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People that choose ignorance concerning guns are a bigger problem than those with guns.
A lot of assumptions are being made with out actual facts in hand and that is a problem.
First of all politicians against guns have two agendas , one is to pander to the fearful and ignorant .the other is to disarm America according to the UN Agenda 21 . you need to read it. it will clear up a lot of reasons law makers are doing a lot of stupid things.
They get a lot of disrespect because they listen to lies, and then publish them as fact.
Those of us that know the difference, waste our energies trying to educate them whom are not actually interested in learning or correcting their understanding. they have an agenda.
I grew up with guns but they were not the focal point of our life ,they are simply a tool of sport or hunting for food ,rarely were they thought of as a defensive weapon, not having that problem much in our town. practically every one has guns.
But as society grew more aggressive and violent the focus on defense became an issue . and since criminals choose guns it is required to be armed as well.
The laws have been in place for gun training and registration for years but there is no way to govern the criminal , case in point "Hillary " no laws have made her obey any thing. And of course criminals want you disarmed.
You may as well buy guns an hand em to them ,you do it by voting for more gun control.
So when your kids encounter guns and they will at some time in their life, safe handling will be a mystery to them? That is a scary thought.
Handling a gun is not rocket science despite the bravado that most gun enthusiasts are forever expressing. I am well older than my kids, and I've never had any sort of gun training. I have, however, "encountered" guns more than a few times, the first time when I found my father's that he thought he had safely hidden, I was about 10 years old then. In any case, I've never had any sort of problem, and the only "encounters" I have had with guns in my life is as I have chosen, mostly by way of participation in these gun threads. My kids shot guns with me in Utah when our in-laws took us out for some "gun fun." Other than that sort of occasion, maybe once every five years, I think the odds are very slim my kids will "encounter" guns in their lifetime such that you or I need have any concern, and I think that's pretty much the case with most Americans, certainly with most Americans I know, but I/we are not living our lives as those who are into the gun culture. Again, far as we're concerned, we can use less about guns in our life, not more.
So then the obvious answer are more laws....we can't afford to enforce! Brilliant!
Not sure how many times I need to read this sort of comment, but please take up your argument about laws we can't afford to enforce with those in favor of those laws. Fair?
As for me personally, you need to be specific. I favor laws that are mostly effective and enforceable and/or efforts to address the root causes of the problem intelligently and pragmatically. I don't rule out any gun control measure simply because it is described as gun control, and I am not in favor of any gun control measure simply because it is described as gun control. "The devil is in the details," and levels of enforcement can vary from place to place, so the particulars can get complicated, but if/when effective, great. When not, we need to do better, do different, until we've done all that can reasonably be done.
Not sure how many times I need to read this sort of comment, but please take up your argument about laws we can't afford to enforce with those in favor of those laws. Fair?
As for me personally, you need to be specific. I favor laws that are mostly effective and enforceable and/or efforts to address the root causes of the problem intelligently and pragmatically. I don't rule out any gun control measure simply because it is described as gun control, and I am not in favor of any gun control measure simply because it is described as gun control. "The devil is in the details," and levels of enforcement can vary from place to place, so the particulars can get complicated, but if/when effective, great. When not, we need to do better, do different, until we've done all that can reasonably be done.
One of the first things we need to do with out current judicial system and firearms laws is to stop any sort of plea bargains. If you commit an assault , you get the maximum penalty for it. If there are weapons used, knife , gun , etc. years start getting tacked on.
This morning I saw on the news a person that was getting pulled over. Instead of pulling over they ran, high speed chase thru suburbs. He eventually crashed, got out and started shooting at the cops.
He had already been a convicted felon. So he should get the max for running from the police, add to that the max for an illegal firearm, add to that the charge of homicide for shooting at the cops, and then double it for being a repeat offender.
Start doing this and we will see an end to the violence in our inner cities.
Oh, they let me go after half an hour or so since they never really had a reason to book me...and never did catch the guy who rear-ended me (the owner of the car claimed it had been stolen).
Over my particular life, I've actually only been disrespected by black police. Story about my first personal run-in with police:
Back in the 60s, my cousin and I were a couple of months shy of getting our driver's licenses. One Saturday while my mother was at work (and my father was overseas), we used our adolescent male logic to determine that two learners' permits equaled a drivers' license. So we took my mother's car out for a spin in the neighborhood.
My cousin was driving, maneuvered too close to a parked vehicle, and clipped it, pulling off the chrome strip (back in those days, cars had attached metal chrome that could be yanked off). We stopped. The owner came out of his house boiling angry and called the police.
The police officer arrived, a huge white guy in "leather leg" trooper boots, a Smokey Bear campaign hat, aviator shades, and a long-barreled .357 Magnum "Buick stopper" on his waist.
He read us the riot act, naming about five felonies that would have us in jail for years. I felt close to passing out.
Then he looked at us closely and said, "I don't know you. If you boys were troublemakers, I'd know you."
So he took us home. My mother was back by then, wondering where we were...and where her car was. The trooper explained the situation and ascertained that she'd be willing to pay the damages. He probably also noted the blood in her eyes and the mop handle clenched in her hands. At that point I wasn't sure jail wouldn't have been a better option.
So he said, "Well, ma'am, I'll leave these boys in your custody."
And we both finished high school, went to college, and had successful Air Force careers, rather than having criminal records.
Looking back on that day, I don't think that police officer really knew all the troublemakers in the area. I think he did know how to read faces, though.
Good story, thanks. I was pulled over for speeding more than a few times when I was young, once in my parents driveway, but the great majority of times I was let go with a warning. Sometime I'll have to tell you my story with my buddy in Germany. My buddy was driving, old enough in the states but not Germany, so when he took out an off-duty local policeman going 90 MPH on a motorcycle, I told the police I was driving, and so began a saga that I don't have the time to tell right now. Fortunately, the off-duty policeman survived, ended up in the hospital room next to my buddy's who I had to pull out from behind the wheel. He ended up with amnesia, a broken collar bone and broken ankle. Put our trip through Europe on a bit of a detour you might say...
A good deal later in life, after decades of no police encounters of note, I ran into a real asswhip with a quota to fill, and that one cost me, but I don't have the time or temperament to tell that tale either, because that one still really peeses me off to this day, near 10 years later.
When your kids turn 18, what stops them from buying a shotgun? Now they have a gun and no one has educated them about the use, function and accuracy.
Once an adult, you the parent have no say.
Your concern, not mine. I have more concern about either of my kids buying a motorcycle or maybe a boat, but they are both intelligent enough to learn how to handle whatever they choose to get into. I doubt getting into guns will be a choice either of them will make, certainly no indication of any such interest so far anyway, and I say all the better. Again, not like handling a gun is any sort of rocket science in any case despite what you gun "experts" always like to go on about...
[quote=LearnMe;44850782]Your concern, not mine. I have more concern about either of my kids buying a motorcycle or maybe a boat, but they are both intelligent enough to learn how to handle whatever they choose to get into. I doubt getting into guns will be a choice either of them will make, certainly no indication of any such interest so far anyway, and I say all the better. Again, not like handling a gun is any sort of rocket science in any case despite what you gun "experts" always like to go on about...[/quote]
I'm sure there are about 1200 people that might disagree with you on that one, and that was just so far this year. Keep in mind , common sense isn't so common. I'm sure you have spent some time on this board, that much should be obvious.
A small percentage of citizens (regardless of race, creed or color, but primarily male - aged 16 to 30) commit an outsized percentage of all crimes.
Lock them up when they offend (what we call 'incapacitation') and they can't commit crimes anymore. The crime rates drop like a stone, the violence level drops precipitously, and the victimology rates drop proportionally. The down side is that incarceration rates rise. We saw it between the late 1980s and 2010.
That, however, is politically unpallatable. Hence, the recent revision of sentencing guidelines that releases these offenders early; the prohibition on 'stop and frisk' procedures and the refusal to engage in other 'broken windows' community policing schemes. Not surprisingly, crime rates have risen; violence levels have skyrocketed and victimology rates are headed north.
This ain't splitting atoms - it is actually pretty simple. The problem is that everyone wants to inject race, sexism, drugs, gun control, ill-defined assault weapons, police behavior, and all of society's other conundrums into the mix, which confounds the issue enough so that anyone with an agenda can twist it to their fit their argument - whatever that may be.
Most revision of sentencing guidelines has come about with regard to drug offenses, as our society has become a little less accepting of locking people up too long for drug offenses, but no doubt minimum sentences even for gun-involved crime has come under scrutiny as well. For the layman, the issue is as simple as you put it, but dig a little deeper, and you find this is a rather complicated issue that doesn't lend so well to broad simple dictates. Read a bit more about this here for example...
Who came up with mandatory minimums?
In the United States, mandatory minimum sentences for criminal convictions have been around since the 18th century, when Congress declared a slate of federal crimes automatically punishable by death. It was not until 1951, when Congress passed the Narcotic Drug Import and Export Act, that America saw mandatory minimum sentences applied to crimes related to social problems, mainly drugs. A handful of states subsequently enacted their own mandatory minimums for drug convictions, the most well-known of which are New York’s decidedly harsh 1973 Rockefeller drug laws.
Gun crimes weren’t covered by federal mandatory minimums until the Reagan-era Armed Career Criminal Act passed in 1984. The sentences usually apply to gun crimes committed in the course of another crime, especially drug trafficking or a violent offense. Possessing a gun while selling drugs can add anywhere from five to 30 years to a felon’s sentence, depending on prior convictions and the type of weapon. According to a 2011 report prepared for Congress by the United States Sentencing Commission, mandatory minimums for gun crimes are the penalty most commonly added to an original charge.
Far less common are mandatory minimums solely for illegal possession of a gun. The Armed Career Criminal Act applied strict 15-year penalties for those caught in possession of a gun after being convicted three times or more of certain drug or violent crimes, but the Supreme Court has invalidated portions of those criteria as being too vague.
That explains a lot, just another ignorant liberal who "learned" everything he knows about guns from Hollywood and video games and thinks that's all he, and worse his kids, needs to know.
A classic comment born from the opposite perspective that can't imagine a world or life lived without guns, also as if you need to be a brain surgeon to use a gun.
"Explains a lot," for a numbskull perhaps...
I made reference to the movies and video games, because that is obviously where we are all exposed to guns whether we like it or not, just like we might see fast cars, drugs and fast women, but somehow most mature adults manage these dangers and issues well beyond what we see in the movies. Give it a rest already, please.
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