Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: rpm on March 13, 2005, 10:55:29 PM
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A 4-year-old boy who shot his 2-year-old brother in the head this afternoon after an argument in their southwest Houston home didn't seem to understand what he had done, police said.
"He's wondering where his brother is, and when his brother's coming back," said Sgt. Cameron Grysen of the Houston Police Department Homicide Division.
The 2-year-old was in critical condition tonight at Ben Taub Hospital with a single gunshot wound to his temple. The incident happened about 4:20 p.m. at a home in the 5500 block of Gatewood near South Post Oak Boulevard.
Grysen said the boys had been arguing when the 2-year-old threw a toy at his brother. While the mother thought the boys had returned to their room, they walked back to her room, where the older boy grabbed a loaded gun from his mother's purse.
"The 4-year-old was angry ... he went and got the gun, put it to his brother's head and shot the gun," Grysen said.
The bullet entered one of his temples before exiting another side of his head. The sound of the gunshot alerted the mother to the incident. The woman had told police that she had the gun -- a .32-caliber automatic -- in her possession to protect her family because of recently reported burglaries in the neighborhood.
It is not clear if the boys' father was home at the time, but police said he did go to the hospital.
The mother could face criminal charges of making a weapon available to a child, Grysen said, adding that Child Protective Services would also investigate the family.
CPS spokeswoman Estella Olguin said her agency had never been called to the home prior to Saturday. A CPS caseworker was expected to decide whether to allow the older brother to stay with his parents or place him in custody of family or CPS.
"It all depends on a lot of things, like why mom had a gun in her purse in the first place, and if the gun was registered," Olguin said.
The mother told police that Saturday was the one day that she did not keep her gun secure.
"You got to be real careful with guns around children, and you can't be too careful keeping them secured," Grysen said.
Police are not sure whether the older boy understands the difference between real and toy guns.
"We really can't say with a 4-year-old," Grysen said. "It's very mind-boggling that this happened."
Residents of the modest neighborhood of single-family homes described the children and their parents as a happy family who often take walks with neighbors.
"All parents should be concerned about weapons laying in the home," said Yulanda Jordan, a neighbor. "It makes me feel bad about kids getting into weapons."
Edward Josey, 17, a neighbor who had played with the little boys on occasion, said they were like family.
"They shouldn't be playing with guns," he said, "They're too young."
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I think you might be wrong there.
Gun safety around children is not something to be taken lightly and is discussed regularly.
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cant even find that through all the carnage..
how many guys on this bbs could this have been?
bang bang (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7167861/)
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Stupidity on the Mother's sake. I feel sorry for both of the little boys.
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Well, it was surely the gun's fault, right RPM?
Or was it the parents fault maybe?
And guns are dangerous right? And we should ban 'em?
But not cars, right?
A 4-year-old boy drove his mother's car to a video store a quarter-mile from their apartment in this town about 15 miles north of Grand Rapids....
....He flipped on his lights when the car turned into the apartment complex and struck a parked car. The boy put the car in reverse and struck Osga's cruiser.....
...It was the third time in six weeks that a west Michigan child was caught driving a vehicle.
A 7-year-old girl sustained minor injuries Dec. 23 after she took a van for a drive and collided with a car near her home in Ottawa County's Robinson Township. The other driver wasn't injured.
On Jan. 13, an 11-year-old Norton Shores boy took a school bus on a two-mile joyride that left smashed mailboxes and broken utility poles in its wake. There were no reported injuries.
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Originally posted by rpm
A 4-year-old boy who shot his 2-year-old brother in the head this afternoon after an argument in their southwest Houston home didn't seem to understand what he had done, police said.
"He's wondering where his brother is, and when his brother's coming back," said Sgt. Cameron Grysen of the Houston Police Department Homicide Division.
The 2-year-old was in critical condition tonight at Ben Taub Hospital with a single gunshot wound to his temple. The incident happened about 4:20 p.m. at a home in the 5500 block of Gatewood near South Post Oak Boulevard.
Grysen said the boys had been arguing when the 2-year-old threw a toy at his brother. While the mother thought the boys had returned to their room, they walked back to her room, where the older boy grabbed a loaded gun from his mother's purse.
"The 4-year-old was angry ... he went and got the gun, put it to his brother's head and shot the gun," Grysen said.
The bullet entered one of his temples before exiting another side of his head. The sound of the gunshot alerted the mother to the incident. The woman had told police that she had the gun -- a .32-caliber automatic -- in her possession to protect her family because of recently reported burglaries in the neighborhood.
It is not clear if the boys' father was home at the time, but police said he did go to the hospital.
The mother could face criminal charges of making a weapon available to a child, Grysen said, adding that Child Protective Services would also investigate the family.
CPS spokeswoman Estella Olguin said her agency had never been called to the home prior to Saturday. A CPS caseworker was expected to decide whether to allow the older brother to stay with his parents or place him in custody of family or CPS.
"It all depends on a lot of things, like why mom had a gun in her purse in the first place, and if the gun was registered," Olguin said.
The mother told police that Saturday was the one day that she did not keep her gun secure.
"You got to be real careful with guns around children, and you can't be too careful keeping them secured," Grysen said.
Police are not sure whether the older boy understands the difference between real and toy guns.
"We really can't say with a 4-year-old," Grysen said. "It's very mind-boggling that this happened."
Residents of the modest neighborhood of single-family homes described the children and their parents as a happy family who often take walks with neighbors.
"All parents should be concerned about weapons laying in the home," said Yulanda Jordan, a neighbor. "It makes me feel bad about kids getting into weapons."
Edward Josey, 17, a neighbor who had played with the little boys on occasion, said they were like family.
"They shouldn't be playing with guns," he said, "They're too young."
It should be, with the following information.
1.) Was the gun a legal purchased gun?
2.) Only person to blame here is the Mother
Karaya
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Originally posted by Pongo
how many guys on this bbs could this have been?
One or two.. Beet or Zulu maybe.
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Mother needs to be locked up
My opinion that if something like this happens with your weapon because you failed to properly stow/safe it..the you are guilty of at least mansluaghter and criminal negligence.
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Originally posted by Toad
Well, it was surely the gun's fault, right RPM?
Or was it the parents fault maybe?
And guns are dangerous right? And we should ban 'em?
But not cars, right?
I might surprise you here Toad. I'm pro-gun, just not a fan of NRA propaganda. The Mom was at fault for not securing the weapon and for poor safety training with the kids. This is a tragedy that could have easily been prevented.
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Originally posted by rpm
This is a tragedy that could have easily been prevented.
As is just about every tragedy. Sad story.
:(
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That is a tragedy what happened. Around toddlers nothing is safe. It is a good idea to not have a handgun around when they're around. If they live there in your house, don't have a handgun in the house. Put all guns away and secure guns when they visit. When my great nephews visit (age 2, 4, and 7) I hide all longarms in the air conditioner duct (very secure for a short visit.)
One day they need to learn about weapons, guns, hunting and the manly arts. They're too young for that now. I was introduced to gun training at the age of nine or ten. Firing that double barrel 12 gauge hurt my shoulder for a week. Dang near turned me off guns, and I whined about the brutal recoil, and my friends already had .22s, so I grew up around rifles and shotguns, squirrel and deer hunting. and some quail hunting alone without dogs.
I have not seen hunting accidents, but have heard of them, and that instructs as much as possible if taken heed of. There are many stories to listen to, the point being to always beware of distractions and to always be focused and aware. Bullet can't be called back.
Les
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never had a relative that i could'nt find thier guns.
that said, try to remember when you had a kids curiosity.
i lock mine up.
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I was reading a trade magazine for firearms today that talked about a 4 year old who accidentally shot himself with his parents' handgun. (He lived) The parents stood trial for child endangerment, and were convicted of a felony. The DA stated they didn't want jail time but wanted the conviction because then the parents could never own a firearm again.
All seems logical to me.
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That is a horrible tragedy, and while I believe the blame is most certainly with the mother, I think locking her up would make a bad situation worse. Unless there are some serious issues going on in that family beside this. She made a mistake, and the hell she's going through now is punishment enough.
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No worse than strapping a loaded gun to a overweight grandma, and putting her next to violent rapists in a court house. Neither should be punished, but both cases should serve as a lesson to everyone else.
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Originally posted by SOB
That is a horrible tragedy, and while I believe the blame is most certainly with the mother, I think locking her up would make a bad situation worse. Unless there are some serious issues going on in that family beside this. She made a mistake, and the hell she's going through now is punishment enough.
She made a mistake. Mistakes happen.
Had she been living here she would not have been able to make that mistake.
Keep your guns, but don't be surprised or horrified by these events. Expect only more of them.
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Wow! I'm in complete agreement with SOB!
A tragic occurrence indeed. Would a four year old have been able to kill the two year old if the only tools at his disposal had been a) a butter knife; b) the family car; c) a baseball bat; d) a hammer - ????
My money says it's highly unlikely. And that's because those items could be used to kill someone, but are not specifically designed for the purpose. Of course, some wise arse (or even Mr. Toad) will be quick to point out that more people die on the roads than in accidental shootings. If true, this would only be because motor vehicles are used by a much greater proportion of the population, and on a much more frequent basis than guns.
Way back when I was new to these AH BBS gun debates, I asked Tomato if she had ever felt tempted to buy a gun for protection, as guns were quite legal in the country where she comes from. And believe me, the case for having one there would have been be much stronger than in the relatively peaceful USA.
She said NO. Why not? Because of the risk of just such a tragedy as the one described above. It's impossible to keep one's eye on the children all the time, and she was afraid that one of her boys might get inside her bag or glove compartment or wherever the gun was kept, and accidentally fire a shot while she was driving - or some similar scenario.
It's all about having a sense of proportion. In the white areas where Tomato lived, it was relatively safe. The risk of being attacked/robbed/burgled was much smaller than the risk of a gun tragedy like the one here.
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Tomato made you sell your guns Beet1e?
Les
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I heard he traded em for a bowl of grits. :D
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?
Where did he say he ever had any guns?
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curval is correct and on the right track... if you live in a country or place with no gun freedoms at all then this particular accident would not happen... In a country of allmost 300,000,000 you would save the lives (maybe) of less than 70 children a year (those 4 year or younger who have such accidents).
If my, and all the other law abiding gun owners giving up their guns would have saved this child then I am sorry... I am not gonna do it. He is gonna have to die.
The same could be said for swimming pools or pet dogs or bicycles... giving em all up would save a lot of childrens lives but it isn't worth it.
As a gun owner I still feel that I can mourn some child or innocent who was killed by a gun tho... Just as a pool owner has the right to rail against people who allow their children to drown.
The perps of this weekends little gun carnage were... insane... or violent criminals or.... carless and unlucky gun owners with very hyper kids.
I see nothing here that would make me want to give up my rights.
They are more than acceptable in order for me and my countryment to have the right to own and protect ourselves with firearms.
lazs
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and beet... I talked to tomato about this. I believe that she didn't have any training with firearms and was worried about them for some of the wrong reasons. We joked that no kid was gonna puill it out of her shoulder holster for instance and if he did... he was probly old enough to use it.
also... the risk vs benifiet... the risk is that 60-80 children a year will die due to gun accidents in a country of allmost 300,000,000 vs 1.5-3 million crimes a year stopped due to someone using a gun. the cost is certainly worth it. How many children are killed on skateboards or bikes and how many are saved by same?
lazs
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gotta love the liberal blame game...
1. the gun
2. NRA
3. George Bush
4. the gun
5. NRA
6. Dick Cheney
7. conservative pigs
8. NRA
9. Donald Rumsfeld
10. mother
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I have to agree that the lives saved each year far outweighs the risks. The one lone CC holder in the recent Tyler, Tx episode on the steps of the courthouse is a good example. This guy gave his life by keeping this guys attention and pelting him with rounds while people got to safety. The perp had came prepared to take out as many people as possible and wore body armor. If this one lone man had not been there with his concealed weapon there would have been many, many more die that day.
The above instance is an accident, pure and simple. A tragic one yes, but an accident all the same.
Kids die on a regualr basis in the bathtub. One slip, one moment of non attendance and it can turn tragic in a heart beat.
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Guys,
You are ignoring the real danger to kids out there - 5 gallon buckets. I am alarmed that anyone can just walk into a Wal-Mart and buy a 5 gallon bucket, without a background check additionally via a dangerous oversight, persons on the terrorist watchlist can still buy as many 5-gallon "assault style" buckets as they can fit in a rented Ryder truck. Plus don't even get me started on the "Floor and Tile show" loophole! Read the following information and call your legislators today!
FROM: http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content2/infant_drowning.html
Large buckets and young children can be a deadly combination. The U. S . Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) estimates that annually about 50 infants and toddlers drown in buckets containing liquid used for mopping floors and other household chores. Most of the drowning victims have been between 8 and 14 months old.
Between 1984 and 1992, over 200 young children were reported to have drowned in buckets and 21 others were hospitalized. More than 90 percent of the reported incidents where bucket size was noted involved the 5-gallon size.
Of all buckets, the 5-gallon size presents the greatest hazard to young children because of its tall, straight sides and weight, even with just a small amount of liquid. At 14-inches high, a 5-gallon bucket is about half the height of a young child. That, combined with the stability, makes it nearly impossible for top-heavy infants and toddlers to free themselves when they fall into the bucket head first. A child can drown in a small amount of water.
Children are naturally curious and easily attracted to water. At the crawling and pulling up stages while learning to walk, they can quickly get into trouble. CPSC believes that bucket drownings happen when children are left momentarily unattended, crawl to a bucket, pull themselves up, and lean forward to reach for an object or play in the water.
Parents and caregivers who are using 5-gallon buckets for household chores are warned not to leave a bucket containing even a small amount of liquid unattended where a young child may gain access to it. A child can drown in the time it takes to answer a telephone.
WARNING
Children can fall into bucket and drown.
Keep children away from bucket with even a small amount of liquid.
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Once again...I'm not suggesting that you give up your guns in the US.
All I am doing is saying that you should stop telling me how much of a victim I potentially am because I am at the mercy of a crimminal with a gun in a country where guns are banned or that gun ownership is a right I should be insisting I have in my country.
I noticed in the recent church shooting that no-one was able to stop that lunatic from killing 7 people. So much for arguments that use "protection" as the main selling point. Same applies to the Atlanta courtroom killings. No-one was able to stop this guy even outside the courthouse...and he even killed another federal agent while on the run.
Goodness...what is tomorrow's newpaper going to bring?
But..argue silly points about buckets and swimming pools. Fact is you aren't ever going to be able to tell me that myself, my wife or my children would be safer or better off in any way through gun ownership. It is just b/s.
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Seagoon, we've discussed the dangers of five gallon buckets before and all of us generally agreed the Government should require holes to be drilled in the bottom of the buckets to prevent child drownings.
We CAN make this a better and safer world through legislation.
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Originally posted by lazs2
curval is correct and on the right track... if you live in a country or place with no gun freedoms at all then this particular accident would not happen...
The trouble with Britain today - and Bermuda - is that our freedom to be shot has been taken away. I demand my right to be shot! :lol
As for your other rhetoric, Lazs, I'm not so sure. You're fond of telling me that the cities with the most guns have the lowest gun crime, and yet in my town there are no guns to speak of, and yet there is no gun crime whatsoever, and hasn't been in the 22 years I've lived here.
Furthermore, you talk about all the lives being saved by guns. If more guns made a safer society, the US would be the safest country on the planet. It isn't, and even though guns are outlawed here, the annual tally of gun homicides is well under 1% of the US figure.
I wonder how easy it would be for a four year old child to drown a two year old child in a five gallon bucket. :rolleyes:
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Seagoon,
How would you comfort the mother if she was part of your congregation? Would you tell her your bucket story?
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I can't read Beet's post, but I'll bet I know what he said-
"Guns are bad! No guns is good! America has guns, so America is bad! England has no guns, so we are good! Bleat bleat, I'm a sheep!"
(OK, so I put that last part in myself but I'll bet the rest is damn close to what he said.)
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Originally posted by beet1e
I wonder how easy it would be for a four year old child to drown a two year old child in a five gallon bucket. :rolleyes:
Very, very easy.
I had a friend when younger that was nearly killed by a younger brother with a 2 foot piece of stick that was about 3/4 of inch in diameter. We didn`t ban trees. :D
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Originally posted by Curval
I noticed in the recent church shooting that no-one was able to stop that lunatic from killing 7 people. So much for arguments that use "protection" as the main selling point.
Isn't it interesting that Wisconsin is NOT a right to carry state?
The Legislature passed Concealed Carry but the Governor vetoed the decision of the people's elected representatives on Nov 11, 2003.
A veto override failed in 2004; after the November election, they are now getting another bill ready.
Georgia? At the courthouse where the incident happened?
Georgia prohibits any person from carrying any firearm to or possessing any firearm at a public gathering (which includes, but is not limited to, athletic or sporting events, churches or church functions, political rallies or functions, publicly owned or operated buildings, or establishments at which alcoholic beverages are sold for consumption on the premises). Section 16-11-127(a), (b).
No "civilian" can legally carry a gun on to the courthouse property.
Cuval, no one is telling Bermuda what to do about guns. I'm sure you're not telling the US what to do about guns.
Nonetheless, this back-and-forth exchange of opinions continues to occur. So, how do you explain that?
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Originally posted by beet1e
And that's because those items could be used to kill someone, but are not specifically designed for the purpose. Of course, some wise arse (or even Mr. Toad) will be quick to point out that more people die on the roads than in accidental shootings.
Perhaps you could contact Hallmark Cards and convince them to bring out a new line of sympathy cards under your name.
You could offer condolences to people whose children are killed by inanimate objects that were not specifically designed to kill but, due to their misuse by human operators, killed their children very effectively none-the-less.
As you say, the market would be FAR, FAR larger for those than for sympathy cards related to firearms.
You could say stuff like... "Hey Mom! It's OK your toddler was killed by a drunk driver. Don't grieve! Cars and alcohol were not specfically designed to kill!
I'm sure they'd be a big hit. Especially the "drowned in a bucket" line.
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Originally posted by beet1e
even though guns are outlawed here, the annual tally of gun homicides is well under 1% of the US figure.
How do the numbers of total homicides and/or assaults (per capita) stack up?
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Originally posted by Airhead
I can't read Beet's post, but I'll bet I know what he said-
"Guns are bad! No guns is good! America has guns, so America is bad! England has no guns, so we are good! Bleat bleat, I'm a sheep!"
Not only that, but you got his exact wording correct! I'm starting to think you didn't really put him on ignore.
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Everyone should have beetle on ignore, he is one of the most subtle trolls on this board but still a troll. Either that or so dumb it is surprising he hasn’t killed himself in a bathtub or bucket.
Since he is still alive I have to say he is prolly just a troll.
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lol, outstanding Gto.
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I've done that, GTO, and went one better...I added his little brother, Curval. Now if only people would stop quoting them! ;)
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Actually, I don't think it would be that easy for a four year old to drown a two year old in a 5 gallon bucket. First, he'd have to plan it: get the bucket to a water supply, and turn it on. A four year old might have difficulty doing that. Then he would have to carry the bucket to where the two year old was. 5 gallons? That's nearly 19 litres and would therefore weigh about 19 Kg. Nope, sorry. I don't see a four year old going through with this.
Originally posted by Heretik
How do the numbers of total homicides and/or assaults (per capita) stack up?
The UK population is about 20% of the US population. Using 2003 (the last year for which I have figures) for comparison, I can tell you that there were 9638 homicides in the US committed with firearms, and 68 in Britain. Allowing for population disparity, the firearms homicide rate in the US is around 29 times what it is here. But then you have to remember that there are many thousands of gun deaths (like the one that is the subject of this thread) which are not classed as homicides. So the actual number of people killed by guns in the US for any reason is probably 50-100 times per capita higher than here.
Originally posted by Lazs
also... the risk vs benifiet... the risk is that 60-80 children a year will die due to gun accidents in a country of allmost 300,000,000 vs 1.5-3 million crimes a year stopped due to someone using a gun. the cost is certainly worth it. How many children are killed on skateboards or bikes and how many are saved by same?
Oh I think the number of children killed by guns each year is rather more than the 60-80 you think it is. I checked the FBI stats and found this for 2003. Just up to the age of 16, the tally amounts to 374 - and that's just the homicides. To that figure, you would also have to add the accidents such as the subject of this thread. I think you'd find that the actual number of children up to age 16 killed by guns each year (homicide or accident) is closer to 1000.
(http://www.zen33071.zen.co.uk/murderjuvenile.jpg)
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Of course, in 1776 we decided we didn't want to be British. And the respective paths of the societies began to diverge and never (thank cod) will they reconverge.
You have yours, enjoy.
We have ours, which I clearly love.
They are not and never will be the same. What works for us won't work for you and what works for you most certainly would result in armed rebellion here once again.
Think of it this way. If our leadership tried to remake our society in the British image, we'd throw them out too. By force of arms, if necessary.
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Beet..it is a small price to pay for the priviledged right to shoot at garbage.
:rolleyes:
Matters not to me though...just glad I only visit and don't live there.
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Originally posted by Engine
Not only that, but you got his exact wording correct! I'm starting to think you didn't really put him on ignore.
Nah really I did...it's just that if it's a gun thread, and Beat is in it, then it's pretty predictable what he'll say.
Now a tougher one to guess what they said is Curval cause I don't know how he stands on the issue, but I'll try-
"If everybody wore pink shorts we'd all get along better....and, has anybody seen my motor scooter? I seem to have misplaced it."
How'd I do on that one, Engine?:D
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If we can get Laz and Toad to ignore him, his broken record will just skip, skip, skip ...
It was awesome he pulled out charts after Gto buried him though. Too funnay.
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I'm sorry beet1e, let me rephrase.
I'd be intersted to see the statistics for total homicides and assaults (per capita) side by side. Of course banning guns will reduce the number of gun murders, but what about total murders? I'd like to see the figures for assaults as well, since attempted homicide with a gun is probably more likely to succeed, weighting the US murder column unfairly.
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Originally posted by Toad
Of course, in 1776 we decided we didn't want to be British. And the respective paths of the societies began to diverge and never (thank cod) will they reconverge.
You have yours, enjoy.
We have ours, which I clearly love.
They are not and never will be the same. What works for us won't work for you and what works for you most certainly would result in armed rebellion here once again.
Think of it this way. If our leadership tried to remake our society in the British image, we'd throw them out too. By force of arms, if necessary.
I feel bad disagreeing with you Toad about the British and all during the Revolutionary War. But we didn't drive them out, they left to deal with other issues. If they had wanted to, they would have won. We wouldn't have had a chance.
Les
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Originally posted by Creamo
No worse than strapping a loaded gun to a overweight grandma, and putting her next to violent rapists in a court house. Neither should be punished, but both cases should serve as a lesson to everyone else.
Grandma should be fired, as well as the shift supervisor who assigned her to escort that nut into court.
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Originally posted by Leslie
I feel bad disagreeing with you Toad about the British and all during the Revolutionary War. But we didn't drive them out, they left to deal with other issues. If they had wanted to, they would have won. We wouldn't have had a chance. Les
We wouldn't have had a chance without the French fleet. With the French fleet, I think our chances were pretty good.
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Originally posted by Heretik
I'd be intersted to see the statistics for total homicides and assaults (per capita) side by side. Of course banning guns will reduce the number of gun murders, but what about total murders? I'd like to see the figures for assaults as well, since attempted homicide with a gun is probably more likely to succeed, weighting the US murder column unfairly.
In 2003, there were 14,408 victims of homicide in the US. In Britain in the same year, it was approximately 800. I say approximately because the Home Office gives a figure for 2002/03, but that period included the hundreds of homicides committed by the serial killer Dr. Harold Shipman over a period spanning at least three decades.
So - there are about 18 times as many homicides in the US as in the UK, but allowing for the population discrepancy, the US homicide is about 3.6 times that of Britain, per capita. But... I doubt that we have thousands of accidental gun deaths, as in the US.
Ah, Mr Toad! An honest post from you at last! :D I see that you have gone through the five phases of death in recognising that the US does indeed have a problem viz. firearms and homicides/accidental gun killings. The five phases are Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. You're at the Acceptance stage. Lazs too. You have both finally accepted that your system is different from ours. You have also accepted that a high mortality rate is an inevitable consequence of the American "Guns-4-All" policy protected by the 2nd Amendment.
I don't ask any more of you - as long as you are prepared to drop the silly "more guns = less crime" rhetoric, and accept that there will be many thousands of lives lost as a natural consequence of handing out guns like copies of "The Big Issue", we need argue no more.
I have never said that America should give up its guns - far too late to try that; a totally unworkable proposal.
But you only have to look at homicides, patterns of homicide, and accidental deaths to realise that there is a heavy price to be paid for your "freedoms".
And, in light of how things have turned out in America, the stance of many governments around the world with regard to prohibition of firearms makes total sense.
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Guess Toad and Laz don't mind his "arguments" lol.
Clubing baby seals gets old eventualy though.
:D
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beet... your own example shows that only 32 children between 1-4 were murdered by firearms... I believe the accident rate is about 60-70 per year...
In the U.S. the more guns the less crime. that is all there is to it.. communities that pass draconian tyranical gun laws have more crime... those that trust their citizens with concealled carry enjoy a drop in crime.
and... if more guns do not equal less crime then why are you arming more and more of your police in entgland?
lazs
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Originally posted by beet1e
Actually, I don't think it would be that easy for a four year old to drown a two year old in a 5 gallon bucket. First, he'd have to plan it: get the bucket to a water supply, and turn it on. A four year old might have difficulty doing that. Then he would have to carry the bucket to where the two year old was. 5 gallons? That's nearly 19 litres and would therefore weigh about 19 Kg. Nope, sorry. I don't see a four year old going through with this.
Bwaahahhaaaa! I can`t believe even you tryed something as this that leaves the obvious flaw........well so obvious.
We`ll just call it a near miss on the Troll scale. :D
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Furthermore, you talk about all the lives being saved by guns. If more guns made a safer society, the US would be the safest country on the planet.
What you consistently fail to realize Beet1e is that if all the guns were taken away from law abiding citizens today, America would see a huge increase in crime. Morton Grove, Illinois is a perfect example. Depending on the source, 1.5 - 3 MILLION times each and every year law abiding citizens use legally owned firearms to foil crimes. In the vast majority of those cases the weapon isn't even fired. The mere prescence of a firearm deters the criminal in most cases.
You also fail to realize that when gun control laws are relaxed here in the US (one example is concealed carry laws) crime goes DOWN. When laws are made more restrictive, crime goes UP. You also conviently ignore all crime except those commited with a gun. Crime is crime regardless of whether or not a gun is used.
Since I no longer wish to see YOUR silly rhetoric, I am putting you on my ignore list right after I click the submit button. You sir, have the distinct honor of being the sole person on my ignore list. Even zulu7 didnt get that honor :)
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Two words. Trigger lock.
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elfie,
I don't doubt what you say is true...in AMERICA.
Here, we have no, or very very very few incidents of, gun crimes.
What would happen if guns were made legal and easily availiable here in your opinion?
Do you honestly think that there would be less crime overall?
Do you think that an increase in gun crime and gun related accidents and injuries would result also?
If so, is this a reasonable trade off?
Less robberies, more death?
Please try and think outside your normal way of thinking on this issue for just a couple of minutes and answer honestly.
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Americans once argued that making slavery illegal worked for Brits but wouldnt work for Americans.
We see here the kinds of arguments that were made.
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Originally posted by Curval
elfie,
I don't doubt what you say is true...in AMERICA.
Here, we have no, or very very very few incidents of, gun crimes.
What would happen if guns were made legal and easily availiable here in your opinion?
Do you honestly think that there would be less crime overall?
Do you think that an increase in gun crime and gun related accidents and injuries would result also?
If so, is this a reasonable trade off?
Less robberies, more death?
Please try and think outside your normal way of thinking on this issue for just a couple of minutes and answer honestly.
I honestly won't speak for your country Curval....the Bahamas...is that correct?
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Originally posted by Pongo
Americans once argued that making slavery illegal worked for Brits but wouldnt work for Americans.
We see here the kinds of arguments that were made.
Pongo do you have a reference for that? Would be an interesting read imo.
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We had to fight a civil war to end slavery and the keeping of slaves wasn't in the Bill of Rights.
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What you consistently fail to realize Beet1e is that if all the guns were taken away from law abiding citizens today, America would see a huge increase in crime. Morton Grove, Illinois is a perfect example. Depending on the source, 1.5 - 3 MILLION times each and every year law abiding citizens use legally owned firearms to foil crimes. In the vast majority of those cases the weapon isn't even fired. The mere prescence of a firearm deters the criminal in most cases.
I suspect that the mere presence of the person foils the vast majority of crimes.
I once "foiled" a burglary of my house by switching a light on and saying "oi", no gun needed.
Now if I'd had a gun, it would have gone down as "another crime stopped by an armed citizen".
You also fail to realize that when gun control laws are relaxed here in the US (one example is concealed carry laws) crime goes DOWN. When laws are made more restrictive, crime goes UP.
Is that true?
The Brady campaign make the claim on their website that crime has fallen less in those areas that have allowed easier concealed carry than those that haven't.
Toad did post some claim from a gun site, but it was more along the lines of "concealed carry areas have less crime", iirc.
That's not the same thing.
Crime is crime regardless of whether or not a gun is used.
I'd say crime committed with a gun would tend to be more serious.
Being punched and being shot are rarely comparable, for example.
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Originally posted by Nashwan
Being punched and being shot are rarely comparable, for example.
Is this considered a punch?
(http://primates.ximian.com/~jackson/Monkey_steals_peach.jpg)
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I'd say crime committed with a gun would tend to be more serious.
How so? Criminal breaks into your home brandishing a knife and demands your valuables. Criminal breaks into your home brandishing a gun and demands your valuables. You are a victim each time. You could concievably be killed with either weapon.
It doesnt really matter what weapon a criminal uses. Its the (in this case) act of robbery that is the crime. Use of ANY weapon compounds the crime. To me it doesnt matter if the weapon is a gun, knife, club, chain etc.
I suspect that the mere presence of the person foils the vast majority of crimes.
Some how I doubt the validity of that statement. Since those people were armed, we'll never know for sure will we?
I once "foiled" a burglary of my house by switching a light on and saying "oi", no gun needed.
I suspect you were either very lucky or the criminal was unarmed, heck maybe both.
The Brady campaign make the claim on their website that crime has fallen less in those areas that have allowed easier concealed carry than those that haven't.
The anti gun lobbyists here in the US are known for ignoring facts and telling outright lies. At one point they were claiming an absurd number of people dieing daily from guns. (Something on the order of 24,000 DAILY) At that rate the US population would have been annhilated in just a few years. One woman on a TV talk show was confronted by the Host about that very thing. Amazingly, when confronted with 8,760,000 gun related deaths each year, she stood her ground.
Toad did post some claim from a gun site, but it was more along the lines of "concealed carry areas have less crime", iirc
I've seen figures from the Department of Justice that show crime rates falling (sometimes dramatically) in states that have passed concealed carry laws. Look them up for yourself.
Something I read recently suggested that NO criminologist has ever crossed the fence from advocating less gun control to advocating more gun control. In fact the article said just the opposite is happening. The more criminologists study gun control, the more convinced they are that it does not in fact work. I have not had the time to research that further.
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Originally posted by Bodhi
gotta love the liberal blame game...
1. the gun
2. NRA
3. George Bush
4. the gun
5. NRA
6. Dick Cheney
7. conservative pigs
8. NRA
9. Donald Rumsfeld
10. mother
BODHI - My man! You forgot Karl Rove - He's been at the top of the Liberal Blame Game List lately.
P.S. Nice piece of bait Stogey - This ones a grounder though - Mother's at fault - End of Story. Now if I wore those light Lefty slippers (The powder blue ones with the Al Franken smiley face) - Let me guess - It's not her fault - she was traumatized in her early years by her vindictive and narcissistic step father, etc. blah blah blah. You’d hear every excuse under the sun, anything but her own ACCOUNTABILITY.
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Originally posted by Toad
We had to fight a civil war to end slavery and the keeping of slaves wasn't in the Bill of Rights.
We didnt actually fight the Civil War to end slavery. According to Lincoln it was about preserving the Union at all costs. Lincoln himself said, that if he could preserve the Union without freeing any slaves he would, if he could preserve the Union by freeing only some of the slaves he would, if he could preserve the Union by freeing all the slaves he would.
End result of the Civil War, slavery WAS ended and the Union preserved.
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Originally posted by Elfie
We didnt actually fight the Civil War to end slavery. According to Lincoln...
According to the seccesion documents of South Carolina, it was about slavery.
Seccesion occured because they percieved Lincoln as anti slavery, and quoted his house divided speech in the document.
The Union fought to preserve the union, the confederacy fought to preserve their institution of slavery which they thought could only be continued by rebellion.
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Originally posted by Elfie
I honestly won't speak for your country Curval....the Bahamas...is that correct?
No! Not the Bahamas. Bermuda. It's only been mentioned like 20 times in this thread. ;)
I'm not asking you to speak for my country but just to address the questions I had from your perspective.
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Don't get short with Elfie...
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How so? Criminal breaks into your home brandishing a knife and demands your valuables. Criminal breaks into your home brandishing a gun and demands your valuables. You are a victim each time. You could concievably be killed with either weapon.
It doesnt really matter what weapon a criminal uses. Its the (in this case) act of robbery that is the crime. Use of ANY weapon compounds the crime. To me it doesnt matter if the weapon is a gun, knife, club, chain etc.
Guns are more dangerous than knives.
Do police swat teams, army special forces squads, etc, prefer to use knives in close combat situations or guns?
Guns are prefered unless there is a requirement for silence.
I can back off somebody with a knife, I cannot back off far enough from a gun.
Some how I doubt the validity of that statement. Since those people were armed, we'll never know for sure will we?
What do you think most criminals are doing? They are looking to steal. The mere presence of someone there will make them run in nearly all cases.
I suspect you were either very lucky or the criminal was unarmed, heck maybe both.
I'm pretty certain he didn't have a gun, it being in the UK.
He tried to force my kitchen window, I walked in to the kitchen, switched the light on, he fled.
If he'd had a gun, perhaps he'd have been tempted to fire through the window, in case I fired through the window at him.
The anti gun lobbyists here in the US are known for ignoring facts and telling outright lies. At one point they were claiming an absurd number of people dieing daily from guns. (Something on the order of 24,000 DAILY) At that rate the US population would have been annhilated in just a few years. One woman on a TV talk show was confronted by the Host about that very thing. Amazingly, when confronted with 8,760,000 gun related deaths each year, she stood her ground.
I doubt a group like the Brady org would have been putting out stupid figures like that.
As to the figures I quoted from them, I've put them out a couple of times, they haven't been challenged yet.
In fact, what struck me about the stuff Toad posted was that they skirted around the issue, but didn't address it directly, when makes me tend to believe Brady's figures are correct.
I've seen figures from the Department of Justice that show crime rates falling (sometimes dramatically) in states that have passed concealed carry laws. Look them up for yourself.
They've also declined dramatically in states that haven't passed CC laws.
New York is often held up as a paragon of crime reduction, I don't think that has much to do with concealed carry.
The number of Homicides in New York city has gone from over 2,200 in 1990 to around 600 now, whereas the US overall has gone from about 23,000 to about 15,000. (The rate in New York has gone from over 30 per 100,000 people to less than 7 per 100,000)
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Originally posted by Elfie
I've seen figures from the Department of Justice that show crime rates falling (sometimes dramatically) in states that have passed concealed carry laws. Look them up for yourself.
I looked up crime stats in the US. And sure enough there it was plain in my face - crime rates were dropping. HOWEVER.... that same site showed stats on prison populations in the US growing dramatically.
So ummm you guys wanna explain the drop in crime versus the accelerated growth in prison populations?
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Originally posted by Pongo
Americans once argued that making slavery illegal worked for Brits but wouldnt work for Americans.
We see here the kinds of arguments that were made.
LOL, I know I must have read this wrong. Did you just compare slave ownership to gun ownership?
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Originally posted by Elfie
We didnt actually fight the Civil War to end slavery.
[/b]
I didn't say that, did I? ;)
End result of the Civil War, slavery WAS ended and the Union preserved.
That is what I said. Had to fight the war to end it. Most likely wouldn't have ended any other way.
Ever read this analysis on England's end to the slave trade?
When the British outlawed the exportation of Africans to the colonies for sale in 1807, they had had almost 20 years' notice that the Americans intended to ban the importation of Africans in 1808. And it was just about this time that Napoleon, cut off by the British Navy from French colonies in the Caribbean, began looking into the domestic cultivation of the sugar beet.
And there were the rebellions in the West Indies, particularly the Haitian rebellion. The sections of the book that deal with them bring to light an astounding, and forgotten, episode in Western history. Since Haiti alone produced as much foreign trade at that time as the whole of the 13 colonies of North America, it was potentially a great loss. I
t belonged to France, but Britain supplied it with slaves, a valuable trade since the slaves were intentionally worked to death -- it was cheaper to replace them than to sustain them -- so the market for Africans was very brisk. Uprisings had long been frequent in the West Indies, but at long last rage in Haiti converged with the tactical brilliance of Toussaint L'Ouverture and others and the slaves seized the island. This part of the story is familiar. But there is more.
First the British and then the French under Napoleon sent huge forces against the Haitians. The British sent a larger army against Haiti than it had dispatched to fight in the American Revolution. And it buried 60 percent of those soldiers in Haiti. The two greatest powers on earth went up against a population of half-starved, desperate people and were utterly defeated. It is no surprise that these two abysmal wars of empire have fallen out of history.
One cannot read about them without concluding that the Haitian Africans contributed mightily to making the Caribbean slave system untenable. All in all, in 1807 the prospects of the traffic in human beings were not good. It is perhaps coincidental that in adopting the abolitionist stance Britain was able to seize the moral high ground and attempt (together with the United States) to suppress the slave trade among its economic rivals. Certainly this posture was gallant enough to make a great part of the world forget that Britain was for so long pre-eminent among the despoilers of Africa.
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OK, this thread has formed a life of it's own and spun uncontrolled into the cosmos. My intent for posting, besides bringing personal accountability and basic gun safety into the forefront, was to point out how blindered and biased all the "Armed Citizen" posts from the NRA faithfull are nothing more than propaganda and those that post them are sheep.
Think for yourselves and realise that guns are a double-edged sword of a subject. This is not good vs. bad or right vs. wrong. It is a much more complex subject and you should not let outsiders (i.e. The NRA) form or state your opinion for you. by Rip-and-pasting your e-mails.
Guns? Yes. Enforcing the laws and making those in error accountable for the awesome power they yield? Abso-freaking-lutely...to the full extent of the law.
Lock your guns, educate your kids. Laziness is no excuse for responsability. That is the point.
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"...thousands of accidental gun-deaths..."
...another of those hysteria based statements that have no statistical basis in fact.
Similar to the statement about all the "children" shooting other "children" with guns. A close study of these "facts" reveals that the great majority of these so-called child victims are young gang-members with long histories of violence, drug use, and other criminal activities.
The American criminal class is cut from a different bolt of cloth than that found in the British isles. American gangs recruit their members from the very young...and they are trained in violence from the beginning. Guns and violence are an intrinsic part of that macho culture. Pray, how do you suggest we disarm THEM?
With all the money generated by their drug trafficking, they can by-pass any gun law enacted. If need be, they'll establish an international black-market to attain them.
Tell ya what...let's all buy tickets and passports for about 10,000 big-city gang-bangers and help them emigrate to the British Isles...and then see what happens to the violent crime statistics there.
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Originally posted by rpm
OK, this thread has formed a life of it's own and spun uncontrolled into the cosmos. My intent for posting, besides bringing personal accountability and basic gun safety into the forefront, was to point out how blindered and biased all the "Armed Citizen" posts from the NRA faithfull are nothing more than propaganda and those that post them are sheep.
Think for yourselves and realise that guns are a double-edged sword of a subject. This is not good vs. bad or right vs. wrong. It is a much more complex subject and you should not let outsiders (i.e. The NRA) form or state your opinion for you. by Rip-and-pasting your e-mails.
Guns? Yes. Enforcing the laws and making those in error accountable for the awesome power they yield? Abso-freaking-lutely...to the full extent of the law.
Lock your guns, educate your kids. Laziness is no excuse for responsability. That is the point.
RPM what about the many gun safety classes given by the NRA or at NRA sponsered events each year that help prevent stupid accidents like this one.
I'm not a big fan of the NRA either. Not because of their propaganda but because I never got my hat when I subscribed to a membership AND I must have gotten a new letter each week asking for more money.
I like the fact that they lobby on my behalf for constitutional rights.....in this aspect they are no different than groups that lobby against infingments on the 1st or 4th amemndments.
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I didn't say that, did I?
Didn't say you did. Was just pointing out Lincoln's objective for the Civil War. :)
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Guns, I am not oppossed to education. But to put in terms you can understand, what about ejection seat fanatics posting about only the postitive results of an evac vs the negative results? I know this is an unfair eval because the seats have only 1 purpose.
My point was following the rest of the flock does not make you less of a sheep, only a member of the flock.
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Originally posted by Elfie
Pongo do you have a reference for that? Would be an interesting read imo.
it would be indistinguishable.
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Originally posted by Curval
elfie,
I don't doubt what you say is true...in AMERICA.
Here, we have no, or very very very few incidents of, gun crimes.
What would happen if guns were made legal and easily availiable here in your opinion?
Do you honestly think that there would be less crime overall?
Do you think that an increase in gun crime and gun related accidents and injuries would result also?
If so, is this a reasonable trade off?
Less robberies, more death?
Please try and think outside your normal way of thinking on this issue for just a couple of minutes and answer honestly.
1) Are you trying to tell me there is a difference between the Bahamas and Bermuda? :D
2) If guns were made legal in the Bahamas, errr I mean Bermuda I have no idea what would happen there. Some countries like Switzerland and Canada have a higher percentage of gun ownership than the US does, yet they have lower crime rates. Higher or lower crime rates really depend on your society.
3) Most likely there would be lower crime. At least as far as violent crime goes. Criminals dont seem to want to mess with potentially armed citizens. I gave an account in another thread where I used a revolver to deter a criminal from entering my window at night.
4) Of course there would be an increase in gun crime. Criminals that would now brandish a knife or other weapon would instead get a gun. Accidents and injuries? We're talking about humans here, humans make mistakes...every last one of us does. Accidents can be kept to a minimum with appropriate gun safety education.
5) Reasonable trade off? Maybe not for Bermuda. I'm not current on your crime rates so it is difficult to say. Most likely fewer robberies, assaults, rapes etc. More deaths? Again, hard to say, but definately within the realm of possibility.
I always try to answer as honestly as possible Curval. Btw, how is the weather in the Bahamas....errr I mean Bermuda? :D
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Bermuda doesn't participate in the uniform crime reporting system. They also don't publish crime statistics. Go figure.
They do have one statistic out there.
The following appeared in a Bermuda newspaper, an article by By Tony McWilliam and Don Burgess:
Bermuda's a world leader -- in prison numbers
BERMUDA is a world leader when it comes to locking up criminals. The island tops a global league table for imprisonment, beating out even the U.S. and South Africa.
Not making a judgement, just stating a few facts.
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Originally posted by rpm
Lock your guns, educate your kids. Laziness is no excuse for responsability. That is the point.
Yet there are those on this BBS that would argue that your statement is infringing on the rights to store their guns in the way they see fit ;)
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One of the reasons we have such a high incarceration rate here is the very high prices that drug dealers get for their products. It is a small island and therefore relatively easy to prevent illegal drugs from getting in. But, the laws of supply and demand are such that when supply is low, but demand is high...the price goes through the roof.
As a result of this we have a constant stream of drug mules being caught at the airport and the docks trying their luck. If successful they do very well from the sales of their drugs.
Unfortunately we do not deport those that are caught, we simply lock them up. For a real long time. I am of the opinion that these people should be sent "packing" back to their countries of origin rather than waste our public funds on keeping them in jail, but it is not just up to me.
Elfie, thanks for the honest response.
Personally I don't like the trade off. I feel that my children are safer because there are very very few guns in circulation.
Maybe the number of robberies and muggings would decline...maybe...but the increased chance of harm coming to my family is not worth it if the people were readily armed.
I've joked around with Toad about my use of a nine-iron to defend my family...but in all honesty if I confronted a burgular who was armed with a knife I think I could at least hold him off. If that same person had a gun then I'd be in trouble. My only option would be to have to arm myself as a result. It is a visious cycle that Americans have to deal with...almost a citizen vs. crimminal arms race. I feel lucky to not be involved in that.
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rpm... you rail against the NRA and in the same breath cry for gun safety education... you love all your wussy liberal friends who make even talking about guns in school (except for the negative... like the old reefer madness pogums)
The NRA has 50,000 safety instructors and last year safety trained near 1,000,000 people ... How many did the people you aprove of train?
I believe safety training is much nore important than storage. I believe that Children should be trained to not start the house on fire or play on the freeway or play with guns.
I don't believe there are enough gun accidents for toddlers to make it worthwhile to negate the usefulness of firearms or the rights of firearms owners by making draconian gun storage laws. I believe such laws are only made to make it even more difficult to be a gun owner and that is their sole objective.
No gun storage law to date has proved to reduce crime or accidents in any way.
lazs
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and... do we convict mothers who's attention span wanders and their toddler crawls behind a backing vehicle that then runs over and kills him? or one who forgot to empty every 5 gallon bucket on the spred after the last rain? do we simply enact safe storage laws for 5 gallon buckets and cars?
Accidents happen. they will allways happen with tools or recreational devices or just children.... some children will be able to defeat even the most dilignet safety devices or most attentive parents.
show me the proof that safe storage laws prevent accidents in any community that they have been used in. show me the drop in accidents not how you "feel" or your version of "common sense".
lazs
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Laz, show me a 4 year old that can crack a gunsafe and disable a trigger lock. Oh BTW, you have no clue of my politics on this subject, other than what I think of the NRA.
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Do they even make a 5 gallon bucket safe?
CPSC has received reports of 459 young children who drowned in bathtubs, buckets, toilets, spas, hot tubs and other containers of water in a 4-year period between 1996 and 1999.
Oh... wait.... it's OK. Whew. No bathtubs, buckets, toilets, spas, hot tubs or other containers of water were specifically designed to drown children.
What a relief and and such a great comfort to the parents.
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Toad,
I am going to let you in on a secret. 5 gallon buckets were secretly designed by the CIA to specificaly kill Russian babies. Unfortunatly, US corperations, being evil, took the design, and sold it in the US as well.
The CIA cant stop it because they would have to admit what the design was for in the first place.
The corperations, KNOW what it was designed for but will not pull the buckets because of all the cash they are pulling in.
DAMN THE CIA AND Corperate Slave traders!! DAMN THEM TO HELL!!
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Originally posted by lazs2
do we simply enact safe storage laws for 5 gallon buckets and cars?
Interesting question lazs. Hmmmm what should we do about car safety? Perhaps we should make drivers apply for a license, pass a test which shows they undertstand basic safety, rules etc, license vehicles as safe and fit for the road. Hell maybe we could even fit locks to cars! What do you think about that idea?
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Well Vulcan, if we did that it would completely stop children from getting guns...
SAND LAKE, Mich. Feb 7, 2005 — A 4-year-old boy drove his mother's car to a video store a quarter-mile from their apartment in this town about 15 miles north of Grand Rapids.
Unable to reach the accelerator, the boy managed to put the car in gear and make his way to the store about 1:30 a.m. Friday, Sand Lake Police Chief Doug Heugel said. Finding the store closed, the youngster began a slow trip home.
Weaving and with its headlights off, the car got the attention of Officer Jay Osga, who first thought he was following a car that had been left running at a gas pump. He flipped on his lights when the car turned into the apartment complex and struck two parked cars. The boy put the car in reverse and struck Osga's cruiser.
Osga then discovered the boy, whose mother told police her son tried to drive the car earlier after she let him steer the vehicle from her lap.
"He's 4 years old, his mom didn't even know he was up," Heugel told The Grand Rapids Press for a Sunday story. "I don't think he even realizes what he did."
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Yes the indicent rate of 4 year olds stealing cars and running down people is horrific in the states. What are you people feeding your kids?
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If you had read my post, you would note that there were no casualties.
The point is that all the controls you advocated did not work to keep this child from driving. His mother showed irresponsibility in driving with her son on her lap. Yet another law (child vehicular restraints) flouted.
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Originally posted by Holden McGroin
If you had read my post, you would note that there were no casualties.
:eek: I must've missed that.... not ;)
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But you missed that the controls you advocate did not work.....
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Originally posted by Holden McGroin
Is this considered a punch?
(http://primates.ximian.com/~jackson/Monkey_steals_peach.jpg)
I laughed so hard I got hiccups.
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vulcan... I have no problem with gun owners having to pass a safety class.
There is no law that requires you to lock your car. There is no law that says that you are liable for an accidental running over of an infant and... if you were being as safe as possible or reasonable then it would indeed be an accident. There are no locks or licence on 5 gal buckets however.
The reason cars are licenced is for revenue purpose or to insure that they are roadworthy... or... to collect fines or fees more readily.. they are a revenue scam.
RPM... yes.. we know how you feel about the NRA but it is impossible to know why since you seem to know so little about it. We also know that you embrace every liberal politician or idea on this BB so my guess is... they all hate the NRA so.... like a good little liberal sheep.... you to too.. Baaaaaaaa.
lazs
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Vulcan,
You might as well tell us to bend over and give our lives to the government with your trolls that try to edge into gun registration by way of licensing for automobiles. Driving a car is a privlage since the roads are maintained by the government. You are using a service implemented and serviceded by them out of your taxes.
Your life is owned by you and not the governemnt. Your right and duty to protecting your life is non-infringable by the government. Your life is not a privilage granted you by the governement. Once you give that up and let the government decide who can or who cannot be trusted to protect their God given life, then you are describing any totalitarian regim that has or exists on this planet.
Registration, licensing and laws do not stop unstable persons from comitting horrendis acts of violence upon the general population. Today in London a gent walked up to another and in front of passersby hacked his head off with an axe on the side walk. http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/17262526?source=Evening%20Standard&ct=5
When the "It won't happen to me lottery fails" and the nutcase has you by the throat, what have you done your whole life to prepair for surviveing that "one watermelon happened" moment other than make fun of people who take the gift of their own life more seriously than you?
Vulcan maybe you should have to enter a ring with a 250 LB SAS combat instructor and prove your fitness to survive rather than trying to persuade everyone to let the government protect you from them. If you come out alive, then you get a tatoo on your forhead "I'm a Survivor!" before you tell others to give up their rights (licensing) to defend themselves. Even if you do, do these ideot trolls for chits and giggles.
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In London they'll soon be spreading their butter with their fingers.
Back in early prehistoric times axes were specifically designed for killing. So were the flint knives.
Sad, but it has to happen.
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bustr... that is well put. I think what is really happening with vulcan and others is a total lack of empathy for other humans.. they feel that they are young and fit and survivors so let the rest eat cake.
They can't see past their current youth and health... they don't empathize with the real people who are small or crippled or old or women. Like all liberals they love humanity but hate and fear people. So long as they are the strongest... they want to keep it that way... they feel that getting rid of firearms keeps their edge.. the hypocrits will of course change their tune as they age or circumstances change.
They have never been around real criminals and sociopaths and feel that they are not going to ever be. They don't even understand the criminal mind or what it is capable of.
plus... the chicks they date wouldn't like it if they were pro gun.
lazs
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Yes, it was in today's news - a man with an axe attacked and beheaded another man in North London. Just think, if he'd had a gun, he could have stood outside a Church and shot seven people.
Mr. Toad! I'm sure there are quite a few fatalities in bathtubs, showers etc. But the difference is that where I come from, taking a bath or shower is considered an essential part of everyday life by millions. YMMV as you live in the country and all. :D;)
So in that sense, bathtub deaths, or deaths resulting from slipping on a bar of soap in the shower are unavoidable - unless we give up baths/showers - then we could do what rural Americans do, and take a bath standing in a barrel in the middle of the street, as in the cowboy movies! :lol
On the other hand, guns are unnecessary. I have two Californian friends who own guns. Lazs is one, the other is CPP who lives near Oxnard. He has owned a pistol 15 years and has never even taken it out of its box. Really useful - NOT.
Consider this parallel - and GTOra2 would agree with this. (He claimed to have added me to his ignore list 2 years ago, but I know he's really in peekaboo mode - Hi GTO!) If you had a friend who was dying of cancer, well that's too bad. Cancer is an occupational hazard of life. It might well get me in the fullness of time, just as it got my dad. But then consider someone who is dying of AIDS. Such a tragic way to go and (in the western world where we have condoms and education about the dangers of drugs/sharing needles) it's an entirely avoidable cause of death. That makes it more tragic, IMO - especially as many victims are cut down way before their time.
The gun that killed the two year old (subject of this thread) was an unnecessary gun. No doubt the mother would agree with me on that. :(
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bustr... that is well put. I think what is really happening with vulcan and others is a total lack of empathy for other humans.. they feel that they are young and fit and survivors so let the rest eat cake.
They can't see past their current youth and health... they don't empathize with the real people who are small or crippled or old or women. Like all liberals they love humanity but hate and fear people. So long as they are the strongest... they want to keep it that way... they feel that getting rid of firearms keeps their edge.. the hypocrits will of course change their tune as they age or circumstances change.
Lazs, our system not only produces less murder victims, it produces far less amongst the very old.
Homicide victims over 50:
US 2,125
E&W 118
Homicide victims over 70:
US 476
E&W 40
The US has about 5.5 times the population of England and Wales.
The UK figures are for 2000/01, subsequent years have estimates of Harold Shipman's totals over the last 30 years added in. Shipman's average has been estimated at around 9 per year, so that should be added to the earlier year's figures.
As for the lack of empathy, I think that's you. Note what you said earlier in the thread:
"If my, and all the other law abiding gun owners giving up their guns would have saved this child then I am sorry... I am not gonna do it. He is gonna have to die. "
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Originally posted by beet1e
The gun that killed the two year old (subject of this thread) was an unnecessary gun. No doubt the mother would agree with me on that. :(
You're going to have to condense all this sentiment quite significantly or Hallmark won't be able to get it on to a card.
Let's see... maybe...
Buckets are great and so useful to
We need them to live, for the work that we do
Your kid drowned in one and that is just too bad
But we still need our buckets even though you are sad.
Work on it.... you could make millions.
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Thats talent Toad!!
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Nashwan,
I have lived in the Berkeley Oakland area of California for 20 years now. I have been assaulted 3 times with knives. Shot at 2 times but was still young enough I beleived I could "handle myself" so I carried nothing and acted the stupidity of youth. When I got older, around 42 I had to begin conceled carry because of 6 shootings that happened in parking lots at night within a mile of where I worked. Ive had to brandish my side arm once to change a criminals mind about the knife he was hiding from me behind his back on the front steps of my home in Oakland in broad daylight.
If the woman needed the gun for reasons of self defence than thats her right and obligation to her own life. It is her job to protect her life and her childrens. If she was deficient for a moment, life is not fair, safe, nor do we get out of it alive. I'm sorry for the loss of the childs life. But too often now children are used to cover the personal bias and fear of those who would legislate all humane activity untill the point that we walk around in chains to ease the fears of a minority of the population. It is not a survival stratagey for our species to suddenly disarm itself because one of it's young succeeds in killing its self. That used to be called natural selection. The smart ones tended to pass on intellegence.
The woman made a mistake. She has to live with it for a life time. The child is dead. Children have been dieing for 45,000 years. If you have a problem with what happened, then learn it as a lesson of life and don't make that mistake. But no one has the right to attempt to play God and legislate cradle to grave for every human on this planet because they might make a mistake. The end of that road is freedom "only" for the Elite minority who ultimatly ajudicates these legislated rules that will supposedly protect the majority from its mindless mistakes.
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Originally posted by Holden McGroin
But you missed that the controls you advocate did not work.....
Did not work where? They're working fine in NZ and other countries cheers.
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Originally posted by bustr
Vulcan,
You might as well tell us to bend over and give our lives to the government with your trolls that try to edge into gun registration by way of licensing for automobiles. Driving a car is a privlage since the roads are maintained by the government. You are using a service implemented and serviceded by them out of your taxes.
Your life is owned by you and not the governemnt. Your right and duty to protecting your life is non-infringable by the government. Your life is not a privilage granted you by the governement. Once you give that up and let the government decide who can or who cannot be trusted to protect their God given life, then you are describing any totalitarian regim that has or exists on this planet.
Hmmmm....
Originally posted by bustr
Nashwan,
I have lived in the Berkeley Oakland area of California for 20 years now. I have been assaulted 3 times with knives. Shot at 2 times but was still young enough I beleived I could "handle myself" so I carried nothing and acted the stupidity of youth. When I got older, around 42 I had to begin conceled carry because of 6 shootings that happened in parking lots at night within a mile of where I worked. Ive had to brandish my side arm once to change a criminals mind about the knife he was hiding from me behind his back on the front steps of my home in Oakland in broad daylight.
Interesting... in NZ, our goverment is elected by democratic processes. The policies they implement reflect the wishes of the people. Thus, many years ago when the population decided to restrict, license, and ensure a safe firearms environment laws were passed.
Henceforth I have never been threatened by a person wielding a knife nor firearm. Nor have I felt the need to carry one.
Its interesting that you talk about "totalitarian regim" when in essence you are laying down your right to have a situation that others may not necessarily want. I find it ironic how people such as yourself scream freedom with regards to firearms licensing/laws/etc when you often have quite different views of say drunk drivers, drugs etc. Although I do suspect some of the statements are nothing more than being melodramatic.
I do understand this womans need to protect herself, and own a firearm given the state of the USA these days with regards to crime. However my point is simple, does a little enforced gun education infringe on peoples freedom? Would it save lives?
In the meantime, I enjoy the freedom of not having to carry a firearm when I go anywhere, I enjoy not having to worry about being shot or stabbed. I enjoy not concerning myself that my son will never "accidentally" shot himself, myself, or my wife using a firearm inadequately stored in our house.
Guess it sucks to be living where you do ;)
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Originally posted by Vulcan
In the meantime, I enjoy the freedom of not having to carry a firearm when I go anywhere, I enjoy not having to worry about being shot or stabbed. I enjoy not concerning myself that my son will never "accidentally" shot himself, myself, or my wife using a firearm inadequately stored in our house.
I enjoy every single one of those as well.
And, I get to enjoy yet another which is just as sweet.
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_116_1070488720.jpg)
Or take a pistol out to the range and go plinking.
Guess it sucks to be living where you do ;)
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Originally posted by Toad
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_116_1070488720.jpg)
Is that a yellow lab? A friend of my brother was going to give one to some animal shelter cause he couldn't take care of it. I took it cause I heard bad things about the place and didn't want to see anything happen to her. We didn't have the room for her either(not to mention we were not supposed to have a dog in the apartment), but we managed to keep her hidden. Through friends we found this couple in the western part of the state that just lost a lab and were thrilled to take her. They have a farm and she has lots of room to run. I think she was a yellow lab, she looked just like your dog and she had webbed feet. The guy that bought her paid close to a grand for her. Anyway, saw the pic and it reminded me of her.
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I agree with Vulcan - I believe bustr is being melodramatic in the extreme, besides proving a point for the case not to hand guns out like plastic toys in cereal packets! Why does he think he needs a gun? - in case someone else has one and they're bad. The problem here is the fact that bad people can get guns, but that's what happens when you have Guns-4-All.
I have a certain lady acquaintance who lives in Oakland,CA near where bustr lives. And she does NOT have a gun, and to my knowledge has not had the bad luck that bustr has had.
I know that Oakland is about 60% black, so there's likely to be ghetto crimes. But more guns is not the answer - else more bad people will have them and the situation will be even worse. Stiffer penalties for crimes and more police - now there's an idea...
Pics of Oakland in June 1998 - it's dull because it was an El Nińo year. The water is Lake Merritt.
(http://www.zen33071.zen.co.uk/oak1.jpg)
(http://www.zen33071.zen.co.uk/oak2.jpg)
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Originally posted by Toad
Or take a pistol out to the range and go plinking.
Guess it sucks to be living where you do ;)
Yeah, it sucks not being able to go to a garbage dump and shoot at tin cans. I shall lament that fact in May when I go to Austria to visit this.
(http://www.zen33071.zen.co.uk/schlosshohenwerfen.jpg)
But why would I want to visit an 11th century fortress with a wealth of historical interest, enjoy bratwurst/wienerschnitzel and schnapps, when I could be visiting ghettos exercising my right to be shot at, or making holes in paper targets?
BTW this castle was used in the location shooting for "Where Eagles Dare".
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Originally posted by bustr
I have lived in the Berkeley Oakland area of California for 20 years now. I have been assaulted 3 times with knives. Shot at 2 times but was still young enough I beleived I could "handle myself" so I carried nothing and acted the stupidity of youth. When I got older, around 42 I had to begin conceled carry because of 6 shootings that happened in parking lots at night within a mile of where I worked. Ive had to brandish my side arm once to change a criminals mind about the knife he was hiding from me behind his back on the front steps of my home in Oakland in broad daylight.
Goodness me...no wonder you are living in fear and must carry a gun.
Speaks volumes your post does.
:aok
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nashwan... You country had less percapita murders no matter what your laws so far as guns go. You are simply a less murderous country.. you allways have been... you are a less dynamic and vibrant country on a tiny little island with a tiny little social system that is not very culturaly diverse.
you may allways be that way or... things may get worse.. you are allways behind us about 20 years.
If and when things get worse... you will have dennied yourselves the right to defend yourselves.
In the case of this story... gun or no... the kid would probly have figured out a way to either kill himself or soemone else accidentaly.. accidents just happen to some people.
but... what really gets me is that you feel that you have the right to tell me what I can or can't own based on the fact that bad people abuse it. I have done nothing that threatens you or yours and in fact, I am a deterent to harm.
The woman in the story may have had a boyfriend that was going to come over and kill the whole family... he may have been detered by knowing she was armed... it may have been a net gain of two lives.
If the kid got the car keys and killed someone in the family wagon... you wouldn't be asking that all keys be locked up in a safe when not in use... you wouldn;t say that the woman deserved to be punished if she left her car keys in her purse and he got em.
he shouldn't be in her purse period.
If people can't be responsible then they need to be punished... if it is an accident then it is simply and accident... no worse than running over a kid while changing a CD in the car or putting on makeup...
You can't punish the law abiding tho for the crimes of the lawless.
It is like saying that jewlry is the main burglar target so lets outlaw jewlry.
At my workplace I asked... all but one person owns a firearm... all for different reasons. Just as you cannot imagine peasants owning arms.... none of them can imagine a place where they couldn't.
lazs
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OOOOoooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOooo oooooooooh!
Beet's going to a movie set! I am SO jealous... not.
BTW, I dont' go to a dump. I go to Mill Creek Rifle Club, an unpretentious facility with excellent ranges that is known nationally for the matches held here. Great place; $75/year for the family membership and you're your own Rangemaster.
You might not like that part though; you have to be responsible for yourself. There's no nanny there to keep you from shooting your foot off if you choose to practice quick draw and don't know what you're doing.
Another two weeks and it'll be turkey season. While you wonder in awe at old stone houses, I'll be out enjoying Mother Nature, trying to decoy one of our wiliest gamebirds with a call. Should I succeed, I shall have the makings of several extremely fine repasts and the satisfaction of having done so without the aid of hired animal assassins.
Enjoy your masonry!
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It also seems odd that most of the people here who fear firearms so much end up living in countries with a higher suicide rate than us even though most of our suicides are done with fireams and 80 millon or more people here own fireams.
I am really glad that the latest spate of insane gunmen or accidental shootings happened while Bush is on...
If that wuss kerrie was up we would be doing the pale pasty faced euro shuffle so far as losing our freedoms go. People who don't know the slightest bit about firearms and have armed guards for them and theirs would be telling us what we could own for firearms.
lazs
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If only Lazs and Toad would ignore him... Such a simple request.
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Originally posted by Vulcan
Hmmmm....
Interesting... in NZ, our goverment is elected by democratic processes. We are far superior to you. Bla bla bla, America sucks, bla bla bla.
Guess it sucks to be living where you do ;)
:aok
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I dunno creamo... I think that beet and nashwan are doing America a service.
I take every opportunity to take new people out shooting.. most, if they are adults are a little intimidated by guns and a little guilty feeling with a lot of preconcieved notions that they picked up from the liberal press and their women.
Once we go out and shoot... I think that I have at least helped the cause.... most times they will not listen to the liberal meia in the same way.
I believe that vulcan, beet and nashwan etc.. are products of their super socialist liberal countries propoganda about guns.... they really know very little about the subject so simply look at numbers and such.
When these people get on this board and explain their gun banning agenda... I can't help but feel that the American here that didn't really care on way or the other...
I can't help but feel that for a lot of them... the euros banning agenda is a wake up call. They see that the "common sense" womanly liberal democrats agenda is really all about and how silly it is.
lazs
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Originally posted by lazs2
the euros banning agenda is a wake up call. They see that the "common sense" womanly liberal democrats agenda is really all about and how silly it is.
lazs
Exactly the discussion I had with a bunch of folks during the lunch break at the shoot in Devonshire.
We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. - Ben, a Founding Father
Make no mistake; the antis here will not give up.
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I also think that besides the normal human nature flaw of wanting to tell everyone else what to do...
The euros here hate American firearms freedom so much because it highlights their lack of freedom.
And beet... are you saying that you can't have the right to keep and bear arms and also have nice scenery? Or... are you saying that Austrias peaceful and non violent past created such scenery?
lazs
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Exactly the discussion I had with a bunch of folks during the lunch break at the shoot in Devon.
- ah, glad to see that you're referring to that county as Devon and not Devonshire! :aok How are the master beaters these days? Will you be coming over anytime soon?
Well now that Lazs and Toad have been honest, I have no need to argue with them any more. Each has said in essence that they want to have the guns they want, even if the Guns-4-All policy which enables that results in thousands of avoidable deaths each year. I’ve never said America should give up privately owned weapons, but have observed the disastrous consequences viz. homicides and accidental deaths in a G4A society.
If I were Mayor of Dixon, I would enact a city ordinance to control the right to buy firearms. People disqualified from owning guns would include the following. - White van man/assorted trailer trash
- Anyone with tattoos or body piercing
- People who exhibit visible evidence of smoking – yellow moustache/fingers/teeth
- People who chew gum for more than 1 hour per day
- People who make a habit of using split infinitives, or putting a preposition at the end of a sentence
- Those who cannot pronounce “nothing” – instead, it comes out as “nutting” or “nuttn”.
- People who say “ain’t”
- People who drink beer (in a bar) from a bottle, instead of using a glass
- People who drink in “sports bars” watching “the game” on an enormous TV set, and become overexcited and noisy when their team is about to score
- People who don’t use a napkin at dinner
- People who eat while driving
- People with grubby fingernails, or evidence of participation in manual labour such as black deposits under the fingernails.
- People who drive cars with dents in the bodywork
- People who drive cars which have one body panel sprayed an entirely different colour from the rest of the car
- People who eat at Jack in the Box more than twice a week
- People with shaved heads who drive BMWs
- People who buy Harley Davidsons, as only an idiot would do that, and we don’t want idiots to have guns.
- People who think that English is the only language in the entire world
- People who think that the US$ is the only currency in the entire world.
- People who have not ventured out of their home state
- Anyone who refers to Britain’s capital as “London-England”, or France’s capital as “Paris-France”
Anyone who matches any of the criteria above should be barred from owning a gun of any kind. In fact they should be fined $10 if they try to apply for a permit for having the temerity even to think about it.
However, subject to the applicant not matching any of the above criteria, I would allow that person to buy a gun not exceeding .22 calibre. But they could only have one box of ammo per month. This restriction would not apply if the applicant could show that he/she meets any of the following criteria: - holds a bank account
- has a checking account with an average balance of $2000
- has a credit card (MC/Visa) with a minimum credit limit of $4000
- lives at an apartment complex where there is a 24h doorman on duty provided the doorman wears a uniform which must include top hat, tails and white gloves)
The only applicants eligible to buy guns of .38 calibre and above would be Homeowners. They could have TWO boxes of ammo per month, but would be eligible to an allowance of FOUR boxes of ammo per month if they meet any of the following criteria: - Drivers of German cars (except BMW drivers with shaved melons)
- Passport holders
- Holders of an American Express card
- People who visit a restaurant where the headwaiter knows them by name, provided the establishment has tables covered with white linen tablecloths.
Those people wishing to own .44 calibre and higher would have to be the owner occupiers of a detached residence with automatic electric gates.
Special dispensation for Lazs – he can have whatever he wants, including a belt fed machine gun and unlimited ammo.
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Originally posted by Creamo
If only Lazs and Toad would ignore him... Such a simple request.
I had a dream.
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Originally posted by Creamo
I had a dream.
did you have to change the bed linen?
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Why not? You want to want to have the automobile you want, even if the Autos-4-All policy which enables that results in thousands of avoidable deaths each year.
Something wrong with your feet? Forget how to walk? Walk and save lives, Beet.
You had a dream but you're getting a nightmare Creamo. ;)
You just can't let this blather go unopposed. Otherwise the nannies here will make this place just like Britain and we'd have to throw them out just like we did last time.
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Blarg. Useless. You feed on his worthless blather so you can spew more, and pong match each other. I thought i knew better.
Get it on tards. Have fun.
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The Euro anti guns types mean nothing. They can't vote.
The ones we should worry about are the ones here, and there are enough anti gun americans to really give us cause to worry..
Granted making eurotools like beelte look dumb over and over may convince a few Americans there anti guns stance is stupid.
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Originally posted by Toad
Why not? You want to want to have the automobile you want, even if the Autos-4-All policy which enables that results in thousands of avoidable deaths each year.
Something wrong with your feet? Forget how to walk? Walk and save lives, Beet.
I think you have redefined the meaning of "obtuse". As you know, our economy (and yours) could not survive without adequate lines of transport. We saw that as recently as September 2000 in the Fuel Tax Revolt. So, we do what we can to minimise road deaths. Eg. the seatbelt law (1 Jan., 1983) reduced road accident deaths from 5000pa to about 3000pa. So successful was it that we began to suffer an organ donor crisis!
Deaths resulting from road usage are tragic of course, but the simple fact is that in our modern economy/infrastructure, we cannot do without road transport.
However, guns in the hands of private individuals are completely unnecessary and, as the experience in Nottingham shows, make the job of our police harder and more dangerous. BTW it's not just Britain; guns in private hands are deemed unnecessary in most civilised western countries. While you wonder in awe at old stone houses, I'll be out enjoying Mother Nature
Yeah, I do that too quite often - was out today in fact. So peaceful, the tranquility marred by only the occasional sound of gunfire! No idea what was being shot at, with what or by whom, and care even less.
____________________________
Claiming to be ignoring me, but aren't really - Elfie, Airhead, GTOra2
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Actually it's quite apt.
YOUR particular lifestyle requires an automobile, therefore, you can excuse any number of deaths by auto.
Of course, your society existed for thousands of years without autos. Yes, it would be different, but your society would survive.
There are present societies that have far fewer autos than yours and far fewer auto deaths as a result.
However, YOU are personally opposed to it because YOU don't want to live that way. No matter how many grieving mothers your personal choice creates.
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No, you're quite wrong. Our society could NOT survive in its current form. In my part of Britain, it's not unusual for folks to have to travel 30/40/50/60 miles or more to get to their place of work. And I was one of them. Not only did I need to drive, but I needed to live in an area which was central to the industry of which I was a part. Not everyone drives, and I knew a couple of guys who did a similar job to mine and went everywhere by train. But again, there are train crashes, so...
The current government was very fond of advocating travel by public transport - conveniently overlooking the fact that the PT we have now is already working at capacity, so no way for all those commuters to switch from private cars.
And No way could we be like China, with 1 car per 300,000 people while everyone else goes by rickshaw. But it's an entertaining thought! :D
Now, where did I put my automobile key...
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If I were a residence of Dixon and Beet were the mayor, there would be an assasination. There wouldn`t be nuttin he could do to prevent it and I aint lie`n.
There is nothing wrong with him that a few U.S. dollars couldn`t straighten out.
Get a few of the boys on Harleys, take him for a little ride. Maybe either affixiate the pastey face,cross country dining, stone gawker with a little primer paint or possibly force feed him Visa cards until he choked.
Just for kicks before his demise it might be interesting to force him to haul a few hundred bales of hay or maybe hoe a few crops until he realized there is a real world and that not everyone in it lives sheltered, pampered lives with housekeepers and maids to cotton to their every whining wish. At least work him hard enough until his thirst level reached the stage to where when given a cold can of beer he realized it can be one of the most pleasurable experiences to have if you actualy labor for a living .
Of course as a witness or a participant he would definitaely have to be finsihed off because he could identify me by my tattoos if the job were left unfinished.
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Oh yea...I forgot.......There would have to be a 21 gun salute when he was laid to rest using live ammo. :D
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:rofl :rofl
jackal
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Oh, most certainly you would survive. It would have to be a slow, measured transition. But the savings in lives would make it more than worth while.
You could still have appropriate government agencies use autos and trucks, of course. Police, Fire, Ambulance, etc. but I'm sure you realize that driving is best left to these governmental professionals. Autos in the hands of you amateurs is simply far to dangerous.
Public transportation would have to increase but there'd be ample roadway available for new trains and buses as most of the autos will be gone.
And then there's HORSES! You folks can return to the glorious days when knights ruled your land. There won't be many 60 mph crash deaths when most of you are horseback.
It'll be wonderful.. and THINK how many LIVES you'll save by removing almost all of those totally unnecessary autos from the roads.
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Originally posted by beet1e
:rofl :rofl jackal
Heehee.
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Gun owners need to get more involved. Irresponsible gun owners are screwing the responsible ones. So many are careless and have their guns fall into the wrong hands. I was reading an article about how police are finding more guns in routine traffic stops. If a gun owner loses or has his guns stolen more than once, he should at least be limited to one gun, and not a hand gun.
I can't wait til technology catches up and a lojack chip can be embedded into guns. Getting guns out of the hands of the public isn't the problem, getting them out of the hands of the irresponsible and the bad guys is the problem.
If we don't get them out of the hands of the wrong people, then eventually the public will get fed up and there will be a backlash. At that point the anti gun people will take the initiative and get legislation passed while the polls don't dare cross public opinion.
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Originally posted by Sixpence
I can't wait til technology catches up and a lojack chip can be embedded into guns.
Which will be immediately followed by the tatooing of six numbers on the forehead of everyone for identitification purposes.
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Mr. Toad,
your utopian view of Britain without private cars is interesting! And make no mistake, I shall toy with the ideas you have suggested.
However, it won't work in practice. I limited impact version of the carless utopia was tried by the current government - twice. Both times it failed.
In 2000, the fuel tax accelerator (a tax by which the cost of road fuel was increased by 6% above the rate of inflation) triggered the fuel tax revolt. (read about it here (http://www.geocities.com/the_odyssey_group/fueltaxcrisis/fueltaxcrisis.html)) In this revolt, drivers basically said they'd had enough. And Tony Blair was forced to listen - something he normally only does every once every 4 years. The accelerator tax was abandoned!
The following year, Labour again tried to establish its vision of motoring Utopia - pretty much like the scenario you described yourself! Did you know that in 2001, not one single inch of new road was built in Britain - the smallest amount of new road building since 1880, and the invention of tarmacadam?
And the result? Mayhem. Traffic jams, outraged motorists. You see we NEED mobility. I might be working in Maidenhead one year, and Croydon the next. I could not relocate on the basis of a 6 month contract. Commuting was the only way to go. I suppose I could have walked the 60 miles to my Croydon office, but I think it might have been closed by the time I got there.
However - guns - sure we needed guns in the days of highwaymen, some of whom targeted areas not so far from where I am now. Gentlemen travelling on the long distance coaches were advised to carry their sidearms!
But last time I drove down the A4, I didn't see any guys on horseback with a silk scarf covering their faces, brandishing a flintlock.
By 1911, when firearms legislation was first considered, only the criminal classes needed guns for their chosen occupation. For this reason, legislation to remove firearms from circulation "sailed through parliament". Remember, said legislation was passed by a democratically elected government, which was reelected two years later. Even the opposition party did not try to reverse this legislation when finally elected in 1924.
We had our gun years, but recognised when they was over. The US, however, still harks back to the days of guys wearing raccoons on their heads and standing on the threshold of their property with a rifle. :lol
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Didn't read it, skimmed it.
Anyway, a carless Britain may pave the way for a true "internet commute" economy for the whole world.
Think of the lives saved by getting rid of unnecessary cars...no more drunk drivers either!
Go for it.
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beet ... your "mayor of Dixon" rant should have been tittled "queen of Dixon"... what you are asking for is more youropean than American.
You are essentially saying that guns are ok so long as only the upper class has em..
We don't have a queen or royalty or class system so you will have to make rules that apply to all.
creamo.. maybe I am wrong but it seems to me that making the gun grabbers from other countries show their true colors we are warning Americans who are apathetic and follow these threads.
lazs
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Beet,
Bet your lady freind does not walk alone around Lake Merrit after dark, or venture down town Oakland on foot alone after dark either. She has had to modify her life style in responce to what all inhabitants of the Lake Merrit area knows happens after dark here.
I live a 5 minute walk from Lake Merrit. 15 minuets from the places you photographed. Your first picture looks like its from on top of the Grand Lake Theater. Nice safe upscale neighborhood boardering on Peidmont where homes average $350K-$1M. The local police harras homies if they stop their cars any longer than for stop lights. Middel class Liberals live their who pay for protection. I live at the other end of the lake. Cops take up to 20 minutes to show up if you dial 911.
Two weeks ago less than a mile from my house 2 homies robbed freinds of my girlfreind at gun point when they stepped out the back of the building they work in. We have a gang of homeless pan handlers who hang out at the 7/11 a block from my house and every morning drugged or drunk out of their minds on the public steps that grant access off the hill I live on. And there is a nice church and public school just across the street. Yesterday morning as I was heading to public transportation one of them decided he had to kungfu anything that moved near him. Guess he got the DT's. He left a wake of smashed garbage cans and car windows in his path. Getting into a scuffel with him or someone like him is a potential chance of getting AIDS. COPS around here wear gloves while arresting them.
I live on the border of where it transitions out of predominatly white middel class to the beginnings of predominatly minority. I live alot closer to the 60% you mentioned. And yes alot of antisocial activity takes place. And untill you live it here full time, I'm not being very melodramtic. I don't think your views on how we can all get along in this world is going to have an effect on any of the homies I have to interact with living in Oakland. Chances are they would either shoot you or pound you into the pavement for grins and giggles.
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Originally posted by Toad
Anyway, a carless Britain may pave the way for a true "internet commute" economy for the whole world.
Think of the lives saved by getting rid of unnecessary cars...no more drunk drivers either!
Go for it.
It can't be done. Not even T Blair with his 160+ majority in the House of Commons could railroad through a mandate against private cars. He did however succeed in banning fox hunting with hounds! That was easier because it's an unnecessary activity. And guns - no problem at all. The 1997 gun "ban" legislation went unnoticed by most, myself included, for the simple reason - guns are unnecessary, and could only be needed for criminal activity. A million moms cannot be wrong!
As you know, I have never suggested that America should give up its privately owned guns. There are enough Americans already doing that! And I don't think it would be so bad - might take you a week or two to get used to it though. But hey - you could always find another hobby. :D
Bustr - give me a day or two, and I'll find out the situation from my Oakland ladyfriend. I hadn't realised that I was photographing from an upmarket residence. But perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised. ;)
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Originally posted by beet1e
It can't be done.
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Same can be said about removing the Second.
Originally posted by beet1e
As you know, I have never suggested that America should give up its privately owned guns.
[/b]
No, you just natter on endlessly about how superior it is in England to have extremely restrictive gun laws and a handgun ban.
Endlessly.
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...and every gun thread we have, you get nervous at the thought of the bogeyman taking your guns away. Keep your pants on. :p
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How wrong you are; my bones will be dust, my children's bones will be dust before they ever even try to repeal the Second. It'll fail then too.
So I'm not nervous in the least.
Not going to let your specifically designed and unnecessary BS pass without comment however. Can't let featherheaded pseudo-reasoning like that just go unremarked.
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Oh it's not featherheaded pseudo-reasoning; it's the considered judgement of MANY a government of western countries around the world. And it works well. And the stats bear witness to that.
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...and that's a featherheaded reply that shows you really don't have any idea what's being discussed.
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Originally posted by Toad
...and that's a featherheaded reply that shows you really don't have any idea what's being discussed.
oh, so you're saying the governments of all the unarmed euro countries plus many others are all wrong? I think not. A cursory glance at the FACTS settles that.
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Originally posted by Toad
I enjoy every single one of those as well.
And, I get to enjoy yet another which is just as sweet.
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_116_1070488720.jpg)
Or take a pistol out to the range and go plinking.
Guess it sucks to be living where you do ;)
Nice, but ummm I can do either of those in NZ as well. Looks like I'm not missing anything ;)
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Originally posted by lazs2
I believe that vulcan, beet and nashwan etc.. are products of their super socialist liberal countries propoganda about guns.... they really know very little about the subject so simply look at numbers and such.
When these people get on this board and explain their gun banning agenda... I can't help but feel that the American here
LOL, I'm a gun user you tard. In fact, when I was a little un down in the South (Island) my dad would go salmon fishing and I'd take my .22 pump action Browning out rabbit hunting every weekend. Right throught to my late teens I was in the air force cadets and regularly went to the range, and used military firearms (M-16s, SLRs). My uncle owns an antique gun collection including a walking cane shotgun and some huge calibre "elephant" gun he uses to vaporise possums. I guy I worked for for many years owned a pistol collection which he let me use at a local range. Oh and when I was a teen my father kept a pistol at home (fully licensed) because of the nature of the job he was in (involving access to large amounts of cash) he was considered a high risk for kidnapping.
I don't advocate banning of guns in the USA, only an idiot could conceive that would be possible (I've said that many times). What I do question is the twisting of facts I quite often see by the pro-gun guys here, especially when quoting overseas figures and statistics, I do question why you need to own some of the weapons you do (and so many?), and I do question why there isn't some sort of licensing regime similar to our own.
I also sometimes get the feeling that a lot of the pro-gun group can't fathom what its like to live in what they would term a "gunless" country.
And finally I do question the hypocracy of the cry "don't infringe freedom" by many of the pro-gun group here with regards to their rights to own a small armoury that some 3rd world countries would be envious of.
If I were an American ciitizen my stance would simply be:
- ban the unnecessary firepower (you know what I mean)
- license firearm owners by requiring them to pass a test exhibiting fundamental firearm safety knowledge
And if I lived in the USA, yes I would own a firearm (I only own an air rifle and air pistol here in NZ to keep myself in "aiming" practise).
Would that place me in the middle ground? If so does that confirm some of you as extremists and how do feel about that?
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Originally posted by beet1e
oh, so you're saying the governments of all the unarmed euro countries plus many others are all wrong?
No, I'm saying you don't know what you are talking about. Quite a different thing.
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Originally posted by Vulcan
Nice, but ummm I can do either of those in NZ as well. Looks like I'm not missing anything ;)
And looks like I'm not missing anything! ;) Great for us, eh?
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Originally posted by Vulcan
If I were an American ciitizen my stance would simply be:
- ban the unnecessary firepower (you know what I mean)
- license firearm owners by requiring them to pass a test exhibiting fundamental firearm safety knowledge
And in conceding that ground, you would insure that you would eventually suffer a ban because NOTHING you do will ever satisfy the antis.
There is no middle ground because the antis want it all.
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Originally posted by Toad
And in conceding that ground, you would insure that you would eventually suffer a ban because NOTHING you do will ever satisfy the antis.
There is no middle ground because the antis want it all.
I think the idea is by taking things to a "middle ground" you reduce the number of anti's to the point they become ineffective - as has happened in NZ on many subjects.
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Vulcan,
Why is that you can trust people with some guns and not others?
Why are "those" guns so bad?
If you can trust someone you trust them.
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Originally posted by Jackal1
Which will be immediately followed by the tatooing of six numbers on the forehead of everyone for identitification purposes.
So lojack is bad for cars?
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Six,
No but if you ask around you will find most cars lowjacked are stripped before the owner can report it so its not all that usefull.
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Originally posted by GtoRA2
Six,
No but if you ask around you will find most cars lowjacked are stripped before the owner can report it so its not all that usefull.
That's not the point
http://stage.wgms.com/index.php?nid=43&sid=171361
the ad says 90%
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Wonder if they consider finding the stripped hulk recovered?
Still low jack pays for itself with lower insurance, the main reason I got it actualy. :D
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Originally posted by GtoRA2
Wonder if they consider finding the stripped hulk recovered?
So, what, they will steal guns for parts?
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No but the added cost is not worth it. All this low jack BS is just another way to ban guns cause no one can aford them.
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Originally posted by GtoRA2
No but the added cost is not worth it. All this low jack BS is just another way to ban guns cause no one can aford them.
I guess no one can afford cars huh?
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Low jack for a car is like 600 to 1000 bucks, that kind of cost would take most guns out of peoples price range.
Its BS, just require secure safes if someone owns more then 3 guns.
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Originally posted by GtoRA2
Low jack for a car is like 600 to 1000 bucks, that kind of cost would take most guns out of peoples price range.
$695.00, but if we work together, we could come up with a tax credit or something to make the actual cost about $300.00(with an auto you save on insurance every year)
Now let us take that 90% success rate and apply that to stolen guns. How many lives would that save? Is it too expensive now?
I can't believe people can be all for the patriot act and be so paranoid about having a tracking chip in their gun. If you are a legal gun owner, what are you afraid of? Shoot, if I paid $1200.00 for a gun and it got stolen, I would want it back!
Again, this isn't to keep track of the legal gun owner, it would be to track down stolen guns.
What is BS is the excuse it will prevent people from buying guns because they would be too expensive. It didn't stop people from buying cars, and it won't stop people from buying guns
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Hi Vulcan,
Thanks for taking over the night shift with this thread! I was about to respond to Toad with regard to being able to go pheasant shooting, but you got there first. Originally posted by Vulcan
Nice, but ummm I can do either of those in NZ as well. Looks like I'm not missing anything ;)
Indeed, we can too. In fact I was out with Mother Nature yesterday, and passed through some woods where I've sometimes seen the hunters with about 15 pheasants hung up on the side of their Land Rover. I'm sure I could join the hunters myself, if I were so inclined. Not sure what the gunfire I heard was about; as far as I knew, hunting season starts on August 12.
Good morning, Mr. Toad. I'm getting mixed signals from you! You remind us that there's no way your 2nd amendment will ever be rescinded, but then add "There is no middle ground because the antis want it all."
As you know, I have never suggested that America should give up its guns. So who are these antis you speak of? So I looked at the NRA website, where it didn't take long to discover that New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is quoted as wanting new legislation that all but bans handguns.
Why would that be then? How could anyone who is anti-gun reach such high office in political life? How come the NRA message has not reached him? Doesn't he realise (as you do) all the advantages conferred upon citizens by handgun ownership? But wait - Bloomberg must have been elected. And if this is such a big issue, it must have formed part of his election manifesto, ie. he was elected by democratic process on the basis of his intentions and his beliefs.
The NRA/ILA website (http://www.nraila.org/CurrentLegislation/Read.aspx?ID=1421) has this to say about Michael Bloomberg: Much as we predicted with the introduction in Congress of NRA-backed lawsuit preemption legislation--S. 397 and H.R. 800--the anti-gun drumbeat against these bills has begun.
Last week, the New York Times reported that several city officials across the country are urging the Senate to reject S. 397 when it comes up for a vote. Exhibit A among those city officials is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R), who, in a WABC radio interview last week, stopped just short of calling for an outright ban on handguns, telling interviewer John Gambling, "I`m not so sure I wouldn`t think that that is a good idea."
And would any discussion of gun control be complete without mention of U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)? Following the now familiar formula of trying to sink the legislation under the weight of bogus, anti-gun "poison pill" amendments, Schumer revealed his strategy, announcing he fully intends similar action this time around. "I`m not sure what it will be," he said, "but we will add amendments to this bill that may make the sponsors less enthusiastic about passing it."
So, according to the NRA, the anti-gun lobby is active within the offices of both mayor and senator.
And yet, according to Bloomberg's own website (http://www.mikeformayor.org/accomplishments.cfm), his list of accomplishments include this one, endorsed by the FBI: Crime has declined 15% citywide in three years. 2004 was the third year in a row with fewer than 600 homicides, a feat which had not happened for 40 years. According to the FBI, NYC is the safest out of the country's 25 biggest cities.
What we have here is a NYC mayor who, by the NRA's own definition, is about as anti-gun as one can be. And yet he presides as mayor over a city in which homicide has dipped to a 40 year low and crime has declined 15% in 3 years. Less guns = less crime ???? What a concept! :eek:
Originally posted by lazs2
The euros here hate American firearms freedom so much because it highlights their lack of freedom.
I think what actually happens is that the yanks are fond of crowing about all the guns they can have and how it makes them so much better than everyone else, whereas we are fond of countering this by pointing out the vast numbers of people who die accidentally, or as a result of criminal intent, by gunshot wounds - a situation greatly exacerbated by your G4A policy. Oh, and Vulcan is not a Euro. :aok
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hmm... shumer and bloomberg are indeed anti second amendment . Crime has dropped in the entire U.S. The real reason is tougher sentances and more cops... we catch and convict on a lot more crimes than say england.. Getting tougher on crime is working. The gun laws in NYC have stayed the same. If they ask for a ban then they are actually asking for something that has not contributed to what is happening. The crime rate went down without any help from new gun laws. New gun laws may slow the rate of decrease for all we know.
I don't really care about large cities... they are not really America... they are the blue areas but... If they have a no firearms policy then I think that no police in those cities should be armed and no officials should be able to have armed bodyguards... fair enough?
Name one gun law that has decreased crime or homicide.. If there were no guns there would be no gun homiciede or gun accidents. There would probly be just as many overall accidents tho and probly more overall homicides. Guns are simply one method amoung many.
vulcan is not a euro but then... neither are you in the strictest sense... all foriegners are euros to us tho unless they are Mexican.
sixpense... Let me get this straight... You believe that it is not prohibitively expensive to double the price of firearms? Certainly, if we put lojacks on people we could save a lot of lives too tho right? camping and hiking gear? R9ock climbing gear and all boats and live jackets? All would save lives. So what if a live jaket or backpack cost 8-9 hundred dollars? We can afford cars right?
lazs
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Originally posted by Sixpence
So lojack is bad for cars?
As far as I`m concerned , yes. I`ll just bypass the other arguments because cost, etc wasn`t my point.
I`ll put it to you this way, if I am forced to purchase a product with any embedded tracking device, be it a car, gun, or a pack of bubble gum it will be disabled immediately. I consider it an invasion of privacy. I also believe it sets a very bad precedence that could be abused.
On the other hand the pros can disable these little gadgets before a duck can change a hat.
It`s sort of like the car alarm BS that we have to listen to on a daily basis also. We get to listen to a chorus of these useless noise makers at nearly any public place. Mainly because the owners are too stupid to grasp a concept of a one or two button operation. A pro car theif seems to be the only ones who DOESN`T set them off.
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I would buy a lojack for a couple of my cars if they were cheaper but I would heartily protest being required to have one.
I would buy lojacks for a couple of my guns or one that I could move from gun to gun if it were like a couple of bucks a year but would fight being forced to have one.
what is it about liberals that lets em embrace more and more government interferance in their lives... it is bred into the euros but what is it with the Americans? Are they simply afraid of responsibility or do they think that they are better than their neigbors and have the right to tell them what is good for them?
lazs
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Originally posted by lazs2
I would buy a lojack for a couple of my cars if they were cheaper but I would heartily protest being required to have one.
I would buy lojacks for a couple of my guns or one that I could move from gun to gun if it were like a couple of bucks a year but would fight being forced to have one.
what is it about liberals that lets em embrace more and more government interferance in their lives... it is bred into the euros but what is it with the Americans? Are they simply afraid of responsibility or do they think that they are better than their neigbors and have the right to tell them what is good for them?
lazs
Yep. You got it.
As far as the neighbor statement, I know you did not mean that literaly , but on a broader scale, but sometimes it does boil down to the literal sense.
I recently had a neihbor situation that got pretty intense. As a matter of fact I referred to it in one of the other gun threads some time back.
This guy had been in prison 6 times. He had just enough prison lawyer knowledge to know how to skirt some issues.
Being fairly new to this lake community, (2 years), I learned quite a bit. One thing was .. our local law enforcement is untrained and to put it frankly, just plain lazy.
The second thing was....sometimes you have to be smart enough to figure out how to take care of the problem yourself. That`s the point I think.
If this situation had arose quite a few years back, it would have been over in a heartbeat. It would not have been pretty and probably not too smart on my part, but over just the same.
When it got to the point that it was the norm to sleep with my house gun unholstered, loaded and ready to rock on the night stand a few inches from my head and I was up in the middle of most nights keeping an eye on my property and trying to prevent me and my wife from going up in smoke in our house, I decided enough is definitly E Friggin Nough.
To make a long story short, The neighbor is no longer around. :D He decided it was in his best interest and a lot healthier someplace else for him. Heehee.
The point is sometimes you have to take responsibility for yourself and not depend on someone else , no matter who, to solve your probs.
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lazs I dunno bout the "lojack" system but did you see Metalstorm pistol keyed to its owners ring? Lotsa advantages, can't have your own weapon turned on you, if it gets stolen it can't be used, if your kid finds it they can't accidentally shoot themselves etc.
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Originally posted by lazs2
sixpense... Let me get this straight... You believe that it is not prohibitively expensive to double the price of firearms?
No, you are misunderstanding, what I originally said was " I can't wait til technology catches up and we can have lojack for guns". Now that would mean cost being relative, but let us put cost aside, because that is not the root of the argument here. The argument is that the government will want to put lojack in people. Talk about tin foil hats, this is to track stolen guns, not track people. It's not about the government keeping track of anything. It's about a 90% recovery on stolen guns.
Certainly, if we put lojacks on people we could save a lot of lives too tho right? camping and hiking gear?
C'mon lazs, when is the last time someone stole a tent and held up a store with it? You are reaching here.
I said I didn't fear the legal gun owner, I feared the criminal with a gun. But I am going to add paranoid tinfoil hat gun owners to that list
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Sixpence,
RFID technology as it is now will allow the tracking of items if one of these tiny chips is hidden say in a recess in one of the grips on the handle of a pistol. Chips have unique serial numbers emitted in their broadcast so the government could mandate a number range to be issued only to RFID chips hidden in small arms sold in the US.
Then when you purchase your next Glock your name and RFID serial number goes into a permenant registry. But alsa this has been rendered a violation of Fedral law against keeping long term databases of gun owners in the US. This would also open concerns to invasion of privacy since the government would be able to track your firearm any time they wanted. This kind of tracking ablity opens the gate to the slippery slope of you the law abiding citizen now being registered and classed as smi-guilty untill you can satisfy the whim of the states capricious standards because you have a state mandated tracking chip in your privately owned property.
This is no different than the standards for invasion of privacy that have gone through the courts now that special police units and Federal agencies have technology that can thermaly and radio image you in your home from the public street. And the ability to use acoustic technology that can hear you whispering in your house from across the street. The police and Federal agencies have argued that since they never trespassed on your property, entered your home, or placed a wire tap that they had the right to evesdrop on you. In these cases it was on known drug dealers who they could not get the goods on. Their reasoning was kinda like if you have a loud argument with your wife and passersby hear every word. In every case the Federal judge ruled that the people have the right to the expectaion of privacy in their home/castle. The RFID chip in your firearm would fall in this catagory of invasion of privacy because the police/state could track it in your home.
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Originally posted by lazs2
Crime has dropped in the entire U.S. The real reason is tougher sentances and more cops... we catch and convict on a lot more crimes than say england.. Getting tougher on crime is working.
Yes, I agree with that. There are certain problems in England which I will describe here. The main one is the current "soft on crime" government that we have. Tony Blair swept to power in 1997 on the strength of a mountain of promises of a better life. Few of these promises were kept. His government's style has been a massive increase in spending on welfare, and our National Health Service. But whereas spending on the NHS rose by about 45%, productivity or "output" from the NHS rose by only 5%. That's because no plans were made for HOW the extra money was to be spent. For all the money that's wasted in the NHS creating more and more bureaucrats, there's less money to be spent on prisons and putting more police officers on the beat. The govt. says we can't have a national prison population greater than 80,000 - so too many convicts get lenient sentences, and people like first time burglars don't get jailed at all.
Add to that the problems that the police are having. The govt. now requires the police to fill in so much paperwork that only about half of an officer's time is spent on front line duty. The govt. has tried to remedy this with its usual spin technique - they've tried to redefine some paperwork tasks as "front line duty".
I know that there's a good deal of leg pulling in these gun threads, but I do try to stick to the facts! It's true, crime has got worse in some areas since our 1997 gun "ban" but your NRA draws erroneous conclusions from this because of having made a direct link between the 1997 legislation, and the crime trend since. In truth, there is no link.
If you get time, read the story: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/03/13/ncrime13.xml
Right now, we're being governed by a party that wants to turn us all into a nation of supplicant benefits claimants. The more people they convert, the more people they'll have voting for them. It will all end in tears, of course. But the day will come when we return to sound values, law and order and proper deterrents like prison. When power is transferred back to the ruling class where it rightfully belongs, first time burglars will be jailed. If the sentence is 3 years, I want it to mean 3 years.
[/PPB for the Conservative Party]
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Beet,
Amen to you.
I have read articles on crime and politics from the UK for the last 2 years but could not summarise what I was seeing as well as you just did. I lived in Luton when I was 4-5. My memory of the English people who lived in my neihborhood was that they were upstanding, hard working and god fearing people. I guess in almost 50 years alot has changed......:)