Is that what you tell the cops? Secret Service? The military? Why is it okay for some people to defend themselves and others with guns, but not civilians?
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That’s the lamest defense of tax protesters I’ve ever heard.
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Good, because that’s not what it was. It was a factual correction which I see you’ve not disputed.
It required no rebuttal. Teenagers can’t vote? Really?
It is proven that there would be more auto accidents where people have been killed if they did not use their seat belt. there is a law about drinking and driving. People have to be tested to get a driving license, then every so many years. My husband and I have because of our age need to be tested every year. Most bad accidents are just that accidents but there are some who are careless, don’t think about the consequence of their carelessness! We are more regulated to drive a car than a person is to abtain a gun.
Regardless if a person has one gun or many, Mrs Lanza, her son and 26 others are dead because of a gun available. She got no protection of her having even one gun. That is a chance one takes. I wonder if she had not been killed what her reaction would be knowing a weapon she purchased for her protectio, and her families would be!
I think one can look to Iraq and see how many people hve guns and wonder if that is helping towards anyone’s safety. I guess it depends on if a person with the gun has the edge. In Chicago a woman was shot in her bed through her window and her baby was killed, since she was asleep a gun would not have done her any good. And it is true that many people who kill others with a gun don’t care about the law and steal guns. Like the Lanza boy, he used a gun bought and kept by his mother.
I hope someone can find away to help people see the reason why people kill one another, there have been killings all through history and the bigger the poplulation the more killings go on.
Now it seems to me like trying to collect the feathers that have been thrown out of the pillow.( A next to impossible task).
Because we trust some people with weapons as a necessary evil. Trained professionals are there to protect us, there is a structure in place to make sure they know what they are doing and are competent.
Having endless guns available to every nutjob in existence is doing the opposite, it’s making us less safe. Every person with a grudge, every crazy person then sees guns as an option to solving their problems.
I think all Americans should be entitled to NUCLEAR ARMS! I mean, where do we stop with guns? And if someone is pro gun but against everyone having personal nuclear arms for defence, why? Why trust someone with a gun but not a bomb? They’re both made to kill. And you’re all so certain legal guns can’t go wrong and don’t end up in the wrong hands LOL
What do those of us that don’t have appropriate access to “trained professionals” do? If I were to call the sheriff in, the first thing I’d have to do is give him directions to my house because my county doesn’t have an E911 system. Having done this with UPS and FedEx numerous times, I can safely say that it takes about 5 minutes to do. After that 5 minute phone call with the sheriff’s office, it will take at least 15 - 20 minutes for someone to show up. In the mean time, what should I be doing with my intruder? Offering him a cup of coffee? Finding out if he’d like to watch something on Netflix? My house is laid out so that if he were to make it back to our bedroom area, he would be blocking our only means of escape.
There is nothing special about LEO’s. They’re not the only ones that can become proficient in handling firearms. It’s really not rocket science.
And I agree that there should be a registration process so that responsible, trained civilians should have access to firearms.
As a country, we don’t normally require responsibility or training to exercise one’s rights. And unless the government bears the full cost of the registration program, this would amount to a poll tax.
The point is that at one time, when the weapons available to the citizenry were pretty much the same as those of the government and no standing army to speak of, it would have been reasonably possible to defend yourself. It cannot be done today, even if nuclear weapons aren’t used. It’s that simple. Which is not to say I wouldn’t respect anyone who had the guts to try.
Yes, but we’re not talking about training to use, say, a toothbrush. 
I disagree. As a country we certainly teach that there are rights and responsibilities for citizens - some are mandatory and some are voluntary. You can even tie responsibilities (enforced by law) directly to amendments in the bill of rights.
No, it’s not that simple. No one is claiming that they could stand up to the government on an old-fashioned battlefield. But a theoretical armed revolution in the US would not take place on a battlefield.
A theoretical revolution in the US would take the form of an insurgency. The US experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the experience of other governments with modern militaries that have fallen to revolution (Libya, Egypt, Syria[well, not yet]) prove that a modern military does not automatically out-match even a poorly-armed citizenry. Unless the government is willing to totally obliterate any city with an insurgent presence, all that military might is useless against an insurgency.
Such an insurgency would stand a much greater chance of succeeding if the citizens were well-armed in the first place. The idea of an armed revolution in the US is somewhat ludicrous. I have to admit making this argument makes me feel like a nutcase. But if things did get bad enough for that occur, the idea of the armed revolution succeeding is not ludicrous.
Actually, I’d like to question the automatic gun owners:
Why do you need an automatic gun? If you’re just concerned about your safety, why don’t you just own a rifle?
I’ve just re-read the bill of rights. I can’t see any of them that require training or registration to exercise. Can you please elaborate and provide an example?
You’re going to get very few answers from automatic gun owners: those are machine guns, and they are already tightly regulated. Most people who own machine guns have them simply because they are a lot of fun to shoot. They’re very expensive range toys, and are virtually never used for anything else (including crime).
Semi-automatic guns are a different story. I own semiautomatic pistols; I chose them because they have a lighter trigger pull than a double-action revolver and are easier to carry concealed. Since I want a gun for times when I’m on the road late at night in rural areas where it could take a very long time for a tow truck to show up, I need a handgun rather than a shotgun or rifle. A semiautomatic pistol best fits my needs (although I’d switch to a revolver if I had to).
And you don’t want to use most rifles for home defense if you live in an urban or suburban area and care about your neighbors, as they shoot much higher velocity bullets than handguns and will easily pass through multiple walls (including exterior walls).
I can understand owning a semi-automatic gun. When I asked about the need to own an automatic/machine gun, I was targeting the fact that you really don’t need a gun that shoots like 30 bullets per trigger pull. A gun that shoots maybe one or two bullets at a time should be more than sufficient if you’re just going for defense.
Now you say that most automatic gun holders are people who want to shoot for fun, and crime is usually not a reason for these guns. The problem is that for the shooting in CT, the guy brought in an automatic gun and that is why so many died. Had it been semi-automatic or manual, I don’t think that many people would have died.
So in terms of gun laws, Republicans or “conservatives” always argue that it’s not their fault, or that you need guns for safety. My response to that is, “Okay, so why can’t you outlaw automatic guns. They aren’t a necessity for safety.” Like you said, the people that own automatic guns are people who want to have fun shooting them, and are not for anything else. The average person does not need them. So conservatives, what is your need for automatic guns? Why can’t you outlaw those?
Your facts are way off. He used a semi auto gun. One bullet per pull of the trigger.
The rifle used at Newtown was semi-automatic. Cite.
The gun the CT shooter used was in fact a semiautomatic rifle, not an automatic gun. And it is about the wimpiest rifle made in terms of killing power. (Only a rifle chambered in .22 LR is weaker.) Most true hunting rifles have MUCH higher-powered rounds.
The reason so many people died is due to the architecture of the typical school. Rooms that only have one entrance make it easy for a shooter to trap people in the room and then shoot them multiple times (which is what the CT shooter did). He was literally shooting fish in a barrel. The kids simply couldn’t get away. The same thing was true in the shooting in the movie theater in Colorado: the shooter was between the crowd and the emergency exits, so everyone had to go all the way to the back of the theater to escape. Shooters in more open places like shopping malls tend to kill fewer people because more potential victims are able to run away to safety.