Based on the VT thread, vote Options

[FORSAKENR320]

I have a gun for protection in my home, for protection while camping, and for just plinking around at a range.

If I get into a heated situation, then I will rely first on reasoning with said person(s). If that doesn't work, then I will defend myself however it may be necessary.

You don't need a gun to be safe. But I do enjoy owning one.

that's foolish. you can be attacked anywhere at anytime, not just in your house, or while camping. what happens when you are given the option to have carried it, and you do not, but someone tries to rob you in the parking lot, and ends up shooting you or one of your loved ones? like i've said several times, it's better to have the gun and never need it than to need the gun and not have it.

[FORSAKENR320]

If you need a visual example of this....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNuRQmvykwk
People carrying guns around with them wherever they go would most definitely lead to a situation like this.

*sigh*

yes, possible. but only a few times. those people who would cause something like this are children playing with toys. it's a very hard lesson to have learned.... but learn it they will.

those who have seen war, hate war. until this day, only those few who have fought and died and earned the name of Veteran can say they have seen the true face of war. i have not talked to a single Veteran who has not looked sadly on the actions they had to take while in combat... if more people understood what the cost of fighting was first hand, i feel their would be less world conflict over all.

eventually even the ignorant will learn that they carry the instrument of death on their hip. the respect for that may even seep into an understanding about human conflict, and another step to world peace may be achieved. a step with a footprint of blood....... but one step closer to that final goal all the same.

[Mommy]

Cathryn brings up a pretty good point. If you wouldn't have the permit in the first place or carry one anyway, then you really shouldn't be voting one way or the other.

If I had a permit to carry one and it were legal to carry one on campus, then yes, I would be confident in my ability to use the gun appropriately and would carry it on my person.

Yeah, but I said "consider that you have the permit". I guess the point is.... would you carry a concealed handgun anywhere?... not just school, but also to the mall, movies, out to eat, porn shop....wherever. Even if you HATE guns, just think for a second that if you were ALLOWED to carry a gun, would you? If you knew that everyone around you could possibly have a gun, would that incline you to carry one yourself?

[cupcake]

Imagine what could happen in this scenario: Guy sees his girlfriend of several years making out with his best friend. If he has a gun in that situation, he would utilize it in some form or fashion, even if just for intimidation purposes, thereby greatly increasing the critical nature of the situation. A guy with out a gun may just start yelling or possibly instigate a pansy as fist-fight, still bad but better than a wild west stand off.

anyone immature enough to have a mindset that rationalizes the escalation of force in that retarded a manner should never even own a gun.

2nd amendment or not. period.

you should be of the mindset that if you get into a scuffle with another guy, the thought shouldn't cross your mind to pull your gun. not a mugging...I mean like he backed into your car and copped a dickhead attitude. that guy deserves an ass whoopin, not to die.

if you carry...you should also highly value and respect life. the problem with conceal carry laws are:
-no serious training (test is a joke)
-lack of psyche/behavior evals

I voted yes, but then I carry everywhere except secured/federal areas. everywhere. I break laws on a daily basis. and am breaking one as I type this.

Bob Dylan said something like "if you're gonna be an outlaw, you must be honest." I tend to stick to that.

[cupcake]

If you need a visual example of this....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNuRQmvykwk
People carrying guns around with them wherever they go would most definitely lead to a situation like this.

LOL

perhaps, but it would also make for a polite society.

[cupcake]

*sigh*

yes, possible. but only a few times. those people who would cause something like this are children playing with toys. it's a very hard lesson to have learned.... but learn it they will.

those who have seen war, hate war. until this day, only those few who have fought and died and earned the name of Veteran can say they have seen the true face of war. i have not talked to a single Veteran who has not looked sadly on the actions they had to take while in combat... if more people understood what the cost of fighting was first hand, i feel their would be less world conflict over all.

eventually even the ignorant will learn that they carry the instrument of death on their hip. the respect for that may even seep into an understanding about human conflict, and another step to world peace may be achieved. a step with a footprint of blood....... but one step closer to that final goal all the same.

great post. nailed it. is your dad a veteran or something? you seem to have insight...

[Psykopath]

that's foolish. you can be attacked anywhere at anytime, not just in your house, or while camping. what happens when you are given the option to have carried it, and you do not, but someone tries to rob you in the parking lot, and ends up shooting you or one of your loved ones? like i've said several times, it's better to have the gun and never need it than to need the gun and not have it.

I'm willing to take that risk for the sake of preventing an illogical and dangerous outcome of allowing guns to be carried by anyone at anytime and anyplace. To constantly think that you will be the victim of such an attack, and to perpetuate such a thought, breeds a populace wide mindset of fear.
That, Brandon, is truly more foolish than you realize.

This post has been edited by Psykopath: Apr 25 2007, 01:10 PM

[Jwilly]

[FORSAKENR320]

great post. nailed it. is your dad a veteran or something? you seem to have insight...

no he's not. i'm just a history buff, and i want to understand what life was like for other people. i talk to alot of older people, to find out what their lives were like, the changes that have been made, etc. i believe firmly that as you age, the only thing that is truely important are your memories... i feel that the world is loosing it's most INSIGHTFUL history when the normal people pass away. those that usually wish to put their thoughts down on paper have a way of exaggeration and over imbelishment to catch attention to their work. if we could somehow get more people WITHOUT the drive for creative writing to put their honest thoughts on paper, and then an honest collaborator of those ideas... we may actually have a chance to more accurately represent history. not just by events, but the mentality that caused those events to arise...


you can be surprised what you will learn under the surface if all you do is listen to somebody, in my experiance

[FORSAKENR320]

I'm willing to take that risk for the sake of preventing an illogical and dangerous outcome of allowing guns to be carried by anyone at anytime and anyplace. To constantly think that you will be the victim of such an attack, and to perpetuate such a thought, breeds a populace wide mindset of fear.
That, Brandon, is truly more foolish than you realize.

the idea that we should not allow people to defend themselves fully at anytime on the basis that a few cannot be trusted is madness

is it any more foolish than what america is already doing?

Once, there was the idea of trust. we breed a populace wide mindset of fear when we suddenly decide anyone can be a terrorist. we breed suspicion of fellow americans to the point where we cannot trust each other. once, america's strength came from the patriotism of knowing your brother american, who did not know you, who had no reason to like you, would still lay down his life to protect you. now we breed isolation from other americans through political correctness. we destroy the mentality of "we are one, we are strong" by saying that certain members of us require special treatment and babying. suspicion of ourselves weakens us, and sickens me. when we have an entire populace searching their closets and under their beds for the boogieman, looking crosswise at friends and nieghbors for the chance to rat out anything suspicious... putting everyone on lockdown is the worst thing we could do. how can we learn to trust again when we refuse to give anyone of us the chance to prove ourselves to each other?

[griseyeux]

the idea that we should not allow people to defend themselves fully at anytime on the basis that a few cannot be trusted is madness

there are more than a few people who cannot be trusted with guns.

A better scenario than Zach's would be if you saw someone on campus running with a gun at a distance, you saw them being chased by police and decided to shoot your own gun. Let's say you're a good shot and you kill them, or hell, you're a terrible shot and you accidentally caught their left temple. Now, you have taken someone else's life in a split-second. Now, let's say the cops come up to you and reveal to you that the man you just shot was an undercover policeman. The cops were just running a training exercise to become more prepared for a situation like Virginia Tech. What now? You killed a cop, believing you were protecting yourself and others.

I will never own a gun. Death is too easily dispensed in the form of bullets. I might learn how to shoot one, just to be prepared for any instance where i would truly need one. But if I am face to face with someone who has a gun, then I will face death knowing that I could never threaten others with instant death like they have and that makes me a better human being than them. I don't like guns; they make killing as simple as playing video games. If you have a problem with someone own up to it and fight them fairly instead of trying to take them out with little bits of metal from afar. I think that guns are cowardly in a way; (sorry Zach) they are too rash.

In my opinion, most confrontations with guns involve at least one person who either: a. doesn't know what they're doing b. does know what they're doing and has ill temperament or c. misinterpretted the severity of the situation.

edit: I do believe that the only thing that guns are appropriate for is hunting animals, but there are different ways to hunt as well.

[Psykopath]

the idea that we should not allow people to defend themselves fully at anytime on the basis that a few cannot be trusted is madness

is it any more foolish than what america is already doing?

Once, there was the idea of trust. we breed a populace wide mindset of fear when we suddenly decide anyone can be a terrorist. we breed suspicion of fellow americans to the point where we cannot trust each other. once, america's strength came from the patriotism of knowing your brother american, who did not know you, who had no reason to like you, would still lay down his life to protect you. now we breed isolation from other americans through political correctness. we destroy the mentality of "we are one, we are strong" by saying that certain members of us require special treatment and babying. suspicion of ourselves weakens us, and sickens me. when we have an entire populace searching their closets and under their beds for the boogieman, looking crosswise at friends and nieghbors for the chance to rat out anything suspicious... putting everyone on lockdown is the worst thing we could do. how can we learn to trust again when we refuse to give anyone of us the chance to prove ourselves to each other?

Brandon, did you not say to my face that granting full, open access to firearms and where they can be carried would "increase the amount of random shootings. But It would probably get rid of the idiots anyway/those that don't need to be around" or something to that effect?
I think you've even typed in this thread that you know doing so would increase random violence, but that at least you would be able to defend yourself if the occasion were ever to arise.
How selfish and utterly illogical.

[FORSAKENR320]

Brandon, did you not say to my face that granting full, open access to firearms and where they can be carried would "increase the amount of random shootings. But It would probably get rid of the idiots anyway/those that don't need to be around" or something to that effect?
I think you've even typed in this thread that you know doing so would increase random violence, but that at least you would be able to defend yourself if the occasion were ever to arise.
How selfish and utterly illogical.

survival of the fittest is just that. it's me or him. without the ability to protect myself with a gun against a guy with a gun... it's no longer "me or him" it's "that guy shooting a me" that is the fittest.


and you seem to have missed this entire post

*sigh*

yes, possible. but only a few times. those people who would cause something like this are children playing with toys. it's a very hard lesson to have learned.... but learn it they will.

those who have seen war, hate war. until this day, only those few who have fought and died and earned the name of Veteran can say they have seen the true face of war. i have not talked to a single Veteran who has not looked sadly on the actions they had to take while in combat... if more people understood what the cost of fighting was first hand, i feel their would be less world conflict over all.

eventually even the ignorant will learn that they carry the instrument of death on their hip. the respect for that may even seep into an understanding about human conflict, and another step to world peace may be achieved. a step with a footprint of blood....... but one step closer to that final goal all the same.

the violence would spurt for a bit, but only a couple times.

[Psykopath]

survival of the fittest is just that. it's me or him. without the ability to protect myself with a gun against a guy with a gun... it's no longer "me or him" it's "that guy shooting a me" that is the fittest.
and you seem to have missed this entire post
the violence would spurt for a bit, but only a couple times.

"Survival of the fittest" as it applies to humanity is essentially social Darwinism....a fallacy in logic so vast it baffles the mind.
So, you having a gun, or a bigger caliber gun, makes you more "fit" to "survive"?!
...just wow.

And that other post you made mention of:
Nice and nostalgic, but you simply state a "few" more incidents of violence over the short run.
A few is shooting the numerical figure 6 feet too far under ground...

This post has been edited by Psykopath: Apr 26 2007, 02:46 AM

[FORSAKENR320]

"Survival of the fittest" as it applies to humanity is essentially social Darwinism....a fallacy in logic so vast it baffles the mind.
So, you having a gun, or a bigger caliber gun, makes you more "fit" to "survive"?!
...just wow.

And that other post you made mention of:
Nice and nostalgic, but you simply state a "few" more incidents of violence over the short run.
A few is shooting the numerical figure 6 feet too far under ground...

having a gun doesn't make me more "fit" to survive, but it does make me more capable to survive, and THAT is the point you are missing.

being smart enough to understand that my chances of fighting an armed assailant unarmed are slim to none is not darwinism.

darwinism would be being stupid enough to think that the world is a peaceful happy place where nothing goes wrong. you know what else lives that way? cattle. we should never trust the system to protect us. they can't be there all the time. wether it be from violence or from accidents. how many of us have had a friend die in an accident where the ambulance didn't show up for an hour? or the only time a police officer is there is AFTER the victim has be ravaged, robbed and raped? sitting back with our thumbs up our ass thinking that someone else will take care of us is the dumbest thing i have heard. doesn't just apply to guns. train yourself, learn CPR, learn other emergency techniques. learn to fight, to survive, and defend yourselves, because when that disaster happens to YOU.... the only person you'll have to blame for your ill prepared plight will be yourself. and THAT my fuzzy headed roomie is what makes me more "fit" to survive.