better late then never

PS The "Glad you had something useful to add" was sarcasm.

i know , so was my reply :D

I'm 3 months late too. Last night there was a raging gun battle at 12:30 AM about 300 feet from my house. This is not the first time this has happened, nor will it be the last, I'm sure. The guns were being fired from cars, apparently, because by the time the heliocopter got here, no one was left to find. I counted 11 shots from two different guns. I go no where w/o a gun after dark when all the ***** seems of go down. Basically, I go no where after dark period in Long Beach. My problem right now is that I don't have enough fire power to defend my home. All I have is a few pistols. I need to go get another shotgun and maybe a rifle.

I think what you've said about states becoming right to carry is the way things are going to go. California will be the last one and needs it the most.

i realize it's easy to talk like me when i don't live in such a neighbourhood, but carrying a gun to protect yourself from criminals with guns doesn't add up in the long run

Gun control has always been around over here, and in reality there are criminals with guns here as well, last year somebody lobbed a grenade into a coffeeshop or something... so it's not 100% safe here either, in Sweden , some biker gang used rocket launchers in a gang war...
but those are rare things...
there's not a single city i know in Europe where there are weekly drive by shootings, and there must be a reason for it.
in the Netherlands it's actually pretty weird... if a guy climbs over your garden fence... and your doberman pincher decides to make that guy his evening snack... the owner of the dog will end up in court because his dog ate somebody...but gunrelated deaths are very rare here...

and to me it makes sense... the less guns around, the more difficult it is for a criminal to get access to them, and the less chance he will actually kill or hurt somebody with that weapon.

the real stinker is of course , the fact that there are already a huge amount of firearms littered all over the us, and there is a big industry for those weapons... so doing away with the weapons in the first place isn't obvious... having the industry just give up and start making something else is just as difficult

and yes i agree, it's great fun to just go somewhere and shoot at empty bottles or something... and a rifle is a great piece of mechanical engineering.. and it does smell good when freshly oiled...but i can live without it... cause i'm glad there's strict gun control where i live...

Stijn,
as you acknowledge it's easy for you to talk and I am afraid I think you are talking idealistic claptrap.
It's a rare thing you say, say it to anyone who has been on the receiving end from criminals unable to defend themselves and the forces of law and order either not there or impotent. This is not an issue for statistics. One innocent hurt is one too many.
I hope you never learn from bitter experience that only a firearm equalises the playing field and gives you a chance.
-Isa

<i>" .... there's not a single city i know in Europe where there are weekly drive by shootings, and there must be a reason for it. "</i>

There's also not a single city in Europe who have freedoms equal to the United States. Freedom comes at a price, a terrible price sometimes - it's difficult for many to understand this concept of real freedom and it's inevitable consequences. Moreover, the right to bear arms in the United States really has little to do with protection from criminals (or hunting for that matter). It has everything to do with protection from the government itself! That might sound paranoid these days, but it surely didn't 200 years ago and the principles are still valid today. An armed citizenery is one not taken lightly by the government powers that be ......

Right-o! All the Democrats should join in an armed uprising against our evil tyrannical dictator president. Oops, I forgot, liberals don't own guns. :rolleyes:

Huh, that's nothing. I once drove through Cleveland.

I guess it would also be pertinent to mention that the officer killed is the first police officer to die in the line of duty in SF in a decade.

Not just embarrassing, but you do NOT want to visit a Japanese prison. Club Fed it ain't.

And the Japanese were completely disarmed by the USA after WWII. One swell foop, as it were.

You can pass all the laws and bans on manufacture you want, and it won't stop the production of guns.
That's just euphorian dreaming.
I can construct a functional, lethal, firearm in about fifteen minutes made from hardware store items available to everyone including kids.

like i said , it's a rare thing to hear about gun violence here, and when it happens it's either criminal on criminal... or domestic violence(newspaper , depressed husband kills wife, kids and himself) or that one political murder 2 years a go but a fruitcake...
i have no fear whatsoever to walk around in any city in Europe without a gun and i'm no big mean dude who can kung fu anybody who attacks me... so idealistic crap... well i'll agree. it's very close to ideal in europe compared to the rest of the world...

that's bollocks...


Billy , i agree with you , the problem is mostly cultural, a failure to raise kids with morals and keep em out of trouble/dispair for the future...

Svandamme,

I have worked and lived all over the world. I did not feel more at risk in most US cities than I did in most European cities. There are however areas in all cities where it's best for a stranger not to walk around. I do not advocate walking around with a handgun per se but if I feel the need too I take it as my right without question.

The fact that you feel comfortable walking around unarmed in any city in Europe is admirable, but is it overconfidence born of inexperience? Do you believe the police will be there to protect you or that they are not necessary for your safety?

I think Isa's sarcastic post about banning guns posted above, says it much better than I can.

...... (and I know it's been said a thousand times, but...) those that are willing to trade freedom for security deserve neither

Milu , any big city has his bad alleys, that's unavoidable
but as long as i don't walk around flashing my bling bling
why would anybody bother me? i keep my wallet on the inside of my pocket, to prevent pick pocketting... and i don't keep much cash in it..
the only thing they can take, is some pocket change...

somebody tried to rob me once.. i gave him what i had and that was it... it was in Barcelona btw... there were two of them, and they had a knife... they ran away with a Visa card, a crap cell phone and about 20 bucks. the phone got replaced by my employer.. the visa card was cancelled 3 minutes after the ordeal... i didn't even bother going to the police, since my description of the offenders wouldn't help much and i didn't feel like sitting in the police office the rest of the night...

in retrospect it was my own stupid mistake to walk to my appartement pissed drunk through a lot of dark alleys... because i didn't feel like queuing up for a cab...


what good would a gun have done me in this sort of situation?

If you were "pissed drunk" it is certainly better that you were unarmed.

If you feel at ease with being robbed, that's fine with me. For what you lost I don't think it was worth fighting over. That you did not report is your personal decision, I agree it would have achieved little. I am not advocating gunlaw just the right to defend myself and my property.

My problem with your point of view is that you would take away from me MY option to defend myself. Unfortunately that is the direction European law is taking. Our governments are programming us into sheep, the wolves are hunting and the shepherds tally up the losses over a lamb dinner.:(

agreed. if you have a problem with guns, don't own one! I mean, isn't that what all the abortionists preach? (ooh, that's all this thread needs, to be turned into an abortion debate)

i think in essence, the difference is that you seem to have a requirement to defend yourself, while i don't see the need where i live...

the question is then , why ... which kind off points to the inherited relaxed gun laws...

it's the chicken and the egg if you ask me.. which one was first
and you can't get ridd of either of the two...

This debate will NEVER end and guns will be a fact of life in the US FOREVER. It is what it is. Lots of folks have the luxury of preaching about banning private gun ownership from their safe neighborhoods, gated communities or countries with vastly different cultures from ours. Americans have an inherent distaste for gov't. authority and relying on others to protect them. Even if a house-to-house confiscation effort did not cause a civil war here, they'd never be able to stop people from arming themselves. So we might as well accept reality, and learn to live with it as best we can. My kids will certainly be getting an early education on gun safety. Even if I didn't have guns in my house, you can bet your kids will someday be playing in a friend's house whose parents do have guns around and maybe even don't keep them locked up. So they need to know how to behave around guns.