Courage not cowardice; balls not bluster

Xelor

Xelor

Registered Senior Member
Tennessee's representatives, less than 60 days ago, passed a bill that lessens the penalties for permit-less carry in Tennessee. The bill passed in the state House of Representatives 72-20. Current law makes it a Class C misdemeanor to carry a handgun without a permit. Violators can be fined up to $500 and face possible imprisonment, but the bill would only fine violators $250 on the first offense. A second amendment will allow officers to confiscate the ammunition of an offender, but not necessarily take the gun. (Source)

Tennessee has one of the highest gun ownership rates among the 50 states -- about 40%, maybe more -- and one doesn't need a permit to buy one in TN. So my rhetorical questions are these:
  • Where were all the gun-toters in TN?
    Apparently not one of them was in the vicinity of the Waffle House in Antioch, TN and willing to use his/her firearm when Reinking got to shooting, hugh?
    • Why was nary a one of them around and willing to use it to stop Reinking?
  • Why did no "packing" guy rush the gunman and shoot him?
Gun rights folks constantly claim civilians need guns for defensive purposes. Then when a situation comes about, not one gun carrying person pulls their gun and uses it....not to shoot a gunman, not to lay down covering fire so someone else can shoot or rush an active shooter. Hell, they won't even blindly throw random objects in the general direction of the shooter as a distraction. Brave talk about how one intends to use their guns is not the same as actually using it to defend something or someone.
  • FL
    • Orlando, FL
    • Parkland, FL high school
    • Ocala, FL
  • Las Vegas, NV
  • TN
  • 2018 School shootings

  • Mass Shootings -- Jan. 2014 to Mark 2017 -- Includes deaths and injuries

    Screen%20Shot%202017-03-26%20at%203.24.50%20PM_1490556319056_57384704_ver1.0_640_480.png

Pick a shooting incident... I don't recall but one, I think, in which anyone (any potential victim or actual observer) with a gun used it to deter/defeat an active shooter.

It'd be one thing if it were so that consistently frequently, even just "pretty often," gun carrying civilians thwart or interdict shooters, but while one or two here and there may do, with some 300M+ guns in the U.S. one'd think that it'd happen far more often, at least 1/3rd as often as it is that folks get shot! None of the major networks (cable or OTA) report that being "a thing" gun owners do.

It'd be one thing if -- in the wake of all that bluster about needing guns, open carry, concealed carry, permitless carry, access to semi-automatic firearms, whatever, because it deters violence and facilitates defense, interdiction, and/or protection -- some of those gun-toters, particularly in "red" states, actually used their firearms to that end when a "bad guy with a gun" is firing it at people.
  • I don't care what kind of "carry" laws there are.
    • There's no point at all to being able to "carry" in any way, shape or form if one's going to leave the gun at home. What the hell, perhaps one's child can get hold of it and shoot themselves or the babysitter.
    • There's no point at all to being able to "carry" in any way, shape or form if one's going to leave the gun in the car so someone break into the car, steal it, and shoot someone, maybe even the gun owner, with it.
I'm sorry, but at the end of the day, the "protect and defend" argument is emptier than a winter rain barrel!

Seems to me gun rights advocates use their mouths to defend their guns and their access to guns far more than they use guns to defend human life.
 
Xelor said:
There's no point at all to being able to "carry" in any way, shape or form if one's going to leave the gun at home. What the hell, perhaps one's child can get hold of it and shoot themselves or the babysitter.
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Or the mother can shoot and kill her child by 'accident', because she is a responsible gun owner and permitted to "carry":

A gun being handled by a young mother in a town outside Cleveland accidentally discharged, sending a bullet into her two-year-old daughter’s chest and killing her, police said Saturday.

The mother, who investigators did not identify, owned the weapon legally and had a permit to carry a concealed gun, according to a statement from Wickliffe, Ohio, police.
​
Xelor said:
There's no point at all to being able to "carry" in any way, shape or form if one's going to leave the gun in the car so someone break into the car, steal it, and shoot someone, maybe even the gun owner, with it.
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Or the child can get the gun while in the car and shoot their parent or themselves with it:

Shazeem Hayes, 19, of South Carolina, was sentenced on Friday to eight years in prison for the death of his girlfriend’s son, 2-year-old Jacarion Gladden, who accidentally shot himself in the chest last year with Hayes’ 9-millimeter pistol

In Indiana, the father of a 3-year-old girl who accidentally shot and injured her pregnant mother faces trial on three felony counts. Menzo Brazier, 21, of Indiana, allegedly left a loaded gun in the car with his girlfriend and two young children when he went inside a store Tuesday.
​

Xelor said:
I'm sorry, but at the end of the day, the "protect and defend" argument is emptier than a winter rain barrel!

Seems to me gun rights advocates use their mouths to defend their guns and their access to guns far more than they use guns to defend human life.
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Well, those kids won't wait to kill themselves.

All told, 1,678 children age 5 and under in America died of gunshot wounds from 1999 to 2016, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control.​

It's as though it's America's version of population control. In at least one of the past previous years, toddlers killed more Americans (also including themselves) than Islamic terrorists killed Americans in the US. I can only assume that this is intended. Darwinism at its best and worst.

The irony is that less than a dozen kids died sets of drawers falling on them because the parents failed to attach the drawers to the wall since 1989. The drawers are recalled, warnings issued, calls for their being banned, etc.. 1,678 kids falling in the same age bracket died of gunshot wounds from 1999 to 2016, and......?

No recall, no ban, no legislation. Nothing. Zip. Nil. Nada.

If we bump the age group up to those who would qualify as minors (ie, under the age of 18), the yearly figure becomes even more horrific.

And it doesn't end there. Go to kids aged between 5 and 24 and it becomes mind blowing:

In 2015, 143 kids between ages five and 24 died as the result of a firearm discharging accidentally. Another 2,601 kids in this age group—It’s okay if I call them kids, right?—took their own lives with a firearm. And another 4,330 were shot dead intentionally.

In the year 2015, there were 35,905 deaths of Americans between the ages of five and 24 from all causes put together. One in five of these young deaths—that’s 7,074 burials in all—were due to firearms. One in five.

Cancer, by comparison, claimed 2,334 lives in this age group. Pneumonia and the flu: 267. Diabetes: 219. Indeed, there were nearly 2,800 fewer deaths in this precious young cohort from drugs than there were from guns. (I, for one, didn’t believe it at first—and had to do the calculation several times to be sure.)​


It's a shame they aren't putting their guns down to actually defend and protect human life.

I noted in the other thread, that defensive gun use in the US is abnormally rare, especially for a country that has so many firearms in the population itself.
 
DaveC426913 said:
But they do often stop eating when sick or injured, and find a place to die.
That could be construed as the animal equivalent of 'I don't want to live anymore.'
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Well, maybe. Elephants, for example, stop eating when they run out of teeth. But that's a pretty far cry from killing yourself.
 
billvon said:
Well, maybe. Elephants, for example, stop eating when they run out of teeth. But that's a pretty far cry from killing yourself.
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Arguably, the elephant would eat if it could. I was thinking less of animals that can't eat, and more of animals that voluntarily stop.
 
DaveC426913 said:
Arguably, the elephant would eat if it could. I was thinking less of animals that can't eat, and more of animals that voluntarily stop.
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I think it would be difficult to determine which animals stop eating because of illness (lost teeth, nausea, loss of appetite due to X) and which are healthy but just decide to stop eating.
 
How many of you lilies would run toward trouble then? Or did you run to a legislator for more laws that won't be enforced? Or weeping in the corner hoping the bad guy kills someone else instead of your worthless ass.

Three times in my life I've had to show a gun so a crime did not take place. For a "gun nut", as I've been called here, you have to be amazed that I haven't killed anyone by accident.

Christ, are y'all paid by CNN, naturally spineless, or flat-out in denial of reality? I should start a poll, but none of the anti-2A clique would answer truthfully...
 
Dr_Toad said:
How many of you lilies would run toward trouble then? Or did you run to a legislator for more laws that won't be enforced? Or weeping in the corner hoping the bad guy kills someone else instead of your worthless ass.
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I would note the difference between gun-toters and unarmed people in the real world.

In the recent Florida school shooting, the armed deputy cowered behind a wall until the shooter was done killing 17 students.
In the more recent Waffle House shooting, an unarmed man (a "worthless ass" "weeping in the corner" in your nomenclature) took out the shooter before anyone was killed.

The real world might not measure up to your imaginings.
 
billvon, the Waffle House shooting hero was put in the position of having to choose what he could do to limit the carnage.

You can't read, hm? I didn't call anyone but you a worthless ass. Check what I wrote, you worthless ass.
 
Dr_Toad said:
billvon, the Waffle House shooting hero was put in the position of having to choose what he could do to limit the carnage.
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Yep. And the guy with the gun was in the same position. He cowered, and 17 people died.

Not quite what the gun toters imagine, eh.
You can't read, hm? I didn't call anyone but you a worthless ass. Check what I wrote, you worthless ass.
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It's unfortunate you can't have a civil discussion without resorting to personal attacks. I hope you can get your anger under control before you encounter someone in the real world, where you might not have the insulation of a keyboard and screen.
 
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