Some facts about guns in the US

This goes back to the cost in human lives to buy the right to "be ready" for the return of King George III.

 

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Guess you haven't been to Montreal in the last couple of decades.

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Hells Angels and friends have been blowing each other away for quite some time there. There are a lot of firearms in N Ontario, but you gotta be out there and looking around to see them. Hint: the pickup truck with the dead moose in the back is a great place to start.

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@ Stonephi,
I get around quite well, and have seen registered hunting rifles in my life. I still can say I have lived my entire life without seeing a handgun in public registered or not. I have used a 9mm Pistol on the range, however that was not a public area.

Toronto has Gangs as well that use firearms, but they mainly shoot each other late at night. I have never heard a gunshot in public.

We do have shootings. Canada even has mass murders in schools. I can still say I have never seen or heard a public handgun (not rifle). I have seen hunters use firearms and have chased away coyotes from a farm in my youth with intent to kill them using a rifle.

I was almost killed by a moose. Not because the moose attacked, but because the motorist in front of me dropped from 100km/hr to 30km/hr "to get a better look". I never slammed into him, but was not expecting it on a clear highway.

Hells Angels and most gangs get their weapons from places other than Canada. I am not going to say where, as I don't want them to get any ideas. Then they simply drive them across the border hidden with their oranges.

 

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Gun ownership per capita is a misleading stat - for one thing, the US is a wealthy country with an unusually large proportion of ex-military folks and wealthy rural residents. We have a lot of people who own many guns each, and they skew the averages. We also have a high proportion of people with some discretionary income living by themselves or in couples, which adds another factor to the calculations of "average".

The rate of gun ownership among the middle and upper classes, the proportion of people who can afford a gun who own a gun, is not so much of an outlier. The proportion of households in which a gun is present is even closer to the reassuringly normal range.

 

if you need a gun to defend yourself from the government you have already failed. the best way to defend one's self from an oppressive government is an education and effective use of knowledge to prevent government from being oppressive( of course you and I probably have very different ideas of constitutes oppressive government

 

I must also admit that I have never seen a handgun on the street, not even in downtown Detroit, even though we have an "open carry" law here. I have and carry one myself on occasion, but it is for self defense, not show and tell or public display (inappropriate showing of a pistol is called "brandishing" and it can get you prison time as well as loss of your pistol license.

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) I have heard handguns as well as shotguns and rifles at the shooting range. I have heard flintlocks and muzzle - loaders at historic reenactments and have a wonderful recording of the 1812 done with French mortars.

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Have also heard a building blow up from a natural gas leak. That was really loud....blew out the eardrums of a fellow that happened to be driving by then.

I have a friend who ate a dozen oranges at the border rather than give them to the customs folks who wanted to take them away from him though.

The tv tells me that the Montreal HA's expanded their turf into the Netherlands some few years back, and brought along their own special type of ultra-violence as well. They bought their guns there though, they didn't have to import them, and the other gangsters they exchange gunfire with are indigenous to the area.

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The US/Canada border is not as porous as it used to be. I cross it every once in a while and can personally testify that it would be very hard to smuggle arms across it these days. BOTH sides of the border are much more serious nowadays.

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Lots of cops with guns, x - ray trucks and the like. Sioux Ste Marie Canadian side had about 15 OPP out in the traffic lanes a couple months ago pulling over anyone that even looked just a little suspicious to them and grilling every driver that was on the way over the bridge. We have Pass card passports that are linked to all of our public records so Canadian and US officials are all aware that I have a concealed carry license when they ask the usual questions after swiping those cards on the computer. They also know I am not a felon and have a clean record.

I have no knowledge about firearms manufacture in Canada, and mostly assumptions about their manufacture in that 'elsewhere' you keep mentioning.

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I am aware that the going price of an AK 47 in Africa is about $15 US though. Also that that weapon is the most common semi - automatic rifle on the planet. Don't know where those are made do you? :shrug: They do turn up around here frequently...maybe they are made in Windsor? (j/k)

Also Uzi, Luger, Beretta...just off the top of my head. (I own a Beretta, that is the concealed carry pistol I mentioned above.) Those are still made in Europe and they are pretty popular pretty much everywhere. Like I said before - no need for red herrings, there is plenty of blame to go around.

 

@ Stonephi,
I was surprised you also had never seen a handgun in public. Maybe it is not as insane there as all the statistics say it is?

I also live close to the border, but not as close as you. I do the Niagara crossing an hour away quite often. I have never had my car searched intensely. I think on my last crossing they asked to see my ashtray which was empty as I do not smoke. I shouldn't say that, I would partake in a joint if offered, but don't have any vices. I thought it was a clever way to catch someone who may be smoking pot. They handed my ashtray back to me and I drove through. My Mother is of English decent and until passports/permits were mandatory she never showed her passport. If they have dogs that smell gunpowder, and x-ray machines large enough to scan my car accurately enough to detect a handgun inside my spare tire or under the backseat or in my oilpan, I do not know.

I feel confident crossing with Oranges now. They got me once, but since then whenever I have gone camping south we have simply hid the Oranges better. If caught I would claim it was an oversight, but it has not happened.

There are many border crossings west of the great lakes that are basically one man operations. I recall crossing in North Dakota, and I had to wait for the Border to Open and then deal with a Grumpy Canadian Border guy who seemed like he didn't want to let me back into my own country. Don't ever deal with a Canadian before they have their coffee.

 

I must blushingly admit that is is actually not as bad as a lot of press has made it out to be. I must also freely admit that I trade on our reputation as needed to avoid confrontations elsewhere.

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Once, 3 young toughs in a bar in Manhattan attempted to start an altercation with me by confronting me and stating "You are not from around here. Where the **** are you from." I fixed the speaker with a cold-blooded-murderer stare deadpan and said real clear and hard "Detroit". He quickly apologized and the 3 of them went their merry way.

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'Course I also have a lot of self confidence - with good reason - and it isn't a gun in my pocket.

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Yeah, you must know where to go and where not to go. Also, how to not look like a victim if you do go to one of those areas you shouldn't go.

I got searched by a drug sniffer dog at the Buffalo border once, but he went for the French bread in my grocery bag in the trunk.

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I yelled at the handler, told him I was going to bill him for letting his dog eat my lunch. Detroit/Windsor has strip searched me, both sides have put me through the shredder on occasion, but usually it is because I have a brother and nephews in Ontario as well as friends and business relations. For some reason the border guards on both sides really don't much care for Americans and Canadians traveling together or being related. :shrug: Its a puzzler for sure.

There are some extraordinary fossil hunting locales near you, BTW. I am very fond of trilobites myself.

I have a nice photo my son took of me standing in front of the U of Guelph cannabis grow in Morpeth while we were attending my nephew's wedding. There were over 50 OPP officers present as the bride's dad was the Chief of the area OPP force and my nephew is a road patrol officer on the QEW.

The big deal with the oranges is the Med fly, and that is no longer such an issue as it once was. Of course, LEO is slow to change.

I gotta add that the population of the Detroit metro area has gone from 3.5 million to 750 thousand in the last 10 years and that we have the most "minorities" in the whole nation so things get real complicated here a lot. We are also an MMJ state. While I do not smoke anything myself, I have several friends who have cancer and have green cards. I am also very familiar with the Ontario MMJ/possession rules. This (border crossing bullhockey) too shall change soon.

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EDIT: My car has no ashtray to search. The last in the sticks crossing we did was from Minnesota going to Thunder Bay. The CA guard asked if we were Native as the Mohawk had a demonstration going on there. I said no, but it was a lie sorta as I am part Cherokee. We weren't there for the demo though, but I honked the truck horn at the demonstrators in support as we went past anyways. The x-ray truck at the Sioux was big enough to do whole vehicles and did so, 4 at a time.

 

Frightened!

Frightened!
Public gun data published in NY; dismay naturally includes threats

A New York newspaper, The Journal News, has published online the public data, obtained under Freedom of Information requests, of registered gun owners in three counties.

Naturally, gun owners are furious. Online comments include implied threats—

• How about a map of the editorial staff and publishers of Gannett and Journal News with names and addresses of their families... (George Thompson)

• A map of the editorial staff and publishers should come with a note to indicate if they own any firearms or not. (Mike Ra)​

—and the usual psycho anticipation—

• I'm for your idea. Lets see how those dots move once that information is published. I can't believe these a$$hats published this info. Clean up your hardware, stock up on ammo. It may turn out to be handy, just sit there and wait for the libs to show up. Like shooting fish in a barrel. (Pamela Thomas Hickey)​

—as well as the generic Nazi comparisons, pretensions that legally registered guns are perfectly safe, and other such mild outrage.

It is a curious move for a newspaper. To the one, these are public records germane to a safety issue currently saturating the news cycle. To the other, yes, of course there are reasons why people who own guns want to keep their firearms a secret.

But there is an underlying point worth considering here; Cienna Madrid, of The Stranger, explains, in the weekly newspaper's usual forthright tone:

But it also underscores the biggest hurdle for gun control proponents: Gun owners, like Christians, thrive on their own fictionalized victimhood. They're itching for any opportunity to feel oppressed and subjugated because it justifies their arsenals. This simple map does just that—transforms them into helplessly armed sitting ducks waiting for the armies of (unarmed) liberals storming their houses looking to replace their guns with daisies (or whateverthefuck).

Imagine having a conversation about gun control with someone like that—a person who continuously brays about their Constitutional right to cultivate closet arsenals but, of course, condemns a newspaper's Constitutional right to publish that publicly accessed information, and then responds with threats of violence.​

One cannot put too fine a point on it: There is a yellow streak of fear and violence running through the American gun culture, and when it comes time for people to weigh the potentials of what the Second Amendment actually says and means, these sorts of predictable outbursts from the gun culture won't be found winning them any sympathy.

As for The News Journal? Well, I can't believe I didn't think of this years ago. The ethical debate is an abstraction: for the time being, this is a legal publication of the public record.
____________________

Notes:

Journal News Media Group. "Map: Where are the gun permits in your neighborhood?" December 22, 2012. LoHud.com. December 27, 2012. http://www.lohud.com/interactive/ar...1011/Map-Where-gun-permits-your-neighborhood-

Madrid, Cienna. "Gun Owners Outraged at Being Identified as Gun Owners". Slog. December 26, 2012. Slog.TheStranger.com. December 27, 2012. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/ar...rs-outraged-at-being-identified-as-gun-owners

 

Couldn't agree more.

The American Revolutionary War was a shambles, and a failure of conscience.

We accept you back with open arms.

 

Naturally, such information would never be used by criminals to steal guns from homes in exactly the manner that opponents of gun ownership claim they would be. Nor would people, say, living next door to such people come to any harm from the publication of such data, in the event that particularly stupid criminals - of which there are none - would mistake an address.

It might well be an issue of the public record. Then again, that hardly means it isn't actionable.

 

That is very true. Preparing oneself for the possibility of such failure has long been considered prudent, in many circles - such as the ones that wrote the US Constitution, or the ones that took a long hard look at the immediate aftermath of Katrina.

As far as publishing the names and addresses of people on currently disparaged sides of emotional political issues - when that tactic was adopted by abortion rights opponents, it was interpreted as a direct physical threat. Rightly so, IMHO.

 

2 differences, has anyone been going around bombing gun shops and killing gun owners?
Secondly medical records are confidential for a good reason (in fact they are the most confidential Infomation and carry the harshest penelties for breachs after national security Infomation) this I just public Infomation

 

The Army uses a M9 Beretta. And some other military branches. The Beretta is Italian. But I think somehow the US makes those pistols for the military. I could be wrong though. But to bad when they switched pistols they didn't stick with a colt.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M9_pistol

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Yes and so are many others.

Guns don't kill people by them selves.
They are a tool like a wrench.
-unk

 

This has got to be one of the most idiotic defenses I have ever heard. They must think Americans are Morons to buy into it, but apparenty many do, so maybe it's an Intelligence/Inbreeding thing so popular in that country.

By that logic why not license and sell grenades and rocket launchers?

Sorry. I may need to address this to Non-Americans because of the apparent inbred stupidity that seems to allow them to use lines like "Guns don't Kill People. People do.".

The main arguments have been to reduce the efficiency of public killing weapons. There is no need for a hunter to have a Semi-Automatic military grade weapon.

It is true that "People do" kill people, and the more efficient the weaponry the more they can kill during any given rampage. If a weapon needed to be loaded manually for every shot, then at least the people getting slaughtered in a Movie Theatre or on the street would have an opportunity for heroism or flight.

The stupid "Guns don't kill people. People do." as a reason why military weapons should be allowed in the public's hands makes sense only to those with IQ's equivalent to that of a normal house plant.

I KNOW SEMI and FULL AUTOMATICS CAN BE FUN TO PLAY WITH. I HAVE SPENT MANY YEARS GOING TO RANGES FIRING 7.62mm ROUNDS. They load instantly, and are designed to kill people. That is their function.

It is insanity to think people actually buy into lines like that.

Americans.. (sigh)

If your father walks you to school; because you are in the same grade, you might be a redneck.

 

Tell that to Holocaust survivors.

 

Never even though of hunt fowl have you? The only time I have evber seen a shotgun for hunting was for fowl. You need quick reloads if you are doing it for sustenance.

However all this moot. You're talking about punishing the public for something a few individuals do. What if tomorrow you found you had to give up your car becuase some idiots got into a twenty two car pile up? Or perhaps your right to vote was stripped becuase some idiot in your county was stuffing the ballots? What if your church was suddenly outlawed becuase some said the wrong dang thing? That's the slippery slowp you get on when you make people give up a right.