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Other side of gun ownership


Lilly

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Oh, and let me just remind you and others that may think that I should not voice my opinion on responsible gun control: This is a public forum with members from around the world that come here to speak their mind. Deal with it. If you don't want to hear our opinions, don't read the thread, or find a US only message board. Otherwise, don't whine that people from other countries are chiming in with opinions that differ from yours.

Listen, I love these arguements. It helps me to figure out where I stand on issues. You must deal with my opinions too without telling me to go elsewhere.

Let me ask you this: why SHOULDN'T you lock your guns in a safe when leaving home? What reason is there not to? If it helps prevent weapons from falling into the hands of criminals, why would you not want to? Just because? Is it just a knee jerk reaction? Or is there actually a reason for it?

I never said you shouldn't. Just that you shouldn't have to. I don't think it's a bad idea. I have plenty of tools and knives that could kill too and my bottom line is that one shouldn't be held responsible if their property is forceably entered into and is stolen and used to commit crimes. Now if you leave your guns on the kitchen counter with your doors and windows unlocked all day while at work then maybe there's an arguement to be made.

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Hijacking very often ends in chase, chases are often result in crashes and injuries to bystanders, should owners of the cars be responcible for what theeves do with their stolen\Hijacked cars?

Edited by aztek
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Hijacking very often ends in chase, chases are often result in crashes and injuries to bystanders, should owners of the cars be responcible for what theeves do with their stolen\Hijacked cars?

Are speed limits not regulated? Does the government not have a list of people with licenses and the cara they own?

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Are speed limits not regulated? Does the government not have a list of people with licenses and the cara they own?

You're ignoring the question and the fact, again, that criminals aren't concerned about limits and laws.

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Are speed limits not regulated? Does the government not have a list of people with licenses and the cara they own?

This actually brings up an excellent point. Licensing those who are allowed to posses a weapon. You wouldn't need to register anything, wouldn't need to ban any weapon. In order to purchase a weapon, private or commercial, you just have to produce a valid gun license. You wouldn't need a registry, as no cars are registered to a license (they are registered to a person, but it isn't necessarily the licensed individual).

Thing is, just like all these regulation ideas, bad guys are still going to have weapons and no license...

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This actually brings up an excellent point. Licensing those who are allowed to posses a weapon. You wouldn't need to register anything, wouldn't need to ban any weapon. In order to purchase a weapon, private or commercial, you just have to produce a valid gun license. You wouldn't need a registry, as no cars are registered to a license (they are registered to a person, but it isn't necessarily the licensed individual).

Thing is, just like all these regulation ideas, bad guys are still going to have weapons and no license...

That still would not solve the problem of guns disappearing int thin air every year (and it is quite a lot). Given its dual use it is imperative to know who owns a gun and make it mandatory to report the loss of one to dry up the black market. As long as it costs a few bucks to buy a gun illegally petty holdups are productive. Once the gun costs real money they are not.

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That still would not solve the problem of guns disappearing int thin air every year (and it is quite a lot). Given its dual use it is imperative to know who owns a gun and make it mandatory to report the loss of one to dry up the black market. As long as it costs a few bucks to buy a gun illegally petty holdups are productive. Once the gun costs real money they are not.

I guess this is where our opinion differs; I don't think you'll ever dry up the black market, even with a full on, gun collecting ban like some extremists want.

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I guess this is where our opinion differs; I don't think you'll ever dry up the black market, even with a full on, gun collecting ban like some extremists want.

You don't have to dry it up, you just have to make it smaller and by that illegal guns more expensive. That would take the guns out of most petty crimes and leave the cops more time for the protection of the large targets.

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This actually brings up an excellent point. Licensing those who are allowed to posses a weapon. You wouldn't need to register anything, wouldn't need to ban any weapon. In order to purchase a weapon, private or commercial, you just have to produce a valid gun license. You wouldn't need a registry, as no cars are registered to a license (they are registered to a person, but it isn't necessarily the licensed individual).

Thing is, just like all these regulation ideas, bad guys are still going to have weapons and no license...

unfortunatly it is not like that.

where i live i have to have a lisence, and have to regester every gun,.my pistol serial is printed on my pistol lisence, for rifles i must have regestration paper(just like cars in my state).

one doesn't cancel the other unfortunatly.

Edited by aztek
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unfortunatly it is not like that.

where i live i have to have a lisence, and have to regester every gun,.my pistol serial is printed on my pistol lisence, for rifles i must have regestration paper(just like cars in my state).

one doesn't cancel the other unfortunatly.

For clarity, I was speaking as a hypothetical, not what is actually being practiced. It was to liken what we do for vehicles and drivers to guns and gun users.

I personally will never live in New York, I'm on the opposite side of the spectrum right now... Phoenix, Arizona.

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You don't have to dry it up, you just have to make it smaller and by that illegal guns more expensive. That would take the guns out of most petty crimes and leave the cops more time for the protection of the large targets.

Yeah like the federal government.

That's the language of prohibition. Just gotta "dry it up" huh? Prohibitionist policy is a total failure and wasting anymore money on the idea won't achieve a different result today just because it happens to be guns. Every market that's forcibly controlled turns black. People will start building guns in their basement. Then we'll have to ban the new materials that make those new guns being made in basements, and the money wasting racket will drone ever on until we come to our senses and put an end to it. We've got to stop the government from its current prohibition, not pile on more of it.

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So I'll say this again because I think it's important.

I have a close friend who is a paralegal and she works for the DA. She reads pretty much every police report in the area and does redactions, mailings to the courts and defense attorneys. She also fullfils public information requests.

Her experience is that most gun crimes, either shootings, or brandishings, the majority are of a domestic nature: within the home (spousal violence, arguments among friends etc...),suicide, and accidental. NOT home break ins, NOT gang or intruder activity... in fact, she sees very few reports come across her desk that involve a break in or armed robbery when compared to the domestic. They happen, but they are not the norm. The domestic cases are the norm.

In all her years of working in this capacity (4 years), she's never seen a report come across her desk where a home owner protected himself with a firearm. (unless you want to count the guy that neary killed his neighbors toddler because he thought he was shoooting at invisible mummies).

Of all the people I know who have been involved in a gun related incident... NONE of them were home defense either. Had one friend accidentally shoot his toes off right in front of me! And he was retired military and highly trained!

Edited by MissMelsWell
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With all due respect, MissMel, that may be the case where you live, but not everywhere. I would have been raped in the woods by three men if I hadn't had a gun with me. Nobody more than likely would have found my body for years if and when it came to that. I personally know four people over the years who's lives were saved because they had a gun in the house during home invasions. I could link to several articles in the news from the city I live in just in the last few months where people killed the intruder during a home invasion. Last week one homeowner, in a nearby suburb, held a crazed guy at gunpoint until the police showed up. He wasn't armed with a gun, but he was out of his mind on something and determined to harm someone. Two people had to fire near him to get him to lay on the ground and wait for the police.

I have several police officer friends and I hear stories that are never in the news. We aren't all so lucky as to not have gangs that have to be dealt with on a daily basis. Granted, a huge amount of cases are not random and are among people that know each other, but knowing what I know I'm not going to count on that.

Edited by Michelle
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In Canada the majority of shootings are gang related and by law enforcement...... that's because most people do not have a gun.... I don't own a gun.... and I don't trust my GOV in the least.

EDITED to add: I don't even trust the banks because they stole money from my account(it was in the fine print when they changed their regulations last year in response to the Recession) I have zero use for a bank except to cash clients cheques for cash which I take home with me.

Edited by acidhead
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In Canada the majority of shootings are gang related and by law enforcement...... that's because most people do not have a gun.... I don't own a gun.... and I don't trust my GOV in the least.

EDITED to add: I don't even trust the banks because they stole money from my account(it was in the fine print when they changed their regulations last year in response to the Recession) I have zero use for a bank except to cash clients cheques for cash which I take home with me.

They are here too, acid. The problem is they have intitiations that involve the average, innocent citizen which makes them hard to ignore. It's too bad when they try to shoot each other they don't have better aim.

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So I live in Seattle. My friends works in the area (not the city of Seattle)... probably one of the most high crime areas in the state. There is certainly plenty of gang activity in the area she serves. Crime is high south of the city. The area she serves is low to low middle class income. The area has a lot of both light and heavy industry; mostly aircraft and shipping/port related. The area she serves is the second most culturally diverse area in the state. (also let me state that the most culturally diverse city in the state is also the most wealthy city in the state)

The gang violence, robberies etc... she sees are mostly picked up by the news. Generally when she sees them come across her desk, she's already read about the cases in the media. It's the domestic cases where two brothers assault each other or a husband and wife or friends having an argument that never make the media, and they are the vast majority of what she sees.

I'm not saying that people never defend their homes from intruders, or fend off attackers with their firearms... but it's awfully rare when compared to the other domestic cases you never hear about.

I guess my point is really that if that firearm is locked up in a safe and with a trigger lock, and a bit more difficult to access, it's a security by obscurity measure. It gives the person thinking about using it pause before they actually unlock that safe and unlock that trigger lock. I liken it to something I do at work... I disable all zip files coming in though email. My users can open them if they take a minute to save them and rename them... but they almost never do open a virus sent that way because those two extra stupid steps force them to think about what they're doing and think twice about whether opening it and possibly causing a big problem is worth the effort.

If I was going to trust anyone with a firearm in this thread... it would be you and HerNIbs.

Edited by MissMelsWell
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I guess my point is really that if that firearm is locked up in a safe and with a trigger lock, and a bit more difficult to access, it's a security by obscurity measure. It gives the person thinking about using it pause before they actually unlock that safe and unlock that trigger lock. I liken it to something I do at work... I disable all zip files coming in though email. My users can open them if they take a minute to save them and rename them... but they almost never do open a virus sent that way because those two extra stupid steps force them to think about what they're doing and think twice about whether opening it and possibly causing a big problem is worth the effort.

Sometimes there is no time to pause...work is not life or death. What if the victim could have had access to a gun? Or do you think in family arguments both are the aggressor and no one is the victim?

Edited by Michelle
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how the ****** working on computer, can be compared to possible, life and death situation when seconds matter???

let alone with a gun locked in a safe WITH a trigger lock on??

Edited by aztek
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To us, in some ways, it kind of is.... one rogue virus gets into our systems and we could potentially comprimise over 50K individuals VERY private personal information, lose millions of dollars in revenue and destroy an entire company. No one dies of course, but the damage could be epic. I work for a bank. The security measures we have to employ, in layers, is a decent analogy for security in general.

I've always taked about security in layers, it's what I do. LOL. I rant and rave about security with the TSA, with computers and software, and yes, with guns. I don't want to eliminate safety measures, I like reliable safety measures which are repeatable, that offer excellent success rates, and low failure rates. You'll never get perfection, but you can minimize the risk.

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how the ****** working on computer, can be compared to possible, life and death situation when seconds matter???

let alone with a gun locked in a safe WITH a trigger lock on??

It's an analogy ding-dong. I'm sorry if it went over your head.

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:D I'll always be by your side against the TSA darlin' Missy!!! Edited by Michelle
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This is how it should be all round, wonder why the state and local laws do not have this rule? is it too much hard work for them to persue it for everyone who wants a gun? All that extra paperwork would cost money and they would not have enough to spend on their own guns! :whistle:

ps: feel safer now i know you are trained. Lol.

The training requirement most states have is only really for issuance of a concealed carry permit, but not to buy a gun. Many states don't require any kind of permit to just buy one, while others do, and the few that do, also require a safety course.

These basic safety courses only teach you the basics. In a controlled environment, no stress at all. I see no reason why these safety courses shouldn't be mandatory, even to just own.

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