Have at me....

[pianoman9701]

Sorry Crunchy, I didn't mean to edit your response. I hit the wrong button.

High capacity, low recoil, short arms work very well in tight spaces, especially when you're dealing with multiple intruders or a civil unrest situation, such as natural or economic disaster. Every home intrusion isn't just one guy with a BB gun or a knife.

[Crunchy]

Sorry Crunchy, I didn't mean to edit your response. I hit the wrong button.

High capacity, low recoil, short arms work very well in tight spaces, especially when you're dealing with multiple intruders or a civil unrest situation, such as natural or economic disaster. Every home intrusion isn't just one guy with a BB gun or a knife.

Yes I know that    Still doesnt make the long gun any more effective in that situation. Unless of course we are all being a little unrealistic.

[pianoman9701]

Sorry Crunchy, I didn't mean to edit your response. I hit the wrong button.

High capacity, low recoil, short arms work very well in tight spaces, especially when you're dealing with multiple intruders or a civil unrest situation, such as natural or economic disaster. Every home intrusion isn't just one guy with a BB gun or a knife.

Yes I know that    Still doesnt make the long gun any more effective in that situation. Unless of course we are all being a little unrealistic.

I was talking about a .223 with a tactical stock as opposed to a long gun. It's a very effective and accurate weapon in a close fighting situation. A shotgun is done very quickly and takes time to reload. A handgun with enough stopping power is harder to control and again, you'd have to reload more frequently.

[Curly]

“When someone persuades me that I’m wrong, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" - Variously attributed.

As an honest answer, I’ve been persuaded and have changed my mind on something.

Hopefully you will change your mind again once you realize you are wrong about wanting gun control.  You can't protect your granddaughter from all the crazies of the world; why not allow her to grow-up with the rights that you currently have so she can choose to protect herself and her family if she wishes?

She will be able to protect herself when she grows up.  Just maybe not with an AK or AR or whatever ends up on a gun ban (if they have one).  Myself, I would rather defend somone breaking into my home with a shotgun filled with double 00 then an AR. As far as defending myself on the street, once again I pick a handgun over an AR or AK.  Not sure where an AK or AR would benefit anyone in protecting themselves??  Most SWAT team that do use ARs only do so because they are fully auto, otherwise there isnt much benefit to having one when doing tactical entries.

That is what I'm talking about - when she grows up.  She should have the choice of protecting herself with the same weapons available to us today.  That includes AR15's AK47's or whatever with 30 round mags.  Why should we ban 30 rd mags and make it so that only criminals have them?   Good guys and gals should have the choice too, not just the bad guys.

[whacker1]

Larry,

while I appreciate your comments.  I feel that this is more of reactionary society.I don't mean to offend you, but rather trying to illustrate that society needs a wake up call. Try and look at from the 30,000 foot view. 

We react to 9/11 by inventing or expanding TSA and Homeland Security

There are still very few guards posted at parking garage entrances as a reaction to the first attempt to bring down the World Trade Center, because that thought has faded into the background. 

Gun Free zones as a reaction to guns in society and the historical travesties inflicted by crazies with guns.  Thus resulting in societies desire to make the pulic at large feel safer with a false sense of such security. 

We, as humans, react to the current and recent historical travesties, but can not possibly forecast what will happen next.  We talk about chemical warfare as a part of war, 3rd world countries, but we rarely talk about the possibility of that domestically

You will never eliminate crazies or the threat of crazies, just like you won't eliminate sadness.   But you can position yourself and society to defend yourself or itself.  However, society as a heavy minority or slight majority that would rather pretend that the governement can defend them better via banning certain tools, thoughts, ideas, etc.  They would rather go down that path, because it is significantly more challenging to put the thought into actually learning how to defend oneself, operate a firearm, how to engage, when to engage, and what the possible outcomes might be if you do engage.

Loss of life, sadness, and fear are all real emotions related to the various debates at hand.  But decisions need to be made without emotion, and solutions not further limitations

[bearhunter99]

Thank you for your thoughts, but in relation to ANY form of compromise to our right to own firearms there are a couple of points I would like to touch on.

Revolvers. 
Ever see a guy who has practiced a bit shoot a revolver with speed loaders?  A person who has practiced can shoot pretty darn fast.  A Taurus .357 with an 8 round cylinder and a few speed loaders will be able to spread over 50 rounds in under well under five minutes.  While I agree that it would be harder to spray the bullets around compared to a semi auto, this kind of disaster will still not be preventable by the elimination of high capacity magazines.  Are we going to ban revolvers and speed loaders next?

Shotguns
Even with the ban of high capacity magazines, how many shotguns are out there that can hold 5 rounds or more?  How much devastation would there be with a guy carrying a shotgun loaded with buckshot?  From a distance the buckshot spreads out dramatically.  What if someone took a shotgun to a crowded mall or event?  A guy could easily carry 2-3 shotguns and shoot 15 rounds in short order, each round (#4 buckshot) shoots 21 pellets of .24 caliber.  That's 315 .24 caliber bullets.  Even using a double barreled shotgun, how fast can a break open shotgun be reloaded?  I can shoot some serious rounds through a double barrel in short order.  Are we going to ban shotguns next?

High powered rifles
14 people were killed and another 32 others were wounded by a guy in a clock tower with high powered rifles.  Granted he also had an M1 carbine but also used basic hunting rifles.  How many people could a guy with a good sniper position take out in a busier place?  Are we going to ban hunting rifles next?

Gasoline
How much damage could a guy with a truck full of gasoline do if he drove it into a school and ignited it?  Are we going to ban gasoline next?

Fertilizer
Timothy McVeigh's attack killed 168 people and injured over 800 in a bombing in Oklahoma City (which killed 19 children in a daycare by the way).  Are we going to ban fertilizer next?

My point is that bad people are going to do bad things, by any means necessary.  Gun control has proven to be pointless legislation in the major cities that have implemented gun control measures.  This is just another pointless regulation of the American people who are slowly losing more and more of their basic rights.  The founding fathers would be ashamed of what this nation has become IMHO.

[Larry S.]

To Whacker, Bearhunter, Pianoman, et. al...

Trust me, I've read, heard, USED, thought about, thrown out, re-thought just about every argument, counter-argument, and suggestion that has been made here. I've done that in writing to my representatives, in phone calls to same, and in coffee table discussions I have with several anti-gun friends that I've known for years (yes, they are, in fact, human and even "nearly normal" except with regard to firearms).

The suggestion I made (slowing down the volume of fire) is just that - an idea, a proposal, a starting point. It won't be the whole answer. It might not even be part of an answer. It is, however, something that many who are neither pro/anti firearm want to see and that is - thoughts from those of us who know and use these "things" that might help reduce the carnage or put roadblocks in front of the shooters.

Another individual who'd read this had stumbled across data regarding the profligate use of psychotropic drugs among the young in our society. Fidgety? Drug them. Depressed? Drug them. Angry? Drug them. The connection was that most - if not all - of these shooters were on or had been on drugs. We need to put that out in front of our representatives too.

The bottom line is that we, the responsible and safe firearm owners, need to be seen as engaged rather than intransigent. Participants rather than backbench shouters. Willing to interact constructively rather than distant and angry.

I made the point that fully-automatic weapons were put on the shelf when society got sick and tired of the mess they made back in the '30's. We're headed in that direction now with other firearms and accessories, and I think (or I wouldn't be saying any of this) we need to be proactive and willing to look at any suggestion...and explain to our reps  (you have been calling and writing them, right?) why we believe it will or won't work in a calm and constructive manner.

Which is mostly what I've seen here!

Again, have at me.

Larry Simoneaux

[JimmyHoffa]

Mass shootings are statistical outliers.  You (or your kids) have a much better chance of being hit by lightning than being killed in a crazed, mass-shooting event.  Gun bans in other countries or in some of the bigger US cities seems to show increases in crimes with guns.  Why would it be any different here?  So in effect in the efforts to prevent an outlier it would be acceptable to encourage a known given.  Banning anything will lead to more, so difficult to say how a ban on just magazines or military assualt rifles would be what would happen.  The antis will spin things--imagine how they will sell banning shotguns:  "Oh my!  That shell holds 12 rounds of 00 Buckshot.  It is like shooting 12 people with a 9 mm in one shot!  Ban now!"   

[Huntbear]

Larry,

Again, by banning high capacity magazines, or out right confiscation of them and so called "military look alike" firearms..  The only people following the law is the honest folks that do not want to go to jail.

Again, the criminal element does not and will not care about a new law.   We have 20,000 gun laws on the books by both Federal and state.  Lets start by enforcing the current laws. 

Do you know it is a crime to attempt to purchase a gun if you have a felony.  People do it all the time.  When the gun shop owner calls the local PD, they are to busy to worry about picking them up..  The DA refuses to prosecute.  Even though the gun shop owner now has all their pertinent data in his hands.   Why not start there?

Make crimes with guns a mandatory sentencing issue.  You use a gun in a crime.. even without pulling the trigger you get a mandatory 20 years.  You pull the trigger you get life.  You kill someone AUTOMATIC DEATH SENTENCE.  Put some teeth back in the laws we have instead of persecuting the law abiding gun owners, that are the ONLY ONES that will be affected by any new bans.

[Alan K]

However, I’m also the grandfather of a 7-year-old angel named Lori and, before she moved to Texas, I was a volunteer in her second-grade classroom. Because of that, and since the shootings in Newtown, there hasn’t been a waking hour wherein I haven’t thought, “There, but for the grace of God...”

The biggest difference in arguments between the left and right are that the left uses emotion to sway people, while the right uses reason and common sense.  It looks to me that Larry here is swayed by the emotional argument.  The odds that a kid will be shot in a school shooting is almost non-existent, but we want legislation that will affect hundreds of millions of law abiding citizens, and in all likely-hood (say the statistics) nothing will happen!?

Using this article here, that's a couple years old, you can do some quick math and see what kind of chance your child has of getting killed in a school shooting:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2007/09/us-school-shoot/

The article is from 2007, and says that there were 323 students were killed in the 15 years prior.  That's 21.5/year.  Assume the rate has increased over the last 5 (though I've heard it's actually gone down), to 25/year.  The article also states that there are 70 million students in kindergarten through college.  Lets say that has increased to 75 million a year.  That's one out of every 3 million students are killed via shooting each year. 

People are insane to want to infringe on the rights of hundreds of millions of people to try (and again almost certainly unsuccessfully) to reduce the odds of such an occurrence that is already almost 0.


And how about this. . . We've all been to a school at the end or beginning of the day when all the buses are lined up and kids are getting on/off.  A lunatic could easily drive up and plow through the tens to hundreds of kids depending on the size of the school.  Point is there are hundreds of ways to conduct mass killings, and you can't stop these lunatics! Infringing on the rights of hundreds of millions of people to try and stop these things is just STUPID!

Honestly, and I'll probably take some flack for this  , I don't think even if it did reduce the annual deaths from 25 to 0 it would be worth the rights of hundreds of millions.  If anyone thought that it was worth it, I'd imagine they think we should certainly take away cars, the right to walk outside (lightning!), and just about every other freedom that we have because there are countless other things that kill more kids every year.

[Special T]

It is an unfortunate fact of life that there is EVIL present. Evil and those that do evil acts will ALWAYS be with us. No reasonable person wants bad things to happen to good and/or innocent people. Evil will seek ANY tool to make carnage. These senseless acts of violence seem to make us NEED to find a way of preventing it, sadly there is little really that can be done.

A firearm is a tool, in the hands of a policeman or honest citizen it can prevent much harm... We all know what it can do in the hands of Evil. Since lawbreakers or the mentally ill pay no heed to laws there is no logic as to why we should handicap good people... If you fear your law abiding neighbors then i think your motives are not honest. You argument is a slippery slope designed to make each of us look extreme, or shame us into your version of "normal".  Your tactic is the soft sell so that we will slip your noose over our heads for you.

The price of Freedom is eternal vigilance. Too many of us have been lulled to into a false sense of security while letting our representatives pass BS legislation like you propose as "reasonable".

[buckhorn2]

I beleive that we need to protect children. There are people out there that for some reason want to cause the most trouble and hurt the most people so they turn to the children. If it takes more officers patrolling schools and malls or even maybe the reserves we need to come up with a plan. Have you noticed that you never see one of these people trying to shoot up a gun shop it;s always malls;schools and theaters.

[csaaphill]

the thing in the 30's was because of the tommy gun and all the prohobition crowd back then. since alchol becam legal again that ban could of been lifted. changing one ban prohobition to another has never worked at least not here. From 1994-2004 those very same guns were banned, and shorlty after columbine happened so banning things never work. The second ammendment is to fight against tyrrany which is why it was made in the first place.
the NRA's point I think is because they know that taking away the gun free zones is a pipe dream. So armed guards might be the only option. We can't give in to hype and fear and give into the gun grabbers. I may not have kids personally, but I have a niece who's 3 going on 4, and if I could I'd addopt her in a heart beat. That day she was my first thought as well as yours I'm sure. I shed a tear later that night talking things over with my wife. One thing Gov was never to be in the business to keeping us safe they were in the business to keep us free.
"One who gives up liberty for temporary safety shall deserve neither"

[arees]

There comes a point where you get so frustrated by scarey events happening in the news that you just can't stand to do nothing any more.  You are so overcome by your inability to prevent the unpreventable that doing anything is better than doing nothing.  At that point you are left to advocate for things that are not only ineffective, but possibly counter productive.

We should have "swift and harsh punishment" which would not stop shooters that shoot them selves at the end of their rampage.  Anybody who starts a shooting spree has to anticipate a high probability of swift and harsh punishment.

How about "legal accountability" for those who did not secure their firearms.  But the mother, the source of the firearms, is dead already and out of reach of any legal action.

More background checks...but there is no evidence that the mother did not go through a background check.

Fixed non-detachable magazines for all new firearms...assuming no crazy person can get a hold of a used firearm.  Would you like an estimate on the number of semi-automatic scary black rifles out there with detachable magazines?

Make it harder for law abiding citizens to access their firearms...which will only make things difficult for law abiding citizens.  Criminals won't obey the laws and the undiagnosed crazies have plenty of time to take off their trigger locks before they start their rampage.

We should keep guns out of the hands of crazy people.  A nice thought (and already the law) but truly hard to implement.  Note the Cafe Racer shooting in Seattle.  The shooter's family knew he had violent mental issues but refused to support judicial intervention because it would mean that their son would be locked up.  (When will that family be brought to justice or at least sued?)  There are lots of borderline crazy people out there and they may not do anything actionable until they start shooting.

Then there is whole sale confiscation.  The reason that gun owners are so afraid of gun confiscation is that it is the only thing that could work, except that it is impossible.  You would need to have an intensive house to house search of the entire US, draconian border searches and the cooperation of a willing populace.  Canada couldn't even implement a long gun registry.

So, go ahead and advocate for doing something, anything.  It might make you feel better in the short run.  It won't change anything else.

In the mean time, on the days you feel better, look into the real risks your grand daughter faces and see what you can do about those.  You could probably have a much bigger impact on her chances of survival by taking her to swimming lessons and volunteering as a crossing guard.  You could get extra points by making sure that she and her friends all get firearm safety training.

[Cap.Silver]

I believe that it is not our right to disarm our future generation without them having a say in this.........I understand the need of some people (especially those who's kids got killed) to do so .....look at some futuristic movies where the government does as they please because they are the only ones with guns  . I think I'm rational person with experience living and growing up in another country under the communist regime .....would you like me tell you how that turned out for the regular folks Really ,you think it was great ?? I'd say ask those who grew up suppressed by their regime ,they'll tell you . Gun control  :chuckle:is the next step to governmental control ,no thanks ...been there.Don't get me wrong -I'm not anti-government person ...I know the need for police ,army,state and city agencies so that the country can function properly and I can live and work . YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT ARE YOU ASKING FOR PEOPLE . Here is one tiny example
http://www.carolinajournal.com/daily_journal/display.html?id=8947 ; here is why you should be thinking about what happens : http://ccrjustice.org/files/CCR_Gov.pdf .
What do you think would happen if you had traveled to Cuba several times ......? I don't know but I'd say think twice about it . We can spend hours and hours debating over this .... and I know you care about your grandkids