How many of you carry a gun as part of your cycling equipment?

[McSpin]

Well it's much harder to make a bomb than it is to take a gun from your drawer. Atleast here where we have tight laws when it comes to selling and keeping guns it would be quite hard to get hold of a hand gun. Of course many people have hunting guns but they have to have permissions for every gun and keep them locked away when they're not using them. And it's quite hard to carry a hunting gun without people noticing that.
We have the liberty to buy guns for hunting for example so I don't see how my liberties would have been limited because of more strict laws. I don't see what other reasons I could have for possessing a gun (I don't understand very much about them though )

I'm referring to the liberty to protect yourself with a gun. If you did not have that liberty, the criminal would only have an even easier time killing you, since the criminal mind will certainly be able to obtain a gun.

If a bomb was too difficult for a particular wacko to make, he might decide to drive his car through a crowd - not too difficult. The are many ways to kill people in mass. The point is, this was carefully planned and it could just as easily been carefully planned with another weapon. People fixate on the weapon when it really had nothing to do with the method. It's the madness that must be addressed.

 

[stevebaby]

Is Vestguard the only company that sells these vests SB?
If you had read the article the person said they sell about 3 vests a week so for 1 yr. that would be approximately 156 vests. Now maybe they don't sell that many all the time but as I said in the U.S. I don't know of any parents buying them here.Every week in London 52 teenagers are victims of crime with knives according to Metropolitan Police and a child is stabbed to death in Britian every 2 weeks but you consider parents that want to protect their children from being stabbed silly? It shows what type of person you are.

I doubt that there are many schools in either Britain or Australia where it is necessary to have metal detectors or police officers on guard at the school. Unlike the USA.
In Australia there are no schools where metal detectors or police officers are required. No such thing as campus police.

 

[stevebaby]

That is not how it went according to the reports I've read. Can you direct me to where you got this account?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lott/Sandbox
John Lott/Sandbox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[stevebaby]

Or, he may have killed many more with a different weapon. The weapon is not the issue. It's the bad guy that's the problem. Would you prefer he used a bomb and blew up the whole building?

Do you really think he could have been disarmed by making guns illegal? I believe he still would easily obtain a gun if he wanted or he would simply turn to another deadly weapon.

Liberty come with a price as does any other alternative. I'll take liberty.

The killers at Columbine stated a preference for a bomb as their weapon of choice.
Fortunately, they were unable to obtain easily the necessary components for a bomb, as possession of explosives is restricted.Had the guns they used been similarly restricted then the death toll may have been even less.
Despite the concerns of his teachers about his mental state, the killer at Virginia Tech could not legally be disarmed until he actually committed an offence by shooting or threatening someone. He was a responsible law abiding citizen exercising his right to buy and carry a weapon without hindrance...right up to the point when he committed murder.
Had possession of the weapons that the killer used been restricted then he could have been legally disarmed before he killed someone.
Arguing that criminals will get guns anyway is a ridiculous argument. You might just as well argue that since crack addicts are going to get drugs anyway (as they do), then crack should be legally available to anyone who wants it.

 

[McSpin]

This is taken from your wikipedia source:

"Lott cites Tracy Bridges who says he pointed his gun at the killer, who then dropped his weapon and was subsequently tackled. However, Ted Besen contradicted this viewpoint on the January 17, 2002 edition of The Early Show, saying that the killer put his (empty) gun down before Bridges interviened. The true sequence of events remains unresolved."

As you can see, what actually happened is unknown.

 

[McSpin]

Had possession of the weapons that the killer used been restricted then he could have been legally disarmed before he killed someone.

I do not see how a restriction would have disarmed him. He simply would have obtained the gun in another manner or used a different form of weapon. He was evil. No law would have stopped him.

Arguing that criminals will get guns anyway is a ridiculous argument. You might just as well argue that since crack addicts are going to get drugs anyway (as they do), then crack should be legally available to anyone who wants it.

Why do you resort to demeaning my intelligence? Can't you just stick to the subject?

Crack is a harmful substance. Potentially harmful to anyone who uses it. Guns are not inherently harmful. They can be used for very good purposes. Why should I be prevented from the benefits guns can provide, just because some choose to use them for evil? Here's a more appropriate analogy. Cars are generally useful, yet drivers have purposely run people down with cars. Using your logic, we should make cars illegal.

 

[sogood]

If one of those students had not had such easy access to such an efficient method of killing, thirty-three lives may have been saved.
The Virginia Tech murders were committed by a legal shooter with no criminal record, armed with two legally bought pistols. Legally, he could not have been disarmed until he actually began threatening and killing others.
The individual's right to own a lethal weapon was more important than the rights of thirty-two other people to continue living.

If psychological assessment had been a part of the filtering process he may not have got his weapon on the open market. Yet again, given that only 1% of the population carry CCW, then 95% of these applicants may be assessed to be paranoid-delusional neurotics...

 

[Nasgul]

This kind of a question makes me wonder how are things in the US if you REALLY need to carry a gun with you when you go riding. Is it really necessary or is it just because you feel safer with a gun?
The news of the school shootings in the US are very sad to hear about

I've been riding my bike in 3 different major areas, the state of Virginia where I live, state of Maryland and Washington DC, and in all 3 areas, I've never had the need to carry a gun nor have I ever and I've been riding since 1993.

There was a point where I heard news about some kids stealing bikes from people riding in the bike trails but that was an isolated case which it never happened again. And never heard another similar case.

As for how kids get a gun and take it to school and start shooting? Well, that's the parent's fault for not keeping their heat locked up, and also their kids are f-up! That kind of parents need to be put in jail for letting that kind of things happen.

And for the guy that did the shootting in VT, he was a 23 yeard old frustrated guy which unfortunately he was rejected and couldn't cope with, there are several troubled kids which do crazy **** here in the U.S.

Problem is that in other countries, you can beat the living **** out of your kids for doing crazy ****, here in the U.S. "IF" I hit my 15 yeard old nephew for not doing what my syster tells him, he calls the cop and I go to jail and then attend anger management ****. So, it's unfortunate that we can beat the **** out of these troubled kids, because that's what the need, a good ass whopping.

Just like a tree, when you see a branch growing the wrong way, what do you do? You fix it and make sure that the tree grows up straight but if you neglect it? it's crooked and when it's big and thick you can't bend it straight. Same as a human being.

The U.S. is safe, problem is too many punks that think life is hard. Send them to military school and they'll think otherwise.

 

[sogood]

As for how kids get a gun and take it to school and start shooting? Well, that's the parent's fault for not keeping their heat locked up, and also their kids are f-up! That kind of parents need to be put in jail for letting that kind of things happen.

This very much goes against the dominant Western culture of training kids to be independent at an young age. Kids are so much less controllable by early teens in Western cultures as compared with Eastern or older cultures in general.

 

[cbjesseeNH]

I've been riding my bike in 3 different major areas, the state of Virginia where I live, state of Maryland and Washington DC, and in all 3 areas, I've never had the need to carry a gun nor have I ever and I've been riding since 1993.

When would you decide that you WOULD need to carry a gun?

Risk is a funny thing. If the forecast says there is a low chance of rain, and it rains, everybody gets wet. But if the odds of experiencing violent crime in DC are 1495 in 100,000 (as they were in 2005), then 99.5% of people don't get "wet" (are not victims of violent crime).

DC has 3-fold the average US violent crime rate - the highest in the nation - and you seem to feel safe enough. Perhaps that proves to our AUS/UK friends on the forum that, despite any statistics they might read about the US, it's a nice safe place?

Or rather, that feeling nice and safe is just that - a feeling. Politicians rush to enact laws and policies that make more of the people feel safer more of the time, as words speak louder than actions (except for those that are victims). It's easy to make people feel safe, but hard to make them safer.

 

[cbjesseeNH]

If one of those students had not had such easy access to such an efficient method of killing, thirty-three lives may have been saved.
The Virginia Tech murders were committed by a legal shooter with no criminal record, armed with two legally bought pistols. Legally, he could not have been disarmed until he actually began threatening and killing others.
The individual's right to own a lethal weapon was more important than the rights of thirty-two other people to continue living.

No - the shooter illegally obtained his firearms. Just as one who lies about his age when buying alcohol in the US commits a criminal act, the VT shooter illegally obtained his firearms by falsifying documentation, under penalty of perjury, to buy guns.

The moment he stepped outside of the gun shop, he was subject to arrest.

 

[cbjesseeNH]

The gunman at the Appalachian School of Law was apprehended by an unarmed student after he had run out of ammunition. The gunman placed the gun on the ground and put his hands in the air...the position he was in when the armed off-duty officers arrived at the scene.
The guns of the off-duty officers prevented nothing.Lott is lying again.

One can read accounts by Lott, by his detractors, and hundreds of new report in between, and conclude two extremes, or anything in between:

1. The gunman ran out of ammunition, set his gun down, and was held by passersby, including off-duty police.

2. The gunman observed people coming toward him bearing firearms, laid his gun down, and was held by passersby, including students with LE affiliations.

You may choose to accept the former, so I'll add to the list:

"Nearly a decade ago, a Springfield, Oregon, high schooler, a hunter familiar with firearms, was able to bring an unfolding rampage to an abrupt end when he identified a gunman attempting to reload his .22-caliber rifle, made the tactical decision to make a move and tackled the shooter.

A few years back, an assistant principal at Pearl High School in Mississippi, which was a gun-free zone, retrieved his legally owned Colt .45 from his car and stopped a Columbine wannabe from continuing his massacre at another school after he had killed two and wounded more at Pearl.

At an eighth-grade school dance in Pennsylvania, a boy fatally shot a teacher and wounded two students before the owner of the dance hall brought the killing to a halt with his own gun.

More recently, just a few miles up the road from Virginia Tech, two law school students ran to fetch their legally owned firearm to stop a madman from slaughtering anybody and everybody he pleased. These brave, average, armed citizens neutralized him pronto."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/19/commentary.nugent/index.html

My point remains - it is not to prove that allowing CCW on campuses will result in heros running to the rescue - the odds are low and it's not the job of the private citizen to run toward gunfire. It is to note that not a one of those killed could legally have had a gun for self-defense.

The daily occurances where citizens defend themselves using firearms are published in the news, and recounted in numerous blogs that track those new items. Every criminal that shoots at others either stops shooting themselves, or is stopped from shooting by others. Obviously, mass shooting are not under-reported by the news media. Cases where citizens defend themselves with firearms are certainly not lauded as having prevented potential multiple homicides. Like snuffing a small fire before it speads, the self-defense actions of single citizens against potentially lethal assailants may just as well stop stop multiple homicides with frequency - but that's a statistic that can't be gathered nor proven, by definition.

 

[stevebaby]

That is not how it went according to the reports I've read. Can you direct me to where you got this account?

Besen's account is the one accepted by the Virginia State Police.
http://timlambert.org/category/lott/appalachian/
Deltoid » Appalachian

 

[stevebaby]

One can read accounts by Lott, by his detractors, and hundreds of new report in between, and conclude two extremes, or anything in between:

1. The gunman ran out of ammunition, set his gun down, and was held by passersby, including off-duty police.

2. The gunman observed people coming toward him bearing firearms, laid his gun down, and was held by passersby, including students with LE affiliations.

You may choose to accept the former, so I'll add to the list:

"Nearly a decade ago, a Springfield, Oregon, high schooler, a hunter familiar with firearms, was able to bring an unfolding rampage to an abrupt end when he identified a gunman attempting to reload his .22-caliber rifle, made the tactical decision to make a move and tackled the shooter.

A few years back, an assistant principal at Pearl High School in Mississippi, which was a gun-free zone, retrieved his legally owned Colt .45 from his car and stopped a Columbine wannabe from continuing his massacre at another school after he had killed two and wounded more at Pearl.

At an eighth-grade school dance in Pennsylvania, a boy fatally shot a teacher and wounded two students before the owner of the dance hall brought the killing to a halt with his own gun.

More recently, just a few miles up the road from Virginia Tech, two law school students ran to fetch their legally owned firearm to stop a madman from slaughtering anybody and everybody he pleased. These brave, average, armed citizens neutralized him pronto."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/19/commentary.nugent/index.html

My point remains - it is not to prove that allowing CCW on campuses will result in heros running to the rescue - the odds are low and it's not the job of the private citizen to run toward gunfire. It is to note that not a one of those killed could legally have had a gun for self-defense.

The daily occurances where citizens defend themselves using firearms are published in the news, and recounted in numerous blogs that track those new items. Every criminal that shoots at others either stops shooting themselves, or is stopped from shooting by others. Obviously, mass shooting are not under-reported by the news media. Cases where citizens defend themselves with firearms are certainly not lauded as having prevented potential multiple homicides. Like snuffing a small fire before it speads, the self-defense actions of single citizens against potentially lethal assailants may just as well stop stop multiple homicides with frequency - but that's a statistic that can't be gathered nor proven, by definition.

Ted Nugent? LOL!
An old rock singer who happens to be a board member of the National Rifle Association, something you neglected to mention in your post.
Silly.

 

[stevebaby]

It isn't. I have not heard of mothers buying stab proof or bullet proof vests for their kids in the U.S.
British citizens are now more likely to become a victim of crime than are people in the US.
In 1998, a study conducted jointly by statisticians from the U.S. Dept. of Justice and the University of Cambridge in England found that most crime is now worse in England than in the United States.
"You are more likely to be mugged in England than in the United States," stated the Reuters news agency in summarizing the study."The rate of robbery is now 1.4 times higher in England and Wales than in the United States, and the British burglary rate is nearly double America's." The murder rate in the United States is reportedly higher than in England, but according to the DOJ study," the difference between the murder rates in the two countries has narrowed over the past 16 years.

The United Nations confirmed these results in 2000 when it reported that the crime rate in England is higher than the crime rates of 16 other industrialized nations, including the U.S.

Gun free England not such a Utopia after all. According to the BBC News, handgun crime in the UK rose by 40% in the two years after it passed its draconian gun ban in 1997.

Nationwide. Statistical comparisons with other countries show that burglars in the United States are far less apt to enter an occupied home than their foreign counterparts who live in countries where fewer civilians own firearms. Consider the following rates showing how often a homeowner is present when a burglar strikes:
Homeowner occupancy rate in the gun control countries of Great Britain, Canada and the Netherlands: 45% (average of the 3 countries); and,
Homeowner occupancy rate in the United States: 12.7% (Source Kleck,Point Blank, at 140.)
They are not even safe in their own homes.
It sure sounds like Govt. and people like you are more concerned with criminal rights instead of the rights of the innocent people they have victimized.
In fact it looks like the criminals are dictating what goes on in prison. They have been handed the keys to their cells:
www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=444586&in_...

Crime rates have either been falling or remaining stable for years in Britain, according to the British Crime Survey.
You're getting really desperate when you use the Daily Mail or the Telegraph as sources.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/hosb1206.pdf
hosb1206.pdf (application/pdf Object)

This is the latest one. There are a couple of others from previous years which confirm that crime of all types in Britain is falling or stable.

 

[McSpin]

http://timlambert.org/category/lott/appalachian/
Deltoid » Appalachian

Besen's account is the one accepted by the Virginia State Police.

The only thing clear in the link you provided, is that there is more than one story and the exact truth may only be known by the few who were there.

To me, it's all irrelevant anyway. If a student had a gun, he could have helped saved lives. If he didn't, then only the killer running out of ammo would stop the killing. I know which senerio I prefer.

 

[stevebaby]

So feel as safe as you want to, at the cost you are willing to pay, to reduce firearms shootings the 3-fold quoted as the difference between the US and AUS. One thing you can be sure of, is that your fellow countrymen who stomp, stab, beat and steal from you are not doing so because we have more guns in the US than you do in your safer countries.


That’s your own choice.

The USA does not have 3X the number of firearms shootings as Australia. It's much higher than that.
The USA has 3X the murder rate of Australia.
Actual shootings in Australia....much lower than 1/3 of the USA.

 

[stevebaby]

The only thing clear in the link you provided, is that there is more than one story and the exact truth may only be known by the few who were there.

To me, it's all irrelevant anyway. If a student had a gun, he could have helped saved lives. If he didn't, then only the killer running out of ammo would stop the killing. I know which senerio I prefer.

So why do you prefer Bridges's account (unsupported by any other witness) rather than that of the Virginia State Police, who accepted Besen's account?
Because it panders to your prejudices?

 

[mitosis]

Recent analysis of the gun amnesty and buy-back in the wake of the Port Arthur murders in Australia show that it has saved a minimum of 120 lives (suicide) and as many as 260. A subsequent analysis of the numbers by economists show that the buy-back has more than paid for itself.

You can't shoot people without guns.

 

[cbjesseeNH]

Ted Nugent? LOL!
An old rock singer who happens to be a board member of the National Rifle Association, something you neglected to mention in your post.
Silly.

I thought so. Any number of news agencies are presently discussing the same past events, but I thought I'd use the Nugent one - just on the off-chance you would reject anything said by anyone pro-NRA, pro-2nd amendment, or pro-guns as biased. No doubt you believe any and all other sources referencing these event have been deluded by the evil NRA as well - so I'll not bother to list the Google output from Forbes, WSJ, NYT, etc.

... and of course, only YOU know the real truth about the Appalachian Law Shools event. More of your insider sources that can't be confirmed or revealed?

Your bias runs very deep SB - your s, LOL!s, and such nonsense really don't compensate for lack of any objectivity.