GUNS!! If Wishes Were Horses...

[Madspirit]

There is a lot of work of the consciousness raising kind before people are going to willingly give up their guns. I think this country is a mess. There are divisions among people in this country that are not resolvable.

There is even a Group called Pink Pistols, arming gays and lesbians because we are victims of hate crimes. In Nazi Germany they put us in ovens too. People conveniently forget that little bit of trivia.

I DON'T OWN A GUN. I know I'm bipolar. I know what I've done to sheetrock with my fist. I know better than to own a gun. I live in a liberal hippie town. So it's EASY to NOT have a gun here. I don't know what I would do if my girlfriend and I were living some place that is not safe for lesbians.

People are scared. To be dismissive, pompous and condescending about the real fear real people really feel about real things...muggings, rapes, criminals, hate crimes, the government....isn't going to start any kind of dialogue with anyone who even slightly supports firearm ownership.

The problems in this country are deep...really really deep. Hunger, mental illness, homelessness, crime, poverty, war, fundamentalist cults, etc. You're simply not going to get people's guns until there is some effort to address THESE issues.

...and you guys can pretend all you want but if this boy hadn't been able to get these guns from that gun shop, he would have gotten them somewhere else. Guns are easy to get. It was his mental illness that caused the crime. The guns were the instruments with which he carried out the crime. It would have been lovely if someone could have stopped him from having guns but as things are, he would have gotten them one way or another. It would have been lovelier if someone had REALLY dealt with his mental illness. Then no one would have ever had to deal with his guns.

Lee

[Madspirit]

1. IMPORTANT to READ

Are you people too sure of yourselves to address this?
Lee

[uppityperson]

7. Hi, not too sure but avoiding gun topic replies.

Reading and watching and am tired of wading through the DU morass of "buy more guns!" "guns are the problem!" "etc etc etc" and trying to stay out of it while thinking about it all. Thank you for the post, appreciate your thoughts, they are mine also.

[Sequoia]

2. If

If wishes were horses,
Beggars would ride.
If turnips were watches,
I would wear one by my side

[Madspirit]

4. If

If wishes were fishes..
We would all cast nets...

[Sequoia]

14. If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

[flamin lib]

3. It's like that sign in the mall, you know, the one that says "you are here"

There are so many guns out there that even if there was a law the confiscated them all it would take 3-4 generations to diminish the number. Not that I'm saying we should do that, just that it can't be realistically done.

I own guns and enjoy messin' 'round with them. Don't hunt anymore--that stint wearing green every day back in the early '70s sort of ruined shooting at living things for me--but like target shooting. I even bought an airsoft 6mm BB gun so I can shoot in the house--ticks my wife off big time.

What ya' gotta' understand tho is that for some folks owning guns isn't a hobby, it's one of the world's great religions. If you treat it that way you'll gain a more accurate view into the mentality of guns and America.

[Madspirit]

5. Some of the arrogance

Some of the arrogance I see here in the anti-gun people... They aren't going to convince ANYONE. Period. You can't talk down to people and convince them of anything. You just make them dig their heels in that way.
Lee

[flamin lib]

6. There's 'nough arrogance to go 'round. Like I said, some folks

enjoy shooting, some feel the need for protection and then there's the true believers.

Some folks think guns need to regulated, some think gun owners should be regulated and then there's the true believers.

[aikoaiko]

8. Thank you -- I'm a gun owner because I want a fighting chance...

...to save my life or the lives of others should something horrible happen.

[ceile]

9. Hey, Lee

You make some good points, but I mostly agree with is "liberal hippie town." We're a little sheltered here from the gun culture, I think. Guns are not an issue for me because I focus on the mental illness, hunger and homelessness in our community through my work. Guns don't bother me and I don't bother them, so to speak. I would love to see some tighter laws, but given where we live that's never going to happen. (just passed a law yesterday that allows for guns in homes of those providing foster care). I'm not sure what my point is....I just don't think that things are going to change....

[Madspirit]

10. New Yorker Gun Cartoon

I don't have the cartoon but here's the description...

There is a cartoon in one of my New Yorkers....

It is a bunch of cave people and it's obviously a matriarch. Anyway, the men are all down in a field, planting and farming, etc. Two women are standing above them, on a big rock, looking down on them. One of the women says:

"I don't know why we can't start allowing the men to carry guns. What could possibly happen?"

*snort*
Lee

[slackmaster]

11. K&R

:kick:

[maxsolomon]

12. prove he would have gotten them somewhere else

i always hear that canard & i think its BS - if i were to buy a gun illegally, i have a vague idea where to start, but it would be really risky to my personal safety to try & approach crack or heroin dealers in downtown seattle & ask them. they'd probably think i'm a narc, or they'd turn me into the cops that are a block away.

can you imagine an obviously mentally ill, painfully shy korean college student finding an illegal gun dealer in blacksburg? i think it is unlikely at best.

and american's fears are VASTLY inflated by our fear industry.

[Name removed]

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[Madspirit]

16. Lastly

Illegal gun people prey on this kind of person. Your ignorance of the underbelly of this world is astonishing. You don't have to go to some big arms dealer to get an illegal firearm. Once again, this country is swimming in guns. My god I hate arrogance.
Lee

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

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[Madspirit]

19. Bull!

I used to be homeless. I suffer from a mental illness. This guy is EXACTLY the type illegal gun sellers prey on. You think it's Mary Poppins who buys them? It is the paranoid who buy them, foolish person.

You think if he couldn't have gotten the guns at that shop, he would have stopped. hahahahahaha

In psychology, we have a term called "Magical thinking". It's only considered normal in small children.

"The belief that one's thoughts, words, or actions will produce an outcome that defies normal laws of cause and effect; the belief that one's words have the power to make things happen. For example, a client may believe his or her thoughts can cause earthquakes."

You don't want guns to be but sorry...they ARE.
Lee

[Madspirit]

20. Not called "Arrogance"

It's not called "arrogance" when it's actually something someone KNOWS. I've lived on the streets, for years at a time. I know who these people prey on. I have known closely more mentally ill people than you have ever even met. I've lived with schizophrenics when I was hospitalized for TWO years. I have friends still who are schizophrenic. I KNOW the streets. I KNOW criminals. I have also been a good leftist since the Viet Nam war. So I will put my leftist creds up against anyone's. ...BUT STUPIDITY HELPS NOTHING.

I just love this about some of my fellow liberals. The idiocy of naivete. ...of thinking because you want something, it makes it so. IT DOESN'T.
Lee

[Madspirit]

21. Stats..

In fact, illegal guns are most often sold to felons, juveniles, convicted domestic abusers and the dangerous mentally ill.
Go check the government stats at NIH. This IS who buys illegal guns.
Lee

[maine_raptor]

13. You're in the city, I'm in the Woods.

Within a 5 mile radius of were I sit, in just about every home, there will be a "gun", or more, of some type.

Yet the murder rate (by firearms) is sa low as to be non-existent (last one was a year ago).

Why?, I don't know, maybe less crowding. :shrug:

I haven't answered many of these "Cho" threads, but I have read. One thing that I see missing though, is mention of the lapse of the law that required (allowed?) States to enter info into the national data-bank for the "insta-check" at the time of purchase. As I understand it, had info on Cho's instability been in that bank, then the store owner would never had sold the guns.

Oh, sure, he COULD have bought them off the street, but somehow, given what we now know of his personality, that doesn't seem very likely.

One things about guns, they don't have any brains. They just do what ya tell'em (sorta like Bush supporters). The problem as I see it, and as seems to be backed up be what I observe around me is the the "problem with guns", ain't with the gun, but them that holds it.

Maybe if we do ever solve the other problems who mention, then maybe that will end some of the rage and madness that falls upon a person that makes them want to pull the trigger.

[Madspirit]

17. His personality

His personality is the EXACT type these gun sellers prey on. Paranoid, angry, etc. I could leave my house and come back with a gun, unregistered, in an hour. Of course, I live in Texas but it was that way when I lived in Boston, New York, etc. This country is LITERALLY swimming in guns. Where I live, many people have whole gun cupboards full of the things. I live in Austin, a liberal city. The only really liberal city in Texas. (We always and without exception, support the Democratic candidate for president.) Yet, still, the majority of people I KNOW, have a gun or more than one.
Lee