Carrying guns leads to confrontations....

[Jason]

Derpa Derpa Derp.

[Seth]

You gonna praise open carry?

I prefer open carry to concealed carry, for the main reason that I can see who is armed.

You don't need to see who among your law-abiding citizens is armed because it's none of your business. Moreover, criminals don't carry openly precisely so that they don't alarm their victims until it's too late.

I prefer concealed carry because it keeps the crooks guessing who is and who is not armed and might shoot them dead.

[JimC]

It is exceptionally weird to me that life and death matters of law vary willy-nilly from state to state in your "country"

Are you a nation, or a collection of feuding territories?

BLACK HUMOURED EDIT - Perhaps a league table of which states have the highest risk of primary school massacres?

[Jason]

You surprise me Jim.

I had no idea you could play the troll so well. Surprise and disappoint.

[JimC]

You surprise me Jim.

I had no idea you could play the troll so well. Surprise and disappoint.

It's the anger coming out, an anger which I normally suppress, but sometimes, the whole insane American gun thing makes me fucking angry.

And it's not trolling - that crap is childish ego driven game playing.

This is raw and real.

I think American gun nutters are going to surprised by the anger from their fellow Americans - let's wait and see...

[Jason]

I suppose people deal with things in different ways. Me? I get cold, not heated... then I blow up in a hellstorm of 'what the fuck just happened'. Meh.

Have at it.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It is exceptionally weird to me that life and death matters of law vary willy-nilly from state to state in your "country"

Are you a nation, or a collection of feuding territories?

BLACK HUMOURED EDIT - Perhaps a league table of which states have the highest risk of primary school massacres?

If you want to weep/laugh/barf/gasp, Google "States' rights."

[Rum]

The gun lobby will win for now and for the foreseeable future. There is not enough political will or power to overcome the American deep seated belief that owning guns is part of the core of being American.

You are just going to have to tolerate lots of dead school children I'm afraid.

[mozg]

Define 'Serious' in 'Serious Bodily Injury' - since this is really what I'm talking about, not cases where the life of the person is undeniably endangered.

The legal definition of Serious Bodily Injury from the United States Code:

Bodily injury that involves a substantial risk of death, unconsciousness, extreme physical pain, protracted and obvious disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty. 18 USC

Yes, yes. That's all well and good. How about the more ambiguous situations I'm actually talking about. You know, the ones where some fools are getting tense and someone throws a punch and someone else pulls a gun. Those type of situations. I'm looking for that thin line.. does it exist?

It's not a bright line the way that you're thinking it is. It's a big gray area in which someone (or potentially twelve of them) are going to have to decide after the fact, having hours or days to make the decision, if what you did in the few seconds you had to decide on your course of action was justified.

If two individuals are in an argument, one of them throws a single punch and the other draws a firearm, under the strict interpretation of Pennsylvania law that is not a justified use of lethal force. Could other factors be involved that would potentially make that act justified? Yes, depending on what happens after that punch. If, for example, our firearm carrying citizen does not 'throw the first punch' but is knocked to the ground and the other individual climbs on top for some more wailing away, it is very possible that a jury would consider shooting the punch thrower to be justified.

Duty to retreat is very sensible. I've talked about it elsewhere.

Retreating may be sensible depending upon the situation. A duty to retreat under the law, not so much, specifically because it cannot be known in advance whether or not the situation allows for the possibility of a safe retreat.

You are just going to have to tolerate lots of dead school children I'm afraid.

Yes, wring your hands about the 18 well-off white kids who died yesterday in Connecticut. Ignore the 18,000 poor brown children who died in Africa of starvation.

Speaking of saving the lives of children, when are we going to ban mined diamonds?

[Tero]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Ho ... l_shooting

For the record, Adam L was not a legal gun owner. The owner, his mom, derived no benefit from her guns. I rest my case, 50% of gun owners are idiots. Their owning guns provides no benefit to me.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Ho ... l_shooting

For the record, Adam L was not a legal gun owner. The owner, his mom, derived no benefit from her guns. I rest my case, 50% of gun owners are idiots. Their owning guns provides no benefit to me.

For a chemist you sure are short on solutions.

[Tero]

How does your owning a gun offer a benefit to me?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

How does your owning a gun offer a benefit to me?

It was a joke, son, a joke.

[Tero]

OK,pops.

I just keep seeing claims if gun benefits. I don't see the cause and effect.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

OK,pops.

I just keep seeing claims if gun benefits. I don't see the cause and effect.

I like guns. Benefits are irrelevant to me.