Text 31492, 199 rader
Skriven 2009-04-19 20:16:55 av Roy Witt (1:397/22)
  Kommentar till text 31459 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: Crazies
===============
19 Apr 09 11:16, Robert Bashe wrote to Roy Witt:

 RB> Roy Witt wrote to Robert Bashe on Saturday April 18 2009 at 16:17:

 RW>>>> I think that's an ignorant point of view. People who're licensed
 RW>>>> to carry firearms don't do so without knowing how to handle a
 RW>>>> firearm.

 RB>>> Ignorant? Maybe. Who says you're "licensed" to carry a firearm if
 RB>>> you have one?

 RW>> Mine was issued by the state of Texas.

 RB> Who's talking about you?

OK, how about everyone in the state of Texas who has a license to carry.

 RB> And that doesn't answer my question.

The following does.

 RB>>> Or that you know how and when to use it?

 RW>> The state of Texas. (I already pointed out to you the criteria for
 RW>> getting such a permit)

 RB> Roy, "you" in English is neutral and _can_ mean you as a person OR
 RB> the general public.

Personally, in this medium I tend to stay away from using 'you' in a
context that could mean you personally or you all. As you should know,
when a Texan addresses one person, it's y'all, but to the general public
it's 'all y'all'...

 RB> I wasn't writing about you personally here either.

And I answered the question in the 'nuetral' fashion that you see above.
If you can't be more specific, then I suggest that you don't bother.

 RB>>> Roy, you seem like the computer expert who is trying to tell a
 RB>>> modern teenager how to write a batch file. As far as I can see,
 RB>>> you're simply assuming too much.

 RW>> If you could see what you're writing from my point of view, you'd
 RW>> know better. My interest in firearms didn't stop when I attained
 RW>> adulthood.

 RB> Which has what to do with what I wrote above? We're still not talking
 RB> about you personally.

"Roy, you seem like the computer expert" is NOT directed toward me?

 RB>>>>> So who is responsible for public safety? If _your_ government
 RB>>>>> isn't doing it's job, I would suggest applying some pressure to
 RB>>>>> _get_ it done.

 RW>>>> What good would that do?

 RB> Might help avoid crazies getting guns and going on a shooting spree.

Lesseee. It's against the law for someone who is deranged, s'cuse me,
Politically Correct - deemed by a shrink as mentally ill to have access
to guns, it's against the law for a convict to have access to a gun, it's
also against the law to lie on the federal and state forms you have to
fill out before you can buy a gun. Other than storing them in a gun club
vault and posting a guard at the door, what you do you suggest?

Before I forget, those forms are reviewed by the dealer inhouse and then a
state investigator who has so many days to perform that investigation
before he has to approve the sale and then must destroy the app. In any
case, the person buying the firearm doesn't leave the building with it,
until the forms are approved inhouse. Used to be that one had to wait 5
days but that law sunset in 2004. California still has a 15 day state
mandated waiting period.

Guns aren't the problem...they don't pull their own triggers or aim
themselves at innocent people. Considering the billions of guns in private
hands in this country, I think the record shows plenty of restraint
by those who have them, but none whatever of those few who abuse the
firearm laws.

 RB>>> The whole idea is that things should never come to that point.

 RW>> Wishful and idealistic thinking. It will get and stay worse for a
 RW>> long, long time before it gets any better. If it ever does.

 RB> Maybe. I'd be a liar if I told you I thought you were wrong on that
 RB> score. No "quick fixes" here either. But something has simply _got_
 RB> to change before the crazies take over the entire society.

Issue guns to everyone, make knowing how to handle them and possessing
them mandatory. Armed criminals will think more than twice about their
next victim's chances of survival.

 RB>>>>> Roy, you're the worst advertisement for anyone contemplating a
 RB>>>>> move to the US I can think of.

 RW>>>> I'd be afraid like you, if I were as ignorant about gun laws and
 RW>>>> how people react to shootings as if they're no big deal, when a
 RW>>>> country has laws that don't allow everyone to have a firearm.

 RB>>> The difference is that _I_ know how to use guns. Most people don't.

 RW>> That doesn't say much about your knowledge of the gun laws today.
 RW>> Those who are licensed do know how to handle a firearm and do it
 RW>> very, very professionally.

 RB> <Sigh> OK, I give up. You _will_ not understand that I'm not talking
 RB> about you and me personally, nor about "licensed" gun owners, but
 RB> about the idiots without a criminal record

This is why I 'will' not understand what you're talking about, because
th probablity of it happening is not the problem.

 RB> who go to a gun store, buy a gun and proceed to shoot up the
 RB> neighborhood.

That's the rub...deranged people may not manifest their crazyness for
decades and then crack some time later. Criminals can't go to a gun store
and buy a gun because they'd have to lie about their record on the federal
and state forms that have to be filled out and submitted to the
authorities, no exceptions. That's a felony in itself, meaning they can go
back to prison just by telling a little white lie on those forms.

If that makes them a three-time loser, they go to prison for life.

 RB>>> My son plans to visit New York this summer (in a group). He's
 RB>>> handicapped (autistic). Should I warn him of anything specific?

 RW>> Stick with the group and he'll be fine as long as they're only out
 RW>> in the daylight.

 RB> That's comforting, a little like the advice people get in wildlife
 RB> parks in Africa where lions roam around unhindered. Hell, this
 RB> depressses me even more than I already was.

Frankly, as an autistic, I wouldn't let him go to New York on his own
without investigating the people in charge of the group. I'd make sure
that he wasn't left to his own devices in walking around.

 RB>>> As an aside: I had a German girlfriend in the early 70s who visited
 RB>>> New York on vacation and wrote me she'd walked back to her hotel
 RB>>> through Harlem. I wrote her that "God protects little children and
 RB>>> Germans". The thought of a single white woman, at that time around
 RB>>> 23, walking through Harlem, curdled my blood. She didn't
 RB>>> understand...

 RW>> Perhaps she wanted to see what it was like to be in a city of
 RW>> criminals.

 RB> Actually, she didn't know about anything and thought the US was as
 RB> civilized as Germany.

A lot of Germans get a rude awakening when they come here. Before the
state of Florida passed 'will issue' laws and the people were allowed to
carry firearms, Europeon visitors were robbed and killed a lot in those
days. Today the criminals don't know who's carrying. To help even more,
the state no longer issues vehicle license plates that indicate that a car
belongs to a rental agency.

 RW>> There are places in San Antonio where even I won't go after dark.
 RW>> That's not an exclusive to SA, because there were places in San
 RW>> Diego I wouldn't go after dark either. In that area (SD), the
 RW>> shooting started at sundown and went all night, every night. If I
 RW>> was there during the daytime, I made a point of leaving by the
 RW>> backway, where one didn't have to run the gauntlet to get out of
 RW>> there. And I was armed.

 RB> You know, you scare the hell out of me with such remarks. I lived in
 RB> Texas for around 15 years, in Oklahoma for 5 and in Boston for 4
 RB> years, and then - in the period from my birth in 1941 until 1966 -
 RB> there was nothing at all that even approached what you describe.

I lived it too and you're right. I knew about and visited 'skid row' in
Chicago which was supposed to be the badest place in the city, but I was
naive as hell when I hit the big cities on the west coast. Hell, I didn't
even know what a faggot was until I walked into a gay bar and was told
that the bartender (he) wanted to sleep with me.

 RB> To read your posts, the States must be a real jungle nowadays. I'd
 RB> lik to disbelieve that, but have to bow to your more recent
 RB> experience.

 RB> Dammit!

Do like I do and stay away from the big city trouble spots and everything
will work out just fine. What's happening here locally and the border
states from California to Florida is because of the drug cartels warring
against each other in Mexico and some of it is spilling over into the
states along with the drugs and illegal aliens. Stop all Americans from
doing drugs and the cartels will dry up. No demand, no sale.

                R\%/itt




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