"Thanks to the coward ass bitches my 7 year old got to witness his first shooting Fucking bull shit that society is this way next time use your fucking fist like real men"
That's really incredibly awful, but I don't think guns are solely to blame. If you want someone dead enough it's going to happen with or without guns.
Also, hope you don't mind, but I really don't want this to be at the bottom of the last page.
Must feel bad, getting ripped off like that. Especially since they sell your address to about a million spam companies. I made that mistake when I first got into guns. Once you research the realities of the spot guns occupy in American politics, you see how ridiculous they are in their methods and their status.
If they were as necessary as they say they are, all the redneck gun owners would be rebelling. Believe me, the very INSTANT a serious threat to our gun rights materializes, you'll see all the backwoods of America rise up. Trust me on this.
The NRA instead uses fear tactics to dream up threats to our rights and scare impressionable people into joining while using the congressmen they've bought to keep insidious legislation like 922(r) in force so that they have a reason to exist, a lot like how anti-abortion lobbyists will never really overturn Roe v. Wade in its entirety. What use is a lobby if its reason for existing dies out?
No, your NRA dues are just keeping Colt and Remington from producing civilian legal automatics again and keeping $200 Norinco 1911s and $50 Mosins from American shores.
The NRA instead uses fear tactics to dream up threats to our rights and scare impressionable people into joining
Oh, is that why there was that big scare a year or so ago that everyone needed to buy as many guns and as much ammunition as they could before Obama got his way, despite Obama not having given any signs that he was going to do anything? I was wondering about that.
Oh, is that why there was that big scare a year or so ago that everyone needed to buy as many guns and as much ammunition as they could before Obama got his way, despite Obama not having given any signs that he was going to do anything? I was wondering about that.
Yup. Also, I love how Noname didn't see fit to reply to my appraisal of the NRA.
And yet, I've probably been to the range more often than a lot of people here. Kinda weird to think of that, isn't it?
That it is. Well... You had to reload every five shots. Ha! Also, as a matter of legal procedure, they make self defense with firearms fairly difficult, what with no legal carry options whatsoever.
That it is. Well... You had to reload every five shots. Ha! Also, as a matter of legal procedure, they make self defense with firearms fairly difficult, what with no legal carry options whatsoever.
When I've been at the range, I've generally had a magazine of about twenty shots or so. I don't know the handgun I was shooting, though, because it belonged to a family friend. I think it was close to the same for rifles. Shotguns you could only have two shots at a time, but since you're pausing every round to release a new clay pigeon, it really doesn't matter that much.
As for self defense, this is where we substitute firearms with good old fashioned common sense. We don't do things like, say going to an ATM in L.A. after dark. That's just begging to get mugged. You don't park your car in a dark area, or sit in it for too long once you get to it. If you notice someone weird around your car, you casually decide to go to a brightly lit area and call a friend or something. Don't go down streets you don't know and don't travel in the dark while you're, say on your fancy smart phone.
You shouldn't have to be afraid like that, though. Potential criminals should be afraid of you. This is why carry laws exist: deterrence and, of course, active defense. When it all comes down to it, a .45 ACP will respond much faster than law enforcement, and I won't be out any money when I recover my wallet.
You shouldn't have to be afraid like that, though. Potential criminals should be afraid of you. This is why carry laws exist: deterrence and, of course, active defense. When it all comes down to it, a .45 ACP will respond much faster than law enforcement, and I won't be out any money when I recover my wallet.
The thing about guns is that they become a lot less useful at close range. And if someone's going to mug you, it seems logical to me that they wouldn't make a move until they were in close range because they don't want you to get away. My self-defense instructors always told us that the most likely type of attack we would potentially face is being grabbed by someone and the thing with being grabbed is it greatly reduces your ability to maneuver and, say, pull out a handgun. Even if you did get it, the grabber would be in a good position to take it away by this time.
A gun is far more useful in offense, I feel, or if you know that someone a good distance away means you harm. It would probably also be useful if someone was in your house and you hear them before they know you're there. But not on the street.
You shouldn't have to be afraid like that, though.
I agree with both of these.
I'm not sure where I fall when it comes to carrying a handgun. Sure, you can defend yourself, but there seems to me a lot of ability to abuse having said gun. I mean, look at George Zimmerman for one thing.
Regarding "common sense," it occurs to me that what women consider common sense regarding safety is different than for men. I might not hang around in a dark alley or something, but it's no big deal for me to go to the store in the middle of the night by myself to buy something. However, my wife would never think of doing so because she would feel unsafe.
That it is. Well... You had to reload every five shots. Ha! Also, as a matter of legal procedure, they make self defense with firearms fairly difficult, what with no legal carry options whatsoever.
You are able to get a carry a concealed weapon license (CCW) in California, which is issued by the sheriff or police chief, at their discretion, for the area of California in which you live.
It is true though that non-Californians can't carry concealed weapons, since out-of-state concealed weapons licenses are not recognized in California.
I sought out a former member of the Irish Republican Army who had one for sale. Got it from him for two hundred, and it is still in perfect working condition.
It's like the whole post was tailored to upset me!
Wait, you're still discussing guns? So there are more than two out there?
/troll
Actually, I'm going to take this seriously and express my amazement. I just find it utterly unfathomable how or why guns are apparently so embedded in American culture. How did that happen? Is it the Wild West or what? I just don't see the appeal of owning a gun at all.
And as for defending oneself against criminals... isn't that what the police is for?
Actually, I'm going to take this seriously and express my amazement. I just find it utterly unfathomable how or why guns are apparently so embedded in American culture. How did that happen? Is it the Wild West or what? I just don't see the appeal of owning a gun at all.
It's due to the second amendment of the US Constitution (part of the Bill of Rights), that grants "the right of the people to keep and bear arms". It was actually put in place due to the 1689 English Bill of Rights (which was one of the inspirations for the US Bill of Rights), where the Parliament of England determined that the freedom of people to keep arms was a natural right.
Like everything else in the United States, different states have differering opinions on how far that right extends. Every state has laws allowing hunting with rifles. It's harder to get a license in some states than others, even for this (some have extensive background checks and lengthy waiting periods, others do not). But when it comes to handguns, the laws are even more varied. Some states allow concealed weapons permits for protection purposes, some are dependent on individual counties or cities making their own decisions on approval for these (California for example), and places that don't allow concealed handguns require them to be locked up when transporting (for use for shooting ranges, and the like).
It's also been up for debate for years about whether the first and second part of that amendment are connected. The first part says "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state", and is separated by a comma before the second part above. In a Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller, the US Supreme Court found that the right to bear arms was "clearly an individual right, having nothing whatsoever to do with service in the militia".
And as for defending oneself against criminals... isn't that what the police is for?
They can't be expected to be there at the very moment when you are being violently assaulted. I won't debate the use of firearms to protect yourself, as it's been debated before in this thread, but there are definitely times when people have to protect themselves personally before police arrive (or even before police can even be called).
Criminals aren't there 24/7 either. How many people who carry a gun actually encounter a situation where they have to use it in their lifetime to save themselves or other civilians? How many people who carry a gun actually use it to harm people?
And about the Constitution, it seems to me to be terribly anachronistic to still take that as a point of reference. That's the problem with patriotism, there's too much worshipping of old values, and too little of looking at what really works.
there are definitely times when people have to protect themselves personally before police arrive (or even before police can even be called).
I wonder how many situations like that truly come up though. The most obvious situation I can think of is an armed robbery. In that case, it could make sense to offer training to shopkeepers to defend themselves.
There are probably other situations in which civilians would like to defend themselves, but that still doesn't explain this particular fascination with guns. There's a lot more to it than just wanting to defend oneself. For some, perhaps even most, gun owners that might be an important reason for wanting to own firearms, but I'm sure there are other people who think it's just "cool". Those are the ones I don't understand.
I wonder how many situations like that truly come up though. The most obvious situation I can think of is an armed robbery. In that case, it could make sense to offer training to shopkeepers to defend themselves.
There's also the case of violence due to bigotry (for example, in the present climate in the United States, being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transsexual, sadly, does sometimes lead to violence). In my hometown, a group of people beat a gay man who came out of a bar because he was carrying a purse, and the owner of the only gay bar in the town where I grew up was shot in his own home a few years ago. Also, a transsexual woman was beaten so badly she went into convulsions in Baltimore, Maryland last year while onlookers just watched the beating and laughed.
Cases like that would definitely warrant some form of self-protection.
There are probably other situations in which civilians would like to defend themselves, but that still doesn't explain this particular fascination with guns. There's a lot more to it than just wanting to defend oneself. For some, perhaps even most, gun owners that might be an important reason for wanting to own firearms, but I'm sure there are other people who think it's just "cool". Those are the ones I don't understand.
I don't understand those people either. I haven't met any people like that though. All of the people I met either want a gun for protection (my parent's friend from California who used to be in law enforcement), for hunting (my father when he was younger), or both (my sister's boyfriend). There are also people who want guns for target range shooting (some people in the handgun class I took (it was a college criminal justice class, so most people who took it wanted to get into law enforcement)).
Cases like that would definitely warrant some form of self-protection.
To do what? Shoot the assaulter? Okay. Shoot him in the leg? Sure, why not. In the head though, would that be warranted? And what to do with the people standing around watching, if they don't go away, should they be shot as well? There's a justice system for a reason, it's to prevent situations where people take the law into their own hands.
for hunting
Ah, that's another thing... I probably shouldn't go into that whole discussion though, I'd probably be labelled a vegetarian (which I am) hippie (which I'm not).
most people who took it wanted to get into law enforcement
I understand that shooting must be a part of the curriculum if you're studying to be in law enforcement. But what about the other people who were there? Why did they feel the need to do target practice if they weren't going to use it to serve the public? Were they studying to be cowboys or what? Why not take up archery instead? Seems to me like that's at least as much fun, and a lot less dangerous (taking a bow and arrow onto the streets to shoot people sounds like it's a lot harder than doing the same with firearms).
To do what? Shoot the assaulter? Okay. Shoot him in the leg? Sure, why not. In the head though, would that be warranted?
In the case of the man who murdered the man in his home, it could have saved the murdered man's life, so yes, a fatal shot would have been warranted there. In the case of the beating in Baltimore, I do think if she had fatally wounded her assaulter, it would have been warranted. She didn't die, but she was assaulted so badly that she's lucky to be alive, and she definitely could have died from the injuries she sustained.
There's a justice system for a reason, it's to prevent situations where people take the law into their own hands.
Protecting yourself isn't taking the law into your own hands. That saying means that you are working from outside of the law to justify your actions. It's not unlawful to use force to protect yourself from harm.
I understand that shooting must be a part of the curriculum if you're studying to be in law enforcement. But what about the other people who were there? Why did they feel the need to do target practice if they weren't going to use it to serve the public? Were they studying to be cowboys or what? Why not take up archery instead? Seems to me like that's at least as much fun, and a lot less dangerous.
I wasn't in criminal justice classes in college, I just took the handgun class as an elective. I took the class for two reasons: I was curious about the procedures police take in regards to how and when to fire a weapon, and also because I was curious about what it was like to fire a handgun.
As far as crossbows vs. guns, we had mandatory archery in high school, and I didn't like it very much. I did enjoy shooting at the firing range when I took the handgun class in college though. It's a completely different feeling, and as I said before I did come to realize how some people enjoyed sport shooting after I took the class. Like Comrade Pants said before, if you try it yourself you might come out with a better understanding of people who enjoy it.
taking a bow and arrow onto the streets to shoot people sounds like it's a lot harder than doing the same with firearms
Only a tiny fraction of people who own guns ever use them for criminal activities. You'll find that most people who own guns are law-abiding citizens. I certainly don't find my father, my parent's friend, or my sister's boyfriend as outlaw-types because they've owned guns (or me, for that matter, for having fired a gun before).
Having rolled it over in my mind, I don't think seeing a random law-abiding citizen with a holstered handgun would particularly bother me (albeit, given that said citizen doesn't look creepy, suspicious or associated with such as a gang).
I think it would bother me if I went to a location/event/place of business (that was not itself gun-related) where the majority of citizens were to be seen carrying a gun. I admit, however, that such an occurrence may either be more in the realm of the hypothetical or else would probably be a seedy place that I wouldn't visit in the first place.
I understand that shooting must be a part of the curriculum if you're studying to be in law enforcement. But what about the other people who were there? Why did they feel the need to do target practice if they weren't going to use it to serve the public? Were they studying to be cowboys or what? Why not take up archery instead? Seems to me like that's at least as much fun, and a lot less dangerous (taking a bow and arrow onto the streets to shoot people sounds like it's a lot harder than doing the same with firearms).
I don't actually own guns as I haven't found them to be necessary for protection or anything, but I have gone out to the range a few times with a friend of my parents to practice shooting. I view it more as a skill, one that you hope never to use, but an important one to have just in case. I mean, I also sail even though I'm not planning on being a sailor, and play several musical instruments even though I don't plan to be a musician. I think it's important to know how a gun works and be able to use one, but not so important to actually own one.
I think I mentioned already that I think a martial arts based self defense is more practical in most cases. I highly doubt that the transsexual woman who was beaten would have been able to shoot her attacker after they were clear in their intentions. I mean, by that point, they were probably too close and had started a grapple or grab and the gun would have been useless. And of course, a weapon that you don't know how to use just becomes one for your opponent, so there's that to consider as well.
Also @Chyron: I think open-carry is stupid. If the point of carrying a gun is protection, it only works if the attacker doesn't know you have it. Otherwise it's just an advertisement that you own a small valuable object and carry it on your person, right there to be taken away.
Comments
That's really incredibly awful, but I don't think guns are solely to blame. If you want someone dead enough it's going to happen with or without guns.
Also, hope you don't mind, but I really don't want this to be at the bottom of the last page.
Oh, is that why there was that big scare a year or so ago that everyone needed to buy as many guns and as much ammunition as they could before Obama got his way, despite Obama not having given any signs that he was going to do anything? I was wondering about that.
Yup. Also, I love how Noname didn't see fit to reply to my appraisal of the NRA.
Is that anything like a dog show?
Great state, but they've got the shittiest gun laws in the Union.
And yet, I've probably been to the range more often than a lot of people here. Kinda weird to think of that, isn't it?
That it is. Well... You had to reload every five shots. Ha! Also, as a matter of legal procedure, they make self defense with firearms fairly difficult, what with no legal carry options whatsoever.
When I've been at the range, I've generally had a magazine of about twenty shots or so. I don't know the handgun I was shooting, though, because it belonged to a family friend. I think it was close to the same for rifles. Shotguns you could only have two shots at a time, but since you're pausing every round to release a new clay pigeon, it really doesn't matter that much.
As for self defense, this is where we substitute firearms with good old fashioned common sense. We don't do things like, say going to an ATM in L.A. after dark. That's just begging to get mugged. You don't park your car in a dark area, or sit in it for too long once you get to it. If you notice someone weird around your car, you casually decide to go to a brightly lit area and call a friend or something. Don't go down streets you don't know and don't travel in the dark while you're, say on your fancy smart phone.
You know, standard self-defense things.
The thing about guns is that they become a lot less useful at close range. And if someone's going to mug you, it seems logical to me that they wouldn't make a move until they were in close range because they don't want you to get away. My self-defense instructors always told us that the most likely type of attack we would potentially face is being grabbed by someone and the thing with being grabbed is it greatly reduces your ability to maneuver and, say, pull out a handgun. Even if you did get it, the grabber would be in a good position to take it away by this time.
A gun is far more useful in offense, I feel, or if you know that someone a good distance away means you harm. It would probably also be useful if someone was in your house and you hear them before they know you're there. But not on the street.
I agree with both of these.
I'm not sure where I fall when it comes to carrying a handgun. Sure, you can defend yourself, but there seems to me a lot of ability to abuse having said gun. I mean, look at George Zimmerman for one thing.
Regarding "common sense," it occurs to me that what women consider common sense regarding safety is different than for men. I might not hang around in a dark alley or something, but it's no big deal for me to go to the store in the middle of the night by myself to buy something. However, my wife would never think of doing so because she would feel unsafe.
It is true though that non-Californians can't carry concealed weapons, since out-of-state concealed weapons licenses are not recognized in California.
Request for pics
/troll
It's like the whole post was tailored to upset me!
Knowing this forum, I'd not put it in the realm of the impossible.
We're thinking about the same model Webley, right? A Webley is many things. Cool looking, it is not. A nice historic piece, though. Vintage Britannia.
And as for defending oneself against criminals... isn't that what the police is for?
The police aren't there 24/7 though.
Like everything else in the United States, different states have differering opinions on how far that right extends. Every state has laws allowing hunting with rifles. It's harder to get a license in some states than others, even for this (some have extensive background checks and lengthy waiting periods, others do not). But when it comes to handguns, the laws are even more varied. Some states allow concealed weapons permits for protection purposes, some are dependent on individual counties or cities making their own decisions on approval for these (California for example), and places that don't allow concealed handguns require them to be locked up when transporting (for use for shooting ranges, and the like).
It's also been up for debate for years about whether the first and second part of that amendment are connected. The first part says "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state", and is separated by a comma before the second part above. In a Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller, the US Supreme Court found that the right to bear arms was "clearly an individual right, having nothing whatsoever to do with service in the militia".
They can't be expected to be there at the very moment when you are being violently assaulted. I won't debate the use of firearms to protect yourself, as it's been debated before in this thread, but there are definitely times when people have to protect themselves personally before police arrive (or even before police can even be called).
And about the Constitution, it seems to me to be terribly anachronistic to still take that as a point of reference. That's the problem with patriotism, there's too much worshipping of old values, and too little of looking at what really works.
I wonder how many situations like that truly come up though. The most obvious situation I can think of is an armed robbery. In that case, it could make sense to offer training to shopkeepers to defend themselves.
There are probably other situations in which civilians would like to defend themselves, but that still doesn't explain this particular fascination with guns. There's a lot more to it than just wanting to defend oneself. For some, perhaps even most, gun owners that might be an important reason for wanting to own firearms, but I'm sure there are other people who think it's just "cool". Those are the ones I don't understand.
Cases like that would definitely warrant some form of self-protection.
I don't understand those people either. I haven't met any people like that though. All of the people I met either want a gun for protection (my parent's friend from California who used to be in law enforcement), for hunting (my father when he was younger), or both (my sister's boyfriend). There are also people who want guns for target range shooting (some people in the handgun class I took (it was a college criminal justice class, so most people who took it wanted to get into law enforcement)).
Ah, that's another thing... I probably shouldn't go into that whole discussion though, I'd probably be labelled a vegetarian (which I am) hippie (which I'm not).
I understand that shooting must be a part of the curriculum if you're studying to be in law enforcement. But what about the other people who were there? Why did they feel the need to do target practice if they weren't going to use it to serve the public? Were they studying to be cowboys or what? Why not take up archery instead? Seems to me like that's at least as much fun, and a lot less dangerous (taking a bow and arrow onto the streets to shoot people sounds like it's a lot harder than doing the same with firearms).
Of course not.
Protecting yourself isn't taking the law into your own hands. That saying means that you are working from outside of the law to justify your actions. It's not unlawful to use force to protect yourself from harm.
I wasn't in criminal justice classes in college, I just took the handgun class as an elective. I took the class for two reasons: I was curious about the procedures police take in regards to how and when to fire a weapon, and also because I was curious about what it was like to fire a handgun.
As far as crossbows vs. guns, we had mandatory archery in high school, and I didn't like it very much. I did enjoy shooting at the firing range when I took the handgun class in college though. It's a completely different feeling, and as I said before I did come to realize how some people enjoyed sport shooting after I took the class. Like Comrade Pants said before, if you try it yourself you might come out with a better understanding of people who enjoy it.
Only a tiny fraction of people who own guns ever use them for criminal activities. You'll find that most people who own guns are law-abiding citizens. I certainly don't find my father, my parent's friend, or my sister's boyfriend as outlaw-types because they've owned guns (or me, for that matter, for having fired a gun before).
Having rolled it over in my mind, I don't think seeing a random law-abiding citizen with a holstered handgun would particularly bother me (albeit, given that said citizen doesn't look creepy, suspicious or associated with such as a gang).
I think it would bother me if I went to a location/event/place of business (that was not itself gun-related) where the majority of citizens were to be seen carrying a gun. I admit, however, that such an occurrence may either be more in the realm of the hypothetical or else would probably be a seedy place that I wouldn't visit in the first place.
I don't actually own guns as I haven't found them to be necessary for protection or anything, but I have gone out to the range a few times with a friend of my parents to practice shooting. I view it more as a skill, one that you hope never to use, but an important one to have just in case. I mean, I also sail even though I'm not planning on being a sailor, and play several musical instruments even though I don't plan to be a musician. I think it's important to know how a gun works and be able to use one, but not so important to actually own one.
I think I mentioned already that I think a martial arts based self defense is more practical in most cases. I highly doubt that the transsexual woman who was beaten would have been able to shoot her attacker after they were clear in their intentions. I mean, by that point, they were probably too close and had started a grapple or grab and the gun would have been useless. And of course, a weapon that you don't know how to use just becomes one for your opponent, so there's that to consider as well.
Also @Chyron: I think open-carry is stupid. If the point of carrying a gun is protection, it only works if the attacker doesn't know you have it. Otherwise it's just an advertisement that you own a small valuable object and carry it on your person, right there to be taken away.