Hi Jack,

A couple of quick points

1) Not all firearms are deadly.

2) Many people have legitimate needs for firearms, especially those living in crime ridden urban areas or in rural parts of the country with poor police coverage.

Best,

James

Not all firearms are deadly.

Hurtly?

I'd be curious to see the statistics on accidental gun deaths in rural areas versus urbanized areas.

Most people in rural areas learn about guns (and respect them properly) at a young age, and I would think that this would lower the amount of accidental discharges significantly. In addition many of these rural families hold gun ownership as a tradition, as well as hunting. I have a friend that grew up on a farm, and put himself through college on a target shooting scholarship.

When is the last time you heard of a kid getting his dad's pistol out of the sock drawer and discharging it in rural Oregon? Hardly proof of anything, but I just don't think it happens nearly as much as in urban settings.

And when was the last time a kid got shot and killed in NE Portland because someone mistook him for a deer? I grew up in a small (tiny) town in rural Oregon, and that happened to two kids I knew before I was out of high school. One killed by his brother, the other by his grandfather.

James, I'm not sure why you would say not all firearms are deadly. Even a BB gun has a small chance of killing someone unlikely as it is.

I agree with machineshedfred, you see very few accidents (discounting alchohol involved accidents) in rural areas everywhere. People have been taught from their fathers knee the proper way on handling/shooting guns. Most urban kids are never taught about guns and therefore don't know how to safely handle them.

Really wish the school systems would admit guns are a right and fact of life. As such, actually spend a few days each year teaching gun saftey. Maybe invite the NRA in, they have some pretty good saftey classes.

And how many other countries have very strict gun laws and coincidentally(?) low accidental death or murder rates from same guns?

I'm not against gun ownership. I am for much stricter control. I am also against having so many weapons on the market that aren't for hunting or personal safety.

Since when does a deer hunter need a semiautomatic rifle that can easily be converted to automatic?

No Jack, you buy Grandma the gun to protect against those burglars stealing the other tax-free gifts that the family loaded up on at Wal-Mart.

Having done college in SC, I feel compelled to offer this defense of the state: also mentioned in that Information Letter is the month long sales tax holiday on Energy Star appliances. If you read the history of the bill that created both, you'll find that the bill started for a sales tax holiday for the appliances but was later amended to include the second section, the "Second Amendment Tax Holiday."

And now the joke: there is something humorous about the environmentalists and gun lobby holding hands to support a bill.

As a native South Carolinian, it was a pleasant surprise for me to return to my home state for Thanksgiving last year and discover the sales tax holiday. It applies to more than guns.

While I was down there, I bought an expensive coat for winter and I was pleased to get it without the additional $$ in tax I would have paid there any other time of year. (I bought the item in SC because it was a 'gift' from a close family member.)

a semiautomatic rifle that can easily be converted to automatic?

Care to elaborate on that tired, thoroughly debunked old canard ?

Don't we have one of those holidays every day?

You can't have a gun, you'll shoot your eye
out!

It would not surprise me to see the legislature or Sam try to pull a sales tax day “for the kids”. Maybe I should keep my mouth shut.

Great Grandmother holds Burglar at bay with gun.

http://www.wpxi.com/news/17223812/detail.html

City folk are so naive, yet think themselves so sophisticated. Defensive gun use happens each day in the US but is rarely reported by the media.

"Defensive gun use happens each day in the US but is rarely reported by the media."

For too long, gun goofs got into massmedia and got away with saying unchallenged that armed residents stopped 1 or 2 million home invasions per year. Oregon's 1% would be 10 or 20 thousand/year. At least 25/day. Who knew? That's a lot of not-reporting going on.

Problem is, word gets around without media. And word was NOT getting around. Which proves it was NOT and never was happening. Still ain't. If it were, each of us would 'know somebody' and 'hear tell' -- the neighbor's sister, a cousin's co-worker, someone at church's family's friend. Word-of-mouth, media or no media.

It ain't happening. We'll know when it does. Today we know it does NOT. The sometimes items in the news make news because they are exceptions; if it is common it ain't news.

Clearly, we need more kids growing up knowing how to do armed home invasion and robbery: Texas school district will allow teachers to carry guns, by Angie Felton, Aug 16th 2008

... board members of the Harrold Independent School District voted unanimously that teachers ... will be allowed to bring guns into their classrooms starting this fall.

All I can say is those students better turn their homework in on time. Or else.

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away