Teens With Access To 'Arsenal' Intended To Use Legal Cache For Columine-like Killing

so.....because one wacked out adult and two braindead followers were arrested with weapons we should relinquish our inalienable rights to defend ourselves and our property?

.....not going to happen in our lifetimes, so there is nothing to debate here.

 

I'm still waiting to see what video games the kids play.

I mean, video games are why kids today are so violent, right?

 

No, its Hollywood, remember the 80s?

It sure couldn't be the increasing culture of violence fostered by our own government over the past 30 years, could it?

 

But it is STILL not the (legal) guns that were causing the harm, it was the illegal use of them. This illegal use will be punished and I would be surprised if the owner gets his guns back. We have laws that deal with the illegal uses for guns already, we do not need to ban guns entirely for many of the same reasons that drug and alcohol prohibition is wrong.

The framers of our Constitution thought it was important that Americans keep their right to arms in case the government ever went off the deep end and started trampling on our rights like the British did. I agree with the framers.

An armed society is a polite society. Have you seen the crime stats in states that allow carrying concealed or open handguns?

 

Not at all. If the guns had been secured to the point that the kid couldn't get to them, none of this would have happened.

 

Uh-oh, andymoon's turning into a five-trick pony.

DD will be most upset.

SHEESH!

RM95

 

MacBeth,

It was hard for me to understand why people would need weapons when I was younger until I volunteered for a Bosnian refugee assimilation group.

I was horrified by the stories of innocent families whose entire towns were taken over by the Serbians. They would come in and kill the men or take them to camps and they would rape the women. They were actually ordered to rape the women because it would take away the men's spirit.

We have had weapons available in the US for hundreds of years, this is parental and social problem, not a gun control problem. If a kid wants to kill, he can drive a truck full speed into a huge crowd of people as well, should we outlaw cars??

The rugged individualism and the right to bear arms is why this country could never be taken over by an outside army.

 

At least we agree that the video game argument is not what we should be looking at here. However, it seems obvious that these kids were screwed up in the head. If they couldn't have gotten their hands on guns, do you think they would just say "oh well, let's go volunteer at the hospital"?

I see parallels to some of andymoon's drugs arguments. I think the prohibition of guns would just mean that only the crazy people and criminals are armed. By regulation the gov't can limit some of the more exotic and dangerous drugs/guns, but people still can use most of them.

I want gun control because I don't trust the multitude of idiots out there.
I don't want gun control because I trust the government even less.

 

I frequently make pretty close to the same argument for illegal drugs. My opinion is that prohibition of those substances is more harmful than the substances themselves.

The key is doing everything we can to see that they (drugs or guns) do not get into the hands of the wrong hands, kids being the primary members of the "wrong people" category.

True to a point. But what if W and his boys were able to affect ALL of the changes they have proposed to our government? After that, they might be able to pervert our country to the point that it would take an armed resistance to overcome their power grab. It is unlikely, but not outside the realm of possibility. If so many people were outraged at the government that they might be able to make a good fight, I would prefer that they had guns and weren't simply forced to bend over and take it because we didn't have the intestinal fortitude to keep the Bill of Rights intact.

Nope, could you post a link along with links to the rates in Texas, Arizona, and other states with carry laws?

 

I would not be opposed to new technologies that check biometrics to make sure that the owner is the one doing the firing. I will remain steadfastly opposed to BANNING guns (or, generally, much of anything). Regulation and control is a much better model.

 

The homicide rate in Canada is around 1.75/100,000 as of the year 2000 (http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/011031/d011031b.htm).

The U.S. is currently around 5.7. The U.S. violent crime rate has steadily decreased since 1993.

 

The kids could have just as easily piled into a car and ran people down. Should we ban the cars?

They also had swords & knives. Should we ban blades?

If the father didn't have any guns would the kids not have just gotten them off the street?

For a good look at what happens when guns are banned look into what happened to the crime rate & availability of "street" guns in the UK once they banned them.

In a utopian world I would love to have all guns go the way of the dodo. We do not and will not ever live in such a world. Banning inanimate objects to try and control human rage, passion, and emotion is idiotic. Will banning drugs or alcohol ever stop people from getting messed up or producing the means to get messed up illicitly? No.

BTW, If someone breaks into my home should I just call 911 and wait the 5 or so minutes it takes HPD on average to get to my house? Five minutes! When you have a chance sometime, start a timer to count off to 5 minutes. Now sit there and imagine that you are waiting for the cops - all those minutes - as someone is in your house, probably armed. Your kids are in another room. The only means you have to defend yourself, thanks to gun control advocates, is the phone you just used to call 911. Maybe you can club the intruder over the head with it.

You leave the lives of your loved ones in the hands of poorly paid city workers. I'll take my chances protecting them myself, with my legally owned & constitutionally protected firearm.

 

Here are some state crime statistics from 1999.

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/Cius_99/w99tbl05.xls

The Texas murder rate is 6.1 (may include more deaths than the U.S. homicide statistics). 6.1 is higher than the U.S. average (around 5.7) for 1999.

 

But it's still too strong to say that the guns inspired the crime (or attempted crime). The inspiration was something in these people. Their condition, though, was that they be able to access the guns, in this case.

Many people have conditions to their behavior. Would a man strangle his wife if he thought he could get away with it? Some would, but it isn't the presence of the device to murder (his hands in this case) that inspires the crime. The crime is inspired by something else (whatever the motive may be). It's just that the condition for him to carry through with his desire is the ability to get away with it.

In this case, the desire to commit the crime has nothing to do with the guns per se. They wanted to commit the crime. They decided that the best way to commit the crime was through the guns they had access to. But the crime itself was not inspired by the guns.

But I will grant you that the availability of the guns may have been what made them put their plan into motion. And had guns not been available, their condition for committing the crime may not have been met and they never would've embarked on the crime attempt.

But I guess that's more of an argument of semantics.

 

Guns are for cowards!

Don't these kids know that the "in" way of mass murder is to become a suicide bomber?



Seriously though, I have very mixed feelings about the gun laws. I don't remember the constitution saying anything about automatic weapons and hand guns. Beside, I don't think a bunch of cowboys and gangbangers with guns will be much of a match against our government, should it turn bad.... errrr, worse than it is now.

I long for the day when we are able to make weapons that immobilize the target without killing them. Maybe something that attacks the nervous system or something.

I can also accept weapons that only work for the the person that owns it.

Guns are a problem. Face it. Something needs to be done. The NRA may be better served spending those millions and millions of dollars on a real solution rather than on lobbyists.