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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Aug 15, 2012 - 05:27pm PT
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Personally, if EVERYBODY carried there would be far less crime because people would be a whole lot more polite to each other and criminals would think twice about committing a crime if there was a better chance people were going to fire back.
There may be less "crime" but there certainly would be more shootings and deaths from guns. That's obvious when you compare places like the UK and US. I'd rather have more crimes like burglary than more deaths.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Aug 15, 2012 - 05:38pm PT
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I'm back to what I've felt for a while. That law abiding, mentally stable people should be able to get what they want but it should be well controlled and regulated.
For
*Concealed Carry
*High Capacity Clips
*Fully Automatic guns (in rural areas of course)
*Tactical (assault) rifles
There should be stiff regulations, such as what is needed in CA for concealed carry. Except there should be better consistency for who gets approved. Background check. Required courses, etc. And they should serial number and register handguns, high capacity clips, tactical weapons, etc.
The whole point of course is keeping very dangerous weapons out of the hands of criminals and insane folks. Sure you can scrape a serial number off or make a high cap clip in your garage, but the harder you make them to obtain and the less of them that are out there, the less the likelihood they will end up in the wrong hands, and the less people will die. I put a higher value on saving people's lives than the inconvenience of making people take safety courses, register guns, and get permits.
The problem is you have the gun nuts and NRA saying you can't have ANY regulation, (that people should be able to walk out of gun shows with anything they want). To me that's unreasonable and unproductive because we have two sides unwilling to compromise on a practical solution.
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Heyzeus
climber
Hollywood,Ca
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Aug 15, 2012 - 05:40pm PT
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-If someone was NOT going to use a gun on me, why do I care if they are carrying? -
Because people kill people. And people have emotions and bad days and bad lives and generally end up doing things they would have never intended to do, and never set out to do. Carrying a gun can make those rash situations go bad easier.
Maybe you're right about there being less crime if everybody was carrying, but might there also be more accidents and heated arguments gone south?
Do the majority of law enforcement feel the same as you on concealed carry, that they think it's better if everyone was armed (licensed of course)? That it would make us safer? Would they feel OK too, responding to gunfire calls not knowing if it's friend or foe, or both? Seems like it would make a already stressful situation all the more so and chaotic to me, but I'm not a cop.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Aug 15, 2012 - 06:07pm PT
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There are lots of other differences, but Alaska is a pretty good example of a place in the US where virtually everybody is packing heat.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Aug 15, 2012 - 06:26pm PT
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Whaddya want? Liberty or safety?
Pick the wrong one, and you get niether.
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monolith
climber
albany,ca
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Aug 15, 2012 - 06:31pm PT
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Liberty from what, Chaz? Evil Gubmint?
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Aug 15, 2012 - 06:39pm PT
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monolith asked:
[quote]Hum, wonder why anchorage has a fairly high crime rate? You'd think they would have a very low crime rate, since virtually everyone is packing. Looks like even Bakersfield is safer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate[/quote]
good question
someone answer why the theory breaks down in Alaska, very high gun ownership but high crime rate?
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monolith
climber
albany,ca
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Aug 15, 2012 - 06:41pm PT
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Look at the rapes in Anchorage. Maybe all those guns help the rapists more than the raped.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Aug 15, 2012 - 06:57pm PT
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Cars are extremely dangerous. I would venture to say that a lot of people in cars are having horrible days and are very mad at other people sometimes. They have the ability to settle their differences with a 3000lb car, but they don't.
but they do
even have a name for it
"road rage"
and it happens everyday all over the country
angry people having a bad day and using their cars to take out their anger on innocent people who pissed them off somehow, maybe didn't go fast enough, tailgating, etc
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Aug 15, 2012 - 07:01pm PT
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Personally, if EVERYBODY carried there would be far less crime because people would be a whole lot more polite to each other and criminals would think twice about committing a crime if there was a better chance people were going to fire back.
Right. Personally I think every once in a while most people get very very pissed off and when that happens, it's great that they don't have a gun in their pocket
PEace
Karl
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Aug 15, 2012 - 07:02pm PT
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Jody said:
You cannot assume that just because a gun exists that an otherwise law abiding citizen will use it if he has a bad day. that is a horrible assumption and one that has absolutely no merit or substantiation whatsoever.
I have to disagree
the guy in Aurora and the guy at Virginia State both had no record as in they were law abiding, and they had a "bad day" and decided to murder
happens all day long, otherwise law abiding citizens get bothered by something inside of them and get their gun and start killing
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monolith
climber
albany,ca
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Aug 15, 2012 - 07:02pm PT
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_rage
Jody, better edit the wiki page. They seem to think road rage can lead to injuries and death.
Chaz, better with a knife than a gun. Hard to outrun a bullet.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Aug 15, 2012 - 07:03pm PT
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Jody, incredibly said:
Next time you hear of someone actually injuring or killing someone because of "road rage", let me know.
you HAVE to be kidding, right?
You are a law officer and are so damn naive you don't believe people get injured and killed by road rage?
I can't believe this
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Aug 15, 2012 - 07:50pm PT
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I said it before; you want to save innocent lives by the thousands?
Raise the bar on getting a driver's license.
Picked up a thousand rounds of 115gr Federal 9mm for $221.43
(and I said "Thank you" even though I can remember it under $90.)
Just wait till BO gets re-elected. It'll be worth +$300.
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Salamanizer
Trad climber
The land of Fruits & Nuts!
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Aug 16, 2012 - 01:18am PT
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"Violence is out of control. Guns are a major cause. They all should be banned – the sooner the better." That's what you anti gun nutcases believe! As a result, a nationwide movement by a minority of paranoid anti gun wackos to ban all guns is growing.
Legislation is now pending in Congress to confiscate all handguns, register all guns, and tax ammunition up to 500%. Others want to go much farther. Within a few years it could be illegal for you to buy any guns or ammunition. If you already own guns, you may be required to turn them in to the government – under penalty of fine and imprisonment.
Will gun prohibition make you and your family safer? The evidence from cities in the US where guns have already been virtually banned is not reassuring. Banning guns doesn't keep them out of the hands of violent criminals. If banning guns worked, Washington, DC, Chicago and New York City would be the safest cities in the country. Since 1976, it's been illegal in Washington, DC to own any handguns or to keep any type of gun in your home unlocked and fully assembled. However, Washington, DC is the "murder capital of the United States." New York City has had severe gun control laws since 1911, yet it also ranks among the most dangerous places in the country. In both cities, violent criminals can easily obtain the most deadly weapons on the streets within minutes.
A national gun ban won't help. With an estimated 220+ million guns in the US, an unpoliceable 12,000 miles of borders and coastlines, and the world's largest stock of precision machine tools, criminals will always be able to buy, steal, or make guns and ammo. Any competent backyard machinist can build a rifle or handgun. Even Afghan peasants, using tools considerably inferior to those in a Sears catalog, have built machine guns capable of firing AK-47 cartridges. Illegal home production of handguns is already a fact of life; a BATF study found that one-fifth of the guns seized by police in Washington, DC were homemade, or pieced together from gun parts easily ordered over the Internet.
The Police cannot protect you, but you can protect yourself.
If a criminal attacks you on the street or in your home, you cannot afford to wait 30 minutes, 20 minutes, or even 10 minutes for the police to arrive – assuming that you even get the chance to call police and they respond. Ten minutes is more than enough time for a criminal to rob, rape, murder, or cripple you for life. Making guns illegal will primarily disarm peaceful citizens. That gives a green light for violent criminals to attack everyone – both gun owners and non-owners alike.
In L.A., during the 1992 "Rodney King Riots," police abandoned entire neighborhoods. Live TV broadcasts showed hoodlums burning homes and businesses, and dragging innocent motorists from their cars, beating and killing them. The only thing that prevented entire communities from being burned to the ground were community residents barricading their streets and using their guns to protect their homes and families. In fact, the Supreme Court has ruled that you, as an individual, have no right to protection by the police. Their only obligation is to protect "society", whatever that means. So if you want to protect your home and family in a real time of crisis, you have to rely upon yourself.
Every day, thousands of peaceful Americans successfully use guns to defend themselves. A recent study by Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck found that Americans use guns defensively about 2.5 million times a year. But you don't hear that tid bit of info coming form these anti gun wackjobs. What you normally hear is a misguided, distorted but widely quoted study from the New England Journal of Medicine reporting that gun owners were 2.7 times more likely to be murdered than non-owners. But does that mean that owning a gun increases your risk of being murdered? Or does it mean that people who are more likely to be murdered, such as those living in bad neighborhoods, are more likely to own a gun?
The evidence is overwhelming that living in a dangerous environment is a key reason why many people buy guns. In fact, firearms are the most effective way to protect your home from criminals short of employing an armed security guard. According to several statistics, every 13 seconds an American gun owner uses his or her firearm in self-defense. 1,145 times a day handguns are used against robbers. 416 times each day women use their handguns to protect themselves from rapists. Overall, a gun in the home is 216 times more likely to be used in self defense than to cause the death of an innocent victim. And even if you don't own a gun, preserving the right of your neighbors to own them is one of the best ways to keep criminals out of your neighborhood in times of crisis like the L.A riots. Of course we don't all live in neighborhoods where this is any sort of realistic risk. But you have to keep in mind "WE" aren't "EVERYONE".
But what about gun accidents? According to the most recent statistics, your chance of dying from the accidental discharge of a firearm is 1 in 200,000. You are 29 times more likely to die in an automobile accident.
As long as you are peaceful, learn how to use your guns safely, and take reasonable precautions to keep them out of the hands of children and criminals, a gun in the house makes you safer and could save your life if you are attacked.
Gun prohibition won't work in America. While a few Western democracies, like Britain have successfully disarmed their citizens, that would be impossible in the US. Our traditions of independence and individual self-defense are simply not conducive to the peaceful disarmament of America's estimated 80+ million gun owners. As one Congressman commented recently, "In Germany, if parliament passed a 45 mile per hour speed limit, people would obey it, then kick out their representatives in the next election. In the US no one would pay any attention to it. Americans wake up every morning thinking, What's the angle? How can I get around the law?
Disarming otherwise law-abiding citizens would simply put us at the mercy of well-armed criminals. Given a choice between obeying the law and being able to continue to defend our homes, our families, and our lives, millions of Americans will gladly break the law. Many already do.
Only 1% of residents of Denver and Boston have voluntarily complied with laws requiring them to register their semi-automatic weapons. In New York City there are an estimated 700,000 to 3 million unregistered firearms. In California, less than 2% of the 2 million owners of semi-automatic rifles have registered their guns in compliance with state law, even though failure to register is a felony! It may not even be possible to enforce a gun ban. The New York State commissioner of prisons testified that if 1% of illegal gun owners in New York City were caught, tried, and sent to prison for a year, the state prison system would collapse.
America was born as an armed society. Guns are an integral part of our traditions and remain essential for the preservation of our safety and our liberty. Today more than ever we need our guns to protect ourselves from rampaging criminals and to deter would-be tyrants. The mere presence of many guns in many American households is enough to deter many would-be aggressors. Gun prohibition won't keep guns out of the hands of criminals or make us safe. But the attempt to ban guns could destroy this nation. The image of paramilitary SWAT-teams invading our homes to confiscate our guns is abhorrent to everything America stands for. Yet that is precisely where these whacked out gun nuts and their gun prohibition will take us.
Regardless of the penalties for disobedience, millions of Americans will not peacefully surrender their guns. I know I sure as hell won't. Many normally honest and law-abiding citizens will lie, evade, and perhaps kill to defend their rights. There are perhaps millions who share the sentiments, "from my cold dead hands". The bitter irony of gun prohibition is that laws intended to make America safe could spark the bloodiest violence in our history. Gun prohibition is not good for you, your family, or America.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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Aug 16, 2012 - 01:23am PT
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There are no realistic federal gun laws pending either for or against gun control. The ammunition horders, Obama haters and other paranoids are just idiots.
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