It is time to revise/update the U.S. constitution.....

[maycocksean]

I support the strictest possible gun-control laws. Here in Saipan, civilians aren't allowed to own handguns at all--just rifles, and gun-related crimes are very rare here, even accounting for the small size of our population.

I'd support similar laws in the Mainland.

And the reason I support strict gun control laws is not because of armed criminals. It's the armed "law-abiding" citizens that I worry about, to be honest.

If the gun control laws were stricter, even a mentally ill person like Cho bent on killing, might have been prevented from getting the guns he needed to carry out his sick fantasies. Speaking as someone who has a brother who was expelled from university because of problems stemming from his schizophrenia (some rock-throwing and window breaking and threats and whatnot) I can tell you the mentally ill typically don't have the local underworld figures, from whom black market weapons can be purchased, on speed dial.

I can tell you that it worried me a lot that my brother could go down to the local Wal-Mart and buy a gun with relative ease.

And I can tell you, I was always relieved that he DIDN'T have access to guns and hoped he never would. (He never talked about killing anybody or anything, but you always worry, you know. . .The good news by the way is that he's been on medication regularly--finally--for the past two years or so and is doing much, much better. Suffice it to say I don't worry so much any more).

 

[martha]

And the reason I support strict gun control laws is not because of armed criminals. It's the armed "law-abiding" citizens that I worry about, to be honest.

These are the ones that worry me as well. Like the man here in Orange County who was pissed at some teenagers for some minor vandalism. He came storming outside with his gun, "just to scare them." One of the teenagers ended up shot and killed, and now the pathetic old man is going to prison for 2nd degree murder. I'm sure his gun made him feel safer. I sure don't feel safer knowing that any random old coot on my street is packing heat.

 

[Irvine511]

And the reason I support strict gun control laws is not because of armed criminals. It's the armed "law-abiding" citizens that I worry about, to be honest.

i'm beginning to come to this conclusion. i'm beginning to wonder if there is such a thing as a "responsible gun owner," because if you were truly responsible, why would you have a gun? is target practice so much fun that it's worth the countless deaths due to a domestic dispute and the presence of a "saturday night special?"

i know responsible drug users -- and real drugs, like cocaine -- and that sure doesn't mean i think that hard drugs should be legal.



[q] I can tell you the mentally ill typically don't have the local underworld figures, from whom black market weapons can be purchased, on speed dial.[/q]

and that's really the crux of the issue. i'm not terribly frightened of being gunned down by crossfire from a gang war. it's cops who really need to worry about dealing with genuine criminals who can get reallly bad guns. and the cops are armed. the schizophrenic who shoots up a classroom, the guy who robs a 7-11 and it goes horrible wrong, the domestic dispute that ends with a bullet to the chest -- all these things happen with legally purchased, legally owned fire arms.

 

[AEON]

While we are rewriting the Constitution - let's change the establishment clause. Let's end the debate once for all - Christianity is the national religion!

People have every right to protect their family. There are too many people more than willing to come into your house and steal your money, kidnap your children, or rape your wife. Sometimes, a gun is the only real defense.

There are many, many reason America has so much violence. The availability of handguns is only part of the problem.

And I guarantee you, if a disaster strikes and bands of thugs are roaming the streets with no visible law enforcement - you will want a gun of some sort, because Krav Maga will only get you so far.

 

[BVS]

While we are rewriting the Constitution - let's change the establishment clause. Let's end the debate once for all - Christianity is the national religion!

Are you being serious?

 

[Irvine511]

While we are rewriting the Constitution - let's change the establishment clause. Let's end the debate once for all - Christianity is the national religion!

you know as well as i do that "right to bear arms" and "well-regulated militia" are vauge enough phrases for us all to debate their meaning.

and we change the Constitution all the time -- it's called "amending."


[q]People have every right to protect their family. There are too many people more than willing to come into your house and steal your money, kidnap your children, or rape your wife. Sometimes, a gun is the only real defense.[/q]

while this does happen, and i can see the point, i think we also have to look in aggregate -- the fact remains, if you have a gun in the house, it's more likely that you or a family member will get shot by that gun than it is that you will use it to defend your home.


[q]There are many, many reason America has so much violence. The availability of handguns is only part of the problem.[/q]

agreed, but as has been pointed out, there's violence in other countries as well. yet no one has the shooting deaths we have. no one is even close.

And I guarantee you, if a disaster strikes and bands of thugs are roaming the streets with no visible law enforcement - you will want a gun of some sort, because Krav Maga will only get you so far.

this i can understand. but, again, we have to ask ourselves -- at what cost? 12,000 dead each year by handguns.

 

[Liesje]

People have every right to protect their family. There are too many people more than willing to come into your house and steal your money, kidnap your children, or rape your wife. Sometimes, a gun is the only real defense.

Sheesh, I almost feel bad that you are living in such a state of constant paranoia.

People only have a right to defend themselves with such force if that's what's being done to them. You cannot shoot and kill a 15 year old kid who pries open your window to reach in and nab a $20 you left on the table.

As for kidnapping of children and raping of wives, I can't recall any incidences where The Man has rightfully shot down an intruder trying to kidnap his children and/or rape his wife. I do know of half a dozen incidents in the past few years just on the southeast side of Grand Rapids where CHILDREN have shot and killed CHILDREN because they had access to lethal weapons and parents who told them it was OK to "defend" themselves. For example, a father gave his teenage kid a gun and told the kid they had the right to defend themselves, and the teenager killed another kid over $14.

I will voluntarily give up my rights to such a weapon if it means that I could save the life of a single child.

 

[BVS]

Sheesh, I almost feel bad that you are living in such a state of constant paranoia.

I agree.

 

[AEON]

Are you being serious?

No

 

[AEON]

I will voluntarily give up my rights to such a weapon if it means that I could save the life of a single child.

Are you a mother? Do you think if you had children (if you don't) and your husband got called away to war for a year that you would feel safer with a gun in the house? Close your eyes and actually imagine a large man breaking into your back door and you hear him.

If you felt safer with a gun - is that really being paranoid? Or prepared?

 

[Irvine511]

Are you a mother? Do you think if you had children (if you don't) and your husband got called away to war for a year that you would feel safer with a gun in the house? Close your eyes and actually imagine a large man breaking into your back door and you hear him.

If you felt safer with a gun - is that really being paranoid? Or prepared?

considering the fact that the presence of a firearm in a house increases the likelihood of a homocide happening in the house by a factor of 22, and when someone is home, a gun is used for protection in fewer than two percent of home invasion crimes.

if that gun kills anyone, it will probably kill someone you know and love than an intruder.

in 1998, for example, there were only 154 justifiable homicides commited with a handgun. and 8,259 murders committed with a handgun.

 

[Liesje]

Are you a mother? Do you think if you had children (if you don't) and your husband got called away to war for a year that you would feel safer with a gun in the house? Close your eyes and actually imagine a large man breaking into your back door and you hear him.

1. I'm not a mother but I used to nanny full time for four kids and they were like my own to me. Being an oldest with younger siblings who were often left in my care, I've experience my fair share of "mothering" instincts in bad situations, enough to know that I don't want that kind of responsibility right now with a baby of my own.

2. I don't know whether to be offended or laugh my ass off at the assumption that my safety is so closely correlated with the presence of my husband. Actually, I am laughing my ass off....yeah if you knew me or my husband, you'd be laughing at that too...

3. I lived for 18 years with multiple guns in my home and NEVER felt safer because of it.

4. My home WAS broken into and my family has been threatened on more than one occasion. You don't know me and you don't know where I grew up.

5. On one such occasion (a robbery of our home), the guns were stolen. Some time later, the police called because guns registered to my dad had been used in another crime. Safe, huh?


I would NEVER EVER EVER EVER allow a gun in my home if I had children. Absofuckinglutely NOT. Not on my life. Not on the life of Jesus Christ himself would I EVER create a situation like that with my OWN children.

Would I kill for my own children? Definitely so. Would I create an environment where they could kill themselves, each other, or someone else? As God is my witness, no.

If I was the type of person you presume me to be (still laughing, by the way), I'd get a Boxer dog and train it to alert bark if was really so paranoid, which I'm not.

 

[MrBrau1]

Are you a mother? Do you think if you had children (if you don't) and your husband got called away to war for a year that you would feel safer with a gun in the house? Close your eyes and actually imagine a large man breaking into your back door and you hear him.

If you felt safer with a gun - is that really being paranoid? Or prepared?

Or you're wahsing dishes while Timmy plays in his room. You don't hear him as he wanders into your room and begins to explore (kids find everything) and find a cool toy.

 

[A_Wanderer]

^ Hey how could the kid find the gun when it was hidden behind the open bottles of medication and industrial cleaning products

 

[Liesje]

^ Hey how could the kid find the gun when it was hidden behind the open bottles of medication and industrial cleaning products

Have you ever met a kid that didn't love the game "take everything out of mommy's purse even though she's said not to a million times"? Medicines and cleaning products are kept in cabinets with child locks. I can't speak for everyone, but we've had to use child locks even for our cats!

If the gun is kept disassembled and unloaded in a locked case, doesn't that entirely defeat the purpose of being "prepared" for a big man who's going to storm in and rape us?

 

[deep]

Hello Aeon



Assuming that a law breaker enters a property for an illegal purpose,

What percent (do you think) of the time is it for one of the following:

a. steal your property

b. kidnap someone

c. rape someone




I know it is just speculation
put a number, a percentage, 1% -80% or something



(for the record, there is a good chance I own more guns that you)

 

[A_Wanderer]

Have you ever met a kid that didn't love the game "take everything out of mommy's purse even though she's said not to a million times"? Medicines and cleaning products are kept in cabinets with child locks. I can't speak for everyone, but we've had to use child locks even for our cats!

If the gun is kept disassembled and unloaded in a locked case, doesn't that entirely defeat the purpose of being "prepared" for a big man who's going to storm in and rape us?

Do most gun owners stash their handguns loaded in places like that?

 

[Snowlock]

There were wacko's abusing free speach in every century since man could talk. In this day and age, with the internet and all the other media-means we use to bring the world closer together we hear about it more often than that of our grandparents et al.

In order to limit free speach, you have to have a group of people who decides what to limit. Do you want a bunch of career politicians who care more about money from special interest deciding what can be said or reported? If not, do you create a special group that decides what's free and what's not free? Who decides who's in the group? But the big danger is, 100 years from now, when our descendants are wrestling with whatever the next free speech issue is, how do we know they'll be honest? What kind of legacy will we have set up? It's sort of like, 'it's not necessarily your good intentions I'm worried about, but the intentions of those who follow after you're gone.'

The general populace of Germany who paved the way for Adolf Hitler had nothing but good intentions at that time.

I have no problem with gun control, but banning guns does nothing but take guns out of the hands of honest people. Sorry. If this guy had wanted to, he could easily have procured those guns illegally. And from the lessons we've learned through history about first Alchohol & then drugs, banning guns will make getting them even easier to get for those wishing to break the law. It'd be your typical supply and demand.

The failure here wasn't that this guy could get the guns, it was the polictically correct policies of the university. Even though they had identified him as at the very minimum mentally unbalanced, but realistically, as psychotic, they had done nothing because they didn't want to step on his civil liberties.

 

[Irvine511]

Re: Re: It is time to revise/update the U.S. constitution.....

Sorry. If this guy had wanted to, he could easily have procured those guns illegally.

i was thinking that a day or two ago, but now i'm not so sure. if guns were illegal, just what kind of contacts to a criminal underworld would people like Cho and Kleebold and Harris actually have? if they were really, really intent on shooting everyone, i'm sure it could be done, but i also wonder if the ease of getting a gun doesn't facilitate gun crime, whereas if it were much, much harder to get a gun, that might be a deterrant to guns themselves. look at the UK, Australia, etc. plenty of crime, plenty of stabbings and brawls and beatings, but not so much gun crimes.

The failure here wasn't that this guy could get the guns, it was the polictically correct policies of the university. Even though they had identified him as at the very minimum mentally unbalanced, but realistically, as psychotic, they had done nothing because they didn't want to step on his civil liberties.

how is that politically correct?

 

[Liesje]

Do most gun owners stash their handguns loaded in places like that?

Considering how many children have been involved with accidental gun deaths, I'd have to imagine adults that own and carry guns for their immediate "safety" and protection, yeah. How does a 4 year old know how to load a gun?

Gives me the willies just thinking about it...

 

[Irvine511]

Do most gun owners stash their handguns loaded in places like that?

i guarantee you that, if my parents had a gun, by the age of 9 or 10 i'd have figured out where it was and how to get it.

 

[clarityat3am]

My grandfather still keeps a loaded pistol under his bed. Fortunately all of the kids were taught to know better than to handle them.

 

[Irvine511]

My grandfather still keeps a loaded pistol under his bed. Fortunately all of the kids were taught to know better than to handle them.

and most kids don't swallow bottles of pills, or drink bleach, or push others down the stairs, or get drunk and drive their car into a tree when they're 16, or any number of things that parents teach their children not to do.

why add another dimension of danger to a household? why keep a tool around who's only function is to kill someone else? there's no reason for the existence of a gun beyond death.

 

[clarityat3am]

I wasn't trying to fuel the debate. Just noting the fact that, yes, people do still keep guns in open places. Not the best idea, but they do.

 

[Irvine511]

I wasn't trying to fuel the debate. Just noting the fact that, yes, people do still keep guns in open places. Not the best idea, but they do.

please, fuel the debate! the more opinions the better.

 

[AEON]

^ Hey how could the kid find the gun when it was hidden behind the open bottles of medication and industrial cleaning products

LOL! Sometimes you really crack me up.

 

[clarityat3am]

I'm more of a random note here or there type. But I did find this interesting. By the one and only Ted Nugent.

Nugent: Gun-free zones are recipe for disaster

POSTED: 3:14 p.m. EDT, April 20, 2007
More on CNN TV: Ted Nugent participates in a roundtable discussion on gun control tonight on "Glenn Beck," Headline Prime, 7 p.m. ET.
By Ted Nugent
Special to CNN

Editor's note: Rock guitarist Ted Nugent has sold more than 30 million albums. He's also a gun rights activist and serves on the board of directors of the National Rifle Association. His program, "Ted Nugent Spirit of the Wild," can be seen on the Outdoor Channel.

WACO, Texas (CNN) -- Zero tolerance, huh? Gun-free zones, huh? Try this on for size: Columbine gun-free zone, New York City pizza shop gun-free zone, Luby's Cafeteria gun-free zone, Amish school in Pennsylvania gun-free zone and now Virginia Tech gun-free zone.

Anybody see what the evil Brady Campaign and other anti-gun cults have created? I personally have zero tolerance for evil and denial. And America had best wake up real fast that the brain-dead celebration of unarmed helplessness will get you killed every time, and I've about had enough of it.

Nearly a decade ago, a Springfield, Oregon, high schooler, a hunter familiar with firearms, was able to bring an unfolding rampage to an abrupt end when he identified a gunman attempting to reload his .22-caliber rifle, made the tactical decision to make a move and tackled the shooter.

A few years back, an assistant principal at Pearl High School in Mississippi, which was a gun-free zone, retrieved his legally owned Colt .45 from his car and stopped a Columbine wannabe from continuing his massacre at another school after he had killed two and wounded more at Pearl.

At an eighth-grade school dance in Pennsylvania, a boy fatally shot a teacher and wounded two students before the owner of the dance hall brought the killing to a halt with his own gun.

More recently, just a few miles up the road from Virginia Tech, two law school students ran to fetch their legally owned firearm to stop a madman from slaughtering anybody and everybody he pleased. These brave, average, armed citizens neutralized him pronto.

My hero, Dr. Suzanne Gratia Hupp, was not allowed by Texas law to carry her handgun into Luby's Cafeteria that fateful day in 1991, when due to bureaucrat-forced unarmed helplessness she could do nothing to stop satanic George Hennard from killing 23 people and wounding more than 20 others before he shot himself. Hupp was unarmed for no other reason than denial-ridden "feel good" politics.

She has since led the charge for concealed weapon upgrade in Texas, where we can now stop evil. Yet, there are still the mindless puppets of the Brady Campaign and other anti-gun organizations insisting on continuing the gun-free zone insanity by which innocents are forced into unarmed helplessness. Shame on them. Shame on America. Shame on the anti-gunners all.

No one was foolish enough to debate Ryder truck regulations or ammonia nitrate restrictions or a "cult of agriculture fertilizer" following the unabashed evil of Timothy McVeigh's heinous crime against America on that fateful day in Oklahoma City. No one faulted kitchen utensils or other hardware of choice after Jeffrey Dahmer was caught drugging, mutilating, raping, murdering and cannibalizing his victims. Nobody wanted "steak knife control" as they autopsied the dead nurses in Chicago, Illinois, as Richard Speck went on trial for mass murder.

Evil is as evil does, and laws disarming guaranteed victims make evil people very, very happy. Shame on us.

Already spineless gun control advocates are squawking like chickens with their tiny-brained heads chopped off, making political hay over this most recent, devastating Virginia Tech massacre, when in fact it is their own forced gun-free zone policy that enabled the unchallenged methodical murder of 32 people.

Thirty-two people dead on a U.S. college campus pursuing their American Dream, mowed-down over an extended period of time by a lone, non-American gunman in illegal possession of a firearm on campus in defiance of a zero-tolerance gun law. Feel better yet? Didn't think so.

Who doesn't get this? Who has the audacity to demand unarmed helplessness? Who likes dead good guys?

I'll tell you who. People who tramp on the Second Amendment, that's who. People who refuse to accept the self-evident truth that free people have the God-given right to keep and bear arms, to defend themselves and their loved ones. People who are so desperate in their drive to control others, so mindless in their denial that they pretend access to gas causes arson, Ryder trucks and fertilizer cause terrorism, water causes drowning, forks and spoons cause obesity, dialing 911 will somehow save your life, and that their greedy clamoring to "feel good" is more important than admitting that armed citizens are much better equipped to stop evil than unarmed, helpless ones.

Pray for the families of victims everywhere, America. Study the methodology of evil. It has a profile, a system, a preferred environment where victims cannot fight back. Embrace the facts, demand upgrade and be certain that your children's school has a better plan than Virginia Tech or Columbine. Eliminate the insanity of gun-free zones, which will never, ever be gun-free zones. They will only be good guy gun-free zones, and that is a recipe for disaster written in blood on the altar of denial. I, for one, refuse to genuflect there.

 

[AEON]

Hello Aeon



Assuming that a law breaker enters a property for an illegal purpose,

What percent (do you think) of the time is it for one of the following:

a. steal your property

b. kidnap someone

c. rape someone




I know it is just speculation
put a number, a percentage, 1% -80% or something



(for the record, there is a good chance I own more guns that you)

Well - I can't imagine someone breaking into my house to watch LOST on my big screen. I have no idea what percentage do what - all that matters is that if you are breaking into my house - I will assume you have bad intentions.

Yes, I'm certain you own more guns than I do.

 

[Liesje]

You never know. Once a bum broke into my friends house to sleep on their couch. Good thing they didn't shoot him!

 

[Snowlock]

Re: Re: Re: It is time to revise/update the U.S. constitution.....

i was thinking that a day or two ago, but now i'm not so sure. if guns were illegal, just what kind of contacts to a criminal underworld would people like Cho and Kleebold and Harris actually have?

What kind of contacts do you need to buy pot? I'm not saying it's that easy right now; while guns are legal. But putting prohibition on them will make the black market for them a lot more accessable just because of usual supply & demand.

Oh, and as to the gun crimes in the UK. Per capita, not too long ago Scottland was list among the places with the most highest murder rates in the world- or least the West.

Like I said, I don't mind gun control, I think they should be controlled; probably even a lot more strictly than they currently are. But banning just seems like a band aid to whatever the current problem is. The discussion should be about how this kid, who couldn't have displayed more warning signs other than body painting his intent on himself, still was allowed free run on campus. That's the real issue.