By the way, to fight boredom you might try sounding out my complete name.

Signed….. E. Zach Lee-Wright

Told you. (;- >)

Yes, run of the mill folk get shot from time to time but most don’t and automatic weapons probably wouldn’t stop those attacks anyway.

Stringing together random facts (?) is an excellent diversionary propaganda technique but does little to advance the discussion towards any resolution.

In short, you’re boring me, son.

I do wonder about your term “illegal militias”. I am not aware of any of these. What defines a militia as illegal?
If a militia member breaks a law, even an extremly serious law that would not make the militia illegal. It would take a violation of a law against being a militia to be an illegal militia. Do we have such laws?

You say my comments are opinion and not fact. The three IQ test items are absolute fact and are not opinion in any way. The usefulness of a AL-47 type weapon for hunting wild boar is fact and informed opinion therefore is both.

You are absolutly correct that my posts are off of the original topic. Shoot me. Another off topic question is why does the sponsor (SPLC) say that HATEWATCH exists to “keep an eye on the radical right” at the top of this page? Why would they choose to ignore the radical left?? I know of two bombings done by right wing radicals in the US in the past 50 years. I can name dozens that have been done by radical left wing hate groups. Bill Ayers, anyone?

Your turn Stephen.

Signed E. Zach Lee-Wright!

Few hunters I know would make an AK their first choice even for boar. Drug dealers, illegal militia groups and gang members however buy them in quantity, and as a previous poster pointed out they are really good at shooting through windshields and plasterboard walls. They are also really good noisemakers if you want to burn ammo with a banana clip while playing Rambo, but most deer spook before then, don’t they?

Perhaps (but I’m sure you will correct me) a reason rifles account for a small percentage of crimes is that most engagements apparently take place at 21 feet or less. At that distance, most reasonably well-trained individuals would likely find a handgun more practical, unless fired upon from ambush or drive-by. Also easier to conceal when you walk into the 7-11, etc. If you are important enough to be threatened with assassination at your local Wal-Mart or some other place outdoors, by all means you should move to a state where it is legal and carry the weapon you feel appropriate to fire back at your attackers.
Most of us probably won’t need to do that, even for home defense.

It’s a phantom threat against most firearms and against most gun-owners.

SKinnyminny, the last time I checked, a majority of democrats voted for the Patriot Act and the War. Now that the dems are in power why haven’t they even made an effort to end the war and repeal the PA?

Beholder’s posts just keep proving they know nothing about ballistics or firearms or hunting.

This one is a gem.
“The round should go to the heart and stop there, not carve a 16 inch loop and go out the other side so you can feel like Rambo as you chase the buck though the bush while it survives.”

I WOULD love to see proof of a typical hunting round leaving a 16″ “loop” exit wound.

And this:
“Joe you’re getting carried away. Bring an AK to close quarters at your own risk.”

Look Beholder, I spent 10 years in the service, three in combat areas, have spent my whole adult life hunting and reloading and collecting firearms. I have trained in urban and close quarters combat with assault rifles. I have competed in pistol and rifle matches for years and have won several. I have killed enemy soldiers in combat and killed an armed attacker in a self-defense scenario in Georgia.

I know of what I speak from practical experience.

If you bring a pistol against an AK you are going to DIE if the person handling that AK knows what he’s doing.
In the U.S. about 80 percent of all people shot with a pistol survive, even multiple rounds. Not so for rifles.
The energy delivered by the 7.62×39 round is much higher than any pistol you will be carrying. I will also have the advantage of 20 or 30 rounds without reloading and the ability to shoot you through walls, car doors and windshield glass.

Pistols are underpowered, they give up power to be small and concealable.
They are not invincible and aren’t particularly lethal compared to other arms.
It ain’t like the movies where you shoot someone with a pistol and they go flying and die immediately.

A competent knife fighter at close quarters would scare me a lot more than you with your pea shooter.

Quit kidding yourself, everything you are spouting here is misinformation. Your statements about hunting show us your hunting and firearms knowledge is gained through hearsay and not practical experience.

If you truly wish to be a “responsible firearm owner,” (whatever that means, these words sure do not seem to have a concrete definition) please quit posting myths, exaggerations and outright ballistic, firearms and hunting ignorance.

AK-clones and SKSes are generally chambered for 7.62×39mm Russian.

This is available in hunting loads such as:

http://www.midwayusa.com/viewp.....mpaign=653

And in rifles specifically designed for hunting such as:

http://www.impactguns.com/store/806703030500.html

And:

http://www.izhmash.ru/eng/product/saiga.shtml

The latter being a hunting version of the AK type rifle itself, merely cosmetically different.

One of, if not the, most common hunting round in the United States is the .30-30 Winchester. The .30-30 and the 7.62×39mm have extremely similar ballistics. Both commonly fire a 150 grain projectile. With this bullet weight the two rounds have the following velocities:

At the muzzle:

7.62×39: 2200fps
.30-30: 2390fps

At 100 yards:

7.62×39: 1977fps
.30-30: 2018fps

At 200 yards:

7.62×39: 1769fps
.30-30: 1605fps

7.62×39mm is a perfectly good round for hunting. All else being equal it is not significantly more or less humane than .30-30.

Furthermore, the appropriateness of an AK or SKS type rifle for hunting need not depend on the 7.62×39mm round. AK types in particular are available in cartridges other than 7.62×39mm such as .223 Remington/5.56×45mm, .308 Winchester/7.62×51mm and 5.45×39mm Russian – the first two being very common hunting rounds, available in specific hunting loads and have rifles specifically designed for hunting chambered in them. The latter is less common but still suitable for hunting and roughly comparable to the 5.56mm.

Even if the 7.62×39mm were unsuitable for hunting, which it is not, one could simply use an AK type rifle chambered for some other round like .223 Remington.

***I have stated that hunting and personal defense weapons are legal in most juridictions, and have no problem with that. It is my belief that labeling the efforts of some to control assault weapons, Saturday night specials, machine guns and pistols as “asinine’ or ‘leftist’ is merely an attempt to divert attention from the fact that those weapons are used for illegitimate purposes***

You say you have no problem with hunting and self defence weapons being legal, yet you seem to support bans on so-called assault weapons and Saturday night specials. Tell me, what is the definition of these?

I can think of no coherent definition of an assault weapon that is not merely superficial, based on cosmetics, and/or that does not include perfectly legitimate hunting and self-defence weapons.

The definition of Saturday night specials would seem to be the rather subjective “low-cost pistol” definition. Which implies that only the lives of the wealthy are worth protecting and that the less well of have no right to protection. Low cost cars can also be used in crime, should they too be banned and poor people made to walk everywhere? How low cost does a pistol/car have to be for it to need banning? As technology improves and guns become cheaper to produce, will designs that used to lie outside the definition be brought into it and, eventually, all guns become illegal on the basis of being too affordable?

***such as intimidation, terroristic threatening, armed robbery, drive-by shootings. If you defend those activities you are suspect in my eyes and I will watch you until you crawl back into the swamp with your friends or associates.***

Who is defending such things?

-Dan Almond, event organizer, restoretheconstitution@alarmandmuster.com

But your 2nd paragraph shot yourself in the foot. I will take your bait (but I’m almost ashamed to) and tell you I am retired military, expert in several military weapons, and can assure you I did not get my knowledge of firearms from Guns & Ammo nor my understanding of public policy from NRA or KKK handouts. And I really don’t care if “survivalist clowns” respect me or not, I just want them to crawl back into the swamp and stay there.

I have stated that hunting and personal defense weapons are legal in most juridictions, and have no problem with that. It is my belief that labeling the efforts of some to control assault weapons, Saturday night specials, machine guns and pistols as “asinine’ or ‘leftist’ is merely an attempt to divert attention from the fact that those weapons are used for illegitimate purposes such as intimidation, terroristic threatening, armed robbery, drive-by shootings. If you defend those activities you are suspect in my eyes and I will watch you until you crawl back into the swamp with your friends or associates.

When I say you I mean those who do such things, not you necessarily. But it might help you and other advocates to look up something called the “Arkansas Doctrine,” which helped define weapons control policy for many years, in many jurisdictions outside the state. It involved a sword cane. That is why I stated not sure what ballistics had to do with the 2nd Amendment/gun rights. I suspect that type of debate has more to do with testosterone than with rational discussion.

I apologize for allowing myself to “take the bait” but perhaps we may both reach a greater understanding.

“Stop talking to me. I have a freedom to not associate with psychotic criminal nutcases like you.”

Amusing, he chooses to argue on a public forum then, when losing, all of a sudden, somehow, his right of association is being violated?

Come on Snorlax, RIGHT OF ASSOCIATION?

Lefties like you HATE that right and try to destroy it at every turn.
Claiming your right of association is ridiculous and just adds more proof that your reasoning is faulty.

If you wish to be left alone might we suggest you refrain from engaging in public debate?

And Stephen, look, no need to get sore if this discussion is over your head. Firearms are truly not all the same thing, and there is merit to understanding their differences from a policy perspective. That was exactly my point about Clinton’s asinine gun ban — it shows that a lot of people on the left have their minds all made up without really knowing what they’re talking about. If you don’t want these Guns & Ammo survivalist clowns to lose respect for you because you’re being naive, you ought to at least have some understanding of what we’re discussing and why it matters.

I am not sure what ballistics has to do with the 2nd Amendment, but I am sure some child will look it up in their well-thumbed Guns and Ammo magazine and let us know.

At least we don’t just go shoot up the place, like you psycho Reich Wingnuts do all the time.

Stop talking to me. I have a freedom to not associate with psychotic criminal nutcases like you.

Don’t go away mad, Glock. Just go away.”

I like how your response to being accused of emotional, ad hominen attacks is to… make more of them. And throw in a bit of libel while you’re at it. Then give up and stomp off in a huff at having nothing more to argue, having been utterly trounced.

At least we don’t just go shoot up the place, like you psycho Reich Wingnuts do all the time.

Stop talking to me. I have a freedom to not associate with psychotic criminal nutcases like you.

Don’t go away mad, Glock. Just go away.

I agree with you wholeheartedly with your comments @1634hrs. Yet, when you look at some of these militia groups, how can you tell – some have infiltrated various levels of jobs in this country.

I guess we all have different ways of handling disagreements. Actually, that’s law – to be interpreted. I was just making a point about overzealous, and a few other words to describe SOME officers. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with officers nor am I a lover of criminals. I was just making a point that some do go overboard – example, the 5-year-old black child in Florida, 3 sheriff’s deputies handcuffed and placed her in a car for acting out in school. Now, I am aware there a laws that prevent school officials from certain types of discipline – but come on, 3 deputies! Imagine the percerption this child, and her family will have on law enforcement over the long term. So, again, the point I was making is, it’s about people.

“The AK-47 round fires a 7.62mm round, which is not designed foremost to kill. The round has less hydrostatic shock than other projectiles, and was designed to tumble.”

This is nonsense. Projectiles are not designed to “tumble,” such design would ruin any accuracy. Projectiles do “tumble” under the right conditions, but they are NOT designed to do so.
This myth goes back to the silly myth about the 5.56mm M16 round.

The 7.62×39mm round is plenty capable of killing human targets within its effective range.

“To be quite blunt, the semi-auto AK47 has little use for hunting or for self defense, and I don’t know why anyone would want one.”

Utter rubbish. The SKS and AK series of rifles are used by tens of thousands of deer hunters every season. You obviously know nothing about hunting.

” At close range a relatively harmless looking .38 Special revolver is probably more lethal than many “assault rifles” (which is why police used to carry them).”

You’re really off the deepend here. This is ballistically ridiculous.
The .38 went away because it was UNDER powered. Most police organizations went to .40S&W, 357SIG and .45 AUTO calibers.
I’ll take the AK over a .38 any day of the week.

Please do some homework before posting this garbage.
Idiot anti-gun wackjobs on the left have no idea that this is all BS.

Er, Scott IS my real name. If you click on my name on the left there you can see my surname also. In any case, how is using an internet pseudonym ‘hiding’? It’s almost universal convention and has precisely nothing to do with the validity of one’s arguments; a man with a pseudonym isn’t wrong when he says the sky is blue. Using your real name on the internet is hardly anything to brag about.

***Why do I call gun advocates ‘fanatics?’ By dictionary definition fanatics exercise ‘irrational zeal,’ I do not believe that right to keep and bear arms is under significant threat***

In my country many types of guns are impossible to obtain, and all types of guns are extremely difficult to obtain, costly and severely restricted to the point where self-defence is almost impossible and hunting and target shooting are so unpopular that even if you do want to take up either, it is very difficult (lack of ranges etc, not to mention the legal problems) and expensive. Guns in my country are not only under threat from further restriction, they are virtually prohibited as it is.

***unless you are in certain categories of named persons, such as convicted felons, mentally defect or similar, or unless the the weapon is in certain categories such as explosives, body armor, high caliber sniper weapons(?)***

Felons and mental defectives are banned from possessing firearms under Federal law. Explosives are Federally regulated and very difficult to obtain. Body armour is not restricted as far as I am aware, and I can’t say I’ve heard any significant calls for restrictions on it. But body armour is not a firearm… I’m not sure what a high-caliber sniper rifle is. Could you define that?

***It is idiotic in the extreme to see Charlton Heston and other idiots holding aloft a black powder rifle and shouting ‘from my cold dead hands.’ To the best of my knowledge, black powder weapons have not been mentioned as needing to be banned. In short, who cares? Did this modern day Don Quixote have touch with reality, actually know the law?***

The rifle that Charlton Heston held had just been presented to him as a gift. He can hardly be blamed for which gun he got! Besides, you’re taking him too literally. He was holding a gun, the specific gun isn’t relevant. The exact phrase isn’t even very relevant. Would Heston really rather die than give up that gun? Maybe, maybe not, it doesn’t matter. He was just expressing a determination to protect gun ownership in a poetic way.

***His rights were not threatened ergo irrational idiotic zealotry.***

Heston was speaking at the NRA convention is 2000. Six years previously Congress had passed the so-called assault weapons ban. Four years previously, in 1996, and one year later, in 2001, President Clinton issued executive orders to restrict certain kinds of firearms from being imported, and ban others.

The administration was also using the threat of lawsuits to force Smith & Wesson to alter their gun designs and business practices.

Clinton was pushing vocally at this time for further restriction on firearms, this being a year after the Columbine massacre.

Specifically though, Heston was trying to garner opposition to Al Gore’s presidential run which was starting at that time, and/or to dissuade Gore from following through on his anti-gun policies, should he be elected. The expanded quote is “I want to say those five words… especially for you Mr. Gore. So… From my cold dead hands.”

Gore was on the record as supporting the licensing of all handguns, mandatory trigger locks on all guns, ‘gun free zones’ around all schools, banning guns from places of worship, a three-day waiting period on all gun purchases, a one-gun-per-month limit on purchases, raising the legal age for handgun purchases from 18 to 21, keeping the ‘assault weapons’ ban in place, banning low-cost guns, requiring guns to incorporate so-called ’smart gun’ technology (which doesn’t exist yet), and essentially banning private gun sales (requiring private gun sales to do the same background checks that gun sales in shops require, which would be impossible for private sellers to do).

It’s not even just what Gore publicly wanted. As the comments on this page have shown, Heston’s fears, and those of most gun owners are well justified. Gore is certainly not alone, but many have even more extreme views, wanting even more restrictive and illiberal laws such as those in my country. Allan Aardman above, for example, wrote: “there is zero reason why anyone who is not in military, law enforcement or private security should be permitted to own a firearm. ”

So no, not irrational.

***Secondly, someone demonstrated risible ignorance as to the reference about ’shouting fire in a crowded theater.’ That was not a reference to any Congressional law, but to a statement by a Supreme Court Justice in support of an opinion that rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are not necessarily ‘unrestricted rights.’***

None the less, the illegality of shouting fire in a crowded theatre is nothing to do with the Constitution. It was illegal before the Constitution was even written and the Constitution never changed that because it (or rather, the first amendment) only restricts the making of laws by Congress, not the enforcement of existing common law. It was not an accurate metaphor for the case in hand (banning the publishing of anti-war leaflets during WWI).

The Supreme Court ruling you are referring to, from where that quote originates, was overturned in 1969.

***But I still live within 20 miles of people who burned a cross upon the lawn of someone they didn’t like. I live within 20 miles of the headquarters of a hate group listed on this website. I live within 200 miles of a serial abuser of children, justified by some idiosyncratic interpretation of biblical privilege.***

What has any of that got to do with guns?

***In my jurisdiction, you have the right to keep and bear arms, for hunting and for personal defense. In most other jurisdictions you have the right to bear and keep arms. To my knowledge, no federal agency is attempting to take away that right. If you insist otherwise, you are irrational, and have an ulterior motive, and I will resist you with every breath in my body.***

Irrational is not a synonym for wrong. Saying the sky is blue or that drinking spring water is illegal is not irrational, it’s just empirically incorrect.

How do you know anyone has an ulterior motive whenever they say something that’s not true? Maybe they’re just mistaken?

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the US Postal Inspection Service actively work to enforce Federal gun control laws with regards to possession, manufacture and transfer. US Customs and Border Protection, US Border Patrol, US Coast Guard and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement all actively enforce gun control laws with regards to importation. And many different Federal law enforcement agencies such as the Hoover Dam Police and US Park Police actively enforce gun control laws with regards to possession.

Why we should only be concerned with Federal agencies I do not know. Is a fear only rational if it is of the Federal government? Most gun control laws are State, local and municipal laws. Many sub-Federal jurisdictions have very prohibitive laws such as California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Maryland and New York City.

***You may deny it, but you continue to be aligned with right wing, militia, christian militia hate groups and I have no use for you, or any others who would deny the rule of law or the general conventions of the society you must unfortunately live within.***

Are you saying that anyone who is aligned with a “christian militia hate group” (whatever one of those is) is wrong about everything? I’m going to assume that these christian militia hate groups do not support a ban on breathing air. I’m guessing you don’t support such a ban either. So, since you are aligned with those christian militia hate groups, are you wrong too?

***If you seek to intimidate or threaten, get back into the deep woods and stay there.***

Who is intimidating or threatening anyone?

***You should also understand that I sign my name in full for the same reason John Hancock signed his, large and proud.***

I suppose James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton were cowards then?

That’s what causes police/sheriff departments to come under Federal Court Decrees, shoot to kill mentality.

As far as weight, again, please don’t underestimate every woman. Just because a man weighs more, doesn’t mean a small woman can’t take him down if she uses/hits the right pressure points.

Now again, with this shoot to kill mentality. It was a smaller guy who knocked out Suge Knight! The prisoner that caused the rauckus in Georgia was calmed down by a woman! The Nightstalker – Richard Ramirez was captured and suffered a little neighborhood/street justice from the good ol’ citizens from East Los Angeles! No, most of these instances didn’t have weapons, yet, they didn’t need to use a gun/firearm to take down, obviously, dangerous people.

Again, it’s about people. Knowing how to deal with people. Knowing when to use a gun – is the person intoxicated, mentally challenged…..is the person armed! But then again, how many shots….and to say that you automatically kill – there goes the argument about rights – this person didn’t have a right to a speedy trial – yet, the cop had to right to be judge, jury, and executioner who will face a trial.

With the shoot to kill mentality, you alienate the community you’re supposed to serve. The public lose trust/faith in you. Too many shootings and you are under scrutiny from the federal government. My argument is you can’t treat every incident the same. Ted Kaczynsky was profiled as a young white male, the DC Sniper was profiled the same – again, as I stated, ‘profiling does not ALWAYS work.’

So I believe the best way to deal with these fringe groups, who by the way are an insult to the Constitution and our national values as a whole, is to watch over them like hawks, document each and every infraction or event, and vigorously pursue all legal channels to disband them whenever possible.

I hope this isn’t interpreted as a condemnation of free speech. Racists have the right to assemble peaceably, but they do not have the right to incite violence or disregard for our nation’s laws and order. Civil disobediance is an acceptable tool for social change, but armed civil disobedience can become indistinguishable from a simple affront to the democratic rule of law. Government by consent means consent of the majority, not consent only when you get your way.

Secondly, someone demonstrated risible ignorance as to the reference about ’shouting fire in a crowded theater.’ That was not a reference to any Congressional law, but to a statement by a Supreme Court Justice in support of an opinion that rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are not necessarily ‘unrestricted rights.’ Absolutists may claim if it says so in the Good Book it’s the absolute word of whatever, but there is some significant body of law, opinion, essay and rational thought that discusses the principles, mores, and social conventions that impact upon our Constitution, The Bill of Rights and two centuries of law that govern our society. One probably needs more than a 6th grade education to understand that the Founding Fathers were rational men operating in good faith and intended us to use good judgement and informed opinion to make good decisions in regulating our evolving society.

I have bothered to educate myself. I have bothered to serve my country. But I still live within 20 miles of people who burned a cross upon the lawn of someone they didn’t like. I live within 20 miles of the headquarters of a hate group listed on this website. I live within 200 miles of a serial abuser of children, justified by some idiosyncratic interpretation of biblical privilege.

In my jurisdiction, you have the right to keep and bear arms, for hunting and for personal defense. In most other jurisdictions you have the right to bear and keep arms. To my knowledge, no federal agency is attempting to take away that right. If you insist otherwise, you are irrational, and have an ulterior motive, and I will resist you with every breath in my body. You may deny it, but you continue to be aligned with right wing, militia, christian militia hate groups and I have no use for you, or any others who would deny the rule of law or the general conventions of the society you must unfortunately live within.

I accept the 2nd Amendment but in its totality. It applies to me as well, a point you often forget. If you threaten or seek to intimidate me with your “gun” or “cowboy six-shooter” I will use the judgement which the Constitution refers to, the good judgement of reasonable men. That means I do not have to stand here and take it. I’m probably a better marksmen than you, as were the Minutemen. If you wish to hunt, go ahead. If you seek to intimidate or threaten, get back into the deep woods and stay there.

You should also understand that I sign my name in full for the same reason John Hancock signed his, large and proud. I do not hide behind pseudonyms or cutesy ‘gun’ acronyms. Or behind masks and robes. Unfortunately, gun nuts and militia ’soldiers’ do not feel the same willingness to stand up to the rightness of the so-called “opinion.”

Er… ok? I’m sure most people who run from the police run because they are scared. Why else would they run?

***Again, why some men tend to think weight/height matters, is beyond me. Yes, the bigger guy, if he hits you, chances are, he’ll knock you out. But wait, the smaller guy always have more energy and a greater advantage because he’s quicker.***

I’m not going to get into the intricacies of hand to hand self-defence, but even assuming you were right then I would simply flip my original statement and say “smaller than you” instead of “bigger than”. But I know that if a 100 lb girl is going toe to toe with a 220 lb man, I’m betting on the latter coming out on top. Regardless of how quick she is, you have to be huge for muscle to slow you down significantly (or else American football players and Olympic sprinters would all be spindly) and a 100 lb girl simply will not have the strength to grapple with or effectively strike a 220 lb man.

***To say a person is dangerous because he’s big is a little discriminatory, don’t you think?***

I never said big people were dangerous. Big (and I don’t want to get sucked into size specifically here, it could be any kind of physical advantage e.g. speed, strength etc) people have a greater capacity for, amongst other things, using their body to cause harm than people who are less big. All I was saying was that there is nothing cowardly in using tools to give yourself an advantage when attacked. Even if a 220 lb man attacked you and you are 230 lb, it’s not cowardly to use a tool to make (saving) your life easier. And it’s especially not cowardly if your attacker has a physical advantage over you.

***Again, if you have to use deadly force every time you make a ‘judge-by-the-coverbook’ then maybe you need to move to isolated areas away from the general public.***

Who said anything liket that? You’re making silly straw man leaps from “the weak are not cowardly for using tools to save themselves from the strong” to “big people are all dangerous and should be shot on sight,” which is obviously not even remotely what I was saying.

***Scott, btw, what happens when you have all these officers and the suspect doesn’t have a gun?***

Clearly 9,999 times out of 10,000: Not much. That other 1 in 10,000 times, yes, a person gets killed needlessly. Sure. Reverse the situation: cops never have guns. A handful of lives are saved from fewer accidental cop shootings, but many many more would die (not to mention loss of property, quality of life, injury etc) from the imbalance of power between law enforcement and criminals.

You could make the same argument about anything. Sometimes people are killed by ambulances. But ambulances save many more people than they kill, so it’s worth keeping paramedics equipped with ambulances.

***Now, a serious question must be answered then, do we (taxpayers) need the police if they are not “To Serve and Protect,” anymore?***

I don’t support tax-funded policing, but that’s entirely off-topic.

***As far as criminals having a low IQ – wrong! Ted Bundy was extremely intelligent. BTK was also not low on the intelligence scale, yet, these were violent criminals. Profiles do not always hit the nail on the head!***

Two individuals do not a population statistic make:

Men are taller than women. This is true. SOME women are taller than SOME men. And SOME men are shorter than SOME women. But ON AVERAGE men are taller than women.

It couldn’t be more incorrect to say police are supposed to wound not kill. First of all, when in a firefight, adrenaline takes over. This is true for everybody, I don’t care how macho you think you are. Nobody is immune. Time compresses, your vision blurs, sights and sounds are altered, and absolute panic can take over. It can be extremely confusing. The only thing that enables someone to function in a situation like this is training. Quite frankly if you don’t train regularly with your weapon, it probably won’t do you much good anyway.

Not only are cops NOT trained to wound when they need to use their guns, they are trained to kill. They are taught to fire at the center mass, which is easiest to hit and the most likely to cause immediate blood loss. Pain can be psychologically overpowering for some, but it will not stop a determined assailant, one who has been shot before, or someone out of their mind for whatever reason. The threat can only stopped through an instant and dramatic drop in blood pressure, i.e. passing out, and to do that it requires a fatal wound to the chest or head.

Anyone who has read my posts here knows I am no fan of the police, whom I consider generally violent and racist, but even so, if we as citizens are asking them to put their lives on the line, we can’t expect them to defy the laws of physics or behave in ways that make no sense for the physiological stress of a firefight.

on February 5th, 2010 at 10:49 pm

Yes, children and teens should not have access to guns, but they do!
————-

Sorry if I seem to be in chronic disagreement with everybody, but again I must object. Why shouldn’t kids or teens have access to guns if they are mature enough and learn the rules of safety?

I personally believe the sport of target shooting is an excellent activity for youths because it teaches them discipline, responsibility, mental acuity (because 2 or 3 hours concentrating intensely and by yourself is required in competition), emotional control, good eating habits (salt and sugar mess up your eyesight), and provides a role model for responsible gun ownership.

Shooting is an olympic sport as well in various forms. How are junior athletes supposed to compete if they are not allowed to have firearms? I would be much more concerned about the risks of teen driving than teen gun ownership if parents are doing their job.