posted on April 23, 2001 10:56:27 AM new
How do you feel about gun laws? Who should own them and who shouldn't? Just wondering what y'all progressives think about this.
posted on April 23, 2001 11:02:45 AM new
Potential felons shouldn't own them either. People with violent tendencies, psychological problems, the Iraqi and Chinese armies, etc.
[ edited by jameSOBlivion on Apr 23, 2001 11:08 AM ]
posted on April 23, 2001 11:02:54 AM new"How do you feel about gun laws? Who should own them and who shouldn't"
Well, I don't own any gun laws myself, and I don't know anyone who does. I wouldn't let any gun laws into my home, but I'd sure hate to put up a sign outside that said so.
posted on April 23, 2001 11:14:28 AM new
I don't think hand guns should be legal. When the NRA can show me statistics on how many lives have been saved by having a hand gun, I'll change my mind.
posted on April 23, 2001 11:25:20 AM new
I'm just waking up KRS, so thanks for getting me back on topic.......
Just so you can walk in everyone else's shoes, I think everyone should own at least one gun law over their lifetime. Two if they're movie stars or politicians.
[ edited by kraftdinner on Apr 23, 2001 12:54 PM ]
posted on April 23, 2001 11:27:13 AM new
I met a guy carrying a blue NRA card and that didn't help me either. I proclaimed Kevlar for all but Gravid said not everyone can have it...I think those gun laws are downright dangerous. Eh yup!
posted on April 23, 2001 02:10:35 PM new
mrpotatoheadd: Ban high school football, and Texas can turn all those big high school stadiums into gunnery ranges.
posted on April 23, 2001 03:30:28 PM new
Personally, I think that we should do away with ALL gun laws! My great hobby is history and I've been a nut about it for over 30 years now. I can tell you one fact: no Tyranny can exist when the population is armed to the teeth! There is no way that Bush's New World Order is going to work in a world where every human being is armed. Let's look at a few facts:
Kosovo: If the Ablanians had been armed to the teeth, would the Serbians have easily steamrolled into the countryside and mass-murdered them?
Hitler: same thing: if the Poles and Checks had all been armed to the teeth, could Hitler have just waltzed into those countries in the 1930's with so little resistance?
Switzerland: while mountinas make it forbidding to conquer, what stops all invasions is the anceint requirement that every citizen be armed and trained to use it; that every citizen is actually in the army.
Bush: "There's a New World Order comming ..." Will we be able to fend off Big Brother and law enforcement that is armed with Smart weapons with .22 rifles? Why has no Tyranny existed in our government before? Because Democracy works? LOL! Because we're just too used to this? ROFL! People: the ONE and ONLY reason why America has not been run as a Tyranny is because it is too dangerous for jack-booted police to merrily kick in your door as they once did with Nixon's No-Knock laws!
And now, with the Corporations running this country through our throughly bought-out government and politicians on both sides, there is damned little preventing a take-over. And you'd think that the Citizens wouldn't allow a take-over? look at how many voted Republican this last election! Remember, Hitler was POPULAR in Germany - they ALLOWED him to turn their country into a Fascist Dictatorship! They WANTED it! People are just as stupid here too!
So, before you make a list of Who Should & Who Should not be allowed to own weapons, make sure what kind of world it is that you really want to live in!
NO WEAPONS INVITED GOVERNMENTS TO BECOME TYRANNIES!
posted on April 24, 2001 12:00:34 AM new
My hubby walks around in the yard at dusk in full blown camo fatiques carefully assembling -burying Mt.Dew soda caps and stringing up "Danger Explosives" tape everywhere. We don't need any gun laws.
posted on April 24, 2001 01:02:57 AM new
Why is it that we humans have the need to take complicated situations and try to find a simple answer for them. And the worst of it is, is that people from BOTH sides of the political spectrum have their list of what constitutes acceptable legislation of morality. It seems that while outlawing abortion will not stop women from getting abortions - they'll just constitute a whole new criminal class, another side thinks that the solution to violence from gun use is to outlaw the guns, even though this will not stop people from owning them! >>DOINK!!<< You'd think that they'd learn.
Read your history!
Idiots own guns? Outlaw the guns, not give mental health services! Gangsters selling drugs do a drive-by. The solution: Outlaw the guns, not stop the drug use! Persons prone to violet rages can't get a gun because they're banned from owning one? They'll just grab an ax to chop you up with - no mental help, no legal help, not any reasonable solutions! Ahh! The Fantasy of a Quick and Simple Fix!
Read your history!
Oh! And then they point out countries where outlawing citizens from gun ownership works so well! Like Japan, who until this century, had only one punishment for ALL crimes: Death! Didn't bow quick enough as that Samurai walked by? SWOOSH! Off went the head! Jaywalking type misdemeanors? Over 100 different ways to punish you with Death - including boiling you in a tub! And then to point to these folks and say: See how well it works!
Read your history!
Then, they point to England. Guess what? Recent statistics show that the most heavily armed group in the U.K. are the military (naturally) and the police (also natch!). After them? Why, the CRIMINAL population! Seems that the criminals and those who shouldn't own firearms have a good supply of them! Did it work there? Sure! The folks who would never own a firearm don't own one - how surprising!
Read your history!
No, outlawing guns won't work any better than outlawing abortions. You can't fix complicated social ills with a one-law remedy.
Read your history!
Alright, so a 3-day waiting period, a "cooling-off" period for all firearms may be a good thing. I just do not agree with restricting who can use one and who can't for the same reason that the ACLU defends onerous client's right to free speech: once you get that camel's nose into the tent, you end up letting the entire camel in!
Read your history!
I know that this position is unpopular, but read your history! Don't think that our government won't go fascist or that the US Constitution can't be over-ridden: look what Nixon did! With a simple swipe of a pen on paper, he eliminated our Constitutional right to protection from unreasonable search and seizure! It was called the "No-Knock" laws. And police everywhere didn't need a warrant issued by a judge to conduct entry and search in anyone's home - all they needed to do was to say that they felt that there was "probable cause"! You know the kind: the same kind that police use to stop motorists with the use of racial profiling. The Supreme Court finally overturned the Executive Order and the Republicans haven't forgiven the Supreme Court ever since!
Read your history!
*Edited for spelling*
[ edited by Borillar on Apr 24, 2001 01:08 AM ]
posted on April 24, 2001 01:47:46 AM new"the Republicans haven't forgiven the Supreme Court ever since"
There's a few who have more kindly feelings about the court now, I'd imagine.
But you're right. Law after law, each representative in each state taking his or her turn at presenting some new twist in law about firearms so that the position will appear in their political resume. And each passed by rote, I mean vote, so that the others will have sympathetic audience in their house at legislature when the time comes and it their turn again.
But who obeys them? Law abiding citizens do, and criminals don't. What reduction in crime rate do they achieve? The supporters of those laws struggle to find any result whatsoever.
The penalties increase for use of guns in criminal activity, but do criminals sit back and consider such consequences? Of course they don't. They aren't going to get caught-if they thought that they would be caught, somehow, they might then desist and reconsider the act they contemplate. Even if caught, most believe that they'll get away with it through some frailty of the courts.
What will make them hesitate in committing crime? Surprise! The thought that they might get shot on the spot. Shot by the police? No, they don't fear police. What more visible element of society is there than police? Even when they can't actually see them, any halfwitted criminal can avail him or herself of the ability to know exactly where all of the police are at the time they intend to strike. They can gather up scheduling, codes, the entire routine of all police patrols in areas where they want to do their thing.
So who would shoot them? Why, their victims! even if in any given instance that proves not to be the case, the possibility is there, very real, and the poor criminal has no way to predict it.
The thirty some states which have passed concealed carry laws in which law abiding citizens may carry guns hiddemn about their person ALL show marked statistically proven reductions in their crime rates, and the figures cannot be rationalized away by the most staunch radical anti-gun advocate.
For so long as there are these elements in the society ravaging the rest of the populace at increasing rates, no gun abolition will stop them.
There have been years of blathering about the perils of guns in our society which has brought us years of accumulated rhetoric and actions by elected officials brought to us by those same blatherers, and the crime rates increase.
posted on April 24, 2001 04:17:27 AM new
I'd like to point out that guns are a very mature technology. They are not going to get much more effective anytime soon.
People talk about making a gun that can only be fired by it's owner but I bet you could not get a cop to carry a weapon that had veto power over them in a life or death siuation.
In the next few years you are going to see advances in weapons technology that will make the question of who should be allowed a weapon more complex.
Consider a weapon that fires parallel laser beams to the target then discharges a tremendous big electrical jolt across the ionizer air path.
Same thing - cheapo version that spays conductive fluid.
Weapons that electronically accelerate tiny projectiles to 10 and 15 times the current muzzle velocity of bullets.
Weapons that can be shot in the general direction of a target and then seek the target even if it is weaving or ducks behind something.
Weapons platforms that can loiter over an area for hours waiting for target to show and are almost invisible and silent.
Battery and storage technology may even make your Star Wars type energy weapon possible. The problem is not generating the beam it is having a mobile power source. That is slowly being solved. The best current solution is nano tech fusion generators. You put tiny accelerators on a chip - etching in as many as you need for total output just like the transisters in a computer.
posted on April 24, 2001 05:48:06 AM new
Through out history almost every government at some point, has attempted to secure the exclusive use of fire power over the people.
Gun ownership in this country is one of the reasons that no military force in modern times have tried to invade the U.S., the simple idea that every home in the U.S could possibly harbor a gun is a strong deterrent against invasion.
The statistics show states that enjoy the right to carry a concealed weapon, have a reduction in crime as a resultant of that law. The registering of handguns, 3 day waiting period or any gun law that hinders the ability to immediate acquire a handgun are a waste of paper. Such laws will continue to prove ineffectual in the reduction of violent crime associated with handguns or the commission of a crimes aided by a handgun. None of the anti-gun law's to my knowledge have ever reduced crime.
If you wonder what could happen in the event the government completely banned firearms. Look back a few years ago in China when the government decided to disperse with protesters in Tienamen Square, with out firearms they were crushed into the ground.
Fortunately the gun manufactorers in this country have some political clout otherwise, the government would have already made inroads to the total banning of firearms!
posted on April 24, 2001 07:30:22 AM new
Somehow I suspect that nuclear capability rather than private gun ownership is more of a reason not to invade the U.S....
posted on April 24, 2001 07:32:12 AM new
Hardly, Irene. With all of the delivery systems targetted elsewhere this would be a far safer place to attack.
