rockitman

Nice. I would too if my state allowed carry/conceal. I have a nice folding knife in my door pocket to defend myself from an opportunist. Better than nothing lol.

Valkuri

Yeah...your license plate unfortunately explains the problem.
Perhaps a Kimber pepper spray pistol, to augment the armamentarium?

rockitman

Good idea !

doubleurx

Hilarious! Thankfully Trump is brining all of this around....T bag, T bag, T bag!

Gastrogt3

I'm with Mike in CA. The statistics are hard to deny.

I lived in the US for over two years, but I won't even pretend to understand the devotion to an almost-ancient constitutional amendment, when it seems from the outside to be a crutch for such endless misery. But then I live in a country that elected (to its shame) to continue having a head of state who is there courtesy of her dodgy genetic lineage, and who lives 10000 miles away. Figure that one out...

I doubt it would translate to the US because the circumstances are so different, but in 1996 the Australian government initiated a gun buyback after a thankfully rare gun massacre in Tasmania. From a population of 23m, over 650,000 guns were bought back and destroyed. There was a dramatic fall (I think around 50%) in both gun suicides and homicides over the next few years. It's association, not cause-and-effect, but it's pretty damned convincing. A second amendment, a deep sense of gun responsibility, and all the training in the world, won't help when incoherence from momentary rage or mental illness is facilitated by access to a gun.

I have a pair of glasses in my door pocket...

916Bob

No need to throw rocks and call names just because your arguments are crumbling under the weight of facts and reason... but it is very typical.

BTW, kudos to the OP for having the stones to start the thread, for obvious reasons.

Mike in CA

So far I've read concerns about Posse Comitatus, Prima Nocta, and the need to possibly overthrow a government that is presently controlled by a tyrant gone mad as some of the reasons for gun ownership. All that's missing is for someone to mention how the Army is getting ready to take over the Southwest and intern people in the basements of old Walmart stores. Jade Helm 15 aside, however, none of the above quite rises to the level of "facts and reason", IMHO, so I think doubleurx's "arguments" are probably still safe.

From what I've seen, few people in America want the 2nd amendment eviscerated or guns banned, so bringing up tired old cliché's such as "when guns are outlawed, etc...." is a straw man. What many people do want, however, is rational discussion and consideration of common sense remedies such as comprehensive universal background checks that every law abiding gun owner should welcome.

There may be benefits but there are also significant costs associated with our culture's fascination with firearms. That is undeniable and we'd be better served as a country if we used that fact as starting point for decisions rather than the fear and paranoia that seem to dominate the gun conversation.

dark knight

actually the problems in our countries third world ghettos with violence (Chicago, Baltimore etc) is not guns, its the corruptness of their leaders which keeps people poor and dependent

Valkuri

Simply not true. Anyone purchasing a firearm in a commercial gun store has to have a background check.
You've clearly never purchased one.
Most firearm violence occurs with stolen firearms.
Most successful self defense events (there are tens of them daily, but you won't find them on the front page of the NYT, because they don't conform to the Accepted Truth about guns) are with registered firearms.
The number of robberies and assaults prevented by private ownership substantially outnumbers firearm homicides.
Municipalities with strict firearm restrictions have higher rates of assaults and home invasions than those without them. Don't believe me? DC; New York; Chicago. Versus Dallas, Phoenix, San Antonio. Compare.

There is a higher correlation with poor inner city minority population than with gun laws. Don't get all Bay Area liberal "Raaaaccissst!! with me: Facts are inconvenient things. Use them.
Why this is so? Not my business nor my interest to know. I frankly couldn't possibly care less, which is why I left one of the aforementioned metropolitan s**tholes.

Alexandrius

I think there are a few points that get overlooked in this hotly contested subject.

1. For anyone that has been to a true 3rd world country (not in some resort or some other ****, in their villages) you realize people that live to age 40 on average do not value life much. They have alot of kids, and watch those kids die to random diseases, incredibly predictable accidents (cars, tractors, guns, etc.), and your basic starvation/crime.

2. During the Colonial times, our founding fathers fought and were willing to die for fairly simple things as stated before. Taxation without representation? Really? LOL. They were truly awesome for believing in a cause and taking action against their government.

3. These people, acustomed to death (35 year old average life expectancy back then..), DID NOT GIVE A FLYING **** ABOUT GUN HOMICIDES. In fact, they probably didn't even think people of this age would care about a random yokel going crazy with a gun instead of an axe, for example. You know why? No it wasn't about "well guns nowadays are so much more dangerous gosh." It's because back then they all had them, knew how to use them (called mutually assured destruction), and figured the risk was worth the reward of being able to overthrow a tyranical government.

The second amendment is our insurance policy on the constitution. Gun violence statistics (EVEN IF PREVENTABLE) mean nothing to me, and likely all believers in the second amendment. To us, it's worth it. Yes, even if that means gun violence exists. Don't like it? Move to europe. In fact, just yesterday an 18 year old somali man invaded a couples flat in sicily and slit their throats and walked out wearing their blood soaked clothing. You can contend with that **** LOL

I'd rather die knowing I at least had a chance to defend myself, i'm a ****ing Soldier and I wish more Americans had a backbone and didn't live in such a bubble of soft-ness. You can't hide from the realities of the world anywhere; but you can defend yourself from them.

(Also, gun violence statistics, which I don't care about regardless, are often skewed. The single biggest change in American violent crime was the advent of abortion killing all the unwanted gangsters in the ghettos)

SHAG

but what if you could save just ONE life?

-says the guy with an iphone in his hand made by some Chinese worker who probably committed suicide and is wearing a Calvin Kline shirt make in Indonesia buy some 5 year old slave worker. Never mind the veteran lives lost for cheaper oil in the middle-east sent there by our government.

but hey, our government spies on us and our law enforcement kills people. Why would we ever want to have the right to protect ourselves against our own government?

Sean
USAF veteran

doubleurx

My apologies, that was me trying to inject humor, in a discussion that can never be won. I haven't actually seen my argument crumble either, unless facts don't matter.

Mike in CA

It simply IS true; facts ARE inconvenient things and you should use them as well. Surely you realize that there are many more ways to buy a gun than through commercial gun stores, laws for purchasing from those outlets vary tremendously from state to state, and the system to accumulate and correlate background information is hopelessly underfunded and full of holes. All of this skews the effectiveness of local gun ordinances and as an example, is how the mentally ill whack job who killed 9 people in the Lafayette theater shooting was able to "legally" buy his gun in an Alabama pawn shop.

To your point about self-defense events that don't show up in the NYT, I already stated that there are benefits to gun ownership. (Just to be "fair and balanced" I don't see a lot of anti-gun rhetoric on Fox News, so the NYT isn't the only source for one-side reporting). But there is a proven cost to our gun culture as well (those pesky facts again), which is something some people will NEVER admit and which paralyzes our national conversation on this subject.

All I'm saying is that we need to intelligently consider both sides of the issue without resorting to partisan political posturing, name calling, and stereotypes, such as your reference to my going all "Bay Area liberal" or playing the race card, neither of which I've done. Another straw man. BTW, you're wrong on another point. I sold my Browning Hi-Power a few years back and currently own a Winchester 870 and a Ruger 10/22, all purchased commercially. I'll repeat, I'm not against guns, only narrow minded thinking.

Sloopy

I think looking at overall death rate, homicide and other crimes is what is important. Guns don't kill people and cars don't kill people. People and Darwin kill people.

Regardless of what you chose to carry in your door its not near as deadly as what you are driving.

TRAKCAR

Dont have a gun but love the constitution. Need to get an idiot proof revolver.

Me thinks that anything government run or controller turns into a fiasco money pit lately, so lets leave the constitution as is. It made America.

Dont like it; leave, earth is big.