|
DieCommie

Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: Ravus]
#2973007 - 08/06/04 05:37 PM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Ravus said: Whether it happens today, tomorrow or 500 years from now, Americans must have a means to protect themselves when the inevitable happens
Well said. By what right do we deny future generations this means?
|
Tao
Village Genius

Registered: 09/19/03
Posts: 7,935
Loc: San Diego
Last seen: 8 years, 11 months
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: Mushmonkey]
#2974287 - 08/07/04 12:26 AM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Please read the whole thread before going off on a long-winded rant.
-------------------- Magash's Grain Tek + Tub-in-Tub Incubator + Magash's PMP + SBP Tek + Dunking = Practically all a newbie grower needs
|
Ancalagon
AgnosticLibertarian

Registered: 07/30/02
Posts: 1,364
Last seen: 15 years, 3 months
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: Evolving]
#2974979 - 08/07/04 09:20 AM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Just like to post an article that sums up many of the facts listed in this thread:
Guns, Gun Laws, and Liberty
The heart of virtually every citizen of America went out to the family of little Kayla Rolland after a classmate took her life with a .32 caliber revolver on February 29 in Mt. Morris, Michigan. As with the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado last year, we all feel pained and distraught about such senseless violence, and we wonder what has gone wrong and what can be done to prevent any recurrences. In the wake of these tragedies, legislators in every state are taking up the issue of gun control.
The challenge is to express appropriate grief and concern about these things without allowing hyped emotions, rhetorical window-dressing, or futile "quick fixes" to rule the day. Political jockeying to prove who is most outraged by violence must not overwhelm facts, logic, and experience.
One superficial but unfortunately popular reaction to school shootings is summarized this way: "Guns are bad; more laws are good." The facts are more complicated. Guns are not bad when they are not misused, not accessible to people who misuse them, and used harmlessly in sport or recreation; they are good when they thwart crime. Laws are not good when they injure the rights, property, or lives of the innocent - when they are ineffective or unenforceable; or when they act as cheap political substitutes for a problem's real cure.
--Proliferation of Laws-- Nationwide, according to John R. Lott, Jr., there are more than 20,000 gun-control laws that regulate everything from who can own guns and how they can be bought to where a person can possess or use them. "The biggest problem with gun-control laws," writes Lott, "is that those who are intent on harming others, and especially those who plan to commit suicide, are the least likely to obey them."1
The two students who committed the Columbine murders broke at least 17 state and federal weapons-control laws. The student who shot Kayla Rolland apparently got the revolver he used from the bedroom of a fugitive being sought on drug charges. The boy's uncle was arrested on an outstanding felony warrant for concealing stolen property. This raises a question that those who push for more gun-control laws need to answer but rarely try: Can we realistically expect criminal suspects who blithely break many laws to somehow obey another gun law?
Does the mere prevalence of guns in American society contribute to gun violence? If statistics matter, the answer is no. A study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that firearm-related deaths in the United States dropped 21 percent over the five-year period from 1993 to 1997 and non-fatal firearm-related injuries fell 41 percent. Including all gunshot wounds reported at emergency rooms "whether intentional, accidental, or self-inflicted," the CDCP study said that gun-related deaths fell from 15.4 per 100,000 people in 1993 to about 12.1 per 100,000 people in 1997.2 Moreover, statistics compiled by the U.S. Justice Department's National Crime Survey reveal that 88 percent of all violent crimes do not involve firearms.3
Firearms ownership in America is higher today than at the start of the decade. An estimated 80 million people own upward of 240 million guns. What percentage of them were involved in intentional or accidental deaths in the most recent year for which data are available? Barely one one-hundredth of one per-cent. Children under five are more likely to drown in water buckets or die in fires that they themselves start with cigarette lighters.4
While the misuse of firearms generates publicity, the proper use of them for Self-defense rarely does. Americans use firearms for protection more than two million times each year. Ninety-eight percent of the time, they only brandish their weapons or fire warning shots. However, each year gun-wielding citizens kill between 2,000 and 3,000 criminals in self-defense, an astounding three times the number killed by police.5 In a recent five-year period, the National Self-Defense Survey found that the number of legal, defensive gun uses was three to four times that of illegal, offensive gun uses - and that civilians using guns in self-defense save a minimum of 240,000 lives annually.6
Yet what about the frightening statistic that 13 children die every day from guns? They are not all innocent six-year-olds who would be saved by trigger locks. Eleven of the 13 are 15-to-19-year-olds, and most of them are killed as a result of gang violence.
--Concealed Weapons-- Violent crime is 81 percent higher in states that do not have concealed-carry laws than in those that do. Robbery is 105 percent higher and murder is 86 percent higher where law-abiding citizens are denied the right to carry concealed guns. Moreover, the FBI's annual crime figures for all 3,054 counties over a recent 15-year period show that states with the largest increases in gun ownership also had the largest drops in violent crimes.7
Evidence is strong, based on data emerging in the last couple of decades, that the one strategy that offers the best hope of curtailing crime and the misuse of guns is swift and strong punishment of violent offenders. It may seem strange to some advocates of more gun-control laws that going after the guilty offers more promise than going after the innocent, but that's what the facts show.
Finally, we must recognize that violence in any form occurs when individuals lack respect for the lives and property of others. Ultimately, anti-gun laws - even the effective ones - deal more with symptoms than they do with causes. We must as individuals address this on the home front as we raise and nurture our children. The values that once were the glue that held us together must be strengthened by home, church, school, and institutions public and private. Parents must be given more freedom to choose the best and safest schools for their children. In short, ridding our society of handgun violence requires that we recognize that guns are less the problem than are certain people, certain values, and uncertain laws.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At the time of the original publication, Lawrence Reed was president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free-market research and educational organization in Midland, Michigan, and chairman of FEE's Board of Trustees. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. John R. Lott, Jr., "Gun Laws Can Be Dangerous, Too," Wall Street Journal, May 12, 1999, p. A-22.
2. "Nonfatal and Fatal Firearm-Related Injuries: United States, 1993-1997,"Morbidity and Monthly Weekly, November 19, 1999, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Washington, D.C.
3. Morgan O. Reynolds and W. W. Caruth 111, "Myths About Gun Control," National Center for Policy Analysis, Dallas, Texas, December 1992,
4. John R. Lott, Jr., "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws," American Experiment Quarterly, Summer 1999, p. 14.
5. Reynolds and Caruth, p. 10.
6. Glenn Otero, "Ten Myths About Gun Control," Golden State Center for Policy Studies, January 6, 1999, p. 8. This report can be seen at http://www.claremont.org/gsp/gsp60.cfm.
7. "More Guns - Less Crime," Investor's Business Daily editorial, May 8, 1998, p. A-32.
-------------------- ?When Alexander the Great visted the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: 'Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.' It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.? -Henry Hazlitt in 'Economics in One Lesson'
|
Mushmonkey
shiftlesslayabout


Registered: 09/25/03
Posts: 10,867
Last seen: 6 months, 29 days
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: Tao]
#2975279 - 08/07/04 12:28 PM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
" Please read the whole thread before going off on a long-winded rant. "
Does my verbosity frighten you?
Fear not!
For I only use one word at a time, like any other.
If you actually re-read my post there, chief, it is simply a collection of responses from comments others made in this thread.
If I replied to everything in this thread I disagreed with, how could I have not read the thread.
Or maybe you saw a long post, got scared, and skipped it.
gg no re
|
Tao
Village Genius

Registered: 09/19/03
Posts: 7,935
Loc: San Diego
Last seen: 8 years, 11 months
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: Mushmonkey]
#2975321 - 08/07/04 12:45 PM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
i was referring to your rant about waco/ruby ridge
-------------------- Magash's Grain Tek + Tub-in-Tub Incubator + Magash's PMP + SBP Tek + Dunking = Practically all a newbie grower needs
|
Mushmonkey
shiftlesslayabout


Registered: 09/25/03
Posts: 10,867
Last seen: 6 months, 29 days
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: Tao]
#2975573 - 08/07/04 02:03 PM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
"i was referring to your rant about waco/ruby ridge "
There's a great deal of misunderstanding about both incidences encouraged by the government. They don't like admitting when they fuck up bad. I found it highly offensive that anybody would believe that either incident was an attempt to overthrow the government. And while David Koresh in my opinion was a certifiable whacko who very well might have committed crimes against children, and quite possibly got what was coming to him, there were children inside that compound when our government created an extreme fire hazard. As for Ruby Ridge, that was just an all-out massacre. A very minor offense, that might I add never ended with a conviction due to -- get this -- entrapment by the governmeent, and it was met by yet another shoot-first strike. What that basically adds up to is the government cajoling and harrassing somebody to break the law, and when they finally give in, the government kills them and feels justified in doing so.
I'd equate it to a 20 year old young woman entiring a high school to dig up pot dealers, and then arresting them. Of-fucking-course I'd say I can find pot even if I can't, if I've got a hot piece of ass squirming in my lap mewing "pplleease?" in my ear. To expect anybody, let alone some 17 year old guy, to resist that is inhuman. AAhh but now I really AM straying off-topic..
|
Ancalagon
AgnosticLibertarian

Registered: 07/30/02
Posts: 1,364
Last seen: 15 years, 3 months
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: Mushmonkey]
#2975596 - 08/07/04 02:07 PM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
I'd equate it to a 20 year old young woman entiring a high school to dig up pot dealers, and then arresting them. Of-fucking-course I'd say I can find pot even if I can't, if I've got a hot piece of ass squirming in my lap mewing "pplleease?" in my ear. To expect anybody, let alone some 17 year old guy, to resist that is inhuman. AAhh but now I really AM straying off-topic..
Ha, I saw that on Boston Public about four years ago.
-------------------- ?When Alexander the Great visted the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: 'Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.' It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.? -Henry Hazlitt in 'Economics in One Lesson'
|
Lothar121
Marijuanaactivist
Registered: 04/15/03
Posts: 105
Loc: Texas
Last seen: 17 years, 2 months
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: Evolving]
#2975736 - 08/07/04 02:52 PM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
It makes no difference. The assault weapons ban is an assault on our 2nd amendment.
|
Mushmonkey
shiftlesslayabout


Registered: 09/25/03
Posts: 10,867
Last seen: 6 months, 29 days
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: Ancalagon]
#2976980 - 08/07/04 11:01 PM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
"I'd equate it to a 20 year old young woman entiring a high school to dig up pot dealers, and then arresting them. Of-fucking-course I'd say I can find pot even if I can't, if I've got a hot piece of ass squirming in my lap mewing "pplleease?" in my ear. To expect anybody, let alone some 17 year old guy, to resist that is inhuman. AAhh but now I really AM straying off-topic.. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ha, I saw that on Boston Public about four years ago. "
Actually it was in Playboy about a year, year and a half ago or so.
Altoona, PA.
it is a pretty close example. through nagging, begging and pleading, a government agent manages to get somebody to break the law, and then brings all hell down on them.
see also: gas station compliance checks. that's where they find a gas station with a teenaged boy working, and send in 17-18 year old girls in low-cut shirts to lean over the counter, giggle, and ask for a pack of cigarettes.
btw: apparently, if you tip the kid behind the counter off, and tell him he probably doesn't want to do that because you just saw those girls in that car, right there, with that gentleman with a clipboard and a uniform.... that cop gets really, really upset with you. No.. not me.. my dad. and since i'm half drunk and rambling I'll finish: They left in a tizzy, he bought his tea and payed for his gas, and the cop confronted him when he left. "Do you know what you just did!"
"Yeah, I saved that poor kid's job!"
"Wull!-"
"- Well nothing, asshole. Tricking some teenaged boy by flashing him some titty, playing mind games with him like that, you know damned well it's wrong. And I'll tell you now that if I see this again, you can bet I'll let the clerk know what's going on."
hehe.. he left the cop standing there sputtering.. great shit man, really. it's not often you get to see your own parents take a stand against injustice like that.
|
Anonymous
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: deafpanda]
#2980956 - 08/09/04 09:43 AM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
I can't really see any legitamate use for guns, myself, yet so many Americans own them.
you can't?
how about self-defense? hunting? target shooting?
Sure, there's self defence, but you only need to defend yourself with a gun if the other guy's got a gun.
...or he's stronger than you, more adept at violence than you are, or is carrying some sort of weapon. there are plenty of people in the US (and england) who are victimized every year by people who were not carrying a firearm.
legally-owned guns are used in self-defense over a million times a year in the united states. what would happen if all of these people were prohibited from arming themselves?
the great majority of crimes involving firearms are commited by people who are prohibited from owning or carrying firearms (previous offenders). these people already are prohibited from arming themselves.
I'm not saying guns should be banned in America, but that they should never have been legal.

still steaming about that ass-whoopin' armed americans handed you brits? 
seriously though... i have found that of all the different controversies in the political sphere, the anti-gun argument is the one most rooted in ignorance of the actual facts, verifiable statistics, and the real situation at hand. people disagree about guns not because they have different values, as they do with say, abortion or welfare, (we all want there to be less violent crime), but because some of us do not have all the information.
people should be permitted to own and carry firearms. preventing them from doing so, thereby making firearms an illegal black market commodity available only to criminals, is not going to reduce violent crime, but increase it.
|
daimyo
Monticello

Registered: 05/13/04
Posts: 7,751
Last seen: 12 years, 3 months
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: ]
#2981046 - 08/09/04 10:18 AM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
I just want to echo mushmaster here in saying that criminals will always have guns. If you don't believe that then you are inherently lost. Only people hurt by gun laws are the law abiding citizens.
As for assault weapons, there is no reason to fear them. I'm way more worried about the guy with a Remington 700 that can produce 1-3 MOA groups out to 500+ yards.
|
Tao
Village Genius

Registered: 09/19/03
Posts: 7,935
Loc: San Diego
Last seen: 8 years, 11 months
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: ]
#2981056 - 08/09/04 10:21 AM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
people should be permitted to own and carry firearms. preventing them from doing so, thereby making firearms an illegal black market commodity available only to criminals, is not going to reduce violent crime, but increase it.
Few are trying to ban guns, just make them regulated. I don't see how you're points argue against regulation of the sell of guns such as closing the gun-show loop hole, registration, waiting day period/background check.
-------------------- Magash's Grain Tek + Tub-in-Tub Incubator + Magash's PMP + SBP Tek + Dunking = Practically all a newbie grower needs
|
Anonymous
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: Tao]
#2981101 - 08/09/04 10:33 AM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Few are trying to ban guns
some are, and i was addressing them in general. reasonable regulation is fine. the trouble is that much of it is not reasonable.
I don't see how you're points argue against regulation of the sell of guns such as closing the gun-show loop hole, registration, waiting day period/background check.
when you buy a gun, you should be required to pass a background check that searches for a history of serious mental illness or convictions for violent crime. in order to carry a loaded weapon in public, one should have to pass a small, inexpensive test that shows that one is proficient in marksmanship and understands what is entailed by legal armed self-defense. that is reasonable regulation. there is no reason for a waiting period or registration. there is no reason for blanket banning of carrying concealed weapons in public.
|
daimyo
Monticello

Registered: 05/13/04
Posts: 7,751
Last seen: 12 years, 3 months
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: Tao]
#2981102 - 08/09/04 10:33 AM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Perhaps a paranoid view here, but I feel it nonetheless. Registration leads to confiscation.
|
Tao
Village Genius

Registered: 09/19/03
Posts: 7,935
Loc: San Diego
Last seen: 8 years, 11 months
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: ]
#2981121 - 08/09/04 10:40 AM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Why should you have to take a test to prove proficiency at driving but not to prove proficiency with an instrument whose actual purpose is to kill or maim?
|
Anonymous
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: Tao]
#2981153 - 08/09/04 10:49 AM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Why should you have to take a test to prove proficiency at driving but not to prove proficiency with an instrument whose actual purpose is to kill or maim?
i said that it was prudent to require a test of proficiency for those who wish to carry a weapon in public.
|
z@z.com
Libertarian
Registered: 10/13/02
Posts: 2,876
Loc: ATL
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: Tao]
#2981296 - 08/09/04 11:18 AM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
TaoTeChing said: Few are trying to ban guns, just make them regulated. I don't see how you're points argue against regulation of the sell of guns such as closing the gun-show loop hole, registration, waiting day period/background check.
I have bought several guns at gun shows and they all did a background check.
-------------------- "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." - Thomas Jefferson
|
Tao
Village Genius

Registered: 09/19/03
Posts: 7,935
Loc: San Diego
Last seen: 8 years, 11 months
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: z@z.com]
#2981976 - 08/09/04 02:12 PM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
well my best friend just bought a barely-used shotgun at a gun show without having to even show an ID.
Its a loophole at gun shows, not that the gun show itself is a loophole.
-------------------- Magash's Grain Tek + Tub-in-Tub Incubator + Magash's PMP + SBP Tek + Dunking = Practically all a newbie grower needs
|
Tao
Village Genius

Registered: 09/19/03
Posts: 7,935
Loc: San Diego
Last seen: 8 years, 11 months
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: ]
#2981999 - 08/09/04 02:18 PM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
mushmaster said: Why should you have to take a test to prove proficiency at driving but not to prove proficiency with an instrument whose actual purpose is to kill or maim?
i said that it was prudent to require a test of proficiency for those who wish to carry a weapon in public.
right, and I was saying that one should pass a test in order to just own guns even if its just to use in their own house. just my opinion.
maybe there could be licences for a class of guns like 'handguns' or 'rifles/shotguns' the way they do for motorcycles and cars (is there a separate licence for trucks and buses?). this is just an idea i'm shooting around .
|
Evolving
Resident Cynic

Registered: 10/01/02
Posts: 5,385
Loc: Apt #6, The Village
|
Re: 'Assault' Weapons [Re: Tao]
#2982214 - 08/09/04 03:10 PM (19 years, 9 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
TaoTeChing said: well my best friend just bought a barely-used shotgun at a gun show without having to even show an ID.
Where was this? Was the seller a licensed dealer or a private party?
-------------------- To call humans 'rational beings' does injustice to the term, 'rational.' Humans are capable of rational thought, but it is not their essence. Humans are animals, beasts with complex brains. Humans, more often than not, utilize their cerebrum to rationalize what their primal instincts, their preconceived notions, and their emotional desires have presented as goals - humans are rationalizing beings.
Edited by Evolving (08/09/04 03:12 PM)
|
|