Shoot a camera, not a gun

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x-ray said:
My cousin saved the life of himself, his wife and his young daughter because he kept a revolver in his nightstand.

While at a church activity one day his young daughter spilled a come which would up getting the jeans of another girl next to her wet. No big deal till a week later when the other girls father kicked my cousins front door in one ne night in the middle of the night. He managed to get to the bedroom where my cousin and his wife were sleeping awakening my cousin. He demanded $500 for damages to his daughters jeans. The man told my cousin if he didnt pay he would kill him and his family. When my cousin refused he started beating my cousin severely. My cousin managed to get to the pistol in his night stand and shot and killed the intruder. My cousin was taken to the hospital with serious injuries but his family was still alive.

No charges were brought against my cousin. The intruder had to move from another town due to other threats on citizens but this time he meant it. He had been going around town according to witnesses saying he would kill my cousin and his family if he didn't pay him the $500 for soiling his daughters jeans. Clearly the man was insane and my cousin and his family would be dead if my cousin had not been armed.

You never hear about these instances on the news but how many lives are saved because someone had a firearm.
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What a nice example of taking the law into one's own hands - that's what guns are for ultimately... I mean, yeah, the man was probably insane, I'll grant you that, however, he was obviously unarmed in that situation and threatening or even beating does not justify killing - my guess is your cousin would have gone to jail in most civilized countries, and, if you ask me, rightly so.
 
MikeDimit said:
I was always convinced that there is something nuts in this combo- U.S. citizen and The Gun. Why you don't want to register your guns?!?! You DO register your cars, cell phones but still as for weapons - nope? It seems like everyone of you have in their mind to shot somebody and not be caught? In my country guns are not forbidden - it is difficult to get a license to own one, but it is not impossible. And there are a lot of guns in people hands ( a kind of a tradition), yet they are REGISTERED. So if you shoot with your gun you WILL be caught . So simple!!
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People who commit mass murder don't really care if they are captured or not. Most of them use registered firearms and many of them take their own lives after killing.
 
gavinlg said:
The problem does not lie with an inanimate object, it lies with the people that wield it.
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I agree with the violence in TV and movies. We are so used to it that we don't see anymore how most movies turn around violent struggle of some kind.
I humbly disagree with the fact that you could correct the problem with education and the right cultural background.
There will always be someone crazy enough, or angry enough, or desperate enough at a certain point of time. I personally don't want weapons to be available at that moment.
Nuclear bombs are inanimate objects. would you like to allow their free circulation based on a very stringent education on how and when to use them? I know the comparison is a stretch, but for me the principle holds on a much smaller scale for firearms. It also holds for dangerous animals like certain types of dogs. A lot is dependent on the dog training, but why would I want anyone to have the right to have such a dog, and leave to him on how he trains it when it endangers my children? It holds for dangerous chemicals and a lot of other things states regulate, but for historical reasons, in the US all these regulations are ok, but gun regulation is not.
 
sanmich said:
I don't know what is the crime profile in the US (I figure it's generally pretty high) but maybe isolating a gun free zone with millions of guns around simply doesn't work?
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That's exactly what the statistics show. Not sure it makes sense to make everywhere a gun-free zone.

With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.
 
MikeDimit said:
I was always convinced that there is something nuts in this combo- U.S. citizen and The Gun. Why you don't want to register your guns?!?! You DO register your cars, cell phones but still as for weapons - nope? It seems like everyone of you have in their mind to shot somebody and not be caught? In my country guns are not forbidden - it is difficult to get a license to own one, but it is not impossible. And there are a lot of guns in people hands ( a kind of a tradition), yet they are REGISTERED. So if you shoot with your gun you WILL be caught . So simple!!
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Guns are registered in the US and Conn has some of the toughest gun laws in the country. Its a cop out to ignore the deeper problem by simply throwing more laws at it.
 
I must say I am greatly saddened by this news. I am from Seattle and we have a gun there that I enjoy shooting up in the woods on my property. However, as much as I love my gun and shooting guns in general, I understand very much the wish for tighter gun control.

This strikes people in China very much because on the same day a man walked into a school here and stabbed 22 children with a knife. Last year for a couple weeks, almost everyday there was someone walking into a school and knifing kids. Hundreds of children.

I would gladly give up my gun if this would all just stop. Unfortunately we humans.....I just don't know what to say.
 
paulfish4570 said:
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additional so-called gun control here would affect ONLY law-abiding citizens. criminals - as is always the case - would continue to ignore any firearms laws.

most law-abiding gun owners here, i believe, would ignore ANY federal gov't buy back program or give-up program, thus creating millions of gun-owning "criminals." i think you'd find very few law enforcement officers willing to go house to house to search for and confiscate firearms.

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Well, if every law-abiding citizen has a gun in their drawer, it's terribly easy for them (or their children) to convert from abiding the law to killing someone in a sudden fit of rage, desperation or insanity. Stricter control over how guns are acquired and kept could reduce these impulse killings. But there's very little you can do against a carefully premeditated acts of revenge or terror.
 
Jubb Jubb said:
I just can't get around why people feel that by carrying a lethal weapon, they are safe.
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They don't feel safe.

They are afraid.

The gun is merely something that will help them feel "less afraid".

Fear is powerful and prevalent (in my opinion mind you) throughout the U.S. - is the fear warranted? Who knows - I don't see it but clearly there's a fear that runs through many folks in the U.S. and it's not just one "type" of fear either - it seems all encompassing and all consuming for some folks.

It's sad.

It's really really sad.


Dave
 
in general here in the states, guns are not "registered," but legal firearms purchases are recorded, including the serial number and the name and address of the purchaser. there is little to prevent the purchased firearm from being handed down at some point, sold or traded person-to-person, without recording the transaction.
a .38 revolver stolen from the car of its legal owner in alabama, say, could end up in detroit, illegally in the hands of a gang thug.
 
ott, i have raised three children around firearms. all three i taught to shoot when they turned five years of age. all understood the immense damage a firearm can cause, and all understood the immense responsibility of firearm ownership. not one of them has shot anybody, and neither have i, or my father before me, or his father before him. my paternal great-grandfather, yes, in enforcing the law in the indian territories of oklahoma ...
 
paulfish4570 said:
a .38 revolver stolen from the car of its legal owner in alabama, say, could end up in detroit, illegally in the hands of a gang thug.
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Great small example on how you could regulate things:
where I live, leaving a legal firearm in a car is criminal. If yours is stolen from your car, you face prosecution, and good chances are you will not be allowed to buy another one. Actually, you are under law, committed to either carry your weapon on you, or lock it (and no, a car is not "locked").
 
paulfish4570 said:
again, intrigue, i know that. i was referring to some congressman's rhetoric about introducing a bill for a federal law.
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Not everyone does, though.

It's ironic when people like Bloomberg make statements about gun control. Curious if he will set the first example, by giving up his armed guards.
 
i understand the sorrow many feel after the horiffic situation in conn.
this is not a memorial thread.
it's a thread about guns on a camera forum...and therefore really belongs in the off topic forum.
i'm waiting to hear from stephen as i think it should be deleted or moved at the least.

hug your kids...don't argue about guns here, please.
 
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