(no subject)

[pictor]

As a followup from an extended conversation on another post of mine, I am curious where many of my friends stand on this.
[Poll #1307988]<input ... >

I have no intent that this become another place for debating this, I am just curious where people stand on this.

Comments

[vesta-venus.livejournal.com]

With regard to the third one, I wish you would have split it. I am okay with gun ownership for gun range practice, but not home defense. (But I ticked it anyway.)

[mikepictor.livejournal.com]

I kept them together, because if you owned one anyways, and someone invaded your home, the option of getting it for your defense is innately there. The only way around that is leaving the gun at the range I guess.

[vesta-venus.livejournal.com]

Technically, a gun owned for hunting purposes could also be used for home defense. Based on the limited amount of hunters, target shooters and gun collectors I've met, they were the kind of people who kept their guns locked up at home with the ammo being stored separately. Wouldn't someone who had one for home defense, by definition want to keep the gun loaded and easily accessible?

[reyl.livejournal.com]

Yep. I think rifles for hunting are fine. Handguns should have to be kept at a range or gun club, or stored safely with ammo locked separately.

I don't think home defence is a good reason for a handgun. Being part of some law enforcement agencies might make it necessary to learn and practice with handguns, but you shouldn't be carrying it around town or playing with it at the kitchen table. Handguns are for shooting people, and that is a bad thing.

[thesheryl.livejournal.com]

handguns can also be used for target shooting. If I owned a gun that would be what I would use it for. The rest of the time it would be locked up, unloaded, bullets separate. Or maybe I would own an antique gun or rifle for esthetic value. You know how I am about old things! :)

[chequey.livejournal.com]

I keep a rattan sword (essentially a wooden club) under the bed. I'm fairly practiced with its use, and I imagine that it would be reasonably effective against anything short of a firearm.

[kira-lynn.livejournal.com]

I think the state has an obligation to allow women to carry guns, since they are not protecting us.

You said in that earlier thread "I maintain citizens have no need to own a pistol" and I think that is really the kind of thing a large, straight white man would say. I don't mean that to be a bitch, but just that people have different needs than you do.

We are supposed to be able to protect our security of our person. I think I need a gun to do that.

[mikepictor.livejournal.com]

I appreciate that you come at this from a different position, that's part of the reason I wanted to sound out people's opinions. I am aware how easy it is to make observations about my world as a 6'6" white straight male, and other people have different outlooks.

We can move this off Michael's blog after this but...

[tormenta.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of times when Michael has displayed an unconscious priveledge in his perspective on things, but I'm not sure gun ownership is one of these issues, since it's an all or nothing deal: either you have one for self-defence AND your atttackers are more likely to have one "for self defence", OR, you don't and they don't.

Sure, a big guy can kill me easier than I can kill him, ... but he can kill me WAY, WAY more easily with a gun. From across the street. Off a ricochet. And I can do the same to him if I'm carrying a gun.

The question of protection of security of person can be addressed with mace, tasers, or a variety of other non-lethal solutions. Which isn't to say you aren't entitled to your opinions about the validitiy of gun use, but I hate to see a claim that being a pacifist/anti-gun in the context of life in Canada or the US means flaunting your invisible backpack of priviledge. Even coming from a reasonably vulnerable perspective I prefer not to carry a gun and prefer for others not to, as well.

Re: We can move this off Michael's blog after this but...

[kira-lynn.livejournal.com]

am i supposed to answer this?

Re: We can move this off Michael's blog after this but...

[kira-lynn.livejournal.com]

well, okay, then i can say the reverse:
from the perspective of a woman, i want a gun.
i'm not worried about randomly getting shot in the street. that rarely happens, even in cities with legal guns. i'm talking about close range violence.

Re: We can move this off Michael&#39;s blog after this but...

[tormenta.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.

It's probably the difference in our perspectives comes from our geographical locations and social context.

I lived less than 2 city blocks from where Jane Creba was gunned down in 2005; there was a public, daylight shooting at the mall near my house 2 months ago when my boss was there on a site visit. There have been 3 shootings this year within a single city block around my office. And I don't live or work in ghettos. My victimization by accidental gun violence feels relevant and possible.

[blinkus2000.livejournal.com]

As a large, straight, white man, who has been the victim of violent crimes, and worked a job that was under a constant threat to violent crimes (15 years driving cab in the States), witnessed violence done to women and men, I will say this.

If I was scared at times, I can glean enough to realized that I cannot begin to imagine what it would be like for someone half my size.

People who are in need of a defense should not have that right to defense taken away.

At the same time, I need to stress that guns are only a short term solution and a bandaid to bigger problems and long term they actually add to the problem. Law abiding licensed gun carriers are not committing crimes, but they are creating a market for guns, and with more guns in circulation, the more available they become to criminals.

Penalties for gun crimes are not severe enough. They honestly need to be severe enough to make gun crimes not worth it. I hear lots of arguments that this would never work, and we haven't even tried, only tried to add more legislation on law abiding owners.

[kira-lynn.livejournal.com]

am i supposed to answer this?

[blinkus2000.livejournal.com]

Only if you wanted to.

I was just agreeing with you and also making a point that it really should not be a long term solution.

[thesheryl.livejournal.com]

How does a gun help you if a large man sneaks up behind you unawares and grabs you, pinning your arms? Or holds a knife to your throat? Or puts a gun to your head? Are you going to walk around all the time with your gun in your hand and the safety off? Or will you only do that when you're alone and scared?

[kira-lynn.livejournal.com]

some things help some of the time.

[kira-lynn.livejournal.com]

simply: if a man wants to rape me, he has to take of his pants at some point, or something. if someone walks up and kills me from behind, a gun won't help, and nothing will. but that really doesn't happen often. virtually never in ottawa.

the argument that there are scenarios in which i might not be able to access my gun or it might not save me are not a reason to not own one. that's like saying not to use seatbelts, because what if your car spontaneously combusts and kills you instantly?

[i-and-t.livejournal.com]

What is the state not doing that you think it should?

It's a pretty strong statement that you have made and I'm not even really sure what the state is not doing that you would like.

From everything I have ever heard / read owning a gun increases your risk of getting hurt, not decreases it. As far as I can tell buying a gun for your own protection is kind of like going to Vegas to gamble to make money. Sure, it works sometimes but the odds are still stacked way against you.

I suppose it might be the choice that makes you feel empowered, but I don't think it's actually the choice that is going to protect you from harm more.

Theoretically you could argue that it is your choice to make and if you want to go off and do something non-optimal that's up to you. Except of course the violence that you are escalating and the bullets you are firing spill out to others.

I don't feel like having my kids hit by your stray bullet.

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/17785055/detail.html?rss=atl&psp=news

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,453464,00.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/140247/stray_bullet_pierces_roof_kills_mother.html

And a depressingly massive list of others if you google it.

[kira-lynn.livejournal.com]

thanks, but i researched it, and i don't mean "googled".

no one wants kids hit by stray bullets. i also think those kids have rights to protect themselves as adults.

[kira-lynn.livejournal.com]

What is the state not doing that you think it should?

the state is not:
-testing rape kits
-taking domestic violence complaints seriously
-enforcing restraining orders
-responding fast enough to 911 calls to certain areas
-educating men on rape, on violence against women
-acting in any kind of feminist way
-training their police on gender issues in any meaningful way
-doing anything at all to prevent violence against women... they sort of half respond to it sometimes, but nothing in advance
-making sex work safer
-providing women with information about current risks

This whole "it will be used against you" thing is bullshit. Owning a car increases your risk of dying in a car accident too. But we train people, we license, we regulate, and we remove the right based on abuse, and we balance convenience with certain deaths in traffic accidents. Do you think women cops are at some great risks of happen their weapons used against them? No, because they are trained. When guns are illegal maybe people get them used against themselves because they were never trained.

"Sure, it works sometimes but the odds are still stacked way against you."
What odds? Where?

If a man wants to kill me, he can. Having a gun might even the situation. Yes, he might have a gun too, but he already likely has deadly force at his disposal in a fight with me, with most women.

If there are a bunch of kids around and people going to be hit by stray bullets I probably could get help and not need to fire, right?
What are these cases of women firing guns in self defense that killed bystanders?

I just clicked your link - yeah, a kid shot, a mom shot, a pregnant woman shot... by men. None of these shooters was shooting in self defense. You are arguing against the misuse of guns... irresponsible target practice? Two men arguing? That is not what I'm talking about.
Realize first that guns are not going away. Now examine why they are a tool/weapon the good guys/good girls aren't allowed to have.

Sometimes people poison people. Does this mean we shouldn't sell medicine? No, it doesn't, it means we should guard against its misuse, and punish when it is used to harm others, but recognize that sometimes an individual needs it to save their life.

[thesheryl.livejournal.com]

That's a good answer. I'm most worried about people who own guns and are completely irresponsible about it. And the effects of violence escalating when a gun (or guns) come into play. As with A's earlier post about the two men who shot each other in the Toys'R'Us. Two women got in a physical altercation so one man pulled out his gun. Then the other man pulled out his gun. Now two men are dead when, if neither of them had a gun to begin with, security and the police would have been called and there would have been charges of aggravated assault and disturbing the peace. I think one of the things people (including myself) are worried about is that the use of firearms in altercations will automatically result in "use of deadly force". In short; less injuries, more dead people.

[kira-lynn.livejournal.com]

"if neither of them had a gun to begin with"
or, if we didn't have stores they wouldn't be there.
or if we didn't have men.
or if, if, if.

Just because this is a variable that would have changed the situation doesn't mean that it is the one to change. Why is it that when someone dies from alcohol or cars (or both at once) we don't think of prohibition anymore? why do we choose regulation instead?

Also - this all presuposes that we even could remove the possibility of doing away with guns, which we can't. People shoot each other - including in stores and in schools and in homes - in places where they are not allowed to own guns. Guns exist, so I favour a harm reduction model, as I do with, say, drugs or prostitution.

I see what you are getting at regarding people getting into fights, but if you think of an attacker/victim situation the result when a woman uses deadly force to fend off a would-be murderer is not "more dead people", it is a different dead person. I guess I'm just not willing to trade my safety because of the way men fight. Men kill each other, and they kill women. But the thing people are scared of is arming women?

[the-big-cat.livejournal.com]

While anecdotal and tragic, none of these stories have anything to do with people who are trying to defend themselves with a firearm.

You are ignoring the fact that in countries such as the UK and Australia, significant increases in violent crime have accompanied nation wide gun bans (http://johnrlott.tripod.com/op-eds/BritainToyGunsWSJE.html). For example, in the US burglars will avoid robbing an occupied house to avoid home owners with guns. In the UK it is now more common for a burglary to happen while people are at home. Washington DC has seen some of the largest increases in violent crime of any US city. They also had until recently, the strictest gun control in the US.

No one has been ever pointed me to a study which shows an increase in legal gun ownership that has lead to more violent crime of any kind.

All citizens should have the right to effectively defend themselves, and their family. They must also be responsible and train in the use of their weapon of choice.

[the-big-cat.livejournal.com]

A couple of comments. Under current law, restricted firearms (mostly handguns,) must be stored unloaded, either in a safe, or a secure container with a trigger lock. Non-restricted firearms (mostly long rifles,) must be stored unloaded with a trigger lock (it doesn't have to be in a safe or cabinet.) Because of this, very few people bother to think of their handgun for home defence, and tend to use a shotgun instead (personally I have a baseball bat handy since I don't have to worry about unlocking and loading it.)

A couple of people have mentioned locking up guns at the range. This is discouraged by the police so that they don't become targets for criminals looking to acquire guns. At the RA Centre the club owns a number of guns, and we have a large safe to lock them in (we are a bit of an anomaly since we are the only range in Ontario who own their own guns.) There is no way the club could provide such secure storage for all of the members guns (there are over 400 members and many have several guns.)

As for the option of carrying in plain sight, you will find very few people, especially those who favour being able to carry, who think that is a good idea.

[mikepictor.livejournal.com]

oh I don't think it's a good idea either...I just wanted to provide a full slate of possible responses. I'd be surprised if anyone picked it.

[henrytroup.livejournal.com]

Only open carry was the law in Texas for a long time. When I worked for BNR back in the 80's apparently one of the computer operators in Texas was never without his .45.

[henrytroup.livejournal.com]

When I was at U of T (1977-1982) the Hart House Rifle Club owned its own "long-range paper punches". Someplace I may still have a paper target with 5 10 holes in it. (Gun control begins with hitting the target...)

[tao-of-erec.livejournal.com]

If you are going to use any weapon for home defence, it is very important to learn how to use it proficiently. Otherwise it provides the bad guys with an excellent means of dispatching you and carrying it out for other crimes.

[henrytroup.livejournal.com]

Not enough options. Some people (and I'm one) interpret the US 2nd amendment as an explicit right to overthrow the government if necessary. Rifles are useful for more than hunting.

Also, livestock protection is not hunting. Most farmers with livestock have a loaded rifle, in the kitchen, typically, and not stored in accordance with laws written by city folk.

I believe "no private firearms in cities" myself.

[i-and-t.livejournal.com]

I've always been interested in interpretations of the 2nd amendment.

I have always assumed as you do that the point of it was to be able to overthrow the government if it was deemed necessary.

The idea that any militia owning any type of guns today could come remotely close to overthrowing a modern army is laughable. (and the US military even more so). Great, you've got a gun, they've got artillery that can strike at a distance of 10 miles.

T.

[thesheryl.livejournal.com]

Remember Waco. :(