Only in America

Re 44

RpR

I get the impression that there is a streak of irrational behaviour running thru’ the make up of some white Americans. How else does one explain the desire to own personal weapons other than for personal protection in a society allegedly at peace with itself ?

That, might explain the issue. Perhaps white America is not at peace with itself ? I mention white America because the news concerning firearms abuse seems to stem from this grouping.

I’m fairly neutral on this subject, it is after all a problem for America. You’re quite right, I haven’t spent any time in America but, I do know firearms. My knowledge of personal weaponry is yours multiplied by a factor of probably ten.

When your write “take Cape buffalo” I imagine that is a euphemism for “kill Cape buffalo” ? Why would you want to kill such a magnificent creature ? Can’t be for beefburgers, I imagine you’ve enough of your own. Perhaps for some mysterious American ritual yet to cross to our shores.

Appropriate word! Going to shoot ducks?! 😀

I’m probably going to get jumped on by both sides in this but here goes nothing! I was born and live in England and I have a hard time understanding the attitude the Americans have to firearms after all the shooting sprees etc that have happened. That being said I have a firearms licence and own seven firearms from .22 rimfire through .357 magnum and .303. I use them for target shooting and I enjoy that very much, but I never lose sight of how inherently dangerous they can be and always treat them with the greatest of respect, after all they are guns and need to be treated as such. Right I’m going to duck now!

“why any one would want to own one ?”

Power

You are speaking from a point of ignorance as you have not spent time, or at least any amount of time if you have been here, to have even a slight understanding of why U.S. citizens have firearms, although I would imagine that would be, in a broad sense, the same reason persons in Europe, including Russia, (I spoke to my Russian instructor who was born and still travels there about owing firearms there), have firearms.
No single reason but they very from sport, to hunting, to self-defense, to collecting.

I am aware of several gents who have multiple five-shot revolvers of they type that can be, and have been used to take Cape Buffalo.
Some of the gents physical condition no longer allows them to shoot these firearms at all or if they do, with reduced charges to nothing more than target level loadings.

Why do they have them?
For the same reason people collect stamps or anything, they find them fascinating.
Some buy firearms so decorated that shooting them is something that will never happen, as it would reduce their value by four figure sums.

If one thinks they are owned for power, then the reason for not owning must be fear of them, as a firearm is an inanimate object that represents nothing but a tool.
The words some use to say firearms represent a penis, reflects strongly that that person may be suffering from a bit of animistic thinking as a firearm is nothing more than a chunk of metal or space age plastic and nothing more.

No this statement by you makes my rhetoric fully accurate: “And buried on New Years day “!! BUT that said, although I intended to, I failed to indicate, that, that bit of writing was aimed at the generic rhetoric of firearm phobia being displayed by many on this thread, so I actually do apologize for writing in a manner that made it look like it was directed only to you.

Thanks for your apology, accepted, however the 2nd is a pet subject of mine, and I am still researching each U.S. State gun regulations.to see just how each differs.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

I know the argument will never be won in a forum such as this, but I have no understanding or conception of why any one would want to own one.

“why any one would want to own one ?”

Power

… The result of this was the banning of almost all handguns after a mass media campaign backed by a popular demand for gun control.

The problem is that with The Second Amendment the Americans have driven themselves so far up a one-way street that even if there was a popular movement for gun control there are still a zillion rednecks with small organs and a big stash of guns muttering bollox about “prising it from my cold, dead hands” (I think that’s the gun, but you can never tell), that the spree killings would last for another fifty years, with the gun lobby using each event as ‘proof’ that gun control doesn’t work and the only way to stop the killings is to arm the teachers / nurses / priests / ticket collectors with four 50cal Brownings.

You only had to look at the crop of fat-gutted imbeciles with assault rifles who joined the fad of standing, completely unwanted, outside recruiting offices and drilling holes in the pavement with their accidental discharges (bullets I think, but you never know, those assault rifles get a certain type pretty excited)

No, the US will just have to live with continually taking more casualties from American-owned guns than from the Luftwaffe, Wermacht, North Koreans, N Vietnamese, ISIS and the other raghead religious nut jobs combined.

Moggy

A fair reply.

A few points to make.

Firstly, turn the situation on its head. No guns at all means noone needs to defend themselves against other people with guns.

In a civilised society what is the rationale for owning guns?

In any society that has guns easily available, the local weirdo will easily find a way of owning one.

Without guns, what would be the effect on the costs of running the country? Law enforcement and so on?

I know the argument will never be won in a forum such as this, but I have no understanding or conception of why any one would want to own one.

Bit amusing to read your comments full stop, but lets leave it there.
Is it not scary to wonder about the mental state of your neighbourhood weirdo, safe in the knowledge that he (it is generally a he) can obtain a weapon more or less at will? At least my local nutter can’t do much more than rant in the street or buy a hammer…

Maybe those school leaders dread the idea of a shooting happening at their schools?

To your first point: No a neighborhood weirdo cannot obtain a firearm at will, even though news sources make it seem so.
Of course how do you identify a “neighborhood weirdo”?
I have had long conversations with a fairly large number of firearm store owners and workers, if you come in, the way you speak will quickly determine the ease or difficulty in actually touching, much less buying a firearm.

There were a few talking heads on television that said, and these were persons professionally familiar with the scenario, in the past many of the persons that have committed the killings would have been institutionalized but political forces closed the institutions and now they run free and there is nothing that can be done about it as if anyone including professional law enforcement tries to get them off the streets ACLU lawyers make the lives of those trying to get them off the streets so miserable, they simply no longer even try.

Second point: IF they truly dreaded that idea there would be no resistance to allowing adults in schools to armed but they are so incompetently ignorant they rationalize it, and this has been said, when a journalist went to a school asking opinions of armed educators “What if an armed educator kills an innocent person while trying to stop a shooter?”
So they would rather play craps and let the kids die if a shooter does show up.

If kids could still store shotguns in their lockers, at least they could try to get to their guns and shoot back.
Some stores in Minn. have “gun free zone” signs on their doors, yep, that strikes fear in the hearts of criminals of any type.

RpR I think the first line of your reply, just shows how ignorant, naive, and paranoid YOU are. How the hell do you know what I know/dont know?. Talk about being presumptuous.

Jim.
Lincoln .7

No this statement by you makes my rhetoric fully accurate: “And buried on New Years day “!! BUT that said, although I intended to, I failed to indicate, that, that bit of writing was aimed at the generic rhetoric of firearm phobia being displayed by many on this thread, so I actually do apologize for writing in a manner that made it look like it was directed only to you.

It is a bit amusing to read your ignorant, naive and paranoid comments of firearms in the U.S. of A.

Bit amusing to read your comments full stop, but lets leave it there.

There are age limits, some stricter now than thirty years ago.
Into the seventies it was not uncommon in my High School, Senior classes of over 200, for persons to take their shotgun to school and leave it in their lockers so they could go duck hunting after school.

Then again, back in the 70s, kids didn’t take their guns to school with the intention of slaughtering their teachers and classmates. Postal workers, maybe. McDonald’s workers, occasionally. There weren’t ‘popular’ songs about blowing people away – at least, not outside extremist groups.
In Britain, in 1996, there was a massacre of innocents at a school in Dunblane. 16 five year olds were gunned down along with their teacher; 15 others, children and teachers, were injured. The gunman shot himself. The result of this was the banning of almost all handguns after a mass media campaign backed by a popular demand for gun control.
But you are aware of this.
Must be nice to be able to ignore the fact that there will be other multiple death shootings, maybe within the next week or month, probably by the end of the year.
Is it not scary to wonder about the mental state of your neighbourhood weirdo, safe in the knowledge that he (it is generally a he) can obtain a weapon more or less at will? At least my local nutter can’t do much more than rant in the street or buy a hammer…

Nowadays a bracelet trinket that resembles a gun will get on expelled from school,
but then those school leaders probably spent time among person such as yourselves as children.

Maybe those school leaders dread the idea of a shooting happening at their schools?

If this thread descends any further into personal abuse it will be removed.

Moggy
Moderator

RpR I think the first line of your reply, just shows how ignorant, naive, and paranoid YOU are. How the hell do you know what I know/dont know?. Talk about being presumptuous.

Jim.
Lincoln .7

And buried on New Years day !! It says it all. I.M.H.O it’s about time they involked an age limit, as they do on alcohol.
It would be interesting to see a comparison chart, regarding which is the lesser of two evils.
Que the Forum number cruncher..C.D. Warren?.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

It is a bit amusing to read your ignorant, naive and paranoid comments of firearms in the U.S. of A.

There are age limits, some stricter now than thirty years ago.
Into the seventies it was not uncommon in my High School, Senior classes of over 200, for persons to take their shotgun to school and leave it in their lockers so they could go duck hunting after school.

Nowadays a bracelet trinket that resembles a gun will get on expelled from school,
but then those school leaders probably spent time among person such as yourselves as children.

Can somebody clear something up for me too, please? The gun lobby claim the Constitution is inviolate and can never be changed, but surely the very fact that they got this archaic right to bear arms through the 2nd amendment makes a nonsense of that; if you can amend the constitution to bestow a right, surely it can also be amended to take that right away for the greater good?

It can be amended if one can get the amendment out to be voted on by the individual States voters.
Then the majority of the voters in 3/4 of the States must approve the amendment.

That is not going to happen.

And buried on New Years day !! It says it all. I.M.H.O it’s about time they involked an age limit, as they do on alcohol.
It would be interesting to see a comparison chart, regarding which is the lesser of two evils.
Que the Forum number cruncher..C.D. Warren?.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

Get your orders in before it’s to late, nothing worse than a disappointed child on Christmas Day. 🙂
11825933_841621399278827_6601286084638292548_n by philip elcock, on Flickr

Here’s another – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N30TagPCNE4

These three muppets think it is OK to tie up at least 3 police officers (two other cars responded also) for the best part of 15 mins just so they can “test” the dealing police officers knowledge of Constitutional rights and state laws!
Seems to be a new sport in the US – video cops while bimbling around openly carrying assault weapons, in the hope you get to provoke them into some “unconstitutional” response, just to get your “YouKnob” video to hit a bazillion views!

Maybe there is a place for their own internet video channel – “YouKnob” seems like a good name for the site…

I wish we had a “Like” button here. 😀

Am I alone in the impression that he set all that up just to provoke the encounter he filmed and posted.

Of course he did. They all seem to have that freedom/liberty at all costs agenda – “you’ll take my gun when you prise it from my cold dead hands” mindset. Maybe there is a place for their own internet video channel – “YouKnob” seems like a good name for the site…