Thought I'd share this, looks like yahoo goes a little more in depth with the story. Worth a read I think. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_bloomberg_gun_control

can be? It is. #1 rule of shooting is to always treat it as loaded..why is that? Because guns are dangerous. If they weren't why would we always aim it down range or away from others?

Lots of people get shot on accident every year because they don't respect the hazards of carrying a gun around.

Sorry to butt in here but....
It's not a gun that is dangerous, it's the person that holds it that can make the gun dangerous.
(If not handled responsibly).

I think you are missing the point. It's quite the opposite. A gun is inherently dangerous and can be made safer by proper handling of it. Mishandling such a weapon only allows its full potential for in jury to show itself. My Rifle or shotgun's bullets are no less deadly because I am carrying it rather than a child. Should I make a mistake the results are the same as if an untrained kid was shooting.

To treat a gun with a caviler attitude like that is not something I ever would want to do. Remind me not to shoot with you, because where I come from I was taught that the first rule is to always assume it's dangerous (aka it's loaded). To assume its safe because "you know what you are doing" is asking for trouble.

And what constitutes it being dangerous? The times where it is loaded? Or not loaded? How did it come to be loaded? And if it is loaded, how did it come to be pointed in the wrong direction? Or at someone? And soforth and soforth... That is my point, we seem to agree here Exactly, Mishandling, we again agree
Cavalier attitude? I don't quiet understand? Ah but if someone knows what they are doing and being responsible in the first place, they wouldn't be assuming and would actually know if the fire arm was loaded or not, or indeed not be a danger in the person's hand(s) in the first place.
BTW, i have handled fire arms on many occasions, both in civilian life and also in the Armed Forces, always with the utmost care and safety and responsible attitude that i have learnt in the Army and from my father, who is extremely experienced in handling many types of firearms, both on firing ranges, and also out in the 'fields', hunting game.
When handling firearms i never assume, i know!
I think we will agree to disagree here.

but why not be double safe and just act like it's dangerous anyways?

And the point he made about those states being safer than NY is still true.

Well i wouldn't have any problems teaching my children that, that firearms are not toys, nor are they harmless...
however i would also teach them that a firearm is only as safe or as unsafe as the person holding that firearm.
:salute:

Would it?
Take some major cities in those 4 States and compare their crime rates for murder and violent crime with NYC.
He may have a perception of safety but is it true? If it were true then surely those cities would be lower than NYC.

But anyway as it happens Tuscon recently had a good illustration of safety through allowing gun ownership didn't it and it didn't show very good for those that believe the illusion.


Because guns can be dangerous.

the fact that they can be dangerous makes them dangerous.

Stones can be dangerous, would you say a stone is dangerous?

A hammer can also be dangerous as can a common fork. But none of them are dangerous by themselves. It takes a person to misuse them.

This.

The cities in AZ are now unsafe mostly due to Mexicans. I do in fact mean Mexican nationals, not people who happen to have Spanish surnames.

Gun ownership in the US is an explicit Right (and the people in the 2d Amendment, means the population at large as it does in every other use of "the people" in the Constitution).

Crime rates in the US are complicated, but the bottom line is that areas with large %s of certain minorities have vastly higher crime rates. "Blacks," sadly, have a gun homicide rate nearly 10 times higher than "whites." If the black population is higher % wise in any given area, the crime stats are going to be grossly skewed upwards. They are not in fact mitigated by gun laws, either, as the criminals buy guns regardless of legality. The same is true for areas with many mexican nationals these days given the drug cartel problems (last year there were tens of thousands of fatalities related to this, and the border towns like Ciudad Juarez are stunningly dangerous places—and as long as the border is not locked down will continue to be since the violence is fighting over the right to SMUGGLE to the US).

The Tucson shooter was a nut case, but he could have easily have killed 6 people by ramming his CAR into the crowd had he decided to.

Anyone here who is a US citizen is welcome to an opinion that the 2d should be repealed (good luck with that), but that is the only legitimate path to gun control in the US since gun ownership is specifically protected. Real the 2d, or lobby to do so, but stop with unconstitutional "gun control" ( "shall not be infringed" is a pretty low bar for any sort of regulation).

I will agree with the other side on this story. Supporters of gun rights consistently say "Rather than write new laws we should be enforcing the ones we already have", and the Yahoo article mentions a comment to the effect that Arizona will be ending all gun sales without background checks. It looks to me at this point that the story really is that existing laws weren't being enforced, and as a result of this they will be, at least for awhile.