....A Well-Regulated Militia.....

[Gekko71]

I preface all my following comments by saying I am largely ignorant of many of the nuances of domestic american politics, so I hope you can forgive me any associated errors or omissions that may occur in the propositions that follow.

I think we can all agree that what happened was a tragedy, and no amount of argument or discussion will diminish that.

I think we can also agree that regardless of your political persuasion or nationality, reducing both the incidence and severity of future attacks on unarmed children with automatic weapons is a notion worth supporting.

From a political perspective, would a sensible compromise be to focus on limiting the power and/or quantity of ammunition available to private citizens via annual quota?

Seems to me that as every ammunition round contains a potentially deadly explosive, it's not a naive inductivist argument to say that possession of a large amount of ammunition is logically tantamount to possessing a significant amount of explosive. While multiple populations worldwide are divided on the regulation of gun ownership, there are relatively fewer people arguing for looser controls on explosives.

Citizens have the right to defend their property, but it is not unreasonable to ask "exactly how much ammunition does a citizen need to defend their property?"

If you had an annual quota that varied depending upon your needs, I personally don't think this is an unreasonable suggestion (I say this as a gun owner myself, though I do not live in the US). If this were backed up by getting an income tax break that increased with every unspent shell in your annual quota then maybe this would attract some support politically.

In the mid 90's, Australia banned many forms of self-loading weapons LINK and while gun clubs argue it has had little effect, speaking anecdotally the majority of the population does not seem to share this view.




This is not a simple problem and my suggestions may well be infeasible or flawed - again, I don't live in the US, I'm operating from a outside perspective.

However, given that numerous civilised societies worldwide are losing many of their traditional mechanisms of social cohesion, I cannot believe that either maintaining or increasing the number of guns and ammunition in society is the appropriate answer to limit the incidence of events such as these.

I would ask anyone who argues for fewer restrictions on gun ownership to consider if fear and paranoia form any part of their reasoning, because both those emotions cloud one's judgements to a disproportionate degree, and both are supported and/or propagated at some level by a lack of information, if not sheer wilful ignorance.

Laws must protect both society and the individual in equal measure. To favour one over the other is either selfish, or repressive.

The responsibilities and ramifications of gun ownership to my mind has always - and must always - extended beyond the sole considerations of individual rights.

[Isaac]

Ban the guns and the wackos will switch to home made bombs. Ban all the products used in every home made bomb, then you'll end up with wackos tossing bricks at car windshields on the highway...

callmeslick will react the same: "Dur hur... we need people to be certified in order to purchase bricks!"

do you really sit and ponder idiocy like the above, or just type randomly??

Yes, everyone that disagrees with you must be an idiot...

[woodchip]

Thorne, it will end when people like slick no longer feel that their comfortable little lives are threatened by us loons.

Take away their weapons, and give them plenty of bread and circus.

a few people who will never go to the circus:
•Charlotte Bacon, 6
•Daniel Barden, 7
•Olivia Engel, 6
•Josephine Gay, 7
•Ana M. Marquez-Greene, 6
•Dylan Hockley, 6
•Madeleine F. Hsu, 6
•Catherine V. Hubbard, 6
•Chase Kowalski, 7
•Jesse Lewis, 6
•James Mattioli, 6
•Grace McDonnell, 7
•Emilie Parker, 6
•Jack Pinto, 6
•Noah Pozner, 6
•Caroline Previdi, 6
•Jessica Rekos, 6
•Aveille Richman, 6
•Benjamin Wheeler, 6
•Allison N. Wyatt, 6

when are you going to look beyond ideology into the society you live in, and deal with it? Nah, easier to vilify me, right? Bread and circus' indeed. Whee!

Lets see if you are as quick to demonize the use of alcohol the next time a drunk driver kills a family or rams into a school bus killing kids on board. Funny how whenever this happens the blame falls on the drunk driver and not the promiscuous availability of liquor.

[woodchip]

no, it isn't you loons that threaten my life, it is you loons that enable us to have a society in which it's ok to slaughter 6 year olds.

This is perhaps your most patently idiotic statement you have made yet Slick. Then again I haven't finished reading the thread.

[woodchip]

Funny how the anti gun laws in Norway didn't seem to stop a shooter there from killing about 70 people mostly children.

funny how folks with an ideology to defend keep citing the ONE incident in Norway, over a period when the US had 61 mass killings and 181 school shootings. Actually, there is nothing funny about it, it's sad.

Norway has a population of 5 million people. We have a population of 300 million. Since we have 60 times the population of Norway, statistically you would expect 60 times the incidents of mass killings. Nice try award once again goes to comrade Slick.

[woodchip]

Ban the guns and the wackos will switch to home made bombs. Ban all the products used in every home made bomb, then you'll end up with wackos tossing bricks at car windshields on the highway...

callmeslick will react the same: "Dur hur... we need people to be certified in order to purchase bricks!"

do you really sit and ponder idiocy like the above, or just type randomly??

The idiocy lies in your reply Slick. Diesel fuel and fertilizer make for a wonderful explosive...just ask the survivors and parents of the dead children from the Murrah building. Bricks tossed from a overpass and hitting car windshields that are doing 70 mph do a decent job of killing people. I suggest comrade, that you give a little more thought before you knee jerk off a reply to a post like Issac made.

In your fluffy cloud world Slick, a mass murderer will figure out how to strap on a explosive package filled with small ball bearing, walk onto a elementary school playground during recess and cause as much carnage as what the latest shooter did. Not much you or I can do to stop a mad man determined to take as many lives as possible.

[CUDA]

no, it isn't you loons that threaten my life, it is you loons that enable us to have a society in which it's ok to slaughter 6 year olds.

This is perhaps your most patently idiotic statement you have made yet Slick. Then again I haven't finished reading the thread.

Only a liberal idiot would believe that anyone would want a society where it's OK to slaughter 6 year olds.

[CUDA]

Ban the guns and the wackos will switch to home made bombs. Ban all the products used in every home made bomb, then you'll end up with wackos tossing bricks at car windshields on the highway...

callmeslick will react the same: "Dur hur... we need people to be certified in order to purchase bricks!"

do you really sit and ponder idiocy like the above, or just type randomly??

The idiocy lies in your reply Slick. Diesel fuel and fertilizer make for a wonderful explosive...just ask the survivors and parents of the dead children from the Murrah building. Bricks tossed from a overpass and hitting car windshields that are doing 70 mph do a decent job of killing people. I suggest comrade, that you give a little more thought before you knee jerk off a reply to a post like Issac made.

In your fluffy cloud world Slick, a mass murderer will figure out how to strap on a explosive package filled with small ball bearing, walk onto a elementary school playground during recess and cause as much carnage as what the latest shooter did. Not much you or I can do to stop a mad man determined to take as many lives as possible.

I point to John Hinkley. The most heavily protected man in the world was almost killed by a lone individual trying to kill him. It's not the weapon that kills people. And until they figure out the being PC about everything, and blaming others for our actions has done more to contribute to this incident then an piece of steel then the problem will never move forward.

[callmeslick]

Lets see if you are as quick to demonize the use of alcohol the next time a drunk driver kills a family or rams into a school bus killing kids on board. Funny how whenever this happens the blame falls on the drunk driver and not the promiscuous availability of liquor.

every bit as tragic, but with one key(and seemingly obvious to all but the brain-dead) difference: The drunk is not using alcohol with the INTENT to go kill a bunch of people. Get it?

[callmeslick]

sad to see the range, and creativity used to excuse firearm availability in our society as a problem. Kudos to Will R, whom I frequently disagree with,
for proposing a possible compromise solution(even if I doubt that some Dems would accept the odd definition of the 2nd amendment, and really doubt that a lot of GOP legislators would go along with the restrictions/laws).
Sadly, I was reading in the Delaware paper this morning about a GOP push, backed by the NRA to force EMPLOYERS to allow guns in all workplaces.
This, apparently, is starting to drive a wedge between business leaders and the GOP gun zealots, but just the idea that someone with grey matter thinks this is a good idea, given the other dynamics of our society is both frightening and sickening.

[woodchip]

Lets see if you are as quick to demonize the use of alcohol the next time a drunk driver kills a family or rams into a school bus killing kids on board. Funny how whenever this happens the blame falls on the drunk driver and not the promiscuous availability of liquor.

every bit as tragic, but with one key(and seemingly obvious to all but the brain-dead) difference: The drunk is not using alcohol with the INTENT to go kill a bunch of people. Get it?

Ah, but you seem to focus on the fact if it were not for the easy availability of firearms, there would be no shooting deaths. You have not focused on on intent, just means. In your clouded world, intent has nothing to do with it...just that firearms are easy to come by and thus the slaughtering of innocents is caused by guns. Whether the intent is to shoot and kill people or knowing that you may kill innocents by getting behind the wheel drunk is irrelevant. Sad to hear that alcohol is such a part of your life that you overlook this,

[Will Robinson]

sad to see the range, and creativity used to excuse firearm availability in our society as a problem. Kudos to Will R, whom I frequently disagree with,
for proposing a possible compromise solution(even if I doubt that some Dems would accept the odd definition of the 2nd amendment, and really doubt that a lot of GOP legislators would go along with the restrictions/laws). .....

I know it is standard practice among anti gun types to deny reality regarding the 2nd amendment but fortunately the authors created documents to illustrate what they meant. Read Madison, The Federalist Papers, 46 I believe, to see how wrong you are.

When debating whether to allow the federal government to maintain a standing army in peacetime some of his peers raised the fear of a tyranical federal government turning it against the people. He explains it will not be a threat to the states/individual because the people will outnumber the soldiers. He refers to the people as the militia, referencing the way they were able to come running, personal weapons in hand, to fight the British in the revolutionary war.
There was no State controlled national guard for him to have had in mind and even if he had conceived of such he would have seen it as the same potential threat as the federal army and would still have expected the freely armed citizens, in their superior numbers, to be the protection against the threat.

And before you go down the road of 'that was so long ago, they couldn't have imagined modern weaponry semi-autos with high capacity magazines etc etc....
Bullfeces!
They imagined citizens armed with state of the art ordinance at the time and gave no indication that they had a limit in mind!

And on that same note, I doubt you would suggest the 1st Ammendment is limited to newspapers and books because the founders never imagined the Internet and cell phones!

The supporting documents, letters, essays etc that the authors of the Constitution and Bill of Rights created are the contemporary evidence that the court has used to stop the erosion of our rights.

Who cares what a minority of the GOP thinks of a common sense regulation that both affirms our rights and at the same time improves our safety? You certainly weren't concerned or detered by a losing minority opinion when numerous other legislation was brought up and rammed through.....
You will see the NRA quickly transition from opposition to trying to shape the language of the regulation once they realize the people are going to vote for some additional responsibility be added to the gun owners.

One easy way to reduce the NRA's political clout is to remove the threat of absolute removal of the 2nd Ammendment rights.
Just like the labor unions clout is being eroded by the shrinking of their numbers because voters have been rejecting their politics.

[callmeslick]

sad to see the range, and creativity used to excuse firearm availability in our society as a problem. Kudos to Will R, whom I frequently disagree with,
for proposing a possible compromise solution(even if I doubt that some Dems would accept the odd definition of the 2nd amendment, and really doubt that a lot of GOP legislators would go along with the restrictions/laws). .....

I know it is standard practice among anti gun types to deny reality regarding the 2nd amendment but fortunately the authors created documents to illustrate what they meant. Read Madison, The Federalist Papers, 46 I believe, to see how wrong you are.

I have, but I simply don't feel his was the overriding opinion. The rest of your post makes some good points. In my opinion, the vast number of gun owners are responsible, and wish to see common sense regulations. You are correct, most of us don't wish to see wholesale elimination of the rights to gun ownership, but many of us are wondering what can be done to lessen the carnage. In my opinion, most folks who bother to go through the process of carry permitting aren't a threat to society, but they DO reflect the fear than pervades our society. At any rate, Will, you seem to be a beacon of reason that reflects the views of a lot of gun owners, and it's good to read someone who sees the problems and the nuance. Damned shame it takes a horrific event to even get us all talking about this.

[CUDA]

The irony is, none of the guns were his, none of the guns were semiautomatic types, all were hand guns, purchased legally by his mother. Please explain how gun control could have stopped his stealing those weapons as he did and kill those people

Your knee jerking slick

[Spidey]

If the democrats would offer a Bill that affirms the second amendment is an individuals right to bear arms, not to hunt rabbits or defend against burglars but to oppose tyranny. And acknowledge that in the founders era the word militia was used to describe the private citizens ability to come together with their own weapons in hand.... then within this Bill, in light of the reality that the U.S. Government is prohibited from taking away our arms, include in this piece of legislation a requirement for responsible ownership of weapons with stiff penalty like Slick suggested I think they could get it passed easily.

The Supreme Court has already confirmed the 2nd amendment gives the individual the right to own a gun, I don’t need any stupid law handed down by the Democrats giving them the right to nonsense restrictions.

JFTR I am not some nut that believes that all restrictions on gun ownership should be eliminated, I have no problem with the ones that make sense, but I can’t support the ones that don’t.

If the state required I lock up any weapons I own, then I would live with that, but when you take away my right to carry with 10 year prison sentences, then I have to draw the line.

[Sergeant Thorne]

Slick's response, indecently incidentally, mirrors the simplicity expected of a political response... That at least is instructive.

JFTR I am not some nut that believes that all restrictions on gun ownership should be eliminated, I have no problem with the ones that make sense, but I can’t support the ones that don’t.

I feel the same way. I was telling my brother the other day that I believe the process for administering CCW licenses could be improved--a good friend of mine was able to go through a simple course in order to be eligible, and I saw first-hand that it left him short of where a responsible concealed carrier ought to be. It's not a problem, because he continues to learn and become competent through persuit of just that, but I think a drivers license-equ test administered by a sheriff could be a good solution. Anyone who doesn't pass could be recommended to the appropriate material/training and allowed to retest after a short interval.

[CUDA]

JFTR I'm also not against some legislation. But it's not the guns that are the problem. The problem is man's nature


Slick doesn't realize that as much as he wants, the Government cannot legislate morality,

and ironically the only institution in this country that teaches morality, the left is continually trying to force out or society.

[Will Robinson]

...

I know it is standard practice among anti gun types to deny reality regarding the 2nd amendment but fortunately the authors created documents to illustrate what they meant. Read Madison, The Federalist Papers, 46 I believe, to see how wrong you are.

I have, but I simply don't feel his was the overriding opinion. ...

Well we will have to agree to disagree on that. I feel pretty comfortable assigning a lot of weight to Madison's opinion. As did a lot of his peers when they named him "Father of the Constitution"

From here:

Father of the Constitution

Main article: Philadelphia Convention


The U.S. Constitution
The Articles of Confederation established the United States as a confederation of sovereign states with a weak central government. This arrangement did not work particularly well, and after the war was over, it was even less successful. Congress had no power to tax, and as a result was not paying the debts left over from the Revolution. Madison and other leaders, such as Washington and Benjamin Franklin, were very concerned about this.

They feared a break-up of the union and national bankruptcy.[15] The historian Gordon S. Wood has noted that many leaders such as Madison and Washington, feared more that the revolution had not fixed the social problems that had triggered it, and the excesses ascribed to the King were being seen in the state legislatures. Though Shays' Rebellion is often cited as the event that forced the rewriting of the national charter, Wood argues that many at the time saw it as only the most extreme example of democratic excess. Such thinkers believed the constitution would need to do more than fix the Articles of Confederation. Like the revolution, it would need to rewrite the social compact and redefine the relationship among the states, the national government, and the people.[14]

As Madison wrote, "a crisis had arrived which was to decide whether the American experiment was to be a blessing to the world, or to blast for ever the hopes which the republican cause had inspired."[citation needed] Partly at Madison's instigation, a national convention was called in 1787. Madison was crucial in persuading George Washington to attend the convention, since he knew how important the president would be to the adoption of a constitution. As one of the first delegates to arrive, while waiting for the convention to begin, Madison wrote what became known as the Virginia Plan. The Virginia Plan was submitted at the opening of the convention, and the work of the convention quickly became to amend the Virginia Plan and to fill in the gaps.[16][17] Though the Virginia Plan was an outline rather than a draft of a possible constitution, and though it was extensively changed during the debate (especially by John Rutledge and James Wilson in the Committee of Detail), its use at the convention led many to call Madison the "Father of the Constitution".[18] He was only 36 years old.

During the course of the Convention, Madison spoke over two hundred times, and his fellow delegates rated him highly. For example, William Pierce wrote that "...every Person seems to acknowledge his greatness. In the management of every great question he evidently took the lead in the Convention... he always comes forward as the best informed Man of any point in debate." Madison recorded the unofficial minutes of the convention, and these have become the only comprehensive record of what occurred. The historian Clinton Rossiter regarded Madison's performance as "a combination of learning, experience, purpose, and imagination that not even Adams or Jefferson could have equaled."[19] Years earlier he had pored over crates of books that Jefferson sent him from France on various forms of government. The historian Douglas Adair called Madison's work "probably the most fruitful piece of scholarly research ever carried out by an American."[20] Many have argued that this study helped prepare him for the convention.

[Will Robinson]

...

If the state required I lock up any weapons I own, then I would live with that, but when you take away my right to carry with 10 year prison sentences, then I have to draw the line.

I don't include Slicks desire to take away the right to carry as one of the sensible regulations either.

" the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"....kind of self explanatory to anyone not looking for a loophole
The Supreme Court has dealt with the loophole seekers:

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects an individual's right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home, in federal enclaves. The decision did not address the question of whether the Second Amendment extends beyond federal enclaves to the states,[1] which was addressed later by McDonald v. Chicago (2010). It was the first Supreme Court case in United States history to decide whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms.[2]

McDonald v. Chicago, 561 US 3025 (2010), was a landmark[1] decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that determined whether the Second Amendment applies to the individual states. The Court held that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms" protected by the Second Amendment is incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and applies to the states. The decision cleared up the uncertainty left in the wake of District of Columbia v. Heller as to the scope of gun rights in regard to the states.

I feel like we owe the country and it's founders a solid effort to make these freedoms worthy of the larger goal of all who have died to protect them. That larger goal to create and maintain a quality of life for all citizens that is the marvel of the world. So cleaning up our act is long overdue. We can do better as free men who posses weapons.

Remove the politics from the debate and the logistics of being better/safer gun owners will be easy.

So back off from the 2nd Amendment.
Stop offering political posturing legislation that only polarizes and doesn't prevent slaughter...Sen Feinstein et al...
Stop believing as law abiding gun owners you don't own some responsibility for the ease at which thugs find weapons.

Start demanding solutions not merely settling for your political party's victory on an issue. That is why we are such losers, we buy into winning the campaign as the end goal! The campaign win is only a victory for the job applicant....our victory comes if the campaign winner serves us well. So far they only seem to care about serving the Party well and fooling us into buying into the campaign rhetoric as our reward for hiring them. We have failed to live up to the qualifications of being Americans. Wake the ★■◆● up!!

[Isaac]

callmeslick is treating guns like some kind of sickness. The problem is, the only form of medication we have are legislation, which law breakers are more than happy to break. In other words, the "infected" are already immune to the treatment.

[Tunnelcat]

Only a liberal idiot would believe that anyone would want a society where it's OK to slaughter 6 year olds.

Are you outta your friggin' mind CUDA? No sane person on earth, liberal OR conservative, would think it's OK to slaughter innocent children!

And speaking of our sick and violence-loving society, it's starting to come out that this kid was one of those who was "different" from the "normies" at his school and he'd been having some type of trouble dealing with things at school. It seems his mother yanked him out of school and was trying to home school him by herself because of it. Now why do you suppose he had trouble at school? Could it be because he liked to carry a briefcase instead of a backpack, that he may have been a little autistic, or that he didn't get along with his classmates? Was there name calling or some other kind of ostracizing/bullying going on? I can just imagine the crap he got from his classmates because he was "different". On top of that, his brother was the successful sibling, while he was having a tough time of things and failing. The recipe for creating a monster has been followed.

[Top Gun]

Following TC's lead, if everyone can stop wanking over guns for a few minutes, here's a perspective on what's probably the root of the problem.

[CUDA]

Only a liberal idiot would believe that anyone would want a society where it's OK to slaughter 6 year olds.

Are you outta your friggin' mind CUDA? No sane person on earth, liberal OR conservative, would think it's OK to slaughter innocent children!

reading skills a bit lacking there TC? Try going back and read what lead to that comment

[Will Robinson]

....
And speaking of our sick and violence-loving society, it's starting to come out that this kid was one of those who was "different" from the "normies" at his school and he'd been having some type of trouble dealing with things at school. It seems his mother yanked him out of school and was trying to home school him by herself because of it. Now why do you suppose he had trouble at school? Could it be because he liked to carry a briefcase instead of a backpack, that he may have been a little autistic, or that he didn't get along with his classmates? Was there name calling or some other kind of ostracizing/bullying going on? I can just imagine the crap he got from his classmates because he was "different". On top of that, his brother was the successful sibling, while he was having a tough time of things and failing. The recipe for creating a monster has been followed.

Clearly you haven't been staying up to speed on your party's leadership on this event...or "opportunity", as they call it.


There will be no mention of anything except gun control when ever you make any comments regarding the slaughter in Connecticut. You may create a side dialogue implicating anyone named Bush if you like, other than that stay focused on the prize and stop talking about reality!!

This message brought to you by the Democrat Party and they approve this message.

[callmeslick]

callmeslick is treating guns like some kind of sickness.

actually, I view them as symptoms of a sickness.

[callmeslick]

also, as I stated above, I don't really regard the vast bulk of folks who bother to go through getting carry permits as a public menace(although some,
such as that Zimmerman fellow, might be). The problem with widening carry laws is the reason that most people want them: fear. They fear exactly the sort of random violence which has become a national malaise. I suspect that if you severely curtail unregulated transfer, stiffen and expand background checks and put very strict regulation on storage of weapons, and completely outlaw hi-volume magazines and semiauto long guns(no earthly reason to posess them. None), you would likely find the number of folks carrying and applying for permits to do so drop.

[Sergeant Thorne]

Did you know that an expectation of gun-related violence is not the only reason for carrying? People carry guns to swing the odds in their favor should any person or persons decide that they are a target. I would say that the expectation of gun-related violence is probably well below 50%, but I don't have any data to back that assumption.

[Tunnelcat]

Only a liberal idiot would believe that anyone would want a society where it's OK to slaughter 6 year olds.

Are you outta your friggin' mind CUDA? No sane person on earth, liberal OR conservative, would think it's OK to slaughter innocent children!

reading skills a bit lacking there TC? Try going back and read what lead to that comment

Well exsqueeeeeeeeeeze me. If you're going to make a shortened statement like that, expect it to be taken out of context.

Following TC's lead, if everyone can stop wanking over guns for a few minutes, here's a perspective on what's probably the root of the problem.

Since most of these rampages are carried out by young males, there's another thing at work here. Sex and violence are very close emotions in the human brain, just like pain and pleasure. So guess what happens in the typical adolescent male brain with all that testosterone flowing around and no fully developed frontal lobes to counter things? Uncontrolled urges for both, especially if there's some mental illness at work. I find it hypocritical that movies with sexual situations get an "R" rating, while violence only gets an "M". The realistic sex and violence in today's media just can't be sorted out by the brains of many young males. Add in mental illness and we've got a recipe for massacres.

http://www.livescience.com/2231-humans- ... e-sex.html

Clearly you haven't been staying up to speed on your party's leadership on this event...or "opportunity", as they call it.

There will be no mention of anything except gun control when ever you make any comments regarding the slaughter in Connecticut. You may create a side dialogue implicating anyone named Bush if you like, other than that stay focused on the prize and stop talking about reality!!

This message brought to you by the Democrat Party and they approve this message.

Sadly, you're right. After watching the liberal pundits pontificate all morning on the Sunday News shows, that's all they're carping about, gun control and magazine capacities. They don't get it either.

I have heard a few people remark on it, namely people that study these types of crimes, but not enough important people that could get the subject off the back burner. People always seem to want an easy fix for something, but in reality, that's not the way it works.

But if you want to be partisan Will, in my state, as I'm sure occurred in every other state in this country, it was the Republican legislatures that cut funding for mental health and dumped the responsibilities on the counties. The counties can't afford it either. And I don't blame Bush, it really started with Reagan at the federal level. But since having mental health issues back then meant being involuntarily being locked up in a mental hospital, things weren't very advanced or humane. I can't totally fault him for what he did either. He only nuked a broken and cruel system.

http://sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas_d.html

[callmeslick]

JFTR I'm also not against some legislation. But it's not the guns that are the problem. The problem is man's nature


Slick doesn't realize that as much as he wants, the Government cannot legislate morality,

and ironically the only institution in this country that teaches morality, the left is continually trying to force out or society.

thank you Mike Huckabee. The left forces morality out of society? Yeesh!

[Will Robinson]

also, as I stated above, I don't really regard the vast bulk of folks who bother to go through getting carry permits as a public menace(although some,
such as that Zimmerman fellow, might be). The problem with widening carry laws is the reason that most people want them: fear. They fear exactly the sort of random violence which has become a national malaise. I suspect that if you severely curtail unregulated transfer, stiffen and expand background checks and put very strict regulation on storage of weapons, and completely outlaw hi-volume magazines and semiauto long guns(no earthly reason to posess them. None), you would likely find the number of folks carrying and applying for permits to do so drop.

OK, so semi-auto long guns with high cap mags are out...
Here is the pistol I just built, in fact just came back from the range a few minutes ago. Yes it is, according to the BATF, a pistol. And according to your rules if I use 10 round magazines it is still legal.



It has a 20 round mag in it right there in the picture, I have some 30 rounders for my carbine.

So according to your rules my carbine, with a 16" barrel, would have to go but the pistol, with a 9.5 " barrel, in the picture, I can keep even though they are both AR-15 platform semi-auto weapons totally interchangeable parts.
I bet the deranged shooters know that two 10 round mags equal one 20 rounder....I bet the deranged Connecticut shooter would have had no trouble with using my pistol and a bag of 10 rounders and still had plenty of time to finish his evil task and then stuff his handgun (which your rules still allow) in his mouth to finish his 'statement'. I imagine the reloading time to switch mags every 10 rounds versus every 20 or 30 is relatively low stress and easy in the world of shooting up innocents in a gun free zone.

I bet a school security officer armed with a simple policeman's pistol could have saved over half of those children regardless of how many rounds the shooters magazines held.

How in the world, in the name of trying to prevent the kind of slaughter that you are addressing, you can refuse to allow an armed policeman to be present and instead you want to tweak the hardware requirements for deranged shooters is beyond comprehension! And that's all the assault weapons ban was or will be....a tweak. People get re-elected from championing tweaks. Children will still die.

By the way, your assertion that there is no place for my carbine is dead wrong. I'm trying to get in shape to compete in 3 Gun competitions and your rules will do nothing to save the targets of deranged shooters but they will deprive me and many many shooters of their sport.

And, as my eyes continue to weaken I have turned to the short barrel rifle/AR Pistol as a better home defense weapon but you would deprive me of that weapon. That pistol in the picture, loaded with 300 BLK sub-sonic ammo is far superior to any of my handguns in accuracy and stopping power and it will do it with less over penetration concerns for people in adjoining rooms or neighbors next door!
But your rules will force me to use a much less accurate 9mm pistol ( a true handgun variety Glock 17) which sends over penatrating rounds deep out into the world at a much less accurate trajectory.

And you would do all that and have NO POSITIVE EFFECT with regard to the situation that spurs you to demand it!!

No thanks!

[CUDA]

JFTR I'm also not against some legislation. But it's not the guns that are the problem. The problem is man's nature


Slick doesn't realize that as much as he wants, the Government cannot legislate morality,

and ironically the only institution in this country that teaches morality, the left is continually trying to force out or society.

thank you Mike Huckabee. The left forces morality out of society? Yeesh!

Slick, you ignoring the facts doesn't change them. and what I said was the left is forcing the only institution that teaches morality out of society. it is fact.

[Will Robinson]

...
But if you want to be partisan Will, in my state, as I'm sure occurred in every other state in this country, it was the Republican legislatures that cut funding for mental health and dumped the responsibilities on the counties. The counties can't afford it either. And I don't blame Bush, it really started with Reagan at the federal level. But since having mental health issues back then meant being involuntarily being locked up in a mental hospital, things weren't very advanced or humane. I can't totally fault him for what he did either. He only nuked a broken and cruel system.

http://sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas_d.html

No partisanship from me....how about you?
Here maybe this will help add some yin to your yang:
ACLU stops Connecticut mental health legislation...screams 'That's Rascist!'.

[callmeslick]

....was the left is forcing the only institution that teaches morality out of society. it is fact.

nonsense, religion is CLEARLY not the only source of morality, and many of us would argue that it isn't even a very good one, much of the time. Witness the number of good, churchgoing types on here making excuses about why we shouldn't address a major lethal threat to our citizens, recently our children. Morality? Get real.

[callmeslick]

well, my, my, my.....look how well this has worked for 15 years:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2012/1 ... ?GT1=38001

[CUDA]

....was the left is forcing the only institution that teaches morality out of society. it is fact.

nonsense, religion is CLEARLY not the only source of morality,

did I say it was???? NOPE,, I said it was the only institution that teaches it

and many of us would argue that it isn't even a very good one, much of the time. Witness the number of good, churchgoing types on here making excuses about why we shouldn't address a major lethal threat to our citizens, recently our children. Morality? Get real.

REALLY you mean like those that use guns???? how most of them are good law abiding citizens and it's just a few of them that don't follow the rules that affect our children. but at least the Church tries.

[Top Gun]

ACLU stops Connecticut mental health legislation...screams 'That's Rascist!'.

We can debate the merits of that bill if you like (though it's impossible to say whether it definitely would have changed what happened), but the ACLU's objections had absolutely nothing to do with race.

[woodchip]

well, my, my, my.....look how well this has worked for 15 years:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2012/1 ... ?GT1=38001

So you would have all the upland game bird hunters and duck hunters be required to turn in their semi-auto shotguns? Lets see how much of a hunter you really are. Why do you suppose a number of hunters buy semi-auto shot guns? Hint...has nothing to do with missing the first shot.

[woodchip]

well, my, my, my.....look how well this has worked for 15 years:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2012/1 ... ?GT1=38001

But has it worked?:

AUSTRALIA
While violent crime is decreasing in the United States, it is increasing in Australia. Over the past six years, the overall rate of violent crime in Australia has continued to increase. Robbery and armed robbery rates continue to rise.
Armed robbery has increased 166% nationwide. The confiscation and destruction of legally owned firearms cost Australian taxpayers at least $500 million. The costs of the police services bureaucracy, including the
hugely costly infrastructure of the gun registration system, has increased by $200 million since 1997. And for what? There has been no visible impact on violent crime

BRITAIN
In the past 20 years, both Conservative and Labour governments have introduced restrictive firearm laws; even banning all handguns in 1997. Unfortunately, these Draconian firearm regulations have totally failed. The public is not any safer and may be less safe. Police statistics show that England and Wales are enduring a serious crime wave. In contrast to handgun-dense United States, where the homicide rate has been falling for over 20 years, the homicide rate in handgun-banning England and Wales has been growing. In the 1990s alone, the homicide rate jumped 50%, going from 10 per million in 1990 to 15 per million in 2000

http://www.saf.org/journal/16/thefailedexperiment.pdf

[snoopy]

Interesting, according to wikipedia data:

US Homicide rate: 4.2 (88.8 guns/100 residents)
Swiss homicide rate: 0.7 (45.7 guns/100 residents)
Australian homicide rate: 1.0 (15 guns/100 residents)
United Kingdom homicide rate: 1.2 (6.2 guns/100 residents)

Maybe we're just messed up here in the US? Maybe we need to find something other than simply guns to attribute to gun violence?

[Top Gun]

Guns are certainly an issue, but there's also a hell of a lot more than guns going on.