ballz said:
I can't possibly justify reading 7 pages of this before stating my opinion, no matter how ignorant of me it is to do so.
Then perhaps you should read through it. The justification that you lack is called education. Until you actually gain some knowledge, said stated opinion is merely an uninformed one, and therefore valueless.
ballz said:
I know a guy from Texas (how cliche haha) that always tells this story about a guy going nuts in a bar. He ends up killing I think 7 people, most of whom had firearms in their vehicles but weren't allowed to have them concealed and on them in the bar... He was all worked up about how 7 people wouldn't have died if they were only allowed to carry their firearms on them.
Read the articles about the Killeen Massacre - twenty-four dead - in these articles, and then watch the video in the last link.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/first100/1001214.html
http://www.search.com/reference/George_Hennard
http://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=1446
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3197/is_n6_v37/ai_12634747
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4069761537893819675&pr=goog-sl
ballz said:
Personally, I'll take my chances on the streets without a gun anyday,
And this generally works just fine.
But would you take your chances living in a house with no smoke detectors or fire extinguishers?
Would you risk not wearing seatbelts while driving?
Would you be willing to go through life with no insurance?
The vast majority of people would get through life perfectly well without taking such precautions, but they would be considered unwise and foolish by most people.
Similarly, the risk of violent crime is remote, especially if one is not a member of a high-risk group, such as drug-dealing, visible-minority, gang members, but it would be prudent to be prepared just in case, would it not?
ballz said:
knowing that no one else has a gun, or maybe 1 person out of 1000 or more has one,
But you don't, can't, know that. You cannot tell who is or is not carrying concealed, or what their intent is.
Chances are that you come in close proximity to quite a few more than you realize, and, in Canada, few of those would be the law-abiding variety.
And that is a fact. There are more criminals carrying concealed here than law-abiding citizens. Are you really happy with that situation? Really?
ballz said:
I think I'd also rather those bullets that killed 7 people coming from one gun and one direction and one person,
Well, it wasn't seven, it was twenty-four.
And I'd rather that the killer was stopped by a bullet or bullets going in the opposite direction before he killed more than two or three people.
Wouldn't you? Really?
Or do you think that it's better that twenty-four die at the hands of a killer than one killer dies at the hands of his intended victims?
ballz said:
then coming from everybody in the funkin bar's gun from all directions cause everybody panicks to protect themselves..
Most will panic, as few people are mentally prepared for such situations.
And very few present will be legally carrying concealed.
In those jurisdictions in the US - the vast majority of the states - where concealed carry is permitted, only about 2% to 3% of the eligible populace takes the time and effort to acquire a licence to do so, and not every one of them will carry all of the time, either.
One would expect, then, only two or three out of a crowd of a hundred at best to be actually returning fire. Most people will drop to the ground and seek cover, paralyzed with fear as the killer walks among them, shooting at will as they do nothing. This leaves him the sole upright target in the place, relatively easy to hit while at the same time making it most likely that any rounds that miss him pass well over his intended victims.
And even if some of them are struck by defenders' bullets, the death count is still going to be much, much lower than it would be if he were unopposed.
And isn't that a good thing?
ballz said:
I would not do that, as I have insufficient evidence upon which to base such an assessment. I have more than enough, however, to assess you as ignorant and illogical.
ballz said:
but I don't play at casinos cause I don't like the odds.
I don't either, and I carry plenty of insurance, have numerous smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in my house, and always wear a seatbelt and whatever other protective equipment is advisable for whatever I am doing. And, were it lawful in Canada, I would carry concealed as well, for precisely the same reason.
ballz said:
Any time guns are made more easily accessible in any way, then that's going to lead to more gun crime.
Completely wrong.
It is only true when criminals have easier access than law-abiding citizens, which is the case in Canada. Most murderers already have criminal records, usually including convictions for numerous violent crimes often already including murder, and a high percentage of their victims also have criminal convictions. As gun control laws have no effect on criminals (who ignore all laws as a matter of course anyway, which is what makes them criminals), criminal access to firearms will always remain unimpeded. All that they do is raise the ratio of firearm-armed thug to law-abiding citizen.
And you
like that?
Easier access by law-abiding citizens will not increase gun or any other crime, as those people, by definition, do not commit crimes in the first place. They are not out beating people senseless with baseball bats, stabbing them with kitchen knives, boiling up crystal meth in their garages, or knocking over little old ladies on street corners and stealing their purses.
"Gun crime" is a red-herring term cooked up by the anti-gun lobby, who cannot produce any evidence that their precious laws save any lives at all. They can, occasionally, find some slim evidence of a reduction in "gun deaths", usually within the range of statistical error, but they have to ignore and conceal the fact that violent crime and suicide are both means independent. No matter how they attempt to portray the criminal/suicide chain of thought and act as "I have a gun, therefore I shall kill someone/myself", it just isn't so. The absence of a firearm, even if such would have been the murderer/suicide's implement of first choice, does not end the process - it just causes something else to be used instead.
Suicide by firearm has decreased in Canada, but other means are substituted. The Coalition for Gun Control can crow all that they want about reducing "gun deaths", but the overall suicide rate has remained unchanged, and the same number of people are dead. We have blown $2 billion on the Lieberals' Firearms Programme, and all that we have done is increase the sale of rope.
To believe that "gun control" works, one has to ignore all of the stabbing, beating, strangulation, poisoning, and "other means" deaths. Dead or not, those people just do not count.
And by the way, for all of its guns, the US has a lower overall suicide rate than Canada.
ballz said:
Any time there's something that makes it harder for your average joe to get his hands on a gun, then that's going to lead to less gun crime.
You could not be more wrong. It will have - as has been proven in various jurisdictions - exactly the opposite effect.
"Average Joe" is not pimping teenage girls that he's hooked on crack or blowing away rival gang members. Denying him access to firearms is not going to reduce the crimes that he is not committing.
Allowing criminals better armament than "Average Joe", however, is a recipe for disaster, and I offer Washinton DC, Chicago, and a number of other major US cities as prime examples. They have extremely restrictive firearms laws, yet their murder rates are far higher than the US national murder rate. Their surrounding jurisdictions, with far more "lax" (which US firearms laws really aren't) restrictions, enjoy far lower murder and other violent crime rates.
The UK (my homeland) made it "harder for your average joe to get his hands on a gun" - almost impossible, in fact - and both gun crime and every other form of violent crime have soared.
One is far more likely to be beaten, robbed, or raped in Jolly Olde England these days than in the Wild West US.
The US murder rate is higher, but it is dropping while that of the UK is increasing.
ballz said:
I know that's probably hard for some people on here to accept, since most of you are trained, and trained well, with a firearm, but that's your profession, and you're a minority in the civilian world. I'll trust you with a weapon, and wouldn't mind if CF personnel were permitted to carry a weapon, or an RCMP be permitted to carry his weapon on him even when he's off-duty, and stuff like that. But I don't see how you can justify making people take a few bs courses (like the PAL.... I challenged that thing without EVER having shot a centre-fire... I should NOT have been able to pass that exam) and pass a medical exam and be able to conceal a weapon.
And who said that a PAL would be the standard for concealed carry?
The NFA proposed that the standard would be the RCMP firearms training programme.
If it's good enough for the RCMP, then it's good enough for your "Joe Average".
If it's not, then it's inadequate for the RCMP too.