That means that I can strap my Glock on my hip and take a walk in the park in Virginia (as long as I lived in Virginia) if I so choose, unfortunately.
I don’t agree that everyone should go around armed. I see plenty of people every day that blow up over minor things… I’d hate to see them armed. I really don’t want to see more bullets flying around my neighborhood… there’s enough already.
Of course. The point, however, is that you cannot simply pick whatever gun you feel like and wander around wherever you like. Oh, and be careful when you “hold” a gun in a Virginia public place too.
(Simulpost–I was talking to Saen there.)
Yeah, I know the deal with the Switzerland rules, I was just erring on the side of glibness. Mea maxima culpa.
In any case, I think it’s equally glib, when a question like this comes up, to shout, “Afghanistan and Somalia.” Both of those countries are highly destablized, with their last half-century or more involving several wars, untold misery, politicized religious tyranny, inter-tribal conflict, etc. The U.S. is a democratic republic with a strong Constitution whose goverment has maintained the same format and structure for more than 200 years. To suggest that widespread carriage of weapons in public would quickly turn our country into one like theirs is silly.
What’s more, an argument that not everybody should be armed in public (which I agree with) is not the same thing as an argument that nobody should be armed in public. Fact is, allowing some reasonable degree of concealed or open carry would deter and prevent some crimes; I don’t see how any person can argue against that.
msmith wants to dismiss my cite as “a few anecdotal incidents,” but even the most conservative estimates point to tens of thousands of defensive gun uses every year. Your local news is almost sure to carry a story over the next year about some child who accidentally kills or injures himself or another. But when was the last time you heard a story on your local news about someone fending off a crime with a gun? Those stories are rarely reported, for obvious reasons.
For that matter, the incidents themselves are often not reported. So whatever statistics we have based on reported incidents, you can bet that it’s low.
There’s another class of deterrence that is almost impossible to develop statistics on, and that’s the number of crimes that are averted by the mere presence of the weapon. For example, a woman divorces an abusive husband, who begins threatening her. Woman buys a gun for defense. Word of gun ownership gets back to husband, who cools his jets. Violence averted, and no one will even know.
Out of curiosity, to those who worry about ‘parking argument turns into a blood bath’ situations, with the millions of concealed carry permit holders in the country, where has this happened?
If I understand correctly, there are estimated to be tens of thousands of defensive gun uses in the US annually.
Are each of these these effectively averting a crime?
If so, there seems to be a lot of crime in the US.
Yes, there is rather a lot of crime in the U.S., or at least in certain parts of it. There are also probably dozens of GD threads discussing the incidence of defensive gun use. You could run a search on the name “John Lott” and come up with plenty. Suffice it to say that the numbers are sharply disputed. The interesting question to me is how many of those alleged defensive gun uses would have been just as effective without any gun at all. Probably most of them, I suspect.
Yeah, the guns are the reason why no one gets along in those places. If you took the guns away everyone would start holding hands and singing “Kumbaya”.
Nope. They’d still hate each other. But the death toll would be substantially smaller.
To those who always cry “but there will be blood baths in the streets in arguments over parking spaces!”, given that millions of americans carry concealed weapons legally, where’s all the blood?
What was the death toll during the first Christian crusade?
If neither side has guns, but still has enough hate and little to look forward to in life then a sword or a hammer will work as werll as a gun, or even better.
Just look at how many bullets were fired in Viet Nam to kill one VC (something like 175,000 rounds per kill), I bet swinging a sword is a lot more efficient and probably a lot more emotionally satisfying.
Fact is I carry a variety of concealed weapons (or I used to when I owned a retail business under a methadone clinic and did my own deposits, Now I pretty much only carry one gun on occasion if I’m going someplace sketchy.) and I’m a violent temperamental person. I’m also afraid of sodomy so I tend to calm down when I’m armed.
People who are going to be irrational enough to kill someone are pretty much going to disregard laws restricting the carrying of concealed weapons. There are plenty of ways to take out your rage w/o a gun in any event just look at all the road-rage fun that goes on all the time. On the other hand no one the anti-gun lobby throws out a lot of statistics to say that guns are dangerous but carefully ignores towns like the aforementioned Kennisaw, GA where while people are not forced to carry guns the mere fact that there is a significantly higher proportion of gun ownership there and yet a very insignificant number of gun related crime there indicates the opposite of what all the anti gun statistics work to demonstrate.
Bad guys will use guns either way, idiots will leave their guns out for their kids to hurt themselves with either way (frankly this to me is a good thing as it thins out moron genes from the herd) but counterin this are the facts that bad guys are less likely to try to jack you up if they know you are likely to have a gun AND the law on your side and kids raised in societies where there is education in firearms are less likely to play wiht guns.
When I was a tyke my father took me camping and I learned how to safely make a campfire and to handle a firearm safely. The mystery and overpowering curiosity of fire and guns was dissipated by the power of education. In communities where there are mor gun owners and people who hunt/camp you will see that the number of home fires and accidental firearms deaths/injuries are drastically lower and most hunters and rural folks who own guns have several as opposed to the high number of folks who only have one for “home defence”.
Its a big place, and we are descendants of all the criminals you guys kicked out. But yeah, there is a lot of crime.
To clarify about texas gun laws,
You cant carry a handgun anywhere without a permit, travelling(which is not really defined very well), or while engaged in a sporting activity that it is normally used for(such as going to and from the range).
Long guns are another story. You can walk down mainstreet with an ak47 as long as you are not trying to scare people, like say you have it slung. Of course, you cant carry even a long gun into a school or polling place. And if you walk into a bank that way, while legal, your probably going to get shot. You cant carry a .22 pistol in your car, but a riot shotgun is ok, as is an assault rifle.
bdgr, if you have a cite that shows where open carry of a handgun without a permit is okay in Texas, I’d be happy to see it. My recollection (like I said, I researched and posted about the issue last year) is that the concealed carry law says concealed carry with a license is okay and reiterates that concealed carry without a licence is a crime, but is silent on unconcealed carry. Hence, the reliance on Penal Code section 42.01.
Oh, and zen101, thank you for your perspective. Do you mind if I link back to your post in future threads? I think it makes some valuable points.
Open carry is prohibitied except in the following cases, for handguns. Open carry of long guns was what I was talking about.
46.02 is the section of the penal code that says you cant carry a handgun unconcealed, but here are the exceptions.
After re-reading my first post, I wasnt clear what I was saying.
What I ment to say is that you cant carry a handgun in texas without a permit, unless you are travelling or engaged in a sporting activity that it is normally a part of.
Ah, now I see my mistake. Thank you for the info.
Oh, and before anyone asks, the “traveling” exception has been variously interpreted between the years, but it essentially boils down to multi-county travel and going between the gun store or firing range and home. There is no special definition or test, unfortunately.
Yeah , no problemo. My personal POV on restricting certain aspects of gun ownerships are that while I approve of the implied caution of background checks and I am personally for the mandatory safety education I had to go through when I got my concealed carry permit I have also seen each law that was passed and which legislators stated would be satisfactory to their cause simply become “not quite enough” and a whole new round of laws be proposed.
As with most gun enthusiasts I am for safe use and ownership of all firearms. I feel that education is the key to a safe gun owner. Unfortunately we have a bi-polar culture which on the one hand embraces firearms but on the other hand it tends to embrace the violent hype of their use in action films and the like. On one hand we respect the power of the gun, but on the other hand there is muchs disrespect for the owner. I feel that this disparity contributes to the lack of safety which does exist.
Because many gun owners are either closet enthsiasts it is more difficult for them to learn proper safe handling techniques and there is an increasing chance with our ever growing urban populace that a future gun owner may never have been exposed to safe gun handling as a child. If we worked to de-stigmatize gun ownership then greater availablity of shooting clubs which foster safe handling and youth education would be one result. As it stands there are millions of gun owners who don’t learn about how to be safe because while they own guns, they are prey to the belief that all gun owners are ignorant hicks.
The second dangerous group of gun owners, probably the more dangerous group, are the same folks who buy rottweilers because they want to be macho. The fellow with the truck with the Calvin pissing sticker blaring Godsmack at 4am is also the guy who owns the Desert Eagle .50 cal or the Colt Python nad is fond of drinking and pretending he’s Rambo. If there was more genuine exposure to firearms and their correct use then it is possible that the attraction to guns would diminish for these kinds of idiots might just go back to putting glass packs on their cars and pulling burnouts in neighborhoods endangering kids on a more traditional manner. The fact is you will likely never get rid of this kind of moron, but left to their own devices they will likely take care of themselves.
Even if I agreed with getting rid of all firearms, it just would not work. If you ever get to Hawaii check out the Maui Gun Club and observe Japanese tourists who come from a nation where there are hardly any guns at all. These folks go goofy over the chance to shoot guns and spend almost insane amounts of money to shoot guns that they see in movies. The more we limit casual exposure to firearms the more of a source of obsession they will be come because they are still a simbol of power and authority. This IMHO is what makes them dangerous.