Is Now the Time for Gun Control?

a reply to: TrueBrit

Yes, definitely a problem! I was just now thinking how much I miss my home that I recently moved from and the privacy it afforded me and how great it was to be able to target practice in my back yard. I lived in a northern state of the US out in the country where it was secluded and very private and I knew if I had to scream, no one would hear me. It was up to me to defend myself if need be and trust me, I would. Fortunately, that scenario never played out but I was thinking what if I didn't have that right? I would tell my intruder/attacker, "Oh, can you give me a minute to place a 911 call real quick so at least I have a fighting chance in Hades?" Yeah, right. Besides, the nearest town was a twenty minute drive away and who knows how long or if a Sheriff's deputy was in distance to come to my aide. I do appreciate my right to self-defense and cannot fathom that right be taken away. I would feel pretty helpless I think.

a reply to: TrueBrit

This isnt even a knife!

kusari (weight attached to a rope, cord or wire)

a reply to: TrueBrit

Hey as long as you love your job then you can never call it work I landscape so I also make a pitiful wage and finally moved out of my fathers house at 24 Would it be illegal for you t carry a walking stick or a cane like item? Perhaps a cane with a heavy brass head? I hear you Brits used to be quite handy with a bludgeoning device.

a reply to: queenofsheba

Oh yes...and on the subject of knives, as the link I provided in one of my earlier posts mentions, a Swiss Army knife is about the limit, with its itty bitty three inch, unlocked knife, which it is dangerous to use to defend oneself with. It only takes a very small miscalculation on your part, or a swift move on the part of your assailant, and you can do yourself a very serious injury to the hand and fingers with an unlocked folding blade, especially if you are in the middle of trying to fend off an assault.

Also, it has no reach, so it is useless for forcing your opponent to back away. It forces the action closer in, which is great for some forms of martial art, but does increase the likelihood that one will be injured, when the entire point of carrying an object to defend oneself with, is to increase the distance between oneself and an assailant.

Personally, I would rather use my bare hands if it got down to the point where I could touch my enemy with a three inch blade.

a reply to: EyesOpenMouthShut

I know, it's a type of flail weapon, just a weight on a cord, which is force multiplied for the speed at which it can be arced through the air. Highly lethal in the hands of an expert in its use, but those are pretty few and far between. You could do some nasty damage with one of course.

a reply to: TrueBrit

I'm feeling your pain! I would take up martial arts and personal self-defense minus the weapons of course. I think my perspective of thinking adding more gun laws is a joke comes from the way I grew up. I graduated in the mid-eighties in MN and in the fall it was deer hunting season and pheasant hunting season and I lived in the country in a small town where lots of my friends lived on farms. A lot of us took the bus to school and it was perfectly acceptable for the guys to bring their hunting rifles on the bus (in a gun case of course), and store them in their locker during school hours because they were going over to a friend's house after school to go hunting. Crazy, right? But it wasn't back then. It was perfectly acceptable and there was never an incident. Hunting was a tradition and part of the culture and the kids were taught gun safety and proper storage and everyone got to eat venison all winter

a reply to: Fargoth

Ah... Let me consult the book of armaments, as the Monty Python gang might say...

From the scant detail on bludgeoning weapons that I was able to see in a frenzied internet search, it appears as if carriage of any self defence gear, or use of any item to defend oneself in public, as opposed to in the home, is illegal.

Meaning, if I had a wooden cane, even without weight on it, and used it to defend myself, I would be legally liable.

Oh, also illegal here are all tazer weapons, pepper sprays, that kind of stuff. You cannot even own these, let alone carry them with you.

Bleh. It's so damned depressing, it is not even funny!

The hook on a chain was used by Tokyo Police in the 1600's to entangle and disarm drawn swords.

It was in an episode of "the Equalizer" back in the 1980's.

The Romans fought a tribe that had a spike/blade on a chain. It worked very well according to a documentary I haven't been able to identify. The weapon on a chain was very hard to block or parry.

a reply to: EyesOpenMouthShut

We need to invite our cousin to cross the pond and go fishing with us!!

a reply to: queenofsheba

Here is a little something I have come to understand about martial arts training. It is great for fitness, it is great for discipline, but in a life or death situation, someone who has perfect form is only going to be any use if they would have stood a good chance without the instruction. Those naturally predisposed to thinking about the many ways they have taken injuries, learn how to inflict them very quickly, and require no fancy pajama parties to make it happen.

I'm not dead, there's your proof.

However, my personal defence does not concern me nearly as much as the possibility that when really big crap happens (like the jewel heist down the road from me last year) I should be able, without having to run home first, be able to draw a deadly item from my belt, and swing it with great gusto toward the offending parties, in defence of not just my own mortal self, but of other members of my community as well. Now, myself and a colleague of mine chased the blighters off, but if we had caught up to them, they could have made a pretty good attempt at stoving in our faces with their long crowbars. I would have had to have pulled some moves that I have not had to make since I was about eighteen, so eleven years ago, just to avoid dying.

As it was, we did not quite catch up. We were eight feet from them when they got in their car and sodded off down the road, and it was fifteen minutes before the police arrived.

My ancestors were from Wales. Our family name means Guardian in that language, or so I understand from research into it. My ancestors used to stand guard over their chieftains wealth, his family, his land. We were the ones with the big axes, broad smiles, and necklaces made of the finger bones of fools.

I feel like the law as it stands today, prevents me from carrying out my duty as a citizen to look out for those who are weaker than myself, by robbing me of the ability to deal with things in the manner to which my forebears were accustomed.

Right good people, I am off to bed, because it is late here, and the state of my nation and the impending changes in yours are depressing as buggery! It will be interesting to see how the conversation has progressed tomorrow!

Much love to the lot of you!

a reply to: TrueBrit

Sans the claymore, it likely won't be nearly as interesting.

Suppressing the right to carry a sword has long, deep roots in your homeland.

a reply to: TrueBrit

That is very depressing to say the least.

a reply to: Snarl

as long as he brings some beer

Respectfully, from my point of view, as an outsider, the American Constitution was written long before the gun technology we have today was available, and needs amending, to take in the times we are living in.

Yes, I know, keep my nose out, we can't interfere with the American's right to kill each other, it is sacred....

I think I 'm right in saying that when the American Constitution was written, sophisticated automatic rifles and handguns with a hire fire rate were not available, so going on a killing spree would have been rather difficult....

Having said this, Jesse Ventura has a point about dealing with mental health issues, but I don't think that is solely the province of military veterans.

He ought to include people from all walks of life. ( Oh dear ! - Not good ! )

And, in any case, an American citizen may be perfectly sane ( ? ) when he / she buys a gun, withe best Intentions of using said gun for last resort self defence.

Who is to say that some personal event in the life of same gun owner will not trigger a mental health crisis, and " Improper " use of his / her weapon ?

Mr.Obama could start by criminalising gun nuts who like posing with, or are obsessed with / worship firearms, for there is a clue to their mental state.. ( Oww ! )

Just saying.... Don't shoot me down ! ( No pun intended.)

Waiting for the broadside of musket fire....

a reply to: MrJohnSmith

It doesn't need amending, at the time it was written people weren't so stupid that they didn't think technology would advance.

-i don't care where you're from, everyone is entitled to an opinion. Its when they seek to force their opinion on everyone else that bothers me.

-In my opinion, i believe there is no reason for one person to own more than 4 firearms, 1 of each- pistol and shotgun, and 2 different rifles, but i wouldn't try to tell someone not to do so when its their right to do so.

-Mental instability doesn't need a firearm to cause harm on a large scale.

a reply to: TrueBrit

I sympathize with you, but don't ever underestimate the power of a bag of marshmallows.

I hear it's the real reason the Berlin Wall was torn down!

a reply to: ArnoldNonymous

So that whole thing was a bunch of sugar fiends trying to get to West Germany, where they still had marshmallows, candy floss, and other confections? I KNEW all those sledgehammers were a ruse!

a reply to: OFFTHEGRID

I already have excellent gun control, thank you very much.

If there is complete control over all criminals and all wrong-doers, all who ascribe to tyranny and terror, then the population with guns will dwindle and those numbers will whither on the vine. Until that time it is the law of the Universe that life must survive and protect life. Fight or flight is the law, there is no other. With no where left to run to there is no choice but to fight or die.