How do you feel about guns?

[S.A.M.]

www.endabuse.org

Are you suggesting that the women might shoot their abusive partner? The above is saying much about violence against women. I am missing the point where gun ownership is responsible for the above statistics. Maybe you are suggesting that woman should own guns for their own protection. If not, it looks like a good argument towards that end.

Please help me here, because I am missing your point--considering what you have shown me... ?

I am not being sarcastic. There may be something you are suggesting and I don't see it.

That statement ignores the fact that if these women were so good at self-defense, poison or knives would do just as well.

No what I mean is that where women are subject to abuse and either emotionally or psychologically unable to defend themselves, lack of gun control is likely to increase the odds of their becoming victims of more severe abuse and homicide.

This is from the link I assume you still did not read.

• Nearly one-third of all women murdered in the United States in recent years were murdered by a current or former intimate partner. In 2000, 1,247 women, more than three a day, were killed by their intimate partners.

• Of females killed with a firearm, almost two-thirds of were killed by their intimate partners.

• Access to firearms increases the risk of intimate partner homicide more than five times more than in instances where there are no weapons, according to a recent study. In addition, abusers who possess guns tend to inflict the most severe abuse on their partners.

• In 2002, 54 percent of female homicide victims were shot and killed with a gun.

• Handguns are more likely than rifles or shotguns to be used in homicides in which men kill women. In 2002, handguns were used in 73 percent of cases where men used firearms to kill women.

• In homicides where males use firearms to kill women, handguns are the most commonly used weapon, over rifles and shotguns. Seventy-three percent of all female were killed with a handgun

• In 1998, for every one woman who used a handgun to kill an intimate acquaintance in self-defense, 83 women were murdered by an intimate acquaintance using a handgun.

• A study of women physically abused by current or former intimate partners found a five-fold increased risk of the partner murdering the woman when the partner owned a gun.

• Domestic violence misdemeanor convictions and restraining orders were the second most common reason for denials of handgun purchase applications between 1994 and 1998.

•From 1998 to 2001, more than 2,800 people with misdemeanor domestic violence convictions were able to purchase guns without being identified by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

 

[S.A.M.]

Um, and exactly what "point" are women making being beaten like that unable to defend themselves against a physically superior attacker?

You wouldn't want those people to have easy access to guns? I sure as hell wish those women did! If you think having a women average 30 incidents of abuse is fine, you're gotta be on crack or something!

- N

It would help if you read all the posts rather than select ones.

 

[TimeTraveler]

That won't work. Apparently the only reason why some of us don't live in fear is because we are oblivious to the dangers around us. Ignorance and bliss and all that.....apparently.

Ok, name one place on earth thats safe? Maybe a place with no humans?

Of course the USA is unsafe, we are hated by everynoe, we are hated by terrorists, we are hated by Europeans, we are hated by other Americans, this environment would make anyone paranoid, but the hate is global so where exactly is the safe country?

 

[S.A.M.]

Ok, name one place on earth thats safe? Maybe a place with no humans?

Of course the USA is unsafe, we are hated by everynoe, we are hated by terrorists, we are hated by Europeans, we are hated by other Americans, this environment would make anyone paranoid, but the hate is global so where exactly is the safe country?

Well lets see. I'm 36. I've survived all these years in several countries with no weapon (except my tongue ).

I have a warm place to sleep, more than enough to eat, I have travelled countless miles in cars and planes without an accident or a hijack and have never been mugged or attacked. I feel pretty safe.

I could possibly get shot down tomorrow by a raving maniac breaking into my house. However I could just as easily get knocked down while crossing the street, get a fatal dose of E.coli eating a harmless bunch of spinach, discover my last bout of blood donation gave me HIV or have my house fall on me when I'm sleeping due to a terrorist attack.

Assuming the raving maniac is someone I know, How many of these would a gun protect me from?

 

[Nickelodeon]

There may be no place that is neccesarily COMPLETELY safe. But get a sense of perspective! Life is sometimes dangerous, but sometimes its not, that doesnt mean we have to fear every little thing on the fucking planet. Some of the dangers you talk about pale into insignificance compared to road accidents, injuries at work etc. I mean should I walk around with a helmet on everytime I am outside in case someone throws a brick of the top of a building at me? This "we are hated by everyone" mentality is exactly the kind of bunker mentality that fucks you up so much.

 

[TimeTraveler]

Then you support the right to bear arms against... who? Your own people? Wouldn't they be better aimed against the government that serves you, and America, so badly? Isn't retaining a gun in order to shoot your fellow citizens a sickening distortion of the original intent?

You are crazy. My people ARE government employees, and global, and some of them may work in your government too, whats the point? I'm a human, I'm not a profession.

Second, I want to protect my people, how can you say something is wrong with me ?! I don't want a gun to shoot people with it, I never said I wanted to shoot people okay?

I know I cannot protect everyone, but I have people I care about enough to use a gun to protect. What's wrong with you? Don't you have people you'd protect? Like your mother? Your sister? Maybe some of your friends?

It's not anger, it's love that makes a person of my character want to own a gun, it's fear. Then you have criminals who don't love or fear and you want these people to have all the guns? Don't you see that you get to choose if guys like me and Baron Max get to have the guns, or unknown faceless criminals, and you are choosing the criminals?

I'm not saying everyone should have a gun, but why do you want to make it easier for the wrong people to have them? If you don't want to have a gun, I never said you had to have one, but why do you wan't to get rid of the natural right to self defense? Do you declaw your cats and defang your dogs? Do you pull the sharp fangs out of a wolf so the wolf cannot defend itself and pull the nails out of a cat so it cannot climb trees? We don't even treat animals this way.

 

[S.A.M.]

Do you declaw your cats and defang your dogs? Do you pull the sharp fangs out of a wolf so the wolf cannot defend itself and pull the nails out of a cat so it cannot climb trees? We don't even treat animals this way.

You could grow your nails as a lethal weapon. No one would object.

A gun is an instrument for murder. It has no other purpose and is an accident waiting to happen in the hands of people not trained to make decisions under stressful situations. It takes only one accidental death to ruin the rest of your life.

Four-year-old Demetrius Brown continues to recover from an apparent accidental shooting in his South Bend home on Thursday evening.

Police are still trying to figure out how the youngster got his hands on a .38 caliber handgun, a weapon his mother says she did not know about.

A 9-year-old boy was killed Saturday when a pistol that his mother carried in her purse for protection discharged accidently, the police said. The boy, Antoni Dante Franklin, was pronounced dead at a hospital after a .38-caliber bullet entered his back and pierced his throat. Officers said Antoni and his mother, Wanda Franklin, 28, a registered nurse, had gone shopping and were carrying sacks of groceries to their apartment when the mother dropped her purse and the gun went off.

* In 1995 a firearm was the weapon used in about 7 out of 10 murders in the United States. In 1994, there were 39,720 firearm-related deaths in the United States; 13,593 people were murdered with handguns; 20,540 committed suicide by using firearms; 1,610 people were killed accidentally with firearms; and the remaining 3,977 died from other firearm-related incidents including self-defense; justifiable use of force by a law enforcement officer; and homicide using a firearm other than a handgun. About 1.3 million violent crimes were reported which included the use of firearm, more than 86% of them involved a handgun.

* More U.S. teens aged 15-19 die of gunshot wounds than of all natural causes combined, and firearms are involved in 65% of all suicides among persons under the age of 25.

* An estimated 150,000 people are treated annually in U.S. hospital emergency units for nonfatal gun-related injuries and approximately 80,000 require admission for in-patient care. Cost estimates range from $1.4 billion to $4.0 billion annually in direct medical costs and $19 billion annually in indirect costs, such as lost future earnings, permanent disability, etc. An estimated 86% of gun shot victims receiving medical treatment in hospital emergency units are uninsured or insured by Medicaid, so tax payers bear most of the cost of their medical care.

* The F.B.I.'s stolen gun file contains over 2 million reports, 60% of which are reports of stolen handguns, although handguns represent only one third of all firearms privately owned in the U.S.

 

[TimeTraveler]

You could grow your nails as a lethal weapon. No one would object.

A gun is an instrument for murder. It has no other purpose and is an accident waiting to happen in the hands of people not trained to make decisions under stressful situations. It takes only one accidental death to ruin the rest of your life.

I don't know why you people fear me having the gun but not the criminals. Thats what I do not understand. Anyone can check my record, I've never been violent, never commited any sorta violent crime, I have no criminal history, I'm not on drugs. If I cannot go through a backround check and legally get a gun, but a criminal can just buy a gun off the street, thats just wrong.

I'm not the person to fear, I'd never shoot any of you. The criminal however who routinely breaks the law, they are the one you should be fearing.

It bothers me when people post stuff like we have to keep the criminals safe and well armed, maybe not those exact words but thats what gun control does, it protects the criminals at the expense of the citizens.

There may be no place that is neccesarily COMPLETELY safe. But get a sense of perspective! Life is sometimes dangerous, but sometimes its not, that doesnt mean we have to fear every little thing on the fucking planet. Some of the dangers you talk about pale into insignificance compared to road accidents, injuries at work etc. I mean should I walk around with a helmet on everytime I am outside in case someone throws a brick of the top of a building at me? This "we are hated by everyone" mentality is exactly the kind of bunker mentality that fucks you up so much.

It's true, stop calling it bunker mentality. If no one is there to protect you, then what? Don't you see that you basically depend on everyone else for your existance? I depend on people too, but at least I recognize how fragile existance is. Existance works in a chain, and the chain of existance is very fragile. It would be nice if each one of you could guarentee right now that you'd defend each one of us, but by the way you communicate and carry yourselves, some of you I think would morph into a cat, and some of you would go into pack mode and then try and declaw all the cats in the room so as to make it easier for the dog or the wolf to take control.

 

[S.A.M.]

I don't know why you people fear me having the gun but not the criminals. Thats what I do not understand. Anyone can check my record, I've never been violent, never commited any sorta violent crime, I have no criminal history, I'm not on drugs. If I cannot go through a backround check and legally get a gun, but a criminal can just buy a gun off the street, thats just wrong.

I'm not the person to fear, I'd never shoot any of you. The criminal however who routinely breaks the law, they are the one you should be fearing.

It bothers me when people post stuff like we have to keep the criminals safe and well armed, maybe not those exact words but thats what gun control does, it protects the criminals at the expense of the citizens.

Tell me have you ever actually faced down a criminal? Or shot anybody?

 

[TimeTraveler]

Tell me have you ever actually faced down a criminal? Or shot anybody?

I've faced down criminals without guns, I've never shot anyone. Look, I'm not a police officer, and thats not what I'm saying I am or trying to be. I'm worried that in a really bad situation the police might stretch thin, or in fact run away like they did in new orleans, and then what? The police are human too, and the majority of them have families to protect, and their families rank higher than the public, and I understand that.

I'm just saying, if there is chaos, how am I going to protect my family? You never told me any information which would give me any way to protect my family, because you don't care about me or my family and are more concerned with guns and gun control than anything else. If you support gun control, figure out how to take the guns out of the hands of criminals.

Well lets see. I'm 36. I've survived all these years in several countries with no weapon (except my tongue ).

I have a warm place to sleep, more than enough to eat, I have travelled countless miles in cars and planes without an accident or a hijack and have never been mugged or attacked. I feel pretty safe.

I could possibly get shot down tomorrow by a raving maniac breaking into my house. However I could just as easily get knocked down while crossing the street, get a fatal dose of E.coli eating a harmless bunch of spinach, discover my last bout of blood donation gave me HIV or have my house fall on me when I'm sleeping due to a terrorist attack.

Assuming the raving maniac is someone I know, How many of these would a gun protect me from?

I'm not saying a gun will protect you from everything. The gun only protects you from stupid criminals, criminals stupid enough to use a gun, or a knife, or just from a domestic abuser. I'm not pro gun, I'm pro self defense, I don't care what you use to defend yourself, as long as you can.

Some people, in some situations, are safer with a gun by their side. All of these things you mentioned that are happening around you, do you feel safe? Do you even care about the quality of your food or water? You don't have to carry a gun, but instead of fighting for gun control why don't you fight for higher quality food and water, why don't you support your local community farm? Seriously, of all the things you should be focused on, is gun control your first priority?

 

[S.A.M.]

I've faced down criminals without guns, I've never shot anyone. Look, I'm not a police officer, and thats not what I'm saying I am or trying to be. I'm worried that in a really bad situation the police might stretch thin, or in fact run away like they did in new orleans, and then what? The police are human too, and the majority of them have families to protect, and their families rank higher than the public, and I understand that.

I'm just saying, if there is chaos, how am I going to protect my family? You never told me any information which would give me any way to protect my family, because you don't care about me or my family and are more concerned with guns and gun control than anything else. If you support gun control, figure out how to take the guns out of the hands of criminals.

Why are you constantly anticipating a bad situation?

Surely you are educated and resourceful enough to deal with an emergency?

I remember when I was in college, there was a series of bomb blasts in south Bombay. My sister and I were stuck there, trains were shut down for fear of blasts and buses and cabs were already full.

We walked from 11 am to 5 pm, through the whole city, avoiding areas where we could hear the police using force to contain the riots that broke out. I just went into a bookstore and got a road map and avoided the areas which according to me were most likely to be dangerous. We had less than 10 dollars and we did not feel safe taking a ride. But we were patient and did not panic, we stayed put when we heard shouts and rioting until we felt safe to go on, and we did reach home safely.

Panic and fear make you weak and lead to hasty decisions, which may have irreversible consequences.

The best thing is to have faith in your own abilities and be rational.

Later we heard hundreds of people had died in shooting incidents in the areas we had passed through. But we managed to get through safely because we used our brains, not guns.

 

[TimeTraveler]

Why are you constantly anticipating a bad situation?

Surely you are educated and resourceful enough to deal with an emergency?

I remember when I was in college, there was a series of bomb blasts in south Bombay. My sister and I were stuck there, trains were shut down for fear of blasts and buses and cabs were already full.

We walked from 11 am to 5 pm, through the whole city, avoiding areas where we could hear the police using force to contain the riots that broke out. I just went into a bookstore and got a road map and avoided the areas which according to me were most likely to be dangerous. We had less than 10 dollars and we did not feel safe taking a ride. But we were patient and did not panic, we stayed put when we heard shouts and rioting until we felt safe to go on, and we did reach home safely.

Panic and fear make you weak and lead to hasty decisions, which may have irreversible consequences.

The best thing is to have faith in your own abilities and be rational.

Later we heard hundreds of people had died in shooting incidents in the areas we had passed through. But we managed to get through safely because we used our brains, not guns.

I don't fear like you fear. I never panic. So that's unlikely. The reason I plan for the worst and hope for the best is because, the people who planned for the worst usually are the ones who learn to benefit from the worst possible situation.

Safety is an illusion in this world, thats the truth. Your house isn't safe, neither is anywhere else, so just going home does not guarentee that you'd have been safe. In some situations you might not have a home to go to, what if your house is completely destroyed, where do you go then? You are officially homeless, what then? Do you want to be stranded homeless in an inner city during a riot?

I'm not as fearful as you may seem or at least not the sorta fear you think. I'm just saying plan for the worst and hope for the best, and having a gun is like having a first aid kit, you don't have it for when times are good, you have it for when times are so bad that you can't live without it. It's just like having a few weeks supply of food and water, a flashlight, a first aid kit, it just makes sense to have a gun and a knife too. You don't save these tools so you can use them on people, thats not the reason to have a knife or a gun, you might need the gun to hunt an animal for food, you might need the knife to cut stuff while building a tent, you never know what you'll need a knife or a gun for.

Second, you over estimate the ability of people to cooperate in times of danger. Yes you could have a situation where people cooperate but it does not help. Let's take hurricane Katrina as a perfect example, all the herd went into the superdome, moments later criminals have guns and are sniping and raping people. Even if it was just a few criminals, a few of these actions by just a few people can terrorize thousands of people. So no, you won't be secure just because you develop a herd mentality if you are herded into a superdome environment and theres no police, only criminals and guns.

That's just one example, there are plenty of others. If you are in an environment where everyone is dying around you of avian flu, and it's bad, like the black plague that took over Europe, what are your plans for this?

What are your plans for a nuclear attack? Don't you see that you need plans for all of the possible bad situations?

So give me a rundown of some of your plans for future bad situations, show me that you have foresight, and I'll accept that we just have a difference of opinion but that you are a supporter of self defense.

 

[S.A.M.]

I don't fear like you fear. I never panic. So that's unlikely. The reason I plan for the worst and hope for the best is because, the people who planned for the worst usually are the ones who learn to benefit from the worst possible situation.

Safety is an illusion in this world, thats the truth. Your house isn't safe, neither is anywhere else, so just going home does not guarentee that you'd have been safe. In some situations you might not have a home to go to, what if your house is completely destroyed, where do you go then? You are officially homeless, what then? Do you want to be stranded homeless in an inner city during a riot?

I'm not as fearful as you may seem or at least not the sorta fear you think. I'm just saying plan for the worst and hope for the best, and having a gun is like having a first aid kit, you don't have it for when times are good, you have it for when times are so bad that you can't live without it. It's just like having a few weeks supply of food and water, a flashlight, a first aid kit, it just makes sense to have a gun and a knife too. You don't save these tools so you can use them on people, thats not the reason to have a knife or a gun, you might need the gun to hunt an animal for food, you might need the knife to cut stuff while building a tent, you never know what you'll need a knife or a gun for.

Second, you over estimate the ability of people to cooperate in times of danger. Yes you could have a situation where people cooperate but it does not help. Let's take hurricane Katrina as a perfect example, all the herd went into the superdome, moments later criminals have guns and are sniping and raping people. Even if it was just a few criminals, a few of these actions by just a few people can terrorize thousands of people. So no, you won't be secure just because you develop a herd mentality if you are herded into a superdome environment and theres no police, only criminals and guns.

That's just one example, there are plenty of others. If you are in an environment where everyone is dying around you of avian flu, and it's bad, like the black plague that took over Europe, what are your plans for this?

What are your plans for a nuclear attack? Don't you see that you need plans for all of the possible bad situations?

So give me a rundown of some of your plans for future bad situations, show me that you have foresight, and I'll accept that we just have a difference of opinion but that you are a supporter of self defense.

If it makes you happy to borrow trouble, go ahead.

I've looked after myself and my family for enough years to be confident of my abilities in any given situation.

Not really upto imagining hypothetical situations which may never happen.

I'd rather deal with reality. I keep myself up to date with whats happening so I can deal with projected events. No one is prepared for the unexpected and can only hope for the best if such happens.

Living in fear is not for me, sorry. I like my life fear-free the way it is now.

 

[TimeTraveler]

If it makes you happy to borrow trouble, go ahead.

I've looked after myself and my family for enough years to be confident of my abilities in any given situation.

Not really upto imagining hypothetical situations which may never happen.

I'd rather deal with reality. I keep myself up to date with whats happening so I can deal with projected events. No one is prepared for the unexpected and can only hope for the best if such happens.

Living in fear is not for me, sorry. I like my life fear-free the way it is now.

Thats where you are wrong. Clearly, the gun makers and gun dealers are always prepared for the unexpected. They both know that no matter what disaster strikes, there will always be demand for guns, and as fear and insecurity rise, the need for a gun rises with it, thus demand for guns is predicted to increase as insecurity rises.

Economics are predictable, you can profit from chaos or from order, you can profit from misery or from happiness, from war or from peace, from trust or from paranoia. You see my point? Hope does not exist in the economic or scientific world. Hope is based on faith, and some of us have no faith in humanity, and therefore no hope for the future, you can call these people cynics, or realists, but the obvious truth to anyone who is paying attention is that humanity is on a path to self destruction. If you just join the herd you are likely to follow whatever that path is. How are you going to save yourself? 99% of everyone in any situation thought "well I'll just worry about it when I face that situation'', then they face a situation they can't handle.

You have to in your mind be able to handle ANY situation, ANYTHING, before you can say you can survive any situation. You have to be able to handle the worst situation you can possibly imagine. If you can't even imagine the worst situation, it does not even make sense if you try to say you are prepared for what you cannot imagine.

 

[S.A.M.]

99% of everyone in any situation thought "well I'll just worry about it when I face that situation'', then they face a situation they can't handle.

This can happen with preparation too.

Basically it all boils down to individual resourcefulness.

 

[TimeTraveler]

This can happen with preparation too.

Basically it all boils down to individual resourcefulness.

Don't you think you'd be more resourceful with a gun? How will you protect your resources without a gun?

 

[S.A.M.]

Don't you think you'd be more resourceful with a gun? How will you protect your resources without a gun?

Hmm if I was suddenly atacked by someone who had a gun it would be impossible to protect myself even if I had a gun.

In such a case, what would you do?

If someone suddenly came in front of you with a gun would you reach for yours?

 

[Neildo]

What would the 19 year old kid have done if he had had a gun, I wonder?

Guns aren't outlawed where I live. He could have easily acquired one. He could have easily acquired one even if they were banned.

Now had the other kid who was stabbed had a gun? Well, they were underage, but if they were of age and were carrying, they could have stopped the guy after the first stabbing attempt. But instead, that 19 year old will only serve a couple months, maybe up to 2 years and will be released so he can commit more assaults, then get thrown in for a little bit longer, and then come out a free man again. The criminal system is a joke. People serve numerous small sentences and they get released every single time.

Let me get this straight. They immigrate, and also hate white people? Doesn't make much sense to me.

How doesn't that make sense? In a city that is 66% hispanic, whites are the minority so they can go ahead and come across the border and live here and blend in quite easily. It's practically little Mexico here so they all feel at home.

I don't have a problem with authorised people such as police carrying guns, provided strict limits are put on their use. Police sometimes need guns. The average red neck like you does not.

My example is off-duty police officers. Surely they don't have a need for a gun since other regular ol' police officers can come to their beckoning call when they dial 911, no? According to your guys' logic anyways.

And hell no I'm not a redneck. My ass lives in Southen California, not the South or some wasteland white trash desert community. But hey, that's the sacrifice of being an independent. Vote for freedom of others and you're called a liberal. Vote for the freedom of owning guns and you're called a redneck, lol. Gee, such an alien concept.. this.. "freedom".

And yes, I do need to carry a gun on me as well. Why? Well, you hate the Bush administration, yes? You should know all about guilt by association. Just being friends with cops makes you a target and yes, I've been confronted a couple times in the past. But hey, that's all just paranoia, right? Welcome to the real world.

Maybe you should move to someplace where you don't live in fear.

I don't live in fear. It's called taking logical precautions. If you have no problem being an open target, fine by me. Lemme see you dressed up in your finest tux with lots of jewelry on while walking through a bad part of town. You won't do it? Gee, I wonder why. For your safety, you're logical decision not to is just "paranoia" otherwise I guess.

Or, maybe you should lobby for gun control laws, and eliminate one of your fears.

I'll bet you $5,000 that I can go to any country where guns are supposedly outlawed and buy one within the time it takes you to finish watching a movie. Guns are easy access no matter where you live. If someone is determined to get one, they will get one.

You will find a time when your utopian fantasy crumbles and realize things aren't as perfect as you hoped and then you will have to adapt like the rest of mankind because evolution is all about survival of the fittest and none of your hopeful thinking can ever prove history wrong. You're lucky, that's all you are. And you're lucky that there are people willing to protect you when you don't even bother to do so yourself.

-----------

Pure paranoia.

Pure paranoid my ass, it's called reality.

Sam don't you get it, with gun control, in AMERICA, the criminals with their uzis will take over the streets to the point where the police will be afraid of them, or there just won't be enough police to handle it.

Ask a criminal who they fear more and they won't say the police, they'll say a citizen with a gun. Criminals always know police are armed so they stay away. When they break into a house, they know the police won't respond until it's too late. However, a criminal won't know if the house they're breaking into is armed. Since most people aren't, they'll assume it's not so. Once they hear the loud warning sign of a shotgun getting locked and loaded, they'll head for the hills. Criminals know a homeowner will shoot and kill the guy whereas a police confrontation results in the cops trying to subdue them as humanely as possible thanks to whacky liberal groups trying to make criminals out to be victims especially with the way our crazy sue-happy people are.

Don't you see that you get to choose if guys like me and Baron Max get to have the guns, or unknown faceless criminals, and you are choosing the criminals?

Haven't you heard? It's LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS that we have to worry about, lol!

It would help if you read all the posts rather than select ones.

Um, you made no follow-up post to what I quoted of you, so yes, I read everything. Your follow-up post didn't come until after I made my post that you're responding to.

P.S. I took a look at that report you linked to. It's a bit biased, isn't it? For instance, it asserts that UK gun control paranoia started to rear it's head after the 1987 Hungerford and 1996 Dunblane shootings. The truth, I have to tell you, is that we've always favoured gun control, since Time began

I wouldn't say those shootings caused people to want gun control laws, but I betcha it sure as heck helped get it into motion. It was the kick in the ass they needed to get the ball rolling as opposed to just talking about it. Just look at our Columbine High School shootings and how that made all parents paranoid as heck. Surely it played a huge role in it.

I could possibly get shot down tomorrow by a raving maniac breaking into my house. However I could just as easily get knocked down while crossing the street, get a fatal dose of E.coli eating a harmless bunch of spinach, discover my last bout of blood donation gave me HIV or have my house fall on me when I'm sleeping due to a terrorist attack.

Wow, talk about living in denial. You sound just like smokers who try and justify their smoking by "we'll all die some day".

A gun is an instrument for murder. It has no other purpose and is an accident waiting to happen in the hands of people not trained to make decisions under stressful situations. It takes only one accidental death to ruin the rest of your life.

Well hey, that's just the risk we'll have to take. One accidental death from a firearm? I mean hey, we'll all die some day, lol. We can die crossing the street, walking our doggie, getting E coli from spinach, getting HIV from a blood donor, a terrorist attack, falling out of bed, getting in a car accident, or choking on a pretzel...

Four-year-old Demetrius Brown continues to recover from an apparent accidental shooting in his South Bend home on Thursday evening.

Police are still trying to figure out how the youngster got his hands on a .38 caliber handgun, a weapon his mother says she did not know about.

A 9-year-old boy was killed Saturday when a pistol that his mother carried in her purse for protection discharged accidently, the police said. The boy, Antoni Dante Franklin, was pronounced dead at a hospital after a .38-caliber bullet entered his back and pierced his throat. Officers said Antoni and his mother, Wanda Franklin, 28, a registered nurse, had gone shopping and were carrying sacks of groceries to their apartment when the mother dropped her purse and the gun went off.

Dude, that's full on neglect. Those are the types of people that would wind up doing something else stupid where their kid would die from their hands. Like that one post someone made in the free thoughts section where some chick went to a party, came home drunk, vomited in a bucket, slept with her baby and the baby would up falling into the bucket drowning in her vomit.

If you carry a friggin' loaded gun, you have to have the safety on. Not only that, but if the gun is for self defense, you should make sure the first round is a dummy round for cases where an accidental discharge may happen. When the time comes where you need to use a gun, you won't be shooting the bad guy just once where that dummy round won't hurt the guy, you'll be firing that thing until all you hear is click, click, click, click, click.

I remember one cop that was assaulted off-duty. He was questioned because of an overuse of force. When the judge asked him why he shot the guy 9 times, he responded with something along the lines of "because that's all I had and I would have shot him 15 times if I had a larger magazine".

In such a case, what would you do?

If someone suddenly came in front of you with a gun would you reach for yours?

Nope, I wouldn't. You're not supposed to. Haste makes waste. You're supposed to wait for the opportune time. Clearly if you try and draw when the guy is looking directly at you with a gun drawn, you'll be shot before you even get your hand on it. You wait until he looks the other way because he will be nervous keeping a look out. The moment the guy lets his guard down is when you draw and open fire. You've been watching too many Rambo movies or something.

And this militia thing. The 'right to bear arms' thing. Yet more alien concepts. I mean, these ideas were conceived in the 1770s, weren't they (have I got my history right there?). Are they not now a bit... outdated? It seems laughable to me

Are those laws outdated? Tell that to Switzerland. Tell that to Finland. Tell that to the numerous ranchers that live on the border of Mexico that get kidnapped by the Mexican military due to interferring with their drug running. Tell that to all of the numerous countries that have been invaded these past couple years.

Laws exist for a reason. They WILL need to be put to use, even if it may not seem like it. Do you think emergency plans are outdated for when Capital Hill is under attack? Do you think emergency plans for when the president gets assassinated outdated? I mean those laws rarely see the light of day, but they exist for a purpose for when the time comes.. because that time WILL eventually come. All I gotta say is don't come crying and looking for protection from me because all I'm gonna say is I toldja so and rub it in your face and tell you how idiotic you were. But actually, yeah I'd still take you in. Just be glad that there will be people able to protect you when you find yourself victim to a crime or natural disaster. If ever you get violently attacked -- knock on wood -- and some citizen that you don't know draws on the attacker protecting you, ya better pucker up and kiss that bum of his. People don't just own guns to protect themselves, but others around them as well. Did you know you can get arrested if you don't help prevent a crime? If you see some old lady get her purse nabbed (assuming thousands of people aren't around because good luck arresting that many people, heh), you'll get thrown in the slammer for not doing your civil duty as a citizen.

Do Americans seriously envisage a day where they'll have to rise up against a corrupt government and overthrow it.

If you would have asked this question 10 years ago, I'd have said no. With the crap this administration is doing, I'd have to say maybe.

Anyways, I don't own a gun for the purpose of overthrowing my government, although I know that ability exists if ever the time comes. I own em for protection of myself and others. It's no different than people who have a baseball bat lying in the closet or people that walk around with a small can of pepperspray on their keychain. To not care about the safety of your own self is pretty friggin' stupid in my opinion. Feel free to walk around as an open target, but don't dare try and tell others they shouldn't be allowed to protect themselves. And don't make a joke of it by having highly restrictive laws either. If criminals use knives, don't restrict law-abiding citizens who don't commit crimes to be limited to a toothpick. Criminals will always have access to guns, law-abiding citizens don't. Gun control only hurts law-abiding citizens, not criminals. There's a reason why gun crimes still happen in countries where guns are restricted big time.

- N

 

[TimeTraveler]

Hmm if I was suddenly atacked by someone who had a gun it would be impossible to protect myself even if I had a gun.

In such a case, what would you do?

If someone suddenly came in front of you with a gun would you reach for yours?

If they are going to kill you, they've already decided in their mind what they are going to do to you before they pointed the gun at you. So why not reach for yours if you have time to? Would you rather be raped and tortured with the gun in your face, or would you rather get shot and shoot them in the process? Or would you rather suffer a quick death without the torture? It seems you win either way unless they don't intend on shooting you, and then you both win.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

They just wanted my 5 euros.