I called the police this morning

[The Straight Story]

Two people in a pickup truck pulled up to a neighbor's house, across the street, and got out. The house is abandoned and owned, mostly, by the bank.

Previous owners still have access to remove things until the bank sends them final notice. And while the bank has changed the locks they gave them a key to get things out.

Week after week people come to the house and do the following:

1. Walk around with a weed whacker in hand
2. Take pics of the address on the house, the yard, etc
3. Some - hired to do so - actually cut the grass
4. Others just leave after taking pics
5. Like today, some pretend they are with the bank and try to take out of the house/garage metal that they can sell - all without any paperwork at all.

Today, the cops came and made the people put things back as they had no paper work from the bank saying they could remove items. Essentially these people were stealing.

Not all the people I see there are trying to steal stuff. I can tell that easily by whether or not they do yard work and leave - if they don't do any work but try to load up their vehicle with copper, metal (all the while carrying yard tools), etc they are stealing.

I sat down and thought about all of the people, over my entire life that I have known, who own/carry a gun. All the people I have sold reloading dies to when I work for a gun reloading company. And I can safely say I have never known any of them, not one, to have used a gun in any criminal way.

WHY are the issues at the theater and other similar shootings about guns? Why do we only want to take the guns of people who did nothing wrong with them when someone else did do something wrong with them?

The issues we are seeing in this case and others are not about guns, never have been, never will be. To make it such is a cop out on the real issues and lets people off the hook.

People do things for a variety of reasons - from breaking into a house and stealing things that don't belong to them to harming others. You cannot remove the latter simply by taking away the tool(s) they used. Suppose they used a series of household chemicals to make a bomb - should we focus on taking those away from all because of what a few do with them?

The problems we face are as old as the human race. Trying to find a solution by removing what a majority of others have and do not use for such purposes is simply a way to deceive yourself into thinking you are safe and secure.

I would not use my truck or a yard tool or a camera to appear that I am taking care of a property while robbing it. Most of us would not. I would rather focus on removing the criminal element than the tools they are using.

[Politicalboi]

1. We need gun classes for

EVERYONE! Guns should be handled like cars. Both require to be registered, and insured. Both require a test every few years. It's the least they could do. If you conceal and carry, you pay more for insurance on your gun. Accidentally shooting some innocent person who lives, needs more than a "I'm sorry I shot ya, but ya lived". They need someone to pay their medical expenses.

Guns need education and insurance.

[The Straight Story]

2. They used to have hunting/gun safety classes in school

I have no problem with us having the same now.

[Politicalboi]

6. I would like to see insurance

As a requirement especially for conceal and carry. If you shoot an innocent person it could possibly help you if you do get sued. I don't like guns nor do I own any. But I would like the assurance of making sure legal c/c people have insurance on their killing machine.

I know not every driver has insurance. But gun insurance would be more taxes that help the cities to fight gun crime. It's an industry ready for the picking. I would hope if we won the house and senate that we would pass laws that require insurance on guns. It would help keep the number of guns down too.

[bluestateguy]

3. More gun laws only harass law abiding people

And one question the gun controllers never seem to answer is: what would they have happen to people who run afoul of the law, who own an illegal gun, or don't fill out the registration forms correctly, or forget to take a required training course? Jail? Fines? Probation? Then we are likely to have more people arrested and their homes searched by police on the basis of the ever amorphous "weapons charges".

More laws mean more powers for police, which is likely to result in curtailment of other freedoms.

[elehhhhna]

4. sorry, i'm with europe on this one

less guns = less murders

it's a fact

[The Straight Story]

5. " Massacre Raises Issue of Gun Control in Europe"

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1885130,00.html

Which country are you talking about in Europe? I sold gun reloading dies to folks in Italy, UK, and France for many years. There are plenty of gun owners there.

I sold a ton of the dies to people in Gold Reef City, South Africa and Australia - and there are plenty of gun owners there. Our number one customer was Australia and second was Africa (Southern). And yet those places, with all of their guns and reloaders, had a lower murder rate than here.

It's not the guns - it might be easier for some to think it is, but that does not make it so.

[Lizzie Poppet]

8. Not necessarily.

We've always had lots of guns in the US: per-capita firearms possession rates have never varied more than a small amount, for more than a century. Homicides, however, spiked radically in the mid-60's, and while they have been declining for a few years now, remain significantly higher than before that spike fifty years ago. It's not a simple direct correlation.

[Honeycombe8]

7. Assault rifles should be banned. Other than that, gun laws prevent law abiding citizens from

obtaining guns, not criminals.

The shooter in the theater was breaking the law by entering the theater armed. The gun laws would make it more difficult to get more guns, and maybe some obviously mentally ill people from getting guns, but this guy would still have been able to get a gun or two. Plus, he'd made a bomb in his apt, and used a canister of gas...not gun.

Criminals find ways to do their deeds, find ways to get guns. Law abiding citizens obey the law. Which is why the shooter knew that no one in the theater was likely to be packing.

I was raised around guns. A LOT of people where I'm from had various types of guns. There was no gun criminal problem. No one mass shooting people. So the problem seems to be the people, not the guns. At least that's the way it looks to me.

The U.S. has had lots of guns throughout its history, yet this mass shooting phenomena is fairly recent. So there's something else at play here, although I'm not sure what.

But one thing is...I have known no one who has or has ever bought an assault weapon. That is not normal. The kind of person who would buy such a thing may be an indicator that someone has killing or mass shooting in mind, maybe.

[justiceischeap]

9. I've got nothing against common-sense gun ownership

but IMO, there is no need for the average person to own a military-grade assault rifle. There is no reason for an average person to own a 100-round drum allowing them to shoot 60 bullets a minute. I think that we can't even say, that a 100-round drum is probably best not allowed to be purchased legally, creates wars of words about rights. Why can people like James Holmes purchase full-out tactical gear? He wasn't in law enforcement of the military, so there is no need for him to own it. Tear gas? What does an average citizen need with tear gas?

I think things are a bit out of control and not even being able to talk about things of this nature without being accused of wanting to "take away your guns" is irrational at best, sycophantic at worst. I think any stable individual who wants to own a gun or rifle should be allowed but I don't think the average person should be allowed grenade's of any kind, tactical gear of any kind, 100-round drum magazines, etc. Does this opinion impinge on someone's rights to purchase these items legally? Sure it does but I don't think the average person needs enough weaponry to create carnage in a matter of moments.