Paranoid Gun-rights advocate ambushes 3 Pittsburg police officers - Page 2

To be fair, there was more that set this guy off besides his paranoia of his guns being taken away. After the event took place it was mentioned on the news that one of the reasons contributing to his snapping was him losing his job.

I agree. We do not need anymore gun laws.

There will always be nutcases out there. To make a law that would prohibit them from getting guns is impossible. Laws that attempt to do so only end up restricting the rights of those of us who follow the law.

Instead of looking at these isolated examples as representative samples of all of us pro-gun individuals, look at them as what they are - isolated incidents by insane and evil people.

More people die from DUI induced auto accidents than in shootings every year. Does it make sense to ban cars? A car in the hands of a maniac is quite a weapon. I have recently become aware that a neighbor is being charged with aggravated assault because he tried to run over some people with his car.

Most lawful gun owners don't commit crimes. Even more concrete is the fact that of those of us who legally carry guns daily, we are amongst the safest and most law-abiding individuals in all of society.

Don't group us in with nutcases. We are normal, level-headed, intelligent individuals. We deserve better than to be stereotyped because of the lunatics who use guns for unlawful purposes.

What a fantastic point; I've never seen three sentences so profoundly capture the essence of an argument.

So what do you want people to do, keep their opinions to themselves because some lunatic might be influenced to do something crazy?
We'd better ditch most of our current culture in that case.

What you call "political paranoia" about potential gun confiscation is, in some people's opinion, a possibility. Even you stated that no one is sure where Obama currently stands on the issue, but he has said enough in the past to give people reason to think he's no fan of the 2nd Amendment.


Ted Bundy was handsome, intelligent and charming. He regularly attended high society functions. He also bludgeoned to death several women sleeping in their sorority house at FSU.

"We never would have suspected he had a problem - he was just a regular guy..." Isn't that always said by people after someone they know commits an outrageous crime?

There will always be people who outwardly seem "fine" but are walking time bombs. Who knows if the guy who shot those officers would ever have done more that keep a collection of guns if the officers hadn't come to the door that day? In his twisted mind he must have thought they were coming to get him. Maybe he would have become a serial killer. We don't know what demons were in his head, but we know that he was seriously deranged to kill those police officers. To pin any responsibility for his actions on people who are of the opinion that the 2nd Amendment may be in jeopardy is unfair.

Any lunatic can choose anything as a "cause" and may take that cause to terrible extremes.

My heart goes out to those fallen officers and their families. What a tragedy.

Skippy

WOW, I think there may be a few criminals that actually have priors.


Great post Sue.

I'm so tired of hearing about the 2nd Amendment, as though it's some sort of Holy Grail for freedom. Forget about the constitutional legal groundwork for the availability of guns, that is meaningless (as were many things, before they became hot-button issues and were parlayed into amendments). Just because something was deemed legal yesterday doesn't mean its use can't be (or wasn't) exploited, abused, and had its legality seen as obsolete and/or downright harmful, today.

There are inherent rights and freedoms that all people are deserving of; gun ownership isn't one of them. Not that it's necessarily bad, it's just something that is merely state-mandated (and is far more trivial today from a utilitarian standpoint, than the reasons for its implementation in the 1700's) and thus, shouldn't be treated as though it is on par with the right to breathe oxygen.

While I don't give a rip about guns either way, something about the obsessive way the pro-gun folk view the issue is disturbing.

Now this post makes sense to me. In the 1700's they needed guns to provide meat for the table. Nowadays perhaps we need to be reminded that we can get meat at the local grocery/deli and therefore don't need that gun.

But, seriously, I don't think the problem is the prohibition of guns per se, I think it's mostly folks are more concerned that the bad old government might take a "right" away from them whether it's a useless, meaningless right or not. And, heaven forbid, if they take that right away, what right will be next?

You want to see the United States of America have another Civil War, try taking our guns away.


FTR, I don't have a gun, but I would fight for my right to have one.

That's fine; but if that particular group will at least admit that the foundation of their argument is a fallacy (Hypothesis contrary to fact) and is purely rooted in paranoia, then perhaps we'd all have a decent starting point for discussion.

Gosh, all this talk about the Constitution is just really stupid. It's SO passe! Just ditch the whole thing because at least one of those silly "rights" is superfluous and downright old-fashioned. I mean, what's so wrong about government controlled news anyway? Or a State religion? Or this whole "due process" thing?

Do you even realize that the SECOND amendment is was one of the cornerstones that the country was founded on. An armed population keeps the government in check, because some rogue can't just come in and take over. They know we can fight back if pushed too far. Not that we've needed to, but we could.

I have no issue with reasonable gun laws, when they are enforced on more than the law abiding. When laws actually curb the bad guys getting the weapons, they make sense. We have them on the books already. You can't own an automatic weapon without a license (that is very difficult and very expensive to obtain). Felons can't own or possess a firearm, and we have a background check to ensure that they don't bypass that law. You can't use a firearm in the commission of a crime. You have to have a license to carry a concealed firearm, and in most states that requires a safety and proficiency course. There's boatloads more on the state and local level.

Given the nature of your posts on this topic, I have a real hard time believing that you don't have a pretty strong opinion on this topic, and that you "don't give a rip about guns either way". Just an observation. Your arguments are a little to well fleshed out for you not to have a strong standpoint, and believe me I've heard these arguments before.

Yup, if they take away that right that is guaranteed by the Constitution, then what's next? Freedom of speech? Freedom of religion?

Regardless of whether other countries have the same right, this one is in our Constitution. So yeah, I don't want the bad ol' government trampling on that document, or my right to bear arms.

Quite a few lunatics had stockpiles of guns and ammunition. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold come immediately to mind. Their body count was "only" 13. Bad? Yes, definitely. BTW, those guns were obtained illegally which is rarely mentioned. They expended hundreds of rounds that day. Literally hundreds. But they only killed 13, plus the shots that actually counted in killing themselves.

How many rounds did this guy fire? How many rounds do any of those rampage killers fire? And how many were actually fatal hits? Charles Whitman was the only proficient rampage killer that I know of, and only because he had been trained as a sniper.

Ted Bundy was a much more prolific killer with his hands than most of the examples that are used to justify gun bans.

Check into the millions of people who have guns "just around the house" (does anyone actually keep their firearms like that??? I've never seen any like that!) who didn't "snap". You're talking about a hundredth or thousandth of a percentage point of gun owners who "snap" and are so incredibly selfish to take their families with them in their decent into madness and death.

What about the guy who strangled and stabbed his wife and two daughters in a hotel room? Should we impliment background checks and criminalize certain types of knives too?

This is the same type of logic that gets certain breeds of dogs banned and exterminated. Take a bad news story, exaggerate the instances by only looking at the worst case scenarios (which is what makes the news), and perpetuate the idea that the more you hear about it the more typical it is. These are isolated incidents, not the norm. They are sad, but they are atypical.

You're implying of course that guns are designed solely to be destructive which IMO is not the case. You're leaving out guns that exist solely for target shooting such as those which are used in smallbore bench rifle competitions.

The whole gun debate is pointless because even if you hate guns, the bottom line is that they exist and will always exist. Unless you can build a time machine and somehow stop the firearm from ever being created, they're here to stay. The only way to protect yourself from crazy lunatics with guns, is to own a gun yourself - whether you like that fact or not is up to you - but you can't change it. You can pass all the laws you want and it's not going to change the fact that the bad guys will have guns. It will only change whether the good guys will have the guns to protect themselves with.

Again, you focus on the small number of people who use guns for nefarious purposes, and entirely ignore the countless others who lawfully own guns for purposes of defense, target shooting, etc.

Also, somebody mentioned the fact that meat is available at the grocery store therefore eliminating the need for guns. All I'll say about that is that I'd actually prefer to eat hunted meat than store-bought because store bought meat comes from animals that live their lives in terrible conditions, hardly able to move and surely miserable. Hunted meat comes from animals that have lived their lives in the wild - the way these animals are supposed to live - happy and able to do what they want to do.

Anyways, I'm not going to sit around and argue this age old argument that seems to get rehashed over and over with those of us who are pro-gun incessantly verbally bashed in the process. I'm going to do the same thing I do on a daily basis when I'm carrying a firearm. Walk away from the confrontation. Honestly, this I hear this argument everywhere these days. I chimed in and I regret it. I'll just state my opinion bluntly and leave it at this - I don't support enacting more gun control laws than the dizzying array we already have in place. I don't support the NFA, although I follow the law when it comes to it, and I don't support reinstating an AWB. With that said, I'm not exactly going to lose my marbles and start shooting people over my opinion. That would just be beyond stupid, and heartlessly evil to boot. I fight this fight in the voting booth and for the most part leave it there with the rare exception of me chiming in when I hear the subject pop up somewhere. Unfortunately, chiming in never has any positive outcome because those of us who are pro-gun are set in our opinion, and those of you who are anti-gun are set in your opinion (and you're free to be so, that's one of the great things about this country). Nothing I say will change your mind, that much I learned years ago.

Without getting back into this debate - I wasn't replying to only one person's post. I only quoted a single quote because of the direct reply in the first sentence. As to targets beying destoryed. I suppose if you count holes in paper as being destructive - fine (although simunition and other technologies can make practice and training usages of firearms non-destructive). When I hear "destructive" I think of a more extreme interpretation.

As to paranoid rhetoric, I am of the opinion that Obama and Biden have made their views on the subject quite clear. Biden went so far as to essentially call an individual "mentally unbalanced" during the Youtube debate because he made a joke about an AR-15 being "his baby". I believe Biden's exact words were, "If that's his baby, he needs help." I felt that was rude and uncalled for, but Biden backed it up by explaining his views on AR-15s. Biden wrote the original assault weapon ban. He is one of the largest proponents of it. Obama has multiple times mentioned that he supports passing a permanent assault weapons ban. Furthermore, during the Heller case in front of the SCOTUS, Obama first said (if my memory serves me) that his opinion was that the second amendment does not protect an individual right to keep and bear arms. Then, after the majority opinion came out, he pretended like he never said that and said that he always has believed that the second amendment is an individual right. That was ridiculous.

Whether or not there is adequate recent evidence to support the notion that an AWB is imminent, I have mixed feelings. While Obama was in Mexico recently, he said that he was not planning to enact an AWB, but the next day he retracted that comment and said that he and his administration still support enacting an AWB. Which of his statements should people believe? I haven't a clue. If people want to believe that an AWB is imminent, I have no problem with that. They can lawfully go about protesting, sending letters to congressional representatives, and/or purchasing whatever they want while they legally still can. I don't support unlawful means of voicing their opinion. The OP referred to an obviously mentally unbalanced individual with evil in his heart. I remember when that story broke. My first thought was that people were going to use it to categorically label gun owners. I feel that some people in this thread seem to feel that way and I think it's unfortunate. I wasn't necessarily referring to anybody in particular though because individual name calling is below me as well as the members of TCS in general.

Sure, I would imagine there probably are some people out there who are a bit paranoid. I will admit that just out of uncertainty, I bought a few things this year while I still could. I have no idea whether Obama will enact anything, so the worst that happened was I spent some money prematurely. There are plenty of people who are doing that right now more out of uncertainty rather than paranoid certainty. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I'm sure there are less people out there that are truly paranoid than some in this thread think. I think there are just lots of people who aren't sure what's going to happen like myself.

So was slavery. After a more throrough analysis however, it has been determined maybe that wasn't such a noble idea. Historical context is key.

Ummm. Okay. Like I said, I don't have an impassioned interest in guns, but I guess I don't see the problem in taking a step back and objectively analyzing how guns fit within the framework of modern society. And doing so without falling back on arguments of yesterday that may or may not share similar context with today.

And really, isn't that the essence of what the amendments are/were all about? Taking a step back and critiquing "The Rules" for the greater good? Before amendments were considered, their issues obviously were not seen as significant enough to be passed into law, yes? So, what if we're in one of those transitional times even as we speak? Part of the past could be rendered obsolete and - for better or for worse - deemed not so sacred after all. And one day, it could all be seen merely as evolutionary.

In fairness, I don't think this applies to the Bill of Rights. I think it was a matter of "Let's get the government up and running first and come back for these later." The BOR was being sent out to states for ratification before all 13 had finished ratifying the main body of the Constitution.

That said, I think we're in agreement that the Constitution needs to be a living, breathing document and not a straitjacket that we're stuck with like our Blue Laws or our sodomy laws - archaic relics, but still on the books and punishable. As far as the 2nd Amendment, back when it was written, the government and the citizens had a pretty decent parity in weapons. Now, the government has cruise missiles, attack helicopters, F-22's, satellites, etc and the idea of staging an armed revolt against them is ludicrous. I do think home defense and hunting were part of the intent of the 2nd Amendment as well, but it specifically talks about a "well-regulated militia" so I can't see how outlawing certain classes of guns which aren't appropriate detracts from those activities.

Key difference - slavery wasn't written into the Constitution.

I really don't see the difference in keeping a rogue government at bay between the 1700s and the 2000s. Protecting a free-society is as important today as it was then. You can say what you want about hunting and all that jazz, but that truly was the intent of the Second Amendment. The context of an out-of-control and power-grabbing government is as possible today as it was then, and that is what the Founding Fathers were protecting against.

Technically, Muhammed and Malvo weren't rampage or spree killers. They were serial killers in that there were more than 2 incidents with a cool down period between. So they were organized, serial killers, which really don't share the same characteristics as the school shooters, or this psycho who went on a rampage.

The efficacy argument was actually in response to your saying that if Bundy had a stockpile of firearms he could have increased his body count in one afternoon. Which actually goes back to the Muhammed and Malvo vs. Harris and Klebold thing. Bundy, Muhammed & Malvo was methodical and organized, and killed for a sense of satisfaction, while Harris & Klebold and the other spree/rampage killers did so due to rage.


Not sure how the laws read where you are, but in Colorado minors are actually not legally allowed to be in possession of a firearm without direct adult supervision. So here at least, that incident wouldn't have been a legal possession of a firearm.

But I do get what you're saying. There are irresponsible gun owners. I guess my view is skewed because the people I know are responsible gun owners, by and large, while your view may be skewed because as a deputy you generally wouldn't run into the responsible, law abiding gun owner. We tend to keep to ourselves and not raise much fuss with law enforcement.

There are also a whole lot of irresponsible automobile owners. And dog owners, and cat owners for that matter. Pretty much anything that can be owned and the responsibility of owning that piece of property abused, it will be.

While this guy may have been motivated by the panicked cry of "Obama wants your guns", I really haven't seen that war-cry. And you know that I'm in the crowd (military-style target competitive shooters) that would be panicked by such a thing. Sure, the sale of firearms has increased since he was elected. It increased when Clinton was elected too. I think LawGuy has a pretty good stance of why. There is the "what ifs" about what he will do or sign (I'm more concerned about this Congress if they ever get around to it), because he has been very vague and flip-flopping about what he actually does support in terms of gun control.

Sure it was. It stated that slaves were "worth" 3/5 of a free person. There's a few more "token" inequities written into it, as well, but that wasn't even the point.

I give up. Viva la guns!

Isn't the topic of slavery somewhat off-topic though? We're talking about the Bill of Rights which guarantees rights to Americans. The BOR was at least amended to provide equal rights to African-Americans/Black-individuals (not sure what the PC term is these days as it seems to change). In other words, the BOR was changed to afford additional rights, not take them away - which is the way it should be IMO.

To use the example of slavery as a BOR analogy seems to be headed in the wrong direction because to properly deal with the slavery issue, we added rights, rather than taking away them which is what some people seem to advocate we do with the 2nd amendment.

My point from the beginning was that perhaps we should try and redefine what "rights" and "progress" were, and how sometimes they can only be defined pragmatically in accordance with evolving contexts, and not within the rigid confines of "what always has been". I admit I tend to use extremes to try and make a point, and it ends up a bit too far out of the box. Interwoven with my own lunacy, it all makes perfect sense to me when I'm writing it. Really.

Please don't "redefine" my rights.

I don't trust this or ANY government enough to have give up the right to bear arms.

Perhaps if one is so against guns they could go live in a country without guns instead of thinking the US should give up our right to have them. (It has worked out real well in Britain)

Outlaw guns and only the bad guys will have them. Bad idea and it will not happen. The people in this country will not stand for it. You can only push people so far and this is one thing that people will not be pushed on, trust me.