Hear, hear!
I carried a side arm everyday I was on duty while in the military, but haven't touched one since. Now that the politicians have turned my state into a third world s**t hole, I'm considering buying an acp and applying for a concealed carry permit.

I have lived half of my adult life in cities and half in rural (sometimes extremely rural) areas. The people in these two types of areas find the other's attitude toward guns incomprehensible. So part of the reason that I live in a rural area in the southern United States is my attitude toward guns fits in nicely with the prevailing attitude in my community.

To the people who are so uptight in advocating all types of nuisance laws to try to restrict gun ownership and usage I say take your neuroses elsewhere and leave the rest of us alone.

It depends on the state. People that live in large metropolitan urban areas don't have the same opportunities for recreating with firearms so people who do own them, mainly do so for personal protection. I believe this is why many urbanites maintain the perspective that firearms are only used to kill people and tend to want to prohibit certain types (e.g. firearms that use magazines, rifles) or completely ban outright.

I sincerely doubt that describes all city dwellers. When I used to live in the Rocky Mountain area I dreaded hunting season for all the crazy gun-toting city folks with zero training or respect for other hunters, animals or firearms out with cases of alcohol, firing indiscriminate "sound shots", expecting to drive up on a trophy. Local 8 year olds had better understanding of the realities of firearms and and real hunting.

... just as I dreaded the winter "snowbirds" while I lived in Scottsdale, Arizona. They came in their twenty-five-foot-long Cadillacs that they no longer had any business to be driving. But they came in very large numbers.

I vividly remember one impossibly-old man behind the wheel who turned the corner out of a restaurant and dimly perceived that the turn-off to his senior center was about a hundred feet away, diagonally across the street. He simply ran the light and went directly for it in a straight line. Fortunately, everyone else [barely ...] managed to get out of his way. It was just like this every winter.

So the gun problem* is a people problem and not a hardware problem?

For information, I am a gun owner.


*As seen from other parts of the world the US actually DOES have a very serious gun problem (or, if you prefer, a "people problem"). And feeling the need to acquire guns for personal protection is a measure of how serious that problem is.

Depends on the individual State but permitless allow individuals to carry loaded, concealed handguns in public without first undergoing a background check, obtaining a license, or receiving any firearm training. I am not sure why that is the right direction.

The NRA false messaging that:
"There is no connection between mass gun ownership and gun deaths."
"The solution to gun violence is more gun ownership."
"We need guns to protect ourselves from the government."
"The Second Amendment blocks gun regulation."
"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun"
"No legislation can curb gun deaths in the US."
is just propaganda in order to sell more guns and spread misinformation to prevent legitimate arguments for common-sense gun law reform.

I am not against concealed carry, I don't think I have no need nor want to carry a gun. I just do not want to be in a situation where some 18 year old idiot like Kyle Rittenhouse after playing Call of Duty thinks they can save the world.

Haven't read through the thread, so if this had already been mentioned...

That is exactly what the US Constitution second amendment is for. It isn't so that everyone can rabbit hunt. It is to keep big totalitarian, out of control government, at bay.

A modern example of that is the Cliven Bundy ranch. Notice how the police/government were not allowed to come in and kill people, or burn them alive, such as they did to the wackos at Waco Tx. Or come in with military equipment like it was a war zone, like they did in Ferguson Mo, while the occupants linked arms and sung "We shall overcome"? And the police said pffftt.

It prohibits the states from ignoring it.

Then can I ask what you would use? You can't stop a person with a gun with anything else. If you are going to say mental health treatment, yes, but that is before the fact. If one of those teachers at Uvalde Tx. were armed, that massacre could have stopped right quick. Same with Christchurch, Columbine, etc.

Just as soon as you see someone walking up to the school with a firearm in his hand, aim center mass, put one or two through him. No dead kids. In fact that happened a few weeks ago. Right after Uvalde, someone was walking around a school with a firearm and the police drilled him, period. Sad, but no dead kids.

Of course that is true. <Long political discussion here> for who is responsible. Such as the state stepping in and forbidding parent from disciplining their children.

Yup, I saw that. They did just pass some gun purchase reform for younger people. I don't expect that to change much.

Funny, when we were kids all of us lived in homes with shotguns and rifles in the closet, not locked up. No one ever took a gun to school and shot people. But, we would not have dared to get a gun out of that closet without "dads" permission, because, uhh, we didn't want out backsides to burn for 3 or 4 days.

While that might of been true in 1776. While the National Guard is a State run militia it is also part of the Federal armed forces and they also uphold the US constitution. A private citizen militia is of little threat to any US armed forces. A well regulated militia was necessary back then since there was no Federal armed force which could be quickly called up in case of an invasion. People have been trying to exactly interpret 2nd amendment ever since and the only thing that is important "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" and ignore the well regulated militia part.

I know the Texas National Guard was involved in the Waco siege but I don't know how the US armed forces was involved. But the Branch Davidians were highly armed. The State's Governor can activate the Guard and like Jan 6 were used to take action but not the US armed forces.

The fallacy of a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun is that even highly trained police can fail at stopping shooters as evidenced by Uvalde. I am specifically referring to the untrained person although while uncommon there have been times when they have stopped shooters. There seems to be a copycat effect. This also goes with the fearmongering with the need for more guns.

Today, in no state can anyone drive on the public streets without a license. There is no requirement in the constitution that allows states to require testing and a license for driving, yet it is well regulated. The same constitution does block restriction of firearms for a WELL REGULATED MILITIA in the second amendment, yet we are casting off all regulation for firearms. It is not logical, not SANE, and not going to end well.

Makes sense to me to require passing a competency test. And makes sense to most others that are "2nd amenders".

We require electricians to pass a test to demonstrate that they have learned E=R*I, how to get different voltages off of the delta, how to size conductors etc.
We require plumbers to pass a test demonstrating how to seal gas pipe joints.
We xray welders beads to see if they can weld without voids.
Roofers have to pass a test after they have learned how to do valleys.

The problem is that we don't trust government 1 inch. That is why you are seeing one side continue to dig in. Once you loose something you aren't going to get it back from them.

We also know that the first thing that tyrants do is to round up the guns. They can't dictate until they get them rounded up. No, that wasn't a platitude, that's historical fact.

In the US we have a Posse Comitatus Act
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

And we do agree on that. 23 years at combat arms and I never found any good reason to have a weapon of war in my house.It is also true that not one bill has suggested removing any arms form those who now legally own them unless they have been proven to be a threat to themselves and others. (Firearms are the #1 suicide tool in the USA!) All of the bills have focused on not allowing SALES to those who should not have arms, and verifying that they are someone it is okay to sell to. To me that seems reasonable. Has anyone without a driver license tried to buy a car from a dealer recently?

From a historic viewpoint States have always regulated guns.

In Ohio “whoever shall carry a weapon or weapons, concealed on or about his person, such as a pistol, bowie knife, dirk, or any other dangerous weapon, shall be deemed guilty.”

Pennsylvania and Massachusetts confiscated guns for public safety and refusing to defend the US. If you did not want to join the Militia you were not allowed to own a gun.

Supposedly the New York concealed carry decision was based on historical precedence but only if you cherry pick what history you want to include.

Te US of NA really need to overhaul not only their constitution (it happens all the time, just look around at other countries) but also their whole legislative apparatus.
Wild-West sentiment and the idea that less regulation means more freedom&happiness (and vice versa) need to be retired. I know, that's a deep-seated sentiment with US Americans, but look around, globally, it isn't timely anymore.
All that also applies to guns and their regulation. Again, look around, compare with other countries. Look at some non-biased statistics (preferably from elsewhere than the USA since your media suffer from the same outdated sentiment).

Thing is, this is going to take a long time. Just wrt guns, there's a sh!tload of those around in your country, and - at least initially - regulations won't change much there.
And it's going to require other systemic changes. E.g. with education. And the separation of state and religion. Etc...

One last time:
Look around, at other countries. 99% of pro-gun anti-regulation arguments seem utterly ridiculous in, e.g., my home country.
It is possible to live safely without personal gun ownership... and no, parts of the USA are not some sort of lawless wilderness. That was a long time ago.

Have you read the opinion? While as a broad statement that is certainly true, the Court points out that most regulations prior to the 'Reconstruction' period following the Civil War were either short lived or generally broadly based on the English common law and later colonial strictures against terrorizing the public, especially using unusual methods or weapons.
There were laws in England against riding through the night brandishing or firing a brace of 'horse pistols' - simply larger versions of the then black powder pistols, weapons that both Washington, Jefferson and other people of their time owned. The 'act' was against the law not the weapon itself.
After the Civil War many of the regulations formulated were designed to keep former slaves unarmed. Justice Thomas quotes Justice Taney of 'Dred Scott v. Sandford' infamy: "If blacks were citizens, Taney fretted, they would be entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, including the right “to keep and carry arms wherever they went.” Id., at 417 (emphasis added). Thus, even Chief Justice Taney recognized (albeit unenthusiastically in the case of blacks) that public carry was a component of the right to keep and beararms—a right free blacks were often denied in antebellum America."

The Court points out some of these instances but posits that these few are far out-weighed by a long history of freedom to 'carry' outside the home with minimum encumbrance. Critics are of course free to charge cherry picking.


Footnote #9 points out that this ruling in no way means that every 'Tom, Dick and Harry' is free to conceal carry when and how they choose. States are still free to apply some regulation to 'carry' but it has to be fair to all and with minimum 'burden.'


Footnote #9 at p35: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinion...0-843_7j80.pdf
"(9)To be clear, nothing in our analysis should be interpreted to suggest the unconstitutionality of the 43 States’ “shall-issue” licensing regimes, under which “a general desire for self-defense is sufficient to obtain a [permit].” Drake v. Filko, 724 F. 3d 426, 442 (CA3 2013) (Hardiman, J., dissenting). Because these licensing regimes do not require applicantsto show an atypical need for armed self-defense, they do not necessarilyprevent “law-abiding, responsible citizens” from exercising their SecondAmendment right to public carry. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554
U. S. 570, 635 (2008). Rather, it appears that these shall-issue regimes,which often require applicants to undergo a background check or pass a firearms safety course, are designed to ensure only that those bearing arms in the jurisdiction are, in fact, “law-abiding, responsible citizens.” Ibid. And they likewise appear to contain only “narrow, objective, and definite standards” guiding licensing officials, Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U. S. 147, 151 (1969), rather than requiring the “appraisal of facts, the exercise of judgment, and the formation of an opinion,” Cant-well v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 305 (1940)—features that typify proper-cause standards like New York’s. That said, because any permitting scheme can be put toward abusive ends, we do not rule out constitutional challenges to shall-issue regimes where, for example, lengthy wait times in processing license applications or exorbitant fees deny ordinary citizens their right to public carry." Emphasis mine.