Again - that punk will tool up weather the law permits it or not.

They do here.  They're called gangstas.

Monkey23 asked..... why would you need to carry a gun to Home Depot in the middle of the day.....

READ THIS: http://www.floridacrimina...ds_to_felony_murd.html


I have not had anyone pull a road rage incident on me..... but my wife came home one day and told me that some guy was trying to pass her on a four lane highway..... she was in the slow lane.....another driver was in the high speed lane, and this guy was behind her...and was really close. He started to flash his lights and honk.... then sped up and slowed down repeatedly.  She got to the place she was headed.... this guy followed her into the parking lot and circled around a few times.... then stopped and rolled his window down and started yelling obscenities at her. She went into the store, and he drove off and down the road.

Stuff like that, and punks that are attacking and robbing people in the middle of the Walmart parking lot in the middle of the day are the reason I carry. This event that happened in the OP was in the morning....on a Wednesday morning.  You do not know when and where you will find yourself in a bad place at the wrong time.

The criminals do not care about the law that says they can not have a gun. They will get guns and use them, commit their crimes, and have no regard for who they injure or kill in the process. To them, it's a badge of honor when they go to prison to have a murder rap on their record.

I carry because I want to return home at the end of the day, and I'll be damned if some punk is going to take me down for what he thinks might be in my wallet.

Another true story about a punk. I was working in a really bad neighborhood. A few weeks before, another construction worker was beat so badly that he ended up in the hospital...all over a robbery that netted $3.00 from his wallet. Anyway, I heard someone open the door and walk in the hose that was being rehabbed. A man walked in the room and starts with this story that he needed money to get home to another town. I told him I didn't have any money, but that he could probably find some assistance at the homeless shelter a few blocks away. He appeared a bit agitated, but turned and walked out the door. Less than a minute later, he came back. This concerned me a bit. At the time I did not carry a gun. He came back and started up with the same stuff, he wanted some money...... I turned toward him and pulled my electricians Hawk Bill Lineman's Knife....and held it in my hand which I raised in front of me..... blade back along my arm.....not out front.  I told him to leave.....he uttered a curse word then and he did.... this time for good. I believe he came back with the full intention to rob me in a strong arm robbery. The knife deterred him.

Double post, sorry

Monkey23


I don't know how to write this without sounding smug (and if you knew me in real life I am anything but) but maybe the question that needs to be asked is not whether you should/should not carry a gun, but to ask why the crime rate is so high in your town, state, country, that you need (or don't need depending on your beliefs) to protect yourself at this level?
I'm not saying we don't have muggings or murders where I live but to give you an example: Montreal has on average 25 murders a year. I read an article recently that said that Philadelphia PA and Phoenix AZ, two cities that have approximately the same population as Montreal have on average 250 murders a year!
That's 10 times as many murders. Granted I've left out other crimes (actually the article left out other crimes) but doesn't that seem odd? What could possibly be the reason for that? And no, Canadians are not all as friendly and good natured as were made out to be on television.

Monkers, you really nailed it. As I've said before, a nation's laws must reflect the will of its people. And, for better or worse, Americans like their guns; that's the bottom line.

I love big cities. I want to live in every big city on the planet before I die (maybe I should save the US cities for last if I want to increase my chances of fulfilling that dream ). Anyway, in the dozen or so cities I've hit, I've observed exactly what you're talking about.

In Montreal, I spent many nights wandering unarmed through every dark alley I could find. The worst threat I encountered was a pigeon with a pissy attitude (gawd, your pigeons are HUGE man).

In Rome, I purposely frequented "the worst parts of town" just to see what all the hubbub was about. Pfft. Disneyland.

London was hilarious... I was on a spooky bridge late at night when a dark, menacing figure approached me quickly. Just when I was about to freak out, he said, 'Don't jump. There are so many things to live for.'

Coming back to the states is like re-entering the war zone. I don't think Americans realize how crazy it is here. They've just lulled themselves into a sense of comfortable paranoia--with the exception of Seattle. Seattle rocks. Note, I haven't yet hit the middle of the country (Minneapolis, etc).

So your question *is* the heart of the matter: "Why is the crime rate is so high in the US that you need to protect yourself at this level?"

I don't have the answer for that. Maybe it's that we have a tradition of taking what we want, as we did from the Native Americans. Maybe it's because "freedom" should only be granted to people who have earned it. Or, like marco said, MTV & rap...

Laws must evolve with the needs of society. When we keep running back to some crusty 200 year old document, it shows we haven't learned anything......We make compromises to our liberty every day for the sake of the common good. Sure, it bothers me that I can no longer take a pair of nail clippers on an airplane, but I can live with it. So would it really trouble you if gun control laws were more strict, for the sake of protecting your fellow Americans in the cities?

That 200 year old document is not a "living document" as many today claim it to be. It was designed to ensure freedom to the people and limit the powers that government has over a free people.  The document is as good today as it was when it was written. It is a unique document that has set America above the rest of the world with the freedom we enjoy here..... unfortunately, it is under attack today from the highest levels and is in danger of being made useless by our current and past administrations. Many would like to see it repealed totally.

The fact that there are people in our government that would like to repeal it in part or in full is what shows that we have not learned anything.  When this document goes.... so goes our freedom.

Yes it would trouble me greatly if the gun laws were made more strict. As has been proven many times and in many places, gun laws do not work. We have more than enough gun laws on the books right now to properly manage guns and who is supposed to have access to them. Simply enforce the existing laws and that would be more than sufficient.

For the sake of protecting people in cities..... again..... look at Washington DC... the most restrictive gun laws on the nation.... also has the highest gun crime rates..... LAWS don't stop criminals. You could have  the most far-reaching gun ban laws in the world and criminals would NOT obey them.....plain and simple.  The ban there was declared unconstitutional by the supreme court.  Kudo's to the court...... Now DC is forced to allow citizens to excercise their 2nd amendment rights.... but now they are trying to make the process so complicated and tiring that people will not bother.....again they are being challenged for again trying to ban guns by the excessively long administrative process.

Nail clippers, liquid in bottles, incadescent  light bulbs..... one piece of freedom at a time....... we give it up willingly, it never comes back......

People who are willing to trade "a little piece of freedom" for some security and safety....deserve neither peace nor  safety, and they will get what they deserve.

"If you carry a gun, people will call you paranoid. That’s ridiculous. If I have a gun, what in the hell do I have to be paranoid about?" - Clint Smith

"One cannot legislate the maniacs off the street... these maniacs can only be shut down by an armed citizenry. Indeed bad things can happen in nations where the citizenry is armed, but not as bad as those which seem to be threatening our disarmed citizenry in this country at this time." - Jeff Cooper

---

I find some people's obsession with tools rather than motives quite curious. Violent people are going to be violent regardless of what tools they have available. That is why I keep repeating the refrain "dead is dead. Murder is murder."  Yes, guns are deadly. So are kitchen knives. So are sticks. So are bare hands.
Removing the tool does not remove the violent impulse. Take away the gun, and the murderer uses a knife. Take away the knife and he uses a length of pipe. Take away the pipe and he uses his bare hands.
 
Not being satisfied with gun control, a Great Britain unwilling to confront violence and crime in an effective manner has moved on to knife control and finally soup spoon control. Yes, that's right. Tableware in Great Britain is regulated by the Offensive Weapons Act of 1996.
 
 
 
Carrying a defensive sidearm is a small part of a mindset - of a lifestyle - that revolves around avoiding trouble.  It is a lifestyle by which one doesn't go places one ought not go, doesn't do things one ought not do, and doesn't act in ways one ought not act.  When you decide to carry legally, you are held to a higher standard of care because if you start a fight, you lose the ability to claim self defense.  So you quit cussing people out, you quit making obscene  gestures in traffic.
 
When Florida initially passed its concealed carry law, there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth from the anti liberty crowd about "blood in the streets" and a "return to the wild west" where there would be shootouts over parking spots at the mall. And you know what happened? Nothing. Except that the crime rate started to drop.
 
Every time another state adopted a concealed carry law, the same loud cries of despair went up. And every time, the crime rate went down.  There has been no blood in the streets.
 

Hi all!
 
I've been reading up a bit since last time I participated in this thread, and it does indeed seem like the "gun-nuts" are right as far as statistics are concerned. Gun density apparently has NO correlation with gun-related deaths internationally, and several example of an inverse relationship can be observed.
 
The only way I can fit this into my logic is that there must be some sort of cold-war terror balance principle going on.
 
I guess paranoia is the price of freedom!
 
Sven

As far as the paranoia, remember the quote from Clint Smith:  "If you carry a gun, people will call you paranoid. That’s ridiculous. If I have a gun, what in the hell do I have to be paranoid about?"

What is preposterous is the idea that gun owners are a bunch of backward-ass Neanderthals.

No one to my knowlege "clings to the 1787 Bill of Rights as the final word."  What gun richts advocates "cling to" is the entire Constitution, as amended, as it stands today. Straw Man.

You need to learn how to read. Show me the post where I said that.

*sigh* is right.  Since your memory is so short, here's the whole exchange:


          Spaceduck:  

I can't accept the "it's the law, so live with it" angle.
 
Laws must evolve with the needs of society. When we keep running back to some crusty 200 year old document, it shows we haven't learned anything. The founding fathers never in their wildest dreams would've imagined a common firearm that is capable of spraying a dozen people dead in seconds, or a sniper murdering random people for kicks, or cities so consumed by fear that people shoot through closed doors before asking 'who is it'.
 
If, in your experience, guns have never posed a threat, that's cool. But try living in a major American city where your perception would change dreadfully. These are the people that need gun control.
 
We make compromises to our liberty every day for the sake of the common good. Sure, it bothers me that I can no longer take a pair of nail clippers on an airplane, but I can live with it. So would it really trouble you if gun control laws were more strict, for the sake of protecting your fellow Americans in the cities?
 
bdickens:
Interesting. Is the Constitution "some crusty 200 year old document" when it comes to you being able to pop off at the mouth, or if the police want to ransack your house or car?
 
Spaceduck:
On freedom of speech, yes. Once again, the founding fathers didn't anticipate some of the vile, hateful, incendiary things people would be perpetrating under that banner.
 
And about protection from police ransacking my car, presuming you're referring to the 14th amendment, that bit was added 120 years after the original Constitution, thus proving my point that our nation's laws must continually evolve over time. Subsequent refinements of "illegal search & seizure" continue, the most recent being last April. Thanks for proving my point.
 
As Mike said earlier, back to the locker room with ya, Mr. Dickens!
 
bdickens:
That would be the Fourth Amendment. Added at the time the original doccument was adopted.  Don't try to play Constitutional Scholar with me. Go do some reading; you might learn something.
 
Vile, hateful and incindiary language is nothing new. It existed long before the eighteenth century.
 
Spaceduck:
P'raps someone needs to. There were 17 more amendments added after the Bill of Rights you know, the most recent in 1992. You're saying we should ignore all of these, go back to 1787, wigs and white leotards? You first.

bdickens:
What I'm saying is that if you think that some crusty 200-year-old doccument doesn't suit you any more there is a mechanism in place for changing it. It's been done 27 times already. What would number 28 hurt?


 

So how does me pointing out your faulty Constitutional scholarship in mistaking the Fourteenth Amendment, which deals with Privileges and Immunities, Due Process, Equal Protection, Apportionment of Representatives, Civil War Disqualification and Debt  for the Fourth, which is the one that deals with searches and seziures translate into me "arguing that the Constitution was sufficient 'at the time the original doccument was adopted?'"
 
It doesn't. What I said was that the Fourth Amendment was adopted at the same time as the original doccument.
 
Like I said, your reading comprehension skills are lacking. But don't worry, they can be improved with practice.

time for a group hug?

SvenArne


Hi all!
 
I've been reading up a bit since last time I participated in this thread, and it does indeed seem like the "gun-nuts" are right as far as statistics are concerned. Gun density apparently has NO correlation with gun-related deaths internationally, and several example of an inverse relationship can be observed.
 
The only way I can fit this into my logic is that there must be some sort of cold-war terror balance principle going on.
 
I guess paranoia is the price of freedom!
 
Sven

Sven, I'm using your post as an example. I'm not directing anything at you. In reference to "gun nuts".
 
I thought I'd share one of the "just the way things are" that I wish was everywhere.
I've lived in my area for almost 20 years now. I noticed something that was very strange to me immediately.
I noticed people having heated arguements that wouldn't have lasted but seconds before real trouble broke where I was raised. What I came to learn was that neither of the parties showed or stated anything in a way that implied disrespect for the other.
 
I had never really been exposed to this "way of life".
 
To use "gun nuts" is disrespectful, intentional or not. "Gun owners" would have been within reason. Again, only an example in how I see and understand. I realize not everybody that owns a gun is an idiot or a nut.
 
I know I'm still trying to learn how to communicate with respect. Hard to do when the respect is gone. Maybe that should have been in the constitution for those that need documentation to know what is right or wrong.
 
And I still feel like I'm interupting when I post....so excuse me.
 
 
 

bdickens

I'm actually pleasantly surprised that this discussion has gone on in a civilized fashion as long as it has.

Agreed 100% - many a 'discussion' upstairs have been locked before the bottom of the first page!
 
I made a flippant remark about 'testosterone' earlier in the thread and I sincerely apologise for that - this thread really has become a facinating insight into your country, and the cogent and interesting points brought up by the intelligent protagonists on both sides of the fence have really made me think about the subject properly.
 
As an outsider looking in from the UK, what I have learned is how many of you guys across the pond don't agree with carrying guns.  We are maybe fed the idea that your gun laws are quite lax and that everyone is wandering around armed to the teeth.
 
It's refreshing to see how seriously you guys that do arm yourselves in public and in your homes take the associated responsibilities of doing so.
 
I noticed the remarks concerning out laws about carrying knives and I agree it must seem quite ridiculous to others.  This legislation was brought in mainly to tackle knife crime among gangs - these young guys openly admit they carry knives "for protection" against others that also carry.  The trouble is that whenever they do catch offenders, the criminal justice system treats them with kid gloves are they often get away with a police caution or some meaningless non-custodial punishment.
 
Anyway, I'll let you get on with the egg-nog and this healthy debate.
 
 
Steve