Connecticut Elementary School.

[Justapervert]

Isnt the constitution written that if you commit a felony, you are no longer allowed to vote? you have relingquished your right to vote due to the felony crime you committed. That should eliminate that discussion entirely.

[GP]

Originally Posted by drluv1

Since our conservative( idiot) friends like living in the fantasyland past so much, limit gun ownership to those weapons which were available when the constitution was written.

Way to keep it peaceful! LOL. You make such a compelling argument with your compliments thrown in for added measure.

I would like to copy and paste a little something here that pretty much explains it all.

Gun Laws

Why Libertarians Support Equal Rights for America's Gun Owners

Libertarians, like other Americans, want to be able to walk city streets safely and be secure in their homes. We also want our Constitutional rights protected, to guard against the erosion of our civil liberties. In particular, Libertarians want to see all people treated equally under the law, as our Constitution requires. America's millions of gun owners are people too.
Law-abiding, responsible citizens do not and should not need to ask anyone's permission or approval to engage in a peaceful activity. Gun ownership, by itself, harms no other person and cannot morally justify criminal penalties.
Constitutional Rights

America's founders fought the Revolutionary War to throw off British tyranny. Most of the revolutionaries owned and used their own guns in that war. After the war, in 1789, the 13 American States adopted the Constitution, creating the federal government. Before ratifying the Constitution, the people demanded a Bill of Rights to prevent our government from depriving them of their liberties as the British had done.
One of the most important protections we have against government tyranny is that we are presumed innocent of any crime until proven guilty, before a jury, in a proper trial.
Gun control advocates would declare all gun owners guilty without trial, simply for owning guns, even though millions of them have never used their guns to harm another person. Such blanket condemnation is immoral, unfair and contrary to the principles on which America was founded.
The Prohibition Lesson

Gun control advocates are much like the prohibitionists of the early 20th Century. By making liquor illegal, they spawned organized crime, caused bloody, violent turf wars and corrupted the criminal justice system. Today's war on drugs has exactly the same results.
Prohibition didn't stop liquor use; the drug laws can't stop drug use. Making gun ownership illegal will not stop gun ownership.
The primary victim of these misguided efforts is the honest citizen whose civil rights are trampled as frustrated legislators and police tighten the screws.
Banning guns will make guns more expensive and give organized crime a great opportunity to make profits in a new black market for weapons. Street violence will increase in new turf wars. Criminals will not give up their guns. But, many law abiding citizens will, leaving them defenseless against armed bandits.
The Right of Self Defense

Libertarians agree with the majority of Americans who believe they have the right to decide how best to protect themselves, their families and their property. Millions of Americans have guns in their homes and sleep more comfortably because of it. Studies show that where gun ownership is illegal, residential burglaries are higher. A man with a gun in his home is no threat to you if you aren't breaking into it.
The police do not provide security in your home, your business or the street. They show up after the crime to take reports and do detective work. The poorer the neighborhood, the riskier it is for peaceful residents.
Only an armed citizenry can be present in sufficient numbers to prevent or deter violent crime before it starts, or to reduce its spread. Interviews with convicted felons indicate that fear of the armed citizen significantly deters crime. A criminal is more likely to be driven off from a particular crime by an armed victim than to be convicted and imprisoned for it. Thus, widespread gun ownership will make neighborhoods safer.
Foolish politicians and police now seek to ban semi-automatic "assault rifles". They ignore the fact that only honest citizens will comply; criminals will still have them. Such a ban will only increase the criminals' ability to victimize the innocent.
Personal Responsibility

Guns are not the problem. They are inanimate objects. Gun control advocates talk as if guns could act on their own, as if human beings cannot control them, so the uncontrollable guns must be banished.
Let us put the responsibility where it belongs, on the owner and user of the gun. If he or she acts responsibly, without attacking others or causing injury negligently, no crime or harm has been done. Leave them in peace. But, if a person commits a crime with a gun, then impose the severest penalties for the injuries done to the victim. Similarly, hold the negligent gun user fully liable for all harm his negligence does to others.
Rather than banning guns, the politicians and the police should encourage gun ownership, as well as education and training programs. A responsible, well-armed and trained citizenry is the best protection against domestic crime and the threat of foreign invasion. America's founders knew that. It is still true today.

[guest032013]

[offshoredrilling]

Originally Posted by Justapervert

Isnt the constitution written that if you commit a felony, you are no longer allowed to vote? you have relingquished your right to vote due to the felony crime you committed. That should eliminate that discussion entirely.

Depends on the State. A felon can lobby anywhere.

Felons and the Right to Vote - New York Times

www.nytimes.com › COLLECTIONS › VOTING RIGHTS
Jul 11, 2004 – In four states, including New York, felons on parole cannot vote, but felons on probation can. In some states, felons must formally apply for ...

Felons Finding It Easy to Regain Gun Rights - NYTimes.com

www.nytimes.com/.../felons-finding-it-easy-to-regain-gun-rights.htm...
Nov 13, 2011 – Decades of lobbying have loosened laws, allowing felons to regain gun ... that felons should be able to reclaim their gun rights just as they can ...

So can we get off the gun did it in this case.

[drluv1]

Originally Posted by offshoredrilling

Depends on the State. A felon can lobby anywhere.

Felons and the Right to Vote - New York Times

www.nytimes.com › COLLECTIONS › VOTING RIGHTS
Jul 11, 2004 – In four states, including New York, felons on parole cannot vote, but felons on probation can. In some states, felons must formally apply for ...

Felons Finding It Easy to Regain Gun Rights - NYTimes.com

www.nytimes.com/.../felons-finding-it-easy-to-regain-gun-rights.htm...
Nov 13, 2011 – Decades of lobbying have loosened laws, allowing felons to regain gun ... that felons should be able to reclaim their gun rights just as they can ...

So can we get off the gun did it in this case.

Why shouldn't an American citizen regain his rights after he's paid his debt to society?

[GP]

Kentucky and Virginia are the only two states that impose lifelong loss of voting to convicted felons. Is voting a right or a privilege? Yep, that is a controversy also. I could argue either way on that one.

[Tiger]

Originally Posted by GP

Kentucky and Virginia are the only two states that impose lifelong loss of voting to convicted felons. Is voting a right or a privilege? Yep, that is a controversy also. I could argue either way on that one.

That is a very good question, probably worthy of its own thread.

[Guest091813]

Originally Posted by Lexxxy

Today everywhere did the moment of silence and a lot of places did the 26 church bells. I literally live on the same block as a cathedral, I couldn't help but cry when they did the 26 bells this morning. It is overwhelming to think about the magnitude of this horrific tragedy.
Sick people are sick, if we restrict guns it wont do much but take them away from good people. They will move to bombs, poisoning, or god knows what else. Sadly if there is a will there is a way.
So sad

there should have been 27..
http://news.yahoo.com/few-memorials-...074052159.html

[Guest042416]

ill say it again and ill say it a month from now, the 40 parents that are burying thier six year old kids have already formed a committe and are going to washginton and i dont think they are going there to back the nra on assualt weapons and the rounds that are available.
nra is going to lose this one big time.
we move on now, no one is taking anyones guns away, its not about your hunting rifle, its about the kids getting 8-10 bullet holes in them in a kindergaten class and thier parents not being able to identify them because of how bad they looked from the military assualt weapon that was used to kill them.
thats it, just like after 9.11, our country changed, we change again.
were not going to arm teachers, heck you conseratives cry about your taxes now and the schools, whos going to pay for the guns and the training? certainly not the nra.
im all for putting armed police in each and every school but i dont think thats realistic, by the way in colorado shooting there were 2 armed guards in the school at the time of the assault. so again didnt stop it.

also these shooters walk in with armor, are we going to put armor on teachers??

the assault weapons and the rounds will be banned, no doub tin my mind its going to happen.
we move now, boehner is working on plan c. lol
what a disgrace that party is, embarassing
he puts up a plan to make obama look weak and in the end he cant even pass it in his own party
embarassing.

[GP]

Originally Posted by bjwstw

ill say it again and ill say it a month from now, the 40 parents that are burying thier six year old kids have already formed a committe and are going to washginton and i dont think they are going there to back the nra on assualt weapons and the rounds that are available.
nra is going to lose this one big time.

Wrong.... Your ignorance on the subject shines through every time you use the wrong terminology. It was not an assault weapon. It was a Bushmaster Semi-automatic rifle he used, no different than any other semi-automatic hunting rifle. The parents can form as many committee's as they want. Oh well, another anti-gun lobby. No big deal. The NRA is not going to lose anything.

Originally Posted by bjwstw

we move on now, no one is taking anyones guns away, its not about your hunting rifle,

Yep, I agree..... No one is taking any of my guns, EVER.

Why do you keep saying we move on now? It's like you feel the need to end the discussion every time you have your say like it is final. Welcome to reality, we never move on. Everyone is allowed to have their say for as long as they wish. This is America.

Originally Posted by bjwstw

its about the kids getting 8-10 bullet holes in them in a kindergaten class

Yep, I think everyone can agree that is a problem.

Originally Posted by bjwstw

the military assualt weapon that was used to kill them.

Ignorance again. it WAS NOT a military assault weapon. I know, it does no help my argument. I would rather hurt my argument as long as the facts are true. That is better than people who spew misinformation and ignorance.

Originally Posted by bjwstw

just like after 9.11, our country changed, we change again.

Not everyone agrees that the changes that occurred after 9-11 were good. I would argue that our county is worse off now than before the changes. Change is not always good. Sometimes it is better to go back to the way it was.

Originally Posted by bjwstw

were not going to arm teachers, heck you conseratives cry about your taxes now and the schools, whos going to pay for the guns and the training? certainly not the nra.

I personally know 4 teachers who would willingly carry their weapons to school and take any additional training without having to receive any more salary.

Originally Posted by bjwstw

im all for putting armed police in each and every school but i dont think thats realistic, by the way in colorado shooting there were 2 armed guards in the school at the time of the assault. so again didnt stop it.

All the more reason to have armed teachers. They would be able to respond much faster. Those cops were probably on a donut break.

Originally Posted by bjwstw

also these shooters walk in with armor, are we going to put armor on teachers??

Just shows you their mentality. They are prepared enough to wear armor, do you really think that someone with such a mindset is not also going to make sure they take the time to find an "illegal" weapon to go along with that armor? Do we also have to ban body armor?

Originally Posted by bjwstw

the assault weapons and the rounds will be banned, no doub tin my mind its going to happen.
we move now, boehner is working on plan c. lol
what a disgrace that party is, embarassing
he puts up a plan to make obama look weak and in the end he cant even pass it in his own party
embarassing.

Your opinion doesn't mean much to me. Your argument is strewn with inaccuracies and you make too many ill informed assumptions. You are also clouded by you biased left wing agenda. Hell, even Communist China wants the United States to disarm it's citizens. No wonder so many liberals agree with communists. Maybe if you moved to China, you would be much happier.

[jackfengshui]

Originally Posted by GP

Your ignorance on the subject shines through every time you use the wrong terminology. It was not an assault weapon.

Let's stop putting people down and arguing about "terminology", and concentrate on talking about weapons - whatever you want to call them - whose only purpose is to kill a lot of people in a very short time.

Originally Posted by GP

Your opinion doesn't mean much to me.

I don't understand why philosophical disagreements have to be personalized.

[GP]

Originally Posted by jackfengshui

Let's stop putting people down and arguing about "terminology", and concentrate on talking about weapons - whatever you want to call them - whose only purpose is to kill a lot of people in a very short time.

You can't have a fair discussion if people on one side of the argument keep using a term that is totally wrong and misleading.

Originally Posted by jackfengshui

I don't understand why philosophical disagreements have to be personalized.

I think you do understand Jack. Just following someone else's example on here.

[Doove]

Originally Posted by DDarkness

Dove/GP ... Thanks for your contributions but we get it!

You're right. So in doing my part to get this discussion back on track, let me, in spite of its stupidity, answer GP's question. Just a warning: a simple yes/no is not an option here.

Originally Posted by GP

Can you acknowledged that guns, in the hands of qualified and trained individuals subject to background checks, prevent crime and improve public safety?

If you're asking if police having guns makes for a safer society, then i'd say yes.

If you're asking if the general populace, subject to your pre-conditions, having guns leads to a safer society, then because of the proliferation it would ultimately lead to, absolutely not.

I don't have the stats necessary to back this up, but i can't help but think that i'm far more likely to be shot by someone with a gun than i am to be saved by someone with a gun. Even if, in the latter example that person with the gun happened to be me.

If a person comes with the intent of shooting me, then he's going to shoot me before i (or anyone else) even realizes that i need to be defended. But if he comes at me, not with the intent to shoot me, but only with the intent to intimidate me (as i'm sure is the case with the vast, vast majority of crimes in this country), once he determines that i have a gun of my own, then at that point he's likely to feel a need to shoot me. Because once he realizes i have a gun, then his likely assumption is that i'm going to shoot him - because i can probably get away with it by claiming self defense - so at that point "self defense" is his own personal concern. So my belief is that i'm more likely to be shot if i have a gun rather than less likely to be shot if i have a gun.

Further, one valid point Rooster brought up in critiquing the study i cited at the onset of this discussion was in mentioning that people with guns are more likely to hang out where gun crimes are prevalent, thus making them more likely to be shot themselves. Very true. However, that in itself runs counter to the pro-gun argument that people are less likely to commit crimes in areas where they know guns are "open to the public" so to speak. The fact is, gun crimes/deaths occur in the urban areas where guns are most prevalent, and well known to be so, not least prevalent. So to say that someone is less likely to commit a crime if they think there's a chance the other guy has a gun doesn't seem to be a valid concern. At least not in how i see it.

So i ask myself, would i feel safer walking through a "bad" neighborhood with a gun in my pocket, or would i feel safer walking through a safe suburban area without a gun in my pocket? Without a doubt, i'd feel infinitely safer in the safer suburban area without a gun of my own.

I would also ask myself, if i were sitting in a restaurant and at the table next to me i saw 2 strangers each with a gun in their pocket, would i feel safer, or would i feel less safe? I think i'd feel less safe.

So where are we? I think if we had the luxury of starting from scratch, i think banning guns altogether (with very minimal limitations) would be the best way to go. But given that we're starting from a point where 300,000,000 guns already fill the streets, i don't think that's practical. To that, however, i will say that i think it absolutely sucks that the resulting disaster from the policies espoused by the pro gun zealots in this country are now the very reason that they give for continuing those very same policies. But then, nobody ever said life was fair. Four years ago we had "too big to fail" and now we have "too big to fix".

At the very least, i don't think it unreasonable to limit the capacity or ability that people might have while using certain weapons. Nobody truly needs an automatic rifle, nor does anybody truly need a semi-automatic rifle that can fire off 20 or 25 rounds per load. I say ban semi-automatics altogether, but if people like Rooster and GP want to have their toys, then at the very least we should limit the capacity of the magazines that they can put in them. And make them so that it takes more than a few seconds to pop out an empty magazine and pop in a full one.

As far as the socio-economic factors that play into all of this, that's a whole 'nother discussion. Though i'll note the irony of people who mock liberals every time they try to claim that a person's surroundings have an impact on the type of person they become now all of a sudden trying to blame Hollywood and video games for people going around shooting up elementary schools - just so they can deflect the blame from their precious guns.

So there's my answer GP.

Originally Posted by GP

Wrong.... Your ignorance on the subject shines through every time you use the wrong terminology. It was not an assault weapon.

Semantics. Nothing more than semantics.

I would rather hurt my argument as long as the facts are true. That is better than people who spew misinformation and ignorance.

More irony, this coming from the guy who claimed there's no difference between a semi-automatic and a six-shooter - until his argument was dependent on there being a difference between a semi-automatic and a six-shooter.

Your opinion doesn't mean much to me. Your argument is strewn with inaccuracies and you make too many ill informed assumptions. You are also clouded by you biased left wing agenda.

See previous comment.

[GP]

Originally Posted by Doove

So there's my answer GP.

Well thought out and well written. Kudos! I don't agree with all of it, but I can respect an opinion when presented without the sour bite.

Originally Posted by Doove

More irony, this coming from the guy who claimed there's no difference between a semi-automatic and a six-shooter - until his argument was dependent on there being a difference between a semi-automatic and a six-shooter.

I never mentioned a "six shooter". There is a big difference between the two and I know very well since I own both types.

[rooster]

Originally Posted by jackfengshui

Let's stop putting people down and arguing about "terminology", and concentrate on talking about weapons - whatever you want to call them - whose only purpose is to kill a lot of people in a very short time.
.

I'm never giving up on these two points. I swore I would not respond here any further, but these are killing me....

If you care to notice, no one in this thread that supports ownership of these weapons uses the term. And many who oppose ownership of them do.

The "terminology" IS being misused. It started intentionally, and that idea still continues.

The "unintentional" misuse of the term has become more vexing to people like me and GP.

And partly because of it, these weapons are regularly confused with "true" military weapons. It has been done in this very thread by some who have made some of the arguments that appear most convincing.

Second problem: despite people like me pointing out OVER AND OVER that millions of people own and use these firearms for peaceful, law-abiding purposes.... i.e., target shooting and "plinking"..... there are some of you who keep saying OVER AND OVER that they have no other purpose.... or no legitimate purpose. Come on!! There are clubs and sanctioned competitive events attended by tons of people where ONLY these types of firearms are used!

And the argument that we could make other choices in the firearms that we use for recreational use is bullshit too. These are modern, more practical guns that have features we like and find useful.

To say that we should not be allowed to own them is like saying that my neighbor cannot own his Audi RS. That fucking car can break the national speed limit in second gear! And lots of people are killed by cars just like it. And.... I'll bet he uses it "illegally" on a regular basis (i.e., he drives too fast).

If a person drives a car like this into a school bus and kills 27 people, will you assholes call for a ban on similar cars? No, I am pretty sure you will not. You also will not say that people should not have "modern" cars with all of their improvements and increased capabilities. Nor will you say that these cars should have devices installed to limit their performance to that of more "conventional" cars.

Why? Because you give most of the people who own these cars the benefit of the doubt that they will use them safely and reasonably. But you won't do it for us. I'm tempted to call you all hypocrites, but I know your intentions are better than that. But you ARE ignorant on the big issues involved with these firearms and these types of crimes, no matter how many times you repeat the inaccurate things you say.

I am so sick and discouraged by all of this. I can understand that EVERYONE just wants tragedies like this to stop. But many are focusing on the wrong issue, and it will only add to the delays in making progress with this. It is an example of "political correctness" at its worst....

PLEASE.... if you take NOTHING ELSE from this thread... understand these two points:

First, when you use the term "Assault Weapon," there are MILLIONS of law-abiding, productive members of this society who instantly go on the defensive. You damage your credibility with us and many tend to tune out everything else you say, no matter how valid your points may be.

You can disagree with the "semantics" all you want. That's the way it is.

Second, when you say these guns have "no legitimate purpose" or "no other use than killing large numbers of people," you are proving your ignorance to us (and probably your bias). These guns are used peacefully and legally millions of times every day. THAT is a fact.