RubberMallet wrote:meanwhile if i had the time i could find 9 million internet articles proving that giving guns to everyone would be the absolute stupidest idea ever...
SJ - no one is promoting giving guns to everyone. i am promoting the buying of guns by all law abiding citizens that have been trained in school how to use them in order to prevent crime from happening and to stop crimes in progress. There are already rules in place on where you can carry, what age you have to be and all of that. many children grow up shooting guns. they know how to safely handle them, and how to accurately fire them. (in many cases, people who grew up hunting are MUCH better shots than your average law enforcement officer. why? simple, they spend more time shooting them than than LEO's. anyone who's ever deer hunted knows about trying to shoot with an adrenaline rush. in fact, when the US army wanted to create snipers, they asked for people who grew up hunting squirrels. why? excellent shots that were used to hitting small targets.) as far as the accusations and liberal ideas, TTL has provided nothing to back up any claims. he seems content to merely throw the classic liberal lines on the fears of guns. i respect the well-supported and thought out positions of anyone who who is of a different opinion from me. but so far, no one has provided any sources to support the opposite position (even though i disagree).
guns in the hands of law abiding citizens do work to lower the amount of crimes in areas with high percentages of (or even mandatory) carrying. furthermore, for the most part, any citizen can already carry a gun in plain view (it can vary slightly based on local and state rules). they are only required to take classes to be able to carry weapons concealed on their person.
RM - The founding fathers understood that having the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is no good if people don't have the ability to protect those rights with force. That is the reason the 2nd amendment is in the bill of rights. Britain and Australia face crime nightmares because of the tight restrictions on citizens owning weapons (they've essentially been banned). Criminals will ALWAYS find weapons - and get them illegally - so to disarm the citizens simply makes them sheep among wolves. People like ourselves think rationally. Criminals don't. The only language they understand is force, and to stop criminals, you must meet force with force. Jail time (if they get caught, and IF they get convicted) may only be a few months, or only probation with no jail time at all. Hardly a good deterrent. Facing a gun with someone ready to put a bullet through their head, makes that wallet INSTANTLY less attractive and acts as a good motivator to get a legitimate job in order to make money)
and FlameDad is correct. there are actually very few core classes required for college in relation to how many class slots are in the HS schedule. it is not hard to find a place to put a gun safety class. as far as art, band and chorus go, many art, band and chorus classes are getting the axe due to a "lack of funding." it looks to me like they would actually NEED a class to put in its place. while i believe that the arts are important to a well cultured child (i myself took band for 4 years in school 8-11, and played many instruments growing up) those were only electives that most people did not take anyways, opting instead for study hall, basket weaving, teacher's assistant, etc...
and TTL, its interesting that you dismiss pro-gun information as "conservative propaganda." as if conservatism is a bad thing... as a conservative i believe in the ability and the right of my fellow citizens to be able to make decisions for themselves. those on the other side believe that citizens are INCAPABLE of making decisions for themselves and that the government needs to make decisions for them. i have looked at both sides of the gun debate, including arguments for gun-control, and I have come to the conclusion that an armed society is a polite society. After all, what do i have to fear from my neighbor. I live in peace with him and do him no harm. In return, he reciprocates. Regan supported peace through superior firepower. It won the Cold War. Furthermore, my love of personal freedom and personal responsibility in life DEMANDS that people have the right to carry weapons in order to be proactive in protecting themselves from criminals. If people are responsible for their own success in life, are they not responsible for their own protection too? If people are responsible for feeding themselves, are they not responsible for their own safety also?
These are not the ideas of some radical group. These are the very ideas that this country was founded upon, and our continued individual freedoms depend on these ideas being passed on from generation to generation.
"The mat is my ocean. I'm a shark. Most people don't even know how to swim.... And your kung-fu floaties are no good here..."
- By jbock13
- By Sly Fox
- By TH Spangler
- By LU Armchair coach