Hey Everybody, Lets All Jump on the Insanity Cycle!!!

[Wild Eyed Southern Boy]

Their research is flawed. Think about it. They claim guns are used 2.5 million times a year for self defense. so 200,000 times a month. 6700 times a day.

I live in Pittsburgh, the metro area is .5% of the national population, meaning over 30 times a day a gun is used in self defense. Which is odd considering I know a lot of people and have never heard of thus happening--seems the sort of thing people would mention if it happened to them or anyone they knew.

How often have you heard of this happening in your circle?

With 353,000,000 people, yeah I believe it. Just because you don't shoot doesn't mean it did not have a deterrent effect. I hear of it once or twice a month, but then again I'm around a lot of people who go armed regularly and are on the road a lot.
Tonite at my house, I helped a rookie cop, 27 yrs old, mount a light on his Colt AR15 that his wife got him for Christmas, (I actually picked it out for her two weeks ago. Few police depts actually provide rifles for cops, but allow them to carry personal rifles after quals. Most only provide a pistol or shotgun. Many are passed down and some are even in poor repair).

Not a week goes by that he doesn't tell me about somebody responding to a call were someone either has held someone at gun point till they got there or chased somebody off. Most times it involves people who relocated to here with GM. They brought a lot of gang affiliations and drugs with them.

[BlandFood]

The receiver was Korean War era but the barrel was 1966. I hadn't realized they were rebuilding them that late.

I have one that was arsenal rebuild in 1954..... never reissued, better condition than what I stood watch with in the military. I apprecieated it's workings then BUT I love it's beauty now.

[ms maggie]

With 353,000,000 people, yeah I believe it. Just because you don't shoot doesn't mean it did not have a deterrent effect. I hear of it once or twice a month, but then again I'm around a lot of people who go armed regularly and are on the road a lot.
Tonite at my house, I helped a rookie cop, 27 yrs old, mount a light on his Colt AR15 that his wife got him for Christmas, (I actually picked it out for her two weeks ago. Few police depts actually provide rifles for cops, but allow them to carry personal rifles after quals. Most only provide a pistol or shotgun. Many are passed down and some are even in poor repair).

Not a week goes by that he doesn't tell me about somebody responding to a call were someone either has held someone at gun point till they got there or chased somebody off. Most times it involves people who relocated to here with GM. They brought a lot of gang affiliations and drugs with them.

I don't say it never happens. But you say your police friend references maybe once a week. So on that sample 4 times a month, my point is the research you cited would have me believe this happens 1000 times a month in my area. And honestly, did the folks yr friend mentioned have a regular hand gun or something like the Bushmaster? I have no problem with a garden variety handgun or rifle.

[The Shadow]

The ones that have criminally misused "Assault Rifles" more than anyone, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of men, women, and little children, including a room full of little kids at a birthday party in 2010, is the 'Fast and Furious Debacle' under the Obama Administration.

[Wild Eyed Southern Boy]

I don't say it never happens. But you say your police friend references maybe once a week. So on that sample 4 times a month, my point is the research you cited would have me believe this happens 1000 times a month in my area. And honestly, did the folks yr friend mentioned have a regular hand gun or something like the Bushmaster? I have no problem with a garden variety handgun or rifle.

Hon, there ain't no such animal as a "garden variety" gun. If you never believe anything else I ever say, please believe this.

A gun barrel of any type, regardless of caliber, looks like #4 stove pipe, when it is oriented in your direction.

A Bushmaster AR15 is a .22 caliber weapon. Do you understand that the average deer hunting cartridge is almost twice as powerful? Even a .243, which used to be considered as the minimum as a reliable deer gun. And they can be had in semi with large capacity magazines. Most people don't bother with them for the same reason I use 10 & 20 round magazines in my AR15s. Big magazines stick down too far and get in the way. I can't shoot prone or from a targeting table.

If your going to ban one type, it makes no sense not to ban all semis.

[ms maggie]

Hon, there ain't no such animal as a "garden variety" gun. If you never believe anything else I ever say, please believe this.

A gun barrel of any type, regardless of caliber, looks like #4 stove pipe, when it is oriented in your direction.

A Bushmaster AR15 is a .22 caliber weapon. Do you understand that the average deer hunting cartridge is almost twice as powerful? Even a .243, which used to be considered as the minimum as a reliable deer gun. And they can be had in semi with large capacity magazines. Most people don't bother with them for the same reason I use 10 & 20 round magazines in my AR15s. Big magazines stick down too far and get in the way. I can't shoot prone or from a targeting table.

If your going to ban one type, it makes no sense not to ban all semis.

Look I get it. And frankly you are making me consider yr point of view. You like guns, you are something of an aficionado and resent the notion that yr ability to pursue yr interest could be curtailed. You seem like a nice guy and certainly not a danger to society.

Unfortunately not everyone is like you.

I fly all the time and I guarantee you Ibeould never try to bring a plane down or highjack it. Yet I get patted down every time I go to get on a plane.

Do you get my point?

[Wild Eyed Southern Boy]

Look I get it. And frankly you are making me consider yr point of view. You like guns, you are something of an aficionado and resent the notion that yr ability to pursue yr interest could be curtailed. You seem like a nice guy and certainly not a danger to society.

Unfortunately not everyone is like you.

I fly all the time and I guarantee you Ibeould never try to bring a plane down or highjack it. Yet I get patted down every time I go to get on a plane.

Do you get my point?

I am an aficionado of attractive women, good booze, boats and cars that attractive women like.


It's not that I like guns that much, I'm a mechanical engineer, I like machines and they are just machines. Quite frankly I daily work around machines that are more dangerous than guns. I really don't shoot anymore much.

It's just that we were once a nation where Dad was the picture of a guy with a long rifle that his family looked up to, where you were expected to step up when the need arose to defend your family, people that couldn't defend themselves and lastly yourself.

After our family squabble of 1861 - 1865 settled which way we would go, we never gassed Jews or enslaved nations. We were a nation of rugged individualists who did the right thing.

The 2nd amendment is the only one that really requires responsibility and allows us to protect ourselves.
The others are supposedly protection provided for us, against some real or imagined monolith that benignly watches over us. Something given that requires no implementation or maintenance.

I just really hate to see us evolve to level of a herd that has to be led. One that cannot be trusted with responsibility.

(insert poignant sigh) Maybe 353,000,000 people are simply too many for that.