second amendment threatened!

Yes, and a shotgun is NOT what defense experts recommend for clearing or defending a home. A shotgun carried around a house will have to be pointed up at the ceiling or down at the floor as you round corners or else it will precede you and give your position/approach away to an aggressor. Bad idea. And if you're avoiding leading with the muzzle, you will not have a chance to bring that muzzle on target when you need to, if the aggressor rushes you.

A handgun can be used in such a way that it does not have to precede you around corners but can still be pointed toward the threat. It requires only one hand to use, whereas the shotgun requires two. (Yes, optimally you use two hands on the handgun, but you CAN use only one, and you CANNOT use the shotgun with only one.) With the handgun you can fend off a close-quarters threat while retaining the weapon and firing it.

A shotgun is NOT -- especially in close-quarters home use -- a gun that will hit a target no matter how poorly you aim. YOU STILL HAVE TO AIM A SHOTGUN, because the spread in a room that is maybe 25 feet long is NOT as much as you THINK it is. It is not "hard to miss" with a shotgun.

No one said that if you didn't use a shotgun, your only alternative was a .357 magnum with ball ammo, dude. There are LOTS of handguns out there that are ideal for home defense. Throw a SureFire X300 light on a Glock 22 with 15+1 rounds of .40 HydraShok in it. PRESTO! GREAT home defense gun. See, hollow-point ammunition is designed for non-overpenetration. Do you really think that 00 Buckshot is guaranteed to not go through sheetrock to your daughter's bedroom? Come on.

 

Name the last three times that ACTUAL automatic weapons were used in the commission of a crime in the U.S., please.

Then specify whether they were owned within the law or outside the law.

So if you make it "harder to get" them, what would change? The crimes committed with automatic weapons are so infinitesimally scarce already, and the ones that do occur are committed with guns that were already illegally owned.

No, what's common sense is that when GOOD people are forbidden to own guns, the BAD people--who keep their guns no matter what the law says-- then know that everyone is disarmed and easy to vanquish. So they do: just like in merry old England, whose crime has gone up by a factor of several hundreds of percent since their 1997 all-out firearms ban.

What a foolish thing to say. Have you not read of the repeated instances of people killing half a dozen or more innocent victims with SWORDS and KNIVES? It happens in China and Japan where there is "gun control."

Only FOOLS believe that if you take guns out of the equation, but leave the criminals and psychos to remain, you will stop violence. A gun left in a room full of people who are not violent will hurt no one. A psycho in a room without a gun will still hurt people. Get a fuckin' clue.

 

"Sporting purpose" is not a test of Constitutionality.
The 2nd Amendment does not stipulate that protected firearms must be used for hunting or target plinking.

In other words, you just want to fuck with people who wish to keep a gun for self defense, and make that impossible. You'd rather we all be a bunch of castrated pussies dependent on Obama's government and police to save us from bad people.

You are obviously one of the uneducated suckers who has been made to think that there is some simple drop-in "conversion kit" to make common semi-automatic rifles into fully-automatic ones. Forget about the fact that fully-automatic rifles are really not any more dangerous than semis. In fact, they blow through ammunition and fire without very good aim, so a competent shooter with a semi-auto is far more effective at killing people in combat. But you obviously don't know that it takes MILLING and MACHINING to turn a typical semi-auto rifle into an auto. Lack of facts does not stop you from pontificating, though.

And yet, you articulate no practical reason why that is.

Today, almost 300,000,000 firearms did not cause anyone any harm in the U.S. If your recommendations are so necessary, explain that.

 

You see importance in "sporting and tradition" but don't see legitimacy in people being able to defend their LIVES?

You are truly of a very fucked up set of values.

 

Why doesn't he?

Because he is not the one trying to proscribe certain guns to be forbidden!

YOU are the one claiming that certain guns should not be allowed to be owned; and then you won't give a clear definition of which guns fit the category for banning.

If he stipulated a bunch of guns that are "designed for combat," does that mean that no one could walk up and kill you with a shot in the head from a .22 Derringer? Why are people like you always acting as though people can't be killed with the guns that the psychotic deluded left-wing nutjobs would leave out of a ban?

I'm pleased that you don't argue for a ban on pocket knives. Are you ok with "assisted opening" knives? Or do you get hung up about how quickly a knife can be clicked open, as though that has anything to do with whether it can cause harm once opened?

 

I can't tell you how many articles I've seen with this same conclusion about home protection firearm choice.

Further, I try not to suffer from "wanna-be warrior" disease. These are the morons who have never been in combat, yet think that they will have the presence of mind and calm nerves to handle a handgun at 3 am with an intruder in the house. Give me a freaking break! Every guy I meet with a handgun swears he's a badass who won't have trouble aiming in the heat of the moment. Bullshit.

Not to mention, I expect to hold a room, and stay put, or I expect to control an intruder from a distance while my dog does the mauling. I'm not going to stalk someone around my house. I'm not a ninja.

 

Perhaps if you could take some time away from thinking up personal attacks for those who disagree with you, you could read the whole thread. I clearly stated that crime rates will not rise or fall based on gun ownership. It's a bullshit argument based on correlation used equally badly by both sides of this debate.

More cops = less crime. Short of having a culture that abhors violence and controls it effectively, there is no other way. The argument for gun control is not that it will result in a non-violent utopia. What I seek is some kind of definition that separates the firearms that pose excessive risk from those that pose an acceptable risk, without regard to whether or not some aficionados are using them responsibly.

 

That's why practice is key. I have a concealed carry permit in Minnesota and had to go through a course over several days to qualify for it besides the background checks and sheriff's approval. It has to be renewed with another class yearly. You practice and train so everything becomes second nature instead of blindly firing. I have several handguns, a shotgun and a "black gun" which I have been trained to use as does my husband. Firearms carry responsibilities and more people need to be trained well.

"You know why I carry a gun? Cause cops are too damn heavy!"

 

Do you really think a class once a year is going to see you through the massive rush of chemicals released by your brain in a circumstance requiring you to use a gun for protection? You must be superhuman.

I'm not.

Even well trained police officers make mistakes. Your own overconfidence would be scary, but for the fact that you are extremely unlikely to ever need your gun at home.

 

No, I had said that you must continue to train throughout the year. I am trained by an instructor for the SWAT teams in the state. My husband used to be a police officer. The training includes scenarios of actual attacks and ways to defend. I feel that is the only way to be competent when defending yourself with a firearm.

As for not needing a gun to defend my home, there are armed home invasions in the Twin Cities area almost every day. The odds are low for me but I see it on the local news all the time.

 

You don't have any idea what someone will or will not be like "in the heat of the moment." So YOU are the one who is full of bullshit, making predictions about people's performance under stress. You don't know with any more certainty that they'll fuck up than they do that they'll do well, yet here you are calling "bullshit" on their confidence in themselves.

If I didn't feel you were not worth the time, I would research a handful of examples of people who DID handle a handgun successfully and with adequate calm to get the job done at 3 a.m. with an intruder in the house.

YOU seem to be the real moron, here. You are condemning in a broad way anyone who thinks he can use a handgun for home defense, implying that anyone who thinks so is a wannabe-warrior who will screw up. Tell that to the myriad people who have gotten the job done. Why not go look up the "Armed Citizen" archives at the NRA's website if you don't believe it?

There's nothing wrong with remaining in a strong position and calling police while you watch the door with your gun trained on it. No one said clearing a house in the dark with adrenaline coursing through you was easy or safe. So stay put and hold the room, sure--but what if you have kids in other bedrooms?

Oh, I guess you thought you'd thought of everything.

 

More cops equal less crime only if we employ them as a resource to get more criminals off the streets once they've committed crimes, and then use further resources (more prosecutors, more judges, more courts, more prisons, more prison guards) to keep them away from the public, and for a long time. (Liberals simply won't support or do this.) Cops don't stand as physical barriers to crimes being committed. We know this because there have been instances of people being murdered right across the street from a police station. One woman was murdered by her psycho estranged husband down here in Florida only a few months ago even though she was on the phone with 911 at the time. She was driving around trying to find a police precinct as though it was a sanctuary, as though once on the grounds she was "safe" like in a game of Running Bases. She got there, the crazy ex got there behind her (he was pursuing her during her call to the police) and he shot her to death in the police station parking lot.

Don't tell me that "more police" will somehow prevent crime unless you lay out how that will work in a practical sense. Here's your chance: I'm asking you to explain it.

Besides, you have yet to explain or clarify the border between guns you find acceptable and guns you find unacceptable for ownership, and why the acceptable ones would be acceptable since they'd still fire bullets. What I've read so far indicates that you would allow us "3 rounds," which means that no only would you forbid ALL semi-automatics, you would even force us to give up ALL REVOLVERS. (Most gun control nuts don't go near to saying that revolvers are evil and would have to be confiscated; they just condemn those evil semi-autos.)

 

Explain why newspapers and online archives are full of people successfully doing what you SWEAR cannot be done by any less than a SUPERHUMAN specimen.

Besides, if we shouldn't bother with a gun because we can't possibly defend ourselves properly with it, aren't you saying we're essentially screwed if the criminal targets our house? The criminal is an unopposable force, in your paradigm. Better hope he doesn't pick your house, because if he does, you can't possibly hope to hold your shit together and vanquish him. You'll turn into a blubbering, quaking fool who can't hold, aim, or fire a handgun. You'd better just call 911 and beg the operator and the attacker for mercy.

Me, I think you Maryjohn, are simply projecting your own feelings of inadequacy onto everyone else despite our protestations that we're plenty adequate.

Here, have at it! You should be able to find a few cases that disprove your ridiculous belief.

Aww, what the hell, I'll make it easy for you. Are all of these folks supermen? (and superwomen?)

 

Stories of success or failure protecting yourself with a gun are anecdotal evidence, not science.

Disclaimer: I don't care about gun ownership one way or another. I don't have guns in my home, but I don't care if you do. However, the data shows it is more dangerous to have them than not to have them.

Here's part of a report from the University of Pennsylvania:

If you keep a gun in your home, you dramatically increase the odds that you will die of a gunshot wound, according to research published in the June issue of the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

"Keeping guns at home is dangerous for adults regardless of age, sex, or race," said Douglas J. Wiebe, PhD, instructor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and a fellow at Penn's Firearm Injury Center. Wiebe led the study by the Violence Prevention Research Group at the University of California at Los Angeles before moving to Penn.

Wiebe's study found that people with a gun in their home were almost twice as likely to die in a gun-related homicide, and 16 times more likely to use a gun to commit suicide, than people without a gun in their home. The findings support widely debated studies published a decade ago in the New England Journal of Medicine that also link the presence of a gun in the house with increased rates of suicide and death by homicide.

http://www.upenn.edu/researchatpenn/article.php?678&hlt

 

Not to beat it to death (or shoot it), but the New England Journal of Medicine pulblished this report in April, 2008 on U.S. gun ownership laws. Great article. And a great map to illustrate how less regulation of guns correlates with more gun violence.

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMp0800859

Policies limiting gun ownership and use have positive effects, whether those limits affect high-risk guns such as assault weapons or Saturday night specials, high-risk persons such as those who have been convicted of violent misdemeanors, or high-risk venues such as gun shows. New York and Chicago, which have long restricted handgun ownership and use, had fewer homicides in 2007 than at any other time since the early 1960s. Conversely, policies that encourage the use of guns have been ineffective in deterring violence. Permissive policies regarding carrying guns have not reduced crime rates, and permissive states generally have higher rates of gun-related deaths than others do.

 

wow, ok, you are the real deal.

People like you should have permits.

I'm really not talking about people like you though.

 

You are citing "research" that has been long debunked. It's preposterous.

How does this claim of yours account for the fact that the U.S. has over 80,000,000 gun owners with over 300,000,000 guns??! Even if every single one of the 30,000 annual deaths by gunfire was an individual criminal act committed against a person in some way related to their keeping a gun in the home, it would still be a tiny tiny percentage. Statistically minimal and insignificant. (Not to minimize the harm of even a single person being murdered, but I hope you understand my point.)

If it was suuuuuch a danger to keep a gun in the home, why do we not hear sooooo much about sooooo many people getting killed in a way that relates to their keeping a gun in the home? As it is, firearm accidental deaths are at all-time lows and growing lower.

The attempts at correlation made by such "studies" are usually just complete bullshit. These are the kinds of studies that stretch the use of terms like "loved ones" or "acquaintances"; the kinds that use the term "children" to describe anyone up to age 21 or 25. When you pick up on stuff like that, you know you can pretty much throw out whatever they claim to have concluded.

These claims are as valid as noting that within the week prior to their deaths, the victims wore pants, so if you avoid wearing pants you will not end up dead within a week of having worn pants--as though that could save you from simply ending up dead no matter what you wore.

So a gun owner is 16 times more like to use a gun to commit suicide, but so what? The non-gun-owner is not said here to not commit suicide; the only valid conclusion that can be drawn is that the non-gun-owner, when he commits suicide, uses something other than a gun. It does not say that the non-gun-owner is 16 times less likely to commit suicide period.

But that's the conclusion that the anti-gun biased authors want you to draw.

By all means, if you go in for this conclusion, don't get yourself a gun. No one says you have to. I believe that you are more at risk if you don't have the means of protecting yourself than if you do have the means--you can always opt to not use a gun that you do have, but you cannot opt to use a gun that you don't have. But please, don't foist flawed, idiotic and biased "studies" on us like they mean something valid.

 

Do you even understand how ludicrous that claim is, given that this country (and various states) have seen DECREASES in gun violence even though in every single year, several million more guns go into private hands?

How on earth can you say that "more guns equals more crime" when every year there are a few million more guns out there, and decreasing crime rates? If your correlation were true, there would have to be INCREASING crime rates, since there has never been a year in which the number of privately owned guns has ever decreased from the year prior.

The fact that the gun-related death rate still hovers around 30,000 a year (which includes murders, justifiable homices [defensive gun uses], cops shooting bad-guys, and suicides) is disproof of your ridiculous claim. Besides, in England, gun-related death went UP after they banned and confiscated all the registered guns in the country. Go figure.

 

It would be nice if we knew to whom you were directing that post.
Help?

And I am curious--regardless of who you are saying is OK to have a permit, I thought you said that even the guns of permitted folks should have a maximum capacity of 3 rounds... Are you still holding to that?

 

data please.