Good man with a gun

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If I see a man walking around with a gun I don't actually think "gee! there goes a good fellow" instead I call the police and get the crazy dude arrested

Australia has a different culture. This story is really about the United States.

Your experience with hunters and hunting rules in Australia is not applicable for the simple reason that US hunters don't have to abide by Australian law and the more complicated reason that, for example, New South Wales and Virginia don't share a common culture.

The same problem of cultural ignorance and miscommunication exists within the United States, with many anti-gun people not understanding or caring to understand the viewpoint of gun rights people and vice versa.

To gun control people, the representations of gun control people by gun rights people seem bizarre and incomprehensible. Likewise, to gun rights people, the image of gun rights people projected by gun control people is a clear sign that those people are out of touch with reality.

Meanwhile, there are many structural reasons why imposing tight gun control nationwide in the US is not going to happen, so the crusade to achieve that end is a doomed waste of time and energy.

Projecting nasty and false image of dangerous, murderous, crazy gun nuts at people in the gun culture is not going to sway any hearts and minds or help move toward any reasonable compromise.

And such compromise is a rational, achievable goal. My point in posting this thread is that making sure that no law abiding person has the ability to defend themselves against armed attack is NOT a reasonable, achievable goal. My hope is that the recent horrific events in the news item can help some people to recognize this.

Issues like bad vigilantes and problematic open carry laws don't counter that basic point about defense against an armed attacker.

Projecting nasty and false image of dangerous, murderous, crazy gun nuts at people in the gun culture is not going to sway any hearts and minds or help move toward any reasonable compromise.

FWIW, there's a store here that proudly displays a Lahti M-39 that one of the original owners bought back in the early 60's when the Finnish army surplussed them. It's an incredible piece, and awsome to think that a sniper and a spotter would manhandle one of them through the woods to countersnipe Russians during the Winter War and Continuation War. --It's a HEAVY rifle.

Those are awesome. I've seen one or two of those and one of the Swiss Solothurn S18/1000's that fires the same 20×138mm round. I saw a Solothurn at a gun show and it was a beast. The seller said he'd consider offers over $12K if I remember right. From what I've read, 50-60 years ago when distributors would have the Solothurn or Lahti anti-tank rifles in stock you could even mail order one and the 20mm AP ammo to shoot in it and have it drop shipped to your house!
To have lived back then!

Video of a Lahti M-39:

It's odd where these weapons are manufactured given the Finns and Swiss have never had the need for anti-tank weapons at any point in their history??? purely profit driven for the overseas market...

While I accept Australia and the US have different gun cultures there is one stat that should concern Americans.
According to CNN politics Approx 65% of Republican voters supported the acquittal of George Zimmerman.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/20 ... oll-finds/

What this means is that the concept of a person carrying a loaded weapon and shooting an unarmed person in a vigilante action appears to be perceived as normalised behavior on the conservative side of US society.

To say nothing of the Ultimate idiocy: Calling guns a disease to be controlled (at least in part) by the AMA. Talk about the camel's nose under the tent, as they investigate the private details of your family.

“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies,” the CDC study, entitled “Priorities For Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence,” states.

Researchers compiled data from previous studies in order to guide future research on gun violence, noting that “almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year.

The CDC’s findings - that guns are an effective and often used crime deterrent and that most firearm incidents are not fatal - could affect the future of gun violence research.”

In fairness to the people of the CDC, they didn't ask for it and they were scrupulously honest in gathering data and summarizing the results.

I think some anti-gun people were genuinely surprised that the data did not confirm their narratives, but it is what it is.

It's odd where these weapons are manufactured given the Finns and Swiss have never had the need for anti-tank weapons at any point in their history??? purely profit driven for the overseas market...

It's odd where these weapons are manufactured given the Finns and Swiss have never had the need for anti-tank weapons at any point in their history??? purely profit driven for the overseas market...

Do you even know what a fetish is?

We have one person here whose username I won't mention that has a fetish of watching his wife f**k a pillow, yet has the audacity to accuse gun aficionados of being gun fetishists. Don't be like that person. Just don't...

No, that's the interpretation you are choosing to give this data because that's the one that best fits the conclusion you have already reached. There are other factors at work in this case. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't object if I suggested that race might be a factor in that case? On the other hand, you probably wouldn't be willing to consider that the mere presence of a gun changes the dynamic of any grappling fight between two people?

I think George Zimmerman was a bigot, an idiot and a fantasist who had no business instigating that fight. He should have been convicted of manslaughter. I suspect that had the state really made a case for manslaughter instead of second degree murder, they would have successfully prosecuted him.

But there are multiple reasons why those people supported the acquittal of that violent thug and while support for "vigilante action" may be one of them, it's not a full or accurate explanation.

Nor is it a reasonable argument against guns. One splashy case in a nation with hundreds of millions of guns is an indication that they are generally safely used, not that roaming thugs like Zimmerman are a significant problem.

Do you have any idea how many times a year guns are used defensively in the United States?

So are you saying that 65% of republican voters are both racist and support the use of guns in public

"She had the ice pick and was coming towards me, so I started backing up and she kept coming," Collin Green said. ....
Four years ago, Collin was attacked while driving his cab and was stabbed 13 times. From that he learned two lessons: to register and carry a gun, and to respect its power.
As Collin was backing away from the ice pick, he pulled out the gun, then took a deep breath.
"I was like, 'Look, don't come any further. Don't make me do this. I don't want to have to hurt you,'" Collin said.
He said his goal was to stay calm and put some distance between them.
It worked. She paused and he jumped into his taxi and drove away.

Collin Green says that as a victim of an attack he learned that life is precious.
"You have to do everything to spare a life. You cannot abuse power."