I guess you didn't read the bible then...

 

I've read it. Wonderful work of fiction.

Now that I've questioned both guns AND god, it's definitely time to put this thread to bed.

 

LOL, BC digging yourself quite a hole.


why is everyone so eager to close the thread?

 

Because the hole might be getting too big to dig out of.

Though personally, I stand by my beliefs...or lack thereof.

 

Forgive me as I've only skimmed over the 120 or so posts.
disclaimer up front, I own firearms, and I also do NOT drink alcohol or smoke.

A couple of weeks ago a teenage girl rear ended a stopped car waiting behind someone turning left on a two lane road. Evidently the girl was talking on a cell phone at the time and not paying attention and hit the car going around 35 (or more). A passenger in the back seat of the car later died. All involved were teenagers (16-17). The cell phone driver was in a exporer/excursion type SUV.

I could list dozens of alcohol related fatalities that happen every week.

My point? No one knee jerks and calls for a ban on SUV's, or cell phones, or getting rid of alcohol, or air planes for that matter.

Blaming guns might help some deal with this, but the fact is that a seriously disturbed person wanted to hurt some people and he did. He just happened to use a gun. He also used (or so I've read) a chain and padlock to keep people from getting out. Are a ban on padlocks and chains next? What does a normal person need with chains anyway?

I'll take the responsibility for taking care of my self and family thank you very much.

 

it
just
started
to
become
too
personal
and
politically religious

 

Your logic is flawed, unfortunately. You're equating an accident with premeditated murder.

Also, none of the other devices you listed is designed and built for the express purpose of killing.

The teenage girl used a 3000 lbs (roughly) machine and killed one person. At Virginia Tech, the guy used small (under ten lbs), concealed devices to kill over 30 people.

Why would you need a gun to take care of yourself and your family? You live in Nebraska, not east LA. I live in a much larger city than you, and I have never felt the need to carry a gun around.

Again, for most gun owners, it's a vice, not an essential. They own them cause they want them, not because they need them. The "need" justification comes later. Important difference there.

 

Quote
"Why would you need a gun to take care of yourself and your family? You live in Nebraska, not east LA. I live in a much larger city than you, and I have never felt the need to carry a gun around."

Hollywood North:
Ask the woman who was beat over the head for her purse at the sky train station and the young kid dragged to death over a few bucks worth of gas and the two old men beat to death for pocket change in Bear creek park if they needed protection. I don`t know what kind of dream world you think we live in up here but the crime is rampant and the RCMP and the justice system are doing nothing to help it. Criminal activity has no fear of repercussion here from the victim or the authorities. This is why AMERICANS have the right to possess and carry firearms. end of story !

 

Crime happens everywhere. You can't eliminate it completely, so you have police forces to at least tamp it down. What you're discussing above happens to about .002 percent of the population. I'll take those odds over a handgun packin' populace, thank you very much.

But apparently, what you're saying is that if crime is the problem, handguns are the answer.

Let's look at the woman beat over the head for a moment >> What if she had been carrying a handgun in her purse? Could she have reacted to her assault fast enough to extract the weapon from her purse and use it - while her attacker was grasping for that very same purse? Would she know how to fire it in the heat of the moment? Would she be able to avoid shooting another innocent bystander by mistake in the melee? Might her assailant have overpowered her, wrested the gun away from her, then shot her...only to go off and use the very same handgun on someone else later in another crime?

Those are a lot of "ifs" to stake handgun ownership on.

Uh, OK. So your answer is arm the populace? We don't have anywhere near the handgun crime up here (not nearly as much crime, either), but now you want to import that, too? Does that honestly seem sensible to you?

 

Sure your going to get a criminal element everywhere. What this all boils down to is individual personal protection rights. If your going to be using a firearm for protection you better know how to use it. And I don`t want to give up my right to protect myself for the better of society in general. There is an element in our society today that preys on the weak. If that element had a fear of who might give resistance for a deterent, then so be it. This thread has a far greater issue here than giving every one a handgun.

The US Constitution gives individual right to life, liberty and property.
The second amendment gives the means need be.

This would be the big difference between the US and Canada, individual rights vs society as a whole.

 

A lot of the gun control stories I've seen focus on accidental discharges, kids in particular. Your point is taken.

Sept 11 was premeditated. We still have planes flying. OK City was premeditated. We still have ryder truck rentals. Oh, that's right, those are one off examples. Point taken again.

Woman beaten over the head. She wouldn't have the hand gun, *I* would have and hopefully by showing said gun caused the activity to cease.

The police aren't here to protect us no matter what someone says or you think. They won't be there when someone's getting raped or your house is the target of a home invasion (both happen here in Nebraska believe it or not). And just so you know, good old Plattsmouth is a hot bed for Meth as is all of this area.

If Cho hadn't had a gun, I'm sure Molatov Cocktails would have sufficed for his purposes, and done a better job with the fire doors chained shut.

Again, *I* believe that handguns are NOT the issue in this case, more about a mentally ill person wanting to do harm to others no matter what. But, people need a scapegoat, and handguns fit the bill there. So, guns? evil incarnate. People? hapless victims of Smith & Wesson. I'm sure we'd all be in utopia if not for gun powder, and pocket knives (which england should be going after soon after the butcher knife registration fell through), baseball bats, fertilizer, I'm ranting, my apologies.

The above was just my opinion and was in no means a hope you would change your mind, because you have your own opinions and I'm going to be the last person you listen to on this subject. But please, don't tell me about life in Nebraska, or Nashville, or anywhere else I've lived unless you've lived there too. Last time I looked, neither my personal firearms, nor have I, harmed anyone except some milk jugs, coke bottles and paper targets. And it'll stay that way until some unfortunate criminal enters my house with evil doing on his mind.

Have a nice weekend

 

And who's going to ensure that? Are you going to legislate it? They don't bother south of the 49th.

That's a bit of an oxymoron. If society "in general" is bettered, then why would you want - or need - to carry a handgun?

Well, again, that's nothing new. Always has been...always will be.

And what's that, exactly?

Perhaps you would feel safer living in the US, then.

So what I hear you saying here is that Canada is more concerned with the good of society as a whole, while the United States is more concerned with the rights of an individual to do what they want, even if it includes buying a gun and mowing down dozens of people on a university campus...or a school...or whereever.

Sorry, that equation doesn't work for me.

 

That's a hypothetical. She wasn't in your situation. A guy grabbed her purse out of left field. Now if she had been carrying a gun, the likelihood in that situation is that she would have been carrying it in her purse. So now you'd have a purse snatcher on the loose who not only clobbered the woman, but who now possesses a firearm, too.

The reality is that in the heat of the moment - when seconds count - most people don't have time to react, because shock sets in and dulls their reaction time, assuming they can respond coherently at all.

Police spend hundreds and hundreds of hours training for such situations, and even they experience moments of hesitation or shock when confronted with a nutwhack in possession of a deadly weapon.

There was a guy at my local University where I grew up. He was about 18 years old, and always getting bothered, delayed, and often beaten up [not severely mind you] in the neighborhood of the campus going to and from home. The two guys who did it were about five years older than he. Finally, he decided to buy a knife, a rather formidable blade, if I remember the story correctly. He bought it - not so much with the intention of using it - but to dissuade his tormenters. Well, sure enough he encountered them while he was carrying this knife, and when they threatened to beat him up, he pulled out the knife and brandished it. They quickly wrested it away from him and stabbed him in the throat. Needless to say, he died. He also would likely still be alive today had he not bought that thing in the first place.

Oh? Then what are they here for...?

I don't have a big problem with someone keeping a firearm in their home and using it to protect themselves and their property - but that's a very different situation than packing around a hidden handgun in public.

That's another hypothetical. You can't say that "if he hadn't had easy access to a gun he would have used a Molotov Cocktail," or a knife, or anthrax, etc. [all of which, incidentally, would have required far greater planning, and an increased complexity of delivery without guaranteeing anywhere near the potential fatality rate of a firearm]. The fact is that he was able to easily acquire a firearm, which made it easy for him to end the lives of 33 people.

 

Do you know that the US has survived for more than a couple of hundred years with our current Constitution which has worked quite well. I have a real problem when people want to change any part of it. Hollywood North you keep saying it is not a necessity to own a Gun maybe not. But I don't need a Gov't to tell me what should be a necessity for me.

 

A. Perhaps you forgot >> it was the government that "told you" you could have the right [Second Amendment] in the first place.

B. No-one can prove to me why it's a "necessity." It's not a necessity in most of the civilized world...

 

The one common denominator of totalitarian regimes or governments, as some of you liberal comrades like to call them, is they outlaw guns. It appears gun control make it easier to dicipline and corral people, to impose their laws without much resistance, which reminds me, isn't the liberal agenda to silence, control, and restrict?

Anyone who wants my Colt Python is welcome to it, althought a bit of resistance might be encountered. It will not be free. I guarantee it.

 

I live in a forest and have to shoot my own food to live.

 

Boy that one went right over your head. The Gov't was formed for the people because our founding fathers did not want a Gov't like the one we came from. It has worked this long and it will keep on despite you not understanding. It has nothing to do with gun control and all to do with the US CONSTITUTION and keeping it in tact including the second amendment.

 

lets go back in time a few hundred years.. had a few brave future americans ( my great great grandfather Alan ase Hyatt being one of them ) not had guns i should think we would still be ruled by the british today.... and i have a story on police protection as well ... once a theaf was trying to break into my home ... i called the local authorities and voiced my concerns.. they said we will send someone over as soon as we can .. after ten minutes no one showed up... the thief was still lingering around trying to find something to break down my door with... finally i called the police again and told them " never mind " i shot the thief.. a policeman was there in under two minutes.. this thread still should be put to bed as nothing is going to be settled..

 

That wouldn't be so bad. Consider the alternative, it could have been the French instead... I SURRENDER, I SURRENDER!

Which brings us to modern times. If the Demos have their way we will all be singing the International anthem, and soon.