By Denise Tiller, Midwest Voices Panelist 2008
I like shooting guns. If I could have one do-over in life, I would go back and accept the position on the University of Nebraska Women's Rifle Team that I turned down when I was in college because I was afraid of the time commitment. When the kids are gone and we have spare time, my husband and I plan to take up shooting.
The Supreme Court said we have a right to keep guns in our homes--to a point. Felons and people with mental impairments don't need guns. But the key word here is HOME. Our founding fathers didn't intend for people to walk around packing guns. The purpose was to protect our homes. We never need people carrying guns in government buildings, schools, churches, and, yes, even stores. Nor does any citizen really need an assault weapon or armor piercing bullets.
Police officers go through hours of training. Everyone should register for your local citizen's police academy and find out just how much training they have and how difficult their job is. These people have to make life and death decisions in a split second--it's a huge responsibility. I got to do just one round of Fire Arm Training Simulation at the Overland Park Police Academy and I had a blast but it's so hard to make that decision to fire.
No cop ever wants to shoot an innocent person, but if they see a person with a gun, they have to make the decision then. If they walk into a shooting situation, they'd take down everyone with a gun, even the "do-gooders" who are just trying to help. You can't tell the good guys from the bad guys by their clothing or skin color.
The gun debate needs some sanity and compromise on both sides. People who want guns for hunting, sports, or for protecting their homes should be allowed to have weapons for that purpose and they need to register them. We also need to be able to ban guns from locations where they just shouldn't be. Do we really want guns at Arrowhead? Or City Hall?
Cities like Washington, DC, Detroit, Miami, and New York have different problems than we have in small town Kansas and need some different rules. Let's go beyond the bluster about second amendment rights and do the right thing.
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Comments by wildfire08
Awesome. www.usrnsf.com
Sanity concerning guns - we never need guns in churches etc.
Lets have some sanity. I agree.
We never need guns in church, except one Sunday last December in Colorado Springs when a member of the church was able to stop an armed gunmen carrying a rifle and 2 handguns who had just shot up a youth mission 80 miles away 12 hours earlier. She was credited with saving perhaps 100 lives.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/12/10/colorado.shootings/?iref=mpstoryview
We never need them in Government offices with all the high security. By the way, Why do you think they have all that security? And of course We never need to protect ourselves from the mentally unstable or just plain criminal acts of others in shopping malls, the local convenience store, the local restauraunt or at places of higher learning right? Do you read the newspaper?
When will it dawn on you people that guns are not the enemy. Bad people are the enemy, and bad people will appear anywhere good people make themselves an easy target. It doesn't matter if its a church, or a city building or a college or preschool picnic.
Make yourself an obviously helpless target and criminals will find you. It's not right but thats the way it is.
Over 90% of all crime happens outside the physical control of a police officer. (DUH)
So don't depend on them to save your life when they aren't there.
The answer isn't rocket science. Be prepared to protect yourself and your family wherever you are or be prepared to hope someone else is.
Government creating law abiding but helpless targets for criminals because of what you call sanity concerning guns is bull hockey.
Laws only effect the law abiding. Criminals will do as they please as long as law abiding citizens are helpless to stop them.
Can't seem to find your claim
I must be having trouble with reading comprehension; I seem to be having trouble reading the following from the Founding Fathers as meaning: “Our founding fathers didn't intend for people to walk around packing guns. The purpose was to protect our homes. We never need people carrying guns in government buildings, schools, churches, and, yes, even stores. Nor does any citizen really need an assault weapon or armor piercing bullets.”
“False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crime."
-- Thomas Jefferson
“The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."
-Thomas Jefferson.
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
- Thomas Jefferson, proposed Virginia constitution, June 1776. 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334 (C. J. Boyd, Ed., 1950)
"...arms...discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. ...Horrid mischief would ensue were (the law-abiding) deprived the use of them."
-Thomas Paine.
"To disarm the people (is) the best and most effectual way to enslave them..."
-George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 380.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."
-Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-8.
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined...The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."
-Patrick Henry.
"To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them..."
-Richard Henry Lee writing in Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republic (1787-1788).
"The Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms."
-Samuel Adams, debates & Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 86-87.
"Arms in the hands of citizens (may) be used at individual discretion...in private self defense..."
-John Adams, A defense of the Constitutions of the Government of the USA, 471 (1788).
"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American.... [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." (Tench Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.)
"The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them."
-Zachariah Johnson, 3 Elliot, Debates at 646.
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
-Thomas Jefferson, Proposal Virginia Constitution, 1 T. Jefferson Papers, 334 (C.J. Boyd, Ed., 1950).
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government..."
-Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist (#28).
If you must LIE to make your position SEEM “reasonable”, maybe you should rethink your position.
Have you been reading Handgun Controls talking points again?
It is very clear to me that you, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Al Gore have all been sharing the same duck blind.
You all claim to be gun-owners, hunters, sportsmen, wannabe target shooters or whatever. And then you proceed to claim to be my good friend and proceed to tell me that I must relenquish my God given right to a viable self defense because the very idea of the thing offends your self righteous sense of sanity.
If you feel incapable of handling a weapon by all means do not. But you have absolutely no right to deny anyone else the right to a viable self defense.
You try to compromise with the next mass murderer you come across. I'll blow a big raggedy hole in mine.
The police aren't the only people out there who know how to shoot.
Use REASON and Logic; don't just EMOTE.
You are, of course, wrong.
The police seldom arrive in time to arrest a suspect, so they virtually NEVER STOP A CRIME.
Not that the police even have a duty to protect individuals as these court cases indicate:
Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616 (7th Cir. 1982) (no federal constitutional requirement that police provide protection)
Calogrides v. Mobile, 475 So. 2d 560 (Ala. 1985); Cal Govt. Code 845 (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Calogrides v. Mobile, 846 (no liability for failure to arrest or to retain arrested person in custody)
Davidson v. Westminster, 32 Cal.3d 197, 185, Cal. Rep. 252; 649 P.2d 894 (1982) (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Stone v. State 106 Cal.App.3d 924, 165 Cal Rep. 339 (1980) (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Morgan v. District of Columbia, 468 A.2d 1306 (D.C.App. 1983) (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C.App 1981) (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Sapp v. Tallahassee, 348 So.2d 363 (Fla. App. 1st Dist.), cert. denied 354 So.2d 985 (Fla. 1977); Ill. Rec. Stat. 4-102 (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Keane v. Chicago, 98 Ill. App.2d 460, 240 N.E.2d 321 (1st Dist. 1968) (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Jamison v. Chicago, 48 Ill. App. 3d 567 (1st Dist. 1977) (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Simpson's Food Fair v. Evansville, 272 N.E.2d 871 (Ind. App.) (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Silver v. Minneapolis, 170 N.W.2d 206 (Minn. 1969) (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Wuetrich V. Delia, 155 N.J. Super. 324, 326, 382, A.2d 929, 930 cert. denied 77 N.J. 486, 391 A.2d 500 (1978) (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Chapman v. Philadelphia, 290 Pa. Super. 281, 434 A.2d 753 (Penn. 1981) (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Morris v. Musser, 84 Pa. Cmwth. 170, 478 A.2d 937 (1984) (no liability for failure to provide police protection)
Felons and the mentally impaired NEED GUNS as much as everyone else. Just because they are mentally ill or have committed a crime and PAID THEIR DEBT TO SOCIETY; you “feel” they should be prey for criminals?
If the debt IS NOT paid; keep them in prison.
ANYONE walking our streets as a “freeman” (or woman) should be able to carry a gun, PERIOD!
If they are a menace to society, due to mental illness or criminal behavior: THEY SHOULD NOT BE WALKING OUR STREETS AS FREEMEN!
You haven’t read much of anything that the Founding Fathers have written about guns, have you? That’s the only way you could make such an ignorant statement.
It was to protect SOCIETY.
You are of course only using emotion instead of REASON.
Let’s examine your “feeling” under the harsh light of reality:
Instead of playing stupid “What-If” games? Why not compare ACTUAL armed and helpless school attacks and public massacres?
Helpless-VA Tech: 32 murdered innocent
ARMED STUDENTS-VA Appalachian School of Law: 3 murdered innocent
Helpless-Columbine: 13 murdered innocent
ARMED Vice-Principal-Pearl HS: 2 murdered innocent
Helpless-Red Lake: 7 murdered innocent
ARMED hall owner-Parker Middle School Dance: 1 murdered innocent
Helpless Luby’s Killeen, TX: 23 murdered innocent
ARMED Customer Shoney’s Family Restaurant Aniston, AL: 0 murdered innocent despite the 21 hostages held in the walk-in cooler by the 2 murderous robbers who in a previous robbery had murdered the manager of a restaurant the week before.
Who stopped them? ARMED customer Thomas Glenn Terry.
Oh! And HOW was the police “able to sort out a dangerous gunman from others with guns” in these incidents and others like them?
In each incident the “Good-Guys” were the ones WITH THE GUNS when the police FINALLY arrived, minutes later. (In a life-or-death situation, when each seconds count . . . the police are only minutes away!)
As a side note to the benefits of waiting for the police to save the innocent: How many of Cho’s victims died AFTER the police arrived on the scene?
Please show where a gun registry has lowered the violent crime rate. For that matter; in what U.S. city has gun control laws, of any kind, lowered the violent crime rate to BELOW the national average? DC? Chicago? Detroit? NYC?
If gun control works, please explain why the murder rate in DC, with its total ban on handguns and functioning long guns, is 56.9 per 100,000, while just 3 MILES AWAY, Arlington, VA, with its “lax gun control laws”, has a murder rate of 1.6 per 100,000?
You are of course WRONG: It’s the “Bill of RIGHTS” not the “Bill of Needs”. There is no such thing as an “assault weapon” that’s a term the Anti-Freedom Nazis coined to scare stupid sheep.
During the LA Riots; which businesses were NOT looted and burned? The Korean owned businesses where the owners protected their families and businesses by being ARMED on the roof with their AR-15, when the police ran away. (As the police usually do during emergencies. Like Katrina.)
Please name the massacre where the victims were not first disarmed either by Government mandate or company policy.
Guns were TOTALLY banned on the VA Tech campus . . . how’d that work out for them?
So tell us
AGREED!
What “new gun possession law” do you “feel”; someone willing to commit MURDER, RAPE and ROBBERY will obey?
It’s time people stopped bleating and started THINKING!
Meth is banned in all 50 states; so where is meth impossible to acquire if you’re willing to violate the law?
Which gun crime have you read about, was committed by a law-abiding citizen?
If they won’t obey the laws against rape, robbery and murder: Only a total dumba$$ believes CRIMINALS would obey the law “requiring”, all but felons, to register their guns or obey any other gun control law. (The Supreme Court has ruled that felons do NOT have to register their guns as this violates their 5th Amendment Rights.)
“An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.”
"let's have some sanity concerning guns"
Sounds like wishful thinking. There are more than 20,000 gun control laws, regulations, restrictions, bans, etc. on the books (i.e. federal, state, county, municipal), most of which violate the intent and spirit of the fundamental right of an individual to keep and bear arms.
Heller is just the first step. One day we'll finally see enforcement of the "shall not be infringed" guarantee of the 2nd Amendment.
Since the definition of "infringed" is the same today as it was in the 18th century when the Bill of Rights was ratified, one must wonder exactly what part of "shall not be infringed" remains unclear?
Who picks the limit?
Why is it that you get to limit where I take a gun?
What if Clay Co Missouri (where I live and register my car) said I could only drive it in the county in which it was registered?
Or Missouri said I can not work in Kansas because I am limited to the state I live in?
The point of a right such as a right to keep and bear arms means I have that right all the time, not just when you or the state thinks I should.
Just apply your argument to the 1st amendment, you can have free speech in your house but the state gets to limit you out side of the home.
You are so dumb that I
You are so dumb that I cannot believe you learned on your own to operate a keyboard. Do you pay someone to type for you?