She's a piece of work, all right.
Here's a few of my thoughts that may or may not help:
As with many of my views I don't have a better answer to the gun ownership thing.
Then perhaps it is time to set aside "feelings" and take a good, open-minded, honest look at STATISTICS. Now is a good time to consider the amount of rapes, murders and other nasty things that occur to unarmed people daily. Ask her how a post-rape 911 call has ever prevented one. MY firearms HAVE prevented one-- of my sister.
I don't believe in it-keeping guns.
We live in a free country. No one is forcing HER to keep one. But as long as we live in a free country, it is our right to do so if we choose. If she doesn't believe in having one, she doesn't have to get one-- but she needs to take ownership of the consequences of not having one.
There is NO failsafe way to keep gun owners responsible.
There is no way to prevent ANYONE from doing irresponsible things. I'd wager that if I followed her around for a day, I could tally up a nice long list of irresponsible actions that could potentially hurt herself or others.
Children get shot by other children daily b/c of irresponsible gun owners.
She needs to back this up with citiation. Again, more people and children are hurt by other things that society is perfectly acceptable of than by firearms. It just FEELS good to go after guns, but if she is going to be intellectually honest, she would have to admit that guns are not the primary killers of people. Furthermore, if she is going to live this honesty, she should be lobbying for a ban on automobiles and other killers of people.
and concealed weapons should definitely NOT be allowed,
Again... her Belief. Only this time she is not making a statement about HER choices but rather projecting her will onto others. If she is willing to make such a statement, she better be willing to back up her claim with solid statistics showing how many liscensed CCW carriers have KILLED ANYONE. Serious, she is practicing intellectually dishonesty. Tell her that before she starts projecting her ill-formed beliefs onto others, she needs to be able to back it up with a lot more than her emotions.
if our society gets to a place where we need to arm ourselves against the government then permits aren't gonna matter, so why do we need to carry guns on us now?
Correct. Permits wouldn't mean anything in protecting ourselves from the government. They do wonders in protecting one's self from rapists, however. Seriously, what world does this person live in???
I don't think that taking away everyones gun is the answer.
Nice to know. It doesn't jive with the rest of her comments, however.
I don't want them in my house (my kids aren't allowed to play w/ toy guns.),
Free country. Her choice. I just hope she never has to be in a position where she has to DEFEND those children. If she is SO interesting in the safety of children, then why is she SO willing to be unable to defend them. Some parent she is. What would she do if there was a home invasion like the one in CT? Or how about the one in FL recently where the child was forced to have sex with his own mother? I suppose she could make herself feel better in that she did not have to expose her child to gun violence while they are raping and killing everyone in the house. Personally, I think good parenting is actually being able to protect your children. Sorry if this has some uncomfortable imagery. But I DO hope it makes us uncomfortable to think about. Those cited events happened in the last few weeks and in different parts of the country. What keeps an "isolated event" from happening in HER carebear world?
and I want the strictest legislation possible.
Why? Again, if she wants to protect people, look to the REAL dangers.
I just think there are too many nut jobs out there brandishing fire power.
There are too many nutjobs... Period. Taking away the ability to act creates impotent slavery. It doesn't take away the desire to do it. Here's a novel idea: Work on fixing VALUES in our culture instead of trying to make us all defenseless against those nutjobs.
And weapons are too easily, illegally attained by juvenilles who really don't understand the consequenses of their actions.
BS. Citation that juvenilles don't know what they are doing, please. Perhaps it is a lack of values and a total disregard for human life is the problem. Again, fix society. Turn off the gangster rap and MTV.
Life and death aren't so black and white when your 14.
More emotional drivel. Life and Death are what they are. You are alive or you are dead. It was the exact same when she was 14. The big difference now is that as an adult, you are responsible for keeping those you love alive-- hence being able to defend them.
You have a person here making every decision from an emotional point of view. It is very unlikely that you will make any headway. It is VERY difficult to change the views of an person who makes decisions emotionally. Usually, something that hits them MORE emotionally has to occur for them to replace an emotional world-view position. I know a couple of people who were very anti-firearm who now carry because being raped. That emotional event became a catalyst to usurp the previously held emotional decision with another equally emotional one.
If you can't make headway, you may want to reevaluate whatever relationship you have with her.
-- John
