What are your opinions on gun ownership rights? Here is what I think:
Some people say “Guns don’t kill people. People with guns kill people.” (read that in a different thread)
OK, in response to that quote, let’s say that there was a civilian ban on guns. Don’t you think that criminals would just get their guns illegally? I mean, if someone is desperate enough to commit a crime, he isn’t going to be concerned about whether he is getting a gun legally or not.
So, then we end up with criminals getting guns, and civilians without access to guns to protect themselves.
Plus, what happens in a situation like Katrina? I mean, in many situations, calling the police isn’t going to be enough. What happens when order breaks down? What happens if the police are 10 minutes away, but the criminal is 1 minute away from murder?
Perhaps some people tend to purchase firearms unnecessarily, but there is a time and place where the preservation of liberty is paramount. Citizens must have the ability to fend for themselves in a chaotic situation.
PS - I am not an Obama hater, or a blue collar, “true American” (for lack of a better term). This is just an issue I have pondered
The government can pass all the gun restriction laws it wants. People will still own guns just as they still do drugs. They can swell the size of the prison population in the US to 60 million or so if they want, I guess.
People have a right to defend themselves and guns are a means of doing so. They banned them in Mexico and plenty of Mexicans still own them because there are a lot of kidnappings.
My wife’s friend from Mexico city owned two: one for the car and one for the home. Their calculus is, “Gee, I can end up in jail for owning a gun if I get caught with it, or I can end up being captured by kidnappers for ransom and tortured and left to die in a ditch somewhere, possibly. May as well choose the former.”
A Mexican pastor affiliated with our church recently got kidnapped in Tijuana and was held for awhile. They left him lying face down in the street in TJ after much torture. Looks like the gun control laws didn’t help him. Looks like the police didn’t protect him (actually, it was the Federales who did it).
Is anyone else sick of hearing the term “common sense gun regulations”? It’s not like the government can be credited with writing legislation that codifies “common sense”. Especially if its drafted by a bunch of non-shooters.
Since when did you ever see a non-shooter handle a gun with anything resembling common sense?
I was the one who brought up the post. Clearly you haven’t been keeping up with the thread. The problem is NOT guns, the problem is LOBBIES that control how we govern and conduct business related to issuing gun permits, rather than the government.
[quote]SSC wrote:
I was the one who brought up the post. Clearly you haven’t been keeping up with the thread. The problem is NOT guns, the problem is LOBBIES that control how we govern and conduct business related to issuing gun permits, rather than the government.
Let me lay this out there again.
Guns = NOT BAD
Lobbies = BAD
Okay?[/quote]
Wow, so you’re not really against gun ownership, you’re against people influencing their elected representatives to represent them?
The next time the ACLU, NAACP, or DAV lobbies anyone anywhere, I expect to hear your voice.
Or maybe you really are against guns since you want to restrict their ownership via permit and also restrict the existing legal means with which to oppose such action.
The FBI estimates that there are over 200 million privately-owned firearms in the US. If you add those owned by the military, law enforcement agencies and museums, there are probably 12 guns for every man, woman, and child in the country.
Banning guns will do nothing. The guns are already out there. Even if the Fedgov decides to pursue an aggressive British-style policy of registration and confiscation, it can do nothing to take the guns from the hands of those who have them, nor to keep them from the hands of those who want them.
No law can regulate the actions of the outlaw, and if guns are outlawed, the only result will be hundreds of millions of American outlaws… with guns.
[quote]Seinix wrote:
Perhaps some people tend to purchase firearms unnecessarily, but there is a time and place where the preservation of liberty is paramount. Citizens must have the ability to fend for themselves in a chaotic situation.
[/quote]
I belong to a shooting club in Pennsylvania. We have about 450 members. We usually sign up 3 or 4 new ones per month. We had 40 join last month. 25 the month before. I hear we will sign up another 40-50 this month.
You can’t buy an AR or AK in many areas. Sold out and on order. People want to own guns and feel they need to do so.
It’s a constitutional right. Any restriction, in my opinion is wrong. Keep and Bear arms is pretty clear.
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
A Mexican pastor affiliated with our church recently got kidnapped in Tijuana and was held for awhile. They left him lying face down in the street in TJ after much torture. Looks like the gun control laws didn’t help him. Looks like the police didn’t protect him (actually, it was the Federales who did it). [/quote]
Moral of the story: If God won’t intervene to save a pastor, He probably won’t intervene to save you, either. Unless you’re okay with the prospect of lying facedown in the street after being tortured to death by federal police, better have a gun.
[quote]Loose Tool wrote:
Is anyone else sick of hearing the term “common sense gun regulations”? It’s not like the government can be credited with writing legislation that codifies “common sense”. Especially if its drafted by a bunch of non-shooters.
Since when did you ever see a non-shooter handle a gun with anything resembling common sense?[/quote]
Hell, more innocent people have been shot and killed by government agents than by civilians. Common sense legislation would be a move to disarm the REALLY dangerous criminals. Like Lon Horiuchi.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
A Mexican pastor affiliated with our church recently got kidnapped in Tijuana and was held for awhile. They left him lying face down in the street in TJ after much torture. Looks like the gun control laws didn’t help him. Looks like the police didn’t protect him (actually, it was the Federales who did it).
Moral of the story: If God won’t intervene to save a pastor, He probably won’t intervene to save you, either. Unless you’re okay with the prospect of lying facedown in the street after being tortured to death by federal police, better have a gun. [/quote]
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Loose Tool wrote:
Is anyone else sick of hearing the term “common sense gun regulations”? It’s not like the government can be credited with writing legislation that codifies “common sense”. Especially if its drafted by a bunch of non-shooters.
Since when did you ever see a non-shooter handle a gun with anything resembling common sense?
Hell, more innocent people have been shot and killed by government agents than by civilians. Common sense legislation would be a move to disarm the REALLY dangerous criminals. Like Lon Horiuchi.[/quote]
FBI hit men aside, I generally classify cops as non-shooters. At the local public range, cops are generally the least safe on the line. They show up once a year just before they are required to qualify.
The Smith & Wesson Mountain Gun in .45 Colt: the ideal police sidearm.
[quote]Loose Tool wrote:
FBI hit men aside, I generally classify cops as non-shooters. At the local public range, cops are generally the least safe on the line. They show up once a year just before they are required to qualify.
[/quote]
Very true. Not only unsafe, but inefficient, which is almost as bad. Cops should carry double-action .44 Special or .45 Colt revolvers, which are both effective and idiot-proof. They take a certain degree of fortitude to manage (particularly with +P loads), which would tend to eliminate weaklings from the ranks.
As it is, our cops carry double-stack 9mm Glocks, which while a good weapon, does encourage a bit of wimpiness and sloppiness. The 9mm Luger has proven itself to be just as inadequate a fighting round in 2008 as it was in 1908. Para bellum, that’s a laugh!
The 13-round magazine is also suspect. If you can’t finish a fight with the first two or three rounds, the other ten or eleven probably aren’t going to help you much. But then, our police seem to have adopted the Army’s combat philosophy, namely “if you can’t shoot well, shoot a lot!”
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Loose Tool wrote:
Is anyone else sick of hearing the term “common sense gun regulations”? It’s not like the government can be credited with writing legislation that codifies “common sense”. Especially if its drafted by a bunch of non-shooters.
Since when did you ever see a non-shooter handle a gun with anything resembling common sense?
Hell, more innocent people have been shot and killed by government agents than by civilians. Common sense legislation would be a move to disarm the REALLY dangerous criminals. Like Lon Horiuchi.[/quote]
In an interesting tidbit, the back of the H-S Precision catalog is featuring an endorsement by Lon Horiuchi.
