Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Kids setting fires isn't only about matches, but it's still a damn good idea to keep them out of reach.
Well that's pretty obvious.
The same applies to the family medicine chest, household chemicals, flammable liquids, the liquor cabinet, power tools, baseball bats, golf clubs, an axe or any other object/substance that children could harm themselves or others with.
Should a license, registration, criminal background check, and a safe storage law be required for those items as well? Should every residency in the United States be subject to an unscheduled surprise inspection by authorities to ensure that any and all items that could cause harm to others be stored safely, criminal penalties intact?
Have you ever in your life left something, ANYTHING around that some unauthorized person could get ahold of which could be used in any way to harm others? I'm willing to bet the answer is; yes? I don't think that there is anyone that hasn't?
Just recently in a small city of 44,000 in Arizona a police chief, A POLICE CHIEF, left his Glock 19 in a restroom stall while he was changing his clothes. He didn't realize it was missing until several days later. He was suspended for two days without pay and required to take a firearms safety course. The gun has not been recovered as of yet.
Taking it one step further should the parents be held criminally liable if their child got ahold of a book of matches and either accidentally or intentionally set the neighbors house on fire? Should the parents be held criminally liable if their teenage son or daughter got into the liquor cabinet took the family car or their own car, got drunk, into an accident and killed or injured someone? Or even just taking the car without their permission and getting into an accident, drunk or not? How about if the kid got ahold of dad's golf clubs and beat his friend over the head with it? Remember Martha Moxley who was beaten to death by Micheal Skakel with a six-iron golf club?
Except that the situation of using a firearm for that which it was designed for...the remote infliction of harm upon a person isn't going to improve with there being more of them.
Acknowledging there is a problem with American society, as there may well be with other societies, but doing nothing to address that while adding more firearms into the mix does nothing to mitigate the problem, it exacerbates it.
Societal problem + more guns = worse societal problems.
We could stop all sales of firearms today, and their would still be 300 million plus in circulation. I think sales figures are something like a little over a million a year. That little amount isn't causing our issues.
The NRA has everything to do with the tremendous increase in guns per capita. They've become salesmen, using fear tactics (Obama's gonna take your guns!!!!) to increase sales to previously unheard of highs. No matter who's buying them, and it is NOT kids because that's illegal, the fact that there are so many more of them around (and owned by losers who don't keep them safe) is the reason they have become the choice for unbalanced teenagers to do the most damage with the least effort.
I don't doubt that some of the nutcases would have used fertilizer bombs had they been as easy to obtain as guns. Obtain, mind you, doesn't mean buy, it means "borrow" from an adult within their circle. We are for regulations that would make guns harder for these kids to get their hands on. Not for taking away guns.
I have a gun collection. They are in my safe when not in use and not available for any kid to steal. Obviously too many other people aren't as cautious as me. When that happens (too many idiots doing too much damage) in society, we use the mechanism of government via regulation to correct it. Unless we're idiots too. License, insurance and registration. Period.
Sorry, I still disagree with you on the NRA thing. I've been a firearms owner for 30 years and haven't been a part or paid attention to the NRA the majority of them.
I will say, I never owned an AR until the politicians started squawking about "assault weapons" bans....now I have ...well let's just say, more than one.
In the most of rest of the western world, children and adolescents can't get their hands on high powered semi automatic weapons, whilst most gun masaacres are carried out by adults outside of the US.
The US is free to make up it's own gun laws but lets not pretend that access to certain weapons is not an issue.
The Dunblane school massacre in Scotland was carried out by a 43 year old man, a man who had access to extremely powerful weaponry, whilst Hungerford was carried out by a 27 year old, indeed in most of the world massacres carried out by children or at schools are not really an issue, whilst guns are not a hot topic of debate or a big political issue in terms of elections.
This is illegal. We have laws against this happening.
What are guns built for? What is the purpose of making them capable of firing a projectile? What is that projectile supposed to do? You are not being honest with yourself if you answer anything more than, "Guns are built to do grave bodily harm." They are. How YOU want to USE them does not change that.
Answer me this: Why is a gun necessary for personal protection? If you answer that it's a deterrent, then tell me why. You can't dance around the fact that me aiming a gun at a person, no matter the circumstances, carries the implicit threat of grave bodily harm. Why is everyone so afraid to say that?
Why are you so hung up on the "purpose" or " what it's designed for" ? It is still the end user that decides what to do with it.
In an earlier post you mentioned how easy it is to buy a firearm. I asked if you could tell me what makes it so easy to buy. What does it take in your state to buy a handgun. Can you answer that ?
Do keep in mind that a significant percentage of legal gun owners own multiple guns, so a straight "guns per capita" isn't quite so meaningful.
Also, if one looks at ownership percentage vs gun murders for say Texas and California, two states with very different gun ownership laws:
Gun Ownership (% of pop): Cal 20% Tx 36%
Gun Murders (2010 per 100000): Cal 3.4 Tx 3.2
So despite the fact that I can walk into a local sporting goods store and walk out with an AR-15 with a dozen 30rd mags and 2000 rounds of ammo with a simple background check here in Tx while my brother in California has waiting periods, mag capacity limits, guns modified to restrict usage, etc the gun murder rates are roughly the same. You find even more glaring differences in states like Wyoming (56% gun ownership, <1 gun murders per cap) and Maryland (21% gun ownership, 5.1 gun murders per cap).
Again, we will solve nothing if we don't address the larger societal issues at play. Just random political/ideological victories while the real problems get kicked down the road.
I never have and never will, suggest that we shouldn't address other societal issues that are at play. But to deny that the proliferation of guns in America has nothing to do with the issue is putting your head in the sand. Also, the issue isn't violent crimes. We are talking about school shootings. Violent crimes are way down, and society has to be thanked for that if you're going to blame society for school shootings. Right?
What are guns built for? What is the purpose of making them capable of firing a projectile? What is that projectile supposed to do? You are not being honest with yourself if you answer anything more than, "Guns are built to do grave bodily harm." They are. How YOU want to USE them does not change that.
Answer me this: Why is a gun necessary for personal protection? If you answer that it's a deterrent, then tell me why. You can't dance around the fact that me aiming a gun at a person, no matter the circumstances, carries the implicit threat of grave bodily harm. Why is everyone so afraid to say that?
"Guns are built to do grave bodily harm." So what? They are, I'm certainly not afraid to say that. But it really is none of your God d**n business how people use them for any LAWFUL purpose. Target shooting, self protection, hunting, collecting, whatever.
Answer me this: If a gun is not necessary for personal protection, then why do the police need them? By your logic they can just carry a "billy club" and a whistle.
The implicit threat of grave bodily harm is exactly the reason why guns are necessary for personal protection. Yet you just can't seem to be capable of figuring that out? They don't call them equalizers for nothing. It put's an 80 year old on equal footing with some doped up 20 year old street thug who's trying to rob or even kill them. It's a hell of a lot better and more of a deterrent than a cell phone and a call to 911 while hiding in a closet waiting for the police to arrive. Or maybe you can use some kind sympathetic words to protect yourself from criminal attack? How about: You're a bad boy, I'm gonna' tell my mommy on you? That should scare the hell out of them.
The NRA has everything to do with the tremendous increase in guns per capita. Period.
Wrong, here's your answer. PERIOD!
Quote:
"If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them . . . Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in, I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren't here."--Diane Feinstein, U.S. Senator from California
In an op-ed published in the New York Times Tuesday, the 97-year-old former Supreme Court justice argues that advocates for stricter gun control legislation should take the next step and demand the removal of the Second Amendment entirely.--http://time.com/5216782/john-paul-stevens-repeal-second-amendment/
"Instead, we should ban possession of military-style semiautomatic assault weapons, we should buy back such weapons from all who choose to abide by the law, and we should criminally prosecute any who choose to defy it by keeping their weapons," he wrote. "The ban would not apply to law enforcement agencies or shooting clubs."--Eric Swalwell
“I believe…..this is my final word……I believe that I’m supporting the Constitution of the United States which does not give the right for any individual to own a handgun….”--Jan Schakowsky, U.S. Representative from Illinois
“No, we’re not looking at how to control criminals … we’re talking about banning the AK-47 and semi-automatic guns.”--Howard Metzenbaum, former U.S. Senator
“If a bill to ban handguns came to the house floor, I would vote for it.”--Pete Stark, U.S. Representative from California
” …we need much stricter gun control, and eventually should bar the ownership of handguns”--William Clay, U.S. Representative from Missouri
“Banning guns is an idea whose time has come.”--Joseph Biden, Vice President of the United States
“I shortly will introduce legislation banning the sale, manufacture or possession of handguns (with exceptions for law enforcement and licensed target clubs)… . It is time to act. We cannot go on like this. Ban them!”--John Chafee, Former U.S. Senator from Rhode Island
“We have to start with a ban on the manufacturing and import of handguns. From there we register the guns which are currently owned, and follow that with additional bans and acquisitions of handguns and rifles with no sporting purpose.”--Major Owens, U.S. Representative from New York
“My staff and I right now are working on a comprehensive gun-control bill. We don’t have all the details, but for instance, regulating the sale and purchase of bullets. Ultimately, I would like to see the manufacture and possession of handguns banned except for military and police use. But that’s the endgame. And in the meantime, there are some specific things that we can do with legislation.”--Bobby Rush, U.S. Representative from Illinois
“Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe. The National Guard fulfills the militia mentioned in the Second amendment. Citizens no longer need to protect the states or themselves.”--Dianne Feinstein, U.S. Senator from California
“All of this has to be understood as part of a process leading ultimately to a treaty that will give an international body power over our domestic laws.”--Charles Pashayan, U.S. Representative from California
“Confiscation could be an option…mandatory sale to the state could be an option.”--Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York
San Diego’s [police chief] Lansdowne, who plays an active role in the western region of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), said in the interview it may take a generation, but guns will eventually be taken off the streets through new laws.
"My view of guns is simple. I hate guns and I cannot imagine why anyone would want to own one. If I had my way, guns for sport would be registered, and all other guns would be banned."-- Deborah Prothrow-Stith (Dean of Harvard School of Public Health)
“I don’t believe people should to be able to own guns.”-- Barack Obama (during conversation with economist and author John Lott Jr. at the University of Chicago Law School in the 1990s)
"A gun-control movement worthy of the name would insist that President Clinton move beyond his proposals for controls ... and immediately call on Congress to pass far-reaching industry regulation like the Firearms Safety and Consumer Protection Act ... [which] would give the Treasury Department health and safety authority over the gun industry, and any rational regulator with that authority would ban handguns."
- Josh Sugarmann (executive director of the Violence Policy Center)
"We need a new paradigm because both sides are in the corner and they could come to the middle," Schumer said. "Those of who are pro-gun control have to admit that there is a Second Amendment right to bear arms... once we establish that there is a constitutional right to bear arms we should have the right admit, and maybe they'll be more willing to admit, that no amendment is absolute after all."--Chuck Schumer, U.S. Senator from New York
"We can't just stand behind you and say we support our men and women in law enforcement community and then not have the laws on the books that help you do your job every day," he said. "And it's time as a city we have an assault weapon ban. And it's time as a state that we have an assault weapon ban. And it's time as a country that we have an assault weapon ban."--Rahm Emanuel, Mayor Chicago, Illinois
"We need to do something, at the very least, perhaps, about the high-capacity magazines that were used in this crime."--Richard Blumenthal, U.S. Senator from Connecticut
“I don’t care if you want to hunt. I don’t care if you think it’s your right. I say, ‘Sorry.’ It is 1999. We have had enough as a nation. You are not allowed to own a gun, and if you do own a gun I think you should go to prison.--Rosie O'Donnell, Comedian
"We cannot let a minority of people—and that’s what it is, it is a minority of people—hold a viewpoint that terrorizes the majority of people." On Australia's gun ban "So I think that’s worth considering," Clinton said. "I don’t know enough details to tell you how we would do it or how it would work. But certainly, the Australian example is worth considering."----Hillary Clinton
George Stephanopoulos pushed Hillary Clinton twice on whether people have a right to own guns on ABC News’ "This Week": “But that's not what I asked. I said do you believe that their conclusion that an individual's right to bear arms is a constitutional right?” Clinton could only say: “If it is a constitutional right...”
"I can find nothing in the Second Amendment’s text, history, or underlying rationale that could warrant characterizing it as ‘fundamental’ insofar as it seeks to protect the keeping and bearing of arms for private self-defense purposes.”--Steven Breyer, Supreme Court Justice
Quote:
82% Democrats Favor Banning All Semi-Autos, 44% Want All Guns ... www.truthrevolt.org/news/82-democrats-favor...
Next question asked about banning all handguns, which wasn’t popular among Republicans or Independents. But Democrats seem to like the idea: Forty-four percent of Dems favor banning all handguns, proof that the party ultimately want only the police and military to have weapons.
Poll: 82% of Dems favor banning all semiautomatic weapons ...
hotair.com/archives/2018/03/01/poll-82-dems...
Poll: 82% of Dems favor banning all semiautomatic weapons, evenly split on banning all guns. Allahpundit Posted at 9:21 pm on March 1, 2018
Survey: Majority of Democrats want to ban semi-automatics ... www.washingtonexaminer.com/survey-majority-of...
Eighty-two percent of surveyed Democrats say they favor a ban on semi-automatics, which would include not just rifles like the one used in the Feb. 14 Parkland massacre, which claimed the lives of
In the Happyland Fire of 1990, 87 people were killed with what was a dollars worth of gasoline a container and a match. I don't think that it could get any easier than that? It worked quite well for Julio González. That's 29 more people than what Paddock killed with a bunch of AR 15's equipped with bump stocks firing into a crowd of 22,000 from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel.
We've always had nutty people and true psychotics around, but the access to gasoline, containers and matches is a large link in the chain that should be broken, well, as best as possible. Your logic not mine.
Right, these do happen, but high powered guns are killing more people than gasoline. It's just a fact. It's not what most school shooters are using.
It's an object like a knife or a bow. How it's used is up to the person. My garage is full of stuff that can kill you if I wanted it to. Saws, poisons, knives, guns, gun powder, diesel, fertilizer. They all have a purpose and none of them will ever kill a person in my lifetime. (Hopefully)
I also don't lock my firearms up because they would be useless for home defense if they were. My neighbor was just beaten to death in a home invasion robbery and I don't intend on that ever being me.
I would say the same thing for a bow. That's what it's for. A knife? That has purpose beyond injuring/killing, right? It's a broader tool. Yes, it can be used to injure or kill--but there's not the same level of blade worship as there is with guns. There isn't the same lobbying machine saying that everyone has a god-given right to arm themselves with knives for personal protection. There is a powerful narrative that we NEED guns, that guns make us safe, that guns are necessary to living free in America. There is not the same narrative around knives.
I used to keep a hammer next to my bed, when I lived alone in a sketchy neighborhood. That was so that if someone broke in, I could swing it at their head and stop them from hurting me. I knew what it was for. I had a cop work with me to show me how to swing it to do maximum damage. I was honest with myself about what my intention would be. That was the only way I knew I could swing that hammer. I couldn't aim a gun at someone & shoot them, but I could swing a hammer. A gun would do me no good. A hammer might.
I think it's important to be honest about why we have/use guns. If it's to protect ourselves, what does that mean? REALLY mean. It is a deterrent? Okay, WHAT is the deterrent? It's that the gun could kill. That's it.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
