New state law to open more public buildings to firearms

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Utah has one of the easiest concealed carry laws in the nation. But only recently. Used to be very restricted.

Shortly after the laws were loosened, there was an event where a violent offender escaped from police custody and gave chase.

On his way through a park, he brandished a knife at a picnicking family that happened to include a salt lake city alderman with a concealed carry permit, who shot him dead on the spot.

The cops took him downtown for a couple hours of questioning and then turned him loose with his weapon.

I'm not saying this proves anything, it's just an interesting anecdote.

And why did you feel the need to bring up taking guns to parks? There's tons of other public places where you're more likely to have to pull a gun out.

The gun and ammo hording that started in early '09 was in expectation of anti gun legislation that supposedly would come in the wake of Obama's inauguration.
Personally I thought it was a bit on the paranoid side to say the least as did many other gun owners. However, once the panic started everyone had to participate in the hording just to get what they would have needed/wanted anyway.
Same would apply if there was fear of a famine; everyone would rush to the grocery store to load up while they can whether they believed a famine was coming or not.

I don't know why you have to bring the race thing into it.

People legally carry guns everywhere permitted in concealment.
Why? Because it's better to have and not need than to need and not have.
Why would a park be any different?

^ To need? I like how American mythology involves people saving their lives by bringing a gun everywhere. Yet the actual number of cases in which such thing is relevant is abysmal at best.

The thief has the surprise factor, among knowing the territory better than you. it is foolish to think that you could actually use a gun to defend yourself from a situation unless the thief is less armed. But be honest to yourself, less strict restrictions works both ways and means the other guy will always have more guns.

Unless you are a trained body guard or a cop, the best way to handle those situations is to be cooperative. Martial arts, guns, etc. Are worthless. I guess though that if you don't have a family you can try and opt to fight in a reward-less attempt to take the criminal with you.

to me most public places sound the same. Do you think it makes more sense to bring a gun to a city hall than a park?

ah, the concept of mootness. the nra will never allow restrictive gun laws. they have bought so many politicans, they rule in america.

i have a pistol and a concealed carry permit. doing animal rescue work is very scary, especially in backwards, hillbilly states like the one i live in. i will give mine up after the other 299,999,999 guns have been acquired. for you brits and aussies, that's an accurate number, one for every human alive in the usa. of course, some have none, others have 20.

the capitol building in kentucky has a sign at the entrance, no deadly weapons allowed. if you try to carry a large knife, or police baton, or taser , or concealed gun.....you will be arrested. if you strap on a 45 like matt dillon in the old west, you can go right in. as long as it's visible. ah, kentucky....a reasonable definition of insanity.

Vexcalibur wrote:

He might have surprise factor but knowing the territory?? How can he know the house better than the resident?
No, it’s foolish to think that someone can’t effectively use a gun to defend their home.
Less restrictions level the playing field since it’s obvious that the burglar isn’t going to play by the rules, anyway.



It’s hard to have much respect for anyone that would advocate cooperating with someone who has forced their way into mine or anyone’s residence. The only possible exception might be if the burglar has the drop on the resident.
I find the thought of allowing someone to come in unopposed and take what’s mine and endanger my life repugnant. I will assume that any burglar is armed and willing to do harm and I won’t give them the chance to prove otherwise because then it’s too late.

Come back with something that makes sense that didn't obviously come from the archives of HCI.

The general pro-gun argument is that if more people have guns the world will be safer and there will be less gunplay. Is that a reasonable argument?

Your scenario is so vague and there's so many underlying assumptions behind it I don't know where to start. Is the gun owner walking into a bad part of town? Is the gun owner at an ATM machine or simply walking down the street? Does the gun owner notice suspicious behaviour beforehand such as two people suddenly splitting and walking in different directions? Are guns not useful to protect others? Is there two people involved in a pincer movement, where he goes past the first person who follows the victim while the second person is loitering up ahead? If the victim notices he is being followed, there is PLENTY of time to maneuver around and be prepared to pull a gun out. Another possible scenario is if a suspicious character closes the door in an apartment laundry room and locks it. That's the victim's cue to pull a gun out.

When a gun is practical to pull and when it isn't depends on so many dynamics within the circumstances you can't just resort to idiotic sweeping statements. You can't look at one or two possible scenarios and decide that because pulling a gun out is impractical in those cases that it is impractical in all possible scenarios.

And who said conflict resolution and avoidance shouldn't be the first thing to resort too? Obviously avoiding bad parts of town and seeking to de-escalate and avoid certain situations are preferable. Pulling out a gun is supposed to be a LAST RESORT especially when you have to prove in court that it was called for. There are always red flags that precede a crime. The thief does have to get the drop on you, but how would you know the gun owner isn't street smart and aware enough to not notice the red flags beforehand and be prepared to either pull a gun out or maneuver in a way that allows the gun owner stack the odds against the thief? Your sweeping statement about guns and martial arts being useless is idiotic because that's what you need when all else fails.

Most public places sound the same? Yeah I guess you're more likely to need a gun at a park than a parking lot at a mall or a car wash station .

And the general anti-gun argument is that if we restrict legal access to guns the black market will disappear. Is it reasonable to disarm 100% of law abiding citizens when 93% of crooks obtain guns illegally? Is it reasonable to prevent less than 1% of accidental discharges when defensive gun use is 6x more common than them being used in crimes? Is it reasonable to assume that crooks would want to leave traces behind for the government to track them down with? Is it any surprise that people who usually end up shooting other people in anger are habitually violent and usually have criminal records? I've refuted just about everything you'd said and you still fail to address my rebuttals.

Last edited by AceOfSpades on 03 Jul 2011, 7:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.

The prime basis for the adulation of general firearms is that the police are incapable of controlling crime. The gun lobby has consistently prevented strict elimination of black market firearms. The logic still remains that the gun owners are convinced that the first line of defense against crime is personal firearms. The general distribution of killing machines to counter whatever firepower criminals might have indicates something radically wrong with the police system.

My simple point is that when there will be more guns, more guns will be used. I cannot see that as losing anything.

That's oversimplifying it but in a nutshell that’s the gist of it because that’s just how it is.

Accept it.

There are various ways of accepting it. I do not agree that a totally armed public is safer than an efficient system of handling crime.This, in no way, assumes that the current arrangement is in any way satisfactory. My statement still stands and cannot be refuted. More guns means more shootings. It is undeniably simple but not over simple.

What's exactly the issue about not letting you take a concealed gun? If you are allowed to carry your gun and your gun is there to save us and make us safer, why exactly would you be afraid of showing it?

The whole gun topic is one of those things that makes US more amusing and harder to understand.

Because the crooks also know you have one and will adjust accordingly? Gee that was such a hard question to answer.



Now THIS is what you call irrefutable. Not some unfounded statement with no statistics to back it up with. Plus it's not that more guns = less crime, but looser laws that pertain to carrying guns leads to people being unable to defend themselves with firearms in the public. More guns are useless if the law doesn't allow you to defend yourself with them.

No, that's more of a personal opinion. There's much more agreement about the fact that police cannot be everywhere at once and you can be killed in the 5-10 minutes it takes for them to arrive.

Proof? I've got numbers to the contrary for ya:
http://www.gunmyths.com/2009/04/09/myth-the-brady-bill-caused-a-decrease-in-gun-homicides/

Like the fact that police cannot be everywhere at once and take 5-10 minutes to arrive? That isn't a preventable flaw, that's an inherent flaw. They do not have the logistics to eliminate any type of black market.

And not only have my mountain of statistics refuted that simple-minded point, but I have also posted a picture proving there is no correlation.

Last edited by AceOfSpades on 03 Jul 2011, 9:57 pm, edited 5 times in total.

Sand wrote:

Well it doesn’t pan out that way.
When you have a larger number of would be victims armed and with the mindset to defend themselves then that increases the risks to the would be assailant.
There’s a reason besides flavor that a coyote will go after sheep but not a wolverine.

Vexcalibur wrote:


Most (but not all) states allow only for concealed carry. The rationale, I guess, is that exposed weaponry is upsetting to the feeble minded.

To characterize someone as feeble minded by being uneasy in the presence of someone brandishing a firearm not officially designated to carry one clearly defines the most peculiar mindset of people who are emotionally attached to being able to easily kill with minimum effort.