On Sat, 18 Jul 2015 11:21:07 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Jul 2015 19:10:55 +0700, John B. Slocomb
wrote:

On Fri, 17 Jul 2015 23:15:40 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Jul 2015 07:34:32 +0700, John B. Slocomb
wrote:

On Fri, 17 Jul 2015 10:08:44 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Fri, 17 Jul 2015 08:51:34 -0400, Stormin Mormon
wrote:

On 7/16/2015 6:53 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"Stormin Mormon" wrote in message
.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...d-robbery.html



I guess we ought to ask how 13 and 14 year old boys
in Philadelphia managed to get hold of a pistol?

Jeez, Chris, you should know that. Thanks to the NRA, anybody can get
one, anytime, anywhere.

We're awash in guns. Our regulations on purchasing are a joke, and the
NRA has successfully lobbied to strangle funding for serious
background checks or enforcement. Private sales are wide open in most
states -- no paperwork is even required in many states. Theft is
easier than almost anywhere; we have no security requirements at all,
in most places. So lots of guns wind up in illegal street sales. And
the sellers don't card the buyers for their age.


Maybe they should pass a law that says that 13 or
14 year olds are prohibited from carrying guns?

Sure. That will do it. Outlaw street sales to minors while you're at
it.


Not sure how the pictures were taken of the two
boys, but they don't look friendly.

--
.
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
. www.lds.org

Strange you know. When I was a kid growing up in "up state" New
Hampshire I would guess that perhaps 1/3rd of the homes in town had a
firearm or two in the corner and farm families were probably 100%
equipped.

But strangely enough I can't remember any "gun crimes" so apparently
guns don't commit crimes

Another point that might be considered is that alcoholic beverages
were totally banned in the U.S. for a period, which of course meant
that no one could not get a glass of beer anywhere in the U.S.

But banning guns will eliminate gun crimes ?

It would be interesting to know how the culture of crime and the
evolving culture of guns in the US fed off of each other to become the
culture of death. I doubt if we'll ever know the answer to that, but a
few things are clear.

First, the gun culture I grew up with had nothing to do with killing
people, whether in offense or defense. Since 60% of the American
people in 1960 thought civilians shouldn't be allowed to own handguns
(the figure is now 28%), it's very clear that the attitude toward guns
then, and the culture surrounding them and most people in the country,
had nothing to do with killing people.

Second, the proliferation of guns has fed into the culture of crime in
the US, such that our criminals shoot many times more people than
criminals in other economically advanced countries. So there is a
clear correlation between proliferation of guns and gun crime.

While statistically you may be correct, I'm not that sure about the
relationship between gun availability and crime. For example, I read
that while criminals in England rarely used firearms in, say the '50's
- the Great Train Robbers were armed with clubs - while today, even
with more stringent firearm laws in the country, armed criminals are
more common. to the extent that arming the police seems to becoming a
more popular idea.

Yeah, they're having a hell of a wave of murders with guns in the UK.
Their rate is all the way up to 0.26/100,000. The rate for the US is
40 times higher.

They're just going to hell in a handbasket...

The point, or course, was that even with stringent gun laws the number
of armed criminals in the British Isles is increasing. What was it in
England, Scotland and Wales, say 20 - 30 years ago compared to the
present?

And, of course, in Northern Ireland where possession of a firearm
likely ensured a very unpleasant visit to the police station, at a
minimum, gun crimes were sky high for a while :-)

But as I previously mentioned, they banned alcoholic beverages in the
U.S. and that automatically stopped drinking in the entire country.
Right?



Third, the reaction has been to switch the focus, and the sales of
guns, from long guns to handguns, and the most popular long guns right
now are fairly useless military-style rifles that shoot pipsqueek,
military-derived cartridges. They're focused on killing people as much
as a .40 cal. pistol is.

(grin) But I used to shoot paper targets with a .45 cal. pistol :-)

So do I. Now, the fantasy "tactical" guns, and "defense" type guns,
dominate sales. They didn't then.

Well, they had pocket pistols :-)

But I remember the first time I saw the specifications for one of the
modern pistols. My immediate thought was, "gee, it can't be very
accurate". A plastic pistol with a 4 inch barrel?



So the whole interest, culture, focus, and categories of gun sales has
devolved from hunting and target shooting to people-killing fantasies,
defensive paranoia, and fear. It's pretty ugly..
--
cheers,

John B.