Commendation for Democrats on the "Guns" Forum: With a only a few exceptions,

[AlinPA]

the people here are polite, and well versed in the topic. I have asked dumb questions not trying to flame and have gotten informative answers. The Supreme Court ruling was a good example. I relate my Sportsman's Club view (which I think is extreme) to ongoing discussions and people point me to links and give me replies quickly (and politely). They explain their opinion with respect that I appreciate. That's all.

[gorfle]

1. In my opinion, we have to be.

Flying off the handle and being emotional instead of rational only gets us painted as being more extreme than we are generally already perceived. It's also liable to earn you a tombstone.

I can't tell you the number of times I have wanted to simply post, "OMGWTF go screw yourself and the horse you road in on!"

But it is counterproductive.

[jody]

2. SCOTUS has said RKBA is protected by the 2nd, it would be nice if the "Guns" forum title was changed

to something more dignified as appropriate for a natural, inherent, inalienable right that predated our Constitution.

[Adsos Letter]

3. firearms?

:shrug:

[jody]

4. Or "Right to Keep and Bear Arms".

:shrug:

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[spin]

6. An excellent TV program to watch is "30 days Gun Nation"...

which appears on the FX channel. I'm not sure when it will run again.
http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/30days/episodeguide.php (note: check installment 05)

After watching this program I had gained some insight into the feelings of a very anti-gun person. It was fascinating to see her go through 30 days with a father and son family who were very deeply into the gun culture.

Both pro and anti-gun viewpoints have merits. I tend to agree that the pro-gun advocates seem more rational and less emotional and use facts and statistics to validate their viewpoint. However, I'm pro-gun.

Iverglas is part of the reason that this forum is entertaining. True, she does tend to insult other posters and seems to believe gun owners, especially those who own guns for self defense, are in the majority right wing, misogynistic, racist or merely dupes. But she does occasionally make some good arguments for her side of the issue. She, of course, will disagree and state that her insults are merely misinterpreted by basically illiterate people and she never said anything like that and any reasonably intelligent person would be able to comprehend her meaning.

Now that total gun bans and confiscation appear to be off the table because of the SCOTUS ruling, we may be able to work with the anti-gun crowd. We may be able to get legislation passed that would help eliminate irresponsible or severely mentally ill people from legally purchasing firearms. We might be able to reduce the number of illegal guns in the hands of criminals. We might work to solve the basic causes of violence in our society.

If we can reduce violence, especially drug related gang violence, we could make our country a much better place to live in and raise children.

[radioburning]

7. Actually...

I pretty much agree with you across the board. the 30 days show had valid arguments on both sides of the gun debate although, being a gun guy, I still think it showed a stronger argument for guns and less actual logic to the antis stance, in the big picture. That's one thing I think the anti's just ignore-we don't want illegal gun sales, or people with mental problems, gang bangers, or violent+stupid people with guns either! I just don't believe that creating legislation that says you need to buy a yearly permit to buy ammo(only 50 rounds per month maximum? I go through 50 rounds in five minutes at the shooting range) is the way to do that. Banning an AR-15 is not going to reduce gun crime on the streets of D.C. Neither is banning handguns from people who aren't inclined to rob people in the first place. I also don't like the fact that thousands and thousands of people die every day, but if 30 people got murdered with a gun(80 if you count suicides)across the country in a day it's an "epidemic"! Those are my only real beefs with the anti's-most of the laws they want will only end up burdening the people most likely to NOT to rob, rape, or murder using a firearm-and not actually deterring crime, and the fact that they focus entirely on a, relatively, small cause of death in the U.S.compared to any number of other causes.

It's not the guy who buys 1,000 rounds of ammo online for his WWII Swedish Mauser or SKS or AR-15 or Glock, because it saves him a ton of money that way, that we should be concerned with. It's the 12 year old kid hanging out on the street at 11:30 at night on a tuesday who sees drug dealers or gangsters as the only guys in the neighborhood who can afford 20" rims...

[spin]

8. Thanks for your interest and supprort....

When I watched the "30 Days Gun Nation" program the most interesting part was when the anti-gun woman fired her first gun, a shotgun, and cried. Her explanation of how every time she heard a gun shot she visualized an innocent child or adult being needlessly murdered touched me. It did give me an insight into the views of the anti-gunners. Personal experience is a very determinate factor in your viewpoints. I've personally known only one person who was shot by a criminal (and almost died) but I've known several, including members of my own family, who successfully defended themselves with handguns.

Any responsible gun owner wants reasonable restrictions to prevent illegal gun sales and criminals or those with severe mental problems from legally purchasing firearms. Tragic shootings are not only disturbing but threaten our rights to possess firearms for self defense or merely the enjoyment of the sport of shooting or hunting. The laws we currently have need some improvement and some better enforcement to insure that only honest sane people can legally buy firearms.

Of course when you have between 238 million and 276 million firearms in a country you are going to have unfortunate accidents and tragic misuses. The anti-gun crowd salivates when they read of these incidents and discuss them to prove their viewpoint. Perhaps a requirement to take a gun safety class before purchasing a firearm will help reduce needless accidents. Since human beings are generally inherently violent by nature, eliminating all murders especially those involving emotion is difficult. There's always going to be the rejected husband or wife killing the wandering spouse. Education might help to prevent those catastrophes. Life goes on. If one lover proves unfaithful, just find another.

It's hard for someone who has ever participated in the firearm sport to understand how many rounds a shooter fires in a session at the range. Normally I would shoot 50 .22 cal rounds through my Ruger .22 target pistol to warm up and at least 100 rounds through which every larger caliber revolver or pistol I chose to take to the range. I normally visited the range at least once a week. That totals out to a minimum of 7800 rounds a year. Many other shooters fired far more rounds than I did. As you stated buying 1000 rounds of ammo makes economic sense. Having several thousand rounds in your house doesn't make you a nut or a terrorist.

We do need to hold the feet of those we elect to the fire and solve them to find real solutions to violence problem in this nation. As I said many times, this solution lies in better education, job opportunity, equal opportunity for all and a concerted effort to reduce gang violence. We need to take the profit out of drug dealing by in some cases legalization, offering treatment to those addicted and treating drug related gang violence and shooting as terrorism (which it is).

[Spoonman]

9. I saw the program too

When I watched the "30 Days Gun Nation" program the most interesting part was when the anti-gun woman fired her first gun, a shotgun, and cried. Her explanation of how every time she heard a gun shot she visualized an innocent child or adult being needlessly murdered touched me.

My take on that was quite different.....

Now here is the perfect example of why we should do mental background checks!
This woman is unstable, and obviously has some sort of disconnect with reality.

My wife (Phd in Psychology) stated classic example of a hyper-emotional disorder.
(so I wasn't far off)

[radioburning]

12. I don't really like to quote Freud, but...

IIRC..."fear of weapons is a sign of emotional and mental immaturity". For what it's worth, I agree...

[Tejas]

16. ...and therein lies

"It's not the guy who buys 1,000 rounds of ammo online for his WWII Swedish Mauser or SKS or AR-15 or Glock, because it saves him a ton of money that way, that we should be concerned with. It's the 12 year old kid hanging out on the street at 11:30 at night on a tuesday who sees drug dealers or gangsters as the only guys in the neighborhood who can afford 20" rims..."


the exact thing that antis are deathly afraid of, having to deal with societal problems that contribute to crime each and every day. Instead, they take the cowardly avenue of attacking an inanimate object owned by their law-abiding neighbor.

[Lefty48197]

15. That's pretty funny!

You might want to read the dungeon archives rookie.

[Malidictus Maximus]

10. I'm pro RKBA, but I really do try to understand the other side.

I think part of the difference is where we live. This is a post of mine from elsewhere. My point is that demonizing, insulting or ridiculing the other side does no good at all.

If you live in,say, San Francisco or New York, (A) the only people who have guns are, in a large part, either thugs or cops. and (B) even if someone DOES use a gun for self defense, the projectile has to go somewhere even after it goes through the bad guy, to say nothing of if one misses. So if I lived in a NY apartment, I might reasonably be unhappy with my next door or downstairs neighbor keeping an AKS or AR15 for 'self defense (ignoring the fact that there are much better alternatives, such as a shotgun or handgun with frangible- non penetrating- ammo). Yes, there are exceptions; shooting sports enthusiasts who go to ranges, know their weapons and handle them responsibly, but I am just stating that in general many, many city dwellers don't have, like or support the right to own guns, particularly those commonly carried for self defense or resembling military models in calibre and/or visual features (civilian guns are NOT military weapons, fully automatic firearms are almost impossible to obtain and prohibitively expensive to use).
In many rural areas, the prevailing attitude is than guns are just another tool; no more or less subject to abuse than kitchen knives or tire irons or a cutting torch- get stupid and someone gets hurt, bad in the hands of a bad person, but no more inherently evil than any other inanimate object. And they are seen, by many, as a cool thing in and of themselves, just like many other potentially dangerous instrumentalities, such as bikes, hotrods and boats. In Montana, I never heard about kids accidentally getting shot, every kid from about 6 or 8 on knows what a gun is and knows you don't point it at ANYTHING you don't intend to eat, mount on a wall or, at the least, see dead.

When someone from the 'big city' starts saying stupid things -many of the politicians who propose 'gun control' legislation know laughably little about the nomenclature, features and capabilities of civilian firearms - people who have been using them for fun and food get pissed off; and the Republicans frequently and effectively exploit that resentment. Many community leaders in the cities, who are frequently Democrats, see gun violence and induce that taking away guns from anyone other than cops and 'hunters' is a logical step to avoid the tragic deaths the see on a sometimes daily basis. The person who goes out to a friend's ranch and plinks away with surplus .223 and a mini 14 hears some 'big city' politician proposing to ban his rifle as an 'assault weapon' and considers said politician nuts.

[spin]

11. Well said...good points (n/t)

[old mark]

13. My own tolerance increased when I put 2 frequent

posters (rabid, screaming anti's) on my ignore list. They are still there, and they are the only ones there.
Generally speaking, those who are familiar with guns and who get some enjoyment out of any facet of shooting realize that most of the objections of the antis are untrue, and the rest exagerated.
They are ignorant, and I must agree, unbalanced to some degree.

I worked for several years with juvenile drug addicts, from age 12 to 18, and I feel the drug gangs to be the greatest internal threat to the US. I knew kids whe worked with drug dealers from age 8, holding the product, or holding the guns, because they would get only a slap on the wrist, and not do hard jail time. Most had every male in their family involved in crime - actively or in prison. I'd like to see law enforcement address this real problem, not create fictional "problems" to "solve with phoney laws designed to gain great publicity for the pols.

Sorry to rant - enough for today.

OP, thanks for the post and for this thread.

mark

[jody]

14. A pet peeve is allowing sentences served for using a gun in a crime to be served concurrently with

other prison sentences.

That effectively means no jail time for using a gun to commit a crime.

Prison sentences for using a gun in a crime should be served sequentially with other sentences.

[Erebus67]

17. Watch that 30 days episode here

http://www.hulu.com/watch/25712/30-days-gun-nation