tC4italy

I said that too to my co worker

hunt deers with a 9 mm special!!!

seattledave

so, because the majority of people get their food from the supermarket, we all should?

Rabid_Lemming

I have never argued about the use of a firearm in self defense. I think that in defense of your life and those you love, you do what you must. The article definitely highlights this point (although I doubt that Gage "loved" bouncer, he was being nice). However, the article also shows that my prior point that not everyone is responsible enough to own a gun.

ilovemytC

I knew someone was going to bring that up, but I am not talking about the African continent, their gangs are political. Of course the whole continent of Africa's gun crimes and amount of gun ownership probably outweighs everybody. The "abroad" was in response to Europe not having a problem with crime vs. US, which is totally untrue. Violent crimes are decreasing in the U.S. and rising in Europe.

etli

Doesn't Batman (er Tomas, er Mr. Wayne) really really abhor guns? Because you know, his mom and dad were shot and killed by a mugger?

The VA tech guy probably would have found some other way to kill a lot of people at once if he couldn't get his hands on any guns. A pipe bomb, poison, who knows.

djct_watt

IMO, if you are educated, bombs are easier to make than it is to go out and go through the process of buying a gun. And on a dollar to damage ratio, they are far more effective. Just look at the Oklahoma City bombing.

Tomas

Bombs are much easier to make than are firearms. One summer on my grandmother's farm Phil (the preacher's kid) and I made a couple pounds of quite effective black powder (potassium nitrate, charcoal, sulfur) and did all sorts of interesting things - including making rather large bangs. We were 12 and 13 at the time, Phil being the older, and firearms would have been quite beyond us, but bombs? Yeah, bombs are easy.

Tom

djct_watt

What I meant to convey was that making bombs is SO easy, it is even easier than the going through the process of buying a gun. . . And there is a much smaller possibility of being tracked (cash purchases) or linked to the crime. A couple of milk gallons, some gasoline, water balloons, and some pure O2 or NO2 could be a very bad combo.

Amoxaphobic

I agree that some people are not responsible enough to own a gun. Many times people act before thinking, or act out of rage. Rage and a gun could (and has) led to a very dangerous and deadly situation.
And I agree that the illegal sale of guns is a problem... it is, after all, illegal.

But really, what can be done about it? We have already discussed what would happen if they were banned, along with the feasbility and reality of it actually happening.

Better yet. Instead of thinking of what can be done about it, why not explain how solving this one particular problem of guns would help.

Though I agree that some people simply should not be able to own a gun, those same people would find another way to retaliate.

djct_watt

People respond best to incentives (or negative incentives, ie punishment or threat of). Stricter punishment, increased enforcement are both great tools. But here's the rub; ygr greater Los Angeles region has an active police force of 7000 officers, but if you look at the gang population of the same region, it exceeds 40,000! And then add to that fact the rest of the civil population that needs to be patrolled, and subtract the number of officers off duty for a given time. Take a look at speeding! The laws are set in stone and clearly posted. But the fact that nearly all of us can speed and never get caught us NOT much of a deterrent. Image the criminal outlook?! The fact of the matter is that there are just not enough officers out there to effectively control crime, and there arguablly never will be. Do you even know the response time for cops to show up? It is far greater than the time needed to perpetrate a crime.

So what's the answer you ask? Social enforcement. But it takes decades and centuries to develop those cultural values. What's the next best thing? IMO, it is civil enforcement and active protection of itself. The gov't has failed many a time to address our basic needs (healthcare and disaster response). The last thing I want is a gov't responsible for my personal safety. I know that I can do a much better job with infinitely faster response times than ANY police department. And a public that actively controls and enforces its own security is a much tougher target for criminals. And it works ad a great incentive not to steal somebody's S2000 antenna if it could get you killed.

This guy went on a shooting rampage on unarmed students. When's the last time you ever heard of a civilian storming a military base? It'd be suicide and it would be pointless.

Tomas

Stepping away from controlling crimes involving firearms, and moving instead to the much larger and more important area of overall obedience to laws, we see more and more large groups of people, more each generation, with a difference in perception.

I won't call it morality, I prefer ethics. What we are seeing in many cases appears to be a failure of personal ethics. A disrespect for law. The increasing disrespect of people and their property. Tagging, keying cars, damaging other's property with skateboards and cars, etc. Basically a disrespect even of themselves.

How often have you seen others damage something, even by accident, and then look to see if anyone saw them do it. That "Damn! Did anyone see me do that?" look while they decide if they should own up to their actions.

Then there are those who break the law just for that weird little feeling it gives them. They like it.

It really used to be that one didn't do something "wrong," simply because it was wrong to do it. It is becoming more and more common that people don't do something wrong only because they might get caught.

That's a big difference. That is weighing the chance of detection rather than using a personal, internal guide. It is viewing things without ethics. It is being without ethics.

If something is wrong to do, it is wrong if one gets caught or not. Right and wrong CAN be situational, but not in that way.

Even the commonly disregarded (on ScionLife) breaking of the law by speeding is an example.

No longer being viewed by many as having anything to do with doing what is right even when no one is watching, it instead seems to be quite OK to break the law if there is little chance of being caught.

That is a problem. That is a BIG problem.

More and more laws are being viewed by more and more people as simply an inconvenience to "get around" in some way.

How may times have you seen people asking, right here on ScionLife, how to "get around" some law the poster doesn't like, or how to "get out of" a valid ticket given to them for admittedly breaking the law?

Now ask yourself if that bothers you in the least little bit.

Are you supportive of folks trying to break the law with impunity, or do somehow feel that the right thing to do is to obey the law even if no one's looking?

Maybe you think following those specific laws doesn't matter. The next question is who supposedly has the right to decide which laws matter and which don't? IS there such a right?

Now look at all the other laws out there. Laws against theft, laws against property damage, laws against violence, laws against killing.

What if the only difference between the person who breaks traffic laws and the person who just keyed the Hell out of your car is where they draw the line on which laws don't count?

It's a continuum. Breaking any law simply because one has really good odds against getting caught makes it easier to break other laws for the very same reason.

I could key many cars I walk by, for example, and probably get away with doing it thousands of times if I'm the least bit cautious. Just because I can get away with it, though, doesn't make it right - does it?

I don't know if this is making sense to anyone reading it, but what I'm trying to say is all of us in this society need to agree that we will follow the rules simply because they are the rules, not because we might get caught if we don't.

Until there is a return to that level of ethics (morality, if you insist), this society will continue to go downhill at an ever more rapid pace.

Stop and think about it for a moment. Even our leaders, those we put in power to make and enforce laws for us, these days seem more concerned with getting caught breaking the rules than they are with not breaking them. They have no ethics. Many seem almost totally "How can we hide the crap we are doing."

What is sad is people not having the ethics of a well behaved dog who doesn't pee on the floor even when no one is looking, who doesn't eat the roast off the table even when no one is looking.

Those same people who think it is OK to break their own list of laws they have little chance of getting caught at breaking, see nothing at all peculiar about griping about others doing the same thing, but with different laws.

OK, back to making the world safe by finding some way to totally eliminate ALL guns. First person to come up with a viable and unbeatable way of doing that, and not just disarming all the "good guys" gets a lollipop.

For me, I'm just going to go in the other room and pour myself a nice glass of red wine and try to forget the world is in the condition it is.

________________



"Where are we going? ... And why am I in this handbasket?"

Amoxaphobic

Good job Tomas.

So, if we can agree that the problem is not the guns, but rather people and the society that we are in today with the whole thought process of "will I get caught?", then maybe we can figure out a way to fix it.

But will it ever happen? I don't know... I think people are too stuck on blaming their problems on other people.
"I heard this song about killing a cop, and it told me that it was a good idea."
"Beavis and Butthead made my child set the house on fire"
and so on...

Curing the symptoms may make the disease go away for a while. But curing the disease will make the symptoms go away forever.

Maybe one day we can all get back to the days where people really didn't do something because it was simply wrong to do.

engifineer

Proves my point even more. Where were the laws and restrictions to stop this? They are in place, yet failed and people died because of it. So even going through the very system anti gunners preach, it still happened, and a legally carrying citizen could have stopped it sooner if they had been present.

Again this proves the laws and restrictions can not and never will be able to stop gun violence. EVER. Until every last gun is taken off the street (never happen) this stuff will still occur. So law abiding citizens should in the least have the same "right" to own and legally carry as the guys doing this stuff.

HeathenBrewing

x1000!!

tC4italy

OR I see it more like the fact that people say "oh but I can legitimately own guns" doesn't mean squat you are just as unstable as one buying illegal arms

engifineer

I 100% agree on the ethics comment. I see more and more examples of that every day. It sickens me how few people actually think ethically before they do something. All the way from morons on here tearing up thier car and frauding the dealer into warranty work up to our worlds leaders being more crooked than the criminals they incarcerate.

etli

Hee. That would be pretty damn funny. Deranged gunman attacks Fort Knox. Shot 273 times. Paramedics pronnounced the chunks of him they could find dead at the scene.

I seem to remember a Darwin Awards story about a genius who went in to rob a GUN STORE using a KNIFE. In order to get into the gun store, he had to WALK AROUND THE POLICE CAR that was parked right in front of the gun store's front door.

Tomas

The most current information on CNN (at 1439PDT) indicates that Virginia Tech shooter Cho Sueng-Hui was admitted to a hospital for treatment of mental illness 18 months ago in 2005 because he was "an imminent danger to himself," according to court documents.

In Washington State that would have been enough for him to have been rejected by the normal REQUIRED screening process, and prevented from legally buying/carrying weapons here until and unless he was subsequently cleared by the mental health folks (and in this case, by the court, since it was an involuntary commitment).

I do not know what the laws in Virginia require.

Washington state firearms laws:
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.a...9.41&full=true

From the RCW:
A person is not allowed to own,posses, or control any firearm:
"(ii) After having previously been involuntarily committed for mental health treatment under RCW 71.05.320, *71.34.090, chapter 10.77 RCW, or equivalent statutes of another jurisdiction, unless his or her right to possess a firearm has been restored as provided in RCW 9.41.047;"

Tom

hotbox05

there's not even a waiting period in virginia.... crazy.

phatcyclist

It is quite disturbing that he wasn't flagged. It would have kept him from buying a firearm legally in Texas as well. This changes the whole story, and this should quiet the people up that acted like he was a normal, mentally healthy individual. This just proves that people suffering from mental illness shouldn't own firearms. This could also un-cover a flaw in Virginia's laws.

I hate to break it to you Californians, but the 10 day waiting period is almost completely a California thing. Your Govt. expends a lot of energy making it hard for you to protect yourselves. Personally, If I lived anywhere near the gang activity in parts of California, I would consider a firearm an important ally.

Of course, this is a very conservative (not a supporter of the Republican party though) Texan's view on the subject. I am not trying to start a fight on here, but that is pretty much how most firearm-friendly people I know view the laws in California. Just remember, a murderer buying a gun illegally doesn't have to wait 10 days, he just buys one off the black market.