Do guns protect or harm us?

[MaineCWPtraining]

Letters to the editor: March 18, 2010

Reading your letters from the Feb. 28 paper, I found it alarming to see that many believe that guns are needed to defend themselves against criminals. The problem with this type of thinking is that it has no basis in fact. continuing to support groups such as the National Rifle Association and the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, one isn't protecting anyone, not even oneself.

It may sound perfectly logical to call attention to your and my constitutional right to bear arms; but once again, the facts don't say that there is any real safety in having a gun.

People who hunt for sport like to go out and shoot weapons for the power and control they feel from the activity. They are in no way the law-abiding citizens that they pretend to be.

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[Dr_Scholl]

That first one's a real self righteous douchebag.

 

[gjones77]

The first letter shows an utter disregard for reality and simple facts, the second, just pure ignorance.

There's the difference between the Pro 2A crowd and the Anti 2A crowd, the Pro's want everyone to have the ability to exercise their rights free from government interference, if you don't want to own a fire arm you don't have to, the Anti's want nothing more than to take away a right they don't agree with.

 

[MisterHappy]

There are a lot of people that "just don't get it" WRT firearms. And, within the firearms community, there are subsets that "just don't get it" WRT other subsets....

A dyed-in-the-wool Anti is no worse than a shooter that thinks that their sport is ok, but another shooting sport is...odd.

A non-shooting friend (nobody's perfect) asked me what the deal was with shooters going to the range in a full array of "tacti-cool" clothing to shoot an AK. Being primarily a Trap shooter, I honestly don't see the allure, but I explained to him that it was like a golfer wearing "golf clothes" to the links. This he understood.

It would have been easy to say, "Yeah, that's nuts...." and have that interpreted as a vote against the AK shooter.....

At least with an Anti, you know where you stand....too often, on OUR side we have fragmentation along the lines of Fudd/Tacticool/OC/etc... Unless we ALL are united, despite our differences, we'll all be united at the golf course....

 

[digitaldon37]

"Do guns protect or harm us?" - it depends on the person holding it.

 

[Chris]

Do guns harm or help.

Why don't you ask the residents of Darfur. Oh yea, you can't. The unarmed residents were MURDERED by their armed government.

 

[cekim]

Do guns harm or help.

Why don't you ask the residents of Darfur. Oh yea, you can't. The unarmed residents were MURDERED by their armed government.

Well, at least they are in good company with the other 100million people murdered by their government in the past 100 years... [sad2]

 

[twogunwilly]

The first letter is the kind the majority of people 95% know is just BS. It's the 5% that don't know any better, who believe him. (and run for office) Let's not be the silent majority anymore. Join the NRA, write letters, If you work for these nuts charge them extra and donate that money to a gun rights group, I make a mentle note of peoples yard signs and bumper stickers and charge accordingly. Bill

 

[Cabinetman]

If I were an investigative reporter/writer or a PHD candidate and wanted to do something to investigate whether or not guns provide protection to their owner, I'd be working hard to collect ALL of the cases across the country from one, single year where legal firearm owners either stopped or subdued bad guys while in the commission of a crime. We all know that there are literally tens of thousands of cases (probably well understated) each and every year where firearms have saved their owners or disarmed a bad guy. Only a fraction of them are related in our monthly NRA mags but I've read numerous times that there are many thousands not reported publicly either on purpose or because no shots were fired. If the public were exposed to the facts that the legal use far outweighted the illegal use of firearms, they would at least have those facts to chew on. Right now, however, anechdotal events where firearms are used are selected for print in the news when they match a certain criteria set by a liberal press with an agenda. I believe that well documented statistics would more than dispell the "known fact" that guns are bad and end up harming their owners more than helping them.

Cars and their drivers kill 40,000 people a year however literall billions of miles are driven by the general public without incident. If, however, you began to inculcate the children of America that driving could kill you at a young age and you could raise a whole generation to hate driving. Imagine how you could distort that type of statistic!

Say something enough times and it begins to become a fact.......even though it's absolutely not a fact. Whole generations have been raised on the fact that guns are bad and it'll take a lot to prove it wrong......just like global warming.

Rome

 

[RFWAVELENGTH]

"Do guns protect or harm us?" - it depends on the person holding it.

Do knives protect or harm us? It depends on the person holding it. A skilled surgeon uses knives in a much different fashion than Charles Manson and Jack the Ripper did.

 

[kaetaur]

I have a friend who grew up in Algeria. She was telling me about how the government started to have problems as a terrorist organization had infiltrated it and was fixing elections. The government shut down the fixed elections and DISARMED the populace. Now only the government and the terrorists had guns. People would be running in the street and trying to hide unable to protect themselves because the citizens were disarmed in a failed attempt to disarm terrorists. The terrorists did not care... they just shipped in guns some somewhere else. The law abiding citizens suffered under the government and the terrorists. The government did not hurt them directly but let them die when terrorists started attacking civilian targets. The disarmed civilians had two choices... join the government so they could protect themselves or band up with the terrorists so they could protect themselves. They could not protect themselves and let their military take care of business.

Guns, while designed to destroy a target(paper, animal, human or other), are used at the intent of the person behind the gun. I was held up at knife point and honestly afterward I wished I was armed so I could have stopped the crime before it happened. I could have died. I was lucky. I try to live in safer places and avoid dangerous places, but I never know when someone will attempt to make me a victim.

Criminals will have firearms because they don't care about the law. Citizens should be able to have firearms because they want to obey the law. Hence the reason this needs to be a protected right and people need to learn that the criminal firearms violence in the world will not go away with the removal of firearms from the citizens. We can't control a single person, we can just make life better for everyone through our supporting our community and protecting our right and freedoms.

 

[Woodstock]

Certainly many repressive regimes have contributed to the deaths of millions worldwide by leaving them defenseless or actually slaughtering the people themselves, as in Nazi Germany, China, the USSR, most of the Soviet bloc, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua under the Sandanistas, Uganda under Idi Amin, numerous other African nations, etc.
But you don't have to go too far to appreciate the value of having instant access to a defensive firearm. First case that comes to mind was a guy in NH who answered the door with a Glock in his hand. Two teenage guys said they wanted to ask his opinions on some environmental issues. He said he wasn't interested. They saw his Glock and moved on. The neighbors let the guys in and were found in pools of blood. They were the Dartmouth professors. How about the woman in NH who was hacked to death in her bed last year and her daughter mutilated? I once saw a bumper sticker that read "If Nicole had packed a .38 she'd be a rich widow today". referring to the OJ case. The list goes on and on. The crime of "Home Invasion" is on the books for a reason.
The funny thing about these sheeple who write letters like the above is that when the SHTF they are desperate for some means to protect themselves. During the Rodney riots in LA in '93, the cops pulled back, and the liberals who had been crapping on the NRA members and gun owners for years were literally banging on their doors and begging to borrow or buy guns.

 

[seanc]

If I were an investigative reporter/writer or a PHD candidate and wanted to do something to investigate whether or not guns provide protection to their owner, I'd be working hard to collect ALL of the cases across the country from one, single year where legal firearm owners either stopped or subdued bad guys while in the commission of a crime.

Unfortunately...
investigative reporter... would never make it on the news or be so heavily edited as to be counter to the orig position..

writer.. chances are good it would never be published.

a PHD candidate.. Being counter to the " established facts" and long held beliefs of academia it would be written off as lies and you'd be failed..

We still have a long way to go in changing the hearts and minds.. but the pendulum seems to be very slowly swinging our way..

 

[Shooter McGavin]

2A aside... If the people in this world who would or will do harm to innocents have access to guns, legal or otherwise... I want more guns, more access, and less restrictions that will put me at higher risk of becoming a victim. Its just that simple. Firearms are a tool for whatever endpoint the user desires. In my hands its been used for nothing but to recreational fun, and to PROTECT whats most important to me. A criminal will use a gun as a means to do just about anything they please, without fear of repercussions, or what the AG's stance on transporting vs. storage modes might be while they are rounding the corner prepping for a drive by!

Until we ship all the gun toting criminals off to an island and tac nuke it, my firearms are more than necessary in my opinion, for self preservation, and the preservation of those under my roof. And even after said island scenario, I still love shooting for fun!