Some facts about guns in the US

What scares me more is that you do have the imagination for such a scenario. But usually a person is allowed to "grandfather in" items which are later declared illegal, even if they have to be kept from public use.

Well , only Putin has the balls to show the world he is a hard man with real power and no fear of confrontation.
And if Chamberlain had been just a little more suspicious, we would have avoided WWII?

But as with all obsessive mental mindsets and behaviors, the condition creates a self-fullfilling prophecy.

 

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Myself... i thank the votein booth is the best way to handle those scenarios... as opposed to buildin a bunker an loadin up on enuff guns an ammo (an who knows what) to defend my whole town/county... an 1 gun like this is fine wit me for home protection.!!!

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We do it all the time. When someone becomes demented or blind often they lose their driver's license. That's not because they are bad people, but because they can no longer safely operate a car.

No, but you might have your computer seized if it was made of something that might explode and kill everyone in your apartment complex.

No, but you might have your car seized if you continually drove it without taillights, headlights, a horn etc - again, because it is a hazard to others on the road.

No, but you might no longer be listened to if you called 911 every day and said the Martians were attacking again. Might even be thrown in jail for "exercising your right to free speech." (Or more likely committed to a mental institution, where your phone would be taken away so you no longer could call 911 every day.)

The common thread in all the above - a threat to other people.

 

Actually, as I have worked with many drug users I will say that is true of the marijuana users. Meth addicts tend to be as stable as nitroglycerin on a bumpy road. I will say I agree that as long as what you do affects only you, the government has no reason to come in and do a damn thing. Of course if your drug use starts a trend of neglecting your children, inducing violence against others, or you commit a crime to obtain your drugs then you need to be incarcerated for your crimes.

Obviously you don't remember drivers education, haven't been on a road in Chicago, or hell been in a traffic jam. The majority of people need to learn to operate a vehicle as driving is a skill. In reality the Drivers license more a method of tracking who dangerous drivers are and removing them from the road. Yes, I know you could argue the same for licensing guns and I would be fine with licensing IF the government was not allowed to refuse licenses to anyone for any kind of non WMD they might want. I exclude WMD as they have absolutely no defensive purpose. They are strictly an item genocide.

Actually, that has long been disproven and considered a joke. The "study" that proclaimed that statistic lumped violent assailants that knew or were related to their victim in with "people you know" and assumed everyone in a certain radius "knew each other/were friends" skewing the ratio further by determining that "anyone who you know or are friends with can't be attackers",

As for spur of the moment suicides, they are extremely rare. I work with many mental health professionals. Even if a suicide appears out of the blue, 99 times out of a hundred they were planned for weeks. Of the remaining 9 times of ten it was for days. Spur of the moment suicide attempts are usually jumpers, hangers, and exhaust asphyxiations.

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The reason Car deaths is down is because of improved safety features. This skews that entire argument. Let's put it in perspective more people are murdered with Hammers than Rifles. Of firearms deaths the vast majority were done by illegally obtained weapons. These weapons will NEVER leave the streets. You can Ban anything you want. it will still be there being sold to the very people you would not have them. Punishing law abiding citizens and confiscating their rights in order to "protect others" is going to do nothing but guarantee that you will suffer far worse in the long run. In the UK gun violence shrank only a tiny bit while all other violent crime exploded 40%. Hell, their murder rate actually increased.

Let's say that your gun ban removed all weapons from law abiding citizens. 41% of the Gunshot deaths will remain as they were homicides and killers will either get a legal gun or find another way. 51% will still die I pointed out about suicide. 99.9% of them are preplanned and even then most spur of the moment suicides are not gun related. If someone wants to kill themselves they will. 5% are Protection of Self or LEO related. 3% are unintentional. So in reality. you may reduce the total dead in a year by about a 1000 people (rounding up of course). For this argument we will assume that Self Defenders were only going to be raped not killed.

Not much different than Pre Hitler Germany. The point stands that governments claiming to be Democracies committed Mass Murders after disarming the citizenry for their own protection. In fact they used the same arguments that you are using. They say those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Maybe the Gun Owners have cottoned on to a connection.

 

However we do not do it for Bipolar disorder, Depressives, or many other conditions especially if they are being treated successfully. These people are less a danger than so called "sane" people as at least they realize they have and are treating a condition.

That would be a bomb then, not a computer.

But it would not be seized if it was never driven on the road that way. Driving is an action and you must do it responsibly. What I am suggesting it that people be allowed to own the firearms they wish as long as they are not using them irresponsibly. I'm not the type of idiot who says "Hey you can fire off your gun anywhere you want whenever you want." I'm the intelligent man who says. "Hey, you can own it and carry it, but if you misuse it you will be taken down." Punish the individual who misuses what they have not the people who merely just own something similar.

Again, a misuse of your item. Not unlike driving drunk, driving a poorly maintained vehicle, reckless driving, swinging your fists wildly, and a multitude of other things. Actions for which we only punish the individual for doing. We don't arrest everyone on the road one night because they shared it with a drunk driver. We don't seize everyone's computer because one person hacked something. We don't remove vocal cords because some idiots incite riots. Why then do people wish to disarm law abiding citizens when t some idiot decides to misuse the inborn right to bear arms?

 

Why would my well functioning mind scare you? I may have never used a gun in self defense or at all outside of a firing range, but if it came down to it I could conceivably defend you from an attacker all because I see where a gun is a good thing in the hands of a good man. Would I ever use said gun on you, only if you were a clear threat to the life of someone else. Since obviously you are not the type to do that you are perfectly safe. So why the worry about the guns in the hands of Law Abiding citizens.

As for grandfathered items, it should never be an issue to begin with. There was nothing unclear in the Framers' intent in the Second Amendment. There was nothing unclear about the type of nonintrusive government they formed. What we have now is nothing like they envisioned.

WWII was inevitable. There was no way for Chamberlain to avoid it. He would have just started it earlier.

A qualified truth there. Who is actually the obsessive mindset. The person who says "It's your right to own guns or not as you wish." or the one who says "You should not own guns because I say you shouldn't." Think on that. It isn't hard to see which one is trying to force their ideas on the other.

 

I have reservations about taking legal weapons from someone suffering from certain psychological problems. It may seem like the correct thing to do, but there is a very real unintended consequence; people not seeking medical help because they know that they may lose their weapons. We want people with mental health issues to seek help in order to avoid their being a danger to themselves or others, but there can be little doubt that if, as a consequence of seeking that help they will lose their right to own and shoot firearms, there will be some unknown percentage that will not try to get help for that reason. Obviously there will be times when it is the correct thing to do, no questions asked, but I think the bar needs to be set fairly high in order to avoid discouraging people from seeking help for their mental health issues.

 

Depends on whether a doctor evaluates them as being unsafe to drive.

In your opinion, yes. Just as in someone else's opinion, a gun in the hands of an insane man is not a legal gun, but a threat to everyone.

And as long as it is possible to use them responsibly. An insane man cannot.

Why should swinging your fists wildly be as misuse of your fists? You're not hurting anyone, unless they get in the way of your fists.

Correct. Nor do we confiscate everyone's guns because a criminal used one. But we do confiscate people's cars (and guns) when they are no longer able to use them safely.

 

Actually, I agree that the drug problems have to do with Prohibition.

Actually, the study did it to itself. I originally went in disbelieving the claim of the NRA (who you continually attempt to repudiate and fail) but the wording of the study and how it was performed was all I needed. Oh and if the NRA ran the country there would be no Gun Control laws, Bills, or even Organizations, so clearly it is not in charge.

You don't think that slit wrists in a bath tub makes a huge mess? Are you sure you live in the real world? Hanging causes a real mess as well, and while it may not decapitate you don't get the luxury of being saved if done half way right. Overdoses of pills are barely reversible, and most that are reversed are "cries for help" rather than actual suicide. And yes, you have time to change your mind and those methods are used by people even when they have access to guns precisely as they are unsure.

Are you kidding? Seatbelts alone have saved at least half the people that would be killed in accidents. Airbags and well designed cars have reduced it again at least 50%. Then there is the matter of speed limits reducing the number of fatal accidents. Cars used to kill far more people than they do now.

As for the use of guns. I realize you are stuck in a "A real man doesn't need a gun to defend himself mentality." No, he might not NEED it to fend off an attacker of similar strength and training. How about a woman needing it to do the same? How about a man defending his family against at attacker who is larger or armed themselves. In your mentality the woman and the family are raped and dead. The only people I can think of who risk this outcome are complete morons and criminals. I pray you are not a moron.

I also left out knives, blunt objects, fists, clubs, poison, cars, Bows, drowning, suffocation, and dogs...So?

Well, there are already Billions of weapons in the world. And as one of your Gun Control Advocates proved people depraved enough to supply them illegally while telling everyone they can't have them. The bastards of the world are not the people who make the tools, but the people who misuse those tools.

Which are happening in other countries as well. Why disarm yourself when you know there is a segment of the population willing to decapitate you in the street in broad daylight.

Then why do you need to ban guns? Simple, you realize that people will learn how to spoof your drones or worse one good High Power rifle an your tin pot dictatorship is holding your funeral.

Well, there are people who have been planning to survive that kind of attack. Those people are smart enough to know that if you have resources then they need to protect themselves as well. Funny how you can see this off-the-wall scenario yet fail to see how it might be beneficial to be armed.

One gun may or may not make a difference. 80 million of them sure as hell will. What's the government going to do kill off almost a third of the population in one night? DO they have eighty million drones, let alone 80 million operators willing to kill everyone. Hell even if one drone could take 100 in a night (loiter time would it to that) you still need 800,000 drones and 800,000 operators to follow that order.

Actually it's only a danger to you if you attack me. Are you planning to attack me? Why do I need to be disarmed if you are not planning to harm me?

If law abiding gun owners were as violent as you claim, there would have been 80 million gun murders in the USA yesterday. Was there?

 

The Bar should be set as high as it is to commit someone. If you can't trust them with a gun how do you trust them with ANYTHING else. I'm not saying we shouldn't watch people on medication, but honestly people on medication are seeking help. There are far more many people who remain undiagnosed and have access to things that make even guns look tame in the amount of destruction that can be created.

 

No, just 88, including shootings by law abiding gun owners (who were law abiding at least up until that point.) That's a problem that needs to be worked on. When guns kill over 30,000 people a year, it's not something you can ignore.

Here's one example of two law-abiding gun owners responsibly using their guns:
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Road rage shootout leaves two drivers dead

Chris Zoladz

M-66 in Ionia, Mich.
IONIA, Mich. (WZZM) -- Two drivers are dead after a road rage incident escalated into a shootout. The incident happened around 6:45 p.m. Wednesday on M-66 near Steele Street. Witnesses tell WZZM 13 one driver was following another driver too closely. The first driver pulled into the Wonder Wand Car Wash parking lot and the other driver followed him into the lot. Witnesses say the driver of the following car fired shots, and the first driver returned fire. Both drivers were shot and killed. Authorities say both men had licenses to carry concealed weapons. The victims are both from Ionia. Robert Taylor, 56, was driving a Chrysler PT Cruiser. The other driver, James Pullum, 43, was driving a Ford Taurus. According to Police, Pullum had two passengers in his vehicle, but neither was injured. People at a nearby laundromat found both men lying on the ground and started performing CPR. AeroMed was called to the scene and landed, but did not transport a patient to the hospital.
===========================

Now in some ways this is one of the better possible outcomes - two trigger-happy idiots killed themselves while not injuring innocent bystanders. Unfortunately, this is a rarity - often such foolish acts result in bystanders being injured or killed.

 

99% of the time driving restrictions due to medication are due to drowsiness. Guns in those peoples care are even less likely to be used to harm others.

However my opinion comes with weight of knowledge and experience.

According to the definition of insanity we all insane to a degree. Most people's insanities are mild and harmless to others. I am not advocating a psychotic be given a weapon or a schizophrenic, but there are many mental illnesses that do not cause such violent tendencies especially when properly medicated and treated.

Again you are lumping everyone together and not even considering facts. A scotophobic is by all definitions insane with his irrational fear of the dark? Is he a danger with a firearm? How about someone suffering from the delusion that everything purple is alive? How people suffering overconfidence? Nymphomania? Xenophilia? Bulimia? Anorexia? Compulsive Liars? Thalassaphobia? Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? All these people are relatively harmless. Then there are people who are effectively being treated for their disorder and on medication are much more sane than the average person.

to paraphrase "Why would firing my gun wildly be a misuse of your gun? You're not hurting anyone, unless the get in the way of your bullets." Reckless endangerment is reckless endangerment, it comes from misuse something. I support your right to throw a punch in defense of self or others just as I support the ability for you be punished for punching someone needlessly.

Actually never seen or heard of a car being confiscated because of being prescribed any medication. So why the gun?

 

Actually, only one person responsibly used his gun, the man who returned fire after being shot at. Not to mention we do not know if any of them were law abiding or even legally owned their guns. We know nothing about this case other than two people were shot, one in self defense and possibly defense of others.

 

Neither person responsibly used their guns. Both people legally used their guns.

Man A approached man B; man A was screaming at him. Man B stood his ground and drew his gun, intending to defend himself from the seemingly-violent man A.

Man A saw man B draw a gun and point it at him. He drew his gun to defend himself from a clear threat.

Both men saw guns being pointed at them; both fired to defend themselves. All legal - and completely idiotic. But that's par for the course for people firmly ensconced in the gun culture.

 

?? What are you talking about? There are two entirely different sets of criteria. "Can someone safely drive a car" in no way equals "is someone likely to try to harm themselves or others."

Agreed. A doctor should evaluate the person and decide whether or not they represent a threat to themselves or others.

If his fear makes him not want to go out after dark? No. If he wants to "shoot the darkness" to keep it from getting him? Then yes, absolutely.

You've never seen an elderly driver lose his license because he was no longer able to safely drive a car? From the website Elder Law Answers:

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All state Departments of Motor Vehicles, Highway Safety, or Transportation have an office where a family member or doctor can make a referral about an unsafe driver. The state office will investigate the claim, and the driver may have to take a road test. Doctors are generally not required to report patients they feel are unsafe. In California, however, doctors must report demented patients and in California and a few other states doctors must report patients with epilepsy.
==========

 

You really have to wonder if either of them would have been willing to stop and confront the other if they hadn't had a gun handy.

On a fine spring day years ago, I was out for a bicycle ride not far from where I'm typing right now. I was riding down a back country two lane road that runs along a river with spots where people can fish, and launch their boats. As I passed one of these spots, I noticed an older Ford Bronco, with the top removed, and group of four young shirtless guys riding in it. As I continued down the road, I heard a car approaching, so I rode as far over to the right as I could, and waited for the car to pass. I was beginning to wonder why the car had not passed me yet, as it should have by now, when something forcefully struck my helmeted head, nearly knocking me off my bicycle. At this point I was in pain and confused, because the only thing I could think of that would have hit me was possibly a side view mirror, but that didn't really make any sense; but suddenly, it all was made clear. The Bronco I had seen earlier had come up behind me, and rather than continuing down the road, the driver purposely slowed down to match my pace. As they very gradually passed me, one of the guys inside grabbed a hold of the rollbar with his left hand, and leaned over the side. Patiently waiting until he was in position, he then smacked me in the head with his right arm with all of the force he could muster. He was still leaning over the side as they passed me and came into view, all of them laughing at my expense at the pain they had caused me. There is little doubt in my mind that, if I'd had a gun on me, I would have pulled it in my pain induced rage, and emptied it at them. I had certainly done nothing to them to in any way justify this assault on me, and even remembering it now, over a decade later, it still makes me angry. But I would have gone to jail, and one or more of them would have been killed or wounded. I consider myself a fairly level headed person, but I'm still human, and people do things in fits of rage that they very often live to regret. I'm glad that I did not have a gun that day.

 

I must have missed in that article when that series of events was stated. Checking other sources I can find nothing either as the investigation is still ongoing. I do know that the driver of the tailgating car fired first, but there is no mention of who that is. Given that Mr. Pullum was with his family there is a greater likelihood he was the diver of the first car and not the tailgater, but I am unsure. Please wait until you have more concrete facts before you try to paint a series of events to fit your desired findings.

 

That's all it took for you to snap? I was actually hit by a van in a crosswalk, the guy admitted he hit me on purpose. I broke 5 teeth, never even crossed my mind to shoot him or even punch him. So don't judge others based on your reactions.