Just to be clear, this guy never even pulled his gun. It remained in his jacket the whole time. He did exactly what a responsible gun owner should do, which was to assess the situation to decide if it required the use of his weapon. The guy he "almost" shot, was waiving the shooters gun around and yelling "I'll kill you!" repeatedly. What more do you want from him? Because he was armed, he felt prepared to run towards the gun shots, because he felt he could help. Had he not been armed, he probably would not have done the same thing. How many other people ran towards the gunshots? He wasn't even there, he was next door when it happened.
I would also ask, was there anything different he should have done? And do you think a cop or any other "trained" person would have done something different in the same situation?
Buddy, he CALLS HIMSELF A GUN NUT REPEATEDLY. If calling him a gun nut is an insult, then what isn't? Or is this one of those things where only a gun nut can say that word? Secondly, the "elite" thing is because "elite" is not an insult, it's something to aspire to. As in, an elite athlete, an elite university, an elite military unit. It is not a synonym for "thinks it is better than me", as it has now entered into common use. For what it's worth, I've spent a fair amount of time at the shooting range. Not enough to take down an assailant, but enough I can handle a weapon safely, and have seriously looked in to getting a target rifle but was discouraged by the process of getting a firearms license. So check your attitude about "my kind". I'm just an outsider looking in, bewildered by a society where guns are so prevalent and held in such high regard.
It is a well written, insightful article and I certainly felt it was worth the read. However, he, as most gun enthusiasts do, starts with a premise that doesn't actually resolve the actual argument being put forward. In terms of the newest NRA slogan: "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." If you read my earlier post, you'll note I'm not in favor of gun control because it doesn't really work (as well noted in the article). However, there IS a 'gun control' measure that would work which is largely ignored: What if nobody, including the bad guys, had guns at all? Every gun enthusiast starts with the same premise: Bad guys will always have guns. Now someone will start with 'Well the 2nd Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms...' and they would be correct. However, the Constitution can be changed. And ultimately that's my issue with the basic premise. Again, not saying I'm for gun control, just pointing out starting from the premise that gun enthusiasts always start from is a flawed argument. Just as the basic premise gun control advocates start from is equally flawed: 'we can control and figure out whom should have them and whom should not.' Just as flawed an argument.
I'd like to live in this magical world where there aren't 300+ million guns in the country. Alternately, I too would like to go back in time before firearms were invented. It's a nice idea and all, but the naiveté is off the charts.
No one here is arguing we need to arm everyone. If that's what you got out of the link I posted, you read it wrong.
Yet the argument from gun enthusiasts is always more guns. As I said, I'm against gun control. My issue is with the arguments being proffered by both sides. They are ineffectual and don't actually advance a resolution of the issue one way or the other. You either believe in no guns or guns for as many folks as possible. We've done the middle ground for nigh on 70 years. It doesn't work. Tweaking a faulty paradigm doesn't make it better - it just makes it different. The argument is, and will always be, freedom of choice versus more deaths. Your choice. It's not up to me to tell you what to choose. Freedom doesn't mean 'choose what I'd choose.' It actually means 'choose what I wouldn't."
Even if we melted down every single gun on the planet, there will still be people with the knowledge and ambition to build them illegally. All you need are some machining skills and the right tools and you could bang out a shit load of guns in a hurry. For example, this guy built an AK47 out of a shovel.
There is a lot of stuff that guy skipped over I wonder if that is close to being legit. That being said there are plenty of people with access to milling equipment can turn out AR 15 lowers if they really wanted, 3D printers ain't got shit on them.
Thinking back of all the teachers I've had, there are a handful I certainly wouldn't want to have a loaded firearm period, let alone in a classroom. Anyone else?
Buddy, there's a difference between someone calling themselves something and you calling them that same thing, especially given your attitude and the context of your comments. Hold on, let me go up to a group of black guys and call them niggas, it's cool because they call themselves and each other niggas. See what I'm saying? I'm not going to get into an argument over the definitions of words versus how they are actually used, that's completely beside the point. Guns really aren't held in high regard here, but I can understand that as a foreigner I can understand how you would come to that incorrect conclusion. A gun is a means to an end, a tool, be it to commit violent crimes, to defend ones self, to hunt, shooting trap, whatever. Even with most "gun nuts" you'd never know they even own a single gun unless you had been inside their home. It isn't about the gun so much as what you're doing with the gun for most people. There are gun enthusiasts and collectors, but that's a pretty small niche of the overall number of people that use and own guns. You might be asking "then why does it matter to the guy who hunts water foul if the assault weapon ban gets reinstated?" Because when you have legislation that bans guns based on aesthetics rather than functionality (which is what most proposed gun-control legislation is) you validate that fear by making it law and its only a matter of time before someone gets scared of the gun that you're holding.
Yeah, totally. It's just as racist to call a gun enthusiast a gun nut as it is to call a black person "nigga".
But its cool because that's some people's favorite edgy joke around here. You can tell its cool because if a black person makes even the slightest comment that the person who uses the word is being a dick, then they're shouted down for being overly sensitive.
The thing I don't like about the whole gun control debate is that the options considered always seem to be either banning guns outright (at least the "scary" kinds of guns), or encouraging everyone to carry as a deterrent. I'm in favor of letting people own whatever they please, but establishing a series of extremely tight regulations. People should have to prove that they have a hunting license/range membership/etc. Home defense? Certification for that. Someone with a mental disability in the house? Your guns must be safely stored outside of the home, and you have to prove that they are. Etc, etc. I have no qualms with letting someone own whatever they please, but the responsibility factor needs to be stepped up. To take it to an extreme, I believe that if you have a large area of land in say, Arizona, properly set up so that you can safely store and fire a RPG, and that you submit to extensive background checks, register with the FBI, agree to be regularly audited, etc, that you should be allowed to own an RPG. On the other hand, if you live in baltimore with your stepson who has schizophrenia, then you aren't allowed to own shit.
A) Way to take a phrase out of context, then extrapolate and make a ridiculous assumption in order to attempt to win an argument! It took me hours to realize this was what was happening, because I suddenly found myself asking myself "Wow, it was pretty dumb of me to believe that getting rid of guns would mean everyone, everywhere, would lead awesome violence free lives and LIVE FOREVER!!!" Then I realized I didn't actually, in the context of the rest of the post, say (or believe) anything of the kind. B) The response to this particularly ridiculous argument runs as follows: If we are talking about curing cancer, do we not bother because people die of heart attacks? Yet again, I'm not for gun control - my only point is that the premise of the article - and responses thereto - again show that the question of bad guys not having guns at all is never really addressed or resolved. It is almost always assumed that bad guys have guns. My point is addressing that particular presumption will help resolve the discussion - because again - gun control over the last 70 years hasn't worked.
And my point was simple: People will find a way to hurt and kill each other, whether it's bare hands, knives, guns, explosives, poison, etc. Guns are not the problem, bad guys are the problem.