Shopkeepers shoot two robbers to death

[Nathan F]

How many times do I hear this argument that living in a country where it is illegal to own a firearm would mean I am automatically in mortal danger. I've never seen a gun in my life and IIRC last year there were less than 150 gun related deaths in the whole of the UK... how many gun related deaths were there in the US? (Population difference is only a ratio 5:1?) But that will only start another silly argument, I would have edited it out but I hit the submit button before I realised!

Blair is still a fucking moron for refusing to untighten self defence laws here though. We really can go to prison for harming someone in self defence!

The problem is that handguns are everywhere in the US and have been for at least 140 years. So trying to ban them is about as futile as trying to ban VCRs. Any criminal who wants one can get one with little if any effort. Now knowing this, if you lived in a high crime area, wouldn't you resent the living shit out of a government that tried to disarm you while at the same time being unable to disarm thugs?

Well hot damn...I agree with Elfdart, and I'm pretty sure that Shep does to.

Is it just me or did the ground just get really fricken cold?

[tharkûn]

Firearms education is a lot like sex education. If a kid really wants to ignore the rules he will, being ignorant only makes accidents more likely. Which would you rather have teach kids about sex and guns, the surreal crap coming out of Hollywood or parents and/or other responsible adults who explain the real consequences?

We teach young children about sex and guns not because we think they are responsible to have sex and shoot guns unsupervised, but because we know they are not.

Safety through ignorance is a non-starter.

[Slartibartfast]

There's a difference.

#1: there is no natural instinct that makes you grab a gun and shoot somebody else
#2: the idea isn't to seek to ACTIVELY make kids ignorants of guns. there is simply no need to teach them how to actually SHOOT, only that guns aren't toys.

What, do you suggest that if they're going to play with a gun and shoot their friends, to do so accurately at least?

[Kamakazie Sith]

How many times do I hear this argument that living in a country where it is illegal to own a firearm would mean I am automatically in mortal danger. I've never seen a gun in my life and IIRC last year there were less than 150 gun related deaths in the whole of the UK... how many gun related deaths were there in the US? (Population difference is only a ratio 5:1?) But that will only start another silly argument, I would have edited it out but I hit the submit button before I realised!

Blair is still a fucking moron for refusing to untighten self defence laws here though. We really can go to prison for harming someone in self defence!

The problem is that handguns are everywhere in the US and have been for at least 140 years. So trying to ban them is about as futile as trying to ban VCRs. Any criminal who wants one can get one with little if any effort. Now knowing this, if you lived in a high crime area, wouldn't you resent the living shit out of a government that tried to disarm you while at the same time being unable to disarm thugs?

Well hot damn...I agree with Elfdart, and I'm pretty sure that Shep does to.

Is it just me or did the ground just get really fricken cold?

This just in. Hell has frozen over. In other news a cow flew over the moon..

On topic. I completely agree with Elfdart. Firearms are just too large a part of American culture to simply ban. They tried it with alcohol and all that served to do was make bad people rich.

[Rogue 9]

There's a difference.

#1: there is no natural instinct that makes you grab a gun and shoot somebody else
#2: the idea isn't to seek to ACTIVELY make kids ignorants of guns. there is simply no need to teach them how to actually SHOOT, only that guns aren't toys.

What, do you suggest that if they're going to play with a gun and shoot their friends, to do so accurately at least?

For number one, there is a natural instinct to defend yourself through any means available to you that you are aware of and can use, including a firearm if one is handy. It's true that pure, undirected, and untrained instinct will have you claw for someone's eyes, but humans are not great creatures of instinct. We do what we learn and we can learn to such a degree that a reaction not found in nature can become reflexive. For your second point, I don't think anyone's suggested marksmanship courses either. But in a country such as the United States, where firearms are so prolific, simply knowing that guns are not toys is not enough; one should learn how to properly handle one. A situation may easily arise where the knowledge of how not to hold a gun and to never assume that a gun is unloaded and so forth would be essential. Simple gun safety is not tied to marksmanship.

[Darth Wong]

So kids aren't responsible enough to drive a car or vote or drink, but they are responsible enough to wield power of life or death over others?

I don't see how that follows. It seems that gun use education is being advocated, not that juveniles are responsible enough to have unfettered personal access to deadly firearms.

Oh really? Nathan is saying it's OK if they're educated and supervised, which is like saying it's OK for an 8 year old to drive on the highway as long as you're sitting in the passenger seat and you taught him how to drive.

[Petrosjko]

There's a difference.

#1: there is no natural instinct that makes you grab a gun and shoot somebody else
#2: the idea isn't to seek to ACTIVELY make kids ignorants of guns. there is simply no need to teach them how to actually SHOOT, only that guns aren't toys.

What, do you suggest that if they're going to play with a gun and shoot their friends, to do so accurately at least?

Theory vs. practice. I and pretty much all my friends grew up with fairly esy access to firearms. When I went to high school they were just barely starting to crack down on students who put their rifles in their cars on Friday morning so they could head straight out of school for hunting trips that night.

When my parents were growing up, the typical place to store the rifles was in the corners of the living room. On the high school issue, my father was rather surprised at the crackdown when I was in school, because when he went students would openly come to school with rifles on the gunracks of their pickups when they had an afterschool hunting trip.

I've had a theory for some time now that the spike in gun accidents we saw from the seventies to eighties came from the fact that there were a lot of kids who were uneducated with guns coming into contact with families still living the redneck rifle in the corner of the living room style.

For my own self, I had it ground into me as a seriously inviolable law from the time I could walk... do not touch guns when the parents aren't around. It was teaching on the order of "When my parents say 'Freeze', I freeze, because I might be standing right next to a snake."

I got my first rifle at the age of eight, after my parents were damned good and sure that I knew the rules- treat it like it's loaded, never point it at anybody, finger off the trigger until ready to shoot.

And believe me, they tested me on those principles.

First handgun at twelve, a beaut of a Smith and Wesson .357 revolver that I wish I still had.

Funny thing is, my friends and I were better grounded on safety principles than some of the supposedly professionally trained gunhandlers I've come into contact with. When I was twenty, I had a guy fresh out of Army AIT shooting from behind me, over my head, at a bird that just taken off. A few years later, I screamed at a police cadet and nearly threw him out of my house because he wouldn't take care of where he was pointing his damned gun. When I bitched at him, the dumbass gave me the classic line of the unsafe gun handler- 'It's not loaded!'

[Alan Bolte]

So kids aren't responsible enough to drive a car or vote or drink, but they are responsible enough to wield power of life or death over others?

I don't see how that follows. It seems that gun use education is being advocated, not that juveniles are responsible enough to have unfettered personal access to deadly firearms.

Oh really? Nathan is saying it's OK if they're educated and supervised, which is like saying it's OK for an 8 year old to drive on the highway as long as you're sitting in the passenger seat and you taught him how to drive.

That is a terrible analogy. Driving at significant speeds requires fast reflexes and good hand-eye coordination, not to mention a huge attention span. Driving on an actual highway endangers a large number of other people besides the kid and his parent. Sitting in the passenger seat makes it impossible to affect the foot controls and very difficult to do anything about the steering, and besides that, by the time the car is on a course that would put the occupants in danger, it's often too late to react, reach across, and change anything: you'll won't be able to brake fast enough, or you'll turn successfully but skid, etc.

Firing a gun without killing yourself or your parent (let's assume for the moment that the supervisor is smart enough to take the kid to a place where there won't be anyone else around; I'm not questioning the safety of gun instruction in all or average cases, just your analogy) requires only that the kid not aim it backwards or do something monumentally stupid. A supervisor could - and would have every reason to - stand directly behind the child, bracing him and allowing quick access to the gun should the child mishandle it in any way.

A better analogy would be letting the kid steer while he sits on your lap in a golf cart near a cliff in a deserted, open area. OTOH, I'm not so good at making analogies, so feel free to ignore mine. As to why you're driving near a cliff in the first place? I think the other posters have a better handle on that argument, so I'll leave it to them.

[Medic]

I had a guy fresh out of Army AIT shooting from behind me, over my head, at a bird that just taken off.

This isn't how they do it at Ft. Knox I assure you. "Keep your weapon up and down range at all times and never go in front of the firing line." The Drill's threaten you with physical violence (which in this case is very justifiable) if you so much as point that weapon too far to the side or any number of "unsafe acts." They fucking scream at you if you screw a tiny thing up.

(then again, they are acutely aware that if a private really hates a Drill this is their time to get even, even if it would mean certain imprisonment or more likely death)

Most likely, this guy grew up around guns but never got proper safety training and is confident he'll never fuck up. This type of person does their own thing at the ranges and ignore the training methods espoused by the instructors.

[Petrosjko]

This isn't how they do it at Ft. Knox I assure you. "Keep your weapon up and down range at all times and never go in front of the firing line." The Drill's threaten you with physical violence (which in this case is very justifiable) if you so much as point that weapon too far to the side or any number of "unsafe acts." They fucking scream at you if you screw a tiny thing up.

(then again, they are acutely aware that if a private really hates a Drill this is their time to get even, even if it would mean certain imprisonment or more likely death)

Most likely, this guy grew up around guns but never got proper safety training and is confident he'll never fuck up. This type of person does their own thing at the ranges and ignore the training methods espoused by the instructors.

Sort of. His father owned a handgun for self protection, but rarely let him touch it. You're right that he did think he was a badass small arms mofo, and that was an extension of his uber-cocky personality in general.

What's the base in Lawton, OK? That's where he did his AIT. He was a cannon cocker in the reserves.

[tharkûn]

#1: there is no natural instinct that makes you grab a gun and shoot somebody else

Self defense is a natural instinct. The same instinct that reaches for something to club an agressor with will reach for a gun.

#2: the idea isn't to seek to ACTIVELY make kids ignorants of guns. there is simply no need to teach them how to actually SHOOT, only that guns aren't toys.

Teaching them to shoot isn't an issue. Anyone who wants to learn to shoot can figure out the basics in a matter of minutes. There are reams of material on proper shooting techniques availible at libraries or through the internet. What is important is teaching the real effects of firing a gun so that only a homicidal individual will shoot someone else. It is just as important to explain why not to touch as to explain not to touch.

What, do you suggest that if they're going to play with a gun and shoot their friends, to do so accurately at least?

Nobody who kills a friend while "playing" with a gun does so intentionally or accurately. What proper shooting education does is make them less likely to play because they intimately know WHY playing with a gun is a bad idea. There is an inverse correlation between gun safety education and accidental gun deaths. Homocidal individuals are the only people who would be more likely to kill someone by learning to shoot, but I doubt the difference is all that much.

Oh really? Nathan is saying it's OK if they're educated and supervised, which is like saying it's OK for an 8 year old to drive on the highway as long as you're sitting in the passenger seat and you taught him how to drive.

Most of the advocates of supervised gun usage are talking about in the context of hunting or target shooting. In those situations it is far less demanding a task in terms of reflexes, judgement, and prediction. You have a far less dynamic situation with far greater control by the supervisor. Seriously in eras past preteen boys took up firearms, entered armies, and served as bloody soldiers. Even today there are thousands of child soldiers who manage not to blow their own heads off. Kids can responsibly handle guns if properly trained, they have proven this throughout history by not managing to kill themselves wholesale.

Cars show the opposite. The number of teen fatalities attribute to vehicular accidents dwarfs gun accidents by an order of magnitude or more. Accidental gun deaths, to avoid the oft repeated problem of gang killings and the like, simply aren't nearly as common auto accidents.

[Darth Wong]

Oh really? Nathan is saying it's OK if they're educated and supervised, which is like saying it's OK for an 8 year old to drive on the highway as long as you're sitting in the passenger seat and you taught him how to drive.

That is a terrible analogy. Driving at significant speeds requires fast reflexes and good hand-eye coordination, not to mention a huge attention span. Driving on an actual highway endangers a large number of other people besides the kid and his parent. Sitting in the passenger seat makes it impossible to affect the foot controls and very difficult to do anything about the steering, and besides that, by the time the car is on a course that would put the occupants in danger, it's often too late to react, reach across, and change anything: you'll won't be able to brake fast enough, or you'll turn successfully but skid, etc.

Oh, and you can guarantee that someone "supervising" a kid with a gun can always stop him before he can hurt somebody? A gun does not require constant observance of safety procedures? A gun in the hands of an irresponsible person does not endanger others? I call bullshit on your so-called rebuttal.

Firing a gun without killing yourself or your parent (let's assume for the moment that the supervisor is smart enough to take the kid to a place where there won't be anyone else around; I'm not questioning the safety of gun instruction in all or average cases, just your analogy) requires only that the kid not aim it backwards or do something monumentally stupid. A supervisor could - and would have every reason to - stand directly behind the child, bracing him and allowing quick access to the gun should the child mishandle it in any way.

All of these things are what you figure people SHOULD do. If we based driving laws on what we think responsible people SHOULD do (and just ignore the irresponsible people), we would be fucking stupid. Same here.

A better analogy would be letting the kid steer while he sits on your lap in a golf cart near a cliff in a deserted, open area.

Bullshit. The NRA has never said that kids should only be allowed to shoot where no one else is in a 2 mile radius.

[Darth Wong]

Most of the advocates of supervised gun usage are talking about in the context of hunting or target shooting.

Most of the advocates of supervised gun usage are still saying that any and all precautions should be voluntary, which is still fucking stupid. No regulation! Regulation is baaaaaaad!!!! No licensing! Licensing is baaaaad! And it's ... liberal!!!!!!!

[tharkûn]

Most of the advocates of supervised gun usage are still saying that any and all precautions should be voluntary

I am not aware of that. The local NRA reps here have zero problem with rules requiring youn minors to only be allowed to hunt under the supervision of a legally responsible adult.

No regulation! Regulation is baaaaaaad!!!! No licensing! Licensing is baaaaad! And it's ... liberal!!!!!!!

And there is a reason for it. The lobbyists for regulation, licensing, and other gun control measures point blank state that these measures are simple means by which to introduce more gun control and then proceed to abuse them. Take gun licensing, if the system wasn't a peice of crap most gun owners would have no problems. But then you have places like California where they banned certain guns and then turned around and confiscated licensed guns rather than offer a reasonable means by which collectors could keep their guns (such as more stringent licensing). Yes it is a slippery slope, but it is one which the "other side" has admitted they intend to employ and has a history of coming to fruition.

Even the national NRA isn't against all forms of regulation. Take the background checks, the NRA backed a plan to have instaneous background checks for any gun purchase to weed out felons and the like. That wasn't good enough for Gun Control Inc. who demanded an inconvenient and futile waiting period (if you really want to kill someone same day you buy the gun you just go black market). Immediately after winning a waiting period of 3 days, suddenly talk centered around extending it and limiting the number of gun purchases per month.

Essentially you have an issue where common sense cannot rule because whackos on either side have so poisoned the well that compromise is a sure fire way to lose any political clout you have with your group.

Nobody would have a problem with sensible gun control if it couldn't be used as a stepping stone to unsensible gun control. Given the rank duplicity and moronitude coming out of the "liberal" side, I'd pick the gun nut's extreme as the less harmful alternative. When compromise is perceived to be viable and honest then positions will shift.

[Darth Wong]

Most of the advocates of supervised gun usage are still saying that any and all precautions should be voluntary

I am not aware of that. The local NRA reps here have zero problem with rules requiring youn minors to only be allowed to hunt under the supervision of a legally responsible adult.

And who regulates how "responsible" these adults are? There is a vast gulf between a proper licensing and regulation system and this "it's OK if you go with your kid" bullshit. Not to mention things like unlocked guns in houses, guns kept loaded at night, etc.

And there is a reason for it. The lobbyists for regulation, licensing, and other gun control measures point blank state that these measures are simple means by which to introduce more gun control and then proceed to abuse them.

Oh wow, there are extremists on the other side, therefore we should be extreme ourselves! Nice logic, which I've never ever heard before

[tharkûn]

And who regulates how "responsible" these adults are? There is a vast gulf between a proper licensing and regulation system and this "it's OK if you go with your kid" bullshit. Not to mention things like unlocked guns in houses, guns kept loaded at night, etc.

Responsible adult in this context means if the kid shoots someone, guess who goes to jail?

Oh wow, there are extremists on the other side, therefore we should be extreme ourselves! Nice logic, which I've never ever heard before

I'm not stating it is intelligent, I'm stating the way it is. Pragmatically speaking you have the choice of backing one set of extremists or the other. Compromising is not a pragmatic political choice in the present climate.

[Darth Wong]

And who regulates how "responsible" these adults are? There is a vast gulf between a proper licensing and regulation system and this "it's OK if you go with your kid" bullshit. Not to mention things like unlocked guns in houses, guns kept loaded at night, etc.

Responsible adult in this context means if the kid shoots someone, guess who goes to jail?

Not the parent, judging from the countless cases of shootings involving kids. At most, he'll get some kind of negligence charge, which is pretty piss-poor when somebody got killed.

Oh wow, there are extremists on the other side, therefore we should be extreme ourselves! Nice logic, which I've never ever heard before

I'm not stating it is intelligent, I'm stating the way it is. Pragmatically speaking you have the choice of backing one set of extremists or the other. Compromising is not a pragmatic political choice in the present climate.

Bullshit. Altering your own personal position to suit an extremist is hardly necessary.

[Slartibartfast]

#1: there is no natural instinct that makes you grab a gun and shoot somebody else

Self defense is a natural instinct. The same instinct that reaches for something to club an agressor with will reach for a gun.

Who said anything about self defence? We're talking about kids taking their parent's guns and playing with them. They just don't HAVE to. It's different to forbid that than to forbid SEX

#2: the idea isn't to seek to ACTIVELY make kids ignorants of guns. there is simply no need to teach them how to actually SHOOT, only that guns aren't toys.

Teaching them to shoot isn't an issue. Anyone who wants to learn to shoot can figure out the basics in a matter of minutes. There are reams of material on proper shooting techniques availible at libraries or through the internet. What is important is teaching the real effects of firing a gun so that only a homicidal individual will shoot someone else. It is just as important to explain why not to touch as to explain not to touch.

This was in relation to a post saying "we should teach dem kids to shoot, that way they'll know it's wrong!" and comparing it to sex education. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

What, do you suggest that if they're going to play with a gun and shoot their friends, to do so accurately at least?

Nobody who kills a friend while "playing" with a gun does so intentionally or accurately. What proper shooting education does is make them less likely to play because they intimately know WHY playing with a gun is a bad idea. There is an inverse correlation between gun safety education and accidental gun deaths. Homocidal individuals are the only people who would be more likely to kill someone by learning to shoot, but I doubt the difference is all that much.

See above. You don't need "shooting lessons" to teach kids the dangers of guns. And if you think that parents just telling them that they shouldn't touch guns is not enough, mandatory classes can be applied in school to teach them the *dangers* of guns, not actual shooting lessons like some have suggested.

[tharkûn]

're talking about kids taking their parent's guns and playing with them. They just don't HAVE to. It's different to forbid that than to forbid SEX

Look I never said the two were frikking identical I said one was like the other. There are certain similarities and the main one is that ignorance doesn't breed safety.

This was in relation to a post saying "we should teach dem kids to shoot, that way they'll know it's wrong!" and comparing it to sex education. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

I don't think you need to teach kids to be marksmen to teach them about guns. What kids do need to see is the giant frikking hole a gun blows through a paper target or something else tangible to get over the crap Hollywood spews in stylized violence.

That being said I don't see a helluvalot wrong with kids who do learn to be marksmen. The number of intentional killings that would be prevented because kids are ignorant is quite small. The biggest reason kids are killed by guns is gang violence and that isn't going to be changed. Even for the rare incidents where kids decide to go to school and open up on the place, virtually all of those are either spray 'n pray or point blank.

And if you think that parents just telling them that they shouldn't touch guns is not enough, mandatory classes can be applied in school to teach them the *dangers* of guns, not actual shooting lessons like some have suggested.

I think kids need to see a gun actually fired, preferably live at a target range. It leaves a far more vivid image in the brain of why these things aren't toys.

I have no problem if kids or their parents elect to have their children learn to shoot under supervised conditions.

Not the parent, judging from the countless cases of shootings involving kids.

The vast, vast majority of those cases are gang violence involving teens and preteens. How many of these cases actually happened when an adult was supervising?

At most, he'll get some kind of negligence charge, which is pretty piss-poor when somebody got killed.

Yes, but it is fitting with the penalty drunk driving scum get. The problem is deeper than the gun issue here.

Altering your own personal position to suit an extremist is hardly necessary.

My personal position has no problem with licensing, registration, mandatory training, etc. Hell I'd have no problem going over the Swiss model.

However my vote and a pittance of cash goes to the side I find least idiotic. If a sensible compromise gun lobby existed then I'd be behind that instead. As of right now I care more about stopping the morons at Gun Control Inc. than about the excesses on the gun nut side.

[jegs2]

Any parents with firearms should purchase and use weapon locking devices. They are not all that expensive and easy to obtain.

Education is also important. I first fired a firearm (my dad's 38 special) around the age of eight, under close supervision of my dad. After feeling what at the time felt like an incredible kick (which hurt my hands) and watching the damage it did to the target, I had no desire to touch the thing again for a very long time.