DescentBB

woodchip wrote:

callmeslick wrote:
since the government never did so, and the proof is evident(allowing straw sales to be tracked is not the same as giving anything to anyone), I don't see where lying helps your credibility.

I'm sorry, there I thought when you allow a single straw buyer to obtain 700 assault style rifles and look the other way when he channels them to the drug cartels, that you were knowingly defacto giving them. My bad.

except the major study thus far released(Fortune magazine, long ago linked), showed that no one ever saw the weapons transferred to a drug cartel.
Not once, Ever.

callmeslick wrote:So are you advocating all hunters and target shooter should only be allowed single shot rifles?

yeah, I am. Good to see you chose to put your reading glasses on this evening.

And this is why you'll not succeed.[/quote]
because my common sense is overwhelmed by your reading glasses? Otherwise, explain the difficulty in making single shot weapons mandatory for hunting. None of my deer hunting, moose hunting or bear hunting acquaintences seem to object.

I've rode bikes and sat in biker bars with armed 1%'ers also. So what?

and, you were brokering negotiating issues that pissed them off? Sorry if my details aren't forthcoming, but I wasn't sitting around having beers. I was doing business.

callmeslick wrote:
and, you were brokering negotiating issues that pissed them off? Sorry if my details aren't forthcoming, but I wasn't sitting around having beers. I was doing business.

I was never dumb enough to get that involved

For the love of God, Merlin, don't use the plural form unless you have more than one link. If this is not what we need maybe schools should not have been gun-free zones to begin with. You've probably heard by now that Isreal solved this problem (actually non-domestic school attacks) by arming school staff. I think it's regrettable but not terribly odd that the kid brought a gun in light of these stories.

woodchip wrote:Not a slam on police. I respect the work they do. However, don't try to paint this picture that a cop will be there when you need him most. They aren't. It's up to you to take charge of protecting yourself. Then again I guess the liberal mindset wants people dependent on govt.

please, the words you wrote, as you wrote them were an insult to the fact that by and large, the police in this nation do a great job. Not 100% perfect,
but great. As to 'protecting yourself', the data overwhelmingly shows you to be safer NOT owning a gun.

woodchip wrote:

callmeslick wrote:
and, you were brokering negotiating issues that pissed them off? Sorry if my details aren't forthcoming, but I wasn't sitting around having beers. I was doing business.

I was never dumb enough to get that involved

in retrospect, maybe dumb. But, it paid really well.....

callmeslick wrote:

woodchip wrote:Not a slam on police. I respect the work they do. However, don't try to paint this picture that a cop will be there when you need him most. They aren't. It's up to you to take charge of protecting yourself. Then again I guess the liberal mindset wants people dependent on govt.

please, the words you wrote, as you wrote them were an insult to the fact that by and large, the police in this nation do a great job. Not 100% perfect,
but great. As to 'protecting yourself', the data overwhelmingly shows you to be safer NOT owning a gun.

How can saying a cop is hardly ever there when a crime is being committed is a insult? I don't blame the cops as there is just too much territory for them to cover. Don't inject your angst with reality.

callmeslick wrote:

woodchip wrote:

callmeslick wrote:
since the government never did so, and the proof is evident(allowing straw sales to be tracked is not the same as giving anything to anyone), I don't see where lying helps your credibility.

I'm sorry, there I thought when you allow a single straw buyer to obtain 700 assault style rifles and look the other way when he channels them to the drug cartels, that you were knowingly defacto giving them. My bad.

except the major study thus far released(Fortune magazine, long ago linked), showed that no one ever saw the weapons transferred to a drug cartel.
Not once, Ever.

Nice try at the proverbial smoke screen. You trying to be Holders new spokesman? The serial numbers were recorded and the weapon found at the murdered boarder agent shootout had one of those serial numbers. And the straw purchaser saw where they went. Stop trying to cover for the snake sitting in the Atty Generals office. Makes you look like a party hack...oh wait.

no proof about anyone ever being followed to the cartel. The weapons found at the shooting scene were months, if not over a year after the sale.
Quit whining about things that are made up. And, please, don't try to distract off the subject of domestic violence. Drug cartels in other nations bear no regard to the fact that 20 little kids got gunned down by one of our citizens.

callmeslick wrote:no proof about anyone ever being followed to the cartel. The weapons found at the shooting scene were months, if not over a year after the sale.
Quit whining about things that are made up. And, please, don't try to distract off the subject of domestic violence. Drug cartels in other nations bear no regard to the fact that 20 little kids got gunned down by one of our citizens.

Except those cartels would be arming their gangs here in the states and selling arms to any thug who had the coin to buy them. Maybe Holder could transfer some arms to those environmental types who think the world needs less people in it...

the fact that isn't happening, therefore, is a tribute to the fine work done by the AG and FBI, you must agree!

callmeslick wrote:.....

I get you back to an irrefutable fact. Those that own firearms are WAY more likely to die by the gun than those who don't. How's that work for your theory of self-defense? Sure, we can all find examples of folks who did protect themselves from harm with a gun, but one can find far more examples of folks who die by misuse or theft of their own weapons. Most recently, I can think of a woman in Newtown, CT. And, further, her weapons acquisitions led to the death of 20 little souls without a clue what a 'weapon' was. Yet, some folks(hopefully far less folks than a week ago, it seems) cling to the preposterous notion that guns are the key to a safe society.

You have about three replies in a row now that are full of untrue statements and ridiculous conclusions drawn from the pool of untrue data that you spewed out.

If the rules of the debate are that you get to make up the data from wishes and fears then of course you 'win' the argument. But in case you really believe the stuff you have said and would like to deal with the truth lets start with you proving this one:

callmeslick wrote:.....Sure, we can all find examples of folks who did protect themselves from harm with a gun, but one can find far more examples of folks who die by misuse or theft of their own weapons.

Are you implying that more people die from their own gun than people who use a gun to stop a crime or assault from happening?
Or are you using weasel words to say it is easier to find one example than the other?

You can find reported incidents to all Sheriffs offices in the country that document over a million uses of guns by citizens warding off criminals per year...even when the interviews filter out incidents where the potential victim says they probably weren't in danger of death, they merely stopped a burglar or car theft the numbers still add up to well over half a million incidents per year.
So, if you aren't being a weasel please start with showing data that supports over a half million gun owners being killed in any year with their own gun!

Then we can move on to a couple other things you said that are totally wrong as well and who knows, maybe you can learn the truth about guns.

Here is a little fun fact.
Over the last 4 years, for every 4 justifiable homicides (good guy kills bad guy) performed by a policeman there are 3 justifiable homicides performed by a private citizen.

FBI Uniform Crime Reports........use it....know it......then talk about it. Or do like Slick and just make ★■◆● up.

Sergeant Thorne wrote:Assault rifles are for personal and property defense in extreme situations.

Where the ★■◆● do you live, Damascus?

Just as a thought experiment, forgetting for a moment that our rights are protected by the 2nd amendment, can you explain to me, philosophically speaking, why a free citizen should not possess the same means of self-defense as his law enforcement or military?

Hmm...oh, how about because our law enforcement and military go through rigorous training in order to properly and safely use said implements, while your average "free citizen" doesn't. There, that was easy.

You want people to own handguns and assault rifles? Make them take a ★■◆●ing competency test first. We require that potential drivers go through training and pass a test to make sure they won't kill everyone else around them on the road, so why the hell aren't we doing it for people trying to buy items whose raison d'etre is to kill?

TopGun wrote:

Sergeant Thore wrote:Just as a thought experiment, forgetting for a moment that our rights are protected by the 2nd amendment, can you explain to me, philosophically speaking, why a free citizen should not possess the same means of self-defense as his law enforcement or military?

Hmm...oh, how about because our law enforcement and military go through rigorous training in order to properly and safely use said implements, while your average "free citizen" doesn't. There, that was easy.

You want people to own handguns and assault rifles? Make them take a **** competency test first. We require that potential drivers go through training and pass a test to make sure they won't kill everyone else around them on the road, so why the hell aren't we doing it for people trying to buy items whose raison d'etre is to kill?

Welcome to yesterday, Mr. angst.

Sergeant Thorne earlier in the topic wrote:

Spidey wrote: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.

Now I was talking about carry specifically, but there's no reason you couldn't nudge it over to firearms purchase and then be good to go as far as carry, IMO. I reiterate that I think this ought to be handled by a sheriff--an elected authority who uses firearms day-to-day.

BTW my dad taught me proper and safe use of firearms, and that is often the case. Your average free citizen learns competency from someone else, usually, or they wouldn't be playing with something so dangerous. Firearms don't lend themselves to just being picked up and played with. I don't deny that may happen, but I don't know where you're getting it. Are you assuming?

Top Gun wrote:

You want people to own handguns and assault rifles? Make them take a ★■◆●ing competency test first. We require that potential drivers go through training and pass a test to make sure they won't kill everyone else around them on the road, so why the hell aren't we doing it for people trying to buy items whose raison d'etre is to kill?

Don't know what state you live in TG, here in MI you have to take 2 days of training of both firearm handling and the legal aspects before you can get a CCW license. For hunting you have to take a hunter safety course.
Maybe you live in NYC, if so you are forgiven.

While comrade Slick is adamant about how the govt is better able to protect you than you are, I beg to differ as they cannot even offer adequate protection to their own embassy in a known trouble spot:

"Independent review of investigation into the deadly attack on US Consulate in Benghazi slams State Department, saying facility was inadequately protected and there weren't protests. "

So there you have it boys and girls, what would you rather have when late at night you are going to your car in a seemingly empty parking lot. A cell phone that you can call for help or a trusty .45?

if it means some nut like you with a .45, give me the cell phone. Seriously, the situation you describe can easily be handled with one's wits and awareness of surroundings, without a handgun, let alone a hand cannon, coming into play. Guns are, I am getting more convinced by the day, the tools
of the scared, the reckless, or the cowardly.

A real nut job starts a thread, not to offer sympathies to the parents of the dead children or the teachers who gave up their lives trying to protect them, but to start a diatribe about a political agenda. Tell me Slick, did you get all wet in the pants when you heard about the shooting and think to yourself, "Aha! Gun control is now a winner" Either you are the worst sort of troll or your nose is so far up the liberal Hershey crack that you have lost all sense of propriety. Keep poasting though, as you are truly amusing.

you're right in one sense, Woody. This thread was started NOT for the purpose of simply expressing sympathy for the victims, but rather, to not allow them to die in vain. Now, for a summary of what I have been getting at, I wish to use your example of my point about wits vs. arms. I am going to be long-winded, so bear with me. I am going to commence packing for our Christmas trip to visit daughter, son-in-law and grandkids, so I'd like to wrap up my participation to a great extent.
You, Woody, give the example of(using your words):"when late at night you are going to your car in a seemingly empty parking lot...".First off, why should this scare you? It doesn't me, unless someone is appearing menacing, in which case 'seemingly empty' doesn't exist. This is an example of why I characterized guns as the refuge of the 'scared'. I've spent the responsible 3 decades of my adult life, from time to time, walking through many near empty parking lots in what can be dangerous cities(Reading, NYC, Newark, Wilmington, Richmond, DC, etc). First off, at no time would I, nor should any person with functioning grey matter, leave my vehicle in a spot where I didn't know either a quick escape route, how to contact police, safe spot to run to or other basic safety aspects. At NO time, have I ever been threatened with violence. Could I have been? Sure, but in such locales, any potential assailant both knows the area better than I and has the element of surprise. Both those factors far outweigh any benefit carrying a gun confers. In fact,
I would argue that thugs are nowadays MORE likely to gun you down first and ask for valuables later precisely due to a drumbeat of wingnuts insistent on the right to carry firearms everyplace. Thus, criminal thugs, by definition cowards preying upon the weak(generally the weakminded) use the gun to
make it impossible for the victim to escape. Hence my description of weapons as the choice of cowards.
I get back to my core argument about common sense. Common sense dictates that one be aware of one's surroundings, assess the danger level before arriving, and avoiding clearly dangerous situations. It isn't all that hard. Man, as a species, has always survived due to superior thinking as opposed to superior protection. That still applies. Anyone who feels he/she needs a gun to walk around in our society ought not be walking around in our society until going through intensive counseling. Period.
The notion that guns make our society safer is ludicrous. We have more killings and injury from gun violence than any other economically and politically stable nation. The data, as I have cited, shows that gun ownership causes an increased likelihood of being killed by a gun for the owner. The lax laws for transfer and ownership have literally flooded our streets with weapons, many of them stolen from well-intended suburban scared types. The utterly senseless laws around higher powered long guns and high-capacity magazines for all weapons have clearly enabled mass murders to occur with alarming regularity. These are irrefutable facts. You can make excuses as to why this is acceptable, or necessary, but those are solely wrapped up in people's notions of 'personal rights'. This gets me to something else.....personal responsibility within a society. Part of being a member of a society is being able and willing to sometimes forego what you want to do for the sake of the larger good. And, in this case, the 'larger good' is very clear.
Now, let's move on to the argument that AR-15's and the like are preferred small-game hunting weapons. I've been a member of both the Fin, Fur and Feather club of eastern CT, and the Union County Sportsmans Club of central PA, for years. Now, I don't hunt for mammals, out of personal choice,
but have a lot of friends who hunt for both large and small game. I'll state this simply: if you have to have a rapid-fire, high velocity .22 to hunt for small game, you suck as a hunter. No ifs, ands or buts. Any real hunter knows this, and more and more are realizing that any such excuse making is hurting the nation they live in.
Finally, I have to address the notion, seemingly put forth by many, of the necessity of arming one's home in case of a robbery or other invasion. I can see this as valid(albeit dangerous for the untrained). Still, this doesn't negate the need for proper storage at all times, nor does it in any way justify the assault weaponry. Hell, a shotgun would work just fine. Now, for Thorne, who seems to fear a wholesale apocolypse, which may or may not involve a zombie related event, an AR-15 might make sense. For that argument, I have no real retort, other than to say that I don't, personally, believe in zombies.
So, to conclude, feel free to make excuses. Feel free to throw around smokescreens based on your Obama-hate and distrust of government. Feel free to try and perpetuate your notion of fear and stupidity allowing you to blunder into dangerous situations. I think, for most thinking people, we've gotten to the point where enough is enough. We have to, as the President said the other night, do something to change this. Surely, mental health care can be vastly improved. It would be nice if Republicans were willing to fund such care for the first time since Reagan cut federal support. Surely, law enforcement of existing firearms law, and prosecution of same can be improved. But, really, folks, isn't it time to stop allowing unchecked sales of guns,
of unfettered access to weapons solely designed to kill large numbers of people, stop allowing citizens to own large-capacity magazines, and selling
hollow point or other ammunition clearly designed to target people? I think it is, and I'll be doing my best, politically and economically to help make it happen. The recent push by large investors to divest from certain gun manufacturers is a good economic start. A halt to bond investment in states which refuse to enact sensible legislation should be next. Every thinking citizen ought to put pressure to bear on their elected officials and KEEP it up.
As for sympathy for those recent victims, and all victims. I would assume that anyone with a heart, everyone with kids, grandkids or a shred of decency should be moved to tears from time to time by the way our nation has become the world epicenter of civilian violence. There are a host of ways to help,
in some small part, ameliorate the pain and suffering of the victims. They are too numerous to mention, but readily available in all locales. That was, however, not my focus in this thread, so sorry, Woody, to disappoint you. Perhaps, you could lock your beloved .45 away and give us a post with suggestions for outreach to victims?
As stated at the outset, it's time for me, and Mrs. Slick to prepare to head out to Indiana for the Chrismas holiday. May peace be with one and all here.
Hug your kids, tell your grandkids you love them. Be well, all, and Merry Christmas.

We'll get a lot further if you avoid building strawmen altogether, even strawmen with attention to real life detail, Slick. You never read anything from me about zombies, and there's a good reason for that. I think all of this talk of zombies and all of these movies trying to tie the idea of zombies in with real-life scenarios is extremely off-color. I try to avoid anything that might cause me to even subconsciously diminish the value of human life. To me there's something really sick about the notion of a whole segment of people being open to wholesale slaughter due to some virus or disease.

I appreciate what you have to say about being aware. I don't know if you knew this or not, but to this point I have never carried a pistol. My brother does, and I don't have a problem with that. I was telling him just the other day that I don't have a problem with pistol carry, but I felt that there are a lot of things going on in any situation that most people are probably not aware of--I try to be aware of these things, and as a result I don't feel particularly vulnerable. I have to say, thought, I think even if you've tied up 80% of the argument with that I don't see how that gives you a right to chide folks on the other 20% or pretend it doesn't exist. One of the reasons I plan on eventually carrying concealed is that if I expect to effectively assist others in an ugly situation there is always a chance I will need more than my wits and my hands. Everyone has an off-day, and I'm not omnipotent. I allow that sometimes force is the only answer for evil, unreasonable people.

As for "apocalypse" part. Better to be prepared than unprepared. There are a lot of indicators of coming instability right now, and the folks in government are essentially doing nothing good about it. If we get a Katrina on a larger scale or something of the like, you can be sure you'll be eating your words. Hopefully target shooting is the only shooting I ever do.

callmeslick wrote:Man, as a species, has always survived due to superior thinking as opposed to superior protection. That still applies.

You are being a bit dishonest with this statement, the reason humans as a species has survived is because our superior thinking enabled us to forge and wield more effective weapons than any other predators. Without weapons we would very likely have gone extinct long before recorded history. The reason you are alive today is because one of your ancestors was smart enough to forge a weapon.

callmeslick wrote:Now, for Thorne, who seems to fear a wholesale apocolypse, which may or may not involve a zombie related event, an AR-15 might make sense. For that argument, I have no real retort, other than to say that I don't, personally, believe in zombies.

I see zombies, they are everywhere, they don't even know they are zombies, and some of them...POST IN THIS FORUM.

Sergeant Thorne wrote:Welcome to yesterday, Mr. angst.

Wow that sure is a great response to my point instead of a complete dodge there.

woodchip wrote:Don't know what state you live in TG, here in MI you have to take 2 days of training of both firearm handling and the legal aspects before you can get a CCW license. For hunting you have to take a hunter safety course.
Maybe you live in NYC, if so you are forgiven.

I don't just mean for CCW, though...I mean for any sort of firearm purchase, period. And while your state may do things right, I can guarantee you that there are many others that don't. Hell, just look at mine.

Now I’m a loon and a coward, must be the way morons garner support for their ideas.

Go figure

Slick, you continue to tell lies citing 'data' that if the truth were used in its place would prove your claims to be bald faced lies or that you are in fact the one who is reacting out of unwarranted fear.

Why do you ignore the challenges I put forth? Why do you continue to lie?

I haven't seen either of you actually citing any data on crimes prevented or accidental deaths caused.

Jeff250 wrote:I haven't seen either of you actually citing any data on crimes prevented or accidental deaths caused.

I challenge his assertion that there are more gun owners killed with their own weapon than there are gun owners who use a weapon to stop a crime. The number of ALL murders are around 10% of the number of times a gun is used by a civilian to stop a violent crime. So, even if ALL murders are done with the victims own gun Slick is full of ★■◆● at a ten to one ratio!

Those numbers are arrived at by taking the initial, and likely over weighted total of incidents where a citizen reports to a law enforcement agency that they have just used a gun to stop a crime. From that number which hovers around a million times per year lately there has been a study performed to try and filter out the incidents where the citizens life may have not been in danger but rather they used the gun to scare off a thief or other non-lethal criminal event. So from the one million the study shows around 160,000 times where the citizen was likely defending not just property but the well being of themselves or another victim. So the NRA et al will cite the one million figure. I'm going with the filtered results of 160,000.

The number of times in the last 5 years that a policeman committed justifiable homicide is an average of just under 400 times per year. The number of times a civilian committed justifiable homicide is just under 300 times per year. I cited the FBI's UCR.
You can toss that around and realize, if the gun bans go into effect, how quickly will law abiding people become unarmed compared to how long before the criminals, if ever, become unarmed.
And if so, what will happen in those instances where three hundred times a year the armed citizen won the fight against the bad guys?!? And since a gun ban will have changed the dynamic of so much of the situation, how many assaults will there be as the ratio of armed citizens drops drastically compared to the number of armed bad guys?!? I can say that it is most likely the 300 that will now lose to the bad guys will increase rapidly since the dynamics have been shifted terribly in the bad guys favor.

Also, the fact that armed citizens are shooting dead 3/4ths as many bad guys annually as policemen should show that good people are using guns for good reason...and those numbers only count the times when the target dies from the wound. They usually survive and go from hospital to jail.

You might first think, well, the number of people greatly outnumbers the police....except not all 3 million Americans have guns. Only 19% of adults have handguns. (Handguns are by far the most used weapon for self defense so I'm focusing on those numbers for expediency as I compile these stats as I post this). There are roughly 2 cops for every adult with a handgun in America. Even if every single handgun owning adult is ready and willing to shoot a bad guy you can see that policemen are not that far ahead of citizens in taking out the badguys! And their job is primarily to find and stop the bad guys!

I can disprove a number of other things Slick has said but really it is not that important unless he wants to engage in the details why bother. I recognize a lot of his so called 'data', it is boiler plate talking points from the anti-gun side from the mid '80's.
He's not even up to speed on his party's rhetoric! They have had to re-create new talking points since those were shot down decades ago...

The 'assault weapons ban' is a fraud. If in effect last Friday it would have saved exactly no one. It is nothing but a political football that the President and some in Congress are trying to spike on camera. Who are these willful idiots that are clamoring to be on their cheer leading squad? Slick is apparently one...are all democrats really that mindless?

And what they really want, a total weapons ban, is suicide. We aren't frikken Finland people! You can't just tweak one thing (disarm the good guys) and expect the country will suddenly become like the Finnish. You will kill lots of good people and then you will be calling for the gun ban to be removed...assuming you have survived the mayhem that long!

Top Gun wrote:

Sergeant Thorne wrote:Welcome to yesterday, Mr. angst.

Wow that sure is a great response to my point instead of a complete dodge there.

I think you need to read the rest of my reply. It didn't stop there.

There are probably as many people shot in Chicago, EVERY MONTH, as there were children shot in Connecticut last week.
Chicago is as anti-gun as it gets. Now some will rush in to say that 'it is because the neighboring states and cities have guns that criminals get their hands on'.
I say cocaine is illegal in ALL of the US. Does anyone think they can't get cocaine in Chicago anymore since it was outlawed in the US?

Why would they smuggle cocaine and not guns if their was a demand for it?

So we have a War on Drugs.....failure.
And a War on Poverty.....failure
Now those same people want to create the War on Guns environment?!? That is going to be really really bad.

I wonder what the immigration laws are for a family of four moving from America to Finland....

Jeff250 wrote:I haven't seen either of you actually citing any data on crimes prevented or accidental deaths caused.

"According to FBI police crime reports, in 2008 there were 14,180 murders and 616 justifiable homicides (of which 371 were performed by law enforcement) in the United States.[97] However, the FBI Uniform Crime Report states that the justifiable homicide statistic does not represent eventual adjudication by medical examiner, coroner, district attorney, grand jury, trial jury or appellate court; few US jurisdictions allow a police crime report to adjudicate a homicide as justifiable, resulting in an undercount in the UCR table. The vast majority of defensive gun uses (DGUs) do not involve killing or even wounding an attacker, with government surveys showing 108,000 (NCVS) to 23 million (raw NSPOF) DGUs per year, with ten private national surveys showing 764,000 to 3.6 million DGU per year.[98][99]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concealed_ ... hall-Issue

Sergeant Thorne wrote:

Top Gun wrote:

Sergeant Thorne wrote:Welcome to yesterday, Mr. angst.

Wow that sure is a great response to my point instead of a complete dodge there.

I think you need to read the rest of my reply. It didn't stop there.

That's fair enough; I misread what you were quoting there as being from someone else, not you, and the rest of it didn't click right. (Not really a fan of the crack though.) I appreciate the fact that you recognize that some degree of required training would do a world of good, but there is one part that I do take issue with:

Sergeant Thorne wrote:BTW my dad taught me proper and safe use of firearms, and that is often the case. Your average free citizen learns competency from someone else, usually, or they wouldn't be playing with something so dangerous. Firearms don't lend themselves to just being picked up and played with. I don't deny that may happen, but I don't know where you're getting it. Are you assuming?

I don't have to "assume" anything here, because I know for a fact that plenty of people have been hurt, or even killed, precisely by picking up and playing with a firearm. How many news stories have we all seen of a child getting access to a handgun somehow, accidentally setting it off, and shooting themselves or a friend? Hell, we've seen stories of that happening with people who should be old enough to know better. *cough*Plaxico Burress*cough* You're grossly underestimating the fascination that the untrained can have with firearms, often with deadly consequences.

I don't think I've "grossly" underestimated anything. You're involved in overstating a marginal matter of gun safety like it somehow pertains to the rest of us. Firearm safety is common-sense. People do stupid things all the time, statistically. My dad also taught us about guns from a young age so that we would know that a gun was not a toy.

Allow me to throw in a bit of personal experience, as someone who hasn't been well-trained in firearm usage:

Growing up, I had a BB gun and occasionally my Dad would let my brother and I use his pellet gun. He was careful to teach us about safety, but I've never pursued any real firearms training. With that said, on a number of occasions, I've been invited to "go shooting" with a friend or family member at a range or in a field somewhere, where I have been provided weapons and ammo with nothing more than an extremely brief "here's how to load it / shoot it" when asked. Sure, I've always had fun, but it's always struck me as odd that no one has ever asked me about training before handing me a pistol or shotgun, or even inviting me to fire an AR-15.

In order to get my security clearance for work, I had to go through a very heavy background check, as well as training. So why is it that I can obtain a bunch of firearms with only the briefest of background searches, and zero training?

Foil wrote:.....So why is it that I can obtain a bunch of firearms with only the briefest of background searches, and zero training?

Because no politician has tried to author a law that could cause that to happen without also creating a way for the next politician to use that law as precedence to completely take away the essence of the right to bare arms.
It may not be feasible although it would be useful, helpful, etc.

This thread was started NOT for the purpose of simply expressing sympathy for the victims, but rather, to not allow them to die in vain.

Of course Slick really means 'not to let this opportunity to EXPLOIT the deaths of the victims' for the purposes of disarming Americans slip away.

It would seem that the Chinese government agrees with Slick:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/indep ... 042820.htm

callmeslick wrote:
You, Woody, give the example of(using your words):"when late at night you are going to your car in a seemingly empty parking lot...".First off, why should this scare you? It doesn't me, unless someone is appearing menacing, in which case 'seemingly empty' doesn't exist. This is an example of why I characterized guns as the refuge of the 'scared'.

Did I say I was scared? You seem to equate taking prudent precautions as some how being fearful.

callmeslick wrote:I've spent the responsible 3 decades of my adult life, from time to time, walking through many near empty parking lots in what can be dangerous cities(Reading, NYC, Newark, Wilmington, Richmond, DC, etc). First off, at no time would I, nor should any person with functioning grey matter, leave my vehicle in a spot where I didn't know either a quick escape route, how to contact police, safe spot to run to or other basic safety aspects. At NO time, have I ever been threatened with violence. Could I have been? Sure, but in such locales, any potential assailant both knows the area better than I and has the element of surprise. Both those factors far outweigh any benefit carrying a gun confers. In fact,
I would argue that thugs are nowadays MORE likely to gun you down first and ask for valuables later precisely due to a drumbeat of wingnuts insistent on the right to carry firearms everyplace. Thus, criminal thugs, by definition cowards preying upon the weak(generally the weakminded) use the gun to make it impossible for the victim to escape. Hence my description of weapons as the choice of cowards.

What a convoluted twist of logic. I guess even police, by your definition, are cowards and should just go back to carrying a night stick to prove their machismo.

callmeslick wrote: I get back to my core argument about common sense. Common sense dictates that one be aware of one's surroundings, assess the danger level before arriving, and avoiding clearly dangerous situations. It isn't all that hard. Man, as a species, has always survived due to superior thinking as opposed to superior protection. That still applies. Anyone who feels he/she needs a gun to walk around in our society ought not be walking around in our society until going through intensive counseling. Period.

Precisely because people think our society is "safe" that they do not think. These and people like you are the ones who heed counseling to understand society is not safe.

callmeslick wrote:Now, let's move on to the argument that AR-15's and the like are preferred small-game hunting weapons. I've been a member of both the Fin, Fur and Feather club of eastern CT, and the Union County Sportsmans Club of central PA, for years. Now, I don't hunt for mammals, out of personal choice,
but have a lot of friends who hunt for both large and small game. I'll state this simply: if you have to have a rapid-fire, high velocity .22 to hunt for small game, you suck as a hunter. No ifs, ands or buts. Any real hunter knows this, and more and more are realizing that any such excuse making is hurting the nation they live in.

Those same "real" hunters use semi auto .22 rifles chambered for for either long or short rounds (not high velocity) to hunt squirrels or rabbits. The high velocity .223 is used for varmint hunting like ground hogs or prairie dogs primarily because the .223 is a very flat trajectory round with the added benefit, due to its high velocity, of disintegrating instead of ricocheting if it misses target and hits a rock. So I guess you are the one who sucks at hunting as I'm beginning to think you don't know squat about hunting.

callmeslick wrote:hollow point or other ammunition clearly designed to target people?

You really don't understand hunting ammo do you.

callmeslick wrote: May peace be with one and all here.
Hug your kids, tell your grandkids you love them. Be well, all, and Merry Christmas.

I can agree with you on this

When shooting at a human target you want the bullet to unload all it's energy into the tissue of the intended target so it doesn't fly through the 'bad guy' and hit an innocent person. Hollow points help stop a bullet from flying through a human body. Even if a jury finds you are justified in shooting a person you are still liable for what your bullet hits if it passes through the bad guy and hits something/someone else.

The idea that bullets shouldn't be hollow point because they are "more deadly" is ridiculous and it is an argument made solely to cause a jury, or willfully ignorant population, into thinking the gun user is especially sadistic and cruel!

If a person shoots someone the only concern the law should have is to decide if the shooting was justified and is there any liability for damage to innocent people.
How deadly the projectile is shouldn't play a role in the discussion...unless of course your intent is to ignore the justification for taking the shot in the first place and you need to demonize someone who was the victim of a criminal. Not unlike accusing a rape victim of being at fault because she wore a sexy dress.

Forcing people to use solid round nose bullets puts innocent people at unnecessary risk of injury or death.

Will Robinson wrote:When shooting at a human target you want the bullet to unload all it's energy into the tissue of the intended target so it doesn't fly through the 'bad guy' and hit an innocent person. Hollow points help stop a bullet from flying through a human body. Even if a jury finds you are justified in shooting a person you are still liable for what your bullet hits if it passes through the bad guy and hits something/someone else.

The idea that bullets shouldn't be hollow point because they are "more deadly" is ridiculous and it is an argument made solely to cause a jury, or willfully ignorant population, into thinking the gun user is especially sadistic and cruel!

If a person shoots someone the only concern the law should have is to decide if the shooting was justified and is there any liability for damage to innocent people.
How deadly the projectile is shouldn't play a role in the discussion...unless of course your intent is to ignore the justification for taking the shot in the first place and you need to demonize someone who was the victim of a criminal. Not unlike accusing a rape victim of being at fault because she wore a sexy dress.

Forcing people to use solid round nose bullets puts innocent people at unnecessary risk of injury or death.

I have both types of ammunition for my handgun. I've thought about which one I'd want to use to stop an intruder. On one hand, the hollow point would make sure the target I hit would go down in one shot, but there would be one hell of a mess to clean up. All that blood and tissue bits on the walls and floor. On the other hand, a smooth point would do less damage to the target's body, which may not incapacitate him with one shot, but it would make far less of a mess in the house.

Then I thought about if someone broke in to my house, got a hold of my handgun before I did and then shot me with it. I decided I'd rather get shot with a smooth point bullet myself. So I made my mind up and loaded up the magazine with smooth points. Less mess in the house if I had to use it and less deadly for me if someone else used it on me. I'll just have to make sure I get in a good first couple of shots, preferably head shots. That's why I have 15 shots loaded in the magazine.

By the way, I read your little partisan back-at-ya link. I can see why the ACLU went against it.

Will Robinson wrote: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!'.

Here's why, and I quote:

Had the AOT bill been passed, it would have given the state the right to institutionalize a person who is mentally ill for treatment if the state has enough evidence to believe that the person could be a danger to himself or the community.

You have to ask yourself, should the state have the right to institutionalize someone against their will, even if it might protect the lives of others? As a conservative, are you really serious that this a power that the evil government should have, AGAIN by the way? Remember, the state had this power in the past and it was removed because of the all the abuses of that power. Do you want the state telling people when and why they should be institutionalized against their will?

tunnelcat wrote:..... On one hand, the hollow point would make sure the target I hit would go down in one shot, but there would be one hell of a mess to clean up. All that blood and tissue bits on the walls and floor. On the other hand, a smooth point would do less damage to the target's body, which may not incapacitate him with one shot, but it would make far less of a mess in the house.

Then I thought about if someone broke in to my house, got a hold of my handgun before I did and then shot me with it. I decided I'd rather get shot with a smooth point bullet myself. ........

I'm guessing you might be joking about some of that but two things should be made clear. A hollow point that produces no exit wound is going to be less of a mess than the round nose that punches twice as many holes.

If you are choosing ammo based on the fear of the enemy turning your weapon on you then please choose a stun gun!
In motorcycling they teach you to not focus your eyes on the debris that suddenly appears in your path that you want to swerve to avoid, but rather, look at the empty space beside the debris where you want your front tire to roll. The reason being that you will subconsciously veer into that which you focus on...

To loosely adapt that to facing an attacker, your preconceived bad-outcome of being disarmed can become a self fulfilling prophesy. You are training your brain to accept that outcome. So either be all in for the fight or use a weapon you can live with (pun intended) like a stun gun.

I've been looking into them and there have been some nice advances in non lethal weaponry. I'm holding out for the twin beam laser that delivers a high voltage charge spanning the two beams. I'm afraid I'm not going to live long enough to see it go commercial but damn that is a great concept. No wires back to the launcher, basically works like a Star Trek phaser set for stun!

tunnelcat wrote:By the way, I read your little partisan back-at-ya link. I can see why the ACLU went against it.

Had the AOT bill been passed, it would have given the state the right to institutionalize a person who is mentally ill for treatment if the state has enough evidence to believe that the person could be a danger to himself or the community.

You have to ask yourself, should the state have the right to institutionalize someone against their will, even if it might protect the lives of others? As a conservative, are you really serious that this a power that the evil government should have, AGAIN by the way? Remember, the state had this power in the past and it was removed because of the all the abuses of that power. Do you want the state telling people when and why they should be institutionalized against their will?

So who was the now dead mother of the piece of crap shooter trying to petition to give her the right to have him committed when he killed her? I believe the State....

I don't see the Fed being a better alternative if that is where this is going.
And some entity has to be able to get the truly dangerous off the streets.

Here is a good read about the assault weapon ban.