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Another Responsible Gun Owner Stands His Ground

jimbob said:
There is other evidence - this concerns the change in the suicide rate in the UK during the period when moving the gas supply from toxic "Town Gas" to non toxic natural gas

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...00022-0018.pdf

I won't copy as this is a 1976 paper, and not sufficiently well scanned for text browsers, although perfectly legible..

On Page 88 (it starts at page 86, don't worry) there is are two key graphs.

In the UK, the main form of suicide used to be using the gas oven which was "town gas " and rich in Carbon monoxide. On the change from that to natural gas, this suicide rate fell for males, but other rates remained roughly the same so the overall suicide rate fell sharply. With Females the rate also fell sharply as this method became unavailable, but there was some compensation with other methods rising.

Looks as if removing easy access to methods of suicide reduce suicide rates.
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I think that should read "effective methods". An awful lot of suicide attempts fail because the method chosen is not sufficiently lethal or speedy. (Didn't some celeb's daughter recently try to suicide with some homeopathic cold remedy?)

Guns generally (Yes, I know. Not always.) work pretty well. If nobody is around to stop it, the old 'head in the oven' trick could be pretty effective as well. Both have the advantage of little or no expectation of extended suffering.

Potential suicides who are not firmly committed to their course of action can be deterred by such things when access to a quick and largely painless solution is easily available.

Overdoses frequently fail because the people don't understand what is lethal, and what is not.

I suspect that the ratio of successful to attempted suicides is much higher when a firearm is the method employed.
 
Polaris said:
Actually any intruder would have to kick down my door and find themselves blinded by a flood light as I point a riot gun at their neck from behind my bed, offering as small a target as possible. And the police will be on their way (like I said before, I've thought this out).
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This reads like pure fantasy.

But I'm in a somewhat unique situation where I will likely be unable to leave based on physical impairment and the actual layout of the house.
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"But what if I can't leave?"

Well what if the intruders were bulletproof?

For anyone who is able to leave their property during a home invasion leaving the best course of action is to leave the property. It's by far the safest course of action.

All the same, I wouldn't fault someone who doesn't leave - because at that point if you can't be secure in your own house where else can you be secure?
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Refusing to leave on general principle is the worst possible course of action. There again if you can't be gunned down in your own house, where can you be gunned down?
 
The 2nd is, in fact, the only amendment with such a preface.
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Except that it is not a preface.

Pre means before. Its not before, it is not a contingent factor.

A militia is not a centrally organized group of armed men, it is the people themselves, armed to protect individual liberty by coming together as a community.

It does explain its need, to prevent tyranny, but it is not exclusive, it is not restrictive, it is explanatory.
 
Xulld said:
I am not responsible for your lack of safety even if my guns are stolen and they are used to kill you.
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And if you're a truck driver, and you fail to maintain your brakes, lose control, and hit me, I suppose (a) it wasn't your fault, because the car was out of control at the time, or maybe (b) it's my fault for not getting out of the way?

If you're an electrician, and you miswire my house so there's 120V on the handrails, am I responsible for choosing to touch them?

Nice try at the libertarian slippery-slope rant, but here in the real (crowded, multiply-intersecting) world we use lots and lots of layers of laws to keep things running well. Lots of those laws constrain some people to protect other people. Lots of those laws try to balance the costs and benefits of these constraints, and this has been true for hundreds of years without resulting in the end of "personal responsibility". Gun laws have done and will continue to do the same. 100+ years of this sort of practical, goal-oriented, not-written-by-armchair-philosophers regulation have not invoked the bizarre slippery slope you mention.

30,000 deaths per year. Big number. Worth trying to stop before it happens.
 
Xulld said:
I believe outside of tightly defined objective standards no one should have the ability to preemptively remove another persons rights, no less permanently.

snip
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The problem there is we're not allowed to figure out any "tightly defined objective standards" because the second we try to talk about that, the NRA nutters won't stop crying about their cold dead fingers.
 
Polaris said:
Actually any intruder would have to kick down my door and find themselves blinded by a flood light as I point a riot gun at their neck from behind my bed, offering as small a target as possible. And the police will be on their way (like I said before, I've thought this out). But I'm in a somewhat unique situation where I will likely be unable to leave based on physical impairment and the actual layout of the house.

All the same, I wouldn't fault someone who doesn't leave - because at that point if you can't be secure in your own house where else can you be secure?
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My set up is a bit different - but fire in either direction almost certain to be appropriate would not penetrate to anyone else's house (though if I pick up a Barrett .50...............).
 
Xulld said:
We could just remove all people's rights to do anything which could lead to dangerous behavior the moment they first show they cannot control their temper.

Regardless of extremes this is an epic concept for the worlds biggest slippery slope slide.

I believe outside of tightly defined objective standards no one should have the ability to preemptively remove another persons rights, no less permanently.

Anything else sends you down the slip n slide of making government everyone's parent, no one grows up, permanent children who need to be watched all day for any signs of trouble.

No thanks. I would rather accept the reality that people can be unpredictable at times and focus on the big stuff and leave these niche cases to the exceptions and not try to make a rule for everything restricting all possible freedom in order to marginally increase my perceived safety.

The REAL problem is that as individuals we have lost our personal responsibility.

No one is responsible for your safety but you.

I am not responsible for your lack of safety even if my guns are stolen and they are used to kill you. YOU are responsible for preventing your own death, for protecting your family, for protecting your wealth and happiness.

I am not responsible for protecting any of those things for anyone else.

My principles are such that if some person was slaughtering helpless people I would feel compelled to get involved and stop it, but that is not the same as being responsible to stop it, no more than being responsible to prevent someone from killing you or anyone else no matter what the circumstance regarding the perpetrators decisions to use a given weapon or not.

Trying to blame everyone in the world for your own lack of responsibility is the hallmark of all such protectionist legislation.
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and, very specifically, the police have no legal requirement to protect you. (US - though I suspect it is pretty universal).
 
Xulld said:
Except that it is not a preface.

Pre means before. Its not before, it is not a contingent factor.

A militia is not a centrally organized group of armed men, it is the people themselves, armed to protect individual liberty by coming together as a community.

It does explain its need, to prevent tyranny, but it is not exclusive, it is not restrictive, it is explanatory.
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And, by the by, were a militia or other function set up for which carrying of weapons would be necessary, I would happily train and work in same.
 
Xulld said:
From all reports this man was not responsible and does not represent me or any other gun owner. This thread is nothing more than a way to lash out against other forum members.
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So you are readily admitting that irresponsible people have ready access to deadly weapons, yet you're in favor of continuing said policy (assumption, based on your postst)
and back the NRA which has opposed studies on gun related violence for decades and continues to activily fight ANY regulation that would better determine competency of said folks.


Wonder what the limit is on "single rouge" before loonies accept that it actually represents the norm?
 
NoahFence said:
If you're sleeping and your guns are locked in their safe - as should be the case with responsible owners - you're screwed.
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I'll respectfully disagree with this.

A home defense, self defense weapon, is of no use in a secured safe. There's safes that also have a quick action open in an emergency, which is what I use.
 
Belz... said:
Really ? Where do you keep your gun, sir ? In a safe with the ammunition in a separate compartment, as you should ? If so, how fast could you retrieve and arm your gun once you hear people tear down your front door in the middle of the night ?
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Me personally, I keep one tucked in between the mattress and the bed frame, in a specially made holster. (at night of course, not during the day. During the day, it's stored in the safe linked later.)

If someone kicks in my front door, I've got my gun read in about as much time as it takes me to wake, (which isn't much, I'm a light sleeper) and grab it. (less than about 5 seconds? Maybe?

Also, if you keep a gun for self defense, keeping it locked and the ammo separately also locked, it's no longer a self defense weapon IMO. But, I won't go so far as to say that everyone should keep a gun like I do. People with small children should use a quick open lock box.

Like this one.
http://www.hayneedle.com/product/gunvaultdrawervaultbiometric.cfm
 
triforcharity said:
Me personally, I keep one tucked in between the mattress and the bed frame, in a specially made holster.
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Please tell me generally where you live, so I can avoid accidentally moving to a place where the prudent thing to do is sleep with a gun under your pillow.
 
ben m said:
And if you're a truck driver, and you fail to maintain your brakes, lose control, and hit me, I suppose (a) it wasn't your fault, because the car was out of control at the time, or maybe (b) it's my fault for not getting out of the way?

If you're an electrician, and you miswire my house so there's 120V on the handrails, am I responsible for choosing to touch them?
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False equivalence LF.

Both of those situations are caused directly by someone's actions. If someone breaks into my secured home and takes my gun and shoots the neighbor, I am in NO way responsible because they were secured in my HOME. Someplace that the bad guy shouldn't have been to begin with. Plain and simple.

Now, if I left the item out in public, or within easy access of someone, and something happens, then I am partially responsible.

What you're trying to say is that if someone steals my car and wrecks it, killing a guy on a bike, then I am responsible. Which, of course, is not supported by logic, or any law that I am aware of. Unless you can point me to such a law (here in the US of course, since we're talking of US gun control) your comparison is of course, wrong.
 
Xulld said:
It does explain its need, to prevent tyranny, but it is not exclusive, it is not restrictive, it is explanatory.
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Ah, so you're in the "prevent tyranny" camp. Let me say this: if the 34% of Americans who own guns got together and decided to take over, the other 66% (including me) would say that gunners were imposing tyranny, not preventing it.

The handful of "militiamen" taking over northern Mali are not, for example, "preventing tyranny". They probably think they are, just like the

Even as an explanation, it illustrates what the Founding Fathers were thinking of. They were thinking of the Minutemen. They were thinking of the Green Mountain Boys. They were not thinking about Nancy Lanza or George Zimmerman or FPSRussia or Whatsizname From Aurora. Their next sentence, "shall not be infringed", which they thought was specifying some detail of national defense, accidentally gave these people an incredibly stupid, useless, and costly "right". But it's not a necessary right, it's not a democracy-preserving right, it's not a tyranny-preventing right, it's not a natural God-given right, it's just a stupid 1776-specific sentence in an otherwise-mostly-timeless document.
 
Ben,

Have you read "The Federalist" papers? Perhaps you should. It helps explain what their intention was. I'll give you a hint: you won't like it, because it goes against what you want to believe.
 
triforcharity said:
Ben,

Have you read "The Federalist" papers? Perhaps you should. It helps explain what their intention was. I'll give you a hint: you won't like it, because it goes against what you want to believe.
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And so what? Yes they would support domestic terrorism but we are not that enamored with political violence now.
 
Ranb said:
Really? Instead of putting it all on the person (people?) at the scene the NRA is to blame too? Sounds kind of woo to me. I get e-mail from the NRA and catch their sound bytes in the media at times, hasn't made me paranoid in the slightest.

Ranb
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They have to have an influence of every single person for their actions to be considered bad?

They have to at least influence you specifically for their actions to be considered bad?
 
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