Rockie wrote:No we're definitely not getting anywhere with this gun debate. I have to laugh though at being called closed minded. The idea of having, as Wasp put it, armed police but not really, just civilians armed and not in uniform is silly.
If they're licensed, trained, and registered to do so, why is it silly?
I can agree that if a person has a job that regularly puts them in harms way with dangerous criminals, or are charged, contrary to Wasp's assertion, with upholding the law which includes protecting civilian lives (police) then they should carry a handgun.
How many lawsuits have their been against police because someone got shot and the cops weren't there to protect the victim? There's a reason the answer is pretty much 0.
Likewise if an individual has recieved specific and credible threats to their lives, and they are properly trained to carry a firearm then they too should be allowed to carry.
So do you agree that everyone (or most everyone, say law abiding adults with not criminal record) should be allowed to possess a handgun? Otherwise this idea is useless, training a person to be competent and effective with a handgun would take too long if done from scratch once a threat was noticed.
But Joe Schmoe walking the street? No way! I don't want the Wasp's of Canada carrying a weapon on the street on the very very slim chance he might find himself in a dangerous shootout with a criminal. He's more likely to shoot himself or someone else by accident.
Strawman.
What did wasp say?
Wasps rule wrote:I'm talking about arming qualified individuals
If they have as much training with a handgun as a police officer, they're no more likely to shoot themselves or someone else by accident. Wasp isn't talking about arming everyone walking the street.
By the way most of the people here argue for carrying a weapon, it's not hard to imagine them twirling it around their finger and practicing quick draws in front of a mirror.
Ad Hominem. Your ideas of what some of us might look like are irrelevant.
They divide the population up into two groups, sheep and wolves.
Strawman, who did this?
And only the wolves are manly enough or competent enough to carry a weapon and use it to defend them and theirs.
So now we're saying that they do have to be competent? Pick the side of the argument you want to use, don't use both.
If we had to have people other than police officers carrying weapons I would much rather it be someone who doesn't really want to carry one. They are much less likely to use it unless they really had to and will be less prone to pull it out and play with it.
And if they don't want to carry it, they're also more likely to not maintain it properly, not be trained sufficiently with it to use it safely, and more likely to accidently shoot someone.
Creating a culture where carrying a weapon is normal is social engineering.
As is creating one where it isn't normal. The difference is that the second one has already been done, and the first one hasn't been.
And the stats showing a drop in crime are at best misleading which is why I hate using stats. Remember that Japanese tourist who was shot through the front door of a house in Texas several years ago? He was ringing the doorbell to ask for directions and the owner shot him right through the front door thinking he was a burglar. That was considered a justified self defence shooting in the United States. The rest of the civilized world calls it gross stupidity and homocide.
Anecdotal evidence is also misleading, only much more so than statistics. And it was Louisiana, not Texas. Rodney Peairs was aquitted due to the way the law was written, not because he was allowed to carry a gun.
So don't bother quoting stats please. The're like history, it depends on who writes it. And just to show how closed minded I am, the anti-gun lobby is just as guilty.
Don't use anecdotal evidence either.
Like I said, all this boils down to the fact that these macho types all think that if they were in Virginia two weeks ago, they could have plugged that guy, saved the day and become a hero.
The death toll would likely have been lower. He fired over 100 rounds, and nobody fought him.
It's all about me, me, me...I should be allowed to carry a handgun.
Or maybe it's about realizing that it's impossible to have enough police to actually protect people from threats. Police can only respond after an incident has begun, and it will usually take them several minutes to do so.
