another thread.

This country is fucking insane, we need SC justices who will enforce the 2nd amendment the way it is written.

Cant do this if every single fucking gun, all

THREE HUNDRED MILLION

of them are in locked up, well regulated militia facilities.

These situations are awful, but disparities of force exist everywhere, guns or no guns, and in this case, the Pastor was able to protect himself. Terrible that it happened, but I'm sure glad the pastor was able to win the conflict, since he was unable to avoid the attack.

Fact: if nobody had a gun in America, there would be far less deaths, period.

Unless you want to argue that with me, please tell me you wont do that...please.

0 and 20k fewer successful suicides, and somewhere between 0 and 9k fewer successful homicides per year.

I can only speculate on the actual numbers, but generally that is a true statement, sure.
But we could say that about a lot of stuff. Kitchen knives have a non-criminal useful purpose, but enough of them are criminally mis-used per year for the FBI to put knives as a separate top-level category of implement used in homicides.

because they are fun, looks at the downside and acknowledges that it far outweighs the upside.

It is really that simple.

Legally there is no problem given that even at the most basic reading skills, the 2nd amendment allows for guns only within the confines of a well regulated militia, which is probably the national guard, though that part is debatable.

The problem, if any, with that is, it is entirely blind to any social cost to such unrestricted possession of firearms. Different states have implemented constitutional protections as well, and while they all touch on the same general protection, they all vary in interesting details. For instance, my state constitution also protects the right of individuals to possess firearms explicitly for state OR personal defense. But it has an exception, with an eye toward preventing the rise of small private/corporate armies. As best I can tell, it was aimed at groups like the Pinkertons, who raised armed security entities, or like Blackwater/XE/Whatever they are calling themselves this week.



I do not read the 2nd amendment, at the federal level, nor at state levels, as you do. This is not a 'basic reading skills' issue. If it needs an update, fine, lets update it. But as it stands now, it is not dependent on militia duty. The preamble specifies the goal; that the people be able to raise a militia, and the militia is formed of the people in times of need, therefore the people must remain free to be armed.

" A well regulated population,
being necessary to the security of a police state,
the right of the government to register and
ban arms shall not be infringed."


apocryphal

my gun control talk.

Just make it the law that for every gun a white male has, all minorities get to have ten times as many.

Problem solved...for my scenario cops are under the same category as white males

We had a thread on this in the Gungeon yesterday/Monday as well. That was the general consensus.

Fundamentally, we don't disagree, I don't think.

Here is the problem: you say some guns should be allowed, I say none...

So we debate that, but when i say how about outlawing all non smart guns (after you invent a really good one that is), you probably go for that but the gun folks wont, I know, I already asked them.

They see this in a very immature, dont take my toy from me, way...I will never stand down from that comment.

As a gun owner, I have a considerable interest in denying unauthorized users access to my firearms. Currently, my protections around that are based on physical denial. (Trigger locks, safes, separate ammo storage.) If the guns simply could not be fired by an unauthorized user, that would add a considerable level of over-riding security, and damage the black market value of the guns should they be stolen.

That is a desirable feature to me.

It's a problematic technology though.


But I agree, any attempt to regulate in any manner is viewed as a personal attack upon the parties you identified, and even as a gun owner, I don't have that reaction.

Barring some massive technological innovation... My suggestion is to repeal the Hughes Amendment, to re-open the NFA registry so new/existing guns could be registered. Then extend the 1934 NFA registration requirement that applies to fully automatic weapons, down to include all semi-automatic weapons. Background check. Not NICS, fingerprint, full background check. 200$ tax stamp. Registration. I think that would go a long ways toward denying firearms from ineligible hands. I think it's legally workable in the face of the 2nd amendment as well, as the 1934 National Firearms Act has been found constitutional every time it's been challenged.

Argument 1:
President Obama commissioned the CDC to do a study on the prevention of firearm violence, and the final report was issued in the summer of 2013. Among other things, it stated that according the information available:

1) More people use a firearm for self-defense than criminals do for violent crimes
2) People who use a firearm for self-defense have on average, a better personal outcome than for every other form of self-defense

So, according to the CDC, you are better off using a gun to defend yourself than you are locking yourself in the bedroom and calling 911. Better off with the gun than pepper spray. Or taser. Or self-defense courses. Or a knife. Though to be fair I am not sure if the CDC combined things, so you might be better off than a gun if you are locked in your bedroom with a phone, knife, pepper spray, taser and a friendly black belt (Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and DC residents, you're out of luck. Tasers are illegal in these places.)

If you do not believe this is what the CDC reported, feel free to quote the relevant parts of the report and show where I misrepresented it. If you have not read the report, please refrain from statements of disbelief until you do.

Unless you wish to argue that Obama and CDC are in the business of pushing NRA propaganda, it seems there is a case to be made that taking away guns from the people using them to defend themselves could end up in a net increase in people killed, wounded, raped or otherwise victimized. Since it is unlikely that "nobody had a gun" is going to apply to criminals at the same rate as the law-abiding (they are criminals, after all), the net power shift is towards increased criminal violence. England, which has far stricter gun control than the United States, has far less gun violence, but an incidence of burglary, mugging and rape several times higher than the US, increases which do correlate to restrictive changes in their firearms laws. There are plenty of countries with far stricter gun control than the US and which have higher per capita homicide rates. The US Virgin Islands (whose inhabitants are US citizens) have the benefits of strict gun control but have a homicide rate over ten times that of the US as a whole. Puerto Rico (again, US citizens) has similarly strict laws (basic permit is $100, requires 3 character witnesses and lets you buy 50 rounds per year...which must be stored at a shooting club). Puerto Rico's homicide rate? Five times that of the US as a whole.

Yes, fewer of those people are being killed with guns, but there are more deaths, period.

Oh, and Vermont? No license needed for open or concealed carry, you can carry a gun into a bar with no problem, and both of these things have been in place for over a hundred years. Second lowest homicide rate in the United States (for 2010, about the same as gun-free England), and lowest firearm homicide rate (again, about the same as England). So the presence of firearms is not necessarily going to get you killed by your fellow Americans, nor is the absence of guns going to save you. Social factors are far more important.

Argument 2:
The "if nobody had" argument applies to just about everything, which makes it fundamentally useless. If nobody had a car there would be no fatal auto accidents. If there were no bicycles, there would be no fatal bicycle accidents. If there were no school sports we would not have over a million serious sport-related accidents per year. The leading cause of suicide in women is pills and booze. So if no one in the US had painkillers and alcohol, just think of all the lives we would save! Or let's pretend that the "if nobody had" argument was actually valid:

"If nobody had abortions there would be no abortion-related deaths."

I can't see you or me or anyone here agreeing with that one, but that's what happens when you take an absolutist stance on something...it gives other people's absolutist viewpoints equal credibility.

I am well aware that people who resisted violence, with force, fared better than people who passively non-resisted, and people who resisted with a firearm fared even better than those who resisted with other means, per the CDC.

I have a CPL and I carry.

I am a strong advocate for certain aspects of gun control and responsible gun ownership, but I am an advocate of gun ownership overall. I live by the non-aggression principle, but that does not make me a pacifist if someone makes the mistake of attacking me. I am quite willing and able to meet force with force.

Your beliefs as stated above are close enough to mine that I could just cut and paste them.

DU notified me I had a response to something I posted, and pointed me to your post.
Something's screwy.

I can guess his age/physical activity capability from his photo. Entirely possible he'd have been on the losing end of a physical contest.

On the other hand... perhaps the aggressor would not have attacked him if he didn't have a gun, and knew he had to use hands/fists/feet. I certainly cannot promise you that wouldn't be the case.

Imagine a country where people are not so paranoid we all need to be armed all the time. Gun ownership breeds more gun ownership and more senseless death. Gun ownership is overrunning and helping to ruin this country. Where I work, (in the U.S.A.) you get fired if you bring a gun to work. I like it.

I specified two possibilities. One that the victim might have lost in a physical attack, and second, that the aggressor may have been emboldened by his firearm. One possibility is pro-gun, the other is actually anti-gun.

I'm trying to be reasonable anyway.

I live in a state with legal concealed and open carry, and my employer too, will fire me if I bring a gun to work. I'm ok with that.

only the pastor had a gun.

Your statement is senseless. He didn't pull a gun on his former worker. His former worker pulled a gun on him and started firing. Got a problem with him protecting himself from a deadly assault, particularly when others were also in the area and might get shot?

It doesn't matter that he had a gun on hand or that he used it rather than throwing bibles at the guy or something - which would be a pretty silly response to having shots fired at you in close quarters. He injured the guy. He stopped. He didn't keep shooting in "self defense" after the guy was down. Sounds like he protected himself and others around him in a reasonable manner.

This blanket hatred of guns and any use of them whatsoever makes just as much sense as the rethugs' insistence that all abortions are teh evilest and our vaginas should be regulated by the state.

militias is the one I care about.

Guns are toys

But I have determined that the negatives of the gun far outweigh the positives so I have made the adult decision that we are all better off, WAY better off if nobody has a gun, which, as I said, the 2nd amendment clearly states, unless you are part of a well regulated militia.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

If the founding fathers would have wanted only members of the militia to own Arms, then they would have written that. They certainly would not have used the term "the right of the people", and probably would not have included it in a document that outlines the rights of the individual.

who disagree with you, historians as well...

The Supreme Court has done that for me.

set the example. Run, don't walk, to the nearest well. Throw your gunz down that well. Get rid of them all. Every one of them.

to become a pastor in Florida? It seems like every 20th guy you meet in Tampa is a pastor.

He would never have anything I would want to hear.

Can't even imagine an intelligent person firing someone in such a way he would get into a fight over it. A gun fight?

What kind of gun would Jaysus carry?

"Can't even imagine an intelligent person firing someone in such a way he would get into a fight over it."

Please don't victim-blame. Attacking someone with a gun is NEVER a rational response to being let go from a job. Clearly the attacker was wildly, homicidally unreasonable, and there may have been nothing at all the victim could have done to gently let him go without incurring the attack.

He's there to represent a more evolved, more self-disciplined way of living, specifically NOT interested even slightly in getting out a lethal weapon to use against another being.

He's not "The Victim." He's supposed to be the minister.

That's not the place to go to think first of yourself, if you're a minister. If you do go to church thinking first of yourself you are in the wrong place, you are in the wrong business.

The job expects more of a person. He's not just supposed to be some clown who works there.

I was a P.K., and granddaughter of a minister. I've been around ministers since my first breath. I have NEVER known one who would have dreamed of "packing heat." Hideous beyond belief.

He should have been thinking "I should let myself get martyred so that this homicidal clown will be free to go on his merry homicidal way."

Good call. I'm sure the people who saw it happen (people whom I like to call "potential victims&quot would approve of your telepathic insight into his thoroughly selfish and non-Christian motivations for dealing with a man wildly spraying bullets in their vicinity.

"Witnesses say Parangan pulled out a handgun and fired multiple shots at Howell, who then returned fire with his own weapon and hit Parangan."

But do not lose heart. If you read the news article, you can see there are still those out there who follow your teachings...

"Earlier this month, Pastor James "Tripp" Battle was fatally shot at his Bradenton church."

But if feel you need to send a thank you card to Battle's congregation, friends and neighbors, telling them how much you appreciate him taking one for Jesus, remember that the Pastor Battle's murderer killed two of them as well.

I have a CPL, and I do carry. My legal status as a minister, and my non-aggression principle have no bearing on whether I will respond with deadly force, if attacked with deadly force. I value my life a great deal, it's the only one I get. When it's over, it's over. I don't intend to waste it, and I won't passively let someone take it from me.

You are, in this instance, blaming the victim. Fortunately the victim was armed, and ready/willing to defend himself, or that headline would have been a lot more sad.

I want to know exactly how much in tax dollars someone's right to bear "ARMS" is COSTING ME.

How much are firearms costing us regarding police hours, gov't mental health care and therapy, prosecutor hours, government vehicles and insurance, gas, police health and injury paid leave, vehicle repairs, prison food, prison clothes, chains, water, court costs, judges salaries, district attorney pay, prison heat & electric, other court employees, jailer costs, court heating & electric, public defenders, hospitalization, welfare to victim's families, property liability insurance, coroner fees, cremation fees and other associated costs relating to gun crime??

I'm guessing the NRA isn't going to bring it up because the costs are way too much per person just so that some idiot can walk around with a loaded handgun or owna repeating rounds weapon.

Call your Congressman and demand an economic study on the costs. DO IT.

Tell them to keep your tax dollars from covering the huge costs when some crazy gun owner loses it and shoots an assault weapon or handgun at someone.

Make the gun owners personal liability insurance pay for all costs.

The very concept of "personal liability insurance" is to protect me in case I am liable for damages. How exactly does the concept of "gun owners personal liability insurance" translate into me paying for the costs incurred because of the actions of an uninsured criminal? I can see it if the criminal stole one of my unsecured guns, but as a general case it does not seem to apply.

At best, my liability insurance rates would reflect the risks of my personal demographic (do I have a gun safe, etc.), but still only apply to my policy paying out for my liability.

Since guns are used in self-defense quite often (according to the CDC, more often than they are used by criminals for violent crimes), will gun owners get a rebate for all the listed expenses that they save the taxpayer?

Just sayin'.

(instead of saying shit), had better look out in his church.

...that this seems a very Floridian story. Could have happened anywhere, perhaps, but Florida is at or near the top of any likely list of states we might compile.

"Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition".

Or "Kill another janitor for Christ."

All joking aside, this little vignette represents the apotheosis of 'Stand Your Ground'\Open Carry-type thinking.

- It's either that or Parangan can't shoot worth shit.....