georgerussia

Please elaborate. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Eye for eye. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I wonder how that "another weapon" would work for drive-through shooting? Just compare the homicide statistics of UK and US. We already discussed that, and pro-gun bunch said it is "culture" thing, without backing it up. Prohibition wasn't really enforced, drug ban isn't really enforced. Both however work well where enforced. What do you mean by "properly"? They quoted privacy laws. This is because basically nobody here gives shit about getting drugs or fake Rolexes (is that really a crime in U.S. to buy a fake Rolex?). However try to get, for example, some Army explosives or Cyanide gas, and I'd see how would it work. Because they don't really enforce this ban. A law in books does nothing when it is not enforced, and everyone knows that. Pretty much like adultery - which is still considered crime in some states (even punished by life in prison) - do you see those laws having any effect? No, because nobody enforces them. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Do you read the complete sentences or only the first part? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Not really. It would be the same as claiming that "speed limit laws do not work" because a lot of people drive 75 on freeways where the posted limit is 65. I'd suggest you speak for yourself, not for "everyone", and let others speak for themselves. But since you, mnealtx, Ron and JohnRich can be considered a single opponent on gun ownership matters - you basically copypaste each others, share the same arguments and are extremely intolerant to any opinion contradicting your own, it was pretty much expectable. And we got CCW restrictions in CA, with hopefully more further restrictions on the way (like closing the gun show loophole). * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Are you saying those gun owners who have their guns stolen are stupid? Wow. Even I didn't go so far, I only said that a lot of them are irresponsible to let their guns being stolen (and some of them are indeed idiots like this guy who shot outside Capitol). I believe this is also the case with cars - a lot of times I have seen a car left on a parking lot with the ignition keys inside and the engine running while the driver goes shopping/visiting ATM/paying for gas/whatever. However since most of those stolen cars are not used in violent crimes against others, it is not that much a problem. Not all stolen objects are equal threat - a stolen gun is more dangerous than a stolen car, and a stolen nuclear bomb is more dangerous than a stolen gun. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

That's what you do. You do not want guns to be restricted even if children and women are dying because of that - just so you can keep your guns. Would you say that in front of parents of those killed by Cho? Would you tell them how should they be happy because there is 2nd amendment protecting your guns? This position has been proven to work - and it works pretty well in every country where the ban is in place, and is enforced. "War on drugs" is a lame example - when you see a black guy selling weed to strangers in Berkeley downtown it is quite obvious that this ban is not enforced. If you look on the countries like Singapore where this ban is actually enforced, the picture is completely different. This, however, does not suit your agenda so you're not going to do it. You didn't. You just provided quite a bunch of irrelevant data in a failed attempt to cover-up the fact that you didn't really understand what the discussion was about. Yes, I do. You have said that there is zero reference to time frame, and therefore you assumed this phrase would mean that I would never reply to your posts. However you conveniently ignored the follow-up question: if someone says "I believe in God", do you interpret it as the person now must believe in God for the eternity because there is also zero reference to time frame? If you do, then this is against English grammar rules, and if you don't, then this would mean you intentionally misinterpreted my words to further insult me, because you have no real facts to back your position up. Tough choice, yeah? Have you noticed NO ONE is supporting you either? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I didn't say that. If that's what you think, what can I say? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

A car can easily be replaced by another mean of transportation, and it is impossible to ban all means of transportation (like a pair of legs). It is also impossible to ban shooters. It is, however, possible to ban guns they use to shoot, and it is not really possible to replace it with something. I already asked CanuckInUSA how many drive-through shootings happen in Canada, so once he's back maybe we see some rough numbers (even just based on news publications). My guess is that their numbers are significantly less, even though cars are not banned there. It lowers the number of gun-related crimes significantly enough to be considered as a solution. Compare the number of school shootings in Europe versus USA - it is less, and CRIMINALS are still not banned in Europe! Enforced gun bans prevent most criminals from getting guns. Those criminals who shot each others on a parking lot to resolve some arguments wouldn't be able to get guns (because before this shooting they were law abiding citizens). This criminal who shot into air in front of Capitol building wouldn't be able to get a gun, again being a law abiding citizen. The situation with gun crimes in Europe pretty much proves itself - gun restrictions work well to reduce gun-related crime. It has zero effect on shooters like Cho who are going to commit their only major crime and then shoot themselves. Like with terrorists, it is naive to expect that life sentence would stop someone from exploding the plane, it doesn't matter to them what the punishment is. So stricter punishments only work for some criminals. I'd agree however that stricter punishments for straw purchases and "lost" guns is indeed necessary, as 300K stolen guns each year (which go directly to criminals, since stealing a gun is already a serious crime) is quite large number which indicates that there is a lot of irresponsible gun owners around. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Which is because the general population screams "please do SOMETHING" instead of taking responsibility for their own actions. If everyone wore seat belts, there would be no need for a whole bunch of seatbelt laws. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I'm not just ok, I'm supporting it. EU is doing the right thing trying to harmonize the laws across their members - makes it much easier for small companies to provide services across the country lines without having to learn different set of laws, and possibly adapt their products - thus improving commerce and driving the competition up. Having a single set of laws instead of fifty different sets of laws looks like major improvement to me (and having one set of bureaucrats instead of fifty). I suspect significant costs of doing business interstate (like providing healthcare insurance across state lines) could be traced to maintain staff of fifty lawyers familiar with their state and local laws - which makes it too costly for most small businesses, and encourages businesses to skip small states, as the cost of hiring yet another lawyer may exceed the potential profit of doing business in such locations. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Of course not all firearm owners are idiots or irresponsible. However 300K stolen guns a year is indicator that there is a lot of gun owners who are. And since it is not possible to find in advance who is and who is not, the restrictions should be implemented on everyone - pretty much like with any other restriction or measure. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Hopefully you wouldn't be surprised to get a reply like that: "Personally for me the number of idiots with guns seems to be too high for comfort, and since we cannot ban idiots, we need to ban guns. I don't care if someone wants to own or carry firearms. Whine and complain all you want, if the ban is there and you are carrying, you'll end up in jail. We can also start small - a tax like $1000/month per gun may be a good start, as 2nd amendment does not say anything about the right to bear arms for free, and Congress indeed has authority to establish new taxes". Arrogant opinion provides adequate response, and since you gun owners are minority, IMHO you should exercise more caution because of your potential to turn gun-neutral people to anti-gun people. (it would make sense to point out to the source you quoted) And as I said several times, it is not enough to have strict rules - it is equally important to enforce them. It is absolutely useless to compare just the laws in books without taking enforcement into account. Brazil (and Mexico) are poster child examples of that. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

At some point everyone was able to just enter the regular commercial flight plane without any screening, and one could write a check on any piece of paper. Unfortunately some people abused it, and now everyone cannot bring knifes into planes, as nobody knows how to prevent terrorists to happen. Most of modern laws are in place because there is a lot of people who are irresponsible, and need constant supervision - and there is no other solution which would work. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Why are you so rude? That was you who brought this 1% number into discussion, not me, and now you're claiming I need to tell you something? Get real. I suggest you discuss this with those who allegedly said that. Makes no sense to ask me why someone said anything. I'm not asking you to respond to something Ron said, aren't I? 1. Somehow people in Europe and other countries live pretty fine relying just on police forces and non-gun ways to protect themselves. I do not see what makes U.S. unique in that matter - i.e. why it wouldn't work here as well. 2. If there are problems with the police, then it is better to address those problems first. Of course, there is no crime-free country, and _some_ crime still will happen, so it is unrealistic to expect a one second response. 3. Some pro-gun cities like Houston, Dallas and even San Antonio (I'm not even mentioning St. Louis, Memphis or Detroit) have much higher violent crime rate comparing to gun-restricted NYC. Baltimore has more violent crime than Washington DC. So pro-gun cities are not really safer as you try to imply. If this was true, it would mean that gun-restricted NYC (where a rapist has much lower chance to encounter an armed victim) should have significantly more rapes and robberies than Dallas and Houston. This is not the case at all. How'd you explain that? How'd you explain that in relatively gun-free Europe there is visibly less violent crime than in USA? Each crime requires different measures to lower it. For example more auditing on Medicare would reduce insurance fraud and will have no effect on gun crimes or DUI. Increasing DUI penalty and implementing "sobriety tests" will lower the number of drunk drivers and will have no effect on insurance fraud and gun crime. Restricting guns will lower the gun crime, and will have no effect on insurance fraud and DUIs. Different crimes require different approaches, and while there is no single approach to lower ALL the crime at the same time, focusing on lowering specific crimes works really well. And I believe that's better done by dramatically restricting the possibility for the criminals and to-be criminals to obtain a gun. There are viable options which do not involve guns. Besides prevention (which is the best option), there are Tazers, pepper sprays, and other things available. But the main question is how does your GF survived till now? AFAIK it's very tough to get a CCW permit in California (and especially in SF), so if she doesn't carry any, how did she survive till that without this "viable option"? How do those Europeans who are not 6' survive without guns? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

This whole site called "2nd amendment project" and does not really look as a gun opponent site at all. Just look on the front page. The article itself is definitely not neutral - it is obviously pro-gun and filled with various speculations (and yes, we discussed it before). Me too. However as you can see, gun owners do not offer ANY solutions at all how to prevent or reduce such crimes to happen. All they have said so far is that we need to "focus on criminals, not guns" - but nobody so far explained how to implement that in real life, so it is not a solution yet. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Search is here. Thank you. When I want to read some NRA propaganda, I already know where to find it. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

We already discussed it in past. Hint: there is a nice Search link at the top. And I'm angry about this 15yo which was murdered by some idiots with guns, about that 11yo which was shot to death by another boy because his supposedly law-abiding idiotic parents did not lock their guns, and about all those shot in school shootings because of easily available guns. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Banning behavior often includes banning objects as well. You do know that at least in CA (and I believe in TX) you cannot have open alcohol in your car (only in trunk)? This is separate from drunk driving - i.e. you can be fined just because you have open alcohol. I wonder would you support legalizing all drugs, making available cyanide gas, grenades, machine guns, maybe even nuclear bombs? After all, it is behavior which should be banned, not objects, right? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Sodomy is an obvious subjective issue (safe for 3rd parties). Texting while driving is not a subjective issue (unsafe for 3rd parties). * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Too bad you jumped into another discussion without spending extra ten seconds to read what exactly we were talking about before writing another knee-jerk reply. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

You mean, like sodomy laws, gay marriage or abortion? This was (and still is) normal for Republicans to make it illegal just because they do not like it. Pretty same as with guns - we cannot ban stupid people, we only can ban stupid behavior. So the law is needed. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

We are not talking about blame. We are talking about prevention of further crimes like that - and it makes your rant irrelevant unless you can provide a workable solution how to prevent criminals to commit crimes. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Actually it seems like he asks Ron to read it :) * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Why do you need to use loaded questions instead of just acknowledging that you do not know how much of the gun crime committed is "stupid crime" like those described above? You do understand that it may be 1% or it may be 50% or 90%, and that you cannot just guess the number, is it right? Ok, let's see: 1. It takes both a criminal and a gun to commit a gun crime, take one out and there is no gun crime. 2. It is pretty clear how to get the gun out of equation - by restricting gun ownership. This is a proven solution which already works in a lot of countries around the world. 3. However some pro-gun people claim that we should focus on criminals instead, i.e. take the criminal out of equation, not a gun. 4. Now it is completely unclear how to take a criminal out of this equation. There is no country which has implemented a working solution for that, and mnealtx already failed to present his ideas how exactly this supposed to work. Can you? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *