More Gun Stuff

[allthumbs]

DFA wrote: Gregg-head, do you hang out with your weapon in a shoulder holster when you're kicking back on your couch with your kids? Is the ol' peacemaker under your pillow when you sleep? Got one behind the TP in the lavatory? 'Cause check it out: unless you've got that fucker practically in your hand, it's not doing shit for you when some thug with a gun kicks in your front door, wakes you up with the cold muzzle against your nose, etc.

Hey DFA, thank God we have you to explain to us how the event will go down. I always wondered if the goblin would get the drop on me, and now thanks to your personal defense expertise, I know I'll be killed before I have any chance to grab my piece. Thanks for the heads up General. It's so good to have you around to set us straight on life.

 

You may take your curtsy now.

[sk]

DFA It is obvous to me that you do not have children yet... I will point out first of all that I do not have a gun because I do not know how to use one. That said, I would be willing to bet my life that I could have a gun unlocked and loaded ( or in reality for me, be on the phone with the police) before the person invading my home could find me or my children. I sleep verry lightly.

[iain]

(insert the usual "police are worthless" rant here, just saving us all some time)

[Peter_Puget]

Once on a climbing trip (first one with this partner) we were at the trailhead and putting on our packs (the approach was only a 20 minute hike) when I noticed he was wearing a holster with a pistol in it. I casually ask if it was loaded he answered of course. The next week we were camping out in the middle on knowwhere and these redneck yahoos were nearby getting drunk by a raging bonfire. Having had problems with similar rednecks in the past I was at first a bit nervous but then thinking of the gun near Name deleted's head I went off to sleep withoput a worry.

[Uncle_Tricky]

[z]

http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Snyder/cowards.html

 

Excerpt:

The Tyranny of the Elite

Gun control is a moral crusade against a benighted, barbaric citizenry. This is demonstrated not only by the ineffectualness of gun control in preventing crime, and by the fact that it focuses on restricting the behavior of the law-abiding rather than apprehending and punishing the guilty, but also by the execration that gun control proponents heap on gun owners and their evil instrumentality, the NRA. Gun owners are routinely portrayed as uneducated, paranoid rednecks fascinated by and prone to violence, i.e., exactly the type of person who opposes the liberal agenda and whose moral and social "re-education" is the object of liberal social policies. Typical of such bigotry is New York Gov. Mario Cuomo's famous characterization of gun-owners as "hunters who drink beer, don't vote, and lie to their wives about where they were all weekend." Similar vituperation is rained upon the NRA, characterized by Sen. Edward Kennedy as the "pusher's best friend," lampooned in political cartoons as standing for the right of children to carry firearms to school and, in general, portrayed as standing for an individual's God-given right to blow people away at will.

 

The stereotype is, of course, false. As criminologist and constitutional lawyer Don B. Kates, Jr. and former HCI contributor Dr. Patricia Harris have pointed out, "tudies consistently show that, on the average, gun owners are better educated and have more prestigious jobs than non-owners.... Later studies show that gun owners are less likely than non-owners to approve of police brutality, violence against dissenters, etc."

Conservatives must understand that the antipathy many liberals have for gun owners arises in good measure from their statist utopianism. This habit of mind has nowhere been better explored than in The Republic. There, Plato argues that the perfectly just society is one in which an unarmed people exhibit virtue by minding their own business in the performance of their assigned functions, while the government of philosopher-kings, above the law and protected by armed guardians unquestioning in their loyalty to the state, engineers, implements, and fine-tunes the creation of that society, aided and abetted by myths that both hide and justify their totalitarian manipulation.

 

AND

 

Polite Society

In addition to being enamored of the power of words, our conservative elite shares with liberals the notion that an armed society is just not civilized or progressive, that massive gun ownership is a blot on our civilization. This association of personal disarmament with civilized behavior is one of the great unexamined beliefs of our time.

 

Should you read English literature from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, you will discover numerous references to the fact that a gentleman, especially when out at night or traveling, armed himself with a sword or a pistol against the chance of encountering a highwayman or other such predator. This does not appear to have shocked the ladies accompanying him. True, for the most part there were no police in those days, but we have already addressed the notion that the presence of the police absolves people of the responsibility to look after their safety, and in any event the existence of the police cannot be said to have reduced crime to negligible levels.

 

It is by no means obvious why it is "civilized" to permit oneself to fall easy prey to criminal violence, and to permit criminals to continue unobstructed in their evil ways. While it may be that a society in which crime is so rare that no one ever needs to carry a weapon is "civilized," a society that stigmatizes the carrying of weapons by the law-abiding -- because it distrusts its citizens more than it fears rapists, robbers, and murderers -- certainly cannot claim this distinction. Perhaps the notion that defending oneself with lethal force is not "civilized" arises from the view that violence is always wrong, or the view that each human being is of such intrinsic worth that it is wrong to kill anyone under any circumstances. The necessary implication of these propositions, however, is that life is not worth defending. Far from being "civilized," the beliefs that counterviolence and killing are always wrong are an invitation to the spread of barbarism. Such beliefs announce loudly and clearly that those who do not respect the lives and property of others will rule over those who do.

 

In truth, one who believes it wrong to arm himself against criminal violence shows contempt of God's gift of life (or, in modern parlance, does not properly value himself), does not live up to his responsibilities to his family and community, and proclaims himself mentally and morally deficient, because he does not trust himself to behave responsibly. In truth, a state that deprives its law-abiding citizens of the means to effectively defend themselves is not civilized but barbarous, becoming an accomplice of murderers, rapists, and thugs and revealing its totalitarian nature by its tacit admission that the disorganized, random havoc created by criminals is far less a threat than are men and women who believe themselves free and independent, and act accordingly.

 

While gun control proponents and other advocates of a kinder, gentler society incessantly decry our "armed society," in truth we do not live in an armed society. We live in a society in which violent criminals and agents of the state habitually carry weapons, and in which many law-abiding citizens own firearms but do not go about armed. Department of Justice statistics indicate that 87 percent of all violent crimes occur outside the home. Essentially, although tens of millions own firearms, we are an unarmed society.

 

[allison]

I refuse to be afraid of the boogeyman.

[Paul_detrick]

As one who uses a gun at least once a week,(duck and goose hunting) they are a tool, and as any tool it is only as good or bad as the person who uses it. truth is there are bad people in the worid, and they will not go away. I belive there is more good than bad, so take the guns away from the bad. But don't tell me if I can own one or not.

[Greg_W]

Good for you, Allison. Do you have a permit to carry that new BD Raven Pro concealed?

[vegetablebelay]

Looking at current trends it's easy to see that similar to seatbelt and helmet laws, gun ownership will one day be compulsory and then we can stop all these silly arguments.

[Greg_W]

FWIW, I don't agree with seatbelt or helmet laws for anyone other than children.

[Fairweather]

www.shadeslanding.com/firearms/embar.html

[allthumbs]

Fairweather,

 

Gun-grabbers are appalled by the Second Amendment because they know that their dream of wholesale "gun control" is patently unconstitutional. This is covered in detail in the essay "The Embarrassing Second Amendment" by law professor Sanford Levinson, of which you posted above.

 

Mr. Levinson, who supports "gun control," nevertheless draws the conclusion that banning private gun ownership by qualified citizens is unconstitutional. He hypothesizes that "gun control" has made it thus far because most lawyers and judges are liberal and support "gun control"; otherwise it would have been declared unconstitutional long ago. (As and aside, "gun control" is in quotes because true gun control is an effective grip, sight alignment, and trigger squeeze that result in hitting your intended target.)

 

trask

[Fairweather]

...my point exactly.

[fleblebleb]

That's an interesting article. It argues that gun ownership, including assault rifles and whatnot, is protected by the constitution and that pro-gun control (sorry, "gun control") arguments about the exact words of the second amendment are somewhat misguided.

 

Let's say everybody were to go along with this argument. Then the remaining problem is figuring out how to have guns around without people getting shot all the time.

 

Going back to the article, it states that "over 40,000 murders were committed in the United States in 1986 and 1987, and that fully sixty percent of them were committed with firearms." That comes out to 12,000 murders committed with firearms, each year.

 

Gun laws are even more liberal in Switzerland than they are in the States (when I started googling around there were a whole lot of pages about this, have fun if you haven't already). In particular, the Swiss seem to have taken a page from Uncle Tricky's book - every Schweizer is issued an assault rifle to keep at home, sometime after they're 18.

 

Yet with all these assault rifles the gun-committed murder rate is a whole lot lower - 66 gun-committed murders in 1996 in a population of approx. seven million. Correcting for population size and we get five times as many gun murders in the States as there are in Switzerland.

 

Maybe we should stop arguing about "gun control" and instead argue about gun control, that is, how to not have people shot while still having guns around? Would be interesting for sure.

 

Oh, and the first gaper to state that people getting shot isn't really his problem as long as his gun isn't involved, is an asshole who deserves to have his gun regulated away from him. It's precisely his problem because without some form of at least alleviation "gun control" will eventually become much stricter here - just like it's becoming stricter in Switzerland.

[Dru]

Re; guns and skiing, how come since the USA has so many skiiers and so many guns, but its always a Swede or a Canadian winning at Biathlon? Ski, shoot, ski, shoot. Maybe cause you have to use a rifle, not a shotgun, handgun, smart bomb or automatic weapon

[Rainierwon]

Hey, isn't this a climbing site? Why do all these gun nuts come here to brag about having guns and kicking ass .

I have a gun, and feel that it is a right much like driving a car is a right .

Gun guys that brag about having guns and later say they are going to kick someone's ass is just a fine example why other people who don't own guns come to resent those people who do .

Get it straight, it is a responsiblily that shouldn't be taken lightly. I have read people who brag about guns and kicking ass, and you are the reason that there is opposition to fine gun owners out there, not the liberals.

I say gun control like they have in other countries, where you are trained, get a license, and act resposible .

-J

[allthumbs]

There's hardly any talk of ass kicking around here anymore. When there is, it's in jest...lighten up.

[snoboy]

Hey, isn't this a climbing site?

 

LOL

 

You'll learn...

[Greg_W]

Why do all these gun nuts come here to brag about having guns and kicking ass . I have a gun, and feel that it is a right much like driving a car is a right.

 

We're climbers who happened to own guns and believe that our rights, as guaranteed under the Second Amendment, to own guns are sacrosanct. Your assertion that your right to own a gun is "much like driving a car is a right..." proves that you have no grasp on the true issue.

[z]

No one needs a gun to kick your ass. Bitch.

[Paul_detrick]

Dru, the reason we are no good is they shoot at targets, we need homeboys running thru the woods than you would see some shooting.

[Rainierwon]

Everyone needs a gun to kick your ass. Bitch.

[Peter_Puget]

Interesting Link

[allthumbs]

That's left-wing media hysteria/horseshit. Nice try Puget, now go polish your purple helmet.