Myth #3 - Guns are bad

[Kennedy 0]

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The principle is that you can generally kill yourself, when the issue becomes the possibility of doing harm to others, then regulation becomes more stringent.

OK, so you're cool with an ignorant fool driving around his private property with no license, even though he is completely capable of killing anyone he comes across with his vehicle, as long as he stays off public land, right?

So why does the same logic not apply to firearms and any other object? It seems to me you would be fine with someone owning a gun as long as they keep it on their own land.

Or do you believe there is some difference in the likelihood of someone dying in front of a gun rather than an automobile on private land?

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The ownership of a gun presumes that at some point you'll use it, either for hunting or target practice. In either case it would be fairly easy to instantly and fatally injure others. To me it does not seem unreasonable to therefore educate and license those individuals wishing to participate in these activities.

Why does the same not apply to car owners in your book? You telling me that driving (and a thousand other activities) would not make it fairly easy to instantly and fatally injure someone?

::rephrase::
The ownership of a parachute presumes that at some point you'll use it. It would be fairly easy to instantly and fatally injure others. To me it does not seem unreasonable to therefore educate and license those individuals wishing to participate in this activities.
::rephrase::

So how does your logic sound when applied to jumpers?

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[Kennedy 0]

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Really? Since you seem to have pointed out these states in particular, maybe you know of something written by these states you can point me to stating that the ultimate goal of regulation is the eventual prohibition.

I can't site the entire story for you, but how about this little overview:

Some California citizens own a certain type of rifle, which is legal and treated as any other firearm. At some point, California's government decides to pass a law requiring owners of previously legal rifles to register them, with a promise never to confiscate them or otherwise interfere. A small while later, they pass legislation requiring owners to turn the rifles in, and making anyone who doesn't an instant felon.

Well, there's that, plus the whole Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Red China comparison.

Hence the belief, concern, fear, "paranoid assumption" that registration will lead to confiscation.


There are also dozens of quotes by leading politicians stating that the ultimate goal of gun control is zero civilian ownership. I believe it was Sen. Dianne Feinstein on 60 Minutes who said "if I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in, I would have done it." Guess which state Feistein comes from.


I never said the ultimate goal of registration if confiscation. I said the ultimate goal of gun control is confisctaion. Regulation is something they would completely skip if they could. But since they can't get all the way in one step, they'll do it in increments.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[quade 4]

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So how does your logic sound when applied to jumpers?

Actually, it doesn't sound too bad.

I've always been kind of surprised that skydiving isn't more regulated than it is. I'm especially surprised that tandem pilots aren't licensed by the FAA.

I guess the difference is that there are only about 35,000 active (or semi-active) skydivers in the country at any given point in time. I think the number of guns in the U.S. is quite a bit higher and more accessible to most individuals.

That and the death thing . . . yeah, that must be it . . . the death thing.

Skydiving kills about 30 people a year and let's see . . . how many people die of gun shot wounds each year? 9000ish? And that's just the murders that show up in the FBI files. It does not count the accident deaths.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[quade 4]

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Some California citizens own a certain type of rifle, which is legal and treated as any other firearm. At some point, California's government decides to pass a law requiring owners of previously legal rifles to register them, with a promise never to confiscate them or otherwise interfere. A small while later, they pass legislation requiring owners to turn the rifles in, and making anyone who doesn't an instant felon.

Help me out here. Since you seem to be incapable of (or unwilling) doing the search yourself, give me the EXACT weapon that was banned and if possible when this happened.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Kennedy 0]

Neither incapable nor unwilling, simply boss fearing.

It was the SKS Sporter. It happened in California in the late nineties. 1997 through 1999, I believe.

I'll post/edit in links when I have them.

(edit)
Here's an interesting one.
letter from a CA citizen

I'm sure you'll find many more informative ones. Google comes up with about a thousand useful links.
(/edit)

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[Douva 0]

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The ownership of a gun presumes that at some point you'll use it, either for hunting or target practice. In either case it would be fairly easy to instantly and fatally injure others. To me it does not seem unreasonable to therefore educate and license those individuals wishing to participate in these activities.

So then you should not be against legislation that would require education and licensing for purchase as long as there is an exemption for people that will never fire them -- museums maybe.

Of course, my guess is that just isn't going to satisfy you -- is it?

It is presumed that people are going to use tractors and dirtbikes, but no license is required to own or operate them because they aren't used on public property. No license is required (at least in most states, there may be exceptions) to operate a ski boat, but the boat does have to be licensed IF you are going to use on public waterways. Do you see how this works? The question is never whether or not you are going to use it; it's whether or not you're going to use it on publicly controlled land. Likewise, the gun licensing issue is not about whether or not you are going to use it, it's about whether or not you are going to use it on publicly owned land. None of the potentially lethal devices you or I have listed require a license simply to own or operate them, and neither should guns. Licensing is a measure for regulating who can use potentially lethal devices in public. The idea that guns are regulated less than any other dangerous device is ridiculous. Guns are regulated more than almost anything else in this country (behind possibly drugs and explosives).

And likewise, I'm sure this won't satisfy you any more than your attempt at defending your point satisfied me.

I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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But there has been a large increase in the number of concealed carry permits issued in the last ten years and an increase in the number or States that allow it. It could be argued that this is the reason for the decline. In fact, many people do.

And I would argue that the rate of bullets going into people bodies has decreased -despite- the number of CCs issued.

If you want to check it out, then dig a little deeper into the numbers and see which states have CCs and which don't and which states have had the greatest reductions in gun related crimes.

Further, The Center for Disese Control hasn't found a correlation? Well, geeze, I guess NASA or the Department of Agriculture hasn't found a correlation between the Brady Bill and the decrease in gun related violence either. Big whoop. I think if you look at the Department of Justice, you'll see a pretty damn direct correlation.

WOO-HOOOO! I just KNEW that if I poked around long enough, I'd find that fellow skydivers, just like my fellow pilots, tend to be rationally pro-gun ownership.

Quade, if gun violence has declined while many CCW permits have been issued, I don't see how you can say that it's "in spite of" the permits. That's like saying that if you got a flu shot and then didn't get the flu, it's probably in spite of the flu shot that you stayed healthy.

You asked about in which states the violent crime rates declined. John Lott used the reports from ALL COUNTIES IN THE UNITED STATES for a comprehensive look at that question, and found in a study (a peer-reviewed study) that violent crime declined MORE in states with CCW permits than in states that are restrictive on guns. Don't forget, with Ohio joining the ranks just this month (and their CCW to take effect in April, I believe) there are THIRTY SEVEN STATES that have SHALL-ISSUE concealed firearm carry permit laws enacted. If a state did experience a decline in violent crime, there's a better-than-1-in-2 chance that it WAS a CCW state. More than half the country's population lives in states that have CCW laws.

CDC's study of the effectiveness of gun control laws like Brady, "Assault Weapon Ban" etc. found no compelling evidence of the success of any of them. CDC examined the results of FIFTY-SOME-ODD studies that were looking for results from gun control laws. Since CDC has been notoriously anti-gun for decades, one would expect that if they could have possibly slanted their study to show some small advantage to gun control laws, they would have. It is quite telling that they did not. The data was there, it was public, and if they had fabricated a pro-gun-control conclusion, they would have been leapt on by pro-gun criminologists and researchers and exposed further as liars. CDC is the department that funded Arthur Kellerman's famous study that purported to prove how having a gun in the home increased your likelihood of getting killed with a gun by "43 times" over the possibility of using that gun for defense. That "study" is now thoroughly debunked. Kellerman never made his data available for peer review, using bullshit excuse after excuse. He did not study ALL counties in the U.S. like Lott did: he cherry-picked the worst-cases to make things look badder than they are. One major flaw in his study: he did not count anything less than KILLING your attacker as a successful defensive gun use. That means if you truly repelled an attack by simply showing that you were armed; wounding an attacker but not killing him; firing a shot that missed... these did not count as defensive gun uses to his study. But in reality, the use of guns in such ways DOES save the lives of the would-be victims, does it not?

So Kellerman is a has-been whose lies are fully exposed now. He also included neighborhood drug dealers and other acquaintances as "loved ones killed by a gun" to pump up his statistics -- rather like the way the CDC calls drug dealers up to age 25 "children" to come up with their preposterous "13 children a day are killed by guns" stats.

Did you ever notice that the number claimed has been declining? It became 12, then 10, now I've seen 8, I think. Something must be going right, regarding guns. The number of actual children killed with guns has been declining EVERY YEAR since statistics began to be kept. Remember, every year that passes sees MILLIONS MORE FIREARMS owned by the general public than the year before. A net increase in guns owned every single year gives lie to the idea that gun control is EVER resposnsible for any decline in crime that takes place. If that were true, there would have to be a net DEcline in the number of guns in circulation -- and that has never occurred.

Look at Chicago, NYC and D.C. They all have de-facto gun bans, since the '70s or so. They also have some of the highest murder and gun crime rates in the country. You want to blame other states where it's easy to get guns? Why then do the attackers GET the guns in other states but go BACK to where they know victims are legally forced to be unarmed to commit their crimes against them? Hmmm? Could it be that they don't wanna push their luck with people who could easily be licensed to carry a gun for protection?

Open your mind. The claims of the gun-banners just do NOT make rational sense.

---Jeffrey

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[Kennedy 0]

Everyone here who has read a gun thread has been told about Lott's study, and his book More Guns, Less Crime.

They don't want to hear it. But please feel free to join in, I'm tired of repeating myself anyway. Quade is one of the most logical and understandable posters I've seen, green status aside. But when it comes to guns, I just don't know.

Besides, we all know correlation doesn't mean a damned thing. There is a correlation between the number of storks and the number of babies in an area, but do we think the babies are there because of the storks? No, because we understand that although they are there at the same time, there is NO MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIP, other than they both occur more frequently around cities.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[Douva 0]

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Some California citizens own a certain type of rifle, which is legal and treated as any other firearm. At some point, California's government decides to pass a law requiring owners of previously legal rifles to register them, with a promise never to confiscate them or otherwise interfere. A small while later, they pass legislation requiring owners to turn the rifles in, and making anyone who doesn't an instant felon.

Help me out here. Since you seem to be incapable of (or unwilling) doing the search yourself, give me the EXACT weapon that was banned and if possible when this happened.

At the risk of being accused of making a personal attack, I would have to say that your "incapable of (or unwilling) doing the research yourself" quote is the pot calling the kettle black; however, since the previous poster was apparently unable to provide the information at the time of the post, I will. This California confiscation case is a pretty well known one. It was the SKS "sporter" model, and it happened in the late '90s.


http://www.jpfo.org/commonsense08.htm

I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

[winsor 236]

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I don't understand it either, but ask California, New York, DC governing bodies about it. They might know a thing or two.

Really? Since you seem to have pointed out these states in particular, maybe you know of something written by these states you can point me to stating that the ultimate goal of regulation is the eventual prohibition.

I think it's a paranoid assumption.

You are, as usual, wrong.

Even if you are playing devil's advocate, your adherence to a standpoint that is beneath contempt is wearing thin.

If you seriously think your arguments have merit, do your own homework and discover how baseless are your statements.

In the meantime, speak not of what you know not.


Blue skies,

Winsor

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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Like most kids on my block I had a bb gun and we played an extremely early form of paintball with them. We worn Navy surplus Peacoats and shop goggles.

My current fairly anti-gun stance comes from a lifetime of living in Southern California. About 10-15 years ago SoCal could be a fairly dangerous place with random freeway shootings and gang wars. In particular, the street sweepers were particularly bad.

Further, I've done some fairly "interesting" side jobs, a little skip tracing and a little investigative journalism. As a result, I've seen some pretty ugly things and, unfortunately, feel I've been a part in causing some fairly ugly things when we caught people.

I had a co-worker's brother eat his gun when he felt a little too depressed and I had another lose at Russian roulette.

All in all, my personal experience tells me that a person is far more likely to hurt either himself or a family member than somebody trying to break in their house or car jack them. Of course, that's just me and my lifetime worth of experience. If you want to discount that, fine, but it's the world I've seen.

Jesus Christ, Quade, if this is your experience with guns, no WONDER you're anti-gun. Right from the get-go, your attitude about guns has been ass-fucking-backward. You ran around shooting at each other as kids, despite the fact that the first rule is treat all guns as loaded, and the second is don't let the muzzle cover anything you don't wish to DESTROY. With such blatant and contemptuous disregard for gun safety, it's no wonder your take on guns is negative.

Then you had friends lose their lives by SUICIDE and by -- excuse my insensitivity, but it's called-for -- IDIOTIC LUNACY ("RUSSIAN ROULETTE!?! BY CHRIST THAT'S FUCKIN' STUPID!), and THAT is part of the reason you think restricting MY access to guns is a good and proper thing?!

Your "personal experience with guns" is an aberration, and by no means is it valid to use your little heuristic to set policy regarding whether the rest of us remain free to have guns, nor should it be argued so. The vast majority of us live by the rules of gun safety just like we live by the rules of skydiving safety. If we fuck ourselves up, usually it's because of our own choices and our own failings. You will never be able to legislate away those things.

Your coworker's suicide could have been effected by any thousand other means, had he not had a gun. The guy who lost at Russian Roulette... Well, would you sever your main and reserve risers with odds 5 in 6 that you'll survive, and 1 in 6 that you'll surely die? I don't think much of your coworker's intellect, there, and like the Darwin Awards say, maybe we're collectively better off without someone who is able to make such horrible choices, on the chance that they could have impacted a SMART person at some point.

Those of us who have been surrounded my mostly smart and responsible use of guns still support gun ownership. You would do well to dwell on the majority experience, not on the aberrant things that happened in your person experience. That tends to lead to hysterical, rather than rational, conclusions.

---Jeffrey

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[PhillyKev 0]

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Some California citizens own a certain type of rifle, which is legal and treated as any other firearm. At some point, California's government decides to pass a law requiring owners of previously legal rifles to register them, with a promise never to confiscate them or otherwise interfere. A small while later, they pass legislation requiring owners to turn the rifles in, and making anyone who doesn't an instant felon.

Help me out here. Since you seem to be incapable of (or unwilling) doing the search yourself, give me the EXACT weapon that was banned and if possible when this happened.

Quade...when I get the time, I'll repost what I've posted here before. Copies of the letters sent out by the California state police to registered gun owners ordering them to turn in their weapons for disposal. The time line was something like this...

1) After date X guns of type Z will no longer be allowed to be registered.

2) Date X comes along.

3) The government entity who handles registration continues to allow registration of firearms of type Z even though they're not supposed to. And unless someone knew about that provision, they wouldn't know they were doing anything wrong since they bought and registered the guns legally.

4) A while later they than say, guns of type Z can no longer be posessed. Turn them in and we will give you a small portion of their value as compensation. Oh, and by the way, if you registered it after date X, even though we are the ones that allowed the registration, you have to turn it in for zero compensation.

5) A while later, letters are sent to those who haven't complied telling them that they have commited a felony. Several people were jailed.

I posted all the proof on here awhile ago.

[JohnRich 4]

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Rated sharpshooter on the 9mm (I forget the designation)

Wouldn't that be the Beretta "M9"?

Trivia: the Italian gun manufacturer Beretta, is the oldest continually operational business in the entire world.

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Annualy go to the firing range to fire a 7.62 mm M1 Gurant

What's that? Do you mean the M1 Garand, the WWII service rifle?

Gen. Patton called the Garand "the greatest battlefield implement ever devised." When all the other armies of WWII were still using bolt-action rifles for their standard issue, only the Americans had a semi-auto - the M1 Garand.

[JohnRich 4]

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My current fairly anti-gun stance comes from a lifetime of living in Southern California. About 10-15 years ago SoCal could be a fairly dangerous place

Guns do not cause crime. Criminals do.

And California has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation. But gun control laws don't work, because the criminals ignore them. They get guns despite gun-control laws.

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I had a co-worker's brother eat his gun when he felt a little too depressed and I had another lose at Russian roulette.

Do you believe that guns are the root cause of suicide and stupidity?

Do you think that if depressed people didn't have guns available, that they wouldn't find some other way to kill themselves?

I've had four friends commit suicide with guns in the last 10 years. I don't blame guns for that.

[kallend 2,115]

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I don't understand it either, but ask California, New York, DC governing bodies about it. They might know a thing or two.

Really? Since you seem to have pointed out these states in particular, maybe you know of something written by these states you can point me to stating that the ultimate goal of regulation is the eventual prohibition.

I think it's a paranoid assumption.

Well, I am not a gun owner, by choice, (although I have had training), but I don't think he is paranoid about this - it is just a natural response to successive governments of all parties that can't resist increasingly interfering with the way the people go about their business.

Until such time as the Supreme Court chooses to bite the (figurative) bullet and make a definitive ruling about what the 2nd Amendment really means, we will continue to have a problem of this nature.

Generally I don't agree with Kennedy, so I suppose this is worth a beer.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[JohnRich 4]

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I would support... the 5 day waiting period because this IMO prevents anyone from purchasing a firearm during a fit of anger. Seriously... anyone who can't wait 5 whole days should have planned further ahead.

Waiting periods don't work:

Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Aug. 2, 2000:

Homicide and Suicide Rates Associated With Implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act

Jens Ludwig, PhD; Philip J. Cook, PhD

Context:
In February 1994, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act established a nationwide requirement that licensed firearms dealers observe a waiting period and initiate a background check for handgun sales. The effects of this act have not been analyzed.

Objective:
Some gun purchasers may have intended to shoot themselves or someone else and changed their minds during the 5-day waiting period mandated by the Brady Act. Some of those with felony records may have had no specific intent, but because they were stopped from purchasing a handgun by the background check were discouraged from obtaining one and hence were not in a position to shoot someone later when the occasion arose. The result of the Brady act may thus be to reduce shootings, including firearm suicides and homicides, by adult handgun buyers. Our evaluation compared homicide and suicide rates before and after the Brady Act went into effect to determine whether specific changes in these rates were associated with implementation of this policy.

Design and Setting:
Analysis of vital statistics data in the United States for 1985 through 1997 from the National Center for Health Statistics.

Main Outcome Measures:
Total and firearm homicide and suicide rates per 100,000 adults, for age group 21 years and older, and proportion of homicides and suicides resulting from firearms were calculated by state and year. Controlling
for population age, race, poverty and income levels, urban residence, and alcohol consumption, the 32 "treatment" states directly affected by the Brady Act requirements were compared with the 18 "control" states and the District of Columbia, which had equivalent legislation already in place.

Results:
Changes in rates of homicide and suicide for treatment and control states were not significantly different, except for firearm suicides among persons aged 55 years or older.

Conclusions:
Based on the assumption that the greatest reductions in fatal violence would be within states that were required to institute waiting periods and background checks, implementation of the Brady Act appears to have been associated only with reductions in the firearm suicide rate for persons aged 55 years or older. We find some signs of an offsetting increase in non-gun suicides, consistent with theories of "weapon substitution." Our analyses provide no evidence that implementation of the Brady Act was associated with a reduction in homicide rates or overall suicide rates.

JAMA Archive

[JohnRich 4]

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Yes I do in fact support... the 5 day waiting period

There is also a negative effect to waiting periods:

* Bonnie Elmasri-- She inquired about getting a gun to protect herself from a husband who had repeatedly threatened to kill her. She was told there was a 48 hour waiting period to buy a handgun. But unfortunately, Bonnie was never able to pick up a gun. She and her two sons were killed the next day by an abusive husband of whom the police were well aware.
- Congressional Record, 8 May 1991, pp. H 2859, H 2862.

* Marine Cpl. Rayna Ross -- she bought a gun (in a non-waiting period state) and used it to kill an attacker in self-defense two days later. Had a 5-day waiting period been in effect, Ms. Ross would have been defenseless against the man who was stalking her.
- Wall Street Journal, 3 March 1994 at A10.

* Los Angeles riots -- USA Today reported that many of the people rushing to gun stores during the 1992 riots were "lifelong gun-control advocates, running to buy an item they thought they'd never need." Ironically, they were outraged to discover they had to wait 15 days to buy a gun for self-defense.
- Jonathan T. Lovitt, "Survival for the armed," USA Today, 4 May 1992.

[JohnRich 4]

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Yes I do in fact support... the 5 day waiting period because this IMO prevents anyone from purchasing a firearm during a fit of anger. Seriously...anyone who can't wait 5 whole days should have planned further ahead.

It seems to me that if that's the justification for waiting periods, then anyone who already owns a gun should be exempt from them. After all, if a person already owns a gun, no waiting period is going to stop him/her from shooting someone in the heat of the moment. There's no logical reason on the basis you present to prevent someone from purchasing a second or subsequent firearm with no waiting period whatsoever.

[JohnRich 4]

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Yes I do in fact support... the 5 day waiting period because this IMO prevents anyone from purchasing a firearm during a fit of anger. Seriously...anyone who can't wait 5 whole days should have planned further ahead.

From "Point Blank, Guns and Violence in America", Gary Kleck, pp. 333-335:

"For a killing to have been prevented by a waiting period, a number of conditions must have existed. (1) The killer used a gun that was the only gun that he owned, (2) The killer purchased the gun from a source that could realistically be expected to comply with waiting period regulations, (3) The gun was purchased within a span of time before the crime equal to or less than the waiting period minimum, i.e. 3 days, (4) The killer would not have repeated the act or waited until after the waiting period elapsed, i.e. the act was a one-time only incident rather than the product of some on-going relationship accompanied by repeated, serious assaults...

"A 1982 survey of Florida prison system inmates found that of 342 felons who had committed handgun homicides, only 3 (.9%) had owned only one handgun, had purchased it from a retail dealer, and had done
so within 3 days of the killing. (Mannelli 1982, pp. 7-8) Thus, fewer than 1 in 100 handgun killings were even hypothetically preventable through a 3-day waiting period...

"However, for a number of reasons, even this extremely small number overstates the fraction of gun killings that were potentially preventable... about .37% of handgun killers bought their only handgun from a retail source within 3 days of the killing... about 1 in 200 handgun killings were potentially preventable by a 7-day waiting period.

"...even this figure still exaggerates the violence-preventative potential of waiting periods, because it fails to take into account four possibilities. First... some of the few killers who otherwise seemed "preventable" either also owned a long gun or could have acquired one... Second, some of those who were successfully denied a gun might still have killed with a different kind of weapon. Third, many of the killers had ongoing relationships with their victims, prior confrontations with them, and continuing reasons to attack them long after any waiting period... Fourth, some of the few otherwise "preventable" killers could have obtained guns through other channels, besides retail purchase, that most criminals use...

"This suggests that is highly unlikely that waiting periods, by themselves, could prevent even as many as 1 in 200 gun killings. Although criminal records checks may have beneficial effects, the waiting periods that often accompany them are probably superfluous."

[JohnRich 4]

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consider that for most other devices that have the potential for the instant lethality that guns do, we regulate them fairly heavily

Name another consumer product where the manufacturer must get the permission of the federal government before it can begin making the product; where this manufacturer must be licensed by the federal government; where every single item produced must be accounted for, at every step of manufacture, storage, shipping, distribution, and sale; where every single store selling the product must seek permission from the federal government to sell the product; where every single store wanting to sell the product must be licensed to sell the product; where every single store wanting to sell the product must keep written records of every single item sold, under penalty of a felony conviction; where every purchase of this consumer product must be approved by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; where theft of this consumer product from the store constitutes a federal felony; where the sale of the product is strictly limited by age and background of the purchaser; and where all product liability and negligence laws apply just as they do for any other product.

[JohnRich 4]

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I don't understand it either, but ask California, New York, DC governing bodies about it. They might know a thing or two.

Really? Since you seem to have pointed out these states in particular, maybe you know of something written by these states you can point me to stating that the ultimate goal of regulation is the eventual prohibition.

I think it's a paranoid assumption.

It may not be the goal when registration laws are passed, but history has shown that they often end up being used that way at some later date. All of those states mentioned have gone that route. As well as England and Australia, in recent history.

So gun owners have legitimate reasons to be concerned about such measures.

Here is an article that explains how California recently tricked SKS gun owners into registering their arms, then declaring them illegal, and requiring that they be turned in:
Click Here

Here is the story of the New York City example:
Click Here

When it actually happens, repeatedly, here in America and around the world - it's not paranoia.

[JohnRich 4]

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There are also dozens of quotes by leading politicians stating that the ultimate goal of gun control is zero civilian ownership.

Correct - here are a few of them:

"A first step towards ensuring our safety is removing the weapons of death from our society."
- The Educational Fund to End Handgun Violence

"I personally believe handguns should be outlawed. Our organization will probably officially take this stand in time but we are not anxious to rouse the opposition before we get the other legislation passed."
- National Council for a Responsible Firearms Policy

"The goal of the Coalition is to eliminate most handguns and assault weapons in the United States through bans on importation, manufacture, sale, transfer, ownership, possession, and use by the general public. Reducing weapons use would be accomplished by limiting the availability of gun dealers' licenses, increasing gun dealers' license fees, licensing gun users, increasing handgun ammunition taxes to offset health care costs, enforcing strict liability for gun manufacturers and dealers, and enacting a national one-handgun-a-month law. Exceptions would be made for police, military, security officers, and gun clubs."
- Coalition to Stop Gun Violence

"We're going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily, given the political realities, going to be very modest. Out ultimate goal, total control of handguns in the U.S., is going to take time. The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced. The second problem is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition, except for the military, police, licensed security guards and licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors, totally illegal."
- Handgun Control, Inc.

Sen. Joe Biden has introduced legislation to ban semi-auto firearms.

Rep. Yates, Bill HR1501, 1993; "To prohibit the importation, manufacture, sale, purchase, transfer, receipt, or transportation of handguns, in any manner..."

Sen. Chafee, Bill S2913, 1992; "To prohibit the manufacture, importation, exportation, sale, purchase, transfer, receipt, possession, or transportation of handguns and handgun ammunition..."

Rep. Smith, Bill HR1770, 1989; "It shall be unlawful for any person to manufacture, assemble, transfer, or possess any firearm, other than a shotgun or rifle, which the Secretary determines to be unsuitable for lawful sporting purposes..."

"To me, the only reason for guns in civilian hands is for sporting purposes."
- Sarah Brady, Tampa Tribune, Oct. 21, 1993.

"If I could have gotten another 51 votes in the Senate for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in, I would have done that. But I could not do that; the votes were not there."
- Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA), "60 Minutes"

"Banning guns is an idea whose time has come".
- Sen. Joseph Biden

"Once all firearms are out of the hands of the people, the streets will be safe."
- Sen. Charles Schumer

"What good does it do to ban some guns. All guns should be banned."
- Sen. Howard Metzanbaum

"With a 10,000% tax we could tax them (firearms) out of existance."
- Sen. Daniel Moynihan

"If it was up to me, no one except law enforcement officers would own a handgun"
- Chicago Mayor Richard Daley

"We wouldn't probably allow semi-automatic assault weapons... We believe that ultimately handguns would be phased out..."
- Violence Policy Center

"I don't believe in any firearms being owned by civilians under any circumstances, concealed or not concealable."
- Los Angeles City Councilman Nick Pacheco

"I don't understand why we're piddling around. We should talk about getting rid of guns in this country."
- Juan Williams, Fox News commentator

"I now think the only way to control handgun use is to prohibit the guns. And the only way to do that is to change the Constitution."
- M. Gartner, then President of NBC News

I could go on, but you readers will get the idea from this sampling.

Gun owners are not paranoid for thinking that people are trying to take their guns away. If they're really trying to do it, it's not paranoia!

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

Skydiving kills about 30 people a year and let's see . . . how many people die of gun shot wounds each year? 9000ish?

Parachute ownership is not what causes skydiving fatalities.

Gun ownership is not what causes murder.

[JohnRich 4]

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Since you seem to be incapable of (or unwilling) doing the search yourself, give me the EXACT weapon that was banned and if possible when this happened.

See message #96.

[quade 4]

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http://www.nramemberscouncils.com/contracosta/FaxAlerts/sksalert.shtml

Fuckin' A, that's esoteric shit.

Ok, I'm not that much of a gun wonk . . . can somebody explain to me in plain english why the fuck anyone would even want such a weapon?

I mean, I can certainly understand it from a criminal's perspective -- easily modified to accept high capacity magazines (and I'm pretty sure that's why they were banned -- no fuckin' duh!), but if you're using this thing for hunting . . . WTF?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver