A New Jersey man gets seven years for being a responsible gun owner!

[stanmaxkolbe]

A New Jersey man gets seven years for being a responsible gun owner!!!

Man you won’t believe this?

The Article:
A New Jersey man gets seven years for being a responsible gun owner.

Sue Aitken called the police because she was worried about her son, Brian. She now lives with the guilt of knowing that her phone call is the reason Brian spent his 27th birthday in a New Jersey prison last month. If the state gets its way, he will be there for the next seven years.
Read rest of article:
reason.com/archives/2010/11/1…tkens-mistake/

 

[stanmaxkolbe]

Thank God I live in Texas-this is nuts!

Lesson learned; in New Jersey don’t call the cops!

 

[wabrams]

If I read the article correctly, it seems the state of NJ coinsiders you guilty until proven innocent if you are in possession of a handgun.

 

[Baer]

My understanding is that they are currently appealing to Gov. Christie if you want to write to him in support state.nj.us/governor/contact/

 

[JRKH]

Seems to me he has a very good case on appeal considering how the badly the Judge screwed up. Failure to provide the jurors with pertinant points of Law and not permitting certain evidence at trial… It’s no wonder that the Judge was removed from the bench.

Perhaps, if this business gets enough publicity the legislature in NJ will take a look at how screwed up the laws, as written and applied, are.

Peace
James

 

[colmcille1]

Hi all,
Okay so it’s off-topic but why would anyone want three guns in the first place?
I do not understand the love of guns. Is there a much-needed time in man’s future when his heart will be cleansed of the violent impulse?
God Bless,
Colmcille.

 

[JRKH]

Hi all,
Okay so it’s off-topic but why would anyone want three guns in the first place?
I do not understand the love of guns. Is there a much-needed time in man’s future when his heart will be cleansed of the violent impulse?
God Bless,
Colmcille.

Owning a gun does not mean that a person must have a “violent impulse”. I am not violent, never have been, but I use to own a shotgun and I use to hunt small game which helped to put food on the table.

I can give you just one of many reasons a person might own three guns.
Shotgun for hunting (Mainly) rabbits and squirrel.
Small bore rifle for shooting groundhogs, muskrats and other small “varmits” around a farm property.
Large bore rifle rifle for large game hunting.

In addition to this combination, just off the top of my head, there could be any number of other combinations depending on a person’s needs and interests.
The man in NJ lived in Colorado when he purchased the guns, and besides having a handgun for personal protection (I believe that was mentioned in the article), if he was an oudoorsman, there could be any number of combinations of rifles and shotguns.

Another sport that involves guns would be trap and skeet shooting. It involves good eye hand coordination but does NOT require any “violent impulses”.

Peace
James

 

[stanmaxkolbe]

Hi all,
Okay so it’s off-topic but why would anyone want three guns in the first place?
I do not understand the love of guns. Is there a much-needed time in man’s future when his heart will be cleansed of the violent impulse?
God Bless,
Colmcille.

Why would anyone own more that one car since more people are killed in cars than people with guns in the United States? I do not understand the love of cars. Is there a much-needed time in man’s future when his heart will be cleansed of the violent impulse? Just wanted to show you when you replace guns with cars.

I’ve being shooting guns since I was eight years old I’ve never murdered anyone. I love shooting sports I don’t waste my time watching millionaires running around chasing a ball. Also some guns are fine works of art.

Guns are nothing but a tool and people need to know how to use them safely.

 

[colmcille1]

Why would anyone own more that one car since more people are killed in cars than people with guns in the United States? I do not understand the love of cars. Is there a much-needed time in man’s future when his heart will be cleansed of the violent impulse? Just wanted to show you when you replace guns with cars.

I’ve being shooting guns since I was eight years old I’ve never murdered anyone. I love shooting sports I don’t waste my time watching millionaires running around chasing a ball. Also some guns are fine works of art.

Guns are nothing but a tool and people need to know how to use them safely.

Hi stan,
The car analogy is poor. I am not talking about commercial need which I believe cars partly fulfill. I am talking about a state of mind that values guns as intrinsically good in and of themselves.
You mention some guns as “fine works of art”. This is man’s ego adorning his sad paraphernalia. This states: ‘I have been here on this earth and made the bullet fly beautifully’. This is sad beyond belief.
You also finish your post with an imperative “…people need to know how to use them safely.” What exactly does this mean? What is safe? Do I respect someone who has more guns than I? Do I respect powerful guns but sneer at a humble pea-shooter type?
How do I discuss guns with my friends and sound like I know what I’m talking about?
There are a thousand and one questions but they all come down to: can we achieve a world where guns are not necessary? I know this takes a massive leap of the imagination but why should we be afraid to ask it? Is it because we would be seen to be naive? Dreaming? Plain dumb? The violent instinct is potentially alive and well in everyone. Otherwise why would there be a market for guns? Yet when that market becomes it’s own self-contained universe it affects the wider world and some folks in that wider world wish to pray and live in peace in a world without guns.
God Bless,
Colmcille.

 

[BlueSprite]

I’m personally not a fan of guns, but that’s neither here nor there. This kid got a bum rap, no doubt about it…but what do you do when the judge is corrupt? I mean the JUDGE. What can you do? I think this case is ridiculous!!! Also, don’t cops need a warrant to search your trunk? I think they can “ask” you to open it…and most people do (because they think they have to) - but as far as I know, you can refuse and then they need a warrant to inspect your trunk.

 

[Suudy]

The car analogy is poor. I am not talking about commercial need which I believe cars partly fulfill. I am talking about a state of mind that values guns as intrinsically good in and of themselves.

I’m not aware of anybody that makes this statement. They are morally neutral. They are tools, and like any other tool, such as a hammer, they can be used for good or ill.

You mention some guns as “fine works of art”. This is man’s ego adorning his sad paraphernalia. This states: ‘I have been here on this earth and made the bullet fly beautifully’. This is sad beyond belief.

Huh? How is this any different than throwing a discus? ‘I have been here on this earth and made the discus fly beautifully’. If we can admire the flight of a discus, the smoothness of a well tuned engine, the movement of marionettes by skilled puppeteer, why can’t we admire the quality of a bullet’s flight? How is it sad?

The violent instinct is potentially alive and well in everyone. Otherwise why would there be a market for guns? Yet when that market becomes it’s own self-contained universe it affects the wider world and some folks in that wider world wish to pray and live in peace in a world without guns.

That violent instinct exists independently of guns. Prior to gunpowder, there were violent instincts. A world with guns is no more full of violent individuals than a world without them. Guns don’t create violent people. And a world without guns will not reduce the number of people with violent instincts.

 

[SamH]

Hi all,
Okay so it’s off-topic but why would anyone want three guns in the first place?
I do not understand the love of guns. Is there a much-needed time in man’s future when his heart will be cleansed of the violent impulse?
God Bless,
Colmcille.

Agreed. I own 11 and still haven’t fullfilled all my needs.

 

[colmcille1]

I’m not aware of anybody that makes this statement. They are morally neutral. They are tools, and like any other tool, such as a hammer, they can be used for good or ill.
Huh? How is this any different than throwing a discus? ‘I have been here on this earth and made the discus fly beautifully’. If we can admire the flight of a discus, the smoothness of a well tuned engine, the movement of marionettes by skilled puppeteer, why can’t we admire the quality of a bullet’s flight? How is it sad?
That violent instinct exists independently of guns. Prior to gunpowder, there were violent instincts. A world with guns is no more full of violent individuals than a world without them. Guns don’t create violent people. And a world without guns will not reduce the number of people with violent instincts.

Hi Suudy,
I agree that guns are morally neutral…initially. Then man endows them with his values. Think of the billion dollar worldwide industry that markets guns as prized tokens of manliness.
If I throw a discus in the Olympics and win a gold medal for my country that is an achievement of which I and my country can be proud. If I walk into a local bar and, with a powerful handgun, plant three bullets in a man’s head that is not any kind of achievement.
That is sad.
Guns give us access to open up the violent instinct. Guns instil a sense of power in a gang. It is a bond that reduces each member to an unthinking cog.
If we as a species could formulate a peaceful ethics in our hearts that said: we do not need guns, we are insightful beings who love God’s life, then this would be a great achievement.
God Bless,
Colmcille.

 

[latin_rite]

Hi all,
Okay so it’s off-topic but why would anyone want three guns in the first place?
I do not understand the love of guns. Is there a much-needed time in man’s future when his heart will be cleansed of the violent impulse?
God Bless,
Colmcille.

I have more than one gun. I use all three for “commercial” use. But truth be told, i could probably get by with just the one. Gun ownership does not = violent impulses or a violent nature. Many people who own guns do so just for target shooting. many own guns for hunting. Some own guns, not because they are violent, but because they recognise the world is violent, so they use them for protection. Many target shooters have multiple guns. Because there is a fair bit of "science " in target shooting, as far calculating loads and so forth. And they enjoy the challenge of using different calibers of guns n so forth. A gun collector is no different than some one who collects swords, paintings etc.

 

[LDNCatholic]

Hi Suudy,
I agree that guns are morally neutral…initially. Then man endows them with his values. Think of the billion dollar worldwide industry that markets guns as prized tokens of manliness.
If I throw a discus in the Olympics and win a gold medal for my country that is an achievement of which I and my country can be proud. If I walk into a local bar and, with a powerful handgun, plant three bullets in a man’s head that is not any kind of achievement.
That is sad.

How about if you win a gold medal at point shooting for your country?

Or supply your family with food by shooting a deer/duck/whatever?

Or successfully defend someone from a violent attack?

More people are murdered by knives in the UK than by guns. Owing to my profession I own a lot of swords, knives etc.

Are knives no longer morally neutral?

 

[JRKH]

Hi Suudy,
I agree that guns are morally neutral…initially. Then man endows them with his values.

Ah - So here we have it. The equating of gun ownership and “violent impulse” which was infered in your first post, is disproven. Guns are morally neutral. It is the character and intent of the purchaser/owner that endows them with value.
Therefore if the intention is morally neutral or morally good then…

Think of the billion dollar worldwide industry that markets guns as prized tokens of manliness.

Think of the billion dollar intustry that makea any other product a “prize token of manliness”, from bodybuilding to beer to sports cars, to cologne. These industries do much more marketing to ones vanity.
Frankly, I have seen very little “manliness” used as a marketing tool in the gun industry.

If I throw a discus in the Olympics and win a gold medal for my country that is an achievement of which I and my country can be proud.

Are you aware that shooting is also an Olympic sport? So substitute “shoot a gun” for discus in the above sentance and need you be any less proud or any more “violent”?

If I walk into a local bar and, with a powerful handgun, plant three bullets in a man’s head that is not any kind of achievement.

You are right. That is not an achievement. But this in no way equates the weapon to the crime. People have been killed in bars by many methods - bottles, knives, fists, a few years back a fellow even waited in the parking lot and ran another fellow down with his car over some insult or other.
If I substute “buther knife” for “powerful handgun” is the crime any less horrific? Yet I bet you see a “butcher knife” as a useful tool in your kitchen and would never seriously equate your ownership of one with your having a “violent impulse”.
The crime and the method are not connected.

Guns give us access to open up the violent instinct. Guns instil a sense of power in a gang. It is a bond that reduces each member to an unthinking cog.

Allow me to correct what you have written…“Guns give certain individuals access to open up their violent instinct.”
As to you example of a gang, guns do provide them with a powerful weapon that they can then use to support violent tendacies that are already there.

If we as a species could formulate a peaceful ethics in our hearts that said: we do not need guns, we are insightful beings who love God’s life, then this would be a great achievement.
God Bless,
Colmcille.

The above is a wonerful sentiment except that you are missing one thing. If we can, as you suggest, “formulate a peaceful ethics in our hearts”, then we would not need to get rid of guns. “Peaceful ethics” in and of themselves would are sufficient to remove the “gun problem” since those with “peaceful ethics” can own a gun and never use it negatively.

It is obvious that you do not like guns, and that is fine. No one requires you, or anyone else to possess one. However, in your distain for the weapon you make too great a jump in logic, equating the tool with the intent.

Peace
James

 

[stanmaxkolbe]

we do not need guns
Colmcille.

**PEOPLE ASK WHY? Why I Carry a Gun: **

I don’t carry a gun to kill people.
I carry a gun to keep from being killed.

I don’t carry a gun to scare people.
I carry a gun because sometimes this world can be a scary place.

I don’t carry a gun because I’m paranoid.
I carry a gun because there are real threats in the world.

I don’t carry a gun because I’m evil.
I carry a gun because I have lived long enough to see the evil in the
world.

I don’t carry a gun because I hate the government.
I carry a gun because I understand the limitations of government.

I don’t carry a gun because I’m angry.
I carry a gun so that I don’t have to spend the rest of my life hating
myself for failing to be prepared.

I don’t carry a gun because I want to shoot someone.
I carry a gun because I want to die at a ripe old age in my bed, and
not on a sidewalk somewhere tomorrow afternoon.

I don’t carry a gun to make me feel like a man.
I carry a gun because men know how to take care of themselves and the
ones they love.

I don’t carry a gun because I feel inadequate.
I carry a gun because unarmed and facing three armed thugs, I am
inadequate.

I don’t carry a gun because I love it.
I carry a gun because I love life and the people who make it meaningful
to me.

Police Protection is an oxymoron. Free citizens must protect themselves.

Police do not protect you from crime, they usually just investigate the
crime after it happens and then call someone in to clean up the mess.

Personally, I carry a gun because I’m too young to die and too old to
take a butt whoopin’.

Oh two more things when I was a child guns help us put meat on the table
and kept us free for over two hundred years.

 

[colmcille1]

Hi all,
My apologies for the tardiness of my reply. I was away for the weekend.

First off, I do not think target shooting should be an Olympic sport because this reinforces the view that guns are ok.

Second, let us be clear: guns are made specifically for one purpose. Destruction. I firmly believe that an intent is not hard to formulate viz transforming a morally neutral mechanism to a valued instrument of man’s expression: “I don’t carry a gun to feel like a man. I carry a gun because men know how to take care of themselves and the ones they love.” This is expressing oneself using a gun as an intergral part of that expression.

Third, the oft-quoted defence of killing wildlife to feed one’s family is an archaic argument.
It bespeaks of a time of rugged individualism. It appeals atavistically to a primitive instinct, that of the hunter/gatherer. Whether we like it or not the world has become increasingly homogenised. Even in one-time ‘primitive’ societies there are rudimentary means of commercial distribution and retailing. We are daily distanced from our spear-carrying roots.

Fourth, I recall the news stories surrounding an horrific shooting spree in the town of Hungerford, UK, several years back. A lone gunman shot dead a number of people in this otherwise quiet English town. A psychologist commented at the time that, despite our brilliant scientific and technological advances as a species, we ultimately know very little about the human heart. So, this is where our focus should be: cure the violent heart and you will not need a tool to express that violence.

I realise, gentlemen, that I am discussing a very heated subject. I know that Americans value highly their right to bear arms. But I truly believe that guns are the result of a disordered desire that is born in the human heart. And here is where our answers lie.

God Bless,
Colmcille.

 

[JRKH]

Hi all,
My apologies for the tardiness of my reply. I was away for the weekend.

Hope it was a good weekend

First off, I do not think target shooting should be an Olympic sport because this reinforces the view that guns are ok.

Guns ARE OK. It is people who are the problem

Second, let us be clear: guns are made specifically for one purpose. Destruction. I firmly believe that an intent is not hard to formulate viz transforming a morally neutral mechanism to a valued instrument of man’s expression: “I don’t carry a gun to feel like a man. I carry a gun because men know how to take care of themselves and the ones they love.” This is expressing oneself using a gun as an intergral part of that expression.

Let us be clear. There are any number of things that are made for the one purpose of destruction. Knives jump to mind. A knife has but one use - to cut things up - to destroy things. Therefore, every knife in your kitchen falls into the same catagory as a gun.

Third, the oft-quoted defence of killing wildlife to feed one’s family is an archaic argument.
It bespeaks of a time of rugged individualism. It appeals atavistically to a primitive instinct, that of the hunter/gatherer. Whether we like it or not the world has become increasingly homogenised. Even in one-time ‘primitive’ societies there are rudimentary means of commercial distribution and retailing. We are daily distanced from our spear-carrying roots.

And whether you like it or not there are still those who, by their own choice, or by need, choose to hunt and harvest food. The gun is a tool used for this. In this use a gun is OK. Therefore, as I said earlier, guns are OK, it’s people that are the problem.

Fourth, I recall the news stories surrounding an horrific shooting spree in the town of Hungerford, UK, several years back. A lone gunman shot dead a number of people in this otherwise quiet English town. A psychologist commented at the time that, despite our brilliant scientific and technological advances as a species, we ultimately know very little about the human heart. So, this is where our focus should be: cure the violent heart and you will not need a tool to express that violence.

Bingo - the problem is not with guns so quit trying to equate the neutral “tool” with the underlying problem.

I realise, gentlemen, that I am discussing a very heated subject. I know that Americans value highly their right to bear arms. But I truly believe that guns are the result of a disordered desire that is born in the human heart. And here is where our answers lie.

In this I will agree. The development of firearms, as best I understand, comes from the “war industry” both in China and in the west. Thus one can say that the origin and (early) development of the gun is the result of a, “disordered desire born in the human heart”.
Yet still, for all of that, the gun remains neutral. It is an inanimate object that may be used for good or ill, depending on the “desire” of the “heart” that posesses it.

God Bless,
Colmcille.

And you

Peace
James

 

[vz71]

First off, I do not think target shooting should be an Olympic sport because this reinforces the view that guns are ok.

Yeah. I have often thought they were misguided in allowing the javelin throw as well.
And wrestling. And the high jump,…etc.

Second, let us be clear: guns are made specifically for one purpose. Destruction.

Not true.
Whoever sold that bill of goods to you needs to give you your money back.
There are many purposes for guns. Destruction is one. But there are many that are not built for destruction at all.
But secondary to that, if the sole purpose of an object is destructive…so what?
Destructive does not equal immoral

Third, the oft-quoted defence of killing wildlife to feed one’s family is an archaic argument. It bespeaks of a time of rugged individualism. It appeals atavistically to a primitive instinct, that of the hunter/gatherer. Whether we like it or not the world has become increasingly homogenised. Even in one-time ‘primitive’ societies there are rudimentary means of commercial distribution and retailing. We are daily distanced from our spear-carrying roots.

You should get out more.
Your statements are simply not true.
I know several people that have routinely depended upon hunting for food as they simply did not have the money to spare anywhere else.
My own parents before I was born depended upon hunting for food.
My wife as well ended up eating plenty of deer meat as a child when her family ran short of funds.

Fourth, I recall the news stories surrounding an horrific shooting spree in the town of Hungerford, UK, several years back. A lone gunman shot dead a number of people in this otherwise quiet English town. A psychologist commented at the time that, despite our brilliant scientific and technological advances as a species, we ultimately know very little about the human heart. So, this is where our focus should be: cure the violent heart and you will not need a tool to express that violence.

No safeguard will ever be perfect. The wrong people will always be able to get their hands on a gun and do horrific damage with it.
But then, the same can be said for the automobile. Or a hammer. Or a crowbar. Or a bottle of beer…etc.

I realise, gentlemen, that I am discussing a very heated subject. I know that Americans value highly their right to bear arms. But I truly believe that guns are the result of a disordered desire that is born in the human heart. And here is where our answers lie.

It would not be nearly as “heated” if you would stick to statements that are actually true.