See, even your use of terminology (assault rifle, submachine gun) is an attempt to paint me as some kind of whacko. No one is a perfect marksman, not even I and I'd much rather confront an intruder on my property with a Glock with 9 rounds of .45 and an AR-15 with 30 rounds than be forced to confront a gang of predators intent upon depriving me of life and liberty with a bolt-action and a slow-firing revolver. My point is that a ban will not stop at semi-autos. It will roll onward inexorably until you have disarmed every single American. Come out and admit that is what you support. Quit trying to hide it in a cloak of "sensible" safety measures.
Fine by me. But though I'm no expert. I believe there probably is a fairly bright line technical difference between the two. In addition, I gather its probably far easier for an untrained shooter to kill your victim/innocent bystanders with an Uzi than with a Six-shooter, no?
uh huh. And how often do you confront gangs of predators en masse at the bamaslammer homestead? Nightly? Weekly? Monthly?
It could happen. You never know what can happen in our crazy world. Better safe than sorry. And you just proved my point above. Ban it all, you say! AT least you are honest.
here is a fact that pro-gun people will ignore when they throw out the "if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns" BS most illegal guns start out as legal guns thats right, most guns start life as a legal purchase...then they are stolen or sold, where they turn up on the black market there are over 300,000 guns reported stolen each year part of the reason why there are so many illegal guns is because there are lots of legal guns being sold ! if you make getting a legal gun harder, that makes the blackmarket prices go up HeeHaw - I don't secertly want to ban all guns, no matter what you may think...but there is no reason why it shouldn't be a lot harder to get a gun. Even you should be willing to make that sacrifice for the public good. Do you just not see a problem with guns in our society? Do you think that nothing should be done and in fact that it should be easier to get a gun? we need to have a national database and registration of all firearms and ammunition we need more education on gun saftey we need harsher jail terms for criminals who use a gun we need instant background checks on people attempting to buy guns or ammunition we need more and better education for our children because the odds go way down of you commiting a violent crime the "better off" you are and education is the key to lifting yourself out of poverty...investing more in our children's education will make our society a safer place
That is the biggest bunch of naive pap I've ever read. Reminds me of this quote here: -From Billy Madison
Yeah, gun safety education, harsher sentences for criminals who use guns, and making sure that felons aren't purchasing guns sure is some naive pap. I hope none of your children are killed by a criminal who received a light sentence and was able to buy a gun without a background check.
Just got back from shooting my CX4 at Carter's...It is unbelievably accurate, and yes I used 30 round pre-ban magazines with no fear... gun safety, gun education is fine, and harsher sentences is something I believe in and accept...My 5 year old and 3 1/2 year old already know not to touch Daddy's guns, and I take necessary precautions accompanied with plain common sense and responsibility, but it's evident the anti-gunners who DO want outright ban will twist and mascarade safety and education issues,...and that is wrong, misleading and a fact of discontent by those who cherish the 2nd amendment rights...
We already have tough mandatory sentencing laws on the books. We already have stringent background checks and yet, it is never enough. The NRA spends a ton of money on gun safety. I don't have a problem with background checks, but when it comes down to it, these are not intended to make society "safer." Their intent is to make it more difficult and burdensome for people to defend themselves in a ploy to eventually have guns registered with the govt and eventually confiscated. Guns are just a tool. If children are taught to respect them, they will do so. My children have had their curiosity removed and they know a set standard of rules I laid down about them or else the consequences are severe and immediate. My kids have been raised shooting BB-guns and such and eventually, they will move up to conventional firearms. An armed society is a safer society. I mean common sense would tell you that even if only 1 out of 20 folks were carrying concealed weapons and criminals knew of that, would there not be less crime? They could not take the chance that a victim was not packing heat. But yet you people cry "what about the children" in an attempt to disarm society, which would not disarm the criminal populace (bad). I wish we lived in a crime-free society, but humans can not be perfected from without. There will always be crime and until there is no crime, there should be a right to self defense against both criminals and an oppressive govt.
UK Firearm statistics Offences recorded by the police in which firearms were reported to have been used 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998-99 1999-00 2000-01 UK: 15,985 15,730 16,177 14,424 15,778 18,716 19,457 link Notice a spike? In 1997, the UK govt. banned handguns above .22 caliber and restricted other weapons to gun clubs. Coicidence? I hardly think so. link
"Whites ran in fear to the suburbs, and once in the suburbs, still afraid, they bought millions and millions of guns!"
bama, Thanks for posting those stats. But how does that compare to the US? Are there more or less offenses committed in the US using firearms than what was done in England?
The Effects of the Ban on Crime The agencies responsible for reporting crime and recordable statistics associated with crime agree. Crime rates have not improved as a result of the 1994 ban, nor could they be expected to, given the infrequency in which these firearms are used in crime. Supporters of the ban present statistics that they claim show the ban "works". From bradycampaign.org: In 1999, the National Institute of Justice reported that trace requests for assault weapons declined 20% in the first calendar year after the ban took effect, dropping from 4,077 in 1994 to 3,268 in 1995. Over the same time period, gun murders declined only 10% and trace requests for all types of guns declined 11 percent, clearly showing a greater decrease in the number of assault weapons traced in crime. It should be noted that, even though the above paragraph stealthily attempts to imply that the ban reduced crime, if you read it carefully, you see that this is not the case (more on this below). Brady Campaign also fails to mention the wealth of other very significant information present in this same report that all but invalidates their assertion. For example, with regards to the accuracy of using BATF, the report states: These data are limited because police agencies do not submit a trace request on every gun they confiscate. Many agencies submit very few requests to BATF, particularly in States that maintain gun sales databases (such as California). Therefore, tracing data are a biased sample of guns recovered by police. Prior studies suggest that assault weapons are more likely to be submitted for tracing than are other confiscated firearms. [emphasis added] In other words, law enforcement agencies submit trace requests on only a small percentage of firearms used in crime, and the unique appearance of "assault weapons" makes them much more likely to be submitted for a BATF trace compared to, say, a common revolver. So, according to this report, BATF trace data is not valid for this type of study. But, because it is the only available national statistic on types of guns used in crime, the researchers had little choice but to use it (with the disclaimer quote above, conveniently omitted by gun control advocates). Furthermore, consider the following: ...it appears that, at least in the short term, the grandfathered assault weapons remained largely in dealers’ and collectors’ inventories instead of leaking into the secondary markets through which criminals tend to obtain guns... offenders could replace the banned guns with legal substitutes or other unbanned semiautomatic weapons to commit their crimes. This is a critical point that completely offsets Brady's assertion that the ban has had any effect on gun-related crime. Grandfathered firearms (known as "pre-bans") cost significantly more than their "post-ban" near-equivalents; in some cases, new-in-box or mint condition pre-ban AR-15 style rifles can sell for more than double the retail price of post-bans (which aren't exactly cheap either). Disregarding the inaccuracy of trace requests as a reliable statistic, common sense says a decrease in the use of these particular firearms in crime is exactly what would be expected. Why would a criminal go through the hassle and expense of trying to obtain a banned "assault weapon" if there were plenty of other guns that would do the job just as well and were freely available? and, of course, on top of all this, "assault weapons" were very rarely used in crime even before the ban. Here is an analogy to help illustrate this point. Suppose an organization decides it does not like people driving, for example, Honda Civics that have all sorts of radical body modifications and attachments (spoiliers, front scoops, etc.), giving these cars a sporty, racy look. While these features are primarily cosmetic in nature, some people just don't like the way these cars look, feeling that only the most reckless and irresponsible drivers own them, and manage to get the local government to ban the manufacture of any new automobile with a race car-like appearance. This ban has the effect of turning these cars into collector's items virtually overnight, and prices skyrocket. Because of this, and because no new ones are being produced, there are not nearly as many of them available to the average person... most are securely locked away in collectors' garages. After a few years, the group that called for the ban gathers statistics on speeding tickets and accidents, which naturally reflect the effect of the ban, showing a reduced number of traffic citations issued to drivers of these cars, though not necessarily an overall reduction in citations. The group claims victory, citing the reduction in traffic violations for this particular style of car, but ignores the fact that the small number of bad drivers who previously drove the cosmetically incorrect cars now simply drive other cars (and do so just as recklessly). The overall violation rate remains the same as it would have without the ban. But by selectively taking a very small part of the statistics out of context, the organization attempts to manipulate the masses into believing the legislation had a positive effect on public safety, when it has actually had virtually no detectable effect at all. The N.I.J. report cited by Brady also makes quite a few other significant points, such as: "A number of factors—including the fact that the banned weapons and magazines were rarely used to commit murders in this country...posed challenges in discerning the effects of the ban." [emphasis added] "...about half the banned makes and models were rifles, which are hard to conceal for criminal use." "...the banned guns are used in only a small fraction of gun crimes; even before the ban, most of them rarely turned up in law enforcement agencies’ requests to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) to trace the sales histories of guns recovered in criminal investigations." [emphasis added] "...other analyses using a variety of national and local data sources found no clear ban effects on certain types of murders that were thought to be more closely associated with the rapid-fire features of assault weapons and other semiautomatics equipped with large capacity magazines. The ban did not produce declines in the average number of victims per incident of gun murder or gun murder victims with multiple wounds." [emphasis added] "There were several reasons to expect, at best, a modest ban effect on criminal gun injuries and deaths. First, studies before the ban generally found that between less than 1 and 8 percent of gun crimes involved assault weapons, depending on the specific definition and data source used." [emphasis added] "Murders of police by offenders armed with assault weapons declined from an estimated 16 percent of gun murders of police in 1994 and early 1995 to 0 percent in the latter half of 1995 and early 1996. However, such incidents are sufficiently rare that the available data do not permit a reliable assessment of whether this contributed to a general reduction in gun murders of police." "Given the limited use of the banned guns and magazines in gun crimes, even the maximum theoretically achievable preventive effect of the ban on outcomes such as the gun murder rate is almost certainly too small to detect statistically..." [emphasis added] "The public safety benefits of the 1994 ban have not yet been demonstrated." This report, despite being sponsored by Federal government during the Clinton administration, clearly presents significantly more evidence that proves why the ban should not be renewed than it does supporting the ban. Summary It would seem then that the only folks affected by this silly bit of legislation are the honest, law-abiding citizens who own guns. Given the gun control objective of disarming citizens, we must now draw the line in the sand and state unequivocally, “Not my rights, not again!”
You find this hilarious? Was England not the "powerful military every assembled" at the time of the Revolutionary? (ok, maybe not most powerful) The Right to Bear arms was not meant for muskets and cannons only. Our forefathers were not as foolish to think we would not have developed more sophisticated weapons over time. The whole constitution was left open, allowing admendments.
To a certain extent that's true but you also have to consider the nature of the 2nd Ammendment. Here's the complete text since I don't think anyone has posted it. It is not without accident that "well regulated" is there along with "necessary to the security of a free state" it is pretty clear that right to keep and bear arms was only for collective defense Now given that the founders might've have considered that arms would evolve they might not have have foreseen the mechanization or lethality of modern warfare. IMO if they could've foreseen things like tanks, fighters and WMD. They might've rethought that. Otherwise we would have to envision our defense being based on private individuals with tanks and nukes rushing to collectively defend the state when called up. That is why IMO the original intent of the 2nd Ammendment has become an anachronism since the Civil War and the also the founding of permanent National Guard and police forces.
..."the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"... rather infers that keeping and bearing arms is a right for the citizens of the United States and DOES NOT state it is specifically ONLY FOR collective defense... It's not specific and detailed, but I know the true intention that shouldn't be changed is all law-abiding citizens of the United States as "the people"...
Roxran; Except you're ignoring the whole first half of the 2nd Ammendment. You can keep and bear arms but strictly reading the 2nd Ammendment you can only use them under a well regulated militia. Again I would refer you to Federalist Paper 29 where Hamiliton elucidates this. I will try to dig it up and posts some important quotes. Anyway I wasn't saying that the 2nd Ammendment didn't prohibit people from owning arms only that its intent to provide for collectively defense of the States is anachronistic.
