Gun laws

Jenny - posted on 07/06/2009

I'm Canadian and have had a compeltely difference experience with gun culture. We are in the porcess of becoming hunters, so not anti-firearm, to get that out of the way. We just do not have a big gun culture in Canada aside from utility reasons.

There are more incidents for two major reasons, that I can see anyways. The first is the culture of fear. As posters have mentioned previously many citizens want a gun to protect themselves. My question wouild be from what? It seems on the news there is always another boogeyman including the government and that has people feeling the need to stockpile small arsenals. I live right downtown in my city with a nightclub a blcok away and don't even lock my doors at night. I even go for walks after dark although I do admit to always having a dog with me. However when I meet people passing by I look them in the eye and smile. They always smile back.

The second reason is a lack of empathy. Peopel are becoming so compartmentalized that they are losing the abiltiy to feel for their fellow man. It is very easy to shoot something from a distance without feeling. That same person is not likely to choke someone to death or stab them as it is more hands on although there is of course exceptions.

We have our restricted gun license now and aside from the classroom I have not even seen a gun in real life since I was 6 years old. I do not know anyone who owns one even. So in short, it's not the laws that need to change, it's the culture.

Christa - posted on 06/24/2009

My old boss always used to say "perception is reality". I never liked her, but I think that it makes sense.

Christa - posted on 06/24/2009

My old boss always used to say "perception is reality". I never liked her, but I think that it makes sense.

JL - posted on 06/24/2009

You are so right Christa that intent gets lost in the things we write and while I may be writing something that to me may not sound offensive or bitter I have to occasionally remind myself that is not about intent as much it is about how the person reading it percieves it. It is probably more about perception and we have to all.... which I need to stick to this more.... think about the fact that we may be perceiveing this in a different way and perhaps should about the intent. I need to do this more often because I think my perception or the way I read things and the way I say things is not always the same as what was intended. I know firsthand that I have overreacted to stuff and I have definitely had people read way more into the things I have written and attacked me for it and my first thought was confusion because I did not understand at first what the heck was going on until I realized that their perception of what I wrote was different from my intentions, but hopefully we are able to ultimately clear things up.

Christa - posted on 06/23/2009

Oh ok you are right I did talk about that. There has been some back an forth, but lately we've been doing pretty well. :-)

Shannon - posted on 06/23/2009

Quoting Christa:

My last post on here? You think that's bitter? Interesting I don't see it that way at all. It's interesting how intent can get lost in writing. :-)

No no no... just by what you said it sounds like things have gotten bitter on these boards in the past - your post wasn't bitter. Sorry for the confusion!

(Don't have it in front of me and have read a lot since, but I think you said something about insult-slinging and 'us v. them' and that stuff happening in this community)

Christa - posted on 06/23/2009

My last post on here? You think that's bitter? Interesting I don't see it that way at all. It's interesting how intent can get lost in writing. :-)

Sara - posted on 06/23/2009

There's been a little bit of bitterness on here Shannon, but for the most part we've been able to have civilized discussions. We just have a wide variety of opinions on here, and most of them seem to be polar opposites! We're trying to work it out, glad you could join us!

Shannon - posted on 06/23/2009

I think gun laws need to be federal, not state, mandated. NY has the strictest gun laws but all someone has to do is drive to a neighboring state and go to a gun show or Walmart and buy a trunk load of guns to bring back and sell illegally. There is no reason why a law-abiding citizen should have a problem with taking a safety course and having a waiting period to get a gun - which is how it is here.

I understand the argument for not locking up the gun in case of an intruder. I definitely agree with teaching all children gun safety. I also know that I am responsible for every child that comes in my house and plays hide-and-seek and might find my gun and not know how to safely handle it, or to leave it alone. Actually I would be more afraid of that than an intruder.

Do they make trigger locks? That would make me more at ease.

And as for the "Guns don't kill people..." argument I just have to say that automatic, and semi-automatic weapons DO kill a lot more people than a hunting rifle. If these overly-powerful weapons were not around or available there would be a lot less people dead in the Columbine, etc, shootings. However, as they are already out there and in the hands of criminals I do not have a quick solution for getting rid of them. I only have the opinion that they shouldn't exist in civilized society.

That pretty much sums up all my opinions on gun laws. As far as 'us v them', yeah I hate that too. I just joined and I'm hoping to have reasonable discussions here but from the last post by Christa it looks like there is a lot of bitterness here too. Hey, I can understand it but I hope I can stay on point and just share my opinions without sounding judgmental about others. I'm pretty good about understanding the "other side" while disagreeing, most of the time.

Christa - posted on 06/17/2009

Quoting Joy:

See, that is what I mean, IT IS A COMPLETELY INACCURATE STEREOTYPE that Democrats want to make strict gun laws that take away guns completely from civilians and it is irresposible, repeating of misinformation, and absurd reasoning to assume and argue that at all because WE HAVE NOT SAID THAT AT ALL! In fact there are many Democrats and Liberals who own guns and like hunting we just expect responsible people, sane people, and people who are educated about gun safety to have access to legally owning a weapon. We want laws that do not make it easy for the crazies to get guns.

Take the VT shooter for instance he should have never had access to a gun, because he was mentally instable and there should be more done. All he had to do was write no on the federal questioner about whether he had been in any counseling or such for mental issues, which he had, in order to get the 9 mm Clock he purchased. He was cleared because we leave it up to the mentally instable person to tell the government if they are stable or not. If we can put old ladies in peace organizations in Florida on the register of terrorist watch lists under the Patriotic Act then why can we not have registered lists of people with histories of mental instability and violence in order to prevent them legally obtaining weapons. The federal laws against ownership of guns by mental instable people are at best rhetorical rather than preventable.

My problem with the arguement that the state or the federal government should not tell anyone where they should keep their gun has to do with the fact that my child could die as the result of someones irresponsibility and I aspect a certain guarantee of protection from the government. So we say it is a horrible tragedy and ulitimately the lack of responsibility of a parent when a kid accidentally shoots themselves in thier own home, but what happens when a kid gets a hold of gun that is not locked away and brings it outside of the home and my child is accidently shot as a result. Ok so the parents of the child will face the consequences but the fact is my child is still dead and the arguements for not telling me where to put my gun is not good enough, because it puts my child's life at risk. I know for some this maybe seem like an unusual circumstance but personally for me it is not... I have faced this issue twice in my life..once when an elementary school student brought their parents loaded gun to school because they thought it was cool and thank God noone was accidently shot but a child could have easily died. In the second situation a teen from an affluent family with a history of violence and easy access to his parents guns decided he didn't like the fact that my brother was dating his ex-girlfriend so he decided to conduct a drive by shooting in our upper middle class neighborhood. He took his dad's gun which was not locked up and shot at my parents house missing my brother by inches but hitting my brothers best freind who was rushed to a hospital and endured hours of surgery to remove the bullet that was inches from making him paralyzed for the rest of his life. None of the kids in both situations should have had access to guns yes they had irresponsible parents and it is ultmately there fault, but if my child's life is at risk because of irreponsibility then I damn well want laws to enforce responsible ownership because my child's life, in fact the protection of every child's life is above all else in my eyes and in my heart.

And if you are sitting around stockpiling and waiting for some unforseen tyranny rather than protecting yourself by educating yourself, speaking out in civil discourse, taking part politically by pushing for the representatives of your party to be more productive, seeking out better answers, advocating better ways to deal with our problems then you are not doing anything productive or worthwhile to assist this nation and yes you do come across more dangerous than helpful to this world and you come across foolish, ridiculous, and totally unsound which is in definition what crazy means.

I did not wish for BUSH to fail when he was president. I did not want certain policies passed and did not agree with his approaches, but I wanted him to be successful to the point that things were better, because ultimately the failure of any president is bad for this nation because we all fail. Plus wishing a president to fail means or at least comes across as advocating they fail in every aspect which includes militarily and in foreign relations WHICH PUTS MY HUSBANDS LIFE AT RISK. I do not want any president to fail in these areas despite my disagreements with their approaches because I value my husbands life to much to wish for failure. Too claim that this is what Liberals did with Bush is an over generalization, because I did not hear this coming out of of the mouths of my freinds or political representatives, but I do hear this coming out in large numbers from Republicans yet I do not hear any substantial ideas or too many people willing to work across the lines all I have heard is anger, whining and complaining and I for one aspect better out of Americans.

Joy, I agree with you about the VT shooter.  We are the USA for goodness sake and we can't get a thorough background on someone?!?!  But the truth is we can't, I work in human resources and we run backgrounds on people daily and you would think you just plug in a SSN and it pulls up anything.  Wrong!  You have to run separate checks in the cities, counties and federal.  So if someone doesn't tell you a certain place they lived and you don't run that county nothing comes up.  It's a SERIOUS flaw and our government should be advanced enough to create one big system where all information is stored.  I am all for fixing this problem.

I see where you are coming from about forcing parents to lock up there guns.  My only problem is how do you enforce that?  Do you then give police permission just because you own a gun to storm into your house at anytime and make sure your gun is locked up?  That's what I have a problem with, I don't think you can give the government the right to come into my home whenever they want.

As far as wanting Bush to fail, shouldn't that have gone on the other thread?  Anyway I agree with you we shouldn't want the president to fail because that isn't good for our nation.  But there were people saying these things about Bush the past 8 years just as now people are saying it about Obama.  I feel neither party is innocent in the current problems we have.  Neither side remembers what compromise is.  Look at the stimulus bill, the dems didn't give a crap what the repubs thought.  They catered to the 2 most liberal so they would flop and said "F you" to the rest.  McCain was sponsoring an alternative stimulus bill that only spent around 400-500 billion that wasn't ever even given a thought to.  Just because the democrats won the control of all three parts of our government doesn't mean compromise means "bend over".  Our country has serious issues and we all need to realize that WE ALL are the problem.  We need to quit the finger pointing across the aisle.  The reason the dems won this election is because for the last 8 years the repubs made a mess of things, we can all agree on that.  The difference is the liberals wanted to replace them with Dems and the conservatives wanted to replace them with better repubs.  But just because the dems won doesn't mean the entire country is ready or wanting this extreme liberal agenda that is going on.  And I'm really sick of hearing Obama say "I won" whenever someone asks him about bipartisanship.  That's just as bad as the people who say they want him to fail.  It perpetuates this "us vs them" mentality that is killing this country.  Look at what's gone on here and in OM's.  We can't even talk long enough without insults being slug and people being called crazy or ignorant (and I am talking both sides).  Is this really the country we want our children to grow up in? I sure as hell don't.  We need to stop hating the other side and start seeing the good in each other, because if we can't I don't want to see the world my children and their children are going to grow up in.  We are supposed to leave the world in a better place when we leave then it was when we came in.  Sorry for the long rant, I'm just really sad about everything that's gone on here over the past week.  I started this because I believe the world isn't as bad as the media wants us to think, but none of this has really supported that, and that saddens me.

Christa - posted on 06/17/2009

Quoting Joy:

See, that is what I mean, IT IS A COMPLETELY INACCURATE STEREOTYPE that Democrats want to make strict gun laws that take away guns completely from civilians and it is irresposible, repeating of misinformation, and absurd reasoning to assume and argue that at all because WE HAVE NOT SAID THAT AT ALL! In fact there are many Democrats and Liberals who own guns and like hunting we just expect responsible people, sane people, and people who are educated about gun safety to have access to legally owning a weapon. We want laws that do not make it easy for the crazies to get guns.

Take the VT shooter for instance he should have never had access to a gun, because he was mentally instable and there should be more done. All he had to do was write no on the federal questioner about whether he had been in any counseling or such for mental issues, which he had, in order to get the 9 mm Clock he purchased. He was cleared because we leave it up to the mentally instable person to tell the government if they are stable or not. If we can put old ladies in peace organizations in Florida on the register of terrorist watch lists under the Patriotic Act then why can we not have registered lists of people with histories of mental instability and violence in order to prevent them legally obtaining weapons. The federal laws against ownership of guns by mental instable people are at best rhetorical rather than preventable.

My problem with the arguement that the state or the federal government should not tell anyone where they should keep their gun has to do with the fact that my child could die as the result of someones irresponsibility and I aspect a certain guarantee of protection from the government. So we say it is a horrible tragedy and ulitimately the lack of responsibility of a parent when a kid accidentally shoots themselves in thier own home, but what happens when a kid gets a hold of gun that is not locked away and brings it outside of the home and my child is accidently shot as a result. Ok so the parents of the child will face the consequences but the fact is my child is still dead and the arguements for not telling me where to put my gun is not good enough, because it puts my child's life at risk. I know for some this maybe seem like an unusual circumstance but personally for me it is not... I have faced this issue twice in my life..once when an elementary school student brought their parents loaded gun to school because they thought it was cool and thank God noone was accidently shot but a child could have easily died. In the second situation a teen from an affluent family with a history of violence and easy access to his parents guns decided he didn't like the fact that my brother was dating his ex-girlfriend so he decided to conduct a drive by shooting in our upper middle class neighborhood. He took his dad's gun which was not locked up and shot at my parents house missing my brother by inches but hitting my brothers best freind who was rushed to a hospital and endured hours of surgery to remove the bullet that was inches from making him paralyzed for the rest of his life. None of the kids in both situations should have had access to guns yes they had irresponsible parents and it is ultmately there fault, but if my child's life is at risk because of irreponsibility then I damn well want laws to enforce responsible ownership because my child's life, in fact the protection of every child's life is above all else in my eyes and in my heart.

And if you are sitting around stockpiling and waiting for some unforseen tyranny rather than protecting yourself by educating yourself, speaking out in civil discourse, taking part politically by pushing for the representatives of your party to be more productive, seeking out better answers, advocating better ways to deal with our problems then you are not doing anything productive or worthwhile to assist this nation and yes you do come across more dangerous than helpful to this world and you come across foolish, ridiculous, and totally unsound which is in definition what crazy means.

I did not wish for BUSH to fail when he was president. I did not want certain policies passed and did not agree with his approaches, but I wanted him to be successful to the point that things were better, because ultimately the failure of any president is bad for this nation because we all fail. Plus wishing a president to fail means or at least comes across as advocating they fail in every aspect which includes militarily and in foreign relations WHICH PUTS MY HUSBANDS LIFE AT RISK. I do not want any president to fail in these areas despite my disagreements with their approaches because I value my husbands life to much to wish for failure. Too claim that this is what Liberals did with Bush is an over generalization, because I did not hear this coming out of of the mouths of my freinds or political representatives, but I do hear this coming out in large numbers from Republicans yet I do not hear any substantial ideas or too many people willing to work across the lines all I have heard is anger, whining and complaining and I for one aspect better out of Americans.

Joy, I agree with you about the VT shooter.  We are the USA for goodness sake and we can't get a thorough background on someone?!?!  But the truth is we can't, I work in human resources and we run backgrounds on people daily and you would think you just plug in a SSN and it pulls up anything.  Wrong!  You have to run separate checks in the cities, counties and federal.  So if someone doesn't tell you a certain place they lived and you don't run that county nothing comes up.  It's a SERIOUS flaw and our government should be advanced enough to create one big system where all information is stored.  I am all for fixing this problem.

I see where you are coming from about forcing parents to lock up there guns.  My only problem is how do you enforce that?  Do you then give police permission just because you own a gun to storm into your house at anytime and make sure your gun is locked up?  That's what I have a problem with, I don't think you can give the government the right to come into my home whenever they want.

As far as wanting Bush to fail, shouldn't that have gone on the other thread?  Anyway I agree with you we shouldn't want the president to fail because that isn't good for our nation.  But there were people saying these things about Bush the past 8 years just as now people are saying it about Obama.  I feel neither party is innocent in the current problems we have.  Neither side remembers what compromise is.  Look at the stimulus bill, the dems didn't give a crap what the repubs thought.  They catered to the 2 most liberal so they would flop and said "F you" to the rest.  McCain was sponsoring an alternative stimulus bill that only spent around 400-500 billion that wasn't ever even given a thought to.  Just because the democrats won the control of all three parts of our government doesn't mean compromise means "bend over".  Our country has serious issues and we all need to realize that WE ALL are the problem.  We need to quit the finger pointing across the aisle.  The reason the dems won this election is because for the last 8 years the repubs made a mess of things, we can all agree on that.  The difference is the liberals wanted to replace them with Dems and the conservatives wanted to replace them with better repubs.  But just because the dems won doesn't mean the entire country is ready or wanting this extreme liberal agenda that is going on.  And I'm really sick of hearing Obama say "I won" whenever someone asks him about bipartisanship.  That's just as bad as the people who say they want him to fail.  It perpetuates this "us vs them" mentality that is killing this country.  Look at what's gone on here and in OM's.  We can't even talk long enough without insults being slug and people being called crazy or ignorant (and I am talking both sides).  Is this really the country we want our children to grow up in? I sure as hell don't.  We need to stop hating the other side and start seeing the good in each other, because if we can't I don't want to see the world my children and their children are going to grow up in.  We are supposed to leave the world in a better place when we leave then it was when we came in.  Sorry for the long rant, I'm just really sad about everything that's gone on here over the past week.  I started this because I believe the world isn't as bad as the media wants us to think, but none of this has really supported that, and that saddens me.

Christa - posted on 06/17/2009

Quoting Joy:

See, that is what I mean, IT IS A COMPLETELY INACCURATE STEREOTYPE that Democrats want to make strict gun laws that take away guns completely from civilians and it is irresposible, repeating of misinformation, and absurd reasoning to assume and argue that at all because WE HAVE NOT SAID THAT AT ALL! In fact there are many Democrats and Liberals who own guns and like hunting we just expect responsible people, sane people, and people who are educated about gun safety to have access to legally owning a weapon. We want laws that do not make it easy for the crazies to get guns.

Take the VT shooter for instance he should have never had access to a gun, because he was mentally instable and there should be more done. All he had to do was write no on the federal questioner about whether he had been in any counseling or such for mental issues, which he had, in order to get the 9 mm Clock he purchased. He was cleared because we leave it up to the mentally instable person to tell the government if they are stable or not. If we can put old ladies in peace organizations in Florida on the register of terrorist watch lists under the Patriotic Act then why can we not have registered lists of people with histories of mental instability and violence in order to prevent them legally obtaining weapons. The federal laws against ownership of guns by mental instable people are at best rhetorical rather than preventable.

My problem with the arguement that the state or the federal government should not tell anyone where they should keep their gun has to do with the fact that my child could die as the result of someones irresponsibility and I aspect a certain guarantee of protection from the government. So we say it is a horrible tragedy and ulitimately the lack of responsibility of a parent when a kid accidentally shoots themselves in thier own home, but what happens when a kid gets a hold of gun that is not locked away and brings it outside of the home and my child is accidently shot as a result. Ok so the parents of the child will face the consequences but the fact is my child is still dead and the arguements for not telling me where to put my gun is not good enough, because it puts my child's life at risk. I know for some this maybe seem like an unusual circumstance but personally for me it is not... I have faced this issue twice in my life..once when an elementary school student brought their parents loaded gun to school because they thought it was cool and thank God noone was accidently shot but a child could have easily died. In the second situation a teen from an affluent family with a history of violence and easy access to his parents guns decided he didn't like the fact that my brother was dating his ex-girlfriend so he decided to conduct a drive by shooting in our upper middle class neighborhood. He took his dad's gun which was not locked up and shot at my parents house missing my brother by inches but hitting my brothers best freind who was rushed to a hospital and endured hours of surgery to remove the bullet that was inches from making him paralyzed for the rest of his life. None of the kids in both situations should have had access to guns yes they had irresponsible parents and it is ultmately there fault, but if my child's life is at risk because of irreponsibility then I damn well want laws to enforce responsible ownership because my child's life, in fact the protection of every child's life is above all else in my eyes and in my heart.

And if you are sitting around stockpiling and waiting for some unforseen tyranny rather than protecting yourself by educating yourself, speaking out in civil discourse, taking part politically by pushing for the representatives of your party to be more productive, seeking out better answers, advocating better ways to deal with our problems then you are not doing anything productive or worthwhile to assist this nation and yes you do come across more dangerous than helpful to this world and you come across foolish, ridiculous, and totally unsound which is in definition what crazy means.

I did not wish for BUSH to fail when he was president. I did not want certain policies passed and did not agree with his approaches, but I wanted him to be successful to the point that things were better, because ultimately the failure of any president is bad for this nation because we all fail. Plus wishing a president to fail means or at least comes across as advocating they fail in every aspect which includes militarily and in foreign relations WHICH PUTS MY HUSBANDS LIFE AT RISK. I do not want any president to fail in these areas despite my disagreements with their approaches because I value my husbands life to much to wish for failure. Too claim that this is what Liberals did with Bush is an over generalization, because I did not hear this coming out of of the mouths of my freinds or political representatives, but I do hear this coming out in large numbers from Republicans yet I do not hear any substantial ideas or too many people willing to work across the lines all I have heard is anger, whining and complaining and I for one aspect better out of Americans.

Joy, I agree with you about the VT shooter.  We are the USA for goodness sake and we can't get a thorough background on someone?!?!  But the truth is we can't, I work in human resources and we run backgrounds on people daily and you would think you just plug in a SSN and it pulls up anything.  Wrong!  You have to run separate checks in the cities, counties and federal.  So if someone doesn't tell you a certain place they lived and you don't run that county nothing comes up.  It's a SERIOUS flaw and our government should be advanced enough to create one big system where all information is stored.  I am all for fixing this problem.

I see where you are coming from about forcing parents to lock up there guns.  My only problem is how do you enforce that?  Do you then give police permission just because you own a gun to storm into your house at anytime and make sure your gun is locked up?  That's what I have a problem with, I don't think you can give the government the right to come into my home whenever they want.

As far as wanting Bush to fail, shouldn't that have gone on the other thread?  Anyway I agree with you we shouldn't want the president to fail because that isn't good for our nation.  But there were people saying these things about Bush the past 8 years just as now people are saying it about Obama.  I feel neither party is innocent in the current problems we have.  Neither side remembers what compromise is.  Look at the stimulus bill, the dems didn't give a crap what the repubs thought.  They catered to the 2 most liberal so they would flop and said "F you" to the rest.  McCain was sponsoring an alternative stimulus bill that only spent around 400-500 billion that wasn't ever even given a thought to.  Just because the democrats won the control of all three parts of our government doesn't mean compromise means "bend over".  Our country has serious issues and we all need to realize that WE ALL are the problem.  We need to quit the finger pointing across the aisle.  The reason the dems won this election is because for the last 8 years the repubs made a mess of things, we can all agree on that.  The difference is the liberals wanted to replace them with Dems and the conservatives wanted to replace them with better repubs.  But just because the dems won doesn't mean the entire country is ready or wanting this extreme liberal agenda that is going on.  And I'm really sick of hearing Obama say "I won" whenever someone asks him about bipartisanship.  That's just as bad as the people who say they want him to fail.  It perpetuates this "us vs them" mentality that is killing this country.  Look at what's gone on here and in OM's.  We can't even talk long enough without insults being slug and people being called crazy or ignorant (and I am talking both sides).  Is this really the country we want our children to grow up in? I sure as hell don't.  We need to stop hating the other side and start seeing the good in each other, because if we can't I don't want to see the world my children and their children are going to grow up in.  We are supposed to leave the world in a better place when we leave then it was when we came in.  Sorry for the long rant, I'm just really sad about everything that's gone on here over the past week.  I started this because I believe the world isn't as bad as the media wants us to think, but none of this has really supported that, and that saddens me.

Crystal - posted on 06/17/2009

That's why they should offer some safety, but again I reiterate, that if I'm told that if I have a gun and I have to keep it locked up in a safe with the ammo locked up elsewhere, how am I going to protect my family if I have to get to both in a short amount of time? The answer is I would not be able to and then my family could be raped or killed and I'd know I could have done something about it if I had been able to reach my gun in enough time.

JL - posted on 06/17/2009

See, that is what I mean, IT IS A COMPLETELY INACCURATE STEREOTYPE that Democrats want to make strict gun laws that take away guns completely from civilians and it is irresposible, repeating of misinformation, and absurd reasoning to assume and argue that at all because WE HAVE NOT SAID THAT AT ALL! In fact there are many Democrats and Liberals who own guns and like hunting we just expect responsible people, sane people, and people who are educated about gun safety to have access to legally owning a weapon. We want laws that do not make it easy for the crazies to get guns.



Take the VT shooter for instance he should have never had access to a gun, because he was mentally instable and there should be more done. All he had to do was write no on the federal questioner about whether he had been in any counseling or such for mental issues, which he had, in order to get the 9 mm Clock he purchased. He was cleared because we leave it up to the mentally instable person to tell the government if they are stable or not. If we can put old ladies in peace organizations in Florida on the register of terrorist watch lists under the Patriotic Act then why can we not have registered lists of people with histories of mental instability and violence in order to prevent them legally obtaining weapons. The federal laws against ownership of guns by mental instable people are at best rhetorical rather than preventable.



My problem with the arguement that the state or the federal government should not tell anyone where they should keep their gun has to do with the fact that my child could die as the result of someones irresponsibility and I aspect a certain guarantee of protection from the government. So we say it is a horrible tragedy and ulitimately the lack of responsibility of a parent when a kid accidentally shoots themselves in thier own home, but what happens when a kid gets a hold of gun that is not locked away and brings it outside of the home and my child is accidently shot as a result. Ok so the parents of the child will face the consequences but the fact is my child is still dead and the arguements for not telling me where to put my gun is not good enough, because it puts my child's life at risk. I know for some this maybe seem like an unusual circumstance but personally for me it is not... I have faced this issue twice in my life..once when an elementary school student brought their parents loaded gun to school because they thought it was cool and thank God noone was accidently shot but a child could have easily died. In the second situation a teen from an affluent family with a history of violence and easy access to his parents guns decided he didn't like the fact that my brother was dating his ex-girlfriend so he decided to conduct a drive by shooting in our upper middle class neighborhood. He took his dad's gun which was not locked up and shot at my parents house missing my brother by inches but hitting my brothers best freind who was rushed to a hospital and endured hours of surgery to remove the bullet that was inches from making him paralyzed for the rest of his life. None of the kids in both situations should have had access to guns yes they had irresponsible parents and it is ultmately there fault, but if my child's life is at risk because of irreponsibility then I damn well want laws to enforce responsible ownership because my child's life, in fact the protection of every child's life is above all else in my eyes and in my heart.



And if you are sitting around stockpiling and waiting for some unforseen tyranny rather than protecting yourself by educating yourself, speaking out in civil discourse, taking part politically by pushing for the representatives of your party to be more productive, seeking out better answers, advocating better ways to deal with our problems then you are not doing anything productive or worthwhile to assist this nation and yes you do come across more dangerous than helpful to this world and you come across foolish, ridiculous, and totally unsound which is in definition what crazy means.



I did not wish for BUSH to fail when he was president. I did not want certain policies passed and did not agree with his approaches, but I wanted him to be successful to the point that things were better, because ultimately the failure of any president is bad for this nation because we all fail. Plus wishing a president to fail means or at least comes across as advocating they fail in every aspect which includes militarily and in foreign relations WHICH PUTS MY HUSBANDS LIFE AT RISK. I do not want any president to fail in these areas despite my disagreements with their approaches because I value my husbands life to much to wish for failure. Too claim that this is what Liberals did with Bush is an over generalization, because I did not hear this coming out of of the mouths of my freinds or political representatives, but I do hear this coming out in large numbers from Republicans yet I do not hear any substantial ideas or too many people willing to work across the lines all I have heard is anger, whining and complaining and I for one aspect better out of Americans.

Brenda - posted on 06/17/2009

Quoting Rebecca:

I'll tell you why a lot of people are stocking up on guns and ammo., to protect themselves against tyrants if it comes to that. If all the gun laws are made so strict that only military and criminals have them then if the government gets power crazy then they can do whatever they want to do with those that do not agree with them, just like Hitler did. One of the first things they do is take away your right to protect yourself. And when all those who believe strongly in the right to bear arms and protect themselves and families stand strong together with their guns and ammo., it will be a cold day in hell before they do to us what they did to the Jews and countless others during the Second World War.And if that qualifies someone as crazy, owning weapons to protect your loved ones than I am mad as a hatter. And there are many,many more out there as well.

 I couldn't agree more!  I'm right there with you.  

There is a saying which I will take one  section from, " without guns, you are a subject, and with guns you are a citizen."

I know I will be ready if needed.  I have a right to defend my family and property.  It's one of those inalienable rights the forefathers sought to protect when they drafted the Constitution.

If that makes me a 'crazy', then so be it.

Rebecca - posted on 06/16/2009

I'll tell you why a lot of people are stocking up on guns and ammo., to protect themselves against tyrants if it comes to that. If all the gun laws are made so strict that only military and criminals have them then if the government gets power crazy then they can do whatever they want to do with those that do not agree with them, just like Hitler did. One of the first things they do is take away your right to protect yourself. And when all those who believe strongly in the right to bear arms and protect themselves and families stand strong together with their guns and ammo., it will be a cold day in hell before they do to us what they did to the Jews and countless others during the Second World War.And if that qualifies someone as crazy, owning weapons to protect your loved ones than I am mad as a hatter. And there are many,many more out there as well.

Christa - posted on 06/16/2009

I agree with you mostly. I'm all for background checks and waiting periods to be able to purchase a gun. I don't think the government can tell me where to keep my gun (which I don't have BTW) but I do think that there should be criminal charges brought if a gun kills someone due too poor judgment/lack of responsibility by the parent. I do believe in the right to carry a concealed weapon though. Again with strict background checks etc. I think there have been many situations where if someone had carried a gun more lives would/could have been saved. For instance in Columbine or the VT shootings. I understand this is a hard line to cross, I do understand why they don't want guns in our schools, but because of this these crazies KNOW there are no guns in the schools. If teachers or security guards were allowed to carry a gun someone might have stopped these wackos before they killed as many people as they did. Like in the recent shooting in DC, imagine if no one there had a gun, how many people could he have killed then? But I do think with this right comes responsibility and the second that is violated there needs to be consequences.

Crystal - posted on 06/16/2009

I believe in gun laws and in doing extensive background checks and such, but I do not believe that the gov't should have the right to tell me where to keep my guns. I do not own any right now, but what good will a gun do me if someone is breaking into my house wanting to hurt my family if it's in a gun safe and I can't get to it? We are already teaching my children gun safety because they know that daddy has a gun he uses at work (he's army). They know that guns are not toys and are not to be played with. It's all about education. When I do get a gun I will not be keeping it locked away where it's useless to me as I want one for protection while my husband is deployed and not just as something to look at occasionally.