Lds Church Subsidiary And Guns

[thesometimesaint]

Jeff Holt:

It wasn't I who set up the straw man argument of what happens in prisons. That was Stargazer. I was merely responding with an counterargument of access.

Laws that aren't enforced are worse than no law at all. It makes people think that something is being done. When in reality none is.

[ERayR]

Jeff Holt:

It wasn't I who set up the straw man argument of what happens in prisons. That was Stargazer. I was merely responding with an counterargument of access.

Laws that aren't enforced are worse than no law at all. It makes people think that something is being done. When in reality none is.

And then they want new laws to go with the ones that already are not being enforced.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

Pa Pa:

I too own a gun, a rather big and powerful one at that. As I said I have no desire for you, Stargazer, Jeff Holt, ERayR, or myself to be required to turn in our guns. By the same token lethal weapons should be kept out of the hands of those that have no business having them. We have laws regulating whom can drive on the public roads. Shouldn't we at least have laws highly regulating machines, and the people whom use them, whose only purpose is to kill?

But we do...but cannot read minds. In this latest tragedy, this man had no criminal record. I had to (and when serving as police officer every year by FBI) every five years for carry permit. When I was inspected the airport I had to have another every year as well. Now they want the UN to run guns laws in our Nation. Where does it end and who gets to make the rules? Back to the OP if you support the Church's position then you are considered part of a hate group? IMO no one is less tolerant than the left...it is their way or the highway. The BSA is a good group of people...so is the LDS Church...the Catholic Church and so forth. We all want Biblical values. "God's values". I of course speak of background checks. Had I failed on, I would lose my job and my "right" to buy guns.

[ERayR]

But we do...but cannot read minds. In this latest tragedy, this man had no criminal record. I had to (and when serving as police officer every year by FBI) every five years for carry permit. When I was inspected the airport I had to have another every year as well. Now they want the UN to run guns laws in our Nation. Where does it end and who gets to make the rules? Back to the OP if you support the Church's position then you are considered part of a hate group? IMO no one is less tolerant than the left...it is their way or the highway. The BSA is a good group of people...so is the LDS Church...the Catholic Church and so forth. We all want Biblical values. "God's values".

If I could you would get half a dozen rep points for this.

[Duncan]

This is probably going to break Duncan's streak, but here goes:

(I'm not answering any specific poster, just some general themes.)

There is one very important reason why every free person should have access to and skill with weaponry, even military weaponry. It's the same reason why God and the founders gave us the second amendment in the first place. We should all remember how President Buchanan demonstrated that need. We were blessed to get through that incident without combat, but I don't think we should take it for granted that things will be the same next time.

your second amendment, not mine

[Nathair/|\]

your second amendment, not mine

The reference to you was a joke that you probably wouldn't want me at your dinner table. You had mentioned in the post I linked to that you would have anyone in the thread up to that point over.

[Duncan]

The reference to you was a joke that you probably wouldn't want me at your dinner table. You had mentioned in the post I linked to that you would have anyone in the thread up to that point over.

oh! I would have you over to dinner!

[Robert F. Smith]

I know in a perfect world guns and hatred and violence won't exist but it would be nice to live in some society like that. I can't even concieve of a reaosn why someone needs a machine gun like weapon. if people want that stuff doesn't that send signals to others that maybe something is potentially amiss? Again I know the realities of life but people can't have everything they want and if you hurt other people with something it should get taken away

Those "machine gun like weapons" you refer to are illegal by federal law, and the ATF will arrest you for possessing one. For those who have spent some time in the military or in law enforcement, this is no mystery, and the safety rules governing the use of firearms are easily understood. For the general public, however, most of whom have never served in an armed position or in war, the difference between semi-auto and automatic weapons is opaque, which means that they haven't the foggiest idea what they are talking about.

The KSL ads are the same ads carried on all internet ad sites, and all newspapers have been carrying them for years. ATF trolls such sites and makes regular arrests for those who do not sell their private weapons via the legal methods (filling out and submitting the proper forms, etc.). The madman in Aurora bought his weapons legally in the store because his psychiatrist did not report him as dangerous. The psychiatrist should lose her license to practice, as should any physician or psychotherapist who knows of someone who is likely to commit a major crime and does not report it ahead of time.

Meantime, ask yourself whether a theater full of people should be prohibited from protecting themselves from a madman with a gun? Twelve dead and 70 wounded need not have occurred it only one person in that theater had returned fire and brought the madman down. Are we no more than a herd of cattle, ready for slaughter? Or, are we a free people with a right to self-defense?

[Duncan]

Those "machine gun like weapons" you refer to are illegal by federal law, and the ATF will arrest you for possessing one. For those who have spent some time in the military or in law enforcement, this is no mystery, and the safety rules governing the use of firearms are easily understood. For the general public, however, most of whom have never served in an armed position or in war, the difference between semi-auto and automatic weapons is opaque, which means that they haven't the foggiest idea what they are talking about.

The KSL ads are the same ads carried on all internet ad sites, and all newspapers have been carrying them for years. ATF trolls such sites and makes regular arrests for those who do not sell their private weapons via the legal methods (filling out and submitting the proper forms, etc.). The madman in Aurora bought his weapons legally in the store because his psychiatrist did not report him as dangerous. The psychiatrist should lose her license to practice, as should any physician or psychotherapist who knows of someone who is likely to commit a major crime and does not report it ahead of time.

Meantime, ask yourself whether a theater full of people should be prohibited from protecting themselves from a madman with a gun? Twelve dead and 70 wounded need not have occurred it only one person in that theater had returned fire and brought the madman down. Are we no more than a herd of cattle, ready for slaughter? Or, are we a free people with a right to self-defense?

Would you want people to always carry a weapon in the event they are somewhere where some nut goes off and shoots the place up? That sounds like the Old Wild West and I hope we are past those days-How was the theatre shooter caught anyways?-I don't know

[blackstrap]

he was arrested without much fuss out behind the theater. In my opinion,he wore armor so that it would have been difficult to stop his killing time. After that, he gave up to the police without serious resistance because his work was done. ( I am not a psychologist,nor do I play one on TV )

[blackstrap]

For those who have forgotten,there was a video of the standoff between cops and a couple of well armed and armored bandits after a bank robbery some years ago. I have no link ,sorry. It does show just how hard it is to take out such an individual. I don't think a guy with a 38 in the theatre would have made much of a difference. Now a couple of ex-marines with 44 mags,maybe.At least it may have redirected his fire and given others more time to escape.

[Stargazer]

Jeff Holt:

It wasn't I who set up the straw man argument of what happens in prisons. That was Stargazer. I was merely responding with an counterargument of access.

Laws that aren't enforced are worse than no law at all. It makes people think that something is being done. When in reality none is.

I don't like straw men at all, and would not conciously use such an argument. What you're calling a "straw man" is an analogy, or so I intended it. It is an analogy of how difficult it would be to enforce a weapons ban in society, when in one of the most controlled environments on earth, a prison, inmates still manage to fabricate expedient firearms ("zip guns"). It is an argument against a ban -- especially given that those who don't care about the law against murder can hardly be expected to respect a law against possession of a firearm. Perhaps I didn't explain the analogy sufficicently well, and if so I apologize.

I do appreciate your concern that only people who are permitted to do so may possess firearms. I share your concern. But do you appreciate that the genie has been out of the bottle for centuries? The only way to remove all firearms from the possession of all who are legally not permitted to possess them would require such egregious violations of civil rights that there is no way such removal can take place? The most that can be done is to remove such weapons from that population as it becomes known that an ineligible person possesses one. And all the gassing about of "something must be done!" is just that: hot air emission. It gives politicians something to drivel on about.

There are more than enough laws in the United States (and Canada) to deal with the problem. If you can't see that, then I don't know what to tell you. By the way, the US capital, Washington DC, has the most stringent gun laws in the country And, oddly enough, Washington DC has three times the rate of violent crime than the rest of the country (it used to enjoy the sobriquet "Murder Capital of the United States" -- and most of its murders were committed by firearms). The murder rate was 43 per 100,000 in 2008. The gun laws didn't help, apparently. Meanwhile in Virginia, right across the Potomac River, the murder rate in the same year was 4.5 per 100,000. And Virginia has much more lax guns laws in comparison with DC.-- very similar to the gun laws in my own Washington state, where the murder rate is 2.9 per 100,000. I know my state pretty well, and I can tell you that gun ownership here is endemic, but violent crime rates are low. The city of Olympia, for example, being a state capital in a Democrat-dominated government, is quite liberal. However, when the city council tried to pass a referendum to ask the legislature to allow the city to designate gun-free zones in city parks, the vote was 75% against. Which shocked the council, whose members had confidently predicted massive turnout of hoplophobes. Well, that's the not the term they used, but it amounted to the same thing.

[Stargazer]

he was arrested without much fuss out behind the theater. In my opinion,he wore armor so that it would have been difficult to stop his killing time. After that, he gave up to the police without serious resistance because his work was done. ( I am not a psychologist,nor do I play one on TV )

In my opinion, the armor wouldn't have been as effective as you think it would be. To start with, his face was covered only by a gas mask. Given that a gas mask is a rather distinctive item, it clearly identified him as a target -- there was enough light for patrons to see him and how he was dressed, by the way, so there was enough light to shoot at him with. Now if I were doing what he was doing, I would use bullet resistant clothing, too. But such clothing does NOT make you invulnerable. To start with, an .45 ACP round impacting on a ballistic vest in, say, the ribs, will definitely not penetrate. But you're going to feel it, In fact, it is going to hurt. You will not ignore it, and your attention will be instantly riveted on the source of those rounds, and away from the fleeing people. Another thing is, that gas mask is going to reduce the shooter's vision and make it harder for him to identify the source of the return fire. My main point is this: if someone had been returning fire, even if they had not been able to take him down, it would have made a dramatic difference in the number of dead and wounded in that theater.

The only reason this guy walked away without injury is that there was nobody there who could counter him. I realize that many of you here have never fired a gun in your lives. And some of you have been bloviating in ignorance about how someone with a pistol in that theater couldn't possible have done anything useful about that killer. Please do not presume that you know anything about the tactical employment of firearms. And please don't presume to instruct those who do know something about it. TSS, I am not including you in this category.

The last time I watched a movie in a theater was last month with The Avengers, a couple of days after its release. I was legally carrying a concealed pistol. Not because I was expecting trouble, but just because. In restrospect I am confident that there was at least a chance that, if something similar to Aurora had happened, I would have been able to make a difference.

.45 ACP against Level II ballistic armor:

[media=]

[Stargazer]

Would you want people to always carry a weapon in the event they are somewhere where some nut goes off and shoots the place up? That sounds like the Old Wild West and I hope we are past those days-How was the theatre shooter caught anyways?-I don't know

If wishes were horses, all beggars would ride.

Duncan, your thought here, namely that our civilization would be better if it were more reliably peaceable, is not an unworthy and unattainable ideal. It is! But wishful thinking won't accomplish its attainment. And disarming law-abiding citizens will also not cause it to become reality. The only way to achieve this worthwhile goal is to ensure that all children are taught moral values, especially concerning the sanctity of life and the respecting of private property, and also ensure that all persons who can be identified as incurable pyschopaths are somehow removed from society where they cannot do damage. Perhaps in Canada you have gotten closer to this ideal than we have in the United States. But I would be willing to assert that it is not Canada's gun laws that make it so. Mexico has strict gun laws, too. The contrast between Canada and Mexico in terns of crime rates is quite distinctive.

[Duncan]

If wishes were horses, all beggars would ride.

Duncan, your thought here, namely that our civilization would be better if it were more reliably peaceable, is not an unworthy and unattainable ideal. It is! But wishful thinking won't accomplish its attainment. And disarming law-abiding citizens will also not cause it to become reality. The only way to achieve this worthwhile goal is to ensure that all children are taught moral values, especially concerning the sanctity of life and the respecting of private property, and also ensure that all persons who can be identified as incurable pyschopaths are somehow removed from society where they cannot do damage. Perhaps in Canada you have gotten closer to this ideal than we have in the United States. But I would be willing to assert that it is not Canada's gun laws that make it so. Mexico has strict gun laws, too. The contrast between Canada and Mexico in terns of crime rates is quite distinctive.

I would go along with that!

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

If I could you would get half a dozen rep points for this.

Thank you...it seems those who are for our God given rights and those granted by the constitution, this includes the BSA and 99 percent of most faiths' are somehow haters.

[thesometimesaint]

Stargazer:

I don't like straw men at all, and would not conciously use such an argument. What you're calling a "straw man" is an analogy, or so I intended it. It is an analogy of how difficult it would be to enforce a weapons ban in society, when in one of the most controlled environments on earth, a prison, inmates still manage to fabricate expedient firearms ("zip guns"). It is an argument against a ban -- especially given that those who don't care about the law against murder can hardly be expected to respect a law against possession of a firearm. Perhaps I didn't explain the analogy sufficicently well, and if so I apologize.

I do appreciate your concern that only people who are permitted to do so may possess firearms. I share your concern. But do you appreciate that the genie has been out of the bottle for centuries? The only way to remove all firearms from the possession of all who are legally not permitted to possess them would require such egregious violations of civil rights that there is no way such removal can take place? The most that can be done is to remove such weapons from that population as it becomes known that an ineligible person possesses one. And all the gassing about of "something must be done!" is just that: hot air emission. It gives politicians something to drivel on about.

There are more than enough laws in the United States (and Canada) to deal with the problem. If you can't see that, then I don't know what to tell you. By the way, the US capital, Washington DC, has the most stringent gun laws in the country And, oddly enough, Washington DC has three times the rate of violent crime than the rest of the country (it used to enjoy the sobriquet "Murder Capital of the United States" -- and most of its murders were committed by firearms). The murder rate was 43 per 100,000 in 2008. The gun laws didn't help, apparently. Meanwhile in Virginia, right across the Potomac River, the murder rate in the same year was 4.5 per 100,000. And Virginia has much more lax guns laws in comparison with DC.-- very similar to the gun laws in my own Washington state, where the murder rate is 2.9 per 100,000. I know my state pretty well, and I can tell you that gun ownership here is endemic, but violent crime rates are low. The city of Olympia, for example, being a state capital in a Democrat-dominated government, is quite liberal. However, when the city council tried to pass a referendum to ask the legislature to allow the city to designate gun-free zones in city parks, the vote was 75% against. Which shocked the council, whose members had confidently predicted massive turnout of hoplophobes. Well, that's the not the term they used, but it amounted to the same thing.

I never said such a ban would be easy. Plus at this point it would probably be useless if not counterproductive to try to impose such a ban for the entire US.

Actually it is quite easy to execute an effective ban in prisons, but I'm not sure the public would be willing to pay the added financial cost associated with its enforcement. No need to apologize most people have no clue as to how easy it is to control a prison population, if we ignore the financial costs.

Murder is rarely more than a one off thing. Just two individuals. Such a ban would be ineffective in such cases. However the murder of more than a very few individuals becomes more problematic without the ready availability of high capacity firearms.

Actually no. A good start would be to close the gun show exemption. Where anyone can buy as many guns as they want without any sort of background check. Another is the prevention of straw sales. Where guns shops sell firearms to someone who resells soon afterwards. Another is banning the sale of high capacity magazines. None of those involve the infringement of rights and still allow for hunting and self defense purposes. No self respecting hunter is going to use an AK-47 against a deer let alone a rabbit for his dinner table.

I'm not suggest that we can, even if I wanted to, and I don't, put that genie back in the bottle. But common sense says that we don't need 300,000,000 genie's running around making havoc in the USA.

The gun laws we have are more like screen doors on a submarine. Interesting to look at but not very effective. Further 30,000 deaths and lord knows how many injuries from firearms each year in the USA should tell us far more than Wayne LaPierre.

Washington DC is an open city with virtually unregulated means of entry. See http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf

Try bringing firearms into Japan.

The LDS prohibit the bringing of firearms into its buildings. Should we expect high murder rates in the Chapel simply because of that prohibition?

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

your second amendment, not mine

Do you view it as immoral?

[Calm]

Perhaps in Canada you have gotten closer to this ideal than we have in the United States. But I would be willing to assert that it is not Canada's gun laws that make it so. Mexico has strict gun laws, too. The contrast between Canada and Mexico in terns of crime rates is quite distinctive.

It does seem to me to be a more cultural issue than the presence of guns.

[Duncan]

Do you view it as immoral?

immoral? no, but I am not American is what I meant- I be Canadian!

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

Would you want people to always carry a weapon in the event they are somewhere where some nut goes off and shoots the place up? That sounds like the Old Wild West and I hope we are past those days-How was the theatre shooter caught anyways?-I don't know

In the old west you did not need a carry permit and background check...but feel free to run down my country, it is quite vogue.

[Calm]

Canada had the "Old Wild West" as well. You should see the size of the cowboy hats up there and the Mounties weren't there to get cats out of the trees and such. I don't think Duncan was running down the US.

[thesometimesaint]

Pa Pa:

While certainly Hollywood has over emphasized how violent the old west(Star Wars is just an old style western taking place in space) was. There were in fact strict gun laws in places like Abilene; Kansas, and Tombstone; Arizona. It's my country too, and I prefer to make it a more perfect union.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

Pa Pa:

While certainly Hollywood has over emphasized how violent the old west(Star Wars is just an old style western taking place in space) was. There were in fact strict gun laws in places like Abilene; Kansas, and Tombstone; Arizona. It's my country too, and I prefer to make it a more perfect union.

Only because of One man...who was very violent himself. Ended up in one of the most legendary shoot out in history.

[thesometimesaint]

Pa Pa:

Those weren't the only places to control guns, and the Earp brothers had little/nothing to do with them. But I agree that the OK Corral has become more legend than fact.

Ps; See http://www.ndsu.edu/...rship/guns.html