizen and this is just a thought.

Those who know nothing of firearms choose to be that way, and instead become parrots for leaders who also know next to nothing about them. But these leaders get unlimited access to the airwaves and that gives them a bigger impact when spreading falsehoods and unfortunately they are beloved and thus trusted.

The 1994 gun ban was a waste of legislation and was a knee jerk reaction to Columbine. Before that, and during the ban and after it sunsetted there was no change in the use in crimes utilizing these kinds of guns. Truth…semi auto rifles are not the choice of criminals and never have been. But don’t take my word for it, just ask president Obama himself as he eloquently put it during the last campaign. We all heard it. Lets quit jerking knees.

jerk other stuff

@ETpro Just saying that your answer was somewhat flawed by only showing certain information. Like I said, America is not like other countries. So our gun laws and other things (like obesity) shouldn’t be compared/contrasted if we have nothing in common.
Maybe we should have to take a state-issue psychology tests or something? An IQ test would be nice, at the least.

I see the term “need” bantered about whenever this comes up. In America we aren’t the nation of “needs” We are a nation of “wants” One thing that no one can dispute. And that is, anything that happens once, can happen again. Americans loot, and kill. We are some ass kickin looting mutherfuckers here when things go to shit. We all watched it. Every….single…one…of us. Not to say that is the behavior of all of us but how many is a lot? Half a dozen is a lot. Three is a lot. For anyone to believe this will never ,ever ,ever ,happen…..ever again is just talkin shit for the sake of doing it. You keep these weapons for those times that hardly ever happen, not for everyday use. And we have come full circle to that word. The “need” word. For some here to qualify something as needed it must be something you will employ every day, or maybe every other day at least? If it isn’t meeting that criteria then you don’t need it. How do they know this?

Hint: they dont

Remember, they don’t know about guns but one thing they do know well is security. They must know what security is like because they just know that is one thing we are all guaranteed to have as Americans Right?

Wrong. Find any law, whether real or imagined that guarantees security. You can’t even find a law that states that our police are obligated to protect us, because they are not, nope.
If you see group of unidentified’s busting into your mom’s house you’re not “needing” an AK47 with a 30 round mag. You would be “wanting” one of those ladies on your arm to handle this because the cops, the cops ,are probably going to be miles away ass deep in aligators with problems of their own.

@jca

Your question answers your question. A gun-controllers reason for banning assault weapons is because they’re more proficient at killing. Well if assault weapons are more proficient at killing then it stands to reason that when under attack by criminals or many, it’s best to have the most proficient weapon for self-defense which in this case are the assault weapons. You can kill someone with a knife, but it’s obviously less proficient than a handgun. Same thing when comparing handguns to assault weapons. Assault weapons > handguns.

Also, studies show gun-control laws cause more harm to society.Harvard Study

Here are some history lessons gun-control ignorance

And another study More Guns Equal Less Violent Crime

@woodcutter makes a really good point. The Connecticut school put their eggs in one basket, in this case security. They didn’t consider secondary measures if security should fail in which case it did. Security staff can fall asleep, get distracted, or even get killed themselves by the shooter, then what? If you call the police, they’re miles away. If the teachers would have carried handguns on them, then instead of hiding under the tables, they could have defended the children but instead died along with them. The same goes for the theater shootings and so on.

@suzooz Even though worldwide data shows that less guns means less gun violence, let’s look at the idea that arming everyone would reduce violence. Suppose all school personnel were armed. Would they all be certifiably sane? How often might a nervous Nellie hear a car backfire and come out guns blazing?

Let’s look at the Batman movie massacre. As a reductio as absurdum, let’s imagine that the theater had no prohibition against entering armed, and that everyone in the crowed theater who wasn’t a convicted felon or certifiable nut prohibited for possessing a firearm had been packing heat that night. James Holmes entered the room wearing black. Except for the muzzle flashes, he would have been invisible in a darkened movie theater. Within seconds of his first shots, many hundreds of other shooters would have opened fire without any idea where their target was. Muzzle flashes would have been everywhere. Nobody would have known which were perpetrators and which were good guys trying to take the perp out. Realistically, do you think this would have limited casualties? I’m guessing that in that scenario, most of the people in the theater would have been injured or killed.

If I held political sway in the states i’d arm the teachers in a heartbeat.

@ETpro,

Actually, the Harvard study shows less guns leads to more violence worldwide.

There is no way of proving someone is insane unless you do a full MRI scan that confirms some sort of brain defect or else there is no real proof. What are you suggesting? Everyone should be required to take this very expensive test before purchasing a gun?

A nervous Nellie would not run out shooting before looking. You make this same false assumption with the theater incident. No one would shoot at a target they cannot see or identify. The only people who do this are people like the shooter because they see all humans as targets. It’s true that those sitting further away from the shooter would have a hard time seeing him, but those in the middle, the sides of the middle, and those in front would see the shooter clearly even if dressed in black. I can confirm this because I go to the movies quite often. You underestimate the capabilities of the human eye in dark territory. Those closer to the shooter would take the first hits, but the shooter would only be able to take down a few before being gunned down by someone else.

Again, what are you suggesting with the theater incident? That since there might be some friendly fire, no one should have guns and instead let the killer have his fun with innocent defenseless people? You also falsely assume police don’t make such mistakes. They do. They have accidentally wounded and killed their own members and wounded innocent bystanders.

A lot of these massacres were executed in the day.

@DrBill The incident in China that you mentioned actually didn’t result in any deaths. 22 children were wounded, but none died.

@Cruiser: To respond to your post (#1 post in this thread):

1. Box cutters have other uses besides killing (for example they are used for box cutting).
2. Box cutters were the indirect cause of 3,000 people dying in 9/11, not the direct cause.
3. To use the stats provided by @ETpro in his first post in this thread, we are not 20 times as likely to die from box cutter violence in the US as we are to die from firearms death. (although I must say my question is not about all firearms, as I’m not advocating we get rid of all firearms. I am just questioning why the need for semi-automatics).

@Cruiser: One more thing about box cutters as opposed to semi automatic weapons: WIth a box cutter, it would be very hard to walk into a room full of people or a school and kill over 20 people within a few minutes. You might walk in and kill or injure a few, but by the time you do any damage, help would be on the way. The box cutter would not ensure your entry into the school, like a semi automatic ensured Adam Lanza’s entry into the school by blowing out the windows. As with the massacre in Newtown, someone could spray their way into a building by shooting the windows out (as was done in the Newtown Elementary School), go in and gun down a whole bunch of people in a very short amount of time.

Last night on a news show, there was an interview with a firearms advocate. He compared guns to cars, and pointed out that way more people die from cars every year then die from guns (and again, to repeat myself, my question is not about any type of gun, it’s about semi automatic weapons). Comparing guns to cars is like comparing apples and oranges. Cars, like box cutters, are used for something other than killing. They’re used for transporting people and goods – all kinds of people, all kinds of goods. However, the only purpose for semi automatic weapons is killing.

@woodcutter

The 1994 gun ban was a waste of legislation and was a knee jerk reaction to Columbine.

Talk about spreading falsehoods. How can something that happened in 1994 be a knee jerk reaction to something that happened in 1999?

As a gun owner, I don’t feel that semi-auto’s are necessary to the regular American.Why this 50-something woman had some, I can only speculate they were her husbands, or she is a gun fanatic.

As a child, we had rifles around all the time, and with two uncles in the Marine’s and a WW2 grandfather, there were plenty of opportunities to shoot responsibly. They didn’t see the need for automatic weapons for practice or for hunting or defense, so I don’t either.

@woodcutter Interesting about wants and needs. Seems to me there’s something a little off about a person who wants the kind of firepower any gun contains. I could understand needing it for some reason, say hunting. But wanting it? That is not a person I could trust.

But I’m crazy, so you can dismiss me. I am so glad I don’t own a gun. If I did, I probably wouldn’t be writing these words. None of you would have to put up with me. The world, I’m sure, would be much better off.

So good luck to you gun fans. I hope you succeed in getting a gun in every hand. I will most certainly be leaving the country if that happens. And they call me crazy!

@wundayatta Are you seriously saying anyone who enjoys target practice or hunting is a little off?
That you couldn’t trust me because we shoot turkey & deer for fresh meat in my freezer? I can buy meat at my grocery store so it’s not a need.

Do you know how many men, women and children enjoy the sport, and never hurt anyone?

What about retired military or law enforcement?
They protect us and defend our freedom but if they enjoy practice/ competition they are ‘bad’?

@KNOWITALL: @wundayatta said “I could understand needing it for some reason, say hunting.” He said he understands needing it for hunting.

I know what goes on in your head when you aim at a target.

Yes, I can read, thanks. But if we ENJOY it, we’re psychos or ‘a little off’.
Uh huh, that’s a completely rational and fair statement.

Am I grouping all of the mentally ill into one little box, since W admits he’s mentally ill? No, and I never would.

When we aim at targets, W….um, hitting the target? Do you imagine we’re picturing a classroom full of little innocent children?

I think we’ve now crossed over to the Twilight Zone.

Care to give us some insight into what happens inside your brain when you go shooting at targets?

Center the bull’s eye, then allow for wind and elevation, to get the best score possible.

@wundayatta I am flummoxed at what you want me to say. It certainly has nothing to do with murder.

Come on, let’s be friends still, just because I condone responsible gun use doesn’t mean I condone gun violence, okay?!

We are going off the deep end here. Who has suggested every single person be armed? That would be impractical as well as impossible. Gun free zones insure that every single person is disarmed and they even supply a sign in theses areas so a nut job knows exactly where to go hunting. How many gun control activists have the balls to but a huge sign on their domicile stating this? I wants pics.

It’s a no win situation if the “grabbers” stick to script.

If shooters practice, (aka using live ammo), they are accused of dreaming of really killing when all they are doing is becoming more proficient with proper gun handling. This is a main complaint of gun control folks because they hate the idea that gun owners are inexperienced and thus…more apt to be dangerous to themselves and others. So which is it, do you want shooters to be clumsy and awkward with firearms or do you prefer them to be proficient and safer?

You can’t have it both ways. Stick to one argument and make your talking points from there. Don’t hop back and forth depending on which way the discussion is turning, if you can.

Hmmm. What do you imagine when you see the target? Is it shaped like a person? Or just a bulls eye? What kinds of things do you put up as targets? And what do you visualize when you think about hitting the target?

But you take a breath. You calm yourself. You use the sight however you do that. You must have some special way of holding the gun so that you are relaxed and it is as still as possible. You want to calm your mind because if you think a lot, it will make your body move. But you must be still. You must pull the trigger between one breath and the next. And to do that, you must enter a kind of out-of-body state, like you’re doing meditation or yoga.

Breath. Hold still. Squeeze.

But what is the target? Could it be a person? What if it were a person? If you hit the target, a person is going to die? Isn’t that the whole point? Or if you are a hunter and you hit the target, an animal is going to die.

So you have to deal with this. You might deal with it by getting excited about the idea of killing something. The power! You get to play god. Or you might deal with it the other way around, by trying to clear your mind of any thought that this is a human being you are sighting in on. Of course you justify it to yourself that it is you or him. He wants to kill you, so you must kill him first. There must be no doubt in your mind or you won’t be able to pull the trigger. So you train yourself not to think. Not to doubt. Just

breathe
hold
squeeze

I don’t know how you do it. I do know that you must do it. I kind of doubt you think about it, but if you have, then you can tell me all about what it’s like being in your mind and body when you pull the trigger and send a bullet straight into someone’s head, splattering their brains all over the place. That’s what target practice is all about, right? Or is it just a sport, as you say? Just sighting in on little pieces of paper or glass bottles or propane tanks. It has nothing to do with killing people. Of course not. I am so wrong.

@wundayatta First off, I don’t imagine anything while doing anything with a weapon. Being on a firing line is no place for imagination, ever. If you are not sure of what you are aiming at you stop. If it is a paper target ,that is what my mind sees. Save the video gamer drama for home. No way anything can be hurt, sitting there on your couch hitting the pipe playing Halo. Shooting is serious, if you can’t be that way, then sit in the corner and play with yourself for all I care, but keep off my range if you can’t stay focused long enough to care about yourself and those around you.
One things for sure, if ,or when the time comes and I have to make that call of defending myself and home I’m not going to miss, I’m not going to shit all over myself with panic because I have no muscle memory with the weapon controls. In a crisis we all default to our lowest level of training. If you have no training, the situation is going to be all but hopeless for you. But you don’t need to bother yourself with any of this training and discipline garbage as you got it under control right? You will just dial 911 and watch the cops jump right in and do your dirty work for you.

Yeah, good luck with that.

@woodcutter I think I’m right. You don’t have a clue what you’re thinking about. I bet if you try to watch yourself, you won’t even notice. Either that, or you have a very unusual mind that has no extraneous thoughts of any kind. That’s even more scary.

No place for imagination, eh? So no analytical thought. No self-awareness. Yep. Really, really scary. With my luck, you probably live around the corner from me, despite your name which suggests you live out in the sticks.

I grew up in the sticks. Used to hear gun shots all the time. Made you afraid to walk in your own woods because you’d no idea who you might meet. One night I was walking along my road and I did meet a truckload of yahoos. That was the last time I ever let myself be seen by anyone like that. The only thing scarier than a person with a gun is a drunk with a gun.

One things for sure, if ,or when the time comes and I have to make that call of defending myself and home I’m not going to miss, I’m not going to shit all over myself with panic because I have no muscle memory with the weapon controls. In a crisis we all default to our lowest level of training. If you have no training, the situation is going to be all but hopeless for you.

In other words, ‘I spend my days planning for the time I get to shoot somebody, but gee,I would never imagine shooting somebody!’

Thank you, @jaytkay.

@wundayatta I dont think you could possibly be more wrong here. I consider myself extremely pacifistic and would never harm any living thing as long as there were a way to avoid it. That said, I LOVE shooting guns. I would never in a million years dream of aiming a gun at someone but to sit there on the range and fire at targets is IMO a great deal of fun. There is no imagination or any other deranged fantasy like you talked of above, I’m just shooting targets, nothing more nothing less.

I find it a bit surprising that you’d be someone to jump to using such blanket statements against all gun owners just because you’ve had some bad experiences in your past.

If you have a squared away head it is easy to separate the two targets. The practice ones and the ones you destroy to keep yourself alive. Sorry if it can’t be sugar coated better but life is not sugar coated. So what do you want, get a gun and never use it to proficiency so it is more of a liability, or train with it and be proficient and safe? No two ways about it. Again we are going in circles here. If you are too lilly livered to understand that we all live in a pretty cruel world then hide inside your imagined realities and hope for the best.
There is a perception that this is complicated. It’s not. If you are they type who would be passive to the extent of letting others have their way with you for the sake of getting along with them then by all means give that a shot. Something tells me you have done this most of your lives starting in school. You know, those assholes who picked on you and you just took it because you just knew it would piss them off more if you took issue with it. Turn the other cheek. That will only get you through life so far. Now that you are adults it’s the same crap, only worse. It’s no wonder you have issues with assertive people.

dude

Imagining a target is the most dangerous thing a gun-owner can do. It actually decreases your chance of hitting the target and increases the chance of hitting something else. The purpose of the bullseye is not to imagine, it’s to better oneself at hitting the actual intended target with practice.

When your intended target is a criminal, you’re not going to imagine his head is the bullseye you were practicing on. No, you’re going to actually aim at your intended target, the criminals head.

Training to defend oneself against a criminal does not correlate to wanting to kill humans. That makes no sense. On-the-contrary, you’re training to preserve life by stopping evil.

What is the purpose of this argument anyway? That gun-owners should be ashamed for killing murders in self-defense because murders are humans? More nonsense.

When your intended target is a criminal, you’re not going to imagine his head is the bullseye
Nobody made that argument

Training to defend oneself against a criminal does not correlate to wanting to kill humans
Nobody made that argument

What is the purpose of this argument anyway? That gun-owners should be ashamed for killing murders in self-defense because murders are humans?
Nobody made that argument

Congratulations. You beat really beat the crap out of those straw men. You really triumphed over evil there.

@jaytkay,

If you claim these are straw men even though these are yours and wundayatta arguments or implied arguments, why don’t you enlighten us all by telling us what point you’re trying to get across with the whole imagination or real human target argument?

I have no problem if someone is a conscientious objector. They have their reasons but when they attach their logic to the rest of us who refuse to be victims they are being a tad pretentious don’t you think. If you want to wait for the cops then cudos to ya. I mean that might actually work out. But it probably won’t but hey it’s your call, yours alone. What is your wife or kids going to think when they see you choked down in front of them or they themselves get hurt because you were too scared to try. Sure they are still going to love you and all but. They are gonna wonder what they have for a leader of the family and trust : they will never depend on you ever again in a critical situation. But they will still love you.

These video games that are so realistic. It will desensitize some people into thinking real people are pixels on a flat screen and you press a controller button and they guy disappears. Real simple. What these games will never show is the screaming that usually happens when someone is hit. Why is this? It might have something to do with making the gaming experience a total buzz kill. You can’t get real self defense training playing on your couch although some here think thats all it takes.
And these Hollywood film makers and the stories of gratuitous gun violence on film talking out of one side of their mouths on premiere night while sending campaign contributions to anti gun senators to vote for more gun control. They play both sides of the topic and laugh all the way to the bank. Mature consumers of these media will separate them from reality and move on with life. Some with get into this entertainment culture so hard they take it serious and think they are learning shit from it.

Hope you aren’t these people, because if you are you are doing the right thing staying away from guns. Mall ninga’s and retard video gamers stay in front of your PC’s and out of everyone else’s way please.

Ok I just read @wundayatta breath squeeze thing.

I didn’t read the others because I wanted to say they did not influence me.

I cannot not respond. The paper target is always paper there is no imagination.

Learning practicing is all aout being there. There is no yoga zen thing that I have reached.

It is all about focus following procedure and doing the same thing over and over. Muscle memory.

You want to maintain proficiency. Also improve and tighten your grouping. But I also spend a lot of time working on my stance. And breath control that is as close as yoga as I’ve come.

There is no power. Just some tiredness in your wrist Or arm, you happier if you improved. But power. No that is actually a myth.

Knowing that I may not be helpless in a situation, that is a relief. But it is all hypothetical. I don’t know if I could shoot an animal or a person even if my life depended on it or others. That is where muscle training comes in.

Though you are taught to not use greater force then necessary.

To assess a given situation to have outs and to use them.

For example have a home plan. Call the police leave the phone on have a room to retreat consider abandoning the house with your family.

Or if you walk in a situation where you are conceal and carrying use that to your advantage. No one knows you have the gun. Assess other forms of reaction identify attacker or how many there are. Make sure that you understand the situation and are not misreading it. Is there any other way to safely stop the attacker.

On a related but unrelated not. While we have some genuinely mentally screwed up people in AK I have very little fear or an event being replicated here.

A few teachers have admitted to having weapons in their car. They probably carry at all times. Gun users don’t typically advertise. They carry so often its normal they are prepared like having winter gear in your car in case of a break down.

High school students hunt with thair family and some are in classes. Use them for hiking etc. Usually they are in a car instead of unloading them all the time. It is a deterrent.

Has anyone ever really overheard someone say they think everyone should have semi-automatic weapons? If they have ,I bet it was from someone from a gun control group saying that, using the “projection technique” using fear to gin up support for contributions.
Because it sure never came from a real gun owner. Everyone knows that would be a ridiculous and reckless blanket statement only to be taken seriously by someone who is truly gullible.I call bullshit on this entire asking here and declare the OP pulled this out of their ass and tried to pass off this hysterical statement as fact. I know this because 99% of members here are ignorant about firearms and every aspect of them. The OP also knows this so that is why this entire thread has been a giant troll effort.

fail

Twice a week, I carry a 27” katana (and other assorted weapons) to my dojo for practice. My katana has no other purpose but to kill someone, yet no one protests my right to own it. For some reason, “it’s a sport” is more believable when it comes to my sword despite the fact that I study kenjutsu (which is decidedly not sport kendo).

Every class ends with sparring. When I spar, I have no need to imagine a target. It’s right there in front of me. I don’t pretend to hit someone with my shinai; I really do hit someone with my shinai. Or at least, if all goes well I do. We do not pull punches in our terminology either. If someone is open and I hesitate, my instructor shouts “kill him!”

Here, then, is my question: so what?

@suzooz Could you provide me a link to the study that proves that less guns equates to more violence and a higher murder rate?

Shooting someone even in self defense should be a last resort. If one makes an attempt to stay unharmed by another and there is still persistence on the part of an attacker or intimidator then it’s on, they guy asked for it. Best case scenario- don’t fuck with people and things willbe good. No one should have to suffer bodily harm in order to appease someone. Don’t forget, women in growing masses are learning how to not be victims. Men need not be either. If someone is big and bad ass enough to punch their way out of an attack that’s great, but most of us can’t do that, and a lot of us won’t be able to run fast enough to get away.
These last few days have seen discussions depicting gun owners as brutish knuckle dragger’s spoiling for a fight at every opportunity and too many here think it’s true but truth be told, not too many members here even know anyone who has a gun. It’s always, I heard this…, or I heard that and never bother to follow up on these stories and besides, it’s cool to bash people who rely on themselves. The misinformation needs to stop ,although with all the hysterical twits here stacked one on top of the other I doubt it will.

@ETpro

3 links were provided in my very first answer. Scroll up.

I just wanted to add that as gun owners or conceal and carry permits we are taught we have greater responsibility.

That our brain is the best weapon. I happened to have a great teacher and he drilled this into me.

Having the weapon doesn’t mean you are justified to use it. When you get careless or assume or react you are more likely to make mistakes. And there are consequences for those mistakes. At the end of the day you need to be able to have a clear conscious.

That being said. Part of that responsibility is to practice and improve. Many gun owners with guns for self defense don’t and that is a mistake.

You can’t aim well, you don’t have the strength and once you have made the decision to use your gun your reaction time is slowed down to unfamialarity.

Google Kennesaw, Georgia

@woodcutter: I’ve been on this site for over 5 years and I’m a troll now? I guess I’ll take that from where it comes.

“The 1994 gun ban was a waste of legislation and was a knee jerk reaction to Columbine.” That’s where your first mistake in this thread was. I am pointing that out for those that missed your error the first time to let people know that you, kind sir, are throwing out falsehoods presented as facts(call them lies, call them what you like), yet accusing others of doing the same.

FIrearms advocates are very passionate about there being no limits to the types of firearms (including semi automatic weapons) that they should have access to, and always cite the Second Amendment. You know it and I know it. Plain and simple.

Do you think when the Founding Fathers created the Constitution, they envisioned such a thing as a semi automatic weapon?

“99% of members here are ignorant about firearms and every aspect of them.” I have specified at least once if not more than once that I am specifically referring to semi automatic weapons. If you would like to, explain why ordinary people (people like Adam Lanza’s mother) need semi automatic weapons. In my question, I asked why people other than law enforcement or military personnel might need semi automatic weapons. So instead of getting nasty and calling me names, can you please get back to the task at hand? Thank you.

Target is just a target? Muscle memory? Keep your mind out of it when it’s a real human being so your body does the job?

Truly frightening. Worse than imagining a target as a human being. It’s like gun shooters are a different species. You don’t think in a way I can imagine, and I have a damn good imagination!

I’m 56 years old. I’ve never needed a gun. I’ve only been around a gun being fired randomly once (a guy was standing on his stoop, and shot a gun as I was riding by on my bike). I don’t think I’ve been around homicidal gunfire ever, and I live in the 6th largest city in the nation. Maybe that’s chance. Maybe that’s not taking risks. I don’t know.

Anyway. It doesn’t matter. You guys have the guns, so you win. If I were with you, I would tell you you were a nice person and get the hell away as soon as possible and never go near you again. Don’t take it personally. I don’t trust cops. I don’t trust soldiers. It’s just a sign of an alien way of thinking. I’m sure I’m equally, if not more alien to you. But it is representative of why there can never be compromise on this issue. People are too different.

Just to be clear, I’m Pro-Life, and even though I eat meat, I can’t find it in me to kill a living creature, so targets are just targets, mostly with handguns. That being said, if I am threatened while alone, I will find the strength to defend myself as the law allows. Peace.

@zenvelo You are using a strawman argument as anything can be used as a weapon and cause massive harm. Take away the semi-auto guns and poisons and EMP’s will take their place. People hell bent on inflicting pain and harm to supplant the pain they are feeling will find away to relieve this pain in insidious hurtful ways.

@wundayatta I would never choose to take a life if I had a choice. I do eat meat but I have never killed anything bigger then what my cat dragged in half dead anyway.

I can’t imagine myself doing so. However I hope I have it in me to shoot someone if it saves another’s life including my own.
I don’t know that I could. And other options would always be the first method. Always announce as a warning that you are armed and prepared to shoot if cornered or intend to draw a weapon. That way they have an option.

So you could say that it is alien that you have never needed it. That is fine you have that luxury, it is people with guns that have fought for that freedom to be disdainful. But yes it it your right.

I have a friend from Philly who was raised in slums he has been gone from there 15 years and he still sleeps with one eye open and ready to tear apart any one who come through the door. I have another friend who comes from SF and he always conceal carries. He does little things like checks out each room avoids crowds and always enters a room left side first I don’t think he even knows he does this. My point being some people aren’t given that luxury.

I live in a military town guns are prevalent. Besides that we have hunters, hikers and self defenders, competition shooters and farmers.

Having a gun doesn’t make you violent. It makes you prepared and practical. An outdoors person. Depending on where you live you may be surrounded by people who conceal and carry.

@jca Guns are a world I’m on the fringes of just dipping a toe into so I have no arguments for semiautomatics. I don’t own one and rarely shoot them. But if I ever faced a grizzly bear and he was charging I know I would want one.

@suzooz Thanks. I should have searched the entire thread to see if you’d already posted a link. I did take time to read the PDF. It suffers from a collection of logical fallacies. Namely, incomplete comparison, inconsistent comparison and false analogy (comparing apples and oranges. It singles out former Soviet Bloc countries and points to the high murder rate in them after the collapse of the Societ Union (collapse of the rule of law), even though the gun ownership rate in them is lover than that of the US. Apples and oranges. The USA did not just go through the complete breakdown of its previous social order. They did.

The one non-Soviet Bloc country it cites in comparison to other European states is Luxembourg, carefully cherry picked because it is almost entirely urban population centers. It is compared to nations having large areas with relatively sparse population, but never to countries actually having demographics like it. The paper also singles out rural areas of the US and points to the fact that they have a high gun ownership rate and a low murder rate when compared to inner cities. Apples and oranges. While the paper you cite was not a peer reviewed study, but a publication by a special interest group supportive of unlimited access to firearms, the 4 peer-reviewed actual Harvard studies listed here refute its findings.

If we are to have any meaningful discussion on sensible gun safety plus sensible access to guns, we have to get beyond talking past one another and really compare apples and apples.

Oh, there is no question that there are tons of these studies for both ends, but if you actually take a look your peer-reviewed studies, they clearly state in the abstract our study cannot determine causation

@suzooz Correlation does not equal causation. That’s just one more logical fallacy to hide behind. When you make an assertion, the burden of proof rests with you, not those who gainsay your claim.

Nonetheless, correlation gives us a powerful method of controlling real world outcomes. We don’t have to know why they correlate to know that they do, and that therefore adjusting the independent variable is likely to change the dependent variable. If we adjust and the dependent variable trends the wrong way, then we adjust in the opposite direction.

But the Australia outcome cited in the OP tells us that when you compare apples and apples, sensible gun safety laws can reduce gun violence VERY substantially.

Take your own advice. You made an assertion. You linked me to those studies as your proof. Your own studies clearly state they cannot determine causation. You didn’t disprove or prove anything.

@suzooz Did you miss the portion of the above where I explained it is not necessary to determine causation? If you honestly feel this is wrong, that proof of cause is vital, then show me where the PDF you posted proves the absence of firearms is the direct cause of increased violence.

Well let see. We’re talking about guns and none of the studies proves guns are the cause. Yeah, I think cause is pretty vital.

@suzooz No, if you can just show that when doing A, then B occurs, that’s all you need. Humans discovered wine-making and cheese making almost 10,000 years ago. Nobody had any idea what caused those processes to work till about 200 years ago. But for 9,800 years they worked just fine with no understanding of cause.

Consider gravity. The solar system is 4.568 billion years old. Gravity kept it orderly just fine. It did not fly apart because mankind failed to grasp gravity till Isaac Newton defined it in Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1686.

But again, if you truly think cause is vital, the paper you cited is meaningless, as it does nothing to establish cause. Not writing for a peer reviewed journal, it’s authors just aren’t honest enough to tell you that.

Alright, no problem. The paper I cite is meaningless and the paper you cite is meaningless.

No, both are worthy of consideration, but with an eye to how much spin they apply. I will opt for a study of apples vs. apples any day versus a study of apples vs. oranges. When people with PhD’s rely on a long series of logical fallacies to “prove” a point, it’s not because they don’t know what a fallacy is. It’s almost always because some economic interest is paying them to play stooge. My guess is the gun lobby paid for this paper to be published. They deliberately avoided peer reviewed publication because the paper would have been cut to shreds in any peer reviewed journal.

To say that correlation proves cause is a logical fallacy. You don’t consider logical fallacies. The studies made that clear. They do not know the cause and that is because there are way too many factors involved.

@rosehips Having a gun doesn’t make you violent. Using a gun makes you violent. If you don’t have one, you won’t be using one, most likely.

Alaska sure sounds like crazyville to me. I always wanted to visit for the natural beauty. But the people are definitely worrisome.

I think we try to learn enough so we can avoid dangerous situations before there is a possibility of violence. If you don’t think you can do that, then maybe you have a gun, in case of failure to avoid problems. Or maybe if you have a gun, it makes you a little less likely to avoid violence, since you know you can employ deadly force. Assuming the other guy doesn’t shoot first.

And it wasn’t the soldiers who brought us freedom. They played a role, for sure, but it was the peace makers who created civil society. A military is a necessary evil, but I want to never have to use it. I think that people in this country resort to violence far too quickly, and that having a weapon makes it much to easy to shoot. I’m going without.

Women, of course, are far more likely to be killed by firearms than men are. The majority of people killed by firearms are killed by someone they know. But wives, mothers, and girlfriends suffer quite disproportionately compared to men. (scroll down to the bar graphs to see what I’m talking about). If I were a woman, I would want to prevent men from having guns if I could. I would not want them anywhere nearby the house. But that’s just me.

If you’re looking at gender then also look at demographics. Most of the firearm violence/deaths are coming from black people and they’re only like 13% of the population. Statistically, that is a disproportionate amount of violence. If you want to get things under control, start with them.

Firearm deaths by race and Firearm deaths by race 2

There are black gun owners who have never caused anyone any problems. The reason they appear to be the majority of shooters is the sample groups are from areas where poverty and ignorance is the norm. It is true that if we would discount those gangland black on black and Hispanic murders for a moment it would cause the rest of them to be more random than anything else. That is where the bulk of the US deaths by gun violence comes from and are so used in statistics.

@jca The 1994 AWB did little to drop gun crimes. Your president has said that crimes with so called “assault rifles” are nearly nil citing they are mainly committed with “cheap handguns”. I trust you didn’t go suddenly deaf when he said that on national TV, so I will assume you too heard him like the rest of us. The ban did not forbid pistols that stayed in circulation the entire period.

The way you phrased this question is flawed because in using the term firearms advocates you left it open to interpretation. Who are these advocates? You are meaning all gun ownwers, no? Or just the monolithic NRA you refer to? Or from a blog? Firearm advocates are no different that any other citizen and I assure you, none of them want anyone who should not have guns be in possession of them- semi auto, or any other kind. Just because I can lawfully have any gun I can afford doesn’t mean I want to get shot. If you or anyone can pass the background check you can have your choice of legal guns or parts of. There is no perfect system but it is the best one we have. But the way you put it there, is, that it is documented fact somewhere that it is an all or nothing proposition when it comes to firearm freedoms. We both know that is not the case, so you can see in wake of the recent tragedy one needs to be careful when making such claims and in doing so, laying the blame for the act of a deranged individual at the feet of all gun owners. You will appear hysterical and lose credibility from all but the choir that you seem to be preaching to.

All American gun owners are advocates whether they know it or not.
And you shouldn’t assume you have permission to speak for any of us.

Nobody can know what the founding fathers envisioned but I think we all know they were visionaries and we would be safe to assume that they envisioned guns to evolve as well as transportation and communication, etc. It could only logically mean one thing when it came to guns evolving and that would certainly mean that they would shoot faster. Not, that they would be available in fashion colors one day. At any rate ,they wanted to be sure that regular persons would have a fighting chance to protect themselves and their country in an emergency. They wanted us to be armed and proficient with weapons of the period.
Well…this is the period of semi automatic weapons. This is not the period of black powder 50 caliber muskets.

You did not deny that you don’t know anything about gun ownership so I will assume that still stands. I think I have covered the “need” argument here well enough. It should be noted that in the majority of casualties seen in US emergency rooms the average number of bullet wounds treated is two – three hits. This means that these injuries would be well within the abilities of a shooter with a 6 shot revolver so the ability of greater magazine capacity and semi-auto VS non semi-auto appears moot. The police in the US are the ones who have the tendency to go overkill or hit innocent bystanders in a shooting recalling the NYC police accidental shooting of about 9 civilians near the empire state bldg this year. This further illustrates that the police who are supposed to serve and protect aren’t as well trained in weapons handling as regular persons

Why do you suppose this is?

@woodcutter areas where poverty

Who says poverty leads to crime? Just because you’re poor, doesn’t mean you’re going to live a life of crime.

@emilianate You misunderstand. Areas of poverty means the majority of people there are poor. And opportunity is not there. Hopelessness fills the void. Poor people usually don’t have guns because guns are expensive. All it takes in an area like this is just a few with guns who lead a life of crime to shoot up the place and terrorize the majority. If more poor people were able to have guns , they would gladly. Things would change.

@woodcutter

How do you know they only sampled impoverished areas?

How do you know opportunity is not there?

@emilianate The sampled area I referred to are the one’s where shooting deaths are the greatest. Not upstate Vermont. Opportunity happens when people invest in area with businesses and create jobs. If this does not happen there will be no jobs and people will have a tendency to be poor. If someone is poor and they live where the work is reasonably plentiful, then there is something that is not adding up.

I don’t know but it seems for every type of category there is an extremely high disproportionate amount of Poverty, Unemployment, Education, and Incarceration for blacks and Hispanics. The incarceration isn’t just for firearms. I think race is playing a bigger role than you think.

Link typo. unemployment

Wow I messed up again. That link above ^^^ is poverty not unemployment.

People who grow up without opportunity and who are the product of generations of dysfunctional families will be ignorant to do what is right in enough numbers to cause an entire area to slide into poverty. Its like a snowball effect. Those who are smart enough or lucky enough, to go elsewhere will seek opportunity. Those who stay behind will continue to be part of the downward spiral of the area. Businesses will move away and infrastructure will decay because there will be more political will to invest elsewhere causing insult to injury. A brain drain will leave whats left to inhabit the streets and the entrepreneurs will find opportunity to sell their drugs that will further decay the population to the point where apathy sets in. Apathetic souls don’t want jobs because they are lost. All this is proper breeding ground for gangs and the obligatory gun violence, rape, robberies, etc.

I believe that no matter who you are in a situation like that,black white, brown….you ain’t got a chance and it comes down to survival of the fittest in the most primitive form. Kill or be killed. It just happens that there are a lot of non whites living in these places. Whether Negroes have a higher propensity for violence is still up for debate although you would entertain me enormously should you pose this as a question tonight here on fluther.

What the fuck…Go for it, it is the last day for us all on Earth. How bad can it be?

You have a half hour.

Based on your explanation and this It just happens that there are a lot of non whites living in these places, the problem still remains with these races. The only difference is you eliminated gun-control as a cause for the reduction or elevation of crime. You pinpointed a different cause.

There cannot be a propensity for violence because as you said there are those who are not troublemakers which means there must be another underlining cause for why the numbers are disproportionate. I only showed you that they’re indeed disproportionate. You offered an explanation for why its like that.

@emilianate There is a very enlightened discussion of both sides of the unilateral concealed carry debate below the big graphic here. It is pretty clear that we cannot establish what gun control verses unlimited CCW rights accomplishes. Much more research and better models are needed, as the problem involves many complex variables and includes us humans, who appear (rightly or wrongly) to possess free will and also brains that sometimes act like a computer with a very serious virus.

I’ll grant you that good people who are well trained in fireram use and safety can stop crime. But good people also sometimes go insane. If we had everyone packing heat, that would clearly mean more crazies among us would be doing so when they snapped, and a gunfight would erupt at each such event. Think of the Batman Movie shooter, wearing all black like a ninja. If everyone in that theater had been armed and most lacked any firearm safety training (none is currently mandated), how many people returning fire would have hit James Holmes and how many would have hit one another, seeing someone else muzzle flash and thinking them to be the threat?

I’m not reading anything from factcheck.og. I checked out who donates money to them. There are liberal special interests grouped that are funding it. I can make a site called onlytruth, doesn’t mean I cannot write a bunch of propaganda on it.

I believe you had this discussion with suzooz about insanity and the movie theaters. She brought up all the problems & false assumptions in your arguments towards it.

My .22 is a semi-auto, it could take your eye out if aimed properly but otherwise it’s not a killing machine. If you’re my age, you’ll remember the little .22 bullets we put in our Levi jackets back in the day. Just saying, not all semi’s are killing machines.

@emilianate I’m not following you there. The availability of guns in and of itself don’t cause poverty and ignorance. The weapons found in these areas are transferred by illegal means that are uncontrollable by law. There can be multitudes of laws designed to make sure these desperado’s are denied access to the guns they use, but in the end ,it only is well intentioned and badly aimed efforts that only make the victims of these criminals even more vulnerable if they even had their own weapons in the first place. If these players don’t recognize these laws, and they do not, what was gained? Nothing. They buy their wares from a different place that the rest of us. The authors of these well intentioned efforts can report back to their constituents and the media they are on the case. Job well done?
A huge metropolitan area is more of a wild place than the rural areas that are what most people would call wild. Too many people crammed into a tight place. You are still trying to suggest all else being equal, that black people are just prone to violence and should have no 2nd amendment rights? If that is true then you would have us believe that if we eliminated all gay males back in the 80’s the aids epidemic would not have happened?

you are so going to be killed here

There is this same theme popping up over and over here. That there is some expectation that either: the police and the police alone should keep arms/ OR every single person will have them at all times. That there is no middle ground that is the current reality. And the current reality is…..

Most people don’t have concealed firearms on them everywhere you go. The fact is that some think there is a gun toting civilian on every street and mall and movie theater complex. Most states have laws allowing this, but given the entire population of every single adult who would qualify to do this….most choose not to. The number is still quite minute given what it could be.
So why is this improbable scenario hashed over and over? This idea that every person in a movie showing, opens fire at the same time? Of course the idea of that would be a disaster maybe. But in real life expectancies, and depending on location, there may be but one single person in a theater who is carrying, other than the assailant. An assailant who is standing straight up while all the rest of us are face down in popcorn and gum on the floor. I truly believe the collateral damage would be negligible given the context of it all.

If bad gun situations are going to be always framed in the most ludicrous and unlikely situations to make a point, then how can an honest dialog really happen?

The answer is…it can’t. Because every time these counter points are brought up the reply is always going to be punt, and revert back to the whole “guns are bad” thing.

Your statements are borne out in real life, @woodcutter.

I recall the uproar years ago when Florida, at the time a very restrictive state for concealed carry, also made its Department of Motor Vehicles issue easily recognized registrations (license plates) for rental cars. Following the highly publicized robbery / murder of a German tourist, an investigation was finally launched after the tourist industry finally demanded action. The investigation found that thieves and muggers had been very quick to exploit the following:

1. Florida is a very popular tourist destination. A lot of people fly to Florida.
2. It has been very difficult for a long time to carry weapons on an airplane, so tourists flying to Florida were nearly 100% un-armed.
3. Tourists who fly to Florida rent cars to get around.
4. Since the tourists are flying into a place with restrictive (at the time) gun laws, they were going to stay un-armed.
5. With the rental cars easy to spot from their recognizable license plates, it was like taking candy from a baby, especially if the tourists got lost and stopped on the side of a road to look at a map. Thieves could reasonably assume that every occupant of a rental car was un-armed… and probably had a good supply of cash in their wallets, too.

Bang, there’s the next target.

When these facts finally made it through the slow brains of the legislators of the day – who had done all of their legislating with the very best of intentions – they finally wised up and moved to undo much of the damage they had done with their well-intentioned but stupid laws. Florida is now one of the easier states in which to obtain a concealed-carry permit, rental cars are not as easily identified by other drivers, and weapons crimes in Florida have dropped more than in most other states.

Hint to the unimaginably slow: It is already illegal to rob people – pretty much everywhere – so making guns illegal was not a major deterrent to the thieves who robbed people using guns. See, the guns were already illegal, but only non-criminals were obeying those laws.

I don’t promote universal gun ownership. People who are too stupid to understand the foregoing should not own weapons. They probably shouldn’t even have steak knives in their kitchens.

Yes that tourist shooting thing was very bad. In hindsight I see it was bad to have these rental cars so distinctive as to draw attention to travelers. When states decide to allow more concealed carry permits it will alert the criminal element that their job description just got a little more demanding. Keeping these scumbags guessing is a good thing.

I came across this image recently, which really captured the irony I see in so many of these discussions. It’s strange to me how many people talk about the inherent untrustworthiness of the government and the police one day only to argue that they should be the only ones with the right or ability to wield force the next.

@emilianate Thanks for explaining that the ad hominem fallacy guides your gathering of information. If you refuse to read anything funded by or written by anyone who disagrees with your ideology, it’s abundantly clear how you remain an ideologue.

@ETpro

Ayers was the key founder of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which was a Chicago public school reform project from 1995 to 2001. Upon its start in 1995, Obama was appointed Board Chairman and President of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Ayers co-chaired the organization’s Collaborative, which set the education policies of the Challenge. Oddly enough, Obama was the one who was authorized to delegate to the Collaborative in regards to its programs and projects. In addition to that, Obama often times had to seek advice and assistance from the Ayer’s led Collaborative in regards to the programmatic aspects of grant proposals. Ayers even sat on the same board as Obama as an “ex officio member”. They both also sat together on the board of the CAC’s Governance Committee. Obama and Ayers were two parts of a group of four who were instructed to draft the bylaws that would govern the CAC. Keep in mind that the “A” in CAC is for Annenberg, the owners of FactCheck.og. The funding for Ayer’s projects and those of his cronies was approved by Board Chair, Barack Obama.s

I find it quite amusing to watch you write something like this It’s almost always because some economic interest is paying them to play stooge. My guess is the gun lobby paid for this paper to be published. only to end up doing the exact same thing.

@woodcutter

Oh, you think this is my logic. It’s not. I was just following @wundayatta logic. He narrowed down the problem to men since women are the victims. Well I went further and narrowed down the problem to demographics. Now you know that blacks and Hispanics men are responsible for most of our gun deaths.

Going further with @wundayatta logic. Since liberals want gun-control it should be only set for blacks and Hispanic men since that is where the problem is coming from.

Just rolling with their logic, I don’t actually agree with it.

Narrow it down some more, out of the 31,347 firearm deaths, 18,735 of them were suicides which means only 12,612 were actual homicides.

Heart disease deaths – 599,413
#1 leading cause for heart disease – Obesity and overweight

What’s next libs, fat-control?

@emilianate Had I done the same thing, your amusement (or implication of hypocrisy) would be well taken. But I did not do the same thing. I read the link you posted. I did not discount its data because of who funded it, or wrote it. I instead detailed the logical fallacies and failings of the data itself. I only mentioned who was behind it in an attempt explain why such fallacies probably showed up in the piece.

There is more going on here than meets the eye.The gun ban lobby and in particular, gun ban members here will always use public safety as why they dislike guns but, I submit the reasonings go deeper than that. Of course it is always politically correct to say murder is wrong. We all know dead is dead if at the hands of a person, intensionally, and is why it ‘s murder. But the mechanism of the deed is important no doubt. Here it has a deeper meaning because of the ideological war that the extremes are engaged in. Liberals hate conservatives and vise versa. Talkin here about the loopy ones on each side. There is to be awaited a time of glee and power gloating if there could be a ban on a class of firearms knowing how important they are to their enemies. It goes way further than saving lives, although there would be no mention of said lives saved , or crimes turned back due to the presence of the well utilized firearm as those don’t count, in light of their “facts” that guns only can be used for bad, because they are designed to kill. There will be no further analysis by them, of that part of the discussion. So it is the personal, reasons they would really like to see gun rights gone. I suspect many lefties here were bothered as kids by those they now perceive as assertive and pushy people in school. They would call these people bullies to only learn later in life these same people turned out to become successful businessmen or…republicans dare we say. They try to ridicule them for accusing the gun control movement of “taking away their guns” that they are being childish for saying that. That, gun rights people will not be reasonable and accept “common sense” changes because all they want to do is just “tweak” existing laws some. And that there would be no noticeable changes. Gun rights people are being silly and are worrying for nothing.

Those pushing for strict gun control aren’t stupid. Of course they would not even think of taking away these rights in one fell swoop. That would be impossible and would give their opponents the upper hand in that they would have been right about them all along. The frogs in the pot theory. Their aim is to eventually be successful in a total ban but in baby steps that can be more achievable winning the small fights. This is why the gun rights proponents are unsuccessfully being portrayed as bullish and unreasonable. Why? Because they are on to them. And that is why they fight so successfully and win against the gun control movement. The gun rights orgs have seen these fights before. They have world history to guide them and can see what is coming. Many gun prohibitionists are young and don’t take history seriously and they lose the same fight over and over and become frustrated by failure blaming the evil NRA for being too powerful. The NRA is not the only gun proponent in the US but they have the most clout but more than that they all have the backing of the majority of the people from all walks of life.

I can also temper my remarks here by saying tht most conservatives do not fear the social unraveling of society if homosexuals legally marry like the rest of us. They are up to their shenanigans because thy hate the other side and want to hurt them in as bad a way so here we are

<< Is a gun owner. Well, my husband is. We have shotguns and rifles. I have no desire to ban all guns. But I do believe that guns/magazines capable of killing a large amount of people in mere minutes should be banned for the average citizen. Many gun owners feel the same way.

@augustlan But that’s how general bans begin. The first to go will be the controversial ones that would be easy to get owners of other “safer” guns to concede because after all, “I don’t own that kind so it won’t effect me”.

Wrong. That is the first baby step, of the kind that we have seen fought over tooth and nail. To lull the “fudds” into thinking their type of firearm is off the table because they meet the sporting criteria and therefore safe. It’s a clever plan to divide and conquer gun owners. Thats how it all begins.

You can’t get away with admitting you have a gun somewhere in your house and still say you are for the 2nd amendment if you think any class of firearm should be done away with. That dog will only hunt in tight small circles.

@woodcutter By that logic, we should have no laws of any kind, because each is the beginning of a slipery slope till all is banned. But we have had laws governing the speed and safe operation of motor vehicles for over 100 years without anyone seriously advocating that we outlaw all cars. I say the “slippery slope” argument is generally fallacious, and in the rare instance where it turns out to be accurate, we simply reverse course, as we did when we ended prohibition. rather than outlawing coffee, tea, nicotine, cola and soda drinks, sugar, etc.

I think most people are afraid that if they make it illegal to own semi-autos, then that’s just one step closer to make guns illegal in general. I know this will probably be an unpopular opinion, but I personally wish that they would make guns illegal.

@Self_Consuming_Cannibal That’s an easy and reasonably thing to say if you live in an urban center where the police will be at your house in force withing 5 minutes of your calling 911 and telling them someone is breaking though a window in your place. But what of those who live in rural settings where a 911 call won’t bring a response for 30 minutes to and hour or more. More than enough reason that some people legitimately want guns to protect their loved ones.

@ETpro I understand that logic and your point of view but people wouldn’t have as much of a need to own guns if so many criminals didn’t have them, themselves. When criminals get guns they acquire them one of two ways. They either purchase them, themselves, which they are allowed to do if they have no criminal background or they steal them or buy them from somebody else who has stolen them from someone that has a legal right to own them.

So many lives have been lost because guns are legal. Take the Sandy Hook tragedy. The boy who did the shooting acquired his guns by stealing them from his mother who legally had the right to own them. Now if guns were illegal then there’s a good chance she wouldn’t have had those guns, her son wouldn’t have stolen them and 28 people would not have died as a result of that tragedy.

I understand wanting to protect your loved ones, but with guns being legal they are everywhere and to me that puts the people you love at more risk than less. If you or someone you know owns a gun, there’s a good chance someone might break into your house just simply to steal your gun. If they’re too scared to do it when your home, they’ll do it when you’re gone and if you show up after they’ve found your gun, they’ll probably use it on you. Because guns are legal, elementary school children are not even safe anymore.

You hear about all these mass shootings, but yet you don’t hear of a good, gun owning Samaritan being there with his/her gun to stop the mass murderer. It’s either the killer kills themselves or the police do it for them.

My point is a lot of people say, “If you outlaw guns only outlaws will have guns.” And that’s true but I like to think of it as, “If you outlaw guns less outlaws will have guns.”

@Self_Consuming_Cannibal

Tight gun laws in Mexico have certainly helped with their problems.

@Jaxk While I do appreciate your point of view, I don’t appreciate the sarcasm. If you actually read the article instead of skimming for what supports your argument/opinion, guns aren’t illegal in Mexico they just have tighter gun laws. I’m talking about making guns illegal. Maybe if you went to the UK where guns are illegal (the cops don’t even have guns only the special forces-the American equivalent of our swat team-have guns) you could see how nice it is for you and a friend to go to a gas station at three in the morning and not worrying about getting your head blown off by someone high as a kite, looking for their next fix.

London is one of the biggest cities in the world and two summers ago me and my wife went there for a month and it was so cool being able to walk around anytime of day without worrying about getting robbed or shot, just because we felt like taking a walk at some ungodly hour. People think they feel so safe living in a country where you can own a gun, but I never felt safer than when I was in the UK.

So Jaxk, just so we are perfectly clear I’m not talking about tight gun laws, I’m talking about guns being completely illegal. Once you take guns away from law abiding citizens, criminals won’t have such easy access to them and then as you arrest people that have guns you confiscate them, then eventually you will have less and less guns. I’m not saying it would be quick or easy, but eventually we could clean this country up so much even regular police won’t need guns. If that doesn’t make you feel safe, I don’t know what will.

@Self_Consuming_Cannibal you should do some light reading about the utter futility of your suggestion to make guns illegal across the board. (They aren’t so illegal as you think in the UK, for example.)

@Self_Consuming_Cannibal If you did indeed stroll through London and was spared an ass beating by their thugs it was because it wasn’t your time then. That is a pretty raukus city and the assaults there could be as vicious ans any in the world. England is one of the most dangerous places in Europe gun laws or not.

@ETpro I think you are apples and oranges on that one. Driving a motor vehicle is not a right. The two cannot even be used in the same sentence where any comparisons are being made really. If someone screws up bad enough driving, they lose their license. If someone screws up with a gun it is popular to want all gun owners to give theirs up? The argument that if we go through a trial period and ban guns only to find out crime stats did not improve because of it, we could just simply reverse the law and return those rights later.

Really?

you’re smarter than that

The belief that eventually after a total ban, and after maybe 10 generations of collecting up all the straggler weapons not found through happy coincidence there will be no stabbings or destroyed skulls from bludgeon type weapons, rape, stranglings and all manner of ways to wreak havoc on each other we will be in a better place because of it? That would be enough to insult a moron’s intelligence if not every single normal person. So then, where would we be? It would look like something from the stone ages, where all the power would be in the hands of the physically strongest. Gun laws don’t work well enough to start over and put us all on the same level but we would not be on the same level. All men and women were not created equal. A 90 lb woman is not on the same playing field as a 300 lb man in their unarmed state. Put a G-20 in her hands and she’s equal if not superior.

@CWOTUS I don’t need to do any reading I was there in London,England,-Paris,France-Edinborough, Scottland and I never had to fear from being shot. Even by crooked police officers, because they don’t carry guns either.

@woodcutter Maybe I did get lucky to not get jumped by thugs in London, but at least if they didn’t have a gun I would have a fighting chance.

I guess people are misunderstanding me, perhaps I’m not stating myself clearly. I don’t think eradicating guns from the streets will make the world a happy place where we all sit in a circle and sing Kum-bi-Ya (or however the hell you spell it) I’m just saying it will at least keep idiots from stealing them from other people and going on mass shooting sprees. Evil has existed long before guns and if there ever is an end to guns (which I doubt) evil will exist long after, it’s just that guns make it easier for evil to kill people to kill innocent people.

If I ever see some statistics here in America showing that citizens carrying guns is saving more lives than citizens carrying guns are killing one another, then maybe I’ll change my tune. But I hear about far more people dying from guns, then being saved by them.

So what you’re saying about no stabbings or destroyed skulls you’re taking out of context, I never stated or meant to imply that. I’m just saying not as many people will get shot (obviously) and if someone tries to commit mass murder by bludgeneoning or stabbing (therefore they don’t have a gun) the hero factor and the chance of survival will probably increase exponentially.

I agree a 90 lb woman is not on the same playing field as a 300 lb man in their unarmed state but there are things you can carry that is pretty effective such as pepper spray or mace. It’s not fool proof, but then again neither is a gun and if the 300 lb man was able to get to the woman and disarm her then he could kill her and go on a shooting spree killing 40 or 50 people. There is no perfect solution to anything but I just think when you take guns away from one of the most violent countries in the world, you are moving a step in the right direction.

@Self_Consuming_Cannibal I agree with your concept, but I disagree that it is practical. In a perfect world where there US citizens, as 5% of the world’s population, did not own half of the civilian guns in owned by 100% of the world’s population, just prohibiting gun ownership for self defense, and only allowing it for those with compelling needs to be armed might be a great idea.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world. We wouldn’t even be having this conversation is we did. We instead live in the real world where there are tons of guns in the hands of American citizens, and a law prohibiting them any longer owning them would only ensure that law abiding citizens disarmed while criminals stayed armed. Not such a great idea, IMHO.

@Self_Consuming_Cannibal Pepper spray? Seriously? Not a deterrent dude. Funny thing, that deterrent concept. Recently, a well known newspaper, (you know the one) ,felt the need to publish, on a map, all the names and addresses of people with gun permits there. And you know who complained the loudest about all these disclosures? You might quickly think it was those gun owners having their privacy violated but no, it was the voice of the non gun owning society. They were worried that any criminal would now know exactly who was unarmed so they themselves would be the more attractive home invasion targets….

Whoops!

That tells a compelling story right there does it not? Seems it does. That anti gun people have, in a round about way, shown that even they truly believe that guns are a proven deterent to violent criminal activities. There’s a psycological term for that I’m sure but since I only have real world human experience perhaps someone else here can share whatever it is?

@ETpro What does “IMHO” mean?

In my honest opinion

@woodcutter So you don’t think that pepper spray or mace can be effective at all? You ever had an eyeful? I’m not saying that being a gun owner won’t make some criminals think twice about stealing from you, but in some cases it could make you a target. Say for example if you’re not home or someone knows that you keep it locked in your car that could cause them to break in to retreave it. Plus so many criminals that haven’t been caught yet have legally obtained guns that they can use to commit crimes.

In case you didn’t notice my previous agrument. Since 1982 there have been 61 shooting sprees here in the US. Of those 61, 49 were done by people who legally obtained their guns. Now how does 80.3% of the shooting sprees done by legally obtained firearms equal safety to you?

@uberbatman Thanks.

@uberbatman and @Self_Consuming_Cannibal Or “In my humble opinion”.

@ETpro I see the value and intelligence in your arguement and I appreciate the respect you show while disagreeing with me, (some people on here don’t know how to disagree with respect) and at first I do think that will be the case, too many criminals with guns vs. law abiders without. That’s when law enforcement should step it up a notch.

But also to be taken into account is how many of the guns criminals currently have that have been taken from legal gun owners. Plus I found an article showing that the last of the last 61 shooting sprees here in America 49 were done by legally obtained firearms. I do agree keeping them in your home can make you safer, but so many people are abusing the right to bear arms and it’s costing many innocent lives. It’s a very sad and fucked up situation.

@augustlan And thank you as well.

@Self_Consuming_Cannibal Pepper spray would make you ,and me, back off because we aren’t highly motivated thugs with one thing on their mind and that would be to pulverize their intended target. These type of folks don’t play, and in most cases all you will accomplish by dousing them with spray is to assure a complete and total beat down because then you have not only failed to cooperate with them, you have infuriated them beyond sanity. Someone jacked up on meth or alcohol or both ,or anything ,will not be impressed at all with that yuppie arsenal. Save the spray for scary dogs because that’s all it is really good for. You cite a lot of what- if’s there. In states where concealed carry is common anyone, except the totally dorky dork, looks like a gamble which also has the effect for those who have no weapons at all look unattractive to a mugger. In after arrest interviews of criminals one common theme of there’s was, they don’t fear or respect the police really but, they worry about picking on the wrong person and getting shot. Cops have a protocol and have to try to play nice (if possible) but there is no measurement on what scares the hell out of a civilian when face to face with someone threatening them. And the civvies with concealed weapons far outnumber the cops in most places.

Try this for the hell of it. Have signs / bumper stickers attached to your car or home that read, no guns on premises, or car.
Explain to us whether you would or would not agree to try this.

Seriously

@woodcutter One thing that bother me about your last post is that so many people are carrying guns but yet when it comes to mass murder it’s not the armed citizens coming to the rescue, it’s either the police or the shooter killing themselves when they hear the sirens.

Even if I did try your idea and told you about you wouldn’t believe me. So that’s why I wouldn’t try it. I actually think that owning a gun would overall make me feel more confident about an attack (not that I’m paranoid about it happening anyways) but I chose to not have one for the damage I believe it could do if it fell into the wrong hands. So in other words I’m taking one for the team for the greater good.

Here’s some lurve for not being disrespectful this time.

@Self Consuming Cannibal Here’s the skinny on the many concealed carry people. And it is that, the mass shootings are cherry picked so that there is less a chance the shooter will encounter resistance. When they enter a “gun free zone” it pretty much means those who may have been carrying had to leave their strap in a car so the area is mostly disarmed by law. It’s happy hunting for the shooter. Schools make excellent targets for these people because they know they are going to have a lot of time do a lot of damage before someone with firepower shows up. Something to think about the next time you see one of those signs before entering. or not

And when people carry for self defense it is really their self defense they concern themselves with. Any expectation that good Samaritan laws require private persons to do high risk rescue work are non existent. It is their choice, and because of legal headaches after the fact it is usually wise for each person to defend themselves or their people and, there is never any guarantee this could be done anyway. Police depts. cover their officers with all the liabilities needed hopefully if there is a mishap, but regular gun owners there are on their own. If I try to stop a killer and hit someone unintentionally I would be screwed. And I would no doubt be criticized if someone complained about why I didn’t do more to save their loved one. Not my job mang.

I really think you are way too smart to install those signs on your stuff, anyone would be.

@woodcutter Once again you raise a good point. In settings where you are not suppossed to have concealed weapons are a playground for shooters and that seems to be a prime target for these shooters. And I guess good Samaratins should only be responsible for themselves and their loved ones for legal and perhaps moral reasons.

I just think that mass shootings are too big of a problem nowadays and the fact that so many people that do them have legally obtained their guns is a problem that should be stopped.

I never did think of the legal repercussions of a good Samaritin trying to help out other people. Once again you’ve raised valid points. While I’m sure that we will never agree on this subject I do think that maybe we’ve grown to respect (while totally disagreeing with) each other’s points-of-view (at least I have grown to respect your point of view) and I hope maybe you have grown to respect mine.

I do find it refreshing to find an intelligent but yet different point-of-view.

yeah I’m accused of that sometimes ;)

@Self_Consuming_Cannibal I’ve experienced both tear gas and pepper spray thanks to our charming military training exercises. All I wanted to do in each case was escape the irritant. But if I were in a violent confrontation and you hit me with either of those, I would open fire and keep shooting till I exhausted my ammunition. You can see through the tears. It isn’t fun, but you can function. Pepper spray an armed man, and you have one very pissed-off armed man who can still see who sprayed him.

@ETpro I could see how it could be taken out of context but I wasn’t saying pepper spray or mace could stop someone with a gun. I was responding to a point being made about a 90 lb. woman having to deal with a 300 lb. man. In a “hand-to-hand” fight in certain situations, mace or pepper spray can be an equalizer. But not always, I know this. But it should at least allow you time to run.

As far as a gun vs. pepper spray or mace. Yes a gun would win in most cases, but sometimes even if you cooperate you will still get shot, if you think that’s the case then at least pepper spray would severly hamper someone’s ability to aim straight. Nothing is better than something.

If you shoot mace at a pissed off guy with big muscles you are going to be sore in the morning at the very least. Thing is,there’s no way to know what anyone is going to do. All anyone can do is react to whatever they do and hope it was the right thing to do. You probably won’t have more than one chance to resolve a volatile situation. It’s going to be a race of sorts and if you are good at running that would be the best solution. How many here think of themselves as fast runners? Not this guy.

@woodcutter I can run fast but because of my asthma, unfortunately I can’t run long.