"There is no reason that any private citizen in a democracy should own a handgun"

[ConfuseUs]

Geez, have you ever read an issue of the New Yorker? I had a roommate about 30 years ago, that had a subscription. It is the most pretentious, pseudo intellectual, mumbo jumbo, steaming excrement. Absolutely unreadable.

+1 on that.


The problem with a lot of New Yorkers is they don't understand that the rest of the country thinks Manhattan = garbage dump.

 

[Mr White]

No, we should all learn to call 911 and quietly wait for the police to come and draw a chalk line around your dead body.

Sorry, Ned. Your life is a small price to pay for our collective safety.

 

[Speer]

Another tired rant overrun with inaccuracies and falsehoods.

I read stories like this, and I'm reminded why the gun grabbers will never be right:

http://www.caller.com/ccct/local_news/article/0,1641,CCCT_811_5055706,00.html

 

[FieroCDSP]

They are not made for hunting, and it’s not easy to protect yourself with them. (If having a loaded semi-automatic on hand kept you safe, cops would not be shot as often as they are.)

Um...a higher injury rate in police officers than Joe Schmoe is due to the fact that cops SEEK OUT criminals, and thus encounter a few now and again. Some of those criminals are not happy about that. I'd be willing to bet that more cops are wounded with knives than guns. As for cops getting shot... They have the luxury of a ballistic vest and every right to shoot back. In that line of work, you'd expect to get shot at. If a regular guy walked around with a vest on, you'd think he's nuts, or about to go on a killing spree, and is making sure cops can't take him down easily.

Lets see... Damned if you shoot, damned if you dont....I'd rather defend myself in the more active manner, thanks.

 

[ReadyontheRight]

Apparently we should get rid of all guns so that we can go back to the good old days of serfdom. It certainly worked better for the Nobility.

 

[torpid]

They are not made for hunting, and it’s not easy to protect yourself with them. (If having a loaded semi-automatic on hand kept you safe, cops would not be shot as often as they are.)

Yes, I'm sure Mr. Gopnik is drawing from years of personal experience using handguns when he makes such an observation.

 

[gezzer]

Glad I live in a Constitutional Republic and not a MOB RULE Democracy!

New Yorker Magazine? My grandmother bought that to look at the ads. Even their cartoons stunk!

 

[dave_pro2a]

Even the socialist authored Pledge of Allegiance says we're a Republic, and they make you recite it in school so it must be true

"Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

 

[SWMAN]

Why do cops carry guns in a democracy? The same reason anyone who wants to should be able to, to protect ones self against physical attack by another.

 

[iapetus]

In a Democracy, power lies in the hands of the People.

Having a gun gives you (potential) power over those who don't.

Ergo, in a Democracy, everyone should have a gun.


If only the police/army/whatever have guns, power ultimately lies in the hand of the police/military, and you have a police state/military dictatorship.

 

[Deanimator]

Quote:
They are not made for hunting, and it’s not easy to protect yourself with them. (If having a loaded semi-automatic on hand kept you safe, cops would not be shot as often as they are.)

Yes, I'm sure Mr. Gopnik is drawing from years of personal experience using handguns when he makes such an observation.

Leaving aside the fact that I neither hunt, nor have much interest in hunting, the ONLY modern firearms permitted for deer hunting in the state of Ohio are shotguns and HANDGUNS. Most of the people I know here who hunt, hunt with handguns.

Talking to most anti-gunners about guns and gun control is akin to discussing Pleiseasaur morphology with a creationist who believes that the earth was created at 2:30pm on March 16th, 4004B.C.

 

[sterling180]

I think that all of this anti-handgun business,is based on false and ignorant facts about handguns.Most antis think of them as weapons to that kill in general and others,think that they serve no purpose whatsoever,other than as a "people killer."

All guns can kill a person and handguns are no exception to this.

Antis in the UK have attempted to discredit practical shooting,with our legal guns and with airguns,because they think that practical shooting,in general, trains the mind to kill people,in the same way,that practical pistol shooting does."A dangerous sport that should be banned",is what they wanted,10 years ago,in the handgun ban.

Most of this was the result of the crafty, handiwork of the GCN,because the government could have restricted all pistols to be kept in gun clubs only and not had them completely destroyed.

 

[Cosmoline]

This is the view of almost everyone from NYC. Which is again why we must NEVER VOTE FOR ANYONE FROM NYC! Namely, America's favorite mobster.

 

[El Tejon]

sterling, I think you credit the antis with ignorance when I believe it is malice that drives them. They know that handguns are for defending yourself.

If you allow the common man to defend himself, then he will not need his rightful lords in the government to do so. The nobility must have a monopoly on violence in order to maintain their rule.

I have guns to defend my life and my liberty, not for recreation such as hunting. My rights are not subject to what the majority wishes or what my would-be masters in New York City demand.

 

[Ratzinger_p38]

Leaving aside the fact that I neither hunt, nor have much interest in hunting, the ONLY modern firearms permitted for deer hunting in the state of Ohio are shotguns and HANDGUNS. Most of the people I know here who hunt, hunt with handguns.

Yeah Im going to have to go to KY to hunt with my rifle. Drives me nuts.

 

[trimixdiver]

A Democracy is two wolves and a rabbit voting on what to have for dinner.

 

[xd9fan]

Well then I guess it's a good thing we live in a limited Constitutional Republic then, isn't it???

yeppers
democracies suck

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"
-- Benjamin Franklin(1706 - 1790)

Guns are THE litmus test on how anybody thinks about Liberty........they know what they are doing...

 

[White Horseradish]

Guys, you have no idea how funny this is...

You see, a "gopnik" in modern Russian is a low-level street criminal, the kind of guy who would beat up little kids for candy, piss on your porch and rob someone visibly defenseless, but a quivering coward when faced even with minor resistance.

If the shoe fits...

 

[Gudis]

Semi-automatic Glocks and Walthers, Cho’s weapons, are for killing people.

Damn Walther and those P22 killing machines!

 

[Geister]

weapons have got more lethal

Haha, those .50 calibre blackpowder revolvers pirates used were pretty damn lethal.

 

[ricci316]

My question is this: Why should we(America) care what any other country in the entire world thinks of our laws(Gun Laws in particular)?

Answer: We shouldn't.

It really grinds my gears when I hear journalists or other antis us the "The rest of the world...blah blah blah" argument. We are not the rest of the world. We are The United States of America, and that is what we will always be.

If gun control is working out in England, Australia and other countries then great for them. Since we all know that gun control(or gun banning) doesn't actually do what it was intended to do, then our "brother and sisters" across the pond and elsewhere should just shut their collective mouths.

 

[mek42]

God forbid anyone try to figure and do something violence in general.

And since when is need a necessary rationale for any sort of consumption in this country? Certainly people don't need to drive cars, people don't need to eat out at restaurants, people don't need (gasp) to read the New Yorker.

 

[Knotthead]

As the police cleared the bodies from the Virginia Tech engineering building, the cell phones rang, in the eccentric varieties of ring tones, as parents kept trying to see if their children were O.K.

Have to remember this one for the next time someone recommends carrying a cell phone instead of a handgun.

 

[One of Many]

It’s true that in renewing the expired ban on assault weapons we can’t guarantee that someone won’t shoot people with a semi-automatic pistol, and that by controlling semi-automatic pistols we can’t reduce the chances of someone killing people with a rifle. But the point of lawmaking is not to act as precisely as possible, in order to punish the latest crime; it is to act as comprehensively as possible, in order to prevent the next one. Semi-automatic Glocks and Walthers, Cho’s weapons, are for killing people. They are not made for hunting, and it’s not easy to protect yourself with them. (If having a loaded semi-automatic on hand kept you safe, cops would not be shot as often as they are.)

This guy is contradicting himself repeatedly. He states that we can't prevent something, then says that the reason for passing laws is to prevent those same actions.

He says weapons are for killing, and then that they cannot be used to defend yourself with them, but possessing them will get you killed by someone else who possesses them.

It is quite clear that there is no logic to his ramblings. He hates the idea of personal defense by victims of violent criminal attack, and wishes for all people to be as defenseless as he has made himself, by depending on paid agents of the government to protect him (us).

 

[john paul]

yeah it would have been better for him to go down to the home depot and build a bomb instead. the guns made him do it!