from my cold dead hand

[SuitsBlue]

We do have concealed handgun permits available to those who qualify (i.e. no criminal record) and go through the proper training. I personally don't feel the need to have that permit.

Now, that said, I do keep a gun in my car illegally. Why you ask? Because heaven forbid I break down somewhere, I'd like to know that if someone wants to take advantage of that situation, I'd be able to defend myself. So it wouldn't be to defend my family. Just me.

The main concern I have with having a gun in the home is if you have children in the home. It makes sense to have the gun in a hard to reach or hidden place so a child can't stumble upon it or even find it if looking for it. Anytime a child is shot in the home like this, it get's played up in the media as if it happens all the time. It doesn't but that doesn't mean homeowners shouldn't take steps to avoid accidents. Keep the gun in one place and the ammo in another easy to reach (for adults) place. But keep 'em separate.

I find this fascinating, what level of aptitude does a person need to actually buy and own and then fire a gun?

me personally, i would need to know i was a crack shot, steady as you like, cold as ice, if i was ever going to use a gun in my home around my family for their benefit.

does the keeping of a gun in a car without a permit constitute a criminal offence? would such an individual if found then receive a criminal record and then be excluded from owning a legal firearm for use in their home to protect their family?

theres children and there adolescents, toddlers may not be able to find and reach the gun and ammo, but a 14 year old could well. then what?

 

[atrottel]

Actually, I guess we both feel in a minority over here, since I frequently find myself outnumbered on "social" threads.

But anyway.

Firstly, I wasn't talking about the number of deaths. I was talking about the number of deaths per 1000 in terms of statistics. So I wouldn't call that a straw man argument. And the reason I raised it was in response to what you were saying about gun control potentially increasing deaths from gun-related crime.

Countries that are particularly high include Brazil, Jamaica and some African countries.

The USA is pretty high, although not at the level of the countries mentioned above. It is however some substantial times higher than western European countries.

I would quote the statistics, but I doubt that you would accept them since, although they were supplied by criminal justice departments from the different countries, they were collated by a branch of your least favourite international institution.

I don't think anyone would argue that criminals would no longer be able to obtain firearms with gun control. It patently doesn't happen in any country. What some people in this thread would argue is that the increased availability of guns leads to an increase (proportionally) in gun-related accidents, homicides and suicides.

And yes, there has been an increase in gun-related crime in Europe in recent years. As for the reasons for that, I would suggest that the decay of Eastern European societies and the increase in criminality in those areas since the fall of communism has had something to do with the increase in the availability of guns.

But essentially I think that generally disaffection with society is increasing and I fear that society is polarising over here into haves and have-nots. In countries where an effort has been made to retain an inclusive society the increase in crime has appeared to be less.

Here we deeply and fundamentally but hopefully civilly disagree.

 

[SuitsBlue]

But those are the stories that sell ad space and newsprint. No one cares to read a story about without some sizzle to it. And someone going off kilter and shooting multiple victims sells. The stories about a crime thwarted by a gun rarely make the news. Why? Who cares? That and it doesn't serve the MSM's political agenda.

crime thwarted by a gun? maniac gunned down by police - lacks that feel good factor doesnt it, someone is still dead.

 

[TX Bill]

I find this fascinating, what level of aptitude does a person need to actually buy and own and then fire a gun?

me personally, i would need to know i was a crack shot, steady as you like, cold as ice, if i was ever going to use a gun in my home around my family for their benefit.

does the keeping of a gun in a car without a permit constitute a criminal offence? would such an individual if found then receive a criminal record and then be excluded from owning a legal firearm for use in their home to protect their family?

theres children and there adolescents, toddlers may not be able to find and reach the gun and ammo, but a 14 year old could well. then what?

I honestly cannot answer your question as I haven't bought a gun in years and don't know what procedures need to be followed. I'm confident you can't be a minor but that's as far as I would go.

I don't know what the training is like as I've never been through it. A friend of mine went through it to get the concealed handgun license and said it was fair. Not entirely rigorous but not a cake walk either.

If a police officer pulled me over and found my gun (highly unlikely as he wouldn't have reasonable suspicion) but say he did and found it, I suspect I would get a misdemeanor ticket meaning I'd probably have a fine to pay. I don't know if they'd confiscate the firearm. They might. But a misdemeanor offense wouldn't be enough to preclude me from owning another firearm in the future.

 

[TX Bill]

crime thwarted by a gun? maniac gunned down by police - lacks that feel good factor doesnt it, someone is still dead.

I know you're joking when you say that but it's the feel good factor that really doesn't sell. And yes, someone is still dead. Not a good thing but I'd rather the criminal be dead than there be other potential victims who are innocent.

 

[fozzy]

The fact that you've heard these arguments so many times before doesn't make them any less valid than the first time you had heard them.

300 Million in this country and we get a person that snaps and kills 6 people or someone snaps on a college campus and kills 32. Or two high schoolers snap and kill 10+ in a Colorado high school.

Sounds like an epidemic to me. No. The simple fact is that the media (wow, there I go again on our media, who would have suspected that?) make such a grand production out of these things that you'd think that this sort of thing was happening every day in on Main Street USA. No, 99% of the deaths that result from gun violence in this country are from the criminal element of society. Most of the others are accidental shootings.

But the liberals never let a random act of violence such as this case pass without trotting out the old "we wouldn't have these issues if guns weren't around."

Do I deny that a gun makes it easier for someone who is insane and commited to doing harm to others to do that very harm. No, not at all. But to say that guns are the problem and not the people who use them is disingenous at best. You may call it rhetoric, yet liberals can never come up with a reasoned thought in response to this issue.

tx mate can i just ask you as an american, how meny attocities(sp) like this do you hear about that happen out side the u.s.a??

because i heard and watched pritty much all of them on tv so how meny have you watched and heared of??

nutters killing kids is one thing (ala scotland) terrerists killing kids is another(ala russia) but kids killing kids in a mass murder is preventable!!!!!!! (ok they are all preventible but i was on a roll)

 

[TX Bill]

Actually, I guess we both feel in a minority over here, since I frequently find myself outnumbered on "social" threads.

But anyway.

Firstly, I wasn't talking about the number of deaths. I was talking about the number of deaths per 1000 in terms of statistics. So I wouldn't call that a straw man argument. And the reason I raised it was in response to what you were saying about gun control potentially increasing deaths from gun-related crime.

Countries that are particularly high include Brazil, Jamaica and some African countries.

The USA is pretty high, although not at the level of the countries mentioned above. It is however some substantial times higher than western European countries.

I would quote the statistics, but I doubt that you would accept them since, although they were supplied by criminal justice departments from the different countries, they were collated by a branch of your least favourite international institution.

I don't think anyone would argue that criminals would no longer be able to obtain firearms with gun control. It patently doesn't happen in any country. What some people in this thread would argue is that the increased availability of guns leads to an increase (proportionally) in gun-related accidents, homicides and suicides.

And yes, there has been an increase in gun-related crime in Europe in recent years. As for the reasons for that, I would suggest that the decay of Eastern European societies and the increase in criminality in those areas since the fall of communism has had something to do with the increase in the availability of guns.

But essentially I think that generally disaffection with society is increasing and I fear that society is polarising over here into haves and have-nots. In countries where an effort has been made to retain an inclusive society the increase in crime has appeared to be less.

Here we deeply and fundamentally but hopefully civilly disagree.

Who's that? The U.N. ???

I guess it begs the question then:

"How do you restrict the availability of guns to the criminal element without infringing upon the rights of the law abiding?"

I use the term "criminal element" loosely. Many of these mass killings have been perpetrated by someone mentally unstable and someone who has no criminal record.

I don't disagree that at face value, a mix of more guns and more people would likely result in more deaths per 1000.

I really don't think there will ever be an easy answer to this and some of it may come back to something Suits said earlier.

That other issues in society could stand to be addressed. These are issues that might cause someone to lash out using a gun vs. other avenues. I'm thinking more along the lines of mental illnesses, depression, etc... that usually lead to these mass shootings that get all of the press.

 

[SuitsBlue]

I know you're joking when you say that but it's the feel good factor that really doesn't sell. And yes, someone is still dead. Not a good thing but I'd rather the criminal be dead than there be other potential victims who are innocent.

and theres the line

in a moment of madness a person can pull a trigger.
in a moment of madness a person without a gun cannot pull a trigger.

can you see my point of view now? we arent talking criminals, we are talking everyday law abiding citizens, a husband or wife comes home to find their other half having an affair - crime of passion. paedophile over the road molests your child, crime of vengeance.

putting the capability of instant death in the hands of the masses is dangerous. and once one person owns a gun, everyone else needs one so as not to be subservient.

 

[TX Bill]

tx mate can i just ask you as an american, how meny attocities(sp) like this do you hear about that happen out side the u.s.a??

because i heard and watched pritty much all of them on tv so how meny have you watched heared of??

nutters killing kids is one thing (ala scotland) terrerists killing kids is another(ala russia) but kids killing kids in a mass murder is preventable!!!!!!!

I haven't heard of any recently but it happens from time to time outside of the USA. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

I'm at a loss however at your last statement. Are you saying that nothing could be done about the Scottish kids or the Beslan kids but something could have been done to prevent Columbine?

 

[TX Bill]

and theres the line

in a moment of madness a person can pull a trigger.
in a moment of madness a person without a gun cannot pull a trigger.

can you see my point of view now? we arent talking criminals, we are talking everyday law abiding citizens, a husband or wife comes home to find their other half having an affair - crime of passion. paedophile over the road molests your child, crime of vengeance.

putting the capability of instant death in the hands of the masses is dangerous. and once one person owns a gun, everyone else needs one so as not to be subservient.

So by your logic, with gun control laws, we'd have fewer crimes of passion or vengeance because guns wouldn't be immediately accessable (supposedly)?

 

[SuitsBlue]

with fewer guns in circulation the capability for such 'moments of madness' would be much less.

your term of 'gun control laws' i suspect is different to mine.

i accept and fully support the need for police to be armed, as there are criminals out there in the big bad world doing bad things. but putting the untrained, mentally untested individuals in the responsibility of a killing machine is in my opinion asking for trouble.

i cant say that a small percentage ruin the freedom for the majority, what i will say is that how many innocent lives is that freedom worth?

 

[fozzy]

yes i am becouse the nutter in scottland had a nife and walked in to a school and killed 3/4 year olds (he had a knife) but a 3/4 year old cant fight back!!!

the terrorists were sickoes who thought by killing kids that they would beat the russian rule.so it wasnt a kid it was an army of terrorist!!!

but a kid who can buy a machine gun get pissed off with his/hers mates cuz they dont fit in and go and shoot anybody they see!! can be stopped by him/her not haveing the gun in the first place!!! but if he/her had a knife then the situation wouldnt go no where near as far as it does with a gun!!!!

 

[Ct jr.]

Bill your arguments about having a gun to protect your family is utter [Poor language removed]. The current gun situation was brought about in the late 1700's when a lot of americans lived on farms and ran the risk of being raided by native warparties and bandits. If you have a gun in your home and lets say a burglar breaks in they take your gun and shoot you unless you are sitting up with the gun in your hand at the door and you know for certain that it is a burglar. And by the way this may be an oldie but it is 100% true: Guns kill people. And you would have to be completely and utterly brainless to not see a correlation between access to guns and gun crime. There is no way on earth that anyone in the US would need a gun for protection. For those 2 reasons along with many others it is clear, and if you think about it logically you'll see , in order for these atorcities to stop you need a lot more gun control.

 

[TX Bill]

Bill your arguments about having a gun to protect your family is utter [Poor language removed]. The current gun situation was brought about in the late 1700's when a lot of americans lived on farms and ran the risk of being raided by native warparties and bandits. If you have a gun in your home and lets say a burglar breaks in they take your gun and shoot you unless you are sitting up with the gun in your hand at the door and you know for certain that it is a burglar. And by the way this may be an oldie but it is 100% true: Guns kill people. And you would have to be completely and utterly brainless to not see a correlation between access to guns and gun crime. There is no way on earth that anyone in the US would need a gun for protection. For those 2 reasons along with many others it is clear, and if you think about it logically you'll see , in order for these atorcities to stop you need a lot more gun control.

In your opinion, it's utter [Poor language removed]. To most Americans, it's not only a valid right, it's also a necessary one.

As for completely and utterly brainless, only someone naive (or should I say "less experienced in life") would conclude that law abiding citizens in this country don't need guns. A burglar is gonna break into my home, and take my gun from me? Highly unlikely. My weapon of choice is a 9MM Browning. Great for home defense and not messy like a shotgun.

He'll be lying in pool of his own blood before he gets anywhere near my family. How's that calculate? Pretty distasteful isn't it?

Hey, while we're at it, let's put some sort of controls on all of the Amendments because after all, our Founding Fathers didn't know what the heck they were doing in giving citizens the right to bear arms.

I'll put it to you this way CT.

If you can GUARANTEE me that no criminal could ever get his hand on a weapon with gun control laws in place, I might be willing to consider gun controls. But since it clear that no one can guarantee the actions of others, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that guns are here to stay for a very long time.

Lastly, the old but 100% true "Guns kill People."

When was the last time you saw this headline:

"The gun slowly crept up behind the victim and shot him point blank."

You haven't and you never will. There's gotta be someone there to pull the trigger and they're the ones responsible for their own actions.

 

[SuitsBlue]

In your opinion, it's utter [Poor language removed]. To most Americans, it's not only a valid right, it's also a necessary one.

As for completely and utterly brainless, only someone naive (or should I say "less experienced in life") would conclude that law abiding citizens in this country don't need guns. A burglar is gonna break into my home, and take my gun from me? Highly unlikely. My weapon of choice is a 9MM Browning. Great for home defense and not messy like a shotgun.

He'll be lying in pool of his own blood before he gets anywhere near my family. How's that calculate? Pretty distasteful isn't it?

Hey, while we're at it, let's put some sort of controls on all of the Amendments because after all, our Founding Fathers didn't know what the heck they were doing in giving citizens the right to bear arms.

I'll put it to you this way CT.

If you can GUARANTEE me that no criminal could ever get his hand on a weapon with gun control laws in place, I might be willing to consider gun controls. But since it clear that no one can guarantee the actions of others, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that guns are here to stay for a very long time.

Lastly, the old but 100% true "Guns kill People."

When was the last time you saw this headline:

"The gun slowly crept up behind the victim and shot him point blank."

You haven't and you never will. There's gotta be someone there to pull the trigger and they're the ones responsible for their own actions.

to address 'the founding fathers' and question everything on the foundation of gun rights being wrong is unfair.

slavery was and is wrong. gun rights have no bearing. to group these issues is incredibly wrong.

credibility remember?