Time to take the gun from the American public!

reply to post by lacrimaererum


If you outlaw guns, then only the outlaws would have them.

A few nutjobs do NOT constitute enough of a reason to go stomping all over the Bill of Rights. It's stood the test of time for over a couple of centuries, so lets not be too eager to thumb our nose at it...

Besides, do you really think outlawing them would have stopped these folks?

As the saying goes, guns don't kill people...people do. Whether it was a gun or something else, these people would have acted the same. The gun was merely the tool used, not the root of the problem.

I think I'm seeing some of that mental poison you refer to.....because his interest is creepy, not just little boys natural fascination with things that go boom. Unhealthy...is how my wife and I have termed it. So........IF you ever find an answer to how we dial BACK a kid's downright unhealthy attitude toward weapons, I'm ALL ears......

Take them hunting, and have them see a gun take a life. Nothing reinforces the power of these tools more than seeing that firsthand. If they are at all normal, they'll then respect the gun much, much more, and fully realize it is not a toy.

I do hope you keep your gun/s in some kind of a gun safe or some other safety lock device. Boys will be boys. I lost an uncle I never knew, due to such horseplay when he was a kid, so I have a bit of an understanding of this. I'm all for people learning proper gun handling when young, but safety always has to come first.

reply to post by IkNOwSTuff

]It always amazes me how Americans just dont get it when it comes to guns, despite the fact its legal for most of you to carry weapons for "safety" you have by far and away the highest number of gun deaths in the world. More even than all those backward barbaric African countries where killing the next tribe is an acceptable practice.

Of course gun deaths are caused by guns, but you really should take a look at murder rates around the World before you make such a stupid comment. It appears that guns actually reduce murder statistics.

See ya,
Milt

Oh one more thing , they just banned open carry in California

reply to post by hotbread

How about, we give all afghans the same right to bear arms as you have so they can defend themselves too

Unfortunately, we already gave them FAR TOO MANY weapons.

See ya,
Milt

I personally am not a big fan of everyone carrying around a weapon but its not going to stop. Guns WILL NOT be taken away from the American public. With that being said though I do believe it is too easy to own a weapon these days. Consider the following; American pharmaceutical companies are convincing the healthcare industry to hand out pills like they are candy. American medication consumption is around 50% ( I understand that is all medications. Blood pressure etc etc) but out of that number how many are mind/mood altering or narcotics? For some reason Americans have a reason to be depressed and decide to medicate to fix that. Has anyone here witnessed someone decide they no longer want to take these medications? I have on more than one occassion and the majority has ended in a mental institution or suicidal tendacies. So here's the kicker, if you are one of the 10% of Americans on anti-depressants alone(roughly 31million) all you have to do is apply for you card once and you have it the rest of your life. Even if you've admitted yourself to an institution because of suicidal thoughts. So my theory is instead of just allowing "almost" everyone the right to own a gun by filling out a little paper we should at least make some stricter compliance rules or at least a yearly renewal more than what we have now. It shouldn't be this easy to obtain a weapon that can cause so much violence.

i believe George Carlin said it best, " A right isn't a right if it can be taken away, its a privilege."

reply to post by BenReclused


You again are not being honest.

reply to post by viperdave


Looks like a good time to leave California.

Originally posted by THE_PROFESSIONAL
Here is the funny thing. We Americans think that these little guns can help fight the government...really? How are you gonna take down an m1 tank charging you with your little rifle, or how about an apache attack helicopter? These guns are useless and are only a tool of appeasement.

What makes you think the M1 tank crew or the pilot of the Apache attack helicopter would ever mow down innocent civilians simply to force gun control onto people? They swear their loyalty to the constitution, not to any political elite, and I dare say the people in the military support the 2nd amendment just as much as we do.

Instead of guns "being a tool of appeasement" did it ever occur to you that most people simply think a gun ban is a stupid idea?

reply to post by truthseeker808


No, nuts because you view them as being crucial to democracy, nuts because you think a country with 350M people needs 70M guns. Nuts because you think all the statistics that show America would be safer without guns are somehow lies.

Guns don't make America safer and are the main weapon, by far, used to commit murder. America's homicide rate is 3-4x higher than that in Europe.

Them are the REAL facts.

That and that the gun lobby spends billions to influence policy. They're a big business, like big oil and big pharma and are just as (un)trustworthy.

Originally posted by viperdave
Oh one more thing , they just banned open carry in California

Well you know how liberal California is so of course they would do that. Was in un expected? Not in the slightest.
@theprofessional. I really think FLIR is easily defeated actually. Ever hear of those heat shields that come in bag form? Good luck detecting a sniper in one of those in darkness. It shields the body heat from view. Now imagine a blind with just the rifle barrel of a rifle sticking out with suppressor. Yes hitting a cockpit is tough,but when they stop to scan the landscape you have a window. Or you can go for the base of the blades. Anyway i think you are wrong about the troops turning on americans.dead wrong.

Originally posted by lacrimaererum
The only excuse that is wheeled out time and again is, 'its part of our constitution' or protect ourselves from the government. What a joke. The US society are completely at each others throats. The governments have nothing to worry about.

Well did you ever think it might be time to change the constitution. Its 2012. Maybe its time for a new one?

The population of America needs to be disarmed. You don't hear too much from the government because they seem to be content for the citizens to be killing each other.

The problem is , its like trying to get an alcoholic to stop drinking or a junkie off drugs. They are so addicted to their drink or drugs or weapon they are blind to the truth.

When a population is allowed to arm themselves with small weapons of death , and when there is so many guns in the population, doesn't the population become a weapon of mass destruction.

How do you convince a nation to grow up and realise its time to put down the guns?

Very good article i found here while looking around on this;
www.guardian.co.uk...

uh...ya.
control works.
ask Mao, the Bolshies, Pol Pot....no thanks.
rogue gov't is the leading cause of death on planet earth.


“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms. . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." -- Jefferson's "Commonplace Book," 1774-1776, quoting from On Crimes and Punishment, by criminologist Cesare Beccaria, 1764

-Thomas Jefferson


"[I]f circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights and those of their fellow citizens." -- The Federalist, No. 29

- Alexander Hamilton


"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people!"

- Patrick Henry



"While the people have property, arms in their hands, and only a spark of noble spirit, the most corrupt Congress must be mad to form any project of tyranny."

- Rev. Nicholas Collin, Fayetteville Gazette (N.C.), October 12, 1789



"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

- Thomas Jefferson, in letter to William S. Smith, 1787




That pretty much sums it up.

reply to post by Christie


Ridiculous hyperbole.

Instead of using ideology use facts.

Europe has a lot more gun control, and allows hunting with guns, and has a MUCH lower murder rate.

Open your eyes...

Did guns stop Citizens United? Did they stop the US from Invading Iraq? Stop the banks from ripping off everyone? Stop political corruption?

No.

Guns can't solve any of the REAL threats to democracy.

Are they used in 10s of thousands of murders in the US?

yep.

Originally posted by captainnotsoobvious
reply to post by truthseeker808

 

No, nuts because you view them as being crucial to democracy, nuts because you think a country with 350M people needs 70M guns. Nuts because you think all the statistics that show America would be safer without guns are somehow lies.

Guns don't make America safer and are the main weapon, by far, used to commit murder. America's homicide rate is 3-4x higher than that in Europe.

Them are the REAL facts.

That and that the gun lobby spends billions to influence policy. They're a big business, like big oil and big pharma and are just as (un)trustworthy.

1)Id like to see any statistics that prove america would be safer without guns. I hear this claim all the time, yet I have NEVER seen any legitimate backing for the claim.

2)I dont recall people saying guns are crucial to democracy. On the contrary, they are detrimental to tyranny, which is the point.

3)Americas murder rate is higher, but you fail to mention the fact that in america, we also still have our freedom. "Those who sacrifice freedom for safety deserve neither". Personally, I enjoy living free, even if it means there is a higher crime rate in this country. And frankly, comparing to different countries and thinking that because one thing has worked in one country, it would work in all, is downright ignorant.

4)If the gun lobby spends so much to push an agenda, why is GUN CONTROL always the topic on the table, and not DEREGULATION?

reply to post by Alfie1

It's obviously a matter for those living in the US but if I was trying to bring up a family there I would be concerned that my country had many times the gun murder rate per head of say the UK or even next door neighbour Canada .

I looked at crime in Canada. They have more rapes and assaults per capita than the US does. Perhaps guns prevent many of those in the United States.

Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland have many more murders per capita than the United States, and they all have very strict gun control laws. Why is that?

See ya,
Milt

Originally posted by captaintyinknots

Originally posted by captainnotsoobvious
reply to post by truthseeker808

 

No, nuts because you view them as being crucial to democracy, nuts because you think a country with 350M people needs 70M guns. Nuts because you think all the statistics that show America would be safer without guns are somehow lies.

Guns don't make America safer and are the main weapon, by far, used to commit murder. America's homicide rate is 3-4x higher than that in Europe.

Them are the REAL facts.

That and that the gun lobby spends billions to influence policy. They're a big business, like big oil and big pharma and are just as (un)trustworthy.

1)Id like to see any statistics that prove america would be safer without guns. I hear this claim all the time, yet I have NEVER seen any legitimate backing for the claim.

2)I dont recall people saying guns are crucial to democracy. On the contrary, they are detrimental to tyranny, which is the point.

3)Americas murder rate is higher, but you fail to mention the fact that in america, we also still have our freedom. "Those who sacrifice freedom for safety deserve neither". Personally, I enjoy living free, even if it means there is a higher crime rate in this country. And frankly, comparing to different countries and thinking that because one thing has worked in one country, it would work in all, is downright ignorant.

4)If the gun lobby spends so much to push an agenda, why is GUN CONTROL always the topic on the table, and not DEREGULATION?

edit on 4-4-2012 by captaintyinknots because: (no reason given)

1) Look at the prevalence of guns, look at the percentage of murders by guns, look at similar stat in other countries, get back to me.

2) Right, as I said most people on here seem to think America is in the grips of tyranny of some sort... guns didn't stop that from happening, eh?

3) See 2. Most Americans on ATS, and gun nuts in general, seem to think their freedom is endlessly being eroded... and they have guns... again, guns aren't ACTUALLY protecting their freedom.

4) Gun control is always the topic because of the sheer amount of Americans killed by guns every day. Guess what though, guns aren't being reigned in because the gun lobby is powerful.

Then someone will start a spree of killing people with baseball bats, and then they will be outlawed and all bats for baseball will have to be registered........ Idiots and morons, if im gonna kill someone im gonna kill them regardless of whatever weapon I can get my hands on, if not my bare hands. Better yet lets outlaw religion as there has been a million times more people killed in the name of god (( A fantasy person whom there is no proof of existence such as Santa and the Easter Bunny)) Then for all other reasons combined. Doctors kill thousands of times more people each year then guns do. People that hate guns forget the fact the only reason we are a country is because of all the guns here that keep this country safe. You know the freedom of the press and freedom of speech that you used to type your hate for guns? Those freedoms were paid for in blood by patriots whom took up arms to give you that right. And for the vast population that still has patriotism flowing through their veins, we will never give up our personal rights as human beings to protect ourselves whatever the cost. Take your medication, sip on some tea and get a dam life that doesnt involve trying to take something away from someone you dont know, loser.

I got no problem with the access to guns that American have. Most of the time they just shoot each other and shoot themselves, and frankly, I'm all for that. Folks who have that fixation with guns are free to blow each other away, and God love 'em for doing so. I'll just give them plenty of room, and let them run wild and free.

reply to post by BenReclused


Because you're full of #?

The US has 4x the murder rate of Ireland, for instance.

So that's just a lie.

AS for Canada, Canada has a huge number of guns and still has plenty of rape... so... maybe Americans just like murder and Canadians are just into rape... both have a huge number of guns and both have crime... because, guess what, guns don't stop crime.

Now stop your lying.

reply to post by JonoEnglish

Not really if you consider the societies that don't allow gun ownership.

Here are the murder rates for societies with fewer citizens owning firearms. That's the one thing they all have in common.

Do you see the United States on that list?

See ya,
Milt