Three Pittsburgh police officers were killed and two others were injured...

I believe in the right to bear arms.

Knives.

 

Outing alert - Bitter Young Matador is really Bill Cowher...... ;D

 

Finland, with a big hunting/gun culture, has had a couple of very bad school shootings in the last two years. (After both, the government took a long look at its gun laws.)

That's it. That's the list.

 

Honestly, this kind of shit doesn't have to happen. It really doesn't.

You want guns? OK. Go get one. After a three month waiting period, you can have it. You're allowed three at the most, no automatic weapons.

If you're a hunter, and you need them for that purpose, take special classes, apply for a license. If you pass, congrats. If not, find another way to live.

This shit is ridiculous and unnecessary and anyone who says otherwise is a fucking moron.

 

I don't think you'll find anybody - gun owners included - who doesn't think these crimes are ridiculous and unnecessary.

 

They are ridiculous but inevitable when the only thing stopping people from building a small army inside their house is the cashier at the local Walmart saying "Please don't build a small army inside your house. K?"

You want to protect yourself? Fine. But you don't need six AK-47's, three bulletproof vests, seven sniper rifles and a rocket launcher to do it.

 

Well, fully automatic AK-47s are heavily regulated.

How do you define a sniper rifle? One man's deer rifle could be another man's sniper rifle.

Rocket launchers are illegal.

As I said on the Politics thread, I think most gun owners would be willing to compromise. But the NRA is such a force in politics (i.e. it writes a lot of checks to politicians), I don't see it happening. Unfortunately.

 

I was being a bit sarcastic in my reply. My basic point was there's a difference between protecting yourself, your property and your family and amassing enough firepower to overthrow a small country.

We've had this discussion in the past though. I don't see why the need for an unlimited amount of guns is allowed. I really don't.

Anytime you see one of these stories, it's some guy with 42 weapons who snaps. You'd think after No. 41, someone would say "Hey, uh, Jim, maybe we should cut you off."

I find it funny that bar owners get in trouble for serving patrons who clearly go over their limit and then injure someone, but if a guy who bought 32 guns from a K-Mart kills 40 people, no one says a word.

 

I know a lot of people who own lots of guns and none of them are holding off police and/or gunning innocent people down in the streets and frankly, it is none of your business how many guns people want to buy.

There are already plenty of weapons banned, there are already plenty of laws designed to make it tougher to by guns - more than there need to be.

We don't need more laws on the books or more gun control period. And it won't solve the problem.

This dude had a weapon that has been banned already -- unless his AK-47 was semi-automatic but I haven't read that -- which tells me that more gun control wouldn't have stopped him from owning guns.

 

That depends on where you live. And the laws that do exist are easily circumvented by gun shows or person-to-person sales.

 

Zag, here's a point by point rebuttal for you:

I know a lot of people who drink and don't kill people, that doesn't mean drinking and driving shouldn't be against the law. Laws are meant to set guidelines for behaviors when those behaviors can interfere with the lives of the population as a whole.

Frankly, it is my business how many guns people want to buy and it is everyone's business when we live in a society where you could get killed for just going about your business because some asshole got laid off and can't deal with the pressure of his life.

Clearly you're missing the point of gun control laws. If we had REAL gun control laws, these types of things would still happen but they'd likely happen LESS. I can't really understand how someone can argue against more regulation when the only downside is it might save lives.

You say more gun control laws won't solve the problem. Maybe that's true. But who's to say it won't save a life? Maybe two?

If you put tougher laws and tougher sanctions in place, you give LEO a better chance to police the problem. My opinion? You get caught with an unregistered gun or caught buying one? Six months in prison for the first offense. You get caught again? Five years.

You get caught selling illegal guns? No slap on the wrist. 10 years, first offense.

That'll solve the problem pretty quickly.

 

There's no reason that both gun shows and person-to-person sales should have any loopholes.