I’m not following your point. There have been multiple instances over the last year or two in our region of the country alone where citizens with guns have taken out the bad guy and saved multiple lives. I do agree that it’s not a solution but we don’t have a solution at this point. If I’m attending church or in a public place I absolutely want a trained good guy with a gun. They save lives....maybe mine and my family. Until we do have a solution it’s probably the best option going. FYI....I’ve never owned a gun and likely never will.
Wondering how the left media will cover the Texas church shooting.
- Thread starter Gmoney4WW
- Start date
Ironically, I do own a gun. But it's mostly if for hiking in remote grizzly bear country. It's honestly hard to find something that's powerful enough to give you a chance against a bear but light enough to not weigh you down over many miles and lots of elevation change.
I wasn't saying there's no reason for good people to have guns.... just that their having guns isn't a solution to bad people having guns (like you said). Police officers (in certain situations), military, park rangers, animal control. Sure. But I think Reagan is the one we should learn from.... all it takes to become pro-gun-law is getting shot in the chest and barely surviving.
Yeah. I have no issues with reasonable gun laws. I have major problems with the extreme positions taken by both sides of this issue. They muddy up the water and prevent us from reaching reasonable gun measures.
I don’t believe any civilian needs to own an assault styled weapon. I believe in comprehensive background checks. There needs to be harsh penalties for those selling guns who don’t abide by state and federal law. Those illegally possessing guns should be prosecuted. Those illegally selling guns should be prosecuted. Any felony convicted of a crime involving a gun found with a gun should go to prison for a considerable period of time.
I don’t believe any civilian needs to own an assault styled weapon. I believe in comprehensive background checks. There needs to be harsh penalties for those selling guns who don’t abide by state and federal law. Those illegally possessing guns should be prosecuted. Those illegally selling guns should be prosecuted. Any felony convicted of a crime involving a gun found with a gun should go to prison for a considerable period of time.
I'm of course supportive of anything that moves towards more safety, which all of what you've mentioned would. A full ban, I don't honestly think is realistic, but I also don't think it's as bad a boogeyman as people make it out to be.
I wish we didn't need guns either, like at all. That sin wouldn't exist, people did good to others and no evil existed...but that doesn't exist on this earth. So unless you have triplets that can see the future with Tom Cruise tracking future suspects down, or some form of a crystal ball...you can't stop people from doing bad things. Good people can protect others from bad people. That's how it works.
What, in your world, should have happened in that church? Assuming the bad guy got the gun illegally, he killed multiple people, no one in the church was armed and called the cops...5 minutes later, 10, maybe more people are dead, not 2. Was your law to hinder those parishoners right to carry a gun to kill a bad guy worth the increased loss of life to innocent people?
Or do you HONESTLY think, that YOUR great and almighty gun laws, are enough to keep guns out of bad people's hands? So then the innocent people of the world never have to worry again?
I guess the only question I have is how many gun deaths are we willing to cause confiscating a type of weapon (“assault style” guns) used in fewer murders than fists?
Then give up your gun. you just admitted to "do as i say, not as i do". LOL. You're cool with a ban, but own a gun yourself? WTF hypocrisy.
I believe a full ban would be a boom for organized crime and gangs. They would quickly set up huge underground gun networks, increase their numbers, reach, power, and obviously profit immensely. Meanwhile, a large majority of the gun related murders would continue unabated as the bangers would control the firearms. In fact the argument can be made that the gangs would have more guns as guns would be a major source of income.
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Overtime? Yes, fewer bad people would have guns as they were caught with the guns and prosecuted / locked up.
You're right, that maybe more people would have died in that church.... but it would also likely mean that fewer people overall would die.
Also, I'm not saying that no one should have guns. I'm just saying that EVERYONE shouldn't have guns. Should security guards at churches? IDK maybe.... But, maybe in time... the church would begin to feel like they don't need them. (Ironic that people are carrying weapons into churches.... Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.
Britain banned (most) handguns and most semi autos in 1997... did it have that effect there? I mean, there are similar sorts of criminals.... there a criminal organizations as well... and even terrorist cells... and not to many of the crimes there have involved guns.
Britain has an entirely different culture than the US. Has never had anywhere near the gang violence throughout their history and never had 400M guns in circulation. Apples and oranges imo. The US has a poor history with banning items people want. Only the criminal element has benefitted. The idea that the banning of guns would create a huge underground economy for the bad guys is common sense and supported by our history.
Lawn Darts killed fewer people than fists.... didn't have a problem banning them.
Also, you're not "causing murders".
That sounds eerily like an argument that some southerners made about a particular ban back in the 1860's. The UK had banned this particular thing a couple decades prior.... turned out that the ban was probably a good thing.
Back then the Republicans didn't have such a problem banning things though.
****To clarify. I wasn't saying that Lawpoke supports slavery lol. Just that sometimes things that we think are apples and oranges really aren't.
I’m not sure there’s a good argument for banning lawn darts, certainly not better than the argument for banning drugs, which I’m also against. The thing drugs and guns have in common that lawn darts do not however is that people are willing to kill and die for them.
So my very straightforward question is the same question that has been asked about the drug war. At what point are the costs in lives too high to pursue that approach?
Same question back to you.... At what point is putting millions of guns into the hands of people that shouldn't have them costing too many lives to pursue that approach?
One of the oddest retorts I’ve ever read on this board. You skip over recent failed history of banning things such as alcohol, drugs, etc and the criminal bonanza which followed and go straight to slavery. Talk about apples and oranges.
As far as getting the guns out of the hands of the bad guys. I fail to understand why the left can’t wrap their heads around the fact that the bad guys will still have their guns. They don’t care if they’re breaking the law. They profit off breaking the law and will profit off any law to ban guns. I know real world logic is difficult for many on that side but I assumed common sense and history would assist in this discussion.
That’s not an answer.
And your question to me is not the same as the one I proposed to you. If someone seeks to curtail rights in the name of safety and enforce it at the point of a gun they should at a minimum be able to answer what their limiting principles are, in both policy reach and adverse effects.
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I know bad guys will have guns. I’m not worried about organized criminals. Or black markets. That’s what we have police for. What I’m worried about is lunatics who go shoot up churches for no good reason. It’s not like this guy was a drug dealer or a cartel gangster. He was just a lunatic. Rogue agents are far more concerning to me. What’s important is reducing the number of guns available to people like that wack job who was writing about how he was going to shoot up TU (and then he shot somebody for real). If that process server doesn’t get shot, what’s to say that a TU football game doesn’t get shot up a couple years from now as he goes more and more insane?
Sick a powered up ATF on the blackmarket gangsters. Impound the guns used in crimes and destroy them, then send those criminals to jail for a very long time. And keep the guns out of the hands of the garden variety wackos who shouldn’t be allowed them in the first place.
I’m not going to answer a question that relies on false assertions that banning a weapon would “cause murders”. I don’t have to answer for a reduction in safety when (theoretically) if no one (or at least very few) had guns we could theoretically be a country as safe as Japan, Germany, the UK, etc... etc... etc....
What I want you to answer for is why does your desire for safety allow for me to be put into danger when my crazy neighbor / coworker, etc... decides “today’s the day”? And don’t tell me about bad guys always having guns because they have them now... and they’re much easier to get under your system.
No. Of course it’s not. But I just see that we clearly have a problem... and it IS pretty simple to point the high rates of violent crime and frequent mass shootings we have, back to the FOUR HUNDRED MILLION firearms in this country.
The real reason people want to keep their guns is because they don’t feel safe here.
The reason they don’t feel safe is because literally any Yahoo in the country could be out to kill them with a gun at any time.
It reminds me that wealthy men in London used to carry canes in London in order to fend off thugs and thieves. (But this was before they installed a professional police force).... after they (mostly) stopped the thieves via policing, people stopped carrying arms.
If you’re going to use quotes at least quote me. I said cause gun deaths not gun murders. When a cop accidentally strangles a man for selling contraband cigarettes in NYC I can accurately say that NYC caused a death that wouldn’t have otherwise occurred by creating an encounter with police that was unnecessary. This is the effect of enforcing laws and as I said it is incumbent upon anyone wanting to push a ban on anything to explain where they draw the line and what would constitute a failure of the policy and cause them to change course. If they can’t then they haven’t thought through their proposal enough to be taken seriously.
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No one had to explain what constitutes a failure in the policy of allowing pretty much anyone to own a gun. No one from the gun lobby has ever said, "This is where we draw the line to how many innocent citizens can be murdered by our weapons"
No one is going to be able to forsee all of the consequences of literally any policy. However; I have repeatedly addressed the concern you're referencing. I never said I would take away guns from police. And it's not like police would be dealing with anything they're not already... which is people with guns. Except, now... fewer citizens would have guns for them to worry about and they could tend to focus on the real bad guys. A ban on a sort of firearm or all firearms in general would not cause deaths.
People refusing to comply with a law might cause deaths. But that's a different issue. What has caused deaths is letting people who shouldn't be allowed guns have them... which you still have refused to address.
Why wait. Guns are basically outlawed in Chicago. If a powered up ATF would stop the violence on the south side send them in. We don't because of politics, civil liberties, optics, among other things.
Lunatics with guns make up such a small portion of the gun related murders in the US. People focus on them because the media focuses on them. Making laws which address the exceptions is never good policy. I've stated reasonable laws which would help keep guns out the wrong peoples hands. However, if a dude wants to get hold of a shot gun and go and shoot up a church he's likely going to be able to do just that. Thankfully there was a trained person in the congregation to save the lives of the people in attendance.
My brother in law has a church here in Tulsa. In every service he has two trained members of the congregation carrying. One on each side of the auditorium. Only he knows who and where they are. I think it's a smart precaution.
I think carrying a weapon into a church is sacrilegious against a faith that promotes peace, be it for defense or not.
Thankfully for the church goers in Texas that pastor disagrees with you. Throughout history the best advocate for peace is to protect oneself from aggression. Where such protection doesn't exist violence usually occurs against the weak. Humans basically suck.
LOL....maybe not but history shows us things don't work out well for those who choose not to take reasonable steps to protect themselves. Suppose when your destiny is to be murdered by "bad" guys then that philosophy is what you would teach. Pretty reckless to have no defensive measures in place at known terrorism targets like churches, mosques, etc....
Which is a problem I have with the modern church. People don't actually live the teachings of Christ. They profess one thing and then completely ignore the super important tenants that are really what sets Christianity apart from other religions. If you want to carry a gun around for your protection from the bad men of the world... that's fine. Just don't profess Christianity while you do it.
I'd be intrigued to know how Jesus would view people bringing weapons of war and violence into his temple when he didn't even allow traders into it. He cast out those who promoted greed. Do we think he would cast out those who promoted violence as well?
So when you go somewhere like a mall, public square, movie theater, etc. you carry a weapon to protect yourself and others. When you go to worship though, you should maintain you and your parishioners status as lambs for slaughter, in keeping up with the teachings from your savior?
"The Lord is my Shepard, I lack Nothing....
Even though I walk
through the darkest valley;
I will fear no evil
for you are with me
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me."
Now, I wouldn't say I'm a Christian by modern or ancient standards... but that seems pretty explicit to me. I'm not saying you have to live by these various teachings... but if you say you are, then you shouldn't be carrying a gun into church.
Arguing people who take precautions to defend the lives of others as promoting violence is an interesting take. Guess by your standard we should have allowed Hitler to continue to murder millions in the concentration camps instead of taking up arms and stopping the killing.
Nice scripture. Agree we should not fear evil. There is nothing in that verse which advocates taking no action while evil murders us, our family and our friends. I can't believe I'm actually having this argument with someone.
You left out the part where, in the scripture it says that YOUR SHEPARD'S ROD AND STAFF are what gives you comfort. You are a sheep. Sheep don't have weapons, nor do they need them with a good Shepard protecting them. So, yeah.... it does explicitly say you're not in need of weapons.
The only reason you carry a gun with you is because you fear evil. Which is fine.... it's just not following in the teachings of Christ.
As I said, I wouldn't say I'm a Christian.... I would just say that it's very hard to be an actual follower of Christ's teachings. It's even evident in the bible that it's hard. Jesus' own apostles have trouble with it throughout much of the scriptures. But we're supposed to strive to achieve what he professed...and maybe limiting the amount of weapons allowed to us and our countrymen (whilst still protecting ourselves from the violence of other nations) might be a good start for someone trying to get closer to what Christ actually told us to do:
(Turn the other cheek to evil men, trust that your lord will protect you, if you live by the sword you die by the sword, etc.. etc... etc..) It might be easier to do all that when EVERYONE around you doesn't have a means to (without difficulty) kill you at any given moment.
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