Should US have gun control? | Page 3 | Golden Skate

Should US have gun control?

Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I understand that a lot of people handle guns responsibly. I wouldn't hunt myself, but I understand that many people do. Is that what you use the semiautomatic weapons for?

Is there any reason that you feel you absolutely can't live without semiautomatic weapons? A regular rifle and a revolver or two aren't enough? Are you in that much danger up by you?

Let's consider another aspect of the gun issue. Is there a way to be more certain that mentally ill people can't get guns? Police in some cities are thinking of treating the possibility as they treat terrorism: by proactively monitoring internet chatter to see if anyone uses certain key words. That might help, I guess.

I guess if there has to be an armed guard in front of every nursery school and kindergarten, we will have to find the money from somewhere. Since we can't raise taxes on everyone, though, finding the money for that position will be difficult.
 
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Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
I understand that a lot of people handle guns responsibly. The question is, why do you feel you absolutely can't live without semiautomatic weapons? A regular rifle and a revolver or two aren't enough? Are you in that much danger up by you?

if I am being charged by a 2000+ animal - yes I want a semi automatic. again, I think it's the lack of knowledge of what we're talking about that causes the fear. a semi automatic is not the same as a fully automatic... I still have to pump the lever of the gun, a fully automatic I just hold the trigger until nothing's left.

now a completely manual gun I have to put the cartridge in, pump the action, aim, fire, expell the cartridge, reload, pump and go again... when a bear or a moose is charging I might as well just let them have me.

anyway, I think it's best to step out of this discussion, I'd rather not get to the point where I come off as the crazy gun lover. I own several guns, they are stored and used properly and will remain as such.
 
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Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Toni, it helps me to hear what you have to say. I have no way of finding out how these things work, and we've known each other long enough to understand that diverse opinions are a good and healthy thing. Nobody who spends two minutes listening to you would see you as crazy in any regard whatever. (I can't speak as confidently about my own sanity in some areas!) The one thing we should all be unafraid of is talking to one another.
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
It's about deterring people - they're less likely to go into a well protected area. Will it work 100% of the time - probably not - but it won't make it more dangerous either.

But sane people, who are deterred by sane considerations, are not the people we are talking about.

We are talking about a guy who thought the school was pretty well guarded, so he wore body armor and was carrying a Bush Ranger & a Glock.

BTW, I am not for banning guns, but I think we could get along without 30 bullet magazines. Canadian hunters seem to be OK
with 5 bullet magazines for long guns (like Lanza's Bush Ranger) and 10 for handguns. I think that would be reasonable for both hunters and give some protection to regular folk.

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/faq/index-eng.htm#a6

Q7. What is the maximum number of cartridges that a firearm magazine can legally hold?

A7. As set out in Criminal Code Regulations, some large-capacity magazines are prohibited regardless of the class of firearm to which the magazines are attached. As a general rule, the maximum magazine capacity is:
• 5 cartridges for most magazines designed for a semi-automatic centre-fire long gun; or
• 10 cartridges for most handgun magazines

A large-capacity magazine is not prohibited if it has been permanently altered so that it cannot hold more than the number of cartridges allowed by law. Acceptable ways to alter a magazine are set out in the regulations.

There is no limit to the magazine capacity for semi-automatic rim-fire long guns, or for other long guns that are not semi-automatics.

And this time, large magazines should not be grandfathered in.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Yes, I can't envision any civilian use for large magazines. Certainly in hunting they're of no use, because how could you eat something that's been more riddled with bullets than a pomegranate is with seeds?

Joe Scarborough was more eloquent than I could ever be stating the issue.

I also would like to point out that it's ridiculously easy for ordinary people to purchase combat body armor. If people had to show up in just a jacket and jeans, maybe they'd be less intrepid about striding into a public place with armaments. As far as I know, there's no second-amendment right to wear Kevlar from head to toe.

ETA: I just turned to a news site and found this report of a 36-year-old baseball player who took his life with a gun--his own, presumably. He left a wife and three daughters.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-b...-home-former-reds-utility-070021288--mlb.html

While I understand that people with a wish to die will find a way, they might be less able to honor the impulse if the means wasn't right there. As Chekhov said, if there's a gun on the wall in Act 1, it will probably be fired by Act 2.
 
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heyang

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I watched This Week with George S and they also had a debate on gun control. The rep for the NRA was their press secretary (I believe - I came in towards the end,) While no one denied the right to bear arms, the questioned the ownership of military grade automatic weapons, how come 2nd'ary markets are not required to perform background checks when selling guns, why the public needs magazines that can hold more than a few bullets. The NRA rep said that states that allow concealed weapons have less gun violence and that Chicago/Illinois has a high gun death rate while having strong controls. The rep from Illinois said that their gun death rate is traced back to guns bought on the secondary market without criminal background checks - not law abiding citizens. Everyone questioned why the NRA was not willing to compromise on terms that would make it harder for criminals to attain weapons. One member of the panel said that 74% of the NRA membership favors bans on automatic weapons - the NRA however has sponsorship of gun manufacturer's that don't want to see their public market dry up...... need to fact check......
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Yeah, Bluebonnet. I had a similar reaction. If a teacher is not temperamentally suited to hard combat training, does he or she lose qualifications to teach children? Is the prime skill going to be marksmanship? As Patrick Henry said, forbid it, Almighty God.

And now I've heard that a gunman has shot firefighters as they were fighting a fire. Should firefighters too carry guns? Mightn't the guns go off in extreme heat? Or do they too need an armed guard?

Ironically, the NRA leadership currently seems to think that its job is to protect gun owners from us.
 
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CoyoteChris

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 4, 2004
Yeah, Bluebonnet. I had a similar reaction. If a teacher is not temperamentally suited to hard combat training, does he or she lose qualifications to teach children? Is the prime skill going to be marksmanship? As Patrick Henry said, forbid it, Almighty God.

And now I've heard that a gunman has shot firefighters as they were fighting a fire. Should firefighters too carry guns? Mightn't the guns go off in extreme heat? Or do they too need an armed guard?

Ironically, the NRA leadership currently seems to think that its job is to protect gun owners from us.
That guy who killed the firefighters, who incidently killed his grandma with a hammer, tried to buy guns at a store. He failed due to perjuring himself on the NICS check form. The government refused to prosecute him for that.
Ask yourselves these questions. Do you trust your government? If this were Jan 1943, mirai and her parents would be in a concentration camp. Unarmed Jews would be lead away to slaughter. I side with the Jews. Never again. So called look alike assault weapons killed 312 people last year...cell phones killed 3062...alchphol killed way more....or could it be that objects dont kill...maybe societies that dont take care of there mentally ill or hold people responsible for their actions kill. Ask the families of those firefighters if they wished the govt would prosecute those felons who purger themselves on the NICS checks. The second ammt isnt about duck hunting...its a check on the govt.
Ask those guys at Lexington and Concord who stopped the British from confiscating American weapons...they know it can happen here.
Just ask all those American citizens of Japanese descent who were disarmed and taken off to conncentation camps in 1942.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I don't like the word trust in this context, Chris. The government isn't a group sitting out there waiting for us to blink so it can come and get us. We are the government. It works as long as we keep an eye on it. If you think the government is the enemy, take a look at countries where there is no functioning government. What kind of a life could you have there, even if you had an arsenal--or a private militia? Ask someone from Lebanon.

Thinking about Mirai and her family, and Kristi's family (who actually were interned--Mrs. Yamaguchi was born in a camp): the Issei and Nisei didn't have their guns taken away. They had their rights taken away by law. There were years of restrictive immigration laws, and then during the War, California and other states (interestingly, not Hawaii) rounded up Japanese-Americans under the authority of a new law, Executive Order 9066. If the Japanese-Americans had stood up with arms, the army would have come in and mowed them down. Also, I am sorry to say, most of the country did not leap to their defense. In fact, most of the country seems to supported rounding them up, because people in those days were scared and suspicious after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and they were also a lot more ignorant about diversity than we are today. (This shows that we have progressed, which is good news.) That's why I think that this hot-button issue isn't a useful argument in this case.

As for Jews during that time, the difference between America and Europe wasn't the fact that Jews in America were armed and Jews in Europe were not. I am Jewish, and my family was the classic immigrant family, growing up in urban tenements. My grandfather was even a tailor. Their guns were not taken away. They didn't have guns. They didn't even have pets. They had food for the next day. They had books, in English, Hebrew, maybe Russian, and Yiddish, and (because learning was the way to success) in French, German, and Latin. It wasn't guns that protected them. It was laws. By contrast, the laws in Europe in 1941 were the Nuremberg laws. European Jews with guns fought, in places like Warsaw and Vilna, but when things come to the point of hiding in ruined buildings and firing on the greatest army in Europe, the odds will not favor the freedom fighters. Most of them died with their guns in their hands. I honor them in memory--I may have been related to some of them--but I would far rather they had had the law on their side, not an extra rifle, or even a rocket launcher.

Government in a democratic country isn't evil. It's inefficient. It's especially inefficient in a country with 300 million people who all disagree with one another. There are people who want to get richer than other people, who manipulate the laws in their favor if they're not closely watched. There are of course criminals. If you feel safer with a supply of guns in your home, be my guest. But I don't think any amount of armaments will protect you against "the government." As you know, they also have an air force.

The Second Amendment isn't going to be removed from the Constitution. Guns are part of American history and consciousness. But are we not to be allowed to ask questions about regulating gun ownership? Of course, we need to think about how we treat the mentally ill, and how violence is used for fun in movies and video games. But we do need to talk about the easy availability of guns.
 
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heyang

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I do have mixed feelings about this entire debate.

The 2nd amendment is part of the constitution and I believe it was more about defense of person and property. Giving 'an inch' on any right can sometimes lead to the eventual elimination of the right. A lot of people question certatin security measures as a violation of privacy (although technically privacy is not a 'right' - actually ironic due to how readily people divulge their private pictures/info on line and then wonder about how it happened to them - don't put it out there if you don't want it to be forwarded. - sorry for the digression.)

However, these guns were used in crimes - vicious planned attacks. Granted the people are mentally ill and their are privacy concerns as related to medical issues. The NRA and their advocates argue that it's our society and the mentally ill - however, other countries play violent games, watch violent movies and have mentally ill people, yet don't have the same # of mass murders as we do in the US.

What is it about the US?

Also, the NRA is ignoring that social issues take a long time to change.... and it takes constant inching along. In the mean time, something needs to be done.

What is wrong with requiring law abiding citizens to register their guns - they already do. By requiring them in private sales, the gun owner is taking responsibility for ensuring that the weapon is being transferred to a responsible citizen...... If I were a gun owner, I wouldn't want to find out that I sold a gun to someone who used it to kill someone because i didn't do a background check and/or make sure the person was properly trained and licensed.

What is wrong with limiting magazines to 10 or fewer bullets? If you need more than that, you're up to some mayhem IMHO.....

Neither of the above prevent anyone from owning a gun....


Governor Christie's approach.
http://southbrunswick.patch.com/art...aims-for-the-center?ncid=newsltuspatc00000001
 
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Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I noticed that report today too, Heyang. It spotlights a rather cruel paradox. Everyone wants to get the mentally ill off the streets. But no one wants to pay for it or have "them" in "our" neighborhood.

A lot of people imagine that they don't want their tax dollars going to anyone who won't be productive in return. People who are deeply enough into mental illness to need institutionalization or intensive treatment will generally not be productive, at least for long stretches of time. On the surface, spending money on them doesn't look cost effective. But of course the money isn't being spent as a handout to the mentally ill. It is being spent to keep them from becoming a danger to themselves and to everyone else. It's also being spent to help with new research that might be able to control symptoms more effectively. When funds for these purposes are cut, the mentally ill are left to fend for themselves. There's an old adage that says "You get what you pay for." The corollary might be stated like this: "You don't get what you don't pay for." In many areas of life, an investment in the future saves money in the long run.
 

katia

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 20, 2006
However, these guns were used in crimes - vicious planned attacks.
That is true, but in 2010 only 67.5% of all homicides in the United States were perpetrated using a firearm and during the last couple of years the number of homicides in USA went down. What's more, in the US states where there are conceal-carry law, the number of homicides and crime went down.
Further, the recent (rampage) crimes were committed in places where people were prohibited to carry guns.
For me, the rule of the law is fine, but every citizen has to have a right a carry a gun. He then have an ability to defend his home, his family and him/herself when attacked by burglars or by someone, and not wait for a long time for police to come

As for mentally ill -- only a small minority of them are dangerous, and proportionally (percentage-wise) majority of homicides/murders are committed by "normal" people using guns, hammers, and knives not by mentally ill people using guns.
 
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katia

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 20, 2006
Ironically, the NRA leadership currently seems to think that its job is to protect gun owners from us.
After publication of addresses of gun-owners some of them were killed. And couple were nearly burglarized by people who wanted to get their guns. So why should they not be protected from "peacefull" journalists and burglars?
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
The problem is talking about homocides. In states with concealed carry laws, they quite often have "Fire at Will" (or "Stand Your Ground") laws, where the self defense guideline is the survivor saying, "It was self defense-" which, of course, they all say.

In Florida we keep have things that are not called homicides that are; but only the survivors get to claim it was self defense. There was just another case in today's paper where 2 security guards killed a man in a car who was playing loud music. They said he attempted to get one of their guns. Maybe, maybe not, but it will definitely not be a homicide statistic in FL.

Look rather at number of people whose cause of death is gunshot wounds.
 

katia

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 20, 2006
You are assuming that majority of the deaths from gunshot wounds are from "legal guns." If that claim was true then you may be right, but is it true? I would assume that some of the deaths were from "legal guns" and some of the guns used were illegal. I suspect that majority of deaths are from illegal guns. It would be interesting to see the data.
Also look at Switzerland, all Swiss citizens have guns in their homes. And Switzerland is very peaceful country. Do you think that Americans (US citizens) are more violent? If so, why?
I am also nearly certian that majority of crimes - homicides, burglaries (guns are also used when committing burglaries) , and so on -- are committed using illegal guns.
 
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Joined
Jun 21, 2003
The 2nd amendment is part of the constitution and I believe it was more about defense of person and property.

There is continuing debate about this, but to me the wording of the second amendment makes it clear that it was about the rights of states and local jurisdictions to be able to raise a citizen's militia to keep order.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

This right did grow out of British law aimed at preventing the King from disarming the citizens. The main reason why the English monarchy never achieved the sort of dictatorial powers over its citizens that other European nations suffered under was that the King had no standing army of his own. If the king wanted to fight a war he had to appeal to all the noblemen to send him a bunch of soldiers from their own feudal holdings, equipped at each nobleman's expense.

This is the argument that the National Rifle Association makes. We need guns to protect ourselves against the government.

But times change. The government has tanks. The government has satellite controlled drone missiles. The government has atom bombs. The government has a standing army of 2,000,000 trained soldiers.

The folks at Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho, didn't. So, as Olympia says, we had better get cracking on using the full power of the ballot box and other democratic institutions and not put our reliance on six-shooters.
 

katia

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 20, 2006
In Florida we keep have things that are not called homicides that are; but only the survivors get to claim it was self defense. There was just another case in today's paper where 2 security guards killed a man in a car who was playing loud music. They said he attempted to get one of their guns. Maybe, maybe not, but it will definitely not be a homicide statistic in FL.

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True, but it will be a crime, even if it will not be a homicide. And furthermore you are using similar tactics here like that guy telling people that "according to him" Plushchenko did not have an operation - may be he had may be he had not. Don't you? Why not believe that there are people who attack the guards? And if you are doubting guards, why believe police or the government? How are they better (or worse) then the guards? Is it only because they are bureaucrats?
 

katia

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 20, 2006
But times change. The government has tanks. The government has satellite controlled drone missiles. The government has atom bombs. The government has a standing army of 2,000,000 trained soldiers.

The folks at Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho, didn't. So, as Olympia says, we had better get cracking on using the full power of the ballot box and other democratic institutions and not put our reliance on six-shooters.
But that is a fallacy. You are thinking Either/OR but why not have BOTH? You can put reliance on democratic institutions BUT also have guns, in case democratic institutions became not-democratic. Like in Weimar Republic, like in Russia during the Revolution. As for the government who has satelites/tanks/drone missiles -- the satelites/drone missiles/government is connected to internet. No internet no drone missiles, no banks, no government. But that is rather far-away thing. Here and now the guns should be used by citizens when police is far away, or when police can not come on time to prevent a crime. It is as simple as that.
 
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