Osler's Razor

What! only 1700 comments?! A pittance. I agree with you guys and found your arguments compelling. Did you ever see that CBS documentary concerning children and handguns? They were given extensive training on how to use them safely and told not to point them at anyone. A gun unloaded was left in a room and the kids went in,found the gun and immediately pointed it at their friends. That did it for me. No one is saying take the guns away from sportsmen and people who are responsible. But the end result is irreversible...and so it ought to be very difficult for people to get guns and every rigorous qualification needs to be met.
 

Completely in love with Dad's painting. Touched me deeply. Love the red...the red of passionate life,a sad red,at the same time,of spilt blood. The guy's simply a master. He paints Human Beings with the same deep understanding that he has of the energy of and the regard for Nature. The cat's miaow and the bee's knees altogether,he is.
 

True that. And... he and my mom are off to France today!
 

"Divide the paper into two halves-- one half for stories where a handgun was used in a murder or assault or accident, and the other half for stories about successful uses of a handgun in self-defense"

You made a similar argument in the article yesterday, and it is troubling to me.

Of course if you open the paper you're going to find more evidence of guns used in murders/assaults. But you will have to concede that we aren't talking about a rash of handgun crimes committed by people that purchased their guns legally and have concealed handgun permits, right? I mean, we have lots of gun violence in this country, but most of it is not from law abiding citizens that are following the regulations and laws we already have in this country in regards to gun control. Instead, these are crimes committed by criminals that often acquired their guns illegally and without authorization.

The more interesting question it would seem is what are the incidences of of gun violence by those that purchased a gun legally and carry it with proper authority preventing violence as opposed to those stories of similarly situated persons committing violent acts with those same weapons?

I suppose it is your point that guns cause more violence than they solve. But the number of crimes committed with guns is easy to calculate. The number of crimes prevented by the mere presence of guns, or even the mere possibility that a potential victim might be carrying, would seem difficult if not impossible to calculate with any precision. Meanwhile, any number of those gun crimes that are committed involve a violation of any number of State and Federal gun control laws already in place. If those laws didn't stop the gun related crime how can the solution be more laws that people will just ignore?

I hate guns. Don't own one, never will. But we are a country of guns. And one thing I know is that I am uncomfortable with a world in which the criminals have guns and the police have guns, and the only persons without them are ordinary citizens.
 

My question has always been: As a sassy, single woman, a homeowner (single occupant) and business owner whose design projects (site visits) are both suburban and urban, are there any compelling reasons to consider acquiring a hand gun and when / where should one be carried?

How would gun ownership benefit someone like me? In what environment would there be a benefit?
 

Guns and abortion are both things that the government will never be able to completely eradicate. You can make a gun in your shop with a little knowhow; you can even make gunpowder yourself with a bit of chemistry knowledge. The government could confiscate every single gun in America today and tomorrow there would still be guns. The best we can do is regulate them in a way that minimizes the harm done by irresponsible use. The other issue is that the necessity of guns varies from place to place. Someone living in Washington DC, for example, might never have any need for a gun. Someone living here in rural Alaska, on the other hand, relies on guns to stay alive. This is why I am hesitant to endorse sweeping legislation that doesn't take these regional variances into account.

(nb: I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with your article, only voicing my opinion on federal gun regulation)
 

RRL, you confirm what I have come to believe is the only solution in this country: every person born in the US should be issued a gun--the exact same kind of basic handgun--at birth, along with a social security number, and be taught how to use it as soon as she's able to stand. Then at least the playing field would equal, and I don't have to even think about the fact that I hate guns, too, and would never own one.

Either we should all have guns, or nobody should have guns. MAYBE the police should have them . . . maybe. I am so tired of stories like the one in the news today, some woman pulling out a gun to shoot a woman with a baby, pulling out a gun just because she has one with her (and very likely bought it legally).

I am so tired of school shootings, workplace shootings, shootings just because a gun happens to be there, and usually has been bought legally. When people have guns--guns legally bought--there's a chance they will use them, just because they're there. Why not? Why did they buy them, unless it's to use it?

I am a personal-libertarian about many things, including the right to privacy and the right to control one's own body--including the right to put any drug I want into my own body, as long as it's not hurting anybody else.

But I have to stop there: the point at which my personal liberty hurts someone else. And that's what is inevitable, in so many cases, with legally bought guns. The drugs I may put in my body (something that's illegal) are not inherently made to kill me. Guns are made to wound, and preferably to kill. That's where limits on personal liberty begin, for me.

I've said this all before . . . but I am so tired of all the senseless deaths caused by guns that just happen to be lying around in someone's house, picked up by a teenager or a kid, or carried in someone's purse. There has to be some way to mitigate this . . . although I can't really think of a way, except what I stated, not so facetiously, at the beginning of this post.
 

If both sides hate you, then you must be doing something right!
 

So what's the solution and how does that pass muster under the Heller opinion?
 

Can't put the genie back in the bottle on either front. Amy DC (welcome back) and New Christine make very valid points, as does RRL reagarding what you will find reported in the paper (news)- only the bad.

Living in the country I have an even greater respect for guns than I did when I lived in Tampa and I didn't like them much then either.

Everyone around me owns at least one gun and generally a shot gun. Some legitimately observe the hunting laws and some arbitrarily shoot at critters that wonder onto their property to munch on the shrubs (not to eat what they shoot). I have neighbors who have targets set up in their yards and target shoot - good for them, but...

What if I am walking in the woods (not on their property, but my own) while they are shooting for fun and they miss the target - oops... Whose liberty was infringed upon?

Back to Renee - We really want to purchase one of Dad's paintings one of these days for the reasons you so eloquantly describe. Perhaps he will paint something beautiful while he is in France.