It's the GUN !!!

[Wheelgunner]

It was a disappointing surprise to see such a level headed man respond to the trouble in Florida by indicating a gun's culpability. Obviously if the guy had been carrying a rake on his patrol and had killed the teenager with that instead, nobody would say that the heart of the problem was the rake. The argument doesn't make any more sense when you substitute one object for another. It's just another version of the same old nonsensical liberal mantra.

Guns don't magically go off on their own. They don't kill people simply because they lack a trigger lock. And they certainly don't cast a spell of aggressiveness over an otherwise normal person. If a man picks up a firearm and suddenly feels the need to involve himself in an aggressive confrontation, he accomplished the entire psychological process in his head. The gun was not a part of it.

Furthermore, as I understand the structure of our Government, a state can't pass a law in contravention of the federal constitution. A local police department's orders only have legal weight because of the authority of the state, meaning that policemen, also, cannot make unconstitutional rules (such as forbidding watchmen from legally carrying handguns).

Therefore I fail to understand how participation in a neighborhood watch program somehow nullifies a citizen's constitutional rights, such as the right to bear arms. If that is legally possible, what other constitutional rights does it secretly render moot? Can soldiers now be quartered in my house without my permission because I am a member of a neighborhood watch? The gun-free neighborhood watch argument just doesn't hold water.

[Guest FIST]

There is some validity to the "GUNS" empower, for both good and evil.

In 2008, a man I knew who we will call Ted had found out his wife who we will call Kim, had cheated on him. Ted didn't want Kim or the two children to leave. Kim called her parents who then came to the house. The father had brought with him a hand gun. After a heated verbal exchange the father pulled out his hand gun and Ted a shotgun resulting in the death of the mother and father and later killing himself.

I personally believe that this event could have been avoided had the father not brandished his weapon and attempted to reason with Ted. One of the two children happened to be my oldest daughter and has had to live with this ever since. This is by no means an anti gun story but more of a do what is right story. Knowing Ted, he was a very easy person to talk to and even in his anger I truly believe if he hadn't been threatened with the hand gun that all of this could have turned out completely different. There are probably a thousand reason's for and against my conclusion but that is how I view this particular situation.

In the same token, I have been in a situation at my home where late at night after turning the TV off I heard male voices outside of sliding door. I armed myself with a .45 and went outside. There were three individuals and upon seeing me ran. Long story short, they ended up being neighborhood teens out vandalizing and there was no real threat to my family. Would I have went out side without a weapon? At the time this happened I was very young and dumb, and age and experience through hard times have helped me to learn that going after the threat is not always the best option.

There are times when having a weapon can be empowering in a good way as well. When they can be used in the defense of an unarmed person who is being brutally beaten, they even the odds when the three home invaders break into the elderly man's home who is armed and ready.

I have no doubt that everyone at some point or another has felt empowered by having that weapon, friends with you in a bad situation, your dog by your side ready to protect his master, or whatever situation it might be. It's natural, to feel that way.

The sad thing of all of it is this, the "GUN" is nothing more than a tool, the use of the weapon in my belief is determined by the ability of the individual with it to properly view his situation and options and many of the mistakes made are due to misconceptions of what death really is. When you know you have the power to kill but you do not have the mental capacity to regulate it, bad things happen.

[Jonnin]

I also have a lot of respect for him. But there is no hope for him on this topic: he is a black man of the 60s, who lived through the racial crap of that "peace and love" era, and will be scarred from that generation for the rest of his life.

And he is not wrong, not entirely. I know **I** would not follow a potentially armed thug around my neighborhood (closely, I might stay way, way back and keep tabs on the person's loc) unarmed and certainly would not get *close* to said potential enemy. I would not do it while armed either: GZ did a stupid thing by following and confronting the suspected person. And we all see where that led: not good. I would have to say, that with no apparent victim of suspected violence, going into seek and destroy mode over a questionable person all by yourself is a BAD PLAN. Even if GZ got attacked and was justified, he still did something dumb, what if the kid had had a gun, or even a good knife as close as they got? Nothing against the deceased here, who was clearly unarmed, just "what if" for similar scenarios and I can't come up with a rational reason to get closer to a suspected criminal, armed or not!

Bill is wrong to call for disarming citizens, but he is right that an armed person has a certain boldness, a certain mindset that can lead to stupidity. He is right that police call for backup regularly if there is a potentially armed suspect on the loose.

He is dead wrong that people carry guns to kill people. That is out of line. He is basically calling all armed people, including the police, murderers.

What Bill is not understanding here is that GZ made a series of poor choices. The gun did not make these choices, its owner did. Most other gun owners (at least I hope this is the case) would *at the most* have followed the kid from 100+ yards off in the car, quietly, and let the police handle it. Most others would not get close to a potentially dangerous person. Justified or not, GZ behaved like a moron, IMHO. The gun did not make him act like a moron. I fully believe that this guy would have done the same stupid crap if totally unarmed, up to the point of the shooting, at which point the 2 would have beat each other senseless.

And all this was over the questionable fashion statement of a hoodie.

[JAB]

Sorry to the folks that have such respect for Cosby but a guy who preaches 'personal responsibility and family values' all while dodging and denying his own responsibilities and using go-betweens to pay hush money to the mother of a girl who was possibly his daughter from an extra-marital affair - an affair that he admits to initiating - is what I call a hypocrite. Perhaps a more palatable hypocrite than Jesse Jackass or Al Shark-ton but a hypocrite, nontheless. Am I perfect? Heck, no - but I don't preach my opinions to the media, either. I enjoyed watching 'Fat Albert' when I was a kid but I really couldn't give a tinker's damn about Bill Cosby's opinion on firearms. As Eddie Murphy quoted Richard Pryor as saying when Cosby supposedly chastised Murphy about Murphy's language on stage, "Tell him to have a Coke and a smile and shut the f*&% up."

Edited April 12, 2012 by JAB