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2nd Amendment
I thought in interesting that in Texas, the fastest growing demographic of gun permits being issued is to African American women.
Also...
"Strunk?s observation reflects the striking demographic findings of a 2011 Gallup poll that showed a stark increase in the number of women reporting household gun ownership ? 43 percent, the highest ever recorded by Gallup, and an increase of seven points since 2008."
The article is mostly about new demographics buying guns and doing so for reasoning about changes to the 2nd Amendment.
I am not totally sure I think the 2nd Amendment will change or ever go away. But I do like the idea of our American people being able to muster their own defense if our nation were ever under attack - which could happen...possibly.
So, a question: How many of you ladies conceal/carry? I don't. But I am considering it.
Re: 2nd Amendment
This exact freak out happened the last time Obama was elected. He hasn't ruined the 2nd Amendment. He won't ruin the 2nd Amendment.
I highly doubt the American public would be able to muster their own defense. There is no requirement that a gun purchase comes with a mandatory class in handgun safety. Therefore, people can just buy a gun and never take any classes on how to use it. It's a dumb thing to do, but it does happen.
To get a conceal/carry permit (if you care to be legal) does require a class be completed before the permit can be issued. Most people who conceal/carry, do follow the laws and have taken the necessary courses/practice/safety instruction.
Now, if I buy a handgun to just keep in my home, then you're correct, no class is required, I think, in most states.
I don't own guns. My husband does- and they're somewhere in storage at his parents' in Virginia. I'm not comfortable with guns in the hands of the general public who may or may not really know what the heck they're doing or, for that matter, have any iota of common sense (which sucks considering I live in a state that just enacted open carry). I don't want one in my house. I really don't want one in my house once there's a kid in my house.
All of this is possibly mildly odd, considering DH is military. But we live on post, which is guarded constantly by trained men and women with guns, so I'm really not worried about personal safety.
edit: granted, I never worried about personal safety prior to living on post, or thought a gun was the solution if I did, so I guess that's a moot point.
But now I think I'm going to go watch Red Dawn.
Yes, if it's the conceal/carry, they do need to take classes to get the licence. They do not need to take them to get the gun.
I agree with Lexi, though. I don't trust the general population with guns.
I spent half of Friday at the range. It was roughly half women.
I am willing to say that of the 10 million or so gun owners in America, 90% are responsible owners who are law abiding and respectful of gun safety. Unfortunately, the remaining 10% that make me second guess our laws. And that sucks, for lack of an eloquent term.
A senator in my state is trying to make it legal to carry a gun on a college campus. The extra "training" they're proposing is more time at a shooting range. It makes me so worried for DH. His classes deal with really controversial issues and attract some unbalanced people.
DH was talking about this issue with one of the higher ups at the university who's trying to stop it. DH said that he had read and evidence based article against allowing guns on campuses and would send it to her so she could use it. And she was like, "That's ok, they don't care about evidence." Awesome.
I grew up in a home without guns. My dad, who did serve during Vietnam, had/has only a baseball bat beside his bed (lots of former military, have firearms at home). I have considered a security system. However, it's just an alert system...it's not like it would harm anybody and it would still take time for a company to signal the emergency teams anyway. My dog serves as an alert.
With DH traveling a lot and two kids (and one the way), to look after, I am no match for an intruder (I'm 5'3") even if I had a bat or a knife. I'd probably be disarmed in a second and have the weapon used against me.
We don't hear about it a lot but there are actually quite a few home break-ins that occur while residents are at home. I know it's a biased source, but I've paged through IL's NRA magazine a few times and they provide snippets of stories in which people protected their families from intruders.
The people I'm most worried about are the crazy drug addicts (pain meds) who live in suburbia that need their next fix and will stop at nothing to get it or to find something valuable to exchange for the high they need. With unemployment on the rise and people desperate, many are turning to crime to get the money or valuables they need. I feel sad for these people, but I'm going to protect my family.
Anyway, I'd never go looking for a fight. If an intruder were in my home, I'd grab my gun, get to my kids, shout to the intruder that I had called the police, tell them I'm armed and that I would shoot them if they came near me. I'd shout for them to leave. Using my weapon would be a last resort.
Here are some stories I've read recently:
1. Teenage boy saved mother's life from her husband who was strangling her to death by shooting the man who had her by the neck.
2. Young mother alone in her home with her infant, faced with two male intruders runs across her home to her gun and kills one of the men who was coming toward her and her child.
We do live in an increasingly violent world. I do not want to contribute to this - but I am going to protect my loved ones if the need arises. I feel it is my responsibility as a mom, IMHO.
Oh, Michigan! lawl.
I opened this thread after reading about the 7-year-old that was accidentally shot and killed by his own father in the parking lot of a gun store.
There are times when I can have a rational discussion on guns and gun control but then I read stuff like that and I just want to throw all the guns off the face of the planet.
i wish there was a way to prevent the idiots from buying guns. there are people like that and then there are people like my neighbor 5 doors down and that have been hunting all their life and know how to be safe with one.
Ilumine, I hear your points, but be careful when you compare countries like that. Your arguments are virtually the definition of the ecological fallacy.
And I'm not really digging this analogy between cars and guns. Our country is virtually dependent on cars, not guns. I just don't see it as an apt comparison.
I'm not entirely opposed gun ownership, either. I just think we need to be careful about limits like which guns, who's allowed to own them, and where they're allowed to carry them.
So, when was the last time someone murdered 15+ people in ten minutes in Britain? Or France?
Cars are not weapons. Cars are vehicles. They can be used as weapons, just like a knife or a piece of rope can be used as a weapon. But that is not their primary purpose.
The primary purpose of a gun is to kill or cause injury to another being. They are weapons, period.
*Some* criminals will still be able to get guns, even if they are completely banned, but not all of them. And the supply of illegal guns will be much diminished, plus they'll become a LOT more expensive. That keeps them out of the hands of your average street mugger, which means that your average street mugging is a lot less likely to end in murder.
You'll never completely eliminate gun crime (or any crime, for that matter). But you can certainly drastically reduce it by enacting stricter gun control. However, we as a society have decided that it's more important to have our guns than to reduce the number of people killed or injured by guns. That's why we really can't complain or be too upset when the next Aurora happens. It's our choice. We want a society in which anyone can get a gun and in which anyone can be sitting in a movie theater, or classroom, or standing outside a supermarket, and be shot in the head or have their children shot in the head by a gunman. It's the price we pay for worshipping the second amendment.
You're likely to get disarmed and have a gun used against you too.
I'm just going to say, "THIS." You always sum up what I'm thinking much more eloquently.
Ditto. I love Geraldo so hard.
Innernational Shootings...so France isn't listed, but England is and so is Scotland as well as Germany, Finland and Norway. Published: Friday July 20, 2012 AP - The following is a timeline of some of the worst mass shootings from around the world.
? July 22, 2011: Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik kills 77 in Norway in twin attacks: a bombing in downtown Oslo and a shooting massacre at a youth camp outside the capital. The self-styled anti-Muslim militant admitted both attacks.
? April 30, 2009: Farda Gadyrov, 29, enters the prestigious Azerbaijan State Oil Academy in the capital, Baku, armed with an automatic pistol and clips. He kills 12 people before killing himself as police close in.
? Sept. 23, 2008: Matti Saari, 22, walks into a vocational college in Kauhajoki, Finland, and opens fire, killing 10 people and burning their bodies with firebombs before shooting himself fatally in the head.
? Nov. 7, 2007: After revealing plans for his attack in YouTube postings, 18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen fires kills eight people at his high school in Tuusula, Finland.
? April 26, 2002: Robert Steinhaeuser, 19, who had been expelled from school in Erfurt, Germany, kills 13 teachers, two former classmates and policeman, before committing suicide.
? April 28, 1996: Martin Bryant, 29, bursts into cafeteria in seaside resort of Port Arthur in Tasmania, Australia, shooting 20 people to death. Driving away, he kills 15 others. He was captured and imprisoned.
? March 13, 1996: Thomas Hamilton, 43, kills 16 kindergarten children and their teacher in elementary school in Dunblane, Scotland, and then kills himself.
? Dec. 6, 1989: Marc Lepine, 25, bursts into Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique college, shooting at women he encounters, killing nine and then himself.
? Aug. 19, 1987: Michael Ryan, 27, kills 16 people in small market town of Hungerford, England, and then shoots himself dead after being cornered by police.
Considering Obama didn't campaign on gun control and it's not exactly an issue liberals are demanding he pick up compared to gay rights and the environment, I don't see why there would be anything but the status quo on guns.
I'm fine with people owning handguns and rifles. And I'm also fine with bans on AK-47s and LAW Rockets. I do think you should be able to own body armor.
I think you could say this about a lot of things- motor vehicles, parenthood, alcohol, etc. Regarding the issue of cars not being used as weapons that's when they are used properly. When guns are used properly they are not a threat to the average citizen. Mace when used properly is going to injure (and has killed) as have things such as tasers, etc. I don't own a gun nor do I desire to. However, if you mean to do someone harm you are going to do it whether it be by gun, homemade bomb, knife, etc. You can SUPER easily make a toxic poison with bleach and ammonia. You could take out people in a movie theater, school, etc in large numbers with something like that as well.
OK, let's compare. In 25 years, mass killings where more than 5 people were killed at once:
France: 6
UK: 3Canada: 1
Australia: 1
Germany: 4
Finland: 2
Norway: 1
Azerbaijan (ummm random): 1
others;
Italy: 0
Sweden: 1
Switzerland: 1
Belgium: 0
Ireland: 0
Portugal: 0
United States: 43
These are partial counts, sourced from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers
I couldn't find a better source, but if someone wants to point me towards one, I'd be happy to pull the stats from there instead. I know the number of mass shootings in the US is actually higher than that - not sure about the other countries. But I'm pretty sure the proportion is more or less accurate, so my point is made.
In other countries, a mass shooting where 5+ people are killed is a HUGE event, one that prompts national soul searching as well as new laws (the Dunblane shooting is a good example of this). It's a national tragedy, talked about for years afterward.
Here, it's just another day and Americans pretty much forget about it by the following week. "Oh wow, lots of people got shot and killed. Huh. Hey I wonder what else is on TV."
I find it interesting though of the countries with fewest mass gun killings, several of them have WAY more lenient gun laws than we do. In particular, it is estimated that in Switzerland there are at least 420,000 ASSAULT rifles owned by private citizens for a population of around 8 million. Sweden's gun laws are very generous. Italy's gun laws are fairly relaxed as are Ireland's (which has a very high rate of gun ownership) relatively speaking with consideration that in some countries guns are completely banned. Meanwhile you have countries like East Timor and most African countries which have laws making gun ownership 100% illegal yet have large roving bands of illegal militias committing all sorts of horrible gun atrocities pretty much unchecked. These atrocities are just as bad if not worse than the mass killings mentioned here. Maybe more so because it happens so frequently that it doesn't get reported on like it does over here so there are no memorials and cries for stricter gun laws or victim's compensation funds.
I believe the issues that cause the gun violence stem far more often from poverty, classism and the big black hole that is our mental health system. One of the big differences between a place like here and Africa is that you can earn enough money to buy a gun if you are a whack job and thus go shoot your boss and 15 co-workers. Over there your opportunity is to join a warlord or become one to get access to the ability to act out your sick fantasies. You take guns away here and the whackjobs will then bomb or poison people because you haven't gone to the root of the issue.
Your first sentence is just not true. Italy, Ireland, Sweden, even Switzerland all have gun laws that are FAR more restrictive than here. Switzerland (which has by far the loosest gun laws in Western Europe), for example, you must have a permit to carry weapons in public, and you must pass an exam in order to get such a permit (plus state a legitimate reason for wanting a carry permit, not just 'i want one'). And this permit is only for one specific type of firearm that's on the permit and it's only good for five years. You have to have a permit just to buy a gun, and you're only allowed to buy 3 guns with that permit.
In the US, it's a joke to get a carry permit in many states (you just apply and if you aren't a felon or on record as mentally ill, you get it automatically), and the permit lets you carry basically any gun you want. Anybody without a record can go into a gun store and buy as many guns as they want, no permit required.
Our violence issues do stem from the issues you state, I completely agree. But I do not agree that guns are irrelevant. It's a hell of a lot easier for a mentally disturbed person to kill lots of people with a gun than with a knife or baseball bat. And it's a lot easier for a criminal to commit violent crimes with a gun as well. The more guns there are, the more gun crimes you will have. You'll never eliminate them, as I said, but you can drastically reduce them.
We just choose not to do so as a society.
Yes those are the real causes. But isn't that the exact reason why in a country like the US we need stricter gun laws?
Your argument is essentially: "We have a lot of systemic problems that will cause Americans to be inherently more violent than many other countries (i.e., poverty, classism, a sucktacular mental health system) so let's give them all access to guns!"
Wait, wut?
Just one problem, the mentally disturbed and criminals don't come upon their guns as law abiding citizens do...stricter gun laws won't prevent a crazy person from accessing the weapons they want. If this is your case then what we need isn't stricter gun laws - it's stricter laws limiting or eliminating the Black Market for firearms. All you'd be doing otherwise is limiting guns to the law-abiding citizens.