another reason i would want a gun ...... i would shoot myself ...

 

Well, you're excepted, then.

 

It did, huh?

You may wish to go back and re-study your American history. Where exactly IS it that you think your Constitution came from? It came from the loose national government that existed under the Articles of Confederation in 1786, a decade after the Declaration of Independence was signed.

The original text of what was to become the Second Amendment, as brought to the floor to the first session of the first congress of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1789 was >>

The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.

Notice it speaks of a militia. It actually says nothing about self defense. The issue of personal or individual self-defense, whether from wild animals or modern-day predators, does not fall within, nor is it dependent on, the Second Amendment rubric. Nothing in the history, construction, or interpretation of the Amendment applies or infers such a protection. Rather, legal protection for personal self-defense arises from the British common law tradition and modern criminal law; not from constitutional law.

It is the gun lobby that has effectively blurred the lines between the right to bear firearms to protect the republic or one's home, and the right to pack a handgun around in public for self defense.

 

LIBERALS?! Did someone say Liberals...?

Dang pesky varmits! Lemmie get my gun!

 

Then your hypothetical didn't happen where I live as you have to have a permit to legally carry a concealed firearm here and the old woman wouldn't have had a gun to start with. She would have just been beaten and robbed, later to die of head trauma. No hypothetical there, happened right down the sidewalk from where I worked back in 1984. Both the perpretators were on work release from the local prison/jail.

Which is why for a carry permit you have to meet the required training requirements and assorted back ground checks.

My gosh, where were the police to protect him? or better yet the other two students who he was threatening with the knife? Why didn't he contact the school and alert them to this harrassment? Finally, knives are just too dangerous and should be kept out of the publics hands, just so something like this doesn't happen more.


The police that is. The police catch/apprehend/whatever someone AFTER they have broken the law, not before. The only protecting they do, in my opinion, is attempting to get criminals (people having already broken the law) off the street. That's if the justice system finds them "guilty", and the judge actually puts them in jail. They are protecting us from criminals they've already caught, not the ones still walking around.

If it's the job of the police to "protect" us, then they are doing a urine poor job of it. You think different? They didn't protect those VT students and faculty very well. Even though I have a Sheriff's deputy living next door to me I would not depend on him to keep me "safe"


As of yet that's all I can do as I don't have a carry permit, nor really feel the need to have one at this point in time. However, if that time comes I would like to know I could LEGALLY obtain one.


I disagree, would not have taken "far greater planning", and he put a lot of effort into this as it was. You don't whip up "manifestos" over breakfast in the morning. I disagree about the fire angle, would have been much easier and he would have walked away alive had he wanted to. I would bet fire kills more people every year than handguns used by college students.

Could you please tell me the potential fatality rate of firearms? I'm a little rusty on that statistic. Please note your source too. Or was that a hypothetical?

The fact is it would have been EASIER for him to acquire 15 or so litre glass bottles and a few gallons of gasoline as there is no background check for those.

This has been interesting but I'm going to refrain from any more replies, all you want to do is argue and I'm not into lost causes.

 

Well, at least that's something, I suppose.

In your rush to sarcasm, I think you missed my point.

We can debate how well they're doing their jobs all you want, but the fact of the matter is that it IS their job. I believe on the side of LA Police cruisers it says, "To Protect and to Serve". Of course, I also saw someone in LA sporting a T-shirt that read: "LAPD, We Treat You Like A King." So I'll acknowledge things aren't exactly perfect there.

On the other hand, perhaps you think we should dispense with the police altogether [and the courts while we're at it] and return to vigilante justice, with every person for themselves. I mean, why not? It's the next logical step using your train of thought.

Have YOU ever tried to conceal 15 one-litre glass bottles of gasoline under your vest and cart it around a campus without anyone noticing?

If it had been easier and more effective to do that, he probably would have done that. But the fact is that it was easier to just go in and buy an easily concealed lethal weapon capable of offing the maximum number of people with the minimum amount of effort.

Nice try, though.

Here's a statistic for you >> One lone gunman walked around the campus of Virginia Tech and gunned down more than 30 people. That accurate enough for you?

Well, at least you've acknowledged that your arguments are a lost cause. Nice chatting, though I believe I will bow out of this discussion now as well, since it's clear people are very divided and emotional about this issue, and I'm not going to win anyone over no matter how logical my arguments are.

Enjoy your guns...

 

hollywood,, i get the impression you were born in america and fled to canada to escape the " freedoms " we have here..

 

My best friend is one of them varmits. I get a dose quite frequently.