Oh.
So, he’s trolling.
Wait I must have missed something - so you’re defending the guys carrying rifles outside of a school with no reason for doing so other than creating shock and “making a point”…?
Because if doing *that *is dickish - then defending it is just as dickish.
Or are you just trying to pick a fight with this one poster?
You don’t need 8 or 9 things to go wrong for it to be a bad idea to openly carry rifles outside of a school. Any one of those things going wrong would make it a “bad thing”. It’s a school, there’s kids there, and it doesn’t take much “going wrong” for it to be a bad thing. The only people carrying guns near a school should be police officers, or in extreme circumstances, maybe national guard or military or whatever.
No pedophiles near schools, how about no openly carried guns? There’s no legitimate reason to be doing it.
Interesting question: Why do you need a gun? I’d like to hear the OP ask the question. Would it be "WHY do you need a gun? To my mind, that would be different than: “Why do YOU need a gun?” Different still is: "Why do you NEED a gun.
I’m not playing word games, these are three separate questions. The first one, “WHY do you …” is the most honest, straightforward indication of unbiased curiosity of the three choices.
The questioner wants to know what situations and conditions of your life and mentality lead you to feel that a gun is a necessary tool to keep at hand. To this we might answer: … to hunt, … to target shoot, … for self defense. I realize the OP made a point to separate the discussion from sporting uses. Nothing really controversial here. These are all reasonable answers, though none of them will long satisfy an anti-gun mentality.
The second possibility, “Why do YOU …” is I think the most accurate representation of an anti-gunner’s thinking. If you aren’t a LEO, a Soldier, a Spy, a Politician, a Celebrity, or a bona fide bodyguard employed by a millionaire, what makes you think you’re entitled to be armed? This sort of “Elitist by Proxy” thinking is a disturbingly shallow bit of logic. Anyone can list perfectly acceptable reasons to own a firearm, but the person who asks this second version of the question discounts these explanations. Why? Simply because the questioner does not have similar needs. There is an echo of this second line of questioning in the OP, since he/she states that, having lived in a suburb for years and never had the occasion to need a gun … well. you can see where I’m going. “I don’t need one, why do you?” As though every person lives a very similar life with a very similar set of coincidences, accidents, and adventures.
A conversation I had with a resident of New York City followed an analogous path on the subject of automobiles. “I don’t have a car in Manhatten, none of my friends do. We take the train. We take the subway. The bus. For special occasions, we hire a limo service. Why does anybody really need a car? We don’t.” If that sounds reasonable, you just might be an anti-gunner.
The last version of the question: “Why do you NEED …” superimposes the word “need” over an implied “want”. The query suggests, perhaps subliminaly, that what you want is irrelevant. You must demonstrate a real "need’. Again, why? Why must we “need” what we want? And why must anyone else weigh our desires against some perceived reward or
threat. Here is where we run into the: “Needs of the many, needs of the few”, voiced eloquently by a dying Spock.
The point made by gun haters, that if denying guns (that they, as gun haters don’t themselves “need”) to everyone except the elite few will save a small percent of lives, it justifies the ban.
Answering the OP’s question in a straightforward manner is an exercise in futility. Any ingenuous adult knows full well that every person lives a varied and unique life, full of surprises, luck, both good and bad, and myriad choices. No one really believes that, since one person has elected to carry on without arming themselves for self defense reasons, then
they are at a loss as to why another person might chose to exercise that right.
There is no “right” answer. There is no “good” answer. For every, “I chased a burglar/rapist out of my house”, there will be a post declaring, “You’re more likely to hurt yourself … you should call the Police; that’s what they’re for … yourgun will get stolen and used by a criminal.” Explanation is futile.
I don’t like “car” analogies in gun discussions. There is no Constitutional Amendment that the right to own an automobile will not be infringed. But there is a comparison I’ll make, nonetheless. As a driver or passenger, you are risking injury, even death. You really could take a train or a bus, that is what they are there for. And yes, your car could be stolen and used in a murder or a crime. If you’re still going to drive, you ought to allow a gun owner to make the choice to arm themselves, in spite of all of the risks.
Isn’t this where the argument is made: “Cars weren’t designed to be killing machines!”? Does that make a difference? Were bows and arrows invented first to hunt or to murder? Does it matter? Do the uncounted millions of poor souls poked full of holes by arrows in past wars feel better for knowing they were killed by a tool primarily intended for primitive hunters?
All of these things are arguments with no resolution except the vote. If more folks are afraid of guns, or prey to propaganda depicting the 2nd Amendment as dated and irrelevant, then eventually, the right to defend ourselves will go quietly into the night. The majority will eventually rule on this subject.
I’ve touched on just a few gun debates. In the end, asked “Why do I need a gun?”, I will answer: I don’t. But I want to make that choice and I think every American ought to have that choice.
Because you can’t indent, you should put an extra line between paragraphs. It makes it much easier to read what you’re saying and break your information into manageable chunks.
Like this.
Duly noted.
How’s this?
Sexy. 
Actually, that’s kind of a definition of a word game. And, at least one of them is already being discussed over here.
Meanwhile, how do you feel about people walking around near a school with semiautomatic rifles?
More the definition of an analysis.
Earlier in the thread I said:
“First, these guys were idiots if they thought walking around a neighborhood with guns, legal though it may be, would help further their cause as pro-gun activists. It makes them look like extremist loons. I considered the possibility that such behavior might stem from some anti-gunners’ surreptitious effort to cast NRA types as dangerous and possessed of particularly poor judgement. If they were sincere gun bearers, trying to demonstrate “front of the bus” style, they made a bad choice. Seem to be “Useful Idiots” helping the other side at best.”
Fair enough. Thanks for the update.
That’s why I keep sarin gas at hand. I know that YOU might not need it, living as you do, but the best judge of whether I need it is myself because like guns sarin gas is something that only affects ME. You might think that having a gun is enough to keep zombies at bay, but I have seen the movies and I’m pretty sure that a gun isn’t enough.
You might wonder if I have sufficient safeguards or training to keep sarin gas, but any limits you put on it are a violation of my freedom. There has never been a country in which sarin gas is available to the people that has become a dictatorship. I’m pretty sure that my having sarin gas is the only thing keeping America from descending into chaos.
You are saying that you think that the destructive potential of a gun and sarin gas is the same? :dubious:
Public nudity is legal in, wait for it, … Oregon. It’s a First Amendment right, so long as there is no intent to arouse. Portland has an annual Naked Bike Ride. Perhaps this year some nude gun owners will be packing heat.
He was later charged with recklessly endangering another person, a misdemeanor. He’s also a licensed gun dealer.
I don’t want to see them try to conceal carry.
Ordinarily that would be perfectly true.
But this month of this year of grace, I wouldn’t entirely count on it.
“Can’t talk now, honey, I’m on Nude Patrol!” 
I believe “arms” were defined by the courts … the pertinent info is in one of the threads on this board, if I’m not mistaken. If you find it here or on line, I think you’ll find that chemical warfare agents and weapons of mass destruction, along with artillery and explosives, are not defined as arms. I’ll let you dig it up, since you’re the one who is using nerve gas as a hinge pin in a sarcastic non-argument.
I don’t intend to convince anyone to change their minds, but I’m sharing my observations in good faith, since the 2nd Amendment is part of a set of laws that will require formal measures to change, and these changes will affect all our lives, and the lives of our children.
Pretty sure that in all but crowded & confined spaces (such as subway stations) it would be much easier to rack up a large bodycount with a gun than with sarin. So you’re right, the destructive potential isn’t the same. Sarin gas is less dangerous.
I’m not defending anybody. The two men with rifles were within their rights and had done nothing wrong. If they had, they would have been arrested. What anyone thinks their motivations were is irrelevant; one needs no justification to exercise a right.
He didn’t say “outside of” a school, he said “near” a school.
How near? I have no idea. I would suppose that as the police were called and the gentlemen in question were found to be within their rights and not breaking any laws, they were not within 1,000 feet of the campus as that would be considered a federal gun free school zone. Local laws could even extend that distance.
Sex offenders are typically restricted from living within 1,000-2,000 feet of a school, although those are local laws and vary. Generally they’re not prohibited from just existing within that distance, although individual terms of parole or probation can stipulate anything. It’s worth noting that sex offenders have commited and been convicted of a serious crime and have lost associated rights as a result, whereas these gentlemen in question clearly had not been convicted of any felony or violent or gun related crimes as they would have lost their right to possess firearms and they would have been arrested and charged.
Maybe I’m “dickish.” I think it’s “dickish” to take a kernel of truth from an actual incident and exaggerate the details for the purpose of manufacturing outrage with the intent of limiting MY constitutional rights.
He misstated slightly. 38 states have “shall issue” CCW. In total, 49 of 50 states have some form of CCW, though “may issue” states are typically (but not always) very non-permissive, as you noted. The "no issue"exception(s)? Illinois and DC (not counted because DC is not a state). And that’s about to change as well.
My post, to which you refer, would make MORE SENSE if I’d posted in the other thread. Whether this is a lucky oversight on my part, I’ll let history be the judge, but I appreciate you catching it. Not that it matters in the end, since The subject at hand is “Gun Control”, either way.
I’ll reiterate, though … MY BAD, I inadvertently posted a reply to Keeve in a thread authored by Chefguy. I’ll leave it as is … no reason to think the gun-grabbers and gun-nuts won’t read both threads and remain adamant in their respective opinions, whatever I do.
Again, thanks Ethilrist for pointing out my error … good catch.