***OFFICIAL GUN CONTROL DEBATE*** (7 Viewers)

[Henry Ford]

I'm willing to drop extra gun regulation if the far right is willing to sign off on single payer national healthcare, including and especially mental health care. Anyone else with me?

As a gun-toting liberal...that's fine with me.

Alright, that's three votes. A hundred million more or so and we may have something.

 

[Slingblade]

Overnight, sure. That's a political reality of any drastic change. But, it starts modest and moves up from there. But, I suspect it will move swiftly and with a sense of urgency that in 5-10 years, gun ownership will be severely restrictive and that the product availability will be substantially diminished.

Long term, I think you're right, but no way is this going to happen in 5-10 years. We just had 20 6/7 yr olds mowed down, and the pro-gun crowd is fighting an assault weapons ban. Nothing has changed.Sad as it is, it's going to take a much larger incident for people to wake up and demand change. Something like 2-3 teenagers mowing down a couple hundred kids in a mall or a high school might do it.

Would these be the same people doing this http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/12/27/3748672/two-killed-3-injured-in-us-74nc.htmlI guess a gun makes you deader than a car.

Don't you guys get it yet. The guys wanting to limit gun use don't like guns. They like cars, alcohol, pools, etc. They are perfectly willing to take away something they could care less about.

I like and own guns. I don't think there is any legitimate need for the general public to have semi-automatic weapons of any kind.

And you would be wrong.

 

[Slingblade]

Overnight, sure. That's a political reality of any drastic change. But, it starts modest and moves up from there. But, I suspect it will move swiftly and with a sense of urgency that in 5-10 years, gun ownership will be severely restrictive and that the product availability will be substantially diminished.

Long term, I think you're right, but no way is this going to happen in 5-10 years. We just had 20 6/7 yr olds mowed down, and the pro-gun crowd is fighting an assault weapons ban. Nothing has changed.Sad as it is, it's going to take a much larger incident for people to wake up and demand change. Something like 2-3 teenagers mowing down a couple hundred kids in a mall or a high school might do it.

Would these be the same people doing this http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/12/27/3748672/two-killed-3-injured-in-us-74nc.htmlI guess a gun makes you deader than a car.

Don't you guys get it yet. The guys wanting to limit gun use don't like guns. They like cars, alcohol, pools, etc. They are perfectly willing to take away something they could care less about.

I like and own guns. I don't think there is any legitimate need for the general public to have semi-automatic weapons of any kind.

I'm fine with getting rid of semi-auto, but not fine with getting rid of magazine feeding, and I think that probably kills semi-auto bans on handguns. Guns are much less dangerous to the gun owner and non-interlopers when kept unloaded. Loading a revolver in a high-adrenaline moment is cumbersome and problematic.

This is exactly why semi-automatics are so much more lethal in these mass shooting instances. I haven't seen any statistical data that suggests semi-automatic handguns are safer than revolvers in a household setting.

The Virginia Tech committee report determined that if he had revolvers with speed loaders it would have been just as deadly.

 

[Arsenal of Doom]

Overnight, sure. That's a political reality of any drastic change. But, it starts modest and moves up from there. But, I suspect it will move swiftly and with a sense of urgency that in 5-10 years, gun ownership will be severely restrictive and that the product availability will be substantially diminished.

Long term, I think you're right, but no way is this going to happen in 5-10 years. We just had 20 6/7 yr olds mowed down, and the pro-gun crowd is fighting an assault weapons ban. Nothing has changed.Sad as it is, it's going to take a much larger incident for people to wake up and demand change. Something like 2-3 teenagers mowing down a couple hundred kids in a mall or a high school might do it.

Would these be the same people doing this http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/12/27/3748672/two-killed-3-injured-in-us-74nc.htmlI guess a gun makes you deader than a car.

Don't you guys get it yet. The guys wanting to limit gun use don't like guns. They like cars, alcohol, pools, etc. They are perfectly willing to take away something they could care less about.

I like and own guns. I don't think there is any legitimate need for the general public to have semi-automatic weapons of any kind.

And you would be wrong.

So find some examples, or better yet verifiable data to back this up.

 

[Arsenal of Doom]

Overnight, sure. That's a political reality of any drastic change. But, it starts modest and moves up from there. But, I suspect it will move swiftly and with a sense of urgency that in 5-10 years, gun ownership will be severely restrictive and that the product availability will be substantially diminished.

Long term, I think you're right, but no way is this going to happen in 5-10 years. We just had 20 6/7 yr olds mowed down, and the pro-gun crowd is fighting an assault weapons ban. Nothing has changed.Sad as it is, it's going to take a much larger incident for people to wake up and demand change. Something like 2-3 teenagers mowing down a couple hundred kids in a mall or a high school might do it.

Would these be the same people doing this http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/12/27/3748672/two-killed-3-injured-in-us-74nc.htmlI guess a gun makes you deader than a car.

Don't you guys get it yet. The guys wanting to limit gun use don't like guns. They like cars, alcohol, pools, etc. They are perfectly willing to take away something they could care less about.

I like and own guns. I don't think there is any legitimate need for the general public to have semi-automatic weapons of any kind.

I'm fine with getting rid of semi-auto, but not fine with getting rid of magazine feeding, and I think that probably kills semi-auto bans on handguns. Guns are much less dangerous to the gun owner and non-interlopers when kept unloaded. Loading a revolver in a high-adrenaline moment is cumbersome and problematic.

This is exactly why semi-automatics are so much more lethal in these mass shooting instances. I haven't seen any statistical data that suggests semi-automatic handguns are safer than revolvers in a household setting.

The Virginia Tech committee report determined that if he had revolvers with speed loaders it would have been just as deadly.

Not exactly. The committee found, in that particular situation, 10 round clips vs. 15 wouldn't have made much difference, and a revolver with speed loaders could have been about as deadly.

 

[Slingblade]

Overnight, sure. That's a political reality of any drastic change. But, it starts modest and moves up from there. But, I suspect it will move swiftly and with a sense of urgency that in 5-10 years, gun ownership will be severely restrictive and that the product availability will be substantially diminished.

Long term, I think you're right, but no way is this going to happen in 5-10 years. We just had 20 6/7 yr olds mowed down, and the pro-gun crowd is fighting an assault weapons ban. Nothing has changed.Sad as it is, it's going to take a much larger incident for people to wake up and demand change. Something like 2-3 teenagers mowing down a couple hundred kids in a mall or a high school might do it.

Would these be the same people doing this http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/12/27/3748672/two-killed-3-injured-in-us-74nc.htmlI guess a gun makes you deader than a car.

Don't you guys get it yet. The guys wanting to limit gun use don't like guns. They like cars, alcohol, pools, etc. They are perfectly willing to take away something they could care less about.

I like and own guns. I don't think there is any legitimate need for the general public to have semi-automatic weapons of any kind.

I'm fine with getting rid of semi-auto, but not fine with getting rid of magazine feeding, and I think that probably kills semi-auto bans on handguns. Guns are much less dangerous to the gun owner and non-interlopers when kept unloaded. Loading a revolver in a high-adrenaline moment is cumbersome and problematic.

This is exactly why semi-automatics are so much more lethal in these mass shooting instances. I haven't seen any statistical data that suggests semi-automatic handguns are safer than revolvers in a household setting.

The Virginia Tech committee report determined that if he had revolvers with speed loaders it would have been just as deadly.

Not exactly. The committee found, in that particular situation, 10 round clips vs. 15 wouldn't have made much difference, and a revolver with speed loaders could have been about as deadly.

My point exactly.

 

[Slingblade]

Overnight, sure. That's a political reality of any drastic change. But, it starts modest and moves up from there. But, I suspect it will move swiftly and with a sense of urgency that in 5-10 years, gun ownership will be severely restrictive and that the product availability will be substantially diminished.

Long term, I think you're right, but no way is this going to happen in 5-10 years. We just had 20 6/7 yr olds mowed down, and the pro-gun crowd is fighting an assault weapons ban. Nothing has changed.Sad as it is, it's going to take a much larger incident for people to wake up and demand change. Something like 2-3 teenagers mowing down a couple hundred kids in a mall or a high school might do it.

Would these be the same people doing this http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/12/27/3748672/two-killed-3-injured-in-us-74nc.htmlI guess a gun makes you deader than a car.

Don't you guys get it yet. The guys wanting to limit gun use don't like guns. They like cars, alcohol, pools, etc. They are perfectly willing to take away something they could care less about.

I like and own guns. I don't think there is any legitimate need for the general public to have semi-automatic weapons of any kind.

And you would be wrong.

So find some examples, or better yet verifiable data to back this up.

Your proposition ####s all over the 2nd amendment. That's all the data I need.

 

[Arsenal of Doom]

Overnight, sure. That's a political reality of any drastic change. But, it starts modest and moves up from there. But, I suspect it will move swiftly and with a sense of urgency that in 5-10 years, gun ownership will be severely restrictive and that the product availability will be substantially diminished.

Long term, I think you're right, but no way is this going to happen in 5-10 years. We just had 20 6/7 yr olds mowed down, and the pro-gun crowd is fighting an assault weapons ban. Nothing has changed.Sad as it is, it's going to take a much larger incident for people to wake up and demand change. Something like 2-3 teenagers mowing down a couple hundred kids in a mall or a high school might do it.

Would these be the same people doing this http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/12/27/3748672/two-killed-3-injured-in-us-74nc.htmlI guess a gun makes you deader than a car.

Don't you guys get it yet. The guys wanting to limit gun use don't like guns. They like cars, alcohol, pools, etc. They are perfectly willing to take away something they could care less about.

I like and own guns. I don't think there is any legitimate need for the general public to have semi-automatic weapons of any kind.

And you would be wrong.

So find some examples, or better yet verifiable data to back this up.

Your proposition ####s all over the 2nd amendment. That's all the data I need.

Not at all. I don't think there is much disagreement at all that certain types of arms can be excluded or strictly regulated from private use. Even the strongest backers of the NRA reading of it (individual right vs. state right) generally don't think automatic fire weapons should be readily available. So we almost universally agree there is a reasonable line, it's just a question of where it should be drawn.

 

[Slingblade]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lawrencehunter/2012/12/28/gun-control-tramples-on-the-certain-virtues-of-a-heavily-armed-citizenry/

Gun Control Tramples On The Certain Virtues Of A Heavily Armed Citizenry

It is time the critics of the Second Amendment put up and repeal it, or shut up about violating it. Their efforts to disarm and short-arm Americans violate the U.S. Constitution in Merriam Webster’s first sense of the term—to “disregard” it.

Hard cases make bad law, which is why they are reserved for the Constitution, not left to the caprice of legislatures, the sophistry and casuistry of judges or the despotic rule making of the chief executive and his bureaucracy. And make no mistake, guns pose one of the hardest cases a free people confronts in the 21st century, a test of whether that people cherishes liberty above tyranny, values individual sovereignty above dependency on the state, and whether they dare any longer to live free.

A people cannot simultaneously live free and be bound to any human master or man-made institution, especially to politicians, judges, bureaucrats and faceless government agencies. The Second Amendment along with the other nine amendments of the Bill of Rights was designed to prevent individuals’ enslavement to government, not just to guarantee people the right to hunt squirrels or sport shoot at targets, nor was it included in the Bill of Rights just to guarantee individuals the right to defend themselves against robbers, rapers and lunatics, or to make sure the states could raise a militia quick, on the cheap to defend against a foreign invader or domestic unrest.

The Second Amendment was designed to ensure that individuals retained the right and means to defend themselves against any illegitimate attempt to do them harm, be it an attempt by a private outlaw or government agents violating their trust under the color of law. The Second Amendment was meant to guarantee individuals the right to protect themselves against government as much as against private bad guys and gangs.

That is why the gun grabbers’ assault on firearms is not only, not even primarily an attack merely on the means of self-defense but more fundamentally, the gun grabbers are engaged in a blatant attack on the very legitimacy of self-defense itself. It’s not really about the guns; it is about the government’s ability to demand submission of the people. Gun control is part and parcel of the ongoing collectivist effort to eviscerate individual sovereignty and replace it with dependence upon and allegiance to the state.

Americans provisionally delegated a limited amount of power over themselves to government, retaining their individual sovereignty in every respect and reserving to themselves the power not delegated to government, most importantly the right and power to abolish or replace any government that becomes destructive of the ends for which it was created. The Bill of Rights, especially the Second and Ninth Amendments, can only be properly understood and rightly interpreted in this context.

Politicians who insist on despoiling the Constitution just a little bit for some greater good (gun control for “collective security”) are like a blackguard who lies to an innocent that she can yield to his advances, retain her virtue and risk getting only just a little bit pregnant—a seducer’s lie. The people either have the right to own and bear arms, or they don’t, and to the extent legislators, judges and bureaucrats disparage that right, they are violating the U.S. Constitution as it was originally conceived, and as it is currently amended. To those who would pretend the Second Amendment doesn’t exist or insist it doesn’t mean what it says, there is only one legitimate response: “If you don’t like the Second Amendment, you may try to repeal it but short of that you may not disparage and usurp it, even a little bit, as long as it remains a part of the Constitution, no exceptions, no conniving revisions, no fabricated judicial balancing acts.”

Gun control advocates attempt to avoid the real issue of gun rights—why the Founders felt so strongly about gun rights that they singled them out for special protection in the Bill of Rights—by demanding that individual rights be balanced against a counterfeit collective right to “security” from things that go bump in the night. But, the Bill of Rights was not a Bill of Entitlements that people had a right to demand from government; it was a Bill of Protections against the government itself. The Founders understood that the right to own and bear laws is as fundamental and as essential to maintaining liberty as are the rights of free speech, a free press, freedom of religion and the other protections against government encroachments on liberty delineated in the Bill of Rights.

That is why the most egregious of the fallacious arguments used to justify gun control are designed to short-arm the citizenry (e.g., banning so-called “assault rifles”) by restricting the application of the Second Amendment to apply only to arms that do not pose a threat to the government’s self-proclaimed monopoly on the use of force. To that end, the gun grabbers first must bamboozle people into believing the Second Amendment does not really protect an individual’s right to own and bear firearms.

They do that by insisting on a tortured construction of the Second Amendment that converts individual rights into states rights. The short-arm artists assert that the Second Amendment’s reference to the necessity of a “well-regulated militia” proves the amendment is all about state’s rights, not individuals rights; it was written into the Bill of Rights simply to guarantee that state governments could assemble a fighting force quick, on the cheap to defend against foreign invasion and domestic disturbance. Consequently, Second-Amendment revisionists would have us believe the Second Amendment does little more than guarantee the right of states to maintain militias; and, since the state militias were replaced by the National Guard in the early twentieth century, the Second Amendment has virtually no contemporary significance. Gun controllers would, in effect, do to the Second Amendment what earlier collectivizers and centralizers did to the Tenth Amendment, namely render it a dead letter.

The truth is, the Founders understood a “well regulated” militia to mean a militia “functioning/operating properly,” not a militia “controlled or managed by the government.” This is clearly evidenced by Alexander Hamilton’s discussion of militias in Federalist #29 and by one of the Oxford Dictionary’s archaic definitions of “regulate;” “(b) Of troops: Properly disciplined.”

The Founders intended that a well-regulated militia was to be the first, not the last line of defense against a foreign invader or social unrest. But, they also intended militias to be the last, not the first line of defense against tyrannical government. In other words, the Second Amendment was meant to be the constitutional protection for a person’s musket behind the door, later the shotgun behind the door and today the M4 behind the door—a constitutional guarantee of the right of individuals to defend themselves against any and all miscreants, private or government, seeking to do them harm.

The unfettered right to own and bear arms consecrates individual sovereignty and ordains the right of self-defense. The Second Amendment symbolizes and proclaims individuals’ right to defend themselves personally against any and all threatened deprivations of life, liberty or property, including attempted deprivations by the government. The symbolism of a heavily armed citizenry says loudly and unequivocally to the government, “Don’t Tread On Me.”

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence said, “When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”

Both Jefferson and James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, also knew that their government would never fear a people without guns, and they understood as well that the greatest threat to liberty was not foreign invasion or domestic unrest but rather a standing army and a militarized police force without fear of the people and capable of inflicting tyranny upon the people.

That is what prompted Madison to contrast the new national government he had helped create to the kingdoms of Europe, which he characterized as “afraid to trust the people with arms.” Madison assured his fellow Americans that under the new Constitution as amended by the Bill of Rights, they need never fear their government because of “the advantage of being armed.”

But, Noah Webster said it most succinctly and most eloquently:

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.”

That is why the Founders looked to local militias as much to provide a check—in modern parlance, a “deterrent”—against government tyranny as against an invading foreign power. Guns are individuals’ own personal nuclear deterrent against their own government gone rogue. Therefore, a heavily armed citizenry is the ultimate deterrent against tyranny.

A heavily armed citizenry is not about armed revolt; it is about defending oneself against armed government oppression. A heavily armed citizenry is not about overthrowing the government; it is about preventing the government from overthrowing liberty. A people stripped of their right of self defense is defenseless against their own government.

 

[cobalt_27]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lawrencehunter/2012/12/28/gun-control-tramples-on-the-certain-virtues-of-a-heavily-armed-citizenry/

Gun Control Tramples On The Certain Virtues Of A Heavily Armed CitizenryIt is time the critics of the Second Amendment put up and repeal it, or shut up about violating it. Their efforts to disarm and short-arm Americans violate the U.S. Constitution in Merriam Webster’s first sense of the term—to “disregard” it.Hard cases make bad law, which is why they are reserved for the Constitution, not left to the caprice of legislatures, the sophistry and casuistry of judges or the despotic rule making of the chief executive and his bureaucracy. And make no mistake, guns pose one of the hardest cases a free people confronts in the 21st century, a test of whether that people cherishes liberty above tyranny, values individual sovereignty above dependency on the state, and whether they dare any longer to live free.A people cannot simultaneously live free and be bound to any human master or man-made institution, especially to politicians, judges, bureaucrats and faceless government agencies. The Second Amendment along with the other nine amendments of the Bill of Rights was designed to prevent individuals’ enslavement to government, not just to guarantee people the right to hunt squirrels or sport shoot at targets, nor was it included in the Bill of Rights just to guarantee individuals the right to defend themselves against robbers, rapers and lunatics, or to make sure the states could raise a militia quick, on the cheap to defend against a foreign invader or domestic unrest.The Second Amendment was designed to ensure that individuals retained the right and means to defend themselves against any illegitimate attempt to do them harm, be it an attempt by a private outlaw or government agents violating their trust under the color of law. The Second Amendment was meant to guarantee individuals the right to protect themselves against government as much as against private bad guys and gangs.That is why the gun grabbers’ assault on firearms is not only, not even primarily an attack merely on the means of self-defense but more fundamentally, the gun grabbers are engaged in a blatant attack on the very legitimacy of self-defense itself. It’s not really about the guns; it is about the government’s ability to demand submission of the people. Gun control is part and parcel of the ongoing collectivist effort to eviscerate individual sovereignty and replace it with dependence upon and allegiance to the state.Americans provisionally delegated a limited amount of power over themselves to government, retaining their individual sovereignty in every respect and reserving to themselves the power not delegated to government, most importantly the right and power to abolish or replace any government that becomes destructive of the ends for which it was created. The Bill of Rights, especially the Second and Ninth Amendments, can only be properly understood and rightly interpreted in this context.Politicians who insist on despoiling the Constitution just a little bit for some greater good (gun control for “collective security”) are like a blackguard who lies to an innocent that she can yield to his advances, retain her virtue and risk getting only just a little bit pregnant—a seducer’s lie. The people either have the right to own and bear arms, or they don’t, and to the extent legislators, judges and bureaucrats disparage that right, they are violating the U.S. Constitution as it was originally conceived, and as it is currently amended. To those who would pretend the Second Amendment doesn’t exist or insist it doesn’t mean what it says, there is only one legitimate response: “If you don’t like the Second Amendment, you may try to repeal it but short of that you may not disparage and usurp it, even a little bit, as long as it remains a part of the Constitution, no exceptions, no conniving revisions, no fabricated judicial balancing acts.”Gun control advocates attempt to avoid the real issue of gun rights—why the Founders felt so strongly about gun rights that they singled them out for special protection in the Bill of Rights—by demanding that individual rights be balanced against a counterfeit collective right to “security” from things that go bump in the night. But, the Bill of Rights was not a Bill of Entitlements that people had a right to demand from government; it was a Bill of Protections against the government itself. The Founders understood that the right to own and bear laws is as fundamental and as essential to maintaining liberty as are the rights of free speech, a free press, freedom of religion and the other protections against government encroachments on liberty delineated in the Bill of Rights.That is why the most egregious of the fallacious arguments used to justify gun control are designed to short-arm the citizenry (e.g., banning so-called “assault rifles”) by restricting the application of the Second Amendment to apply only to arms that do not pose a threat to the government’s self-proclaimed monopoly on the use of force. To that end, the gun grabbers first must bamboozle people into believing the Second Amendment does not really protect an individual’s right to own and bear firearms.They do that by insisting on a tortured construction of the Second Amendment that converts individual rights into states rights. The short-arm artists assert that the Second Amendment’s reference to the necessity of a “well-regulated militia” proves the amendment is all about state’s rights, not individuals rights; it was written into the Bill of Rights simply to guarantee that state governments could assemble a fighting force quick, on the cheap to defend against foreign invasion and domestic disturbance. Consequently, Second-Amendment revisionists would have us believe the Second Amendment does little more than guarantee the right of states to maintain militias; and, since the state militias were replaced by the National Guard in the early twentieth century, the Second Amendment has virtually no contemporary significance. Gun controllers would, in effect, do to the Second Amendment what earlier collectivizers and centralizers did to the Tenth Amendment, namely render it a dead letter.The truth is, the Founders understood a “well regulated” militia to mean a militia “functioning/operating properly,” not a militia “controlled or managed by the government.” This is clearly evidenced by Alexander Hamilton’s discussion of militias in Federalist #29 and by one of the Oxford Dictionary’s archaic definitions of “regulate;” “(b) Of troops: Properly disciplined.”The Founders intended that a well-regulated militia was to be the first, not the last line of defense against a foreign invader or social unrest. But, they also intended militias to be the last, not the first line of defense against tyrannical government. In other words, the Second Amendment was meant to be the constitutional protection for a person’s musket behind the door, later the shotgun behind the door and today the M4 behind the door—a constitutional guarantee of the right of individuals to defend themselves against any and all miscreants, private or government, seeking to do them harm.The unfettered right to own and bear arms consecrates individual sovereignty and ordains the right of self-defense. The Second Amendment symbolizes and proclaims individuals’ right to defend themselves personally against any and all threatened deprivations of life, liberty or property, including attempted deprivations by the government. The symbolism of a heavily armed citizenry says loudly and unequivocally to the government, “Don’t Tread On Me.”Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence said, “When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”Both Jefferson and James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, also knew that their government would never fear a people without guns, and they understood as well that the greatest threat to liberty was not foreign invasion or domestic unrest but rather a standing army and a militarized police force without fear of the people and capable of inflicting tyranny upon the people.That is what prompted Madison to contrast the new national government he had helped create to the kingdoms of Europe, which he characterized as “afraid to trust the people with arms.” Madison assured his fellow Americans that under the new Constitution as amended by the Bill of Rights, they need never fear their government because of “the advantage of being armed.”But, Noah Webster said it most succinctly and most eloquently:“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.”That is why the Founders looked to local militias as much to provide a check—in modern parlance, a “deterrent”—against government tyranny as against an invading foreign power. Guns are individuals’ own personal nuclear deterrent against their own government gone rogue. Therefore, a heavily armed citizenry is the ultimate deterrent against tyranny.A heavily armed citizenry is not about armed revolt; it is about defending oneself against armed government oppression. A heavily armed citizenry is not about overthrowing the government; it is about preventing the government from overthrowing liberty. A people stripped of their right of self defense is defenseless against their own government.

Are you for or against citizens arming themselves with any weapon of choice? If not, you need to answer how it is you are not trampling all over your rights as an American?

 

[BustedKnuckles]

Overnight, sure. That's a political reality of any drastic change. But, it starts modest and moves up from there. But, I suspect it will move swiftly and with a sense of urgency that in 5-10 years, gun ownership will be severely restrictive and that the product availability will be substantially diminished.

Long term, I think you're right, but no way is this going to happen in 5-10 years. We just had 20 6/7 yr olds mowed down, and the pro-gun crowd is fighting an assault weapons ban. Nothing has changed.Sad as it is, it's going to take a much larger incident for people to wake up and demand change. Something like 2-3 teenagers mowing down a couple hundred kids in a mall or a high school might do it.

Would these be the same people doing this http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/12/27/3748672/two-killed-3-injured-in-us-74nc.htmlI guess a gun makes you deader than a car.

Don't you guys get it yet. The guys wanting to limit gun use don't like guns. They like cars, alcohol, pools, etc. They are perfectly willing to take away something they could care less about.

I like and own guns. I don't think there is any legitimate need for the general public to have semi-automatic weapons of any kind.

And you would be wrong.

So find some examples, or better yet verifiable data to back this up.

Your proposition ####s all over the 2nd amendment. That's all the data I need.

Not at all. I don't think there is much disagreement at all that certain types of arms can be excluded or strictly regulated from private use. Even the strongest backers of the NRA reading of it (individual right vs. state right) generally don't think automatic fire weapons should be readily available. So we almost universally agree there is a reasonable line, it's just a question of where it should be drawn.

Unless someone is going to get into a beef with the Bloods or Crips in L.A they should have no reason to need automatic or semi-automatic weapons. The reason people that i know have such weapons is they are cool. Like having the fastest car ...its bragging rights and something to play with.

 

[cobalt_27]

Rocket launchers? Give the teachers rocket launchers, right? This is the prescription of the 2nd amendment, right?

Awesome

 

[Slingblade]

Rocket launchers? Give the teachers rocket launchers, right? This is the prescription of the 2nd amendment, right?

Awesome

This also got shot down pages ago. Nice try though.

 

[Slingblade]

Overnight, sure. That's a political reality of any drastic change. But, it starts modest and moves up from there. But, I suspect it will move swiftly and with a sense of urgency that in 5-10 years, gun ownership will be severely restrictive and that the product availability will be substantially diminished.

Long term, I think you're right, but no way is this going to happen in 5-10 years. We just had 20 6/7 yr olds mowed down, and the pro-gun crowd is fighting an assault weapons ban. Nothing has changed.Sad as it is, it's going to take a much larger incident for people to wake up and demand change. Something like 2-3 teenagers mowing down a couple hundred kids in a mall or a high school might do it.

Would these be the same people doing this http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/12/27/3748672/two-killed-3-injured-in-us-74nc.htmlI guess a gun makes you deader than a car.

Don't you guys get it yet. The guys wanting to limit gun use don't like guns. They like cars, alcohol, pools, etc. They are perfectly willing to take away something they could care less about.

I like and own guns. I don't think there is any legitimate need for the general public to have semi-automatic weapons of any kind.

And you would be wrong.

So find some examples, or better yet verifiable data to back this up.

Your proposition ####s all over the 2nd amendment. That's all the data I need.

Not at all. I don't think there is much disagreement at all that certain types of arms can be excluded or strictly regulated from private use. Even the strongest backers of the NRA reading of it (individual right vs. state right) generally don't think automatic fire weapons should be readily available. So we almost universally agree there is a reasonable line, it's just a question of where it should be drawn.

Unless someone is going to get into a beef with the Bloods or Crips in L.A they should have no reason to need automatic or semi-automatic weapons. The reason people that i know have such weapons is they are cool. Like having the fastest car ...its bragging rights and something to play with.

Tell that to the Koreans that were in the L.A. riots.

 

[MaxThreshold]

Rocket launchers? Give the teachers rocket launchers, right? This is the prescription of the 2nd amendment, right?

Awesome

OH MY GOSH! I'M SO SCARED! LET'S QUICK PASS KNEE JERK LEGISLATION BANNING <INSERT NAME OF LATEST THING YOU ARE SCARED OF HERE> SO I DON'T HAVE TO BE SO SCARED ANYMORE!

 

[cobalt_27]

Rocket launchers? Give the teachers rocket launchers, right? This is the prescription of the 2nd amendment, right?

Awesome

This also got shot down pages ago. Nice try though.

Oh it was was it? I'm skeptical.

 

[Anthony Borbely]

 

[cobalt_27]

Rocket launchers? Give the teachers rocket launchers, right? This is the prescription of the 2nd amendment, right?

Awesome

OH MY GOSH! I'M SO SCARED! LET'S QUICK PASS KNEE JERK LEGISLATION BANNING <INSERT NAME OF LATEST THING YOU ARE SCARED OF HERE> SO I DON'T HAVE TO BE SO SCARED ANYMORE!

You want rocket launchers in circulation, I suppose.Crazy people. You all are certifiably nuts.

 

[BustedKnuckles]

I keep a pillow under my gun when i sleep at night...just in case someone breaks in and challenges me to a pillow fight

 

[Slingblade]

Rocket launchers? Give the teachers rocket launchers, right? This is the prescription of the 2nd amendment, right?

Awesome

OH MY GOSH! I'M SO SCARED! LET'S QUICK PASS KNEE JERK LEGISLATION BANNING <INSERT NAME OF LATEST THING YOU ARE SCARED OF HERE> SO I DON'T HAVE TO BE SO SCARED ANYMORE!

You want rocket launchers in circulation, I suppose.Crazy people. You all are certifiably nuts.

 

[cobalt_27]

 

[MaxThreshold]

Rocket launchers? Give the teachers rocket launchers, right? This is the prescription of the 2nd amendment, right?

Awesome

OH MY GOSH! I'M SO SCARED! LET'S QUICK PASS KNEE JERK LEGISLATION BANNING <INSERT NAME OF LATEST THING YOU ARE SCARED OF HERE> SO I DON'T HAVE TO BE SO SCARED ANYMORE!

You want rocket launchers in circulation, I suppose.Crazy people. You all are certifiably nuts.

Maybe the crazy people are the ones who are more than willing to give up their freedoms for a false sense of security.

 

[cobalt_27]

Rocket launchers? Give the teachers rocket launchers, right? This is the prescription of the 2nd amendment, right?

Awesome

OH MY GOSH! I'M SO SCARED! LET'S QUICK PASS KNEE JERK LEGISLATION BANNING <INSERT NAME OF LATEST THING YOU ARE SCARED OF HERE> SO I DON'T HAVE TO BE SO SCARED ANYMORE!

You want rocket launchers in circulation, I suppose.Crazy people. You all are certifiably nuts.

Maybe the crazy people are the ones who are more than willing to give up their freedoms for a false sense of security.

When you can admit that rocket launchers were not part of the design of the 2nd Amendment, then we can have a rational conversation. Until that time, I have to assume you are on a Thorazine drip.

 

[5 digit know nothing]

gets it

 

[MaxThreshold]

Rocket launchers? Give the teachers rocket launchers, right? This is the prescription of the 2nd amendment, right?

Awesome

OH MY GOSH! I'M SO SCARED! LET'S QUICK PASS KNEE JERK LEGISLATION BANNING <INSERT NAME OF LATEST THING YOU ARE SCARED OF HERE> SO I DON'T HAVE TO BE SO SCARED ANYMORE!

You want rocket launchers in circulation, I suppose.Crazy people. You all are certifiably nuts.

Maybe the crazy people are the ones who are more than willing to give up their freedoms for a false sense of security.

When you can admit that rocket launchers were not part of the design of the 2nd Amendment, then we can have a rational conversation. Until that time, I have to assume you are on a Thorazine drip.

Yeah, whatever chicken little. How many people actually have rocket launchers, fool? You're a tool if you think we have a rocket launcher problem.

 

[Mr Two Cents]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lawrencehunter/2012/12/28/gun-control-tramples-on-the-certain-virtues-of-a-heavily-armed-citizenry/

Gun Control Tramples On The Certain Virtues Of A Heavily Armed CitizenryIt is time the critics of the Second Amendment put up and repeal it, or shut up about violating it. Their efforts to disarm and short-arm Americans violate the U.S. Constitution in Merriam Webster’s first sense of the term—to “disregard” it.Hard cases make bad law, which is why they are reserved for the Constitution, not left to the caprice of legislatures, the sophistry and casuistry of judges or the despotic rule making of the chief executive and his bureaucracy. And make no mistake, guns pose one of the hardest cases a free people confronts in the 21st century, a test of whether that people cherishes liberty above tyranny, values individual sovereignty above dependency on the state, and whether they dare any longer to live free.A people cannot simultaneously live free and be bound to any human master or man-made institution, especially to politicians, judges, bureaucrats and faceless government agencies. The Second Amendment along with the other nine amendments of the Bill of Rights was designed to prevent individuals’ enslavement to government, not just to guarantee people the right to hunt squirrels or sport shoot at targets, nor was it included in the Bill of Rights just to guarantee individuals the right to defend themselves against robbers, rapers and lunatics, or to make sure the states could raise a militia quick, on the cheap to defend against a foreign invader or domestic unrest.The Second Amendment was designed to ensure that individuals retained the right and means to defend themselves against any illegitimate attempt to do them harm, be it an attempt by a private outlaw or government agents violating their trust under the color of law. The Second Amendment was meant to guarantee individuals the right to protect themselves against government as much as against private bad guys and gangs.That is why the gun grabbers’ assault on firearms is not only, not even primarily an attack merely on the means of self-defense but more fundamentally, the gun grabbers are engaged in a blatant attack on the very legitimacy of self-defense itself. It’s not really about the guns; it is about the government’s ability to demand submission of the people. Gun control is part and parcel of the ongoing collectivist effort to eviscerate individual sovereignty and replace it with dependence upon and allegiance to the state.Americans provisionally delegated a limited amount of power over themselves to government, retaining their individual sovereignty in every respect and reserving to themselves the power not delegated to government, most importantly the right and power to abolish or replace any government that becomes destructive of the ends for which it was created. The Bill of Rights, especially the Second and Ninth Amendments, can only be properly understood and rightly interpreted in this context.Politicians who insist on despoiling the Constitution just a little bit for some greater good (gun control for “collective security”) are like a blackguard who lies to an innocent that she can yield to his advances, retain her virtue and risk getting only just a little bit pregnant—a seducer’s lie. The people either have the right to own and bear arms, or they don’t, and to the extent legislators, judges and bureaucrats disparage that right, they are violating the U.S. Constitution as it was originally conceived, and as it is currently amended. To those who would pretend the Second Amendment doesn’t exist or insist it doesn’t mean what it says, there is only one legitimate response: “If you don’t like the Second Amendment, you may try to repeal it but short of that you may not disparage and usurp it, even a little bit, as long as it remains a part of the Constitution, no exceptions, no conniving revisions, no fabricated judicial balancing acts.”Gun control advocates attempt to avoid the real issue of gun rights—why the Founders felt so strongly about gun rights that they singled them out for special protection in the Bill of Rights—by demanding that individual rights be balanced against a counterfeit collective right to “security” from things that go bump in the night. But, the Bill of Rights was not a Bill of Entitlements that people had a right to demand from government; it was a Bill of Protections against the government itself. The Founders understood that the right to own and bear laws is as fundamental and as essential to maintaining liberty as are the rights of free speech, a free press, freedom of religion and the other protections against government encroachments on liberty delineated in the Bill of Rights.That is why the most egregious of the fallacious arguments used to justify gun control are designed to short-arm the citizenry (e.g., banning so-called “assault rifles”) by restricting the application of the Second Amendment to apply only to arms that do not pose a threat to the government’s self-proclaimed monopoly on the use of force. To that end, the gun grabbers first must bamboozle people into believing the Second Amendment does not really protect an individual’s right to own and bear firearms.They do that by insisting on a tortured construction of the Second Amendment that converts individual rights into states rights. The short-arm artists assert that the Second Amendment’s reference to the necessity of a “well-regulated militia” proves the amendment is all about state’s rights, not individuals rights; it was written into the Bill of Rights simply to guarantee that state governments could assemble a fighting force quick, on the cheap to defend against foreign invasion and domestic disturbance. Consequently, Second-Amendment revisionists would have us believe the Second Amendment does little more than guarantee the right of states to maintain militias; and, since the state militias were replaced by the National Guard in the early twentieth century, the Second Amendment has virtually no contemporary significance. Gun controllers would, in effect, do to the Second Amendment what earlier collectivizers and centralizers did to the Tenth Amendment, namely render it a dead letter.The truth is, the Founders understood a “well regulated” militia to mean a militia “functioning/operating properly,” not a militia “controlled or managed by the government.” This is clearly evidenced by Alexander Hamilton’s discussion of militias in Federalist #29 and by one of the Oxford Dictionary’s archaic definitions of “regulate;” “(b) Of troops: Properly disciplined.”The Founders intended that a well-regulated militia was to be the first, not the last line of defense against a foreign invader or social unrest. But, they also intended militias to be the last, not the first line of defense against tyrannical government. In other words, the Second Amendment was meant to be the constitutional protection for a person’s musket behind the door, later the shotgun behind the door and today the M4 behind the door—a constitutional guarantee of the right of individuals to defend themselves against any and all miscreants, private or government, seeking to do them harm.The unfettered right to own and bear arms consecrates individual sovereignty and ordains the right of self-defense. The Second Amendment symbolizes and proclaims individuals’ right to defend themselves personally against any and all threatened deprivations of life, liberty or property, including attempted deprivations by the government. The symbolism of a heavily armed citizenry says loudly and unequivocally to the government, “Don’t Tread On Me.”Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence said, “When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”Both Jefferson and James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, also knew that their government would never fear a people without guns, and they understood as well that the greatest threat to liberty was not foreign invasion or domestic unrest but rather a standing army and a militarized police force without fear of the people and capable of inflicting tyranny upon the people.That is what prompted Madison to contrast the new national government he had helped create to the kingdoms of Europe, which he characterized as “afraid to trust the people with arms.” Madison assured his fellow Americans that under the new Constitution as amended by the Bill of Rights, they need never fear their government because of “the advantage of being armed.”But, Noah Webster said it most succinctly and most eloquently:“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.”That is why the Founders looked to local militias as much to provide a check—in modern parlance, a “deterrent”—against government tyranny as against an invading foreign power. Guns are individuals’ own personal nuclear deterrent against their own government gone rogue. Therefore, a heavily armed citizenry is the ultimate deterrent against tyranny.A heavily armed citizenry is not about armed revolt; it is about defending oneself against armed government oppression. A heavily armed citizenry is not about overthrowing the government; it is about preventing the government from overthrowing liberty. A people stripped of their right of self defense is defenseless against their own government.

Excellent post, I find it hard to believe that so many of you don't get it or understand it. Even when it is put in front of you so eloquently and succinctly.Why is this so difficult for you to understand, has history taught you nothing? The Founding Fathers knew exactly what they were doing and what they were protecting against, you have to be either stupid or blind to keep rejecting the 2nd amendment for what it was and is.WTF is wrong with you lemmings.

 

[Mister CIA]

I feel kind of sorry for a lot of gun owners...living in such fear all the time must be draining .Scared that some bad men are going to try and kill you and your family. Scared that the government is going to take all your rights away and try to kill you. Scared that people might try and take your guns away,so you dare them to..."go ahead and try to take my guns and see what happens'. Always looking over your shoulders,waiting for the inevitable day you will need your gun. Hanging onto the 2nd amendment like a life preserver. Its really sad.

It almost seems like you are all waiting for something bad to happen where you would need to use your gun,to justify all your fears.

I love how you draw this conclusion. It's so ####### cute.You really think I'm scared? With a loaded handgun and shotgun within reaching distance as I type this, I feel pretty damn safe.

People who feel safe usually don't keep multiple loaded weapons within reach while surfing the net.

Pretty obvious. I surf the net in my bedroom. I have guns in my bedroom.

And you keep them loaded and within reach at all times.. It's like a Christmas poem.

Why would you have guns and not have them loaded? Typically I have a 9mm loaded. but not chambered at one end of the house, out of sight but not out of reach. I have a loaded semi-automatic 20ga shotgun at the bedroom end of the house, loaded, chambered with the safety on and my Judge (revolver) in whatever part of the house that I happen to be in and yes if I am outside it is handy but not visible. When ever I leave the house the Judge is in a little glove box holder that sits in front of the passenger seat. It is left open but can be closed with the push of a button. It does not bother my wife sitting there right in front of her.Right now I am sitting here in my Man Cave with my Judge sitting on my computer desk. I also have 3 small dogs that let me know if someone is walking up the driveway or in the back yard. I do not go to the front door without the Judge in my hand. Family is used to me opening the front door (window on top) with a gun in my right hand. It is not an issue nor is it a threat or dangerous.

I do not live in a "dangerous" neighbor hood but my neighbors are not what I am concerned about. Car Jackings and Home Invasions are very real in today's society. It is just a fact and I would rather be prepared than a victim.

My simple prayer,Dear God, never let me utter the words "in my Man Cave." ... NTTIAWWT

And never let me own three small dogs, nor be overly opinionated about lap-band surgery.

Amen.

 

[derek245583]

Where do you guys buy your ammo online??

I just bought a 9mm and need some ammo. Brother bought 4,000 rounds on some website, but I cant get ahold of him. Need to place an order.

Figured this was the best place to ask on FBG's right now.

 

[Slingblade]

Where do you guys buy your ammo online??I just bought a 9mm and need some ammo. Brother bought 4,000 rounds on some website, but I cant get ahold of him. Need to place an order. Figured this was the best place to ask on FBG's right now.

Here is a listing of good places by price.http://gun-deals.com/ammo

 

[Mr Two Cents]

I feel kind of sorry for a lot of gun owners...living in such fear all the time must be draining .Scared that some bad men are going to try and kill you and your family. Scared that the government is going to take all your rights away and try to kill you. Scared that people might try and take your guns away,so you dare them to..."go ahead and try to take my guns and see what happens'. Always looking over your shoulders,waiting for the inevitable day you will need your gun. Hanging onto the 2nd amendment like a life preserver. Its really sad.

It almost seems like you are all waiting for something bad to happen where you would need to use your gun,to justify all your fears.

I love how you draw this conclusion. It's so ####### cute.You really think I'm scared? With a loaded handgun and shotgun within reaching distance as I type this, I feel pretty damn safe.

People who feel safe usually don't keep multiple loaded weapons within reach while surfing the net.

Pretty obvious. I surf the net in my bedroom. I have guns in my bedroom.

And you keep them loaded and within reach at all times.. It's like a Christmas poem.

Why would you have guns and not have them loaded? Typically I have a 9mm loaded. but not chambered at one end of the house, out of sight but not out of reach. I have a loaded semi-automatic 20ga shotgun at the bedroom end of the house, loaded, chambered with the safety on and my Judge (revolver) in whatever part of the house that I happen to be in and yes if I am outside it is handy but not visible. When ever I leave the house the Judge is in a little glove box holder that sits in front of the passenger seat. It is left open but can be closed with the push of a button. It does not bother my wife sitting there right in front of her.Right now I am sitting here in my Man Cave with my Judge sitting on my computer desk. I also have 3 small dogs that let me know if someone is walking up the driveway or in the back yard. I do not go to the front door without the Judge in my hand. Family is used to me opening the front door (window on top) with a gun in my right hand. It is not an issue nor is it a threat or dangerous.

I do not live in a "dangerous" neighbor hood but my neighbors are not what I am concerned about. Car Jackings and Home Invasions are very real in today's society. It is just a fact and I would rather be prepared than a victim.

My simple prayer,Dear God, never let me utter the words "in my Man Cave." ... NTTIAWWT

And never let me own three small dogs, nor be overly opinionated about lap-band surgery.

Amen.

Glad to see you at least believe in God. Edit: Kind of funny cause I am right now sitting in my Man Cave with my Judge about 6 inches to my left. But I do have to add that we now own 4 small dogs, as we just added an abused Yorkie with heart worm and 3/4 of his teeth rotted out. Poor guy was used to stud by a puppy mill.

 

[derek245583]

Where do you guys buy your ammo online??I just bought a 9mm and need some ammo. Brother bought 4,000 rounds on some website, but I cant get ahold of him. Need to place an order. Figured this was the best place to ask on FBG's right now.

Here is a listing of good places by price.http://gun-deals.com/ammo

Thank you...gonna use that for sure.

 

[timschochet]

Someday in the future there will, perhaps be firearms with added compartments, and these compartments will allow one to fire 30 or 100 bullets without the necessity of reloading. Any attempt to limit such a magnificent weapon would be a clear infringement on our Bill of Rights and personal liberty.

- Thomas Jefferson, in a private letter, 1801

If the federal government should require licensed gun sellers to record their sales, this shall be permitted under the Second Amendment. However, if this requirement is extended to private sales, that would be a violation of the Second Amendment.

- Alexander Hamilton, writing to his sister, 1799

 

[Mr Two Cents]

Someday in the future there will, perhaps be firearms with added compartments, and these compartments will allow one to fire 30 or 100 bullets without the necessity of reloading. Any attempt to limit such a magnificent weapon would be a clear infringement on our Bill of Rights and personal liberty.

- Thomas Jefferson, in a private letter, 1801

If the federal government should require licensed gun sellers to record their sales, this shall be permitted under the Second Amendment. However, if this requirement is extended to private sales, that would be a violation of the Second Amendment.

- Alexander Hamilton, writing to his sister, 1799

Hey Tim, at the time the 2nd Amendment was written the citizens pretty much had the same weapons as the "military", so your attempt at humor is not. Actually Jefferson would probably be shocked at the restrictions that we have on our civilian "militia". I think you would have a difficult time guarding against the tyranny with 10 round magazines.Well played.

 

[Cookiemonster]

Rocket launchers? Give the teachers rocket launchers, right? This is the prescription of the 2nd amendment, right?

Awesome

OH MY GOSH! I'M SO SCARED! LET'S QUICK PASS KNEE JERK LEGISLATION BANNING <INSERT NAME OF LATEST THING YOU ARE SCARED OF HERE> SO I DON'T HAVE TO BE SO SCARED ANYMORE!

You want rocket launchers in circulation, I suppose.Crazy people. You all are certifiably nuts.

Maybe the crazy people are the ones who are more than willing to give up their freedoms for a false sense of security.

When you can admit that rocket launchers were not part of the design of the 2nd Amendment, then we can have a rational conversation. Until that time, I have to assume you are on a Thorazine drip.

Yeah, whatever chicken little. How many people actually have rocket launchers, fool? You're a tool if you think we have a rocket launcher problem.

Alright. You guys are making it hard to ignore Cobalt, so...The North Hollywood shootout in 1997 involved two bank robbers wearing body armor and carrying rifles illegally modified to be fully automatic. In the firefight with underarmed police officers who only had pistols and a couple shotguns at their disposal incapable of penetrating the body armor, the criminals expended 1100 rounds of ammunition, injuring 11 police officers and 7 other civilians before being killed at the scene.

Now I ask, with 1100 rounds fired, 18 hit, none killed... why are we so afraid of rocket launchers and fully automatic weapons, let alone semi-autos (which include most pistols, a large number of rifles - "assault weapons" if they have a pistol grip or black, plastic parts - and an increasing number of shotguns)? All those rounds fired (probably about all the weight they could carry on top of the heist money), for 18 hits and no kills? I say a fully automatic weapon is less dangerous to the general public than the bolt-action rifle. The military even changed the FULL AUTO selection of the M-16 to a 3 round BURST selection because of this, and in the Marine Corps we never even used BURST in training but single shot accuracy was drilled over and over. Full auto fire is primarily used for suppression (just keeping their heads down). Muzzle control with full auto is hopeful at best, and the criminal is usually out of ammunition before he has accomplished his goals. More horrifying and a more sensational news report? Absolutely. Why do you think we're talking about "assault weapons" again anyways? Main stream media. Most of us have little issue with sending 19 year olds to foreign countries with these "scary" weapons, aside from the wars themselves.

Now, anything used as a weapon can be dangerous, from a knife or axe to steel-toed boots or hand grenades. Fully automatic weapons are already very expensive and rocket launchers and tanks even more so. That doesn't mean that they should be excluded from the 2nd amendment. Now, if you want to talk about nukes, I think quite a few of the world's governments would take steps to prevent that, and I doubt many of us "gun nuts" would defend that too strongly as I think we can safely draw the line at WOMD. I wouldn't classify a troop-carried weapon as anything excessive. If it weren't for private ownership of cannons, this country would still be under English rule. And the English opposed our ownership of muskets (those damned founding terrorists). On that note, I would suggest that those who can afford the more exotic weapons also have more to lose and would be less likely to risk what they have to use these kinds of weapons to commit a crime. I have no desire to own any fully automatic weapons, grenade launchers or the like, but I'm not afraid of the private citizens in this country who do have them (and there are more than you think).

 

[Cookiemonster]

Someday in the future there will, perhaps be firearms with added compartments, and these compartments will allow one to fire 30 or 100 bullets without the necessity of reloading. Any attempt to limit such a magnificent weapon would be a clear infringement on our Bill of Rights and personal liberty.

- Thomas Jefferson, in a private letter, 1801

If the federal government should require licensed gun sellers to record their sales, this shall be permitted under the Second Amendment. However, if this requirement is extended to private sales, that would be a violation of the Second Amendment.

- Alexander Hamilton, writing to his sister, 1799

Hey Tim, at the time the 2nd Amendment was written the citizens pretty much had the same weapons as the "military", so your attempt at humor is not. Actually Jefferson would probably be shocked at the restrictions that we have on our civilian "militia". I think you would have a difficult time guarding against the tyranny with 10 round magazines.Well played.

Honestly, I think Jefferson would be more shocked and disgusted at how big our federal government has become and how much control they exert over the states and citizens. Then he would ask us where the #### the militia is during all this. Of course, he's probably crap his pants when he met our mostly black president too.

 

[cobalt_27]

Rocket launchers? Give the teachers rocket launchers, right? This is the prescription of the 2nd amendment, right?

Awesome

OH MY GOSH! I'M SO SCARED! LET'S QUICK PASS KNEE JERK LEGISLATION BANNING <INSERT NAME OF LATEST THING YOU ARE SCARED OF HERE> SO I DON'T HAVE TO BE SO SCARED ANYMORE!

You want rocket launchers in circulation, I suppose.Crazy people. You all are certifiably nuts.

Maybe the crazy people are the ones who are more than willing to give up their freedoms for a false sense of security.

When you can admit that rocket launchers were not part of the design of the 2nd Amendment, then we can have a rational conversation. Until that time, I have to assume you are on a Thorazine drip.

Yeah, whatever chicken little. How many people actually have rocket launchers, fool? You're a tool if you think we have a rocket launcher problem.

Alright. You guys are making it hard to ignore Cobalt, so...The North Hollywood shootout in 1997 that sparked the "assault weapons" ban (notice I always put "assault weapons" in quotation marks?), involved two bank robbers wearing body armor and carrying rifles illegally modified to be fully automatic. In the firefight with underarmed police officers who only had pistols and a couple shotguns at their disposal incapable of penetrating the body armor, the criminals expended 2000 rounds of ammunition, injuring 11 police officers and 7 other civilians before being killed at the scene.

Now I ask, with 2000 rounds fired, 18 hit, none killed... why are we so afraid of rocket launchers and fully automatic weapons, let alone semi-autos (which include most pistols, a large number of rifles - "assault weapons" if they have a pistol grip or black, plastic parts - and an increasing number of shotguns)? All those rounds fired (probably about all the weight they could carry on top of the heist money), for 18 hits and no kills? I say a fully automatic weapon is less dangerous to the general public than the bolt-action rifle. The military even changed the FULL AUTO selection of the M-16 to a 3 round BURST selection because of this, and in the Marine Corps we never even used BURST in training but single shot accuracy was drilled over and over. Full auto fire is primarily used for suppression (just keeping their heads down). Muzzle control with full auto is hopeful at best, and the criminal is usually out of ammunition before he has accomplished his goals. More horrifying and a more sensational news report? Absolutely. Why do you think we're talking about "assault weapons" again anyways? Main stream media. Most of us have little issue with sending 19 year olds to foreign countries with these "scary" weapons, aside from the wars themselves.

Now, anything used as a weapon can be dangerous, from a knife or axe to steel-toed boots or hand grenades. Fully automatic weapons are already very expensive and rocket launchers and tanks even more so. That doesn't mean that they should be excluded from the 2nd amendment. Now, if you want to talk about nukes, I think quite a few of the world's governments would take steps to prevent that, and I doubt many of us "gun nuts" would defend that too strongly as I think we can safely draw the line at WOMD. I wouldn't classify a troop-carried weapon as anything excessive. If it weren't for private ownership of cannons, this country would still be under English rule. And the English opposed our ownership of muskets (those damned founding terrorists). On that note, I would suggest that those who can afford the more exotic weapons also have more to lose and would be less likely to risk what they have to use these kinds of weapons to commit a crime. I have no desire to own any fully automatic weapons, grenade launchers or the like, but I'm not afraid of the private citizens in this country who do have them (and there are more than you think).

So, what I hear you saying is you're not philosophically opposed to citizens with enough money to own WOMD (currently undefined), it just doesn't seem practical or likely. You even stopped short of saying you oppose people owning nukes, and you explicitly said the second amendment shouldn't prohibit it. it's just that quite a few world governments are going to hold that in check.Do i have that right? You see where this is going...and, frankly, it speaks to the sort of mind bending crazy land that's being envisioned by the NRA and the paranoia that's so pervasive in this thread.

 

[parasaurolophus]

Someday in the future there will, perhaps be firearms with added compartments, and these compartments will allow one to fire 30 or 100 bullets without the necessity of reloading. Any attempt to limit such a magnificent weapon would be a clear infringement on our Bill of Rights and personal liberty.

- Thomas Jefferson, in a private letter, 1801

If the federal government should require licensed gun sellers to record their sales, this shall be permitted under the Second Amendment. However, if this requirement is extended to private sales, that would be a violation of the Second Amendment.

- Alexander Hamilton, writing to his sister, 1799

This legit?

 

[Cookiemonster]

So, what I hear you saying is you're not philosophically opposed to citizens with enough money to own WOMD (currently undefined), it just doesn't seem practical or likely. You even stopped short of saying you oppose people owning nukes, and you explicitly said the second amendment shouldn't prohibit it. it's just that quite a few world governments are going to hold that in check.

Do i have that right? You see where this is going...and, frankly, it speaks to the sort of mind bending crazy land that's being envisioned by the NRA and the paranoia that's so pervasive in this thread.

I am personally against countries owning WOMD and certainly against individuals. Far too indiscriminate. My comment was that we won't have to worry about that, aside from some of the biologicals that are fairly cheap and easy to deploy.What I am against is stopping someone from doing what they want to if it doesn't harmfully effect others. So, you're next question would be, "Why have guns that are designed to harm others?" I carry a gun to prevent harm to me and my family, or stop an attack on someone I know to be innocent and defenseless. I would absolutely use a gun to cause harm from a defensive standpoint. I don't have enough hatred or lack of options to use a gun offensively.

What I am for, is introducing people to firearms so that they better understand them and fear them less. I have introduced 4 women to firearms so far, and they have each gone on to introduce at least another handful of ladies that loved it (and one is a teacher). I know of 4 of them that have acquired a concealed carry permit (in California no less!!!). I am proud to have given someone the ability to equal the physical playing field. I am somewhat disabled myself, and to go from being able to hold my own with 90% or more of our population to not being able to outrun my 6 year old, I can really appreciate what that ability does for the weaker sex.

I am for MUCH stiffer punishment for committing a crime with a gun, and that punishment being carried out and not paroled 40% of the way through the sentence to make room for the next pot head being booked. I am for making jail / prison sentences much less enjoyable. I love what that Arizona sheriff does, and wouldn't be opposed to Russian style incarceration. Punishment needs to be a bigger deterrent, especially for violent crime. When criminals are committing crimes so that they can go back inside because the health care is so good, and they get 3 hots and a cot, we are doing something wrong. Too many bleeding hearts, and they are usually the gun grabbers that us gun owners are getting so used to bantering with.

 

[Henry Ford]

Rocket launchers? Give the teachers rocket launchers, right? This is the prescription of the 2nd amendment, right?

Awesome

OH MY GOSH! I'M SO SCARED! LET'S QUICK PASS KNEE JERK LEGISLATION BANNING <INSERT NAME OF LATEST THING YOU ARE SCARED OF HERE> SO I DON'T HAVE TO BE SO SCARED ANYMORE!

You want rocket launchers in circulation, I suppose.Crazy people. You all are certifiably nuts.

Maybe the crazy people are the ones who are more than willing to give up their freedoms for a false sense of security.

When you can admit that rocket launchers were not part of the design of the 2nd Amendment, then we can have a rational conversation. Until that time, I have to assume you are on a Thorazine drip.

Yeah, whatever chicken little. How many people actually have rocket launchers, fool? You're a tool if you think we have a rocket launcher problem.

Alright. You guys are making it hard to ignore Cobalt, so...The North Hollywood shootout in 1997 that sparked the "assault weapons" ban (notice I always put "assault weapons" in quotation marks?), involved two bank robbers wearing body armor and carrying rifles illegally modified to be fully automatic. In the firefight with underarmed police officers who only had pistols and a couple shotguns at their disposal incapable of penetrating the body armor, the criminals expended 2000 rounds of ammunition, injuring 11 police officers and 7 other civilians before being killed at the scene.

I'm having a hard time figuring out how the North Hollywood Shooters went back in time three or four years to get the feds to enact the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (the assault weapons ban).

 

[cobalt_27]

So, what I hear you saying is you're not philosophically opposed to citizens with enough money to own WOMD (currently undefined), it just doesn't seem practical or likely. You even stopped short of saying you oppose people owning nukes, and you explicitly said the second amendment shouldn't prohibit it. it's just that quite a few world governments are going to hold that in check.

Do i have that right? You see where this is going...and, frankly, it speaks to the sort of mind bending crazy land that's being envisioned by the NRA and the paranoia that's so pervasive in this thread.

I am personally against countries owning WOMD and certainly against individuals. Far too indiscriminate. My comment was that we won't have to worry about that, aside from some of the biologicals that are fairly cheap and easy to deploy.What I am against is stopping someone from doing what they want to if it doesn't harmfully effect others. So, you're next question would be, "Why have guns that are designed to harm others?" I carry a gun to prevent harm to me and my family, or stop an attack on someone I know to be innocent and defenseless. I would absolutely use a gun to cause harm from a defensive standpoint. I don't have enough hatred or lack of options to use a gun offensively.

What I am for, is introducing people to firearms so that they better understand them and fear them less. I have introduced 4 women to firearms so far, and they have each gone on to introduce at least another handful of ladies that loved it (and one is a teacher). I know of 4 of them that have acquired a concealed carry permit (in California no less!!!). I am proud to have given someone the ability to equal the physical playing field. I am somewhat disabled myself, and to go from being able to hold my own with 90% or more of our population to not being able to outrun my 6 year old, I can really appreciate what that ability does for the weaker sex.

I am for MUCH stiffer punishment for committing a crime with a gun, and that punishment being carried out and not paroled 40% of the way through the sentence to make room for the next pot head being booked. I am for making jail / prison sentences much less enjoyable. I love what that Arizona sheriff does, and wouldn't be opposed to Russian style incarceration. Punishment needs to be a bigger deterrent, especially for violent crime. When criminals are committing crimes so that they can go back inside because the health care is so good, and they get 3 hots and a cot, we are doing something wrong. Too many bleeding hearts, and they are usually the gun grabbers that us gun owners are getting so used to bantering with.

I support your stiffer penalty for committing crime.I support required training to own a firearm before obtaining a license, which you don't state but at least elude to with the 4 women in your life.

I support the right to bear arms.

The latter I support with the above limitations, among others. I do not believe, for example, that individual citizens should be allowed to own a nuclear bomb. I do not believe that is a guaranteed protection under the 2nd Amendment. By the same token, I do not believe individual citizens should be allowed to own rocket launchers. I also don't believe we should allow personal hand grenades, assault rifles, and only in some situations with proper credentials should a semi-automatic gun be allowed.

So, the good news is, I don't want you to give up your hand guns, as much as I believe they still pose a significant threat to our society. The bad news is I am unconvinced that the proliferation of more powerful arsenals have any place in society and that a combination of restrictions or outright bans are indicated. Not on a whim, reactionary, unconstitutional basis. I believe this is a long-conceived, long-overdue measure that still retains the rights afforded by the 2nd Amendment.

We may ultimately disagree, but at least I see room for modest agreement on some of the items here.

 

[Dvorak]

I support your stiffer penalty for committing crime.I support required training to own a firearm before obtaining a license, which you don't state but at least elude to with the 4 women in your life.I support the right to bear arms.The latter I support with the above limitations, among others. I do not believe, for example, that individual citizens should be allowed to own a nuclear bomb. I do not believe that is a guaranteed protection under the 2nd Amendment. By the same token, I do not believe individual citizens should be allowed to own rocket launchers. I also don't believe we should allow personal hand grenades, assault rifles, and only in some situations with proper credentials should a semi-automatic gun be allowed. So, the good news is, I don't want you to give up your hand guns, as much as I believe they still pose a significant threat to our society. The bad news is I am unconvinced that the proliferation of more powerful arsenals have any place in society and that a combination of restrictions or outright bans are indicated. Not on a whim, reactionary, unconstitutional basis. I believe this is a long-conceived, long-overdue measure that still retains the rights afforded by the 2nd Amendment.We may ultimately disagree, but at least I see room for modest agreement on some of the items here.

Which non-semi-automatic hand gun are you okay with people not giving up? A single-shot .22? You do indeed support the right to bear arms...Or, you have no freaking idea what you are talking about.

 

[Cookiemonster]

I support your stiffer penalty for committing crime.

I support required training to own a firearm before obtaining a license, which you don't state but at least elude to with the 4 women in your life.

I support the right to bear arms.

The latter I support with the above limitations, among others. I do not believe, for example, that individual citizens should be allowed to own a nuclear bomb. I do not believe that is a guaranteed protection under the 2nd Amendment. By the same token, I do not believe individual citizens should be allowed to own rocket launchers. I also don't believe we should allow personal hand grenades, assault rifles, and only in some situations with proper credentials should a semi-automatic gun be allowed.

So, the good news is, I don't want you to give up your hand guns, as much as I believe they still pose a significant threat to our society. The bad news is I am unconvinced that the proliferation of more powerful arsenals have any place in society and that a combination of restrictions or outright bans are indicated. Not on a whim, reactionary, unconstitutional basis. I believe this is a long-conceived, long-overdue measure that still retains the rights afforded by the 2nd Amendment.

We may ultimately disagree, but at least I see room for modest agreement on some of the items here.

To own a gun, no. To carry a gun, I highly recommend learning the law, what makes a justified case of self-defense and some case law examples for clarification on your interpretations, but we have hunter's safety classes before getting a hunting license and a day or two of classes for a CCW here in Cali. I know I learned a lot more during the course of getting a CCW and the time since than I ever did about gun laws and use before. Many states do not though, and don't appear to be any worse off for it. Physical training is almost completely unnecessary. Can you load it safely? Unload it safely? (Part of my biggest argument for semi-auto) The rest is academic. Sure, you can shoot better with practice and instruction at paper targets a known distance away, but when bullets are coming at you, you only hope to hit back, and keep rule #4 in mind as you are responsible for any bullet that leaves your barrel.So, what do you keep calling "assault rifles?" Define that one for me, so I know if we're arguing the same things or not.

What is it you have against semi-autos? 1st, they are easily the most common type of pistol, close in rifle and gaining ground in the shotgun worlds. It seems like your biggest issue with semi-auto is their proliferation, and by heavily restricting that you would attempt to significantly decrease the volume of guns. 2nd, I've seen a 13 year old win by the slimmest of margins using a lever action rifle vs an experienced shooter with a full automatic on a series of 9 targets the size of your head from a range beyond your typical defensive shooting. Watch. So really, what's the difference to you?

 

[DaVinci]

What is it you have against semi-autos? 1st, they are easily the most common type of pistol, close in rifle and gaining ground in the shotgun worlds. 2nd, I've seen a 13 year old win by the slimmest of margins using a lever action rifle vs an experienced shooter with a full automatic on a series of 9 targets the size of your head from a range beyond your typical defensive shooting. Watch. So really, what's the difference to you?

Big fan of The Rifleman as a kid.

 

[Cookiemonster]

I'm having a hard time figuring out how the North Hollywood Shooters went back in time three or four years to get the feds to enact the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (the assault weapons ban).

That was a whoops. On a couple different forums and got lines of thinking crossed. I'd also like to correct myself in the round count. 2000 total. 1100 by the criminals.

 

[5 digit know nothing]

What you're missing is a later study with opposite results.

Not true. There were decreases in areas that there were no bans. So saying it is because of the bans is hardly "opposite results". The ban in England was in 97. In 2003 the numbers were still up.

Study being the key word there. Some anecdotal evidence from cherry-picked data didn't qualify.

I dont recall you linking to a study that showed gun violence being down in the 5 years after the ban? Could you please post it again?

I never linked to a study that studied the UK exclusively. There were a couple that looked at the links between guns and murders on a nation-by-nation basis and one or two that looked at the links on a local US basis, holding constant other factors. Maybe you were confusing the US and the UK?

Not all nations, cherry-picked nations, wouldn't want you to leave out the detail of omitting 2 of the 10 most populous countries.

 

[5 digit know nothing]

What you're missing is a later study with opposite results.

Not true. There were decreases in areas that there were no bans. So saying it is because of the bans is hardly "opposite results". The ban in England was in 97. In 2003 the numbers were still up.

Study being the key word there. Some anecdotal evidence from cherry-picked data didn't qualify.

I dont recall you linking to a study that showed gun violence being down in the 5 years after the ban? Could you please post it again?

I never linked to a study that studied the UK exclusively. There were a couple that looked at the links between guns and murders on a nation-by-nation basis and one or two that looked at the links on a local US basis, holding constant other factors. Maybe you were confusing the US and the UK?

Not all nations, cherry-picked nations, wouldn't want you to leave out the detail of omitting 2 of the 10 most populous countries.

So obviously the gun lobby has commissioned a more comprehensive study that refutes these results?I'll hang up and listen.

So you agree your report cherry-picked nations, thanks for hanging up.

 

[Mr Two Cents]

What you're missing is a later study with opposite results.

Not true. There were decreases in areas that there were no bans. So saying it is because of the bans is hardly "opposite results". The ban in England was in 97. In 2003 the numbers were still up.

Study being the key word there. Some anecdotal evidence from cherry-picked data didn't qualify.

I dont recall you linking to a study that showed gun violence being down in the 5 years after the ban? Could you please post it again?

I never linked to a study that studied the UK exclusively. There were a couple that looked at the links between guns and murders on a nation-by-nation basis and one or two that looked at the links on a local US basis, holding constant other factors. Maybe you were confusing the US and the UK?

Not all nations, cherry-picked nations, wouldn't want you to leave out the detail of omitting 2 of the 10 most populous countries.

So obviously the gun lobby has commissioned a more comprehensive study that refutes these results?I'll hang up and listen.

Why don't you hang up and READ. There are some excellent posts about what the 2nd amendment was created for. Instead of worrying about numbers and statistics try to focus on the intended purpose. Your whole conservation is pointless and not germane to the issue at hand.

Any statistic or number you produce means squat as to the 2nd amendment.

 

[Henry Ford]

I'm having a hard time figuring out how the North Hollywood Shooters went back in time three or four years to get the feds to enact the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (the assault weapons ban).

That was a whoops. On a couple different forums and got lines of thinking crossed. I'd also like to correct myself in the round count. 2000 total. 1100 by the criminals.

Does it change your opinion of the law at all thaat it absolutely was not enacted based on the premise that you thought was ridiculous and inappropriate?

 

[Mr Two Cents]

Why don't you hang up and READ. There are some excellent posts about what the 2nd amendment was created for. Instead of worrying about numbers and statistics try to focus on the intended purpose. Your whole conservation is pointless and not germane to the issue at hand. Any statistic or number you produce means squat as to the 2nd amendment.

There's a constitutional dimension and a public policy dimension to any course that people set. Not every argument, and indeed almost none of them, will fit neatly into both boxes.I've made clear my views on the 2nd Amendment. I think it's antiquated for the purposes of preventing government tyranny and should be scrapped and reconstituted to enshrine the value of defending one's home. The types of weapons that that type of right would protect are very different from our current jurisprudence.

You are entitled to your opinion but you are absolutely wrong. That is EXACTLY why it was written. They specifically did not ant the States or Federal Government to be able to disarm the People.

 

[Apple Jack]

Why don't you hang up and READ. There are some excellent posts about what the 2nd amendment was created for. Instead of worrying about numbers and statistics try to focus on the intended purpose. Your whole conservation is pointless and not germane to the issue at hand. Any statistic or number you produce means squat as to the 2nd amendment.

There's a constitutional dimension and a public policy dimension to any course that people set. Not every argument, and indeed almost none of them, will fit neatly into both boxes.I've made clear my views on the 2nd Amendment. I think it's antiquated for the purposes of preventing government tyranny and should be scrapped and reconstituted to enshrine the value of defending one's home. The types of weapons that that type of right would protect are very different from our current jurisprudence.

You are entitled to your opinion but you are absolutely wrong. That is EXACTLY why it was written. They specifically did not ant the States or Federal Government to be able to disarm the People.

You think your guns can protect you from the government? You should make a journey out of the holler someday to the Department of Defense's Open House at Andrews Air Force Base. I'm pretty sure "the government" has you pretty well out-gunned. The second amendment is completely antiquated. It was also a provision made by fallible men, not a divine entity. Amendments are by nature adjustments to existing things. Why would anybody think they are iron-clad and unadjustable themselves?