On Sun, 03 Feb 2013 16:20:26 -0500, Ed Huntress
wrote:
This thread was getting so long that it wouldn't download so I've cut
out much of it.
Who needs a zip gun, when criminals steal $122 million worth of
firearms each year? (FBI statistics).
You rather defeat the argument of gun records don't you. $122 million
dollars worth of stolen guns in the market place, outside the
registration system.
Hell, there's plenty of good stuff on the black market, thanks to a
vitually complete lack of accountability for gun owners to secrure
their guns.
Yes, rather.
Certainly you can record the sale of
every legally sold firearm but I would argue that there will be, as
long as it is financially viable, an underground gun market catering
to those who are engaged in an activity where they do not wish to have
an identifiable weapon.
It would be a hell of a lot smaller, over time, in all likelihood. If
you want to put a punch into those 200,000+ guns stolen each year,
make the owners responsible. It seems to work in some other countries.
Rather a strange attitude. Prosecute the victim.
You may be perfectly responsible. But the next guy is not.
That is my point exactly. I'm responsible so you make me fill out all
kinds of forms and papers. The guy down the street takes his baseball
bat out for a walk and comes back with an unregistered pistol and two
loaded magazines.
Unfortunately, we can't write laws just for you -- unless you move to
a desert island, by yourself. d8-)
Certainly not. But how about writing laws to punish the evil doers.
"Use of a firearm in a crime results in a mandatory death sentence",
that ought to cut down gun crime a bit.
How do you feel about having to take a driver's test, to pay for a
driver's license, and to fill out all that paperwork to buy and
license a car? Then they keep the registration records. I'll bet that
gets you steaming, eh?
And it doesn't seem to curtail auto deaths, does it? Which is my
point, will that fu fur about guns actually do any good? Or is it just
another political football that will result in more complexity for the
honest man?
Oh....that's about what's being proposed for guns, isn't it? d8-)
I get the head ache and he gets the gun.
To my personal knowledge my family has owned firearms since
the 1890's and very likely far longer...
Mine fought in Queen Anne's War, 1702. d8-)
...and not a one of us has ever
committed a crime (well other then shooting deer out of season :-)
with a firearm.
See above.
But worse, in my opinion, gun control or lack thereof appears to have
become nearly a religious issue. I hear people say that they are
afraid of guns, wouldn't have them in the house, and on and on, but it
really is a truism that guns don't kill people, people kill people.
People with guns are so much more effective, though. g That's what
the evidence and statistics tell us.
Of course they are more effective, after all they have been under
development for several hundred years, they ought to be pretty
effective.
Furthermore, they were invented for the purpose of killing people. All
of that development has only made them better.
It is very comforting to have a weapon upon which innumerable people
have spent so many years perfecting :-)
Witness the latest incarnations. Damned efficient, they are. You can
shoot up a whole classroom full of kids with one in a minute or two.
That's productivity!
Then you shoot yourself :-(
That's your option. It does seem to be a pattern, but the kids get it
in the head, first. And that's the problem.
But lets be honest, it wasn't the gun that did it, the gun was laying
on some pawn shop shelf for a year or more, never shot a soul.
Ah, if we're talking about Adam Lanza, it was in his mother's gun
cabinet.
It was
a twisted individual that did it and until you can somehow eradicate
these people there will probably always school killings.
A twisted individual with a gun.
The last
Japanese school killing was done with a kitchen knife.
How many did he kill? How many school kitchen-knife murders have
resulted in something like, say Columbine plus Virginia Tech plus
Newtown numbers of deaths?
Ed, you argue without merit. You seem to be saying that a limited
number of murders is rather meaningless. so where do we draw the line?
Kill one and "what the hell", Two and it is "My goodness". Three and
"what a shame".....
I do agree that having an assault rifle makes it a little easier but
the lack there of is not going to stop them. After all Timmy McVeigh
didn't have a gun.
Adam Lanza et al. sure did.
But for sheer volume, nothing to date has equaled the good old
automobile. I just did a search on "Deaths due to Automobile
Accidents" and "killed by firearms every year". The numbers were
42,836 for Autos and 8,306 by firearms. That is some 500% going for
the Cars..... and they are registered and the drivers are all
certified competent.
Let me ask you some questions at a comparable level of mature
sensibility:
If you want to kill somebody in his third-floor apartment, which would
you choose, a gun or a car?
You are asking very slanted questions. In fairness I might well answer
that I'd wait until the guy starts off for work and sneak up behind
him with a ball bat.
I am asking STUPID questions, not slanted ones. They're equally stupid
as equating automobile accidents with intentional murders committed
with a gun.
If you want to go to church on Sunday, and it's five miles away, which
would you do: hop in your car and drive there, or grab your Glock and
start shooting?
Hardly a logical question. Effectively you seem to be justifying some
40,000 deaths a year because you are too lazy to walk to church. Given
the overwhelming propensity for blubber that seems to have permeated
the American public I would have to say that the walk, whether at
glock point or not, would be of great benefit to the worshipers.
One mo Why does "going postal" not refer to mowing people down with
a mail truck?
You'll have to either stop using that modern slang or provide an
explanation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_postal
The reference refers to a date several years after I departed the U.S.
These are not intended to merit serious responses, anymore than your
car/gun equivalency merits a serious response. You know the answer.
Rhetorical questions and statements conducted at something below the
maturity level of a high school freshman are not very effective.
As for kids (the latest firearm furor) there were, in the United
States, an average of 6 children 0-14 years old were killed and 694
injured every day in motor vehicle crashes during 2003. Given that
there have been something like 200 killed in school shootings in the
past 15 years it begins to look like a pretty small number when you
compare it to car "accidents".
See above. You know the answer. If not, talk to the parents and
friends of some of the kids killed in those school shootings.
You are evading the question of why there is little or no outcry about
kids getting killed in auto "accidents" and there is this great
demonstration of grief about school shootings.
That's right. I'm not evading it, I'm just expressing disbelief that
any mature adult would ask it.
Understanding the difference is essential to understanding what's
going on here.
Start with the fact that accidents are accidents. Then consider that
How many "automobile accidents" are actually accidents and not caused
by unsafe driving acts?
As I have mentioned, years ago I was friends with a Maine State
Policemen. He told me that the police had gotten an act passed in the
legislature that allowed them to impound every car involved in a
death. they took the car to the police garage and stripped it down to
determine whether the "accident" was caused by mechanical failure.
they found that in nearly no cases was there a mechanical reason for
the "accident". Which leaves ?
mass killings in schools are intentional -- and they're being done
lately with high-capacity semiautomatic firearms, which have become
the weapon of choice for getting your "Man Card Renewed."
Do you know what that phrase refers to? Did you see the Bushmaster
ads? If so, you should have some insight into the psychology of what's
been going on. You already know the mechanics of it. Then consider
that we're doing just about nothing about it. Finally, put yourself in
the place of a parent who's kid was killed intentionally, with a
weapon intended to spray bullets and that appeals mostly to people
with manhood insecurities, and you'll begin to get it.
I can't objectively answer as none of my children have died but I
doubt very much that my feelings would be very different whether
someone had gone into a classroom and killed the kid or whether they
had run them down with a car.
I really cannot believe that people would rationalize the death of a
child by saying, "Oh, I feel so much better about Johnny's death as he
was run down by a drunken driver and not shot in the schoolroom".
In short, I believe the argument is without substance.
Do you really think that the parents of a kid killed in a car crash
are any less sorrowful then the parents of a kid killed at school?
They're less anguished than if those kids were killed intentioanlly.
An accidental tragedy IS less difficult to accept than an intentional
killing of a first-grade kid.
Yes, Guy driving 10 - 20 miles an hour over the speed limit, jumping
lights and making a rolling stop at the corner stop sign and it is
referred to as an "accident" so that is o.k. Really, really, different
from a school shooting.
Me thinks that you've been brainwashed.
"Brought up in a gun family"? I started hunting at age 11, with my
dad's 12-ga. Stevens double and my own .22 rimfire rifle. My mother
was a very good rifle shot, too.
And how many time has a gun in your household up and shot someone
across the room?
--
Cheers,
John B.