About violence...

[happyheathen]

With all the stupid cuts being made, I gotta wonder -

how many of you under-30 types were raised around firearms - at least enough to know the basics of handling them?

How about fireworks - are M-80's, roman candles, and the nasty stuff still about?

I'll assume we all know about bare electrical wires, but the censors may decide THOSE are too risky to show...

[Matthew Hunter]

Sure. I can and have used shotguns, rifles and airguns (that is, pellet or b-b). I own a 20-gauge Remington shotgun for dove hunting, which is actually a great sport, and if you get enough of them doves are a great meal. It's also fun to target-shoot with the other kinds. I haven't tried lately, but I used to be pretty good at rifles. I've always had a healthy respect for firearms, it's never occurred to me to joke around with one or deliberately misuse one. What I can't understand is why people link cartoons to gun violence. Maybe it is because in some cases it is a kid's only exposure to them, so they think that the ridiculous uses in cartoons are their true purpose. I think everyone should at least know how to operate some kind of firearm, and know the safety rules and laws pertaining to it, then teach their children about it and about the danger of it. Violence is not the gun's fault, it's the fault of whoever is using it improperly.
-Matthew

[happyheathen]

Originally posted by Matthew Hunter
Sure. I can and have used shotguns, rifles and airguns (that is, pellet or b-b). I own a 20-gauge Remington shotgun for dove hunting, which is actually a great sport, and if you get enough of them doves are a great meal. It's also fun to target-shoot with the other kinds. I haven't tried lately, but I used to be pretty good at rifles. I've always had a healthy respect for firearms, it's never occurred to me to joke around with one or deliberately misuse one. What I can't understand is why people link cartoons to gun violence. Maybe it is because in some cases it is a kid's only exposure to them, so they think that the ridiculous uses in cartoons are their true purpose. I think everyone should at least know how to operate some kind of firearm, and know the safety rules and laws pertaining to it, then teach their children about it and about the danger of it. Violence is not the gun's fault, it's the fault of whoever is using it improperly.
-Matthew

Ain't it illegal in Texas NOT to own a gun?:D

[Jack]

I've never felt all that comfortable about guns, my dad can use one, and so can my half brother. I never became much of an outdoors type of person because I have a very bad case asthma that's triggered by weeds, pollen, mold, grass, extreme heat, extreme cold, trees, viruses, and most animals that would make me miss a bunch of school and stuff like that (coincidentally, My parents found out that I had asthma after a trip to.......San Fransisco). So I never got into going out and hunting, but playing arround the neigborhood was fun. Also, the whole shooting and stuffing animals thing (I don't know if Matthew has ever done that, though) always bothered me, I hated, and stilll hate the presence of stuffed animals with their fake, dead little eyes, strange poses, and odd smell.

I don't think that not being exposed to guns or not knowing how to really use them would make a child think that cartoon violence is the purpose for which such things should be used. I never once thought that shooting my brother or cat would make for a fun day. I knew that cartoons were just cartoons, besides, I was told all the time what the cosequences of misusing guns were, so it isn't like cartoons were my only influence. I never once thought to go and get the gun we kept, even though I knew where it was. And I never associated guns with water pistols either (I loved playing with those, even though some elementary schools will suspend kids for having them because they think it leads to real gun use:rolleyes: ).

Also, my state just had a bit of a controversy about the shooting of morning doves.

Jack:D

[grundle]

I'm exactly 30, so I guess I can respond to this.

I've never had much confidence at anything requiring physical coordination, so I've never really thought that I would be very good with a gun. At the same time, I totally support people's right to own a gun. When I was in high school, one of my friends was home alone. A burglar tried to break in. My friend ran to get his father's hunting rifle. He went over to the window and held it up for the burglar to see. The burglar ran away as fast as he could. Thank God the gun wasn't kept locked up and it didn't have a trigger lock.

I gotta wonder about that Rosie O'Donnell. She said that guns should be banned, and she wouldn't let a guest on her show sing a song from the musical "Annie Get Your Gun." But at the same time, Rosie claims to love Looney Tunes cartoons. Does she actually watch the cartoons? Does she know about all the guns in them? And if she wants guns to be banned, then why did she hire an armed bodyguard to protect her son?

When I was 10 years old during Halloween, I came to school dressed as an Indian, with all the Indian clothes and the feathers. My only model for how to behave was all the Looney Tunes Indians that I had seen! And I had a plastic tommahawk. My teacher knew it was just a toy, and that I would never hurt anyone. That was a private school, and they operated on the principle of common sense. If a 10 year old did that today in a public school, he would probably get expelled.

The truth is that until just a few decades ago, many schools had shooting as an elective. The kids would bring their guns to school in the morning, and take them home at the end of the school day.

In Israel, they armed Jewish teenagers as a way to stop the Arab terrorists who like to carry out mass public shootings. This has proven to be very effective.

The best book ever written on guns is John Lott's "More Guns Less Crime." The worst crime areas in the U.S. are those that don't allow people to defend themselves (New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., etc.). Those with high rates of gun ownership have much lower rates of crime (Vermont, Orange County CA, etc.).

About 10 years ago, a guy with a gun walked into a cafeteria in Texas, and murdered 22 people. One of the survivors was a woman who survived only because she prentended to be dead. She was a trained marksman, and she took her gun with her wherever she went. But Texas had a law at the time that said that you can't take a gun into a cafeteria. So she left her gun in her car. As she watched the killer kill his victims one by one, she wished that she had had her gun with her. She watched both of her parents get murdered.

99% of all people who were murdered in the world during the 20th century were murdered by governemnt. And all of these mass murders (Nazi Germany, communist U.S.S.R., communist China, etc.,) were preceeded by gun confiscation. Hitler refused to invade Switzerland because every Swiss citizen owned a gun.

[happyheathen]

Originally posted by grundle
Hitler refused to invade Switzerland because every Swiss citizen owned a gun.

Uh...

Better look into the relationship between Switzerland and the Nazi's - they were best buddies...

[grundle]

The Nazis kept all the money that they stole in anonymous Swiss bank accounts. That was just a money thing. Hitler didn't really have any "buddies."

http://www.jpfo.org/faq.htm

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so."

-- Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), April 11, 1942, quoted in Hitlers Tischegesprache Im Fuhrerhauptquartier 1941-1942. [Hitler's Table-Talk at the Fuhrer's Headquarters
1941-1942], Dr. Henry Picker, ed. (Athenaum-Verlag, Bonn, 1951)

[happyheathen]

Originally posted by grundle
The Nazis kept all the money that they stole in anonymous Swiss bank accounts. That was just a money thing. Hitler didn't really have any "buddies."

[

Don't forget the Vatican (Hitler has never been ex-communicated, and the Vatican's financial records from 1938-1946 are sealed.

[DR. BELCH]

--is the people on both sides of the gun issue trying to use the Second Amendment as their blanket. Look very carefully at the wording of it...unless I'm sorely mistaken, the word "gun" doesn't appear in it once. It says the right to bear arms. I define that as anything I can use to defend myself. I don't own a gun because it isn't safe with children and teens in the house. I don't need one. Even without a gun I can use a knife, an old phone cord, a length of dog chain, a razor blade, a lead pipe, a brick, a rock, a sawed-off broomstick, a baseball bat, a hockey stick, a tennis racket, a broken whiskey bottle, and a two-by-four with a rusty nail sticking out of it which I've soaked in motor oil a couple of years so it won't bend, break, shatter, or split while I use it. ;)
Banning guns to ban violence is like banning beans to keep people from passing gas in elevators and other crowded public places. :D

[don Jaime]

Guns - I inherited my grandfather's 16-gauge shotgun. It's been dismantled for years and I'm not sure I can lay my hands on all the parts within a week. I do need to learn how to use it. If I do, I'll probably go to the NRA first. They're top tier is nuts but the ordinary members are all sorts.

We lived out in the country until I was 12. Dad kept the shotgun propped by the backdoor so he could pick off rabbits in the vegetable garden or feral dogs. He didn't keep it loaded, so the rabbits and dogs usually got away before he was ready to fire. The rule was, don't touch the gun. None of us three boys ever did. He also trained a friend whose business was burglarized a few times how to use a handgun.

Fireworks were cheap and plentiful. During the day we would set off Black Cats. The rule - set the firecracker down, light the fuse with the punk, get away. No throwing. I started when I was about seven, I think. We also burned sparklers (stuck in the ground, NEVER carried), smoke bombs, whistlers, parachutes (always disappeared) and "snakes", which were boring. Dad set off all of the nighttime fireworks himself. These were mostly flowers with cones, Roman candles, and a few big mortars at the end. We continued until I was 15 in town in Muskogee. That was where we found Children's House Fireworks (yes, they were sold through a daycare!) They offered a mortar set where you had to build the launcher yourself with a plastic base, a tube, and six mortars. We were just down the road from the country club and those six shots put everything they had to shame. People left the country club to see what we had.

Since then I've always lived in town and haven't had the chance to play with them. I saw New Year's 1991 in Honolulu, where strings of firecrackers were strung from lampposts and set off. They reached the ground at both ends and lasted 30 minutes. I understand the practice has been stopped. A few years ago my brother Gregg sold fireworks inside the Wagoner city limits. I bought from him but never found a place to use them.

A few notes on Nazis - they had tons of allies (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Romania, the Croatians) and plenty more sympathizers who mysteriously vanished after their defeat, to be replaced by tons of freedom fighters. The Nazis did not enact gun control. They didn't have to - the democraticly elected Weimer republic had already done that for them, ironically as a way to ensure the Nazis and the Communists couldn't seize power by force.

[hippety hopper]

My friends and I have played around with b-b guns and one bonfire night(I love november the 5th) we had some roman candles BUT I don't think any children would ever concider playing with a gun!