Gun safeguards must improve, enthusiasts say

[populistdriven]

The article says that the VT killer could have been red flagged and prevented from buying a gun since a judge declared Cho a danger to others in late 2005 and a law that's been on books since 1994 could have stopped him....

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/22/GUNSHOW.TMP

It is a pretty good article overall but then I got to this quote:

Shopping at the gun show Saturday with his 7-year-old granddaughter, former Concord police Officer Jon Rowan doubted new gun laws would deter crime. "If you take the guns from the good people, all who will have them will be the bad people," he said. "Somehow, they'll find them."

So I put together the Cops perspective in MSPaint:



Will it ever be possible to us to have a conversation about gun control as adults?

[billbuckhead]

1. No, it's effectively the end of America and it's Constitution

Much stronger gun regulations are wanted by the vast majority of the population but are thwarted by the big corporations. Immigration is similar issue, the public wants the common sense answer to keep employers from hiring illegals but the corporate owned government would build a ridiculous fence cheerleaded on by RepubliKKKans and "bluedog" Dems who would rather demonize Hispanics and foreigners as the problem. The gun debate is the same, it's more profit producing and gives more political power for corporations to demonize urban and suburban people who suffer the most as elites and gangbangers rather than embracing stronger gun regulations that 99% of the rest of the industrialized world has had great success with. (Yes, even Switzerland is soon switching to EU style gun laws.) That we can't solve obvious problems like guns and immigration for the the greater good of "we the people" means we are effectively a dying nation governed by a failed Constitution and a corrupt bloodthirsty short-sighted overclass. Let's look back to what Thomas Jefferson said about Constitutions;

"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment… laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind… as that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, institutions must advance also, to keep pace with the times… We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain forever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
-- Thomas Jefferson, on reform of the Virginia Constitution

[MLFerrell]

2. "Much stronger gun regulations are wanted by the vast majority of the population"

I call bullshit.

[populistdriven]

3. The 1994 law is a good law.

Any reasonable type (the type that could be agreed on by the majority of Americans) of gun control goal (with laws like the 1994 law) is to take weapons away from people who will commit crimes with them, but not anyone else. The 1994 law is a good law. But the NRA battles in all the state legislatures to block laws like it from being enforced.

It is idiotic myopic infantile attitudes like that cop which support the NRA's all or nothing approach that allow VT to happen.

The NRA is an important group and our country needs them. But they fight gun control at every turn, even when it makes sense at saving lives.

Many forms of gun control are good. There isn't a single person here (i hope) that want ZERO regulation of guns.

But as soon as you talk about enforcing or passing laws which would have ZERO impact on 'good' people like that cop they stand up and spout that stupid line. Its an idiotic slogan that means absolutely nothing since no one has ever suggested 'taking away all ur guns'.

The cop (like most people) sees the world only from his perspective, and he believes in his heart of hearts that he is 'good'. He also believes that his ownership of guns is a good thing and increases his ability to have a 'good' influence on the world.

The fact is that life isn't that simple. Statistics prove it. The statement is stupid and ill-considered.

*that means NONE, no taxes no registration, no laws, no anything.