Summations Only

Well, I just talked to my brother and found out I don't have things right. Perhaps I've been influenced by the crowd here. He says our father's guns were always in plain sight. I never noticed them. He said we were told not to touch them and we didn't. Kids were more obedient in those days. But also I don't even remember them being there.We were all taught about how to shoot and how to carry guns safely, but only my brothers really got into it. He also said he had his own rifle around the age of six and was allowed to take it out alone and shoot targets. We lived on the Nevada desert way out in the middle of nowhere. All he had to do, he said, was tell our parents where he was going, no other restrictions. I didn't know any of that, shows you how conscious I was of what went on in the family.I gather things are enough different today that he's going to get a gun safe. He says the guns are well hidden but he doesn't trust a couple of his nine grandkids. He'll take them shooting but these two are a tad flaky and he's not sure they should be left alone with guns.And yes that does make having them available for defense problematic.Nevada is an open-carry state so he may consider doing that eventually. Right now, thanks to the gun-control fanatics, although it's perfectly legal it freaks people out and the cops don't know the law and hassle you and he doesn't want the hassle right now. He said a woman in his Bible study told how she saw a guy down town with a gun holstered on his hip and got freaked out, and my brother had to explain that she should have considered herself a lot safer with him around. He also told me some gun owners are making a conscious effort to try to educate the public about the safety of guns by open-carrying them more. They do get hassled but they know the law and the cops have to let them go. Probably if more did this people WOULD get more comfortable seeing them around.I said I can understand people getting freaked out at strangers carrying guns and I said shouldn't they wear some kind of badge or patch to let the public know what they are doing? Shouldn't there be some kind of publicity? He just said it's a legal right and that shouldn't be necessary. I may disagree with him about that. If gun controlism is getting people nervous around legal safe gun possession then some positive publicity could help.Our Dad grew up in Canada. They all had guns, all kept in plain sight. There were wild animals, there were gophers in the fields, there were even wild Indians who occasionally broke into houses. Funny to think that even wild and woolly Canada has given up their guns. Now it's the wild criminals we need to be concerned about but now, alas, no guns to do anything about it.

I mentioned the Revolutionary War preachers in answer to HBD who thinks Christians should not support gun rights as much as we do. I'm sure you've heard of the Black Robe Regiment? That was the name given to the war-preaching pastors by Great Britain, who considered their influence to have been a major factor in their losing the war. How many had guns is not really the point. Some merely preached in favor of the war, but some did possess muskets. Peter Muhlenberg is famous for preaching war from the Bible and then leading three hundred of his congregation to join the cause. HERE's a reference that looks like it may cover more of the history than some others I found. (Yes, the site is a tad odd, but it looks interesting)Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

See Message 2938 where I had to correct some of my impressions.I also mentioned that sad grandmother some posts ago, who should have been better trained.

This is the opinion of those who open-carry in an effort to educate the public. The fact is that the public IS freaked out because of all the anti-gun stuff we hear these days, and open-carry is unusual so it is scary to those who are not used to being around guns. Years ago nobody thought twice about people having guns, it was normal. Things have changed BECAUSE of the gun control fanatics.Another thing my brother told me was that when he was in high school there was a shooting range in the basement, that the ROTC used. He could take his own rifle to school and use the range, they only asked that he remove the bolt while walking through the halls. Times have changed. Why? Because of the push for gun control. He suspects there is no longer a shooting range in the school basement.ABE: When you call me a "piece of work" when I am reporting the opinion shared by millions of your fellow citizens you are also calling THEM a piece of work. You might have a little more respect for the responsible law-abiding citizens who own guns./Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You just wrote three totally crazy sentences. I didn't say gun control people were irresponsible. They are the ones who are uninformed, though, not the pro-gun people, and have knee-jerk objections due to their ignorance. Nothing to do with being responsible or law-abiding. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You didn't accuse me of calling gun control people irresponsible? OK, but that's how I read this: Someone's negative opinion of other responsible people?And this: As if I'd said otherwise.Seems to me you should respect the simple fact that gun control effects HAVE made guns more scary and gun owners subject to hassles nobody used to have. If anybody walked through a high school even with an unbolted rifle these days everybody would scream and run for cover and call the cops. And that IS because of the gun control fanaticism.You don't like the word "fanatics" perhaps. But it's true. These are people who know NOTHING about guns, are always blaming murders on guns and making life difficult for the good guys, in fact CAUSING the situation where the murders can occur. Because of their ignorance and fanaticism all based on fear and total misunderstanding of the reality of the situation.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I don't think you are following the discussion here at all.It is precisely that Gun Free School Zone act that I'm saying is the CAUSE of the school murders. You think murderers obey such laws? No, it's the good gun owners who obey them, which is why they aren't there when the murderers show up.That law was written in the 90s. My brother was in high school in the 60s, when there was no such law, when he was able to carry his unbolted rifle through the halls without anybody freaking out.That law is based on ignorant uninformed gun-control fanaticism. It's exactly what I'm talking about.

You are really suffering from some kind of confusion. No I did NOT say that calling the cops NOW would be unreasonable, or that people being scared is unreasonable THESE DAYS, I just think it's sad that people would freak out at a good guy carrying an unbolted rifle through a school, sad that it IS illegal, sad that they CAN'T have the shooting range in the basement that they had in the 60s because of the gun control fanaticism, sad that gun control has succeeded as far as it has. It has not done one good thing for the nation. Just as it hasn't in the UK or Australia though they keep denying the obvious problems it has caused there. You really are not making sense. In the 60s, not the 1800s, you could walk through a school with a rifle without upsetting anyone. "RE-introducing" guns? But open carry has never been made illegal in Nevada, it's always been legal, no laws have changed. What ARE you talking about? Some of those who want to keep it legal are actually carrying the guns in public so that it won't become as scary as gun control wants to make it.

HBD, the murderers will always be able to murder. But if you allow guns in the hands of the good guys they might not be able to murder as much as otherwise, not in those public situations like the schools and malls. If one person in that caf in Australia had been carrying a gun perhaps that Iranian fanatic would either not have attempted what he did or would have been shot dead before he got anywhere with it. The cops wouldn't need all that SWAT team type gear if normal people were allowed to be armed in normal situations.No, the murderers are not going to up the ante if they know normal people at that location are likely to be armed. No, you are wrong about that. They do want to kill people and they don't want someone else killing them, they want to do it themselves.Jesus never said we have to let ourselves be absolutely defenseless against violent criminals. We are not to resist insults, that's an ego thing not a violence thing (yes I'm bad at it, but not ALL the time.) Jesus was being arrested and was going to His death for us, and Peter didn't have the faith not to retaliate. I suppose ideally Christians should have that much faith when we and our families and strangers in a mall are threatened by murderers, but I really don't think that's expected of us. If preachers in the Revolutionary War era could preach self-defense against tyranny from the Bible I take that as meaning there's a good case to be made for it.More good guys being armed means LESS violence. Disarm the good guys and you increase the violence. That IS what has happened in the UK and Australia. Not specifically GUN violence but violence, crime, attacks on citizens. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'm sure there are pacifist preachers, and there were loyalists during the Revolutionary War who may have preached against the war, not sure about that, but just the fact that some could make a biblical case for resistance to tyranny should mean something.Even if I could take the position that I personally should not defend myself against violence, because I should have the faith to know that it's all in God's hands, it would be hard to make the case that I shouldn't defend others who are being threatened if I have the ability to do so. Wouldn't it have been better if a couple of armed teachers could have taken down the killer of twenty children before he could pull it off?You can't ever be really sure of who the good guys are, of course, but at the very least shouldn't we be able to put basic trust in the majority of American citizens who have no criminal record and no history of mental illness and things like that? Nothing's going to be perfect in a fallen world.How did guns make the Old West MORE violent? Says who? What with the gold rush and the general lawlessness of an unsettled society it was a magnet for all kinds of criminals, you want the good guys to have no means of defense against them? Why are you equating the means of self defense with the cause of violence? It's the criminal mentality that causes the violence.There really should not be an escalation of VIOLENCE by the mere possession of guns, there really should be a reduction in violence. I'm standing by that.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Shooting range in basement: ROTC. As I said.No, I don't think it's unreasonable to scream and run for cover TODAY at all. I think it's the law that's stupid. People ARE afraid of guns because they are no longer a normal part of American life.

You want me to demonstrate that you could walk through a high school carrying a rifle without freaking people out in the 60s? Wasn't my brother's saying he was able to do that enough evidence for you? He said they asked him to remove the bolt. If anybody had been upset by it he would have known it, or they wouldn't have let him do it. Why would it have to be something done "routinely" to make this point? It couldn't be done today at ALL. Message 2943Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Background checks, yes, all mentally ill don't know, whole family no. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well you had to put "biblical" in quotes for the "case" for slavery, for good reason. That's not a BIBLICAL case, that's a phony biblical case.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'm a fan of Chris Pinto and maybe you're not but he's done quite a few radio shows recently on the biblical foundations for self defense, the Revolutionary War and so on. I haven't heard them all and I'm not sure I could muster my memory of what I did hear right now. Don't take this as a cop out because I will try to answer it if I can, but here's one titled Sacred Scripture, Sacred War about a book by that title he's reviewing. He did two programs on this. which you can probably find HERE I think the book makes the biblical case I was referring to but my mind is shot at the moment and I'll have to try to get back to it.You say it seems like a matter of odds, OK, that there is no way having guns everywhere is going to guarantee that any one gun owner will ever be able to do any good with theirs. OK But I don't think that's how it really works. I think if guns are not restricted there should be a psychological effect of the knowledge that they could be on anyone anywhere that changes the whole situation in favor of less violence, fewer attempts at murder, that sort of thing. As long as it is known that guns are not allowed somewhere, that location becomes a target for criminals. So if you want some clearcut positive result from owning a gun that may never happen but the overall effect could be very positive. And there always IS that "off chance" that you would be exactly in that position where you could save somebody's life.Now when you get into imagining people getting drunk and suspicious and so on that IS just your imagination. Perhaps a bar is one place where guns SHOULD be disallowed, but if a person is so hotheaded as to shoot someone who cuts him off in traffic or over anything that raises anger, how did such a hothead ever get the right to own a gun in the first place? Or fail to get enough training to deal with such things without resorting to murder. Surely we have to generally count on people to be sane enough not to kill someone over such things. We have to trust our fellow man to some extent or we're in worse shape than anybody imagines.But this IS your imagination. How often do such impulsive murders happen? Murders usually result from long-term grievances. But I don't know, give us a statistic here.