What he said.
Favor gun control and, while Ferguson didn’t change my opinion one way or the other, the stock excuse I heard from the people defending the “cops as soldiers” thing was “Well, more people have more guns now so the police NEED armored vehicles and automatic weapons and grenade launchers! Remember that time in the 90’s when the cops had to get guns from a pawn shop because theirs weren’t strong enough?”
The whole thing feels rather disappointingly cyclical to me. People need bigger guns, police need even bigger guns because people have bigger guns, round and round we go. Can’t break the cycle because Yay, 2nd Amendment.
I don’t understand that people think that bad guys will have trouble getting guns if they take them away from good people.
For all practical purposes, in this country it can’t / won’t happen because, just like prohibition, not all the people want it. The anti-gun people have not changed enough minds yet.
They need more support from law abiding people, secure borders, a total change in policing practice, and the UK is not a good example anymore. They have given into Shiite law or some such allowing it to over ride the laws they have had for 100’s of years. At least that is what appears to have happened. Not really relevant to today in the USA.
They also forget that occasionally the state does not bow down to the Federal Government on every thing.
United states, not a country with all laws from one group but with states who have the right to not follow a lot of the ideas that the feds push.
The shift in what & how the police in general do things needs a big improvement.
Anyone remember when it was OK to shoot any looter on the spot?
I’ll admit that the lies of the media are taken as truth by many people. I took some time to actually hunt for stuff about MO. yesterday and I could not find one factual report, all were strongly slanted and way behind on facts and did not cover anything but the ‘police are bad’ and the 'dead person was shot because of the color of his skin.
It is not about guns or rules, it is about human nature and our lack of looking at ourselves honestly.
Looting & agitating a riot is wrong and always will be.
So are many other things.
Simple solutions to complicated problems do not work in the long run. Well, mass murder on the scale of 10’s of millions does for one individual but it does not usually last longer than that in modern times.
YNNV
If that was the stock excuse you took away as the most used or that all you heard, you have not watched or read much about it or only have one source.
I could be wrong about the number but I don’t even look and in this thread alone, their is much more good information. Factual information.
I won’t ask for a cite because this is IMHO and none is required.
Define ‘often’ as you see it.
What kinds of sources are you getting this from? I have never heard that even from the yellow journalism writers on the main stream media.
I think it is not often in my definition of often because that would require me to be aware of it in news. I may live in Arkansas now but I do not live under a rock. I don’t listen to guys in bars or high lift trucks splashing in mud puddles.
Stock excuse as in talking to people.
Quick, this is where you start telling me that I must be talking to the wrong people because there’s no way they’re giving me an answer you don’t like…
“yellow journalism … on the main stream media” 
Is that code for your thinking Fox is Fair and Balanced? 
Would a cite from this past weekend, with cops shooting a crazed teen in Kansas apparently because he “might have had a gun” do you?
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/25/kansas-police-shot-unarmed-suicidal-teen-16-times-as-family-says-they-begged-them-not-to/
I strongly favor gun control. Can’t think of anything really that would change that.
No, it is where I ask ‘how many?’
What cross section of people , their color, their economic circumstances, stuff like that.
Don’t know anything about Dan Rather do you?
And what does KS have to do with MO? Or you are just looking for ‘guns is bad’ stuff from anywhere?
You can’t provide anything so now you are just throwing rocks at the big kids from behind the fence.
You have no idea what, where, when I do anything other then a posting time.
You brought up Fox news, I did not.
Big Whoop !!! :rolleyes:
Bozuit nailed in the second post.
What we need is more gun control on the part of the cops. We also need better laws so that it’s not acceptable for cops to shoot people. Cops who are too scared to do the job without a license to kill can fuck right off.
Cut to ten years from now, when Merneith is bemoaning the fact that crime is through the roof, LE mortality has skyrocketed, the local police department has been gravely understaffed for years due to a massive drop-off in new recruits for some reason.
I think persons who live in dangerous areas or who have jobs that require going to dangerous areas should have the right to concealed carry.
But here is another thing. I actually trust the judgement of senior law enforcement people like sheriffs or police chiefs with more than 10 years experience that they can judge who or who should not be allowed to get a permit. Through an interview that sheriff or policeman can read a persons body language and general disposition and can determine if that person can be trusted with a gun.
So I would require a person to have a sit down meeting with a top member of law enforcement and that person would have to sign off on the permit.
Because that’s where the “bad people” usually get them from. And because if guns are hard to get, criminals don’t usually bother trying to get them, or actively avoid getting them.
And because I expect that most of what you consider to be the “good people” are in fact just another group of “bad people” from my viewpoint. Thugs are still thugs even if they justify their thuggery by screaming about “Second Amendment solutions” while waving their guns.
Crime is far lower in countries like Australia and the UK in which the cops can deal with an armed, deranged man without shooting him.
They have a universal right to bear arms in Australia and the UK?
Can OP or someone from the UK expand on the bolded part of this statement with one or two examples ?
I was following you up until this point. Logically, I don’t understand how arming the public somehow addresses the previous issues you had listed. The threat of violence usually provokes more violence and gives a dominating force every reason to dominate that much more.
And really, I’m 100% positive that more guns (or the perception of this), in the hands of minorities, won’t relieve the fears of many people. Prejudice has tainted our ideas and opinions more than enough, as it is. And just as we’re experiencing now, the reverse is also true-- nobody trusts or feels any more comfortable with the police in military gear, especially with the profiling which goes on. Escalating either of these, doesn’t change much.
Case in point. Now we’d just have a better reason to shoot minorities on sight.
Meanwhile, it’s not like you can retaliate against an officer/authority with a gun, even if you’re somehow in the right. Not to set up a strawman, but you just can’t shoot your way out of some problems…
As others have stated, I don’t relate the two, but in general, I both support gun rights, but also think we need less of them, with more regulation, and not just for the citizens.
No, because it isn’t true (except to the extent that British courts will enforce Sharia-based divorce agreements, just as they will those of other religions.)
Of course, none of that stuff will happen just because we take the tanks and machine guns away from every pissant little police department. But you know what? It wouldn’t bother me in the slightest if there were fewer cops but the ones who are left were focused on de-escalating a situation, not out-gunning it.
I’m not the one in this conversation who’s afraid of the “criminal element”.