If you had to choose between handguns and long guns being banned which would you choose? I'd choose handguns. It's true that long guns are more powerful and can significantly increase the body count in a mass shooting situation. However, handguns are easier to carry and conceal and thus more likely to be utilized by the common criminal. Handguns are used to commit the majority of gun murders.
Can we just ban stupid people? That would cover all the bases (hand guns, long guns, arsonists, DUIs, handgun incidents, road ragers, child abusers, pedophiles, rapists, etc.).
Classic example of a loaded poll designed to support the bias of the poll creator. How about adding a polling choices of "neither?"
So the choice is picking which one you want only criminals to have. Sounds like a losing proposition either way. I don't think we should ban any product. If you don't want it don't buy it.
Ban NOTHING! We have the right to BOTH... actually... a BUNCH of BOTH. The question is like asking... "Would you rather give up your right to vote for STATE government or City government.?
A better question would be do we punish those who never committed a crime by taking away their first amendment rights, or by taking away their second amendment rights?
Na why be honest about polling people, do it like the professionals at CNN, where they can by wording the poll determine the outcome going in, that being ban guns.
There is no such thing as a gun murder, guns are tools, they cannot murder anyone, it's the fool with the tool that commits murder, if that was not true the prisons would be full of guns not criminals.
The poll is bird cage liner IMO. It is worded under the heading of choosing to be beaten with a stick or a rock. There is nothing to choose - neither can be banned as long as the 2nd Amendment stands. And without the 2nd Amendment, there are no protections for the rest of the People's rights.
We have the right to many things. That doesn't mean we *have* to do, just that we can. For example, we have Freedom of Speech but most of us don't use our words to hurt others. We have the right to because being a jerk isn't illegal. That doesn't mean we should exercise that right. And, as a former police officer and child abuse advocate, I can unequivocally say the "good guy with a gun..." is just a talking point. Most people will NOT help others and that's not a judgment on them, just the reality that that kind of vigilantism isn't what actually happens in most cases. Here's an example. About two years ago I took my Jeep to the local mechanic a neighbor recommended. I paid a little over $1,000 for whatever the repair was. Approximately 4-5 days later, I went to an appointment and stopped at a garage sale (rebuilding after divorce and ex took everything, literally, all my personal items and our 2 children). As I got out, one of the women pointed and said my hood was smoking. I ran back to get my wallet and phone off the passenger seat and ran as far as I could just when the hood exploded, literally. I asked the woman if she could let me use her water hose and she said she didn't have one. Who lives in a house without a water hose? Anyway, the police showed up before the fire department and the cop ran to me to make sure I was okay and he asked the home owner for water. Again, she said she didn't have a hose. He asked her if she had a bucket. He pleaded with her to get a bucket of water. She did but she came back with about a gallon of water. He ran to my Jeep and tried to put out the fire. Just then the Fire Department showed up, put it out completely. The whole inside was burnt to a crisp. The dashboard was completely melted all the way through. I would have been killed had I not stopped at that garage sale. Did that homeowner have the right to refuse me a water hose? Yes. Did that homeowner have the right to do as little as possible even when the LEO asked for water? Yes. Did the 7 people at the restaurant have the right to stand there recording this incident (but doing nothing to offer help)? Yes Did the tow truck guy have a right to verbally abuse me because he was apparently having a bad day? Yes Obviously, people want their guns and we all have a right to them. My concern isn't removing guns from law-abiding citizens. My concern is that certain demographics just don't make a good equation for gun ownership. I know ANY 18-22-23 year olds that are just not responsible enough to have weapons at their disposal. Our generation and our parents and grandparents were much more mature by that point. That's not accurate for where we are NOW though. The mental health system in the country is broken. Very broken and these people that need help can't get it or don't want it or have not presented any warning signs to those around them that would warrant recommending mental health treatment. These are the people that shoot people in road rage incidents. These are the people that kill a bunch of their classmates. I didn't read it because I didn't want to but somebody just started a thread in the past few days about somebody shooting people over some gifts at a baby shower. Really? Should that person have access to weapons? And, that doesn't even touch on that person bringing another life into the world. Two parents got shot when their toddler picked up a gun. Again, stupidity, guns and children just aren't a good idea. I've posted about it before you joined this forum but I know several people that have committed suicide with guns and I know for a FACT that two of them would NOT have completed that act if they did not have immediate access to a weapon. These are the people that are about 5 minutes away from a deadly altercation over very, very minor disagreements. It's cliché but the fact of the matter is those of us with weapons training and experience almost always, lean toward diffusing situations without the use of our weapons. It's the people that develop bravado because they have a weapon (or weapons) who are the threat to our society. And, until we demand an overhaul and reboot of our mental health system, these senseless killings are going to continue. At what point, how many people, need to die or become paralyzed or suffer long term injuries from being shot? When is it enough for us to say "This is it". We can't keep doing the same thing and expecting different results (Einstein said that).
Unless you are in in an urban area, that statement is totally false, stick enough rats in a cage (urban) and they will kill each other, go out to a more rural setting and you will find neighbors watch out for other neighbors. A secondary problem is and it is a major one is single parent households, I cannot use the word family, because it doesn't apply. These single parent households are breeding grounds for out of control children who have no respect for their own lives nor less anyone else's life. As for the broken mental health system in the U.S. you can blame a lot of misguided bleeding hearts who believed dumping criminally insane people to the streets would be a good idea, as freedom would solve their mental health problems, as long as they stayed on their meds, which the majority of didn't preferring to self prescribe the drugs they wished to take and to fuel that fire they took to robbing others, many times very violently. They have no self worth, as such they have no idea of the Sanctity of Life, they are basically useless people and they know it and in turn treat everyone around the same way.
I was a Chicago police officer and I was a business consultant for several companies throughout the country. One of them involved developing a program for men leaving prison in Louisiana. There is no real difference between how urban and rural people act toward one another. It was the way you described maybe a generation of two ago or further back but that's not the case now. I currently live in a small town and my neighbors are some of the most hateful, immature, gossipy people I have ever met. I've helped many of them out with various things but when my vehicle caught fire and exploded (literally) NOT one person offered to take me or pick up anything from the grocery store. I know they all knew because it made the front page of our newspaper and it was published on the police department website in addition to some of the gossipy neighbors blabbing about it. I have a friend whose ex is going broke and selling stuff because he hates being around people so he won't look for a job. He hates everybody and everything, even his own son. We're in a rural area. In fact, I have never met any family in which everybody got along. That's not how people work. We live in societies because we need the various talents and skills that people can provide but most of us would love to be King of our own island. So, I don't paint a broad stroke of <any adjective> solely based on someone's geographic proximity to one another. It makes sense there is more violence in urban areas simply because there are more people so there is more opportunities for disagreements. Can you expound on the distinction between household and family, please? I want to make sure I'm understanding your position correctly. This is a very complex issue and it's not something that can be *fixed* easily for a number of reasons. 1. Abortion - Women are basically guilt tripped into having children they don't want so they do the bare minimum (or not) to keep the kid alive. The other side of this is unwanted kids are put up for adoption, but most don't get adopted. They live in foster homes (bouncing from place to place) or group homes (where they are often sexually, physically and emotionally abused by older kids and/or staff members). Anti-abortionists talk about the "sanctity of life" when vehemently opposing abortion but they don't address the issues of what REALLY happens to these children once they are not in a womb. Seemingly, the "life" only matters when it's attached to an umbilical cord. 2. Some people simply walk away. I know of 4 people, personally (versus the cases I've worked on) that had one or both parents basically abandon them. a. Parents were divorced. Mother literally did not pick up my friend from school (she was 12) and never showed back up for decades. b. Mother literally walked out and left her 7 kids (the oldest was 15). They didn't know how to use a washer or dryer, basic personal hygiene or have any social skills. The 15 year old walked out on her younger siblings when she was about 17 and went to live with her guy (35y), had 4 kids with him and is basically trapped because she doesn't have a HS diploma or GED and can barely read. c. My former neighbor's mother walked out on her husband and their 6 kids. He didn't want to or couldn't handle it and literally piled them in the car one day and left them at an orphanage. All of them grew up to be criminals. My neighbor has a laundry list of mental illnesses and a hair trigger temper. Honestly, if you've ever seen a feral animal, that's this guy. He has no manners, can't hold a conversation without exploding and can't keep a relationship with any woman. His younger siblings were separated in the orphanage so he doesn't have any family except the ones he knows are in prison. d. A woman I hired for a project last year was like the guy I mentioned above. She was loud, aggressive, rude, mean and just outright impossible. Her mother walked out when she was about 14-15 and went to live with her bf. She never learned how to do laundry, cook or interact in a socially acceptable manner. At first, I thought she was just a little rough around the edges but it turned out that she was too far gone. I'm a patient person so I tried to guide her toward more acceptable behavior. I gave it six months but she wasn't retaining any of what I was saying and it was starting to cause me migraines so I eventually fired her. She was also fired from her company based on my termination of her services (it was then I learned that she had been let go by several clients and my termination of her contract was the final straw because the regional manager knows me to be patient and tolerant so I didn't just fire her on whim). e. This former friend's father left his mother before he was born. She didn't have much education and prostituted to have an income. She never brought any clients home. She never exposed her son to that scene. She never asked for Public Aid or Medicaid. She never missed a pediatrician appointment for him, a school function or showed any signs of neglecting him. I'm not advocating prostitution, mind you. I'm saying that she worked to provide for her son and kept him protected from *how* she did that. One day, another parent at the school found out (I can't recall how that happened) about her work and reported her to Child Protective Services. Her son was taken away and put into a group home where he was sexually abused by older kids and staff members several times a week for all the years he lived there. He wasn't even allowed to see his mother and didn't reconnect with her until he "aged out" (turned 1 of the system and could go find her. Like me, he turned his abuse into something positive and got a LCSW license and worked in group homes with children our society basically throws away. He eventually forgave the people that had him ripped from his mother, school (and all his friends) and the only home he ever knew. So, when we talk about "those kids" we are talking about the people that we, The People, completely ignore and label as "problems" early in life. What is a child supposed to do when they have to leave that system, however abusive, and COMPLETELY provide for themselves at 18 years old? If they haven't graduated high school by that point, the job opportunities are not going to be flowing toward them. This is why so many of them end up in some type of sex work. It gets them off the streets for a few hours or a night. Most of them commit crimes so they CAN be locked up just have somewhere to eat and sleep and they learn more bad behaviors from seasoned criminals. We are basically putting children (yeah, 18 is "legal" but how many of us were "grown up" at that age?) with men and women that have made a career out of committing crimes. And, basically EVERY prison sentence is "for life" because most of the people that did their time, paid their debt to society and have taken that incarceration time to reprocess their thinking and leave for a fresh start are met with stone cold silence. They can't get an apartment as an ex-felon. They can't get most jobs as ex-felons. They can't get student loans to attend any education programs. They can't provide references (too long ago if they did work before incarceration). Again, these are people that we are *discarding*. From the business side, it makes sense. Put as many kids as they can in the revolving door of foster care/group homes, ignore any complaints about abuse and hang them out to dry at 18. This funnels them straight into prostitution and eventually prison and prisons are for-profit businesses. From an ethical, moral and even legal standpoint, it's craziness. More in a bit. I've got to take a call.
Criminals may be book and/or street smart but they are all stupid for doing stuff that takes away their freedoms as American citizens.
Where there is high risk, there is usually high reward, just saying. I don't under estimate anyone, especially criminals. Lots of criminals never get caught just the stupid ones and the ones that attract attention.
100% incorrect, I have lived in both areas and can assure you have no idea of what you are speaking of.
Criminals who get caught don't follow the basic rules of being a criminal. Be a leader, let others commit the crimes while you take a piece of the action. Always work differently, when one falls into a pattern one will make mistakes and get caught. Never get greedy, there is no such thing as the next one will be the big one, stay below the RADAR and never form a pattern. Plan and plan again, never just do something just because it presents itself as an easy target, that is a good way to meet cops.
