Uh, no, I’m not the only one. I do not normally participate in gun control threads. The sole reason I joined this one was in response to SMUsax’s statement that denying someone (or at least women, or at least “tiny girls”) the right to carry a gun is denying them the right to life. Not the right to maybe be able to defend themselves against potentially violent attackers, but the right to live. I have said again and again in what I think is very clear, plain English that this is what I object to: the claim that people must either own guns or live in constant fear of being murdered. If other people are in agreement with me on this one, I don’t know why they want to keep arguing with me about it.
According to SMUsax I (who have sometimes been described as a “tiny girl”) am in such danger because I don’t have a gun that I must either become a mistress of the martial arts or expect to die. If I were to take this as my reason to purchase a gun, would I be doing it out of a reasonable concern for potential future threat or an unreasonable fear that I could be murdered at any moment?
I don’t know why you people insist upon arguing with me for questioning SMUsax’s claims when you are unwilling to defend them yourselves. Maybe he’s just more popular than me around here, or maybe the “pro-gun camp” hates to turn on one of its own. I haven’t got anything against SMUsax personally and I’ve felt bad about about picking on him, but he’s just wrong about this. I have no argument here with anyone who does not support the claim that lack of a gun is an effective death sentence, and I don’t see why anyone who doesn’t support that claim should have an argument with me. Contrary to what Tedster claimed, I have not said a word in this thread about banning guns. I have only said that ordinary people do not need to fear that the only thing between them and certain death is a gun.
Then please state it **without]/b] affirmatively misstating the law.
Thanks for finding that out MEBuckner, but I was not able to find the stats that indicate that out of that number, 10,000 were handgun deaths, as Great Dave asserted. Pardon my nitpick, but was that statement made in general or are there really 10k deaths attributed to handguns?
The L.A. Times reported after the riots that police told people that they (the police) could not protect them. They said people should arm and protect themselves. The Times also reported that the Supreme Court has ruled that individuals do not have the right to be individually protected by the police. (Unfortunately, I tossed out the article in a fit of house cleaning.)
I’ve never been raped, but catsix has. I know other women who have been raped. At least one other person on these boards has been raped. I understand it’s not a pleasant experience. The rapist is violating a person in the most personal way. Rape survivors must live with the memory for the rest of their lives – if the rapist doesn’t strangle them, stab them, or otherwise kill them. I think it’s entirely reasonable for a person to use deadly force to protect herself (or himself, for that matter) from rape or worse.
Here’s a joke for you:
A woman is having a drink in a bar. This guy comes up and trys chatting her up, but she’s not interested. The man is rather insistent, so the woman decides to leave. She gets to the door, but the man cuts her off with three of his friends and take her outside. She realizes she’s going to be raped. She decides to not resist so that she will not come to any harm. The guys take her to an alley and rape her repeatedly. Then they kill her. Okay, that’s too bad and all; but that’s the way it is in the real world.
Funny joke, eh?
Could it be that a criminal wouldn’t be deterred by a toy? Or, as you suggest, a pointed finger? In point of fact, realistic-looking toy guns are illegal in California, and may only be purchased or made by law enforcement and suppliers of film props. Last time I checked, anyone who brings a realistic-looking toy gun into California is guilty of a crime and can be fined $10,000 for each occurance.
Of course it is. But my life is more precious than the life of someone who is trying to take it.
It’s usually pretty obvious when a criminal intends to do you harm.
It would also be harder to go target shooting or “plinking”, and pointing your finger at an old aluminum can or a paper target is not as satisfying as seeing the can jump or making a hole in the paper where you want it. And again, if someone is coming at you in your home, you’re better off with a firearm than with a pointed finger.
How exactly do you go about “creating” culture? We already do this in a number of ways, especially through our education system. Personally I don’t think it works. Anything like this that the government tries is doomed to fail IMO. Even starting with the best intentions, along the way special interests get injected into it, any message that may have been of value is watered down to uselessness because someone is “offended” by a message powerful enough to reach the intended audience, etc…I don’t think ads, happy programs like DARE, motivational speakers, and the like are powerful enough to “create” a less violent culture. Nothing short of re-education camps is likely to succeed.
I am in no way suggesting that this is what you are advocating. I believe that you are sincere and your position is an honorable one. What I am saying is that when people say things like “Won’t someone rid me of this meddlesome Priest?” the result can be much worse than the original intention.
My belief is that the intrusion of the govt. into our culture, by replacing the need for a family with a state handout, is a prime cause for our cultural decline. People don’t need each other anymore, they look to the govt for their needs. People aren’t a part of a family as much, they don’t BELONG anywhere. I’m not blaming all our problems on the govt either. Our culture has decline for many reasons. One is that in our economy people move around a lot. Their family bonds are stretched if not broken. Our changes in our moral outlook on divorce and unwed mothers has resulted in near-majority of children (maybe a majority, i don’t have a cite) growing up without fathers. I’m not a religous person, and I’m not a moral preacher, but I do think that these changes have affected us negatively.
In short, I think the best thing for govt to do is to STAY OUT of our lives and quit telling us what is best for us. The old saying of “the govt that governs best, governs least” is what we should try to go back to, rather than pursue Socialistic policies of cultural determination.
Because in the choice between the rapist’s life and mine, I choose to save mine. And don’t be fooled. I wasn’t murdered, but the life I had before that attack is gone and the person I used to be will never exist again. I hope you never know what it’s like to spend 2 weeks in a dark room hiding under a blanket wishing you’d fall in a hole and die because you believe you’ll never be whole again asking yourself why they didn’t just kill you so you wouldn’t be such a pathetic wreck. I hope you never deal with PTSD, you never wake up in bed at night next to your SO completely terrified because your mind is convinced (wrongly) that he’s one of them. I hope you never know what it’s like to have your first reaction to your lover’s touch be a flinch. But I do know what that’s like, because three criminals fundamentally changed who I was.
Knowing everything I do now, I’d rather live with having the knowledge that I killed all three of them than live with what they did to me. The night demons and the feeling of being defeated are that hard to live with.
Who’s going to be deterred by a ‘gun’ that says ‘REPLICA’ in big letters down the side and has a hot pink plastic nozzle on the end?
It’s actually a lot easier to kill someone with a car than with a gun. It takes absolutely no talent to hit a pedestrian with a 4000 lb hunk of steel moving 40 mph. Being able to hit a human sized target 20 feet away in a very stressful situation is a hell of a lot harder.
Catsix, while I was robbed and your trauma was much worse, I can and do sympathize with you. My incident was over three years ago and I still feel rage, fear, and sometimes even shame for not trying to take his gun away. If I was given the opportunity today I would without remorse put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. Society would be better off.
I am not sure who you were quoting in your response, but please allow me to make some comments. They asked how it could be justified to take a criminal’s life. Its easy. They made a conscious CHOICE to commit a crime, and threaten the life of an innocent person. They made a conscious decision to destroy the emotional health of a person like catsix when they assaulted her. If you have never been violently victimized you cannot imagine how differently your worldview is afterward. A simple carefree walk to the mailbox becomes an exercise in self protection, you have to scrutinize every person that you will approach for a hint of threat. It isn’t something you choose to do.
Catsix also responded to the postulation that all one needs is a replica. The person who advises this must think criminal behavior is a one time only occurrance. Do you think a person commits armed robbery once and then goes and gets a real job? Do you think rapists do it once and then go and get married and live happy monogomous lives? No. All a deterrant does is shift the violence onto someone else. It’s kinda like the joke about always taking a friend who runs slower than you into the woods when in bear country. I don’t accept that shifting rape, murder, or robbery onto the next person the criminal happens upon is an acceptable solution.
hudley:
And had I been in posession of a gun and killed the rapists, at least I could temper the knowledge that I had killed humans with the knowledge that they would NEVER inflict that kind of damage on anyone else, ever again.