gun control

TheWylff wrote:I would feel much safer living in a city with strict gun regulations. The way people act...the harder it is for them to get firearms, the better.

I agree. I would feel a lot safer if the criminals were the only ones who had guns (where's the sarcasm emoticon?).

Strict gun laws only serve to make it more difficult for those who obey the law to obtain guns. The criminals will just obtain them illegally.

What do you think about laws prohibiting people with criminal records from getting guns very well?

It still means an expansion of government control in my opinion. The solution for crime is stricter prosecution, not limiting the availability of guns.

I agree. I would feel a lot safer if the criminals were the only ones who had guns (where's the sarcasm emoticon?).

Strict gun laws only serve to make it more difficult for those who obey the law to obtain guns. The criminals will just obtain them illegally.

You know, that's not necessarily true. People who aren't criminals will become criminals if they have guns, whereas the harder it is for people to have guns means there is that much incentive not to get a gun and therefore people will be less likely to become criminals. Just like jail and prison. If it's a bad place to be locked away, then you are going to think twice about doing it. I would feel safer living in Canada and Great Britain ANY day of the dashed week rather than the US. When you can just walk up to a gun shop and buy a gun no matter who you are and what you've done—no restrictions, nothing asked, allowed, etc, that's just not a safe environment. Jeff, do you give your kids guns so that when they go out they can "protect" themselves? Guns don't protect anyone. They have one purpose and that is to destroy life. Which, by the way, is wrong, though sometimes necessary.

89whiteandnerdy wrote:It still means an expansion of government control in my opinion. The solution for crime is stricter prosecution, not limiting the availability of guns.

Well we disagree then. True we should punish crime better. However if someone has a criminal record it is not smart to sell him a gun. That's a crime waiting to happen. The government does have to have some control you know. Some government control is good. Government control does not equal bad all the time.

TheWylff wrote:

I agree. I would feel a lot safer if the criminals were the only ones who had guns (where's the sarcasm emoticon?).

Strict gun laws only serve to make it more difficult for those who obey the law to obtain guns. The criminals will just obtain them illegally.

You know, that's not necessarily true. People who aren't criminals will become criminals if they have guns, whereas the harder it is for people to have guns means there is that much incentive not to get a gun and therefore people will be less likely to become criminals. Just like jail and prison. If it's a bad place to be locked away, then you are going to think twice about doing it. I would feel safer living in Canada and Great Britain ANY day of the dashed week rather than the US. When you can just walk up to a gun shop and buy a gun no matter who you are and what you've done—no restrictions, nothing asked, allowed, etc, that's just not a safe environment. Jeff, do you give your kids guns so that when they go out they can "protect" themselves? Guns don't protect anyone. They have one purpose and that is to destroy life. Which, by the way, is wrong, though sometimes necessary.

Unfortunately history and Scripture is not on your side. If you look at the case in the Supreme Court for instance, it is dealing with the unconstitutional and unbiblical gun restrictions that have been placed upon the citizens of Washington DC. It is very difficult to legally obtain a gun in DC yet their crime rate is atrocious. If you were a criminal would you rather attack someone who could shoot back or someone who was following those wonderful gun restriction laws? The answer is obvious. I would highly recommend getting that tape that was offered a while back called "Stick to your Guns." It does a good job of cutting through the emotion of the argument and dealing with it logically and historically. Otherwise you have a very compelling argument.

You say that if guns are made illegal otherwise law abiding citizens will be made criminals if they choose to carry a gun. Would I become a criminal too if homeschooling was made illegal and I chose to continue teaching my children at home? There are many courts in this world, but none of them can claim ultimate authority. I would much rather be a criminal in man's court and a law abiding citizen in God's if indeed it came down to that.

As far as the children go, I would dare say jeschen would not give his children a car right now. Does that make them wrong too? We of course recognize the dangerous nature of objects used inappropriately. A driver can kill someone by running over them with a car just as well as a person can kill someone with a gun. It is not the object that is dangerous, but the inappropriate use of the object. I would venture to say that you could set a gun in the middle of your living room fully loaded and it would not so much as get up and threaten you. Likewise a car would not run over anyone without a driver.

If destroying a life is wrong, does that make God a sinner for killing people? (perhaps that is a different thread?)

You know, that's not necessarily true. People who aren't criminals will become criminals if they have guns,

I think that you have an improper view of the nature of man. Man is by nature sinful. Apart from the grace of God all of us would be criminals. An inanimate object can make no one a criminal.

Jeff, do you give your kids guns so that when they go out they can "protect" themselves?

I actually don't own any goats...but I don't think they could use a gun anyway without any fingers. Thank you for your concern nonetheless.

Guns don't protect anyone. They have one purpose and that is to destroy life. Which, by the way, is wrong, though sometimes necessary.

Destroying life is always wrong? This must mean that God commands people to sin. How do you reconcile this with His holy character?

BrianEschen wrote:As far as the children go, I would dare say jeschen would not give his children a car right now. Does that make them wrong too?

To be fair to the Wylff, I believe he was talking about goats (kids)...It is a common misconception that everyone in Oregon lives on a farm and raises goats. I won't hold it against him. But if he was indeed talking about my children, God has given me the task of protecting them so they don't have to protect themselves.

Wylff wrote: When you can just walk up to a gun shop and buy a gun no matter who you are and what you've done—no restrictions, nothing asked, allowed, etc, that's just not a safe environment.

lol, what country are you talking about? To buy a gun, you must go through a series of background checks. Any spot on your record could prevent you from being able to purchase a gun. They make it hard for criminals to get guns. A law-abiding citizen like myself can easily buy a gun, having done no crimes in the past, but I am limited to the amount of guns I can buy at once. I am not sure about the laws of other states, but in california you can only buy 1 hand gun per month and you have to be 21 with a Driver's License and a spotless record. Come to think of it, I never purchased a gun. Its probably a lot harder than that. You need to fill out a lot of paper work and you probably need to take some tests. If someone could go buy a gun without restrictions, I would be as scared as you are, Wylff. Praise God that's not the case.

Why did the founders not have restrictions on gun ownership? or did they? Do you know if it was legal or not to own a canon? What about horses? They were the main military vehicle of the day.

I guess the question would be . . . as was brought up before . . . where do you draw the line in terms of gun control? More fundamentally, what Scripture would the civil magistrate go to in order to regulate the ownership of weapons? Does anyone have an idea? That would be an enlightening discussion.

Brian,

I don't know about gun control in early America, but I do know that there was "gun control" in early Europe. When the crossbow was invented, the church at the time decided that it was an evil weapon, because it didn't take skill, training, and nobility to learn how to use, like the longbow did. They were afraid that these weapons in the hands of the peasants would destabilize the country, and so they banned them. Things changed when the crusades began, and the European armies ran into Turks who didn't have a ban on the crossbow. The Europeans quickly decided that the crossbow was okay to use.

BrianEschen wrote:I guess the question would be . . . as was brought up before . . . where do you draw the line in terms of gun control?

IMHO, any citizen of the United States should have the freedom to own any weapon he desires, and that to deny this right is still to render us helpless to an extent before the federal government.

89whiteandnerdy wrote:

BrianEschen wrote:I guess the question would be . . . as was brought up before . . . where do you draw the line in terms of gun control?

IMHO, any citizen of the United States should have the freedom to own any weapon he desires, and that to deny this right is still to render us helpless to an extent before the federal government.

ANY citizen? If ANY citizen could own any weapon he desired, then it would be common place for murder. As it is now, people still bring guns to places they shouldn't, such as school, and people are still killed despite the many precautions to this kind of behavior that has been set down. If we were to make it so much easier for these kinds of people to get weapons, how many do you think would do such a thing then, if they didn't have to try to steal the weapon, but could instead, just walk right up to a gun store, and purchase a weapon?

I'd have to say that on this point, i disagree with Mr. White and Nerdy. There should be some ways, as there are now, to make sure it is not just some criminal or even a kid, off the streets who can have access to a gun/weapon. But on the other hand, if we restrict so harshly who may own a gun, then not only will we, my red neck cousins and I, strongly object, but will continue to do what ever it takes to put a shot gun in every one of our vehicles. In my opinion, proper gun control is a very fine line to be walking. A line we have not established. But, as people always say, you can't make everyone happy.

In reply to your first paragraph, I want you to watch this video:




The point I want to make with this is that people will be less inclined to attack if they know the other guy is carrying a gun. If the lady in this video had had a pistol when the event occured, she could have defended herself and her family, and thus saved lives. I seriously do not think that there would be an increase in murders if all munitions were made available. There may be an increase in attempted murderers being killed or wounded, but that's ok. They are the criminals...they don't need protection, and they shouldn't have it.
Convicted criminals should not have the right to own a gun, and the age limits on firearms are good in my opinion. So that isn't a problem. I'm talking about blaming the citizens for crime, and restricting the citizen's rights to defend themselves.

And the larger problem is government control...if the government is the only owner of larger, more lethal munitions, than we are still helpless before them if they wanted to control us. It doesn't matter how many vintage bolt-action rifles I have in my safe, the Federal government is more powerful than the people and that is a problem.

YoungStonewall wrote:The flaw in your question is that you assume there is a line.

Currently private corporations within the US own and operate armed attack helicopters, armored vehicles, and have large stockpiles of machine guns, grenades, and assault rifles. All of this is legal.

If you have a private trust or corporation you can have all of this too.

What I am saying is that all law abiding US citizens should be able to own whatever they can afford. If you want a machine gun or a supressor (sometimes mistakenly refered to as a silencer) you should be able to buy one without giving up any of your Bill of Rights.

Does this mean you should be able to buy a hydrogen bomb if you so desire? I think that there should be some line where private citizens are not allowed to own certain weapons. The "slippery slope" argument only carries so much weight here. I think common sense should be used to determine what weapons citizens should be allowed to own. And to make things clear, I am for everything up to grenade launchers

cruisin'n5thgear wrote:Does this mean you should be able to buy a hydrogen bomb if you so desire?

Yes.

And to make things clear, I am for everything up to grenade launchers

Why draw the line here? What makes this the limit for a private citizen's weapon ownership? This merely proves that limits on ownership of arms are arbitrary.

I agree that I believe in arbitrary lines governing weapon ownership. I just cant see nuclear weapons being unregulated, among other items. I don't think that its possible to treat this issue as black and white. Do you really want organized crime buying nukes on the street?

Guess we have a disagreement on this issue. Thats to be expected. Just so that each of us understand both each other's position and our own.

Nuclear nonproliferation != gun control

If it was just laws keeping nukes out of the bad guys' hands, we'd be dead already.

Of course it's legal, because they have some sort of permission from the government. Try to buy these things as a private citizen, and watch yourself get placed on every no-fly list in the country.

I'm in favor of using force to fight violence against one's person. I don't see how bombs or machine guns really help. If so many people are coming to attack me that I need helicopters, tanks, bombs, or my own personal army, we are talking about an unrealistic situation.

Realistic situations are robbers breaking in, carjackings, etc. For these crimes, all one needs is a conventional firearm.

Like I said, I'm in favor of gun rights. But I believe in moderation and common sense. We don't need a nation of bomb owning, Hum-vee .50 cal machine gun truck driving idots. We have enough as it is.

It wouldn't hurt to have militias that can defend the border. Like they have drug lords that storm the border and accounts of illegals assaulting U.S. citizens on their own land. If serious threats emerged and the current administration insisted on using our national guard forces to continue defending other countries, then I say I'm all for a well-armed militia to go forth and crush the threat to our southern border. Mexico has never forgiven us for the Mexican/American war and probably won't. Many Mexicans believe that California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Nevada are rightfully theirs. I don't think large scale bombs and war equipment are completely necessary for private citizens, but feel they would do us a good service in a well-armed militia, a militia that would obey the the Constitution first and the administration second to avoid having the government use them for their purposes.