So I heard this rumour

louisvillegrad Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > “I have been robbed before. One time the police > came 6 hrs later (IN NYC!). Another time they came > the next day. > > They joke a conservative is a liberal who’s been > mugged.” > > BS argument…why do you need AK-47s, Sniper > rifles, RPG’s, grenades etc. to protect yourself > against muggings??? Would not a simple handgun > sufffice? > > This kind of heavy weaponry serves only one > purpose…an all out war. 1) You are mugged by a marauding gang. Much better to have the AK than the 9. 2) You see someone else get mugged by a mugger in body army 300 yards away. Your 9 is useless compared to my 50-caliber Barrett. 3) You are being pursued by a road-raged armored car driver. My RPG will seriously outperform your 9. 4) Grenades are just cool, but they aren’t guns so not relevant. I would like to blow something up with a grenade sometime so if anyone has some and wants to get liquored up and toss them at stuff, please e-mail me.

I like how 20/20 put it… If someone is robbing your house right now would you rather a telephone or a gun? The person with a gun calls 911 for a government employee to fill out paperwork. The person without one is calling for a government employee to help save their life. Which position would you rather be in?

Yeah, The Annenberg Foundation. Do you know who Walter Annenberg was? Might want to look up a) Annenberg’s bio and b) the Foundation’s other donations. Regardless, this doesn’t change a single fact of the article. Talk about clinging to guns, seems appropriate given this thread.

Nakedputs: If you consider wanting a constitutional right to not be infringed, then I am clinging to that right.

Let me put it this way. I grew up on a 600 acre farm in central PA. “Redneck” territory. It is easy for urban dwellers (where I am now) to rip on their rural counterparts without realizing that the fundamentals are very different out there. For instance, my parents had a pretty decent house and had someone broken in or assaulted us (rare, but the probabilities of occurance do not matter to the individual that it happens to), it would on average take the state police nearly 15 minutes to show up at an absolute minimum. People from our area are not stupid, they know this, so if person X were to decide to assault family Y, they could be reasonably sure that there would be no police for at least 15 minutes. However, violent crimes and breakins are rare because there is a high probability the residents are armed. Secondly, you are underscoring the stupidity of your argument by using a list of currently banned weaponry to support further bans on firearms not fitting that description. Lastly, you mentioned why we need a “sniper rifle.” A wide variety of guns could fall under the video game classification of “sniper rifle” used by someone clearly ignorant on the topic. Most big game guns such as rifles used for deer hunting and other similar large animals fire rounds that would pierce most body armor with a high level of precision. Deer hunting is a great past time that does not add to the levels of violence in inner cities. Feel free to throw me any stats on the amount of inner city gang bangers carrying a .30-06. Many of my friends from urban areas such as Boston and NYC that I met in undergrad used to spout similar arguments against gun ownership. Three of them went home with me on a weekend to check out my place and we shot some guns, each of them afterwards completely changed their opinion on the topic. The conditional relationship between violent individuals and gun ownership may be significant, but the unconditioned correlation between gun owners and violent individuals is extremely low. Not to mention the fact that the majority of violent crimes involving firearms do not use guns that would fall under any past or potential assault rifle bans.

Black Swan, where do you live now?

I don’t think guns should be freely available and easy to get - HOWEVER - law-abiding citizens like Black Swan + family with licenses to own them should be able to convert their entire life savings into gun + ammunition form if they want.

PtrainerNY Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Black Swan, > where do you live now? Philly these days

You should come out for a drink next time I’m down in philly. send me your email at ptr....@aol.com

sublimity Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I don’t think guns should be freely available and > easy to get > - HOWEVER - > law-abiding citizens like Black Swan + family with > licenses to own them should be able to convert > their entire life savings into gun + ammunition > form if they want. Yeah, Germany of the 1930s thought the same way.

louisvillegrad Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > More like angry Nazi rednecks preparing for a new > civilWar where they can murder blacks , Jews and > other minorities. Yeah it’s irrational to go out and hoard guns, but who really cares? It’s just as irrational and dangerous to post bigoted things like this. You are no better than the ultra-conservatives you despise so much. This country would so much be better off without extremists on either side of the political spectrum. How is that if you don’t subscribe to the ultra-liberal/socialistic ideology you are all of a sudden a Nazi? I can’t make that connection. I mean seriously, what the hell do people in the south buying guns have to do with National Socialism? I personally don’t own a firearm, but I have no problem with anyone that does. Does owning a gun all of a sudden make you a racist? I’m from the south and I didn’t vote for BO, but last time I checked there is not a single view I share with Nazis. Your posts lately consist of whiney thoughtless crap. If you disagree with something or someone, that’s fine, but if you must post your disagreement please have a point. The “Everyone who disagrees with me is a Nazi” view does not count.

So what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it’s an ethos.

PtrainerNY Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > sublimity Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > I don’t think guns should be freely available > and > > easy to get > > - HOWEVER - > > law-abiding citizens like Black Swan + family > with > > licenses to own them should be able to convert > > their entire life savings into gun + ammunition > > form if they want. > > > > Yeah, Germany of the 1930s thought the same way. I disagree, please explain. Additionally, here’s this off wikipedia: “The gun policy in Switzerland is unique in Europe. The personal weapon of militia personnel is kept at home as part of the military obligations. This, in addition to liberal gun laws and strong shooting traditions, has led to a very high gun count per capita. Switzerland has one of the highest gun ownership rates in the world, but also one of the lowest firearm related crime rates in the world.”

With Dems, and not the blue dog dems of old, at the helm in the executive and legislative branches, we are one tragedy away from a very severe ban on guns and magazines. Had the Virginia Tech shootings taken place during an Obama/Pelosi/Reid gov’t, you can bet your ass there would be some legislation coming down the ivory pillars of congress. Anyone who exercises or has considered exercising their 2nd amendment rights would be wise to purchase now, rather than waiting for the eventual firearms tragedy that occurs every five to seven years.

Black swan, send me an email

Black Swan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > Lastly, you mentioned why we need a “sniper > rifle.” A wide variety of guns could fall under > the video game classification of “sniper rifle” > used by someone clearly ignorant on the topic. > Most big game guns such as rifles used for deer > hunting and other similar large animals fire > rounds that would pierce most body armor with a > high level of precision. Deer hunting is a great > past time that does not add to the levels of > violence in inner cities. Feel free to throw me > any stats on the amount of inner city gang bangers > carrying a .30-06. > 30-06 is good, but not very popular anymore (being 100 years old) for sniper rifles. We could just limit it to 50 caliber, which is legal in some states and utterly without any legitimate purpose except playing dangerous games.

interesting news item re: this discussion http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7721244.stm add the annual US ritual of school mass murders, inner city violence, etc. and i always have a hard time finding a solution acceptable to all on this issue. clearly many americans feel unsafe without their guns, but an equally large number feel unsafe with guns. no easy answer.

PtrainerNY, Germany in the 1930s, or any other time of unrest in modern times wasn’t due to guns by themselves. It is due to the way people like you think, which from your posts is marked by: - inflexibility - extremism People like you take a single issue, in this case guns, and take it to its logical conclusion without acknowledging that the real world has fuzzy boundaries. (you’ve also done that with your economic and finace-related viewpoints) I am for the 2nd amendment, I’m very for it, but not in a blind fashion.

Blind fashion? I believe everyone has the right to own one and defend themselves until proven otherwise. If you say an educational class should be required first I am ok with that. If someone is going to commit a crime, they are a criminal. Criminals will do whatever is needed to do the crime. The only thing that scares criminals are guns. They aren’t scared by you making a phone call to the police that will come eventually. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_YTM_eAWnQ

rohufish Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > clearly many americans feel unsafe without their > guns, but an equally large number feel unsafe with > guns. > > no easy answer. See, this is how I approach it…no easy answer. Doubt. Uncertainty. Nuances. Ifs, ands, buts. Truth as relative to your values, principles, and axioms. As opposed to PtrainerNY’s thought process: “OMG OMG OMG!!! YOU ARE AGAINST GUNS!!! OMG OMG OMG!!! THAT’S WRONG WRONG WRONG!!! YOU ARE WRONG!!! YOU ARE GOING TO ENSLAVE ME!!! YOU ARE A NAZI!!! YOU CAN TAKE MY GUNS AWAY FROM ME OVER MY COLD DEAD BODY!!! GUNS!!! GUNS!!! GUNS!!! FREEDOM!!! FREEDOM!!! FREEDOM!!! GUNS = FREEDOM!!!”