🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <CyC7qz.4pMF@austin.ibm.com>, jennie@austin.ibm.com () writes:
|>  
|> Okay, I have been listening/reading this **** for several days now...
|> I own firearms, in fact enough to require one of those stupid arsenal
|> licenses should it ever be passed.  I am also a certified firearms 
|> instructor in all disciplines.  I have never in all my reading ever 
|> found a case where a firearm truely "just went off".  A couple of weeks
|> ago a kid shot himself in the leg (urban Austin) while cleaning his
|> firearm, a .357mag.  Question.... Has any of you ever cleaned a gun
|> effectivly with a round still loaded?  Of course not.  This kid was 
|> doing something stupid, not cleaning the gun.  He or his parents just
|> made this story up so as to not "get into trouble".  He was probably 
|> practicing fast draw shooting or something in the house, or showing off
|> to his friend....  THIS IS STUPID.... THIS IS A LACK OF EDUCATION....
|> 

No argument here!

|> There has never been a firearms accident, they are all acts of stupidity.
|> I don't think that there is an honest gun owner alive that would be 
|> opposed to required education for gun ownership.  The problem is that
|> honest gun owners are worried that the Sarah Brady's of the world and 
|> the government would turn this required education into a means for ending
|> the ownership of firearms.
|>

Now just a ding dang minute here! I am an honest gun owner (and am definately
alive) and I am absolutely opposed to requiring education (i.e. a permit)
to *OWN* a gun. I do agree in training and licencing to *USE* a gun. However,
being raised in a small town in Texas I have been around guns for all of my
life. Some of my fondest memories are of shooting with my dad when I was
around 6 years old. I do not need some pasty faced buracrat who believes
that a 9mm handgun is an "assault" weapon or that a .30-06 is a "sniper"
rifle telling me (or anyone else) whether or not I am qualified to *OWN* a 
gun!

Use of a firearm is a different story. I do believe in hunter education (in fact
the student number on my hunter safty certificate is "0001" (yep, that's right
#0001). I took the class the first time that it was offered (when I was 16)
so that I could go Elk hunting with my dad in Colorado. I also believe in
being able to carry a firearm. However, I do not believe that one should be
able to carry firearms unless they have sufficient training in both the
use of firearms and in knowing when and when it is not appropriate to use
them.

This is a BIG distinction. I think that it is the right of all to own a firearm
and use it at the shooting range or to protect themselves and their family in 
their own home without having to have some sort of permit from "Big Brother"
(i.e. owing arms and self protection are both RIGHTS not privileges).

However, I believe in education and permits for CCW and other "public" use
of firearms. In fact, allowing CCW (with proper education) would provide
more firearms freedom that we currently have in Texas.

|> I think I have firgure out why Hunter Education works here in Texas.  It
|> is a STATE/GOVERNMENT run program.  It doesn't prohibit the purchase of 
|> a hunting license if you don't have the certification, although some think
|> it should.... The hunter education certificate is only a problem if you are
|> caught hunting without one.  For example, what if we required some sort of
|> education, sponsored and taught by volunteers (like HE), where the certificates
|> were issued once in a life time by someone (NRA or the State, whoever).  If
|> you are caught with a firearm and without the education certificate, you get
|> a ticket.  If you just don't have it on you, you show up at the judges with
|> it in your hot little hands and you are cleared.  This has no impact on the
|> gun store owner, only I would hope that an honest gun dealer would ask about
|> it.  And if a criminal is found with a firearm, aside from the state and 
|> federal laws broken, we will probably also be able to lock them up on this
|> charge.  Again, the only hurdle to be jumped is how to keep government from
|> turning this into something it is not?
|>

What's next, a permit to own pointy sticks because you might put your eye
out? It is not the role of the government to protect one from themsleves.
However, in the interest of public protection, sure, why not allow trained
individuals a CCW permit.
 
|> Another hurdle to jump is to get the HCI folks to open their eyes to the
|> fact that we are not all gun grubbing criminals who want to kill anything
|> we seek with a firearm in our hands.  The NRA-ILA has tried several times
|> to get a bill pass in the US Congress and all have been shot down simply
|> because they are sponsored by the NRA and not HCI.   I wonder if in my life
|> time these two sides will be able to find a compromise.  One were both sides
|> win.  There has got to be a win-win situation in here somewhere, and we just
|> focus our energy on finding it instead of fighting it?
|>

Keep in mind that if what you suggest comes to pass it will be these very folks
who will be signing off on whether or not you are qualified to *OWN* a gun.

-- 
===========================================================================
   Travis R. Wheatley   | The opinions expressed herein are my own and do
travis.wheatley@amd.com | not represent those of anyone else in particular.
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