The Gun Control Debate

[rebeccajo 14]

Two of the weapons — the pump-action Remington shotgun and a Glock 9mm handgun — were purchased legally less than a week ago, on Feb. 9, authorities said. They were purchased in Champaign, where Kazmierczak was enrolled at the University of Illinois.

A pump action shotgun and a Glock.

Why are these legal?

I don't think this is what Ben Franklin and the boys had in mind.

[Ban Hammer 12,901]

Wouldn't it be lovely if gun ownership became as socially unacceptable as smoking?

no

Well, why not? People find it quite fashionable actually to criticize, ostracize and otherwise harass smokers. Seems to me that is done in the name of minding other peoples business, mostly.

It seems to me you are minding my business when you tell me the rights the framers of the Constitution bestowed upon you are more hallowed than the protection of my child in a public place.

quite simply, my guns ain't smoking. and someone telling me i can't have a firearm is minding my business too.

It's interesting to note how many of the people who want more gun control don't even know the restrictions we already have.

Just a thought.

Keep blowing that smoke up your own skirt, Gary. Does it help your justification to own a device that has no other purpose on this earth than killing to believe people who disagree with you have no knowledge of current laws on carrying or purchasing?

You're right. We don't need more laws. What we need is for self-obsessed protectionists to stop believing they need to personally own a half-dozen or more devices because each one of them has a unique and different thumbprint for death.

oh yeah, my 18+ guns are a real menace to society, locked up in the safe

[rebeccajo 14]

There really is no need for this debate. End of the day I and other gun owners will still be armed and the anti-gun folks won't be. I'm ok with that.

Me too.

Everytime there's a shooting like this, the anti-gun crowd wants to pass some more feel-good legislation that doesn't work.

I see your daughter's picture in your avatar. I hear the cries in my head of six mothers in Illinois.

Don't talk to me about your weapons and your 'rights'.

A gun is a cold piece of steel. Six families today are devastated because of one. Look at your daughter and tell me how you think they feel.

That's the difference here. You think the gun is to blame and I think it's the criminal. So be it.

I hope that will be of comfort to you if God forbid you ever find yourself in the shoes of those families.

So be it.

Wouldn't it be lovely if gun ownership became as socially unacceptable as smoking?

no

Well, why not? People find it quite fashionable actually to criticize, ostracize and otherwise harass smokers. Seems to me that is done in the name of minding other peoples business, mostly.

It seems to me you are minding my business when you tell me the rights the framers of the Constitution bestowed upon you are more hallowed than the protection of my child in a public place.

quite simply, my guns ain't smoking. and someone telling me i can't have a firearm is minding my business too.

It's interesting to note how many of the people who want more gun control don't even know the restrictions we already have.

Just a thought.

Keep blowing that smoke up your own skirt, Gary. Does it help your justification to own a device that has no other purpose on this earth than killing to believe people who disagree with you have no knowledge of current laws on carrying or purchasing?

You're right. We don't need more laws. What we need is for self-obsessed protectionists to stop believing they need to personally own a half-dozen or more devices because each one of them has a unique and different thumbprint for death.

oh yeah, my 18+ guns are a real menace to society, locked up in the safe

One man doesn't need 18 guns.

[Ban Hammer 12,901]

Just because you don't have a criminal record doesn't mean #######.

guilty even if innocent? now that's a new one.

Well, my best friends dad was the ideal person around here. Went and bought a gun then killed them all plus himself the following week. No criminal record got him that gun

while that may be true, i'd be willing to bet there was signs leading up to that event. i don't agree with restricting anyone from owning a firearm on the off chance they may years down the road go postal though.

[AtlantiCat 0]

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Which is the danger, the madman or the gun?

The pro-gun people are going to condemn the perpetrator, the anti-gun people are going to condemn the weapon. Neither is going to budge one inch, let alone change sides, no matter how much debate goes on.

I think this topic is officially dead.

[Empress of Groovy 373]

Just because you don't have a criminal record doesn't mean #######.

guilty even if innocent? now that's a new one.

Well, my best friends dad was the ideal person around here. Went and bought a gun then killed them all plus himself the following week. No criminal record got him that gun

As I have stated here previously, this isnt about the gun at all. The father in this tragedy was insane, deranged, mad,... however you want to describe it. He could have easily have bought any other weapon and killed his family and himself. The gun itself is useless without an operator.

Pointing a gun and moving your index finger a couple of inches is far easier than, say, strangling everyone or beating them with...what other weapons are you suggesting? When was the last time one person managed to kill 20 people with, say, a knife?

No matter where you stand on the gun control issue, you have to admit that the assertion that the father would likely have managed to successfully kill his family and himself another way is pretty flimsy. As has been mentioned earlier in this thread, plenty of law-abiding people who pass background checks and have no criminal record just snap one day. Suggesting that the intended victims of a deranged person's spree would have been doomed regardless of that person's access to firearms is ludicrous.

And I'm not a gun control advocate, I feel I should state.

[britty 1]

Just because you don't have a criminal record doesn't mean #######.

guilty even if innocent? now that's a new one.

Well, my best friends dad was the ideal person around here. Went and bought a gun then killed them all plus himself the following week. No criminal record got him that gun

I am truly sorry, but the father is to blame. Not the weapon. There are many instances of the same only W/ hammers or more recently a meat cleaver. Which I might add probably would not have happened had she had a " GUN "...

This argument always bores me to tears.

No inanimate object can due harm until a human being gets involved. Or do good.

The Sistine Chapel wasn't the result of a paintbrush getting up and moving all around the ceiling.

Two atomic warheads didn't get into planes by themselves and land on Hiroshima and Nagisaki of their own volition either.

It might bore you to tears but its true.

[AtlantiCat 0]

One man doesn't need 18 guns.

One woman doesn't need 18 pairs of shoes either, but I'll bet she can justify a specific reason for having every last pair in the closet.

[Ban Hammer 12,901]

Guns and cigarettes aren't really apples to apples anyway. There is no constitutional right to smoke. So our local do-gooders can just legislate away all they like.

But I'll see your five and raise you a ten that if more people started socially criticizing your guns; shaking their heads and clucking their tongues at you when you walked out of WalMart carrying your new rifle; and telling their children how 'horrible' that gun is - like they do cigarettes - well then maybe Little Johnny wouldn't be so inclined to break into your gun safe and pepper-spray his classmates on a morning he woke up pi$$ed off at the world.

that actually happened to me.

i was buying 12 gauge shells (wearing sweatpants & an old worn out t-shirt) & a lady says to her kids "see what kind of people have guns". i looked at her kids, pointed at their mom & said "you see what kind of people think its ok to pass judgement on other people while they buy batteries for their vibrators w/ their kids at wal mart & drink whiskey while they take their xannax in front of their kids at home"....she wasn't amused...but another guy in wal mart about pizzed on himself he was laughing so hard.

Well that was a stroke of social genius!!

Did the children's mother have her vibrator sticking out of her purse? Was their Father carrying his Xanax prescription?

You, on the other hand, had your brand new box of shells.

Sounds to me like you were the one making the judgments, not the parents.

um wrong, the parents made one by calling attention to him.

[SMOKE 1,426]

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Which is the danger, the madman or the gun?

The pro-gun people are going to condemn the perpetrator, the anti-gun people are going to condemn the weapon. Neither is going to budge one inch, let alone change sides, no matter how much debate goes on.

I think this topic is officially dead.

hell we all knew that before it started

[Jaseball 0]

I see your daughter's picture in your avatar. I hear the cries in my head of six mothers in Illinois.

Don't talk to me about your weapons and your 'rights'.

A gun is a cold piece of steel. Six families today are devastated because of one. Look at your daughter and tell me how you think they feel.

Maybe working on eliminating nut jobs would make more sense. That cold piece of steel didn't go in there by itself and start mowing down students.

As I recall, the last tragedy of this type was around XMas when that one psycho was gunning down people in church when an armed guard shot him dead.

That cold piece of steel under the hands of a decent person saved lives that time.

I also resent how you twist this tragedy and imply that gun advocates don't care about the families who lost people or are somehow less of a person for believing that with this sort of stuff on the rise having MORE legally armed folks is better, not worse.

I also note not one of my points has been refuted so far, but my snide comment drew attention.

[Ban Hammer 12,901]

One man doesn't need 18 guns.

that's my choice to make, not yours.

[Jaseball 0]

One man doesn't need 18 guns.

that's my choice to make, not yours.

Heck, after this thread I think I'm going to get a mini Glock .40

Need a back up pistol for my Sig P229 .40

[rebeccajo 14]

One man doesn't need 18 guns.

that's my choice to make, not yours.

A Constitutionally protected choice.

Just as it is my Constitutional protection to say your choice makes no sense. Unless you have eighteen arms and are up against the Kraken, one weapon should serve your Constitutional right quite nicely.

[AtlantiCat 0]

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Which is the danger, the madman or the gun?

The pro-gun people are going to condemn the perpetrator, the anti-gun people are going to condemn the weapon. Neither is going to budge one inch, let alone change sides, no matter how much debate goes on.

I think this topic is officially dead.

hell we all knew that before it started

Yeah, okay, I admit I'm enjoying it too.