Re: "Blanks" kill actors

["Shaun Eli" <missingchild@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jim wrote:
>
> Well, you can try to understand that the goal of a Newspaper is ......
> to sell newspapers. Have you ever "rubbernecked" at an automobile
> accident on the road? That's the same effect that gun crimes has on
> people who read, watch or hear the news. More people will be attracted
> to a heinous crime story with a gun than someone who stops a burglar or
> scares off a robber from a 7/11 store...... without even firing the
> weapon! It's not a conspiracy, it's business. It's the RESULT that it
> has on private gun ownership that suffers.
>
Sorry, but if you're saying that newspapers don't report major stories
because they're trying to please their readers, AND that people do NOT
want to read about bad guys being shot, you're way off.  I can't
imagine anybody who doesn't want to read about bad guys being shot.
But it doesn't happen all that often.  And there is at least some
separation between editorial and sales.

> >
>
> Yet the number of "children" (ie. under 18, same criteria use as
> children killed with weapons) killed in automobile accidents is
> considerably higher than those of gun use. Why isn't "something" done
> to stop this carnage? But then, again, the number of children killed in
> bicycle and pool accidents is also higher. When's the last time you
> heard of a car, pool or bike banning law and dozens of groups to
> support them? And comparably, all of these are only "privileges" while
> gun ownership is a "right" Is it not alright to infringe upon
> privlieges but ok to do so to a Constitutional right?
>
Okay, first of all, cars are used for transportation and it's only a
bad side-effect that people are killed.  A hundred million cars in this
country are used probably on average a half-hour a day.  Guns?  Not so
much.  Furthermore, we have A LOT of laws to protect children in cars.
Cars and drivers are licensed, we have thousands of traffic police, and
traffic laws, and stop signs, and speed limits, and seat belt laws, and
child seat laws-- AND TESTING before they LET YOU DRIVE.  Oh, and
bicycle helmets.

As far as pools-- there are fewer than 7,000 drownings a year in this
country, and most are not in pools, and most are people who didn't
intend to be in the water (fell in, etc.).  But still we have laws
requiring lifeguards at public pools, and some great percentage of
municipalities have laws requiring that private pools be fenced in.
Your analogy of guns vs. cars and pools is severely flawed.  Guns are
made to kill.  Sure, you own your handgun for defense, not offense, but
the gun doesn't know the difference.

As far as the Constitution, it's clear to everyone who doesn't rally
around gun ownership that the framers of the Constitution intended the
Second Amendment to apply to state militias, NOT to private ownership.
Otherwise there would be no way to stop you from owning machine guns or
nuclear weapons.  But as I doubt either of us is a Constitutional
scholar, let's leave the Constitution out of this.

> >>
> As I say, I've been involved with this for decades. I see where you are
> coming from and can understand, that without closer investigation on
> your part, that you are repeating exactly the same points and arguments
> that the general public is prone to echo. You have only the general
> media as a source for your opinion. Your replies are boiler plate
> response of anyone who's only source is what they "read in the
> newspapers". It's not a plot or a conspiracy but it is just the way
> things are. Unfortunately the anti gun proponents can utilize these
> conditions to favor their agenda. I'm here along with a few million
> others, defending my right to defend my self. And hopefully cause
> someone such as yourself to think that there might actually BE another
> side and deeper more far reaching consequences to this anti gun drive,
> rather than simply a minor inconvenience to law abiding people, who own
> firearms.

The media may be a source of some of my information but it is not a
source of my opinion.  My opinion is my own.

And if you'd read what I'm writing you'd see that I've repeatedly said
that I'm not against guns nor against legal ownership, given some sort
of requirements such as we have for car owners, so continuing to say
that I'm anti-gun is not only disengenuous but just plain wrong.
>
> >
> > And in addition to the news stories about kids finding daddy's gun and
> > shooting little Timmy by accident, there are also news stories about
> > daddy going to jail.  Yes, they lock him up.  Sometimes even when it's
> > his OWN kid who died.
>
> I've never seen that, as a matter of fact. It always seems to me to be
> ..... what you said before. "It's punishment enough that he lost his
> ...... etc etc  " That, to me is BS.
>
> I say, that if they do go to jail, it not for long enough.

The last couple of stories about this I've seen, the gun owner did get
jail time.  I never said anything about loss of the kid being
punishment enough.  Maybe those were someone else's words on this
thread.