Letters to the Editor

Shootings demand reasonable gun limits

Tue, 04/24/2007 - 3:57pm
By: Letters to the ...

In order to maintain a well-armed militia, our Constitution (which protected slavery) gives all the right to own guns. Iraq today shows us the real price of well-armed (but opposing) militias as they battle for control of their country in their streets instead of the voting booth.

Is this really worth the price of our children continuing to be gunned down in their classrooms?

In 1997, Australia changed their guns laws after too many mass gun killings. They have not had even one since that change.

When will we start listening to reasonable limits instead of the NRA’s denials?

Kathie Cheney

Peachtree City, Ga.

login to post comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
Arm everyone
Submitted by Vernon on Wed, 04/25/2007 - 5:56pm.

Cheney,
Why don't we arm all legal, law abiding adults with no criminal record. That way the little scum bag will think twice before committing a crime against another person. Even if one of the little scum bags kill someone, hopefully another armed citizen would be witness to it and "fear for their life" as well and kill the scum. A bonus is this would save the tax payers money and lighten the load of our over worked courts. Just offer training (mandatory) for the good armed people so they will be safe around other good armed people and be able to get a good head shot on the criminal scum, if needed.

login to post comments
Verenon: wonderful idea, just wonderful
Submitted by dollaradayandfound on Thu, 04/26/2007 - 6:22am.

Is 16 about the right age to carry, Vernon?
Of course if everyone packed, then that means I could shoot someone I hated, put on my rubber gloves, go over pull out his gun, fire it, and say he shot first, couldn't I. Sounds great!
If I knew everyone else had a gun and I wanted to kill them, I would use a bomb or a vehicle to run them down suddenly. Might even use a roadside bomb!
Sure would perk up the mortuary business in a hurry. Especially at football games and hip hop joints.

login to post comments
Gun laws...Ms. Cheney's 'Cause D' Jour'
Submitted by 1bighammer on Wed, 04/25/2007 - 11:07am.

First it was smoking now its gun laws. Ms.Cheney we don;t need more restrictive gun laws. We need to enforce the ones on the books. I don't own a gun, by my choice, not the government's. I am guaranteed the right to own a gun by the Constitution of the United States of America.

If you want to see the difference in owning a gun and not allowing them, then read below an excerpt from a WorldNetDaily story on 4/19/07.

View the entire articlehere: 25 years murder-free in 'Gun Town USA'

In March 1982, 25 years ago, the small town of Kennesaw – responding to a handgun ban in Morton Grove, Ill. – unanimously passed an ordinance requiring each head of household to own and maintain a gun. Since then, despite dire predictions of "Wild West" showdowns and increased violence and accidents, not a single resident has been involved in a fatal shooting – as a victim, attacker or defender.

The crime rate initially plummeted for several years after the passage of the ordinance, with the 2005 per capita crime rate actually significantly lower than it was in 1981, the year before passage of the law.

Prior to enactment of the law, Kennesaw had a population of just 5,242 but a crime rate significantly higher (4,332 per 100,000) than the national average (3,899 per 100,000). The latest statistics available – for the year 2005 – show the rate at 2,027 per 100,000. Meanwhile, the population has skyrocketed to 28,189.

By comparison, the population of Morton Grove, the first city in Illinois to adopt a gun ban for anyone other than police officers, has actually dropped slightly and stands at 22,202, according to 2005 statistics. More significantly, perhaps, the city's crime rate increased by 15.7 percent immediately after the gun ban, even though the overall crime rate in Cook County rose only 3 percent. Today, by comparison, the township's crime rate stands at 2,268 per 100,000.

login to post comments
Gun Laws
JeffC's picture
Submitted by JeffC on Wed, 05/02/2007 - 4:18pm.

I don't have a dog in this fight but WorldNet distorted the story. See here: WorldNet Daily gets it wrong on my hometown The two towns are so incompatible that no meaningful comparisons can be made. Either way, a person with the Va. killer's mental history should not have been allowed to buy a gun.


login to post comments
gun law
maximus's picture
Submitted by maximus on Wed, 05/02/2007 - 4:56pm.

The link was blue and worked fine. I don’t know why they are sometimes blue and other times not.

I’m not sure why you linked it, though. It’s just some dude blogging his own opinion of the cause for crime in the two towns - “I don’t have the statistics in front of me…”, and doesn’t give any evidence to refute the worldnet claim.

I do agree that the VT shooter should not have been allowed to buy a gun. The current laws need to be more aggressively enforced. I also agree that people should not be afraid of their government. Government should be afraid of the people. An unarmed people is not very intimidating.


login to post comments
Maximus... weak link
JeffC's picture
Submitted by JeffC on Fri, 05/04/2007 - 9:57am.

I linked it because it pointed out one of the reasons for the fluctuations in the crime statistics. I admit it was a weak link. Sorry, the whole day was an off one for me. After reviewing the entire post, I do not believe there is any difference between our positions. Glad you like my slogan; it's from my favorite movie. Let's go hunting sometimes.


login to post comments
mamimus: guns
Submitted by dollaradayandfound on Wed, 05/02/2007 - 6:37pm.

Do you sincerely think the VT shooter couldn't have gotten a gun even if he was on the list? Just means the illegal sellers would get more business at higher prices.
Remember prohibition in the 20s. Didn't work. More liquor, poisoned and otherwise, drank than before.

login to post comments
Oh
JeffC's picture
Submitted by JeffC on Wed, 05/02/2007 - 4:21pm.

And will some kind person tell me why the hyperlink didn't turn blue?


login to post comments
Jeff: turned blue
Submitted by dollaradayandfound on Wed, 05/02/2007 - 6:17pm.

I'm not sure but I told Basmati rice how to turn it red, if you will look.

login to post comments
"visited link"
Basmati's picture
Submitted by Basmati on Wed, 05/02/2007 - 5:19pm.

If you've visited a site from a link from any other site, and then posted that link here, it won't be blue, it'll be black, which is what the powers-that-be have set the "visited link" color to.

If your browser retains 7 days of history, the link will turn blue again in 8 days.


login to post comments
basmati rice
Submitted by dollaradayandfound on Wed, 05/02/2007 - 6:12pm.

and if you look at a full moon for ten seconds with a chicken gizzard in your palm, turn in a circle three times, and say gobble, gobble, gobble, then walk ten paces and spit, it will turn red in nine more days! Most helful to know.

login to post comments
Australian gun laws
maximus's picture
Submitted by maximus on Wed, 04/25/2007 - 7:42am.

In the first year after Australia implemented these new gun laws armed robberies increased 44%, homicides increased over 3%, and homicides committed by guns in the territory of Victoria were FOUR TIMES HIGHER! A year later armed robberies were up by 73%, and unarmed robberies and kidnappings were each up over 25%.

In the two decades prior to the ban, crime in Australia had been dropping steadily.

Thank God people like you have not prevailed in your idiotic quest to “protect the children”. If we had a ban like that in the U.S. the crime statistics in Australia would pale in comparison.

As for your other pot-shot against the greatest document ever created, any sections protecting slavery that were not set to expire were amended. That was the process intended by the founders.

Maximus


login to post comments
Australian Gun Laws II
Basmati's picture
Submitted by Basmati on Wed, 05/02/2007 - 5:10pm.

I don't know where Maximus got his statistics, but what I found was Sharp Drop in Gun Crime Follows Tough Australian Firearm Laws which basically contradicts all the figures cited by Maximus above.


login to post comments
Australia
maximus's picture
Submitted by maximus on Wed, 05/02/2007 - 6:18pm.

The sources were too numerous to cite. Just google ‘Australia gun ban’. Your little link was pretty funny, though: "Although armed robberies increased by nearly 20%, the number of armed robberies involving a firearm decreased to a six-year low." Is this supposed to be proof of the effectiveness of the ban? It proves just the opposite; unarmed law-abiding people are more vulnerable to thugs, even if the thugs don’t have guns.

Maximus


login to post comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.