TargetTalk

Rwilson wrote:https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=you ... 5NbcF2iu3Y

Thanks, this was great and I will be sending this you tube site to a lot of people. I hope others do the same. The need for real honest facts not media fake news.

Politicians like that need to put their money where their mouth is and lobby to have their buildings made into open and concealed carry zones.

If I was in VA .... I'd vote for Nick!

Great arguments. Too bad that the 'general' public (in Europe) will never hear these.

I thought this forum was about target shooting, not politics.

I've enjoyed shooting since I was 8 years old; both parents grew up on farms and firearms were just another tool, but ones in which certain safety lessons were essential. There are few things I enjoy more than buying a new gun (or even a nice used one); I even get vicarious pleasure when a friend buys a gun. I would stake my knowledge of guns against most anyone's knowledge.

I listened to the NRA dogma espoused by the representative from Culpepper and found it to be rehashed dribble with no evidence of new thinking and especially no debate--a serious discussion of the pros and cons of an issue. The NRA used to strongly focus on gun safety and shooting competitions, but since the 1970s, they became a lobby for the gun industry. Their true function is to make sure qualified citizens buy as many guns as possible. Their primary medium is selling fear ("they" are going to take our guns away). The NRA claims to be fighting for the tenuous 2nd admendmentright every day, but thanks to the 2008 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, "they" will not take our guns away. That ruling said that we have the right to own and bear firearms, but that right is not unlimited, e.g., assault weapons could be banned, high capacity mags could be banned.

When I think of the NRA's unyielding stance, I am reminded of the old adage, "the bow that doesn't bend, breaks." That tipping point, IMHO, is just one or two mass school shootings away. What scares the hell out of me are millions of young Americans who own firearms but have not benefitted from "fear of consequences" parental tutelage on firearm safety that I had. A little over a year ago, I came home to find out that a neighbor had been shooting all day (I live in a Florida county where shooting is permitted if you live on 5 acres or more). Everybody at home was flinching (wife, dogs, cats) from continuous shooting, including centerfire weapon fire. At 8PM I went to the home and observed about 20 firearms on a picnic table, four juveniles and two so-called adults, all who had been drinking. No back stop, no evidence of shooting safety awareness. Less than 500 feet behind their house was another house. I yelled and they quit, and now I'm the neighborhood AH.

We have to come up with some solutions before non-shooters do it for us. The low-recoil, high capacity AR15 is a formidable weapon that a low-skilled shooter can wield with deadly effects, especially at close range. WE have to start talking with civility among ourselves, even considering potentially painful solutions, to demonstrate that the shooing community thinks human life is more important that anything. The NRA has already sold its soul on the issue; no help there. In Florida, the magazine capacity for all hunting rifles if 5 rounds. I don't know what the answer is but we ought to be talking. Dipnet

Superb post Dipnet.

Here in Canada I fear the same tipping point coming. A lack of positive promotion of firearms sports coupled with a belligerent gun lobby that opposes all legislation and demonises two of the three political parties and maintains relations with only one.

IMO, we're one outrage causing disaster away from having Australian style laws passed here.

It's lamentable and disgusting that the focus of the NRA and others is always fear and "them" and never directed against the morons like you describe having there in Florida. IMO sensible gun owners should be the first in line to push for stricter gun safety rules that consider berms and what lies behind them as well as coming very hard down on anyone discharging a firearm while intoxicated.

It's not politics, it's about a civil right. If we don't stand firm when laws are purposed that will infringe on that right, then we will loose it. If you think I am exaggerating, then I offer as an example, California. Since the 1990's they have passed 20 state laws, and hundreds of local ordinances. With more on the way. In my lifetime they went from a shooters paradise to one of the most difficult states to own and purchase a firearm. Not to mention New York and New Jersey, we lost them decades ago.

The NRA is the only organization that can challenge these laws, have you seen the ACLU help with this?

If you look at the mass shootings in the last 20 years, you see the same pattern, young men, ages 15-40 suffering from severe mental illness. Why are these men not getting the treatment they need? Parents knew, schools knew, even law enforcement knew. We allowed our mental hospitals to be closed down and we are now paying the price. You can't buy or shoot a AR rifle when you are in a mental hospital. Expensive? you bet, but I would gladly pay taxes to see that it gets done.



The NRA has been demonized, unfairly, they have been begging people for years to be safe and responsible with firearms. Millions of people are buying guns, few if any really know how to shoot them. My club, Phoenix Rod and Gun has been teaching folks how to shoot since 1947. They taught me. We need to get these people trained, and the NRA is the only organization that has the resources to do it. If anything we need to push the NRA to put emphasis these programs, lets make a the NRA a good example, not the evil organization it's been made out to be.

I have to say that I agree with dipnet, that if we, as the shooting sports community, can't have a useful discussion about this, it is very hard to see how anyone else can. I, personally would be supportive on new gun laws if I Ever heard of ones that would have the effect of reducing violence. I have Not heard of any. I think that most of the chest pounding I have heard is saying "do something, anything" even if it has no effect. I can't agree with that. Articles in the NYtimes, Washington Post, Miami Herald have all come to the conclusion that none of the proposed gun laws would have had any affect on the mass shootings in this country. Demonizing guns only distracts us from the real issues which is: why are there so many Angry people in this country who feel they have no other choice but that they must hurt someone. The people who are committing these acts are not typically mentally ill, but rather they are Angry. We can't legislate away Anger. To me these acts are horrific, whether it is a husband shooting his wife or a school kid shooting up her school. I really see no difference between acts carried out with a machete, a gun, a truck or a bomb. We can speak of numbers of victims, but that only suggest that there is some number of victims that is acceptable. I find it very confusing that the same generation that insists on shooting up their schools is the same generation demanding something be done about it. The kids in the schools are the ones who are responsible for alienating their classmates and the ones who can change that.