Category: News and Views
So apparently the issue of "allowing" people who are blind to own fire arms has arisen. Perhaps it's just me but since when did the constitution stop applying to all of us. Obviously, I'm speaking about the USA here as I have no clue about gun laws in other countries. Sorry if that's ethnocentric but that's for another post.
Anyway, I had the opportunity to call into a local radio show here. Ben Ferguson, who also appears on CNN, had this as a topic. I was actually impressed by what he had to say. While he isn't in favor of us having the right to get a permit to carry, he agrees that we have the right to bare arms in our own homes for protection. I'm not sure how I feel about the whole right to carry issue. I am still on the fense. I know myself but it's the other nutjobs in the world we have to worry about.
Anyway, what absolutely amazed me, other than the fact that this is even an issue, is the amount of hatred and negativity directed toward us on this guy's twitter feed. Apparently we're still not quite capable of whiping our own asses, much less doing anything remotely related to taking care of ourselves.
I'm not saying that every person who is blind should run out and buy a gun but I am saying that my right to do so should not be hampered.
I truly felt as if I were back in the dark ages today listening to some of the callers.
I would not carry a gun. that's not because i'm blind but because my dad saw his best friend kill his brother with one. for the record it was an accident. all that aside, since when are we not under the same laws as everyone else? the constitution says that all americans have the right to bear arms. last time I checked my family is in the daughters of the American revolution and the daughters of union veterans. I have a great some odd grand dad who died in Andersonville prison. Unless i am terribly mistaken, I believe I might be a u.s citizen. therefore I should be allowed to carry. I would believe that if I did, i'd probably be a far better and more responsible fire arms owner than many of the wack jobs running around today.
I agree with the first poster. Not even every sighted person should own a gun, so I feel we're about as equal to that as anything.
We aren't suppose to have children either, and that list goes on.
A gun is a tool, so carrying one is no more accident prone than owning a quality kitchen knife or an powered saw.
You could accidently trip someone with your cane, they fall, hit their head, and die.
Accidents are caused by people, not tools.
So, this guy isn't in favor of us carrying concealed, but he's in favor of us having a gun in our own home.
Lets break this down a sec. The average DGU (that's defensive gun use) is three to five shots at three to five feet. I could spit three to five feet and hit what I'm pointing at, I don't think I could do it all the way across my apartment every single time. So his logic falls short right there.
Blind people are just as capable of carrying concealed as they are of keeping a gun in their home. The real concern that I have is that not enough blind people know enough about guns to pick the right one for them.
I would like to help with this. So on the off chance that there is anyone here who is looking to get a gun, send me a message. I'll give you tips on what to look for, what the different terms mean, what caliber you might be interested in, and I'll give you tips on what you might look at carrying, and how you might want to carry it. I'll answer any questions you may have. If I don't know the answer, I'll find it for you.
Just in case people don't know. I have two guns, about to get more, and I have a concealed weapons license in the state of florida. I know what I'm talking about because I've been there and done that. If there's any way I can help, let me know.
That's really good of you, Cody, because you're right: it's not like you can go to a training center and learn safe gun use along with cooking and cleaning and mobility skills. Plus I doubt a lot of parents are willing to experiment in that direction; I always disliked guns and didn't want anything to do with them for some reason (not morally against them, but I didn't like the way they felt in my hands) but even if I'd expressed interest in handling them, I doubt my dad would have done much more than explain how it worked and let me shoot a dead tree somewhere.
Not entirely true. You can go to a training center and learn good gun safety skills, but its expensive, and most instructors have never worked with blind people before.
I've held an air rifle and I've seen some shotguns and things, but have never fired a gun with live ammo. I've wanted to, for curiosity if nothing else. My uncle owns guns and took my brother shooting many years ago, but absolutely refused to take me even though it was perfectly safe. Needless to say I was miffed.
Now, I have an honest question here. Maybe you have to be Canadian to ask this question at all, or at least non-American...buy why is this such a huge deal to people? Why is owning a gun (or many guns) so damned important?
If average DGU is 3-5 feet, why not use a baseball bat or a taser? Both will cripple your assailant (the latter better than the former, probably, since not everyone can really wind up and smack someone with a bat), and neither is as likely to kill. I suspect that if average defensive gun use is 3-5 shots at 3-5 feet, the victim is either dead or seriously maimed. Is this necessary?
These are honest questions, there's no underlying "what the fuck do you guys think you're doing" motif here. I'd really like to know why this is such a hot topic.
Good question, and one that a lot of people ask. There are times that a gun is not the right choice.
I'll give you my answers here, and give you an article. Its a little long, but I encourage you to read it, it will answer many questions you have.
The reason we don't use a baseball bat is that carrying a baseball bat in your back pocket is extremely difficult without having your pants fall down. I can carry a gun in my pocket, literally, and barely notice its there. Then, if I should ever need it, I have it there, and it gives me a lot more power than a baseball bat. If you don't believe me, I'll give you a bat, and I'll take my .45, we'll see who comes out at the end.
Now, as for why we have more than one gun, its a simple matter of effectiveness. Its the same reason you have multiple pairs of shoes. Sometimes a running shoe is best, sometimes you need sandals. The gun I use for summer carry, especially in florida, is different than the one I use in winter carry. The one I use for home defense is different than the one I use in concealed carry. I need the gun to do different things at different times.
Sorry if I missed any questions you asked. Point them out and I'll be sure to answer them. Here's the article I promised.
http://concealedcampus.org/common-arguments/
Right, Cody, I was speaking of a training center for the blind like the ones you folks have out there. Here in Canada it's mostly just a very select group of services that are taught to you in your own home or community, but you still can't stroll down to the CNIB, and ask your independent living skills instructor to teach you how guns work.
Thanks for the article and accompanying information. I think Gregg is correct in that this is sort of an American thing, as most of the people I know have guns for hunting and not much else.
You're right, since you definitely can't carry a bat in your pocket. But again, what about a taser, or mace? Mace you have to be even closer, from what I understand, but it's often good enough for cops to disable, so why not civilians?
I'm just about to read the article now, but thanks for your response in any case.
Pepperspray isn't used to defend cops who are being attacked. Its a distraction tactic, not a defense. Basically your eyes hurt so much, you don't want to fight, so they can put handcuffs on you so you can't fight. Same with tazers. The effects don't actually last very long. The article will explain further.
That article would be convincing if I was arguing about a right to carry concealed on a college campus, and I actually agree with a lot of it.
But we aren't talking about carrying concealed on a campus in general, we're more talking about blind people handling a gun.
I'm not saying we absolutely shouldn't, I just wonder. Here are my specific concerns.
1. If our assailant is armed, we're nearly fucked anyway, since we're not possessed of any innate advantage. We won't necessarily know the assailant is armed till we feel the gun-barrel, hear the weapon being drawn/cocked or whatnot, whereas our sighted opponent is going to know a draw for what it is on sight and will probably move to intercept. So, in gun vs. gun scenario, I wonder at how useful a gun really is for a blind person.
2. If your opponent doesn't have a gun, he's got to get really freaking close to you...close enough that a taser, a well-aimed punch, a can of mace in the eye or any of a few other tactics may give you enough time to get away. Killing the threat is not necessary if you can neutralize it by simply getting yourself away from it. Obviously, the efficiency of these attacks on our part is questionable against a sighted opponent if they know what to look for, but the good part is that you'll almost certainly not kill the person who decided to put his hands on you. You'll drop him.
3. For home defense, the same types of rules apply. If he's in close to you - which he's probably not, mind you - disabling might work, and a taser has a fifteen-foot range or so, correct? Probably not as effective if it's far away or if your perp has bulky clothing, but still has a decent chance at distracting or even scaring off your threat. As a blind person, would you say that the acceptable substitute is to have a loaded gun and be forced to shoot it, perhaps tearing someone's face off or blowing a hole through their stomach? I suppose you could say that the threat of seeing a gun is often deterrant enough, and I can't argue that, but I'm dubious about some of the rest of it.
Basically, in a nutshell, what I'm wondering is why guns are necessary at all, blind or not. I think in our hands, since we can't see what we're shooting at and since there are other up-close things that are apt to work in many scenarios, a gun might not be the best choice...but that's just my opinion. Feel free to disagree with it or put forth experiences/anecdotes/evidence to show that I'm making mistaken assumptions if you like. I did ask, and did surmise, so I'm not going to take it personally if there are just bits of this that I flat don't know.
Logistics aside, it's more a constitutional issue, I think. If everyone else can carry a gun, and there's a reasonable chance that blind people can at least use one safely, then there's no reason they shouldn't have one.
Your questions are valid, and not ones I'm unfamiliar with. Let me see if I can answer them for you.
1. It is entirely possible that the gun will do us no good in the situation. Its possible that someone might walk up behind us, knock us unconscious with a crowbar and do whatever they want. However, does the possibility that it might not do you any good negate the fact that it might also save your life?
The idea of running away from your attacker is one I hear a lot also. And sure, if you were sighted, it might work. I fully advocate the time-honored tradition for women of kicking a guy in the balls as hard as she can and running away screaming for help. But if you're blind, can you run?
I don't know about you, but I don't trust my cane skills enough to get me away from a sighted attacker fast enough without running into a pole, parking meter, streetlamp, tree, bush, fire hydrant, telephone pole, parked car, curb, wall, or any number of other obstacles. I don't see that as a viable option. Perhaps you do, and that's perfectly fine. Many in America do also.
2. Saying that the threat would be neutralized if you're simply able to get away from it is easy on paper. But lets take meglet up there for example. (sorry to use you as an example against your will). Meglet is probably not a 250 pound guy. I believe, if memory serves, she's a rather petite young lady. Keep that in mind.
Lets say that Meglet is walking down a street on her way to buy an ice cream sandwich. (we all know meglet likes her ice cream sandwiches). She's strollin' along, whistlin' Dixie, when suddenly a 250 pound guy grabs her from behind.
Now lets just say that meglet weighs 110 pounds. That means that she now has to fight off a man more than twice her size, who has her from behind. She has to completely fight him off before he can hurt her enough that she can't fight anymore.
Now today, meglet remembered to slip her sig sauer p238 380 auto pistol into her waistband. She fights, gets one arm free, grabs that little sig and puts seven rounds into the guy. (I say seven cuz that's all that gun holds). Meglet has now survived. Without the gun, her survival is probably extremely doubtful.
3. Let me make something clear. If someone breaks into your house while you are home, they are probably not there to rob you. They are probably there to harm you. Robbers break into empty houses, not houses with people in them.
So lets say you have a tasar, and you use it on the guy who just broke into your house. You hold the trigger down for five seconds, (that's how long tasers last), then its out of batteries. You have to change the battery, and reload the taser, before you can continue using it. Meanwhile, the guy grabs the revolver out of his pocket and kills you. At that point, distraction is not an option. Calling the police is not an option. Hiding is not a very good option. Your only option is to do whatever it takes to leave that house. If you have to set it on fire to get out, set it on fire. If you have to empty an AA12 automatic assault shotgun into a guy's head to get out, do that. (just make sure you pay the licensing fee for possession of an automatic weapon).
If I can find it, I'll post something for you to read that will help make that point more clear.
Did that help to answer your questions?
My Uncle and I went to a shooting range a few weeks ago and it was pretty cool, this being my second time. Before we went he showed me the various types of guns he has, what scenarios were good for having each, and all the safety protocol that is involved with guns. Learning how to handle firearms in a structured way is great and you will eventually become comfortable with this. However, having a gun and handling it outside of a range is a whole other story, especially if something happens. Firstly, you can plan out different scenarios over hours of practice, but how do you know how you will react if a real situation happens? You don't. I've heard of soldiers who had to go to war, they freaked out once they were actually in battle and didn't stand a chance.
Having a gun isn't something to be taken as a joke, however, blind or not we are still citizens. We still have a rite to have a means of protection. I'm sure if you are being attacked you aren't pondering what will be an ethical way to handle the bastard as he has his way with you.
Cody, that does help a little. I have a couple of issues left, and I'll outline them below.
First, to use the example you gave with Meglet. If she's got a handgun in her waistband and pulls it, she's still got a brute behind her, not beside of or in front of her. What chance does she have, being less than half his weight, of turning enough in his grip, or cocking the gun over her shoulder to fire behind herself? Me, I say not a friggin lot. Depending on how she was grabbed, she could slam an elbow into the guy's solar plexus, ram her head straight back into his throat, snap an arm up and back to drive a finger into the guy's eye or three knuckles beneath his ear into the hollow there. She could also just as easily unload the mace she happened to be carrying instead of the handgun, and in much the same way...only a mace can is smaller and probably even less likely to be jammed. How easy is it to pull a gun, get rid of the safety, then fire it with enough accuracy to wound someone who's squarely behind you, all with one hand and while probably in pain owing to the captivity of your other arm? And never mention the panic.
I'm not saying your idea is wholly invalid. I just don't think it argues for a gun being a guaranteed better choice, that's all.
You're absolutely right about robbers preferring empty houses, but I have a really silly question. If you have a taser and empty the thing into someone, and drop him, what in the blue hell are you doing trying to reload it? If your assailant is twitching on the ground, knee-drop him or choke him out or run like hell (it's your own house, and you probably know it well). Get distance between yourself and your adversary, easier to do on your own turf, get outside if possible. Particularly in a non-country setting, get outside, and start screaming like the hounds of hell are after you. A taser can keep someone down for anywhere from thirty seconds to three minutes from what I've read about them, and that should give you a long time to get away and outside, at the very least out of straight-shot range from that revolver you mentioned...unless your attacker found you in bed or in the bath or something, and you're half-awake. And if that's the case, you're not any better off with a gun.
Basically, I'm only suggesting here that I understand someone's desire to protect himself, but when there are other tools and methods that will be effective, I'm just not convinced a gun is necessary.
Also, Meglet, I understand the constitutional thing. I think that the right to bear arms in the constitution is a little...iffy anyway, but it's there, so I do see why people wouldn't want it being used selectively.
The constitution is the constitution, iffy or no.
Cody, I'm a little creeped out. lolHow on earth did you know that I happen to love ice cream sandwiches? Don't much like ice cream, but I love ice cream sandwiches.
Robbers definitely prefer empty houses. A couple of them broke into mine a few years ago when they thought it was empty. They took one look at fifteen-year-old me, who was indeed somewhere in the neighbourhood of 110 pounds and unarmed, and ran like hell. Clearly, they were there to steal and nothing else. Now I think on it I think having a gun in the house may have made me feel a bit better; as it was all I'd had to hand at the time was a table leg (my dad had been building me a desk and it wasn't finished yet) and I was so effectively cornered that running would have been impossible without heading directly for the guy's arms, or out the window.
I think Meglet is right about the constitution being the constitution. Also, the way some stupid people talk about us and our lack of capabilities really burns my ass, so my evil twin sometimes says let me have a gun just so I can blast them out of existence. (Just my evil twin talking, folks, not my real persona!) Anyway, I doubt my own capabilities with a gun, so I'd never have one. I just wish we had force-field technology so that someone firing a gun at me would automatically have the bullet ricocheting back at them so I didn't have to worry about handgun safety. But I totally agree that we should, if possible, be allowed to have/own guns and do it safely provided we're trained in gun safety.
You're absolutely right SW, guns are not the be all and end all when it comes to self-defense. They don't make you perfectly secure, and they don't solve every problem. That's why I own knives, and a baton in addition to my two guns.
Let me be as clear as I can on this, and this goes for sighted people and blind people alike. If you do not feel a gun would fit your situation, don't get one. If you feel you would not be able to use a gun effectively in a situation, don't get one. If you feel a taser or pepperspray or a guard dog or a large german man named hans you hire to be your bodyguard would be a better fit for you, go with that.
Now, on that same token, just because it doesn't fit your situation, doesn't mean it doesn't fit mine, so don't tell me that I shouldn't be allowed to use what I think is best. Obviously there are limits on this, no one needs a fifty caliber machine gun for home defense. If you do, you need to move right now.
Now, let me address your concerns.
1. Pointing a gun behind you as actually very easy. There are people who make careers out of it because it looks impressive, but its not difficult at all. Guns are actually very easy tools to use. They're designed to be easy to use because they're designed for use in battle.
So going back to meglet and her ice cream sandwich trip. Try this some time. Put your back flush up against the wall, now elbow that wall as hard as you can without moving your arm forward. I'm willing to bet you won't even get enough power to get a bruise. Leverage and physics just don't work that way.
Now my gun, I can draw without moving my elbow forward because of the way I carry it. I can draw it with my wrist. Now I might not be able to get it properly leveled at his head, or his heart, but I could certainly hit our 250 pound guy in the groin. If you think you can handle 13 (that's how many my carry gun holds) nine millimeter rounds to the balls and still keep going, feel free to try it. I'm gonna take a pass on that.
two.
You are right in saying that if you use a taser on one guy, you should then run away and get out of there. I totally agree with you. But I think there's something you're not taking into consideration. Tasers only have one shot. What if theirs two people in your house? That's actually probable, because most criminals work in pairs.
So lets compare. I have 13 rounds loaded in my gun right now, and it takes two seconds for me to get twelve more. That's twenty-five rounds at my disposal. You've got one shot in your taser. If you had two guys coming through your bedroom window, which would you prefer?
You're absolutely right SW, guns are not the be all and end all when it comes to self-defense. They don't make you perfectly secure, and they don't solve every problem. That's why I own knives, and a baton in addition to my two guns.
Let me be as clear as I can on this, and this goes for sighted people and blind people alike. If you do not feel a gun would fit your situation, don't get one. If you feel you would not be able to use a gun effectively in a situation, don't get one. If you feel a taser or pepperspray or a guard dog or a large german man named hans you hire to be your bodyguard would be a better fit for you, go with that.
Now, on that same token, just because it doesn't fit your situation, doesn't mean it doesn't fit mine, so don't tell me that I shouldn't be allowed to use what I think is best. Obviously there are limits on this, no one needs a fifty caliber machine gun for home defense. If you do, you need to move right now.
Now, let me address your concerns.
1. Pointing a gun behind you as actually very easy. There are people who make careers out of it because it looks impressive, but its not difficult at all. Guns are actually very easy tools to use. They're designed to be easy to use because they're designed for use in battle.
So going back to meglet and her ice cream sandwich trip. Try this some time. Put your back flush up against the wall, now elbow that wall as hard as you can without moving your arm forward. I'm willing to bet you won't even get enough power to get a bruise. Leverage and physics just don't work that way.
Now my gun, I can draw without moving my elbow forward because of the way I carry it. I can draw it with my wrist. Now I might not be able to get it properly leveled at his head, or his heart, but I could certainly hit our 250 pound guy in the groin. If you think you can handle 13 (that's how many my carry gun holds) nine millimeter rounds to the balls and still keep going, feel free to try it. I'm gonna take a pass on that.
two.
You are right in saying that if you use a taser on one guy, you should then run away and get out of there. I totally agree with you. But I think there's something you're not taking into consideration. Tasers only have one shot. What if theirs two people in your house? That's actually probable, because most criminals work in pairs.
So lets compare. I have 13 rounds loaded in my gun right now, and it takes two seconds for me to get twelve more. That's twenty-five rounds at my disposal. You've got one shot in your taser. If you had two guys coming through your bedroom window, which would you prefer?
I've been grabbed from behind by people before, and both in jest and when seriously startled and trying to get away I've used the elbow thing before. If you can push your free shoulder forward and slam the elbow backward, you can get enough force to do a bit of damage. It won't rupture someone's internal organs or anything but it might surprise...and with small victim vs. big attacker, it hits the gut, which is often a weak spot.
As far as criminals working in pairs, you've got a point there. Unless you have multiple tasers, you might be in trouble, particularly if they're well-trained.
I suppose this is why I'm a bit more okay with guns for home defense, as long as they are used in a last resort and not as the very first recourse...which is to say, I'd hate to see someone who was prowling on your property get shot because he was trespassing and not actually doing harm yet. The grand majority of people won't misuse a gun, mind you.
In the vast majority of cases, the people who misuse guns, are doing it illegally, so making them illegal wouldn't fix the problem.
Its a personal choice. If you want to use a gun, ok, lets get you the training and knowledge you need. If you don't, that's fine too, don't use one.
Cody, thanks so much for your posts. You've made my points much better than I could have.
As to the question of using less lethal methods, quite honestly, if someone has broken into my house, I have no problem using whatever force necessary to protect myself and my family. I mean seriously, we're just sitting here, in our own home, for which we pay, minding our own business. Some thug breaks in here looking to steel, rape, or whatever, and I'm supposed to give a shit about his life? Sorry. Call me heartless but that ain't happenin. If it's between me or my kid, and someone else, I hope they've picked out a nice casket. It's really easy. If you don't want to die, or be very seriously injured, do not assault me. Do not break into my home. Leave my property if I tell you to do so. Why am I considered the bad guy for using deadly force to protect myself? Why should I go out of my way, possibly prolonging an attack or whatever to spare the life of someone who has no regard for the peace and dignity of mine.
I pray I never ever ever have to use my gun but if I do, believe me, I'll have no qualms about it what so ever. I think one of the most dangerous places for a gun is in the hand of someone who's afraid to use it. My mom, for example, hates guns. My stepdad really wants her to get a CHL and keep a gun in her purse. I told him that if she isn't willing or able to use it without hesitation, then she has no business having one.
Do I think everyone should have, or even want a gun? No, absolutely not. I just don't think that I should not be allowed to have one because someone else doesn't want one. You're free to use whatever self defence alternatives you want, but please don't limit my options.
I'm not speaking to any one in particular here either; I'm just stating my opinions. I just don't want there to be any ruffled feathers because of my writing style.
Cody, you said you're licensed to carry in Florida. What shooting test did you have to do in addition to the written exam?
Trust me, well trained crooks aren't breaking in to houses. If they do and are well trained, research has been done, and they are after something specific, not your funky TV. They've probably got one better.
Meglet, you mean they just didn't stole you? See what I mean about well trained? Smile.
Florida doesn't have a very difficult shooting exam. Other states do, but its nothing you can't pass if you practice. You'd have to look up the requirements for your state. Some states don't offer concealed weapons licenses at all, some issue them under extreme circumstances, and some don't require them at all.
At the very least, I think that anyone carrying a gun (absolutely anyone) should have to go through a pretty rigorous process. More than they do in some places. Guns are engines of death; they have no other design. You use them to defend yourself by shooting people who are threatening your person (or threatening to do so) or to hunt game by shooting said game dead. It takes no skill to kill a person with a gun at point-blank range if it's loaded and the safety is off. A three-year-old can do it. Now, comparatively, a three-year-old with a baseball bat might bonk someone a good one, and a three-year-old with a knife could probably give someone a pretty nasty wound (cut throat is possible, though unlikely). This being said, I'm going to circle back to the original topic.
I don't know exactly what a shooter's test is comprised of. If there's a written exam, there's no reason we shouldn't have the same requirements as a sighted person. However, if you're expected to hit a certain amount of targets in x time, or if you're expected to do anything based around pinpoint accuracy, I think that requirement should be fairly steep, not to bar us, but to ensure that if you have a gun, you know damn well what you're doing with it. However, if that increased technical requirement excluded us because we just couldn't muster the proficiency, I'm not sure there'd be too much room to grumble about it.
One last thing before I go for awhile. Remember that Meglet scenario, where she's got one arm (let's say her right) free for the Sig in her waistband, and a 250-pound guy right behind her? Yeah...say she whips out the gun as fast as she can, cocks it back over her shoulder and fires. Let's say she either barely wings the guy, or misses entirely. Well, I don't know about exact details, but handgun bullets go a long way in a big hurry. What if she punched through someone's window and killed them in their living room? What if she brained some poor pedestrian on a cross-street, or blinded someone when concrete shrapnel shredded their left eye? You use mace, or even a knife, and you just don't have that risk. Before anyone comes at me on this one, I know the risk of hurting someone in that scenario is low, but it's still there. I'm mentioning this as sort of an afterthought; home defense may be one thing, but why anyone should actually be permitted to carry a gun around, as a civilian, is a little beyond me. And concealing it? Good god, that's even worse. I realize it's in your constitution and all, but it seems a pretty crazy thing to put in there. The more I think on it, the more I see the potential harm that can result, and the more I fail to see why a gun is so necessary to carry on your person.
Never mind blind vs. non-blind, I guess I just don't like that much freedom with guns.
The people that drafted this law were gun carriers, did you know this? Thomas Jefferson, and some of the others carried and used guns in daily life for protection, hunting, and other things.
It seems to me that if someone comes up behind you and you wip out a gun, fire it over their shoulder and miss the actual target but somehow injure an innocent person, it shouldn't be the gun-holder's fault. Yes, technically, you fired the gun and injured or possibly killed an innocent person, but that was in the course of trying to protect yourself. You are not the original aggressor in this instance. The person who came up behind you and started it all is. I say reform the law so that the initial aggressor simply gets charged either with attempted murder or murder. In other words, simply extend the doctrine of transferred intent to the initial aggressor. Of course,this wouldn't necesarily mean that the gun-holder necesarily gets off scot-free. You have a trial and submit your burden of proof, and if somehow the 250-pound aggressor is proven innocent beyond a reasonable doubt, you've got no problem holding the gun-holder responsible for the injury or death. But in an ideal world, I just wish none of this was even necessary.
Right right. But here's the thing: that innocent is still wounded or dead, whatever the law has to say about it. Seems kind of needless.
And yes, I knew that the law was drafted by gun-carriers, which is why I wonder at its continued necessity. There are definitely situations where I think owning a gun could save your life, but I'm not sure if that fact alone justifies having a constitution that allows a person not only to carry a gun, but to conceal it so no one else knows he's got it. Just my two cents' worth. As I may've said before, discrimination against the blind isn't fair as long as they can honestly pass all the requirements, the same as a sighted person can.
A good gun handler would never fire over there shoulder at a target they didn't locate. It might be a friend you shoot? Not happening.
That is why I think some mental testing should be done, or required a statement from a doctor you are mentally sound.
Saving your life require judgment. If you miss the person trying to hurt you, what good have you done? Nothing.
There is mental testing of a sort required to purchase a gun. It is nowhere near as easy as people think it is. Try it some time, provided you live in America. There are so many things which preclude you from buying a gun, mental instability being just one of them.
Now, to address SW's concern. I really don't understand why you're ok with people having a gun in their home, but not carrying one. Do you think the risk of injuring others is lessened by it being in a house? Its actually increased by being in a house. First of all, you can use a much bigger gun. You can use a full sized shotgun for home defense, (in fact many people do). That bullet will easily go through a wall if you miss. The bullet that sig in our scenario fires, won't penetrate a wall.
That is the biggest problem I have with this debate, and I'm sorry that this is going to sound insulting, I honestly don't mean it too. It seems that gun rights is the only debate in which people can openly admit that they have no experience, and yet have an opinion. I'm fine with the debate, I think it should constantly be debated, but if you don't know what you're talking about, or you've never fired a gun, I don't really think you have the right to voice an opinion in this instance.
Its the same, and again I'm sorry here, when Canadians and Europeans tell us to change our gun laws. Its not your country. Canada hasn't been part of America since the 1700's, and we left the control of Europe in 1783, or 1776 depending on your historical interpretation. You've banned guns in your country, and that's your choice. It is not your choice whether or not we allow guns in our country.
Sorry, just my two cents there. I don't mean to insult any specific person here. I honestly don't.
Now, on to more specific concerns. It was said earlier that the right to bear arms in the constitution was iffy. I invite you to site the constitution and point out how its iffy. Honestly, I'd be surprised if you can quote the amendment without googling it.
Next, I never understand this reaction people have to the word concealed. Why is a concealed handgun more dangerous than an openly carried one? Unless you pan on assaulting someone, why do you care if they have a shirt over their gun or not? What difference does it make?
Finally, to address SW's situation of meglet missing entirely. I have to ask in return, how many innocent lives is Meglet's life worth in your opinion? I agree that it is tragic whenever an innocent person is killed, but is the threat of injuring an innocent worth risking your own life over? If Meglet were killed in our little scenario, how many innocent people would you give to have her back?
Plus, Meglet is an innocent. If her aggressor intended to kill her, she's probably gunna die if she doesn't have the means to defend herself. Either way, if she has a gun and can use it and an innocent person dies while she's defending herself or her attacker rapes and murders her slowly, an innocent person is dead. I don't see a difference except that perhaps the person shot dies instantaneously where it might take Meglet hours to die. What's fair about that possibility? In the obverse instance, she has a concealed weapon, and maybe it isn't necessarily fair to her attacker that it was concealed in the first instance, but it's not fair for her attacker, who's bigger, stronger and intends to kill her perhaps for no other reason except that he can, to kill her. Let's take the law and the constitution totally out of the equation. I don't see how the justices balance in any way in favor of the attacker, and in that instance I don't see that there is any grave injustice in anyone in Meglet's potential situation carrying a concealed weapon. I don't want anybody to die needlessly either, but if you don't want anyone to die needlessly, then taking away guns is all very well and good if humanity has evolved to the point where we view killing each other, no matter how it's done, as totally pointless and destructive. Um, has that happened yet, by the way? Just sayin'.
while I personally wouldn't own a gun, I do have a strong opinion on the subject, which is this. just cause I personally wouldn't own one, doesn't give me the right to tell others they shouldn't do so themselves.
I think many people have valid reasons for carrying/owning them, and like Cody, I can't understand what's to be against.
The only possible thing I see against owning guns is that (and let's face it) they're instruments of death. You intend to kill either game or people with them. Limiting my argument to the killing of felow humans, I think that ideally we shouldn't be killing other people, but in reality we have to protect ourselves from those who intend to kill us. We also fight in wars, although while I'm not a pacifist in the traditional sense of the word, I ideally don't believe that war is the best way to resolve things. Doesn't necessarily mean I don't believe we need a military, because the cold hard truth is that others don't believe the same way I do. So, you gotta defend yourself, either in wars or against an aggressor who means you harm. But that also doesn't mean I'm absolutely against any kind of gun control like the NRA or other loonies. To me it's insane, for instance, not to enact background checks and to allow just anyone to go to your average gun show and buy whatever they want, no questions asked because again, these things are instruments of death no matter how pretty you want to paint things.
Yeah, because all the criminals are going to all go get background checks, right??? I'm not saying we shouldn't have them but let's face it. More restrictive gun laws aren't the answer. If they were, places with strict regulations like Chicago wouldn't have such high murder rates.
Ok, let me clear up a few more misconceptions here.
First, not every gun is designed to kill. There are guns, several of them in fact, which are custom built for firing a bullet at a target. There are other guns custom built for firing bullets at people, and some custom built for firing bullets at animals. Do these three things overlap? Yes, they do, but so do baseball bats and cars. You can kill with anything. If we're going to ban killing tools, we would have to ban everything, including ourselves.
Next, there is no such thing as a gunshow loophole. It is a scare phrase made up a few years back to gain political attention. It is illegal, in every single state, for any firearms dealer to sell a gun at a gunshow in any way that is different from the way they'd sell them in a gunshop. You still have to be old enough, you still have to meet a bevy of requirements, and you still have to get fingerprinted for a background check. In practically all states you also have to go through a waiting period before you can get your gun.
Now, it is a fact that most venders at gunshows are not licensed to sell guns. You'll hear that a lot. The reason they're not licensed to sell guns is very simple. They're not selling guns. They're selling books, or optics, or magazines (both for guns and about guns), they're selling t-shirts, knives, pepperspray, gun racks, gun safe, display cases, ammunition of different sorts, targets, holsters, bags, jackets, bullet-proof vests, air-soft rifles, pelot guns, slingshots, archery equipment, and lemonade. None of these require a gun license. That's why they don't have them.
There is a website I highly encourage you all to look at. Its www.thetruthaboutguns.com. Go there and read the gun facts page. It has a lot of articles dispelling all the myths and misconceptions you hear about guns. Inform yourselves people. Its not difficult.
If that much is true, Cody, then I stand corrected. And in any case, no, criminals are probably not likely to get background checks, but arguing that implementing this or that particular control won't work because criminals won't abide by those cntrols anyway is akin to saying there shouldn't be laws against murder period because anyone who wants to murder someone will do it anyway.
The laws against murder are different than a ban on something. A gun doesn't do anything. You can do things with a gun, but the gun itself doesn't do anything. Murder is a different story.
However, your example does bring up the point that if laws actually prevented things, there would be no more murder. So many people think that laws are preventions, they aren't. Laws are recourses to compensate for wrongs. A law simply means that you have done something, and now much be punished for it. It doesn't prevent you from doing anything.
So many people feel safe because of laws. Murder is illegal, so why should I worry about it. Robbery is illegal, so why should I lock my door. Its foolish and naïve.
Just want to address a couple of things.
1. I don't think shotguns and wall-piercing ammo should be used for home defense. If a Sig will do the job for a mugger, then it'll do the job for your home. Let's get that right up front.
2. Cody, you can't appeal to my sense of innocent vs. guilty and expect me to forget the facts. You have not credibly demonstrated that the only way Meglet can get out of her attacker's grip is with the use of a gun. A knife or mace have been suggested as viable options. If the gun was her only way to survive, and she happened to miss her first shot and winged someone, then that's collateral damage...it sucks, but it carries into what you and Johndy said about doing what you must to survive. A life for a life, or whatnot. However, if you can disable your attacker and get away, or if you can even kill him by pulling a knife and ramming it into his stomach (gory, but oh well), then you have no chance of killing someone else, thus the chance at said collateral damage is minimized.
3. I lack experience, but that does not mean I have no common sense. I am willing to accept the existence of actual facts of which I was not yet aware, but I am not prepared to concede a point simply because someone else has done it and I have not. I don't have to be a mountain-climber to know that scaling Everest is going to play hell on my body, or to know that an asthmatic is probably very ill-advised to try. Thus, I don't have to be a gun-owner or an American to muse about, question or even criticize either a gun-owner or the American constitution. I have a right to those actions, and you have every right to dismiss those parts you have no use for. I'm honestly more focused on the fine points in any case.
Most people don't carry a gun as an instrument of death, but protection.
Many police never fire the gun in defense, but it is shown to keep people at bay.
Guns are not the only things that can be used as death insturments. Your body is a wonderful tool for this properly trained.
Should we ban all persons that go get trained to kill with their bodies?
I have to agree that if you have no training, or have never even touched a gun, it is hard for you to state an opinion on it.
Just like saying you'll pull a gun and fire it over your shoulder.
Do you understand that if someone got that close to you, they could easy prevent you from getting your gun in your hand?
If you did pull it out, they could take it from you and use it on you, so the smart thing would be to leave it hidden until you had good opertunity to make it useful.
Absolutely there are other death instruments. And while there are guns that are primarily used for target practice, it seems to me their primary function is as an instrument of death. I.e, hunting game and/or for killing other animals, as a tool of war, or for killing one's fellow human either in the course of committing a crime or for protection of self or others. Not necesarily issuing any moral judgment either way at the moment. And as for Meglet not being able to use other means to get away from an attacker other than the gun, perhaps there are. In fact, undoubtedly there are. And maybe some of those methods might actually work if shes lucky or happens to know some kind of martial art or the attacker has a weak moment or something. Or maybe she won't be so lucky because she's not strong enough to use those methods. Again, not issuing any moral judgments, but the point might be that the gun in her case might just be the best tool for self-protection. Collateral damage is possible, but I go back to my original theory: If the attacker hadn't chosen her as a victim and she weren't carrying a gun and felt compelled to use it, there'd be no possibility of collateral damage.
Sometime ago I heard about a case in Oklahoma where two men broke into a woman's home attempting who knew what. She shot one of them, and the other felon was charged with his murder even though he didn't pull the trigger. In my opinion, entirely justified. Yes she killed him and yes, the other felon didn't take an active part in his death, but the other felon was a co-conspirator with his companion, and as such deserves to be charged with his companion's murder. He would not have been shot otherwise, and she was attempting to protect herself. In the case where Meglet's potential attacker is not injured but an injury occurs in the course of her having to protect herself, she is not at fault, period. The attacker is.
Johndy, I'm not talking about the law. I'm not worried about Meglet being punished for killing her attacker. I'm worried about someone innocent having a chance at being hurt, period, whether that's Meglet or anyone else.
And before this over-the-shoulder thing gets twisted any further out of true, let me re-explain something. In the scenario given, Meglet was grabbed from behind by someone much bigger and stronger than she is. If she has a gun, she's got to fire behind her with it, because what are the chances she's going to be able to turn in this guy's grip? And if she can turn around, why not use a knife, or mace? What I'm arguing is that no case has been made for a literal situation where the gun would be the best tool for getting Meglet out of that situation. I'm not saying it wouldn't work, but other tools have just about as much chance to work and risk no innocent bystanders.
Also, let's not twist the "instrument of death" thing around. When I say that a gun is an instrument of death, I mean that it was created for just that purpose...to kill things. I find it awfully telling, in retrospect, that any culture can get so up in arms about their right to not only possess but to also hide on their person instruments designed solely to kill other human beings. Sure, they can get you out of a jam sometimes. Sure, ninety-nine cases out of a hundred no one even knows it's there and you never have to use it. That's cool. But whatever you may have to do with that tool, you still had to expend some considerable effort to earn the right to carry it.
One last thing...and I can't stress this enough. If you are attempting to invalidate my feelings or opinions or conclusions about guns because I'm either not American, not a gun owner or have not fired a gun in self-defense, then you are by extension excluding most of humankind from forming meaningful opinions about most things, in general. You're basically claiming that a fantasy writer who writes a swordfight without ever having held a blade is woefully ignorant, no matter his research. You are failing to keep in mind a person's ability to reason and extrapolate. There have been a few good points about guns that some of you with more experience have made (home defense, especially), and I can't really argue with those so I won't. It's some of the other stuff that lacks proof, and you aren't going to be able to just wish away my sensibilities or my logic just because A) it doesn't agree with yours or B) I'm not a gun-owning American citizen.
No, you have valid reasoning. What I mean, if you have never owned or used a gun, you can't say how dangerous it might be.
In Meglets case, I'm telling you, a gun would have been her worse choice of defense.
The reason for that, is she was grabbed already.
Next, she's not a strong person, so pulling a gun only would have gotten her hurt worse, not helped her at all.
The only way it would have helped was her attacker was stupid enough to allow her to draw it, undo the safty, turn it around, and pull the trigger.
Come on, the attackers already got hands on her, it just shouldn't happen. Lol.
That thing between the ears was the best defense iin this situation, if a chance was offered to defend.
I guess I've lived around guns all my life, and we never had any accidents, because again, guns are tools, just like any other tool in the house. Tools are dangerous things, if you allow them to be.
It is the human factor that makes guns a problem, not the gun. Control the human factor, you stop the problem.
I don't mean taking them away, but just like when you decide you are going to drive a car, you have to pass a text to drive it.
You can't operate a bull dozer, unless you are trained to do so.
Why not guns as well?
Sure, we still have the factor, some people drive without licenses, and fools run bull dozers without draining, and guns are used by crooks, and unlicensed persons, or allowed to get in to kids hands,so accidents are going to happen.
You won't stop them by taking guns away. It doesn't happen in countries were people don't have guns. They still get killed and such things with them.
Ok, let me start with SW, then I'll move on to post 45.
SW, if you have one available, take an old jacket and a melon of some sort. Now get a knife and stab the melon through the jacket. It would be even better if the jacket was leather, but I'm not going to advocate stabbing a leather jacket.
Now, get a friend to help you. Go about your day with a pocket knife in your pocket, just your basic every day pocket knife. At some point in the day, have your friend yell "Now" at you, and start a stopwatch. Grab that pocket knife out of your pocket, open it, and get into a defensive stance that would allow you to adequately defend yourself with it.
Do those things, and you'll understand why a knife is a bad idea for self defense. It won't even cover the idea of concealment, which any blade long enough to do damage is going to be difficult to do. You'd need a blade of four to six inches, plus the handle which is another four to six inches. That's eight to twelve inches of solid, straight, unbendable steel you now have to hide on your person, at all times, without it printing against your clothes. I've tried it, I wish you good luck.
Pepperspray in this situation wouldn't work either because the guy already has ahold of her. He doesn't need to see. Sure, he's going to be in pain, but that's probably just going to make him angry, not actually stop him. All he has to do is squeeze really hard as she's spraying him, and she's not going to survive intact.
Now, on to post 45. You make a lot of assumptions here that are unfounded. First, you claim I'm talking about shooting over your shoulder. I'm not. If your arm is pinned to your side, you won't be able to get your arm over your shoulder in the first place. I'm advocating firing behind your back. Is it a good practice, no, will it hurt your hand, yes. Will it work, also yes.
You also assume the gun has a safety, which is actually a rare thing on guns these days. Most of the common carry handguns do not have an external safety. Most of the ones that do, (glocks, springfield XD line, several smith and wessons) the safety is automatically taken off by touching the trigger. Only single action semi-automatic handguns have dedicated external safeties in the vast majority of cases.
So, to be clear, what I would do in this situation is twist draw my gun from my waistband where I carry it, and fire into his stomach, his groin, or his thigh. Not quite as effective as the heart or the head, but a magazine full of bullets will do the job. Is that clearer now?
That doesn't even address the basic issue though. No, you do not have to use a gun if you don't want to, but that doesn't mean you should take my right to carry one away. I feel it works best for me, so why should your opinion trump my right?
Cody and wayne are making a ton of sense.
All I will addo to this is that without you, your gun is useless. I'm not a gun owner myself though I've studied self defense and I do work out regularly.
But, it is true, you need to work out with your gun. Get to the range, practice drawing and shooting. Good training and constant training means your non-analytical part of your brain can take over when the time comes. This means understanding all the phases of attack and hostage situations. There are a lot of fire instructors around, although Cody's right it does depend on your state.
The reason for bringing up the issue of criminals not getting background checks is sound: You are buying a gun or defensive weapon to protect yourself from criminals who would assault and probably kill you. So it logically follows making a law to increase the difficulty of acquiring a firearm is foolish because someone with criminal intent can of course get a firearm.
Hope that makes sense.
Oh and as to kicking in the balls: I always advocate keeping both feet on the ground. Hit at the solar plexus - the part between the chest bone and the belly button. Doesn't have to be terribly accurate, a pretty wide target area and a good hit will temporarily disable the perpetrator.
Oh one more thing: Cody touched on your talk of knife fighting. Clearly you've never been in a knife fight. By you I don't mean Cody. Learning how to use a knife properly to fight with takes a lot of practice, and I can think of quite a few mistakes most people make when they hold a knife as though they were to stab with it. Marines and others train for this, for hours and hours.
Most your sexy, flamboyant so-called moves you see on TV are useless to you when you are in real danger and where there are no rules except kill or be killed.
And the irony of the whole problem is that we as blind people cannot reliably run away. Most people can't in time anyway, but if assaulted directly, we cannot reliably run.
I think the overarching point of this topic should be that if blind people can prove they can handle guns as safely as anyone else, they should be permitted to use them. It's nothing other than unconstitutional to keep them from doing so.
I think a lot of the debate here stems from a strong cultural difference between Canada and the US. I'm sure there are tons of Canadians s who love guns, love to shoot stuff, are really zealous about home defense, etc. I bet there are also a lot of us who have guns and know how to use them, but hope we'll never have to. But I think the patriotic pride, the zeal, the...forgive me, the almost religious fervor and passion with which some Americans defend their right to carry guns wherever they go, God damn it, is completely foreign to most of us. Indeed, the subject of guns comes up so rarely that I don't even know the first thing about our gun laws. My dad has a rifle back home he uses to shoot foxes when they try to attack our cats, and that's about the extent of my experience with them. Many of you display a lot of rationality and good sense when it comes to guns, but many Americans do not, and I have to wonder where it all comes from. Are people attacked more often in the states or something? Do you folks live in fear? Or have you simply been raised to hold any and all laws of your constitution as sacred and special and something you should "rah rah!" about? These are honest questions, more for reflection than anything else, and not meant to offend anyone. I've seen very very little of this kind of zeal on this particular topic, just so we're clear. I'm just trying to explain further why SW and I are both like "...why is it such a ...huge ginormous deal again?"
Thank you, Meglet, for bringing this into a more generalized perspective...although I sort of asked this, in fewer words, and it was never answered. It's something I've always wondered about.
There are a lot of reasons why we have such a desire to keep our guns. Part of it is our culture. We have a revolutionary culture in America. That's not to say we're rebels, its just saying we have an aversion to being governed.
Also, our constitution is something we hold very dear. We gave a lot to have it, and we want to keep it.
As for guns in other countries, I'm not overly familiar with Canada's gun laws either. I know they aren't banned outright, but they're difficult to get. However, there is still a violence problem in Canada.
Europe is mostly the same way. Although interesting, the country with the lowest gun crime rate in Europe, issues weapons to its citizens. That's corolation, but make of it what you will.
Thank you, that's actually very helpful.
Ironically this holds true to most of the cities who have hard gun laws here as well which I'm sure most of us all ready know. stand where you are coming from Greg when you say we shouldn't look at things primarily from our cultural perspectives, but that's just it. What we may see as normal or just is not the same to other cultures. This is slightly off topic but you'll see why I'm bringing this up in a second. A couple friends of mine were sitting at a table and they had a couple friends of theres who were from Haity. The topic went to gay marriage. We tried explaining our stance on the debate, how we see homosexuals as people as well and they deserve the same rites as other people. They retaliated by saying it's not normal for two men or women to marry because "the story was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steeve." Plus, they braught up the point of how gay marriage was extremely rare and not accepted where they are from. We tried convincing them but it only got more heated as a result of different cultural perspectives. This has also been the case with debates such as these, pertaining to gun rites. Many people from Europe believe that Americans have no reason to carry guns around, and that if guns were outlawed the streets would be safer. We try and try to convince them that there is not enough proof to come to a conclusion, and the facts that I and Cody and others have mentioned above prove otherwise. Some people refuse to see it this way, though.
Nobody has actually said that taking away guns will stop or even decrease violence, so please don't use that argument against perspectives like mine and Gregg's.
I have to correct you there Meglet. You haven't made that argument, but countless others have. They've argued that banning guns entirely would make us safer, banning AR15 rifles would make us safer, banning handguns would make us safer, banning magazines that hold more than ten or seven rounds would make us safer, banning semi-automatic guns would make us safer, banning hollowpoint ammunition would make us safer, the list goes on. However, the evidence shows the exact opposite. Stricter gun laws equate in the vast majority of cases, to higher gun crimes.
Meglet is saying that, as far as she (and I, for that matter) are aware, no one in this particular topic is arguing that tougher gun laws mean fewer crimes.
Ryan: I never once tried to change everyone's mind about any of this. I don't feel the way I do based on culture, I feel the way I do based on fact. Gay marriage isn't an instrument of death. Guns are. The vast majority of gun-owners, the legal ones I mean, are perfectly harmless, know when to (and more importantly, when not to) use their weapon, and they know -how to use it effectively if they're forced to it. I can respect that, while not wishing to own a gun for myself. Perhaps if I'm ever in a life-or-death situation where a gun would be the only way, or the best way, to keep me alive, I'll have time to regret my ignorance before I die, but it'll be kinda moot by then, and I've yet to be convinced, except in certain cases of home defense, for the need of guns concealed on your person when you're out and about.
Please don't try to equate my hesitancy about guns to a Haitian's hesitancy about gay marriage. It commits a couple of logical fallacies, for one thing, and it attempts to demonize non-Americans or non-gun users, which is counterproductive to further civil discussion.
Cody, you say that the Constitution gives you the right to bear arms, and you explain it by saying that America is a revolutionary country. I do see where you're coming from, but I want to point one thing out with which I'm not sure I agree. You say you had to fight for your freedom, and as a country that's very true. However, the people who did that are probably about two hundred and some-odd years dead now. Are you saying that the Constitution should remain the way it is because you, as Americans, had to once (in particular) fight for your freedom? If that's the case, I wonder if you've experienced the reverse, where grievances long over are still being used to justify bad behaviour today. Native Canadians and native Americans have historically gotten tax breaks and all kinds of government help because of the hell they were put through in the past. For me, they're at least within shouting distance of one another. If you're saying "Americans are a freedom-loving people, and so we should be entitled to carry guns to fight for that freedom", then in essence you're defending old rationale that no longer strictly applies, and you'd also by extension be endorsing a native American who said, "My ancestors were set upon, driven out of their homes and forced to give up their customs. I demand reparations for my people today".
I'm not telling anyone here that they're crazy, fanatical, or just plain wrong. I am questioning rationale, and I'm expressing doubts. I can do that without being American. I can do that just as well without having shot a gun, because I'm intelligent enough to know what guns can do in the wrong situation. I'm wondering about your Constitution but I'm not about to march across the border and start a riot over it. You are how you are. I don't have to agree with it to respect your right to be that way. If I'm really that opposed to the notion, I just probably won't live in the States, that's all. I have that choice to exercise, or not, as I see fit. Unlike the Haitians in your argument, Ryan, I'm not trying to convince you that you're wrong; I'm doing little more than isolate the issues I see. A couple of them have neatly been put to rest.
Allow me to rephrase: neither I nor Gregg have argued that stricter laws will decrease violence. I am not responsible for what others have said on the matter. And as an aside, comparing a conversation about guns with a debate about whether homosexuals are people is awfully dubious.
First of all I wasn't trying to single anyone out here, and it might have seemed like I was because I made a typo by mistake. But I will stand firmly to what I believe, that culture plays a big part in this argument. What I meant to say was I understand where Greg is coming from and part of that got cut out for some reason, but I disagree.
That's not exactly what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that we have a government by the people, or at least we like to think we do. Having guns is an extention of that to many people.
I'm not saying I specifically agree with that, but I agree with other's right to think that. If you want my personal reasons why I carry a gun, that's a different story entirely, and has nothing to do with the constitution.
Fair enough, Cody. You're making that distinction, and I can't fault you for having your own reasons. I'm not a zealot about guns in any case.
Ryan, you're absolutely right when you say culture plays into this a little. Just bear in mind, however, that some cultures practice genital mutilation and cannibalism. "It's okay because our culture says so"...well, it works purely within that culture, but it doesn't mean someone else is a bigot, an idiot or culturally demeaning/oppressive when they probe at the reasons why such-and-such a thing is done.
I personally have never felt the need to carry a gun, and I've lived in some of what people say are the most dangerous places in the world.
Defense works more ways than weapons, but I don't have a problem with others that carry responsibly.
Being in a fight, and deciding what you might do if you are attacked are totally different things.
I know this because I have been in actual fights.
All the if I had, and if my gun, knife, stick, was this or that don't help unless you use your brain.
Cody, I've seen people draw guns, and an unarmed person take it away from them straight up.
I'd say a totally blind person should probably keep his or her gun at home for protection in that situation, not as something they'd use on the street.
I have many reasons for that.
One is you don't know if people are working in pairs. You draw the gun, and you are threatening one person, and his friend takes you out as you are reaching to get it.
For this reason the police never allow you to get close to them. Distance is your friend.
That's just bad tactics. No gun can overcome bad tactics. That's whyI advocate educating yourself.
Plus, what's the alternative? So, you're about to be raped by two guys. So you pull out your gun, and one of them takes it away from you. Now what you're... about to be raped by two guys? Situation hasn't changed.
Cold hard fact, they were probably going to kill you anyway, so you haven't changed your situation at all.
I understand, and I'm sorry if I came across as though I was judging just because of cultural differences, or because I'm from the US and you aren't. I didn't mean it like that.
Training yes but that should involve a good workout regimen. Your physical fitness helps your reflexes as well as your strength, abilities and general sharpness. When I see these so-called gun zealots on TV or the Internet who are huge as goddam Good Year blimps, huffing and puffing and trying to blow down the house like the big bad wolf, who couldn't run a quarter mile without heart failure makes me sick. The firearms instructors I know up here are big proponents of good workout regimeens. I don't mean try and squat-lift a thousand pounds, I mean tune yourself to be physically capable of being dealt damage, or throwing yourself to the ground if necessary.
Cody is making some of the most coherent and educated arguments, frankly much like an ex-military type. Without you, trained and tactically ready, your gun is perfectly useless to you. These suburban wannabe gun rights advocates running around to all their demonstrations, while their piece collects dust in a safe and is never trained with, will not amount to anything when the moment of truth comes.
Another side to this that nobody, not even Cody, has brought up: Gun owners are often responsible for the lifesaving measures taken for other innocent victims. A police call will take at least 20 minutes to elicit a response in a major urban area. And your neighborhood gun owner who is tactically trained isn't going to first take a poll to see who supports gun rights to see who should be assisted. Lots of hostage situations that never make the news are waylaid by a responsible gun owner who is properly trained - not just a suburban wannabe pseudo militia type who has never run a mile in their life.
If I ever decide to get a gun, and can convince the Chick lol I will go to a firearms instructor and get the requisite tactical training.
Whatever methods you use, you need to be in reasonably good shape so you can take the lumps and bumps, and give them back, and most importantly increase your reflexes. Your general fitness workouts which don't require fancy equipment are enough to get it done. It's more about the discipline than it is the tools and toys you use to stay in shape. These puffing preppers on Youtube who think they've got all the gizmos in the world couldn't hump a pack for half a mile.
Shepherdwolf, you're right about the culture thing. I know: I was brought up through college with that too: it's their culture so we should just accept whatever rape and mutilation one wants. Like you, I find that abhorrent and irrational thinking. You're right to examine us as Americans regarding guns, and you're smart also to carry on a sensible conversation with the likes of Cody here.
Now I will tell you this: America is a federation of states, and possesses a ton of cultures within, and you have some very virulent anti-gun nuts out here too, who imagine all we have to do is tell people to play nice, sit down on the sidewalk and wait for the police to show up. They're as useless as the puffing preppers. Both about as useless as henshit on a pumphouse handle if the time came for action.
America is quite divided on this issue. Some imagine that removal of guns will mean an immediate police state, or a turnover of the State Religion - American Christianity Incorporated, while others like I said think all they need do is get everyone to play nice.
And there's plenty in betweens also.
Hope this clarifies some.
Thank you, Leo, for your last post. It made a lot of sense, as have the vast majority of the others here. Certainly Gregg and I are not anti-gun nuts; we're not even anti-gun, period. We were simply curious about some of the more dogmatic feeling behind guns in the US, since we just don't know much about it.
Well it had to be I suppose: Yet another mass shooting in the States while some Americans continue to try and justify the availability of guns in US society.
What about the 15 who died in Columbine? "Ah, but we need to defend ourselves." What about the 33 who died at Virginia Tech? "Oh, but it says we have to own guns in our constitution." What about the 27 who died at Sandy Hook Elementary? "But it's in our culture, we're inherently revolutionary."
What about the countless hundreds that have died in other workplace and school shootings over the past two decades? "Fuck 'em, guns rock!" Charlton says so.
Of course banning guns doesn't eliminate gun crimes entirely. Organised criminals and gangsters will always get hold of guns. But what tighter gun control does reduce the risk of is crazy or disaffected people getting hold of guns and going on a killing spree. It never ceases to amaze me that Americans will continue to put forward such self-interested individualistic justifications about self-defence for gun ownership when shootings in schools and workplaces are such a common occurrence.
I was disappointed to see that Shepherd Wolf and Meglet weren't lecturing Cody and others. They certainly should have been. America's gun laws are an anachronism and an anathema to the civilised world.
Ed, I've thought most of these things, personally, but the one thing that held me in check, and still kinda does, is the fact that we don't really have any countering evidence of what happens elsewhere. I mean, are there really fewer shootings of this nature in places where gun laws are tighter? And, even if there are not, the question remains: is the issue a matter of how easy (or difficult) it is to get a gun in America illegally?
I don't know how the school shooters got their guns, but I find it fairly unlikely that they had lots of criminal ties and got one on the sly. They probably took a home-defense gun out of the house and went from there. It then becomes a sort of narrow fence to walk because if you disallow people from having access to a home-defense gun, then certain (albeit rare) situations are permitted where otherwise they may not be. And you still have the criminal element of society getting ccess to said weaponry, potentially putting the average civilian at a disadvantage.
It's a mess, whatever way you want to look at it. I didn't want to bring school shootings into things beccase I thought it might muddy the water too much. It's unmistakable though: if nothing else, you at least hear about Americannschool shootings far far more often than you hear about such things occurring in Canada. I'll not speak for other countries because I don't know them nearly as well.
You mean sandyhook, where a gun was used illegally, or Virginia tech, where a gun was used illegally, or columbine, where a gun was used illegally, or the highest loss of death in American history due to school violence, bath Michigan where a... fuck, a bomb was used illegally.
Wait, you mean its actually been shown that psychopathic people will use something other than a gun when guns aren't available? You mean they use cars as weapons, or bombs, or knives, or a mixture of all three? You mean those kinds of rampages actually claim more lives because they aren't heard from long distances, or they're a bomb?
And riddle me this, since guns are such a problem and we shouldn't be allowed to carry them. Go out and google as hard as you can, I'll wait. Come back when you've found an article about a shooting at an NRA meeting. Til then, hush.
I'm actually agreeing with Cody here. If there weren't guns, there'd be some other way. And as to your other point, Ed: I feel it neither my responsibility nor my place to lecture anyone about gun laws, knowing too little about them and in any case not viewing myself on any kind of moral high horse. My interest in this topic has been largely academic, not moral, and I have absolutely no right or desire to rail against guns and use the slaughter of innocent children to back up my claims. I may not understand everything about the US gun culture (if you'd like to call it that) but I'm not about to tear it apart either. At least the way it is now, people can still have weapons to defend themselves from people who want to do them real harm; take peoples' mode of defense away, and you'll still have the murder of innocents, but no ability to defend against it.
Hi Greg,
Yes, my point is that restricting the ready access to guns for things like home defence would reduce the instances of the type I outline. Whether or not the shooter owned the guns legally isn't really the point, it's the availability of guns that makes it too easy to acquire a gun illegally. As I said, criminal gangs and organised criminals would still have access to illegal weapons, but they would be much less available to the type of people who carried out the shootings I outlined.
I question the fact that there isn't evidence of fewer shootings of the type I outline in jurisdictions where gun laws are tighter. We had an infamous school shooting in the mid 90's in the UK, and guess what, we further tightened our gun laws because we decided that an individual's right to have a gun at home was secondary to keeping the general population safe in schools and work places.
Cody, yes, all those shootings were instances of guns being used illegally because murder is illegal. I'm not sure what point you're making about NRA meetings. No-one is suggesting that everyone who owns a gun is going to go out there and commit a massacre, simply that such massacres become much more likely when guns are so readily available and therefore gun ownership should be restricted.
Claiming that you shouldn't ban guns because sometimes people use bombs to kill each other instead is specious and facile. While the buck must stop and the ultimate guilt obviously rests with the person who commits this type of massacre, the NRA and its supporters are to some degree complicit while they prevent gun laws from being changed.
I chewed on this a little, and here's what I came to.
Ed is right, but only on one particular point. If you make guns more accessible, then the very accessibility of guns will probably raise the number of gun-related mishaps. It may not even be the gun's fault, and it doesn't matter if the law is still on the side of the victims. If the guns in those school shootings hadn't been nearly so accessible, maybe they wouldn't have happened.
It's like anything. You have to weigh the potential harm against the potential use of a gun in home defense, when you're cornered and have utterly no other choice besides maybe diving out a second-story window into a hedge, or onto concrete. Sometimes, having a gun will allow you a measure of safety. Sometimes, having a gun will mean that a person with access to or knowledge of said gun might snap and do a terrible thing.
I don't keep up with the UK crimes, but I would bet if I go looking instead of mass hurt being caused by buns, you just have bombs, or something else.
The school shootings were due to parents not paying attenchen to teens beheavior, nor schools having proper protection in place, like guards with guns?
In all these cases if there had been one or two trained bun users, they'd have taken the bad ones out before they could get started.
It is likely, the bad one wouldn't have even started.
I am glad you understand tactics Cody. I was wondering about if you felt just having a bun on your person was keeping you safe.
Yes, they have tighter laws in Britain. They also now have protests to allow people to have guns in Britain because people are having their house broken into, and have no way to defend themselves.
If you really are going to make me go collect the data for you, it's going to take me some time. I have school work to do also, but there is a direct correlation between carry laws and decrease in violent crimes.
Mexico is a so-called guns-free country. Guns are illegal there. And when I went there I saw lots of guns I've never seen here. The German assault rifle G3 was one.
You know the gangs coming out of L.A., misnamed Smell-A for it's pollution? Well they get their weapons straight over the border from a "guns-free" country called Mexico.
Granted it's been over 20 years, but I've been down there and seen the fireworks show for myself.
Not to mention that since the 1994 gun ban expired, gun crimes and massacres are down. It just doesn't seem like it when you watch the news. That's the downside of our communication age. People think, "Well I hear lots of stories about this stuff", and never bother to go and look at the FBI crime numbers.
In case you didn't know people, gun news is big news right now, so you're going to hear a lot about it. They take every little crime done with a gun and plaster it all over your television and twitter account. So it seems a lot bigger than it is.
Its tragic, absolutely, but the problem is a lot less than you think. For example, the number of people killed in mass shootings in American history, is only a couple hundred. That's in the entire history of America. You're making a big deal out of a couple hundred deaths. Anyone wanna take a wild guess at the number of people killed in American history due to cars, or household pools? Cars kill more in one day than mass shootings have. Pools kill more in one year. So what should we ban exactly?
Personally, I say we ban criminals. Send them over to England. After all, England seems to have all its criminals figured out right? No one ever has anything bad happened to them in England.
Let us send them all without guns as well, and see how quickly they can aquire them in a gun free country.
I'll bet pretty fast. Enough illegal money or legit money, solves many limitations.
They don't need them. I read reports daily of people being stabbed to death in England. You don't need a gun if you're garranteed the law abiding citizen won't have one.
What about those who like to have a gun around for recreational purposes such as going to a shooting range? I've done that many times and it's something I do enjoy.
I can't really see myself ever owning a gun, even though I find them really interesting. I mean yeah I've been around guns of all sorts all my life but I don't know how those around me would feel about it. As for concealed weapon permits, I think they are good, especially in places that are a little well, rougher. Knives are good but you need some range to use them. Pepper spray can be blocked or worse yet can reflect back at you, causing you the pain instead of the person you're trying to stop, same goes for a taser. A gun can not only injure someone who's attacking you but even a near miss or a bullet striking the ground can make some, not all, but some people decide it's not worth the bother.
I can't really see myself ever owning a gun, even though I find them really interesting. I mean yeah I've been around guns of all sorts all my life but I don't know how those around me would feel about it. As for concealed weapon permits, I think they are good, especially in places that are a little well, rougher. Knives are good but you need some range to use them. Pepper spray can be blocked or worse yet can reflect back at you, causing you the pain instead of the person you're trying to stop, same goes for a taser. A gun can not only injure someone who's attacking you but even a near miss or a bullet striking the ground can make some, not all, but some people decide it's not worth the bother.
Why do you care if the people around you wouldn't like you owning a gun? Would you not buy sharman extra soft if your neighbor thought it was a bad brand?
Kind of a little respect especially since my gf has been exposed to abuse and vioance. If I did ever get a gun it'd most likely be secured in a way only I could reach it unless otherwise needed.
That's how all guns should be.