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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/8/2008 7:40:28 PM | for the people affected by this in japan my heartfelt sympathies go out to you. For the gun control people please read the story from msnbc and take heed this is what we mean by guns dont kill people, people kill people.
TOKYO - A Japanese man rammed a truck into a crowd of shoppers, jumped out and went on a stabbing spree in Tokyo's top electronics district Sunday, killing at least seven people and wounding 10 others.
The deadly lunchtime assault paralyzed the Akihabara neighborhood, which is wildly popular among the country's cyber-wise youth. The killings were the latest in a series of grisly knifings that have stoked fears of rising crime in Japan.
A 25-year-old man, Tomohiro Kato, was apprehended in the attack.
Local news reports initially said the man was a self-proclaimed mobster, but national broadcaster NHK later said the suspect was not a gang member.
"The suspect told police that he came to Akihabara to kill people," said Jiro Akaogi, a spokesman for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.
'Tired of life'
"He said he was tired of life. He said he was sick of everything," Akaogi said.
The violence began when he crashed a rented, two-ton truck into pedestrians. News reports said he jumped out and began stabbing the people he'd knocked down with the truck, then turned on horrified onlookers.
Police confirmed seven deaths -- six men and one woman -- but they could not say whether the victims had died of injuries from the truck or were stabbed to death.
Reports said the attacker grunted and roared as he slashed and stabbed at Sunday shoppers crowding a street lined with huge stores packed with computers and other advanced electronics, and the latest in video and computer games.
"He was screaming as he was stabbing people at random," an unidentified witness told NHK.
District paralyzed
The attack paralyzed the district and sent thousands of Sunday shoppers into a panic. At least 17 ambulances rushed to the scene, and TV footage showed rescue workers tending to victims in the street.
An unidentified witness told NHK the suspect dropped the knife after police threatened to shoot him. An amateur video filmed by a mobile phone showed policemen overpowering the bespectacled suspect.
Another amateur video taken five minutes after the rampage showed shoppers helping the victims and a man screaming, "Ambulance, Ambulance!" according to NHK.
Police earlier said 12 people were wounded but later lowered the number 10.
Once rare, stabbing attacks have become more frequent in Japan in recent years as violent crime has increased.
In March, one person was stabbed to death and at least seven others were hurt by a man who went on a slashing spree with two knives outside a shopping mall in eastern Japan. In one of the worst attacks, a man with a history of mental illness burst into an elementary school in Japan in 2001 and killed eight children. The killer was executed in 2004. | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/8/2008 8:13:57 PM | Exactly ... guns don't do the killing - people do.
I haven't found a source that gives the exact statistics of how many murders are committed by which weapon, but it seems like knives/stabbing may be in the lead.
I'm guessing it's just easier for some people to place the blame on guns, than to admit that humans themselves are flawed and capable of murders of all types. Really, is a murder by bullet really any worse than a murder by knifeblade, poison, baseball bat, pillow held over the face ... etc etc etc?
Pretty horrible happening you described. | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/8/2008 11:35:53 PM | source that gives the exact statistics of how many murders are committed by which weapon, but it seems
Guns and knives are not weapons they are tools and the sooner they are refered to as such the better we will all be.
It is easy for the small minded to blame a gun because it scares them. What other way you mentioned of commiting murder makes a loud noise? I think that combined with the fact firearms are used as tools of war more than poisons and knives etc. Plus killing from a distance takes away the personal touch wich makes the killing less socially acceptable. It is cold and impersonal, you don't get a warm fuzzy from it. | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 12:40:48 AM | Twilight, which are you on your picture? The boy or the girl? It's not that I'm stupid, but on this site the sex (if any) of the poster is not shown and if you're the little girl, the pic could have been taken some time ago. It's a bit grainy, too.
You're right. Guns don't kill people. People kill guns.
If we wanted to ban guns because they help kill a person, we should ban matches because they help a person become an arsonist.
A gun on a gnu looks better than a knot on a gnat.
Did you know that claiming to have uttered the sentence "Please give me ten thousand bucks cash. I've got a gum," is not a successful defence in a bank robbery trial? I learned the hard way. I went to a community lawyer in the 'hood and asked him about this. The original idea came to me because at that time I was chewing nicorette gums.
Who needs love when you've got a gun.
My mother just about had had a heart attacked when after the war her mother in law answered her as to where her husband was, "he's gunned down." It turns out my Gramma, an immigrant from the Ukraine, was trying to say, "he's gone down to the store to pick up some smokes". Eventually the smokes got to him, and killed my old man. It's not cigarettes that kill people, but people who kill cigarettes.
The moral, I think, is that knifes and matches have other very useful purposes than just killing people or creating house-fires. A knife is good to peel a potato, to cut a tape, to work a piece of wood. A match ignites a fire in a BBQ, in a gas stove. A gun, much like a cigarette, has only one use: To kill people. A cigarette can be smoked, but there is no other purpose for it, really. A gun can be used to kill an animal or a person. Oh, and to break locks with. Or to drive a nail into wood or an argument home, with the handle. Or to signify that a hunter is lost. Or to be given to the children to play with something. (Unloaded.) Or to scare into obedience the flock of gnus that's somehow found its way to your living room. Or to use it as a love-generating device by Cupid when his bow and arrow are having a tune-up.
Who needs love when you have gnat got a gnu. | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 2:21:52 AM |
Guns and knives are not weapons they are tools and the sooner they are referred to as such the better we will all be.
As July Morning pointed out, there are many uses for knives other then inflicting pain or destruction. It can be used to carve a masterpiece, prepare food, or even save a life. A knife is an essential house hold item that while can be dangerous, can also be very helpful.
Unfortunately I can't say the same thing for guns. While a gun can sometimes be used as a deterrent on the defensive side, it is mostly used as an offensive weapon or tool for persuasion. It's primary purpose is to inflict bodily harm.
While I agree that guns don't kill people. They do something that is just as bad. They give people a sense of empowerment. People get the idea that they do not have to be right as long as they have a gun. It goes to their head like a drug and they start thinking of all of the possibilities of ways that they can use it to their advantage. At this point in time, an emotionally unstable person can easily transform into a killer as this guy did in Japan.
It's true, a knife can give a person the same sense of empowerment, but as I said earlier, knives have far too many useful purposes that makes them impossible to get rid of. Guns on the other hand have few useful purposes. They are just far too negative. | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 2:55:14 AM | | the year after australia banned guns, violent crime rose like 150% if i remember correctly.. banning guns doesn't stop crime, it just influences people to think of other ways to hurt people. we are human, and humans are the only animals on this planet that actually seek ways to hurt themselves and each other. banning one instrument of death isn't going to stop the problem. the only way to prevent senseless death is to find ways to give meaning to people, as well as teach people how to protect themselves and others. while this man was stabbing people senselessly, somebody should have done something to stop him, instead of just watching... he shouldn't have had the opportunity to stab another person after the first one. its the mentality of the crowd that needs to change. more people should be against senseless violence, and should do more to prevent it. i can't even count how many stories i've heard of people watching others get hurt and doing nothing about it. that kind of behavior should be beyond acceptable. shit, if i saw something like that happening, i'd like to believe that i'd be the one to stab him myself. | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 2:59:34 AM |
it is mostly used as an offensive weapon or tool for persuasion. It's primary purpose is to inflict bodily harm.
i kind of disagree with this statement. every police officer walks around with a gun on their belt. it's not used for offensive, or defensive, or even persuasion. well, unless they are passively persuading people to not kill them. it is there only for the rare occasion that they may need it offensively or defensively. i have a gun, and i mainly use it at the range. though, it is always loaded, and always in a drawer. its main purpose isn't for target practice, but instead, it sits waiting for the time when it has to be used. so the main purpose of my gun is to just be there in case it needs to be used. | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 4:32:37 AM |
the year after Australia banned guns, violent crime rose like 150% if i remember correctly
That's where people make a big mistake. Gun control is different from a gun ban. I do not think we should ban guns. But I definitely think we should better control them. Here are a few ways to do so.
1. Make background checks mandatory everywhere. Even at gun shows.
2. In any firearm sell, it should be mandatory for at least one licensed gun dealer to be present and therefore responsible. Any transaction made without a licensed gun dealer present will be considered illegal. Think this is impossible? That's what they said about alcohol too.
3. Have stiffer penalties not only for violent crimes, but also for illegal sales and distribution of the firearms.
4. Limit the caliber size of guns. Reason: A 38 can deter someone from mugging you just as well as a Desert Eagle 50 cal. But in the case of an accidental discharge, someone may have a better chance of living. Some guns simply go above and beyond what anyone could call "useful".
These are some examples of gun control. Obviously there is a big difference between this and a ban. | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 7:05:16 AM | A few of the problems with "gun control" are:
- they want all firearms locked up, with bullets in a seperate place. This kinda takes away from using them for self-defence
- background checks don't mean 'squat' really. For example, just because I haven't killed anyone yet doesn't mean I never would ... or kinda like all pedophiles start somewhere - there is no record of their behaviors until they act and get caught.
- Police were to use the registry to know if there are firearms in a place. Wouldn't that give them a false sense of security and put them at risk to go by what the computer says?
- Mostly, the people who follow the rules are not the ones to worry about. Criminals sure aren't gonna register their illegal guns.
- Too much regulations will only wind up with good law-abiding citizens being defenceless, leaving cops and criminals the only ones with guns. (isn't that comforting?)
- I would dare say alot of the illegal more lethal guns are already in boxes a few feet below the dirt... just waiting for when they are needed.
BTW, hunters, farmers, and hobby shooters at the ranges need guns ... guns are not only used offensively to inflict harm on humans. | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 9:24:07 AM | But gun control is enacted through bans.
1934 National Fireams Act enacted legislation for the first time where owners of full auto and various other weapons were required to register them with the government by purchasing a $200 tax stamp. At the time, $200 was quite a bit of money thus putting many of those weapons out of reach of most people. This is still law today and is used whenever a Title 2 weapon is bought (full auto rifles, short barreled rifles or shotguns and destructive devices).
1968 Gun Control Act brought about the sporting clause that stated a firearm must have a sporting use in order to be legally sold. Also banned import of foreign made full automatic weapons.
1986 Firearms Owners Protection Act banned the sale and new manufacture of fully automatic weapons made after May of 1986. One's made before though are still allowed to be sold and transfered.
1989 Import Ban made foreign made semi-auto rifles illegal to import into the country.
1994 Assault Weapons Ban made the sell of semi-auto rifles with certain features illegal.
So all the above legislation does is limit the amount of firearms which is just another way of controlling them. The market reflects this by pricing them out of reach of regular people which is just another way of banning them. For instance, full auto M-16's can cost as much as $15,000 and I've seen some rare German WWII weapons go in to the 70K plus range. Before 1986, that same M-16 would have been priced much closer to it's semi-auto counterpart, maybe a few hundred dollars more. | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 10:04:27 AM | jim most of those bans seem to only affect IMPORT of certain types of arms. i.e. American gun makers can sell their product with no outside competition. Really it looks more like big business protectionism than anything to do with controlling who has access to arms.
Ya Va-Tech would have been so much worse if the idiot was denied sale on grounds of his documented mental instability and he could only arm himself with a knife or two as those guys in Japan did...........
Gun control isn't about banning guns, it is about taking reasonable steps to ensure the wrong people don't have easy access and no oversight. | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 10:05:51 AM | the year after australia banned guns, violent crime rose like 150%
Did the 150% figure include guns going off accidentally?
Did the 150% figure include only violent crimes that resulted in death?
Did the 150% figure include only violent crimes that resulted in death or bodily harm?
Did the 150% figure include only violent crimes that resulted in death, bodily harm or forceful confinement?
Did the 150% figure include violent crimes that resulted in death, bodily harm, forceful confinement, coercion, bullying, threatening?
There are many ways to skin a cat. It is very important that we listen carefully what constitutes a violent crime under the statistical survey.
The survey methods are important, too; maybe they were exhaustive lists from court cases, maybe they were counts of crime reported in newspapers, maybe they were an informal question by a newspaper at a street-corner, in which they asked passers-by, "sir/madame, do you think violent crime has gone up since we banned guns, and if yes, by how much?"
If you want to cite statistics, I will be satisfied with saying that Toronto, a city of five million people, has no more than 80 murders per annum. Washington, DC, which is somewhat larger, I don't know by how much, maybe twice the size of TO, maybe three times, has 130 murders per week-end.
And in Toronto 40 murders are committed with guns. Of the 40, 38 harm innocent bystanders, who are near the shooting. Sometimes outside a nightclub, sometimes inside, sometimes in or around subway stations near active drug-areas, sometimes elsewhere, such as churches and cemeteries and hospitals. Once there was a shooting at the airport and once there was a shooting inside a police station. No shootings yet on record in cinemas, theatres, family diners, McDonald's, fairs, freeways, gas stations, suck-off joints, hillhell joints, jobber's places, electronics shops, liqueur stores (!), and banks (!!). I did not make a sweeping statement that there have been no shootings in restaurants, period, becauses a young, blonde woman (innocent bystander) from a high-echelon family was gunned down in a posh cafe, and the whole town got upset. Shows how very racist we actually are here. When a black guy gets gunned down, nobody mourns, and we all account for it by saying "yeah... probably a drug deal gun bad." That's awfully unfair.
Oh: No shootings in dentists' offices yet.
A city councillor proposed a by-law to teach basic safe gun-handling practices and target shooting to the underpriviledged youth in Scarboro (a crime-ridden borough in Toronto, pop. 400,000), because he figured that a lot of innocent Torontonians' lives would be saved if the criminals knew how to handle a gun properly.
There was also talk of making members of the victim's families in a fatal shooting allow to get a free university education. This was supposed to sound very nice and humanitarian, while at the same time to encourage the criminals to wipe out their own families. They figured they could pay for the winfall education expenses several times over in any period from the costs saved in welfare payments, to the thus declining welfare population. Did not get enough votes to pass at City Hall. | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 10:18:10 AM | every police officer walks around with a gun on their belt. it's not used for offensive, or defensive, or even persuasion.
I have to agree with you here. You're actually right.
Police carry guns to signify their Myers-Briggs learning style inventories. Guns in holsters of cops are coffe bottles. Sometimes they carry roudns of perfume in it. It's a pez-dispenser. It's made of chocolate. It's made of methadone. It's made of butter.
The guns the police use are life-saving devices. One shot from it and the accident victim will stand up, dust himself off and go about his business.
You're absolutely right, Wowsad, in this and in all future arguments, because you've gotta loaded gun in your desk drawer and I don't. | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 12:21:53 PM | | There are more people killed with knives because knives are far more readily available than guns. Just imagine what a mess we would be in if anyone could walk into Zellers and purchase a 9mm along with a set of dishes. I grew up on a farm, and have handled all types of guns in my life, but I was always taught properly how to handle then. Guns in the hands of people who respect them, and know how to use them are not a problem. What really bothers me is the gun advocates who run around trying to convince everyone that they need a gun to protect themselves. Well, thanks for adding to the general paranoia, someone is sure to get shot, now. I do believe in gun control if it's done properly. People who are known to be violent, mentally unstable, or just plain stupid should never be allowed to own a gun. Unfortunately, gun control in this country has become nothing more than a big tax grab, and honest people like my father no longer own one because of the hassle to register them, and it's people like him who live in remote areas that may need a gun to deal with bears, cougars etc. | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 3:15:11 PM |
There are more people killed with knives because knives are far more readily available than guns. Just imagine what a mess we would be in if anyone could walk into Zellers and purchase a 9mm along with a set of dishes
In my experience the 9mm knives are okay; it's the bread knives and the meat cleavers that I would be unwilling to be sold just to anyone. If I were the guverment, I'd require a psychiatric evaluation and a thorough crimial clearance for people who submit claims to buy them. Crazy housewives would never again serve up matzo balls hard enough to drive a nail into a chair. | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 3:47:00 PM | Msg 6 said "Guns on the other hand have few useful purposes"
I'd say self-preservation is a pretty useful purpose. Firearms are used (depending on who's doing the counting) between 1.5 million and 2.5 million times PER YEAR in self defense and, in most cases, without ever firing a shot. Funny thing,though, you never hear about this on the evening news because a non-crime isn't news,it can't be sensationalized. I live about 50 miles from a major metro area and when our state passed concealed carry, the Democratic leadership in that city was so opposed to it that they threatened not to recognize it as law. Later, the same police chief who was so opposed to allowing citizens to defend themselves quietly announced that violent crime had dropped dramatically. Murders down about 20%, car-jackings down over 20% and rapes down about 40%. The one thing that gives criminals the advantage over their intended victim is that the criminal is armed(As the saying goes, criminals prefer unarmed victims,it makes their job a lot easier),so, if you take away the criminals advantage, you are much less likely to become a victim. It's easy to feel like a tough guy when you know you are the only one in the room who is armed, but knowing that you may be out numbered by armed, honest, law abiding citizens can really shake your confidence. Some people will always be anti-gun and that is their right, but I'd be willing to bet that right now,there are a lot of Japanese family members who are wishing that just one person there had been armed with a firearm,so that their loved ones would still be alive today. Let's stop blaming the tool and start blaming the criminal. | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 3:49:40 PM | July Morning, i can't tell if you are against police officers having guns, or against guns in general. i can't tell through your sarcasm if you want to disarm police officers or not, because you can't seem to get a single point across without it dripping in immature, irrelevant sarcasm. if you want to have a constructive argument, you should probably work on that, because i really have no response to you as of yet.
oh, and as for australia; since the 1996 gun ban:
-Countrywide, homicides are up 3.2 percent;
-Assaults are up 8.6 percent;
=Amazingly, armed robberies have climbed nearly 45 percent;
-In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent;
-In the 25 years before the gun bans, crime in Australia had been dropping steadily;
There has been a reported "dramatic increase" in home burglaries and assaults on the elderly.
as i said, violent crime.
You're absolutely right, Wowsad, in this and in all future arguments, because you've gotta loaded gun in your desk drawer and I don't.
and i'm not right because i have a loaded weapon in my house. the only reason i'm right is because you can't seem to convey a mature thought. | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 4:23:36 PM | I think its more dangerous in britain now since they banned guns after dunblane. I think the majority of guns used in crime in canada are illegaly obtained from the states. If you ban guns the criminals and wacko mass killers go to the hood to buy them. 
There should be a law against politicians blaming legal gun ownership for crime. Like some kind of big fine for not sticking to the facts.  | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 5:06:26 PM | The existing gun laws in the US are very clear about the mentally disturbed and others who are prohibited from purchasing a gun. The problem is that while the government loves to pass laws the enforcement of them is arbitrary. Some one somewhere FAILED to follow existing reporting laws. By law he should not have been able to purchase a firearm, but it wasnt reported to the proper agency. Everyone wants to create new laws the problem is that the laws are already in place, they are very poorly enforced.
This is a fact if guns are banned only the military, police, the rich, and criminals will have guns. The average law abiding citizen will not.
In a lot of cities the police manning ratio is one police officer for every 10,000 people. Thats including desk sgts, dispatch, CSU, homicide detectives, vice, and other posts that dont normally patrol in the field. Smaller towns have one county sheriff and maybe two deputies patrolling a large area that takes several hours to traverse. So if only police and criminals have guns what happens?
I am all for gun control, but the laws are already there they are just not being enforced through the negligence of our elected officials.
The laws that do get passed are rediculous the assault weapons ban was a joke. Take one regular rifle stock from the manufacture. Change the grip add a flash suppressor (which does absolutly nothing really but a cosmetic change) and put a forward grip on it and now magically it is an assault weapon. You didnt change the springs it isnt fully auto everything was just cosmetic. In other words it looked scary, that was a way for politicians to look hard line to thier voters while really doing nothing substantial. High capacity mags are illegal for non-military and non-law enforcement a difference of five rounds in a 9mm clip. so what does the shmuck do? CARRY MORE CLIPS it served no real purpose but it made the masses feel better. regardless of the fact across the border into mexico you can still get high cap mags and black market weapons even though guns are illegal there.
And who runs the country down in mexico? the drug cartels run the country. If you say they dont then your very naive any organization that routinely assasinates the heads of police departments not to mention the 2nd in command to the entire state police force and has no fear of the repercussions runs the country. Did you know that most of the heads of the Law enforcement agencies there live in secured compounds for fear of assasination? Yet guns are illegal there, according to some people it should be the safest place in the world.
Go figure | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 5:36:19 PM | i agree with what was said above. the laws are already in place, but they need to be ENFORCED. i don't know what people want to be done exactly... ban guns altogether? how will that solve the problem of ILLEGAL weapons being in the hands of people who shouldn't have weapons in the first place. so what, if a criminal goes into a gun shop and can't buy a gun, he'll just go to a back alley and buy one out of the trunk. my uncle is a gun collector. he has shot exactly one person in his life. that person was robbing a grocery store he was a customer at, and had a gun to the salesgirl's head. she couldn't get the money out of the register, and he was cracked out. he had no other choice. he always carries a gun on him, and has since he has been able to. if you take that right away from the average citizen, you will be taking away the average citizen's right to protect the people around him/her, and themselves.
people have opinions against guns, but offer no viable solutions to the problems besides "increase the laws!" which makes absolutely no sense to me. whether there is a 3 day wait, a 14 day wait, or a month wait, criminal background checks, and everything else... that is not stopping the average criminal from obtaining a firearm, and it won't. if the guns aren't registered, they cannot be regulated. it is your right to own a gun, as long as you follow the laws in regards to obtaining and using it. i believe that it is every honest american citizen's duty to own a firearm, if for nothing else but to exercise their right to do so. everybody says, what if there's an accident? what if somebody else gets their hands on that weapon... well, if you can't be trusted to maintain a weapon in your own household, then there is something very wrong with your household. accidental gun deaths happen because of carelessness, not because the weapon itself in dangerous. god forbid, if somebody ever broke into my house and i had to shoot them, i wouldn't feel proud, and i wouldn't feel as though i've done something "right". i would however feel that it was necessary. | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 5:40:59 PM | People of the forums mark this day down in the history books, for once Wowsad and I actually agree on something  | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 6:04:07 PM | I just saw a spokesman for the Japanese gov't on ANN (American News Network) commenting on the stabbing there. He said that "knife control" is a top priority of the Japanese gov't. Kinda tough to cut meat with a spork.
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 7:14:22 PM | Interesting topic, and interesting replies so far.
Hmm...well I have to admit, (I'm Canadian, and only been living in the US for a year and a half now) that yep, once I moved down, I was boggled and a bit appalled while listening to the morning news while getting ready for work. Considering I had just moved from BC, where there were only a handful of gun-related murders on the news per year, then hearing of two or three shootings every weekend in our local area just floored me I have to admit.
An earlier poster mentioned that guns take away the 'personal' aspect of things, and I think that's a very valid comment. When I was a kid, if two kids wanted to duke it out in the playground, then that's what they did, fisticuffs. Hell, even when I got older, if two guys at a nightclub wanted to 'take it outside', then again, more fisticuffs. Then flickknives or knives in general came into the picture. Which was scary enough back then. And now it's guns?
Personally, I see nothing wrong with someone owning a gun or rifle if they are hunting enthusiasts or range-enthusiasts, but wow...that's pretty scary in a way when you think about it, that my child, or your child, could just be involved in a simple (and typical) indiscretion of youth, but instead of the other kid/guy putting up their dukes, they're pulling out a gun and blowing the other person away? In that regard, I agree wholeheartedly...guns really AREN'T a "personal-and-up-close" way of dealing with things for the most part, which is the main reason they are worrisome to me. Any fool can pull a trigger, after all...no offence intended to anyone here. But, there really IS no real regulation of who can get a gun (where I live, they have pawn shops who advertise "cheap jewellery, and GUNS"! I doubt many people, even in this thread, who would be willing to pull the trigger so fast in a real-life situation, would actually beat someone into submission to defend themselves, or even knife them if a gun wasn't readily available. I'm just saying. It just seems like things keep escalating to a quicker fix, is all...what's next, semi-automatics in every household?
On the flip side, and to add a bit of humour, lol...my dad was Drug Squad RCMP for 20 years, and he never once pulled his gun...they used to bug the hell out of him during their routine inspections "geezus, guy, at least dust the damned thing off every once in a while". | |
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| for the gun control people
Posted: 6/9/2008 7:29:18 PM | your father was in drug enforcement for 20 years and never pulled his gun out, huh.... my friend was shot 3 times in the chest while serving in brooklyn his 3rd year being a cop. i guess we just grew up in different environments. he's still alive thank god, but when he shot back and hit the guy in the stomach, he went down and shot one last time into my friend's ankle and shattered it, so he's out on disability. i have another friend who is in the nypd also, in queens. he's been shot at, and he's had to shoot somebody. it's only his 2nd year in. times have changed.
as for the question of whether i would be willing to beat somebody up as opposed to shooting them? if i had to, yes. but it's kind of hard to beat somebody up who has a gun, or any sort of weapon, especially when you're caught off guard.... while i could spend years taking hand to hand combat classes, i would much rather just have the option of using a firearm available to myself. i really don't care how personal it is, as long as the situation gets taken care of, and i'm still alive. i've never aimed any of my guns at somebody, and i've never threatened anybody with it. but i have to admit, the sight of my beretta cx4 is probably fairly scary, and could convince somebody to leave without me having to actually shoot them, hopefully. the thing about home invasions that really frightens me is that the people who generally commit these crimes don't have clean records, and new york is very big on its three strikes thing. i can imagine the mindset of somebody who is breaking into my house, and has to deal with the consequences of being caught. with that "i'm not going back to jail" mentality in the back of their head, how far exactly are they willing to go to not get caught? do i have to die? i wouldn't want to risk it. i don't live in a great neighborhood, and its not uncommon around here for people to own firearms for home protection.
i don't agree that people should just be shooting themselves dead in the streets over petty fights and whatnot, but my house has been broken into 4 different times. i wasn't home three of those times, and the time that i was, the person left when i was grabbing my gun. i'm glad he did, and i'm even more glad that he hasn't come back. i'm not willing to throw away the firearms in hopes that i can handle a situation with a steak knife, i'm sorry. its just not going to happen. | |
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