Driver licensing is not a good analogy, as driving is a privilege, and keeping and bearing arms is a whatchamacallit again? oh yeah, a Right.

Please cite an example where I said *all* gun ownership means less violent crime (or accept the "liar" label you so delight in trying to hang on others).

I do maintain *legal* gun ownership means less violent crime.

Legal gun ownership does *not* include

-- concealed carry without a permit in jurisdictions where a permit is required,

-- use of a firearm in comission of a felony,or posession of firearms by those not legally qualiied to posess them: convicted felons, those to whom firearms are prohibited as a condition of their probation

-- handgun posession by anyone under 21.

So then you are in favor of gun control.

It *could* be used for home defense, although that is not its primary use by design. That rifle fires .22LR ammunition, and is best used for target shooting (or possibly hunting small nuisance animals; but we're friends with the local woodchucks --a.k.a "groundhogs"-- and tend to leave them alone.). .22LR would not be my first choice for a self-defense load even in a rifle; it doesn't deliver enough kinetic energy to be effective against larger targets.

The scope sight is useful because of the distances at which the rifle is used. and we included it in the photo shoot to add visual interest, since Gwen was already displaying her Kimber autoloader.

I first shot .22LR on the rifle team in college--although of course a scope is not used in competition! In fact, there was a time when training in small caliber rifle was very common in US secondary schools; .22LR is a good training load because the recoil is light and the beginning shooter--of either long guns or handguns--can develop the fundamentals without the likelyhood of developing a flinch.

But I certainly don't intend to attempt to justify the weapons owned by my household to an obvious hoplophobe.

No.

Let's dispose of the *last* time you misquoted me before you put even more words in my mouth. Where's your cite where I said *all* gun posession reduces crime? Or don't you have one?

Why is that? Because semiautomatics and cars hadn't been invented yet?

For starters, because it is enumerated as such in the Constitution.

For other supporting background, I'd recommend reading The Right to Keep and Bear Arms: Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the US Senate, 97th Congress

I think rifles and shotguns should be allowed because I am all in favor of hunting and being able to shoot a rifle. Handguns and automatic weapons on the other hand, scare me. You don't need a handgun to protect your home, if I broke into someone's house I would be a lot more scared of a shotgun than a 9mm pointed at me.

I am in favor of a law against concealed weapons not because I don't think people should have them, I just think things will get out of hand because people are stupid. For example, if someone robs you with a gun and you have a concealed gun yourself you are tempted to use it. So you pull it out, the natural reaction of the guy robbing you is to shoot you. So instead of losing a few hundred dollars you lose your life. Allowing concealed weapons will also give people confidence to take paths they would not usually take, which gets them into more trouble.

As Wolf said, they guys robbing you with guns don't get them legally, crime will not go down. Most often crime is a last resort for people and they are wiling to take the risk of someone having a gun. All it will do is create moments when two scared people have guns and that leads to death, plain and simple.

That's what I said.

:corn:

Well, it actually turns out that I'm not always at home. Sometimes I venture out, to go to work, or buy food, etc. You'd be surprised how quickly people get upset if you walk around some places with a long gun on your shoulder...like a shopping mall, for example. Are you saying that I should not have a right to defend myself if I'm not at home?

I think if you actually knew anything about firearms beyond finding them scary to varying degrees, you'd know that a rifle or a shotgun is far from ideal even in some home defense situations, for example at close range or in close quarters; lika a small apartment.

Let's sum up your position: you're scared of handguns because you wouldn't be as scared of them as you would be of a shotgun...which doesn't scare you as much as handguns do. (Please get your phobias straightened out before you start proposing laws based on them, OK?)

What scares *me* is people who want to disarm me because one kind or another of guns scare them. That's called hoplophobia. Maybe we should make hoplophobia illegal, since the fact that something scares you seems to be grounds for banning it.

It is? Where?

I assume you haven't read the Hatch Report yet.

Perhaps we need to distinguish what guns should be controlled and which should be banned. As an avid hunter I see no reason to ban shotguns or hunting rifles. However, I still see no need for "Joe Average" to own an assault weapon. To me they should be illegal.

The first part of this para professes the "theory of the evil gun," that some types of arm are in some way more conducive of, well, brutality than are others. This theory is exploded on closer study: the very characteristics of concealable portability that make the handgun attractive to the felon intent on robbery are the very characteristics that make the handgun the best immediate defense -- because the defender can simply wear the piece around his daily doings, and thus will have it available to resist the evil attentions of the criminal.

The second part exhibits ignorance of home defense tactics. A long arm is rather bulky and can be levered away from the defender more easily at hand to hand range than a properly held pistol can. Also, consider the blast of a larger long arm cartridge of any description, touched off in the confined space of a room -- it well nigh brings down the plaster, and its disorienting effect works as hard on the defender as on the invader. Not something the defender will want. Handgun cartridges are a little less battering, and that is all to the good. This is not to say long arms don't have their place in home defense, but it is usually a last-ditch defense of the designated panic room/rendezvous chamber, e.g., the kids and any other noncombatants on the floor behind the bed in the master bedroom along with one of the defenders forted up in the same place, firing across the bed if an invader enters (and there's a protocol to ensure the man of the house with the pistol intended to meet the invaders with doesn't get mistaken at first blush for an invader, as is only sensible). Firing from the "panic room," you see, would be a situation where you really do need, beyond all else, to hit as hard as possible, and let the plaster fall where it may.

In self-defense situations, rather than drunk lowlifes assaulting each other, this doesn't happen, and this is the universal experience of the 38 states in the Union who have liberalized their concealed carry of weapon (CCW) provisions, regulations, and laws. They know something you do not, my friend, and they are staying with liberalized CCW because crime in every such state has plunged. Read John Lott, and Stephen P. Halbrook. Between these two luminaries, you will understand arms far better than you do now.

Only true if they're not any too bright to begin with. The prudent use of arms does not turn a prudent man foolish. If he isn't sworn and paid to do it, he's still not going to be strolling down those alleys.

The science done on this says, no, they aren't willing.

Not so plain and not so simple. 98% of all armed self defense situations are not settled by a firefight, but by simply the threat of one; no shot is fired. Of the remaining two percent, fatality is not an inevitable outcome either, though even wounding can admittedly leave its victim permanently maimed. The maimed most often would take surviving over dying, so you don't hear too much complaining on this score by anyone who knows from experience.

It would lead to deaths, perhaps, if everyone who does it knew no more than you do about it, but education and training about how to prevail in this most dangerous situation can be had by civilians, and at less than the one-year cost of insuring your car. Less, in fact, than some people's monthly insurance payment, for the fundamentals. And one can build on the fundamentals at any time.

As for selective fire weapons, these, being military arms, are the ones most suited for ending genocides, which can really only happen to disarmed peoples. The people who like the full-auto weapons are the ones who are truly, effectually, worthily anti-genocide. All others are less so, and merely flapping their gums, which has never stopped a genocide yet. It isn't stopping one now -- though that genocide would stop if Sudanese janjaweed were to start vanishing beyond recall, and Khartoum-government air support with them. In other words, if a genocide is going on, you must shoot back. Otherwise, you're oven fuel. Did your mama really raise you up to be somebody else's fireplace log?

Do not hope to take refuge in the idea that I don't see any signs of impending genocide. Genocide invariably starts in concealment, and it sneaks up on its victims. Military-type arms are the best, for reasons of logistics and efficiency, and the only known, individual solution to the genocide problem, and AFAWK they are the final solution. The forces of the State have never once kept a genocide from happening, which is unsurprising when you consider State power is necessary to get a genocide under way. See Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership for more on this. Be advised: these people are the real article when it comes to genocide stopping.

Only in the sense of Ringer's Paradox -- and in the using of both hands for the worthwhile sort of gun control: that which puts all your rounds downrange, inside the ten-ring, and at least half cutting the X-ring.

It is to be hoped, tw, that you will conquer your massive ignorance of guns and gun law to come around to the side of the angels. You, of course, will try and dash this hope, for the simple, but bad, reason that it's me telling you. (Vulcan, shmulcan.)