Off duty American cop in foreign land can't shoot people

[Moniker]

People need guns to shoot things they don't like.

/thread

[njiska]

I just have one simple problem to ask you then. If I collect vintage firearms, mostly of historical significant due to their use in major conflicts or because of the technological advancements they represent; as well as keep them securely stored, locked and only bring them out for shows or occasionally to use at the range; what is the problem?

There's not one -- but that doesn't seem like "historical significance". Seems more like collecting to me, which most people here do in one form or another. Maybe we just don't agree semantically. In the states, I would take that argument as "I need a gun b/c my daddy had one."

Yeah, when i said historical significance I meant from a preservation and exploration of history angle, which is very much what I consider any kind of collecting to be. Not, whatver the yankee arguement is.

And as for gun control, I think reasonable restrictions are the way to go. I don't mind people needing to be licensed to own a gun, nor do I mind not giving a gun to crazy people. A straight up ban however is wrong as that only punishes legitimate people. Plus most criminal's guns are illegally acquired anyways, so what's it matter?

In the wise words of Public Enemy...F*** the Police.

That was NWA you Canuck.

I think he was probably confusing Fuck the Police with Fight the Power.

People need guns to shoot things they don't like.

/thread

I do have a rather deep hatred for clay pigeons.

[Ed Oscuro]

An interesting wrinkle on this story:

BTW, there is a story being circulated that these two men were giving out free passes to the Stampede. This is actually false…

http://i.imgur.com/4uzWo.png.

..spread via Twitter by a left-wing ‘media consultant’ with an axe to grind with the current Conservative government:

http://ca.linkedin.com/in/jennlutz

I don't have any way of confirming this at the moment. If the guys really were giving out tickets for the Stampede, somebody at the Stampede ought to be able to confirm this. Like I said, there is no good reason why they should have pricked the officer's suspicion, even if he was more shell-shocked than the usual tourist.

I fully subscribe to this, so I can't think that giving a bunch of morons guns is a good idea. I'm not saying everyone with a gun is a dip shit, but a lot of them are (by simple mathematics... has nothing to do w/ the demographics of people that own guns).

I think most everybody agrees with this, though. It does enter a Constitutional question, but in terms of doing what is actual practical and right, everybody favors holding prospective gun owners to a high standard. The only argument for not having any background checks and so on is the old slippery slope, which really shouldn't have entered into the equation, but that's unfortunately the status quo we have due to the atmosphere since the Reagan assassination attempt. Most people will agree, regardless of what the Constitution seems to say, that you don't put a gun in somebody's hand and say "go have fun."

For an example, let's look at this TTAG post (TTAG, referenced above also, stands for The Truth About Guns). TTAG is frequented by all types of people - many gun owners, probably even a Nazi sympathizer or two. But the editorial stance of that post, and certainly of many of the users, is that there are common-sense limits to asserting gun rights, and that this fellow broke those limits. Another example is TTAG's long-running Irresponsible Gun Owner of the Day series. Sure, there are a good number of wingnutty posts there, and some are posted by the staff. But it does show that people do care.

"Some people are idiots" is a terrible reason for a blanket ban of anything. Lots of people couldn't find their way out of a paper bag - but that doesn't mean that the only response is either to ruin it for everybody or to assume that the government will do it better.

[Friendly]

The problem isn't that some people are idiots, it's that most people are idiots. Couple this with the unfortunate human tendency to occasionally succumb to fits of irrational rage or fear stemming back to primitive times, and you have a pretty good reason for not handing out guns like candy.

[opt2not]

In the wise words of Public Enemy...F*** the Police.

That was NWA you Canuck.

oh yeah, 911 is a joke. *sigh* I'm getting old.

[Ed Oscuro]

The problem isn't that some people are idiots, it's that most people are idiots. Couple this with the unfortunate human tendency to occasionally succumb to fits of irrational rage or fear stemming back to primitive times, and you have a pretty good reason for not handing out guns like candy.

Hey, I'm all for taking away driver's licenses from people who can't drive anymore.

Nice way of dodging my evidence though.

[Friendly]

Which evidence, showing what? What is your point? Are you saying it's unwise to control dangerous items? In the USA ~10,000 people are killed by guns every year.

For instance, there were 12,000 gun-related homicides in the United States in 2008. At the same time, there were 11 in Japan, a country where private citizens cannot buy firearms. What exactly are we arguing about here?

PS.
No need to reply with an essay. Brevity is the soul of wit.

[Aguraki]

the more stories like this I read and the more I think I would have got shot in the US a thousand times already if I ever been there.
I can´t recall the bazillion times I jumped on random people at 3am to ask for a cig or just talk while completely drunk.

I consider myself anti social but when I read these thread I think I have 300M friends in NA.

[Ed Oscuro]

Are you saying it's unwise to control dangerous items?

No, quite the opposite - I was earlier saying that even on a pro-gun site you will find a lot of people in favor of better education and some controls or at least surveillance of dangerous individuals. It is partly because of the legislative history that many of them balk at anything with the words "legal" or "government" involved, but many of them are very tough on a kind of enforced regulation: The observation of the rules of gun safety, for example. If somebody posts a video of a firearm and doesn't show the weapon with its ammunition reserve out, and manually clearing and checking it, or points it a certain way, there will almost inevitably be some complaints about that. People who don't stringently follow the rules are not members of the elite. The way the rules of gun safety work is by enforcing the assumption that guns are as dangerous as possible (absent some really funky probabilistic / scientific stuff I won't go into because it's not probable enough to be relevant), so that the first rule of gun safety is usually stated like so:

All guns are always loaded

So, right from the start, most reasonable gun owners are going to be drilled on having the utmost respect for a weapon's destructive capacity (the second of Colonel Cooper's rules is "Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy").

"Gun control" is a phrase which unfortunately provokes more trouble than any other thing mentioned in the Constitution, partly because of the way it is worded with the phrase "shall not be abridged." However, this is not very different from the First Amendment (which also has its share of absolutist defenders). It seems clear from even the Framers' own political discussion and times that it wasn't intended that your "right" to exercise (for example) a First Amendment freedom should always apply - although this does seem to be the intent of that Amendment. The classic example of a reasonable curb on the First Amendment is crying fire in a crowded theater. A plain reading of the First Amendment might seem to indicate that "Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech [...]" but in practice there are such laws, because the various rights afforded people sometimes come into conflict and need to be ordered by degree of inalienability.

Having the right does not protect me from the consequences, be they criminal, civil, or merely social or even private. The Constitution appears to seek to proscribe the abuse of criminal and civil (legal) liabilities, but not the social or private. It assumes that people will still have a culture that can take note of non-legal infractions of the social contract.

Where this ties back into guns is simply that it seems reasonable to me to say that having a constitutionally guaranteed right to something is not the same as having the right to exercise the same in any circumstance (or for any reasons - juries and moralists sometimes find that good intentions are more important than not killing people). For the First Amendment, the received wisdom (as well as common sense and the historical record) tell us that "free speech" is not just speaking - it can be written or other non-verbal communication - but many say it is also not all speech (or all communication), hence the phrase "Constitutionally protected free speech." Which, ironically, seems to be circumscribing the range of protests a person can make to those deemed relevant by the powers that be (although the rights of the actually insane to be irrelevant don't seem to be as important to freedom here).

No need to reply with an essay. Brevity is the soul of wit.

Right, because truth is conveyed through nothingness. I think you are following another adage: "It is better to be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."

If you want a feel-good fuzzy circle-jerk with like-minded friends without having to actually engage with the issues, why did you post a thread here?

[Acid King]

What pests require shooting?

Feral pigs are becoming a big problem in some areas of the US. Though I hear some people use knives to go after the little ones, I doubt you'd want to approach a 100+lb feral hog with anything other than a gun.

A Plague of Pigs in Texas

[shmuppyLove]

Chikins is srs bzniss

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/stat ... 2G4LRuV21M

[sscamaro2010]

An armed society is a polite society, and I carry a gun cause I can't carry a cop.

[sscamaro2010]

deleted

[mesh control]

Oh boy, HERE WE GO MOTHERFUCKERS.

[louisg]

You will notice almost all of those gun kills are in Cities (chicongo, DC) were ordinary citizens are not allowed to carry against the criminals.

Chicongo, really? Come on.

Hmm you're in Colorado? Interesting.

[Ed Oscuro]

Oh boy, HERE WE GO MOTHERFUCKERS.

I bet that's what Holmes said.

[xbl0x180]

Just outta curiosity, how do the Swiss handle gun ownership

Personally, as a collectro, I have that mindset of owning lots of the same thing. While I'm not a fan of guns or weapons, I could see myself getting into it for the sake of having a weapon collection. Here in California, there are restrictions on different kinds of weapons. I think they're similar to NY, but I'm not sure. I once tried ordering a really cool-looking set of switchblades and butterfly knives and they were held by the post office. I also tried ordering one of those police metal batons - and that was held by the post office. That one was surprising. I mean, it was just a freaking metal stick! I could probably fashion a home-made one in the garage. Then, I saw this list of banned weapons in California, which includes cool junk such as ninja stars, nunchucks, and other kinds of knives (pretty much anything more than 4 inches and that have a switch).

I'm not gonna try and disobey the law by smuggling these into the state. However, I have seen these kinds of weapons here in SoCal, so this means if a psycho is really hellbent on getting something, they will

[BareKnuckleRoo]

- Historical Significance

This is never an appropriate excuse to defend anything. Just because people have been doing something for a while doesn't make it right (bloodletting, believing the Earth is flat/the center of the solar system, bans on interracial marriage, allowing slavery, not allowing women to drive, etc). Saying 'fuck progress, it's historical!' whether you're arguing for or against anything is just inane.

[FIL]

No innocent person has ever been shot in Colorado. No siree.

[sscamaro2010]

Every family in Switzerland is required by law to have an assault rifle and to be trained in the use thereof. No invasions. No socialist dictators (Hitler, Mao, Stalin) that disarmed them and then slaughtered there own people who disagreed with them. Also if there would have been just one gun permit holder in that theater in here in colorado it could have been stopped. When the public cannot defend itself against tyranny they will be subject to whatever the politicians whims are (and we have seen what had happened in Europe and China. Over 100 Million dead by their own governments hands). With all due respect to people who don't want guns that is fine. But don't tell others they can't defend themselves or their families. You are right, the Chicago remark was a mistake. But in that city alone more people have been murdered with guns than the U.S. has lost in Afghanistan this year. You are not allowed to own a gun in that city. The mayor of Chicago had to plead with the criminals to not shoot children or innocent bystanders (5 dead 45 wounded in one weekend.) I live in a very small town here. We all have guns, even in the back rack of our trucks. How long would a criminal last who wants to hurt you or your family or others here? Not long. Aurora had not allowed gun pemits to be issued. I am just trying to say I don't want to be a sheep led to the slaughter by anyone. That is why we have a second amendment. if it was you or your family in that theater I would have to think that you would want a citizen to be able step in. There will always be bad people. And there will always be people who want the government to take care of them. Americans don't want government to run their lives. If you claim to be an American and want somebody else to protect you and take care of you then you need to rethink your socialist position. Once again I apologize if I have injured someone's idealistic vision of how the world should be. Also of note, Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, DC, New Orleans, have been run by Democrats for over 40 years. Over 1 Trillion on the war on poverty. At what point do people say that is not working anymore?

[mesh control]

lol buy a sword or mace.

[xbl0x180]

Every family in Switzerland is required by law to have an assault rifle and to be trained in the use thereof. No invasions. No socialist dictators (Hitler, Mao, Stalin) that disarmed them and then slaughtered there own people who disagreed with them. Also if there would have been just one gun permit holder in that theater in here in colorado it could have been stopped. When the public cannot defend itself against tyranny they will be subject to whatever the politicians whims are (and we have seen what had happened in Europe and China. Over 100 Million dead by their own governments hands). With all due respect to people who don't want guns that is fine. But don't tell others they can't defend themselves or their families. You are right, the Chicago remark was a mistake. But in that city alone more people have been murdered with guns than the U.S. has lost in Afghanistan this year. You are not allowed to own a gun in that city. The mayor of Chicago had to plead with the criminals to not shoot children or innocent bystanders (5 dead 45 wounded in one weekend.) I live in a very small town here. We all have guns, even in the back rack of our trucks. How long would a criminal last who wants to hurt you or your family or others here? Not long. Aurora had not allowed gun pemits to be issued. I am just trying to say I don't want to be a sheep led to the slaughter by anyone. That is why we have a second amendment. if it was you or your family in that theater I would have to think that you would want a citizen to be able step in. There will always be bad people. And there will always be people who want the government to take care of them. Americans don't want government to run their lives. If you claim to be an American and want somebody else to protect you and take care of you then you need to rethink your socialist position. Once again I apologize if I have injured someone's idealistic vision of how the world should be. Also of note, Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, DC, New Orleans, have been run by Democrats for over 40 years. Over 1 Trillion on the war on poverty. At what point do people say that is not working anymore?

The Swiss fund their country almost entirely on laundering money of murderous regimes, such as the nazis, and as tax avoidance schemes for the uberrich, such as romney. The irony is that the Swiss run the country as a socialist state. Still, if I was to defend myself against the U.S. Congress, I'd want nothing less than weapons-grade plutonium and uranium considering low-life, subhuman scum, such as repiglican paul ryan, may stand a chance of being second in command.

Anyway, should random citizens be allowed to own plutonium and uranium

[BulletMagnet]

@sscamaro:

1) When that Congresswoman, plus others, was shot in the southwest a little ways back there was a guy present who was armed; he didn't shoot. When asked why afterwards, he said that in the confusion he might well have been mistaken for an accomplice if he'd suddenly pulled his gun out. And this happened in the open, in broad daylight; how well do you think it would have turned out if people started shooting in a darkened theater, especially if they hadn't been well-trained in firearm use?

That being said, I personally don't have any particular qualms about someone keeping a gun at home for protection, which brings me to...

2) I'm not familiar with Swiss law, but I am curious to know, if every family is required to keep a firearm, are they also allowed to carry it around, loaded, to pretty much any public place, or are there restrictions on that? Are there legal limits on how many guns can be bought at once, or how long one is required to wait for a background check, or on obtaining certain types of military-grade weapons, or easily-modified weaponry? Are there exceptions for the mentally ill or for those with criminal records? And are there gun shows or other such events where pretty much any such limits effectively go out the window?

If there is a gun lobby in your country which can and does have a tangible effect on public policy, does it actually live up to promises to work to keep guns only in the hands of responsible owners, or does it seem more interested in simply getting as many guns into people's hands as it possibly can, regardless of circumstances?

3) Just because both are traditionally "liberal" policies doesn't mean that the shortcomings of the "war on poverty" have much of anything to do with gun control. Feel free to argue how an erstwhile return to the robber baron era will turn out better for anyone except the super-rich, though; I could use a good laugh.

[Ex-Cyber]

Every family in Switzerland is required by law to have an assault rifle and to be trained in the use thereof.

Only current militia members are required to keep a rifle. Also, the rifle used to come with an ammo box. A sealed ammo box. Breaking the seal without government permission was illegal, and they'd send people around to inspect them. Even that was ended ~5 years ago; now they're only allowed to keep the rifle at home without ammo. Once they leave service they're allowed to keep the rifle if it is converted to semi-auto. It can then be used at shooting ranges where ammo is sold, but it's illegal to remove that ammo from the range; it must be used there.

[sscamaro2010]

Have a laugh at this.. with all due respect. So called Liberal Policies? Bogus premise. Call it what it is. The mob through the force of government forces those who work and produce to pay for those who do not.

Mr. BulletMagnet we, the taxpayers of the United States understand the ways of the Europeans. We've spent our soldiers and treasure in two world wars helping a few Europeans preserve their autonomy and then helping them, via the U.S. taxpayer's dime, to rebuild their countries afterwards. We lost quit a few people in those wars.

And we know full well the expense of defending much of Western Europe from the USSR for 40+ years. U.S. defense budgets and the U.S. Military covered the lion's share of the expense while the EU played out their social justice farce...

We also are the major funding source for the IMF currently guaranteeing monies to cover Greece, Spain, Portugal, etc. who are seeking cash infusions to prop up their overdrawn socialists government programs.

Facts are a stubborn thing...

[sscamaro2010]

“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none.

When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”

~ Chief Tecumseh (Poem from Act of Valor the Movie)

[BulletMagnet]

Call it what it is. The mob through the force of government forces those who work and produce to pay for those who do not.

I'd love to know what's got you all concerned all of a sudden, considering that for the past several decades straight, to name just a few things off the top of my head, worker productivity has increased while wages have stagnated or fallen, taxes have been repeatedly cut (by far the most at the very top of the wealth scale) unions have crumbled while corporate influence on government has exploded, regulations have been steadily rolled back across the board (especially in the financial sector...like how that worked out?), banks that engaged in criminal behavior have been bailed out with few strings attached while their victims are simply told to tighten their belts, and the wealth gap is the highest it's been since the pre-Depression period (and, again, this is exactly where the self-styled "patriots" want to take us again...y'know, the good old days).

I'd say all the "producers" (who by and large refuse to hire anybody even though they're sitting on ludicrous amounts of cash, since demand isn't high enough to make it worth their while) out there are doing damned well for themselves these days, even with an America-hating secret Muslim Socialist in the white house. Heck, if memory serves tax rates were higher under Reagan; did he hate America and want to punish success even more than his liberal counterparts do (he certainly did more than his share of skyrocketing the deficit)?

Mr. BulletMagnet we, the taxpayers of the United States understand the ways of the Europeans.

I'd consider it unwise to lump "Europe" into one formless entity for the sake of a discussion (if we can still call it that) like this one, considering how disparate their approaches to governance are, and always have been...if you insist, however, it must be noted that most of the countries that have insisted on "austerity" policies to shake off the recession (notably Greece) continue to struggle (just as that old Socialist bastard Keynes could have predicted), while those who have offered more assistance to their populations at large, not just the rich ones (notably Iceland) have recovered far more successfully. Here at home our own efforts to help ordinary people get back on their feet have been anemic at best (thanks largely to the newborn deficit hawks on the right, who apparently didn't care a bit when W. didn't bother to calculate the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan into his budgets and STILL never balanced his books once in eight years...and that's before we even get into his various questionable interpretations of his powers under the Constitution), and, well, here we are. Funny how quickly one's priorities can shift.

Facts are a stubborn thing...

Big talk from a guy who can't muster a single word of reponse to the poster who actually knows what he's talking about when it comes to Swiss gun laws, and instead copy-pastes grand-sounding and totally irrelevant movie lines.

...and by the way, you still haven't bothered to explain what any of this latest tirade has to do with gun control. From where I'm standing it looks like you're just zig-zagging from one ill-informed, Hannity-fueled rant to another to keep any actual substantive discussion on these topics from happening (feel free to repeatedly shout "keep the government's hands off my Medicare!" at the top of your lungs at the next town hall meeting you attend, speaking of what "the mob" has been up to of late).

[Ex-Cyber]

Big talk from a guy who can't muster a single word of reponse to the poster who actually knows what he's talking about when it comes to Swiss gun laws

To be fair, that post was my final homework for a 20-minute course at University of Google Law School, inasmuch as I could remember that this was some kind of hoary bullshit but couldn't recall the details. However, most of the stuff I actually read was quoted or linked from a pro-gun-ownership/anti-gun-control site. The full story on Switzerland and guns (beyond the militia-issued rifle stuff) is clearly much more complicated and trying to boil it down into a one- or two-sentence sound bite is probably futile.

[louisg]

I think you guys are being trolled. Right? I hope?

[Ex-Cyber]

I think you guys are being trolled. Right? I hope?

It's a comforting thought, isn't it?