More Gun Insanity

Random Ramblings
41

Furnishedowner,

“I’m willing to give up the right to buy a gun privately without a background check. I’m willing to pay a permit fee, license fee, registration fee on my gun. I’m willing to give up the right to re-sell that gun privately. I want to ensure that the new owner of my gun gets a background check done. I’ll sell it to a gun dealer who will do the mandatory check.”

Here’s where I disagree with you strongly… Just because YOU are OK and are willing to give up your rights and freedoms does NOT make it OK for the rest of us… The difference is, you want to use the government to FORCE others to give up theirs…

“So when it’s stolen and used in a crime it can be traced to whomever is the registered owner. Who didn’t take good enough care of the gun but allowed it to be stolen.”

Two things… 1) how does someone ALLOW a gun to be stolen?.. and 2) don’t you know that if someone buys a gun off the black market, it is made untraceable? So how will a registered gun, which has been doctored going to be traced to whomever the registered owner is?

“Someone is buying or stealing guns and then selling or trading them to drug dealers, just like you said. Right now you can sell your personal gun without a background check on your buyer. Let’s stop that loophole.”

Even if you were SUCCESSFUL in getting law abiding citizens to do this… you STILL can’t erase the black market for this (the LARGEST loophole in your plan), which is WHY Englands gun deaths DOUBLED after they got rid of guns… guns used in other crimes are CHEAPER over there, BTW…

“And let’s start buy-backs of guns in crime-ridden areas. Cash talks. This has worked really well in a number of places. People will be selling their guns to make rent money. This could only help you, Propertymanager. If ALL guns become traceable, then there will be some accountability from those who now flout the gun laws. Remember the crook Al Capone? He was put away for violating INCOME TAX LAWS. We could clean up some streets by enforcing gun registration laws.”

If they would just enforce EXISTING laws, things would be even better… gun buy-back programs do not have any real effect because there are many ways to get guns…

“Look, it’s plain insanity that things go on the same way. It’s not working. We are not safe from random gun violence and crazy shooters. It’s the guns in the wrong hands I am talking about.”

How is doing what you are suggesting going to remove guns from criminals?

“Insanity is continuing to do what isn’t working. You can count on seeing tightening of gun laws. Sensible gun owners will want to help get guns off the street.”

If you haven’t got it yet… the effort should be on the CRIMINALS and the ILLEGAL guns, NOT the law-abiding gun owners…

YOU want to focus on law-abiding gun owners, and burden them with addtitional regulations, TAXES, permits, fees, licenses, etc…

WE want the criminal to be burdened… and our rights left alone…

42

OK, I agree that the stolen gun responsibility idea wasn’t well thought out. But here one of my neighbors had his house broken into and his 7 guns stolen. They weren’t in any kind of locked cabinet. So I would say that made it too easy; guns should be DIFFICULT to steal.

The only gun I have ever fired was an Uzzi machine gun. I went on a ride-along patrol once with the Israeli Army in the Negev Desert, a Druze unit. That was some time ago.

What are your ideas for lessening gun crime? Other than: 1. Issuing more guns to everybody. 2. Blaming gun crime on liberals. 3. ?

Furnishedowner

43
OK, I agree that the stolen gun responsibility idea wasn't well thought out. But here one of my neighbors had his house broken into and his 7 guns stolen. They weren't in any kind of locked cabinet. So I would say that made it too easy; guns should be DIFFICULT to steal.

There you go again - you’re blaming YOUR law abiding neighbor INSTEAD OF THE CRIMINAL! What is wrong with you? Can’t you understand that the blame for crime lies solely with the criminal? If you were really against gun violence then maybe you should be willing to severly punish the scumbag that broke into your neighbor’s house and stole the guns. How about life in prison without parole? You claim it’s a serious problem - are you willing to exact a serious punishment? What if the thief is a muslim, black, European? Would you still be willing to punish them or should be just give them a group hug?

What are your ideas for lessening gun crime?

Get serious about prosecuting and punishing the CRIMINALS! This isn’t brain surgery. It should be obvious, even to you liberals, that if you want to stop crime you’ve got to DEAL WITH THE CRIMINALS! Taxing, harrassing, registering, or licensing law abiding citizens will have NO EFFECT ON WHAT THE CRIMINALS DO (except to embolden them and INCREASE VIOLENT CRIME)!

That’s the problem - you socialists aren’t willing to hold people responsible for their actions. Whether it’s a muslim terrorist (like the Fort Hood shooter); a coddled child molestor in Vermont; or the black gang banger in the hood - you liberals want to make excuses for the scumbags instead of severly punishing them! The only people you ARE willing to blame are law abiding citizens! Why is that?

44

Here’s a law that will reduce gun crime. Instead of the public service announcement being “use a gun, go to jail” change the law to “use a gun, get the death penalty within 60 days”.

Not that it would slow down the hardened criminals and drugs addicts, but you have to say this about the death penalty: it cuts down the number of repeat offenders.

FO, it’s already against the law to steal a gun. It’s already against the law to smuggle in cheap unregistered weapons from places like Brazil and China. It’s already against the law to use a gun in the commission of a crime. It’s already against the law to shoot another human being exccept in self defense or the defense of an inocent 3rd party. Get those laws unforced and it would certainly reduce the gun crime problem.

Passing laws against persons who aren’t breaking the law in any way, shape, or form does nothing to reduce crime. If you want to reduce crime, you have to go after the criminals.

45

Furnishedowner,

“OK, I agree that the stolen gun responsibility idea wasn’t well thought out. But here one of my neighbors had his house broken into and his 7 guns stolen. They weren’t in any kind of locked cabinet. So I would say that made it too easy; guns should be DIFFICULT to steal.”

We’ve already established that murderers can be just as lethal with a knife as a gun, as knife crime in England and Japan are going UP and getting more lethal… a murderer WILL find a way even if it is BARE HANDS… so do you feel the same about all your neighbors kitchen knives? Should they also be locked up? The are certainly more accessible, and there’s no question as to it’s location… this goes for cars, as well…

I think the problem here is you are assigning blame and responsibility to an inanimate object, as opposed to the one USING IT.

To make this point crystal-clear… based on your logic… your neighbor should be held just as responsible for allowing his car to be stolen and used in a DUI or drive-by death, or their butcher knives in the kitchen be stolen and used in a stabbing… How can you hold your neighbor responsible for the gun and not these??? If someone steals a knife from one of your furnished rentals to stab someone, or a chord from a lamp to strangle someone, or some cleaning supplies to poison someone or worse yet, you didn’t do a BACKGROUND CHECK on one of your renters, and they murdered another of your renters, with any of these objects or even their own hands, under your logic, YOU ARE ACCOUTABLE for all of these things…

Why should YOU not have to perform a BACKGOUND CHECK on your renters?

According to the below FBI website on actual murders from 2004, KNIVES or cutting instruments were used on 14.1% of all the murders, or 1,866 deaths. Now, these stats DO NOT include - “deaths caused by negligence, suicide, or accident; justifiable homicides; and attempts to murder or assaults to murder, which are scored as aggravated assaults.” So we are talking about the actual murders…

Weapons used in Murders 2004
Total Murders 14,121

Total firearms: 9,326

  • Handguns 7,265
  • Rifles 393
  • Shotguns 507
  • Other guns 117
  • Firearms, type not stated 1,044
    Knives or cutting instruments 1,866
    Blunt objects (clubs, hammers, etc.) 663
    Personal weapons (hands, fists,
    feet, etc.) 933
    Poison 11
    Explosives 1
    Fire 114
    Narcotics 76
    Drowning 15
    Strangulation 155
    Asphyxiation 105
    Other weapons or weapons
    not stated 856

So total firearm murders were 9326… in a population of 310,000,000, it is statistically insignificant… now, before the knee-jerk reaction of “I’m sure it’s not insignificant to the families”… that’s a given… A THIRD of ALL the murders were by things OTHER than firearms… so someone INTENT on murder WILL find a way…

My point is that England had about the SAME amount of deaths from Knives as the US and they are a fraction of our population, and this was AFTER they TOOK ALL THE GUNS from LAW-ABIDING gun owners. So how does licensing, permits, TAXES, fees, etc of LAW-ABIDING gun owners who already PEACIBLY own over 200,000,000 guns do ANYTHING to REDUCE the ACTUAL DEATHS?

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_crime/murder.html

What is also very interesting about the stats of the murders, if you take the time to read it, you’ll find that that just about HALF of the murders were committed by someone they KNEW… So again, how does licensing, permits, TAXES, fees, of LAW-ABIDING gun owners address this?

If you can get PAST the “feelings” part of this, and look at the FACTS, it becomes much clearer that imposing all the burdens you want to impose on LAW-ABIDING gun owners as opposed to puttng the burden WHERE IT BELONGS, on the criminal, TOTALLY MISSES THE MARK…

If you don’t get it past this point, I don’t know what to say to you…

46

Maybe we should just CUT OFF THEIR RIGHT ARMS (usually the gun hand, right)?

Of course criminals are liable for their actions! Yes, we have laws on the books. But the gun laws differ from state to state, you can just drive over a state line if you don’t like the laws in your state. The laws are not uniform enough to be enforceable. Does anyone agree that we need uniformally enforceable laws?

Well, let’s just tally up the conservative responses so far on how to deal with excess gun violence:

  1. Issue more guns to everybody.
  2. Blame gun crime on group-hugging liberals.
  3. Enact Death penalty within 60 days for anyone misusing a gun (Hmm…is it too late to prosecute Cheney?!)
  4. Life imprisonment without parole for any gun crime.

I thought you guys are of the conservative–spend no money!–don’t change anything!–ilk.

I proposed changing the laws, enforcing the new universal, tougher laws and laying the financial burden of guns and gun enforcement onto gun owners and users, legal and illegal.

What you all have proposed is REALLY EXPENSIVE. Who is going to pay for those guns issued to every elementary schoolteacher, waitress, office worker? Our rights ensure that death penalty cases get a right to appeal; there will be a ton of money going to lawyers. Our prisons are already overcrowded. We will need new mega-prisons built, and quickly.

You have all increased our government deficit! Who is going to pay for this madness?! You want me, a non-gun totin’ liberal to pay for all YOUR gun problems?! I DON’T THINK SO.

Seriously though, can’t you come up with any other ideas for our home-grown killing fields? Ideas that might keep us safer?

Furnishedowner

47
Well, let's just tally up the conservative responses so far on how to deal with excess gun violence:
  1. Issue more guns to everybody.
  2. Blame gun crime on group-hugging liberals.
  3. Enact Death penalty within 60 days for anyone misusing a gun (Hmm…is it too late to prosecute Cheney?!)
  4. Life imprisonment without parole for any gun crime.

It is crystal clear to me that you are not serious about this issue and that you are simply trolling. No-one (including you) could have such poor reading and comprehension skills that you could characterize the conservative response as you did above.

If anyone suggested “issuing” guns to everybody, I didn’t see it and I certainly wouldn’t agree with it. For example, I would NOT be in favor of someone with your sub-standard thinking skills having a gun. That is a disaster waiting to happen. What I am in favor of is allowing all law-abiding citizens to have a gun (except you). Obviously, not everyone would choose to carry one, but enough people would that the violent crime rate would be drastically reduced.

Liberals ARE to blame for the crime problem we have today. Their unwillingness to hold people accountable for their actions is DIRECTLY to blame for most of our societal ills. FO, you yourself want to blame a law abiding citizen if some scumbag breaks into their house and steals something. That is absurd and yet that is your position.

You liberals HAVE DESTROYED the black community with your social welfare programs. YOU have caused the shameful crime rate in black America. It is a disgrace and you liberals are to blame.

No-body seriously wants to execute someone within 60 days (before they’ve had a fair trial), but we do want criminals punished seriously for their crimes. If you were serious about stopping violence, you would be for that too. However, your BRILLIANT idea is to punish law abiding citizens for the actions of criminals. You’re clueless - it’s that simple.

As to your assertion that it would cost more money to incarcerate millions of additional criminals - DUH! Yes it would and I would gladly pay my portion. However, my preference would be to make prisons MISERABLE places where no criminal would ever want to go. I would stop all the politically correct nonsense (like special food for this religion or that); stop tv; stop the recreation; and put the criminals to HARD labor. That would significantly cut down on the cost and be a deterrent to crime.

Do you have even a single intellegent thought on this subject or are you just trolling? Before you answer, be advised that punishing law abiding citizens is not an acceptable response.

48

propertymanager and others,
Sorry, I don’t know what trolling is, other than a fishing term.

Actually, I’m beginning to think that YOU are the problem. I ask for some intelligent debate and ideas on how to lessen our horrendous number of gun deaths. You don’t even admit that there is a problem. You blame EVERYTHING wrong with our society on liberals, who you characterize as socialists.

You have called me clueless, ignorant, ridiculous, with sub-standard and shallow thinking skills. You have blamed me personally for destroying Black Families.(!)

selnbama called me totally insane. Hoosier, stupid. PosOutlook, easily manipulated.

Yet the batch of you have come up either with NO IDEAS, or:

tatertot–Use a gun in a crime, death penalty in 60 days.
Bluemoon06–Mandatory that everyone over 18 has a gun in public.
Propertymanager–Arm law-abiding citizens, have more guns. Create
harsh environments in prisons (chain gangs?). Life in prison, no parole.
John_in_NC-- Thin out criminals like deer, repeal Federal drug laws.

Also, propertymanager, (facetiously, I hope)–Provide free, high caliber handguns to every criminal so they can shoot each other.

You are all screaming about the idea of new tough gun laws. Laws that would allow you to KEEP YOUR GUNS! Yet you came up with the above nonsense as ways to DECREASE gun crime!

I have asked for ideas on how to lessen our gun violence. Instead you have pitched tantrums. Instead you have hurled insults. Instead you have contributed nothing. Let’s hope you are not indicative of the millions of other gun owners who might want to talk about this huge, worsening, national problem.

Furnishedowner

By the way, the info. on “guns going to Mexico” and our need for more Border Patrol funding came from discussions with our Border Patrol tenants.

49

Your missing the point Furnished… even if takings guns away would help crime (which it wont), they dont even have the right too. So … why even bother?

What part of the 2nd amendment do you not understand? You have no right to limit my # of guns, you have no right to tax them to the point of not wanting one.

Again, Laws will only hurt law-abiding citizens.

Everybody on this board thinks your a complete moron on this issue, so chances are… you’re the “problem”, not us.

See… this is the thing you Liberals dont understand. Your never going to be able to take away guns. Why? Because alot of people, regardless of laws, arent going to give them up. I know I will give up my guns( and wont follow any anti-liberty regulations). Even if that is breaking the law.

50

Furnishedowner,

What many have been trying to demonstrate to you is your flawed logic… Furnishedowners SOLUTIONS are to…

1. Place the burden on the LAW-ABIDING gun owners, who own over 200,000,000+ guns in the USA with little incident, by TAXING them, registration, permits, fees, etc. as opposed to putting the burden on the CRIMINALS…

2. Hold a gun-owner RESPONSIBLE for a CRIMINAL breaking the law, by breaking into their home, breaking the law by stealing the law-abiding gun owners gun, breaking the law again in the commission of a CRIME using said gun… and you expect people to take you serious when you say this??? Then how come you don’t answer why LAW-ABIDING people should ALSO not have to LOCK-UP their butcher knives in the kitchen, their car, both of which are MORE accessible to a CRIMINAL as they KNOW where they are located

3. Buy-back programs - There was a 2004 study on guns and violence which showed that the guns given in at these buy-back programs are the LEAST LIKELY to be used in a crime. The Surgeon General ALSO said it was ineffective in a report on Youth Violence. So you can CONTINUE to buy into a “feel-good” program DEMONSTRATING that you are willing to be manipulated DESPITE the evidence.

I mean we could go on, but you are not REALLY interested in solving the issue, because when FACTS are presented to you, and your position challenged, and you are asked straight-forward questions, you COWER away from them and don’t ANSWER THEM… so how do you expect us to take you seriously?

1. If someone is convicted of a crime using a gun, it AUTOMATICALLY doubles their sentence.

2. If someone is convicted of a MURDER with a gun, no parole…

3. REAL sentences for criminal acts - if you get 3 years, you serve three years, and with BASIC living conditions - Amenities, such as TV, weight-rooms, Internet, etc. if we can’t get rid of them and all the associated expenses, then access to ALL of these amenities have to be earned through physical work, good behavior, etc.

Again, we could go on, but in REALITY, NONE of the above would be able to be put into effect BECAUSE of the liberal mindset and ACLU… which is WHY CRIMINALS ALREADY HAVE ACCESS TO ALL THIS…

What it comes down to is that YOU Furnishedowner want to take the GUNS, the inanimate objects out of the equation, WE want to take the CRIMINAL the ones who ILLEGALLY USE guns, knives, etc. out of the equation… Simple as that…

With what YOU want to do, LAW-ABIDING gun owners have to give up constitutional rights, recreation use and self-defense… With what WE want to do, the CRIMINAL is the one who has to give something up…

So JOIN US on the side of supporting giving the PEOPLE of this great country more power… NOT the government…

51

Furnishedowner,

Yes, you have been called ignorant - which you ARE on this issue. That is beyond debate. You proposed banning cop-killer bullets which don’t exist and banning machine guns which have been essentially banned for decades. Your other big idea is to tax law-abiding gun owners in an effort to limit the number of firearms they can afford to own. Your most ridiculous idea is to punish law abiding citizens if a CRIMINAL breaks into their home. BRILLIANT! Is it any wonder that people are pointing out your ignorance?

Yes, you have been called a socialist and you clearly are one! You have continually demonstrated that you want the government to control every aspect of our lives and THAT IS SOCIALISM (or worse).

Yes, I blamed you and the rest of your liberal friends for destroying the black community. The facts will show that your liberal social welfare programs have indeed done that. YOU and your liberal friends are personally responsible for the extraordinarily high number of young black men that are in prison. YOU and your liberal friends are personally responsible for the runaway drug problem in the black community. It’s YOU that are the problem. It’s YOUR “solutions” that are the problem. However, I know that in true socialist fashion, you certainly can not accept responsibility for your actions and I don’t expect you to do so.

I mean we could go on, but you are not REALLY interested in solving the issue, because when FACTS are presented to you, and your position challenged, and you are asked straight-forward questions, you COWER away from them and don't ANSWER THEM... so how do you expect us to take you seriously?

Well said by PositiveOutlook! The FACT is that when guns were BANNED in England, gun crime exploded. An inconvenient truth for you socialists. The FACT is that when states pass concealed carry laws, violent crime decreases. Oops, that doesn’t fit with the socialist propaganda either. The FACT is that we have a CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to keep and bear arms that “shall not be infringed”, yet YOU socialists want to infringe on it anyway.

The SOLUTIION THAT WILL WORK, beyond any doubt, is to PUNISH CRIMINALS in a significant way. However, you haven’t shown any willingness to want to punish the guilty - only the innocent! HOW SCREWED UP IS THAT? Did I mention that you are CLUELESS? Yep, I think that’s about right.

52

This is the kind of gun control I’m talking about! Excellent control by an 11 year old!

[i]BUTTE, MONTANA

Shotgun preteen vs. Illegal alien Home Invaders:
Butte, Montana November 5, 2007

Two illegal aliens, Ralphel Resindez, 23, and Enrico Garza, 26, probably believed they would easily overpower home-alone 11 year old Patricia Harrington after her father had left their two-story home.

It seems the two crooks never learned two things: they were in Montana and Patricia had been a clay shooting champion since she was nine.

Patricia was in her upstairs room when the two men broke through the front door of the house. She quickly ran to her father’s room and grabbed his 12 gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun.

Resindez was the first to get up to the second floor only to be the first to catch a near point blank blast of buckshot from the 11-year-old’s knee crouch aim. He suffered fatal wounds to his
Abdomen and genitals.

When Garza ran to the foot of the stairs, he took a blast to the left shoulder and staggered out into the street where he bled to death before medical help could arrive.

It was found out later that Resindez was armed with a stolen 45 caliber handgun he took from another home invasion robbery. That victim, 50-year-old David 0Burien, was not so lucky. He died from stab wounds to the chest.

Ever wonder why good stuff never makes NBC, CBS, PBS, MSNBC, CNN, or ABC news…an 11 year old girl, properly trained, defended her home, and herself…against two murderous, illegal immigrants…and she wins,
She is still alive.

Now that is Gun Control !

Thought for the day:

Calling an illegal alien an ‘undocumented immigrant’ is like calling a drug dealer an ‘unlicensed pharmacist’ [/i]

I’m just wondering if FurnishedOwner thinks the 11 year old should be punished? Remember the socialist mantra: coddle the criminals and punish the innocent!

53

Furnished,

I too am starting to doubt your comprehension skills,I said YOUR POST was insane.I leave the labeling to you liberals when you are losing arguments with facts.The TERRORIST(THAT’S WHAT HE WAS)was shot by a cop because the soldiers were’nt armed.Don’t you think if they were he may have only gotten off one shot not over 40!!?

More responsible gun owners regulate the underpaid/outnumbered police and this is a perfect example.The state laws vary for the same reason of competition,if you don’t like your state law you move to another that suits you.That’s been the beauty of this "freedom"nation we enjoy that the liberals are trying to change by throwing federal blankets over the whole nation.This is also the case with the healthcare bill.One size fits all takes away freedom,simple as that.Only a liberal would blame this on gun control and not look at the evidence of TERRORISM!

54

You know until furnishedowner started questioning how we handle guns, I really never thought about how redneck I really am. My wife’s mother for years when we were dating always came home with a Popeye’s chicken bag she would greet everyone and take the chicken to her bedroom. She would then come out and cook dinner. I though that was strange until I asked her about it. She told me that was how she carried her gun to and from work and to and from the car etc. In a Popeye’s chicken bag with an X marked on the business end.

I asked to look at it. It was a crappy 22. Let me draw you the picture…she was a little old church going woman that kept a really nice house and loved to garden…just like Aunt Bea in Andy of Mayberry. The fact is that she was not going to rob any banks or mug anybody she just needed to be safe from thugs. The fact is that if she shot somebody, it would be indeed because that person was a scumbag and she needed to be protected from them. That scumbag needed to die before they hit the ground. I saw that gun and about a month after I married her daughter I bought her a real gun to replace that one. I bought her an S&W .357. It had more stopping power and even if she missed the sound would knock the scumbag down.

Is buying Aunt Bea a .38 special a redneck thing to do or what?

55
Is buying Aunt Bea a .38 special a redneck thing to do or what?

Nope! Very thoughtful gift!!!

56

Propertymanager,

Great article… who knows what would have happened to that young lady if she hadn’t defended herself…

The most interesting paragraph from the article was…

“It was found out later that Resindez was armed with a stolen 45 caliber handgun he took from another home invasion robbery. That victim, 50-year-old David 0Burien, was not so lucky. He died from stab wounds to the chest.”

So we have a 50-year old victim who was STABBED TO DEATH… Since they stole his gun, I wonder if they used the victims own kitchen knife?..

The article you post just clearly demonstrates the weakness of Furnishedowners argument from start to finish… if someone is going to kill, they WILL find a way, even if it is BARE HANDS…

Even IF we followed ALL of Furnishedowners recommendations about TAXING, licenses, permits, fees, “monitoring”, etc. guess what? Those two killers would STILL have gotten that 50-year old’s gun BECAUSE it was stolen from him AFTER he was STABBED TO DEATH by the CRIMINALS, and for all we know it could’ve been with the 50-year old’s own knife from his own kitchen (admittedly speculation)…

To add insult to injury, had the two CRIMINALS been successful in their second attempt and KILLED the young lady with the gun, not to mention whatever horrible fate potentially awaited her… all they had to do to get RID OF the evidence, was wipe the STOLEN gun clean, and GET PAID at a Gun-BUY-BACK program, as they are usually NO QUESTIONS ASKED…

Furnishedowner, here you have your concept on FULL DISPLAY… NONE of what you offered would have changed the circumstances here, but what WE are offering (i.e. - gun ownership, self-defense, the right to bear arms) SAVED THIS GIRLS LIFE… you know, the INNOCENT LAW-ABIDING one…

Have the FACTS begun to self-correct your “feel-good” emotions on this yet?

57

Clearly FurnishedOwner knows something you don’t know PositiveOutlook. That 50 year old that was stabbed to death deserves punishment for allowing himself to be killed and his gun stolen. Maybe FO would like to spit on his grave or leave his body for the wolves. As for that little 11 year old girl - surely she deserves detention in an appropriate facility. After all, she killed two very nice men who were simply misunderstood by society! If she would have only been a good little girl and allowed those two nice men to rape and murder her - FurnishedOwner could approve!

58

You guys can rant and rave and carry on all you want. Nothing changes the fact of an obscene number of gun deaths.

You have not come up with one single reasonable idea to lessen gun crime. You have mocked the very fact that I have tried to have a dialogue about this.

Only about half of Americans are gun owners. The 200 million gun arsenal is owned by the rest of you. Have of the populace wants tougher, universal gun laws. Laws that would have a chance of working.

It’s astonishing to me that the same bunch of you is so averse to getting a health care bill that covers the uninsured. You scream about the cost. Yet you don’t mind the huge societal cost of thousands and thousands of gun deaths and injuries, many of them innocent people.

I first became aware of the horror of senseless gun crime in the Columbine incident. High school students in Columbine, Colorado were mowed down by two other high school students. Two boys who were too young to own guns. So they got an 18-year old girl to go to a gun show, buy guns, and bought them from her. Easy.

That’s the kind of loophole that should be closed. I would like all gun sales to go through gun dealers. No private party sales. No sales to someone who hasn’t had a course in gun safety. It is insanity to allow ANYONE to get a gun. I want only sane, trained, adult, licensed, registered gun owners. I don’t think it is too much to ask for. Too much infringement of your rights.

Columbine changed everything for me. It made our whole family damned mad. So mad that my family and I got in our RV and drove hours and hours to Denver. Where the NRA was insensitively holding their convention 3 days after the Columbine Massacre. So if you were watching CNN in those days, that was MY 13-year-old daughter, picketing the NRA convention with a sign that said, “STOP GUN MADNESS! I WANT A PROM, NOT A FUNERAL!”.

Hundreds of other people showed up as well as the parents of the dead students. It was unplanned. It was a spontaneous outpouring of outrage and grief. A spontaneous march of people fed up with senseless gun crime.

There are millions of people just like me. How much is enough? Why don’t you want to help pay for this huge cost to our society? Why don’t you want to find solutions? No one wants to take your guns. We just want you responsible for them. Right now you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Does any of you have the balls to say:
Yes, 34,000 dead in one year is too g…damn many!
Yes, we SHOULD stop indiscriminate private party sales, at least in gun shows.
Yes, we should try gun buy-backs, at least try pilot programs.
Yes, maybe we DO need universal laws so that they can be enforced.

I am waiting.

Furnishedowner

59

Yaint’ gonna hear it from any of us you silly Liberal.

60

I can agree with the number of gun deaths being too much.But then again I’m willing to bet the farm that more than half of these are in those great govt housing neighborhoods you liberals love so much.These are mostly full of the types that if they could’nt shoot each other they’d stab each other.Either way guns only do what the person holding them want them to.So if I get the directions to build a bomb of the net should we ban computers?