Conceal-Carry Passes Handgun Bill in Minnesota
POSTED BY: Channain
UPDATED: Friday, January 23, 2004 19:20
VIEWED: 24375
PAGE 7 of 11
Quote:
Originally posted by Succatash:
To talk more specifically about guns, here's how I see it.
More guns cause more gun deaths. More cars cause more car crashes. More births cause more deaths.
It's just a simple fact. I wish everybody didn't need a gun and wasn't so afraid. As the world gets scarier, more people will buy guns, and more people will die. And that sucks.
But taking away the right to own a gun is not the answer, because it's not the problem.
My mother grew up in backwoods Oklahoma. No electricity, no running water, and of course an outhouse. (If only she'd condescended to go into politics... growing up with an outhouse is such a status symbol these days.)
As she puts it, she grew up 'crawling over guns.' Every house had 'em, generally stored near to hand by propping them up in the near corner.
My father went to a high school where on Fridays half the pickups had guns in gun racks because the students were heading out after school straight to hunting trips.
I went to high school at a time when they were warning us we couldn't just stash our guns in the trunks for that very purpose, because by golly they were having to actually enforce the law at this point.
Common denominator? School shootings were unheard of events in all three situations. Yet anywhere from ninety percent to fifty percent of the student body had easy access to firearms, depending on which era you're looking at.
Guns do not equal more killing. Possession of a gun is not necessarily an expression of fear. As Wulfhawk pointed out, Switzerland is awash with legally owned weapons, up to and including heavy machine guns and light artillery pieces.* Obviously they're not knee-deep in blood over there.
There is fear out there, and mistakes are made on the basis of that fear, agreed. But none of us get out of this life alive, and those are the risks that the majority of the public seem willing to run.
*reference to the light artillery comes from a magazine article I read over a decade ago. Cannot source the quote.
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CaesarI wrote:
"I won't even go into the other claims in the cartoon, but I can't watch 15 seconds of it without wanting to point out the inaccuracy."
Just curious, but was there a law created, after the NRA was founded, that banned black people from owning guns? I'd like to know.
Inaccuracy... are you referring to the part about white people wiping out Indians, or how America became rich from slavery? The witch hunts? Making blacks sit in the back of the bus?
Am I missing something? Besides the KKK/NRA connection, what is inaccurate?
Seriously, I'd like to hear anyone's thoughts.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Succatash:
Just curious, but was there a law created, after the NRA was founded, that banned black people from owning guns? I'd like to know.
Inaccuracy... are you referring to the part about white people wiping out Indians, or how America became rich from slavery? The witch hunts? Making blacks sit in the back of the bus?
Seriously, I'd like to hear anyone's thoughts.
Issues, issues... starting out, a lot of Southern legislation was aimed at the fear of blacks acquiring weaponry. Two specific circumstances I can speak to... prior to concealed carry in Texas you could legally carry a gun if you were a small business owner with a certain amount of cash on your person (believe it was 230$)
Specifically allowing the 'better folks' to pack heat and keep it out of the hands of them lesser types. The situation is better than that now, though I for one still think the cost of concealed carry in most states is still too damn high to make it readily available to those who need it most.
Secondly, the United States did NOT grow rich on chattel slavery. It was the growing wealth of the industrial north that made slavery obsolete, which allowed an abolitionist movement to take root and push the end of slavery through. I disagree with the means that were used, and will argue that 'ending slavery' was in no way the Union's primary objective in invading the Confederacy. But that is neither here nor there for the sake of the original question.
One other thing that might interest you, because it's not commonly known. The British Empire, in one of the most supremely powerful moral statements ever made by a major power, basically said "We will not tolerate slavery." and was the driving force behind the end of slavery in the Western world. They drove the trans-Atlantic slavery business into virtual non-existance. They applied severe military and political pressure to Brazil, among others, to end the practice. More commonly known, it was Prince Albert's opposition to slavery that kept them from offering recognition and perhaps support to the Confederacy, which went a long way toward dooming the revolution.
You asked for thoughts, and there you have it.
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Er. I meant to leave off my second example about blacks and guns, so I could revisit it here. Yeah, meant it that way all along.
Goes like this. My father was a cop when the Black Panthers were in the early throes of being born. At this point in California, there were a lot of our esteemed guardians of order who found their jollies in bouncing nightsticks and flashlights off the heads of folks in the poor sides of town down in SoCal. At this point, open carry of firearms was allowed in California. So what happened was that black folks, many of them recently returned veterans, started slinging up rifles and holstering pistols, and just following cop cars around their part of town. No confrontations, no threats. Just following them around.
Well damn, suddenly open carry is a bad thing, and shortly thereafter, becomes prohibited. The Black Panthers go on to bigger and better things.
(And my father got out of the police business when he mulled over the fact that he could shoot a brown person for any particular reason and probably not have to sweat it, but if he had occasion to have to shoot the wrong white perpetrator under the most justified of circumstances, he'd be staring at a stretch of time in Federal housing. The situation rather offended his innate sense of justice.)
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I'm sorry, Succatash...in advance.
Your elitism concerns me. Your fellow Americans are stupid? You probably don't mean me. But do you mean my kids? My grandkid?
I gotta tell ya, there are many smart folks I wouldn't trust behind me with a gun...or a knife...or a strong rubber band. Some of the folks I would be sure to recruit into my militia I'm sure you wouldn't regard as smart.
And talkin about fear, lemme tell ya a tale.
There's a little woman, several years my senior, who carries the mail on the route next to mine. By little, I mean little...if she is over 5'1", it ain't by much. Couple of years ago, a convict on her route dumps his Rotties in his mother's backyard when he leaves for prison. You know what comes next.
One day the dogs, each one as large as this woman, jump the fence, chase her down, and attack her. She clearly remembers being on the ground with both dogs biting her, and has the scars to prove it. Was she afraid? Of course, but when the dogs started fighting with each other over her, she escaped, and ran bleeding to her truck, blocks away.
I chat with her every day. She is still carrying the mail, every day. Fear? Damn right, every day. Does it stop this near 50 woman? In no way or fashion.
Your perception of all the fear and paranoia seems exaggerated. Of course, I have a great example right beside me every day of courage.
tanstaafl
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I admit I sure can be an asshole. I am smart, and yes, I admit that I find most people stupid. I'm talking about things we bitch about on this site. I find the mainstream American Idol and Reality TV mentality to be STUPID. Sorry, I'm working on my attitude.
That's a great story about the old lady and the dogs. Thanks.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfhawk:
Lerxst, I still owe you a Tequila challenge, don't I? I really own only one gun, a nice 12ga extended mag. However, my collection of swords and knives can bring visitors to a dead stop. 8)
And thanks to years of Medieval sword training, I like to think my Kukri is a match for any handgun...so long as we are in the same dark room.
I learned tanstaafl from Robert A. Heinlein's works of science fiction. Worth your time, if you got the time.
Glock 9mm, AR-15 with a decent scope & 30-shot mag, coupla swords, a machete, and a bolo knife.
Shoulda known that was Heinlein, must be too long since I read him last. If you like Starship Troopers (the book), check out Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War".
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Raspberry! Only one man would dare give me the raspberry...LONESTAR!!
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Don't worry, Succatash Dude...you're one of my very most favorite assholes.
Lersxt, a bolo knife? forward curve, heavy in the tip? If so, that's also called a Kukri, after the knives carried by the awesome and much feared Ghurka troops. Very cool.
tanstaafl
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Oh, yeah, saw R. Lee talking about it. Very cool indeed. Dad brought it back from Burma.
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Raspberry! Only one man would dare give me the raspberry...LONESTAR!!
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I used to be elitist too. While I think there are a few people who are beyond help from an intellectual standpoint, it's been my experience that just about anyone can become intelligent and educated.
But you wanted me to pick apart Moore's portrayal of US history for you. You've woken a sleeping dragon my friend. In short, Moore's brief summary of US history is a distorted view which subjagates accuracy to achieving its aims, based upon Moore's correct assumption that most people in the audience don't know history as well as I do, and would therefore not be disgusted by it. Moore's movie is called a documentary, and won the Oscar for best documentary, but it is not a documentary in any sense of the word.
Pardon my sarcasm here, but I really resent that you'd even ask me to do this after I said I didn't want to get into it. ::sigh:: Oh well, I'll teach you what your American History teacher should have I guess.
So let's go with the history bit, piece by piece.
#1, we have our guide as "Mr Bullet" automatically causing the audience to have firearms on the brain, as if they didn't have it in there enough already. Brilliant propaganda.
#2, the Pilgrims, were afraid of being persecuted, and all hopped on a boat. They didn't all hope on a boat, they came over in a variety of waves. Initially based in England, they moved to Holland which was rather a Libertarian paradise, and the country was too morally bankrupt for the Pilgrims, who wanted to found "A Citty Upon a Hill" for their civilization. They were afraid of persecution in England (justly so), but were not afraid of it in Holland, they were afraid their kids would become morally corrupt.
#4, They landed and got scared by savages, and killed them all. Uh huh... the pilgrims didn't do much "Indian" killing. Most of the Native Americans were wiped out in the millions by disease brought by the Spanish before the arrival of the Pilgrims. The exact numbers vary... and no one can know for sure, some say the pre-European population was 100 million, others less. In either case, no one blames the Chinese for killing millions of Europeans in the black plague, so blaming the Pilgrims, or the Spanish for killing the Native Americans is disingenuous at best, and dishonest propaganda at worst. Most of the intentional killing of Native Americans wasn't done till much later after the formation of the United States. Oh, and they didn't "wipe out a race of people" that would be genocide. I know a lot of Native Americans who are very insulted by Moore's implication here. They survived an attemptd genocide perpetrated upon them by the United States government due to the Native's having inferior arms to the United States government. We had laws forbidding the sale of certain weapon to Native Americans, I wonder why...
#5, The reasons for the Witch Hunts were numerous, and the matter is still debated in historical circles. None of the reasons cited is "they got scared of each other". Moore threw that explanation in cause it fits his preconceived theory.
#6, "they started killing the british" the revolutionary war was precipitated by a LOT of crap. A WHOLE lot. I'm not EVEN going to go into that one, that's a whole book right there. One of the events however, was the British attempt to seize colonial's weapons. Hmm...
#7, "but they still didn't feel safe" yeah... that's why the 2nd amendment was passed alright. That's exactly why. I know all sorts of scholars who say that's exactly why it was passed. Yup, I just can't remember any of their names, or where they were educated, or where i saw them. You might even say they don't exist. The 2nd amendment was passed because the founders of the United States feared a standing army. There are other reasons, like Mr Henry's belief in the need for a bill of rights, but that's an essay... actually a collection of essays, they're called the "Federalist Papers" and the "Anti Federalist Papers".
#8, "kidnapped thousands of black people" try millions, and they often weren't kidnapped by the Americans. Funny story, the Bla
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