Hey, I didn't get to chip in on the gun hijacked thread

[Moedad]

Before there was any notion of gun control in the US or Britain or Europe, the US had a much greater rate of violent crime than most other countries. It's not about guns. In Switzerland every house has guns. Every male serves in the military. They take their firearms home with them. They have one of the lowest crime rates in the Western world. It's us Americans that are the problem, not firearms themselves.

Another thing - much of that high rate of firearm related homicide in the US is criminal on criminal. Take out the turf wars between gangs and drug dealers and that rate drops dramatically. The death rate for kids being killed by guns goes way down too, because a lot of those people being counted as kids are hard core gang members up to the age of 24. Yes-huh. So yes, we are more violent than other countries, but it's not because of guns. Gun violence is a symptom of something more insidious. What makes America great is that most of the states in our country still give their citizens the freedom to choose whether or not they want to be able to defend themselves with deadly force in the face of deadly force threatening them. In those states that allow such liberty, the rate of citizens who actually apply for a CCW is very small--under 4% in most cases.

In Ca, it's up to the county sheriff's to decide if their citizens are allowed to carry. Some allow it, some limit it, some GREATLY limit it, and some don't allow it, period. Bad guys carry regardless.

[Water Warrior 2]

Okay, as a Canadian here is how I understand it. The government in it's wisdom created a Firearms Registry for Canadians. All law abiding citizens who do not register are now criminals. All non-law abiding folks who really are criminals and don't register are no better or worse off than before.
More food for thought : just wait till some one hacks into the registry and finds out where to steal all the guns from law abiding citizens.
More intelligent hogwash by government. They said this registry would cost 2 million to set up. Would you believe 500 million bucks to make a f$^king list of law abiding criminals who pay their taxes. Your tax $ at work. Real criminals will always have guns, why make criminals out of real working folks who hunt or shoot targets for recreation.
I would love to go back to shooting targets all afternoon someplace safe and isolated but the B.S. is too much for me.

[Water Warrior 2]

Don't know who said it first but an armed society is a polite society.

[JWR]

I did not know this forum had a: DAWN PATROL.

Now the unarmed can rest easy.

[mr. softie]

It is so obvious government is the Real Criminal. Talk about organized crime! In the US there are over 300 million citizens, and fewer than 2 million US government employees total, with only 1000 or so with any real say so. Yet we are like sheep. What can WE do, we whine. Hey, but we get to vote for tweedle-dee or tweedle-dum, and argue amongst ourselves over endless "issues", while the corporations call the shots and take us for everything we are worth.

[mr. softie]

In PA it is also the county sheriff who determines how easy it is to get a "permit to carry a concealed weapon". I happen to have a sheriff who has a "shall issue" policy. Actually in PA as elsewhere in this great land it is not necessary to have any permit if you carry openly, but you can be cited for "causing a public disturbance". OH MY GOD HE HAS A GUN!!! shriek --duck --hide --call the police!

[music man]

A big issue with this is that comparing say Canada or Switzerland, and the U.S. in terms of gun violence is that there really is no comparision. Like someone said earlier in the other thread that got this going, there are so many murders that are gang members killing each other or drug dealers killing each other (or both) that you will never know what the true "civilian murder rate" is, until there is the number of gangs and drug dealers in Canada or Switzerland or England that we have here in the U.S., there is really no use comparing the two.


Also since there is a lot of Canadians on this site I will ask this since I am too lazy to look it up myself, when someone does commit a serious crime in Canada, do they actually do something to the criminal or do they slap them on the wrist and send them on there way like they do here. Here in the U.S. it is not uncommon for some young thug to kill someone over their purse, "make a deal" get 10 years, serve 6 of those and be back out on the street to kill someone else, if you want my opinion THAT is the real problem.

Even though I don't think we need to go to quite this extreme, in a few Middle eastern countries if you steal something, they chop off your hand (how many one handed middle eastern guys have you ever seen). It comes down to a basic respect for the laws we ALREADY HAVE in place and the fear of the punishment. For most of these so called gangbangers, going to prison is something to be proud of, almost like a vacation to go see old friends that are locked up, they are not scared in the least by it, the only people that are scared of prison are the Law Abiding Citizens. So in closing no amount of Gun Control is going to stop violence and murder, because like someone else already said, the only guns you are gonna end up controlling are the ones that Law Abiding citizens own, the criminals are gonna do what criminals do, break the gun control law.

[alantf]

Originally Posted by music man

Here in the U.S. it is not uncommon for some young thug to kill someone over their purse, "make a deal" get 10 years, serve 6 of those and be back out on the street to kill someone else, if you want my opinion THAT is the real problem.

The English government has stated that it cannot afford to build any more prisons, so it has come up with a way to solve the problem at a stroke - It has instructed the judges NOT TO IMPOSE PRISON SENTENCES ON ANYONE! If I could stop banging my head against a brick wall, I would have to cry.

The prisoners who are already in jail have complained about overcrowding (poor little darlings) so - (& again, please don't think I'm joking) the government has decided to let half of them out regardless of whether they've completed 1 week of a 10 year sentence, or more.

Who said "it sounds like the lunatics are running the asylum"?

[music man]

Originally Posted by alantf

The English government has stated that it cannot afford to build any more prisons, so it has come up with a way to solve the problem at a stroke - It has instructed the judges NOT TO IMPOSE PRISON SENTENCES ON ANYONE! If I could stop banging my head against a brick wall, I would have to cry.

The prisoners who are already in jail have complained about overcrowding (poor little darlings) so - (& again, please don't think I'm joking) the government has decided to let half of them out regardless of whether they've completed 1 week of a 10 year sentence, or more.

Who said "it sounds like the lunatics are running the asylum"?

:facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm:

[alanmcorcoran]

Hey, Patrick, how about a section dedicated to flammable topics? You know, something we can throw a log on when there's no riding or mechanical diagnosing going on. An energy source to get us through the long cold winter.

Possible threads:

1) Helmets are stupid.
2) Guns are awesome.
3) GZ's aren't fast enough for the highway
4) I want to drill some holes in my exhaust, how many and where should I start?
5) And, my all time favorite.... "Hey, look at this! I bet can turn my 250 into a 350!"