Are all hippies anti-gun?

It also persecuted a lot of my ancestors....SO WHAT ???

 

http://www.mcsm.org/moreuse.html

Gunpoint confrontations in which armed private citizens turn the tables on violent criminals occur with explosive swiftness hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times each day in the United States.

This guerrilla shooting war is almost invisible to the public, experts say, because combatants on both sides have qualms about publicity. Its biggest victories prevent serious crimes and don't seem newsworthy one at a time.

The loud public battles focus on how often citizens fight back, and how dangerous it is to defend themselves. Opponents at the extremes of the debate cite estimates that guns are used in self-defense from 180 times a day to once every 13 seconds, a breath-taking number even to the National Rifle Association, which culls a handful of such stories for its monthly magazine feature, "The Armed Citizen."

Whatever the total of potential victims who actually halt crimes with their own guns -- a surprising number of them young women with babes in arms -- they are a quickly growing lot and convinced that they're doing the right thing. Among them: A pair of elderly grandmothers in snowbound Moses Lake, Ore., who repelled an attack by four men at home; an Apache Junction, Ariz., church deacon who wounded an armed robber in his church; and a Bangor, Maine, man who shot a robber in his front hallway after being slashed with a knife.

They are people who believe it's better to have a gun and not need it than to need one and not have it. "I'd do it again in the same situation. I felt we were probably going to get raped and murdered and whatever. I've still got two shotguns," Marty A. Killinger, 64, said in an interview this week from the Oregon home she defended with fellow "pistol-packing grandma" Dorothy Cunningham, 78.

"If you're not willing to defend yourself or your family, you're just going to be a dead gun owner instead of somebody who is alive and safe," said Phoenix apartment manager Rory Vertigan, 27, whom the National Rifle Association invited to Saturday's Denver convention for standing up to three heavily armed men who murdered a police officer.

 

Im wasting my breath on an idiot.....hope your never the victim of a home invasion ..youll find out just how much your words are worth then !!!!!

 

A constitution that did allow women to vote would've never passed.

 

well as long as we're perhapsing why not a hundred million?More progun experts as worthless as an anti gun expert.You're better off reading the daily press and making your own ststistics.Like i've said before,Google gives unbiased randem examples.

 

In my measly 50 years with all the places i've lived,i have never been in such a situation.i'm not sweating it.

 

Why bother we've both agreed that both sides are biased

 

O.K. i read it,more tit for tat.i could post many about senseless gun deaths.You know that,but it only takes up web space on paranoid ears.

 

twisted words besides like i said read the daily news.More senseless deaths than self defense.

 

or any other legitimate sources cause the stories are not there in the same numbers.Get past the headlines

 

possibly,estimates,probably

 

cause they don't follow the news and they're making up their side.

 

ok gate68,say all the honest home owners were to turn their guns in, how do you propose the gov. see that every single weapon on the street is confiscated? You know that would be impossible !! Then you would have the criminals be the ones with the weapons, how would you protect those people who turned in their guns ? You admitted that youve never been the victim of a crime..so what makes you think you have the right to tell poeple that they should not protect themselves however they see fit ???!!!!!

 

I lived on the streets of San Diego, HOMELESS, ok...I know people who didnt have a weapon who were JACKED for the blanket they had...I SEEN whats you there in the real world...not the fairy tale you live in...people get killed ...ok...Im not paranoid, im just making sure that me and mine are safe. walk in my shoes awhile ..THEN talk your trash !!!!!!!

 

I will continue to pray for your safety...

 

i lived in a treehouse in solana beach,homeless ok.Were you homeless and armed?Maybe we should pass out guns to all the homeless?You could have gone to people's food for a free blanket and clothes.How did you end up in San Diego?It's almost as dangerous as Disneyland.

 

Look...If Im wrong Ill take care of it in my next life, thats between me and my maker.
Im not out to hurt anyone..I keep to myself, Im not attacking you, I just stated my opinion. I wont post here again....good luck to you

 

accepting and admitting are two different words,besides the coalition for what?They don't speak for me,Who speaks for you?

 

i just killed a hundred people,if i'm wrong they're still dead

 

Marijuana Arrests at All-Time High, Far Exceed Violent Crime Arrests [size=-2]10/29/04 [/size]


[size=-1]The FBI reported Saturday that the number of arrests for violations of the marijuana laws hit an all-time high of 755,186 in 2003. Despite a decade of marijuana law reforms and protestations by police chiefs across the land that marijuana is not a priority, that figure is nearly double the number of people arrested for pot in 1993. The number of people arrested on marijuana charges last year also exceeds the number arrested for violent crimes by more than 150,000.[/size]

[size=-1]With only a couple of hiccups, the number of people arrested on marijuana charges has trended steadily upward in the past decade, no matter which party controls the levers of government. The previous peak of 735,500 was recorded in 2000, with 724,000 arrested in 2001 and 697,000 in 2002.[/size]

[size=-1]To illustrate the scope of the problem, the number of those arrested for marijuana is more than the entire population of the state of South Dakota (pop. 754,844). Or, for those for whom it is too easy to picture South Dakota as a empty wasteland, the number of pot arrests is greater than the populations of San Francisco (pop. 751,682), Jacksonville (pop. 735,617), or Columbus (pop. 711,470).[/size]

[size=-1]As has been the case in past years, the vast majority of marijuana arrests -- some 88% -- were for simple possession. Arrests for marijuana offenses constituted a whopping 45% of all drug arrests.[/size]

[size=-1]The numbers appeared in the FBI's annual Uniform Crime Report and were grist for the mill for pro-reform organizations. "With marijuana arrests exceeding 750,000 a year, it's safe to say that the drug war isn't preventing people from using marijuana," said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project (http://www.mpp.org) in Washington, DC. "It's time to acknowledge this reality by taxing and regulating marijuana. A responsible system of regulation will do a better job of keeping marijuana away from kids and end the pointless persecution of adults who use marijuana responsibly."[/size]

[size=-1]"These numbers belie the myth that police do not target and arrest minor marijuana offenders," said Keith Stroup, Executive Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (http://www.norml.org), who noted that at current rates, a marijuana smoker is arrested every 42 seconds in America. "This effort is a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources, costing American taxpayers approximately $7.6 billion dollars annually. These dollars would be better served combating serious and violent crime, including the war on terrorism."[/size]

[size=-1]While simple marijuana possession offenses typically draw light punishment, such as fines or suspended sentences, except in the most conservative or rural jurisdictions, the consequences of a marijuana arrest or conviction go far beyond having to pay a fine or submit to probationary drug testing. "Some people are lucky and just get a slap on the wrist," said Bruce Mirken, MPP director of communications. "But we also have horrifying cases like that of Jonathan Magbie, who died in the Washington, DC, jail earlier this month while serving a 10-day marijuana sentence. Or the young man in Florida who was raped in jail while serving a weekend sentence for a minor marijuana violation. One case like either of those is one case too many," he told DRCNet. "There is simply no rational reason why we should subject people to that sort of risk for private adult responsible use of a substance that is well-documented to be less harmful than alcohol."[/size]

[size=-1]While horror stories like that of Jonathan Magbie are thankfully the exception rather than the rule, everyone convicted of a marijuana crime is subject to a raft of continuing punishments beyond those exacted by the criminal justice system. "It can literally haunt them for the rest of their lives," said Mirken. "They lose access to federal benefits, they lose job opportunities because of the arrest record, they can't get student loans." According to the US Department of Education, over 150,000 college students or would-be students have lost access to federal financial aid because of drug crimes, the vast majority of them for simple marijuana possession.[/size]

[size=-1]"The bottom line," said Mirken, "is that none of this makes any sense. Even if people think we should be trying to curb marijuana use, arresting all these people hasn't done that, either."[/size]

[size=-1]While some 662,886 people were charged with simple marijuana possession, an additional 92,301 were charged with the more serious offense of "sale/manufacture." That number includes all those arrested for selling or growing marijuana, even those who were growing for their own use or for medical reasons.[/size]

[size=-1]While marijuana arrests are a large part of the drug war, they are by no means all of it. According to the FBI, nearly a million (923,006) people were arrested on other drug charges, with the vast majority of those being for simple possession. The Uniform Crime Report notes that the overall trend in all drug arrests is up 22% since 1994.[/size]

[size=-1]The number of drug arrests in 2003 (1,678,192) was greater than for any other major crime category. All property crimes combined totaled 1,605,127 arrests, while all violent crimes combined totaled 597,026. The number of drug arrests was also greater than the number of driving while intoxicated arrests (1,448,148) or the seemingly popular offense of simple assault (1,246,698). Drug arrests made up 12.3% of all arrests nationwide.[/size]

[size=-1]To read the FBI's 2003 Uniform Crime Report, visit http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/03cius.htm online.[/size]

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