It all depends on how you use the car. For most, it's about transportation, but for some people, it's primary purpose IS to kill or maim. Sure, those people are crazy, but so are people who use firearms to commit murder or mayhem. I'd be willing to bet that the designer of the automobile didn't want anyone to get killed by it - but it happens. If someone wants to commit bodily harm, including death, to another - they will find a way - it happened long before firearms were invented, and history has shown that it has continued to be the case even if firearms were banned, or not easily available. The only thing that banning firearms does is to create victim zones.

The primary purpose of a firearm is to direct a projectile at a velocity in a certain direction when loaded and the trigger is pulled by the operator. The individual in control of the firearm may have a purpose to kill or maim, but he could do that with any number of weapons - if not a car, why not a bat, or a mace, golf club, or a knife, or a sword, pitchfork, or even melted down and rolled out Jolly Rancher candy that has a sharp tip.
For many people, a gun's primary purpose is for target practice - some helpless tin can or paper target. For others it's a way to prevent violence with nary a shot fired.

Criminals would be less apt to walk into a restaurant or get on a bus and start shooting if they knew that a significant majority of the persons there could defend themselves.

"A car's primary purpose is not to kill or maim, but to transport."
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Huh...so a COP carrying a gun is ONLY out to kill and maim with that gun?
Tell us, joker, WHAT does a COP carrry a gun for?
I'd say MOST of them use them to STOP BAD GUYS if the need arises.
There ya go....CC explained in one sentence.

"The possibility of one's target being armed does not seem to be a deterrent here..."
=================================================
Actually your GANG joke analogy is what is getting tired.
Gang members are violent thugs who dont care about life...or death....because they are spoiled rotten children who never grew up and now are in adult bodies playing with adult toys.
They are NOT relevant to the Concealed carry issue EXCEPT that they PROVE CONCLUSIVELY OUR argument that the LAW ABIDING MUST have a way to defend themselves from these maggots.

And friend, a gun serves TWO purposes, NOT one as your fallacy seems to dictate.
Guns;
- DETER crime for the felon who IS afraid of being shot, and;
- STOP crime by physically putting the criminal down in case he's NOT afraid of being shot.

COPS understand this fact. Apparently you and Brady cant figure it out.

"Since most gang-related shootings are gang-on-gang, and so many gang-members carry guns, doesn't that really defeat the argument that "arming citizens" will somehow reduce gun violence?"
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Tell this faulty reasoning to these people and MILLIONS like them;

Utah Gun Packer Stops Stabbing Spree
Gun carrying man ends stabbing spree at Salt Lake grocery store
Woman Uses .22 Pistol to Shoot & Kill Invader
Gun carrying man ends stabbing spree at Salt Lake grocery store
Late-night intruder fatally shot by residents of a North Bend home
Armed Business Owner thwarts robbery attempt
78-year-old farmer wounds young intruder before gun jams
Okla. mom Sarah McKinley defends her infant sons life from armed intruders
Woman kills her returning rapist with shotgun
Woman Shoots Would-Be Rapist
Cocoa Store Owner Shoots Robber
84-year-old Cincinnati man uses gun to defend himself during home invasion
Licensed gunpacker at GAS STATION shoots to defend himself
Mom with Ohio concealed handgun license fires gun to ward off sex offender's violent attack
Pizza Guy Pulls Gun on Robber
Man at ATM Shoots Armed Robbers
Woman who shot 12-year-old won't face charges, but boy will
Concealed Carry works
Gun Owners Busy Shooting Thugs in Toledo
It was them or my family
Dont bring a knife to a gunfight
Appalachian School of Law shooting
A principal and his gun
Armed 11 year old Girl Defends Home from 3 armed Burglars: Armed Citizen

It's not a myth that more guns = less violence. This is borne out by FBI statistics - drawn from crime reports from across the US.

Take a look at Dr. John Lott's website. Yes, he wrote a controversial study called "More Guns, Less Crime" - but he also provides all the data and sources used to back up the claims.

http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/

Guns are designed for defensive purposes, although in some instances such as those involving the military - that can be a somewhat grey definition (e.g.: snipers - technically they're defending the Country).

The point of the 2nd Amendment was to protect our inherent rights from incursion by all enemies - foreign and domestic.

We can certainly have a civil discussion about reducing gun violence - I don't know anyone who's not for that. However, from my perspective, any discussion regarding gun violence must focus on the root causes of the violence.

Banning firearms because of how they look, restricting purchases, and other such requirements do nothing to affect criminals - the ones responsible for causing the violence in the first place - and the adverse affects of bans or restrictions weigh heavily on the law-abiding citizen.

It's not the guns that are violent - it's the person handling the gun. Sometimes it's a person using it in a defensive manner against a criminal - and understanding the root cause of what necessitated that use might help to reduce future such occurrences from being necessary. Sometimes it's a criminal using it contrary to it's intended purpose-in an offensive manner, and understanding the root causes of that - as complex as they are can help to provide a starting point for making an actual difference. Have you ever read "The Bell Curve"? Nothing to do with firearms. But it's about 800 pages of statistical analysis into societal issues.

What would be nice would be to have an intelligent discussion with ANTI gun drones who dont feel the compulsion to keep parroting off mind numbing Brady Camp rhetoric.
Ive yet to run across ANY antigun nut who could actually carry on a conversation without the overwhelming, uncontrollable compulsion to start vomiting up idiocy and fallacy directly from the Brady handbook.

As David has presented the FBI statistics PROVE OUR Case.
Concealed carry has INCREASED.
Gun owership has INCREASED.
And during that SAME timeframe violent crime has DECREASED.

Brady and antigunners in general have proven their own irrelevance.
They are going the way of the dinosaur very quickly and most of the reason is that they cant help themselves but resort to fallacy, bogus data and statistics and outright lies.

"your arguments would be better if you would readily admit that guns are designed to kill"
=============================

Actually guns are designed to fire a projectile at very high velocities. They are not designed TO kill otherwise they ALL WOULD kill.
There are target guns all over this planet that have never and will never take ANY life, animal or otherwise.

These tools CAN be used quite effectively in killing or maiming, that is a fact.
What they CANNOT do because it is IMPOSSIBLE for them to is commit a violent act.
A gun can no more commit a crime than your car or your hairdryer can.
Ever see an electrical cord used as a garrote ? Your dryer can be a weapon as easily as any gun can. It DOESNT MATTER what it was designed for.
Fertilizer is designed to make plants grow better....and it CAN be used to blow up buildings. The design is irrelevant. The USE is ALL that matters.

And friend the REASON we have our reactions that your sort is trying to take guns is very clear. Your Brady nutjob leaders are ALWAYS trying to pass laws to take them away.

By no means am I a white supremacist. I happened to read the Bell Curve when I was in B-school. The book had generated a lot of controversy because of it's discussion of IQ, education, and societal issues - and it seemed interesting, so when we had to pick a book to review - I picked that one... all 800+ pages of it.

Were there debunkings of the data, methods, and conclusions - sure. Was it 100% spot-on - doubtful. But in those pages, there were discussions of how various issues in certain locales caused adverse affects in certain populations. Sure there's debate about the data in any statistical analysis, and that one - where they claimed a tie between IQ and socio-economic status - there was (and probably still is) a very healthy debate.
But my reason for bringing the book up is that the authors DID look at a large number of socio-economic indicators and tried to draw conclusions from them. In the civil discussion about gun violence, the authors may provide some starting points for analysis. Not necessarily using their data-but rather from the standpoint of "Hey, in that book they looked at the effects of education on the population. Maybe that's something to look into when trying to determine the root causes of gun violence." If it then turned out that lack of education played a large role, that'd be a point to address early in the lives of the population's residents. "Population" is a statistical term - and doesn't necessarily refer to a specific demographic.

Actually guns are designed to fire a projectile at very high velocities. They are not designed TO kill otherwise they ALL WOULD kill.
There are target guns all over this planet that have never and will never take ANY life, animal or otherwise.

These tools CAN be used quite effectively in killing or maiming, that is a fact.
What they CANNOT do because it is IMPOSSIBLE for them to is commit a violent act.
A gun can no more commit a crime than your car or your hairdryer can.
Ever see an electrical cord used as a garrote ? Your dryer can be a weapon as easily as any gun can. It DOESNT MATTER what it was designed for.
Fertilizer is designed to make plants grow better....and it CAN be used to blow up buildings. The design is irrelevant. The USE is ALL that matters.

That's certainly unfortunate. However, that act wasn't undertaken by law-abiding citizens, rather by criminals, engaged in criminal acts. Those responsible should be brought to trial and charged with the appropriate violations of laws. There's over 20,000 gun-related laws on the books across the country at the State and Federal level - they should be enforced.

Baseball bats are but one of many weapons utilized by criminals in criminal acts. In the UK riots - I related where disarmed UK Residents were unable to obtain appropriate Police Protection and because they wished to protect themselves and others against rioters, they ordered aluminum baseball bats from Amazon UK. Does this mean that kids sitting on porches would be subject to attack by baseball bat if 100% of all guns were banned? Perhaps. Perhaps with something else. People have been fighting for millenia - and have used weapons available to them at the time.

I'm not trying to be flip - what if the attackers happened to use a bow and arrow? Or if they'd used paint ball guns? Or shrukens (throwing stars)? Or just knives? If I recall correctly, the unfortunate victim was mistaken for someone else - so really, the choice of weapon doesn't seem to make a difference. If those criminals were convinced they wanted to attack someone, they could rush the porch and beat the victim with their hands and feet. The root causes for the violence need to be investigated and solutions posited and implemented.

So youre saying that the man couldnt have hit the gas and drove his car into this child and killed them just as easily?
A LOT of parents of dead children who would say you are WRONG.

What do you consider outrageous?

If you found Davids comments outrageous Id say youre the sort that probably doesnt do much more than parrot off Brady rhetoric when you do actually say something....

I'm not a fan of it by any stretch of the imagination. I do however enjoy reading and learning. Some of what I read I don't agree with, some I do - but I feel fortunate that in this Country, we have the opportunity to be exposed to ideas that we may not agree with.

It wasn't too long ago that our very own HPHS had guns available in it - they taught shooting with rifles in the rifle range down in the basement. It was because they had a Jr. ROTC unit at HPHS. If I remember correctly, they were single bolt-action rifles. That range has since been repurposed as an area for dart boards and some work-out machines.

Guns carried by students over 18 on a college campus is a totally different animal than guns carried by students under 18 on a high-school campus. Recall that being over the age of majority, they can already go to war and enter into contracts.

I've never said that students in high school should be allowed to carry guns on campus.

High school shooting teams. Guess youve been living in a cave or something?
They were never a problem....until you left wing nutjobs said they were...

Education (aka training) in proper use of a firearm isn't a bad thing. But the problem in Government mandating the training is that standards could be ever ratcheted upward - this is in effect a de facto gun ban - some people may not be able to afford the training, and the training standards may be unachievable. Additionally, training records could be misused as a form of de facto gun registration. One need only look to WW II, other Countries, and New Orleans to see how that's turned out badly.
One shouldn't need insurance to exercise one's rights, and indeed it suffers from the same flaws as training - cost, amount of insurance needed, what if the insurers decide they don't want to insure that group (aka Catch 22), and again - de facto gun registration scheme.
One shouldn't need to be licensed - several states already have what's called "Constitutional Carry" or permitless carry. That is only valid within their home State because most other States don't recognize it yet.

Training in the proper use of firearms isn't difficult. The NRA has certified instructors who are able to teach anyone who wants to learn how to safely handle a firearm, to do so. They also have a school-kid version called "Eddie Eagle" which teaches kids to "Stop, Don't Touch, Keep Away" from firearms.

"Personally I do not want to ever carry one as I do not want to make a decision of life or death for another."
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NO sane person ever wants to have to make that decision.

"If people want guns, they should be licensed, educated and carry insurance. "
===================
So in essence you are a racist.
Why?
Because there are huge numbers of blacks and minorities who are already beat down by the system. Odds are against them for jobs and opportunities. So lets just make sure they cant defend themselves either by making it financially impossible to do so?

The NRA at least wants EVERY law abiding person to have that option.

Instant background checks through the FBI are required for purchasers to buy guns from a licensed dealer. Persons who have certain criminal convictions that prohibit them from possessing firearms are denied, and those adjudged mentally ill are similarly prohibited. However, the data the FBI has isn't perfect - clerks sometimes make mistakes entering things, or sometimes they don't have the data available to them. There are several States (I've forgotten which right now) that don't or haven't provided information regarding mental illness to the FBI.

Not all criminal convictions preclude firearm possession - nor should they (e.g.: speeding, non-violent misdemeanors). The "no-fly list" is a secret list, procedures for objecting to one's inclusion on the list aren't promulgated, and in fact, many people on that list shouldn't be on it - they have names similar to someone who IS in fact a criminal, or their name was on it for reasons no one knows-one notable case was Senator Kennedy-he was on the list, and even he had difficulty getting off of it. That list is likely very inaccurate - I wouldn't rely on it for precluding purchases.

If the "terrorist" or person on the no-fly list was tried and convicted of certain precluding crimes - they likely wouldn't pass the background check. But I doubt very much they'd be trying to make a purchase that would be flagged anyway - more likely is that they'd have someone "clean" make a straw purchase for them (which is illegal too).

I'm not sure what you mean by "non existent" gun laws - do you mean new laws? Honestly, there's nothing to prevent anyone on any side of the issue from proposing new laws. Either side has to then get their respective Congresscritters to support and vote for the law, and needs to have the President sign it. If he doesn't sign it, then the Congress needs to override the veto to get it through. Those are a lot of hoops for any side to go through.

Having guns in Police hands only is scarier than allowing law-abiding citizens AND police to have them. Again, what's an "assault weapon"? You can hunt with rifles regardless of the cosmetic features. A couple of nights ago in Chicago - someone got robbed on the CTA. A military serviceman happened to be going to work as a security guard, the victim flagged down the serviceman - he went after the criminals, and they pulled a replica gun on him. The serviceman recognized that as a replica, and pulled out his own REAL firearm - he held the crooks at bay until the Police showed up. What might have happened if the serviceman hadn't been there? What might have happened if the victim had her own concealed firearm?

McDonald v. Chicago - went to the US Sup Ct. - The Court held that the 2nd Amendment is an individual right, applicable to the States. Mr. McDonald simply wanted to own a firearm to protect himself against the throngs of criminals who kept robbing him in his neighborhood, but Chicago wouldn't issue a permit - so he sued - and won.

I'm not responsible for any of those unfortunate victims who were attacked by criminals, nor will I ever assume any responsibility for any of them. The people who should consider themselves responsible are the criminals committing the crimes, and those lawmakers who prevented those victims from having the opportunity to defend themselves in the first place.

The claim that guns only belong at shooting ranges and should be stored there would be refuted by persons around the World. What good would a weapon at a shooting range be when needed in an emergency? Is one supposed to say "Excuse me, just a moment. I have to drive to the range to retrieve my weapon?" to a criminal kicking down the door and trying to tie up one's family? Ludicrous concept isn't it?

Besides, that regulation STILL wouldn't do anything to prevent criminal acts by criminals - they'd simply ignore the law and store the firearms where they want.

Here's another one - some morons decided to throw acid on someone. Now we have a law in IL that requires purchasers of drain cleaners and caustic substances to show ID, and for the retailer to record the ID information, weights, types of substances, etc. Sadly, the law is not going to do anything to prevent criminal acts - those criminals could simply turn to different substances (gasoline anyone?). Rather than restricting the rights of the many because of the actions of the few demented, we ought to simply prosecute those who commit the crimes in the first place. There's a petition to repeal the "Drain Cleaner ID" law:

http://www.change.org/petitions/state-of-illinois-legislature-repeal-the-act-restricting-drain-cleaner-and-caustic-chemical-purchases?share_id=TjZoPIlyOG&;

"just heard about another innocent woman shot dead in Chicago last night, Thank God her assailants weren't wielding Louisville Sluggers."
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Thank God they didnt pull up in front of her house with a fertilizer filled truck...

"Guns belong at shooting ranges and in police hands (and hunting rifles - not assault weapons in hunters' hands)."
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No...in YOUR opinion thats where they belong.
Secondly, tell us what an 'assault' weapon is.
I could show you two guns and my guess is you'll pick the one even though its the EXACT SAME GUN as the other with just a different stock. NOT ONE SINGLE DIFFERENCE in how the guns operate.

"Why don't you write something to convince the hundreds of Chicago students who have been murdered while walking home from school, standing on their porches or sitting in their living rooms that life would be better if everyone had a gun."
===================
Why dont you write something to convince THESE people that life would be better without guns?

http://gunrights.web77.org/heroesofarmedselfdefense.shtml
http://www.nraila.org/gun-laws/armed-citizen.aspx?pageNum=1
http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/Ohio-CHL-holders-acting-in-self-defense

I'm sorry, but I'm not. Who's that?

I didn't say that it was simply because they were 18 and could go to war. I said "Guns carried by students over 18 on a college campus is a totally different animal than guns carried by students under 18 on a high-school campus. Recall that being over the age of majority, they can already go to war and enter into contracts."
Persons over the age of 18, whether they're students or not, have different rights accorded to them than minors under the age of 18. One of those rights, in certain States, is the ability to apply for and obtain a concealed weapons permit. There's certain requirements that have to be met to do so, and yes, I can assure you that I've thought about it quite clearly. May we know your thoughts on the matter? Why do you feel it's a bad idea?

My opinions are not out of touch with the community. They may be out of touch with some of yours, but that's just one of the benefits of living in the USA - lots of opinions.

Wow...you actually think our students should be DEFENSELESS SHEEP when those shooters come in to kill everyone?????
Pedro...are YOU a violent criminal?
I ask because it seems like you prefer that innocent people be unable to defend themselves. Thats usually how criminals think...

Pedro...
Wow...you actually think our students should be DEFENSELESS SHEEP when those shooters come in to kill everyone?????
Pedro...are YOU a violent criminal?
I ask because it seems like you prefer that innocent people be unable to defend themselves. Thats usually how criminals think...