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As American as apple pie and baseball

 
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J64TWB



Joined: 24 Dec 2013
Posts: 1685

PostPosted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 1:29 pm    Post subject: As American as apple pie and baseball Reply with quote

Not to jump on your gun thread Mac, but Gurgle made a comment in the drug thread the other day about guns and chicago and liberals. I know he meant no harm, but it made me think.


3 scenarios

8000 feet high in the Colorado wilderness a lone mountain lion is shot. In an apartment in Los Angeles a man shoots an intruder. On North side of Chicago 5 people are gunned down in a hail of gunfire from an automatic weapon as they exit a church. Random shots from a drive by, something to do with gang retribution. All three events, different in so many ways, but all related. The DNR has okay’ed the lion. The Man defending himself is justified. The church shooting has a neighborhood in outrage (true story last year).

Guns aren’t going anywhere. Even if you stopped manufacturing, for the next 300 years the guns in this country would still be in circulation. Good as the day they were made.

Hunting? Not my thing, gave up killing anything years ago. If the DNR needs help reducing their deer population, so be it. Hunters are not bad people. Why anyone needs to kill a majestic mountain lion?

The man in LA and the church in Chicago and the countless suicides? This is where trouble starts. Suicide? That can happen anywhere to anyone, some of you may know someone or a family going through it. I do not believe this is a gun issue, just makes it a whole lot easier.

Back to the inner city and issues of defense and rights. In any major city you have millions of people in close proximity. In Chicago, about 12,000 every square mile. The numbers? Last years homicide totals were 516 of which 441 were by gunshot. Low historical numbers. There were still 11,886 gun related crimes. Including people who were shot, but didn’t die (2,193), assaults, robberies, and down the list. Last Memorial Day Weekend something like 47 people were shot, 8 were children and something like 6 died. Don’t quote me on the exact numbers, but it was a bloody mess. Nearly every single one of these inner city statistics are from bad guys shooting, not from good guys defending.


Ban all guns (I wish they could do this, except rifles for hunters)
Ban all guns in dense and public areas
Ban handguns in dense areas (not rifles)
Tighter background checks and red tape
Do nothing and let the bullets fly
Produce more guns and arm more people
Other?

If you answer “arm more people”, because you think it will prevent crimes, may I remind you of the guy who was shot in a movie theater a few weeks ago because his cell phone went off. He has the “right” not to carry a gun and be safe, just as gun owners have right to arm themselves.

Also, if you think you will be the hero who tried to save the mall or the school from the madman, be reminded you will be the first one shot dead by law enforcement.

I would like to know if you guys think anything can be done to help these senseless shootings and crimes and let “responsible” gun owners have their weapons? I use the word “responsible” lightly, because there is no such thing. If a highly skilled, highly educated former head of the Department of Defense and sitting Vice President of the United States can shoot his friend in the face, I am sure anyone can.

One last thing,

Martin Luther King Jr., Pope John Paul ll, John Kennedy, Theodore Roosevelt, George Wallace, Sam Cooke, Nelson Rockefeller, Andy Warhol, Versace, Phil Hartman, Garett Morris, William McKinley, Selena, Robert Kennedy, Jackie Wilson, Abraham Lincoln, Greg Lemond, Ronald Reagan, Marvin Gaye, Gabby Giffords, James Brady, Sandy Hook, Columbine, John Lennon, Virginia Tech and the other approximately 170 school shootings since 1991. Look them up. Not to mention...

Each year on average more than 100,000 are shot, including suicide (CDC).
Between 2000-2010... 335,000 died (CDC) and over 1 million were shot, with about 6 million gun related crimes.

Lastly (sorry for rambling), your odds of dying by a gun are about 1 in 340.
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swchandler



Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588

PostPosted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 4:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Outside of the cost for a weapon and ammunition, there are many responsibilities and obligations associated with owning one, even if you elect not to actually use it. While I've fired weapons a number of times in my life either hunting or casual target shooting (in a rural setting), I've never felt the need to arm myself for defense or protection. Believe me, it's a lot simpler not owning one.
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J64TWB



Joined: 24 Dec 2013
Posts: 1685

PostPosted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 11:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm 5 years old and know my dads stores his .44 bullets on the shelf. Thinking I'll set them off, I take them out to the curb and start chucking em against the sidewalk to see what happens. Dad later gave up his marine issued gun and bullets because he thought it wasnt safe. I told him this story 45 years later. It didn't sink in with him that he missed the opportunity to be safe.
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keycocker



Joined: 10 Jul 2005
Posts: 3598

PostPosted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 2:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Background checks are supported by more than 80% of the people.
They were supported by less than 50% of Congress, mostly GOP.
Those folks had been bought by gun lobbyists representing people who make money selling guns to criminals and psychos.
That breakdown in democracy is a crime of its own.
Voters can fix this but they do not.
That is a second breakdown in democracy.
This could be a much safer country in many ways if we had responsive voters who reward those who represent us and fire those who don't.
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17742
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 2:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Like Frederick, I found bullets--to my uncle's handgun--when I was a young child. My parents found me with them before I figured out how to blow them up. Not everyone is as lucky:

Quote:
ASBURY PARK, N.J. — Most victims of gun violence in 2010 were not on a battlefield or remote hillside in the Middle East fighting in a war. They were, like 6-year-old Brandon Holt, children and teenagers in America, according to the Children's Defense Fund.

Brandon was shot in the head by his friend and neighbor, an unidentified 4-year-old boy, on Monday night. He is now also a statistic of gun violence.

STORY: Family donates N.J. boy's organs after shooting death

In 2010, 15,576 children and teenagers were injured by firearms — three times more than the number of U.S. soldiers injured in the war in Afghanistan, according to the defense fund.

Nationally, guns still kill twice as many children and young people than cancer, five times as many than heart disease and 15 times more than infection, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.

"We see guns as much of a threat in their life as we used to see bacteria and viruses," said Dr. Judith S. Palfrey, a past president of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the co-author of the New England journal report. "If you look at what's actually killing children and disabling children, guns is one of the major things."

Accidental firearms injuries have been on the decline nationwide. In 2001, 5,091 children ages 19 and under were injured by a firearm. Those numbers steadily decreased through 2009, when 3,587 children under 19 were reported injured by a firearm, according to the defense fund.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/11/guns-child-deaths-more-than-cancer/2073259/

Hard to get more mainstream and vanilla than USA today.
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