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jlf1961 -> RE: All things gun control go here (1/4/2013 9:11:44 PM)
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Focus, let me put it this way.
The United States has been a gun bearing culture since before we kicked the British out over 200 years ago.
My grandfather taught me to shoot a cap and ball revolver that had been in the family since 1861 when I was five.
My dad taught me to shoot a rifle when I was six. I bagged my first deer that year using a WW1 German Mauser shooting from deer stand.
By the time I was 9 and feeding cattle by myself, I was carrying a 22 pistol to the barn and hay stacks to deal with rattlesnakes that liked to curl up in the hay stacks.
I went into the army and became a sniper.
I have an ancestor, who at the age of 14 lied about his age and joined the Union Army in Pennsylvania and fought for the Union for the entire duration of the civil war.
A half breed ancestor on my father's side fought for the south, with a unit consisting of Cherokee Indians still pissed at the federal government for the trail of tears.
One of my prize positions is a flintlock rifle made on Boring Creek in North Carolina in 1798, which has been in the family since it was bought by my great great great grandfather. It is .56 caliber and still shoots, with one hell of a kick.
Most gun owners come from a similar family back ground.
And while you may be 40% less likely to be killed by a gun in the country you live in, it must be pointed out that the majority of gun related crimes are not committed by your standard gun owner. They are committed by criminals who obtained their weapons illegally and are either stolen or unregistered.
To blame the owners of guns that follow the law, register their guns with local authorities for gun crime makes no sense.
Every law that has been proposed in these threads are aimed at the owner of legally purchased and registered firearms.
It makes about as much sense as it would for the British Government to arrest Catholics in Northern Ireland because the members of the IRA are Catholic. That would not stop the crimes committed by the IRA, but it would put a lot of possible recruits for the IRA in prisons.
No you do not have a cultural reference to understand the passion that gun owners have for the right to own guns.
I agree that some weapons, or more accurately, some magazines for some weapons based on a military design are not needed by the gun owners in this country.
Though I use high capacity mags when I target shoot, or am hunting wild hogs, for any other purpose they are useless. You cannot shoot thirty deer on a hunting trip, and if you are firing at an intruder, if you cant hit someone that is probably less than 20 feet from you with your first five rounds, what the hell makes you think you will hit him with another 25?
As I said, I was a sniper in the army. My fist issued weapon had a ten round magazine, anything larger would have made the bipod useless. I own the civilian version of that weapon and am having it set up in the same manner.
My second issued weapon was a bolt action with five rounds in an internal magazine.
While I can understand the idea of a high cap mag in your standard combat weapon, it is my experience that rarely does the soldier have a clear shot at a target, most of the time they are just firing in the general direction from where they took fire. Waste of ammo in my opinion.
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