Upscale wrote:


"Charlie Groh" wrote in message
...IMHO those who carry loaded weapons in a car and go out drinking
for the evening are not "average" people...not by a (forgive the pun)
long shot. And, were those guns registered to those "average" people?

Well, I'd have to agree with you, because nobody except the police are
registered to carry weapons. The only other registration that goes on here
is to own a gun and a permit to transport it to places like a gun club.
And, it's even more difficult than ever to get those permits.


So, here again we hit the question, how can these things happen since you
already have extremely restrictive gun laws? Your solution is, more gun
laws?



This is a great example of drugs (alcohol) and guns don't mix.

That's one point that I'm trying to get across. When you add alcohol to
any situation, it usually exacerbates it. If the population at large has
the right to bear arms and they're more guns around, what happens when
alcohol is thrown into the mix?


You act as if guns and/or alcohol are recent innovations and that only now
citizens are getting access to guns. The exact opposite is true and
societies now have less guns on a per capita basis than in the past. Yet
somehow, the population in years past wasn't decimating itself in drunken
shooting rampages. So how come all of a sudden this is the solution to what
is a very small problem?



I *loved* Toronto when up there in the late 70's for a brief visit. I
was still kinda wild and crazy, the bars were amazing and
prolific...I'm NOT a crusader, but since I stopped ingesting that

Things *have* changed since the 70's, everywhere. There's an attitude of
entitlement and "don't screw with me" that seems to be very pervasive.
When I was a kid, a fight was using your fists and you might get the crap
beat out of you, but you usually lived. It seems when there's a fight
these days, someone always has a gun or a knife and a fight often results
in someone dying.

Some of that gang-related stuff. Again, guns are hardly a new
innovation -- perhaps it's time to use some of that energy being used to
restrict peoples' freedom by restricting a tool and start to work on what
is causing the behavior and attitude instead. What is so laugh-in-your
face funny (again, but for the serious consequences) is the notion by gun
ban advocates that somehow guns have just appeared on the scene and are now
causing this whole new problem. The reality is that gun access for all
citizens was actually greater in those days you are reminiscing about. Kids
used to take guns to school for a variety of reasons: gun club, show and
tell, and to hunt on the way home after school. There weren't wild
rampages then, so guns aren't the problem, why do you think banning them
now would be the solution?

The whole idea that by banning an inanimate object along with the
accompanying unintended consequences and side effects will somehow solve
the problems you describe above would be laughable if it weren't so darn
serious for the peasants (what disarmed citizens become) who are subjected
to such regulations. The gun control part is just part of the total
package -- just look to England. After disarming the citizens, the next
step was the idea that "a few farthings worth of x is not worth someone
losing their life over" and now you have the case where defending oneself
in one's own home leads to jail time for the person doing so. People still
die in fights, so the statists start looking for the next problem -- now
there are people in England seriously discussing regulating and banning
knives. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4581871.stm [You just can't
make this stuff up].

All deaths are tragic, society seems to be onto this notion that somehow
the world can be made completely safe through the application of various
laws and restrictions. The problem is that those laws and restrictions have
other various serious consequences and side effects. Where I grew up, and
where I live now, law enforcement is a minimum of 30 minutes (most likely
45 minutes) away -- you are proposing disarming people like myself and
putting us at the mercy of those who are already breaking the law. Mighty
compassionate of you.



It's just not the same anymore and I feel for kids in
school who have to deal with this **** day in and day out.

--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough