Whit just eliminated your primer problem.

     Sorry, I didn't mean to down play what's done. It's not an easy job. But my friend is a machinist and he recently went off on an hour long speech about what their new CAM/CAD can do and how much easier his job is. :)

First of all, dham either post somehting useful or shut the fuck up, the whining "yea - do as shes says "is just...belh

I don't at any point remember advocating disarming police... But to the actualy point, you're as per usual looking black and white, think grey. Sure there will always be guns, its a matter of how many and how easily they are accessed.

MaggieL:
I had a vague plan of working from the bottom up. That required people to state an opinion on the basic fact that more advanced weaponary availiable to a large cross-seciton of society results in more deaths. If its used that is, and statisticly the more poeple with guns will result in more people being shot. i mean if they don't have them, they cna't shoot with them. Ill try and pull up some stats from the US then from Britan or another non-arms to public country later...

Would you agree iwth that vague statement?

Cold war? Consider how many times we came within inches of nuclear war, and more keep coing out of the woodowrk - i wouldn't define it as a safe/nice way to live. When your put the equivilent capability (in relaitve terms we'll say an Ak-47) in the hands of 270million people the chances of it being used are just the tiniest bit higher.

Controlled example: Lock 100 random people in a house, ,bigbrother style, give them all a wide range of high power weaponary, see if anyone, and how many, get shot. See how many of them die as a result.

Put another goup of random people in a house wihtout any weaponary and see how many people die. People will always want to hurt each other, its a matter of how badly they can do it.

Question: Why do you choose to carry an concealed firearm? Safty i assume? WHy don't you feel safe? Because the bad guys have weapons? Becuase there is not enough cops ot keep the streets safe?

Assume shots fired at people - i'm not that silly geeez.

Now, let's lock a group of 100 people, NONE of whom have guns in a house, with a group of another 20 or so people - thoses 20 DO have guns, and make the rules. They rely on taking part of what every one of the 120 people for themselves in order to eat. How long will that stay stable? How long before those 20 rule everything? Now take SOME of the 100 people, and give them guns - the 20 people don't KNOW which of the 100 have guns. How differently will thoses 20 people act?

Those 20 people will act a bit different, huh? They are called the government

I guess that's the difference between being a citizen and a subject

Democracy is 3 wolves and 2 sheep voting on what to have for dinner
A Republic is 3 wolves and 2 sheep voting on who to have for dinner
A Constitutional Republic is the wolves finding out the sheep are armed

And about your sig - Bill Clinton was, and still is an ass

Here's something useful for ya, jaggie.

I don't feel safe because people with malicious intent generally have the advantage. They are planning an attack - you are not planning on being attacked. However, if you increase your firepower, you are more likely to find yourself in a winning position. Your odds of survival are greater.

That is why many law-abiding citizens of this country feel it necessary to have firearms and, yes, carry them.

More police won't solve the problem. Un-arming the criminals is a laughable notion and if you were actually proposing that as a solution (I'm not sure that you were - I'm just saying, *if* you were), then you're missing a bigger picture that a couple of people have been trying to point out. Criminals will always have weapons - they don't care what the law is. If they did, they wouldn't be criminals.

The fact of the matter is this: If all the persons aboard the flights that hit the WTC and the Pentagon had been armed (yes, EVEN the terrorists), the likelihood of them continuing on to their targets is pretty fucking slim. I challenge you to argue it the other way around.

"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."
--- Prof

ChuckyG brings up another good point: The people of the United States are given the right to replace their government if necessary. If the government were to ever become so corrupt that it needed to be ousted, we probably couldn't do it with sticks and stones. We need weapons to keep the government in check.

Actually, I meant that with high velocity air rifles the builders job should be even easier.

I don't know if anyone else has taken note of this but with the corporate downsizing of the 80s and 90s quite a few large companies outsource all their machining. My neighbors have a family owned shop full of cnc equipment and compete successfully for contracts from IBM etc.. They are also avid hunters... you do the math.

I was surfing last night all over the place and happened across some text that apparently was generated from the rec.guns newsgroup. Don't ask me to find the site again because I didn't bookmark it.

It was a set of scenarios for people who want to carry concealed weapons. The bad guy is here, you are here, what do you do?

If concealed carry folks studied these sorts of things, everyone would be much safer, not less, because they outline under what conditions you should draw, show, fire - and when you shouldn't do anything of the sort.

They made clear that, under many situations that may seem like the ideal case to start an old west gunfight, the best practice is to do nothing. If there is no evidence that your life is at risk, you don't pull out a gun. Example? If you are challenged for your wallet or purse and you have no evidence that the mugger is using deadly force, you just give up your goods, shrug, and say your money was worth less than your life.

Most of the scenarios came from real-life situations. In some of them, the actual person carrying told their story.

Having seen a lot of this sort of thinking amongst the gun crowd makes me feel better about the whole situation. Most people who carry seem to do so with a very strong understanding of the responsibilities that come with it. They understand the meaning of deadly force and don't want to use it unless absolutely necessary. The common notion that gun carriers consider themselves to be modern-day wild west gunslingers is false.

Tony -

Exactly.

We have a number of guns in the house. Two of them are handguns (yes, they're all legal and everything). One of them is here exclusively for self defense (the other is for training and taking pot shots at the neighborhood kids - ya know, fun stuff :) ). That gun is unloaded and unclipped - to fire a shot, the clip has to be loaded, a round introduced into the chamber and the safety turned off. We've never used it, and we expect that we never will have to. It's there ONLY if someone is doing bodily harm. You might be really pissed off if the neighbor's kid breaks in and steals your computer at night, but you'll feel real bad if you KILL him for it. Most law-abiding gun owners that have them for protection (and hunting, though I do not - and target shooting, which I have been known to do on occasion) value life - that's why they have guns protecting themselves in the first place. It's a very rare occasion that we'll actually find it necessary to use one. And so we don't.

That's called "begging the question". Your hypotheticals are full of holes, jag. Now go do your homework or something. I'm not going to try to debate this issue with you any further, you're not prepared.

My sidearm has a purpose that goes beyond "shooting at people". I've never shot at a person, and I hope it's never needful. By analogy, I didn't install fire extinguishers in my house hoping I'll have a fire. But if I *do* have a fire I"ll use my extinguisher on it while waiting for the fire department to show up. I don't belive that only firemen should have extinguishers.

Tony, I'm glad you noticed that a lot of us who carry are concerned about tactical ethics and the appropriate use of deadly force. ESR wrote a great piece called "Ethics From The Barrel of a Gun" that's worth a read, google the title and you'll find it. And the rec.guns material is apropos too. Every gun owner has a legal and moral responsibility to understand the issues involved.

And the laws about what force may be legally applied *vary* from state to state. That fellow locally who gunned down the naked drunk who was trying to get into his house at 3am was way over the line, for example (especially since he kept firing after the drunk was down) and he's likely going to go down for manslaughter. In Texas, he probably wouldn't.

The firing after he was down part would be the damning thing. Otherwise, the law generally tends to side on whether or not you felt you were in danger. Once someone is down though, they're down...

Sad, really. 'Cause that was definitely out of line. Like I implied earlier, I would only use deadly force if I felt I or a loved one was in direct danger.

If that was the scenario - naked man trying to get in the house at 3am - what would be the best action?

The naked person can't possibly have deadly force. The first question is, will he ever get past that door? Is the door flimsy? If no, you call 911, turn on all the lights, and watch and wait. If yes, if you have 30 seconds you get the cell phone and the gun and go out the BACK door, probably dialing 911 at the same time. You take the gun so that A) he won't get it, and B) you have some recourse if he has non-drunk, non-naked friends outside.

You could hide inside the house, but then you might not know if the situation's over.

Tony -

I tend to agree with you here as well. If I were in that situation, I would turn on all the lights, call the police and wait until they got there. The guy would probably be arrested and charged with indecent exposure and public drunkenness, get some community service hours and all's well. The doors in my house are thick and sturdy (that's important in any house, and I wouldn't have it any other way), and the windows are relatively tough. If they did manage to come through a window, I would likely tell them "I have a gun, and I will not hesitate to use stopping force if I feel I'm in danger. Please leave immediately." Of course, if they were trying to get in because they were scared or whatever (you know how drunk people can get), I'd try and wrap them up in a blanket and get them some help. All depends on the situation. In any event, shooting a naked drunk person is wrong, and shooting them after they're down is despicable. The person that did that should have his/her gun-owning rights taken away and should definitely serve jail time. To keep that right, one needs to act responsibly with it. Otherwise, they don't deserve it at all.

Undertoad,
first, in most states, you are in NO obligation to retreat from your own house - you may hold your ground, and if after you announce yourself, the perp continues into the house, there is a presumption of deadly force

Second, there can be deadly force with a naked person! If you a 95 lb elderly woman being attacked by a 250 lb 6 foot 5 young male, that would be considered deadly force - however, if your a 175 lb middle agged man being attacked, it almost definately not!

Understanding when you can use deadly force is not trivial, and I would suggest anyone who ever goes armed in any way should read up or take a class on this, pertaining to the laws (both on the books, and the usually more restrictive case law) in your state