Virginia Tech shooting

[bambooneedle]

Yes, it can all be distilled down to that simple unqualified statement for me, Bamboo: "I believe in Guns!"

You have such a simplistic way of reducing things to a lowest common demoninator that doesn't exist, but that doesn't stop you for the strident generalizations that are, in fact, virtually nonsensical.

I believe in little baby ducks, big pick up trucks, and Guns!

Did I mention I also believe in Butter. Put that into your oversimplification function box and lets see what the output is? Toast and Jelly with some gunpowder sprinkled on to make me aroused.

God, I love these trite oversimplifications.


1. It is called the Consititution of the United States of America. To the degree that it needs to be amended, then let it be amended. Meanwhile, the simple minded theory that if we eliminate guns that they also will disappear from the hands of criminals has got to be one of the most ridiculous arguments I have ever, ever read.

2. If a deranged CHO comes to my door with two guns a-blazin' and I have a berry spoon, the only good thing the berry spoon will be used for will be to dig the bullets out of my body. On the other hand, if CHO comes to my door with two guns, and I too have a gun, CHO is done. I have a right and a responsibility to protect my family. Not to aggress and threaten. That should be criminal, and it is.

Have a gunny, gunny day. I'm off to the resort to relax with my gun collection.

Relax Mr. Average, I thought the statement I made about the irrelevance of you or someone maybe saying "I believe in guns" in the light of determining policy might elitic just such an overblown response from you, in typical predictable Mr. Average fashion, so I'd removed it. It was hypothetical, I didn't really mean to generalize about you concerning that but I think I did, sorry.

What's a CHO?

Yes, people shoot people all the time. This is why gun ownership should be considered by everyone. Guns are simply not going to be eliminated...the product will still be there, and so will the market. The law can't stop it, like it can't stop cocaine or crank. There's a buck to be made...the legality of it is secondary.

Whereas drugs get consumed, maybe the gun market could eventually become too saturated for there to be much money in it. Guns will be real cheap, yikes!

[A rope leash]

Guns are cheap. An illegal market in them will only raise the price of cheap guns. A gun is not a consumable, but they are kind of difficult to make. Like drugs, what the customer is paying for is risk. Hemp grows in the ground, cheap and easy. It's the risk of encountering law enforcement that makes it expensive.

Sure, I'd like a world of no guns, but I live in reality. When King Goerge gives it up, then I might think about it...maybe. The thing is, my government can't take my tax money and go bomb thousands of innocents, then turn around and say I can't have a gun. They obviously cannot be trusted. Why would I disarm, unless they are forcing me to?

A gun never kills anybody. It is an inanimate object. Only a psycho would use them in the way that the VT shooter did, or in the way that Uncle Sam does. Crazy folks not only own guns, but they run the country.

I'm against crazy folks. Turning over weapons to them will not happen.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Cho, rather than CHO, which sound like Chief Health Officer, is Seung-Hui Cho, the South Korean gun wielder.

Talking of which:

"On the other hand, if CHO comes to my door with two guns, and I too have a gun, CHO is done."

In what way is he done? His two guns will outshoot your one. Guns breed guns, there's no end to it. When did you last hear of a European school massacre?

[Mr. Average]

Having a weapon is meaningless unless no one else around has a weapon and you wish to shoot people.

Knowing how to properly use a weapon, whether a gun, knife, long sword, or a garret is meaningful.

God Bless Europe for the record on school shootings. But there are plently of violent gun crimes commited in Europe, no?

[Jackson Monk]

Cho, rather than CHO, which sound like Chief Health Officer, is Seung-Hui Cho, the South Korean gun wielder.

Talking of which:

"On the other hand, if CHO comes to my door with two guns, and I too have a gun, CHO is done."

In what way is he done? His two guns will outshoot your one. Guns breed guns, there's no end to it. When did you last hear of a European school massacre?

Dunblane in 96 I guess, but it's broader than this. Whilst it is true that gun crime is on the increase here, it appears to be fairly parochial in it's nature (parts of South-east London for example). Gun ownership is not inherent within European culture and certainly I don't know anyone who owns a gun, save from for sporting purposes. Are there many in the States that can say that?

As Otis says, guns breed guns.

[alexv]

I don't know anybody who owns a gun, and I get around. Wait, there is this arch conservative guy who works with me who likes "huntin". I'm pretty sure he owns a gun, and that he'd love few things better than getting the chance to use it on selective humans, but I've never talked to the guy. Creepy dude.

Jackson, when you say that "gun ownership is not inherent within European culture" I think you mean to say that in Europe (and you probably are thinking of western europe), among the liberal thinking folks there is a consensus, today, that guns are bad etc. And I would agree with that (a similar consensus exists among educated folks in the American Northeast).

Before I agree with you that "European culture" is not about guns I'm going to wait a few decades and see how things shake out. The history of Europe and guns is pretty impressive: maybe private citizens have not gotten their hands on many, but their governments over the centuries have used them to kill many more innocent Europeans than American gun users have used to kill innocent North Americans. Oh, and before we bring up the slaughter of Native Americans, let's remember that Europeans carried that out too.

I am a proponent of gun control, but come to think of it if European citizens had had access to more weaponry maybe some of their government sponsored mayhem could have been stopped.

As to why we have all these random massacres in the US and not in Europe, or the rest of the world for that matter, keener minds than mine will have to figure that out. My guess is that it's not about rampant gun ownership, and that it has to do with our heritage: a big, empty continent peopled, primarily, by European dissenters and cast-offs from Europe and the rest of the world, with unbounded possibility and freedom, and few social constraints that in Europe and elsewhere have been used effectively over the centuries to keep folks in their place; a nation where the mantra is that anyone can do anything (fairly accurate, by the way). It's ideal fodder for an aggressive, action-oriented lifestyle that, in the hands of the society's losers who have the money to buy guns, places that sell them, and plenty of free time, can lead to disaster. That's my educated guess.

[bambooneedle]

Oh, and before we bring up the slaughter of Native Americans, let's remember that Europeans carried that out too.

[Emotional Toothpaste]

I have a lot of good friends who own guns. Most are hunters and own rifles, not handguns. I'm not opposed to guns at all, I just don't find the need to own one for purposes of mine or my families safety. And I would worry about having one hidden in the house with kids around, no matter how well hidden I have it.

I do think there needs to be improvement in the gun laws here. For example, how come it takes me ALL DAY, running around to get my vehicle license plates/tags renewed on a YEARLY basis (safety inspections, emissions inspection, and bring a pile of various documents to the license bureau, where if you have forgotten one item or it is slightly askew, you are kicked out of the long line that you just waited 45 minutes in). Seems to me, if we have that level of bureaucracy of hoops you jump through for a car, there should at least be as much to own a gun. They need to make it a pain in the ass to own a gun.

[bambooneedle]

They need to make it a pain in the ass to own a gun.

Well perhaps as long as guns are legal just what you shoot with them can be regulated -- eg. you can have a license for shooting rubber bullets for the first five years and then, having proved you are not an irresponsible person who just shoots for no good reason, you get to graduate to real bullets... just a thought. Criminals breaking into your house wouldn't know if you have real bullets in your gun or not. Stun guns could figure as well.

Btw, when I was kid my dad promised me he'd buy me a Winchester 73 when I grew up and we'd go hunting. It never happened. Back in Spain he used to hunt wild hares.