Another tragic school shooting

Do you think perhaps that there is a link between widespread gun ownership and more vicious criminals?

While that may be true for you and many of the other American posters on here (and I am glad to hear that you are passing on the safety/responsibility side to your own son) I doubt that this is true for all Americans, or even the majority. For a start not everybody is as responsible a person as yourself or your father.

Both very true.

 

a link between guns and vicious criminals? well they would be vicious criminals wether armed with guns,knives or baseball bats..they are most dangerous when armed with a gun ...but then ,so am i........years ago i knew a guy from haiti that told me there are few guns in haiti...but everyone can a afford a machete,,,he said you people think guns cause bloodshed?..in my country disputes are often settled with machetes... guns are clean a humane way to kill compared to machetes which are very bad....very messy

 

But if the criminals know that their victim is possibly armed...



Getting back to the original topic again...

One of the arguments is:

anti-gun:
guns in the house means anybody can easily pick one up and use it, even kids

pro-gun:
nah, criminals would get a gun anyway


Are there any statistics available for how many shootings are done by a legally-owned weapon that has either been 'stolen', 'borrowed' by a family member or just grabbed and used in the heat of the moment, as opposed to crimes committed by an illegally-owned firearm.

I'm guessing the latter stipulation is impossible to know, but any stats on the former would be interesting.

 

you guys can interpret the 2nd amendment any way you please ,,,this has been settled long ago here,we in america overwhelmingly belive it means the right SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED...AS DOES THE SUPREME COURT....we are not required to belong to any militia...i know many of you in europe think we gringos should enjoy the rights you guys enjoy ..like the right to be disarmed by your benevolent and all knowing governments...many americans feel like you all do...my mom bless her soul ,thinks that guns themselves are evil or something ..inbued with mystical evil power...this veiw is not uncomon among females in general ..of course my silly mom and silly wife and my silly sister in law are not in charge of security and defense ...we husbands and fathers are... ,i lock the doors at night ,i confront unknown interlopers ,i get up to check on things that go bump in the nite ...and i fear no evil,can you guess why?

 

The reason the 2d Amendment has the part about militias is so the people can organize themselves to defend the country from invaders and domestic enemies. These enemies can be the government itself if it becomes out of touch with the people. The power of the people to have privately held arms mean they will not have to rely on outside help.

The framers of the Constitution realised that if they had not had privately owned firearms, they couldn't have even started the Revolution much less expect outside help.

 

But the government is out of touch with the people. They are elected to represent the people not themselves and their own person interests $$$$$.

 

Picking up several strands here:

Hunting:

Yes, fine, owning hunting rifles, shotguns etc is fine if you are a huntsman. Of course, a huntsman would never really need a handgun, as they are hardly ideal hunting weapons...

Crime

Majorwoody, your Haitian example actually supports the idea that freely-available weapons = more vicious criminals. I should have used 'weapons' rather than 'guns' in my original post...

Besides, if your nation really does have so much violent crime that ordinary, law-abiding citizens cannot walk the streets without carrying a weapon... frankly you have some big issues you need to deal with there.

The Constitution

We have had lots of debates on the Constitution on here, and because of that I have done a wee bit of research on it. It seems that the Founding Fathers were strongly opposed to a standing military, believing it to be a tool of oppression, and therefore wanted to set up armed militias instead of a standing army. Hence the 2nd Amendment.
So, is the US Amrny unconstitutional, or is the 2nd Amendment obsolete?

Interestingly, it simply says "to bear arms" - what is the legal aspect of owning other weaponry besides guns in the USA?

 

I was thinking about this after I made my last post, and I was wondering why so many Americans are so fiercely pro-gun, and why the debate does, as majorwoody and JCalhoun noted, always end up almost as a religious debate, with both sides being rather entrenched.

I came up with a theory. You might be able to tell me it is rubbish (and if it is, please do!), but here goes:

The right to bear arms in America was originally a result of the Revolutionary War, giving the new nation the means to defend itself and its freedoms from both foreign nations and its own government. As such, gun ownership, though not the same thing, and no longer much of an obstacle to tyranny both home-grown or imported, is symbolically the guardian of the freedoms citizens enjoy in America. Take away the right to bear arms, and you are percieved to be trying to remove all freedoms.

What do you reckon?

 

Ricky,
Many feel that way.

I would also like to point out that the streets of the USA are not as blood soaked as folks believe. We don't live in a 1960's spagetti western.

I would also like to point out that most violent crime occurs around larger cities and urban areas. With the availability of guns, knives, etc in the USA why are there so few violent crimes in rural areas?

 

A little background might be in order...

I grew-up in a hunting family. I learned how to pad quietly through the woods before being instructed on gun-safety. My father was my teacher.

I recieved my first gun for Christmas when I was 12 years old. (A little Remington 1148 semi-auto in 28 gauge.) This was back in the 1960s and attitudes were MUCH different back then. We used to assemble for Thanksgiving dinner--after a morning hunt--and if one of the family members had a new shotgun, they would bring it for show-and-tell.
We hunted pheasant, quail, squirrels, doves, rabbits, grouse, and ducks.

I killed my first duck at age 12, while hunting with my father. My folks would allow me to squirrel-hunt by myself, and I was always worthy of their trust. I also remember taking my little bolt-action .22... head-out to the woods, and I could sit and shoot limbs off-trees with it.

Most every kid had a pocket knife in his pocket... at school back then. We used to go-out at recess and whittle on sticks of wood. Never occurred to any of us to use it as a weapon to intimidate our classmates.

The first AR-15--predecessor to the M-16--I ever saw was at SCHOOL. The science-teacher brought it in to show-us and it was propped-up in the corner of the room for many weeks.

I can remember going squirrel and rabbit hunting in the woods surrounding our sub-division. I would walk down the street with a shotgun over my shoulder, or a .22 scoped rifle slung on my shoulder. (I was all of 12-15 years old.) No one thought anything of such a sight. TODAY? I'm sure the phones would be ringing-off the hook.

All young hunters today must pass a hunter safety course, and todays guns are registered by "legal" users. By virtue of my age, I am grandfathered and not required to take the "Hunter Safety" course. I took it anyway.

I continue the tradition of hunting and gun ownership, and look forward to the opening of our waterfowl--duck and goose--seasons later this month. Diesel, my chessie and I, love spending time out on the lake or marsh. I use both semi-auto, and over-under shotguns in 12 gauge 3" magnum. That's what America and Gun Ownership mean to me... the ability to continue the tradition of hunting, as passed along to me by my father and grandfather.

I have owned a handgun in the past, and yes, you can hunt whitetail deer in Indiana with a handgun in certain calibers. Indiana has also passed legislation ensuring a right to carry... with the reasoning being, an armed public can ruin a thief or crooks' day.

Today, there aren't near as many kids raised in the hunting/gunning tradition. Lots of divorced households mean that mothers are raising their sons... and women tend to be very leery of guns, and the shooting sports. Be that as it may, shooting is one of the safest of sports as practised here.

Sorry to ramble... but I thought it might be valuable to those from Europe to know some background and history about gun attitudes and hunting from someone my age. We still enjoy some great hunting here in the States, with Turkey and whitetail deer being present in numbers that our grandparents never saw in their day. "Course I'm a wing-shooter, meaning strictly a bird-hunter only these days. Ducks and geese are what Diesel and I enjoy.

I really do feel sorry for those in Europe that don't have the opportunity to enjoy--and teach--the shooting sports, and hunting. It made for a super-glue bond between my father and I as a youngster. We still share a few hunts each season in the duckblind, and dad will be 78 years old this month.

'Might also add... that few things made a Christmas more special for a youngster than recieving his first shotgun or rifle for Christmas.

My, the times have changed.

Tim--and Diesel

 

That's very similar to my background. I remember going on rabbit hunts on Thanksgiving morning.

I don't do a lot of hunting now (just a few times a year) but I have taken up target shooting (lots of competitions) and collecting old guns.

 

I recieved my first rifle when i was 14 a little semi-automatic .22 but it has to be placed on the rifle clubs certificate until my own permit is sorted out, not everyone in Europe is repressed on gun laws I've been shooting regularlly since I was 13 and I'm now going on 16 (ok not as long as you guys but everyone has to start somewhere) Though I don;t go hunting like you guys because the laws simply aren't that liberal I still shoot sporting rifle and police rifle competitions 2 or 3 times a week and like you guys it is a think that me and my Dad use to bond, hey we are even in the same shooting team for sport rifle.
Well thats the British side of it.

 

acto charlton heston...aka, ben hur and moses as a teen used to carrie his rifle to school on the bus..(his h.s. was out in an rural area of good hunting ,i guess)then after schooll he would hunt till out of daylight and hitchhike or walk home with his deer rifle, when i was a teen ( mid 70s,ca) we all wore big folding buck knives on our belts ..it was practically a dress code thing in my crowd...funny how times and attitudes change..

 

An interesting story i heard in relation to gun-ownership...

An unarmed criminal broke into a man's house, the owner being a guy who was a religious gun-owner and regular member of the local gun club. While the thief was rummaging through his belongings, the man retrieved one of his many rifles and waited at the top of his staircase and took aim. As the criminal snuck by, he shot him dead. The well-trained gun owner sent the bullet straight through his head.

The court found him guilty of murder on the grounds that his actions were exaggerated, although it is deemed 'legal' to kill an intruder, this intruder was unarmed and there was no reason why the man could not have simply instructed him to "stick 'em up" or shot him in the leg... Disturbingly, the court found that the man had essentially been waiting for such a moment his whole life; waiting for someone to break in to give him an 'excuse' to kill him.

Moral is; even when used "defensively" gun-ownership culture can encourage killing and violence... Anyone agree or disagree with this decision?

 

I find it to be a sad state of affairs when one cannot defent their own home against intruders.

 

in the us an intruder shot dead inside your house is consederd pretty much ,fair game....you must tell the cops ...i was in fear of my life ...if you say ...i thought he was gonna take my stereo ...you could have problems...

 

Then is is just a matter of twisting your words to defend yourself rather than the truth isn't it?(though perhaps we'll never know)

 

You can, the measures you take just have to be proportionate... The courts are never going to condone the shooting- (with the intetion of killing) of an unarmed and unsuspecting human being, whether or not he was robbing you... Similarily if someone punches you, and you shoot them dead it will be murder because you overreacted (as is the case here).

If he had been armed or had made a sudden move, then its not unlikely that the guy would have got off scott-free

 

any one who breaks and enters occupied homes in america deserves to be shot dead it once..as i see it death is perportional for someone doing this act...the courts in america tend to agree

 

Why? They are not threatening anybody's life, they are simply theives. Would you also have the death penalty for pickpockets?