Utah official state firearm

[Seth]

Mai if there are weapons in the house you have to know where they are at all times.
You have children don't you?

Absolutely true. And it's also imperative that you know how to SAFELY handle every firearm in your house, both so that you CAN use them if you decide you need to do so, but so that you can safely control them and unload them should the need arise, without shooting yourself or your neighbors.

People commonly say that they would never use a gun against a person, but that's generally heard from people who have never been violently attacked. What's most often heard from such people AFTER they, or their children, have been violently attacked is "Dear God, I wish I'd had a gun!"

If you have children, you have a moral mandate to become educated and proficient in firearms use, because it is your responsibility to protect your children. I can think of nothing worse than helplessly standing by watching some thug rape your 10 year old daughter because you didn't learn how to use the gun that resides in your house.

You don't have to like it, it may be like cleaning toilets, swabbing up vomit or cleaning up dog shit in the yard to you, but if you have a gun in your house, it is IMPERATIVE that you obtain proper professional instruction in the care, handling and use, particularly if there are children in the house...ever. Suck it up, go take a gun safety class and a couple of sessions at the range and THEN make the decision on what you're going to do with the gun AFTER you've become educated and informed. Don't make decisions based in fear or ignorance. Education won't harm you, or anyone else, and you can then make a rational, logical decision about the gun.

[Wumbologist]

Yes Seth we live a violent country so do you , but The numbers of guns in your country makes death for more likely ,thank you for proving the point .

IF Britain is a much more violent country as you have stated the much higher murder /homicide numbers in the US are only because of Guns then .

Different criminal cultures. A vast portion of our murder rate is gang on gang. It stands to reason that there's likely a very high rate of other violent crimes that are gang-on-gang, that likely go unreported because a gang member is not going to call the cops and report it. So, in that one particular subset of the population we have exorbitant murder and likely much higher crime internally, but only one of them registers in the statistics and neither of them is really an accurate gauge of life for the average Joe who isn't in a gang.

The UK certainly is quite a violent country, and it's gotten more violent with the exportation of US gang culture. Of course, without having as much in the way of underlying causes for that gang culture, it's really nothing more than wannabees of a culture that I can't understand wanting to be.

[Pensioner]

Those who persist in offering nothing more than caricatures of the private gun owner do their argument no service. Caricatures are empty of fact, dismissive of reality, silly and invalid. They are displays of ignorance, petty bitterness, and suggest that the caricaturists know they can not support their position, otherwise have no argument, and are unworthy of a response.

However, they do play well to the choir and provide many chuckles I'm sure.

We had grandchildren on a sleep over last weekend and I must admit that if I lived in America
I probably would have had pump action shotgun at the ready to protect them. Luckily I live in the UK so it not necessary to have a weapon like that to hand. Different strokes for different folks I suppose.

You just think it's not necessary because you've been well trained to be a sheeple and you labor under the delusion that banning guns makes you safer, and that the police will keep you safe. The UK is the most violent nation in the EU, and the violent crime rate in the UK, as of 2009, was 2,034 incidents per 100,000 people. The violent crime rate in the US is 466 per 100,000.

In my opinion, it's immoral for any person who has children, or who is responsible for children NOT to be armed and prepared to defend them.

You are a fucking funny kind of guy, sad but funny. What constitutes a violent crime in the UK? Do you know? A smack in the mouth that draws blood in a drunken brawl is a violent crime in the UK. What constitutes a violent crime in the great USA, getting your head blown off with a 12 gage shotgun?

My next door neighbour was robbed a few years ago and I shot the bastards, not with a gun but my camera, they were arrested a few hours later and gaoled for the crime.

Your comments about morality in not being armed if you children in the UK is so stupid it is not worth a reply.

[klr]

Those who persist in offering nothing more than caricatures of the private gun owner do their argument no service. Caricatures are empty of fact, dismissive of reality, silly and invalid. They are displays of ignorance, petty bitterness, and suggest that the caricaturists know they can not support their position, otherwise have no argument, and are unworthy of a response.

However, they do play well to the choir and provide many chuckles I'm sure.

We had grandchildren on a sleep over last weekend and I must admit that if I lived in America
I probably would have had pump action shotgun at the ready to protect them. Luckily I live in the UK so it not necessary to have a weapon like that to hand. Different strokes for different folks I suppose.

You just think it's not necessary because you've been well trained to be a sheeple and you labor under the delusion that banning guns makes you safer, and that the police will keep you safe. The UK is the most violent nation in the EU, and the violent crime rate in the UK, as of 2009, was 2,034 incidents per 100,000 people. The violent crime rate in the US is 466 per 100,000.

In my opinion, it's immoral for any person who has children, or who is responsible for children NOT to be armed and prepared to defend them.

You are a fucking funny kind of guy, sad but funny. What constitutes a violent crime in the UK? Do you know? A smack in the mouth that draws blood in a drunken brawl is a violent crime in the UK. What constitutes a violent crime in the great USA, getting your head blown off with a 12 gage shotgun?

My next door neighbour was robbed a few years ago and I shot the bastards, not with a gun but my camera, they were arrested a few hours later and gaoled for the crime.

Your comments about morality in not being armed if you children in the UK is so stupid it is not worth a reply.

Seconded. I've never met anyone who felt they needed a gun to protect their own. Doubtless there are such cases, but they are in a very small minority.

[Wumbologist]

You are a fucking funny kind of guy, sad but funny. What constitutes a violent crime in the UK? Do you know? A smack in the mouth that draws blood in a drunken brawl is a violent crime in the UK.

That's a violent crime here too. Not sure if it was an attempt at hyperbole, fell flat if it was.

[Coito ergo sum]

Those who persist in offering nothing more than caricatures of the private gun owner do their argument no service. Caricatures are empty of fact, dismissive of reality, silly and invalid. They are displays of ignorance, petty bitterness, and suggest that the caricaturists know they can not support their position, otherwise have no argument, and are unworthy of a response.

However, they do play well to the choir and provide many chuckles I'm sure.

We had grandchildren on a sleep over last weekend and I must admit that if I lived in America
I probably would have had pump action shotgun at the ready to protect them. Luckily I live in the UK so it not necessary to have a weapon like that to hand. Different strokes for different folks I suppose.

You just think it's not necessary because you've been well trained to be a sheeple and you labor under the delusion that banning guns makes you safer, and that the police will keep you safe. The UK is the most violent nation in the EU, and the violent crime rate in the UK, as of 2009, was 2,034 incidents per 100,000 people. The violent crime rate in the US is 466 per 100,000.

In my opinion, it's immoral for any person who has children, or who is responsible for children NOT to be armed and prepared to defend them.

You are a fucking funny kind of guy, sad but funny. What constitutes a violent crime in the UK? Do you know? A smack in the mouth that draws blood in a drunken brawl is a violent crime in the UK. What constitutes a violent crime in the great USA, getting your head blown off with a 12 gage shotgun?

Actually, both of those constitute violent crimes in the US and the UK.

My next door neighbour was robbed a few years ago and I shot the bastards, not with a gun but my camera, they were arrested a few hours later and gaoled for the crime.

Congrats. That's awesome.

Your comments about morality in not being armed if you children in the UK is so stupid it is not worth a reply.

I would agree with you that it is not immoral to not be armed with firearms. There are many ways to protect oneself and one's family that are reasonable, in my view.

And, moralizing is always unproductive. What is moral and immoral inevitably boils down to the arbitrary opinion of every individual. What we should talk about is what is the best practical course of action to achieve a desired result and whether the desired result is the best result.

Me? I've never owned a gun and I doubt I ever will. And, I'm an "'merkin..." I have news for the 'Peeans out there - most of us don't own firearms, and the US is not Dodge City or the O.K. Corral. Anyone who has visited here from there knows that.

Comparing the "intentional homicide" rate between "Europe" and the "United States" we get Europe with 5.4 per 100,000 and the United States with 5.0 per 100,000. All of North America has a 6.4 per 100,000 rate, but that's because of Mexico, etc. bumping the number up. The global rate is 7.6 per 100,000, so the US rate is 35% lower than the world average. The few countries in western Europe - like the UK and France, and then the little Rhode Islands like Belgium, Holland, the Scandinavian countries, etc. - they do a lot better - but then again if you compare the best parts of the US with the best parts of Europe, it's comparable. The US, like Europe, has some very bad areas, and that skews the numbers up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... icide_rate

[Seth]

Those who persist in offering nothing more than caricatures of the private gun owner do their argument no service. Caricatures are empty of fact, dismissive of reality, silly and invalid. They are displays of ignorance, petty bitterness, and suggest that the caricaturists know they can not support their position, otherwise have no argument, and are unworthy of a response.

However, they do play well to the choir and provide many chuckles I'm sure.

We had grandchildren on a sleep over last weekend and I must admit that if I lived in America
I probably would have had pump action shotgun at the ready to protect them. Luckily I live in the UK so it not necessary to have a weapon like that to hand. Different strokes for different folks I suppose.

You just think it's not necessary because you've been well trained to be a sheeple and you labor under the delusion that banning guns makes you safer, and that the police will keep you safe. The UK is the most violent nation in the EU, and the violent crime rate in the UK, as of 2009, was 2,034 incidents per 100,000 people. The violent crime rate in the US is 466 per 100,000.

In my opinion, it's immoral for any person who has children, or who is responsible for children NOT to be armed and prepared to defend them.

You are a fucking funny kind of guy, sad but funny. What constitutes a violent crime in the UK? Do you know? A smack in the mouth that draws blood in a drunken brawl is a violent crime in the UK. What constitutes a violent crime in the great USA, getting your head blown off with a 12 gage shotgun?

Hardly. Most violent crime in the US is very much like violent crime in the UK, it's physical assault of some kind generally combined with a profit motive or simply a function of anger. While the gun homicide rate is higher in the US than in the UK, the vast majority of gun deaths fall into two categories: suicide and gang-related shootings. The incidence of gun homicides unrelated to those two factors is quite small.

But violent crime is violent crime, and citizens have a right to defend themselves against violent crime, including a smack in the gob in a drunken brawl. This does not mean that lethal force is always, or even frequently justifiable, but you dissemble when you imply that drunken brawls are the only, or even the major source of violent crime.

Here's the deal, if you try to rob me, I have a right to resist and defend myself using reasonable and appropriate physical force in response. If you hit me in the face with your fist, then I can respond in kind to defend myself. But if you threaten me with a deadly weapon, like a knife or a bludgeon, I'm not required to assume that you're just trying to rob me and therefore I must not use more force than you are displaying, I'm free to assume that because you have presented a deadly weapon and are capable of killing me with it, that you have every intention of doing exactly that, and I'm going to shoot you dead on the spot without a second's hesitation.

My next door neighbour was robbed a few years ago and I shot the bastards, not with a gun but my camera, they were arrested a few hours later and gaoled for the crime.

Good for you. Were they armed with a deadly weapon? If so, they should be glad they are in the UK, because over here they might have ended up in the morgue, which is where any criminal who uses a deadly weapon during a robbery needs to end up. It saves the taxpayers a lot of money, dissuades other criminals from carrying weapons, and is a 100 percent cure for recidivism.

Your comments about morality in not being armed if you children in the UK is so stupid it is not worth a reply.

Get back to me after watching some thug rape your daughter while his mate holds a knife to your throat to prevent you from interfering.

[Seth]

Those who persist in offering nothing more than caricatures of the private gun owner do their argument no service. Caricatures are empty of fact, dismissive of reality, silly and invalid. They are displays of ignorance, petty bitterness, and suggest that the caricaturists know they can not support their position, otherwise have no argument, and are unworthy of a response.

However, they do play well to the choir and provide many chuckles I'm sure.

We had grandchildren on a sleep over last weekend and I must admit that if I lived in America
I probably would have had pump action shotgun at the ready to protect them. Luckily I live in the UK so it not necessary to have a weapon like that to hand. Different strokes for different folks I suppose.

You just think it's not necessary because you've been well trained to be a sheeple and you labor under the delusion that banning guns makes you safer, and that the police will keep you safe. The UK is the most violent nation in the EU, and the violent crime rate in the UK, as of 2009, was 2,034 incidents per 100,000 people. The violent crime rate in the US is 466 per 100,000.

In my opinion, it's immoral for any person who has children, or who is responsible for children NOT to be armed and prepared to defend them.

You are a fucking funny kind of guy, sad but funny. What constitutes a violent crime in the UK? Do you know? A smack in the mouth that draws blood in a drunken brawl is a violent crime in the UK. What constitutes a violent crime in the great USA, getting your head blown off with a 12 gage shotgun?

My next door neighbour was robbed a few years ago and I shot the bastards, not with a gun but my camera, they were arrested a few hours later and gaoled for the crime.

Your comments about morality in not being armed if you children in the UK is so stupid it is not worth a reply.

Seconded. I've never met anyone who felt they needed a gun to protect their own. Doubtless there are such cases, but they are in a very small minority.

Not really. It's far more common that you might think, it's just grossly underreported in the liberal press. In any issue of the NRA's magazines you'll find a page called "The Armed Citizen" which has 10 to 12 examples drawn from news sources across the US of citizens who HAVE used their firearms to protect themselves against criminals. Those stories, published every month, are a drop in the bucket compared to the total, but hard to verify, number of defensive gun uses in the US each year, which researchers variously claim are as few as 87,000 per year (DOJ) and as many as 1.2 million times per year (Kleck et. al.)

And since crime is entirely unpredictable, it is indeed immoral for a parent or guardian not to be prepared and equipped to protect the children in their charge against criminal violence. You never need a gun until you really need one, and if you don't have one RIGHT THEN, it's useless to you and you're going to be victimized. I've been carrying for 25 years or more, every single day, and I've never had to shoot anyone. But that doesn't mean it wasn't worthwhile to carry, because I HAVE used my weapon to prevent crimes without having to discharge it.

Estimates are that more than 60 percent of the defensive gun uses in the US each year require only the display of the firearm in order to thwart or prevent the crime. There's nothing a burglar hates to hear more than the sound of a 12-gauge pump shotgun being racked. They tend to leave right away, and since the police rarely respond to burglaries anymore, such events rarely get reported, so they don't enter the statistical analysis by the FBI.

[klr]

...
Seconded. I've never met anyone who felt they needed a gun to protect their own. Doubtless there are such cases, but they are in a very small minority.

Not really. It's far more common that you might think, it's just grossly underreported in the liberal press. In any issue of the NRA's magazines you'll find a page called "The Armed Citizen" which has 10 to 12 examples drawn from news sources across the US of citizens who HAVE used their firearms to protect themselves against criminals. Those stories, published every month, are a drop in the bucket compared to the total, but hard to verify, number of defensive gun uses in the US each year, which researchers variously claim are as few as 87,000 per year (DOJ) and as many as 1.2 million times per year (Kleck et. al.)

And since crime is entirely unpredictable, it is indeed immoral for a parent or guardian not to be prepared and equipped to protect the children in their charge against criminal violence. You never need a gun until you really need one, and if you don't have one RIGHT THEN, it's useless to you and you're going to be victimized. I've been carrying for 25 years or more, every single day, and I've never had to shoot anyone. But that doesn't mean it wasn't worthwhile to carry, because I HAVE used my weapon to prevent crimes without having to discharge it.

Estimates are that more than 60 percent of the defensive gun uses in the US each year require only the display of the firearm in order to thwart or prevent the crime. There's nothing a burglar hates to hear more than the sound of a 12-gauge pump shotgun being racked. They tend to leave right away, and since the police rarely respond to burglaries anymore, such events rarely get reported, so they don't enter the statistical analysis by the FBI.

Sure, the NRA is a reliable and non-partisan source of news and statistics.

And I'm Irish.

[maiforpeace]

...
Seconded. I've never met anyone who felt they needed a gun to protect their own. Doubtless there are such cases, but they are in a very small minority.

Not really. It's far more common that you might think, it's just grossly underreported in the liberal press. In any issue of the NRA's magazines you'll find a page called "The Armed Citizen" which has 10 to 12 examples drawn from news sources across the US of citizens who HAVE used their firearms to protect themselves against criminals. Those stories, published every month, are a drop in the bucket compared to the total, but hard to verify, number of defensive gun uses in the US each year, which researchers variously claim are as few as 87,000 per year (DOJ) and as many as 1.2 million times per year (Kleck et. al.)

And since crime is entirely unpredictable, it is indeed immoral for a parent or guardian not to be prepared and equipped to protect the children in their charge against criminal violence. You never need a gun until you really need one, and if you don't have one RIGHT THEN, it's useless to you and you're going to be victimized. I've been carrying for 25 years or more, every single day, and I've never had to shoot anyone. But that doesn't mean it wasn't worthwhile to carry, because I HAVE used my weapon to prevent crimes without having to discharge it.

Estimates are that more than 60 percent of the defensive gun uses in the US each year require only the display of the firearm in order to thwart or prevent the crime. There's nothing a burglar hates to hear more than the sound of a 12-gauge pump shotgun being racked. They tend to leave right away, and since the police rarely respond to burglaries anymore, such events rarely get reported, so they don't enter the statistical analysis by the FBI.

Sure, the NRA is a reliable and non-partisan source of news and statistics.

And I'm Irish.

Get a toy gun and a recording of a shotgun being loaded.

[Svartalf]

Yes Seth we live a violent country so do you , but The numbers of guns in your country makes death for more likely ,thank you for proving the point .

IF Britain is a much more violent country as you have stated the much higher murder /homicide numbers in the US are only because of Guns then .

Actually, on another thread I posted the murder rates comparing the US with Europe and with a couple of exceptions the US rate is as low or lower. That's, of course, not limiting the analysis to gun-related murders, but including all murders. There are a couple of European countries whose murder rates are astoundingly low, but overall, if you compare the US and Europa (which is normally where comparisons are made because of comparable size), the US has a lower overall murder rate than Europe. I can hunt down that material if you want me to.

what thread? you make me curious.

[Coito ergo sum]

I can't remember, but it was one of the ones we were arguing about guns. I found the wikipedia article which contains the sources for the numbers. See above.

[Wumbologist]

Sure, the NRA is a reliable and non-partisan source of news and statistics.

And I'm Irish.

I wouldn't go to them as a reliable unbiased source, since as a gun owners association, they are by their very nature advocates for one side of the argument. That much is obvious.

But that doesn't mean that they're making up a dozen stories out of thin air for every issue. That's too far a reach for me.

[Seth]

...
Seconded. I've never met anyone who felt they needed a gun to protect their own. Doubtless there are such cases, but they are in a very small minority.

Not really. It's far more common that you might think, it's just grossly underreported in the liberal press. In any issue of the NRA's magazines you'll find a page called "The Armed Citizen" which has 10 to 12 examples drawn from news sources across the US of citizens who HAVE used their firearms to protect themselves against criminals. Those stories, published every month, are a drop in the bucket compared to the total, but hard to verify, number of defensive gun uses in the US each year, which researchers variously claim are as few as 87,000 per year (DOJ) and as many as 1.2 million times per year (Kleck et. al.)

And since crime is entirely unpredictable, it is indeed immoral for a parent or guardian not to be prepared and equipped to protect the children in their charge against criminal violence. You never need a gun until you really need one, and if you don't have one RIGHT THEN, it's useless to you and you're going to be victimized. I've been carrying for 25 years or more, every single day, and I've never had to shoot anyone. But that doesn't mean it wasn't worthwhile to carry, because I HAVE used my weapon to prevent crimes without having to discharge it.

Estimates are that more than 60 percent of the defensive gun uses in the US each year require only the display of the firearm in order to thwart or prevent the crime. There's nothing a burglar hates to hear more than the sound of a 12-gauge pump shotgun being racked. They tend to leave right away, and since the police rarely respond to burglaries anymore, such events rarely get reported, so they don't enter the statistical analysis by the FBI.

Sure, the NRA is a reliable and non-partisan source of news and statistics.

And I'm Irish.

The NRA merely collates and prints a small selection of stories that are published in the media, mostly local papers, which are cited as sources. You can confirm the validity of any story by going to the source. In point of fact they are a highly reliable source of information, news and statistics on gun issues since they are the pre-eminent authority on the subject in the world. They are not non-partisan, but they are both objective and highly credible, which is why the anti-gun zealots seldom bother to challenge either their statements or their statistics, because the NRA has a large staff of highly qualified researchers and authors who do detailed and well-documented research on firearms issues and who take great pains not to make statements that are not fully supported by verifiable facts precisely because they are under constant threat of attack on their studies and conclusions by the anti-gun groups.

As for the statistics, they are from various sources including the Department of Justice, the FBi, the National Crime Victimization Survey and researchers like Kleck and Lott, whose source materials and methodology are available for peer review.

[Seth]

Sure, the NRA is a reliable and non-partisan source of news and statistics.

And I'm Irish.

I wouldn't go to them as a reliable unbiased source, since as a gun owners association, they are by their very nature advocates for one side of the argument. That much is obvious.

But that doesn't mean that they're making up a dozen stories out of thin air for every issue. That's too far a reach for me.

They are not unbiased, but their research and papers are extremely credible and well-documented. They must take great care to avoid propaganda and false statements, since they know full well that every anti-gun zealot on earth is gunning for them and will pounce on the smallest error.

You may disagree with their political agenda, but their research and conclusions of fact and law are rock-solid, which is why they are almost never refuted successfully on the facts. Gun haters have to resort to ad hominem and propaganda because they simply cannot debunk the NRA's research.