That is how you see it. I do not. You have as much of a chance of convincing me that your view is correct as I do of convincing you that mine is correct.

Nothing 'rambo' about it. It's just the way it is. I'm not a tough talk, no walk kind of person. I mean exactly what I say, when I say it.

You can see in to the future? Never say that you're certain about anything but your own eventual death (unless you're immortal) and that you'll pay taxes.

I'm sure that every unarmed victim of violent crime would argue that point with you.

This is not true. There are many cases where an unarmed attacker has been shot/killed and no charges were filed against the shooter. Now, in some states in this country, what you say would hold true, but these are some of the worst states when it concerns crime anyway because they do everything possible to keep their citizens from carrying.


Jesus, or God, wanted everyone to be able to defend themselves. "And let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one."
..........Luke 22:36


If I remember correctly, the 30k+ gun death stat includes defensive uses as well, so it would be difficult to post the two seperate stats up here. Maybe someone has researched enough to come up with two different stats. I don't know. In the link below, there is a study that 'estimates' about 2.5 million defensive uses a year, with a gun, but doesn't denote how many are deadly uses or deterrent uses.
I've posted this link before, but there is a new one up since then. I encourage everyone to read it. http://gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts/...s4-1-Print.pdf

If there is another way to stop criminals from having guns, other than locking them away for life, I'd love to hear it. So far, no law ever written has accomplished this feat. So when the criminal is shooting at you from a distance, I fail to see how any other defensive action is going to help other than shooting back.

There are cases where people have won lawsuits because they spilled coffee on themselves too. The statistically deviant cases do not indicate that you will stay out of jail.

Wisconsin lets you carry guns all you want. Hell, it's legal for blind people to hunt there. But there are places in Milwaukee that I wouldn't want to go into during the day.


Your trouble here is that the bible loves to contradict itself.

"“Seek peace, and pursue it. (Proverbs 34:14)”"




Not good enough. Point us to real stats.

Statistics compiled by a pro gun group are by nature going to paint guns in a favorable light. You need a balanced analysis from a neutral group.


Again, if I legally own a gun and a criminal steals it from me, that's another gun in the hands of a criminal. If I can't legally own an assault rifle, then I can't be the conduit through which the criminal gets ahold of it.

Convince? It's reality. You pull the trigger. I'm not telling you opinion, I am stating fact. It's a fact that you pull the trigger.
So did Rambo. The idea isn't that you don't back up what you say. More frighteningly, it's that you do backup what you're saying, namely that if you're attacked you have no choice but to shoot to kill.
Sorry, but I know enough about statistics to say something with certianty. It's the same as if I were to say that you'll never be killed by lava in NYC. It's so statistically improbable, that stating it's impossible is a safe statement.
You mean the one in a million? You might as well argue that we should all wear latex gloves and take daily doses of antibiotics to avoid flesh eating bacteria. Yes, some people get flesh eating bacteria, but taking steps to avoid something so rare is nuts.
I've already given you one: sale and distribution tracking to crack down on the source of ilelgal weapons.

And when a criminal is shooting at you from a distance, duck.

Will, I like what you say here, it is very reasonable and I think a good point that everyone on all sides of the debate can agree on. However, I would just like to add, please don't assume that all gunowners are hell bent on going Rambo or does it mean that gunowners are automatically going to go out and kill everyone. I think that's where the debate keeps breaking down.

Guns aren't the end all be all. Just because someone chooses to use a gun as their weapon of choice for self-defense, does not automatically mean "shoot to kill". Same for any weapon. If someone is using a sword, kitchen knife etc as defense it would still be pretty gruesome if not more so.

A gun doesn't have to kill, it just has to stop or incapacitate the attacker. I feel better knowing my mom and grandma have small guns in their purse for defense rather than some hunting knife (hypothetically speaking- assume they are properly trained).

I was actually speaking of the insurgency. The initial war was an unqualified success. The last few years have been anything but.

Most Iraqis have 1 rattle-trap Ak sitting on top of their dresser, not the vast arsenal you suppose. Americans have the same access to IEDs as the Iraqis (thats why they are called improvised).

The citizens of this country, if properly motivated, would do exactly what the Iraqis are doing now with out the added distration of having to fight the other two factions in the country at the same time.

A few "dinks" with popguns (Vietcong ring a bell?) does not adequately describe the 25% of Americans who own firearms. You also assume (incorrectly) that the military of this country would just gleefully and unquestioningly go about killing it's own citizens in the defense of a regime corrupt enough to incite a rebellion.

No, he'll just get one that is smuggled into the country from Whereverstan, and you will have no recourse when he is shooting it at you other than to say, "Hey, that's illegal!"

When they wrote the constitution what type of guns do you think they were refering to? They never cited "just hunting rifles" or "just single shot guns" or even "guns that can have another purpose besides killing a person" they said ARMS. Arms as in weapons. A hunting rifle is a tool, used to kill game so that you can eat. A weapon is something to be used in a contest of force. A weapon's sole purpose is to kill, maime, wound, whatever you are fighting.

As a reminder, the people that created this law, were not Frontiersmen or anything of the sort. How much hunting do you think went on in "the wilds of Boston" or the "Dark Forest of Philadelphia"? The rest of the Consitution was written to anticipate and adapt to change. I see no reason why they did not also expect weaposn technology to develope beyond the means they had back then. These were also people that had just survived a lenghty war. I'm quite sure they knew the grizzly reality of musket balls tearing into human flesh. Yet they still chose the word ARMS as in Weapons not as in hunting tools.

So to ban assualt rifles becuase their sole purpose for existance is to kill or injure people, is absurd.

Will, you've said yourself that your mind is a weapon, and from what you've told us so far, are you sure you're California-Legal? I mean, you should at least have to register yourself and be required to lock your hands up at night.:lol:

All joking aside, your reasoning is sound... for somebody who could kick Chuck Norris's butt blindfoldedhttp://www.cis.gvsu.edu/~radur/icon_204.gif

But seriously, your views are not really valid for I'd say 85% of the population, depending on where you go. Sure, in sunny hip Cali, you might find lots of joggers and yuppies who practice martial arts, but not that's the exception. I'm sorry, but put most people in a fight with a knife-wielding attacker or two, and they're gonna shit themselves. I wouldn't put any money on them. So yeah, you confidently say "No way, Jose." That's GREAT. I'm not as confident in my abilities, so I'll be happy if I can pull out that steel and squeeze away.

And sure, you can give in to their demands, but who's to say that'll placate them? How far do you go with their demands? Where do you draw the line? That's how 100's of people sit quietly in a plane as it's rammed into a building. That attitude isn't an option for me.

And you guys go on and on about "boo hoo, why kill the poor criminal" with absolutely no regard for the safety of ordinary folks. As I get over that churning feeling in my stomach, lemme put you in the role of an average thug, getting ready to decide which of two houses to rob. If you knew fairly certainly that one house had a few guns in it and the inhabitants trained, while the other didn't, which house would you break into? It's that simple. People are scared to die. They don't have to die to be affected by that fear. Think of it like training. They hear of a bunch of their buddies getting iced, they shit themself and give up. At least if they're smart. Uping the stakes more is hardly worth it for pocket change.

Peppers are for food, not a weapon. A pair of $5 snorkel goggles is as good as armor against pepper spray. Add some thick winter clothing and a taser is going to be marginal at best. When you have an inexpensive tool that can engage multiple threats, possibly at range, fit in my hand, and is easily concealable, let me know.

Also, I don't see where you guys are going with whole "choice" thing. Sure, I pull the trigger. Great. So what? If a dumpster comes rolling at me down a hill, stepping out of the way is a choice. Everything is a choice. My choice will always be one that puts me on top the easiest, so for me, it's not really a choice. If there was an "Easy Button" like in the Staples ad, I'd use that instead of the gun. Really.

Steel kills. How do you feel about mse or a taser?
When criminals star sporting speedo goggles during hold=ups, then pepper spray will no longer be a valuable tool. Until then it's good both on eggs and as a deterrant and a way to neutralize a threat. As someone who has been tased, let me tell you that a thick pair of jeans and a leather jacket won't protect you at all. Unless the guy is wearing a rubber diving suit (are you heald up by divers?), you'll be fine with a taser. Pepper spray is quite cheap, and tasers are damned effective. BTW, tasers are comparably priced to guns, so the price argument is a bit moot.
The choice is non-lethal force vs. lethal force.

Well I'm damn glad non-lethal force was used in THIS situation, otherwise somebody might have gotten seriously hurt. :rolleyes:

I'd like to point out that these girls are implementing NON-VIOLENCE. Let's see if it worked, shall we?

Ok, so non-violence didn't work. The alternate plan was to run, you say?

Dial a prayer, the ultimate in societal protection, the reason we don't need guns anymore. The police will save us, isn't that what's always being said?

Yes, non-lethal hand to hand, the preferred method of the pacifist, as a last resort to an assault. What? he used a skateboard? Doesn't he know that those are used for skating, and not as a weapon? Shame shame.

Aggressors will not commit more violence if they're not threatened, right? anyone? bueller?

so much for being able to dial 911 anymore, not that it helped much before.

All this serious bodily injury because people think it's 'civilized' to be unarmed and defenseless, or to be a pacifist and employ non-violent/non-lethal methods and force. It is a choice, after all.

If one decent person had been there with a gun, these girls would not have been this seriously injured and had their lives traumatically altered, but of course I'm sure I'll hear about all the innocent bystanders that would have then been shot or the lone person sitting outside the group waiting to defend the assaulting mob from anyone with a gun, cause he's clairvoyant like that.

As I've said, sometimes lethal force is the only option left to stay alive or to avoid serious injury.

There are such things as bad guys. There are bad people. I'm very happy for you that you have been fortunate enough not to meet any. They exist.
It is also statistically unlikely to the point of near impossibility that while working in a daycare I will have to perform CPR (not first aid, actually I'm very likely to need to use first aid). I still stay current on my training for both first aid and the extemely unlikely CPR. The idea being, I know I'm not likely to need it, but what if I do? It's good to have.

I don't care who you are and what side of the gun control issue you happen to be on, surely we can all agree that blind people USING guns is pretty stupid, dangerous, and unnecessary? I mean how well regulated or trained either one can you be if your militia consists of blind snipers?

I included both quotes there because otherwise the context of what will is saying is totally lost. I'm reading this to mean that in your mind Will, there almost no chance of an unarmed person being the victim of a violent crime. Please if I'm mistakenly interpreting this post correct me. Otherwise, I would LOVE to see some figures on that one.

I'm pretty sure someone out there is wondering where the consistancy is in my posts. I am the kind of person whose personal views tend to piss off people on both sides of every major issue. I believe in LIMITED control.

I am considered by people in my community to be in favor of gun control. I think we do need to control who has guns. The purpose of a gun is to kill, maim, or at least injure. It is important that those we allow to own these weapons have some basic skills. I dont see how we can justify the need to prove ability to drive before we legally allow someone to drive, yet we do not require that people prove they have the ability to use a gun before allowing them to own a gun. Our constitution does not provide for the use of guns by mad men and blind people. These people, by the nature of their disability, are not able to be part of a 'well regulated' militia, regardless of how you interpret the word regulated.

That said, I'm also very much against letting the government have to much control. I don't really see a way to balance these things out, except to say that when it comes to protecting health and life of innocents the government must be asked to intervene with laws and restrictions, and at all other times they must be kept from intervening.

But notice... in the face of evidence and statistics, what you've got is an anecdote. A very unfortunate one, to be sure, but it's anecdotal nonetheless. The statistics Will is referring to account for incidents like this one.

This indicates the main tool the gun lobby has: scare tactics. Booga booga, buy a gun or you might get beat down. Never mind that hardly anyone actually gets beat down--it's so bad for the ones that DO, that we should all be strapped at all times.

I admit, it has a certain kind of logic, in a sad, sick way.

The article fails to mention the 300 million other times that DIDN'T happen that day in this country alone. Posting articles is kinda useless in this case, because they don't write articles about when people aren't assaulted. Did you notice none of the young women assaulted were carrying mase or tasers?

Xera, seriously, there are no such things as "bad guys". Everyone has motives and though processes, and sometimes they can do very bad things, but there is no such thing as a 'bad guy'. The term conjures up Hanz from Die Hard ot Darth Vader. Those are archetypes, not full personalaties. And CPR prevents death, while guns cause death.

If you do very bad things and hurt people for fun, you are a bad person. Even Darth Vader had his motivations, and pretty decent ones for all of that, but he was a bad guy, and so are real people sometimes. A bad guy is someone that enjoys hurting people. They exist.

I don't care if it's preventing death, or protecting one's self from harm, by whatever means a person finds they need to, if you need something and don't have it because it was unlikely you would need it, your screwed. Unless of course it was a condom you needed, in which case your probably NOT gonna be screwed.

but isn't saving the life of 'just one child' enough?
mace, in this instance, wouldn't have done much against 10-25 people. A taser would have done less, considering it's a one shot deal. The ONLY thing that would have stopped this in it's tracks would have been the possibility of being killed by a bullet.

I guess Charles Manson and Ted Bundy were just misguided?

Mase would have neutralized everyone had it been used. Also, have you ever seen mase pulled on someone? They tend to back off in fear of the weapon. The same effect you attibute to a gun could be attributed to mase, and mase won't kill anyone.
Misguided? No. Mental illness comes from genetics and environmental sources, something hard to blame the killers for. As I said, no such thing as bad guys, as bad guys are fictional.

Will, I sang the marines hymn in the CS gas chamber during boot camp....without a gas mask. Mace is some strong stuff, but it's not all powerful and not effective in a crowd....at least with the small canisters they allow civilians to carry.

rose colored glasses much?

Please read my posts before responding.
You might have to explaing this one.

I read your posts. Mace would NOT have neutralized everyone. To even think that a civilian sized can of pepper spray is going to neutralize a crowd of 25 people is overestimating the effectiveness of pepper spray. At most, you'll get 2, maybe 3 people before the rest mob you.

you say there are no bad people, only bad thoughts, motives, and processes, or you blame it on genetic anomolies or mental illness. This is 'rose colored glasses' for your refusal to see that there are evil people in the world that don't care about you, your wife, or your daughter and will have no problem at all causing all sorts of harm to achieve an objective, if you are the target. These kinds of people are bad people.

I think Will is saying, and please forgive me if I'm putting words in your mouth here Will, that people are just people and some do bad things but that makes for bad actions not bad people.

I tend to disagree, believing that if you do enough bad things you are a bad person.

I understand, I think, what his point of view is and why he feels that way, I personally just think he's wrong. I think it is that attitude which allows people to deny responsibility for their own actions and I think it is one of the major downfalls in modern society but that is a different debate.
[/thread jack]

I have no more wish to understand, negotiate with, or in any way accomodate sociopathic predators; nor more than I wish to accomodate or understand a rabid wolfhound. I may pity their condition, I may even comprehend their motives. I understand the mechanism of Rabies, after all; that doesn't mean that I allow rabid animals to live.

At the risk of sounding sociopathic myself, I hold the two to be roughly equivalent. A rabid dog, as cute and friendly as he may once have been, needs to die. Right now. Friendly once or not, -NOW- that dog is a potentially lethal threat. Friendly as he was at 5 or 10 years old, a gangbanger, burgaler, or other sociopathic criminal (to say nothing of the REAL nasties, as mentioned above) a potentially violent criminal is a potentially lethal threat, and the response should be identical. I have no qualms about killing someone who, for all I know, is a few seconds away from killing -me- instead. If this individual is carrying or brandishing a weapon, he is threatening my life. Period. I decided, a long time ago, that people who threaten the lives or persons of myself, my family, or my friends -also- need to die. Someone who is so mentally disturbed, so socially and morally unhinged as to feel justified in threatening someone's life in exchange for that other persons' compliance or their property, is no longer fit to live among decent people. I'd be happy if they all went away somewhere (Coventry, maybe?), but since they never have and never will, I simply plan on removing any that are dumb enough to come into my circle, as it were. I don't go looking for them; in fact I go to great lengths to avoid them. However, if they come looking for me, they are in for a very nasty and probably very brief surprise. If they were to run away (hopefully "scared straight") when I drew my weapon, I would do a giddy little Happy Snoopy Dance. The best solution is -always- that the bad guy runs away. But if he hangs around after the gun is drawn, he's just committed the terminal error of being both mean and double-stupid. That kind of idiocy doesn't fly in nature, and it won't fly with me. I am not food, and I will not be eaten.

The problem with assuming that a criminal will let you live if you run/comply/resist w/out a gun is this: you don't know if you will be allowed to live until you're home, behind a locked door. The bad guy might decide to off you at any time; nervousness, an itchy finger, or "just 'cause I felt like it" have all been proffered as the motive for otherwise random shootings in the past. I can be reasonably sure I'll survive the encounter when the former mugger is either running away (the usual, and hoped-for result) or dead on the ground (a much rarer occurance).

Finally, as for statistics:
http://www.jpfo.org/data-docs.htm (It's safer by FAR to resist with a firearm; citations provided.) The 2-3 bits you want about about ten lines down the page.

Edited to add:
"One in a million!" is cold comfort to the person with the misfortune to be the One in question.

I'm sorry you can't read my posts. AGAIN, the mase would have been used in the same way a gun, hopefully, would have been used. Pull out the weapon and aim it at someone. You don't fire, you just aim. That's a threat. It's not engaging someone, but it's the threat of massive pain and the loss of sight. That could have very easily made them think twice before approaching. I understand that mase is relatively ineffective in the open, though a straigh shot into the eyes is effective even in a hurricane, but the threat is where the power lies. Hold them back with the threat.
Who said anything about blame? I explained the cause of the behavior, not the blame. The blame lies with the individual, of course.

I dunno, but the threat of pain and loss of sight doesn't really stack up to being dead. I'd much rather be maced or stunned than be shot. By a huge margin. I've thought about letting some friends do it to me just to see what it's like. That's NOT the kind of deterent I want to present. If something sounds like fun to try, it's not enough to stop people.

We're reading your posts, Will, but I just can't think of a better way to put it than: condiments are not as scary as guns. That's why we need to use guns on criminals. I want to scare the bloody piss out of them. I want criminals scared to leave their holes. Mace will not do that.

In fact, 3 cans of mace in those girls' purses wouldn't have done jack shit.

A gernade would probably be even scarier than a gun, why not carry gernades?
A shoulder mounted missile is a lot scarrier than a little gun, why not carry them? If you realyl want to scare the piss out of someone, aim a bazooka at them.
In OPINION, 3 cans of mace in those girls' purses wouldn't have done jack shit. In my opinion, it very easily been enough to deter them. Also, whos' to say that a gun would have saved these girls? I think that's making a very big assumption. What if one of the girls would have pulled a gun and shot and missed? What if one of the assailents grabbed the gun? Now we have armed assailents. It could have been even worse with guns.

except made the unaffected part of the mob even angrier

ludicrous arguments that have no relevance.

I once asked one of my hometown police officers if having a gun against a group of thugs did any good, how would it work. He told me all you had to do was point it at one of them and empty the magazine in to him, the rest would scatter like a flock of pheasants. Sounds like good advice to me.

Actually, 'ludacrous' arguments are often the easiest to explain away. I wonder why you weren't able to counter-point my ascertion? Tell me, dksuddeth, are my ascertions so ludacrous that you cannot even respond to them?
Luckly, that police officer knows everything about everything, as he is in fact Sergeant Jesus Christ. Sounds like a good guess to me, but not much more. Did he really use the word, "pheasants"? That's phacinating!

No, i'll respond.
1)Grenades are what the ATF classifies as DDs, or Destructive Devices, therefore they fall in to the category that requires a $200 tax stamp....on each grenade. No law abiding citizen is going to spend that kind of money on a grenade.
2) A grenade is not effective as a scare tactic if your primary goal is to survive the encounter. It's only effective as a 'denial' weapon....what I mean by that is if I'm surrounded, no gun/knife/stick or stone to use as a weapon, then I'm taking them out with me.
3) shoulder mounted missile? nuff said.

Well, I am from Northern Illinois where people do hunt, pheasants happen to be one of the things to hunt. I've seen a flock of pheasants take off. That alone can scare the crap out of you if you're not ready for it.
Also, it has been my experience that, depending on what state you're in, the answers you get from the street cops compared to the appointees (police chiefs, etc.) are totally different in nature. You tend to get the straight truth from street cops instead of the 'politically correct' answers from the chiefs or mayors. Again, that does depend on where you're at. I wouldn't expect to hear San Fran cops tell people that a gun is the best choice, but here in Texas, they do.

Ah! So we should all be packing flocks of pheasants! :lol:

This thread does not belong in Tilted Weaponry. This is NOT the place to debate gun control, it is the place to debate particular types of weapons, but NOT ownership of them.

Look, all specious arguments aside, a gun is the best deterent to a violent crime.

It is a deterent in two ways:

1. If criminals know there are law abiding people carrying firearms, they are less likely to attempt blatent violent crimes to begin with.

2. Once in a situation there is absolutely nothing that imparts the same sense of immediacy and directness as a firearm pointed at you.

Thank you for a response.
1) Yes, they are expensive, but you only need one (as you'll probably never use it), so it's acytually cheaper than a gun.
2) Gernades are much scarier than guns. Also, if you want to survive the encounter, why use a gun? If the other party has a gun, then you opening fire is the most likely way to getm them to shoot at you.
3) The idea is that if mase and tasers are kinda scarey, and guns are quite scarey, that a weapon that is terrifying and even more overkill would be even better. My point was that all you really want to have is what you need, no more. Why use a gun when mase is sufficent is equatable to why use a bazooka when a gun is sufficient?
Sorry, I was just trying to be funny. If I'm the only one that laughed, that's sad.
Interesting how their responses are reflections of you and I. I think it'd be interesting if in San Francisco a gun wasnt a wise choice but in Texas it was. Sort of an "I'm right here and you're right there" thing.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :thumbsup:

I'm watching Dawn of the Dead on the Sci Fi channel (since when is horror science fiction?), and I've just realized that there is a reason to keep everyone armed: zombies. If, in the unlikely situation, zombies were to begin spreading their plague, the only way to keep them at bay, and thus to keep the world from being overrun, would be to have a heavely armed populace. The reason that the zombies are able to get such a foothold is that most people are not prepaed to deal with horrible, infected, flesh eating people that are very aggressive and very dangerous.

The heavily armed populace would also have to know to go for the head. When zombies invade ammo is always way too scarce. One shot, one kill is a necessity.

A question; zombies are partially decomposed, which increases the % of their weight made up by liquids, but also degrades the ability of their bodies to hold that liquid in. So does this increase or decrease the effects of hydrostatic shock?

there is a crucial debate about this at the center of the immortal cinematic achievement "wild zero" featuring guitar wolf...while it is not framed in terms of hydrostatic shock, it nonetheless indicates that "dawn of the dead" is a necessary referencepoint when combatting zombie hoardes, and that not having seen it puts you at a considerable disadvantage.

I imagine that hydrostatic shock only comes into signicance if it effects the physiology of the brain. Zombies keep trying to come at you until you destroy their ability to do so. Even if you destroy the body completely, a zombie head, sans body, is still a dangerous thing. The proper incapacitation of a zombie requires the destruction of the brain, so unless you shoot 'em in the head, you'll either do nothing, or just slow them down.

I personally recommend the Zombie Survival Guide. It's got everything you need to know about destroying romero-esque slow zombies.

My big worry is Half Life 2 -fast- zombies! Hordes of shambling, mindless undead I can handle; my stepfather owns a gunshop, after all. Those fast fuckers are nasty, though!

You're probably right regarding hydrostatic shock vis-a-vis zombies...the spinal lining decays pretty quickly, so unless your zombie was less than a week or so old, hydrostatic shock elsewhere in the undead body prolly wouldn't have a workable effect on the brain.

Another thing to consider; as the zombies are partially decayed, they'd be -really- flammable.