Gun Confiscation Now Beginning in California

[Mickey Finn]

Yusul, The only one lumping the two together here appears to be you.

[Hawk]

I hope you are right Lacrymosa, however I'm not quite as confident that it won't happen as you are. Confiscation of guns and abridgement of the 2nd amendment could very well make good people join with bad. When that happens you have a real problem.
Hawk

[yusul]

Mickey Finn: you're right, i withdraw my remarks. JB did not directly link the 2, and i'm putting words in his mouth. I jumped the gun since, I've had several discussions with pro-gun advocates in the past, who have linked the two, so had assumed (incorrectly) that JB had a similar stance. their argument was that if guns are banned, what next, martial arts, other civil liberties, etc. apologies to MF and JB. anyways, this post can go on forever, its like talking about religion. I'm not sure Hawk is right about the law being overturned though. didn't the brady bill get passed on a fed level?

[John Bennett]

Lacrymosa: "more fatalities involving these guns result in deaths to family members....especially children."

That's a flat-out lie and you know it Lacry. The gun grabbers included 20 year-olds as "children" and people shooting each other during drug deals as "family members and friends".

Per capita, more children (under 18) drown in backyard swimming pools every year than in gun accidents. I guess only the government should be allowed to possess swimming pools. They should only be allowed in public facilities with trained lifeguards close at hand. Sound crazy? Not to a leftist.


Lacrymosa: "firearms (especially automatic firearms) have proven to be more harm than good".

Another lie. In the US, people use firearms MILLIONS of times a year to protect themselves from rape, burglery, mugging, and carjacking.


The anti-gun forces have ADMITTED that the complete abolition of ALL guns of any kind is their real objective. They won't stop working for that, ever. Death to our 2nd Amendment rights by 1000 cuts is their strategy. There are 15,000 gun laws on the books now. Will more help?


How can you not see that guns deter and prevent crime?!?!

MORE GUNS = LESS CRIME

[Lacrymosa]

Hawk,

My assumptions are made with the hope that these hate groups never actually gain power. It's very true that these current gun laws may cause law-abiding people to make "unthinkable alliances" with such barbarians. If such alliances were made, however, it makes you doubt the validity of the "Law Abiding Gunowner" persona.

[John Bennett]

Think about all the freedoms you have.

The freedom to vote for who you want.

The freedom to send your kids to Catholic school.

The freedom to speak whatever language you want.

The freedom to have an attorney if the government takes a dislike to you.

The freedom to drink imported beer.

The freedom to practice some strange South American martial art the police would just as soon no one knew.

Yet, you laugh at me because I work to protect your freedoms.

Even though they aren't important to you, even though you take them for granted, even though you make fun of me, I believe you deserve them because you are a human being and I will continue to fight to preserve them from corrosion by the good intentions of well-meaning fools.

[Hawk]

Lacrymosa,
If you'll check your history, you'll see the Civil War
with the focal point on slavery, started the same way and banded the good and bad on both sides. Who knows years later
who was good or bad? You always hear that Quantrell's Raiders were bad and the Kansas Redlegs were good. Both fought the same type war. Both were guerrilas not actually bound to the military. Many movies have shown Quantrell and Bloody Bill Anderson as bad, but only "The Outlaw Josey Wales" cast the Redlegs as bad and Bloody Bill and company as good. Do you feel maybe who won that war played a part in who is looked on with favor? Probably since you don't own guns and aren't around that many that do, you very well may be underestimating a great number of the gun owner's belief in the 2nd Amendment.
Hawk

[Ronin]

Hawk and JB:

I have a degree in Political Science, but this does not make me an "expert" on any one issue. My belief that serious gun control is needed in this country is largely anecdotal. Most advanced nations have very strict gun control, such as Japan, Britain, and continental Europe. They also have much lower murder rates than America does.

Every few weeks in the U.S. we are greeted with another headline about school-children shooting each other to death. It doesn't take a rocket scientist (or a village for that matter) to determine that too many guns are a problem. So lowering the overall number of deadly weapons circulating in both the legitimate and illegitimate markets makes sense to me, to prevent more needless tragedies. I could be wrong about this, but so could you. A little flexibility and common sense is what is needed, not clinging to fixed rhetorical positions.

Saving innocent lives is the ONLY motivation I personally have for more gun control laws. Personally, I don't see where some of the extreme anti-government views you guys espouse come from. Seems like this country is doing okay to me under the current leadership and political system.

As Joe Manco would probably say, "Hasta!"

[Lacrymosa]

John,

Approximately 40% of gun owners in a 1995 household survey used "self-defense" as a reason to have a handgun in the home.

Research shows that a gun kept in the home is 43 TIMES MORE LIKELY TO KILL A MEMBER OF THE HOUSEHOLD, OR FRIEND, THAN AN INTRUDER.

What you are trying to prove my friend, is that more children are dying from "pool drownings". That's probably true, but we're talking about guns here. If you go out, buy a gun for self-defense, and keep it in your home. That gun is 43 times more likely to kill A MEMBER OF YOUR FAMILY OR A FRIEND rather than AN INTRUDER. That's a universal truth, my friend. Sound crazy? Only to the NRA.

Likewise, a study was made of 743 gunshot deaths in 1994 by Dr. Arthur Kellermann and Dr. Donal Reay published in The New England Journal of Medicine. They found that 84% of these homicides occurred during altercations in the home. Only 2 of the deaths involved an intruder killed during an attempted entry, and only 9 were determined by police/courts to be justified.

Also, John, what GOOD can a gun possibly bring? In a LONG-SHOT, maybe alot (given the right situation)......but with guns, death is sure to be nearby. Contrary to what many people believe, we can't always predict when fate will deal us a cruel hand.

[yusul]

Mickey Finn: we shouldn't bann autos 'cos we'll need them to fight off those chimp gangs coming from France.

[Yojimbo]

Lacry..,

Believe me bro, I can see what you are saying. The problem with firearms have always been the people who misuse them.

There are 20,000 plus laws in the books right now and they don't seem to make any difference because so many of them are not enforced and unenforcable.

The issue you brought you and Hawk brought up about firearms bans being unconstitutional is another reason these laws become unenforacble. Many people know and believe that 2nd Amendment is their God given right and would not sit back while they are stripped of it. Remember the Bill of Rights do not grant us any rights it merely reiterate God given rights that all men are born with.

Benjamin Franklin said the following.

"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."


Hawk,

Here is a copy of a post I read on another forum regarding what you posted earlier about how anti-gun laws could possibly cause a civil war.

This is a copy of post I read on a internet forum.


"Is gun control a issue you would die for?"

I suggest now is the time for all of us to start telling our gun control friends that this is an issue we will not compromise on any more. Here is what I have started to do. I do not argue with my liberal friends about gun control. I do not try to change their minds, I do not lecture them about the historical perspectives on the Second or the dangers of the power of the state. I do not mention Lott or a thousand other sources that speak so eloquently of the practical reasons to be armed. I do not try to explain the feeling of freedom that comes from the acceptance of my position as a citizen with the right and obligation to defend myself or our liberty. Instead, I ask them politely and calmly the following question: "Is gun control an issue you are willing to die for? Does this mean so much to you that you would give your life to make it so?"

I then explain that to the us, the Second Amendment is the keystone of the Constitution. It is the most important right to us. It guarantees all of the others. It is to us what the First of the Fifth is to them. I tell them in a cold, sober tone, that we have been backed into a corner by their side, and that is always dangerous to do. I tell them that by never once considering, much less acknowledging, the validity of our views, they have waged a war on our liberty that has forced us to consider an option that none of us would have thought possible just 5 years ago.

I tell them that just as no Black man would ever go back to segregation, just as no American would give up freedom of speech, that just as none of us would stand by and let the government herd the Jews to another holocaust, so will we never, ever give in on the Second. I tell them that we are at fault for never making this clear to them. I explain that while you may think this is something of little importance, it is the one issue that can, and will, lead to a revolution in this country. Not one other issue on the political scene has the power to do this.

I conclude by telling them, as calmly and rationally as I can, that I do not want war, I do not want to kill anyone; I simply want to be left alone to live my life as a free American. However, I know my duty to my ancestors, who fought at Bunker Hill, to my children, who are counting on me to preserve their liberty until it is their turn, and to every American who values our liberty today, and if they persist in attacking a basic human right, they can, and should, expect us to fight back.

They inevitably respond that "You can't really expect to stand up to the army or the police." I then give them this example: Last year, about 20,000,000 Americans bought some type of hunting license. Toss out half of them as duplicates, kids, guys who enjoy the field but don't care if they shoot or not, and the like. That leaves 10,000,000. Assume just 10% are deadly serious about this. That leaves one million, well armed, skilled Americans who are not going to sit back while the anti's take their freedom. Imagine a guerrilla war with one million Americans doing nothing more than resisting an assault on their basic rights? It would be unwinnable without the imposition of a total police sate, and that is something even the anti's should fear.

Even one hundred thousand Americans, willing to pay the price and to fight back, would be enough to make this a reality. Selectively fighting back against those who take your liberty makes a lot more sense that blowing up innocent Americans. Targeting those who would enslave you makes them personally liable for their actions against us. Remember, they will paint us as terrorists, but in this case, we are doing nothing more than resisting the kind of tyranny that would have long ago prompted our ancestors to act. The issue here is whether we really have that resolve. I believe we do, but we have never made that clear to the other side.

I have no problem with anyone exercising their First Amendment right to speak against gun ownership, to lobby for passive acquiescence to crime or tyranny just so long as they never, ever attempt to make their personal views into laws that affect the rest of us.


Regards,

Yojimbo

[Joe Manco]

People are amazingly stuipd ...

How anyone in their right mind can believe outlawing guns = "less crime" is beyond me.

Criminals don't obey laws, by the very definition of what they are, so not a single criminal will obey such a stupid law. What this means, therefore, is that only VICTIMS will be gunless because they will obey the new stupid laws. Law-abiding citizens, therefore, are left to be sitting ducks. Isn't that great?!?

As for outlawing guns because "accidents" occur, this is equally-f*cking-stupid. Who cares that accidents happen? They happen in every endeavor known to man. Cars kill people, so so should we outlaw cars? Dogs kill people, so should we outlaw dogs? Football kills people, so should we outlaw football? Fighting kills people, so should we outlaw fighting? Mountain climbing kills people, so so should we outlaw mountain climbing? On and on it goes.

The idea to outlaw a particular activity, simply because people can get killed doing it, IS ABSOLUTELY INSANE.

Wake up, you sorry mofos, DEATH IS PART OF LIFE!!!

Should we therefore OUTLAW LIFE???

The central hub of this insanity rests in the idea that some "system" ... or some "law" ... will absolutely, positively REMOVE ALL RISK of human injury or death.

Nothing can do this. Because it's called LIFE, people, and death is PART OF IT. People who cannot handle this have a problem dealing with reality.

Leftists (who are usually are poor, broke-d!ck mofos representing poor, broke-d!ck mofos) are the most insane group that there is. They want to take our guns and leave us impotent ... and at the same time they want to protect a murderer's "right to life" by removing the death penalty. Now that's what I call "fair."

Leftists want to give welfare to the failures of the world ... and so keep the unfit alive by all means possible ... hell they want to keep even murderers alive by all means possible. What kind of logic is this? Basically, leftists instill "programs" to mendaciously try to lift losers up to mid-level, while at the same time they want to put a "cap" on achievement and so reduce superior people to the point they cannot rise above that same mid-level ... so we can all feel "the same."

People should rise or plummet to whatever level they achieve for themselves. That is the Natural Reality of Life that leftists cannot deal with.

So is it surprising that leftists also want to take the guns from our law-abiding citizenry, knowing full well that the criminals their programs keep alive can rob the a$$es of the legitimate citizenry too?

Now that's what I call a system of government!

Anyone who is a leftist is an excuse-maker for the stupid, the criminals, and the under-achievers of life.

The truth is the poor get poorer because of their incorrect decisions, while the rich get richer because their correct decisions. And that's the f*cking way it should be.

Not everyone was meant to fly.

"And he whom you cannot teach to fly ... teach to fall faster."
~Nietzsche

[Ronin]

The more Pit Dog changes, the more he stays the same.

At least some things remain constant in this crazy mixed-up world.

[Water Dragon]

Lac, I agree with you to a point, but...
I didn't grow up in the best neighborhood. Actually I'm about 7 minutes from Gary, IN home of the infamous "Murder Capital of America" award. If all guns could be destroyed, I'd be the first to turn mine in. But the cold fact is, I have friends who have been killed by guns and a few more who have been shot and survived. About half asked for it, the other half didn't.

One time I even had to protect my family with my gun. Some fool broke into my house while me and my wife were watching T.V., talk about balls. No, I didn't have to shoot him but I was able to get my gun out to protect myself by the time he got in. If I didn't have that gun, what do you think he would have done to me? Even worse, what about my wife and infant son? Believe me, I saw the knife the cops pulled from this guy. I also so his record assault, rape, armed robbery, dealing. That gun saved my family without a shot fired. And now, that I'm in a better area, it stays in a lockbox with a trigger guard to keep it safe. But I can still get to it when I need it. GIVE UP MY GUN? HELL NO!!!

Pit, er Joe. As far as the welfare thing goes...
It can work, I had to work my way through school and needed to go on welfare for a short time to do it. But now, I have a degree and am paying taxes and can honestly say I've paid back almost every cent I've ever "borrowed" from the Gov't.(under a certain income level you don't pay taxes) Some people have the will but not the means. But I hear ya'. Welfare tried to make me quit school and work two jobs while they let the dead beats sit at home and play playstation high as hell. At the time, I was working 30 hours for minimum wage and taking 15 credit hours. I basically didn't sleep for 2 years. The fault isn't in the idea, it's in the execution.

[Ronin]

Water Dragon:

I resent your stereotyping of Playstation users!

I always save my drugs for after I finish the game.