Had a similar situation around here once when there was a collision between a car and an Amish buggy. The buggy driver was begging the responding officer to put his mangled horse out of it’s misery but the officer couldn’t do it because it was against the rules.
My first split-second reaction to reading the first half of your paragraph here was that you were going to put the buggy *driver *out of his pain :eek:
The State Game Commision manages wildlife in the commonwealth, keeping the number of deer, for example, artificially high to provide sport for hunters. Why should my tax dollars be used to fund sport?
I do not “demand dangerous tools”. Indeed, when I had a rabid fox on our property I would have rather called the cops instead of shooting, bagging, and delivering the animal for testing. I thenn had to clean my shotgun, which I only use when absolutely needed.
The last (only?) time I called on our local police, he was testifying in court. I left a message and got a return call from the town administrator hours later. The town cop stopped out 48 hours later. “When seconds count” indeed.
All that aside, I have said repeatedly that the system is broken. If we can make our schools safe by repealing the 2nd amendment and taking away everyone’s guns, I’m onboard with that.
A little drift but being a PaGC volunteer employee (don’t ask - its complicated) we are fully funded through license fees, fines, and some Federal Pittman-Robertson monies – no PA taxes are involved. So no additions to the budget because the state legislature controls the laws but not the funds to a large extent. They have talked about taking all our money, putting it to the general state fund, and doling some back but our hopes are that that never happens. The PaGC has very few full-time employees; most are part-timers with day jobs or “dollar a year” people and volunteers like me. The drop in license sales is what has hurt our budget along with the increased costs of everything we all face.
PS – on another front – I am inner city and we (my neighborhood) have a deer problem; overpopulation. It ebbs and floes depending on the willingness of some of us violating the same laws you did. The difference is we haven’t used firearms. As I indicated in another post, silent but deadly people and devices can come in handy sometimes.
I bet you know some of my friends who work(ed) for the PaGC!
And that’s another way that different people could honestly interpret this poll in different ways:
The thread title emphasizes the word “prefer”: “Would you prefer that there be no private gun ownership.” So it’s not much of a stretch to think of the question in terms of personal preference, not public policy.
Personally, I’d prefer that there be no rap music. I know people who would prefer that there be no cilantro. But that’s not the same as thinking that such things ought to be banned, or as thinking that everyone would be better off if they didn’t exist.
If we’re excluding the middle, and we’re defining “gun” to mean gunpowder firearms, not water pistols, not blow guns, not nail guns, nor anything else sort of kind of like a gun: Yeah, no private gun ownership.
I’m not going to defend the self-defense rights of folks who want to see another mass murder of six-year-olds, shrug, and say, “Whaddayagonadoo?”
Take 'em all.
Like we have said for more than 6 years now ----- between that and Harleys and history and cigars and everything else -------- we have got to go drinking together. Not this month – I’m booked solid. But come January …
Look at that… the majority is now in favor of sanity, 74 to 73.
[del]Possibly[/del] [del]Probably[/del] Definitely a bit of a hijack, but
NITPICK:
Crimea isn’t in Russia; it’s in Ukraine.
You need to take that up with Putin. He definitely disagrees with your nitpick.
nm
FUCK Putin, and FUCK (checks forum ID) anyone who’s not a Doper who agrees with him on the issue.
Anyone who IS a Doper and agrees with him on the issue is hereby put on notice that they are WRONG to do so.
Note: this post may not belong in IMHO, on account of it’s an objective FACT, and not a matter of opinion. As are most of the things I post.
Well, objectively I’d say that Russia has annexed the region, making it, in fact, Russian territory. THAT is the real world objective fact. I didn’t say I agreed that this should be (I certainly don’t and didn’t agree with the Russian annexation of the Crimea and their farse of a referendum), but it’s rather like trying to say that Tibet is really an independent nation when, in fact, it is part of China with no real possibility that this will change short of the CCP going down.
This isn’t opinion, it’s cold hard fact, and one you seem to not want to acknowledge. You also seem to have some serious anger issues over this, so perhaps you should take that into consideration when posting about this. You are right, it IS a hijack of the thread, and I was basically just pointing out that your assertion that the Crimea is in the Ukraine, while technically true, is incorrect in the real world of real politic. And that Putin et al, who actually control the area, would disagree. I agree ‘fuck Putin!’ is a valid response, but then I’d say ‘Fuck Xi and the CCP’ as well…and it will equally have zero impact on reality.
I’ve wondered why many gun-control advocates feel this need to downplay their stance: “We don’t want to take anyone’s guns away, we just want to ________”. You don’t see this stance from most pro-lifers on abortion, by analogy, even if they sometimes dress up their approach as forcing clinics to adopt tougher standards that would in reality put many clinics out of business, etc. Many pro-lifers are very blunt and willing to say that “Yes we ***do ***want to ban abortions and prevent pregnant women from being able to get them.” But somehow the gun-control lobby feels this urge to say “No we aren’t trying to take your guns away.” Why not just be blunt about it?
Yeah, take the guns away. My family is big on hunting. My family has had the varmint problem. My father is an ammosexual and he’s one of those folks who collects far more guns than he can use. I have a gun that I keep meaning to offload for the money.
Take them away and never give them back. We don’t deserve them. I don’t care about anyone’s jobs or rural problems.
EDIT: If you care so much about putting an animal out of its misery, learn how to cut their throat, then.
:dubious: To me, the poll was ridiculous anyway, but it’s the equivalent of a poll asking if we should stick with the status quo for alcohol or a complete and total bans even more rigid that Prohibition since we have many 10’s of thousands of deaths per year. And then calling it sanity when over half respond that, yeah, let’s go the full on Prohibition route, that this would somehow be preferable to the status quo.
Even countries that have a hell of a lot of gun control and restrictions don’t go as far as the OP’s either or proposal. Hell, you can get a freaking gun in the UK, France, Australia and even Japan…hell, if you are in the CCP you can get one in China for gods sake…yet you think it’s sanity that over half of the people choose a ban that NO country on earth has.
Change that to “used to be” or “ought to still be” and you’d be right.
Because (speaking for myself), I don’t want to take your guns away. I don’t secretly hope that all guns turn into pixie dust*. I not so secretly hope that the average level of responsibility around gun ownership (storage, risk assessment, use) gets higher than it is right now.
The difference between (most?) pro-life advocates and (most?) gun safety advocates is that the pro-life advocates really want the extreme end and the gun safety advocates really want a middle ground somewhere.
*That’s how I read the poll. The options are - 1. Everything like it is now (no additional gun laws. No increased enforcement of the ones that are already on the books, what we have now is it.) 2. Some magic force field goes up over the US so that all guns instantly and immediately crumble into dust (except the ones being wielded by law enforcement or military while on the job). There are none in the hands of “bad guys”; there are none in the hands of “good guys” either. Smugglers who try to cross the border open their crates to find gun-dust.
I’ve seen this argument before and never understood it. Isn’t violent crime going down in America? Why is the “dam” going to collapse? The idea that “more and more reasons to ban guns are piling up every day” isn’t universally held by Americans…at what point is the political capital going to exist to pass reform that is “much stricter than it would have been if gun owners were willing to address the problem”?