Would you carry a gun if legal in your area

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Street/Reality Fighting
21

Radhnoti, if you engage in civil disobedience as a form of protest to change laws, yes. Carrying a concealed weapon in an area where it’s not legal is not an effort to change the law but simply breaking the law. Certainly stand up to unjust governement. But simply breaking the law is just criminal. Again, civil disobedience with the intent to change the law is one thing. Concealed carry can’t really be protest; it’s concealed. And the people in question didn’t disregard the law, they fought it. There’s a difference. Imagine the Boston Tea Party hadn’t happened and the participants had all become smugglers. That’s the difference.

I understand his point about the law in question. I just offered a different interpretation of the intent. Maybe you shouldn’t try armed resistance for small sums of money. Don’t risk your family for pocket change. He also didn’t say that concealed carry wasn’t available for others just that approval was automatic for that case. Without knowing more about the law, legislative intent is tough to speculate which is what he was doing. I was pointing out that saying that human life was worth less than $2500 was probably not the intent. I hope not at least. Who knows? Some legislators are morons.

Black Jack- It’s not a natural born right; it’s a constitutional one. And the constitution expressly states legislative intent for that matter.
I didn’t bring up the selfdefense point I responded to it. The stats come form an old friend who taught an NRA safety course and is a lcocal DA. He got them from FBI numbers and from a mortality rate study done in the Northwest. The Kellerman mortality study is a famous one and highly contested. It’s not the most scientific sampling either. That was part of my point about numbers being biased. I never take numbers solely on fase value. You can certainly argue those. Hard to argue the national statistics though compared to other western industrialized nations. But let’s not get into a debate on that. Pointless. I am certainly willing to drop it. I personally agree that the Kellerman study is flawed and 43-1 is a gross misrepresentation but if you start eliminating suicides and other categories that are sort of irrelevant you are still left with 4.5 to 1. Lots of people have problems with Kellerman as do I. But it’s the only study I know of that actually tracks mortality stats with gunownership as the variable. But again, ceratinly willing to drop it.
And how is that statement not jumping in? Please, avoid the passive-agressive tack to get in the shot about ‘libs’ and then jumping in anyway. It just makes the discussion acrimonious unnecessarily. Again, I am certainly willing to drop the selfdefense argument. I brought it up in response to other people. If you check my initial post, it’s a simple response to the original question. Personally I don’t choose to carry as a means of selfdefense. I think if licensed people who have decent safety training want to that’s up them but I still go with that 4.5:1 number. Now maybe those gunowners all did something foolish and tried to defend themselves poorly but I don’t trust adrenaline. I like the fact that I can’t reach for a gun when someone already has a bead on me. You want to make a different choice? Fine. Get the safety training (including situational selfdefense drills) That’s your choice.
Oh, in the US there are 65 million gun owners and 290 million citizens. That’s a lot but it’s no majority taking part.

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[deleted]

23

Not a large sample, but the pattern is obvious. I don’t know anyone personally who has been shot by someone they didn’t know.
Conversely, I have no friends and no family memebrs who have been shot. And in fact, I know of only one who has pulled his firearm when the opportunity arose (the others considered it unneccessairy). And there is a descent percentage of gun owners in my “friends and family” (guesstimate about 30%)

Incompitent, disturbed, and irresponsable people kill themselves and their friends with guns.. They also do it with cars, knives, rocks, bottles, chairs, and poison (both intentionally and accidentally). The firearm is not the problem any more than the automobile or rock is; it’s the people.

24

~I am of the opinion that all citizens, over the age of 16, who have not been convicted of a felony should be trained and required to be fully armed at all times.
~The states that have wide spread gun owner ship and liberal concealed carry laws have a significantly lower crime rate than those that restrict lawful gun ownership. That is a fact.
~Additionally, the countries that have outlawed guns in the past 30 years or so have seen a dramatic increase in violent and non violent crime after the populous was disarmed. That is another fact.
~Switzerland and Finland both require a citizens militia with most the people being armed. They both have very very low crime rates. (Other factors are involved, but it is clean that widespread gun ownership is not a cause of crime.)
~I do not carry guns because I work on a military installation and we have no rights on that property. But I am armed in some form at all times.

Peace

sinloi

yi beng kan xui

25

Originally posted by Leimeng
[B~The states that have wide spread gun owner ship and liberal concealed carry laws have a significantly lower crime rate than those that restrict lawful gun ownership. That is a fact.[/B]

Ever been to Texas?

26

"I am of the opinion that all citizens, over the age of 16, who have not been convicted of a felony should be trained and required to be fully armed at all times. " - Leimeng

I disagree with this statement. Forcing someone to be armed is as repulsive to me as requiring disarmament. People should be free to do whatever they want, as long as what they do doesn’t interfere with other folk’s freedoms. Forcing someone to carry a weapon, like forcing them NOT to, makes the assumption that people are too stupid to do the right thing alone without the government telling them what’s right.

27

I disagree with every one should be carrying a Gun, but I agree that everbody should be trained in their use.

Most Countries do that at the age of 18 using an institution called “national service”.

I would say 6mth~1yr should do for the average 18yr old. With 1 week refresher course every 2 years

After that it should be up everyone if he wants to carry or not.

28

Seems the outspoken anti-gun U.N. leader is being accused of having his security armed (illegally) with automatic weapons in the U.S. It’s hypocritical stuff like this that makes me sick. Why doesn’t he just say, “I only mean the COMMON man shouldn’t be allowed such weaponry! Such rules, of course, shouldn’t apply to the ruling class.” Another such story was the million mom march organizer who was found with a gun next to her bed…Rosie O’Donnell with her gun packing security guards…
It just…sickens me. Here’s a link:

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020222-74555556.htm

29

I wouldn’t carry a fireweapon (good that they are illegal here). Just don’t like them for some reason, no matter how safer feeling it gives. They also cost much.

30

An article I ran across…

Ran across this article, in my opinion it helps to show the futility of banning gun ownership. Though I’ll readily admit that there are other factors…the article mentions a cocaine boom. It just makes no sense, to me, that people willing to break the law can buy a gun for 200 pounds and law abiding citizens are…well, they’re just S.O.L.

"Gun crime trebles as weapons and drugs flood British cities
By David Bamber, Home Affairs Correspondent
(Filed: 24/02/2002)

GUN crime has almost trebled in London during the past year and is soaring in other British cities, according to Home Office figures obtained by The Telegraph.

Police chiefs fear that Britain is witnessing the kind of cocaine-fuelled violence that burst upon American cities in the 1980s. Cocaine, particularly from Jamaica, now floods into Britain, while the availability of weapons - many of them from eastern Europe - is also increasing.

Detectives in London say that the illegal importation of guns started after the end of the Bosnia conflict and that they are changing hands for as little as £200. During the 10 months to January 31, there were 939 crimes involving firearms in the Metropolitan Police area compared with 322 in the 10 months to the end of January, 2001 - an almost three-fold increase.

In Merseyside there were 57 shootings during the 12 months to last December compared with 15 in the same period the year before. Greater Manchester also recorded a 23 per cent increase in gun crime and there have been rises in Nottinghamshire, Avon and Somerset, West Yorkshire and the Northumbria Police area which covers Newcastle.

Gun crimes during the first 10 months of the annual period have trebled in most of the urban areas which have so far submitted statistics to the Home Office. Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said gun gangs were spreading across the country whereas, until recently, they were confined to a handful of London boroughs.

Sir John said: “We have to stem the large number of guns coming in. We know you can buy a gun in London for £200 to £300, and that’s frightening. The price of hiring or buying a gun has come down because there are more guns circulating. We are having success; we are taking out about 600 guns a year.”

The new gun crime figures also show that handgun crime has soared past levels last seen before the Dunblane massacre of 1996 and the ban on the weapons that followed. The ban on ownership of handguns was introduced in 1997, the year after Thomas Hamilton, an amateur shooting enthusiast, shot dead 16 schoolchildren, their teacher and himself in Dunblane, Perthshire.

It was hoped that the measure would reduce the number of handguns available to criminals. According to internal Home Office statistics, however, handgun crime is now at its highest since 1993."
Source word for word:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/02/24/nguns24.xml

Just to personally comment, it KILLS me that “Sir John” says they have to stop the guns from coming in and claims they’re doing well. If they catch TWICE that number of guns, it’ll just run up the price of illegal guns…which increases the payoff for gun-runners. Guaranteeing MORE gun-runners. They can only run up the prices of guns in the short term, unless they proportionally increase their attempts to stop the gun runners. Eventually, you’ll have an elite gun running black market, making billions, and they WILL figure out who to pay off (cops, politicians, etc.). England isn’t just going to have to worry about drug cartels, there’ll be gun cartels…assuming the drug runners are too dumb to capitalize on an obvious big money maker. This is lesson our country DIDN’T learn when we outlawed alchohol. The men willing to break the law got rich running liquor from Canada, then used the money to boost their sons into politics (J.F.K. and probably a million others on the local scenes).
Until the world is run by ONE government that outlaws guns there will ALWAYS be a country producing weapons (or allowing production) capitalizing on the obvious profits involved.
Cool! Did I just bring up “One world government”? I bet that’ll merit a comment from someone!
:wink:

31

I can’t..
I don’t…
Don’t think I would…

32

In reviewing this thread, I realized that I never gave kudos to myosimka for his point that the founders openly revolted…not breaking the law, but changing government entirely. Very good point, and not a perspective I’d looked at things from until he brought it up.
Here’s a quick list of points I took from a recent article from lewrockwell.com about many of the founding father’s ideas for overthrowing tyrannical governments:

"Consider the one principle of the Declaration of Independence that Thomas Jefferson is most noted for, the idea that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that whenever governments become destructive of liberty it is the duty of citizens to abolish that government and replace it with a new one.
The Declaration, after all, was a Declaration of Secession from England. The American Revolution was a war of secession. Massachusetts Senator Timothy Pickering, who served as George Washington’s adjutant general, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State, once said that secession was “the” principle of the American Revolution – the very right that the revolutionaries fought for.
Lincoln’s political triumph was, if anything, a repudiation of the Jeffersonian philosophy of government and a victory for his political adversaries, the Hamiltonians, who by 1861 had morphed into the Republican Party.
In Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address he declared, “If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this union . . . let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.” He was championing the right of free speech here, but also the right of secession.
In a letter to James Madison in 1816 Jefferson reiterated his support of the right of secession by saying, “If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation . . . to a continuance in union . . . I have no hesitation in saying, let us separate.”
Even Abraham Lincoln voiced support for the right of secession when it served his political purposes. He enthusiastically embraced (and orchestrated) the secession of western Virginia (a slave state) when it joined the Union. And on January 12, 1848, he announced that “any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. . . . Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.”

So, the question arises…would eliminating gun ownership rights be sufficient cause for a revolution? I’m certain the answer for the founding fathers…even our parent’s generation would have been “yes”, but now I’m not so sure. What has changed? Are we so much more cowardly than our forefathers? Or has constant negative coverage of guns and those who own them so completely changed public opinion that a gun ban is all but inevitable in the long term?
Pardon the rambling, and please do comment on anything I’ve said that may have interested you.

Oh, yeah. Here’s something I read by a “hacker” on his website recently that I loved:

“Let me see if I understand you here: 1. “the people” in the First Amendment means the people;
2. “the people” in the Fourth Amendment means the people;
3. “the people” in the Ninth Amendment means, the people;
4. …but “the people” in the Second Amendment (ratified in 1787) means the National Guard (which was created by an Act of Congress in 1917).”
-Cancer Omega

33

Radhnoti #1,2,3 are correct, #4 is VERY INCORRECT.
The same people in 1-3 are the same people that are in #4. There are those who wish that the hackers #4 were so, but the Militia are the people of the country, not the week-end warriors, it’s verifiable. Some people just don’t understand the Constitution.
It’s really sad.

34

I agree with you 100% Metal Fist.

As a side note, there’s a thread on the main boards now talking about how the NY legislature wants to regulate martial arts.
Who here votes for a thirty day waiting period, background check and forced classes that instructors have to attend…followed by a brief test of their comprehension? Might make it rough on the guys for whom English isn’t the primary language…and people wanting to just pop in to give a seminar are outta luck, but hey, regulation is a GOOD thing…right? Besides, everybody knows that martial artists are more likely to fight…give me a week and I’ll dig up (or fabricate) the statistics to prove it! :wink:

35

NY, what can I say! The licensing and registration of MA Instructors is just one more step in the move to control people and what they do. There is no need to do this, although a prospective student wouldn’t have to waste time and money finding a qualified teacher. The McDojo’s would not proliferate as much. But license and registration, sounds like a car. IKt’s ridiculous.:rolleyes:

36

In my opinion, regulation can only INCREASE the number of “McDojos”. Why? McDojos have the money and the larger number of students. This means they will not only control the answers, but they will have a greater input into the questions asked. One example of what might happen: What good can come from adults training to kill in our society? Everyone knows that the only good thing that comes from martial arts is the self esteem it can build in kids. SO, all martial arts instructors must teach children in their classes to qualify for a license. Catering to children is many folks DEFINITION of a McDojo. McDojo’s are already geared toward teaching kids, so they’d fully support any such legislation. I picked the kid angle since that’s the primary defining characteristic I’ve heard when people complain about “McDojos”, but this can happen with any of the McDojo characteristics. Large number of students (small classes are more likely to become cult-ish), must have big window out front for everyone to see in (what are they trying to HIDE), must wear gis (it’s cheap and a good way to gain “uniformity”), etc.
The thing is, when things get regulated those with money decide WHAT gets regulated. None of these things may happen…or all of them, that’s the problem and that’s why you have to stop a bad idea before it gets rolling.

It’s the SAME THING with gun control, little things don’t SEEM to matter…registration, waiting periods … but if you don’t stop it now it’s impossible to know how far it could go.
That’s my take on things anyway.

37

Let’s Straighten things out

If you are “anti-gun” you are a fool. Done, end of story!

In the world we live in there are those who want to:

Kill
Rape
Kidnap
Injure to degree
Hold Hostage

These people have no concern for their own well being. Your “backfist” is not going to stop them. Try using a bo/three sectional staff/nunchaku/sword in the hallway in the middle of the night. Now will you have any of those weapons with you at Taco Bell?

If you heard glass break and then a scream, would go into the darkness alone in the middle of the night to get to your children? Yes! Unless your a spinless liberal coward. What would you take with you?

It’s not about “fighting”. It’s about ending violence dead in it’s tracks. Firearms are a wonderfull option for defending all that is good, and lovely, and right!

Put yourself behind the power curve and suffer the consequences.

There is no magic. It’s about responsibility and training.

Realize your in America. The second ammendment makes the first ammendment possible.

Demi Barbito
The Center For Self Preservation Training
www.DemiBarbito.com

38

demi

Thank you for resurrecting a played out thread and rather than expanding upon any ideas, further entrenching people by insulting them. And by the way, I’ve met plenty of spineless conservatives and closeminded liberals. Stereotypes are generally inaccurate and kind of pointless unless you are trying to enflame rather than sway.

And the first amendment is possible as a result of a social contract that respects it. And oh yeah, numerous nations with more restrictive gun laws also have freedom of speech. So while your tagline makes for a nice little sound byte, it’s not actually a causal relationship. But then sound bites are taking the place of reason and logic in modern society.

39

“…numerous nations with more restrictive gun laws also have freedom of speech.” -myosimka

Then I’d say that the free speech rights in those nations exist only at the current regime’s whim. When or if it becomes advantageous for them to toss those rights out the window the subjects in those countries will be unable to effectively revolt. They are subjects, not citizens.
Just my opinion.

40

I can and I don’t. Don’t need too here.
If it were illegal I would do it out of principle, so bear that in mind before you go passing any laws! In the rare event I carry a firearm, I have every intention of using it.