TN moves to allow guns in public buildings.

Unfortunately, you live in the real, fallen, wicked world, so, get real.

 

Maybe, but I've lived in this fallen wicked world for nearly 60 years and have never had to have a gun ...

Regards
Bob

 

Good for you, Bob. And I pray you neve have to till you get home to glory.

I've lived the same number of years and never owned a gun myself, except those that have been issued to me. Unfortunately, I've had to use one several times, and I don't relish those times.

 

Good post, well thought out and articulated. I agree

 

Was one of them named Barney?

Sorry. Just HAD to ask!

 

For the record, I am in favor of some, but not absolute, gun control. I do not hunt, but I know some people who do, and I know the reasons and benefits for it. I do not own a gun, but I understand the issues around the need for personal protection. However, I see no reason for the availability of assault weapons, especially if they have been altered in order to get around legal definitions.

The thing I am concerned about is not the folks on the other side of the fence. I'm more concerned with the absence of the fence and our inability to know who is a likely candidate to look to his guns for a solution to his problems. In our society today, we are so isolated from each other that we do not know our neighbors as well as we used to. In Blacksburg, eventhough some flags went up about Chou, not enough was done, or not enough could be done to predict or to prevent the shootings. It is the lack of certainty that I find troubling, but then we are human.

Tim Reynolds

 

Well, that by definition is already illegal.

Besides, the so-called assault weapons ban was nothing but political pandering. It banned scary looking guns.

As an example, when I drive across Canada with my guns, I cannot take my Ruger 10/22 because it's an "assault" weapon. The bullets can literally bounce off a windshield. But, I can take a number of guns that I could shoot someone through my entire car with no problem because they're not scary looking.

 

Yep.. That'll work. Now every crazy with a grudge can take out his or her frustration by simply playing a game of "hunt 'em down" in an office building or on a university campus.

 

People like you continue to miss the point. Unless every single person going into a particular building or venue (the law applies to parks too) is thoroughly searched, someone who wants to play 'hunt 'em down' can already do it. Such a person doesn't give a rat's tail about a law that says you can't bring a gun into the building. The only thing that law does is to make sure that there will be no one else in the building with a gun to stop him when he starts the 'game.'

I find it really strange that many otherwise intelligent people cannot seem to grasp the idea that someone who is willing to commit murder is not going to be deterred by a gun law.

 

Jack, If you'll remember, guns were banned on the VT campus.
And some "crazy with a grudge" did what...? Unopposed.
MR

 

This may be technically true, but I believe I have the facts on my side when I say that the Crown basically rubber stamps any governmental descisions. And even if this were not so, even if Canada is subject to the Crown, how is that relevant to the issue of guns?

 

Here as a great video demonstrating the difference between 'hunting' rifles and 'assault' rifles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjM9fcEzSJ0

 

I am not sure whether the above post is an example of the following argument or not. Here is the argument:

1. City X has a high level of gun ownership by the general population and has a low level of violent crime;

2. City Y has a low level of gun ownership by the general population and has a high level of violent crime.

3. Therefore, gun ownwership in the general population reduces crime.

This kind of argument - the "Washington DC has a handun ban and there is more crime per capita than in East Rubber Boot, Tennessee where everyone has a gun" argument - is seriously flawed.

The correlation between between low rates of gun ownership in City Y and the high rate of crime might be attributable to any of a number of other factors - overcrowding, povertly, gang presence, etc. It may have nothing at all to do with gun control laws and / or the prevalence of guns.

 

Those who argue for gun ownership has consistently said that this is the way for citizens to defend themselves against those who do not care about laws and whose sole reason for existing in this world is to grab what is not theirs from those who are helpless and unarmed.

So far, unless I missed the answer, those who have argued against gun ownership and for gun control has not answered the basic question:

How do you all propose the unarmed citizen should defend himself from attacks and assaults of criminal elements ?

Your proposals, please.

 

I could answer for them...
Option 1: give the criminal what they want and maybe they will go away.
Option 2: dial 911 and die.

 

The problem with this question is that it it implicitly pre-supposes that the reduction in the capability to defend one-self (with a gun) that would arise under severe gun control will be less than the reduction in the ability of criminals to assault and attack in this same gun-controlled world.

This is a possible state of affairs, but it is also possible that the opposite is true.

 

But again, one factor you have possibly not considered is the in the desire, and ability, between a law abiding citizen and a criminal citizen to secure and use a gun. The former will clench his teeth and abide by the law, the latter will simply laugh at the law and find ways and means to arm himself.

Again, that disregard and contempt for law by criminal elements has been pointed out repeatedly by those who are for gun ownership.

Also, we are discussing concrete steps that should be taken, not hypothetical situations and possible scenarios.

 

Exactly the wrong direction. We most certainly do not need for citizens to tote weapons in any public environment, particularly where things can get heated. The very nature of a courthouse is that adversarial things take place. Even the administrative offices of a county can become acrimonious -- tax disputes, permit squabbles, divorce decrees, on and on. I shudder to think what will happen if people are armed in such a setting.

I have no desire to "defend" myself or my loved ones with firepower. I do not live in the expectation that I will be attacked. The one time I was robbed at gunpoint I surrendered my wallet and let the perp dash off unchallenged. I would not have wanted to have a back-alley shootout, nor would I have wanted it on my conscience if I had "won" such an encounter.

 

You don't live in Texas do you?

I believe that we have the right, and sometimes the duty, to arm ourselves any time we feel the need. I saw a bumper sticker once that pretty much summed it up. It said, "An Armed Society is a Polite Society.

I would not willingly hand over my wallet to anyone, other than a police officer, if I had the ability with me at the time to prevent it.

 

I think some have confused the desire to protect family with the desire to shoot bad guys. I would probably not get into it over a wallet. But I have a duty to protect my family, regardless of how I feel about it.
1 Timothy 5:8 But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
I realize that this verse is primarily speaking of financial provision, but how much much worse would it be to not provide safety for our families? There came a time when David and his men found their families had been captured by the Amalekites. What did he do? He rallied his men and they persued them and recovered their wives and children the way any man ought to.