The New York Times published it's first Cover Editorial in 95 years today

dudeman

brianlux said:

dudeman said:

brianlux said:

PJ_Soul said:

dudeman said:

And yet these "assault weapons" are used in less murders than hammers and other blunt objects.

Yup. Let's round 'em up and destroy 'em all.

This argument is so stupid. I don't get why gun supporters constantly keep trotting it out. You all act like it's your best argument, while it's actually your worst.

Guns are for killing. Hammers are for hammering. Pretty simple. The fact that people can potentially use anything hard or sharp that can be lifted up is totally and completely meaningless.

No, no, no, PJ_Soul. Guns are for much more than killing. Guns are useful for so many things. Think of all the useful ways to use a gun:
Hand gun: Paper weight.
Hand Gun: Use the but of a hand gun to drive push pins into walls to hand you posters.
Rifle: Rifle barrels to clear those hard-to-reach cobwebs.
Automatic weapons: AK47 secured across the top of a door jam to use as a pull up bar.
Shoot guns: Your friend forgot to bring his baseball bat to the gam? No problem, shoot gun bat!
Rifles: Rifle barrels make great inhalers for those massive piles of cocaine you brought along!
And my favorite: A flower vase!

Gun for everyone! Guns for fun! Woopie! Guns!

This post reminded me of the Simpsons episode where Homer got a gun. He used it for odd jobs around the house. I think he tried to use it to get a ball off of the roof for the kids.

Classic!

Haha! I'm glad you saw the humor in it. The thing is, I'm more anti-gun than I used to be because we seem to have adopted a cavalier "it's our God given right to own a gun" attitude in the US. I'm not died-in-the-wool 100% against gun ownership- I just simply believe it is too easy to obtain them in the US and believe we could do far more to make sure they aren't so readily available. And the other things is, if we worked more on solving social problems, inequality, inequity, mental health issues, etc., maybe people would not feel so paranoid and gun-dependent.

Agreed. I'm not what many people would consider a "gun nut". I don't own any scary, assault weapons and I don't have an arsenal. I do have a couple guns for home defense and personal protection.

FWIW, I was pretty much not interested in guns for much of my life. It was when people I loved started getting murdered that I became aware of the fact that the police and government aren't always available to protect you.

Edited to add: I don't have any issues with universal background checks or stricter screening procedures for gun owners. There are too many people who have guns that shouldn't.

PJfanwillneverleave1

^^^^
The terms stricter screening procedures, stronger background checks get used far too often without providing what it means.
What is a strict or stricter screening to you?
Just because you support strict background checks doesn't necessarily mean much.

dudeman

Cross check medical records for mental health issues, no guns for misdemeanor offenders if crime was violent, drug screening would be okay with me, too.

PJfanwillneverleave1

dudeman said:

Cross check medical records for mental health issues, no guns for misdemeanor offenders if crime was violent, drug screening would be okay with me, too.

Is this not being done?, I really don't know.

oftenreading

dudeman said:

Cross check medical records for mental health issues, no guns for misdemeanor offenders if crime was violent, drug screening would be okay with me, too.

FYI abuse of alcohol and drugs has a far higher correlation with violence than actual mental illness.

jnimhaoileoin

dudeman said:

Cross check medical records for mental health issues, no guns for misdemeanor offenders if crime was violent, drug screening would be okay with me, too.

Yeah, I don't know if you've seen Requiem for the Dead: An American Spring but from that it was clear that people with criminal records get their hands on guns way too easily. There was a guy who had been jailed for sexual abuse and for intimidating a witness in a prosecution. He simply lied on the form to get a gun and clearly no checks were done. He was approved and purchased a handgun. He then went and murdered his children's stepfather right in front of them, before then killing himself.

It was absolutely horrifying

WhatYouTaughtMe

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

dudeman said:

Cross check medical records for mental health issues, no guns for misdemeanor offenders if crime was violent, drug screening would be okay with me, too.

Is this not being done?, I really don't know.

No it is not being done.

dudeman

oftenreading said:

dudeman said:

Cross check medical records for mental health issues, no guns for misdemeanor offenders if crime was violent, drug screening would be okay with me, too.

FYI abuse of alcohol and drugs has a far higher correlation with violence than actual mental illness.

Maybe I'm wrong about this but I consider substance abuse issues to be a form of mental illness.

tempo_n_groove

PJ_Soul said:

Guns are not like currency.

I wouldn't expect you to know this but yes they are. A firearm is guarnteed money. They have a price. All of them. Some go for a lot of money too.

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

dudeman said:

Cross check medical records for mental health issues, no guns for misdemeanor offenders if crime was violent, drug screening would be okay with me, too.

Is this not being done?, I really don't know.

Only fellons can't legally own guns. Judges have been known to put bans on esser criminals too.

1vs5

I am a long time Life Endowment Member of the NRA. I own a firearm for home protection. I am ashamed of the NRA's position and fear they have turned into nothing more than a sycophantic lackey of the small arms industry.
There is no reasonable patriotic stand to justify the ability of American citizens to purchase and own weapons of war. Try hunting duck or deer with an AK47.
The design intent of these devises is simply to kill as many human beings as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Our founding fathers allowed for civilian possession of firearms to keep a "well regulated militia" at the ready. Their intent was to protect patriots' rights to possess single shot muzzle-loading flintlocks. The NRA's arguments regarding automatic and semi-automatic modern weapons are specious and, frankly, irrational -- psychotic, if you will.
America needs to eliminate small arms weapons of war from our streets, our communities and homes. To fail to do so is a grotesque abrogation of civic and civil responsibility.
Enough is enough, the 2nd Amendment notwithstanding.
Lee Edmundson
Mendocino, California
NRA Life Member

1vs5

PJ_Soul said:

dudeman said:

And yet these "assault weapons" are used in less murders than hammers and other blunt objects.

Yup. Let's round 'em up and destroy 'em all.

This argument is so stupid. I don't get why gun supporters constantly keep trotting it out. You all act like it's your best argument, while it's actually your worst.

Guns are for killing. Hammers are for hammering. Pretty simple. The fact that people can potentially use anything hard or sharp that can be lifted up is totally and completely meaningless.

Exactly. A gun's entire purpose is being a killing machine. It's designed to kill.

jnimhaoileoin

1vs5 said:

I am a long time Life Endowment Member of the NRA. I own a firearm for home protection. I am ashamed of the NRA's position and fear they have turned into nothing more than a sycophantic lackey of the small arms industry.
There is no reasonable patriotic stand to justify the ability of American citizens to purchase and own weapons of war. Try hunting duck or deer with an AK47.
The design intent of these devises is simply to kill as many human beings as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Our founding fathers allowed for civilian possession of firearms to keep a "well regulated militia" at the ready. Their intent was to protect patriots' rights to possess single shot muzzle-loading flintlocks. The NRA's arguments regarding automatic and semi-automatic modern weapons are specious and, frankly, irrational -- psychotic, if you will.
America needs to eliminate small arms weapons of war from our streets, our communities and homes. To fail to do so is a grotesque abrogation of civic and civil responsibility.
Enough is enough, the 2nd Amendment notwithstanding.
Lee Edmundson
Mendocino, California
NRA Life Member

Good to hear a more reasonable stance from an NRA member

oftenreading

dudeman said:

oftenreading said:

dudeman said:

Cross check medical records for mental health issues, no guns for misdemeanor offenders if crime was violent, drug screening would be okay with me, too.

FYI abuse of alcohol and drugs has a far higher correlation with violence than actual mental illness.

Maybe I'm wrong about this but I consider substance abuse issues to be a former of mental illness.

After posting I knew this was going to come up. My fault for not being clear; sorry. You're not wrong but I am differentiating mental illnesses such as psychotic illnesses or serious mood disorders (which can of course be complicated by substance abuse) from substance abuse alone.

PJ_Soul

tempo_n_groove said:

PJ_Soul said:

Guns are not like currency.

I wouldn't expect you to know this but yes they are. A firearm is guarnteed money. They have a price. All of them. Some go for a lot of money too.

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

dudeman said:

Cross check medical records for mental health issues, no guns for misdemeanor offenders if crime was violent, drug screening would be okay with me, too.

Is this not being done?, I really don't know.

Only fellons can't legally own guns. Judges have been known to put bans on esser criminals too.

So vinyl is currency too??

Thirty Bills Unpaid

1vs5 said:

I am a long time Life Endowment Member of the NRA. I own a firearm for home protection. I am ashamed of the NRA's position and fear they have turned into nothing more than a sycophantic lackey of the small arms industry.
There is no reasonable patriotic stand to justify the ability of American citizens to purchase and own weapons of war. Try hunting duck or deer with an AK47.
The design intent of these devises is simply to kill as many human beings as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Our founding fathers allowed for civilian possession of firearms to keep a "well regulated militia" at the ready. Their intent was to protect patriots' rights to possess single shot muzzle-loading flintlocks. The NRA's arguments regarding automatic and semi-automatic modern weapons are specious and, frankly, irrational -- psychotic, if you will.
America needs to eliminate small arms weapons of war from our streets, our communities and homes. To fail to do so is a grotesque abrogation of civic and civil responsibility.
Enough is enough, the 2nd Amendment notwithstanding.
Lee Edmundson
Mendocino, California
NRA Life Member

Common sense and practicality.

Looking at the problem and stating the obvious versus denial and deflection tactics in an attempt to convince yourself no problem exists.

PJ88

Wrong thread.

Bentleyspop

1vs5 said:

I am a long time Life Endowment Member of the NRA. I own a firearm for home protection. I am ashamed of the NRA's position and fear they have turned into nothing more than a sycophantic lackey of the small arms industry.
There is no reasonable patriotic stand to justify the ability of American citizens to purchase and own weapons of war. Try hunting duck or deer with an AK47.
The design intent of these devises is simply to kill as many human beings as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Our founding fathers allowed for civilian possession of firearms to keep a "well regulated militia" at the ready. Their intent was to protect patriots' rights to possess single shot muzzle-loading flintlocks. The NRA's arguments regarding automatic and semi-automatic modern weapons are specious and, frankly, irrational -- psychotic, if you will.
America needs to eliminate small arms weapons of war from our streets, our communities and homes. To fail to do so is a grotesque abrogation of civic and civil responsibility.
Enough is enough, the 2nd Amendment notwithstanding.
Lee Edmundson
Mendocino, California
NRA Life Member

While I support the content of what was written you aren't the original author of this post and probably should have posted the link to the original letter which came from another website. I believe this is considered plagiarism.

tempo_n_groove

1vs5 said:

I am a long time Life Endowment Member of the NRA. I own a firearm for home protection. I am ashamed of the NRA's position and fear they have turned into nothing more than a sycophantic lackey of the small arms industry.
There is no reasonable patriotic stand to justify the ability of American citizens to purchase and own weapons of war. Try hunting duck or deer with an AK47.
The design intent of these devises is simply to kill as many human beings as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Our founding fathers allowed for civilian possession of firearms to keep a "well regulated militia" at the ready. Their intent was to protect patriots' rights to possess single shot muzzle-loading flintlocks. The NRA's arguments regarding automatic and semi-automatic modern weapons are specious and, frankly, irrational -- psychotic, if you will.
America needs to eliminate small arms weapons of war from our streets, our communities and homes. To fail to do so is a grotesque abrogation of civic and civil responsibility.
Enough is enough, the 2nd Amendment notwithstanding.
Lee Edmundson
Mendocino, California
NRA Life Member

This reminds me of when Michael Moore went to Charleston Hestons house...

brianlux

Bentleyspop said:

1vs5 said:

I am a long time Life Endowment Member of the NRA. I own a firearm for home protection. I am ashamed of the NRA's position and fear they have turned into nothing more than a sycophantic lackey of the small arms industry.
There is no reasonable patriotic stand to justify the ability of American citizens to purchase and own weapons of war. Try hunting duck or deer with an AK47.
The design intent of these devises is simply to kill as many human beings as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Our founding fathers allowed for civilian possession of firearms to keep a "well regulated militia" at the ready. Their intent was to protect patriots' rights to possess single shot muzzle-loading flintlocks. The NRA's arguments regarding automatic and semi-automatic modern weapons are specious and, frankly, irrational -- psychotic, if you will.
America needs to eliminate small arms weapons of war from our streets, our communities and homes. To fail to do so is a grotesque abrogation of civic and civil responsibility.
Enough is enough, the 2nd Amendment notwithstanding.
Lee Edmundson
Mendocino, California
NRA Life Member

While I support the content of what was written you aren't the original author of this post and probably should have posted the link to the original letter which came from another website. I believe this is considered plagiarism.

I hadn't even thought about that. Here all along I thought we had a PJ forum member from Mendocino who was bold enough to post this with name and home town. I also kind of chuckled reading a post like this from a life-time NRA member in Mendocino, that ultra liberal art colony on the northern California coast.

PJ_Soul

The letter has an attribution. Not that big a deal.