The Global Gun Control Threat

[preacherman76]

So have people actually looked through the thread and looked at the source material to see that no one is seriously moving to take away the Second Amendment? It's rather odd to see people fighting against something that's not happening.

The problem I have personaly is that some of the folks involved in pushing this legislation, like fienstein(sp?) has in the past expressed the will for a total ban. Then you look at other countries who banned guns, and it started similar to what we are seeing right now. Its better to stand up right now, and let them know we are not having it.

[preacherman76]

The 2nd Amendment says you can have guns. No where does it say what type of guns. So unless a law comes up to ban 100% of all firearms then gun control laws do not attack the 2nd Amendment. And if having an adult conversation makes them angry then gun advocates need to grow a thicker skin.

it says that gun ownership is not a subject the federal government is allowed to concern themselfs with.

[AsteroidX]

Your misinformed Corp. You need to read the conversations and quotes of the signers of the Declaration and others at the time to fully understand the 2nd Amendment. Before you do that you MUST read the Declaration of Independence. Without full knowledge of the Supreme Court Rulings on this issue you are only sounding like the village idiot.

[ali smack]

don't understand this paranoia of guns been taken away in america?

When has Obama ever said this?

and correct me if i'm wrong because i'm not an american but I didn't think Obama

could outlaw guns even if he wanted to?

[odiesbsc]

don't understand this paranoia of guns been taken away in america?

When has Obama ever said this?

and correct me if i'm wrong because i'm not an american but I didn't think Obama

could outlaw guns even if he wanted to?

You're sound asleep when you hear a thump outside your bedroom door. Half-awake, and nearly paralyzed with fear, you hear muffled whispers. At least two people have broken into your house and are moving your way. With your heart pumping, you reach down beside your bed and pick up your shotgun.

You rack a shell into the chamber, then inch toward the door and open it. In the darkness, you make out two shadows.

One holds something that looks like a crowbar. When the intruder brandishes it as if to strike, you raise the shotgun and fire.

The blast knocks both thugs to the floor. One writhes and screams while the second man crawls to the front door and lurches outside.

As you pick up the telephone to call police, you know you're in trouble.

In your country, most guns were outlawed years before, and the few that are privately owned are so stringently regulated as to make them useless..

Yours was never registered. Police arrive and inform you that the second burglar has died. They arrest you for First Degree Murder and Illegal Possession of a Firearm.

When you talk to your attorney, he tells you not to worry: authorities will probably plea the case down to manslaughter.

"What kind of sentence will I get?" you ask.

"Only ten-to-twelve years," he replies, as if that's nothing. "Behave yourself, and you'll be out in seven."

The next day, the shooting is the lead story in the local newspaper.

Somehow, you're portrayed as an eccentric vigilante while the two men you shot are represented as choirboys.

Their friends and relatives can't find an unkind word to say about them..

Buried deep down in the article, authorities acknowledge that both "victims" have been arrested numerous times.

But the next day's headline says it all: "Lovable Rogue Son Didn't Deserve to Die."

The thieves have been transformed from career criminals into Robin Hood-type pranksters..

As the days wear on, the story takes wings. The national media picks it up, then the international media.

The surviving burglar has become a folk hero.

Your attorney says the thief is preparing to sue you, and he'll probably win.

The media publishes reports that your home has been burglarized several times in the past and that you've been critical of local police for their lack of effort in apprehending the suspects.

After the last break-in, you told your neighbor that you would be prepared next time.

The District Attorney uses this to allege that you were lying in wait for the burglars.

A few months later, you go to trial. The charges haven't been reduced, as your lawyer had so confidently predicted.

When you take the stand, your anger at the injustice of it all works against you..

Prosecutors paint a picture of you as a mean, vengeful man.

It doesn't take long for the jury to convict you of all charges. The judge sentences you to life in prison.

This case really happened.

On August 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Emneth, Norfolk, England, killed one burglar and wounded a second.

In April, 2000, he was convicted and is now serving a life term..

How did it become a crime to defend one's own life in the once great British Empire ?

It started with the Pistols Act of 1903.

This seemingly reasonable law forbade selling pistols to minors or felons and established that handgun sales were to be made only to those who had a license.

The Firearms Act of 1920 expanded licensing to include not only handguns but all firearms except shotguns..

Later laws passed in 1953 and 1967 outlawed the carrying of any weapon by private citizens and mandated the registration of all shotguns.

Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest after the Hungerford mass shooting in 1987. Michael Ryan, a mentally disturbed man with a Kalashnikov rifle, walked down the streets shooting everyone he saw.

When the smoke cleared, 17 people were dead.

The British public, already de-sensitized by eighty years of "gun control", demanded even tougher restrictions. (The seizure of all privately owned handguns was the objective even though Ryan used a rifle.)

Nine years later, at Dunblane, Scotland, Thomas Hamilton used a semi-automatic weapon to murder 16 children and a teacher at a public school.

For many years, the media had portrayed all gun owners as mentally unstable, or worse, criminals. Now the press had a real kook with which to beat up law-abiding gun owners.

Day after day, week after week, the media gave up all pretense of objectivity and demanded a total ban on all handguns. The Dunblane Inquiry, a few months later, sealed the fate of the few sidearms still owned by private citizens.

During the years in which the British government incrementally took away most gun rights, the notion that a citizen had the right to armed self-defense came to be seen as vigilantism.

Authorities refused to grant gun licenses to people who were threatened, claiming that self-defense was no longer considered a reason to own a gun. Citizens who shot burglars or robbers or rapists were charged while the real criminals were released.

Indeed, after the Martin shooting, a police spokesman was quoted as saying,

"We cannot have people take the law into their own hands."

All of Martin's neighbors had been robbed numerous times, and several elderly people were severely injured in beatings by young thugs who had no fear of the consequences.

Martin himself, a collector of antiques, had seen most of his collection trashed or stolen by burglars.

When the Dunblane Inquiry ended, citizens who owned handguns were given three months to turn them over to local authorities.

Being good British subjects, most people obeyed the law. The few who didn't were visited by police and threatened with ten-year prison sentences if they didn't comply.

Police later bragged that they'd taken nearly 200,000 handguns from private citizens.

How did the authorities know who had handguns? The guns had been registered and licensed. Kind of like cars. Sound familiar?

WAKE UP AMERICA ; THIS IS WHY OUR FOUNDING FATHERS PUT THE SECOND AMENDMENT IN OUR CONSTITUTION.

"...It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.."

--Samuel Adams

You had better wake up, because Obama is doing this very same thing, over here,

if he can get it done.

And there are stupid people

in congress and on the street

that will go right along with him.

Edited January 20, 2013 by odiesbsc

[Babe Ruth]

One step at a time.....

[Corp]

Your misinformed Corp. You need to read the conversations and quotes of the signers of the Declaration and others at the time to fully understand the 2nd Amendment. Before you do that you MUST read the Declaration of Independence. Without full knowledge of the Supreme Court Rulings on this issue you are only sounding like the village idiot.

Please, all this is nothing more a few guns owners crying that someone going to take away some of their toys. They b**** and whine about protecting freedom when the rest of the Western world is proof that gun laws do not equal dictatorship. If they really, truly believed that they needed to be on equal footing with the government then they should be demanding the right to artillery, tanks, bombers, carriers, and nukes. Because those are illegal to private ownership and yet no one is complaining about dictatorships in regards to them.

The 2nd Amendment was largely meant for two things. First so that the US won't need a standing army and they could just use the militia in wars. Well reality showed that this wasn't a very good idea. The second reason was to keep the government honest. Now at the time the choice of weapons was rather limited. If you had a musket chances are the one that the government had wasn't that much better. Not sure where they stood with cannons. However the point was that as long as citizens had the numbers and the training they could stand against a government army and have a good chance at winning. However we're not longer in the eighteenth century anymore. Technology has expanded those options. The hardware that the government has far surpasses what a citizen has access to. Having a bunch of AR-15s aren't going to do a damn thing if the government woke up tomorrow and decided to be completely evil. The ability to resist will remain the same. Likewise the Founding Fathers weren't dealing with the mass murders leaders are trying to limit today.

So even if every single one of the new gun control laws go through your ability to overthrow a tyranical government will be equal to your abilities before the laws. You will still have access to handguns, shotguns, rifles, and belt-feed machine guns. Having an AR-15 or similar gun isn't going to make an evil government roll over. Now should gun laws of carefully looked at and talked about? Of course they should. Some ideas of gun laws that come up are down right stupid. But freaking out any time the very meantion of gun control is brought up, like with the link in the OP of this thread, just means people look like those crazies in the woods who sprend all their lives waiting for the government to come and get them. Maybe they'd feel better if they had an Arbam MBT.

[Babe Ruth]

That's a false argument Corp. Nobody demands to have any of those things you mention, in real life. So why are you worried about it, if nobody does it?

Actually some people do have old military equipment, but it has no weapons, but that's beside the point.

Your entire argument suggests that you have a miracle formula for the law, and how it might prevent some hypothetical crime of the future, and that is nonsense. The law is NOT omnipotent. Usually there are more unintended consequences than harmonious effects of the law's intended purpose.

The simple truth is that the gun control laws have failed miserably to stop gun violence. How can you be intellectually honest by suggesting that one more law, or group of laws, are going to stop gun violence?

[Czero 101]

How can you be intellectually honest by suggesting that one more law, or group of laws, are going to stop gun violence?

Holding a belief different than yours is not a sign of intellectual dishonesty, something you would know if you had any idea of the concept.

Cz

[Babe Ruth]

Well I luv u 2 CZ, but what's that got to do with it?

Can you address the argument, thanks?

[Czero 101]

You argue that it is intellectually dishonest for him to believe that new laws will "stop gun violence".

I countered with the fact that that is not a sign of intellectual dishonesty, and the fact that you don't know what intellectual honesty is, a fact proven by your history here.

How is that not addressing your argument?

Were you expecting me to also point out that your argument is yet another strawman you've built since Corp is not arguing that new laws will "stop gun violence"...?

I suppose I should give you some sort of credit, though... you've developed the ability to completely miss the point of a discussion to a high art form.

Cz

Edited January 21, 2013 by Czero 101

[AsteroidX]

if beliefs differ that much that people want to kill each other over it then perhaps it is time to secede. May The South Rise Again !!.

[Babe Ruth]

Cz

You're operating on the premise that YOU recognize intellectual dishonesty (and its opposite). That has not been proven.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're one of those people who deny that molten steel existed at WTC. You call that intellectually honest? Puh-leeze.

[Czero 101]

Cz

You're operating on the premise that YOU recognize intellectual dishonesty (and its opposite). That has not been proven.

Please show me where I have been intellectually dishonest.

Actually, since you have proven time and again that you are completely and willfully unfamiliar with the concept of Intellectual Honesty, please first define Intellectual Honesty for us and then show me where I have displayed its opposite.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're one of those people who deny that molten steel existed at WTC. You call that intellectually honest?

Please provide specific quote of where I have have denied molten steel or molten metal (since it is generally very difficult to tell just from a picture which metal it is) at WTC.

Since I know you can't and wouldn't even if you could provide that quote... consider yourself corrected.

Puh-leeze.

Indeed...

Cz

Edited January 21, 2013 by Czero 101

[Babe Ruth]

Cz

I said up front "correct me if I'm wrong". I do not memorize other posters' posts. Most posters who believe the OCT also deny the existence of molten steel at WTC. Perhaps you are an exception?

I'm happy to stand corrected if I failed to remember your precise position on that question. I don't want to hijack this thread, for the subject of gun control as addressed to Corp is far more interesting to me, but if you wish, please expand upon your understanding of molten metal in the bowels at WTC. Any other 911 thread would be fine too.

[Corp]

That's a false argument Corp. Nobody demands to have any of those things you mention, in real life. So why are you worried about it, if nobody does it?

Actually some people do have old military equipment, but it has no weapons, but that's beside the point.

Your entire argument suggests that you have a miracle formula for the law, and how it might prevent some hypothetical crime of the future, and that is nonsense. The law is NOT omnipotent. Usually there are more unintended consequences than harmonious effects of the law's intended purpose.

The simple truth is that the gun control laws have failed miserably to stop gun violence. How can you be intellectually honest by suggesting that one more law, or group of laws, are going to stop gun violence?

Babe please re-read my post. I clearly say that no one is asking for those things. My question is that if the whole point of having guns is so they can overthrow a tyranical government then why aren't they demanding these things? Why is having tanks illegal ok but banning guns like AR-15s opens the way to tyrany? A tank would give them a fighting chance while an AR-15 won't improve they chances that much.

Also I never said that gun laws would end gun crime. There will always be gun crime because humans like killing each other. It will always be high in the US in my view due to the cultural view on gun. However on the flip side gun laws aren't going to take away all your freedom. And if they can do some good, if they can perhaps lower gun crime, then shouldn't it be attempted instead of rejecting it outright? I honestly don't see why ensure that background checks are done on those buying guns is a bad thing. Some of the laws that are being put forward sound like things that should already be happening.

And for the record I don't have that big of an issue with guns and while I don't see why anyone would need something like an AR-15 other than as part of a collection I also don't see a ban on them doing much good. It's the massive hyperbole that surrounds the gun law debates in the US that I take issue with. How can on honest conversation happen when people are throwing around fear based lies? Gun owners aren't all murderers in waiting and the government isn't looking to take away all weapons so they can enslave the population. I just tend to hammer the extreme pro-gun crowd because they tend to be the most vocal.

[Czero 101]

Way to go, America!...

Lone Star College Shooting: Multiple People Shot At Texas College Campus

Multiple people have been shot at Lone Star College's North Harris campus in Houston, Texas, according to KPRC.

Police told KPRC least one person has been detained, but they have not said if that person is a suspected shooter. Another is on the loose.

Granted, details are slim at the moment, but any guesses as to how long before the NRA / Gun Lobby start downplaying THIS shooting, too?

ETA...

Quoting from the KRPC link above:

Some students said two men were involved in a dispute in the library and both pulled out guns and began firing at each other. Law enforcement officials have not confirmed those accounts.

Cz

Edited January 22, 2013 by Czero 101

[Babe Ruth]

Babe please re-read my post. I clearly say that no one is asking for those things. My question is that if the whole point of having guns is so they can overthrow a tyranical government then why aren't they demanding these things? Why is having tanks illegal ok but banning guns like AR-15s opens the way to tyrany? A tank would give them a fighting chance while an AR-15 won't improve they chances that much.

Also I never said that gun laws would end gun crime. There will always be gun crime because humans like killing each other. It will always be high in the US in my view due to the cultural view on gun. However on the flip side gun laws aren't going to take away all your freedom. And if they can do some good, if they can perhaps lower gun crime, then shouldn't it be attempted instead of rejecting it outright? I honestly don't see why ensure that background checks are done on those buying guns is a bad thing. Some of the laws that are being put forward sound like things that should already be happening.

And for the record I don't have that big of an issue with guns and while I don't see why anyone would need something like an AR-15 other than as part of a collection I also don't see a ban on them doing much good. It's the massive hyperbole that surrounds the gun law debates in the US that I take issue with. How can on honest conversation happen when people are throwing around fear based lies? Gun owners aren't all murderers in waiting and the government isn't looking to take away all weapons so they can enslave the population. I just tend to hammer the extreme pro-gun crowd because they tend to be the most vocal.

I agree with much of what you say.

People don't WANT to overthrow government. They would like the ballot box to be as effective as we are told it is, in terms of actually controlling what government does. Violent revolution is the last resort on anybody's list. At least it is on mine.

I don't know why people are not demanding tanks and other advanced weaponry, but they are not. Therefore, I find offering that as being a meaningful comparison, example, or debating point to be irrelevant, and somewhat desperate.

The argument that modern rifles should be banned is similar in thrust to saying that modern automobiles should also be banned because they are too fast and powerful. It's like suggesting we should all go back to muskets and horse drawn carriages because that's what the modes were in 1787. Just a silly argument it seems to me.

I'm very glad to hear you say that gun control laws will not cut crime. I think really, that is the heart of the matter on the question of gun control. But then the question remains, if we acknowledge that any given gun control measure (keeping in mind that we have hundreds of such laws) will not reduce crime, especially gun violence crimes, then why are we obligated to pass more such laws? What do we really gain from doing that?

I think that is the 800 pound gorilla in the room.

Unfortunately, those who really are avid gun owners (not me), including sports and other facets, feel threatened by all the rhetoric and proposals. Somebody perfectly legal in possession of certain guns and accessories are facing the very real threat that tomorrow or next month they will be suddenly deemed criminals.

[DONTEATUS]

Great ! Now Babe Ruth wants a Tank and a 500 lb Gorilla to be in his army to protect his paranoia ! What next Babe ? Do you still feel the need to have out in the pubic AR-15`s and AKA `s RPG`s ? Do you even sleep at night ok ?

[Babe Ruth]

Only you Don, only you! Staying right in character, attribute to me things I never said.

Don't you ever get tired of playing the fool by making such absurd posts?

[Corp]

As for why gun control gets brought out I can think of two reasons.

One is that some aspects of it do help against gun crime. Closing loopholes at gun shows, cracking down on shops that don't do proper background checks, improving safety features, and getting out more education is a good thing. It would help to ensure that gun owners can legally have a gun and properly respect it, as many already do. It's when you get into banning the type of guns and getting rid of features when things get hazy.

Two is because of public demand. When something horrible happens the public wants its elected officials to take action to ensure that it doesn't happen again. Thing is the public in general wants solutions right now. Telling them to wait a few decades so we get rid of those who treat a loaded gun as a paper weight isn't going to cut it. They want action now. So in comes gun control laws. They might not do much but they make the public feel better.

So there are parts of gun control laws that really don't make any actual difference other than give people a good feeling. However there are other parts that could be of a real benefit and might make a difference. That's why talk of gun control shouldn't be rejected as a whole.

[Babe Ruth]

Good post Corp.

On your second point, I think you've hit the nail on the head. People want their government to ensure something does not happen again. They are traumatized, and want their government to protect them.

That goes to what Mencken said in the last century, "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

So it seems the intelligent citizen, and groups of intelligent citizens, should be asking themselves "Is the government actually capable of ensuring that it does not happen again?"

And in most cases, the resounding answer is "No, the government is not capable of ensuring it won't happen again." That's my only point.

[ninjadude]

And in most cases, the resounding answer is "No, the government is not capable of ensuring it won't happen again." That's my only point.

with notable exceptions like using seat belts, vaccines, elderly poverty, etc. We don't go in for black and white, all or nothing, but for greatly reduced. Life and government is a shade of grey. And in that vein, it would be possible for government to craft legislation to greatly reduce.

Edited January 24, 2013 by ninjadude

[Czero 101]

Don't you ever get tired of playing the fool by making such absurd posts?

Can't handle the competition, Babe....?

Cz

[AsteroidX]

If the rest of the world wants to give up there guns. Good on them. Not gonna happen in America. But just know soon your guns will be useless anyways.