Randy Cassingham's Blog

Posted by Ray in Toledo (Ohio) on May 17, 2008:

I advocate arming the populace, however I think there should also be gun safety courses mandated along with the licenses. As a child, touring a U.S. Navy ship, I was aggravated by a soldier who refused to demonstrate to me that the M-16 on display was unloaded before I picked it up to examine it. My father, who was a U.S. Marine combat veteran of the Korean war, proceeded to dress the soldier down in no uncertain terms about the importance of weapon safety. The young man, red-faced and obviously embarrassed, proceeded to remove the magazine and open the breech for me.

People laugh about gun safety, calling it an oxymoron, but many - if not all - of the accidental gun deaths every year could be eliminated if proper gun safety is practiced. While I think gun control is hitting your target, proper gun safety helps make sure you only hit your target.

Posted by Neil, UK on May 17, 2008:

Well said. Of course, when banning handguns was first proposed in the UK, the Duke of Edinburgh did ask whether we would try to ban cricket bats if they were used in violent crime, but that argument fell on deaf ears.

Is the story with the tagline about half the British breaking up rocks so the other half can't throw them at each other online yet? It strikes me as rather pertinent...

---

No, that story will have to wait its turn, but I hope to be caught up and have it online in less than a year. I have thousands of stories in line before it! -rc

Posted by Bex UK on May 19, 2008:

I felt I had to chime in here because reading this I feel an important distiction which seperates guns from bats, bars and bricks is being missed. yes, you can kills some one with any of them (or more or less any other heavy or pointy object if wielded with enough force and venom) but only guns allow you to kill a number of people from a distance, everything else requires individual personal service and a certain amount of personal strength (or admittedly a lucky strike). The ban on handguns in the UK (it is still legal to own shotguns for hunting) came after a man walked into a primary school and killed sixteen children and their teacher with two 9 mm Browning HP pistols and two Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolvers, all legally held. There is no way he could have created the same carnage with a cricket bat or even with a shotgun(s) and bith would be alot more difficult to conceal on the way into the school. Whilst there is a blackmarket in pistols/ handguns in the UK now, someone trying to gather up the same range of weopons now would find it alot more difficult and just being found to own one is indication that you're intending something illegal. Lone psycho's aside, not having handguns in the home has to reduce the possibility of them being brought out in anger, yes, you might go after your cheating spouse with a knife or a cricket bat but as long as they can keep out of arms length they have a chance where as you can pull the trigger and deliver a lethal shot from some distance away.. People will always be violent at times, but any measure that reduces the possibility of that violence becoming lethal and makes it more difficult (i.e that it relies on your own personal strength + speed rather than the vastly greater energy in a speeding bullet) has to be a good thing. That said, the blunt knife idea is blatantly stupid and was realised as such so you'll be pleased to hear we still have the dangerous pointy kitchen knives this side of the pond too ;O)..

Posted by John USA-CA on May 19, 2008:

Randy - you got it all wrong. These people (who want to outlaw pointy things) don't care what happens, they are just looking for HEADLINES.

They want the people (voters/donors) to think they care. Here in CA, the politicians keep getting reelected for passing stupid "nanny laws". Here we have a special law that says you're endangering a child if you carelessly leave a loaded firearm laying around. Can you imagine?
Another soon to be passed law says you can't drive and talk on a cell phone unless it's hands-free. Otherwise too much of a distraction I guess.

Personally if I wanted to kill someone, I'd jump in the car and run them over. Hit and run so to speak. I'd be ready to take a big swig of alcohol and say I was drunk if I got caught.

Posted by Felix, California on May 20, 2008:

There are two common "excuses" for banning guns: police will protect you, and the government is not the enemy.

As for police protection, there have been many court cases going right to the Supreme Court affirming that the police have no duty to protect anyone. Even the worst cases, where police dropped 911 calls for no reason or didn't try very hard to respond, affirm that. There is also the implication that "civilians" are not trustworthy but police are, which ties in very nicely with the second argument --

The government is not the enemy. Anyone who follows the news is aware of police corruption. But very few know the story of the Deacons for Defense and Justice, a group of WW II and Korean War veterans, black, who took up arms in the 1960s in the deep south to keep the KKK-infested state, city, and county governments at bay. Don't take my word for it -- google them, read the book, watch the movie. Then think about this happening just 40 years ago, and see if you can summon the nerve to repeat that the government is trustworthy and police are here to protect us -- remember the Japanese interned in 1942 -- consider all the rabid statements today about Muslims and Arabs. If you can still say that guns have no use, then I have only pity for your narrow closed mind.

Posted by Phil, Gilford, New Hampshire on May 20, 2008:

Something that's very interesting in this regard is to look at the history of British law where weapons are concerned. To cut a long story short, prior to the 20th century, violent crime in the UK had dropped steadily for 500 years, even with the passage of laws that allowed and even encouraged essentially anyone to own firearms for whatever purpose they felt necessary. There are even a few cases on record where British police, chasing armed robbers, were handed firearms by citizens with which to continue the chase. Indeed, in the Middle Ages, English common law obligated every law-abiding citizen to do all they reasonably could to stop and apprehend criminals. If you failed to join the "hue and cry" and pursue a criminal, or allowed a criminal to escape through inaction when you could readily have stopped him, you could even be charged as an accomplice to the crime.

All that changed around 1900, when the British government became afraid of Bolsheviks and passed the first laws restricting private ownership of weapons. Along with that came the position that catching criminals was to be left to the police. Once they'd started, they never looked back, and with each new restriction on legal ownership of weapons, violent crime rose, until now Britain has the third highest rate of violent crime in the world.

It has never ceased to amaze me how blind are the fearful who propose such laws. Laws against the carrying of arms will never stop crime, because criminals, by definition, don't obey laws.

Posted by Alan Wa. USA on May 20, 2008:

It seems to me the obvious solution is to allow the sale of pointy knifes only to registered, trained, chefs. A 3 day 'cooling off' period could also be established.

Posted by Rhonda USA on May 24, 2008:

Bex UK,

Does it really matter if I kill 16 people at a distance or if I kill them up close? Quite frankly if the guy walked INTO A SCHOOL when he fired the rounds, I don't see how distance would matter. He targeted children that he could just have easily overpowered and killed very quickly by snapping their necks or stabbing them.

I could easily mow 16 people down with my car; should we ban cars???

Practice enough and you can be just as deadly with a slingshot as you are with a gun.

It isn't the weapon that matters, it is the mindset of the person committing the crime. Something as simple as bleach (or other toxic household chemical) could be used to poison the food at some large event and kill hundreds. Do we then outlaw bleach?

Some jerk talking on his cell phone pulling out in front of a bus load of kids could easily kill them in the crash, we don't punish everyone by outlawing cars or cell phones.

I'm not sure why people are so sensitive about guns killing people. If you have a pool or one of your children's friends has a pool your child has a much greater likelihood of drowning in that pool than they do of being shot with a gun. When a child drowns we don't outlaw pools.

Death happens every single day. I fail to see why one method brings out so much panic and fear while few people think twice about getting in a car where they have a much greater chance of being involved in a deadly situation.

My point is that if someone wants to kill other people, whether one person or a large group, they can find a way to do it. Guns aren't the problem.

Posted by Luka, Slovenia on May 24, 2008:

I always find it amusing how pro-gun advocates are focusing on western world to prove their case. However there are other cases that prove their point. Take Lebanon for example. Prior to outbreak of civil war (1975) shi'ias were the bottom of the ladder. Oppressed, no rights and everybody was free to pick on them. Compare that with current situation, when they militia (Hezbollah). Everybody takes them seriously and they are a force to be reckoned with. It proved all of the pro-gun arguments. Guns are need to fight foreign occupation. Guns are needed to fight oppressive government. Though the fact that both occupier and government are pro-US means that US government demands they disarm, Hezbollah's chief Nasrallah uses same arguments not to (such as "disarming Hezbollah will cause new war").

It seems US government is aware of what weapons can do, just don't want to see Lebanese shi'ias to have their protection.

Posted by Jim, Corunna, Michigan on May 24, 2008:

Before I moved from Vermont, the three most recent murders had all been committed without the use of any type of firearm; one using a MagLight (of a Game Warden - his own light) one using a length of pipe (broad daylight on the lawn at the top of Church Street in Burlington) and one using a fire extinguisher (of a pregnant woman in a convenience store). Using the knee-jerk logic of the anti-2nd amendment crowd we would need have laws so that only licensed electricians could own flashlights, only licensed plumbers could own pipe and only firefighters could own fire extinguishers.