(July 9, 2011 at 12:37 am)Shell B Wrote: Rayaan, you really just said that, didn't you? I think you just made those stones look worse than a nuke. "Hey, I'm going to fight this lady's invisible evil with quite visible rocks. Just throw them at her, you can't miss the evil." No offense, yaan, that is insane. That being said, I am relatively sure you have never participated in a stoning.

You're right, I have never participated in a stoning. I don't know anyone personally in my life to get stoned either.

I don't even wish to see this ever. But still, I do believe that this is a law of Allah as He is the highest law enforcer. But that's a whole different issue.

(July 9, 2011 at 1:07 am)Minimalist Wrote: You're going to make me regret giving you any credit at all....aren't you?

You can erase all the credits in your mind if you want to. Don't regret anything. But ignore me for now and go back to guns.

(July 9, 2011 at 1:07 am)Minimalist Wrote: Cinj, that's the boogeyman argument. There is an enormous difference between "banning" and "registration." We register cars and there are cars all over the fucking place. They are not illegal but we have some small idea that the people operating them had demonstrated some minor ability to do so at one time....no matter how much the fucks seem to have forgotten in the meantime.

I'm not exactly sure what you think I wrote, but I would support ALL of these things immediately: regulation/registration/background checks/childproof locks/ etc., etc.

I'm tired of seeing so much gun violence, especially where children are involved. I think firearms, handguns and assault weapons especially, should be FAR MORE heavily regulated. We should be making it goddamn difficult to get your hands on a firearm ... NOT impossible ... but definitely more difficult. It's way to easy to buy a handgun in this country.

Example: I have a perfect record, so when I went to get a permit to buy a rifle, I brought back the permit and they said I could buy three of anything I wanted. Three semi-auto assault rifles off of one permit if I so desired. Ridiculous.

It's absolutely too easy to move guns around this country and we definitely need much tougher regulation. That being said, I will always be fully against totally banning the ownership of firearms.

You just seemed to talk a lot about banning.

I own guns...of a sort.








But they are kept unloaded and the powder and shot is stored in the garage and I have no intention of using them for defense. Although I do have bayonets for my Brown Bess musket and Springfield rifled musket not pictured here.

Regulate guns any more than you already do? Hehe... good luck

I just do not believe that the banning, regulating, controlling, etc... of guns would lessen the amount of gun related violence in this country. In a perfect world, maybe.

I do not personally own any guns, nor do I wish to own any guns, so I am not speaking from the "Don't take away my guns!" point of view. It's just that I do not believe that limiting the kinds of guns I can own, or making me register the guns that I own, or preventing me from owning guns at all, will prevent people like Rodrick Dantzler from murdering people with a gun. Do you think he owned that gun legally? Nope. The laws to prevent him from owning a gun are already in place (he was a convicted felon) and it certainly didn't make any difference.

I'm sorry, but the "only criminals will have guns" argument is quite valid. If it is illegal to own a gun... criminals will still own guns. Stopping me from owning a gun does nothing but prevent me from owning a gun... it doesn't stop gun related crime.

Also... comparing the gun ownership issue in the U.S. to another country is misleading. This country was literally founded on the right to bear arms (among other things, obviously) and the right to bear arms is an integral part of the American culture... unlike elsewhere. That's why people are so resistant to the idea of gun control. It asks them to change a deep seated cultural mainstay. Sooner convince the Brits to give up tea.

I find it sad that anyone would actually believe that the simple act of owning a gun will turn a person into a killer. If a domestic argument ends in gun fire then the people involved were obviously violent people. If they didn't have a gun, a kitchen knife may have sufficed. The vast majority of gun owners NEVER end up shooting another person. Not even those they may occasionally wish to see dead. Owning a gun does NOT make it more likely that a person will kill someone.

Most gun related murder is not committed with legally owned firearms. More laws against owning guns will not (cannot) change that. The only thing that could change that would be making guns scarce and difficult to obtain... and THAT is an impossible task. Make obtaining one illegal and I can get one from the black market with ease. There are far too many guns in existence to prevent that, which is what I mean by 'it's far too late'.

Absolutely beautiful pieces there Min.

Hard to get a sense of scale though, the middle a kentucky long rifle or a smoothbore?

The middle one is a French Charleville musket, pattern 1777 and thus the main version supplied to American rebels. It is about five feet long from muzzle to stock and with the bayonet attached would have been six and a half feet.

.69 caliber smoothbore.

Top is a 1860 Remington New Model Army. .44 caliber cap and ball revolver.

Bottom is a .50 caliber Pennsylvania rifle.

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So, again Paul, 30,000 gun deaths per year ( and who knows how many wounded ) and you're okay with that...at least to the point that you don't want to do anything at all to try to lessen it?

(July 9, 2011 at 3:33 am)Minimalist Wrote: You just seemed to talk a lot about banning.

I own guns...of a sort.

But they are kept unloaded and the powder and shot is stored in the garage and I have no intention of using them for defense.

Nice little collection of rifles.

I mention banning a lot because, as stated in prior posts, I feel it would only exasperate the problem and deprive us a right.

Truthfully, I would definitely use one of my guns to defend my home. That's the whole point of owning a handgun in my mind. I certainly don't carry one around with me. The difference between me and the typical gun-nut (I think) is that one, I hope it never comes to that, and two, it is highly unlikely that it will. I'm merely trying to safeguard myself from the miniscule percent of psychotics that invade a house for the sheer enjoyment of killing someone.

Well that and sport shooting. I really enjoy trap and skeet competitions.

Paul Wrote:Owning a gun does NOT make it more likely that a person will kill someone.

It actually does. But only marginally more Like how having a big, strong body makes you marginally more likely to pound someone into a pulp

(July 9, 2011 at 12:02 pm)Minimalist Wrote: So, again Paul, 30,000 gun deaths per year ( and who knows how many wounded ) and you're okay with that...at least to the point that you don't want to do anything at all to try to lessen it?

I never said that I was okay with people dying and/or being wounded. And I never said that I don't want to do anything about it. Don't put words in my mouth. Thanks. What I have said is that I do not believe that gun control legislation is a solution. Preventing people from owning guns will not prevent tragic events like this mass murder spree that just happened in my area. I don't believe it would even lessen them, since those that are likely to commit such crimes will own guns regardless of the law.

Guns don't shoot people. People with guns shoot people. People that want to use guns to shoot other people are going to own guns whether the law allows it or not. Unless you can make all of the guns vanish, they will always be available to those who want them, legally or not.

I understand the idealism behind the wish to legislate gun control, and even used to share in that idealism... but realism trumps idealism and the reality is that no law can help lessen gun violence at this point, because the bad guys will just use them anyway. You can't put that cat back into the bag.