A question of guns
 

Originally the question was posed why an American might have a gun or more specifically a concealed gun.

EDIT: Thank you to Semtex who allowed this discourse to transpire in his thread without calling quits to it. :tup:

the conversation started like this:

The responses result as thus:

First off more half of my state is liberal, we have concealed weapon permits here, I have my own guns that are registered and I have absolutely no reason to uses them other than to go out and have fun shooting a a stump or set of targets.

Please don't lump Oregon in to the places you claim are so different then Canada. Canadians are not a different species from a strange planet. Have you been there? I have many times both, East coast, West coast, and in the middle. Also lots of people in Canada own guns. I support the NRA and the right to bear arms but out of control, rampant violence does not exist in my state or for that matter any state (at least that I'm aware of).

Making comments like that give people from other countries the opinion that we are ALL gun toting rednecks. Most U.S. gun owners are responsible people who aren't running around afraid of the government and crazy criminals.

The violence in our country is in no way to a point, nor has it been, where we all need guns to fight off the hordes of criminals.

Secondly where are you getting your statistics for violence reducing when more people have guns?

BTW A statistical analysis of statistical analysis said that 70% of statistics are always wrong. Wrap your brain around that. lol. Most statistical evidence is swayed or improperly recorded when doing studies. Think I'm wrong ask a sociologist. :D

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Okay, A: when you lump places like California, and NYC together as "very liberal" you lump the rest of the country into the other category ie. Oregon.
My home is not vastly different than NYC, California, Canada or any other state for that matter. I would argue that Texas isn't that much different either. I've been there and I like it. Houston is a great city.

B: Its okay to disagree. It would be a pretty boring place if people didn't.

C: Don't take offense as I was not calling anyone a Gun toting redneck. I was saying that certain comments can make people in other countries who are viewing our country from the outside in think that we are gun toting rednecks. Stereotypes are real and most often incorrect. The world stereotypes Americans as fat, lazy, uneducated and gun crazy. We need to take caution when addressing issues like this because we want to remove stereotypes not reinforce them.
When you make a comment like: It gives the outside world the impression that our country is taken over by criminals and gun toting rednecks. It wasn't an attack and if it was it would be pretty hypocritical because as stated before I am a gun owner.

P.S.: Thanks Semtex for allowing debate in your thread.

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A.) All those places have exceptionally high crime rates especially D.C. They are not enacting gun laws because liberals hate guns. People have a knee jerk reaction to violent crime. They need something to scapegoat (Marilyn Manson, video games, gang culture, etc.) People call their congress person because they want something done about it. They call their friends and because its on the back of lets say a dead child, it makes it hard to argue against. Generally gun laws aren't being enacted because people hate guns, its because they hate dead kids.

B.) Why do you think I am against people that carry concealed gun permits?

C.) Wow I never thought of rednecks necessarily as "poor" but thanks for defining the term you refer to as offensive. Also you think that redneck is equivalent to the N word.
You are welcome to your opinion but I think there are many that would disagree and I am one of them.
Lets see: Comedy central constantly airs "The redneck comedy tour". In fact the guys in it proudly say they are rednecks and named the tour. My big fat redneck wedding is another example. There is no N-word comedy tour that I am aware of, neither is there a "My big fat N-word wedding". The African American community(for the most part) has embraced the N-word in order to change its meaning and slowly disassemble its negative connotation within their community. They are allowed to use the word.
I'm not rollin' in the cash, and I'm one of the palest people I know, but I am not able to use the term redneck? What if I want to turn it into a positive like Ron White or Jeff Foxworthy? I don’t see a lot of picketers outside of their shows being reported on.


I never implied that carrying a gun is irresponsible. It was your response to Nogood that I disagreed with. I am an advocate for concealed gun permits and have never said I wasn't, yet some how you conjured that out of my statement earlier. Can you elaborate on how I reinforced negative stereotypes of Americans with the comment that said it is a common opinion of people living outside the U.S.A.? I don't like the mentality of out of sight out of mind(i.e.: if I don't listen to it, it doesn't happen).



Statistical analysis is constantly being revisited, because as months, years and decades move on, these studies become irrelevant because society changes. That's why studies are constantly being performed, and every once in a while they will release a study in the media and people go, "Didn't they already show that in a study a couple of years ago?" One year statistics say eggs are bad, the next year they "find" that eggs are good for you, (other examples include: coffee, wine, etc.) most likely these are due to inside interest contaminating the study.


When you live in a nation of over 300 million citizens, violence occurs. Ever seen a cage full of rats? Higher populations in cities means more violence. The Cities like D.C. that have stricter gun laws, are attempting to prevent a naturally occurring tide.

I support responsible gun ownership. I think responsible gun owners should treat the second amendment like a privilege not a right. Rights can be abused, so can privileges but the problem with rights is they tend to be more abused than privileges. People that are given something that they earn are generally more appreciative of the gift, than people that are handed that gift. Drivers licenses are a privilege, and because its a privilege people are more likely to be responsible because that privilege can be taken away. Don't get me wrong there are plenty of crummy drivers out there but generally people that are in charge of dangerous things are required to have training and pass some form of requirement in order to operate that piece of equipment.


All in All that's okay though. I agree to disagree. I try to find a happy medium between being a responsible gun owner and my second amendment right to own a gun. The problem is I think far too few try to do the same thing. When you lump 90% of the country into one group I disagree with that, especially when people from other countries may be viewing you as a a representative for our country. I don't wish to attack you and I think you get that impression. I enjoy argumentative discourse and I prefer to to remain civil.

Cheers! :tup:

A better question is: Do you own a Z? Do you ever intend to own a Z? What's with the name "BanningZ"? Do you want to ban the Z? Ban gas powered automobiles? You have over 500 posts, and almost all of them are in the Lounge (off topic). If you are not a Z owner, don't intend to buy a Z, or are not a sports car enthusiast, why did you join this site? To stir debate on hotly contested topics?

John

Those are fair questions.

My middle name is banning.
I intend to order or buy in June.
I post in the lounge a lot because there are a lot of fun people that frequent there.
I have over 500 posts because I have an A type personality, it is fun to discuss issues and random BS with others, I have met others on here with similar interests/slash humor.

It is also difficult to answer a general/engine/interior question when I don't have one in my possession and I've only been on two test drives. I love the new Z design and because there is an off-topic lounge I like to comment in there because other than school, remodeling a house I own, dealing with tenants, and taking care of 6 animals, I have a lot of free time. Plus I'm an insomniac.
I'm not sure why you have such hostility? Many of the Z owners only recently got their Z's I just happen to be one that joined the site earlier and haven't purchased one since its 4 month introduction.

None the less Cheers on your new ownership of the 370Z.

BTW I created this thread so wstar and I didn't clutter up anymore of Semtex's thread on why some officers were maddoggin' him.

The only stats I've looked at involved Florida and Texas after passing concealed carry. In both cases, the crime rates dropped after but not to a great degree. This is only ancillary data at best but it did answer the charges that crime would skyrocket or nearly cease to exist that both sides were claiming before the new laws were passed. It was close enough to a wash to tell me that that issue had little bearing on what actually happens. My take is that if you assume most people are law-abiding, the government has no business telling us whether we can possess guns or not. They certainly do need to take care of the few bad apples out there that abuse the right. Plainly, this is how the founding fathers viewed the government, a restricted entity the worked for the people and didn't control them. If enough people decide that guns and society just don't mix, there is a perfectly acceptable way to achieve that. It's called a Constitutional Amendment and bears as much weight as the rest of the Constitution.

FWIW, copying this to a new thread after the fact kinda screwed up the quoting that was in my first lengthy response, which made it clear which of your statements I was referring to, but whatever...

Yes, everyone hates dead kids. However, these knee-jerk reaction gun laws don't help the situation, they hurt it. Time and again, it has been shown that increased gun laws = increased crime, including gun crime. It's hard to do any kind of rational, factual evaluation of the available academic literature on the subject and not come to that conclusion.

If the politicians in those areas had *any* real interest in preventing gun crime, at some point during the years they would have read the available academic literature and realized that their own attempts at gun control were helping to feed the skyrocketing crime rates, and they would have repealed them.

They use crime scares as a crutch for banning guns. The high end liberal politicians actually do have an active goal of trying to remove every gun from the face of the planet, as ridiculous and impossible as that sounds. Here's a direct quote from Dianne Feinstein, (D) CA, author of the original Assault Weapons Ban, when she appeared on CBS: "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in, I would have done it." In context here, she's referring to every gun in the country. Only politics prevents her from reaching her goal.

It is not "hard to argue" against gun laws being knee-jerk enacted in reaction to some stupid gun death news story being pumped. All it takes is a few facts.

Here's the facts on accidental gun deaths (in all age ranges, compared to other sources of accidental death): GunCite-Gun Accidents Looks like child<->gun accidents are actually a bit overblown by the media.

Homicide rates: GunCite: Gun Control - Gun Homicides

School Gun Violence: Schools and Gun Violence

I can keep posting these links, or you can go to guncite and read the available literature for yourself before you come back to this thread, choice is yours.

Because of your statements in your first response. I'll quote you *again*, from the first response:

The position you are clearly espousing here that people who carry (as opposed to "regular" gun owners who just keep it locked up at home) are irresponsible "gun-toting rednecks" who run around afraid of the government and crazy criminals.

Well, you have to take into account that race doesn't exist on the internet (nobody knows what your skin looks like, dude), and you also have to remember that even moreso than the black equivalent, "redneck" is a class slur as much as it is a racial one. White people do get offended at being called a redneck by other white people who are richer than them.

Of course, because it's against whites instead of a real "minority" (I put that in quotes because whites in some areas (where they are actively called rednecks and crackers), are the minority), it doesn't get the attention of other slurs, or the sensitivity from bleeding heart equality types. A slur is a slur. If you'd like to read up on the history of "Redneck" and what it means: you can find it here: Redneck - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. It's an offensive, racist, classist term, and you were using it to demean people who carry.

You did. I quoted it earlier...

Alright, if you insist, one more time, I'll re-quote you, this time with more context


First off, domestic policy should not be determined by an exterior popularity contest. If France thinks we're losers for doing the right thing, who gives a crap? You are participating in a debate on domestic US gun policy, and you're citing external popularity as reason to (putting your arguments in the best possible light) suppress saying the truth about the situation just because it "looks bad". I really don't think we want to drag this debate all the way to geopolitics, although it could be taken there by bringing in the UN Small Arms Treaty.

Basically, I don't accept "I don't want to scare the foreigners" as an acceptable basis for any argument. If that somehow changes what you would say, you're a coward. If it doesn't, then just speak your mind without using the shield of "I just said it because of the foreigners".

Ah yes, the classic retreat in the face of overwhelming statistics: "Statistics suck anyways". What do you suggest then? We roll the bones? Ask a Ouija board? Consult the Oracle at Delphi? This is how we do things in the modern world: we conduct science and analyze statistics. It's the best we've got to go on, and while individual studies can be flawed, the aggregate of scientific knowledge tends to work out pretty well.

Enacting stricter gun laws only serves to accelerate the rising crime rate. The facts have been out there for years. Either every politician in those areas are morons, or they're being disingenuous about their motives.

Hang on right there. The Second Ammendment is in fact a Right. That's why it's part of a document called the Bill of Rights. In this country, you have (among others) a right to free speech, a right to legal representation, a right to keep your mouth shut on the witness stand (against yourself), and a right to keep and bear arms. It is not a privilege. It is a right. This is not debatable, it's pretty straightforward.

I don't know what kind of fascist utopia you're shooting for with that line of reasoning... repeal the bill of rights? I don't think you've thought this argument through...

I lumped 90% by landmass (but far less by population) into the group of areas that don't have excessively strict gun laws. NYC, Chicago, DC, and California have unreasonably strict gun laws. Oregon, Texas, and everywhere else generally don't. It's a fair way to split the country when discussing this issue. I'm sorry if it offends some friend of yours in Spain or whatever that you live in a State that allows guns to be owned and carried, but that's no reason not to discuss facts as they are.

is it just me or am i the only one that thinks that guns should be banned from the hands of civilians? should only be allowed for police officiers and military personnel.

i know this will probably never happen in the USA since it's a HUGE industry, but personally, i don't think owning a gun automatically means = safe.

a lot of foreign countries actually think we are like barbarians. i remember a friend going to japan as an exchange student. first day with the japanese family, the father asked my buddy "do all americans have guns because it is not safe there?" i personally believe japan has the best gun policy in the whole world - "No-one shall possess a fire-arm or fire-arms or a sword or swords', and very few exceptions are allowed"

I completely disagree with this, I look at most people being responsible citizens and if they are one of the select few who can carry concealed they have earned that. People are meant to protect each other, not just went those who we think should (police, military, etc.). Many of my co-workers have guns, some are working & taking the class for their concealed license and they feel honored to be allowed to carry and help if the time ever occurred if needed.

Many Have Sacrificed to Protect the Constitution
 

If you are a law abiding citizen, this is factual information you need to know.






PEOPLE ASK WHY CARRY A GUN?



My old grandpa said to me, "Son, there comes a time in every man's life
when he stops bustin knuckles and starts bustin caps and usually it's
when he becomes too old to take an *** whoppin. I don't carry a gun to
kill people. I carry a gun to keep from being killed.

I don't carry a gun to scare people. I carry a gun because sometimes this
world can be a scary place.

I don't carry a gun because I'm paranoid. I carry a gun because there are
real threats in the world.


I don't carry a gun because I'm evil. I carry a gun because I have lived long
enough to see the evil in the world.


I don't carry a gun because I hate the government. I carry a gun because I
understand the limitations of government.


I don't carry a gun because I'm angry. I carry a gun so that I don't have to
spend the rest of my life hating myself for failing to be prepared.


I don't carry a gun because I want to shoot someone. I carry a gun because
I want to die at a ripe old age in my bed, and not on a sidewalk somewhere
tomorrow afternoon.



I don't carry a gun because I'm a cowboy. I carry a gun because, when I die
and go to heaven, I want to be a cowboy.


I don't carry a gun to make me feel like a man. I carry a gun because men know
how to take care of themselves and the ones they love.


I don't carry a gun because I feel inadequate. I carry a gun because unarmed and
facing three armed thugs, I am inadequate.


I don't carry a gun because I love it. I carry a gun because I love life and the people
who make it meaningful to me.


Police Protection is an oxymoron. Free citizens must protect themselves. Police do
not protect you from crime, they usually just investigate the crime after it happens
and then call someone in to clean up the mess.



**********************************************


A LITTLE GUN HISTORY

In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
------------------------------

In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
------------------------------

Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.
------------------------------

China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves,
were rounded up and exterminated
------------------------------

Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
---- ------------- -------------

Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
------------------------------

Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million educated people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
-----------------------------

Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because of gun control: 56 million.
------------------------------

It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by their own Government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500 million dollars. The first year results are now in:

List of 7 items:

Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent.

Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent.

Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent)!

In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent. Note that while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not, and criminals still possess their guns!

While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months, since criminals now are guaranteed that their prey is unarmed.

There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the ELDERLY. Australian politicians are at a loss to
explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort, and expense was expended in successfully ridding
Australian society of guns. The Australian experience and the other historical facts above prove it.



You won't see this data on the US evening news, or hear politicians disseminating this information.

Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws adversely affect only the law-abiding citizens.

Take note my fellow Americans, before it's too late!

The next time someone talks in favor of gun control, please remind them of this history lesson.

With guns, we are 'citizens'. Without them, we are 'subjects'.



During WWII the Japanese decided not to invade America because they knew most Americans were ARMED!

If you value your freedom, please spread this anti-gun control message to all of your friends.


The purpose of fighting is to win. There is no possible victory in defense. The sword is more important than the
shield, and skill is more important than either. The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplemental.

SWITZERLAND ISSUES EVERY HOUSEHOLD A GUN! SWITZERLAND 'S GOVERNMENT TRAINS EVERY ADULT THEY ISSUE A RIFLE TO. SWITZERLAND HAS THE LOWEST GUN RELATED CRIME RATE OF ANY CIVILIZED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!!!
IT'S A NO BRAINER! DON'T LET OUR GOVERNMENT WASTE MILLIONS OF OUR TAX DOLLARS IN AN EFFORT TO
MAKE ALL LAW ABIDING CITIZENS AN EASY TARGET.



Think about it, there's only one reason the government
wants to rid the country of guns,
and that reason is to leave all of it's citizens defenseless.
It has nothing to do with crime. Criminals don't obey the law.

Lay off my mate, pal.

As for guns, I'd like to uninvent them because I find them attractive.

In some sort of weird theoretical sense, it almost makes sense to uninvent the gun. But things can't be uninvented, and when you try to control inventions by law, only outlaws have those inventions. Attempts to disarm the criminals ends up only disarming the victims. It just doesn't work.

Beyond that, I wouldn't want guns uninvented even if it were possible. Guns are a great force equalizer. Think about when a 25 year old male, 6'1", 250 lbs, all muscle, decides to rape a 5'4" 37 year old office worker late one night. In a traditional struggle, she has no chance, as he has an extreme power advantage over her. Guns are force equalizers in violent situations. If both persons in that situation are armed, the playing field is greatly leveled. Guns empower the weak to stand up to the strong.

The standard anti-gun responses to this are these:

1) But that's the police's job! Call 911! Doesn't work. The average violent confrontation ends, one way or another, much faster than the average police response time. In the vast majority of actual cases of violence, police show up after the fact to do the reporting and aftercare. Direct police intervention in an ongoing violent struggle between two citizens is rare. As well-intentioned as they are, it is statistically silly to rely on the police to save you from violence.

2) But... the woman will just have her gun taken and used against her! Wrong, the statistics bear this out. The number of violent crimes prevented by the defensive use of a handgun outweigh the number of actual handgun crimes committed succesfully by more than an order of magnitude.

From another source of gun data:

MYTH: Japan has strict gun control and a less violent society.

FACT: In Japan, the murder rate is about 1 per 100,000. In the U.S., there are about 3.2 murders per 100,000 each year by weapons other than firearms.

* United Nations data

The point being made here is that guns aren't the issue in the murder rate discrepancy between Japan and the US. Even if you eliminate all gun murders in the US from the equation (in reality, many of those murders would have been accomplished with other weapons, lacking a gun), the US has 3 times the murder rate of Japan. The problem isn't the guns, the problem is that we're a more murderous society to begin with.

i don't know, to me, owning a gun or guns doesn't scream freedom to me. my friend on facebook recently posted a "someone go to the shooting range with me" others responded, why do you need someone to go, his response, "it's the policy, so people don't kill themselves" i found that extremely laughable because how would 2 people make a different if one had a gun.

also, regarding illogical thinkings, Ad Populum aka the fallacy Appeal to Popularity

example -

1 - Most people approve of X (have favorable emotions towards X).
2 - Therefore X is true.

and just because other countries are more lenient by stating the facts something like "everyone over at xxx countries has a gun" does not make a logical reason that to own a gun is a good or even a right choice.

Owning a gun doesn't scream freedom, you're right. But a government founded on principles of freedom, which at its founding established a freedom to own firearms, trying to pass laws to disarm its citizens, screams the opposite.

I've been to lots of shooting ranges around the country, and I've never heard of a two person rule. People go to gun ranges solo regularly, myself included. Deaths at gun ranges are insanely rare.

Don't even get me started on logical fallacies :)

You're right that popularity doesn't make something logically correct. I don't see where this has been used on either side of the argument so far in this thread, though.

if i'm mistaken, looks like the majority of the people in this thread believe owning a gun is correct and/or right. which is why i had to bring that up. also because i believe everyone's opinion is somewhat biased no matter who you are, including myself and my own points and views.

and in regards to the shooting rule, my buddy is in Irvine, CA but i didn't ask which shooting range.

but i really like this arguement, no flames, just real people talking real opinions.

Very fair answers, and I didn't intend to sound hostel, just with no Z and 500 posts almost all in the lounge, you have to admit it sounds like someone trolling. Just because you don't have yours yet, doesn't mean you have to avoid the other areas of the website.

John

Well, I think it's true we have more pro- than anti- gun posters in this thread. But again, that shouldn't be a deciding factor in anything.

And of course, everyone is biased. The idea of "unbiased opinions" is hogwash. There's such a thing as unbiased evidence, but never unbiased interpretation of that evidence.

Well, California is somewhere I've never fired a gun. I don't even take my guns on trips to California, the laws there are too strict. More than half of the weapons I legally own here in TX are flat-out illegal to possess there. I'm really hoping the recent Heller decision by the supreme court will eventually lead these gun-restricted parts of the country to finally slacken their gun laws back down to something reasonable. There are still lots of follow-on and appeals cases to go through in the wake of Heller before it really starts having big effects though.

Prior to the Heller case, while the historical evidence on the meaning of the second ammendment (such as the other writings of its authors, the federalist papers, etc) was pretty clear, there was a lot of debate in this country about the meaning of the second ammendment. The anti-gun lobby was playing semantics games and trying to say that it only applied to the military due to the phrase "well-regulated militia". In the Heller decision, the US Supreme Court finally (for the first time in history) gave a direct answer to that question, and settled the matter legally. The second ammendment does in fact protect individual gun ownership.

More info here: District of Columbia v. Heller - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

ohhh nice find. plus rep for this.

Most of the points in that paper are defending common-sense gun legislation, which is a component of the also uncommonly restrictive gun laws that currently exist in DC. The purpose of the ammendment is to force DC's hand in rewriting the law to be fair and in line with the laws of most states. For example: Nobody seriously wants people with criminal records to be able purchase a firearm for instance, on either side of the debate. That just happens to be a component of the bad law, and both sides would want it to continue to be a component of a rewritten law.

The part of the law they're trying to undo by forcing a rewrite is that currently, DC residents can't own handguns at all (well, technically they can, but they have to apply for a permit from the chief of police, who never grants it unless you're someone very very special). DC residents *can* own simple shotguns and long rifles under some very restrictive circumstances, one of which was (before Heller struck it down) that the gun had to be stored disassembled and locked up, preventing any chance of defensive use.

Given that in a rewritten and NRA-approved version of the law, most of the measures being highlighted in that paper would still be part of the law, there's not much to debate. Many other states have most of these basic restrictions in place re: criminal records, registration of guns, importation controls, etc. For that matter most of these matters are also regulated by federal law anyways.

The only point they raise that gun-rights advocates would want to see dropped is the first one, regarding "high capacity ammunition magazines" and "assault weapons". There was a federal assault weapons ban from 1994 to 2004. It had no effect on crime and was allowed to sunset. Basically, virtually none of the gun deaths in the US, statistically speaking, are caused by assault rifles. The few that are, are invariably caused by unregistered assault weapons which are owned by criminals who aren't allowed, by federal law, to even buy a simple handgun or bolt-action hunting rifle (and another law or ban does nothing to stop these people).

Assault weapon bans remove rights from the law-abiding citizens while having no effect on crime. Further, assault rifles are effective defense tools. Every deputy in my local sheriff's department carries an AR-15 in their trunk. There's a reason they do that: it's a very effective tool in some situations, even for the good guys. Going back to my point about police response times: if it's effective for them, it's effective for us too.

[QUOTE=arcticreaver;61195]and in regards to the shooting rule, my buddy is in Irvine, CA but i didn't ask which shooting range.QUOTE]

I live in southern california and have been to outdoor ranges on multiple occasions and there is no two-man rule whatsoever. I honestly cant speak for indoor firing ranges though.

Hey Chubbs, out of curiosity, what are the gun rules across the pond?

I don't have overly strong opinions on guns, but I'll throw my .02 in anyway.
When you wanted to drive, you had to prove competency, i.e. a road test. Why? Because you could kill someone.
However, you can just go buy a gun. I believe to purchase a gun, you should have take both a knowledge test, and a physical test to show competency and gain a license. And I'm not talking about concealed weapons permits, I mean buying a gun at all.

It's a fair point to make, for sure. It's much easier to get reasonably-minded regulation passed, than to outright ban things.

Personally, I'm not in favor of regulation of this sort, mostly on the grounds that it's a slippery slope that leads to suppression of gun ownership down the line. In theory, if I could trust a government to enact reasonable regulation and stick to it, there would be no problem. However, there are many examples in history where gun regulation started out soft and got progressively harder until the entire population was effectively disarmed. That's usually right about the time a crazy dictator took over and enslaved everyone, or worse.

Ask a holocaust survivor someday how they feel about gun regulation, bans, and rights.

Edit: to complete that point, here's a direct quote from Hitler:

I do! As long as they didn't use a gun in a crime! Or beat someone to death, or knifed someone! People like Wesley Snipes, Martha Stewart, they served time. According to law, they can not own, nor posses a firearm. I do not think that is right. They were imprisoned for tax evasion, and miss handling stocks, not robing a bank with a gun! Do you see where I'm going with this?
I do not believe in dis-arming a man/woman! Give a person a chance to protect and defend them selves and their loved ones!

Well, the current federal law only draws the distinction at the felony line. Felony record = no guns. They don't care what type of crime it was. However, individual felons can petition to regain their gun rights, and sometimes do. It would be nice if the law were more specific (violent felonies).

California you have to take a test, no pass the test, no buy the gun!

I mean even if the crime is a felony!


Wrong, wrong, wrong! Your not reading my posts are you! I've state more than one -Misdemeanor Domestic Violence=your guns and gun rights are gone!

http://74.6.146.127/search/cache?ei=...icp=1&.intl=us

I own mostly antique rifles and one pistol. Don't feel the need to carry and don't even think of my guns as defensive weapons... just fun to look at and shoot occasionally.

I'm definitely supportive of gun rights. I think we need to do everything possible to keep guns out of the hands of kids, though.

Agreed

Yeah, but as per norm, the laws in california are much stricter. Here, you can just go buy one. I didn't even have to wait, got my handgun over the counter.

A couple common arguments:
1. When the right to bear arms was established, arms were rifles where you had to load black powder carried in bags and stuff it. There were also no cars.
2. The problem with taking away guns is that law abiding citizens will get their guns taken away, while criminals will retain guns.

Thoughts?

Both true.

The threat of having to defend oneself against ones government was a much more real possibility back then, as well.

This is cool! The bad guys lose!

:happydance:

Peronally I own two shotguns because I enjoy shooting. I plan on purchasing a handgun at some point in time. 1) Because of the reason stated in first sentence. 2) I would rather have one and not need it, than need one and not have it. I dont think we need the firearms for the same reason that the laws were originally made for, but I dont think that because the situation has changed we should just get rid of firearms.

Nothing has really changed in this regard, imho. First off, semi-automatic arms were known to the authors of the bill of rights, even though they weren't in use at the time. There are letters where they discuss advancements in arms, including the first "gatling-gun" type devices.

Secondarily, from a "defend yourself from tyranny/invasion" standpoint, one can make the argument that if you're going to defend yourself from government tyranny and/or foreign invasion, then the moving standard should be "whatever small arms the military uses at any given time". This brings us around to:

It's still a real possibility even now. Look at the kind of resistance fighters in the urban areas of Afghanistan and Iraq (or for that matter, Vietnam) put up against our invasion/occupation. These are, for the most part, dirt poor people using decades-old AK-47's that are barely even functional anymore, and home-made bombs. A citizenry in the US, armed with what's commonly available at US gunshows, and easily repel even our own military in an urban tyranny/invasion scenario for quite a while. Long enough and hard enough to make them rethink things, in any case.

I highly doubt we will have to fight off our own military any time in the near or distant future. :D

Plus, the only reason the resistance is working over there is because we screwed up in the first place and are trying to fight an unconventional war in a conventional manner. But that's an entirely different discussion.

I did read your posts, I really don't consider the Lautenberg thing a major point. Are you really defending the idea that people convicted of domestic violence should be purchasing firearms legally?

I'm (obviously) all for relaxing some of the current gun laws on the book (such as the 1968 and 1986 ammendments to the National Firearms Act), and for getting more of the restrictive states/cities to start allowing handgun ownership and carry, but you have to pick your battles. Getting violent felons and domestic abusers their gun rights back isn't one that could really be won, regardless of whether one thinks it's the right thing to do.