Guns: Which is better - ban or promote?

[KeithE]

Despicable (imo) article:


But is it true?

Is it better to not allow guns (a few will no doubt be obtained) or have guns allowed and be pervasively carried? Or is there a better way to curtail violence.

[Dave Roberts]

I find the idea that pastors should be armed to be an open attack on Christianity. After all, did not Christ command Peter to put away his sword. Did not Christianity conquer an empire without taking that sword up? Indeed, could not Jesus have engaged the armies of heaven to slaughter both the Jewish and Roman opponents but instead chose the way of the cross? We are being asked to embrace Constantine, not Jesus.

[Sandy]

It's highly unlikely that even if permission had been given, among those gathered in the church for a Wednesday night prayer meeting, there would have been anyone packing. Even if there had been, these kinds of killings are calculated, the shooters are usually suicidal, and they plan to do maximum damage in a minimum amount of time. Even if someone else had a gun, by the time they could reach for it and use it, most of the damage would already be done. Those laws are designed to help convenience store employees have some protection if they see someone acting suspicious, they don't prevent someone who is bent on destruction, and has carefully calculated how they will go about it. In about half of the 25 or so mass shootings we've had in the past couple of decades, there were people in the immediate vicinity carrying concealed weapons, in several cases there were openly armed people, and they couldn't react in time to prevent the shooter from doing all the damage they wanted.

On the other hand, in spite of all of the rhetoric and paid propaganda of gun control advocates, the restrictions that the President has proposed, which are far, far, far from what the critics accuse him of wanting, would have been instrumental in preventing this particular shooting. Perhaps Roof was determined enough to have obtained a weapon anyway, but his arrest record, under the President's proposal, and his association with racist extremists, would have prevented him from owning one legally. If, in the case of the shooters in Newtown and Tucson, those who owned the guns and were careless about allowing access to them would have been prosecuted, it might have sent a strong enough message to other gun owners to be more careful with security of their own weapons.

As far as the criticism of the President for "using" the tragedy to "push" his agenda on gun control, that's nothing more than hypocrisy on the part of the critics. He's the President, and I not only applaud him for taking every opportunity to address what I believe is our greatest social problem, and to set straight the responsibility that must absolutely be in place if our constitutional right to bear arms is to be carried out as the founding fathers intended, and not the commercial, profiteering, chaos that we have now. Until there's open condemnation from Republicans regarding the way Bush and Cheney used 9-11, and rode their pre-planned, calculated invasion of a country that had nothing to do with 9-11, nor with Al Qaida, on the backs of the victims of that tragedy, then no Republican should be engaging in criticism of the President for doing this.

[Haruo]

[Haruo]

[Sandy]

I don't know that I would put the Charlie Hebdo shootings in the same category as this. That involved a terror group with foreign origins, and the availability of guns in France was not a consideration in their plan. Not sure the Norway shootings would, either. In those advanced countries of which he is speaking, where there are tight, and well enforced laws regarding gun possession and ownership, the incidents are almost unique in their occurrence. Not so here, where the little legislation related to gun ownership is not consistently enforced state to state, and we have chaos. And it doesn't require restricting gun ownership, as the President's opponents state he wants to do. That's not what he wants, by the way, but one of the countries with the most restrictive laws regarding gun owner responsibility is Switzerland, and yet gun ownership there by private citizens is more prolific than it is in the US. They just don't let gun manufacturers finance legislative campaigns, and their courts hold gun owners accountable for the whereabouts and use of their guns.

[Dave Roberts]

[William Thornton]

Doesn't much matter. Early 'facts' include a witness saying he reloaded five times. While I suspect that will be revised when police report shell casings, etc., if someone else was armed the outcome might have been mitigated.

Reactions are predictable.

[Dave Roberts]

[William Thornton]

No.

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

It comes down to how fast the shooter works, and the element of surprise. At Fort Hood, for example, there were dozens of armed people literally within yards of where the shootings took place, but the shooter had taken that into account in his planning. In Tucson, there were professional armed security guards inside at least one of the stores in the shopping center, but by the time they figured out what was happening and reacted, it was too late. The guy was actually tackled and brought down by an unarmed man. And I think the comments by right wingers critical of the pastor for not allowing concealed carry in his church is the same kind of use of the tragedy to push their agenda as they are accusing the president of doing.

If you're in a situation like that, and you are carrying, you're not just going to pull out the gun and open fire. There are lost of things to consider. Do you draw attention to your location, and perhaps draw his fire toward the people around you? If you miss, does that make him fire more? Does it give him a chance to hide, or get away, or if he takes you out, to shoot even more people than otherwise? Sorry, but I don't think that adding a gun to a volatile situation is a reasonable solution.

[Haruo]

Anyone who says a shooting spree that kills multiple Christian ministers was the fault of those pastors for not going to Bible study packing, and professes Christ has a screw loose.

[Dave Roberts]

[Tim Bonney]

[Haruo]

Oh, come on, Timothy, are you saying law enforcement in the USA is applied in racially biased ways?

[Sandy]

Inequality of treatment by law enforcement based on race? In a state that still flies the Confederate flag on its capitol grounds?

[Tim Bonney]

[Haruo]

Yes, I know, but many of our fellow whites refuse to see it, and have nothing but snide dismissiveness to offer when black males attempt to communicate this aspect of their life experience.

[Dave Roberts]

I think the media often add to this showing robbery footage or mentioning shootings saying, "The suspect is a black male approximately 22 years of age, five-ten, 160 pounds, wearing a dark hoodie with a reversed baseball cap." That description fits half the black community around me.

[Haruo]

One good thing I saw out of the Charleston tragedy was a fairly large amount of coverage of statements of forgiveness by family members of the slain.

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[Haruo]

According to the CofCC website, 25% of Roof's 80 FB friends are black (). Interesting if true. Drugs do strange things to people. The killings have to be condemned, but the killer may well be incapacitated in a way that would support an insanity plea in court. I don't know.

[Tim Bonney]