Pretty much Kadath. I used that article to illustrate a point. Why should I depend on another person to protect me? Especially when that other person (i.e. The Police) has no obligation to protect anyone. All the police are for is to draw the chalk outline around the dead BG.

Me, I'll take responsibilty for my own protection. I will not depend on others for something that is my responsibility. If I prefer a firearm, so be it. Owning a firearm is a right, not a privledge. If others don't like them, to each his own, but please do not infringe on my rights.

I don't think we should ban guns outright, I'm just for better gun safety and gun control. We should have better background checks for firearm purchases, crack down on illegal sales (personally, i'd much rather see a "war on guns"- illegal assault weapons and legal but unlicensed handguns on the black market - than the "war on drugs"). There is new technology being worked on where a gun will only fire for its true owner; steps like these look very promising.

A gun, in the right hands, can be a good thing. If a person uses and stores it responsibly, it can save lives.

Your stance that you won't depend on others to provide something that is your responsibility is very inspiring, but entirely hollow rhetoric. I'm sure you never let others provide something for you.
Maybe you don't understand the police motto "To Protect and Serve." See if you can find in those four words something about protecting you. Oh, there it is, the second word!
Anyway, my point was just that guns are used in homicides more than all other weapons combined. Do you dispute that?

Unfortunately, that is just a motto.

Several courts have ruled that the police are under no obligation to protect citizens.

I respectfully request more information, Lebell.

This was my google search:

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...ted+to+protect

Just a few tidbits:

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"Ruth Brunell called the police on 20 different occasions to beg for protection from her husband. He was arrested only one time. One evening Mr. Brunell telephoned his wife and told her he was coming over to kill her. When she called the police, they refused her request that they come to protect her. They told her to call back when he got there. Mr. Brunell stabbed his wife to death before she could call the police to tell them he was there. The court held that the San Jose police were not liable for ignoring Mrs. Brunell's pleas for help. Hartzler v. City of San Jose, (1975) 46 Cal.App. 3d 6. The year after winning the Hartzler case, the San Jose government appointed Joseph McNamara Police Chief. Chief McNamara has since become the leading police spokesman for Handgun Control, Inc. (HCI)." Excerpt from "The Law Abiding Individual and Personal Protection", by John Brophy.
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"fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen." [Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. Ct. of Ap., 1981)]

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Consider the case of Linda Riss, in which a young woman telephoned the police and begged for help because her ex-boyfriend had repeatedly threatened "If I can't have you no one else will have you, and when I get through with you, no-one else will want you." The day after she had pleaded for police protection, the ex-boyfriend threw lye in her face, blinding her in one eye, severely damaging the other, and permanently scarring her features. "What makes the City's position particularly difficult to understand," wrote a dissenting opinion in her tort suit against the City, "is that, in conformity to the dictates of the law, Linda did not carry any weapon for self-defense. Thus, by a rather bitter irony she was required to rely for protection on the City of New York which now denies all responsibility to her." Riss v. New York, 240 N.E.2d 860 (N.Y. 1968).
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This one is especially good

The seminal case establishing the general rule that police have no duty under federal law to protect citizens is DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services (109 S.Ct. 998, 1989). Frequently these cases are based on an alleged ``special relationship'' between the injured party and the police. In DeShaney the injured party was a boy who was beaten and permanently injured by his father. He claimed a special relationship existed because local officials knew he was being abused, indeed they had ``specifically proclaimed by word and deed [their] intention to protect him against that danger,'' but failed to remove him from his father's custody. ("Domestic Violence -- When Do Police Have a Constitutional Duty to Protect?'' Special Agent Daniel L. Schofield, S.J.D., FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, January, 1991.)

The Court in DeShaney held that no duty arose because of a "special relationship,'' concluding that Constitutional duties of care and protection only exist as to certain individuals, such as incarcerated prisoners, involuntarily committed mental patients and others restrained against their will and therefore unable to protect themselves. ``The affirmative duty to protect arises not from the State's knowledge of the individual's predicament or from its expressions of intent to help him, but from the limitation which it has imposed on his freedom to act on his own behalf.'' (DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 109 S.Ct. 998 (1989) at 1006.

About a year later, the United States Court of Appeals interpreted DeShaney in the California case of Balistreri v. Pacifica Police Department. (901 F.2d 696 9th Cir. 1990) Ms. Balistreri, beaten and harassed by her estranged husband, alleged a "special relationship'' existed between her and the Pacifica Police Department, to wit, they were duty-bound to protect her because there was a restraining order against her husband. The Court of Appeals, however, concluded that DeShaney limited the circumstances that would give rise to a "special relationship'' to instances of custody. Because no such custody existed in Balistreri, the Pacifica Police had no duty to protect her, so when they failed to do so and she was injured they were not liable.

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Anyway, that was just from the first search page.

No one is disputing the fact firearms are used in murder more than any other tool.

As for court cases that prove the police have no obligation to protect an individual. Here is a link to 28 seperate court cases.

http://members.aol.com/copcrimes/courtcases.html

I am not quoting any specific one because they all differ. They do provide legal precednce.

"To protect and serve," is now meaningless.

Lebell beat me to it.

I think I remember this kind of attitude among airline employees and passengers before 9/11.

I simply cannot understand that you would try to cooperate with someone who has invaded the sanctity of your home. At what point is a decision made to fight back? Before they tie you up and rape your daughter, or after?

These thoughts just confirm what I already know. Americans (for the most part) are independent and prefer not to rely on someone else for anything, especially self-protection. This general attitude does not exist in Europe. The thought of running away and hiding under my bed if someone invaded my house is absurd.

As an aside, the best way that I know of not getting shot by somebody is to shoot them before they have a chance, not cooperate with them.

Fear the person using the gun....guns dont kill people....people kill people

Timalkin - please re-read my posts, in their entirety (there is not much). I think you will find that I am advocating anything but a passive stance. Rather, I am trying to be pragmatic.

Is it better to shoot a burglar in your home, or not have a burglar in your home in the first place? This is not a rhetorical question.

Regards,

A well prepared - and unarmed - homeowner.

It is most definitely better to not have a burglar in your house in the first place. With that being said, that's why I don't leave my door wide-open at night when I go to sleep.

I also will not go out of my way to install a 20 foot electric fence around my home, dig a moat, or have patrolling packs of guard dogs guarding my house. Anything short of these drastic measures will not guarantee that your house will never be a target.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this topic, but that is your choice. As long as you don't try to limit my rights, we won't have a problem with each other.

Cheers.

Thanks for opening my eyes on the police issue. However, I think the leap to "we need guns to protect ourselves" is rather a convenient one. Where does your right to posess arms to protect yourself stop? Can you have cyanide-tipped armor-piercing bullets? How about a tank? Who decides what is reasonable?

Well, if not with guns, then what with?

Most people use the tool that is the most effective, especially if the application is critical.

Anyway, as to your other question, the same people who decide the scope of all the other ammendments, i.e., the courts.

When I saw bowling for columbine, they had some pretty powerful numbers in the end.

www.bowlingfortruth.com

VERY well documented site on MM.

'nuff said, or it's a threadjack ;)

I have an honest question for the several posters thus far who have had firearms in their lives since childhood, respect them as powerful tools, and feel that their right and responsibility is to be able to protect themselves and their families with deadly force, if needs be.

Obviously, in your particular cases, the chances of accidental firearm deaths/drunken games of russian roulette/unsupervised kids getting at the weapons and ammo is very low. It is perhaps not *obvious*, but I think a case could be easily made for the position that many of the accidental deaths, suicides of adolescents, etc., which take place in this country via firearm are in fact the result of firearm owners who lack this basic respect for their tools, for whatever reason.

To what degree do you feel that the exercise of the 2nd Amendment rights are predicated upon demonstrating responsibility and respect for firearms? Is there an analogy which can be drawn between the 1st Amendment and the responsibility to not yell 'Fire!' in a crowded theater? Or does the 2nd Amendment mean that everyone has the right to keep and bear arms however they wish, leaving the 'responsibility' portion of the equation for after some tragic misuse of their tools?

This question comes from someone who does not himself keep firearms in his home. I do have many firearm owners in my family, though, and I've never felt uncomfortable or fearful being in their homes, because I understand the respect they hold for, and care they take with, their weapons and ammunition.

I find my personal experience of firearm ownership to be very much at odds with the statistics on accidental deaths and misuse of weapons by unsupervised kids, and I am very interested to know what you all think.

I'm not sure I've heard that argument before, hlprmnky. The idea that rights come with responsibilities is something we all need to think about some more.

wanders off to ponder...

hlprmnky,

I do beleive that the 2nd amendment is predicated upon personal responsibility. Honestly, who cares about a tyranical government if their 3 year old has just offed himself after finding daddys pistol, right? I firmly believe that gun education should be mandatory in elementary and high school (a stay away class for younger kids, a proper use and respect class for older kids). The real problem with guns comes when the ignorant are put in a situation with a fireamr, and do not know the proper way to behave.

debaser,

That's a hell of an idea. One that had never occurred to me, but one I'd certainly support, provided that the class could be taught in a safe manner.

I mean, my phys. ed. class had an *archery* unit in middle school, so it's not like there exists *no* precedent for weapons training in school. Of course, since a bow is difficult to conceal, and takes skill to use with deadly effect, we weren't in too much danger (though I wouldn't have put it past some of the knuckleheads in that class to try re-enacting the story of William Tell with a buddy...)

Man, now it's my turn to wander off and ponder.

An awesome right like the Second Amendment also comes with some equally awesome responsibilities. This does not mean that I want some government trying to license me. When you give that kind of power to a governmental body, it would be easy for them to deny your right for vague reasons, not to mention the power to confiscate your firearms at will.

I'd be all for school-based firearm safety programs. I'd like to see a class like this teach not only basic safety, but also why we have a Second Amendment and what it means. Everyone in my junior high school had to take a hunter's safety course, which was basically all about firearm safety. Some parent's opted out of their children attending the class, but I guess complete ignorance of firearms is better than knowing how to use them safely.:rolleyes:

Besides, what part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand?

I agree that a school based course may be the way to go on this.

It is civics, after all :)

I don't understand the antipathy towards a registration system akin to the DMV and cars. I think that one should have a license issued by the state before he or she can use them-but it shouldn't be issued until after taking some sort of safety course (maybe in school like others suggested). Set up a grandfather clause and a 2 year grace period to make the adjustment, but I think this would be a good thing that in no way infringed on a person's rights.

I can sorta agree with that, but the counter argument is that driving is a privilege while own firearms is a right.

In otherwords, would you also agree do training and licenses before you could exercise your right to free speech?

The other argument against registration is that it is the first step to confiscation.

Now you personally may argue this won't happen, but that is EXACTLY what happened first in England and then in Australia. People were told that guns would never be confiscated (just registered) and then BOOM, they were.

Given that many congresspersons are on record saying they want to outlaw all guns (Shumer, Feinstein, etc.), I don't think this helps calm that fear.

Folks do need to get licenses from local government before they stage protests, but I'm not sure there really is a good comparison to be made with speech.

I just wish common sense could be knocked into some politicians (and people for that matter). Republicans: I don't want to take your guns away, I just want to make things safer for everybody. Democrats: guns are a part of the American fabric, it's a part of what we are - they aren't going to go away.

Of all the candidates out there, Dean really has the most rational stand on this issue: let the states decide what is best for them. It just so happens the constitution agrees with him too: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state..."