2 Officers shot in Dallas tonight during police protest rally

[pat fan]

Lets all pray for unity - I feel like the media is trying to tear our country apart with shoddy reporting, and agenda to incite. Lets all work together - not separate.

Amen.

 

[Airship Ariadne]

I don't blame the Media as a whole...I blame the people that use the Media as a soapbox to spread hate, division, or exclusion.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

That's probably true. I'm Canadian and here people are allowed to buy certain types of guns for hunting but aside from that our law enforcement officers are the only ones who should have a gun. We sometimes hear about the odd person getting shot but it's very rare. I live in a city af 500,000 people and I think we've had a one shooting this year. 13 homicides so far this year in my city because even without guns people are going to figure out ways to kill one another. I'm not sure what the solution is. I just think there must be one.

Trying to answer a couple posts at once with one quote here:

One stat I find interesting is that 22% of Canadians claim to live in a home with at least 1 gun compared to 31% of Americans. And the AR-15 is easier to purchase in most provinces than it is in California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and a few others.

Now, what IS different about Canada is the relative lack of handguns. And most U.S. homicides are committed with handguns. OTOH, handgun popularity has been on the rise during the exact same timeframe that our homicide rate declined by 50%, so what that means, who knows.

90+% of all handguns are semi-automatic. So, that would be a LOT of guns to confiscate.

As for your question about banning certain ammo, the thing there is semi-autos use the same ammo as other firearms. And on the power scale, hunting rifles are generally the most powerful weapons available. Snipers in Afghanistan actually adopted US hunting rifles because they had much more power than the ones the Army spec'd for such a long time.

 

[TLSnell1981]

I don't blame the Media as a whole...I blame the people that use the Media as a soapbox to spread hate, division, or exclusion.

Oh, I blame the media too.

 

[AnnaFloridaLover]

Oh, I blame the media too.

The media play a huge role in enticing protests and violence.

 

[Unas]

So much bs and hyperbole in this thread. Not that it is any consolation to the victims, their families, their friends, and the Dallas law enforcement community. But it was a lone gunman with a military weapon and high capacity magazines. Stop the insanity!
in the fog of battle, the authorities were giving out information that turned out to be incorrect. That's not the fault of the media.

 

[Planogirl]

Do any of you here live in a state that allows open carry? It's daunting to see someone marching around with an AK47 to say the least. How can we tell if he is about to snap? Or maybe he'll get hit with a nice case of road rage. Or maybe he is enroute to a business to shoot up the place.

I realize that criminals can get these things but without open carry they would at least have to keep them somewhere and not have them slung casually over their shoulders.

Eh but that's kind of a gun debate isn't it? I'll shut up.

 

[pat fan]

But it was a lone gunman with a military weapon and high capacity magazines. Stop the insanity!

I'm not sure it's been confirmed, but I "think" he had an SKS.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/suspect-dallas-killings-served-army-reserve/

 

[CPanther95]

I'm not sure it's been confirmed, but I "think" he had an SKS.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/suspect-dallas-killings-served-army-reserve/

Leave it to CBS "News" to call that a "semi-automatic assault rifle".

Clueless buffoons.

They throw around terms like "assault rifle" because it fits into a legislative agenda. It isn't an assault rifle by the actual definition and isn't even an assault rifle by the definition the people that know nothing about guns consider to be an "assault rifle". It also doesn't use a high capacity magazine either, it uses a 10 round stripper clip.

But that conflicts with those that try to claim that a 10 round limit and a rifle without a pistol grip is somehow a kinder, gentler and safer weapon.

 

[Planogirl]

Leave it to CBS "News" to call that a "semi-automatic assault rifle".

Clueless buffoons.

They throw around terms like "assault rifle" because it fits into a legislative agenda. It isn't an assault rifle by the actual definition and isn't even an assault rifle by the definition the people that know nothing about guns consider to be an "assault rifle". It also doesn't use a high capacity magazine either, it uses a 10 round stripper clip.

But that conflicts with those that try to claim that a 10 round limit and a rifle without a pistol grip is somehow a kinder, gentler and safer weapon.

It is a semi-automatic and it can be modified. Maybe we should bring back muskets which is what our founding fathers used. Those did take a while to reload. ( I say this only partially in jest.)

 

[TLSnell1981]

So much bs and hyperbole in this thread. Not that it is any consolation to the victims, their families, their friends, and the Dallas law enforcement community. But it was a lone gunman with a military weapon and high capacity magazines. Stop the insanity!
in the fog of battle, the authorities were giving out information that turned out to be incorrect. That's not the fault of the media.

That's not why we are blaming the media

 

[CPanther95]

Do any of you here live in a state that allows open carry?

I'm sure there are some considering it is legal in something like 46 states.

Open carry has been legal in most of this country since the Revolutionary War. The only reason some states changed the law were primarily due to some racist beliefs. It was the states in the south post-Civil War that changed the laws when they were faced with the possibility of freed slaves walking around with guns.

Permits were never about walking around with a gun on your hip or a rifle over your shoulder. It primarily became an issue just to allow it to be concealed. Simply seeing a gun didn't cause hysteria (and still doesn't in most places) because people didn't assume that everyone they encounter is a blood thirsty murderer.

 

[CPanther95]

It is a semi-automatic and it can be modified. Maybe we should bring back muskets which is what our founding fathers used. Those did take a while to reload. ( I say this only partially in jest.)

I'd rather not have everybody storing barrels of black powder in their garage. Plus, today's weapons are far safer.

The vast majority of weapons are semi-automatic. The still popular semi-auto Colt 1911 handgun was released (not coincidentally) back in 1911. You pull the trigger once and one round is fired. Same thing with a revolver - one pull, one round fired.

 

[Planogirl]

I'm sure there are some considering it is legal in something like 46 states.

Open carry has been legal in most of this country since the Revolutionary War. The only reason some states changed the law were primarily due to some racist beliefs. It was the states in the south post-Civil War that changed the laws when they were faced with the possibility of freed slaves walking around with guns.

Permits were never about walking around with a gun on your hip or a rifle over your shoulder. It primarily became an issue just to allow it to be concealed. Simply seeing a gun didn't cause hysteria (and still doesn't in most places) because people didn't assume that everyone they encounter is a blood thirsty murderer.

I didn't realize that so many states allowed it.

I don't like it. We have a local group that loves to parade around with guns because it's cool and call me a whimp but I don't like it. Few guns faze me but the guns these people carry do.

Here are a few at a local Target before Target put a stop to it. I know, radicals.

 

[Airship Ariadne]

I didn't realize that so many states allowed it.

I don't like it. We have a local group that loves to parade around with guns because it's cool and call me a whimp but I don't like it. Few guns faze me but the guns these people carry do.

Here are a few at a local Target before Target put a stop to it. I know, radicals.

They are doing it for attention, pathetic and sad...but not social.

 

[Dan Murphy]

I didn't realize that so many states allowed it.

I don't like it. We have a local group that loves to parade around with guns because it's cool and call me a whimp but I don't like it. Few guns faze me but the guns these people carry do.

Here are a few at a local Target before Target put a stop to it. I know, radicals.

You sure are close to Dallas, Linda.

The concealed/carry law became reality here in Illinois is 2013. There is hardly a business or public place you can go to though that does not have the 'no guns allowed' signs on the doors and elsewhere. I doubt it prevents the clowns very much with coming in with handguns in their pockets too much, but does prevent those with the ever popular AR15's and the like from slinging them on their back as you pictured above. No assault weapons or bandoliers seen here, at least out in the open.

 

[CPanther95]

You sure are close to Dallas, Linda.

The concealed/carry law became reality here in Illinois is 2013. There is hardly a business or public place you can go to though that does not have the 'no guns allowed' signs on the doors and elsewhere. I doubt it prevents the clowns very much with coming in with handguns in their pockets too much, but does prevent those with the ever popular AR15's and the like from slinging them on their back as you pictured above. No assault weapons or bandoliers seen here, at least out in the open.

Illinois is one of the states that doesn't allow open carry, so you won't see the rifles in public anyway regardless of the signs.

The signs will actually work to keep out those with a handgun in their pocket - at least the ones with a clean FBI background check that got a permit after receiving formal firearms training. They won't want to put their permits at risk. Of course, as evidenced by all the crime - particularly in Chicago - the signs don't seem to work too well on the people actually interested in committing crimes.

Perhaps they just need to make bigger signs.

 

[mummabear]

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
- Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776

"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
- Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774-1776

"On every occasion [of Constitutional interpretation] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying [to force] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, [instead let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 12 June 1823

Shall we continue?

I am trying to be really careful with how I say this. I want to precede it by saying that I understand that the bill of rights and constitution is incredibly important to Americans and I am not intending to show any disrespect to it.

These quotes are almost 200 years old. No one knows what Thomas Jefferson would say if he was alive today.
The world where he held these opinions was so vastly different to the one we live in now, a world that has progressed in many ways big good and bad, both people and technology and I think it is time for Americans to ask themselves if the time has come to rethink/reconsider/discuss with each other what their rights should be 2016 rather than what people thought they should be in 1791.

 

[Poohforyou]

That's not why we are blaming the media

So why are you blaming the media? Personally I think it's a complete cop out.

 

[Airship Ariadne]

I am trying to be really careful with how I say this. I want to precede it by saying that I understand that the bill of rights and constitution is incredibly important to Americans and I am not intending to show any disrespect to it.

These quotes are almost 200 years old. No one knows what Thomas Jefferson would say if he was alive today.
The world where he held these opinions was so vastly different to the one we live in now, a world that has progressed in many ways big good and bad, both people and technology and I think it is time for Americans to ask themselves if the time has come to rethink/reconsider/discuss with each other what their rights should be 2016 rather than what people thought they should be in 1791.

Which is why I though my quote from him about how things must change with the expansion of knowledge, comparing to Constitutions and laws to a coat that society outgrows was probably one of the most important things he ever said (and that's probably why it, along with his introduction to the Declaration of Independence) is inscribed in large letters behind his statue at the Jefferson Memorial on the Tidal Basin.

Yes, in his time he said all those other things...but he also said many things he later set aside. His thoughts about revolution through mass uprising of the people softened some after The Reign of Terror. In his time he praised Robespierre...a man that is probably in the top 5 or 10 mass murderers in history. And let's not forget, the man that said "All men are created equal" not only kept slaves, he raped them. One of whom, Sally Hemming, was even his dead wife's half sister.

So yes, we must tread carefully when we try to use 200 year old words concepts as a coat against the rain, it becomes ill-fitting as we grow. But again, I'm not arguing gun control, just the need to actually have the discussion without assuming society shouldn't progress past 1789.