Gun control for dummies

I'll av an alf thanks muchly...

 

Jeff, Mary Landrieu is a US Senator from the Great State of Louisiana. Her proposals are intended to be nation-wide, not just here in Louisiana and part of the federal crack-down on assault rifles that is being conjured up in Washington.

Now I read in the paper this morning that the Vice Idiot Joe Biden proposes that the populace should buy a shotgun and keep it locked up like he does at his house in Delaware because rifles are not needed. He claims that the big boom that a shotgun makes should be sufficient enough to scare would-be malcontents off.

A weapon that is locked up and unloaded is a useless investment if the intended use is for personal defense.

 

Interesting law being proposed in New York state. They want to require gun owners to have a 1 million dollar insurance policy covering any negligent or willful act committed with said gun. If you don't have the insurance, then the state will seize your gun. And of course no insurance will cover a willful act committed with any object, so the law will effectively ban ownership of guns under the guise of a simple insurance regulation.

Somebody once said that when it's time to bury your guns, it's time to dig them up.

 

The concept of insurance does not in itself surprise me since the government of every state mandates Auto insurance and the Federal Government will soon mandate Medical insurance. The precedent has been set.

Now if a gun owner can not get affordable insurance, then I have little doubt that suit would be brought quickly in the Federal court and the law found unconstitutional as an abridgement of the 2nd Amendment.

First they have to pass the law in the New York Assembly (?), then it must be signed into law by the governor of NY. Then it must be tested in court before any wide scale confiscations take place.

In short, there are a lot of hoops to be jumped though before we go screaming into the streets.

Keep Calm and Carry On.

 

Belasar, you're of course correct. It's just bizarre how byzantine some of these proposals are becoming.

 

We are in the political sound byte period. Politicians are all throwing out ideas they know in their hearts have no chance in hell of ever passing, but look good when they next run for office.

While I do not advocate ignoring them, we can't spill our cookies on every idea that comes up. Fear kills the intellect and to keep the looneytoons from getting out of hand we need sober wisdom.

 

Fear kills the intellect and to keep the looneytoons from getting out of hand we need sober wisdom. - The best line so far...guns for protection is a fools paradise. Guns beget guns...

 

Things will continue to get interesting as time goes along. It will be interesting what the butt-heads we send to Washington come up with now. Seems that "feel good legislation" is no longer what the seek any longer. Now they want fuggin silly shitz. It's about 1859 now and approaching 1861 it seems, as far as ideological intellect it seems anyway. An issue is being pushed that allows little leeway with all participants, willing or not.

 

We have 2 showboat state legislators that tried to make a name for themselves. They co-sponsored a bill that basically was a "We can kick your door in", gun bill. Their proposed bill never had a chance because their party doesn't have the votes, their party is the minority. BUT, since there is this feeding frenzy on instant gun control, these clowns wanted their 15 minutes of fame on TV...

The only thing they accomplished was days wasted debating this nonsense. Time that should have addressed real problems. This grandstanding offers no sensible solution and does nothing but divide the country.

This is how it was handled in Missouri.... His reaction was extreme, but so was this so called bill.

Missouri State Rep. uses gun regulation bill for target practice

 

Well maybe it's the late 1840s or early 1850s with 1861 still a far piece down the road. I had just come in from choir practice last night when I posted!

 

Yes we were. As a matter-O-fact, we're deacons there!

 

I think only us Yanks (hehe!) can understand how fundamental the Bill of Rights is to our outlook. From childhood we absorb that government can not intrude on speech, the press, religion, trial by jury... and guns. So, when we have these rights threatened, it shakes us on a very basic level.

In another thread, I write of a double murder on the local coast guard base here. It's interesting because the killer chose to commit that crime on federal property, dodging around CCTV cams, in FBI jurisdiction. Why didn't he shoot them elsewhere without those cams and under the jurisdiction of the local podunk cops without any of the resources of the feds? The locals would have screwed up any murder investigation.
The reason (I'm sure) he'd rather face an FBI investigation is because one of the targets, an acquaintance of mine, carried a gun every day of his life, EXCEPT on that federal property which is a "gun free zone." Everybody knew that because Rich (the victim) was an outspoken and active gun advocate.
He was killed there because he was defenseless there. The killer, a coward, was unwilling to face a gun to commit the murder even though in this remote area he could have ambushed the victims anywhere without a witness. Yet, anywhere else it would have been a gunfight rather than an execution.

Think about that.

 

If I were more sensible I would stay well clear of this topic, but since I'm not...

Personally I think you Yanks in general have misunderstood your constitution about guns! It says "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".

The original idea was to take care of the defence of the nation. It does not mean in today's world, that everybody should have any kinds of guns anywhere they want. Just compere the US gun killing figures with any other developed nation and try to figure out why the figures are sooooooo different...!

This really is a non-brainer.

 

Are we not going around in circles here...The constitution of the USA I suppose is their business. I'm currently looking at the recent South African Killing...The preponderance of arms and the amount of killlings over the years. People there would not feel safe in some areas without having a gun. I'm not condoning it, just knowing that I live in a different country and have different attitudes to gun ownership. My views would certainly be different if I lived in South Africa, and may be different too if I lived in America. I'd hazard a guess that most of us that don't live in the States may feel different at least on the ownership if not the interperation of the constitution if we resided there ourselves.

Its their problem to work out. We all have our own. I must admit these threads re occuring over the years will I'm afraid carry on for ever. It does none of us any good to offer advice to another countries folks when it looks to them like we are just telling em what to do without understanding their fears and perspectives. Same anywhere.

 

The Bill of Rights was written to answer objections from the people and the 13 individual states making up the former colonies, to gain support for ratification of the Constitution. The people feared a tyrannical central government, since they had just fought a war to free themselves from one. Without the Bill of Rights, we would have been 13 nations instead of one because the Constitution would not have been ratified.

James Madison, the man who wrote the 2nd Amendment, did so with defense against the government in mind and he wrote as much in the Federalist Papers. He defined the "militia" as the body of the people, and one of its functions, perhaps its main function, was to be able to defend against a standing army controlled by a central government should tyranny arise.

If you recall, the first actions of the British government when unrest arose in the colonies was to begin seizing arms - in fact the (historically inaccurate) legend of Paul Revere is based on a real incident involving warnings that British troops were coming to seize arms in villages outside of Boston.

Yes, we have more murders here because of the availability of guns. However, we have far less violent crime than nations with similar demographics, but tight gun laws. It's not a bad trade. Britain is the common example used. We have far less rapes, assaults, muggings, home invasions, etc, than the UK, and there are studies showing that these types of crimes are avoided here simply because criminals don't want to get shot.

An interesting study was done comparing Seattle and Vancouver, just across the border. Seattle (with guns) had lower violent crime rates in every category, except murder. Women are far less likely to be raped, men are far less likely to be assaulted and so on.

I like our gun laws. I don't fear murder because I can defend myself.

 

This was a domestic altercation heard by neighbors. Do you really not think he wouldn't have stabbed her or choked her if he didn't have a gun?

I have several ex-pat British acquaintances. They all own guns. One of them, a Scot, is perhaps the most pro-gun person I know. In the US, so far, you have choices. You can own and carry a gun if you want. Or, you can choose not to own one. You can own one and lock it away, or own one and keep it handy next to your bed or easy chair.

It's an individual decision, not a decision dictated by the state. That's a profound difference. I suspect most people given the actual choice instead of having that choice dictated, would make the same decision that my former British friends did. They'd own a gun, or several guns.

 

Now for something completely different,