[Chi-Town]

Ted Nugent, the Motor City Madman, is on the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association? Wow, that
says it all. I guess they'll have to remove his guitar from his cold dead hands.

[buggyone]

Once more I say, "Wouldn't a retired police captain be thought of as a good guy with a gun?

He had extensive training in all aspects of gun handling.

Still, this good guy with a gun shoots and kills an unarmed man in a movie theater for texting during a preview."

[wendyquat]

Why can't you understand that taking away guns from "good" guys would only leave them defenseless against "bad" guys? Bad guys do not care about laws!

[buggyone]

Originally Posted by wendyquat

Why can't you understand that taking away guns from "good" guys would only leave them defenseless against "bad" guys? Bad guys do not care about laws!

No one is advovating taking your gun away. Nothing wrong with an armed and trained security team in a school.

There is a lot wrong with a retired police captain killing an unarmed man who tossed popcorn at him during an arguement in a movie theater.

Just think about it. If a retired, well trained police captain gets out of control over texting - what would the response be for an armed, untrained Joe Schmoe?

Draw your own conclusions. However, no one is advocating taking away your gun.

[Taltarzac725]

Originally Posted by buggyone

No one is advovating taking your gun away. Nothing wrong with an armed and trained security team in a school.

There is a lot wrong with a retired police captain killing an unarmed man who tossed popcorn at him during an arguement in a movie theater.

Just think about it. If a retired, well trained police captain gets out of control over texting - what would the response be for an armed, untrained Joe Schmoe?

Draw your own conclusions. However, no one is advocating taking away your gun.

Road rage is another example of this. And a car is a very dangerous weapon. I remember a woman in Reno in 1980 mowing down a number of people with her car. Not sure why she did it but probably she was mentally ill. http://www.crimelibrary.com/notoriou...urderer/5.html


A lot of probably normal people take on another personality when driving a crowd and put under a lot of stress. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2922361/

[Dr Winston O Boogie jr]

Let me say a few things here. First of all, the story in the link in the original post is full of inaccuracies. It is meant to get people all fired up about gun deaths. They include, in their statistics things like a 90 year old retired school teacher with a fatal disease committing suicide with a gun as a school shooting. They have search far and wide for gun deaths remotely related to someone at or near a school in order to boost their numbers in order to start this kind of debate.

The second thing is that gun death rates are at close to an all time low in this country today. These same anti gun activists are trying to create a problem where there is none.

There are approximately 32,000 gun deaths in this country each year. Sixty per cent 60% of those are suicides. About 3% are accidents. That leaves about 11,000 gun deaths out of a population of 330,000,000. That's approximately .00003% of our population getting shot and killed each year.

Now pay attention to this. about 80% of those 11,000 gun deaths are gang related. They are gang members killing each other. Does anyone think that stricter gun laws are going to prevent gang members from killing each other?

That leaves us with about 2,200 gun deaths per year out of a population of 330,000,000.

Now these 2200 incidents are certainly regrettable and the school shootings that the press sensationalizes are truly tragic. But, as you can see, the problem is fairly small and the answer is not to take away the rights of millions of law abiding citizens.

[senior citizen]

From a totally different perspective....that of an emergency room physician......who sees the physical damage done by gun violence first hand......guns which have found their way into the wrong hands.

http://www.sacramentotoday.net/news/templates/community.asp?articleid=1610

HBO Documentary features U.C. Davis Doctor

Please take the time to read this, as seen from the experienced emergency room doctor who cares for those injured by gun violence, who just happens to be a family member of our son.

We recall watching the documentary awhile back....and remember being very proud of him. He has devoted his life to this.....

""HBO documentary notes that there are an estimated 250 million guns in the United States today, and over the past dozen years guns purchased both legally and illegally have found their way into the wrong hands, resulting in a string of deadly shootings around the nation. ""

""I invited the documentary crew to our medical center because its crucial that people better understand the level of gun violence that emergency and trauma teams around the country deal with week in and week out, said Wintemute, who has often used his free time to go undercover at gun shows and investigate how illegal gun sales are made. My immediate goal is always focused on saving lives in our emergency room. But my larger focus has been on identifying and reducing the very causes of gun violence that injure or kill the people my colleagues and I see all too often. ""

[Dr Winston O Boogie jr]

Originally Posted by senior citizen

From a totally different perspective....that of an emergency room physician......who sees the physical damage done by gun violence first hand......guns which have found their way into the wrong hands.

http://www.sacramentotoday.net/news/templates/community.asp?articleid=1610

HBO Documentary features U.C. Davis Doctor

Please take the time to read this, as seen from the experienced emergency room doctor who cares for those injured by gun violence, who just happens to be a family member of our son.

We recall watching the documentary awhile back....and remember being very proud of him. He has devoted his life to this.....

""HBO documentary notes that there are an estimated 250 million guns in the United States today, and over the past dozen years guns purchased both legally and illegally have found their way into the wrong hands, resulting in a string of deadly shootings around the nation. ""

""I invited the documentary crew to our medical center because its crucial that people better understand the level of gun violence that emergency and trauma teams around the country deal with week in and week out, said Wintemute, who has often used his free time to go undercover at gun shows and investigate how illegal gun sales are made. My immediate goal is always focused on saving lives in our emergency room. But my larger focus has been on identifying and reducing the very causes of gun violence that injure or kill the people my colleagues and I see all too often. ""

This does nothing to refute the statistics that I posted. Yes, each and every gunshot incident is horrible, but there are just not as many as anti gun activists would like us to believe. In fact in this story, it is noted that this emergency center treats 4,750 trauma cases each year. It wants us to think that they are all gunshot cases. They are not. This plays on our emotions rather than logic by showing the victims of gunshots and the people who have the horrible job of caring for them.

Intellectually or logically, you would identify and quantify the problem and then seek reasonable solutions.

If they showed enough video of people who had been seriously injured in automobile accidents, we'd be talking about banning cars and having psychological screening before allowing people to get a drivers license. Maybe raising the legal age for driving. Make cars more difficult to get. But that would be appealing to out emotions as opposed to logic.

Like I said, deaths from gun shot wounds is at an all time low or very close to an all time low.

[senior citizen]

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/politics-and-law/meet-doctor-gave-1-million-money-keep-gun-research-going-80212/


It's really a crusade for him. He's traveled all over the country to gather his statistics, not just the ones from his own emergency room trauma center.


Please read this and keep scrolling down........

[Steve9930]

Originally Posted by Dr Winston O Boogie jr

This does nothing to refute the statistics that I posted. Yes, each and every gunshot incident is horrible, but there are just not as many as anti gun activists would like us to believe. In fact in this story, it is noted that this emergency center treats 4,750 trauma cases each year. It wants us to think that they are all gunshot cases. They are not. This plays on our emotions rather than logic by showing the victims of gunshots and the people who have the horrible job of caring for them.

Intellectually or logically, you would identify and quantify the problem and then seek reasonable solutions.

If they showed enough video of people who had been seriously injured in automobile accidents, we'd be talking about banning cars and having psychological screening before allowing people to get a drivers license. Maybe raising the legal age for driving. Make cars more difficult to get. But that would be appealing to out emotions as opposed to logic.

Like I said, deaths from gun shot wounds is at an all time low or very close to an all time low.

I'm going to side with you on this one. From a statistical point of view the problem is being over blown. If you just look at unnecessary deaths then auto accidents I'm sure lead the pack. They are just as horrific as any shooting. Because a small group of people see guns as unnecessary they want them either severely curtailed or eliminated. Guns are no more then a tool plain and simple. Some people are just prone to violence whether through mental illness, anger, or gang related. Its just a fact of life. Remove one tool and they will use another. There are so many guns in society you will waste a lot of time and effort and accomplish nothing to solve a social violence problem.

When people zero in on a singular item and ignore the real problem I'm very suspicious of their motive. If the argument comes from Washington its pure political in nature. If it comes form the public it makes me wonder if it originates out of lack of understanding or a blind allegiance to a line of thinking. If you have to try and change my mind by showing me a bunch of gory pictures tells me your argument is pretty weak. I could show you some pretty shocking pictures of homicides committed with a baseball bat if I wanted to regulate baseball bats. The bottom line people kill people, have since the beginning of time.

People also have a tendency when driven by a cause to be over zealous to push their point. This is what I see now from the anti-gun folks and the pro-gun folks. All weapons can be dangerous when human negligence is involved. Just like any other tool. I personally support more education for those that own firearms. The NRA has many programs that do just that, promote gun safety. So the only way to see if a real problem exists is to do the math. The math does not show a big problem nationwide. This fact is conveniently either left out of the conversation or the numbers are artificially adjusted to prove a point. I also put little faith in a Politian that promotes gun regulation while having 24 hour armed security around them. Their argument is pretty hypocritical . Even some of the strongest anti-gun Politian's own their own firearms or conceal carry. So every word they spout is nothing but political theater. I'd list the names but it would take too long.

One of the last things I will say is good luck on regulations to remove guns from society, you never will accomplish this task. Current technology or in the very near future you will be able to use a 3D printer to print a weapon at will in your living room. Technology is increasingly advancing far faster then any laws.

[DaleMN]

It can't be glossed over. Kids are dying.

[Tennisnut]

If there are that many guns out there and nothing we can do about it, can someone advise me on what is the biggest baddest gun I should buy?

[Steve9930]

Originally Posted by DaleMN

It can't be glossed over. Kids are dying.

There are more children that die every day around the world then have been killed in US shootings in the last 20 years.

[Carl in Tampa]

Originally Posted by DaleMN

It can't be glossed over. Kids are dying.

Yep......................in home swimming pools, traffic crashes, accidental poisoning, schoolyard accidents, abusive parents, and from a multitude of other causes.

Now, I'm going to fix the gun problem for you. At 8PM I'm going to wave a magic wand and there won't be a single firearm in the United States that isn't in the hands of either the military or the police.

Problem solved. Right?

Wrong. By 9PM the drug cartels in Mexico will have the word that there is an incredible demand for guns in the USA. They will stop smuggling drugs and will switch to smuggling guns. If we can't keep one out it is only logical that we can't keep the other out. Just as we couldn't keep alcohol out during Prohibition.

All of the illegal aliens who are entering the country daily will bring firearms with them as a form of payment for being smuggled in.

By 10PM a thug named Butch will be following a police officer across a mall parking lot towards the officer's police car. He will rush up and strike the officer in the head with an iron pipe, knocking him unconscious.

Butch will take the officer's gunbelt containing his gun, ammunition, Taser, pepper spray, handcuffs and radio. He will also take the keys to the police car so that he can get the AR-15 rifle and ammunition from the trunk of the car.

This will be happening all over the nation as thugs re-arm themselves after my magic wand took their guns.

Smugglers, who are already bold at our borders and often engage our police, will overwhelm the border to bring in and sell their incredibly valuable merchandise.............guns. Border bloodshed will be commonplace.

We will then be at the point in time that has been forseen on millions of bumper stickers over the period of many decades:

"When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."

Welcome to reality.

[Carl in Tampa]

Originally Posted by Tennisnut

If there are that many guns out there and nothing we can do about it, can someone advise me on what is the biggest baddest gun I should buy?

There's an old sports saying that says, "It isn't the size of the dog in the fight that counts; it's the size of the fight in the dog."

A homicide detective friend of mine once observed that cheap little .25 caliber automatics must be the most dangerous gun in the world, since most of the homicides he investigated involved this kind of gun.

He was joking, of course.

You don't seek the biggest, baddest gun you can find. The odds are you could not fire it accurately. You seek the firearm that has good ballistics, and which you can fire accurately.

As "Dirty Harry" said, "A man's got to know his limitations."

(Yeah, yeah, I know you were joking.)