Originally Posted by TheVillageChicken (Post 858064)

There are far too many keyboards.

Originally Posted by PennBF (Post 858092)

I totally agree with the right to carry arms. Our founders knew the risk of disarming everyone. They were right !! One town passed a law that every citizen had to have a firearm and crime took a big dip. I have a right to protect my home and family and discount the "do gooders" as ones who have not been robbed or threatend or naive and want to be politically correct. :wave:

Originally Posted by Dr Winston O Boogie jr (Post 858134)

A couple of things about some comments that have been posted here. The OP said that the handgun that he found was an automatic. That is simply not true. automatic weapons are illegal and I don't believe that there are any automatic handguns. It was simply a semi automatic 9mm.

Secondly, people like to talk about how easy it is to get firearms today. In fact quite the opposite is true. It was much easier to get guns fifty years ago than it is today. You could order semi automatic guns from the Sear Roebuck catalog in the 1950s. It has never been more difficult to legally get a gun in the history of this country. There have never been more gun laws than there are today. Yet, we are seeing more gun violence than ever before. What we are doing is not working. The answer, obviously, is not to make more gun laws. We have been doing that and the problem is getting worse. More gun laws have not helped.

Originally Posted by RayinPenn (Post 857900)

Finally good weather up north...after dinner took fido and the wife out for a walk...about a block away from the house and I see a gun about a foot off the curb. I think to myself a toy? I pick it up and the weight says otherwise. I recognize it as an automatic and note the hole on the business end is big. Did I say big! This isn't any BB gun ! It says 9MM on it. My sons friends family is 2 doors down i ask her to call the police.. her husband comes home (he knows more then i do) pops the clip out and i see bullets and he says there was one in the chamber.... there was talk of a young fellow dressed in cammo searching the grass...the police take the gun away...

if you say there are not too many guns .. well you are just plain wrong.

Originally Posted by Dr Winston O Boogie jr (Post 858134)

A couple of things about some comments that have been posted here. The OP said that the handgun that he found was an automatic. That is simply not true. automatic weapons are illegal and I don't believe that there are any automatic handguns. It was simply a semi automatic 9mm.

Secondly, people like to talk about how easy it is to get firearms today. In fact quite the opposite is true. It was much easier to get guns fifty years ago than it is today. You could order semi automatic guns from the Sear Roebuck catalog in the 1950s. It has never been more difficult to legally get a gun in the history of this country. There have never been more gun laws than there are today. Yet, we are seeing more gun violence than ever before. What we are doing is not working. The answer, obviously, is not to make more gun laws. We have been doing that and the problem is getting worse. More gun laws have not helped.

Originally Posted by RayinPenn (Post 857964)

Why there are too many guns...
I work in the what was just rated the most violent small city. I see, read about and have experienced what guns can do every day. I road that LIRR train that Collin Ferguson shot and killed all those people almost every night home. That night I missed it, caught the train behind it but Myself and 2 other commuters jumped off our stalled train and walked to the Merillon Ave. station. I saw the senseless bloody carnage in all 20 something shot 6 killed. Months later I saw the wounded try to resume a normal life.. Walking with limps and struggling to carry on.

Every year in the U.S., an average of more than 100,000 people are shot
Every day in the U.S., an average of 289 people are shot. Eighty-six of them die: 30 are murdered, 53 kill themselves, two die accidentally, and one is shot in a police intervention, the Brady Campaign reports.
Between 2000 and 2010, a total of 335,609 people died from guns -- more than the population of St. Louis, Mo. (318,069), Pittsburgh (307,484), Cincinnati, Ohio (296,223), Newark, N.J. (277,540), and Orlando, Fla. (243,195) (sources: CDF, U.S. Census; CDC)
One person is killed by a firearm every 17 minutes, 87 people are killed during an average day, and 609 are killed every week. (source: CDC)

Too many guns in too many irresponsible and unbalanced hands. As scary a place as Israel can be they have gun control laws that are stricter and more intelligent then here in the states ..ours clearly are not working...

"One mishandled firearm that you have stumbled across in your entire lifetime is statistically irrelevant."
If a child picked it up and killed himself or another child would it be statistically irrelevant? You sound like Scrooge- would be ok because it would lessen the excess population?

Originally Posted by Steve9930 (Post 858220)

I don't believe I would have picked up the weapon as it could have been used in a crime. Also the best thing to do was report it to the police which was done. My advice when you find something like this is, keep people clear, try to get someone to call the police if you do not have cell phone. Only move the item if it has become a danger to others, if you do not know how it works then you could accidently discharge the weapon. Some of these semi-automatics will go off if they are dropped. If it is a toy then no harm done. No one will fault you for doing the correct thing.

As for the debate on to have or not to have there is not enough storage on the website's computer for the debate. AS for my personal opinion, I'll debate controls on hand guns but don't you dare touch my long gun.

Originally Posted by Golfingnut (Post 858227)

I say don't you dare touch my long or short guns. I was handed my 22 single shot rife at 11 and my 410 break down single shot shotgun at 13. Guns have been a significant part of my life I would be lost without them.

However, I hope everyday someone can put a dent in the criminals acquiring any gun. I admit, I do not hav the solution.