<p>I wasn’t going to comment on this thread anymore but I heard a news story on the radio this morning that I thought was relevant to the discussion.</p>
<p>Apparently this weekend in a nearby rural area, a couple was robbed at gunpoint in their home. The robbers took money, an expensive truck, and 30 guns (plus ammunition). These typical, “responsible,” law-abiding gun owners hadn’t locked their doors because they felt so safe in their home with all their weapons. And they hadn’t locked up any of the weapons inside the house. Gosh, you think they might have been safer with a Doberman?</p>
<p>So now the community has 30 more guns on the street in the hands of a couple of low-life criminals. And as usual, the local gun defenders have been quick to comment that “the flu kills more people than guns every year.” Sorry, but the flu doesn’t attack people en masse in their homes or schools or movie theaters. When will the denial stop?</p>
<p>It’d be great if we could stigmatize guns the way we stigmatize smoking. Unfortunately, there are still segments if the population where owning guns is perceived as cool and tough.</p>
<p>Someone asked the comparison of murder rates between Bermuda and the US. According to the Bermuda editorial I cited, using the rate per 100,000 people Bermuda = 12+% and the US =4+%.</p>
<p>According to the 2000 US census data used on the Texas State website, Texas has the largest rural population of any US state, but has the second lowest percentage of rural population (17.5). NY is the lowest percentage (12.5) of the Top 10. </p>
<p>Pa., Ohio and Mich. all have a higher percent of rural population.</p>
<p>Nrdsb4–the gun rack in the back of the pickup truck harkens back to the 1960s. When Charles Whitman used the Tower at UT-Austin as his position as a sniper on the campus in 1966, it was correctly reported that Texas citizens pulled high powered scope sighted (deer) rifles to lay down fire to keep him pinned down. The reports were also that the police were not issued and therefore lacked the type weapons to be effective. 1966 was my older brother’s freshman year in college. We were friends with another 1966 freshman, the founder and now owner of D Magazine, who was there on the Drag and was part of the potential targets.</p>
<p>Austin in 1970, when I got there, had a population of under 180,000 when counting the college students. Lots of non-student folks lived on remote ranch sites in the Hill country and had rifles to shoot vermin, coyotes etc. that they did store (safely) on the rear wall of the cab in a gun rack.</p>
<p>Those “hicks” saved lives until the police took out Whitman by climbing up inside the Tower.</p>
<p>IMO. Laws for gun registration do not work. There are laws, there are ppl breaking it. You only need a few law breakers to have a mass murderer.</p>
<p>Yep it’s a Sunday night, time to strap on and head out to Target. Full clip, one in the pipe. Maybe I’ll get lucky and see some black kid headed home from 7-Eleven … someone I can defend myself from.</p>
<p>I would like to invite you all to bash my own state - the real home of the Gun Crazies - Hollywood, CA. It is teaming with hypocrites, who “Demand a Plan,” while they rake in millions from you for watching them gloriously and goriously shoot and kill swaths of humankind, and then saunter around town with their armed body guards and concealed weapons.</p>
<p>Nrdsb4-- as you know we live within 5 miles of each other in Dallas–that’s my point, the stereotype is from times passed although in some rural Texas areas I still see gun racks in use because of the feral hogs and coyotes. These folks have a practical and legal reason for having a loaded rifle in the truck. </p>
<p>NewHope33 — Charles Whitman used a Remington 700 bolt action “hunting rifle” and a shotgun in his killing spree.</p>
<p>Yes and to add insult to insult, in the last tax hike, they were given a special exemption.</p>
<p>:rolleyes:</p>
<p>Until the hollywood group stops with the gansta chic filmmaking? Urban gun culture will not disappear.</p>
<p>I think hunters understand what dead means. There is a reason the gun problems exist in urban areas at a higher per capita rate than out west. Cowboys and hicks, like 'em or not, are not the problem when it comes to gun homicide. </p>
<p>In chicago, we have neither.</p>
<p>ETA: thanks for the article eastcoast, sounds like a strong plan. I’m still strongly in favor of having insurance requirements when it comes to weapons.</p>
<p>^^^ 07DAD - That’s correct. Whitman also had a brain tumor that likely caused his transformation from model Marine to sociopath. </p>
<p>I guess I don’t understand your point. Is it your assertion that there would have been fewer casualties if everyone on campus was carrying that day? Fewer casualties if he’d had a Bushmaster instead of a hunting rifle?</p>
<p>Let me write a better sentence, Tex. In Chicago we have neither cowboys nor hicks. We do have over 500 deaths by shooting, however, and over 2600 people shot last year. No hicks, no gunracks, no open carry, no guns allowed. ;)</p>
<p>“Cowboys and hicks, like 'em or not, are not the problem when it comes to gun homicide.”</p>
<p>My point exactly (though I object to the caricaturization). When you see varmints in Connecticut you call Animal Control. In Kansas and Wyoming you grab your rifle and dispatch them. I don’t see how either response in inappropriate for the place it occurs.</p>
<p>Add the 24 hour news cycle infotainment segment of the industry, who seem to just LIVE for these school shooting stories. Until the media can discuss their role in celebrating these acts of violence, we really cannot have a serious dialogue about these events. Part of the motivation of school shooters and the like is the instant fame they know they will receive. Where are the appeals for regulation of the media on how these stories are covered? If we eliminated the ability for the perpetrators to become famous for their heinous acts, perhaps we could take away some of the appeal. </p>
<p>But, then that kind of regulation might be unconstitutional and limit freedom of the press… who get to pick and choose which parts they like better than others.</p>