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I'm a law-abiding citizen and I both love guns as a device and treasure its value for self-defense. However, I don't understand how craptastic our gun control laws are and how they vary so much from state to state or even municipality to municipality.
My feeling is that law-abiding and sane citizens should have guns if they choose to do so. I'm veering towards encouraging firearm training for anyone who wants it as part of our education system, but as part of that, there must be some kind of certification program, even at a baseline level, that you know how to keep, use, and maintain a firearm. It makes no sense to me that controls and regulations can be so lax from state to state and it feels to me like it almost defeats the purpose of having a firearm in self-defense because the regulations literally makes it easy for a law-abiding citizen to be outgunned because I am not going to spend that significant amount of my income on guns alone. Not having stricter gun controls to me looks like a baseline arms race for self-defense.
I'm not going to go out and do anything stupid with my firearms. They are for sport and self-defense. I do not care if my firearms and ammunition are registered--I prefer it. I wish it were far more widespread to have such strict regulations. If you have a remotely criminal history, then you need to bend way over backwards to have access. If you can't demonstrate a basic lack of ability of how a gun should be operated and kept, you need to bone up on the basics and make sure you prove it to have a gun. If you are dumb as a brick, I'm sorry, you should not have a gun and there should be something to prevent you from owning one.
There needs to be accountability. The guns and ammunition needs to be traceable. I love my fellow citizens as much as I could, not physically for the most part, but you are not entitled without knowledge and trust to own and operate an elegant machine that can so greatly screw things up for others to such a great extent, and by extension, paint people like me with the same stripe in the same broad stroke for non gun-owners as an idiot or psychopath (that's fine, that's your prerogative)--I am not part of the idiot or psychopathic squad (and if I were, take my firearms away, sure).
There are a lot of developed countries with wonderful legacies of gun ownership and maintenance and sane laws and they have managed to keep things in check by having sensible regulation. What is it that is that prevents us from doing so? It seems so incredibly insane to me that we as gun owners cannot at least greatly lessen the chances of firearms slipping though the cracks when it's obvious the cracks we've set up in our laws are giant, gaping chasms.
Who the hell is profiting from these laxities?
I have consistently stated that the way things worked here in New York before the SAFE Act was a good medium that both ensures safety, and also protects 2nd Amendment rights. The SAFE Act is a step too far, but it's also clear that the Southern/rural state approach of handing out guns like candy doesn't work either. We have too many people that own guns and cannot safely or responsibly handle them. People who are mentally ill should not be able to buy or posses guns. Oh and don't even get me started on the open carry dummies.
Is there anyone else here who is a gun owner and thinks our gun control laws are ridiculously lax?
The laws are not ridiculously lax.
They are merely ridiculous.
If anything has become obvious in the last 50+ years, it is that so-called "gun control" laws do not work.
They fail, every time, to produce the results predicted by their advocates.
Whey someone declares a "gun free zone", that area often becomes a haven for people who want to rob, assault, or kill others. It's a place they can go to do their deeds while being sure no innocent man can shoot back.
When some legislature restricts what gun(s) people can own, it turns out that only law-abiding citizens obey them - and the law-abiding citizens weren't the problem. Lawbreakers simply find other ways to get guns, and often wind up being the only ones still armed, with the law-abiding at their mercy.
"Gun control" laws are more accurately called "victim disarmament laws".
And those, by their nature, are completely ridiculous.
When the Constitution was adopted and the Bill of Rights later ratified, the people who adopted them included a command that since an armed and disciplined population was necessary, government could have NO SAY in who could or couldn't own and carry a gun.
And now for the last 50+ years, people trying to use govt to restrict people's guns have proven to us why: Because using govt to control weapons simply cannot succeed, and produces results worse than govt keeping its hands off. Govt is far better off punishing illegal USAGE of weapons, than inventing "illegal ownership and carrying of weapons".
The people who wrote and ratified those documents knew that every attempt by govt to restrict people's ownership of weapons, left the population in overall worse condition than having no such govt restrictions at all. It didn't leave the society perfect - criminals would always unjustly harm people. But govt restricting law-abiding people's ownership, would inevitably result in MORE oppression and harm to those people - whether by the criminals or by govt itself - than letting everyone decided for himself if he should own and carry.
People who think "gun control" laws work, have simply not looked up the results of those laws. If they had, they would stop pushing those laws, for the good of society.
We seem to have quite a few people trying to guess how effective govt control of this aspect or that aspect of the right to keep and bear arms would be.
I have pointed out that NO part of "gun control" has ever been effective. It has consistently been either useless, or counterproductive, with society becoming overall less safe and under greater threat due to the "gun control" restrictions.
No one has challenged this idea. Yet here we have people still acting like govt control of people's guns is a good idea.
Maybe La La Land really DID win the Oscar?? A lot of forum members, who apparently reside there, are putting on quite an act.
Don't you think you should refute the idea that all govt "gun control" legislation is ineffective or worse, before you start planning the wonderful things you intend to achieve by giving the government authority to decide who can or can't own a gun, and what kind(s) of guns the govt should restrict?
We seem to have quite a few people trying to guess how effective govt control of this aspect or that aspect of the right to keep and bear arms would be.
I have pointed out that NO part of "gun control" has ever been effective. It has consistently been either useless, or counterproductive, with society becoming overall less safe and under greater threat due to the "gun control" restrictions.
No one has challenged this idea. Yet here we have people still acting like govt control of people's guns is a good idea.
The anti-gun nuts have somehow come to the conclusion that restricting the rights of the people that aren't the problem (legal gun owners) will somehow solve the issues of the people that are the problem (criminals).
I can't imagine there's a single criminal that paused and gave thought before committing their crime about whether or not what he was doing was illegal.
Rational thought doesn't exist in the anti-gunners mind, all that is there is fear of an inanimate object.
The anti-gun nuts have somehow come to the conclusion that restricting the rights of the people that aren't the problem (legal gun owners) will somehow solve the issues of the people that are the problem (criminals).
I can't imagine there's a single criminal that paused and gave thought before committing their crime about whether or not what he was doing was illegal.
Rational thought doesn't exist in the anti-gunners mind, all that is there is fear of an inanimate object.
Yes, the blinders-on anti-gun people persist in believing we're better off with the govt controlling law-abiding people's guns.
But I'm surprised to hear even the supposedly pro-gun-rights people, saying that all these gun control laws should be eliminated "...except for that one.". They might be referring to a law forbidding mental defectives from owning a gun, or maybe to government restrictions on owning a full-auto rifle (machine gun), or whatever their chosen exception is today.
In other words, they still support the idea that government should have some say in who should and shouldn't own a gun, and/or have authority to forbid law-abiding people from owning certain guns.
And these are the people that supposedly support the right of the people to keep and bear arms!
Have they found anything that refutes what I said in the post above? ANY government regulation of our weapons is more harmful than no regulation on them, since (a) they don't work, and (b) government always increases its restrictions over time.
Great. Now we have to take everybody with a serious mental illness to court?
Yep.... If you want to deprive someone of a Constitutional right, that's what you've got to do.
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Fantastic. And this is why they call people with these far-right opinions " gun nuts" because there is zero logic in this.
I didn't know the ACLU, numerous mental health professionals, and a dozen mental health organizations were considered "far-right gun nuts", but's it's your narrative, so spin it however you want.
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Originally Posted by NLVgal
That's emotion talking.
No, that's the 5th Amendment to the Constitution talking.
People who believe that the Sandy Hook massacre (the one that happened in Connecticut with all of the first graders) never actually happened. They are the most vile people imaginable.
You guys seem to live in alternate universe where the only people out running around are mentally sound. We are talking about people who are too sick to hold down a job, or even manage their own disability check. They maybe should not be running around, but they ARE, and we can only act on the reality that we live in.
This debate is starting to remind me of the birth control debate where some people keep insisting that instead of providing birth control, we should just expect everyone who isn't ready to have a child to stop humping. That's is never going to happen. Maybe it should, but it is not going to, so you mitigate the situation be cause that is reality.
We just don't live in should.
Should? It appears that is the premise of your arguments. There is reality and there is should, could, might, maybe that is the basis of most gun laws. Anyone can call the cops on someone and if 5150 they pull their guns. It is VERY expensive to get them back at that point.
People who believe that the Sandy Hook massacre (the one that happened in Connecticut with all of the first graders) never actually happened. They are the most vile people imaginable.
Oh please, some people don't believe we landed on the moon either. It doesn't make them vile because they don't believe what happened in history. That's especially prominent with religion.
People who believe that the Sandy Hook massacre (the one that happened in Connecticut with all of the first graders) never actually happened. They are the most vile people imaginable.
Ahh, ok. I'm aware of the incident, didn't know there was a conspiracy theory group.
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