How did you come to support gun control?

[mdmc]

I was 7 when I held my first gun. It was a real deal colt 45. I was on vacation with my family. We had rented a bungalow in Florida and we were going to Disney World.

When we arrived at the bungalow my parents unloaded the car while me and my sister explored "our new house".

Behind the bar I found the gun. I had picked it up in awe. Was it a toy?

I remember picking it up and trying to aim it at my sister. It was too heavy. As I was about to yell out, "Look what I found!" My grandmother saw me. She screamed and I don't remember what happened next.

I was young when I formed the opinion that adults should keep their guns away from children.

For a long time that was the extent of my gun control support. I am a Bill of Rights purist, and saw armed revolution as a civic duty outlined in the Declaration of Independence. Guns should be legal so that when the brownshirts come to tread on you, you can tread right back.

I also supported hunting. Later in life I worked at a meat packing plant. I became a vegetarian and thought that the world would be a better place if people had to kill the meat they eat.

I've always been political. My family far less so.

When my sister had children she became very involved in politics. As a teacher she was always a child rights and education advocate. But now as "mom" my sister became, well, as politically active as I am.

One thing that she is very passionate about is gun control. She wants nothing to do with guns at all. Either does my brother in law. They are active gun control advocates and very active politically.

I ran for city council unsuccessfully this year. My sister and brother in law helped me a great deal.

I in turn have come to support gun control. They back my moves, I back theirs.

That is how I came to support gun control.

[Common Sense Party]

1. Let me get this straight: you oppose legal gun ownership because your sister does?

That makes no sense.

[mdmc]

5. I support gun ownership

law enforcement, hunting, self defense, recreation use.

I support a communities right to determine what ownership is beneficial to society..

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

21. What if a community decides that ownership isn't beneficial to society and outlaws ownership?

[mdmc]

23. Like when a military boot camp want to ban weapons on site?

Or NYC says only police officers can carry pistols?

I think those are great ideas.

Cities need to do what they can to make the streets safer..

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

28. No one is forced to go to boot camp. Private ownership of firearms is legal in NYC.

What if a city said it was illegal to possess firearms on your own property?

[mdmc]

37. i wouldn't like it

but as a liberal i would accept it..

[GreenStormCloud]

40. A compliment for you, mdmc.

You have discussed with us gunnies without being insulting, condesending, rude, or abusive. We catch a lot of that type of stuff from many posters who are anti-RKBA. You seem to have an open mind on the subject. Please stick around and check into the forum from time to time. You will find us polite to those who are polite to us, and we are extremely ready to share our knowledge of guns and gun law with anyone.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

41. It would be unconstitutional.

[eqfan592]

44. As a liberal you should be totally repulsed by such legislation as was FMD stated. (nt)

[hack89]

30. Can NYC allow police to stop and search without cause

if it makes the streets safer? Monitor telephones without warrants? You seem to think that civil rights should not be universal - why is that a good thing?

[SteveM]

52. You will have a problem with the 14th Amendment...

The l4th Amendment was and is a bulwark of civil rights, being relied upon by legislators and the courts to ensure that "NO STATE SHALL MAKE OR ENFORCE ANY LAW WHICH SHALL ABRIDGE THE PRIVILEGES OR IMMUNITIES OF CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES..."

That is why "local" laws (as in Chicago, NY, SF, etc.) are being challenged.

You will find many parallels with the history of gun control and the "states' rights" stance used by the South to fight against the civil rights movement.

[Common Sense Party]

27. OK fine. Let's go back to your sister and your BIL.

You say you changed your views on gun control because they are in favor of gun control.

Huh?

What if they were passionate about, say, exempting the rich from paying taxes? Would you then adopt that stance as well?

[mdmc]

50. As an uncle I guess my priorities changed

I always saw guns as the great equalizer. A wimp could kill the most skilled fighter with little effort, if properly armed. The powers that be only fear one thing - armed resistance.

Then I became an uncle. It strengthened my belief in God. Becoming an uncle weakened my belief in guns..

I was once mugged by 2 kids (age 13 and 15 perhaps).. They stole $14 from me.. If I was armed at the time I would have killed them both..
In time I have forgiven those kids.. I don't think that I would have been able to forgive myself if I had taken their lives away..

[ixion]

2. for all practical intents and purposes

I haven't. :)

[Hoopla Phil]

3. I do not. I support trigger control.

[Warpy]

4. I lived in Boston for many years

and had guns waved at me more than once. I absolutely loathe handguns.

However, I now live in bear and cougar country and know that people outside town need their long guns.

We lost the war to control handguns a very long time ago. The only thing that might work is controlling ammo, letting only licensed, legal owners buy it. While there will be a black market, it will slow the illegal owners down and cost them a fortune.

That's probably the best we can do. City dwellers know we need to do something.

[mdmc]

7. I currently live in a city with a high rate of poverty

Newburgh, NY is also a mecca for drug distribution. Newburgh suffers from a high rate of gun violence due to the unregulated drug market.

Being armed is not a good defense when facing a drive by. I've noticed that most of the gun violence are executions or drive by shootings. There is not much armed muggings although we do have a pretty high rate of armed robbery when juxtaposed with national statistics..

[Warpy]

9. You know what I'm talking about, then

when it comes to an urban area full of thugs bristling with guns.

Fortunately, all the gun battles between cars and drive bys are on the main drag near my house, not on my street. Still, my reflexes are intact and I do what every urbanite does when the bullets fly: turn of the lights and sit on the floor until they all go away.

You know you're a city person when you can tell the caliber by the sound.

[spin]

15. A serious question...

wouldn't it make more sense to attack the source of the problem by targeting drug gangs as terrorists (which they are)? The "thugs" will always have guns and ammo.

I can see gun control laws such as improving the NICS background check in doing some good in reducing gun violence. But if the government enforced existing laws and punished anyone caught carrying an illegal firearm severely, it would have far more effect than all the laws banning firearms.

When you try to put a fire out, you aim the fire extinguisher at the base of the fire not spraying the adjacent room when there is no fire. If you want to decrease gun violence, you go after the gangs, not the innocent citizens sitting on the floor of their house.

[Warpy]

16. They're already going after the gangs.

Unfortunately, they're outmanned and outgunned at this point.

Making it extremely difficult for the gangsters to get their ammo might do more good than putting more militarized police on the street chasing punks who are just cagey enough to ditch the gun in a trash can when they duck around a corner during a chase.

[eqfan592]

17. How about going after the issues that cause gangs to rise up in the first place?

Seems like a pretty obvious, if complicated, solution to me.

[Warpy]

18. Everybody has a different opinion of why that happens.

I think it happens because they're male teenagers.

Taking the profit out of it by ending the drug war would help, but good luck with that one. I can hear all the preachers shrieking now.

Obvious solutions are generally the wrong solutions and usually display the laws of unintended consequences.

[eqfan592]

45. There's a few very obvious causes that could be attacked.

Such as poverty, poor education systems, gentrification, etc. Our time would be better served tackling these issues, complicated as they are.

[spin]

46. Considering the amount of money that a mid to higher level...

drug gang level dealer can make for the amount of education he/she has, it is a complicated solution.

The lower level gang member doesn't fare so well but has hopes of moving up in the gang management structure.

But finding a way to better educate students and to provide well paying entry level jobs to young people might cause many potential gang members to consider legal employment. Being involved in drug gangs can significantly reduce life expectancy.

We probably have to find a way to create well paying factory jobs again. While they are often boring and repetitive, they beat the hell out of flipping hamburgers.

[PavePusher]

19. Outgunned? How so?

Police have full auto weapons. Criminals here in the U.S. overwhelmingly.... do not.

[friendly_iconoclast]

20. One glaring problem with that theory...

Making it extremely difficult for the gangsters to get their ammo

As 'extremely difficult' as it now is to get coke, meth and heroin?

Since the criminals under discussion *already* sell substances that are illegal and smuggled into the US, nothing
would stop them from developing a new sideline in ammunition. Or guns, for that matter.

[GreenStormCloud]

26. It would have little effect. Not that much ammo is used in a drive-by shooting.

Today I went for some light shooting with my wife. Together we probably shot about 100 rounds, putting holes on paper. Very few drive-bys use that much ammo. You would have very little effect on gang shootings.

More effective would be accurate return fire.

[hack89]

32. So legalize drugs

solves a lot of problems without having to undermine civil rights.

[spin]

42. I have noticed an increased effort to target gangs...

which is very positive.

Many of these gangs deal drugs imported from foreign countries. There is little reason to assume that they would be unable to smuggle ammo into this country.

Currently, if I wanted to I could travel four blocks from where I live and get any drugs I desire, a handgun and the ammo to go with it. I live in a small town in northern Florida.

If an attempt was made to pass a law that would prohibit or ban ammunition, it would take a long while to make it through congress and be signed into law. During that period of time, ammo would simply fly off the shelves.

Regular shooters would stockpile ammo for any caliber of firearm they own. Some people would buy popular calibers of ammo hoping to sell it for a profit if it became illegal to own. A box of premium hunting 30-30 ammo that currently sells $30 could easily be sold for $60 or more. Ammo would be one hell of an investment.

I currently have several thousand rounds of ammo and I really don't stockpile. I bought this ammo over a period of years when I would catch a good sale. I curtailed my shooting when I realized that ammo was in short supply because Democrats were elected to office. This last week, I noticed that the store near me finally had a good supply of ammo and I bought some to shoot, and did so today. It has been several months since I have went shooting. Now that ammo i available I plan to inventory my ammo and buy enough to have at least 500 rounds each of my handgun calibers and at least 100 rounds for my rifle and shotgun calibers.

Good quality ammo will last for perhaps half a century or more if not exposed to extreme temperature and humidity variations.

Plus I plan to save my used brass and purchase reloading components that are necessary to roll my own ammo. I did this for many years and still have the equipment to start again.

All my shooting friends are doing the same.

Of course, you could push for a law that makes ammo illegal and requires people to turn it in or face fines or imprisonment. Many people would comply, many would not. Many would bury their supply of ammo in the ground. (I have heard of many people who already do.)

I understand your idea is well thought out and sounds practical. Unfortunately, if you are familiar with the gun culture, it would fail to have the desired effect. Criminal gangs would still have ammo as would many firearms owners.

We seem to be making the first steps to actually curtailing criminal misuse of firearms by targeting drug gangs. We still have areas to work on in improving gun control laws. I favor improving the NICS background check to incorporate more records faster and to find a way to require all gun sales to have a background check.



In case you haven't been following the news:

Tuesday, Nov 3, 2009 @09:26am CST

(Washington, DC) -- What's faster than a speeding bullet? Bullet sales.

"The Washington Post" is reporting on record breaking amounts of cash being spent this year on guns and ammunition.

Industry officials report gun owners have purchased about 12-billion rounds of ammunition this year.

That amounts to 38 bullets for every American.

Sales in a normal year would be about seven-billion bullets.

The sales boom, which has exceeded bullet-makers capacity to produce the product, began just before the election of President Obama.

The gun-rights lobby claimed a Democratic administration would clamp down on weapons sales beginning with ammunition.
http://mystateline.com/content/fulltext/?cid=112591

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

35. So the drug dealers do drive bys of random people? Why would they do that?

[Merchant Marine]

12. It'll MAKE them a fortune

You'll succeed in doing to ammo what we have done to drugs- create an illegal multimillion dollar black market over which we have no control. And nobody's got bullet-sniffing dogs yet.

The real answer is minimum sentences and increased police enforcement.

[spin]

13. I lived in the Tampa Bay area for many years....

where firearms are very common and most of my friends and a good percentage of my co-workers had concealed weapons permits.

Strange that I never had people wave guns at me. Of course, if they had I would have shot them. Perhaps the reason they didn't was they knew that I just might be armed.

[GreenStormCloud]

22. I won't slow the criminal down at all.

In a typical gun hold-up, no shots are fired. The criminal can use the same ammo over and over because he doesn't fire it. If the gun is a semi-auto handgun, it can even be empty.

Ammo is used by those of us who actually practice with our guns. It is extremely rare for a goblin to practice with his gun.

[friendly_iconoclast]

31. "It will slow the illegal owners down and cost them a fortune."

That didn't work out so well with drugs, now did it?

Since you lived in Beantown for years, let me ask you a question:

Did you ever wonder why New Hampshire and Vermont have (and had) lower murder and violent crime rates
than Massachusetts, even though their gun laws are far more lax?

Nashua and Manchester certainly aren't garden spots, yet they have less crime than cities of similar
size in MA...

[givemebackmycountry]

6. I had a friend that was killed in Dallas years ago...

Checking her mail on a Sunday morning, some street hood who had it in for her snuck up on her and pumped three or four slugs into her head.
That pretty much did it for me.

[mdmc]

8. I just described the types of crimes that are common in my community

What happened to your friend happens here several times per year. Being armed cannot stop these types of crimes.
I am sorry to hear about your friend.

[GreenStormCloud]

29. It takes more than being armed. One has to develop situational awareness.

Notice that in the other post, the goblin snuck up on the woman. If she had maintained awareness and been armed, likely she would be alive.

[ZombieHorde]

10. I have worked with many individuals with severe mental disabilities

and I do not think they should own firearms, which I suppose is a type of gun control.

By "severe mental disabilities" I mean those who's mental disability keeps them from taking care of themselves and require 24 hour supervision, such as people with severe Autism or severe paranoid schizophrenia, as opposed to OCD or depression.

[mdmc]

24. I work with people with severe and persistent mental illness too

:toast:

[X_Digger]

11. Gun control is..

.. hitting what you aim at.

Realistically though, I don't support more restrictions than are currently in place. I like the NICS, and would like to see it made available (but not required) for private sellers. I would repeal the Hughes amendment to the '86 FOPA, so that your average person with a clean background could have arms on par with the military infantryman, per the intent of our founding fathers to have arms capable of use along side (or on par against) organized military forces.

I will not support mandatory registration as I see this as a first step toward confiscation. Limits on gun purchases and waiting periods? Make no sense to me. If a person can kill with ten guns, they can kill with one (and modern firearms are so quick to reload that it effectively makes no difference- the same reason applies to magazine size limits.)

[eqfan592]

14. I do not support more gun control than we already have...

...out side of maybe opening the background check system up for private transactions, though how that would work out while still protecting privacy I do not know.

With all do respect, you and yours are doing a disservice to your community. You want to solve the problem of crime? Then going after guns is not the answer. You have to go after the root causes of the crime. I hope this was part of your platform when you were running for office.

Your sister doesn't want anything to do with guns? Thats great. She shouldn't own any then. But taking that irrational behavior and attempting to force it on your fellow citizens? That crosses the line in my book.

[mdmc]

25. yup

She is more of a gun violence advocate.. that is her big thing with guns..

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

36. I don't think you mean that.

[eqfan592]

43. I'm guessing you mean she's an anti-gun violence advocate. :)

It's ok, we all screw up :) And that's cool, too. I don't think you'll find a single, sane person who isn't against gun violence. It's just that many of us take different approaches to solving the problem. Some think that the gun itself is the problem. Other think that the problem isn't the tool used, it's the person behind that tool that is driven to violence. I fall in the latter category. We have a lot of gun laws on the books already, and they cover most of the bases. What's needed now is to tackle the issues of urban decay, poor education systems, gentrification, and other socioeconomic issues that are the real culprits behind the violence we are experiencing. Organizations such as the Brady Campaign distract from these very important issues, and Dems that support them squander political capital in doing so.

It's time we get serious about the issue of violence, and it's root causes, and the existence of firearms is not a root cause.

[GreenStormCloud]

33. We don't seem to have many drive-by shooting here in Texas.

We are a big state, so we have some, but not many. Maybe the possibility of one of our hundreds of thousands of CHL holders might be present has something to do with it. All of us have to pass an accuracy test so a gang-banger is at a noted disadvantage if he has to go up against a CHL person.

[slackmaster]

34. I support only sensible gun control and reasonable gun laws - K&R

Senseless restrictions on a firearm's features don't prevent violent crime or reduce its impact.

[spin]

47. Like pornography, sensible and reasonable is in the eye of the beholder...

The Brady Campaign has suggested many sensible and reasonable gun control measures which gun owners consider draconian.

[benEzra]

38. I'm pro-choice on guns. If you don't like them, don't own them.

My wife and I, and about 80 million others, choose differently. It's still a free country, after all. (And I don't hunt, either, though I have nothing against it.)

[AtheistCrusader]

39. What do you mean by 'control'?

I don't think you'll find anyone here in support of leaving guns where children can get them.
None of us want guns in the hands of felons, though we may disagree on how best to keep them out of the hands of felons.

Some 'gun control' means 'no handguns'. Some means 'no long guns'. Some means 'no military-like weapons'

What exactly DO you support?

[PavePusher]

48. Personally?

I kick "gun control" in the friggen reproductive organs every chance I get.

Eventually it won't be able to reproduce...

[pipoman]

49. Your description here describes a microcosm

of what I hate about politics. It may be necessary to gain support and constituency, to advocate positions which the politician doesn't necessarily agree...why I wouldn't make a good politician, selling out and all...

[Tim01]

51. Same way I came to support banning drugs, and gay marriage, and abortion. nt