That does it I'm taking my guns and ammo and heading to the hills! They can take my cup of Maxwell House black coffee out of my COLD DEAD HANDS!
Accidental discharges happen about once in a million years and even less with modern firearms in working order. If you are talking about Negligent Discharges then that is the result of operator error and requires a human to be in control of the weapon with it loaded and then pull the trigger.
The right to keep and bear arms was in the Constitution for one purpose- For a free people to be able to protect themselves against their government. This is the basic protection given liberty against tyranny. The framers of the 2 nd Amendment studied this thoroughly to understand how best to avoid the tyrrany and abuse of government found in Europes history. In 1982 the 97th Congress commissioned a bi-partison committee to study the initial purpose for the 2nd Amendment. All views from banning guns/ seizure to the strictest interpretation of the individual right to bear arms are presented. Check it out. link Unfortunately today because of the sophistication of the military and the tremendous firepower and technology of the military there is no protection for the free citizen from government tyranny since the right to bear arms no longer offers such protection. When Military Special Forces or Tanks show up you will give up your guns or you will die. I am not going to buy more guns or ammo. My kids have their 22 rifles and I have my snake gun and my deer rifle, they can come get them when they decide to take them.
Im sure all of that helps. Except the police who can take 5-7 minutes to arrive. If that guy saw you holding a AR15 he would have left the window alot easier. None of this has anything to do with carrying a gun or buy some more before prices go up or bans come.
Sometimes I think some of the posters who start these sort of threads are doing a Ph.D in sociology or something. They will have a counter-argument no matter how weak it is. They will stick to their arugment until the thread gets boring, old, or locked. Something similar to sociologists going to jail on purpose to see how jail life is like or pretending to be homeless to see how homeless life is. Electronic version of those examples anyway.
That is exactly how I post... with weak arguments posting because I am boring and old... all for fun, mostly serious and often thoughtless...
Um... that's not true. It's an NRA talking point that is total BS. For example, in China, where guns are banned, there is virtually no gun violence. We have plenty of problems but people shooting others is not one of them. The self-defense argument has merit... but you shouldn't need more than 11 bullets except in very extreme circumstances (you get jumped by 4 ninjas, how often is that going to happen?) There comes a point when letting people carry more bullets is more dangerous than it helps one defend oneself. Besides, if you love guns so much, why don't you try to use them better? Why don't you go to the firing range and improve your marksmanship? And how the hell is the law going to see who a law-abiding citizen is? What if you let a criminal get extra bullets to kill people with? Sure, they get restricted after their first offense, but if he kills people with his first offense, those people are still dead, aren't they? BTW, I have to comment here about the NRA talking point that people need guns to defend yourself against an oppressive government... if you believe that, this makes you a terrorist and traitor. No government of ANY form would write into its own constitution a provision for its own demise.
I will concede to your superior knowledge of guns in regard to an accidental discharge of a gun going off on its own but I have heard of accidental discharges of weapons being dropped or jostled. If guns where that safe then you wouldn't hear of people getting shot while cleaning when they don't have their hands on the trigger. In regard to the police that's why you try to get out of the house rather than confront the invader. You're forgetting the possibility they could be packing heat too and be a better shot than you. As for the guy who broke into my bedroom even if I had an AR15 sitting loaded by my bedside I still wouldn't have had much time to grab it. This happened in college in my first floor apartment. I was asleep and half woke up and saw this face coming in through my window which happened to be right above me. I bolted up and slugged the guy once and he took off. I shut the window and went back to sleep. I didn't even realize that wasn't a dream until the cops came to my door and told me that my neighbors had saw someone trying to break in and I noticed my knuckles hurt. My point is I don't deny that a gun helps for protection I'm saying its not the end all and should be handled and stored with caution. As far as carrying a gun and buying one I'm actually closer to you on this issue than some others. I think you have a right to own and carry a gun. I have no problem with concealed and carry as long as safeguards are in place that criminals and the mentally ill don't get them. A clip that holds 16 or 11 bullets doesn't make much of a difference to me. An armed and responsible citzenry is fine by me but personally I think its a little paranoid to want to keep military style weapons (fully automatic firearms, armor piercing and /or explosive rounds) around to protect against home invasions. I don't see a massive societal problem crying out government regulation to get the guns out of people's hands neither do I see such criminality to need to be heavily armed. I look at it more as an area where if there isn't a need to regulate then the government shouldn't regulate.
How do you explain Iraq, then? We have quite a few tanks in Iraq right now... how's that going? You need at LEAST a 5-1 ratio to defeat an insurgency. How many soldiers would refuse to kill their own countrymen and go home? There is no way on Earth the U.S. government would win against it's own people. Just imagine Iraq fought here, with 20x the insurgents, defecting soldiers, throw in the ability of an insurgency to strike any number of critical targets here at home. Highways, bridges, shipping lanes, postal service, oil refineries. I could go on forever. The economy would be absolutely destroyed and the military would crumble right behind it.
Ours did! Of course, it was in the 18th century and our country had just been formed by "terrorists and traitors", but they saw that need. Comparing an opening China to 18th Century America is very difficult to say the least.
What is interesting to me is that no one has mentioned what I believe to be the most reliable way to prevent someone from breaking into your house, doing a "home invasion," or coming in when you are asleep, quietly taking your (in CaseyH's case) loaded and unlocked gun, and doing with it what they will. Spend some of that money you might spend on weapons and get a bloody good dog. I haven't lived without a dog big enough to scare the hell out of someone, ferocious sounding enough that someone who heard it would think it even bigger than it is (and I don't have small dogs), and very protective, with the ability to tell friend from foe, and from a distance for many years. They are out there. If someone were stupid enough to attempt to break into my house with my dog raising hell, I would certainly have enough time to unlock and load a pistol, or unlock one that was already loaded. I just don't buy that keeping a loaded, unlocked pistol is a safe thing to do, and the tiny fraction of 1% who might not care that a dog is going to attack them if they are breaking into my home is not sufficient reason to endanger my kids, or accidentally shoot some fool whose drunk, and trying to get into a friend's house in a stupor... an event far more likely than the proverbial mindless "crackhead." Get a freakin' good dog, and practice responsible gun safety. Keep D&D Civil.
Damn straight! I've told stories about The Wonder Dog before on the BBS. He bailed me out of a couple of potentially bad situations at night, when I was going for a walk, (so I like to walk at night... shoot me!) and penned a guy up against a wall that was attempting to harass my wife, until he was told to back off. He backed off, still growling and still showing his gigantic teeth. God, I loved that dog. My wife's allergic to cats, and if she's been allergic to The Wonder Dog when we met, that would have ended it. She'll laugh and say the same thing today. She grew to love him, too, and he would have laid his life down for either one of us. Just a great dog. Keep D&D Civil.
Weird. Hey how could there be gun violence if their were guns. How much street gang violence is there? With big knives in their jackets. Big knife ban time!!!
The gun is in their hands, not just sitting there. They have firing pin blocks to prevent and discharge without first pulling the trigger. Thats a simple matter of human error.
You have an EVIL dog around KIDS? Oh my god!!!! Those things eat kids every day! I hope you keep it with a muzzle on unless it is eating. Ofcourse if there is an intruder you can first take the muzzle off of it.
