Gun discussion

[sXs]

I am not upset by your use of "wild west". I live in Texas. This was one of the areas that originated that phrase. There are over 24 million privately and legally owned firearms in the State of Texas alone. If there were a place in this nation that that phrase should apply, it would be here and it simply is not a representation of what it is like.

I do not fear for any of the above. I do not need a gun to protect my family in most cases, but once again, I would rather have it and not need it than not be able to have it at all.

As far as the question of do I possess anything else for a "just in case" scenario, absolutely. Generators "just in case" of power outages. Canned food in case of natural disaster. Example simply is the hurricane that hit Houston area. A first aid kit, candles, flashlights, radio and batteries, bottled water..... I can go on and on.

Now to your point of "good guy with a gun". If gun control works, why do police or law enforcement of any kind need to carry firearms? If I ever am in a position, which admittedly is very unlikely, that I need one of my several guns to defend myself, would you suggest I pick up my cell phone and call law enforcement?

The one thing you rarely see reported in the US is the number of crimes that are stopped because a private citizen had a gun. Of these the vast majority need only to pull out the weapon to detain a perpetrator. Very few ever need to fire their weapons.

"According to Dr. Gary Kleck, criminologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee and author of "Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America," a book used by many in the gun debate, 800,000-2,500,000 crimes are stopped by guns each year. "

The problem is you will never know how many lives were saved, because these crimes were prevented from happening in the first place. You never hear these statistics because you can't prove an end scenario that does not happen.

Yes things are unique in the United States, but studies have been done here that show that in places where gun laws are the most strict gun crimes occur at a higher rate. In areas where private gun ownership is highest, gun crimes are dramatically reduced. There is no debate about that point.

You do not prevent crime from happening by banning an activity. Most countries ban drugs, but drug use still happens. Almost every country has laws against drunk driving, but people die in alcohol related crashes. The same applies to gun control.

Glad you are not offended!
About things you listed (canned food, first aid kit, candles, flashlights, radio and batteries, bottled water...), we all keep them, just in case, but those cases happens more frequently and supplies need to be renewed, from time to time. You can't compare flashlights, bottled water, medicines etc with guns. We use them occasionally and not only in some case of natural disaster, but guns for protection are not supposed to be used except in this case, but they are used frequently too, because you need to use it more frequently than in the other parts of the world.
So, tell me why this happens more often in the USA compared to the rest of the world?
Why do you need guns to intervene to prevent the crime? Because, the other side is armed too. So, if everyone have guns, the crime is more possible, don't you think?[/quote}

Actually no I don't think that is the case. Law abiding citizens do not use firearms in the commission of crimes. That is the point most do not recognize. Just because I own a gun does not mean I am going to use it criminally. CRIMINALS use guns in commission of crimes. Criminals do not care about gun bans, gun laws, any of it. Your thinking is that because I own a gun there is a higher likelihood of crime being committed? I have owned firearms for 36 years now. Never once used them criminally. In fact, some of the firearms I own are the very ones that the left are now trying to ban in the US. Semi-automatic weapons with high magazine capacities.

Again, gun control laws only deprive law abiding citizens of their property.

And actually the US is not #1 on the list. So it doesn't happen in the US more often than the rest of the world. US is actually 11th overall in gun related deaths and less than 40% of countries have stats available. The US is the most prominent. Mexico has more gun related deaths than the US.

October 24, 2017 43 students from Ayotzinapa, Mexico..... ever hear about that one?
September 27, 2017 14 killed in Chihuahua, Mexico.... what about this one?
June 2017, 2234 murders in Mexico, largest single month in 20 Years in Mexico
August 2017, 3 gunned down Los Cabos, Mexico

Oh and because of the spike in violence, the Mexican government is considering relaxing its strict gun laws.
https://splinternews.com/mexico-considers-new-gun-laws-to-arm-its-citizens-again-1793862686



The list goes on and on. Yet the US is the only one to get the criticism because we are the only ones to get the press.

[Lana]

As I said, it's all about tradition and mentality of society...
I fully understand your need to have and (I hope, not to use) a gun, because you really need it, thinking about the arms already in use. And mentally ill people who could use it ... and curious children who want to try a dad's new toy ... and frustrated adolescents with full irrational hatred ... or self-destructing people who want company in death... so many possibilities, with so many arms in use.
I am going just to stop to post about this theme, because I have to agree that we don't agree and I don't think we will do it in the future too.

But, it would not be bad to look at this presentation...

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/GDContent/m ... html#title

[sXs]

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/brad-wilmouth/2017/11/14/gma-highlights-dad-who-used-gun-save-daughter-kidnappers#utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=marketing&utm_campaign=dad-gun
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/05/25/good-samaritan-saves-trooper/344489001/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqyDHwZcL1Y
http://rare.us/rare-news/at-least-eight-shot-in-mass-casualty-incident-at-a-churchs-sunday-service/

There are thousands more stories just like this, rarely reported because they don't fit the narrative.

[Crackedcubes]

Trump was right. It's not a gun problem, it's a mental health problem. No sane person goes "postal" even if their house is full of firearms.
Now, if we extrapolate that premise, it shows us the USA has a major problem with mental disorders but somehow, I doubt per capital, it is no greater than anywhere else in the world.
So, how do you keep the guns out of the hands of the mentally disturbed ? Maybe mental disorder research is the partial answer. The other question is, why do other countries not have the same level of problems the USA does?

Interesting....Are you aware that Trump rolled back the regulation (finalized in Dec of 2016) that made it harder for people with mental illness to purchase a gun? Quite hypocritical of the President to roll back the regulation and then blame the mentally ill on the problems of gun violence. The individual that committed the mass shooting in Texas had been purchasing weapons, albiet one a year. Of course, one can argue that it is the military's fault for not reporting the shooter's dis-honorable discharge and conviction that would have prevented his ownership and purchase of weapons and ammunition for life.

But, one must question, the un-ending support for a President that destroys laws that help prevent this behavior, while blaming the behavior on the very thing the law is designed to address. Open your eyes and turn your brain on everyone!

[Stan Rogers]

Trump was right. It's not a gun problem, it's a mental health problem. No sane person goes "postal" even if their house is full of firearms.

So, how do you keep the guns out of the hands of the mentally disturbed ? Maybe mental disorder research is the partial answer. The other question is, why do other countries not have the same level of problems the USA does?

Interesting....Are you aware that Trump rolled back the regulation (finalized in Dec of 2016) that made it harder for people with mental illness to purchase a gun? Quite hypocritical of the President to roll back the regulation and then blame the mentally ill on the problems of gun violence. The individual that committed the mass shooting in Texas had been purchasing weapons, albiet one a year. Of course, one can argue that it is the military's fault for not reporting the shooter's dis-honorable discharge and conviction that would have prevented his ownership and purchase of weapons and ammunition for life.

But, one must question, the un-ending support for a President that destroys laws that help prevent this behavior, while blaming the behavior on the very thing the law is designed to address. Open your eyes and turn your brain on everyone!

I don't try to keep up on events other than what foreign news reports as it's not my circus and not my monkeys.
I do know mental illness is a major problem of which medical science still has very few answers and very limited treatments. I saw a stat that reported 10% of the male population suffers to greater or lesser degrees of mental illness and with with women, the number is slightly less.
Maybe technology will be able to help the problem with firearms that will not shoot unless the user is the proper registered owner through fingerprint scans but that will only help part of the problem.

[Crackedcubes]

had that technology on my cannons, but me crews kept cutting each others fingers off to blame the other guy for early discharge!

[Dmanwuzhere]

Trump was right. It's not a gun problem, it's a mental health problem. No sane person goes "postal" even if their house is full of firearms.
Now, if we extrapolate that premise, it shows us the USA has a major problem with mental disorders but somehow, I doubt per capital, it is no greater than anywhere else in the world.
So, how do you keep the guns out of the hands of the mentally disturbed ? Maybe mental disorder research is the partial answer. The other question is, why do other countries not have the same level of problems the USA does?

Interesting....Are you aware that Trump rolled back the regulation (finalized in Dec of 2016) that made it harder for people with mental illness to purchase a gun? Quite hypocritical of the President to roll back the regulation and then blame the mentally ill on the problems of gun violence. The individual that committed the mass shooting in Texas had been purchasing weapons, albiet one a year. Of course, one can argue that it is the military's fault for not reporting the shooter's dis-honorable discharge and conviction that would have prevented his ownership and purchase of weapons and ammunition for life.

But, one must question, the un-ending support for a President that destroys laws that help prevent this behavior, while blaming the behavior on the very thing the law is designed to address. Open your eyes and turn your brain on everyone!

The 2013 statute that Trump rolled back was due to the way it worked. Anyone on disability or anyone deemed unfit to manage thier fiscal bills were going to be added to the national database which in my opinion is unconstitutional and very discriminatory. Some of those names which were going to be added at a rate of 75k a year also included veterans which is just a prime example of vets being further discarded once they are used and dismissed.

[Meliva]

I don really pay any attention to politics myself, but if Dman is right then I fully agree with what trump did. Mental illnesses come in a pretty wide range, some are sadly so impaired that they literally can not do anything for themselves and need help with everything from being fed to being bathed, others can do basic tasks, and some are fully independent. To just say anyone with a mental illness is unfit to own a gun is rather discriminatory. But again, I pay little to no attention to politics, so i do not know myself if the law was what dman said it was.

[Dmanwuzhere]

I am correct, the headlines due to the opinion of most media ran headlines stating Trump repealed H.J.Res.40 allowing people with mental illness to purchase firearms. Basically that law made it legal for the social security administration to submit anyone who has a payee in their programs to the list. (Current law prohibits firearm sale or transfer to and purchase or possession by a person who has been adjudicated as a mental defective.) This was a stretch to include those who would not be able to legally afford to argue their competence to the state.
I personally feel the state should prove you incapable as that is how courts work. But this would have put the financial burden to fight on the people subjected to being entered into the list due to no other reason than having a payee for their benefits by this method. This would have started with the 75k this year and easily snowballed into the current 8 million plus people currently receiving ssi.

[sXs]

I don really pay any attention to politics myself, but if Dman is right then I fully agree with what trump did. Mental illnesses come in a pretty wide range, some are sadly so impaired that they literally can not do anything for themselves and need help with everything from being fed to being bathed, others can do basic tasks, and some are fully independent. To just say anyone with a mental illness is unfit to own a gun is rather discriminatory. But again, I pay little to no attention to politics, so i do not know myself if the law was what dman said it was.

Not only what dman explained, but SSI administration is a benefits admin. not a law enforcement. They basically allowed doctors to ask patients if they owned a firearm and then the doctor could recommend it be confiscated. The doctors did not have to be mental health professionals.