So let me get this straight - I and others need to carry concealed weapons in the event

[hedgehog]

that someone with a gun decides to open up on a crowd. And the reason the insane person has a gun capable of quickly firing a great many shots is so I can easily buy the same gun to defend myself from the other people with guns.......

Afghanistan, here we come!

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

1. That's right.. I used the same logic before and was told YES!

So I move into a new neighborhood.

I've never owned a gun.

I see my two neighbors have guns and are quite unsual.

I buy a gun so to protect myself.

A new neighbor moves in next to me.

He sees that I have a gun.

And start to Wonder if he should buy a gun?

Talk about CIRCULAR........... head spins.

[Mark Maker]

2. Actually, I think the law allows you to make your own informed

decision in the matter. In Arizona we allow people to own and carry firearms, but you are under absolutely no obligation to do so. It's a choice thing, nothing for you to worry about.

[CreekDog]

13. the informed choice is to not buy a gun

the arming of society has left us less safe, with gun deaths highest in the most gun-owning states and states with the most permissive gun laws.

so i choose not to own a gun, because it is safer for me and for others around me.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

24. Actually the converse is often true

It is very situational. Locality, risks, household situation, and who you are all figure into the that decision.

Gun control has not strayed far from its racist and classist roots. Some of our highest crime areas have the most repressive gun laws.

[CreekDog]

36. i choose not to own a gun --it's safer that way

when my grandmother in South Philly wanted a gun, we spent a lot of time discouraging her.

i kept asking her to tell me a situation in her mind where she would use a gun.

she said, if someone were breaking in. i asked her what was the safer choice, to go and get her gun (unless she was going to keep it under the couch cushion, totally unsafe, by the way) or to walk out the back door (or front door) and get help?

we went round and round. my aunt said that if she bought a gun, she wouldn't come to the house anymore because (since she had a key) she'd probably be the one person that got shot with it.

no guns.

the safety they provide is, for most people, a net loss.

[AtheistCrusader]

52. That's your choice, and I respect it. Please respect mine.

[CreekDog]

65. no

i accept that it's legal.

i don't have to respect the wisdom behind it.

[AtheistCrusader]

67. Your loss.

I carry to protect myself, and others.

From guns, from knives, from fists and feet, etc. Violence comes in many forms, and all of it can be lethal. I maintain tools, and abilities, for the preservation of human life.

[CreekDog]

66. Some?

what does "some" prove?

[Pancho Sanza]

28. I hope you won't be working to deprive those of us who reserve the right to

self-protection the means to enhance it if we so choose.

[CreekDog]

32. probably

:hi:

[NewMoonTherian]

42. I appreciate your candor.

In the meantime, I'll be working to deregulate automatic weapons until they are as easy to obtain as semi-automatics.

[CreekDog]

49. do you have any other political involvement except for that?

and if so, is any other issue as important to you as that?

[YllwFvr]

55. i am, very

ive helped knock down a few local laws, and have helped mobilize a large group to make it a statewide effort. We are doing quite well so far :)

[NewMoonTherian]

58. Certainly. I'm not at all a single-issue voter. n/t

[YllwFvr]

54. you are aware

that gun ownership is way up, and violent crime is way down?

[CTyankee]

31. Not unless you are a 9 yr old kid coming to a political meeting to learn about democracy.

Because, as a child you cannot buy a weapon. Therefore, you die.

It's a "choice thing." I see, nothing for me to worry about...

[whoneedstickets]

3. No, wait. You need a bigger gun than those other guys..

really, if you're going to bother to carry then you really need to have superior firepower.

In addition, buy stock in gun companies.

[hedgehog]

4. and bullets, lots and lots of bullets - never know when you will have

to stand off a siege from home invaders!

[Mark Maker]

6. Well, we do have a saying

"If They Bring a Knife to the Fight, We Bring a Gun". Not sure where that started but it does make sense.

[hedgehog]

8. I'm pretty sure that came out of the Untouchables movie and

no where else. It might be a quote, but I think a screenwriter came up with it.

[Euromutt]

60. As hedgehog says, it's from the movie "The Untouchables"

It's actually a conflation of two of Malone's lines:
(To Ness) "You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way! And that's how you get Capone."
and
"Isn't that just like a wop? Brings a knife to a gun fight."

(Note: no slur intended to persons of Italian nationality or descent, I'm just quoting the movie.)

[jody]

5. Are you sure you are qualified for CCW? Your OP gives room for doubt. n/t

[Upton]

7. You are responsible for your own safety.

the authorities aren't always going to be around. Arming yourself is the prudent thing to do..

[Missy Vixen]

14. Evidently, you don't know any LEO's in real life

The law enforcement officers we know (including a special agent with the ATF,) prefer the enforcin' to be done by those who actually know what they're doing.

>Arming yourself is the prudent thing to do..<

Of course it is. After all, it was so helpful to the two people in the crowd in Tucson the other day, who weren't even able to draw their weapons before the shooter was overpowered and disarmed by two unarmed people in the same crowd.

[timo]

21. well in my neighborhood

the cops have about a 30 minute ETA, and a helluva lot can happen in 30 minutes!!

[Missy Vixen]

22. That's your neighborhood

That's your choice.

[Pancho Sanza]

30. How very magnanimous of you.

Not all of us can live in a neighborhood where the cops can respond in 30 seconds.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

48. And you think it will be automatically better in yours?

Police are for after the fact not when you are facing a threat. Too many people have learned that the hard way

[shadowrider]

59. 30 mins? Hell, the OK corral happened in seconds n/t

[ProgressiveProfessor]

33. You are confusing personal safety with law enforcement

They are very different. The police (at any level) have no obligation to protect you in the specific. That is up to you. You have a choice about being an easy victim or not.

Some of the strongest 2nd Amendment progressives I know were either mugged or bashed. They are still very progressive, but well armed.

[sailor65]

39. +1

well said.....

[sailor65]

37. I know plenty of them

And I trained, and still train, plenty more.

And you're full of beetle dung.

Tactical interdiction hasn't got the slightest thing to do with Law Enforcement.

[X_Digger]

46. How about Carolyn Warren? Or Jessica Gonzales?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

Believing the police might be in the house, Warren and Taliaferro called down to Douglas, thereby alerting Kent to their presence. At knife point, Kent and Morse then forced all three women to accompany them to Kent's apartment. For the next fourteen hours the captive women were raped, robbed, beaten, forced to commit sexual acts upon one another, and made to submit to the sexual demands of Kent and Morse.
...
The Court, however, does not agree that defendants owed a specific legal duty to plaintiffs with respect to the allegations made in the amended complaint for the reason that the District of Columbia appears to follow the well established rule that official police personnel and the government employing them are not generally liable to victims of criminal acts for failure to provide adequate police protection. This uniformly accepted rule rests upon the fundamental principle that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales

During divorce proceedings, Jessica Gonzales, a resident of Castle Rock, Colorado, obtained a restraining order against her husband on June 4, 1999, requiring him to remain at least 100 yards from her and their three daughters except during specified visitation time. On June 22, at approximately 5:15 pm, her husband took possession of the three children in violation of the order. Gonzales called the police at approximately 7:30 pm, 8:30 pm, 10:10 pm, and 12:15 am on June 23, and visited the police station in person at 12:40 am on June 23, 1999. However, the police took no action, despite the husband's having called Gonzales prior to her second call to the police and informing her that he had the children with him at an amusement park in Denver, Colorado. At approximately 3:20 am on June 23, 1999, the husband appeared at the Castle Rock police station and instigated a fatal shoot-out with the police. A search of his vehicle revealed the corpses of the three daughters, whom the husband had killed prior to his arrival.
...
The Court's majority opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia held that enforcement of the restraining order was not mandatory under Colorado law; were a mandate for enforcement to exist, it would not create an individual right to enforcement that could be considered a protected entitlement under the precedent of Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth; and even if there were a protected individual entitlement to enforcement of a restraining order, such entitlement would have no monetary value and hence would not count as property for the Due Process Clause.

Justice David Souter wrote a concurring opinion, using the reasoning that enforcement of a restraining order is a process, not the interest protected by the process, and that there is not due process protection for processes.

Yeah, they prefer to do the 'enforcin' -- except when they fuck up, then well, it's "Hey, man, that's not our bag!"

[YllwFvr]

56. my family and friends who are LEOs

know they have no duty to protect you. Whos responsibility is your safety? Yours, and only yours. Average national response time, ten minutes. Oh and those who know what there doin? Not very good shots...

[Statistical]

70. You are aware LEO have no Duty to Protect you (or anyone else) right?*

* Ironically the one group of people that have to be protected by Police are criminals in custody.

[Ozymanithrax]

9. Neighborhood nuclear superiority is the only safe path...

When every neighbor can defend his home with a 100 megaton nuclear bomb, we will be safe.

[CreekDog]

64. + 1000 megatons

:nuke:

[Johonny]

10. apparently the one person carrying couldn't respond fast enough

which once again shows why this really doesn't seem to help. Someone was carrying at the event and they couldn't help.

[CTyankee]

51. oh, tut tut...people "carrying" are under no obligation to help YOU, doncha know?

Of course, that explains why it was just "too bad" that 9 yr old Christina had to die...sad, but, oh well, them's the breaks...gotta defend that 2nd amendment...

What a country we've got here...

[Missy Vixen]

11. Don't worry about the numerous studies stating you're more likely to get shot with your own gun

than shoot anyone else.

I should also mention that there were two people on-scene the other day in Arizona that could not get a shot off. Those who disarmed the shooter were UNARMED.

More guns is not the solution. Those who do not think twice about any crowded, public venue are kidding themselves as well.

[Euromutt]

62. If you mean Kellermann's work, the conclusions were not supported by the actual data

See, one thing that Kellermann et al. glossed over, both in the 1993 and 1998 studies, was that they didn't bother to verify that the firearm used in the cases studied was actually one kept in the household in question.

In the 1993 study, the authors wrote "One or more guns were reportedly kept in 45.4 percent of the homes of the case subjects," implying that 54.6% of the homes of the case subjects did not contain a firearm, in spite of which, a member of the household got shot anyway. Kellermann never answered questions posed in letters to the editor of the NEJM as to how many of the shootings occurred with a gun kept in the household, as opposed to one brought in from outside. (This was, incidentally, also the study in which Kellermann insulated himself from criticism by the expedient of refusing to release his research data, even with the NEJM and its reviewers.)

Kellermann's subsequent 1998 study provided some insight, as it revealed (but only in the full text, which you had to pay to read, and not in the abstract and conclusions) that in the 438 assaultive gunshot woundings studied, 49 involved a gun "kept in the home where the shooting occurred," 295 involved a gun brought to the scene from elsewhere, and another 94 involved a gun whose origins were not noted by the police (source: Kleck, Gary. "Can Owning a Gun Really Triple the Owner's Chances of Being Murdered?" Homicide Studies 5 <2001>.). So in 67.3% of the shootings studied, the gun used was known to have been brought in from outside.

Kleck notes elsewhere that:

<C>ontrary to the understandable imagery of in-home violence as domestic violence, most killings in the home involve killers who do not live in that home and who, if they used a gun, usually would use their own guns, brought in from elsewhere. Based on the relationship of victim and offender, only 7.2% of all US homicides committed between 1976 and 1994 were committed (1) with guns and (2) by a person whose relationship to the victim was as a spouse, lover, sibling, parent, child, or roommate, indicating that there was a significant likelihood that they lived in the same home as the victim.
(Kleck, Gary 1998 "What Are the Risks and Benefits of Keeping a Gun in the Home?" JAMA, Aug 1998; 280: 473 - 475.)

The problem is that the conclusions of this kind of study are supported at best tentatively by the data (and only then if you willfully conflate correlation with causation), and strongly suggest that the gun used is one kept in the home, even though most of the time (in cases other than suicide), it's not.

[petronius]

12. If we were on the way to becoming Afghanistan or Somalia, wouldn't

violent crime rates be increasing rather than not? :shrug:

[undeterred]

15. Now you're catching on.

Just head on over to the GUN forum if you have any questions. :hi: Be sure to wear a bulletproof bodysuit!

[hedgehog]

40. Ooops - the thread got moved when I wasn't looking - do people here

have any sense of humor?

:hide:

[undeterred]

45. No, because they're being persecuted.

The war on guns is even worse than the war on Christmas.

:hide:

[Euromutt]

61. Sure we do

Whether it's the same as yours is a different question.

[timo]

16. yes just like your government

ooooo russia has bomb, we have bomb too, china has bombs, look at us we have bombs too...

[slackmaster]

17. I suggest that you take a self-defense course some time to see what it's really about

Firearm, edged weapon, any empty-hand discipline of your choice. The messages regarding legal and moral aspects of self-defense are the same regardless of the type of weapon used.

I believe you would find the experience very enlightening.

[hedgehog]

23. I did take a self defense course back in college - it has probably

saved my from physical harm many times. I have poor proprioception and tend to trip often, but at least I know how to fall!

I recall several of the young men in that class solemnly asking the instructor the best moves to protect themselves in a bar fight. His answer: "the best way to protect yourself from getting hurt in a bar fight is to stay out of that kind of bar!"

[slackmaster]

26. Carrying and using a gun for self-defense (which I don't) is just another martial art

I've been trained in edged weapons and in handgun self-defense. Due to the difficulty of getting a concealed weapons permit where I live, I carry a knife at all times. It's not about protecting society, and situations in which a lunatic starts shooting into a crowd are very rare events that most of us will never encounter. You and I are much more likely to run into a belligerent drunk, rowdy meth head kids, or an aggressive panhandler who won't take "No" for an answer. Most of the time we are able to deal with those situations without using any kind of force. A gun is for situations where despite your best intentions and efforts you are left with no choice but to employ overwhelming force to protect yourself or your family or friends.

I recall several of the young men in that class solemnly asking the instructor the best moves to protect themselves in a bar fight. His answer: "the best way to protect yourself from getting hurt in a bar fight is to stay out of that kind of bar!"

That's excellent advice, and it applies just as well to gun fights and knife fights. Focus on your surroundings, stay away from places that you think might harbor trouble, fight only as a last resort.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Actually not Afghanistan, the mythical version of the WILD WEST

realize the percentage of people who owned guns back then was MUCH LOWER, regardless of the MYTH,

To be correct, I should be able to have my six shooter, and you, well your Glock 17... that is far more accurate for Afghanistan.

that said the speed of fire on these things is such, that it is faster than your brain will react to... and most people who "react" correctly will do so because of TRAINING...

I know I have dropped to the ground in situations... where others freeze... but that was drummed into me in training.

[Vickers]

19. Many times a tackle is a better response.

The Secret Service didn't start shooting John Hinckley when he tried to kill Reagan, for instance.

I like having options.

:)

[fascisthunter]

20. Yee-up

looks like the trolls are working overtime on unreccing anything in regards to guns.

[moondust]

25. And you need an extended magazine in case there is more than one shooter.

Why not an RPG?

Or a tank?

Or a nuke?

[zbdent]

27. Isn't it amazing?

The Arizona shooter was taken down ... without anyone other than him firing a single shot.

[Dappleganger]

34. The shooter shot way more than one single shot

and they took him down while he was trying to reload.

[YllwFvr]

yeah!

and so was Cho!
er... wait

[YllwFvr]

57. yeah!

and so was Cho!
er... wait

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[KansasVoter]

35. Yes, you are correct, the more people actually opening fire will mean that the bad guy is more.....

likely to be shot and disabled. It is pure math.

[hedgehog]

38. and if some innocent people get hit in the crossfire, well that's the price of FREEDOM!

[CreekDog]

41. if people don't want to be shot by the good guys, they should make sure to not stand by bad guys

:think:

[hedgehog]

43. and if they don't want to be shot by the bad guys, don't stand by the

people the bad guys are shooting at!

Well, you sure put Rashad Walker Jr in his place!

http://www.thenewshouse.com/blog/20-month-old-syracuse-baby-killed-family-minivan

[KansasVoter]

44. Yes, that is just common sense.

[PavePusher]

47. No you don't 'need' to...

but it's nice to have the choice.

Don't make stuff up.

[GreenStormCloud]

50. I carry a gun to protect ME.

Others might be protected depending upon the situation.

[CreekDog]

63. or harmed, but hey, that's their bucket

:eyes:

[Francis Marion]

53. You don't need to, that's up to you.

You don't have to activate car air bags, use a seat belt, obey traffic laws.

You can see a drunk driver swerving from lane to lane, and take no evasive action- that's up to you.

Afghanistan... Really?! With land mines, RPGs, IEDs, belt fed machine guns, kalashnikovs, and over thirty years of war? That's also a description of Arizona?

[guitar man]

68. you don't need to do

anything you don't want to do. If you don't want to carry a weapon, don't. You have the right to defend yourself and should you choose to do so, the choice of self defense tool is up to you. Hands and feet, edged weapon, firearm, your choice. If you do carry a weapon, it is for the defense of yourself and possibly anyone else with you, family, friends etc. Whether or not anybody could help out when some nut opens up on a crowd like this guy did, that's always an unknown quantity. Maybe,maybe not. Anybody that insists that armed citizens in the crowd would always be able to help out really hasn't got a clue.

[spin]

69. Of course not. Who said that?

[Statistical]

71. Then don't carry or own firearms. That is your right. What isn't your right is taking away

that Constitutionally protected right from other people.