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Load time on part I was getting a bit long...

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So where were we....

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�������������-The Breen at Internment Camp 371

We have so many guns that kill people! Think about it. That would make every gun owner, every hunter or such, a potential homicidal maniac. They have a gun, and since GUNS kill people, by that logic it makes them far more likely to kill someone. I say bull***t.

So, the argument that if you have a gun you are more likely to kill someone is bullshit? It makes sense to me.

And as I've said, the UK, France and Australia are pretty diverse countries too. And how many deaths a year are there from handguns in these countries?

How many deaths come from other weapons besides guns? I stand by my point that if it is not the guns, it'll be something else.

If guns were banned, you'd have a huge rise in violent deaths with other weapons. that is what I'm trying to say.

UK, France, Australia, they may be diverse,but not as much as we are. Plus, you also have to realize we have a far larger population.

True, if it's not guns, it'll be another weapon. Hopefully a less effecient, less lethal weapon with a shorter range that's harder to obtain. You may have a rise in violent deaths by other weapons. Hopefully though, the rise will be much smaler than the dropin the number of weapons caused by guns.

Do you know how much harder it is to kill someone with a knife? Psychologically, it is much harder to get into close-range with someone else and physically stab or beat them than it is to stand from a distance and pull a trigger.

There you go. Might not be as easy as a gun, but it could be more effective, and easily made.

Or have their overseas buddies send in a few hundred with the next coke shipment.

Or they might just use any of the myriad other weapons that are already illegal to use, like, say.. pipe bombs. It's easy to kill at a distance with a pipe bomb or other explosives. How about molotov cocktails? Easy to make, and you can get alcohol, kerosene, or gasoline just about anywhere. And they can kill a lot of people.

Yeah, and if dog poop was gold, my new puppy Ceilidh would make me a rich man.

Your likelihood of achieving this goal, even with a total ban on civilian ownerships of guns, is precisely nil, for reasons stated above. Thusly, it's a waste of time speculating about it.

"There are no armies armed with only knives..."

There are no armies armed with only guns, either. Most, into combat, carry both. Plus things a lot worse.

Beyond that...

Consider the fact that it's become obvious that the killers were planning to blow up the school. They made a propane bomb to accomplish just this task. As well as at least 32 other bombs.

Supposing they had simply not shot anybody, but had instead blown up the bomb/s in the middle of the cafeteria during lunch hour.

That would have killed a lot more than 15 people.

And I'd be willing to bet that NOBODY who is currently calling for a gun ban would be here calling for greater restrictions on the purchase of propane.

Much in the same way that I don't see any of them clamoring for restrictions on the purchase of fertilizer and fuel oil (remember Oklahoma City?)

Changing the U.S. Constitution would require a constitutional convention. Do you have any idea what sort of wacko ideas about the Constitution exist these days? Open it to change, and you have no idea what kind of garbage will be tossed in. How about that flag burning amendment, eh? And that fifth amendment...only someone guilty would use that, right? Or any other number of blatently unconstitutional things that people will try to push through? I have no desire to let the current political culture get its hands on the most important document in the United States.

Actually, I guess I'm already in the thread, so...why not embarrass myself further?

One thing I think we can all agree upon is that these children should not have had those guns. Whether you think the rest of the population should or not, we all can say that irrational people certainly shouldn't.

People do not exist in a vacuum. There were plenty of warning signs, as has been discussed on other threads. Steps need to be taken to ensure that these types of people do not have access to weapons. That doesn't involve taking weapons away from everyone.

Is that an option? Well, yes. It's one I personally find distasteful, but the truth is usually based on something other then my opinion. I do think that the guns themselves are merely a surface issue, though, and while part of the problem are not necessarily its source.

Anyway, I just can't resist posting on this subject :-) I think guns should be allowed to anyone that is fit to own one...as in, innocent people who are not depressed or have mental illnesses and the like.

It's amazing how so many of the morals and such have declined in the US recently...I'm just 14 years old, but I can tell from history and the current News that things have radically changed. In a previous posting somewhere in this thread, someone mentioned that you didn't hear about things like the Colorado incident even as little as 20 years ago. But the mentality of the people has decreased to such a low level that people don't have support from anywhere...that could drive anyone mad, especially teenagers, who are going through many changes, esp. emotional ones, in the process of becomming adults. It seems that so many people just don't want to bother to even get to know anyone else, and talk negatively to poeple all the time. This DOES affect people, especially ones that are trying to 'grow up' emotionally...they recieve negative stuff all the time, and they don't learn any other way to act. No wonder they get depressed and go out shooting people...news reports say that the two shooters in Colorado hated Everybody, according to their classmates. And mainly for teasing, because they weren't wanted, and were thought of as 'weird.' I agree that they may have been, but considering how much they talked about guns, Hitler, and war games, that would seem to be enough to tip someone off that they needed help...maybe it did and the person just didn't CARE enough to do anything about it?

Anyway, this is just a small part of my opinions on the matter of gun control and the Second Amendment...if all the websites on the Internet talked about nothing but this issue, there would still be no discussion and no agreements about most things! It's good to know opinions though...although it is very hard to convince someone to change their opinion. Just look...there have been some great posts arguing both sides in this thread and in the first one on this subject here. Among the people that have posted multiple times, has ANY SINGLE ONE person changed their opinion? As of this post, there have been NONE. Zero. Zip. Naught. Nada. And this is a HUGE thread...hundreds of posts, coming from both sides, many of them long and thought out!

All I can do is give my opinion, and hope that everyone can become informed on both sides of the issues, since it's hard to do that through news bias or through any commercial source, since there is bias involved. All the opinions here seem to be truthful and sound, at least from the point of view of the beliefs of the poster.

I'll stop now since I've spent more time at this site than I have at any site in a LONG time...and I have other stuff to do! But I hope that I remember to come back, it's a great place!

'About the Ox?'

'About everything damnit!'

One tidbit I heard is that it was especially easy for these teenagers to get guns. They only had to fill out the right paperwork. I don't know how easy that is compared to other places, but that sounds easy to me.

You have to wonder what goes on in those little towns out there, though. I haven't heard of large, organized gang shootings like that in Los Angeles or New York or other big cities. *knocks on wood*

I saw on the news today that one of the girls that was killed, was shoot because she wouldn't renounce god. A witness saw them tell her they wouldn't shoot her if she renounced god, she refused, they shoot her. If I understood corrcetly, she was a former member of their group.

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BRAVES FAN