My two cents on guns and gun lovers.

The line is drawn with common sense,,,,everyone knows that aliens are immune to a nuclear blast so having a warhead is useless.

And Agent, home invasions happen (the media may hype them) but they do occur. I for one feel safer knowing I can protect my family with a handgun versus doing a Bruce Lee karate chop or some sort of Vulcan mind melt with the dude to try and find out why he is trying to rob me.

you have your opinion, I have mine

you dont own a gun that is your right, I do own a gun and that is my right

 

Agent,

I thought you meant you would shout you had a gun when you really did not. That is why I said you'd be dead.

Now, if you had your family behind I closed door with a firearm, I totally agree with your strategy of non-engagement in that scenario.

quote agent cooper:

"Even if I had a gun and was trained to use it, if someone broke into my house I STILL wouldn't want to confront them. I'd grab my wife and kids, huddle them in a room and shout to the intruder "I have a gun, don't enter this room or I'll shoot" and then I'd call the police. You clowns thinking that you'd disable the robber and look like a hero are watching too many Jason Bourne movies"

That is an amazing statement.  You would cower in the corner and hope the police showed up in time to save you.  I guess you don't care if the Police walk into an ambush and get killed...let me guess, it is their job, and not your responsibility. Tell that to the policeman's new widow.....

In a home invasion type of scenario there are a million different possible outcomes; quite frankly none of them are good.  When a person decides to enter someone else's home with bad intentions, then he/she has to deal with the consequences.

Agent Cooper, you are welcome to your opinions.  But seriously, it is time for you to take responsibility for your own safety and get your head out of the sand.  In the event that your immediate environment becomes chaotic and threatening, then it will be up to you to save yourself and loved ones.  The police will not be able to help you, the government will not save you......you are on your own.

It is a foregone conclusion that you and I will never see eye to eye on this subject.

Good luck cowering in the corner.   

quote agent cooper:

"Even if I had a gun and was trained to use it, if someone broke into my house I STILL wouldn't want to confront them. I'd grab my wife and kids, huddle them in a room and shout to the intruder "I have a gun, don't enter this room or I'll shoot" and then I'd call the police. You clowns thinking that you'd disable the robber and look like a hero are watching too many Jason Bourne movies"

That is an amazing statement.  You would cower in the corner and hope the police showed up in time to save you.  I guess you don't care if the Police walk into an ambush and get killed...let me guess, it is their job, and not your responsibility. Tell that to the policeman's new widow.....

In a home invasion type of scenario there are a million different possible outcomes; quite frankly none of them are good.  When a person decides to enter someone else's home with bad intentions, then he/she has to deal with the consequences.

Agent Cooper, you are welcome to your opinions.  But seriously, it is time for you to take responsibility for your own safety and get your head out of the sand.  In the event that your immediate environment becomes chaotic and threatening, then it will be up to you to save yourself and loved ones.  The police will not be able to help you, the government will not save you......you are on your own.

It is a foregone conclusion that you and I will never see eye to eye on this subject.

Good luck cowering in the corner.   

oops...double clicked.

Bigvern, I'm sure if I asked some cops they would ADVISE me not to engage the intruder and instead let them do their JOBS.  But that's not the point.  I'm not saying that I would cower in the corner, I'm saying I would try my hardest not to engage, that's all.

And I AM taking responsibility for my own safety.  I'm saying I only want guns in the hands of responsible people trained to use them.  Not in the hands of the mentally ill, or criminals, or children.  Isn't that what you want, too?  All I keep hearing is "you're infringing on my rights" but no solutions.  One novel idea might be to have a gun-free world, but since nobody wants to hear that (even tho Jesus would approve), what do you propose?

 

BTW, you all know the founding fathers never anticipated this level of weaponry.  For f*cks sake was SOAP even invented yet??

What happens when lazer guns are invented?  Or sonic blasters capable of melting your head clean off?  Come on people...

Some of the things we've invented, while world-changing, just don't have a place in day to day society.  George Washington would be ashamed of you.  You KNOW this isn't what they meant.  He smoked weed you know....

 

Founders also never envisioned radio television or Internet should we curtail the first amendment based in technology used to disseminate it.

2nd amendment was to check the gov. Not really a valid point in saying that our firearms (which are already vastly inadequate compared to drones tanks and bombs) are too advanced.
Actually pretty laughable.

To me, the 2nd A argument is not relevant at all when it comes to gun & ammunition control or restrictions & background checks in today's society. The founders never mentioned anything about any kind of restrictions, so if your interpretation of the 2nd A is your basis for your argument about banning assault weapons & high capacity mags (tho of course they won't have much effect vs whatever the govt has in the tiniest of likelihood that full scale tyranny happens), why not just cut the BS & say you're for anyone  owning any kind of weapon & carrying it wherever they want? Same with this ridiculous notion that it's about using these incidents it to progressively take away all guns from everyone. That is not going to happen in this country, period.

So instead of standing behind all this outdated nonsense (which in the case of the 2ndA, hasn't even been interpreted correctly by the SC), just say that I like my guns & even if I knew it would save 50 or more innocent lives per year (not sayin whether it would or not), fck the govt & I'm not giving 'em up cuz the founders said it was my right to keep & carry them.

Agent Cooper:

Why would you ask a law enforcement officer what to do if someone breaks into your house?  Do you think that if someone broke into the police officer's house he would call for help, or deal with the problem?

A gun free world would be thousands of times more violent than the world we live in today.  In a battle for scarce resources, the minority would perish, and if you had anything worth taking, a mob would take it from you by way of physical intimidation and force.

God created all men, and Sam Colt made them equal.  Guns enable a single man to defend himself and his family when the odds are not in his favor.  This is important because even in defeat, a degree of mutually assured destruction is ensured.  Guns are a powerful deterrent and play a major role in keeping peace and order.

That being said, when a person takes up arms to defend him/herself in our home invasion type of scenario, chaos will ensue, and anything can happen.  Statistics may show that in these situations it is more dangerous for the person to defend themselves with guns; but for me, I do not choose to wait and hope that the police show up to save me.  IF you go into the bear's cave, then you have to deal with the bear.

To answer your question, no, I do not think that kids or mental patients should be allowed to have access to weapons.  Lock your guns up, and teach your children about firearm safety from an early age.  Background checks take care of the mentally ill side of things.

As for criminals...good luck keeping them from obtaining guns.  If criminals are generating revenue (drug cartels/Fast and Furious), then they will be able to secure armaments both in our country and outside of it.  And an overall gun ban will do nothing but make the "violent armed criminal" a force 1000 times greater than he is today.

My suggestion on how to deal with the current situation is as follows:  1) Relax 2) Begin an examination of our culture as a whole in an attempt to find out why individuals are going off of the rails and shooting up public places  3) Be honest with what we find.  If antidepressants and violent video games are having a negative impact on today's youth then we need to find out why.

One thing I saw last night that blew me away was on Piers Morgan's show.  Piers was debating Larry Pratt of gun owners of America....Piers was the gun control advocate, and Pratt was the gun rights advocate.  The debate was heated at times, but the very first commercial break was an advertisement for the new movie "Zero Dark Thirty"......a movie about a group of SEALS that shot Bin Laden in the face.  The message there was pretty clear; Piers preaches stringent gun control laws, but is an advocate of shooting an "enemy of the state" in the face.  The hypocrisy there is staggering.....hopefully the definition of an "enemy of the state" is never the American people.

We can talk at each other all day and never get anywhere here Agent Cooper.  I don't have anything personal against you, but I will never see things your way...and I don't need to.

 

I am with Piers Morgan on this one. The right to own a gun is fine, but to own a ridiculous assault rifle is a whole different story. Why would a person need to shoot 100+ rounds in a minute? How many robbers/bad guys do you disillusioned gun fanatics think are exactly breaking into your house? 

Since you are with Morgan, maybe you would feel safer across the pond with the queen taking care of you.  I will always respect the views of someone other than mine, but step in my home and remove something I own and I will treat you like the criminal you are.

Jeez Rick, what an ignorant, sad & really weak post coming from you...I would have expected better. First, using your own juvenile word, what's truly "fucktarded" is thinking because I'd like to see assault weapons & high capacity mags banned, somehow I'm scared of and don't enjoy the freedoms we have in this country. And yes, I'm a liberal, but more in the way that JFK considered himself a liberal. Look it up if you don't know & care to -

1) yes, the ones that want all arms banned try to, but their a tiny % of folks who have little to no power to do anything. In the current debate, I've seen no politicians step forward to promote banning all guns. But there are alot of gun control folks who have been enraged at Obama & the present admin for not doing more along those lines.

2) imo, the 2nd amendment did not speak directly to individual gun rights. If you look at the early English & historical context, you might agree. It should be viewed thru the prism of the 9th & 14th amendment. Otherwise, why would the 1st part read as it does. Since when did a well regulated militia equate to an armed populacein our society today.

3) there are many mentally disturbed folks who are law abiding until they lose it & do something like the incidents we've seen in the past few years. There are also many folks who have nothing in their background to even check that are also just as likely to do this kind of stuff. So if we've agreed & determined there is no real way to prevent these things from occuring, why not make weapons (& the mags) that accomodate firing multiple rounds in the shortest time possible as inaccessable & hard to get ahold of as possible?

4) See above - noone is talking about disarming the people when it comes to self defense or hunting. Just banning the weapons & ammo that are designed to kill as many folks as possible in the shortest time possible.The 2ndA was intended for the security of the state & since they didn't want a standing army, it was the people (actually, able-bodied men) that would need to form the well regulated militia they talk about.

So did the second amendment mean private ownership or not? The Supreme Court believes it did. You are kind of on both sides of this one.

The only issue here is capacity of magazine IMO. The caliber of an AR15 is too small to even deer hunt with. What has you guys scared is the look and capacity. Before that you were scared of full autos. The problem with legislating this is that 99% of guns can take a high capacity magazine. Therefore if you ban weapons that can accept high capacity magazines you essentially ban semi automatic firearms.

That is the line in the sand.

Oh yea not mention that AR15s are used in less than 3.5 % of all violent crime.

 imo, the 2nd amendment did not speak directly to individual gun rights.

Every bit of the 1st ten amendments spoke to individual rights.

Just think about it, you're actually taking the position that the framers wrote 9 amendments about individual rights and one about a militia or something.

And you're categorically wrong about the "interpretation" since this was addressed in the federalist papers and other writings.

Wow, so your advice for him is to take matters in his own hands and not calling the police immediately? EVEN the police doesn't recommend that. They are the trained professionals. You wouldn't call the Fire Department right away if there were a fire in your house??

..........Our Second Amendment right is not negotiable.

I was reading about the shooting that happened recently in CA, where a kid brought a shotgun in and started targeting kids he I guess had a beef with.  In the comments section were all these posts by people who remembered the days when they actually brought their guns to school and went birdshooting and whatnot and actually kept their guns in their lockers.  Can we all agree that times have changed?  All I'm saying is that gun owners need to recognize that and be flexible with changing times.

Aren't pro-gun people....shooting themselves in the foot....(pun....intended???)...by taking such a hard-assed stance?  You guys need to do a better job of compromising cuz unfortunately gun tragedies are going to just keep happening and then the pendulum will swing so far to one way that NOBODY will be allowed to have guns.  I'm not saying I want that, just that society will get so fed up that the only clear answer will be to remove guns from the equation, period.  So if you love guns, isn't it in your best interests to not let that happen?

Isn't this debate a little like wire-tapping?  Meaning, I don't want my phones tapped, but, if tapping certain people's phones prevents thousands of innocent people dying in a terrorist attack, then isn't it worth it?  I'm not doing anything illegal so why do I care?  If I'm a gun owner, and I'm not misusing my gun, then why do I care about stricter rules?  Aren't I ultimately safer? 

 

The Supreme Court also said" ..., the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose...."-- Justice Antonin Scalia, a staunch defender of the Constitution.

 

Yes, in those days I believe that the people were normally supposed to supply their own weapons expressly within the structure of a well regulated militia. I'm talking strictly about the 2ndA here (not the federalist papers or other thoughts that founders such as Jefferson may have had) & I don't see how it can be construed any other way though the exact meaning has been debated for a long time. 

Regardless of any interpretation though, there is no way the founders could envision a society of over 300 million people, many of who are lost, angry &/or mentally disturbed to 1 degree or another in a culture where gun violence is rampant & depicted everywhere. For many like me, it's not a question of being scared of guns - it's just could banning these weapons & magazines save innocent lives in our society & culture today..pure & simple. I have no problem with guns per se (my uncle was a big hunter & I went deer, duck, rabbit & quail hunting when much younger & to an indoor firing range a couple of times with a cousin who had a .357) & most gun owners I've talked to are also for a ban on these things. And no, I'm not familiar with all the weaponry that's out there & maybe it's too late for a ban to make much difference w/o confiscation & strict enforcement which is not going to happen. 

So even though it's the qualifying preface to 2ndA - "A well regulated militia being neccessary to the security of a free state, ...", you think they just threw that in there for the fun of it & to confuse people?

You do realize that though the founders did not want a standing army, the "people" have had armed forces for quite awhile now, don't you?

Absolutely wrong!

If your doors are locked and the would be intruder is still outside, yes they would recommend you wait for them to come. If the intruder was already in the house and you had a gun they would recommend you do whatever is reasonable.

If you have a kitchen fire you fight it yourself with the fire extinguisher you SHOULD have in the kitchen. You have to do a preliminary, quick assessment of how big the fire is. But by no means do you call the FD first thing on every little fire you might have.

Why do they make and give out kitchen fire extinguishers and other normal FE's?

I hate to tell you that if an intruder is in your house pointing a gun at you, the cops are likely not going to be in good position to help you.

The right of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the “high powers” delegated directly to the citizen, and ‘is excepted out of the general powers of government.’ A law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the lawmaking power. – Cockrum v. State (1859)

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The only people confused by this are modern liberals.