If each of us carried a gun . . . . . . we could help to combat terrorism

There is no evidence that america is safer than any other country, for people becuase they hold guns.

The police still kill anyone they want, and probably the situation is worse.

Originally posted by andy1033
There is no evidence that america is safer than any other country, for people becuase they hold guns.

The police still kill anyone they want, and probably the situation is worse.

Yes, the police still kill anyone they want. The only way to stop the crimes of 'authority' would be to dissolve the entity that grants these people their arbitrary authority and consequently their near immunity.

The rest of America though:

findarticles.com...

The findings of two criminologists - Prof. Don Kates and Prof. Gary Mauser - in their exhaustive study of American and European gun laws and violence rates, are telling:

Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not. The study found that the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership (5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have a combined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000 population).

www.theacru.org...

There's plenty more if you want it.

[edit on 10-12-2008 by thisguyrighthere]

reply to post by Wotan


Competitive shooting is great fun, and it's nice to know if someone were ever to break into my home with a weapon I have a better chance of successfully defending myself than I would with a knife.

Originally posted by cautiouslypessimistic
If someone is willing to die for their cause, what good does a gun to you?

Well, it gives us the ability to make them do just that, without a bunch of innocent people dying along with them.

I did not read the reply I just want to say that if we stop making weapon we could stop terrorism and war at the same time.

Idiots will make one choice other will make another one, just think about it.

There are several examples of random shootings on college campuses (ccw prohibited on campuses) where the attacker could have been eliminated immediately by ccw permit holder if allowed to carry on campus. In my area, a nutjob went on a shooting spree at Case Western Reserve University

On May 9, 2003, Biswanath Halder, an alumnus of the school, went on a shooting spree, killing one student, Norman Wallace, and wounding a professor and a Ph.D. student in the Frank Gehry-designed Peter B. Lewis Building, home of the Weatherhead School of Management. Halder held off police and SWAT officers for about 7 hours in sniper-like gun battles while approximately 100 people hid in offices and closets until they were rescued by police. Halder was ultimately apprehended by a SWAT team in a fifth-floor classroom closet.[11] Dateline NBC aired a report on this shooting in 2006 complete with actual video footage of the shooting, interviews with Halder and Wallace's family members, and discussions about Halder's motive.[12]

If just one person was carrying legally in the building where this event happened this guy could have been taken out.

The gunman in the Virginia Tech shooting killed 32 people. Again, the shooter could have been stopped by just one person carrying a weapon legally on campus.

Now, in the event of a terrorist attack similar to the Mumbai attacks, legally armed citizens could definitely minimize the impact of such an event. However, small arms are clearly no match for detonated explosives.

reply to post by cautiouslypessimistic

Owning a gun will not deter someone bent on killing others,but it will save more people from dying needlessly because they have to wait for the police to catch up.
As the Virginia Tech shootings pointed out,the police were not sure about where or how many shooters there were.

Originally posted by ufopunx
I did not read the reply I just want to say that if we stop making weapon we could stop terrorism and war at the same time.

I think they tried somthing like that in Liberia last i heard it wasn't going to well .

Everybody carrying guns=fighting terrorism, improbable but plausible.

Everybody carrying guns=more civil society, the proponderance of the evidence does seem to suggest it.

Think about how much nicer a rush hour commute would be if every body had a gun and everybody else knew it.

Think about generally how many people would bite their tongues rather than spout bull# to justify their rudeness if everybody had a gun.

A reduction in car jackings, less bank robberies, etc

The list goes on and on.

Finally what I think is the most important, Police would return to their original role of PEACE OFFICER not what we have now. Thugs with guns.

Does anybody here think that if everybody was armed this incessant cancer that is modern police brutality could continue if officers whooverstepped their bounds and beat the # out, maced and tasered a civilian who is guilty of nothing more than mouthing off to the cops.

I own guns, but do not carry nor do I think I would even if I could. But I for one would feel safer knowing that maybe 6 out of 10 people are carrying.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


to blame great britain for india being " unarmed and defencless " is simply assanine

i conceed that india inhirited draconian gun legislation - but they havave every opportunity to repeal it - they have chosen not o do so

PS - pakistan also inherited the same laws as india - but pakistan now allows civiloian gun ownership - go figure

lastly - india has repealed soires of statutes it inhirited in 1947 - and drafted mank more that now legislate AGAINST things that were legal under british rule

EDIT TO ADD :

private gun ownership has not protected pakistan from terrorist attack - why would it work in india ? - P it hasnt worked in america either

[edit on 10-12-2008 by ignorant_ape]

Originally posted by cautiouslypessimistic
I am in no way opposing gun ownership, but if you think carrying a gun is going to stop "terrorism", you are silly.

If someone is willing to die for their cause, what good does a gun to you?

It lets the terrorist become the dead body instead of you. Any other questions?

reply to post by cautiouslypessimistic


You can kill the terrorist before the terrorist kills you!

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere
reply to post by Jb0311NY

 

How exactly to you protest your own genocide?

Passively resist? Circulate a petition? Write some hippie songs?

Don't insult the hippie's or music with a silly retort.

Point being is stooping to the level of violence is playing there game exactly. I am a USMC rifleman, I know a little somthing about carrying a weapon, everywhere you go. When it's gone, you wake up looking for it.

If you want peace, peace MUST be your weapon. Only a person who understands one cane understand the other. A person who understands war under stands that ALL war can be stopped if the PEOPLE protest. History shows this. Sheep who don't protest. The Patriots don't surrender their home. Their family. But the patriot who wants peace displays it in their every facet of being. In turn they gain the confidence, and respect of their peer's.

ARM YOURSELF. In your home. If body snatchings start occuring, martial law is coming. BARRICADE.

Good Luck, and the 99% can beat the 1%. We must awaken our fellow man.

If I punched you in the face and broke your nose would you think to pull your gun out in anger? What if you saw a guy beating on his girlfriend in the street, would you intervene with your gun. If you carry a gun you are more likely to use it.

I visited a friends home in Switzerland years ago, near the border of Austria.
Right in the coat closet was an automatic weapon which I asked what was there for ?
I was told that most male Swiss citizens are part of the volunteer Swiss National Guard and and are assigned this weapon.Iin the event of an attack/war they'd be called up as a civilian based defense force.

This would be considerably more effective against an actual terrorist attack rather than simply arming individuals would. It is also what our US Constitution's 2nd Amendment was defined for.

Looking at Timothy McVeigh's approach to terrorism though, would a gun toting individual have prevented that tragedy ?

As a gun owner and having fired air rifles, 22's, 9mm, 44Magnums, AK-47 and AR-15s and having experienced how sensitive guns are, Arming citizens with out proper training and practice would only waste a fair amount of ammunition and result in a proliferation of accidental gun deaths I'm afraid.

If many Americans can't even operate a car skillfully why would I trust them with a deadly weapon ?

What about Plaxico Burris' recent incident ? This is a perfect example of ignorance and firearms. That I'm afraid is what we'd have to look forward to. More emergency room visits.

He was just a dumb a## football jock I can hear people say.

But What about our so called trained gun owners....card carrying members of the NRA ?

Even then, with the recent incident at gun show where an 8 year old kid shot and killed himself while supposedly being supervised IMA. An 8 year old kid shooting an UZI automatic weapon as a form of entertainment ?
Not a very good example of responsibility.

I don't feel that most people are responsible enough to handle it unfortunately.

Originally posted by spitefulgod
If I punched you in the face and broke your nose would you think to pull your gun out in anger?

no

What if you saw a guy beating on his girlfriend in the street, would you intervene with your gun.

no

If you carry a gun you are more likely to use it.

no


I'm surrounded by rural white trash and get to hear their pointless domestic disputes regularly. Occasionally the cops come and take a fat woman or shirtless emaciated man off to a cell. All of these people have guns. In their drunken fits of white trashiness they have not once reached for one. They throw plates, appliances, swing bats, they dont ever reach for the gun.

How is it that redneck alcoholics surrounded by guns in a gun friendly state with little to no restrictions manage to not shoot each other yet ghetto-trash teens in areas of alleged intellectual mastery such as Boston, MA or New Haven, CT with their stricter then strict gun laws go off shooting each other for scuffed sneakers and the always abstract "disrespekt"?

Having a gun or just being significantly stupid doesnt make you more likely to use one. If anything, being in a gun-ignorant society run by ivy-league egg heads seems to make you more likely to use one.

The next time I'm threatened by a terrorist I'll defeat them immediately. They will cower in fear as I pump round after round of persuasive argument into them until they are utterly convinced my argument is the right one.

I will then stand over the corpses and speak again until the innocent are revived...

See? Who needs guns?

Originally posted by spitefulgod
If I punched you in the face and broke your nose would you think to pull your gun out in anger? What if you saw a guy beating on his girlfriend in the street, would you intervene with your gun. If you carry a gun you are more likely to use it.

What if you were 6'4, 22 years old and male and I were 5', 70 and female? If you punch my nose, I could well die... there are situations where I could defend the decision to shoot you if you physically threatened me.

And for the others, it would depend. If a guy was about to cause serious damage to his girlfriend, I would intervene verbally first and physically (if I had a gun) second.

Statistically speaking of course you are more likely to use a gun if you carry it. If you don't have one... you cant use one. Im sure such statistical mumbo-jumbo is of great use when you find yourself assaulted by some knife wielding criminal.

Originally posted by ufopunx
I did not read the reply I just want to say that if we stop making weapon we could stop terrorism and war at the same time.

Idiots will make one choice other will make another one, just think about it.

Anybody with a bullet a board and a hammer can make a gun.

Take away all weapons and someone will find something to use as one. Unless we get rid everything in the world, your utopia does not work.

As for stopping terrorism of course it wont. As for stopping innocents from losing their lives absolutely. It makes me sick to see some people on here bash the OP because they think he is some ridiculous "these colors dont run" nutjob. you cant stop crazy people with crazy ideals from doing crazy things once in awhile but you can make those crazy things take a lot less time and a lot less lives.

Also, when i see somebody hitting their kid/GF, it never crosses my mind that i need a gun to stop them.

Basically to all of the people who feel they would need to shoot everybody all the time, by no means do i want you to carry a weapon. but to the safe and sane individuals i would join you in protecting those who can not/will not protect themselves.