Kennesaw Georgia, the solution to gun violence.

[Bill Cravener]

Holmes was not only wearing full body armor he also tossed gas canisters that obscured everyone’s vision and created chaos in a near blackened theater. To believe a theater full of armed civilians firing willy-nilly may have stopped that madman is absurd, it would more likely have taken out more innocent movie goers. Most concealed hand gun carriers are poorly trained and the belief that one of them taking out a determined gunman in the dark is a NRA induced fantasy. Again as to guns and cars, in Virginia for example, with one of the heaviest base of armed civilians in the nation, gun related deaths outnumber motor vehicle demises. Virginia is not alone, federal government studies show nine other states have gun deaths that out number those involving motor vehicles.

Gun Deaths Exceed Motor Vehicle Deaths in 10 States

Unfortunately current federal law only requires criminal background checks for guns sold through licensed firearm dealers, which account for about 60% of all gun sales in the United States. A loophole in the law allows individuals not engaged in the business of selling firearms to sell guns without a license and without processing any paperwork. That means that two out of every five guns sold in the United States change hands without a background check. Though commonly referred to as the “Gun Show Loophole,” the private sales includes guns sold at gun shows through classified newspaper ads, the Internet, and between individuals virtually anywhere in the United States. The fact is too many Americans are obsessed with gun ownership and the extremely easy availability of them to anyone is total insanity!



http://www.bradycampaign.org/

[hutch--]

It must be a matter of taste, if I could ever think of a use for an auto loader rifle, it would be an FN 7.62 that the OZ military used to use about 30 years ago, very similar to the older m16 that the US military used to use. The catch is there is little in OZ that you would hunt with a rifle of this type, the government did some culling of the introduce water buffalo in the Northern territory some years ago and the FN (SLR) was the tool of choice from helicopter.

As far as hand guns go, I personally see little use for them apart from security tasks as they do not perform as well as any reasonable rifle, the main purpose of hand guns is they can be concealed which limits their legal usage. In OZ you had to have a very good reason to own a handgun but until about 30 years ago rifle ownership was very common. There was some obvious deterrent value in an unknown number of houses have a rifle and it did make violent crime a risky number, especially in country areas where there was little chance of any external help.

We have an emerging problem here in OZ with the increase in the number of people who are migrants from west Africa, a rise in the incidence of armed gangs with machetes committing violent armed robberies of houses and with terrible outcomes, victims hack to pieces with a machete. A .303 or similar would solve this problem but our gun grabber laws in OZ remove the victim's right to defend themselves effectively.

In my youth when I was young and foolish I used to specialise in hunting wild pigs on foot (none of these pansies that hunted from the back of a truck) where you needed a big bore gun to stop a big boar stone dead the first shot, a 44 Winchester did the job fine, a 444 marlin was even better but they were a pig to use and kicked like a mule. The real nut cases used to use a 12 guage solid but that was a bit of overkill. I never have and never will hunt indiginous animals, poor bastards have in some places been hunted to extinction.

[MichaelW]

The fact is too many Americans are obsessed with gun ownership and the extremely easy availability of them to anyone is total insanity!

And another fact is that there are too many Americans obsessed with outlawing guns, and given our reality that also would be total insanity.

[mywan]

Unfortunately current federal law only requires criminal background checks for guns sold through licensed firearm dealers, which account for about 60% of all gun sales in the United States. A loophole in the law allows individuals not engaged in the business of selling firearms to sell guns without a license and without processing any paperwork. That means that two out of every five guns sold in the United States change hands without a background check. Though commonly referred to as the “Gun Show Loophole,” the private sales includes guns sold at gun shows through classified newspaper ads, the Internet, and between individuals virtually anywhere in the United States. The fact is too many Americans are obsessed with gun ownership and the extremely easy availability of them to anyone is total insanity!

First off you are falsely implying that federal law is the only restrictions in play here. You could have denied this implication, except that you then chose do the math to label ALL private sales of guns as unregulated and without paperwork factually proving you intended these false claims. In fact the guns sold in 17 states cannot qualifier as part of your 40% of gun sales, even though you included them, because there are very definite requirements for background check. Many states even have explicit background check requirements for all private person to person sales. Federal has traditional been limited in the extent they can regulate private person to person sales due their regulatory power being derived from the interstate commerce clause. States therefore have far more power to control these kinds of transactions, and many do even though you falsely  included these regulated sales in your estimate of unregulated sales, just because they were regulated under powers not explicitly under federal jurisdiction.

If you want an honest debate on what regulations should be implemented you must first define the limits on how far these regulations may go. Otherwise I have no grounds for believing any argument presented is more than a pretense to obtain the unstated. Now, when your numbers are factually false you have crossed the line from suspicious to unadulterated BS.

Fortunately, most of us are still willing to hear reasonable arguments and enact reasonable regulations based thereon. Unfortunate, filling the debate full of BS noise like this works against the goal of hashing out reasonable regulations, leaving in its wake inefficient/ineffective regulations with a constituency too disgusted with this kind of BS, that you engendered here, to even hear reasonable arguments.

[mywan]

The fact is too many Americans are obsessed with gun ownership and the extremely easy availability of them to anyone is total insanity!

Oops: First half of above post.

And another fact is that there are too many Americans obsessed with outlawing guns, and given our reality that also would be total insanity.

Perfectly said.

To believe a theater full of armed civilians firing willy-nilly may have stopped that madman is absurd, it would more likely have taken out more innocent movie goers.

Obviously. Doesn't mean nobody could have been in a position to stop him reasonably safely, but the details of any particular incidence is irrelevant to the determination of of what set of laws/regulations would best reduce the risk to people as a whole. Even outright outlawing all guns for all purposes with a death penalty to those that violate the law would still fail to protect some people in particular circumstances. What ifs as they relate to single incidences is BS on both sides.

[xanatose]

Why the obsession of taking guns from the people? If at all, having citizens being able to protect themselves would be cheaper to maintain order.  Less police needed.

Criminals, including government sponsored ones, go for the easy target. If they have to choose between a possibly armed target and an unarmed target. They will choose the unarmed target. If there where no possible unarmed target, chances are they wouldn't even do the shooting. This are not valiant people, this are cowards that prey on the weak.

That said:

In the USA (and ANY OTHER REPUBLIC) the power that legitimatizes government comes from its constitution. ANYTHING that is outside the constitution is not legal for government to do. And (at least in the USA) the constitution does not grant rights, neither does government. The constitution RECOGNIZES rights. ANY government stops obeying its constitution becomes an illegitimate one.

What part of "The right to bear arms shall not be infringed." do you people seem to not understand?  Don't like it, then start the process of amending the constitution, but good luck with that. The majority of of people of the USA, know why this was placed. And is not for the hunting bullshit that Obama tries to sell. The reason for it is that if government became a tyranny the people have the means to take it out.

Don't believe me, and believe the Obama bullshit interpretation that it was for hunting? Then explain why Thomas Jefferson wrote this:

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” (Quoting Cesare Beccaria)

"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."

"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."

Finally, and this is from me:

Freedom of speech is useless without the right to bear arms. If the people cannot take out government, then whats to stop government to do whatever they want and just ignore the people?

Just look at Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and just about any other dictator. The first thing they do is to take is your ability to fight back. The second thing this people do is to kill their opposition.  And of course, they always come with the message that is for your own protection.

BEGIN_SARCASM
But no, Obama couldn't possibly become a dictator.  Never mind the NDAA legalizing murder and incarceration of USA citizens inside the USA  without need of a trial. Never mind the various attempts at censoring the Internet. Never mind the Fast and Furious. Nor should you mind that Guantanamo is still fully functional. We should blindly trust our leader, thats the American way. After all anyone who says otherwise, must be a terrorist or a racist.

And the 2nd amendment was about hunting, because Obama says so.  Never mind Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Ben Franklin, and just about anyone that signed that outdated piece of paper.

END_SARCASM

[jj2007]

...explain why Thomas Jefferson wrote this:

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

Repeat that a couple of times here or elsewhere in public, and Homeland Security will become your new friends.

[mywan]

What xanatose said is extremely important even if I don't see NDAA legalizing murder and incarceration in itself bad enough at present to warrant overreaction. As I previously said, the odds that government would get this bad in any given generation may be fairly minimal, but if that power is invested in government it WILL happen sooner or later.

Historically we maintained a government that feared us enough that it became the most benign body with which to invest powers. Too many people mis-attribute this benignness as a structural product of our form of government. Absolutely not so. In the long run it will remain (mostly) benign only so long as it lacks the power to do anything else. If the NDAA laws stand sooner or later our grandchildren will pay a price that makes some homicidal idiot in a movie theater seem like a walk in the park.

[Bill Cravener]

Often we hear gun lovers compare auto deaths to gun deaths. Well fine, so tell me why we can’t have gun-ownership licenses just like we have driver's licenses and pilot licenses and fishing licenses and hunting licenses and so on? I think gun-ownership licenses should require a written as well as a proper gun-use exam. Gun training needs to be a must upon any gun purchase. I think gun education in high school just like we have driver's education if one intends on being a gun owner. Perhaps some form of liability insurance should also go along with gun-ownership. If you own an instrument capable of so easily killing someone why not require one to have gun owner insurance?

I’m a hunter and an avid one since the age of 12. I own guns yet I support gun control laws. For hunters like me hunting isn’t about the gun it’s about wildlife, a clean kill, and the land that sustains our wildlife. I don't want to pry anyone's guns away. What I do want and what I think we need are sensible gun control laws. Not to take anyone's guns away but to make buying one more responsible. Again I say, I am not against gun ownership but why does anyone need to own an assault rifle such as an AK-47 or M-16 or an AR-15, that or thousands of rounds of ammunitions?

It is fear by gun lovers and the power of the NRA that drives opposition to gun control (that Teddy Bear syndrome I’ve spoke of) even though an American is 50% more likely to be shot dead by his or her own hand than to be shot dead by a criminal assailant. More than 30,000 Americans injure themselves with guns every year because of stupidity and the lack of knowledge on the proper use of gun-ownership. A gun in the house is not a guarantee of personal security it is instead, to often, a standing invitation to family tragedy.
 
Over the last two plus centuries in the public interest we've enacted hundreds of laws that limit various freedoms enumerated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. For example you can't yell "Fire" in a crowded theater. I personally believe that a law written in the 18th Century when there were no Police, no FBI, or no standing army is badly in need of some modification. With the inevitable re-election of President Obama hopefully we as Americans can approach the subject of reasonable gun control. Something must be done!



http://www.bradycampaign.org/
 

[hutch--]

Bill,

Let me see if I have got you correctly, you support private gun ownership but want the ownership to be responsible AND you don't support ordinary people owning rapid fire assault style rifles. This would entail the basic concept of machine pistols like an Uzzi and similar.

I think from memory I have seen a formula on this one, no autoloaders that can be set to continuous fire (machine gun style) or that can be easily converted to do the same. How do you go with something like an M16 that can only be fired one shot at a time, (IE: one shot per trigger pull). There is probably enough game in the US to justify using a 3006 or similar ammunition.

I would also be interested to hear what you think of people carrying handguns in public, Dave has mentioned that in Arizona you must display a handgun if you are carrying one, would that do the job for you ?

[Bill Cravener]

Steve, I am against all assault type weapon ownership. The only purpose for an assault weapon is to kill people. I’m against even collectors having them because they leave open the means for some nut to steal said weapons.

I am against both openly displayed and concealed handguns. To be blunt I as a hunter dislike hand guns period. All they are good for is to kill people! If a home owner feels the need so badly to protect themselves a 410 single shot or double barrel shotgun would do the job much more efficiently. A 12 gage even better if you can handle one. It’s very hard to miss with a shotgun if an intruder enters your home and much less likely that some other family member could harm themselves as one can with a hand gun.

I would ask you Steve how would you feel for example if you yourself were sitting in a theater or restaurant or wherever and the guy next to you was openly displaying a hand gun. Would you feel more safe?

[MichaelW]

Bill,

Why do your posts on this subject have the feel of a con-job political ad?

You don’t want to take the guns away, but you do want to force gun owners to pay a licensing fee, pass a competency exam, and purchase insurance before exercising their constitutional right to own a gun. Well, if interfering with a constitutional right is OK, instead of doing this to the gun owners and maybe fixing one problem, let’s do it to the voters instead, and fix a bunch of problems.

And you seem to believe that a law can somehow make irresponsible people behave responsibly. We don’t need laws that assume we are all stupid and must be protected from ourselves, by our retarded uncle, who has a long history of not getting any thing right.

And what is “an American is 50% more likely to be shot dead by his or her own hand than to be shot dead by a criminal assailant” supposed to convince us of? That the anti-gun crowd is desperate and grabbing for anything that even looks like it might support their position?

[jj2007]

Bill,

Why do your posts on this subject have the feel of a con-job political ad?

You don’t want to take the guns away, but you do want to force gun owners to pay a licensing fee, pass a competency exam, and purchase insurance before exercising their constitutional right to own a gun.

One might ask whether car ownership should also become protected by The Constitution, so that American would no longer have to pass driving license exams, or pay insurance and taxes for their cars ::)

[dedndave]

the way our government is becoming more and more corrupt every day....
i am starting to favor assault weapon ownership
there may come a day when we need to take our country back

as for the AR-15's that you can buy that are single-fire...
you can file down the sear and make it fully automatic fairly easily

[mywan]

as for the AR-15's that you can buy that are single-fire...
you can file down the sear and make it fully automatic fairly easily

I know several retired cops that have done this even at times and places when it was strictly illegal. Though they tended to store the modified pin separately. This works on more than just the AR-15.