Have you seen this? Its starting to spread on FB.
https://www.facebook.com/pehemediaoficial/videos/843504299076998/
It's an interesting approach, to say the least. I'm still not completely sure what my final opinion on gun ownership is. We have a couple rabbit-shooters and shotguns for troublesome wildlife, and my mother used to keep a revolver in her car's glove box when a couple assholes tried following her home. (I don't think it leaves the safe these days.) We used to have an M-16 semi-auto, but after that got stolen back at the old house we decided that maybe we shouldn't buy something that a thief could use in a mass shooting.
Frankly, as far as practical self-defense goes, pepper spray or a hand taser is probably a better bet than a gun in most cases. A gun can scare off a guy with a knife maybe, but if someone pulls their own gun on you and pats you down, all you've done is give him another gun. Granted, there are cases like in Texas a month ago where prospective shooters were gunned down before they got off a shot, but 9 times out of 10 you're not gonna be able to return fire.
My Dad who was never a gun advocate because we all hunted back then and had 6 or 7 rifles and shotguns and two pistols was leary of "common idiots" having a gun. But he was also one of those that firmly distrusted the government. When the National Guard killed those 4 kids in Ohio back in shit 68? He said, "thats why we need to keep our guns". I remember that Tienanmen square episode, we were watching that on the news and he said to the TV. "You can squash a dare in Tienanmen square, but not in the land of Yosemite Sam". I always thought that was funny. Too many people distrust the government and the military as well. We will never get rid of guns here. Well, maybe.
Quote from: aitm on June 17, 2015, 01:33:59 PM
My Dad who was never a gun advocate because we all hunted back then and had 6 or 7 rifles and shotguns and two pistols was leary of "common idiots" having a gun. But he was also one of those that firmly distrusted the government. When the National Guard killed those 4 kids in Ohio back in shit 68? He said, "thats why we need to keep our guns". I remember that Tienanmen square episode, we were watching that on the news and he said to the TV. "You can squash a dare in Tienanmen square, but not in the land of Yosemite Sam". I always thought that was funny. Too many people distrust the government and the military as well. We will never get rid of guns here. Well, maybe.
I agree with you--we never will. I think that is too bad. But realistically, guns are here to stay. But we need to have some sensible regulations dealing with clip size and the types of guns the average guy can have. And a simple gun, universal tracking system and registry would be better than what we have.
I think people have such difficulty debating gun control because they're arguing over different things but don't seem to realize it.
There's a lot of questions in this one debate.
Should people be able to own guns, yes or no?
If yes, should ANYONE be able to buy a gun, or should it be limited by criteria like only adults with non-violent felonies?
What KINDS of guns and accessories should people be able to buy?
Do guns really make things safer?
Those are all separate issues.
If you look at gun control on a spectrum, with people at one end thinking that no one anywhere ever should be able to own so much as a water gun, including police and military for professional use, and people at the other end thinking gun ownership should be compulsory for every man, woman and child regardless of mental capacity, I think it's safe to say everyone falls somewhere in the middle of that. It's hard to figure out where everyone's personal line of decency is after that, because everyone assumes they are the ones who is right and anyone to the left is some liberal hippie and anyone to the right is some war-mongering jihadist.
I don't think guns make people safer. I think they lure people into a false sense of security. I'm former military, and I can honestly say gun skills are highly perishable. If you don't train in a variety of conditions, including drawing, rapidly loading, positively identifying your target and properly aiming on at least a quarterly basis, you're probably fucked.
Lots of people own a handgun for home defense, but how many people have practiced properly clearing their own house? You know, to ensure when you're spraying and praying at the "bad guy" in the dark that you're not shooting all willy nilly in the direction of your sleeping neighbors or children? I also used to work for city services dispatch for the City of Dallas, and I can tell you, I can only remember one case where someone shot an intruder in their home. There were many home shootings, but they were relatives and obviously accidental.
In public, they present an even scarier option. I'm from Texas where everyone I know has a concealed carry. Imagine a scenario where there are 10 people in a McDonald's and half of them are armed. Someone comes in to rob the place and draws a firearm, and then the five concerned citizens with their concealed carry also draw to neutralize this threat. How easy is it to identify the original robber? Shit turns into chaos pretty quickly. Same thing with arming teachers in a classroom, or students in college. Any shooter that comes into a classroom probably already has a weapon drawn and ready to fire, and no one can react to that kind of threat that quickly, even if they were expecting it. Studies have shown that teachers and students who were armed are far more likely to be shot themselves or shoot an innocent bystander than take out the original shooter. You're far safer seeking cover and playing dead than you are playing the hero, and so are the people around you for that matter.
As for guns being in the Constitution and therefore an irrefutable right, well, slavery was in the original Constitution, along with the right to refuse British soldiers the right to squat on your couch. Times change, and we no longer live in a world where Ohio is considered the untamed wilderness and we have a standing military, making militias kind of antiquated. When it comes to the "we need guns to keep ourselves safe from the government argument," horseshit. Our nation's military has access to scarier shit than you could ever imagine, and unless you believe private citizens should be able to own nukes, and tanks, and surface-to-air missiles, than a bunch of rednecks with Winchester rifles aren't going to be an incredible match for the government, even in a guerrilla warfare kind of situation.
And that's all I have to say about that, short of, I'm actually not anti-gun ownership. I'm just pro-facts and logic.
I was trained to use firearms by a one-legged Marine I used to call "Gunny Miyagi". He taught me to use and respect guns. 99.99% of gun owners in the US will never get that level of training. And it shows in the statistics.
The second amendment CAN be changed. It's an amendment - maybe what folks need is a dictionary!
Quote from: hrdlr110 on June 17, 2015, 04:32:18 PM
The second amendment CAN be changed. It's an amendment - maybe what folks need is a dictionary!
They will quote anything that favors them. If the Constitution didn't mention guns it would be declared "irrelevant".
But if you want to have some fun, ask the 2nd quoters if they are members of a well-regulated amendment. "regulation" after all, requires regulations, or (horrors!) laws, about gun ownership.
Quote from: hrdlr110 on June 17, 2015, 04:32:18 PM
The second amendment CAN be changed. It's an amendment - maybe what folks need is a dictionary!
It "could" but it won't. As long as 1% own 95% and the supreme court says that corps are people, and politicians are nothing more than shills, people actually have a reason to fear the guvment.
There will always be guns, just read the comments on the video----fear sells guns, equipment for war, and takes our freedom away from search and seizure without a court order at airports, while make people rich that sell methods of killing that are very easy, too easy.
I'm not sure what to think, haven't really formed an opinion yet. Although, a step in the right direction, IMO, would be to make guns safer to use, such as making "signature" guns cheaper than regular guns via regulation.
I actually didn't watch all of it, but right off the bat anyone who thinks the police are going to turn over a weapon that was part of a crime must be really ignorant of many many issues.
Considering the percentage of guns that don't have that sort of history, it must have taken a lot of work to find all the guns in that shop. I'm quite impressed with how much effort went into setting up that video.
Quote from: Jason_Harvestdancer on June 18, 2015, 08:29:43 PM
Considering the percentage of guns that don't have that sort of history, it must have taken a lot of work to find all the guns in that shop. I'm quite impressed with how much effort went into setting up that video.
99.99% of the population don't know what kind of gun was used against Lincoln, or either Kennedy, hell make something up, they'll believe it.
Quote from: Jason_Harvestdancer on June 18, 2015, 08:29:43 PM
Considering the percentage of guns that don't have that sort of history, it must have taken a lot of work to find all the guns in that shop. I'm quite impressed with how much effort went into setting up that video.
A few liberty were taken, I suspect. Each gun represented an exact duplicate that was used in the event they associated their firearm with. The provenance of the piece is unimportant, it's the effect that matters.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on June 18, 2015, 08:41:17 PM
A few liberty were taken, I suspect. Each gun represented an exact duplicate that was used in the event they associated their firearm with. The provenance of the piece is unimportant, it's the effect that matters.
The truth is unimportant, it's the effect that matters.
Quote from: Jason_Harvestdancer on June 19, 2015, 01:29:13 AM
The truth is unimportant, it's the effect that matters.
This. The guns were stage dressing for the message.
Although I'm ambivalent, they weren't lying about the guns, "stage dressing" or not, right?
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on June 18, 2015, 08:41:17 PM
A few liberty were taken, I suspect. Each gun represented an exact duplicate that was used in the event they associated their firearm with. The provenance of the piece is unimportant, it's the effect that matters.
That is exactly what I thought. After all, the point of this shop was not to sell used guns that were used to commit violent crimes, or unfortunate fatal accidents. The point of the gun shop was to be used to record reactions from a hidden camera to make this video. At no time did I actually believe these to be the actual weapons in question. But I did assume they were identical weapons.
Edit: I didn't read ahead. Sorry for the redundancy.
So they made up stories, but that's ok because the message is so important that truth isn't required.
Quote from: Jason_Harvestdancer on June 19, 2015, 10:38:02 AM
So they made up stories, but that's ok because the message is so important that truth isn't required.
I'm guessing they made up the gun ownership part, but I don't
know that. The rest of the stories reported events that I recall happening. There are a lot of psychological buttons that this was meant to push. The people they included all had buttons pushed that made them look horrified. I wonder if anyone got excited about the prospect of owning a gun used in a horrible event, and those were left out. If I were buying a hunting rifle and a guy pitched a gun on the basis that it was the actual rifle used by the shooter in the tower at the university in Texas, I'd pass. That's the last creepy thing I'd want on my mind when I'm enjoying an elk hunt, but if he said, "Well then here's a brand new Winchester," I'd buy it, except probably somewhere else.
And I'll bet that all those people were half reacting to the creepy gun dealer who appeared to be freakishly obsessed with people dying from guns. If I were dealing with him, I'd be thinking about what my escape route from the store would be.
Was this video unethical? I don't know. It might be on the edge, but I'm not sure. Mostly, I thought it was more like a segment of Candid Camera, mildly entertaining because you knew what was happening.
Quote from: Jason_Harvestdancer on June 19, 2015, 10:38:02 AM
So they made up stories, but that's ok because the message is so important that truth isn't required.
What SGOS said. Identical gun, factual story. The gun doesn't even have to be "identical". If the tragedy revolves around a ".44 magnum" then a Model 29 will do, doesn't matter if it has the ultrachrome finish the actual gun had or not.