The Great ILX Gun Control Debate

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... more's the pity!

― Tom D., Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:09 (seventeen years ago) link

"I saw a policeman with a gun (outside the US Embassy, where else?) but that's the only time I've ever actually seen one in real life

-- Tom D., Tuesday, April 17, 2007 8:05 PM (39 seconds ago)"

rly?!

i think i've even seen britishes cops w/ guns in the last few years. of course i have cradled an SA80 in my loving arms, taken it apart and put it back together, so am familiar with the inimitable smell of infantry small arms.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:10 (seventeen years ago) link

shakey mo most otm in thread

― and what, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:10 (seventeen years ago) link

From the AP:

One law enforcement official said Cho's backpack contained a receipt for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol. Cho held a green card, meaning he was a legal, permanent resident, federal officials said. That meant he was eligible to buy a handgun unless he had been convicted of a felony.

Fuckingfuckfucfuckfuckfuckfjfhjdfskahsdfh ldk sjafhsdjkl hjkls afhlsdfjh

― Ben Boyerrr, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:13 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm curious why JJ's mom and JFM's sister-in-law own guns.

well i dunno. sis-in-law is a sort of back-to-nature type. has a small chicken-and-goat farm. she slaughters her own animals. wants to get solar power so the homestead can be totally off the grid. i don't think she sees the gun as anything she's likely to need, but just as part of feeling that she can take care of herself in any circumstance. i guess. also almost everyone else in the family has a gun of some kind. when you grow up with them it's just sort of a normal thing to have around the house.

― tipsy mothra, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:20 (seventeen years ago) link

In all honesty, I think my mom would respond "Why not?"

― John Justen, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:22 (seventeen years ago) link

. when you grow up with them it's just sort of a normal thing to have around the house.

yup. I grew up in a hunting family in Michigan. Grandma had a rifle, grandpa had some shotguns, dad had both and a .22 pistol, I had a .22 rifle and a .410 over/under single-shot shotgun/rifle combo. My siblings & I all went thru hunter's safety classes when we were 12.

― kingfish, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:28 (seventeen years ago) link

The police on the other side of the gates on Downing Street have guns and you often see them at airports but outside of the capital (and airports) I don't think I've ever seen one.

― Ned Trifle II, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:33 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost obviously.

― Ned Trifle II, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:34 (seventeen years ago) link

army barracks in london have armed bastards outside. and of course i see them in rap music and in action movies all the time.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:36 (seventeen years ago) link

the genie is out of the bottle and there's no way to stuff it back in.t

Interestingly this is what most police officers I spoke to feared. They didn't want to be armed because they feared it would make them a target and once you got armed there was no going back.

― Ned Trifle II, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:37 (seventeen years ago) link

shakey mo otm re: stuffing the genie back in the bottle. but wanting to ban all guns everywhere is just sorta stupid and childish. handguns may have been invented to kill humans, specifically, but rifles and shotguns have practical, non-human-killing purposes.

and yeah, i'll bite: i'm uncomfortable with the thought of only cops being allowed to have guns.

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:52 (seventeen years ago) link

please to show me the last time a private citzen with a gun succesffully defended themselves against cops.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:54 (seventeen years ago) link

then again, i suppose if you banned guns, the cops wouldn't need to have them (cf europe), so that would just leave the military, and i'm not enough of a black helicopter watcher to really worry about that.

....yet.

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:55 (seventeen years ago) link

(ie, it DOESN'T MATTER if a private citizen is armed, the state makes it is business to be BETTER ARMED)

x-post

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:55 (seventeen years ago) link

("makes it ITS business" arrghh)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:56 (seventeen years ago) link

then again, i suppose if you banned guns, the cops wouldn't need to have them (cf europe), so that would just leave the military, and i'm not enough of a black helicopter watcher to really worry about that.

The UK is the only european country i know of where the police do not routinely carry guns. There are, of course, armed policemen.

― Ed, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:57 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm not even talking about "successfully" defending yrself, Shakey; the cops will always win with bigger guns and sheer numbers. I'm just admitting that there's something creepy about the idea that the only people walking around with firepower would cops. Cops. Like, have you met these guys???

xp

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:57 (seventeen years ago) link

I hate cops. I figured this was common ILX knowledge.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:58 (seventeen years ago) link

Ed, you're right: I now remember as a kid seeing police in Italy walking around with submachine guns.

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:58 (seventeen years ago) link

me having a gun only makes it that much more likely that a cop is going to shoot me. it wouldn't protect me or make me feel more secure in any way.

x-post

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:59 (seventeen years ago) link

but rifles and shotguns have practical, non-human-killing purposes.

Go on.

― jaymc, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Sorry to be such a horse's ass, Ally, but exactly how many US localities are there where you need a concealed weapons permit to own an antique gun? Feel free to name lots of them.

(But I don't think it'll change my horse's-ass notion that there's a difference between appreciating guns as objects and carrying functional concealed weapons -- a difference this horse's ass is willing to bet is reflected in the laws of like practically every US locality. This was not meant to suggest anything at all about Alfred's father. It was a fairly simple statement that we should be careful about letting "I appreciate guns as objects" bleed subtly over into "therefore people should be allowed to carry them," because the one really doesn't have anything to do with the other.)

― nabisco, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:00 (seventeen years ago) link

let's put them all in museums where they can be fully appreciated

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:02 (seventeen years ago) link

Because I'm boring and narrow-minded, I keep coming back to what vahid pointed out: the root causes of many gun deaths are social, and are only tangentially related to the availability of legal guns. Implementing gun control (which, given what it is now, means banning handguns??) would cost so much money, and take so much time, and would be so fucking divisive politically, that I really think that all that effort and aggro would be better invested in attacking the larger social issues that need redressing.

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:04 (seventeen years ago) link

Wasn't there a robbery/shootout in L.A. or somewhere in the last two years, where they had AKs, armor, and a lot more firepower than the initial responding officers did?

let's put them all in museums where they can be fully appreciated

...and eventually discovered by the dastardly Simon Phoenix for his nefarious schemes.

― kingfish, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:04 (seventeen years ago) link

Rifles and shotguns (and large-caliber handguns) are incredibly useful and necessary for work/travel/life in remote areas in Alaska, Canada, and many western states due to danger from bears and other large animals. I know it may be sort of hard to believe to a city dweller but it is very, very real.

― dan m, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:04 (seventeen years ago) link

jaymc: you're doing that thing again.

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:04 (seventeen years ago) link

(ie, it DOESN'T MATTER if a private citizen is armed, the state makes it is business to be BETTER ARMED)

This is super-OTM and sort of the only response to people who want to be armed for potentially revolutionary purposes; which is to say that a state can't really operate as a state unless it has a monopoly on violence.

― max, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:05 (seventeen years ago) link

that was about ten years ago and i think you can even find it on youtube (north hollywood shootout)

xxxxp

― rps, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:05 (seventeen years ago) link

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d5/Government_Warehouse.jpg

― and what, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:06 (seventeen years ago) link

"top....men"

― rps, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:06 (seventeen years ago) link

Moreover, forget about protection from animals (which, as Dan said, is actually a legitimate threat but for, let's face it, a v v small segment of the populace): what about shooting them and eating them? I know ppl don't hunt much in the city, but they do practically everywhere else. And, so we don't get embroiled in a whole separate discussion about hunting, can we just agree that some people think hunting is barbaric and unnecessary and some don't, but that it's something we've been doing for literally forever and that banning it right now would be a little weird?

nb I have never been hunting.

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:08 (seventeen years ago) link

rest in peace, Porkins and that pipe-smoking government guy

― kingfish, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:09 (seventeen years ago) link

"That thing again" = being curious?

― jaymc, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:10 (seventeen years ago) link

xxpost I was trying to avoid broaching that subject :)

― dan m, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:10 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, I assumed you were going to talk about hunting, but I wanted to know what else you had in mind. Thanks for the explanation.

― jaymc, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:11 (seventeen years ago) link

I have. It's fun! My dad still goes "hunting," but it's basically an excuse for him and his fiftysomething buddies to get away from their wives, drink Glenlivet, and bitch.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:11 (seventeen years ago) link

^^^^ that is most hunting, i think

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:13 (seventeen years ago) link

plus you come home with meats

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:13 (seventeen years ago) link

otm

― dan m, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:14 (seventeen years ago) link

guys really i just want a steak and can't afford them so i figure shooting an elk and strapping it to the hood of my ford focus would probably solve my problems for a while. also i want an excuse to walk around in the mountains.

― river wolf, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:15 (seventeen years ago) link

I know a guy out in Bigfork who could probably hook u up

― dan m, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:16 (seventeen years ago) link

here get elk with this glock 17

― Will M., Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:17 (seventeen years ago) link

No I think he has the elk already.

― dan m, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:17 (seventeen years ago) link

(the elk dealer)

― dan m, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:17 (seventeen years ago) link

roger adultery

― RJG, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:19 (seventeen years ago) link

shoot elk dealer and take his elk

use this glock17

― Will M., Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:20 (seventeen years ago) link

...I sound like one of those text adventure video games from the 80s.

― Will M., Tuesday, 17 April 2007 18:21 (seventeen years ago) link

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