One reason I keep guns is to protect myself from people who think they have the right to take them away.....and to shoot the odd gopher eating in my garden.:-)

Does everyone forget about how many times more hunting rifles/shotguns there are in the US than handguns and assault rifles?

Almost all of gun crime is because people are too afraid (except Tony Blair) to say that it's primarily young black men behind most of the gun crime. The Brady Bill already requires a 5 day waiting period... maybe they should set up a national system of anonymous flagging of suspicious individuals so they don't get guns: e.g. Hong Kong Fuey at VTech.

oh yeah, and have mandatory harsh penalties for illegal gun handling.

How do anti-gun advocates always overlook the fact that if you outlaw guns, then criminals are the only ones that will have them? Does that sound like a good plan to anyone?

He also didn't seem to mention that it's already illegal to carry firearms on a school campus. Does that already provide counter logic to his theories? Perhaps if firearms were allowed on campus, one of the victims could have defended themselves and saved their fellow classmates/instructors.

crims will always get their hands on guns, doesn't matter if you make every make/model/type illegal, they're criminals, clue's in the name. if you make it harder to acquire guns for the casual nutjob/home-user/cobain-wannabe then you're going to cut down on the random murder kill spree's america seems to love right now.

^^Interesting theory, so if a person doesn't have a gun, or its hard for them to get it, then they won't be criminal? Nicole Simpson disagrees.

i don't appear to have stated that you need a gun to be a criminal, i'll reiterate for you. to cut down on the random killing spree's, make it harder/more stringent checks to get a lethal weapon.

the true whacko's will have planned for months and layed everything out in true obsessive/compulsive style, and therefore more than likely have built up an arsenal to perpetrate said plans (wako style?), doesn't matter what checks/waiting time there are, they would have factored them into their schemes of retaliation and rebellion.

make it harder to get hold of a gun, then you'll cut down, but not stop, the random spree's of gun violence. they'll have to find something different to kill with, like, sticks or something.

and making it legal to carry guns in schools/campus's is the most retarded thing i've seen for awhile.

Every single one of our rights is a bad thing. Cheney should be allowed to decide what we can and can't do.

Free Speech - People could use it to say bad things about our esteemed president, they could use it to organize terrorists, or incite hatred, or to sell PORNOGRAPHY. Lets get rid of free speech.

Free Religion - People might worship spaghetti monsters, the devil, Islam, or worse yet - people might reject religion as some sort of magical fantasy. Lets get rid of freedom of religion. JESUS SAVES baby.

Guns - People might shoot the wrong people. Only poor people and Moslems should be shot. Lets get rid of guns.

Privacy - People might do nasty things when no one is looking, like have sex with others of the same gender, or purchase chemicals that could be constructed into a bomb, or wear shoes that are 3 sizes too big. Lets get rid of privacy. That whole thing about searches? Sheesh, what are you trying to hide anyhow?

Ownership of Stuff - Look, the government or corporations might need your stuff. You aren't paying enough taxes on it and taking good care of it. They should be able to take what they want. Lets give everything to our country. If you won't give it up - you don't love America and should be evicted.

Imprisonment without a trial - We've got to trust the government that these guys are a danger to the rest of us. Sure they have no evidence they can tell us about, but that is because it is SECRET evidence. Keep the terrorists off the streets. If they lock up a few innocents along the way, oh well. That is the price we pay to be completely safe from moslems.

Congress - Who needs them? They are a bunch of stuffed shirts beholden to SPECIAL interests. Our president is a man of honor, he knows whats best. Why do they always try to get in his way?

Judges - they aren't there to make laws. They owe their jobs to the president and should remember that.

The whole constitution is a sham designed to make our lives more dangerous. I want to feel safe. Lets toss out the whole mess and let our superiors care for us the way we know they can. The more money you have, the more you deserve it, and that is the way is should be. Obviously the rich are our superiors.

^ werd

Judges - they aren't there to make laws.

But judges aren't there to make laws. Making law is what the legislative branch of government is for, you know, the elected, 'accountable', people's voice. Judges are to interpret and apply law and adjudicate when there are conflicting laws using their knowledge of precedent and legal hierarchy. Judicial rulings will create case law, interpretations of confusing or conflicting points of law. These rulings can become precedent for future cases. However, judges are not there to create new laws out of whole cloth as they see fit as some seem to think.

^ Pfff... In case you couldn't tell from the rest of this thread, people who have any semblence of clear understanding on any of these issues are unwelcome here.

However, judges are not there to create new laws out of whole cloth as they see fit as some seem to think.

UNELECTED ROGUE JUDGES!!!!!!!

i'd like to hear the sidechain opinion on gun control, ban/restrict/de-restrict?

Speaking as one who lives in a country where guns are very hard to get legally, handguns impossible without being a member of a pistol club, and all automatic or semi-automatic weapons banned outright, gun control doesn't work. Since laws were toughened up in 1996 or so, in a governmental gut-reaction to a similar random shooting spree, there are more guns, handguns especially, out on the streets than ever before. The only difference is that the law-abiding citizen doesn't have them, the criminals do.

they'll get my guns when they pry them from my cold dead hands,to steal the NRA pledge

How do anti-gun advocates always overlook the fact that if you outlaw guns, then criminals are the only ones that will have them? Does that sound like a good plan to anyone?

I don't think anti-gun advocates overlook it, they believe they see a bigger picture. Namely, if you implement gun control only criminals have guns, true, but you also have fewer criminals then you had which makes the individual safer than if everyone could have a gun.

I'm not anti-gun or pro-gun but I think the anti-gun have a point. We all know that Canadian culture is almost identical to America's with one of the few differences being gun control.
Here's the stats on assault by handgun discharge per capita:
US = 3.61135 deaths per 1 million
Canada = 0.213382 deaths per 1 million

Now, that said, it appears the total crimes per capita is not much less in Canada;
US = 80.0645 per 1,000 people
Canada = 75.4921 per 1,000 people
But Canadians survive crimes at a much higher rate (>10x) and anyone who thinks gun control is a 'recipe for disaster' is careful not to notice how well it's worked in countries that have tried. I know lots of swarmers love thier guns and feel safer having them, perhaps they are safer than if they didn't own guns. However, if that's the case it might be that where they live, even the petty criminals pack heat.

We all know that Canadian culture is almost identical to America's with one of the few differences being gun control.

I don't think that's the most important difference in these two cultures. I think Canadians are also friendlier folk who want to shoot each other less. You'd want stats from Canada before the ban to make a better comparison.

Here's an interesting bit I ran across somewhere that discusses how requiring gun ownership in each household in an Illinois town led to something other than mass chaos.

And here's a funny picture of Jessica Alba being a cunt I ran across while retrieving the above.

To add to Vas's bit about Kennesaw, don't forget that the Swiss do something similar.Every male between 18 and 50 or 55 is a member of the Swiss Army, and keeps his weapon at home. Virtually every Swiss household has at least one semi- automatic rifle or sub-machine gun in the hall closet, loaded and ready to go. By all reports, gun crime, ( and burgulary) are virtualy non-existent in Switzerland. There may well be something in the idea that a fully armed society is a much politer and respectful society than one that is generally unarmed.

It only stands to reason that in places where it is known that everyone has a gun, someone is less likely to use one against you to take your shit. Niger don't wanna get shot, ya know. It's the equalizer effect.

I agree that most people are pretty stupid. They are dangerous in their cars, dangerous with the lawnmowers, and apparently even with a stepping stool. The government can't really protect the stupid from themselves (even if they shouldn't own guns) - if they don't shoot themselves or their family by accident, they'll probably do themselves in some other way. (poking alligators with a stick or something).

I'm not convinced that owning a weapon reduces your risk of becoming a crime victim, but it is nice to think that _something_ would reduce that risk.

I'd rather the government looked at root causes for crime - poverty, mental health, racism, bigotry, than wasted so much energy meddling in meaningless ways at the symptoms (like the Brady Bill).

No government is capable of doing anything other than medling with the symptoms.

nurgleming:
'crims will always get their hands on guns, doesn't matter if you make every make/model/type illegal, they're criminals, clue's in the name. if you make it harder to acquire guns for the casual nutjob/home-user/cobain-wannabe then you're going to cut down on the random murder kill spree's america seems to love right now.'

No one objects to making it harder for nut-jobs and violent criminals to get effective weapons of murder--it's just that the regulations near universally make it harder for sane, decent, law abiding folks to have effective weapons for self defense.

There might be a reason for that.

My narcissism requires me to direct you to the rest of my thoughts on Plate's article: The Space Monkey Demands

fuk. no preview/edit in comments