American guns strike again

[Theo]

health care is better in united states is fantastic, if you are a white person, if you're black, hispanic then you're teeth will be as bad as the english.

From my observation, black Americans tend to have the best teeth of all. But maybe it's just that white teeth look better contrasting with darker skin?

 

[Theo]

And The Indians are a baseball team from Cleveland, baseball being what we played when I grew up.

The Tribe dropped to 6-4 today thanks to the f***ing Yankees.

But...they still have the second fewest losses so far in the American League. Watch out for an Indian uprising this season!!

 

[Theo]

Even the comedies you quote from (and what a lovely quote, why not put it on the condolence thread?) are about guns.

Your nation is gun obsessed. That was my first and only point.
You proved me right.

Yes. After years of living in the good old USA, Morrissey got gun obsessed too.

 

[WinkWink]

so you cite an example of how citizens with guns stopped crime--in this case a violent act. But this is just one outcome. Try living in a heavily populated city where guns are freely carried (think Middle East). would you feel comfortable going to parties where majority are packing guns? (gangs do and shootouts occur often). A society of 300 million people packing guns is not a society we want.

Ok...so it may somewhat work out in the country-side (wild wild west did have a lot of open space...a lot of personal space), but it will be highly tragic in heavily populated areas. and think of all the wrong hands.

but regardless, i don't believe in a total ban because there is a lot more to this debate, which I have already pointed out in this thread...do you at least agree in banning semi or fully automatic guns?

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

If this had happened a week ago, Imus wouldn't have been fired.

me laugh
you a funny fascist

 

[Worm]

Theo, your world is very scary.

"Now remember, son, when you're at school and the bad man comes to massacre you and your friends, what do you do?"

"Take out the Glock Mommy put in my lunchbox and pop a cap in his ass!"

"Excellent, son! You can stay up another hour to read the Drudge Report"

Arming the student body isn't the answer. Smart, strictly enforced laws, better trained and equipped campus security, and a bit of prevention-- including, but not limited to, having a sit-down heart-to-heart with a "loner" who writes plays involving "macabre violence"-- are preferable to gunfights in the campus quad.

The story you posted is nice. I'll bet an outcome like that occurs maybe one in twenty times. It's also good to consider that no matter how many statistics one may 'drudge' up, at present there is no accounting system for the innumerable cases in which tragedy was avoided precisely because no guns were in play. As I said I don't favor bans, but an "eye for an eye" solution is fit only for Dirty Harry.

 

[the more you explore me!]

Theo, your world is very scary.

"Now remember, son, when you're at school and the bad man comes to massacre you and your friends, what do you do?"

"Take out the Glock Mommy put in my lunchbox and pop a cap in his ass!"

"Excellent, son! You can stay up another hour to read the Drudge Report"

Arming the student body isn't the answer. Smart, strictly enforced laws, better trained and equipped campus security, and a bit of prevention-- including, but not limited to, having a sit-down heart-to-heart with a "loner" who writes plays involving "macabre violence"-- are preferable to gunfights in the campus quad.

The story you posted is nice. I'll bet an outcome like that occurs maybe one in twenty times. It's also good to consider that no matter how many statistics one may 'drudge' up, at present there is no accounting system for the innumerable cases in which tragedy was avoided precisely because no guns were in play. As I said I don't favor bans, but an "eye for an eye" solution is fit only for Dirty Harry.

i think you should be president!

 

[hairdresser]

i think you should stop kissing bum because your lips are starting to go brown.

 

[HIM]

i think you should stop kissing bum because your lips are starting to go brown.

you're so narrow-minded. brown lips are where it's at.

 

[hairdresser]

pull your pud you musely liking bon jella arse smacking chimp.

 

[the more you explore me!]

i think you should stop kissing bum because your lips are starting to go brown.

you should see what i'll do to become vice president.

 

[hairdresser]

i bet you f***ing tosser, go toss your old mother off in landan!

 

[the more you explore me!]

i bet you f***ing tosser, go toss your old mother off in landan!

hahahahhahhahah

 

[Bluebirds]

Interesting debate. Especially Hairdresser's contribution.

I was looking for Mike Joyce's moved comment which I seemingly can't find but I have to agree with the sentiment of his first line. I know why the media is fixated with these shootings but what about the 30 Iraqis who meet a similar death seemingly every day from suicide bombers? Who and where are the memorial services for them? Most of them probably had a future and a life and a familly.....

In Britain, specificallly London, a lot of the black community blame the government for the spate of gun crimes calling it a conspiracy and a way of keeping them in place. This does admittedly sound absurd and we live in an age of conspiracy theories but how do those guns get onto the streets if we in the UK live in a gun-free society??

 

[Grim O'Grady]

Yes. After years of living in the good old USA, Morrissey got gun obsessed too.

how lucky then that he moved back to the safety of Europe & took up this

instead

love

Grim

 

[Dave]

Ha! Score! very good, I had never thought of this.

As scary as a completely armed society would be, Theo has a point. Give the devil his due. I lived in Arizona where you can (could? may have changed) carry a firearm on your person if it was visible. Imagine my surprise the first time I was in a convenience store behind a person wearing a holstered pistol. To me pistols and convenience stores = robbery, but no, the guy paid for his items and left.

As far as fist fights turning into gunfights, that is, frankly, stupid. What actually happens when two people have a conflict, both of whom are known to have access to a deadly weapon, and neither of whom is mentally unstable, is that they talk. Just because I have a gun doesn't mean I want to shoot someone or see a gun as a solution to a dispute.

The problem with banning guns, first of all, is that they are out there already. While it might be a better planet without them, the fact is that they do have a purpose. Unfortunately they appeal to idiots and people that feel impotent and victimized by society or whatever they feel. I'm talking about these people that shoot up their workplace or murder their children so their wife can't get custody of them. (Yes, their wife. Yes (Robby ) women kill, and yes, women use guns, sometimes, but the more famous cases involve, not direct action with a gun but even more obscene to me, killing with bare hands or strapping them into a car and drowning them.)

Maybe gun owners should get badges like those safety awards they give to some industrial workers. 35 years without shooting anyone.

Sorry, I realize I am not taking the correct side in this debate, but I think ideal solutions don't always work in reality.

 

[Cassius]

Sorry, I realize I am not taking the correct side in this debate, but I think ideal solutions don't always work in reality.

Of course not. That's why they are ideal.

 

[Theo]

so you cite an example of how citizens with guns stopped crime--in this case a violent act. But this is just one outcome.

I've heard that something like half a million home invasions are foiled every year thanks to people owning guns. And there have been other school shooters stopped by others having guns. At a high school in Pearl, Mississippi, in 1997, a 16 year old started shooting and "assistant principal of Pearl High, Joel Myrick, pulled a gun from his car parked off campus, intercepted Woodham [the shooter] and held him until police arrived." Also, at a school shooting in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, the "attack ended after a nearby merchant used a shotgun to force the attacker to desist."

Is there an outcome you can cite where a school shooter was confronted by someone else with a gun and that wasn't a good thing?

Try living in a heavily populated city where guns are freely carried (think Middle East).

If I lived in Israel, surrounded by all those mentally-sick Palestinkian and other radical Islamic terrorists (that is, surrounded by a never-ending supply of people as mentally-sick and as obsessed with martyrdom as the Virginia Tech psycho is in his video), you better believe I'd want an arsenal. And, in fact, Israel has successfully placed armed people on airplanes and in schools to prevent attacks. Maybe that's why no one hijacks Israeli planes and crashes them into skyscrapers?

I don't much think about school shooters or terrorists when I am happy I'm allowed to own guns. I think of events like the hurricane in New Orleans, where anarchy followed the wake of a natural disaster. And I think the old cliche is correct: It's better to have a gun and not need one than to need a gun and not have one. I thought about this when the power grid went out a few years back and people were scrambling for the last bottles of water in stores. You, OTOH, trust the government to always take care of you under any circumstances that may arise in your life. This is especially odd since you have, in the past, referred to the U.S. government as descending into fascism. I prefer being able to fend for myself.

Ok...so it may somewhat work out in the country-side (wild wild west did have a lot of open space...a lot of personal space), but it will be highly tragic in heavily populated areas. and think of all the wrong hands.

Yes, different places should have different laws according to their problems, situations, and the will of their people. So why is it that you understand this but appear to want the federal government to impose uniform gun laws for places as different as, say, New York City and Alaska? New York City already has stricter gun laws than Alaska. Alaska doesn't have rat-infested, crime-ridden, over-populated cities like you live in. Leave them alone. I have no problem with New York's gun laws as long as they're in line with the 2nd Amendment. You have a fight on your hands when you don't respect the Constitution, or when you don't respect our system of federalism.

 

[Theo]

but regardless, i don't believe in a total ban because there is a lot more to this debate, which I have already pointed out in this thread...do you at least agree in banning semi or fully automatic guns?

Machine guns have had extremely strict restrcitions in America since the 1930s, you need a federal license to possess one, and since the 1980s it has been illegal to manufacture new machine guns for civilians. To lawfully possess a machine gun, you have to jump through many hoops with the ATF, getting special permission, undergoing an extensive backround check, submitting fingerprints, etc. So I don't know why you bring up fully automatic guns.

A semi-automatic gun differs from a fully automatic in that you have to squeeze the trigger each time you want to fire a bullet. Clinton imposed a ban on only certain types of semi-automatic guns which they referred to as "assault weapons." These assault weapons were not more powerful than other semi-automatic guns, and were used in almost no crimes, but they look really scary to people who find guns "icky." The reason Clinton pushed for this ban was to make the soccer moms he had whipped up feel better. The ban expired and crime involving those weapons hasn't spiked.

But you wanna go further than that - further than most mainstream Democrats are suggesting - and say so in a way where you think it's just common sense. Do you realize how big and diverse a category of guns that is and how many millions of law-abiding citizens you'd be imposing on?

We all had a laugh when John Kerry sponsored a law banning certain semi-automatics, such as semi-automatic rifles with pistol grips. On the campaign trail he publicly and happily accepted a semi-automatic hunting rifle as a gift and it had what would be defined as a pistol grip under the law he sponsored. Both the manner he acquired the rifle and his possession of that rifle would've been illegal under the very law he had sponsored, but he didn't know it.

The people advocating banning things should at least demonstrate that they have researched what specifically they want banned, be able to explain what the compelling need for the ban is, and what they think the ban will accomplish beyond making you feel good inside or that you have "stuck it" to the "gun nuts" in the "fly-over states" whom you're so prejudiced against.

 

[Dave]

Maybe that's why no one hijacks Israeli planes and crashes them into skyscrapers?

I thought this was ironic given some of the conspiracy theories about who crashes planes into US skyscrapers.

To go with your argument, though, isn't it probably true that if there had been armed passengers the planes would have crashed anyway? Possibly not into the WTC, but more like the flight that did not reach it's destination.

My guess is that people were trying to cooperate with the hijackers, as most people would think would be the thing to do, hoping that when they got what they wanted they would release their hostages. Flight 93 sort of proved that it didn't take guns to stop the hijackers. And if we're going with the official story, the hijackers would not have surrendered to gun-wielding passengers anyway.

Besides, no one hijacks planes from anywhere else and crashes them into skyscrapers, so it's really just a throwaway line, and doesn't add much to the argument.

Then there's this...

I've heard that something like half a million home invasions are foiled every year thanks to people owning guns.

Okay, you say "I've heard" so it isn't as if you present this as a fact, but it's ridiculous. How many home invasions would there have to be a year for half a million to be stopped by people owning guns? If there are 250 million in the US and half a million were stopped by people owning guns that means that 1 in 500 people have stopped their home from being invaded by owning a gun. I doubt that even 1 in 10,000 experience a home invasion, let alone successfully defend with a gun.

I've heard that most people shot in their own homes were shot with their own gun, but I can't back it up, and I doubt this woman would agree with me.

From http://www.homeinvasion.org/

"Rebecca provides a bold look at how today's depraved culture has invaded the last safe place -- the American home -- and issues an inspiring challenge and winning strategy on how to raise our children to tower above the culture."


Catch her at your local church or on Fox News. Seriously, check her site. Tower above the culture? It's an "elitist" version of fear-mongering. Hah! I stole a word from the right wing.