In Tennessee, another RKBA victory

"A man facing charges of raping and kidnapping his former girlfriend opened fire at the woman's workplace, leaving one employee dead before killing himself.
The gunman, 43-year-old Thomas Edgar Harrison, had stayed inside the Electric Picture Co. after the shooting and held off a SWAT team for more than an hour, Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron said."

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2073887

In Tennessee:
May the Attorney General regulate guns? NO
May police maintain gun sale records? NO
Are background checks required on 'private' gun sales? NO
Are background checks required at gun shows? NO
May police limit carrying concealed handguns? NO
May cities enact laws stronger than the state's? NO
Is there a waiting period on gun sales? NO

not a gun problem.

It must be way easier than limiting their access to guns.

"It must be way easier than limiting their access to guns."

How are you going to "limit access"? A gun is nothing more than a hunk of machined steel. Are you saying that some sort of law would prevent shootings? Murder is against the law, yet they happen. Do you really think that a person intent on breaking the big "thou shalt not Kill" thing will be concerned about a gun law? BWAAAAAAAA!
ROLFLMAO!

'Do you really think that a person intent on breaking the big "thou shalt not Kill" thing will be concerned about a gun law? BWAAAAAAAA!'

No. Obviously not. That would be farsical.

However, try the following....

- would a person prepared to intimidate, keep hostage or kill someone find it harder to do so without a gun?
- is it physically more difficult to kill or injure someone using any other kind of weapon?
- are there other, readily available and easy to use methods by which you could kill several people, even if they chose to run away from you?
- if someone is pissed at their ex-partner and likely to go into a homicidal rage, is it better or worse that they have access to firearms?

I'm not suggesting that the vast majority of gun owners aren't decent, law abiding people, but it just seems to me that on occasions when somebody goes mental, they use whatever comes to hand to inflict damage. If there's a gun there, odds are that the damage will be worse.

Now that handguns are effectively banned from private ownership, is there still handgun crime there?

If they've totally banned handguns, how can there still be handgun crime? Could it be that criminals don't obey the law? Could it be that guns are smuggled into the country, just like drugs? Could it be that, even if all handguns were banned, that guns would still be as available as drugs? After all, wouldn't the same people who sell drugs sell guns if there was profit to be made in the gun trade?

Do drug dealers have a waiting period before they sell their wares?

Posted elsewhere but relevant here...

The basic point being that the UK laws weren't inacted to stop general use of handguns in armed crime, they were inacted to prevent legal gun owners from being able to use their weapons in the event of them losing the plot.

Basically, the UK gov decided that the gun-owning privileges of a small minority of sports shooters were outweighed by the risks of just one of them having access to a gun if they went mad.

People do flip out and attack wives, girlfriends, bosses and strangers, and sometimes it's totally out of character. The consequences are a lot more severe if that person happens to have access to a gun.

It's utterly fallacious to look specifically at the UK's total ban on handgun ownership and conclude that it hasn't worked because there is still handgun crime. What the ban has achieved is an end to accidents and deliberate misuse of legally held firearms.

The thing is, criminals used illegally obtained guns prior to the ban and have continued to use illegally obtained guns after the ban. Entirely separate strategies and laws are being used to crack down on organised crime and the use of guns therein.

Incidentally, it still doesn't alter the undeniable theoretical fact - if there were no guns (or no drugs) around then there wouldn't be any gun (or drug) crimes....of course, that also applies to cars and most other things too. However, the goal of the UK is to have NO handguns around at all - all legally-held ones have been removed, so now we just have to remove the illegally held ones. Of course people will still break the law, but that doesn't mean that we should necessarily conclude from criminals breaking the law to own guns that citizens should be allowed to own them legally.

"Firstly, it's important that BOTH sides of the RKBA argument realise that the UK has NEVER claimed to have "solved" the gun problem. Nor has the UK developed a system that could be rolled out globally, solving gun problems in every country it meets around the world.

I believe that there are some aspects of the UK laws / enforcement of laws that could prove helpful in the US, but you undermine your own arguments if you say either"

1. The UK's "perfect" model hasn't worked - look, the gun crime is still rising, therefore their ideas are all crap and shouldn't be looked at here, or,

2. The UK's laws are working, look how many fewer gun crimes they have than the US, they've got the right ideas so let's use them all.

The UK gun restriction laws were never intended to address the factors prevalent in the US, i.e.

-widespread gun ownership
-guns sanctioned as self-defence
-significant numbers of gun accidents / unsecured guns available for kids to find
-"casual" use of guns as just one more weapon that can be reached for during an argument or at times of stress
-significant numbers of legally-held weapons being used in violent crimes

The UK gun laws were brought in SPECIFICALLY to prevent massacres such as those in Dunblane, where legally held weapons were employed to kill large numbers of innocent people. The intention was to declare gun ownership illegal and to remove legally-held weapons from the hands of the public - effectively, the government decided that the rights of a relatively small number of sporting shooters did not outweigh the potential horror that could be unleashed if just one of them abused their position of gun ownership.

In addition, I should point out that in the UK guns have always been regarded as "special" objects, rather than everyday/common ones. There is no history of "casual" gun ownership in the UK - if you wanted one, you had to join a club and satisfy the police that you were responsible enough to have one, as well as purchasing expensive and secure gun cabinets and be subjected to checks to ensure that you were storing and use the gun appropriately.

From this, I make 2 points.

1. These UK gun laws were not aimed at reducing the number of illegally-held weapons used in crimes - how could they? They were solely targeted at removing registered, legal weapons from the public domain. An increase in illegal gun use amongst criminals should be taken as a totally separate issue, because their use of guns was always illegal and is addressed by different legislation and tactics. An increase in drug-gang activity and armed robbery is not related in any way to the UK's ban on handgun ownership.

2. UK gun laws were not intended to address a large base of gun ownership in a society that has a history and tradition of "casual" gun ownership and where guns are often seen as everyday objects. They are clealy unsuitable for implementation in the US, where there are huge numbers of guns and an enshrined "right" of ownership. I somehow don't think that a sponsored, compulsory police "buy-back" of all handguns would gain the wholesale support of the US public, or address the problems you have, which include the chronic misuse of guns by irresponsible owners (the least likely people to surrender them).

There are some aspects of the UK laws which may help the US situation, and place a barrier between the gun owner and his weapon when that owner intends to use it illegally. However, suggesting that the UK law is a panacea and then criticising it because it doesn't work is wasting everyone's time."




http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=7349#7560

"However, try the following....

- would a person prepared to intimidate, keep hostage or kill someone find it harder to do so without a gun?
- is it physically more difficult to kill or injure someone using any other kind of weapon?
- are there other, readily available and easy to use methods by which you could kill several people, even if they chose to run away from you?
- if someone is pissed at their ex-partner and likely to go into a homicidal rage, is it better or worse that they have access to firearms?

I'm not suggesting that the vast majority of gun owners aren't decent, law abiding people, but it just seems to me that on occasions when somebody goes mental, they use whatever comes to hand to inflict damage. If there's a gun there, odds are that the damage will be worse."


Now, guns in America ARE everyday items. One of every four americans owns a gun. There are practically the same number of guns in America as there are people.


If you can't keep criminals from getting guns where they've always been strictly regulated (like England) what makes you think you can do it where they're much more publicly accepted and commonplace, like in America?

In America, you can find a gun if you want one, just as you could find drugs if you wanted some. I find it hard to believe that it would be THAT much harder to find a gun in England. I'd think all you'd have to do is find a nice drug dealer, and make it worth his while to find you a gun.

Regarding your question of intimidation, it would depend on what other methods of mayhem he thought up. It wouldn't be nearly as effective if he tried to hold up a place with a plastic "Spork" (an American eating utensil that's part spoon, part fork, given away free by some fast food companies, and notorious as being a really flimsy thing, incapable of scooping up mashed potatos for very long.) On the other hand, if he was lugging around a full LP tank, a wrench and a zippo, well, that'd freak people out pretty good. There are lots of kinds of killing devices that you can improvise. The amount of energy and planning they requires varies. Some are really easy (like the LP tank, a wrench to crack the valve and a zippo to light it, total cost under $50 {$25 for the tank, $10 for the LP fill, $5 for the wrench, and $10 for the zippo, less if you use "cheap" stuff like a Bic lighter or used stuff like a used tank that's refilled, or hell, just grab the tank off of your or your neighbor's patio grille, most households in the US have one}, and it'll blow up a small house pretty good) , and some are much more complex (like the bomb used at OKC, 4,000 pounds of fertilizer, a truck, some deisel fuel, and some igniters). Other methods of mayhem include things like cars, which are very handy for killing lots of people quickly, as shown by that farmer's market thing in California a little while back.

In other words, some people "go mental" and use a plastic spork. People would be much safer if folks like that didn't have access to guns. On the other end of the spectrum, you've got whackjobs like Tim McVeigh. We'd have been MUCH better off if, when he "went mental," he'd used a gun instead of a truckbomb.

I'll try to be brief, especially as I am at work...this means I'm going to generalise and probably not be as thorough as I should be, but I can't help that...But please bear in mind that I'm not offering solutions (necessarily), rather stating my own opinion and pulling holes in your logic where I perceive them. I'm not anti-gun, I'm anti-bad argument.

1. I rather like your WMD with the gas tank and the zippo and the shouting and the screaming and the hey hey hey.....But I feel it's largely irrelevant. I never said that you couldn't scare people or kill lots of them without a gun. I said it's more difficult, which is my point. Do you honestly believe that if all guns mysteriously disappeared from the USA overnight, the next day there would be a similar number of murders, bank robberies etc. committed with a hastily improvised set of fearsome barbecue-based weapons? ROFLMAO! The point is that guns provide a handy, effortless and simple way to kill or threaten people. Take an argument in a bar - 2 guys fighting will swing fists at each other, grab bottles and hit each other..if they have knives or guns they will probably pull them, if they don't then they won't, or they might go and fetch them if they're really mad. They will not, generally speaking, go and build some kind of flamethrower even if they don't have a gun, because a) people are lazy b) they often calm down by the time it's taken them to build the thing and c) there are better, easier weapons to get hold of, like guns.

2. (I know what a Spork is, thanks to The Simpsons). Re: McVeigh and people like him........guess what? There AREN'T shitloads of people who go and build huge bombs like that and use them to settle small squabbles. Of course you CAN do it if you want to, but people don't because it's a bloody big effort and takes TIME. It's the casual use of guns as an accessible, omni-present item of violence that's the problem, not the wide-spread fertilizer bombing of individuals around the country.

3. And related to the above.........you can always find anything you want provided you have the money. But here's the point. The UK government prevented legal gun-owners from being able to pick up their gun and go and kill someone with it when mental illness finally overcame them. They had neither the casual means or the temptation to use a gun in a crime any more. I genuinely cannot believe that if a gun owner had to stop, think, go out and find a gun dealer, pay him for a gun, come back and find their victim then they would be as likely to kill them as if they had easy instant access to a gun. I'm addressing the unpremeditated gun crimes and suicides here, where a gun within easy reach meant that someone could take a life with the pull of a finger.

People are bloody lazy IMHO, and if you put any sort of effort between them and their victim, whether someone else or themselves, it massively reduces the chances of that event taking place.

hunk of machined steel control laws...

I could make a gun in my shop out back. How are you going to stop that with a law? You have to focus your efforts on criminals, not something that anybody with half a brain and some tools can make.

How about addressing the judge that released this POS on bond. Rape and Kidnapping and he is walking the streets?

It says the victim wrestled the shotgun away from the assailent and threw it away. Too late now, but it would have been wise to hold the guy at gunpoint until police arrived.

Mr. Benchley,
What is your crusade all about? Why are you so rabid about guns? I have never seen any posts by you other than the gun issue. Do you realize that Bush is in the whitehouse because of folks such as yourself? Being rabidly anti-self defense turns off independent gun owners and even a few dems. I know a few that voted for Bush because of people like you.

In Tennessee,

Background checks ARE required at gun shows.
Police do a background check when you apply for a permit to carry concealed. They do have limiting powers.
Waiting periods have been eliminated by the insta-check system.

Why did you add the half-truths in your message?

Bless your heart, we like things just the way they are here in Tennessee.

anti-gun = anti-self-defense? What a crock of shit! I'm anti-gun, but I'm pretty sure I'm in favor of defending myself. I just don't need a lethal penis extension to do it.

Good that you are in favor of defending yourself. Use whatever means that you wish, just do not limit my choices in defending myself.

Your creative use of penis and shit adds so much to your arguement.
No, you may not feel that a gun is required for your self defense. What about a 100lb woman? What about someone confined to a wheel chair? What about an older retired person? Just because you don't need a gun shouldn't hinder others.
Why do you suppose police carry firearms? After all, you don't need one for self defense.

What is it with you anti-self defense people and penis quotes?

And I don't like it.

I don't like the fact the guy was murdered, but the action of one physco does not warrent taking away everyones rights. I do enjoy the states aknowledgement that a law abiding citizen has the right to firearms ownership. Gun ownership is a right, not a privllege. Until I have been committed a crime I am entitled to all of my rights. Tennessee is a shall issue permit state. That means you don't have to be rich or famous to carry a handgun. Sort of a democratic way of doing things rather than the elitest way other states issue carry permits.

All I can say is if you don't like the way things are, work to change them. I doubt you will have much luck in Tennessee.

In Tennessee: (and most other states)
May the Attorney General regulate guns? NO(correct- but what would give the Attorney General a right to defy the second ammendment?)
May police maintain gun sale records? NO ( 1/2 correct- except all gun stores maintain a copy of the yellow form you fill out for a purchase-atf has access to the records)
Are background checks required on 'private' gun sales? NO (correct)
Are background checks required at gun shows? NO (False)
May police limit carrying concealed handguns? NO (false)
May cities enact laws stronger than the state's? NO (1/2 true- cities can declare city property off limits to guns)
Is there a waiting period on gun sales? NO ( correct- most States do not require a waiting period if the buyer passes the insta-check)

It may not work out to half, but it is darn close. The above is what you posted. Are you now for the Right to keep and bear arms?
One would think so by your posting;

"No half truths at all, except from the RKBA crowd"

I hope you have a great labor day Mr. Benchley:)

Telling that you have to try to distort my position.

May the Attorney General regulate guns? NO
May police maintain gun sale records? NO
Are background checks required on 'private' gun sales? NO
Are background checks required at gun shows? NO
May police limit carrying concealed handguns? NO
May cities enact laws stronger than the state's? NO
Is there a waiting period on gun sales? NO


That says something about how seriously Tennesseans feel about the RKBA.
Maybe if Al Gore had listened to his constituents instead of the anti-gun
crowd we wouldn't be in the mess we are now.

If you want to, you can own class III weapons. Nothing beats full rock and roll for some fun shooting!

Means than Tennessee is basically a 'shall issue' title 2 (NFA) weapons State. IF you can get by the BATFE background check you are good to go, the local CLEOs (Chief Law Enforcement Officers) can no longer discriminate based solely upon their own personal whims. Tennessee is driving the nails in the coffin of the Jim Crow that is the NFA of '34.

from all states.

in BIG capital letters...

The people of Tennessee, with a very few exceptions, favor the law just the way it is. Just because it doesn't fit into Mr. Benchley's book on how things ought to be doesn't in any way indicate a corrupt government. If the state were to go against the will of the people, then I would say you had a point. BUT YOU DON'T! (thats the big capital letters you were looking for);)

It would be corrupt if it were like New york, you have to be an elite person in order to get a carry permit. Somebody else has a say wether you NEED a permit and can deny you for any reason what-so-ever. Now thats corrupt!

The government in Tennessee is corrupt. I have proof.

http://www.putnampit.com/park.html

"Someone's been messin' with Lewis Coomer's unpaid parking tickets"

In two years, the Circuit Court Clerk managed to get cited 45 times for illegal parking, but
police say while he never paid a dime, he now owes nothing.


Between January 1992 and December 1993, Circuit Court Clerk Lewis Coomer received 45
parking tickets, according to the Cookeville Police Department. All of them were voided
or changed to warnings, police say their records show. None was paid".

How much you want to bet all the scofflaws named in this article sit on the local NRA board
of directors?

Your on to us! The State government doesn't do anything without the ok from headquarters (NRA Headquarters) It seems this guy was a life member of the NRA, therefore he has no obligation to pay parking tickets.

Just try to keep this under your hat, if ya know whats good for ya! If you let this out we might just have to send Mr. Heston down to woop up on ya.(If he can remember where you live)


(NOTE TO MODERATORS- In no way was this a serious post!!!!!!)

Ted Nugent will be playing the Grand Ol Opry. I'll bet he doesn't have to pay his parking
tickets either. :(

Looks like you gone and pissed Granny off!

I wouldn't want to be in your shoes

Thats great!

Is that Dems control the Senate 18 to 15, the House 54 to 45, and the Governors office.

You'd think people would look up this kind of thing before they posted.

When you gots yer gun grabbing blinders on facts don't matter! Blame it on guns! Never even consider the criminal factor in gun homocides! Why if it weren't for guns, these nice people would probably be knitting or some other worthwhile endevour. But no, the guns makes em go crazy ya see, ya, thats it-crazy!

any of the list below that you made would have prevented this incident?
<p>

May the Attorney General regulate guns? NO
May police maintain gun sale records? NO
Are background checks required on 'private' gun sales? NO
Are background checks required at gun shows? NO
May police limit carrying concealed handguns? NO
May cities enact laws stronger than the state's? NO
Is there a waiting period on gun sales? NO