Anti-gun stupidity continues...

[Grenadier]

Have you ever spoken to someone who has attempted suicide? Many are hesitant or stymied by method. They want to die, they don't want to suffer. Killing yourself with a sword is agonizing. Generally speaking, killing yourself with a gun is not.

Methods matter to potential suicide victims. I wasn't claiming that a lack of guns would end suicide, but it is part of the equation.

I'm going to have to strongly disagree. People who want to kill themselves will find ways of doing so, regardless of whether or not firearms are available.

For example, we can look at Denmark, which has strict limitations on firearms ownership by its civilians. Despite this forbiddance, they have double the suicide rate of the United States of America, according to the 1996 FBI Uniform Crime Report and the 1996 UN Demographic Yearbook statistics. France, with its strict gun control, also has a much higher suicide rate than the USA, as does Japan with its strict forbiddance.

 

[Empty Hands]

The entire nation of Japan disagrees with this statement, as does France, Sweeden, and a number of other nations who's suicide rate exceeds that of the U.S. but have restrictive firearms laws.

Other factors are in play in those countries. Japan, for instance, is a famously overworked place where failure is not tolerated and the social pressures are immense.

Again, I've spoken to people who attempted suicide, and method was a consideration. Some people aren't desperate enough to disembowel themselves with a polearm (you really thought your friend might go with a polearm?). It is simple logic.

It is also not an argument for gun control, as I've repeatedly stated.

 

[lklawson]

Other factors are in play in those countries. Japan, for instance, is a famously overworked place where failure is not tolerated and the social pressures are immense.

No offence, but that's not relevant to the claim.

Again, I've spoken to people who attempted suicide, and method was a consideration.

No one "considers" it without considering how to accomplish it.

(you really thought your friend might go with a polearm?).

No. My point was that he had lots of "options" available and lack of a firearm would have been no deterrent at all.

It is also not an argument for gun control, as I've repeatedly stated.

That's fine. I didn't think we were arguing that, but rather whether or not removing accessibility to firearms really does lower suicide rates. You argue that it does, I argue that it does not.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Steve]

Other factors are in play in those countries. Japan, for instance, is a famously overworked place where failure is not tolerated and the social pressures are immense.

Again, I've spoken to people who attempted suicide, and method was a consideration. Some people aren't desperate enough to disembowel themselves with a polearm (you really thought your friend might go with a polearm?). It is simple logic.

It is also not an argument for gun control, as I've repeatedly stated.

Gender and race tend to play a role in the most common method of suicide, but there are many ways to kill oneself. Drug overdose is a relatively painless way to die, for example. Carbon monoxide poisoning, too. Point is, if someone is past the point of deciding whether or not to commit suicide, they'll find a means to do so that works.

 

[Bruno@MT]

The people who have the money, and are willing to break the laws, can easily find whatever armaments they want. See my example above, about the Jamaican drug lords.

Not that easily. If it were that easy to buy a nuke on the black market, one would have been detonated in a US city by now. It doesn't happen because all governments agree that nukes are bad (except in their own hands) and any sort of trade or sale only happens between governments. Otoh, if nukes were available on the free market for the right price, that problem would have been lifted.

Because it would mean you could buy one at nukes r us, and the government could not do anything until you were going to set it off, which would be too late.

This is less of a problem because the really important strategic targets are too big or well protected to take out by conventional means. Governments can provide adequate protection against that sort of thing. With nukes, that is not true. Assuming that you could buy and transport them, you could just put one in a small truck, drive to hoover dam, drive through the fence, and detonate it near the dam. Or you could drive it to NYC and detonate somewhere (anywhere) or near capitol hill, ....

The only way to prevent that would be to completely restrict movement, keep them on 24 hour surveillance, prevent you from accessing the detonator to start a timed detonation, keep it out of inhabited areas yet within US borders...

I grant you that in a 2nd amendment discussion, you can argue either way for or against guns, gunships, RPGs, claymore mines, etc. What you cannot do is argue for unrestricted private ownership of nuclear weapons and at the same time argue that nothing bad would happen.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

With regard to suicide...

Have I ever spoken to someone who has attempted suicide? Does my mother count? Then yes. I am glad it did not work in her case. FYI, our house was full of guns. She chose pills and booze.

As far as method; my neighbor across the street where I used to live bought a huge horizontal style freezer. She got into a sleeping bag, duct-taped her hands together and put duct tape over her mouth, crawled into the freezer, and closed the lid. That's where her coworkers found her; in the freezer, in the garage of her house. It looked like homicide, except for the fact that she bought the freezer the day before, bought the duct tape and sleeping bag that day, it was her 50th birthday, and her husband had called her from Florida to tell her he wanted a divorce. Why she chose that route, I do not know.

I do not think anyone can extrapolate numbers with regard to suicide. As I stated earlier, all anyone can do is guess. I have no doubt that some people who commit suicide with a gun would not commit suicide if they did not have a gun; but what percentage of them would simply move on to another method? I can't believe anyone can produce anything resembling hard data on that. Anything anyone says is pure guesswork, as far as I know.

 

[Grenadier]

The weapon is not the issue here. The person is. It doesn't matter what the potential for destruction is, whether it's a single shot firearm, or a fully automatic weapon that fires 800 rounds per minute.

If you look at everyone who owns fully automatic weapons in the United States of America in accordance to NFA 34 / GCA 86, you will see that there has only been ONE incident where the weapon itself was used in the commission of a crime. This was done by a rogue police officer, who could have easily used his duty weapons instead.

You could forbid the ownership of NFA 34 / GCA 86 weapons, and it won't make a single dent in the use of fully automatic weapons by criminals, since they get theirs through illegal sources. I strongly doubt that a criminal is going to bother filling out the Class III permit, getting the local chief law enforcement officer to vouch for them, etc., when they can simply go to the black market and buy them.

This is why passing laws based on the "destructive power" of a weapon, is all but useless, since it doesn't affect those who would commit crimes with such weapons.

Not that easily. If it were that easy to buy a nuke on the black market, one would have been detonated in a US city by now.

The private ownership of nuclear weapons is irrelevant to the discussion.

You can't use a nuclear weapon for criminal purposes, without destroying that which you want to have.

If you actually have the means to obtain, store, and deliver a nuclear weapon to your intended destination, then you must have a lot of money to burn.

Even then, it would simply be cheaper to hire a multitude of the best hit men. There's a reason why governments don't drop nuclear bombs on suspected target locations, even though they have the means to do so.

I grant you that in a 2nd amendment discussion, you can argue either way for or against guns, gunships, RPGs, claymore mines, etc. What you cannot do is argue for unrestricted private ownership of nuclear weapons and at the same time argue that nothing bad would happen.

Again, private ownership of nuclear weapons is a non-issue, since it simply doesn't happen. If we're going to go down that path, then maybe the debate should be about outlawing quantum singularity projectors in a separate thread. Since that's not firearms-related, though...

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

I don't know how different the coverage in different areas of our country was on the Giffords shooting, but one of the men who tackled and held down Loughner was armed with a firearm.
I was hoping the reporter would have asked him why he didn't pull it and use it, but the reporter simply shuffled past it quickly and barely even acknowledged it.

 

[Empty Hands]

I was hoping the reporter would have asked him why he didn't pull it and use it, but the reporter simply shuffled past it quickly and barely even acknowledged it.

Look here. Loughner was already disarmed by the time he got there, and he initially thought that the man who disarmed Loughner was the shooter since he was holding the gun.

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

Look here. Loughner was already disarmed by the time he got there, and he initially thought that the man who disarmed Loughner was the shooter since he was holding the gun.

Thanks.
This was what I was hoping to hear, I got a short version that skipped over the fact that he was carrying a firearm, and what his response with it was. thanks for the link.

 

[Cruentus]

Alright… I usually don’t post in forums much anymore because I simply don’t have the time to manage an argument. In the forum world it tends to be the person who can outlast the other in a drawn out thread rather then who makes the best argument that wins. So I can only hope that there are enough smart people who will see through the ad nauseum and make a sound decision on where they stand based on common sense.

Here are a few issues that I think need to be addressed:

Should people be able to lawfully own nuclear bombs? I don’t know why this happens, but for some ungodly reason with gun control debates some jack-a-lope always comes up with this question, or something like it. “Well, then can people buy rocket launchers? How about tanks? When will it stop?” NO OFFENSE TO ANYONE HERE WHO BROUGHT THIS UP, AS I AM JUST SPEAKING IN GENERALITIES AS TO WHAT USUALLY HAPPENS IN THESE DISCUSSIONS. This notion is generally brought up by someone more along the anti-gun side (who incidentally almost always claims to not be anti-gun) who wants to enter in a discussion about at what point it would be OK to regulate weapons ownership. This person is usually trying to fog up the discussion by introducing the idea that weapons regulation has to begin somewhere based on our societal judgments of what is reasonable for a person to own for hunting or self-defense. This logic, of course, ultimately leads to justifying rifle mags that can only hold 5 rounds, and laws against hi-cap or double stack mags, and so on. The slippery slope is quite ridicules. Implying that if we don’t start the regulation somewhere, then your neighbor will build a nuke in his basement is akin to saying that if we let same-sex couples marry each other, then what will stop people from marrying children or livestock? Where will it end? Both arguments are retarded. Owning high cap mags or full auto rifles don’t lead to people owning tanks or bombs any more then letting gays marry would lead to sexual abuse on children or livestock. That is how unrelated the two really are.

But, since some ding-dong always brings this up, despite that this is an unpractical discussion not rooted in reality, I guess we’ll have to address it on a philosophical level. For starters, we need to remove the idea that “reasonableness” doesn’t apply to only what one needs to minimally accomplish said task. If that was our standard, then not only would people only be limited to owning 6 round magazines, then everyone should be limited to only 1200 square feet of living space for a family of 4, all cars should have a speed governor set at 55 mph, food should be rationed, and clothing should be all the same in look and material, and so on. Because, we could argue, the housing crisis caused a financial dilemma in our country, and more people die from obesity related illness then guns so we need to get on that, and so on. Well, that whole notion sounds very communistic to me. If we don’t apply unreasonable communist values to everything else, then why would we for gun ownership?

So we need to remove this notion from our brains that we need to only allow ownership for what is necessary for self-defense or hunting in regards to firearms, and all else is on the table for regulations and restrictions. Besides the problems that this causes in regards to what is considered reasonable by lawmakers (who are not experts in self-defense or firearms related issues), this notion does not fit in with a country based on civil liberties and freedoms. We don’t regulate what others can own based on what we think they need, period. In a society where we are interested in preserving civil liberties, we only regulate ownership in as much as it infringes on other peoples liberties, and we use “reasonableness” to strike the balance between the two.

With that logic, we should not prevent ownership on any armament in which the owner can reasonably control where that projectile will go. It is safe to say that any firearm that fires bullets is a highly controllable object in that it will not go somewhere unless it is pointed in that direction and fired. This is to include small and large calibers, high capacity magazines, single shot and full auto rifles, and whatever kind of bullet one can obtain with the exception of incendiary or explosive type rounds. Explosive type armaments (grenades, tank rounds, nukes) have a kill radius, and therefore cannot be as precisely controlled by the user. Furthermore, there are stability issues with explosives, where improper handling or storage can cause an unsafe detonation. You don’t have this problem with bullets. With these safety issues, explosive type devices should be regulated and controlled, where as firearms should not be.

Once again, the problem with this topic is not only is it impractical, but gun control advocates like to use this topic to their advantage by starting off with the wrong assumption (that we should only allow ownership of what is minimally allowed for hunting and self-defense) instead of the right one which is that people should be allowed to own whatever they want until that ownership infringes on the rights of others. Now that we have cleared up this totally impractical philosophical issue and where a gun rights advocate can stand on the matter without tripping into a logical trap, let’s come back to reality and address another, more practical part of the discussion.

Is it unsafe to fire on an armed assailant in a crowded area?

Of course it is, but which is the lesser of the two evils: allowing an armed assailant to continue to fire round after round into innocent bystanders with no opposition, or to fire on the assailant in order to stop his onslaught. Hands down, the safest solution is to fire on the assailant. That is generally safer for everyone rather then allowing the shooter to indiscriminately fire on innocent people in hopes that he’ll run out of bullets, or even then trying an unarmed solution like wrestling the person down or fighting him. Unarmed solutions are last resorts to armed attackers, not 1st lines of defense. This topic actually blew up on my facebook in regards to the Arizona tragedy with a couple of members here, so I will share my responses on this topic:

Post 1: I have to disagree with you for a number of reasons. #1. When the attacker is being shot at, his focus changes from trying to shoot innocent unarmed people to trying to shoot at who is shooting him. And any one of those rounds from an armed citizen could be an incapacitating round on the attacker. So instead of 30 plus rounds being aimed and fired at innocent people until people could wrestle him down, an armed citizen could have ended it at 5 or 10 or 15 rounds. Even if a lot of misses are exchanged between shooter and armed citizen, that is still less rounds being directly aimed at innocent, unarmed people. And sure, bystanders could be shot in the process of defending. However, bystanders WHERE ALREADY BEING SHOT, but from purposefully aimed bullets rather then fratricide. If I had to choose the lesser of two evils, I'd rather have there be a gunfight in a crowd rather then a lone shooter firing 30 rounds into a crowd with no opposition. #2. You put too much weight into police training. Some LE are highly trained, but most are lucky to make it to the range 1-2 times a year. I know a lot of armed citizens who are better trained then most LE. However, level of training in regards to accuracy actually doesn't weigh in as heavy as you might think here. Most people with 1 session at the range can hit paper at 15 meters which is at a much further range then a civilian gunfight, and therefore will be capable of hitting an armed assailant in this scenario. Citizens don't need to be an expert marksman to take down an assailant any more then they needed to be MMA fighters to wrestle him down #3. It is far too presumptuous to assume that there would be more dead bodies if an armed citizen got involved. I haven't seen the footage of this incident yet because it was pulled for investigation. But we can view other incidents where shootings occur in crowds, and we can see that the general crowd behavior is to get low and move away from the shooter, making them less likely to be fatally hit unless someone is deliberately aiming at them. We also know that when armed assailants are being shot at, they tend to stop trying to shoot at others and try to shoot at who is shooting at them. With these dynamics, it is far more likely that innocent people are going to be fatally shot when the armed attacker is deliberately aiming at them as opposed to through possible fratricide as he and the armed citizen are shooting at each other. And considering that any one of the rounds from the armed citizen could shut the attacker down and stop the spree, I think it is much safer to go this route.

Post 2: Not to belabor point, but people often believe things that simply aren’t true based on misconceptions of how they think things are going to go. I see it most often when observing violent crime and shootings. The belief that “it would be worse if an armed person were to intervene and stop the shooter” is based on an idea that armed citizens are untrained, and that stray bullets are going to fly around killing everything in sight. That just isn’t what happens. The fact is that even with the most determined shooters, the hit ratio on any person is rather low in dynamic gun fights where the targets and shooter are moving. Even looking at this incident, out of 30 shots fired, 20 people were shot (a very high hit rate that isn’t the norm), yet only 3 were killed and 1 in critical condition. Sure, dead is dead and even 1 dead is a tragedy, but that isn’t the point. Out of 30 deliberate shots in a dense crowd with no interruption (no one shooting back or opposing him until his mag ran dry) only were 3 killed with 1 critically injured. 2/3rds hit rate, and a 10% kill rate, and shooting under really the most optimal conditions for creating a high body count. Usually, the hit rate is a lot less then 2/3. The point is that even with deliberately aimed fire, the kill rate is relatively low. And though it happens, the kill rate for stray bullets is far less. But the person who thinks it would be more dangerous to attempt to shoot the killer envisions this scenario where both the armed citizen and attacker are shooting at each other, missing each other shot after shot, with every stray picking off a bystander. This simply is not happening. Now as far as stats are concerned, from what I know to date no one has compiled data comparing criminals stopped by armed citizens vs. bystanders killed accidently by armed citizens. This is unfortunate because I am fairly certain that such stats would support my argument. That said, we can use the “name 3” rule to see if our arguments reasonably holds weight. That rule is if I say something like, “many crimes have been prevented by armed citizens,” then I should be able to reasonably name 3 without having to spend a ton of time searching for examples, right? I mean, if I am making a claim as to how **** commonly works, then absent of actual hard numbers I should be able to name at least a few examples, right? Well, as it turns out, you will find countless examples if you simply type something like, “armed citizen stops shooting” into Google. Good luck finding any example of a bystander accidently killed by a well meaning armed citizen. I am not saying it doesn’t happen, but I am saying that you’ll be hard pressed to find even 1 incident because that occurrence is statistically insignificant. I will prove my point in a few. After I post this, I’ll post 3 stories of armed citizens thwarting criminals. I’ll even look for some where the incident took place with many bystanders (who could have been shot by accident) present. I am guessing that this will take me less then 5 minutes. I can safely say (because I tried it) that you will not be able to do the same with stories of people accidently shot by well meaning armed citizens trying to stop a crime.[Note: I am not going to do the Google test here as I did on facebook, but you can do it yourself. You will find many stories where armed citizens save the day, and almost no incidents where armed citizens accidently shoot bystanders. You can go to thearmedcitizen.com and check where they update almost daily of crimes thwarted by regular armed citizens.]

An armed citizen did respond: It is important to note, as a final point, that one of the 4 1st responders in Arizona was an armed citizen. However, he came to the scene after two citizens had already started grappling with the shooter. He made the proper judgment call at that time to not shoot, and instead come to aid unarmed. This was the right choice, acting as a good example to the fact that weapons in the hands of citizens aren’t an invitation for accidents, poor judgment, or ‘further casualties’ in the manner that anti-gun folks want you to believe. Yes, if that armed responder had been able to respond while the shooter was firing, it would have been better to shoot the assailant as the most effective means of stopping him. Since he came after 2 had already started to wrestle with the assailant, he made the most prudent choice. All four of these citizens need to be commended for their bravery that day, as they did the right thing.

 

[jetboatdeath]

Great post and I agree on the most part..
Here are the parts I have concern with.

with the exception of incendiary or explosive type rounds. Explosive type armaments (grenades, tank rounds, nukes) have a kill radius, and therefore cannot be as precisely controlled by the user. Furthermore, there are stability issues with explosives, where improper handling or storage can cause an unsafe detonation.

The main body of this post starts off with your opinion that regulation of any firearm is bad, I can agree with that in it's entirety. However you go on to state the above quote. You yourself are calling for regulations, you seem to be up on your rights in relation to firearms so you should know that any regulatory "right" we give them will be abused as has been proven time and time again.

We already have regulations for explosives, if you want exploding rounds and have the license, so be it.
We have regulations for tank owner ship, they have to be de-milled.
Go buy a tank..check e-bay they always have some listed.

I say own what you want, until you use it to restrict, deny or alter someone's rights what is the problem. We have to get over the notion that just because one person broke the law with a firearm not all people are going to.
As well as no number of laws are going to stop people from breaking them.
We don't restrict cars to 55 because 5000 people speed.
Why punish me because some jack *** in Arizona broke the law?

 

[jetboatdeath]

Would any of you carry a semiautomatic pistol with an extended magazine for personal protection?

No, but then again this guy was not concerned with personal protection..
However don't come back with the line then why do we need them.
We don't need cars that go 100mph. But we want them...

 

[KenpoTex]

The title of the thread sums the situation up nicely...

(and Cruentus did a great job of breaking it down).

 

[Cruentus]

jetboatdeath,

We are basically in agreement. I am not calling for addition regulation of anything. All I am saying is that things that have a kill radius (explosives) fall into a different category then firarms that shoot bullets simply because the difficulty in controlling the effect makes ownership and use of them creep into the rights of others to be safe (still shouldn't make them unattainable, just restrictable unlike firearms). Gun control advocates always try to rope these two into the same category which is a logical trap, because as soon as you say, "That's not the same issue... you don't need explosives for self-defense," then they slide down the slope of "so we agree that if you don't need it for self-defense, then we should be able to restrict it for safety reasons..." See, now your trapped, as they then begin to justify gun control based on only what is "needed" for self-defense, you then find yourself in a difficult dilemma argueing against restrictions on mag capacity and 'assault rifle' bans and so forth. We both know that their reasoning is flawed... as it isn't an issue of what we should minimally be allowed to own, it is an issue of what we can own before we start to infringe on someone elses rights.

 

[Cruentus]

Not to beat the thread to death... but someone asked a very good question (he is a member here; won't call him out unless he wants me to): So in the wake of he AZ events, are any changes appropriate or is this just the price we pay?

I thought this question was great. The short answer is that there are many workable, practical solutions that the media and our government should be talking about, but instead the media and political discourse ends up being about stupid **** like whether or not the shooter was a liberal or a conservative, and whether or not high cap mags are to blame. I will copy the content of my FB page here for your to look at with all it's gramatical errors for you to enjoy. But the content is worth while, anyway, and relevent to the topic:


This is the price we pay for living in the society we live in, and gun laws won't change that. However, there are some things that we can do, starting with how public officials handle security issues. When someone gets elected to public off...ice, they immediately become more at risk, even in low level positions like city council and school board. However, most even in higher level positions aren't getting regular security or security briefs. Hell, I'll bet the video's on homeland security that the lowest level privates in the army get contain more info on how to stay safe then what most elected officials will see. So we can start with as a homeland security measure these officials (even in twps and municipalities) have to get a once a year video brief at minimum. If they have staff, a member of their staff needs to be assigned duties as the safety and security liaison, and that person goes through some training (that could be done in 6-8 hours), and added to their normal duties, their job is to assess and arrange a secure environment for the official and the people attending meetings and events. They look at everything from "are there fire escapes in the parking garage they'll be on" to "what kind of security staff will be present." It is their job to work with the venues that they'll be at, and make sure that safety measures on in place. Gauranteed, most people have their head in the clowds (including political officials and their staff) with this stuff, but an elected official does not have the luxury of a regular citizen. Just as how simple awareness skills and mindset are 90% of the game for keeping yourself safe, simply having a staff person who is ASSIGNED the task of being aware would do wonders to make political venues safer. And the beauty of it is these tasks are not so burdensome that they couldn't do them along with other regular duties. In smaller, local positions like school board or city council, one member of the board or council would be a safety/security liaison for the group. Just like preventing accidents or natural disasters, there is no sure thing to stopping a shooter. But like having a fire safety plan or tornado plan, having more safety/security liaisons in place would do wonders. And this is what homeland security and congress should be talking about, and these are real solutions we could impliment right now. But instead they talk about arbitrary **** like magazine capacity, or politicized **** like whether Sarah Palin's rhetoric is to blame for a murderous rampage. More to follow...

‎....continued.... Now Ultimatily, yes it would be better to have more armed guards or even non-uniformed armed personel to man meetings and events. It is a fact that these personel deter or even stop crime. We can look as near as the recen...t incident where an armed security guard had to shoot a gun weilding man at a school board meeting in florida. I know personally public officials who exercise their concealed carry rights. In a perfect world, that safety liaison staff member would also be trained, have a permit, and be expected to carry. But I also know that it isn't practical for us to expect that an armed guard will be paid to be at every event. It isn't practical either to expect that public officials or their staff would be forced to go through training and carry weapons either, even if in a perfect world they would. That is one trap that we who are gun rights activists need to be careful of. The anti-gun crowd tends to fall into these impractical ideals: they often believe that if they just keep regulating more and more, then someday automatic weapons, 'cop killer' bullets, high cap mags, and even guns themselves will be scarce and hard for criminals to get a hold of, making it all worth it. This, of course, is a fanciful idea that isn't rooted in reality. However, gun rights activists need to be careful as to not be guilty of our own sets of fanciful ideals: To think that they answer to every problem is that people just carry more guns. I mean, idealistically, in a better world it would be great if more law abiding people carried guns, took self-defense and defensive shooting classes, kept a 1st aid kit at home and in vehicles, paid bills on time, used turn signals while driving, and so on. But the reality that we need to accept is that some people will choose not to carry, and that's OK. And no matter how bad things get, most people will not be as safety/self-defense conscious as you or I, and that is not OK but that is a reality. We can make it a goal to help make people more safety conscious and more inclined to safely carry, but that isn't going to be the blanket solution to all our problems because we need to accept the reality that most won't do it. So instead of falling into the trap of saying "if we had more guns, then this wouldn't happen!" We need to look at the big picture and come up with more practical solultions like the one mentioned above... More to follow...

‎...continued... last but not least, have you wondered why solutions like safety/security liaisons haven't been talked about in our government with seriousness, but other stupid ideas that won't help at all have? There are many reasons, but... one contributer is the lack of personal responsibility in our country that has developed over the years. No one wants to be responsible for themselves and where they live and do business in anymore. So the officials don't really say, "what can I do to make sure that this doesn't happen to me or my staff." They instead say, "What law can we make to restrict other people so that this is less likely to happen." One response requires personal responsability, the other puts the blame and responsibility on others. You see, because everyone now a days puts everything on someone else. The cops will make sure I'm safe, 9-11 is my 1st aid kit, someone else will take care of me. Then, when emergencies happen, it is much to most peoples dismay that they find that it is the regular, usually unprepared citizen that is the first responder. So from a broader perspective, if we start introducing personal responsability back into our culture, that will do wonders for the long term to reduce these types of shooting incidents. Because ultimiatily, the choice to carry a firearm or take a self-defense class is really one of taking personal responsibility for ones own safety.

 

[sgtmac_46]

Figures, that the anti-gunners would be dancing around in a bloodbath so soon... This article also shows their flat-out ignorance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/opinion/10collins.html?_r=2&hp




So... A Glock pistol, that works just like any other handgun, suddenly becomes a supremely powerful item? Doesn't Helmke know that any semiautomatic handgun can accomodate an extended length magazine?

The stupidity of the gun-grabbers never ceases to amaze me...

Loughner’s gun, a 9-millimeter Glock, is extremely easy to fire over and over, and it can carry a 30-bullet clip. It is “not suited for hunting or personal protection,” said Paul Helmke, the president of the Brady Campaign. “What it’s good for is killing and injuring a lot of people quickly.”

Someone should tell Gail Collins and Paul Helmke, nitwits extraordinaire, that GIFFORDS OWNS A GLOCK 9mm!

.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of the 8th Congressional District and 5th District Congressman Harry Mitchell, both Democrats, also objected to the ban. Giffords owns a Glock handgun and regards gun ownership as a constitutional right and an "Arizona tradition," said spokesman C.J. Karamargin. http://findarticles.com/p/news-arti.../arizona-democrats-split-dc-gun/ai_n51710249/

Guess Giffords wasn't really interested in self-defense.....just 'killing and injuring a lot of people quickly'. What a bunch of morons!

 

[sgtmac_46]

I don't know a lot about guns and I'm not in favor of banning them. That said, this is a genuine question. Didn't the heroes on that day take advantage of the pause to reload as an opportunity to jump the guy and pin him to the ground? A 30 round magazine seems a little over the top. Would any of you carry a semiautomatic pistol with an extended magazine for personal protection?

What do you consider an 'extended magazine'? 30 rounds? It's designed to hold a 15 and 17 round magazine, is that 'extended'?

A 30 round magazine is ridiculous, but not for the reason you think......it's ridiculous because you couldn't carry one concealed. If you want to make sure folks aren't walking around armed, make them ALL use 30 round magazines, as you cannot conceal it.

A 30 round magazine is a good choice for home defense, where conealment isn't an issue........it's not remotely more deadly than any other magazine, though, as magazine count isn't some magic thing.



The fact is that mass-shootings are a statistical anomaly.......the threat to a bad reaction to aspirin is a greater threat to the average American than being in a mass-shooting.........but if we are going to be concerned with mass-shootings, if you're relying on magazine changes to save your life, you're backing up the wrong tree!