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> The Gun Control Debate, Please keep 'em holstered
Swanny 
Posted: 16-Jun-2003, 04:34 PM
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Having seen that we have a group with a wide variety of views, yet who are willing to disagree without being disagreeable, I'm willing to bring this issue to the floor.



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Swanny 
Posted: 16-Jun-2003, 04:44 PM
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In my opinion, the only form of gun control is that which is regularly practiced on the firing range.

Where I live, the fastest police response I can reasonably expect is 40 minutes, and frankly I think we have more than enough cops. I really don't want to have spend more tax money to subsidize more speed traps and misdemeanor enforcement on the off-chance that it might improve response time in my very rural community.

My community is home to about 250 families, a couple of thousand sled dogs, and two or three dozen grizzly bears. While admit my situation is unusual, no reasonable government can excuse one class of citizens from a restriction that it imposes on others. The restrictions imposed against inner-city people is also a restriction on those of us who live far away from those crowds.

I've noticed that gun control laws have the apparant affect of disarming the law-abiding while reinforcing violent criminals.

Though trite, I tend to believe that an armed society is made up of citizens, while an unarmed society is all too often made up of subjects. I'm not inclined to be subject to much of anyone.

Swanny
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scottish2 
Posted: 16-Jun-2003, 06:36 PM
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What urks me is gun control only effects the law abiding. Criminals could careless about what laws they are breaking that's why their criminals. dry.gif
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Jimmy Carbomb 
Posted: 16-Jun-2003, 07:46 PM
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QUOTE (scottish2 @ Jun 16 2003, 09:36 PM)
What urks me is gun control only effects the law abiding. Criminals could careless about what laws they are breaking that's why their criminals. dry.gif

THAT pretty well says it.

I personally believe that there can be no gun control in the USA. The dregs of society will always have access.... if not to guns, then to something worse.

I'm more concerned with controlling taxes, protecting individual freedom, promoting "right to work", and year-round-Shamrock Shakes.


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Ursamajor 
Posted: 16-Jun-2003, 07:56 PM
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AMEN BROTHER JIM!!! PREACH ON!!


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Ursamajor 
  Posted: 16-Jun-2003, 08:07 PM
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Seriously, though, the 2nd Ammendment is pretty clear on this issue. Any argument that the framers couldn't forsee today's weapons as a reason for gun control is just B.S. The framers realized that there were many things that would happen that they could not forsee, and they wrote the Constitution - all parts of it, not just the 1st Ammemdment - with that in mind.

As I get older, the nanny state that we live in ticks me off more and more.

Expatriation, anyone?
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Keltic 
Posted: 16-Jun-2003, 08:57 PM
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I worked at the Canadian Parliament during the time that the petitions were coming in concerning gun control. I had to weed through the thousands and thousands of pages of signatures calling upon Parliament to strengthen gun control. At that time, the murder of the women at the University of Montreal drove this debate. The government of Canada immediately seized the chance to win votes by immediately creating a list of guns to ban. The original list didn't even include the gun used in the murders (the gun, a Ruger Mini 14, was later added to the list). We now have the gun registry which like most political creations, is a drain on the taxpayer with no visible benefit. Original estimates pegged the registry at a couple of million dollars but the actual cost is now nearing 1 billion dollars. It is unknown how many criminals are actually registering their guns but if you can't trust a criminal, who can you trust.

We once had a Bill before Parliament, presented by a Member of Parliament from Ottawa, calling on the ban of crossbows due to the rash of murders with crossbow in Ottawa that year. More than 10% of all murders in Ottawa that year were committed by crossbow. How many murders in Ottawa that year? Fewer than ten but one was committed by crossbow.


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free2Bme 
Posted: 16-Jun-2003, 09:15 PM
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Yep, I have watched enough episodes of Colombo to know that if a criminal wants to kill a person bad enough, they can find a way to do it, with a gun, with a crossbow, or even a baseball bat (should we outlaw baseball bats too?). Men have been killing each other since Cain killed Abel, and gun control laws will not prevent murders from happening.

I do think that the people who own guns should practice gun safety, though. Please keep them under lock and key when you aren't using them - I have heard of too many children trying to pretend to be "big boys" who have been killed by accidental shooting, simply because the guns were left in a drawer beside the bed or in a shoebox in the closet.

The issue of school shootings however has nothing to do with gun control, but with parent control. I have yet to figure out how those Columbine boys could build bombs and stockpile guns in their garage, and their parents didn't find out about it until after it was all over with?


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Catriona 
Posted: 17-Jun-2003, 03:49 AM
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I am very anti guns...

BUT, as I don't live in the USA or Canada, and my country had very stringent gun controls, I leave it to the US and Canadian citizens here to comment on gun control. huh.gif I truly believe that the INTERN AL politics of a country is the province of those who vote and live in those countries biggrin.gif Which DOESN'T mean I won't have a 'view' on US INTERNATIONAL actions - which affect citizens of the rest of the world, too wink.gif
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Swanny 
Posted: 17-Jun-2003, 04:34 AM
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Catriona and all, I'd really like to hear an international perspective on this debate. In the US it's one of those topics where people tend to feel very strongly one way or the other, and are rarely ambivalent.

I'd really like to hear how people outside the U.S. view the topic, especially those who reside in nations that either have always in recent memory had stringent gun control laws, or that have recently enacted them.

Swanny
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Catriona 
Posted: 17-Jun-2003, 04:58 AM
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Hmmmmmm

Well, as I have stated - I am strongly anti-gun. This is a personal opinion!

I grew up in an Army household... my father's brother was Factor of a large estate in the highlands of Scotland. My father grew up on our family farm (owned by the family, not the local laird) and huntin, shootin and fishin was an everyday part of their lives.

BUT.... there were no handguns in the family home (well, Dad had one as part of his Army issue!) and the guns used for stalking or grouse shooting were kept in a padlocked strongbox in my Grandpa's study.

A few years ago, we had a tragedy at Dunblane Primary School, where a local nutter broke in and killed children by shooting them dead. It later came out that he was an unstable person, with an unhealthy interest in little boys...... However, his guns were 'legal' (I undestand) because he was a member of a gun club. All guns have to be registered in the UK. A few years before that, we had another massacre at Hungerford by a gun-owner. Now, I know the argument put forward by a number of Americans, including Charlton Heston wink.gif that 'guns don't kill, people do'..... a specious argument, I feel
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Here is the URL of a British anti-gun lobby group. I have to say that I cannot vouch for how reliable the info on the site may be..... http://www.gun-control-network.org/facts.htm

I have family in Australia and visited just after the terrible massacre at Port Arthur in Tasmania. This caused a very stringent re-think of the Aussie laws on gun ownership. My family live in the country, and guns in the home were a necessary 'evil', to kill rabbits, snakes etc.... But the number of handguns seemed to be HUGE... I think the Aussie solution was a knee-jerk one..... it has caused problems to country folk - but that is for the citizens of that country to address, not me!

Our police do not, as a matter of routine, carry guns.... whenever I go to Europe and see guns on the hips of callow youths dressed in uniform and peaked caps, it makes me shiver....! Our police at Airports and at known 'targets' of terrorism (such as the US embassy - at present, trying to get round Grosvenor Square in London is a NIGHTMARE.... I visited London a couple of weekends ago - and had to go past loads of armed British policemen, just asking what business I had in the square.... For goodness sake, my friends live OPPOSITE the damned embassy building..... why should I have to be challenged whilst visiting friends? mad.gif - OK, whine over!) We should be used to it by now, after all, the IRA have been active, not just in Northern Ireland, but on the mainland, too, for almost 40 years. Anti-terrorist patrols have been a fact of life in London for almost all that time. And I lived and worked there for a number of years, so I am talking from personal experience.

I know the argument about criminals having guns - and that is true.... In the UK, unfortunately, our young, impressionable, inner-city males seem to have been affected by the macho US ghetto boys and drive-by shootings that appear on our news bulletins and appear to be glamourised by rappers and some film makers. BUT, that still does not make me alter my position re guns smile.gif

I had a similar debate to this on another board with lots of US participants - interestingly, ALL the UK members said they would not wish our gun laws to be relaxed - and abotu 95% of the US members said they would oppose gun control in any form! I think it is a subject which people get pretty het up about, and your point of view is coloured by the present-day gun laws in the country where you live....

Right, anybody else want this soapbox? rolleyes.gif wink.gif
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scottish2 
Posted: 17-Jun-2003, 05:36 AM
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Here's a solution I think everyone could agree upon even Catriona. If we are to have guns (Here in the US that's a given pretty much) at least what the government could do is force the gun manufacturers by passing law for manditory gun locks. (I think they have in US but unsure being I haven't been following this issue to much being my main concern is taxation) but this would not effect an individuals right to own firearms and it would make the weapon safer from kids playing with it.

But safety is a major factor that must be taught by the parents and the parents have to take that time to teach children about firearms should they wish this in their childs future. Meaning at the proper age teach them how to handle it safely.

But as was pointed out by Ursamajor this is a very clear issue. The 2nd amendment say


http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/chart...ments_1-10.html
QUOTE
Amendment II

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.

Well gun control laws do just this they infringe or try and get closer to no guns allowed. First they ban this weapon from us then as Keltic pointed out they add another and then another and then you have a fully controled populace and by doing this we follow one of the most hated if not the most hated dictators.
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"This year will go down in history. For the first time a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future." - Adolf Hitler, 1935.

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Catriona 
Posted: 17-Jun-2003, 06:07 AM
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We do not have a written constitution on this side of the pond.

Gun control has always been much stricter than the USA - but it is now probably the most stringent in the world. We like it like that! wink.gif
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Keltic 
Posted: 17-Jun-2003, 07:35 AM
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The problem is that there is no proof that gun control does anything except keep guns out of the hands of "law-abiding" people. Cars are registered and it doesn't seem to stop idiots on the road nor does it stop criminals from stealing them and using them in the commission of crimes. In my opinion, gun control does nothing but give the illusion that the authorities have some control over an uncontrollable situation. Perhaps the courts could actually impose sentences on those who use weapons during crimes. In Canada, there is already mandatory sentencing for use of a weapon during the commission of a crime but lawyers quite often drop the weapons charges in order to reach a plea bargain. People should be held responsible for their actions instead of being held responsible for their potential actions.
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scottish2 
Posted: 17-Jun-2003, 10:22 AM
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Well problem I see state side is they lock up the minor drug offense crimes and let the big fish get away. OUr prisons are overloaded with people who have been locked up for smoking a joint. Mind you I personall don't agree with drugs but then I choose not to live my life like that. My main issue comes down to privacy really in this issue. If a person wishes to throw his/her life away on drugs what right does the government have to step in and throw the person in jail if that person never left home? For instance a person gets off from work and smokes a joint at home. What right does the government have to arrest him/her? He/she has effected no one but themselves and at least state side we have a right to pursue happiness. If smoking makes this person happy and it effects no one but themselves then what right does the government have to violate these peoples right to both privacy in their own homes and also the right to pursue their own happiness?

Now if they leave the house and cause trouble then that's a different matter but then we don't see them banning alcohol. So what's the difference? Does alcohol not cause accidents? dry.gif

As for driving don't even get me going on this issue I hate drivers liscenses just as much as taxation. mad.gif mad.gif mad.gif mad.gif mad.gif
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