Shoot a camera, not a gun

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Frances and I have been discussing this at considerable length. She's a US citizen, I'm not. She used guns from the age of 7; I never used them until I was 14. When her parents went away, she was left with a gun for self defence after she was 16. (A loaded gun. Anything else is merely a magical juju. Not very magical, come to think of it. More sort of bloody dangerous.)

We're both good shots, and well versed in firearms safety. Neither of us is sure we'd be able to retain the presence of mind to use them in self defence. Now, if we, who are comfortable with guns, are unsure, where does this leave the wannabee Rambos? Even Frances's late father, who died in 1995 after 70 years' familiarity with guns -- he was captain of the Cornell University pistol team in the 1930s -- was never sure he'd be able to fire in anger. And he never found out in 70 years... You don't, if you're half-way sane,

Cheers,

R.
 
tbarker13 said:
X-ray, this is a perfect example of why citizens should have the ability to defend themselves. I'll never understand the mindset of those who would rather place their lives in the hands of a criminal - essentially hoping the thug will stop the beating before they (the victim) is dead.
And hoping the police will get there in time to save you shows a total lack of understanding of police response times, particularly in large cities.

We had a case here last week where a man walked into a church and shot his wife (the organist) and then left. About 5 minutes later, he came back in to make sure she was dead, shooting her a couple more times. The police had been called, but did not arrive in time. And no one in the congregation was armed and able to save the woman's life.
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When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
 
tbarker13 said:
We had a case here last week where a man walked into a church and shot his wife (the organist) and then left. About 5 minutes later, he came back in to make sure she was dead, shooting her a couple more times. The police had been called, but did not arrive in time. And no one in the congregation was armed and able to save the woman's life.
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So you'd prefer congregations to be heavily armed and permanently prepared to shoot the husband of the organist? There must be thousands of organists, each frequently visited by a peaceful, loving and caring husband...
 
Bille said:
"The right of the people to keep and bear Arms" ...

It is beyond me why a large group of US citizens take this literally, 200 years after it was postulated. "Arms" in late 1700 were muskets at worst. Correct me, if I am wrong. Not assault rifles firing 800 rounds/min. What kind of society is that, where you have to have access to weapons of war to "protect yourself"?
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The problem with this line of thought is that it can be used to invalidate the entire constitution. It was written more than 200 years ago. There is very little in our world that the people in the 1700s envisioned.
But just because Thomas Jefferson failed to predict the Internet, that doesn't mean he didn't intend for it to be covered by the First Amendment.

It's also an argument that's been invalidated by the US Supreme Court, which has ruled that the right to bear arms is an individual right. Unless that body reverses itself, the issue is settled.
 
sevo said:
So you'd prefer congregations to be heavily armed and permanently prepared to shoot the husband of the organist? There must be thousands of organists, each frequently visited by a peaceful, loving and caring husband...
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I think it would have been great if someone could have saved her life from a madman. Yes.
 
sevo said:
The real problem are the law-abiding citizens (and their kin) which naturally grab their .45 when they decide to terminate a relationship, have a disagreement with their neighbour/boss/colleague, go postal, or simply hear a inexplicable sound downstairs - social killings and plain shooting accidents account for one to two magnitude more deaths and injuries than in other quite similarly heavily armed societies.
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Unfortunately, this is the truth. There are something like 600 shootings a year by US law enforcement - but about five times that figure of random, accidental or impulse killings in the wider population. Human beings remain fallible, with or without a gun in their hands.

As for trusting your children with guns, which millions do? Deeply irresponsible. A child is injured or killed, accidentally, every two or three days in the US, and there are 20,000 accidental shootings per year.

Some people say that the 20,000 dead per year are mostly criminals; yet there are roughly 3,000 children killed, year in, year out.
 
JSU said:
When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
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So true.
People who think the police are there to save you are largely delusional. The police are there to clean up the mess afterwards. And to stop your killer from killing again.
There are just too many demands placed on our police officers. They can't be everywhere at once.
 
sevo said:
So you'd prefer congregations to be heavily armed and permanently prepared to shoot the husband of the organist? There must be thousands of organists, each frequently visited by a peaceful, loving and caring husband...
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No, no, no. Organists are notorious troublemakers.

An apparently deleted post referred to 'church members' shooting one another. Presumably all the murderers are atheists...

As I said quite a few posts ago, it's cultural. This is not to say that it's limited to the United States. Create a culture of rabid materialism; preach ME, ME, ME!; do your best to remove empathy... In fact, create the majority of rich-country cultures. THEN give free firearms access to these self-centred and often not-very-bright materialists... well... gosh.

It ain't only the US culture that needs changing. It's just that the US culture points up the need for change rather more strongly, because in the US dim, self-centred materialists have better access to guns.

Cheers,

R.
 
tbarker13 said:
The problem with this line of thought is that it can be used to invalidate the entire constitution. It was written more than 200 years ago. There is very little in our world that the people in the 1700s envisioned.
But just because Thomas Jefferson failed to predict the Internet, that doesn't mean he didn't intend for it to be covered by the First Amendment.

It's also an argument that's been invalidated by the US Supreme Court, which has ruled that the right to bear arms is an individual right. Unless that body reverses itself, the issue is settled.
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Highlight: which is of course entirely free of bias, because its judges are always appointed with scrupulous fairness and infinite wisdom by presidents who completely ignore the political biases of their constituents.

Cheers,

R.
 
tbarker13 said:
X-ray, this is a perfect example of why citizens should have the ability to defend themselves. I'll never understand the mindset of those who would rather place their lives in the hands of a criminal - essentially hoping the thug will stop the beating before they (the victim) is dead.
And hoping the police will get there in time to save you shows a total lack of understanding of police response times, particularly in large cities.

We had a case here last week where a man walked into a church and shot his wife (the organist) and then left. About 5 minutes later, he came back in to make sure she was dead, shooting her a couple more times. The police had been called, but did not arrive in time. And no one in the congregation was armed and able to save the woman's life.
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so you think, that people, who want stricter laws, don't want to defend themselves? that's an assumption.
they just think, that it is safer to live in a secure environment unarmed, than to live in a dangerous enviroment with having a gun.


tbarker13 said:
I think it would have been great if someone could have saved her life from a madman. Yes.
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it would have saved her life, if that man hasn't been able to buy a gun ( and i am quite sure, he bought it legal)
 
With an increasingly violent criminal class I feel that you must have the right to defend yourself and family.
The UK is slowly coming around to this point of view.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/09/tories-go-back-basics-burglars

It is clear to me from from this thread that in a few cases lives have been /could have been saved by such decisive action.

The failure to acknowledge that or to discuss other solutions such as better mental health care suggest that at least some of the objections result from a pacifist agenda rather than an attempt to merely controll firearms.
 
Michael Markey said:
With an increasingly violent criminal class I feel that you must have the right to defend yourself and family.
The UK is slowly coming around to this point of view.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/09/tories-go-back-basics-burglars

It is clear to me from from this thread that in a few cases lives have been /could have been saved by such decisive action.

The failure to acknowledge that or to discuss other solutions such as better mental health care suggest that at least some of the objections result from a pacifist agenda rather than an attempt to merely controll firearms.
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Dear Michael,

The link is somewhat less than an advocacy of gun culture.

And, come to think of it, what's wrong with "a pacifist agenda"? What's your alternative? A pro-violence agenda?

Cheers,

R.
 
Michael Markey said:
It is clear to me from from this thread that in a few cases lives have been /could have been saved by such decisive action.
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At which price? The number of criminals shot in the act by law abiding US citizens is relatively marginal - courts rulings declaring deaths as justified self defence were around 200 a year in the mid 2000's. In the same time, in-family lethal shooting accidents made up four times that number - and that does not count in the even higher number of people accidentally shooting themselves (which arguably are not classified by location or type but where a fair amount will have happened with guns carried for self defence). That ratio does not sound as if having a self-defence gun at hand is a safe and smart idea.
 
Actually there have not been many examples of people with conceal-carry licenses being involved in these horrible shootings. They tend to be among the more responsible gun owners.

On the topic of kids and guns, I just did some quick research at the Centers for Disease Control web site. 2010 data shows that a person under the age of 18 was almost as likely to die by drowning as they were by firearm.
In 2010 there were 847 accidental drowning deaths and 18 drowning homicides. (Total 865)
There were 98 accidental shooting deaths and 824 shooting homicides. (Total 922)

I've known about these numbers for a while. And I've always wondered why we scream about kids dying by gun. Yet we don't seem to care as much when a child drowns. Where are the cries to enact stricter swimming pool safety laws? If I lost a child, I doubt either death would be easier to take.
 
The rise in gun crime here in the UK was a fairly recent phenomena fuelled by the availability of guns coming in from the war in the Balkans, and a number of back room factories that where converting legally bought replica guns that could be engineered to fire.

In 2008 a couple of guys jailed for running such a factory, were shown to have been the providers for 51 gun related incidents including 8 murders. I think there was legislation proposed to try and curb the supply of replica firearms but I'm not sure if that actually made law.

The point being that in the UK at least, the supply of firearms has been much easier in the last decade and we've seen a corresponding rise in gun crime, but I don't believe that that tide can not be turned and we will see a fall in gun crime if they carry on making inroads into the supply.

With regards Bjornkeizer's view from the Netherlands. I'd be astonished if you could get any significant numbers of the population here who would think it a good idea to have a relaxation of the gun laws. Indeed the majority of our police officers are unarmed which I think is generally considered a good thing.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Highlight: which is of course entirely free of bias, because its judges are always appointed with scrupulous fairness and infinite wisdom by presidents who completely ignore the political biases of their constituents.

Cheers,

R.
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What does that matter? It's the system that's been in place for more than 200 years. If you use that to challenge the Court's second amendment rulings, you have to challenge every other ruling the body has made. It's not a perfect system, but no system is.
 
Not an Easy Solution

Not an Easy Solution

I carried a gun for 32 years for the US government and I own several. However, I cannot see myself doing some type of mass murder under any circumstances.

Saying guns are evil is giving a moral value to a tool just like saying drugs are evil (same type of mindset giving a moral value to an inanimate object).

However, I don't know of any reasonable person who does not believe it is now time to restrict assault weapons and high capacity magazines and perhaps handguns. And at the same time increase funding for mental health treatment.

Again, a very complicated subject which does not have any simple solutions. Neither argument that claiming that gun control will reduce shootings or that more guns or concealed carry holders will help society is borne out by research.
 
Dear Roger

The difficulty with pacifism as a working model rather than a noble aspiration is that it raises some interesting moral ambiguities.
In order to survive the pacifist must live in societies which have often come into being and are defended by violence or the threat of violence.So the pacifist can only survive in a society where others are willing to fight and die to protect their right to be a pacifist.
Somewhat parasitic .

The dilemma under discussion here is when faced with the threat of violence from "evil" the pacifist only has two courses of action both of which ,I would suggest are immoral.
He either appease the wrong doer and co operates there bye allowing the perpetrator to continue the "evil" Indeed to facilitate it there bye making the pacifist at least partially responsible .
The other course of action is to let the perpetrator kill him and in doing so also enable the perpetrator to continue.
To extend this to others by depriving them of the means or right to use force to protect themselves and leads to possible additional deaths brings about a chain of events making the pacifist responsible for the very thing they are trying to prevent...violence.
It therefore facilitates violence it doesn`t defeat it.

Best

Michael
 
I do not know the right or wrong about what gun control would do. But I do know that about 3 years ago 3 men tryed to rob me in a remote part of a park, situation awareness saved me that time.. Since then I do carry a handgun when out and about. My wife and I visit the range every couple of months to stay sharp. Also uncle SAM give me a few lessons and practice. As far as being harmed by my weapon they will have to beat me with it cause it will be empty.
 
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