Majority of Americans say guns make homes safer

[TheRealJuliane]

that’s true. unfortunately.

I’ve noticed something during the latest round of panic buying of guns and ammo because of fear of heightened gun control laws. I’m around a gun range constantly because I do a lot of competition shooting and there’s recently been a spike in range use. while that’s good in a general way, new gun owners’ safety violations and even unfamiliarity with how they work is appalling and constant. and I mean these are gross violations – a guy walking around with a shotgun, shells in the magazine and one actually chambered; being “swept” by a barrel by idiots who don’t know to keep the thing pointed downrange; I’ve been showered with gravel because a new owner next to me on a trap line blasted the ground ten feet ahead of us.

so accidents in the home – the stats are as bad as you think – take away the utility (and for many, the glamour) of having a gun around for home protection.

F/

Do the ranges not have some supervision at least? Someone walking the line and reminding the noobs not to point their weapon at anything but the target? I know you have to sign something for risk control but with the increase in novice shooters you’d think they might watch out for people in general.

 

[Fairwinds]

Do the ranges not have some supervision at least? Someone walking the line and reminding the noobs not to point their weapon at anything but the target? I know you have to sign something for risk control but with the increase in novice shooters you’d think they might watch out for people in general.

They do, that moron got through the net. A range safety officer told me he spoke to the guy because he was showing off his new gun to his girlfriend in an unsafe way. On inspection, the RSO found the action (a pump) closed – a big violation. When opened, it ejected a live round – about as serious as it gets short of shooting someone.

I have a fairly low opinion of my fellow gun owners who own guns because its the current fad.

F/

 

[Fairwinds]

… Usually the people that are not familiar with a firearm hold it with a certain degree of fear and respect. The mistakes they make are because no one has told them the correct way.

safety is a matter of habit. first someone tells you the rules, then you learn the etiquette, then it becomes habit. that’s for people who use them. the loons who like new, bright shiny objects and probably sleep with their tricked out Colt Blaster every night no doubt have a different point of view.

F/

 

[Zooey]

I don’t think that is the law at all. While you may shoot a coyote out of fur season that is on your land you can’t go to a buddy’s property and hunt them. Only the owner or employee of the owner of the crop or livestock being damaged may shoot animals out of season. Even then some animals (like eagles and other protected species) are off limits. If a bald eagle swoops in and nabs your toy poodle all you can do is wave goodbye.

It depends. States vary, and some fish &wildlife folks have a brain, while others seem to have their craniums filled with steel-cut oats.
A licensed hunter can hunt pretty much anyplace that isn’t posted. Most farmers are more than happy to have someone take critters on their land; others want to fill a couple of freezers up in preparation for TEOTWAKI; and there is a limit to the ways you can cook whitetail.
Well, OK, lets be honest: there is a limit to how much whitetail some of us [cough, cough]are willing to cook in any fashion, other than a recipe found online for “how to cook for cats & toy poodles”. Some of us wish we could find a recipe online called “how to cook toy poodles”; since there appears to be none, -]I am /-] we are more than happy to allow eagles to carry them off. (Maybe the eagles should write a cookbook; most Upstate New Yorkers will cheerfully buy copies).
And I keep my cats in the house, where the question of having to shoot the last remaining Spotted Three-Footed Redhead Eagle has not arisen, at least not in my lifetime.

 

[jsk]

The AR-15 is the current poster child for new restrictions on firearms and firearm ownership. The AR-15 became available to the general public in 1963. That’s 50 years, why was that not a problem then but is a problem now? Between 1963 and 1968, it was possible to legally purchase them through the mail. Was the United States a safer place then, or is it safer now? I don’t have any statistics to point at, but I am guessing that the United States was a safer place in 1963, when an AR-15 could be purchase through the mail. Firearms restrictions began to take hold in 1968, and have become more restrictive over the years. From what I see, the problems with the rise of violent behavior has nothing to do with the availability of firearms. If firearms are not the problem, restricting them is not a solution.

 

[Fairwinds]

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) is an easily read opinion of the Supreme Court which (along with* McDonald v. Chicago*, 561 U.S. 3025 (2010) ) held that the 2d Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Gun grabbers blather on in ignorance of what the law of the land really is.

for that reason, I’m not too worried about their most grabtastic fantasies.

This is from the conclusion of the majority opinion.

scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2739870581644084946&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr

We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we take seriously the concerns raised by the many amici who believe that prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution. The Constitution leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns, see supra, at 2816-2817, and n. 26. But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.

(emphasis added)

 

[Monte_RCMS]

One of the things I can’t wrap my arms around is why we need to take guns away from law abiding Americans, need to stop old ladies and little kids at our airports, spend trillions of dollars on cameras, drones and buy more than a billion bullets, if the real cause of these comparatively puny “terrorism” events is well known to all of the worlds security forces.

 

[Geist]

One of the things I can’t wrap my arms around is why we need to take guns away from law abiding Americans, need to stop old ladies and little kids at our airports, spend trillions of dollars on cameras, drones and buy more than a billion bullets, if the real cause of these comparatively puny “terrorism” events is well known to all of the worlds security forces.

Political correctness trumps reality. Its really quite Orwellian.

 

[spartan_cop]

Last I checked no one was advocating taking guns away from every law-abiding citizen in the United States.

youtube.com/watch?v=1_LaBJvI0BI

 

[spartan_cop]

**You NEVER shoot to kill.

NEVER.**

You want the perpetrator(s) to either leave on his (their) own or lay down on the floor and stay down.

[Most people are such poor shots that they are lucky to even get a hit.]

There is a YouTube of a home invasion in a suburb … the camera footage is from a security cam. There were four home invaders. They did not expect to encounter an armed homeowner. They ran out of there so fast, they were gone in seconds.

youtube.com/watch?v=IZKVQVXLVSM

You are correct! You shoot to stop the threat, sometimes death is the consequence, but that was not the intention. BTW cops are some of the worst shots under stress. Big difference at shooting at a piece of paper and a person shooting back.

 

[spartan_cop]

Sporting shooters are not the government.

And there are plenty of other effective weapons citizens can have - why oh why are guns seen as the only solution? And why are they the only ones that are to be unfettered? Why not bombs (which the Boston bombers employed)? Or, as I said earlier, rocket launchers, grenades, ICBMs or nukes?

I feel like just… sigh I am just gonna let it go.

 

[LilyM]

I feel like just… sigh I am just gonna let it go.

Too much good logic for you to handle eh?

 

[Geist]

Too much good logic for you to handle eh?

Cost and feasibility are a factor. I’m not quite sure why I’d need or want an ICBM, but the truth is its not within the realm of possibility to create and store one.

Reality serves as an effective deterrent; don’t need laws to enforce the prohibition of ICBM possession when in reality it takes a government budget to make them.

Grenades and rocket launchers, meh. Those are just good fun.

 

[JMJSHJ]

Private citizens who go through the proper channels have every moral right to use a hand gun for protection.

 

[Zooey]

Safer against What ?? A British invasion perhaps ? People are just a bit insecure I think…

Terrorists.
Hae ye nae heard, yean? Google “explosion at Boston Marathon”, or Oklahoma bombing",etc. etc, ad nauseum, &be enlightened.

One of the things I can’t wrap my arms around is why we need to take guns away from law abiding Americans, need to stop old ladies and little kids at our airports, spend trillions of dollars on cameras, drones and buy more than a billion bullets, if the real cause of these comparatively puny “terrorism” events is well known to all of the worlds security forces.

Yes, well…you know, they want us to be frightened children, hiding under the bed and the Nanny State wants to keep us safe, instead of letting us be grown-ups who take care of ourselves and of our own.
In the words of the advertisements for the 1st repeating firearms: “God made man; now Colonel Colt has made us all equal”.
God bless the dear colonel, & welcome into the presence of the Creator Himself.

Private citizens who go through the proper channels have every moral right to use a hand gun for protection.

Amen.

 

[GaryTaylor]

Culture of sheep?

buckeyefirearms.org/article3879.html

 

[JMJSHJ]

I’m shocked that Prodigal Son hasn’t commented in this thread!

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Why do the people who want registrations and background checks, which take time and involve the bureaucracy… why do they prefer criminals to have the ability to out-gun law-abiding citizens? Whose side are they on.

Criminals ignore the law and they ignore registrations and they ignore background checks.

Universal registration can easily be used for universal confiscation. But we do need to think about our actions through a lens of time.

So-called bans on so-called “assault weapons” had little to no effect when it was in place from 1994 until 2004.

The Virginia Tech massacre of unarmed people occurred in a "gun-free zone. Seung-Hui Cho [the Virginia Tech killer] used two of the smallest-caliber handguns manufactured and a handful of 10-round magazines. There are no substantial facts that prove that limited magazines would make any difference at all.

And, when the the government get into the business of regulating “needs”.

Criminals who cannot buy guns legally just resort to the black market.

While “some” restrictions may sound warm and fuzzy, in fact, in reality, they are far from what we need.

Any restriction ONLY punish law-abiding citizens and enable the murderers, thugs and other low-lifes who wish to do harm to others.

These ideas are the worst possible initiatives if any legislator seriously cares about saving lives and also upholding their oath of office … to honor the Constitution of the United States.

Each initiate steals freedom, grants more power to an already-overreaching government and empowers and enables criminals to run amok.

Repeal the “Gun Free Zone Act”. Don’t allow teachers and students to be endangered one day more. These parents and teachers have the natural God-given right to defend themselves and not be looked at as criminals.

There is no reason teachers must disarm themselves to perform their jobs. In cases where nutjob shooters attacked students, teachers with access to guns were able to stop the shooters instantly … merely by point their guns at the shooters.

So, there is also no reason a parent or volunteer should be disarmed when they cross the school line.

 

[SamH]

Last I checked no one was advocating taking guns away from every law-abiding citizen in the United States.

You didn’t check very hard.

Feinstein said on CBS-TV’s 60 Minutes, February 5, 1995, “If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them . . . Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in, I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren’t here.”

 

[Zooey]

Why do the people who want registrations and background checks, which take time and involve the bureaucracy… why do they prefer criminals to have the ability to out-gun law-abiding citizens? Whose side are they on.

Criminals ignore the law and they ignore registrations and they ignore background checks.

Universal registration can easily be used for universal confiscation. But we do need to think about our actions through a lens of time.

So-called bans on so-called “assault weapons” had little to no effect when it was in place from 1994 until 2004.

The Virginia Tech massacre of unarmed people occurred in a "gun-free zone. Seung-Hui Cho [the Virginia Tech killer] used two of the smallest-caliber handguns manufactured and a handful of 10-round magazines. There are no substantial facts that prove that limited magazines would make any difference at all.

And, when the the government get into the business of regulating “needs”.

Criminals who cannot buy guns legally just resort to the black market.

While “some” restrictions may sound warm and fuzzy, in fact, in reality, they are far from what we need.

Any restriction ONLY punish law-abiding citizens and enable the murderers, thugs and other low-lifes who wish to do harm to others.

These ideas are the worst possible initiatives if any legislator seriously cares about saving lives and also upholding their oath of office … to honor the Constitution of the United States.

Each initiate steals freedom, grants more power to an already-overreaching government and empowers and enables criminals to run amok.

Repeal the “Gun Free Zone Act”. Don’t allow teachers and students to be endangered one day more. These parents and teachers have the natural God-given right to defend themselves and not be looked at as criminals.

There is no reason teachers must disarm themselves to perform their jobs. In cases where nutjob shooters attacked students, teachers with access to guns were able to stop the shooters instantly … merely by point their guns at the shooters.

So, there is also no reason a parent or volunteer should be disarmed when they cross the school line.

:clapping::clapping:
Prohibition of alcoholic beverages should have taught us that the only people who benefit from big government pushing citizens around, are the Al Capone/Lucky Luciano/Dutch Schultz crew. None of whom ever let a law against anything keep them from spreading terror…
And a lot of us would give up our bourbon* long, long, before we would give up our ability to defend ourselves, our families, & our homes.

Of course, it is easy for me to say that* I’d** give up bourbon; I have known how to make my own bathtub gin since I was in grade school…