police protection

Personally, I think we spent a whole lot more on punishment and not enough on rehibiliation. That, and we need much, much stricter gun laws. People in Canada feel safe. They leave their doors unlocked generally, even in larger cities.

Why are we more criminal than they are?

 

Where I grew up, we left our doors unlocked, and had a closet full of shotguns just inside the house.

Don't blame the guns.

 

Shotguns - not AK-47's and other automatic and semi-automatic assault rifles. Huge difference, especially where the public's felt "safety" is concerned.

 

In a street fight I'd take a shotgun over an AK-47 any day.

 

To me, a great part of the problem is lack of enforcement or lack of stiff penalties. The legal system does not send a message that something will not be tolerated. Rehabilitation is not the enemy. People find it easy to get rehabilitated when they are scared spitless. Send a message. Do a crime with a gun, and you are behind bars for 25 years automatically, plus whatever the crime gets you. Get caught speeding and pay a $1000 fine, plus $100 for every mile over the limit. Stiff penalties bring results. The guns aren't the problem. The vast majority of gun owners have never committed a crime with them. And the people who commit crimes with guns won't be stopped by gun laws.

In the second debate (I think ) there was interesting exchange about the assault weapons ban that Bush totally missed. Kerry was talking about a friend of his in teh police that went into a house and found an assault weapon. But he failed to tell why he found the assault weapon. He found the assault weapon because the ban didn't work. People still had them. If you are going to have laws, you have to enforce.

To quote Daniel Webster, laws without penalties are simply good advice.

 

I would agree that the enforcement of penalties would do a great deal in slowing crime. Too many white-collar criminals are let loose with a slap on the wrist, and the criminal justice system is pretty biased against minorities. I'm all about an assault weapons ban, and would like to increase it to include other types of automatic weapons and certain types of ammunition.

Guns are at least part of the problem. If we were to have no guns, can you honestly say that we would have a lot fewer homicides? (Not that I'm advocating a complete ban of guns, for the record.)

And I'm all about the $1000 speeding tickets, and while we're at it, let's get rid of the whole "warning system." Do the crime, pay the time.

 

The 1994 "assault weapons ban" had nothing to do with automatic weapons, they have been heavily regulated since 1934.

 

A few years ago some TV stations did a piece on a lady who started a school in a poor neighborhood. By the time the students were in the fourth grade they were reading Shakespeare. Recently I read a report of the students who have graduated in about the last 20 years. Only two have ever been unemployed and only two have been divorced. None of those have ever been arrested. So what should that tell us.

What I saw several years while I was a high school teacher, then a pastor and now at a university is the same thing. I saw the same exact things among the church as I did among the secular society. Cast the blame on the teacher or pastor for their poor performance.

I believe the problem lies not so much in the police and other peripheral things but it starts early. We teach our children to disrespect authority by the way we do. We teach our children to disrespect teachers by the way we do. We teach our children to disrespect others by the way we do. We teach our children that they can get their way by not disciplining them and giving them what they want. The fact is that students today spend just a little over 1/2 of the time on academic pursuits than they did in the 1960's.

Several years my daughter started coming home with some profanity. We couldn't believe what we were hearing. The only place she had been was the children's center at the seminary. I spoke with one of the people who worked there and he said they hear that quite frequently. The profanity was coming from the homes of some of those who were studying for the ministry.

Having been in retail and wholesale. I have seen plenty of cheating among church people. I have seen them cheat their customers. I have seen them lie to me. Just imagine what it is like to share your faith when the non-believers know it. At one church I pastored they were inflating their attendance numbers. When I found that out, I told the deacons we would no longer do that. The look on some of their faces told me they had been caught. The next Sunday people came and a few said it looked like we had less attendance but it seemed like there were more people. The fact was that there was more people than a year before but those who were posting the numbers were inflating them a year earlier. What one of them told me was they add a percentage to cover those they might have missed. That was in the church.

When people are in a place and someone is speaking they must learn to be quiet and listen to the speaker. They must learn to respect the person speaking or leave.

The problem is not the authority but those who do not support and show disrespect for authority.

In school there is a direct correlation between those who think the teacher is poor and their grade. It is always the poor student who thinks the teacher is unfair or is poor.

Last week on TV we saw an example of poor adult behavior at a basketball by some fans and players. We just heard about some of the consequences. Was even one of them arrested for assault. I don't think so. Imagine that if an individual assaulted another on the street.

Eccl. 8:11, "Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil."

 

Regulate 'em more. I can think of no reason for a non-military person to have an automatic assault rifle. None at all.

 

This is the type of thinking that leads to destruction of freedom! You can "think of no reason", so therefore it should be illegal?!

Excellent points, but ignored by the "nanny" state we have today!!!

 

Regulate 'em more. I can think of no reason for a non-military person to have an automatic assault rifle. None at all. </font>[/QUOTE]Most non-military persons have not been able to legally own an automatic assault rifle since passage of the National Firearms Act of 1934, and their manufacture for the civilian market was halted in 1986. If I'm not mistaken only those people with a special license are allowed to purchase automatic weapons. I don't know anyone personally who would be able to get that license, and don't know of any gun shops that actually sell automatic weapons.

 

One can still get them "on the black market." Make it a federal offense to even own one of them, punishable by 25 years in prison minimum, and I would bet that all of them would come off of the streets. That or the criminals would.

I still think we should quadruple the regulations in owning other guns, at least.

 

Police protection? A theory at best. The police can only clean up after a crime has been commited, unless your falling for the "pre-emptive strike" propaganda that would turn us all into criminals. All that stand between you and the prison gates is the word of a couple men, the President and the attorney general.

You could wake up in the morning wearing the label of "enemy combatant" and be carted of or "disappeared" because you thought a wrong thought.

Thought crimes...that's you thinking on your own. A terrible crime isn't it?

It's in the Patriot Act(s).

 

Perhaps it all comes down to education. I wonder if education is the silver bullet in all of this.

 

Maybe Scott, who is going to do the teaching welfare statists that love big government and spending your money to deliver you to the globalists?

 

So, since you cannot think of a reason, nobody else should have one, even if they can think of a reason?

Wow, let's just outlaw everything except what you have.

 

You've got a good reason?

 

That is perhaps the most bizarre sentence I've ever read. Care to rephrase?

(BTW, I'm conservative in most areas, just not where guns are concerned - in that area, I'm quite leftist.)

 

billwald started this topic with the statement

When it comes to real automatic weapons this is where we are today. The 1934 firearms act has been used to make private ownership of automatic weapons limited to the very rich. Yes, you can still get them, but you are going to pay. $200 per year for a federal license, BTA has free reign to inspect your registered firearm at any time, and this is the real kicker, the only automatic weapons you can register are those previously registered by someone else, no new manufacturing is allowed. Demand for these weapons has driven the cost sky high. I looked into a .30 cal M2 at one time and it would have cost me about $3000. A good BAR or Thompson can cost you over $5000.

There are a number of good websites that can walk you through the legal hurdles if you want to own an automatic firearm in the United States but be prepared to pay. If you would like me to give some sites send me a message.

I know ScottEmerson can see no reason for me to own one of these weapons, but I still want one. Government regulation and excessive cost are the only things keeping me from it. Now I am a law-abiding citizen with a clean record. I am a military veteran and a responsible member of society. When I was in the Army I handled automatic weapons every day, yet I can’t be trusted to have one in my home? I don’t think that is freedom. When I was in Iraq (gulf war I) I picked up an AK-47 that I seriously considered trying to sneak home. I turned it in and it was the right thing to do, but I would love to have an AK, a real one not some semi automatic civilian model. Guns are fun, especially the real full bore ones and I resent the fact that only the criminals and the insanely rich can have them in the United States.

Of course this registration has worked. Since registration began in 1934 there has never been a single crime committed with a federally registered automatic weapon. But, as I have posted on other topics before, I do not think safety is a valid reason to give up our liberty and freedom.