User: superfalkner

[[Specifically, kind of like using a car or alchohol unwisely (i.e. putting someone in danger, or having someone killed or hurt as a result of negligence). These guys should have their gun permits suspended, then go through more training on proper gun usage, and maybe anger management.]]

Suspended? You think guns should be almost completely illegal, but when people like this completely misuse guns, you think they just need an anger management class and a time out? These guys have actually done something that warrants the removal of their gun rights. They should never be able to legally access a gun again, and They should be jailed for a very long time. How do you think your gun laws are going to work if you don't believe in enforcing the ones that are already on the books. That is just how Bill Clinton did it. The NRA, and most pro-rights organizations and individuals do not believe in gun rights for criminals, but for the law abiding citizen.

[[Also, if someone uses a gun while drunk, or under the influence of other drugs, they should not be permitted to have a gun until they've proven no longer abuse drugs. That right there is one huge problem.]]

Amen.

[[Also the thing about the target practice, this is a very unsafe site. It is actually inside of a public use forest. Of course they've found a couple of dead guys over the years, they only know for that they are not suicides (1 was drunk, the other body too old to test, so could be accidents or homicides). There have been people hit by shrapnel and horses accidently shot.]]

If a person is just shooting into the public forest and really can't see where the bullets might be going, he is guilty of public endangerment, or a similar type of law just as if he were driving down the freeway with his eyes closed. If however, a person shoots a gun into the side of a mountain, no matter how public the forest, it is not all that unsafe. The bullets will not fly around to random places any more than your breaks might go out in your car and kill a bystander.

[[Target practice should be done in a well designed facility w/proper supervision. There are old target sites made in the 50's and 60's which by today's standards are very unsafe too. These places should be updated to a federal code (so states can't run a slip-shod place), so that anyone can safely use their equipment w/proper safety (like ear guards, or goggles).]]

Should people not be alowed to drive cars without a federal agent in the passenger seat? Should cars not be allowed to drive off of federally built highways? You can't say it's any different.

[[I mean people use the same types of approach for building swimming facilities, or sports facilities; why would you want anything less for guns?]]

Are people only allowed to play volleyball in federally licenced volleyball fields? Are people not allowed to swim in the ocean? If a person builds a shooting range, I believe there should be certain codes that they should comply with such as no objects on the range that might shatter and fragment, etc. If you ever go to a range, you will find that there are all sorts of safety rules that everyone must follow. But if I want to go into the mountains to target practice, and I am doing everything safely, the government has no right to tell me I'm breaking any sort of law.

[[ALso I think gun registration is important from a purely law enforcemnt perspective. Just like a car, if a gun is stolen, it will be easier to track if the manufacturer registers a Vin # (or let's say a GIN-for gun identification number) and also a copy of that gun's particular bullet characteristics w/the GIN.]]

Registering a gun has nothing to do with law enforcement, unless you are talking about gun law enforcement. Have you ever heard of serial numbers on guns? These are the "GIN's" you are talking about. If any of my guns got stolen, I would give the serial number to the police, and they could track it that way. The only thing registering a gun is good for, is letting the government track who owns a gun so it can be confiscated. This is exactly what California did with their made up "assault weapons". They told people who already had them that they could register and keep them, and then they came out with a new law, and they were subsequently confiscated.

[[Then each person buying the gun would register it, and you have a history. If it gets stolen, then it's easier to track, and also to compare any bullets used in a crime to the stored data-so even if you can't get the gun used, you will have an idea of where to start w/an investigation.]]

What you are talking about is ballistic fingerprinting in conjunction with gun registration: Lets say I am joe murderer. Now let's say that I somehow made it through my life with no criminal record, but now I want to murder, so I go and buy a gun. I get it registered, they get a ballistic fingerprint of the gun, I wait 3 months to cool off, and I have a nice shiny gun. I've now got alot of choices. First,I can go shoot 1000 rounds out of my gun, (the ballistic fingerprint is now useless), or I can just replace the barrel. Second, I can scrape the serial number off the gun (Registration is now useless) Then after murdering someone, I can throw the gun into the ocean, or bury it somewhere. Then again, I can just go shoot another 1000 rounds out of it, and the worst that could happen, is I would get caught with a scraped off serial number.

Ballistic fingerprinting and registration have a history of doing nothing but costing the government tons of money. The amount of crimes that have been solved due to the fingerprinting can be counted on one hand while the crime of making people criminals before they have commited a crime is immeasurable. However, they are effective in doing what they were put in place to do, and that is, limit peoples right to bear arms.

What point are you trying to get across with this article? That we should take guns away from the military? from police? Are you trying to say that the "assault weapon" made them do it? Does the fact that the pistol was an "assault" weapon make this story worse? How? Was it because it had a heat shield? was it because the magazine inserts from a place other than the pistol grip? Those are the only things that make that weapon an "assault weapon". It is not an automatic machine gun. Please explain how this supports gun control.

[[Regardless of their techology, guns or assault weapons can only do one thing, which is kill people. That's what they are designed for. This ban didn't "help" crime, cops liked it, in fact. ]]]

It is the very fact that guns are capable of killing people which makes them an effective tool to do what they were actually designed to do, which is to protect lives. This is why police officers have guns. This is why law abiding citizens have guns. Criminals have guns for the wrong reasons, which is all the more reason for me to have a guns for the right reasons. If you are trying to say that the only reason you would buy a gun is to kill or murder people, by all means, don't buy a gun. But as for me, I have them to hunt, target practice, and to defend myself and my family. I have used a gun for all of the above, and yes, I have used a gun in the line of duty to, gasp, kill. Is it alright by you that I killed somebody who was trying to kill me? Should I have used peaceful words to make them stop? I would definately have been willing to, but I doubt they could have heard them over the sound of their guns shooting at me. Gahndi was trying to talk to people like you when he referred to guns. To him they were needed only as a last resort, but needed. I completely agree.

[[[Freedom doesn't have anything to do with guns, it's just a flashpoint for keeping people fearful and afraid of the government. You don't need a gun to be free.]]]]

That's like saying you don't need a mouth to have free speach, or that if the government made churches illegal, that it wouldn't mean people don't have the freedom of religion. Taking away my right to bear arms, is taking away my right to defend myself or my family. It's worse than cutting out my tongue or burning down my church. It's the government saying that unless a cop shows up in time, I will have to be at the mercy of a criminal who will have no qualms about being armed. For at least 15 minutes "The average police response time" I may have to watch my wife get raped as I lay on the ground in a pool of blood. Guns have everything to do with freedom.

[[[No, but people (and especially the manufacturers) can register them (like cars), and be required to have certified traing before buying a weapon.

While were at it, we should register baseball bats, knives, and matches as they are all responsible for alot more murders than "assault weapons". Should we have certified training for those? Guns are almost just as simple to use as any of these. You put the ammo in, you point, and you shoot.

[[That's just common sense, as I'm sure YOU've met more people than I have who own guns and are COMPLETE morons! The kind who think it's "cool" to teach their toddler boys about guns by leaving it out loaded on the nightstand in the parent's bedroom.

No, I can't say I have ever met anyone like that, but I'm not going to say they don't exist at all. With gun ownership comes exra responsibilities which a very few gun owners don't live up to. If some idiot leaves a loaded gun out where his children can get a hold of it unsupervised, and the child kills himself or somebody else, that doesn't mean I should be treated as if I would do the same. Have you ever left your children in your car while it was runnung even for a short time? People do that all the time, but cars aren't demonized as much as guns.

[[...The kind who go up to the woods near a public hiking/horseriding trail and shoot off their guns all day long, every weekend, "cause it's their right".]]]

Are you calling people morons because they like to go target shooting? Are these people shooting at hikers? I thought you said people should have "certified training" with guns. Wouldn't that training include target shooting?

[[[I guess I'd just have to re-iterate what I said before-he didn't use guns to take over the government. Your argument is the Jews died because they (and any other sane Germans) didn't have guns? Even if they'd had them, the SS, Gestapo (the Hitler Government) had a hell of alot more, so that they would maybe have died in several shootouts rather than in deathcamps.

I would rather die in a shootout than a death camp. A few shootouts would have been alot better than mass genocide. This Hitler thing can't be made more clear than I have made it. If you don't get it, you don't want to.

[[[Well, of course they didn't have mass murdering weapons like nukes, biological weapons, etc. I bet they had no idea something like that could be conceived. I doubt they would expect us to turn to violence (or threats of violence) to solve our problems.]]]]

The founders of our country didn't turn to violence, but they did resort to it because they had to. The fact that guns saved their lives and their freedoms is what turned them into the gun nuts that they were. Trying to say that the signers of the Constitution would support gun control is worse than saying that Charlton Heston supports gun control. The signers of our Constitution committed high treason to give us, among other rights, the right to bear arms.

[[[Well, using Gandhi's words to support your argument that guns are the only way to have freedom isn't honest. That's like quoting the Bible to support the Koran! He was the one who developed the idea of NON-VIOLENT civil disobediance in the first place. It was his ideas that helped Nelson Mandela and MLK do the things they did also.

No, I was using Gahndis words to support exactly what he was trying to say. I didn't have to stretch the meaning. He called banning guns india the "blackest" misdeed in Brittish rule there. Yes Gahndi is all about non-vilence just like I am. Gun ownership lowers violence. It stops crime before it happens. Pointing a gun at an attacker means I don't have to bludgeon him with a blunt object to stop him. Just pointing a gun is all that has to be done 99% of the time.

[[Having the right to have a gun doesn't make someone free, it makes them prone to be committed to fear, and a slave to violence.

If guns do that, all mine must be defective.

[[Why? Because if you're more worried about your gun than everyday freedoms,(like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to pursue happiness, etc.) then the government has you where they want you-scared.

Guns are the most threatened right in America, for one, and without guns, what's to stop the government from taking away other rights? Peaceful words?

"I believe Bush made a deal w/the NRA to not renew the ban on assault weapons in order to placate any opposition to his draconion Act."

Maybe, but he should have never said he would extend it in the first place. The main reason it wasn't extended, was the fact that the anti-gun lawmakers could show no proof that the law prevented crime, or even the use of so-called "assault weapons" in crime, as criminals were still getting them illegally. It was also that some lawmakers woke up to the fact that "assault weapons" are not machine guns, and they are not automatic weapons. They are semi-automatic,(one pull, one shot) and the only reason they were made illegal was because they look similar to military weapons, or they just plain look scary.

"I really wonder if the "god-given" right to own a gun is about freedom or about fear. Fear of freedoms being taken away."

It's about both. If there is one point the founders of our constitution tried to put across the most, it was that freedom comes first. And the people come before the government. Are you saying it's wrong to fear the loss of freedom?

"A gun, or even an assault weapon would be useless against a government takeover"

Not true. It may be a loosing battle, but our government would have a lot harder time trying to take over itself than it is having in Iraq, and all they have are assault weapons and home made bombs. It doesn't matter anyway, at least I would get to fight back. That having been said, I don't think America is going to invade itself. What anti-gun lawmakers are trying to do, is make guns illegal so they cant be manufactured, so people cant get them, and they will disappear. The problem is, they can't be made to disappear any more than alchohol disappeared during the prohibition. Only the criminals will have guns.

"(like I said about Hitler, he didn't use a gun to takeover Germany, but used fear-mongering, terrorist tactics, and an appeal to the "pride"of the German people)."

Let me break it down: Fact: Hitler banned guns. Fact: Hitler killed millions of unarmed Jews. Educated guess: The Jews would have used guns to defend themselves rather than die if they had guns. Deduction: Gun control works, millions of dead Jews can't be wrong. Did hitler use guns? yes. He also used gas chambers and stuff. Point is, his victims had no guns.

"I think the Founding Fathers would have looked askance at the kind of weapons available nowadays. I don't think it's what they had in mind!"

I don't want to be too disrespectful, but it sounds like Rosie Odonell was your American history teacher. Our founding fathers would be outraged that the people don't have the ability to overthow their Government if they needed to. As they found need to do with Brittish rule. They would be heartbroken to know that a millitia today amounts to a bunch of fearmongers living in the mountains somewhere. The Second Amendment applies to modern guns just as the 1st Amendment applies to the television and the internet today. Or should free speach only be limited to a printing press?

"Guns don't garantee freedoms, exercising and protecting them through daily life DOES ; Ask Nelson Mandela-he was able to bring down an entire government without a gun. (Gandhi too)."

Your right. Guns themselves don't guarantee freedom. It's us exercising our freedom to bear arms through daily life. It's us saying Hell no when Senator Feinstein drafts a deceptive bill because she doesn't trust Americans with guns. I don't remember saying that it's time to start shooting guns at government officials. I use education to protect my rights, because the more people know about guns, the more they understand gun rights. When Glock came out with their first model, they were called "terrorist specials" because they were the first plastic framed pistols ever made. They were being demonized just like "assault weapons" today. What glock did, was educate Americans to the fact that their guns could not actually make it past metal detectors, as they were still mostly made of metal. Now they are the preferred weapon of law enforcement. Today, people need to know what "assault weapons" really are, and that fully-automatic weapons are still illegal, and were way before Senator Feinstein coined the phrase "assault weapon". The term was made to make them sound like Mitary "assault rifles" which are machine guns used in "assaults". Since were talking about Gandhi, I'll end with a quote from Him:

"Among the many misdeeds of the Brittish rule in India, history will look apon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."

The point is, people were unable to defend themselves from him.