Here's some interesting information. Charly, I'm starting the research process...

http://www.tincher.to/deaths.htm
"Suicides typically make up 56.5% of all gun deaths according to the Bureau Of Justice Statistics. In fact, drugs and suicides account for more than 2 out of every 3 gun deaths in the USA. "

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm
Annual Causes of Death in the United States
Alcohol: 110,640
Tobacco: 430,700
Suicide: 30,575
Homicide: 18,272

Should read:
People kill with guns because, let's face it, beating someone to death with your bare hands is a little harder to work yourself up to.

Mark I never said that guns cannot be used for sport. Certainly they can be. What I said was that the ultimate role of the firearm is to kill. Are you saying that the original firarm wasn't invented to kill? Or was it invented purely for sport? Nevermind... I know what you're going to say.

Sly I've fired a lot of different firearms. I was in the regular army for 15 years and even served overseas. I've fired all sorts of powerful assault rifles, pistols, sub-machine guns, an M72 rocket launcher, and I've even lobbed a few grenades on the grenade range. I can take them all apart, clean them, and put them back together again too.
I agree with you that guns are a tool to be employed properly by the right people. You hit that on the head. Joe Somebody walking down the street with a concealed weapon is not one of those people in my opinion. I do understand that regular people might think they need to carry a firearm. Maybe this is what I think is wrong... the situation that brought people into thinking that they need to arm themselves. If you really think about it, it's pathetic.

people who advocate gun bans are fools who have no knowledge of history.
Guns in america aren't the problem. criminals are.

In 1999 there were 17,388 homicides in the US.


6392 without guns
10,996 with guns

Plenty of people are killed without guns and in my opinion if you take the guns away from the "good guys" there will be even more homicides than now.

If you don't have a gun to protect your family maybe your family just isn't worth protecting.

We as Americans have the right to bear arms, if you don't like it get the fuck out!

Cheers,
BV

Here are some Interesting Statistics:
http://www.kc3.com/CCWSTATS.html

You will see that states that have a CCW have a lower violent crime rate!

why do you think that in home robberies are very rare around where I live? 'cause it's legal to kill that fucker if he's in my home that why!

And in Louisiana your car is considered an extention of your home. so if some fucker jumps in my car I can shoot to kill just like I can at home.

I agree. Just like you need a license to drive a car, I think you should need one to own a gun. There's no reason not to. Something like this would force all legal gun owners to have proper gun training.

Amen Brotha

In this country, over 90% of all violent crime is drug-related, whether directly or indirectly. The US has a serious drug problem. Even during the mid-70's when interdiction efforts slowed drug smuggling to a trickle for a couple years, people started to smoke rope, sniff glue, inject extract of banana peel, you name it. Whatever it is that drives Americans to lose themselves in drugs indirectly causes most of the violence here.

What kind of "Evil" dislikes guns?

I'm going to open another can of worms here but I would argue that the violence related to drugs is because they are illegal. I don't use drugs, I don't even drink alcohol, as many a trade sgow buddy has busted on me for. But I'll be the first to admit that forcing people to be criminals to use druges leads to further criminal activity. Look what happened during prohibition. I'm not going to say I'm dead sure on this viewpoint as I don't have research (like I do on the gun issue) to go by, but I feel fairly confident.

Talk to me about rent/home prices/taxes/cost of living/weather...

Chris, whats really pathetic is that your whole frame of reference is you short life span. there has ALWAYS been a need to arm yourself except for that short period of time that has been your lifespan.
The unarmed people of this world have been killed for thousands of years. You're a fool if you'll be lulled into giving up the most potent weapon you've got to protect your family just because no one's been killed in your neck of the woods lately.

You think the 6 million jews killed in WWII wished that there wasn't a ban on gun ownership in germany?
oh, I'm sorry. that was outside of your frame of referance because it was before you were born.
ok, how about Sarajevo Yugoslavia? Do you remember the beautiful winter games in Yugoslavia? Millions of people traveled there. It was a modern, beautiful place in 1984.
Then the country was thrown into war.
how many unarmed civilians do you think died because they thought they were so civilized that they didn't need a gun for protection?

If you think we live in a world where personal protection by the use of firearms is unnecissary, I feel sorry for your children. Your shortsightedness puts them at risk.

I lived in Arizona for about 18 years where it's still legal to "pack a sidearm". You can wear a gun anyplace but a bank, school and government building...

Now, I'm not a gun advocate, but it sure seemed to cut down on the crime rate...at least in Tucson, where I lived. Ya think twice about mugging someone when they may be packin' :Graucho

Nuclear weapons don't kill people. People kill people.

yep works everytime

Guns are for pussies who don't want to risk getting a bloody nose.

Chris-

I can certainly understand where you are coming from, the frustration with gun violence in the US by criminals.

On the other hand, as my nic says, I am a very avid hunter. I am sponsored by Cabelas outdors and can be seen frequently on their saturday morning show. I own more than fifty hunting guns, mostly rifles and shotguns...each one has a specific purpose to hunt what I want to hunt. They range in size from a .50 Nitro Mag to a lowly .22.

I hunt approximately two-three months of the year, and love every minute of it. I also am frequently hired to hunt big cats, as that is my specialty. Usually the cats have killed someone or are predating on a cattle ranch. Usally in South America, although this year my partner and I got two snow leopards in Kazikstan that had killed a number of people. One of the leopards also killed two of my dogs. Son of a bitch.

I really haven't eaten any "store bought" meat in years, I grew in a rural area and we always hunted every chance we got.

What burns my as is when people advocate that I can't live the lifestyle I grew up with. It's legal and I am an ethical hunter. However, every year legislation is introduced that seeks to remove those hunting rights I have. Yep, the guns I have are designed to kill. I kill lots of things and it's just fine with me...I don't really care if people accept what I do or not. It is my right.

I was a sniper in a four man unit after da Nam when we ran alot of shodow ops and I also shot at people successfully. That did, by the way, bother me.

I guess it must be hard for people who grew up in urban areas to appreciate the fabric of life country people have. On the opening day of deer season, they closed the schools in my hometown, and they still do. Everyone is sitting in tree's with guns.

Is it right? I don't care to debate the rightness or wrongness of it because I have the right to do it. 'nuff said

Ok, that whole gun thing reminds me of what happend when i was a kid

My parents own a company which is fenced in, barbwire etc etc. They had a burglar. They also had 3 guard dogs the burglar didn't know about. 2 shephards and one doberman. The dogs were trained to let the burglar in but not out. And thats what happend.

The guy went in, but the dogs wouldn't let him out. When he relized that he was stuck he shot one of the dogs. Thats when the other 2 attacked him.

They hovered over him from 2 am to 7 am when the first people arrived at the factory. The police report said that the person had bite marks on his arms and legs he also wettend his pants. Duh!

The one shephard dog was dead and his gun he fired layed about 5 feet away from him, but he was unable to reach it and shoot the other dogs.

The burglar ended up going to court and suing my parents for his pain and suffering AND WON. My dad appealed and it dragged out, but at the end my parents company had to pay 25000 Deutsche Mark for his pain and suffering and they got a deduction in a cross suite for 1200 marks for the dog.

I know its a bit off beat ,,, but that threat just reminded me of the story, and since I am bored and its 2 am here and nobody is on fucking icq, i figure i share it with you (and hey there was a gun in the story)

Cheers

LOL....

when I was in high school ,1985, they closed the schools for opening day of deer season - they dont do this here anymore.


I curious thou just what game you hunt with a .50 cal Nitro Mag?

what you do is when you show up in the morning and find that fucker shoot him dead then he cant sue:mad:

Damn, I thought shit like that only happened in the States. I don't feel so bad about our stupid law suits now!

Cases like that are why you shoot to kill. Sounds terrible, but what else are you gonna do?

when i took my test it was pathetic.. like someone said an 1 hour video and multiple questions test, and when i asked for help the teacher just told me the answer to write. scared me how easy it was. now to be able to own a gun i had to fill out alot of papers, but still pretty easy to get.

or better yet, shoot him dead, then dump his body into a barrel full of lye and water and them bury the barrel in the ground and build a house on top of it....

hey, the deer nowadays are working out, pumping themselves up with steroids and getting all buffed out...no more couch potato deer wasting life on a sofa with a beer in one hand and television remote in the other...now they mean fucking business....and don't get me started on them thug deer...running around tossing up game signs, talking about "popping a cap in some two-legged ass" they are some tough motherfuckers...when the sun goes down, no "two-legs" better be around...

tougher times call for tougher measures.......

Check this out for graphic, real-life gun violence

:BangBang: :ak47: :BangBang: :ak47: http://www.aarrgghh.com/no_way/bDwyer.htm

Just read the Donahue interview of Michael Moore who made teh movie Bowling For Columbine which I heard about in this thread.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/827637.asp?cp1=1

Really really interesthing debate about some of the reasons why the USA have some many homicides... (poverty ect...)
It's just unbelivable... Look at the numbers...

Gun deaths in a year.
Germany, 381
France, 255
Canada, 165
United Kingdom, 68
Australia, 65
Japan, 39

The United States of America, 11,127 !

Have a look at the interview or movie, I think it's an issue that affect everyone. I surely won't miss it.

Jon

Yes but the point you are missing is that they still have as many homicides per capita if not more in some countries. You can be killed without a gun easy enough. ESPECIALLY if you don't have a firearm to protect yourself with.

Sometimes the police are not available and what if your wife was home alone while a rapist is breaking in the front door with a knife in his hand. Would you want your wife to sit their cornered in her bedroom with a pair of scisors or a nice safe snub nose revolver?

Pretty much a no brainer.

Peace!
BV

I'm Fixin to go squirrel hunting right now
wish me luck

:1orglaugh My dad is a member of that association! :BangBang:

The problem as I see it is that many people who have no business buying guns for home protection do so anyway. If you are not 100% sure that, faced with a life or death situation, that you could and would pull the trigger, you have no fucking business owning a gun.

Depending on which way the wife in the above scenario feels, it could go one of two ways:

1) She sits in the bedroom with the gun, the guy comes through the door and threatens her with the knife, and she raises the gun and blows him away with a nice clean shot to center mass.

2) She sits in the bedroom with the gun, the guy comes through the door and threatens her with the knife, and she waffles around about shooting him, stalling, etc, until he takes the fucking gun away and either rapes her and then shoots her with it, or rapes her and steals the gun.

My father is a gun smith, and I was raised around guns. I learned to shoot when I was six years old. I went hunting every year. I can field-dress squirrels and deer. And I know the damage that a bullet does to flesh -- I know damn well what will happen if I have to pull the trigger on a living being, and I know that if it comes down to it, life or death, my life or the life of someone I love, I will do it.

People who have no idea what they would do in a situation where they have a firearm in their hands and the choice of whether or not to shoot have ni fucking business owning one in the first place.

I have no problem shooting someone that is in my home. I will make damn sure thou that I see his/her face before firing. hell maybe my daughter snuck out of the house to meet her boyfriend, and I shoot her snicking back in (has happened)

My wife on the otherhand would be scared stiff - she would just freeze, I would think - she might would suprise me

BV,
I get what you mean also. But I think the problem is that with a gun, chances are things will get ugly much faster.

I mean I don't see any need to have a gun. No-one will come and break in. And if they do, I could defend myself without a gun.
I don't think having a gun would protect me any better.

I think it would just make any situation more dangerous.
And who am I to make justice for myself. If everyone can do that, then were are we going?

I use to work in a convenience store when I was 17, and was doing the night shift. And I got Arm Robbed. And I dealt with him like it was any other customer. You want the cash, fine take it. And have a good night. But please don't come again... :1orglaugh

And I didn't felt threaten at all, and was back to work the day after. Don't get me wrong, it's not a pleasant situation, but reacting viloently would have only made it worst I think.

I woudl actually feel lots less safe in a city where I know that everyone have a firearms than in a city were it's banned.

If you feel the need to have a gun to defend yourself, well I think it's because there's a political and social situation which created the fear of being agressed or attacked. And that it's this situation that should be adress. The solution lay there more than in everyone getting a firearm.

It's just my opinion and I respect yours... I mean obviously there might be jobs and situation where it's required. But for normal civilian it shouldn't be that way. Unfortunately it might be in certain places.

Jon

Well I feel the same way if it was a one on one situation and evenly matched.

Unfortunately life is not always fair and it's natures way for the dominant to pick on the weak. We can't change this. Guns have a way of evening out the playing field.

I don't think you could defend yourself to well against 3 guys with knives and clubs breaking into your house. Unless of course you had something to equal out the playing field. :BangBang:

I agree there are idiots with guns that shouldn't have them, but as long as there are more non-idiots with guns I think we will all be ok. The bad doesent outway the good.

I'm more worried about getting killed in a car accident. There are plenty of idiots driving around lethal weapons and I am sure that the statistics prove that easy enough.

Make no mistake about it, we are here because of guns, without guns we are shit.

Peace!
BV

Bingo. This is what I'm talking about. Great post Jon.

What does that have to do with the price of tea in China... or my original statement about our "make my day" law, as far as that goes? :(

I have no problem with self preservation and self defense, but what does bother me is the social acceptance of firearms, and the assimilated need to own guns.
Guns breed violence, which leads to the necessity of owning a gun in the first place. How many times do I have to say that?

Yes you all own guns. All sorts of big guns. Good for you... You think you need them to protect yourself. If that's the case, why not instead take a good look at the surroundings you choose to be in? Or maybe you enjoy living in a place where you must own a gun to protect your family, property, and yourself.

Sometimes analogies are the best way to show you how ridiculous something is that is founded by the irrational emotions of uneducated hot-heads.

repeating something that isn't true over and over doesn't eventually make it true. :)

I live on this planet. there is no where else to go.
I find it interesting that you had no response for my earlier post:1orglaugh