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Originally Posted by Danzig188
i didn't say i was her fan. nor do i need anyone to speak for me.
as for what guns you can own....gun owners feel any restrictions on what guns to own (or which are useful) is the same type of chipping away at a fundamental right as any limits on free speech. my husband i and subscribe to playboy for example--many would argue about it's 'usefulness'. what it comes down to is taste.
as for not hunting with a handgun, that isn't true. since you have to get your target very close when using a handgun, some hunters feel it's more of a challenge to use one rather than a shotgun or rifle. then there's the rifle i use. some would say it's more than i need--that i could easily shoot a deer with a shotgun. that's true, i could. also, i own several rifles--but wouldn't one be enough?critics say...sure--i only take one at a time. depends on where i'm hunting at that time and place.
my husbands grandfather left his old colt .25 to my husband. should we have to give that up, because some idiot decides to commit a crime with a handgun?
you can't own a gun if you're a convicted felon, or have a history of mental illness.
as for giving rights only to hunters--that isn't what the constitution says.
ultimately laws are followed by the law abiding. so any controls put in place would only affect those who aren't part of the problem!!
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So, the 80 people killed every day, most of whom are killed by up-to-that-point law-abiding citizens, don't matter to you? Most deaths by gun in this country are accidental shootings or suicide. Most people murdered are murdered by someone they know.
To give a hypothetical- a man, clearly angry about something, walks into a gun store and wants to buy a revolver. Is it responsible of the government to say the clerk is legally able to sell him a revolver and bullets on the spot? Or is it more prudent to say he can purchase the gun, but must wait three days to pick it up? Or fill out the application and then come back in three days to buy the gun? A gun should never be a "heat of the moment" purchase, and yet, right now, it can be.
The thing with guns is, they make it easier to kill because they distance the person holding the gun from the person being fired on. People just aren't as likely to kill with a knife (some do, for sure, but it's much rarer). What is wrong with instituting a waiting period, for example?
I think the big problem with the gun issue is that this is a big country, and the area you live in is very different from the area I live in. Here people have shot each other over cases of road rage (I'm not exagerrating). I have a friend in Orlando whose father threatened another man with a gun because the guy swiped his parking spot. And this fellow is a law-abiding citizen, clearly, because he's allowed to own a gun. Cities are different. Out in the country, it's easy to look at it as a case of the government trying to take away freedoms, but in the city, it's more a case of wanting the government to do something to stop kids shooting themselves with their daddy's pistol. And I don't know what the solution is because both sides can be very extreme in their views (though I would give the tip of the hat to the pro-gun side, who seem to view any attempt to make acquiring handguns more difficult as tantamount to banning them. Automatics. Yeah. Why not grenades and bioterror weapons, while we're at it? I mean, if the criminals are going to get them anyway, why shouldn't the law-abiding be allowed to have them, right?)
Gun violence here is a very different thing than where you are. Maybe it's the poverty, maybe it's the tensions of so many people living in such close quarters, I don't know. But every New York City mayor in recent memory, Dem and Repub alike has been in favor of gun control (Rudy switched after he went on the national campaign trail, but while he was actually mayor, he was very much in favor), and I think that comes from seeing what an unrestricted gun ownership policy can do in this kind of environment.
So, Danzig, what would you propose to cut down on the 80 lives, many of those children, who die from gunshots every day? I propose mandatory background checks and waiting periods of a minimum of three days, for starters.