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Boon Mee

An outbreak of sanity from across the Pond!:

"BANNING boys from playing with toy guns is futile and may even damage their development, a leading child psychologist has warned"

Read the rest...Playing with guns is 'good for boys' - Scotsman.com

Thormaturge

I grew up on a farm with the real thing. I had an assortment of air rifles and pistols in my teens and ultimatley became familiar with a twelve-bore. I learnt to handle weapons responsibly, nobody ever got hurt and I feel no particular urge to kill.

I see no need for ordinary civilians to own guns unless they belong to properly controlled clubs where the guns are kept. We used them for pest control although occasionally we would bring a good dinner home too.

Boon Mee

Unless you have Second Ammendment beliefs...

Lily

Or you are paranoid that your government or the reds or the muslims are coming to get you!

Boon Mee

^
Any of the above.
Recall a "well-armed militia?"

Jet Gorgon

Don't leave the girls out.
Everybody had a .22 and a shotgun on the farm. And everybody was taught how to use them, cept the shotgun near tore my arm off so I stuck to the .22. At Gram's, we did gophers mostly (else you had to put a horse down if it stumbled in the g holes), but after just target practise with tin cans. And I'm pretty sane and a total pacivist. Reckon I could still load and shoot tho.

Mr Earl

Guns are fun....
Large caliber automatic weapons rock baby!

Mr Earl

It's really not a question of "need". It's a matter of personal liberty.
If people were held more accountable to current gun laws I suspect we'd be seeing fewer guns realated crimes.

Ivor Biggun

Of course it is. The same as girls playing with dolls. If you take guns off of boys they just then change to swords or likewise toys. It's a built in character of ones sex. As long as the child's taught the difference between playing and reality.

Thormaturge

Does the right to bear arms extend to nuclear weapons? If so would you agree to Dick Cheyney having a warhead and missile in his back yard? If not then where do you draw the line?

Mr Earl

Does Dick Cheney want a nuclear missile in his back yard? That's news to me.
How did you come by that info?
Did you pull it out of your ass?

Thormaturge

Gee thanks.

It is a hypothetical question so it relates to any nutter who has the money. The knowledge is out there and some private individuals have the finance, so why not allow people like L Ron Hubbard to build their own bombs and start their own wars?

AntRobertson

The Second Amendment as it pertains to gun ownership/possession has become a twisted perversion of itself.

How an ambiguous bit of text from the 1700's relates to the modern world is beyond me.

Thormaturge

^
My guess is that when some weirdo Wako-style cult nukes Washington we may see that amendment toned down a tad.

chinthee

^That may be so, the the right to bear arms is so deeply ingrained in the American psyche I don't see how it could ever really be curtailed more than enforcement of gun ownership laws, background checks etc., which are already being done.

I owned guns and rifles since I was a kid, and we were taught how to responsibly treat them with respect and utmost safety. Owning, learning how to care for guns and shooting them is one of life's great pleasures, and it has nothing to do with shooting people or animals in fact.

Milkman

I think its still relevant, the 2nd Amendment.

If this is turning into Banning Guns, it's too late to ban guns in the USA.

The only people that would stop owning/carrying them IMO, would be law-abiding citizens, giving the criminals a lot more power.

__________________
Military men are dumb, stupid animals, to be used as pawns for foreign policy

AntRobertson

Ok this is what I don't get, accepting what you say why is it that most Americans are apparently quite prepared to have their rights and liberties eroded in the pursuit of a 'War on Terror' against an ill-defined and clarified enemy yet the moment "gun control" is even mentioned go into states of near apoplexy and start crying about their rights!?

__________________
"Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. We know this because they are capable of being invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can't see them." — Steve Eley

Thormaturge

^^^
The difficulty with guns is that it is so easy to take a life with them. It isn't the same as stamp collecting or carving duck decoys. Someone can own a gun for decades without any trouble, but then , in the heat of the moment, can kill with ease. If Americans are prepared to live with that risk then fine. Frankly I'm not, although I have no objection to people shooting whatever weapon they choose for sport. I just don't agree with people keeping such lethal weapons in their homes.

chinthee

Milkman's point is so good it's worth repeating:

Thormaturge

Making it an offence for anyone other than law enforcement to carry a gun outside a recognised firing range, with say a ten year term, would enable the cops to clear a lot of unwanted people off the streets PDQ.