Oh those pesky assult rifles......

[Basementdweller]

WOW, I wonder what the folks in Irvine are gonna do with this thread.....

 

 

Bunch of Scouters afraid to take their boys into the woods unarmed..... It's no wonder you guys that woodbadge was all that.....

 

 

I am laughing at the bunch of ya. Absolutely unbelievable..... The day I feel the need to take a gun to go backpacking is the day I need to sell all of my gear.....

 

 

So are you teaching your scouts that fear and paranoia????

 

Be prepared my behind, The likely hood of needing a first aid kit extremely high, Need for a 357 magnum is next to zero.....

[CalicoPenn]

"How many regimes would you like me to name that disarmed their subjects before killing them?"

 

How likely do you think something like this would actually happen in the United States? There are approximately 325 million guns in the US - there isn't a force large enough to confiscate all our guns, and really, if we ever end up under that kind of military dictatorship, I doubt they would have any hesitation to unleash the worst kind of actions imaginable on the people.

 

My opinion - the folks that are worried about the government confiscating their guns are paranoid and are not mentally stable enough to own guns anyway. If this were part of the standards, then the shooter in Connecticut wouldn't have had access to guns because nice, innocent Mom was also, according to her son, paranoid about the government and made sure her sons knew how to use guns just in case the government tried to take her guns. Perhaps her own paranoia prevented her from understanding that she shouldn't have had guns anywhere near a son she new to have mental health issues.

[Eagle732]

Mom was reportedly concerned about the financial collapse of the country. Quite frankly so am I.

[beardad]

Just out of curiousity, when did they rename the first 10 amendments of the constitution. the Bill of Needs?

 

edited to add:

 

what does it matter what weapons the state has, when 99% of the military would be home protecting their homes and family from tyranny.(This message has been edited by beardad)

[Eagle732]

Paranoid? Here's some quotes to think about:

 

"Waiting periods are only a step. Registration is only a step. The prohibition of private firearms is the goal." Janet Reno, Attorney General.

 

"If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them.'Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in,' I would have done it!" Senator Diane Feinstein, Statement on TV program 60 Minutes, Feb 5 1995 (WHO IS CURRENTLY DRAFTING A NEW ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN AS WE SPEAK!)

 

" We're bending the law as far as we can to ban an entirely new class of guns." Rahm Emmanuel

 

"We're going to hammer guns on the anvil of relentless legislative strategy! We're going to beat guns into submission!" Congressman Charles Schumer, quoted on NBC, December 8, 1993

 

"I don't care about crime, I just want to get the guns." Howard Metzenbaum (of course poor Howard is dead so his opinion doesn't count but it still shows the mentality)

 

"I do not believe in people owning guns. Guns should be owned only by the police and military. I am going to do everything I can to disarm this state." MA Governor and presidential candidate Michael Dukakis

 

"If I had my way, sporting guns would be strictly regulated, the rest would be confiscated" Congresswoman and (thankfully) past Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi

 

 

 

 

 

[Beavah]

Yah, Eagle732, anybody can point to nutters on da other side. Doesn't mean squat. Ever watch Sarah Palin's Alaska and da quality of firearm handlin' they demonstrated? We all have our nutters.

 

As a fellow who grew up with firearms, I confess I find da obsession with carryin' everywhere to border on mental illness. Firearms are a tool. I enjoy carpentry, but I don't find a need to carry a battery powered jigsaw everywhere I go just to "be prepared". A PFD is a useful piece of safety gear but yeh don't wear one walkin' around town just in case Noah's Flood recurs. Even though yeh can no doubt fire up Google and point to some odd cases where a sudden sinkhole opened up where it might actually have been helpful for someone to have been wearin' a PFD on top of their sportcoat, eh? Feelin' a need to wear a PFD everywhere to my mind is a sign of mental illness.

 

Not sure what da difference is, to be honest. I've never had a firearm with me in da woods, with scouts or without, except when huntin'. Be a bit like carryin' a boat anchor on a backpackin' trip.

 

I think we need to make some decisions, eh?

 

If we really want to maintain our broad right to bear arms, especially in da face of tragedies like what happened in Newtown, then that broad right has to be accompanied by broad responsibility. That means not bein' so clinically paranoid that we feel we have to carry every time we go to da grocer, or we're stockpiling weapons to prepare for U.S. economic collapse, Mayan catastrophe, or Zombie Apocalypse. That probably means safety education and trainin', and recurrent proficiency testin', with perhaps a psych and finance review. Da folks I know are all pretty responsible, but we've all met da occasional fellow whose firearm handlin' and attitude made us cringe, haven't we? Just watch YouTube.

 

It also means that da community of responsible firearm owners has to develop some real ethics, reinforced by law or policy, like havin' all guns and ammunition secured in da presence of children or mentally unfit adults, and folks who own or collect things like assault rifles must keep da ammunition secured separately and perhaps carry additional insurance.

 

Beavah

 

[Eagle732]

Those I quoted are not "nutters" as you say, they are elected or appointed US politicians that currently have or recently had a hug amount of political power.

 

There's lots of quotes from nut jobs out there but I purposely did not use them because I wanted to keep the conversation legitimate.

 

You calling the quotes I site as just those from "nutters" belittles the legitimacy of my post and quite frankly is beneath you.

 

[perdidochas]

Responsible firearms owners are doing a pretty good job of keeping their guns secure from children. The rate of accidental firearm deaths of children is pretty low (about .08 per 100,000 children). This is lower than it was in the 1970s. The murder rate with guns is also down. It has been going down since the late 1990s. This is despite the fact that the number of guns is at a record high.

[Eagle732]

Well we can't let facts get in the way of a political agenda now can we?

[JMHawkins]

I'm in favor of mandatory liability insurance for every firearm. Policy limit could be determined by magazine size at $250,000 per shot, or something similar. Of course, this would only affect legal and responsible gun owners and not solve our real gun problem which is illegally possessed hand guns used by the average criminal.

 

So why advocate it then?

 

Seriously.

 

The problem isn't law abiding, mentally stable people owning guns. Even "assault weapons?" So what possible value is there in advocating laws that don't apply to the people who in fact are the problem? Does it make you feel like you're "doing something?"

 

I can't solve the real problem, but maybe I can solve this fake problem over here and fool myself into thinking I'm being responsible?

 

If your response to this crime is to call for more gun control, I'd like you to take a deep, honest look into your heart and ask yourself if that's your motivation. It's a perfectly human failing.

 

 

[Brewmeister]

Beavah sez:

 

As a fellow who grew up with firearms, I confess I find da obsession with carryin' everywhere to border on mental illness.

 

At the risk of making an ad hominem attack, you are a total knob.

 

I do agree that with rights come responsibilities, but characterizing people who prefer to carry as mentally ill is just....well, it's just so Beavah.

 

 

[JoeBob]

Responsible Concealed Carry is tantamount to accepting some of the responsibility for the safety of those around you.

 

Be it in the woods, in the mall, in the movies, or in the elementary schools.

 

You can deride the CCW permit holder as a paranoid lunatic here.

But he'll still let you say "Thank you." after the fact.

[Beavah]

Yah, yeh folks are pretty hilarious, eh?

 

Here it is, I'm a responsible gun owner and user. NRA member. I'm not particularly concerned about stable, law-abidin' citizens carrying. I've said that there was no likelihood any gun control law would have changed da outcome of da tragedy in CT. I'm even a supporter of "must issue" laws. But if I disagree on a point I must have some liberal political agenda, eh? Look up some of da diagnostic signs of paranoia.

 

All I suggested was that it was over da top to believe that yeh had to carry for safety or preparedness purposes, especially on a Scout outing when yeh aren't supposed to be, and where securin' your weapon from curious but untrained kids poses more risk than a homicidal maniac who happens to be wanderin' da woods lookin' to eat a boy scout.

 

Carry because it's a hobby; carry because yeh like dressin' like a cowboy, carry as a political statement, whatever. It's OK. I'm not concerned about yeh if you're responsible. Let's just not pretend it's a safety issue when it ain't. Like I said, your chance of death or serious injury from so many other things is so much greater, yet yeh choose not to "be prepared" for those because da chance is so low.

 

If you're goin' to "be prepared" or yeh are genuinely interested in acceptin' some responsibility for da safety of those around you, then perhaps buyin' and carryin' an AED might be an OK choice, eh? Because your chance of havin' someone in da group dyin' from a heart attack or other cardiac arrest is small but real. But if you're packin' a weapon but not an AED to "be prepared" for bad things happenin', then you're just nuts. You're in wannabe cop land, or somethin' more serious.

 

You calling the quotes I site as just those from "nutters" belittles the legitimacy of my post

 

Not sure about "belittles" but if by that yeh mean "disagrees", then it sure does! Yeh selected out-of-context quotes from a set of folks on da extreme end of da issue, eh? Yeh could do da same with folks with political "power" on da other end of da issue, too (which would have been more balanced, but equally invalid).

 

There are always folks to be found on da fringes of any issue to "point with alarm" at. And yeh can always pull an out-of-context quote from even da best folks that will sound extreme, and point with alarm at that, too. It's a PR tactic used on da naive and gullible, not a rational argument. I suspect yeh got it out of some literature concocted for that very purpose. To my mind it should be recognized for what it is.

 

Beavah

 

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[HICO_Eagle]

It's not the rifle, it was the mentally disturbed person wielding it. For some reason, a segment of the population doesn't like to blame people (except when they can focus their vitriolic hate on someone like Bush or Rumsfeld) so they focus their paranoia on the tool.

 

packsaddle says he quit the NRA because "they became a political organization" -- really, you quit it back in 1934? The NRA has always been political when groups or people have proposed to nullify or violate the Second Amendment.

 

Basementdweller says this terrible tragedy "may open the door for some intelligent gun laws" ... just what do you consider intelligent? Feinstein's bill is anything but intelligent. So is Schumer's. Please cite the performance difference between an AR-15 and Mini-14. Just how many crimes have you seen committed with a bayonet on the rifle? Feinstein wants to classify the M-1 Garand as an assault weapon (to be fair, it was one ... 60-70 years ago) -- just how many crimes have you heard of using this venerable veteran of WW II and the Korean War?

 

You don't see any reason a citizen needs a 50 shot magazine (not a clip) or a laser sight -- some might question why you need subsonic rounds. Isn't that kind of round indicative of assassins? Why are you afraid of a little noise when you should be wearing hearing protection anyway (every organized shooting activity I'm aware of requires both eye and ear protection to participate)?

[Eagle732]

Beav, so first my quotes were from "nutters" and now you say they're "out of context" but offer no proof. Anyone who follows the gun control issues knows that there are plenty of politicians, including the ones I quoted who would gladly support far greater restrictions or even a repeal of the 2nd Amendment.