To ban guns because criminals use them is to tell the innocent and law-abiding that their rights and liberties depend not on their own conduct, but on the conduct of the guilty and the lawless, and that the law will permit them to have only such rights and liberties as the lawless will allow… For society does not control crime, ever, by forcing the law-abiding to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of criminals. Society controls crime by forcing the criminals to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of the law-abiding."
– Jeff Snyder, Oct 20, 1994
As a Canadian, I may have a different outlook on the American freedoms to bear arms, but I personally advocate for a total pistol ban except for police or military use. What opinions do American WW2 buffs have and why do you feel this way?
Is a human right like any other, I am telling this in disregard of any local regulation, the humanity is carring weapons since 30,000 years ago, I dont undestand the fixation of some people against it.
It pains me to say this, but I’m with Herman. Maybe it’s something to do with being one of the elements of what used to be the British Empire, where we absorbed a different view of many things to do with government and individual rights.
If possessing weapons is a human right, why are electric chairs, guillotines, firing squads, and NCB weapons limited to government usage?
Why can’t I have them?
Why did America get so upset about the anthrax scare after 9/11? To be consistent with the gun views of the NRA, why didn’t the NRA argue that every citizen had the right to bear anthrax? Similarly, why did they get so concerned about controlling aeroplanes? If the response to students going on a gun rampage in schools is to allow teachers and or students to carry firearms, why should any citizen be restricted from getting their hands on the joystick of a plane of any size and loading it with as much fuel or anything else they want to respond to the sort of people who executed 9/11?
There are no rights but those which any society decides exist.
I’d rather live in a society which holds the right of every citizen to life above the right of every citizen to possess a weapon which can take life, and which weapon has no purpose other than taking life.
That doesn’t mean I want to live in a society which denies all citizens the rights to all firearms, but in one which balances what is reasonable for civilian needs against the harm that the right to possession of every type of firearm may do.
And if the NRA wants to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, why have they lobbied so hard to have the ATF neutered, so that it is practically decriminalized for gun stores to sell weapons to felons, like, oh…John Muhammad? The Beltway sniper, that used his illegally procured AR-15A2 (from a Washington state gunstore, with no consequences at all!!) as a a terrorist implement in DC…
And why does the NRA lobby for “gun-rights” on behalf of non-citizens that may or may not be on terrorist watch lists? So people that cannot even fly CAN own a firearm?
I can understand people who don’t own firearms of any kind thinking its okay to outlaw handguns but okay to own rifles and shotguns, they don’t know any better. But when I hear people who own rifles and shotguns saying they think its okay to BAN handguns but their guns are okay,…the only word that comes to my mind is HYPOCRITE.
People who think its okay to ban one type of firearm and not another must believe that its easier to kill people with pistols than it is with rifles and shotguns. To that I say Bull Shit
what’s next to ban…Sniper Rifles? Oh…I mean scoped deer hunting rifles, its the slippery slope. You let them ban one type of weapon, it wont be long before them come knocking for another.
Are you saying John Muhammad was a felon at time of purchase of this rifle? This is what I know about him…
Muhammad, 41 at the time of the shootings, was a father of four who had been divorced twice. Although he had a clean criminal record, Mildred Mohammad, one of his former wives, had filed a restraining order against him. In 1985, Muhammad had converted to Islam, changing his name from John Allen Williams. He was reportedly a member of the Nation of Islam.
Muhammad served in the U.S. Army from November 1985 until he was honorably discharged as a sergeant in April 1994. He was a veteran of the first Gulf War. While in the army, he was trained as a marksman, qualifying as an “expert” with an M-16 rifle,
The difference with handguns is that you can carry concealed.
That’s one of the major reasons our police are totally opposed to civilians here having access to handguns (and cut down long arms) except for tightly controlled security guard and pistol club purposes.
At least with a rifle or shotgun I can see trouble coming in the street or a bank or wherever, instead of having someone a couple of feet from me before they produce their weapon when I can’t escape or, even if similarly armed, get mine out to defend myself.
Oh, okay Mike, you are correct technically. But you are also being disingenuous. If you know this, then you must know:
License to kill: how the GOP helped John Allen Muhammad get a sniper rifle
Washington Monthly, Jan-Feb, 2003 by Brent Kendall
BULL’S EYE SHOOTER SUPPLY IS A warehouse-sized gull store near the waterfront in Tacoma, Wash. Boasting the Puget Sound’s largest selection of firearms and ammunition, the store is a mecca for area sportsmen, who come to browse the latest hunting rifles or practice their marksmanship at the store’s 12-lane shooting range. An outside Wall of the store bears a hand-painted mural depicting lions, elephants, cheetahs, and water buffaloes. Some of the store’s firearms, however, have felled more than big game.
One such gun was a .223-caliber semiautomatic Bushmaster XM15 rifle, which Bull’s Eye received from the manufacturer on July 2 of last year. On Sept. 21, a bullet from that gun blew through the back of a liquor store manager in Montgomery, Ala. (she died in the emergency room soon after). Two days later, another bullet burrowed through the head of a beauty store manager in Baton Rouge, La., who died instantly. Between Oct. 2-3, bullets from the gun ripped through the bodies of Six people in Montgomery County, Md., killing all of them. Over the next three weeks, the gun claimed seven more victims–including a bus driver, a female FBI analyst, and a 13-year-old schoolboy–killing four of them. Finally, on Oct. 24, law enforcement authorities found the Bushmaster in the back seat of a blue CheW Caprice occupied by John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo.
Exactly how the gun got into the men’s hands remains something of a mystery. Muhammad was banned by federal law from purchasing any gun because of a restraining order obtained by his ex-wife; his ineligibility would have Shown up during the Brady background Check that gun stores are required to run oh potential buyers. Malvo was ineligible because he was a juvenile and an illegal immigrant. Bull’s Eye has no record of selling the weapon, much less conducting a background check on Muhammad or Malvo for it. Bull’s Eye employees have reported seeing Malvo at the store this summer, and later noticed the Bushmaster was not in its display case. But the store did not file the federally required theft report. When the store’s owner, Brian Borgelt, was questioned by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), the federal agency charged with enforcing the nation’s gun laws, he claimed not to have known the gun was missing until authorities traced it back to his store. Two weeks after the Sniper suspects’ arrests, he filed the theft report with the police and ATF.
This wasn’t the first time that Bull’s Eye was caught unable to account for deadly firearms that had passed through its doors. ATF inspectors, armed with data showing that weapons used in crimes had originated from Borgelt’s store, audited it three times between 1998 and 2001, and found record-keeping irregularities each time. An audit in 2000 revealed that Borgelt could not account, through sales records, for 160 guns. Being unable to account for the whereabouts of even one-fifth that many weapons would be alarming, according to former ATF agents, even for a store the size of Bull’s Eye. Moreover, Borgelt hadn’t filed personal income tax returns since 1995 and hadn’t filed some business tax forms since 1994–this despite $1.5 million in store bank deposits.
Yet despite all the warning signs, ATF didn’t shut the store down. It didn’t suspend Bull’s Eye’s license, or put it on probation. It didn’t even administer a fine–not one $5 ticket to let the store know that the bureau meant business. Two years later, a $1,600 sniper rifle seems to have disappeared from the store like a pack of M&Ms from a convenience mart, surfacing 3,000 miles away in one of the biggest killing sprees in American history–oh, and one more thing: Bull’s Eye is still open for business.
In the wake of September 11, the CIA, FBI, and INS have all been picked apart for failing to act on information that might have prevented the terrorist attacks. So far, there has been no similar call for investigating ATF, even though experts worry that Muhammad–a member of the Nation of Islam who reportedly considered America a terrorist state–may inspire al Qaeda or other terrorist groups to conduct similar attacks with easily obtained sniper rifles.
But there’s a reason you won’t see anyone investigating ATF: Its failings are the direct result of actions by the Republican politicians who now control both houses of Congress. At the behest of the National Rifle Association (NRA), GOP lawmakers (and some conservative Democrats) have saddled the bureau with so many legal restrictions that it has little practical power to deter sellers from allowing weapons to flow to criminals. ATF could have cracked down harder on Bull’s Eye, but its lack of aggressiveness was precisely what GOP lawmakers had intended. Pro-gun-control Democrats could have made an issue last fall of how Muhammad obtained a sniper rifle, but they remained silent in the face of feared retribution at the polls by the NRA. Now, as the minority party, Democrats have little power to investigate anything, even if they wanted to.
…
Here’s the thing in America: YOU CAN BUY GUNS IN ALMOST EVERY STORE, EVEN A WALL-MART. Maybe if you couldn’t buy a gun at the drug store around the corner, you wouldn’t have messed up people shooting every and anyone. If you ban the purchase of guns, guess what? The amount of crime will drop because it’ll be harder to buy the weapon used during the crime. If someone has a knife and robs a store, it’ll be harder to do so because the shopkeep will be able to fight back and potentially stop the crime while it’s being commited. Firearms for all police and military personel are ok, only if they have the guns while on duty.
Remember, if someone is out to do crimes and maybe even kill people, I don’t think that person would have a problem cutting down a shot gun’s barrel and stock so he could keep it under his jacket…Like clyde did of Bonnie and clyde fame. Now we gotta ban shot guns and rifles, cause they can be cut down
Get your’s out and defend yourself??? You wouldn’t have one, or are you saying they can be used to defend yourself from scum??? What would you do if handguns are banned and the guy pulls out a cut down shotgun???
edited to add pic of bonnie and clydes gut down shotgun…looks like I could conceal that.
I don’t know what all happened BUT I’m all for Fining, taking away the license to sell weapons and arresting anyone who sells weapons illegally. And if federal or state agents are not upholding the law fire them…
We used to be able to buy .22s and shotguns in KMart etc and sports stores without any licensing or permit requirements up to some time in the ?1970s, maybe early 1980s, but our gun crime rate was way, way below America’s and (ignoring a few rampages by nuts with guns which produced what I think were desirable tighter controls on ownership, purchase, and types of weapons allowed) not hugely worse than it has been since gun sales required a licence for the buyer and permits for each purchase.
Whatever the reasons, Americans are a lot more homicidal than their counterparts in (with the exception of Northern Ireland) other English speaking countries, as the homicide and firearm homicide rates here show. http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html
#1) When was the last time you were in WAL MART? The Wal Marts here in California dont sell firearms anymore. There are only a few stores in the Los Angeles area that sells firearms and they are highly regulated.
#2) I guess your expecting all the Bad Guys to turn in the weapons they already have right? What about gun runners who sneak guns in from Mexico to sell to Bad Guys?? If you ban guns only bad Guys will have guns…
#3) If you get robbed with a knife…dont fight back…let them have it…your money can be replaced… but seriously…what makes you think the bad gun wont have a gun?
We just make it a crime to have a cut down weapon. Which covers just about every bank robber who can’t get his hands on a pistol.
If he gets his out first, it’s immaterial whether I have a gun or not. He wins. I’d prefer he didn’t have access to a gun in the first place.
Sure, crims will always get guns, but here they usually need a decent amount of money to get a handgun or to be in an outlaw bikie gang or other heavy criminal circles. Even if the heavy crims have handguns here, at least they’re not available to our average druggie and mugger who usually resorts to a knife or blood filled syringe. I’d rather take my chances with them than a handgun.
As for shooting so-called scum, if they don’t have a gun and I don’t have one then both of us have a far better chance of survival.
The people I’d like to see shot or wiped out in any other fashion will only ever be shot by other crims, or crooked cops who are just another type of heavy crim, because they move with the big fish and don’t bother confronting average citizens in petty crimes.
Render him unconscious with the overwhelming smell of the shit that would be flying out of my arse.
They outlawed drugs here in the Good ol U. S. of A. and look how well that works. My point is outlawing things does not work…my opinion is why not just outlaw criminals…LOL
Maybe not completely, but it’d be worse if they weren’t against the law.
We don’t stick to the speed limit and pay our taxes because we think they’re a moral duty but because we don’t want to bear the punishment. If theft wasn’t against the law, how long do you think WalMart and other retailers would last? Being illegal won’t stop some people doing it, but it stops enough to make it worthwhile
“We just make it a crime to have a cut down weapon. Which covers just about every bank robber who can’t get his hands on a pistol.”
It has been for quite some time a felony to possess a “cut down” firearm. There are some 20,000 laws on the books in the United States, that regulate the possession and use of firearms. None of them will stop a person determined to commit an illegal act. There are equal numbers of laws on the books in the United States that regulate the possession and use of drugs. They are no more effective against someone determined to commit drug crime. The point is that laws are only as good as those who are subject to them. More laws will serve no purpose, as criminals will just ignore them as they ignore present laws. Our highest laws of the land are specific. ownership and use of firearms are a right, not a privilege. Not subject to whims, and well meaning appeasers.
For those who reside in lands where there is no right to keep, and bear arms, any type of arms, please enjoy your way of living, and we will enjoy ours. We like it as it is, and do not care to entertain anyone else’s notions of how we should live, or how we should regard our rights. Feel free to disagree,but keep it to yourselves.
Maybe it’s something to do with being one of the elements of what used to be the British Empire, where we absorbed a different view of many things to do with government and individual rights.
What would you do if handguns are banned and the guy pulls out a cut down shotgun??? 
