A counter argument can be made that lawful possession of firearms can allow people to commit heinous acts in the first place. The VA killer legally attained his glock, so did the shooter at Dawsons College in Montreal, many crimes committed are committed using guns one legally possesses.

I mean you ever been to the hood? Gun store, liquor store, gun store, liquor store. Gun possession in the ghetto is the reality of the life there, due to social and economic circumstances, anyone saying otherwise should take a drive to Imperial courts in LA.

With regards to a armed militia watching against a unlawful overtake of the government I would like to hear one example when this actually happened? I don't see the Michigan Militia fighting against the tyranny of Bush.

I doubt VA would have been better with more people with guns, young people are hormonal and unstable as it is. I mean Gunrock can say that because well he was in a war, he knowns about watching background, crossfire, proper aim and so on. Most kids, they wouldn't put in the time for that, and would rather go to the shooting range to pop guns like they were gangsta. I think we would alot of people shooting each other and no the shooter.

I still don't understand why people want to possess fully automatic military grade rifles for personal use?

you sure it's completely illegal to own a fully automatic weapon? military weapon collectors surely would have some in their possession.

The scary thing is there are summer camps kind of like this. When I was 7 or 8, I went to the John Birch Society summer camp in North Carolina, which is kind of amusing considering I turned out agnostic and slightly left of center. In case you don't know what JBS is, they're very libertarian/right and religious. There were bible studies and prayer meetings almost every day along with extremely pro-America radically patriotic sessions talking about how the country needs to go back to Revolutionary War ideals. Every other day or so we'd go out to shooting ranges too and fire everything from small caliber handguns to fully automatic assault rifles.

I was 7 years old and I vividly recall firing a .22 Luger handgun, .22 bolt-action rifle, 9mm handgun, .45, and a semi-automatic Kalashnikov. It was a lot like what they show in this video here. They'd even prompt us by saying "Imagine it's Castro out there!" or some other leftist figure from history.

I only went for one summer. I actually quite enjoyed learning how to properly and safely use a firearm and some of the principles of 2nd amendment protections and SAFETY with guns has stuck with me. The rest was far too radical for me, it was like a survivalist militia training camp.

Yeah, that's why I thought the reenactments were wasted time. If it got bad enough we might manage a resistance somewhat like in Iraq but the days of the citizens taking on a modern military straight up have been over for a while now. The main use as far as I can tell is just in the criminal never knowing which home they'll face a gun in, or in concealed carry States the same argument could be made for confronting people on the streets or carjacking.

There's always the good old Constitutional rights thing too. Fully automatic weapons are available under some circumstances and most outside of the movie studios don't have a real use past entertainment so use hasn't been the real legal test so far, though some argue that it should be. We've had a vid or two here showing them fired at ranges I'm pretty sure.

cow-jacking near a marshall....that's a star
stealing ammonia from farmers for yer lab in Oklahoma and spotted....two stars
hunting without a license with fully automatic weapons....they have to call Wichita for a helicopter.....

Rights afforded and/or denied is an issue apart from whether or not a society agrees to unions of same sex couples, and calls it marriage-This becomes a simple matter of will and responsibility, when you approach it from this angle.

Do what you will, when you will, with whom you will, and accept the responsibility which comes with your chosen path of action, within the paradigm you find yourself in. If I wanted to feel like the world was a fair place for m,yself and my gay lover, I would probably move away from a society that tried to stone me, or otherwise made life miserable for me. You must navigate the planet in whatever place in time and space you find it in. If you wanted to worship your idea of God contrary to that of the Vatican's in the 1500's, you dis so in a closet, or you faced them defiantly in public....AND ACCEPTED CONSEQUENCES

You want to own fully-automatic weapons in the United States? Do so, but be ready to accept the responsibility that comes with discharging it and having some idiot report you.

You want to keep all the money you earn, and pay no Federal Income Tax, fine. Don't be a idiot, and leave yourself no outs, if the IRS catches up, yer fucked.

Why, the marriage of homosexuality and Christianity is only a boar's hair away from reality. The devout of every religion take care of their member's needs in the form of a community of pooled resources....Start a gay church, 501. C. 3 status is granted, and adopt as your by-laws that a portion of tithes go to a fund to offset the horrifying inconvenience of not having the full checklist of bennies that hetero couples get. Or stay single on paper fer crissakes, and give it a whine elsewhere-If you wish to see a city liberated from the bonds of a nation's social convention, free to express themselves openly, all manner of human aberration resides in San Francisco, a bunch of flakes with no internal compass whatsoever, a truly lovely city, a fucked city government, crime crawling up it's ass from all the "tolerance" their state, and their city legislatures drizzle.....lived there-saw that-would not wish it on a country......

Oh and berticus-not everything on that wiki list is exclusive rights and privileges for married couples only, and inflammatory rhetoric like "either or...live in a theocracy" is horseshit-there is no divine ruler recognized in any country on earth, that type of nonsense semantic exercise is tactic used by the most vocal of the homosexual rights advocates, of religious nut-bags, and brown-shirt Nazi assholes.....

Lessee....back in the 18's, Joe Smith left a bunch of heathens and started his own, superior religion, that has grown into one of the most successful cults in the world....even got their own state, and their own presidential candidate...it doesn't mean they had it easy.....

The host kind of reminds me of Steve Irwin with that sort of slightly annoying enthusiasm.

I'm no expert in firearms myself, but my favourite weapon in FPS games is the shotgun, irregardless of how impractical the situation is. It's just really satisfying to pull the trigger and let rag-doll physics do the rest on the target. The downside the fully-automatic model is that you don't get the (also satisfying) pump action going.

To address a couple of points that have been mentioned:
"Get yourself some stricter gun-laws. Nobody, NOBODY needs a fuckin AK or an M16 for anything else than becoming a fucking killing machine."
First, fully-automatic (select-fire) weapons are restricted for purchase to individuals under fairly strenuous requirements, including permission from local law enforcement. (This is termed a "Class 3 Transfer", and obtaining the signature from local law enforcement is understandably difficult.) That said, many automatic weapons are obtained illegally. Second, fully-automatic weapons (and Assault Rifles), while potentially menacing, are NOT a significant contributor to gun crime. I may be misinformed, but the data I looked at placed their involvement in less than 1% of all gun crimes. Handguns are the firearm of choice in the vast majority of gun crimes.

"We are talking criminals here. Since when do they deserve any rights at all? They're human? No. They're animals. When they turn their backs on the law the law should turn its back on them."
There is no such thing as an "evil person." I stand by this assertion. There are people whose perspectives are warped to the point that incarceration is the only means to prevent inevitable harm to society at large, but no one should be denied due process unless doing so would infringe upon another person's inalienable rights. The justice system (and the term means something - it means to "make just" or to "make equal" a situation that has become imbalanced with respect to a person's rights) serves both to attempt to restore balance to inequity in so much as it can, and also to levy punishments sufficient in severity to discourage future crimes from the perpetrator and those who would consider similar actions. For the law to turn its back on "criminals" is to render it useless and return us to an anarchic state.

Society, and by extension, government, exists as a framework for its citizens to submit to the sacrifice of certain freedoms in order to assure that the rest of the citizens are similarly denied those freedoms. We voluntarily submit to be protected from ourselves, to the degree we deem acceptable in exchange for the security that provides. I do not feel the security provided by the criminalization of firearms is worth giving up my own ability to own one. This is a weighted judgment. Similarly, I *do* feel that the security provided by the criminalization of driving while intoxicated justifies my personal loss of the freedom to drive in any dang state I deem reasonable.

By that token, I am perfectly willing to give up my freedom to kill anyone who I deem worthy of the act to ensure that the government will do what it can to prevent others from exercising that freedom against me, but I have no reservations allowing my fellow citizens (and therefore myself) the freedom to kill intruders in their own homes.

I've been at this exact pond. It's in Cambodia about 30 mins from Phnom Penh. There's lots and lots of weapons left over from the Khmer Rouge era, and no control over who uses them or how. There's also booming tourism from people who live in countries where these weapons are illegal, and somebody put the two together. (Here's a vid I shot of my buddy throwing a nade there). Anybody can drive up and, within a couple of minutes of arriving, throw a grenade or shoot any of a variety of guns, even a rocket launcher. They used to let us shoot cows with the rocket launcher, but apparently too much heat started coming down, so now you can only shoot at a nearby mountain.

The "reception" area is a folding table underneath a tin roof, right behind where this camera man and I were shooting from, so it's unlikely that anybody has ever dropped a grenade that didn't get kicked into the water in time.

I couldn't believe how lax they were about safety. I shot a fully automatic AK-47. The guy just handed it to me, pointed it downrange, then nonchalantly walked downrange to set up my target with this loaded AK pointed right at his back. He didn't even look back to check.

I also shot a clip from a 9mm handgun. He asked me if I needed to be shown how to use it. I said no, and he let me shoot. Then I handed it off to another friend I was with for the last few rounds. She had never shot a gun before, but he didn't ask, just let her go to it.

Why are they shooting from the hip?

Have you ever fired a shotgun? If the answer is no, well, it has a lot of kick to it. A fully automatic one can't be easily controlled from the shoulder.

Look, I understand that there pretty much will always be those that think the best deterrent against someone with a gun is for yourself to have a gun. My view is to keep guns out of as many hands as possible.

"Bad guys will always be able to get guns" I hear you cry (I do really, it's a weird power I have)... But strict gun control laws and a general feeling that guns are damn hard to come by mean that far fewer crimes are committed with them, far fewer deaths result because of them. And while you say that there are many ways to kill someone, shooting them dead seems to still be the quickest and most effective. I know I'd feel like I had a bit more of a chance against someone with a knife vs a gun. (I could run away for starters).



In reply to your comment:
“well i can't seem to find any solid statistics on violent deaths across countries, mainly because i dont subscrube to resources like those, but heres a BBC article
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1566715.stm

or maybe its because:
Guns are deeply rooted within Swiss culture - but the gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept.

i agree with what you're saying about more guns might cause crimes of passion on impulse, but what makes Switzerland different?

United Kingdom vs Switzerland

A European example would be to compare the violent crime levels of the United Kingdom, which has very strict rules against gun ownership, with Switzerland, which has fully automatic assault rifles in 14% of homes. [1] According to the British Home Office, Switzerland had a homicide rate per 100,000 of 1.2 average over the years 1999-2001, which is less than England & Wales at 1.61, although Scotland is higher at 2.16, while Northern Ireland - with its historically exceptional conditions - is at 2.65. The latter compares with the Irish Republic (with similar gun control laws to the UK) at 1.42. [2]

These data indicate a negative correlation between gun ownership and crime. However, simple correlative evidence concerning two examples is inconclusive as to causation. Put another way, these data do not conclusively indicate that the higher gun ownership rate in Switzerland is a cause of that country's lower homicide rate, although that conclusion is frequently drawn.

Data can be skewed to say that there is a positive correlation between guns and crime, and that there is a negative correlation betweeen the two depending on what countries and how you poll etc. This correlation, does it necessarily imply causation? I think theres much more at hand than just how many guns are floating around, its definately got something to do with their culture and how they view guns and violence in everyday life.

i dont know about you but i'd think twice about waving around a gun when everybody has access to those same guns. Its sort of like when everyone has nukes what an awesome deterrent huh.. (btw, what an ugly truth)
besides, if someone is intent on kiling somebody they dont need a gun to do it (one way or another, see: milions of pissed off wives who drug their husbands to death when they come back home smelling like perfume)

on the other hand, not having guns only does the opposite, it prevents the people who can put a stop to a situation like VT massacre and renders them useless while they wait for the SWAT team to arrive. (last incident over there was stopped by a man with a gun) and it like i said you dont need a gun to kill, not having guns wont prevent the millions of other ways to render a person not breathing.

In reply to your comment:
“And?
Where in that does it say anything in regards to gun ownership and a link to gun violence?

Check out this greaph which shows a strong link between suicides with guns and gun ownership levels. (and in case you were going to say... "and shows that there is little evidence that rates of homicide and suicide by means other than firearms increase where gun ownership is lower.")

It's just basic common sense isn't it? Don't give guns to more people, how is that going to make things better? "FUCK YOU MAN, I DESERVED A High Distinction ON THAT PAPER!" BANG, BANG, BANG... Having guns easily accessible means that in the heat of the moment people have the opportunity to do really stupid, deadly things.

Not having guns during heated situations means that there may be fist fights, yelling etc. but not deaths, not anything that can't be apologised for and made right. You can't make right shooting someone in the head.

In reply to your comment:
“i'll play devil's advocate and link you to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_policy_in_Switzerland

In reply to your comment:
“I SO HATE those that try and suggest 'If others had had guns, he could have been stopped'... because we all know to stop violence, just arm more people.

F*cktards.””””

well i can't seem to find any solid statistics on violent deaths across countries, mainly because i dont subscrube to resources like those, but heres a BBC article
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1566715.stm

or maybe its because:
Guns are deeply rooted within Swiss culture - but the gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept.

i agree with what you're saying about more guns might cause crimes of passion on impulse, but what makes Switzerland different?

United Kingdom vs Switzerland

A European example would be to compare the violent crime levels of the United Kingdom, which has very strict rules against gun ownership, with Switzerland, which has fully automatic assault rifles in 14% of homes. [1] According to the British Home Office, Switzerland had a homicide rate per 100,000 of 1.2 average over the years 1999-2001, which is less than England & Wales at 1.61, although Scotland is higher at 2.16, while Northern Ireland - with its historically exceptional conditions - is at 2.65. The latter compares with the Irish Republic (with similar gun control laws to the UK) at 1.42. [2]

These data indicate a negative correlation between gun ownership and crime. However, simple correlative evidence concerning two examples is inconclusive as to causation. Put another way, these data do not conclusively indicate that the higher gun ownership rate in Switzerland is a cause of that country's lower homicide rate, although that conclusion is frequently drawn.

Data can be skewed to say that there is a positive correlation between guns and crime, and that there is a negative correlation betweeen the two depending on what countries and how you poll etc. This correlation, does it necessarily imply causation? I think theres much more at hand than just how many guns are floating around, its definately got something to do with their culture and how they view guns and violence in everyday life.

i dont know about you but i'd think twice about waving around a gun when everybody has access to those same guns. Its sort of like when everyone has nukes what an awesome deterrent huh.. (btw, what an ugly truth)
besides, if someone is intent on kiling somebody they dont need a gun to do it (one way or another, see: milions of pissed off wives who drug their husbands to death when they come back home smelling like perfume)

on the other hand, not having guns only does the opposite, it prevents the people who can put a stop to a situation like VT massacre and renders them useless while they wait for the SWAT team to arrive. (last incident over there was stopped by a man with a gun) and it like i said you dont need a gun to kill, not having guns wont prevent the millions of other ways to render a person not breathing.

In reply to your comment:
“And?
Where in that does it say anything in regards to gun ownership and a link to gun violence?

Check out this greaph which shows a strong link between suicides with guns and gun ownership levels. (and in case you were going to say... "and shows that there is little evidence that rates of homicide and suicide by means other than firearms increase where gun ownership is lower.")

It's just basic common sense isn't it? Don't give guns to more people, how is that going to make things better? "FUCK YOU MAN, I DESERVED A High Distinction ON THAT PAPER!" BANG, BANG, BANG... Having guns easily accessible means that in the heat of the moment people have the opportunity to do really stupid, deadly things.

Not having guns during heated situations means that there may be fist fights, yelling etc. but not deaths, not anything that can't be apologised for and made right. You can't make right shooting someone in the head.

In reply to your comment:
“i'll play devil's advocate and link you to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_policy_in_Switzerland

In reply to your comment:
“I SO HATE those that try and suggest 'If others had had guns, he could have been stopped'... because we all know to stop violence, just arm more people.

F*cktards.”””

Seriously what is the point of this video?

No one reasonable in the armed forces would ever use a fully automatic glock ever. Your accuracy is shot to shit, just see how much it rattles off in his hand, you're more liable to hit everything but the target at further then 100m.

Idiots at gun ranges, nothin' new.

The incident highlighted the growing divergence between the means available to the police and the offensive and defensive technologies employed by criminals. Video footage of the incident clearly shows police pistol bullets striking the suspects with little or no effect, largely due to the body armor worn by the suspects. Their body armor was able to stop the .38 caliber and 9 mm projectiles fired by the officers' service handguns.

The ineffectiveness of the pistol rounds in penetrating the suspects' body armor led to a trend in the United States towards arming selected police patrol officers with .223 caliber/5.56 mm AR-15s semiautomatic rifles. This provided first responders with greater ability to effectively confront and neutralize heavily armed and armored criminals.

Advocates of gun control in the United States cited the incident as evidence that U.S. gun control laws were inadequate to prevent military-class weaponry ending up in the hands of prior felons. Opponents of gun control counter that as the weapons had been obtained illegally, the incident did not indicate that criminal use of legally registered fully automatic firearms was a problem.

The LAPD patrol officers were not adequately armed or protected to deal with such criminals. The gunmen were firing rifle rounds from illegally-modified fully automatic assault rifles while being protected by full body armor. The officers' handguns and shotguns could not penetrate the suspects' armor, while the suspects' weapons were capable of severely wounding officers and bystanders through cement walls and automobiles.

The North Hollywood shootout was an armed confrontation between two heavily-armed and armored bank robbers (Larry Eugene Phillips, Jr. and Emil Dechebal Matasareanu) and patrol and SWAT officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) on February 28, 1997, at a Bank of America teller-office.

The shootout resulted in the wounding of fourteen people (twelve police officers and two civilians) and the deaths of both bank robbers. Although only the suspects were killed, the sheer number of injuries made this one of the bloodiest single cases of violent crime in the 1990s, and one of the most significant single bank robberies of the 20th century.

The Weapons
Larry Phillips and Emil Matasareanu had a large array of firearms, which included:

o HK91: Used by Phillips as he fired at officers on the left side of the bank, the rifle itself took a hit to the bolt guide rails, which caused little damage.

o Type 56 Assault Rifle: Used by Phillips after discarding the HK91, as he started the escape. The rifle jammed.

o AK47s: Both Phillips and Matasareanu used these rifles during the robbery.

o Bushmaster AR15: Matasareanu retrieved this rifle from the trunk of their getaway car after sustaining a leg wound. He then waited in the car for Phillips, while shooting through the windows. This was also the rifle used by Matasareanu as he was engaged in his last shootout with SWAT officers.

o Beretta 92 9mm pistol: Phillips committed suicide with this weapon after sustaining several gunshot wounds.

Facts
* Approximately 370 LAPD officers were called to the scene.

* Other than the LAPD, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and units of the California Highway Patrol (CHP) responded to the scene. In the MVP documentary film, the LAPD sergeant being interviewed discusses the roles of those agencies as well as LA Airport PD, Burbank PD and LA School PD. Off-duty LAPD officers came in prior to the announcement of city-wide TAC-ALERT, which activates all personnel on duty. Members of the LAPD training at the Valley area police academy as well as the main LA police academy located in Elysian Park also responded. SWAT officers also responded from the police academy. One response was from Chief Willie Williams, who came from Parker Center, the LAPD's headquarters, located downtown.

* The following year, seventeen LAPD officers were awarded Medals of Valor from the department for their actions and bravery during the shootout.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_hollywood_shootout


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i34fbTMEius The video is from the film adaptation 44 minutes : North Hollywood Shootout - "Based on a shocking true story, 44 MINUTES recounts a fateful day in the life of several LAPD officers. In the summer of 1997 in North Hollywood, two wild gunmen with AK-47's began an assault on dozens of defenseless policemen. The results were tragic, but in the midst of the madness several well-trained and heroic individuals rose to the challenge, saving innumerable lives in the process."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362389/