AST (After Sean Taylor)-To gun or not to gun?

[mheisig]

Originally Posted by dmek25

so you are OK with what happened to Sean Taylor? guns today are so much more accessible our country needs some sort of regulation on them

Can you point me to where I said what happened to Sean Taylor was okay? I never stated that or anything remotely close to that as far as I am aware, but if you have a link, by all means let me know.

I specifically said I have zero problem with guns being used to kill the evil to protect the innocent, not that I have no problem with ANYone being killed with a gun. Guns are an effective mechanism of taking a life, and I am all for taking the lives of those who would do me or my loved ones harm.

Guns are less accessible today than at any point in history since their inception, yet we have more crime than ever. What might that tell us?

Guns are already supposedly "inaccessible" to criminals and people with criminal records. We need to be a lot harsher about the dealing with the people who are violating the laws already in place, not just start making new ones.

When I was a cop, we'd do our damnedest to get Federal gun charges on the punks that we'd find with guns. Federal charges were the only ones that were any kind of real punishment that they'd be afraid of, state and local charges were a complete joke as the criminals knew damn well that the state charges would be plead down, dropped, they'd get probation, or at the very worst serve a sentence that would have them out in no time on parole. Not so with Federal charges.

About 5-8 years ago the department I worked for spent about 3 years working on a local gang and getting Federal charges on almost all of the leaders. There's now about 15-20 hardened criminals serving Federal sentences of upwards of 30 years with no hope for parole. THAT is how you handle criminals with guns, not these laughing stock state charges.

I'd have to dig up the link, but somewhere around 80% of firearms used in crimes are purchased on the black market or borrowed/taken/stolen from a friend or family member.

A very small minority of guns used in crimes are legally purchased.