Firepower

[Occhidiangela]

You can no more determine what another person needs (in this context), than I can determine what your favorite flavor of ice cream is. Vanilla?

Since you are asking about ice cream preferences, can I assume you'll be buying us a nice cup of coffee to go with it? :D

[Occhidiangela]

An M-60. Wonder if the missus will find one in a garage sale one of these days . . . I'll put it on my list. ;)

I'm not big enough to handle one of those without a bipod or tripod, so there would always be those nice accessory gifts for following years. Custom Ammo Boxes. Verniers. All that neato stuff. Extra barrels. A nice change from the golf balls I get some years . . .

NATO 7.62 ammo, for an M-60, is not exactly cheap, particularly if you have to buy it at Sports Store prices as ".308" dear rifle rounds.

Some years ago, a buddy of mine and I shot about 100 rounds of 7.62mm through his .308 deer rifle over the course of a rather drunken evening. A 7.62 hitting a full beer can makes a rather magnificent explosion of spray. The tracer rounds you could just see. He got this pile of rounds from a buddy in the Texas National Guard whose unit could not shoot up all their training ammo, and they were "getting rid of it for end of year reporting!" (Yes, dumb!) He gave Tom a box of 200 rounds. While I'd love to get some in a similar fashion, I think enforcement of the rules has tightened up a bit, (gawd, I hope so) and in any case, I don't think my local ATF Office would care too much for that nonsense. :P

Disclaimer: Yes, kids, don't try what we did in your own home, your hometown, or much of anywhere else. We were highly trained idiots who were lucky to have not shot our own selves to death. Beer and firearms are a dangerous mixture, help stamp it out in our lifetime.

PS: Life is more fun when we aren't all bubble wrapped against danger. :D

[--Pete]

Hi,

Let's get a pair of 60's, mount them on a post in the cargo door of a B540 Huey and go big game hunting. Bet we can get some mountain goat and big horn. Might be tough finding an LZ to pick them up, though :)

--Pete

[Jester]

"Almost none of the weapons used in violent crimes are legally obtained. So what is the good in taking the guns of responsible people and making sure that the only people that have them are criminals?"

I hate to jump into this thread (hashed this topic over one too many times, thanks...) but I this argument is a pet peeve of mine.

Where do criminals get these illegally obtained guns? They steal them from legal gun owners, or buy them from people who have. If the guns were illegal, they wouldn't be there to steal. The number available for theft will plummet, and therefore reduce the number in the hands of criminals.

That seems to be the way it works in countries outside the US. If the culture isn't awash in firepower, neither will the criminals be.

Jester

[Occhidiangela]

"Almost none of the weapons used in violent crimes are legally obtained. So what is the good in taking the guns of responsible people and making sure that the only people that have them are criminals?"

Where do criminals get these illegally obtained guns? They steal them from legal gun owners, or buy them from people who have. If the guns were illegal, they wouldn't be there to steal.
The number available for theft will plummet, and therefore reduce the number in the hands of criminals.
That seems to be the way it works in countries outside the US. If the culture isn't awash in firepower, neither will the criminals be.

Plummet? Hope as a method? Not on my watch, thanks. Were your sentiments true, we'd also have less shootings in any case.

Where there is a market, there's a supplier. If everyone locked up their guns better and cut the theft down, there is still that same underground market for guns that parallels that for the underground drug market. The number of guns already "in the underground" is probably in the millions. A change in the provision for law abiders would change next to nothing other than to make more of them new criminals by fiat.

Your dog won't hunt.

I would personally rather risk some gun crimes so that my options are not restricted. It is a cost of doing business I can live with.

Your system works for your country, and that's nice too.

Occhi

[Sourskunk]

I apologize for not understanding the nuance of your position but how do you mesh these two statements?

My logic doesn't suggest taking guns away from the police at all. I'm a realist in this situation. My logic flat out states that if NO ONE had guns, people would be safer.

Oh, and by the way -- I'm not opposed to guns, or people owning guns. If someone thinks having a small handgun at home will make their family safe, that's fine.

You want there to be no guns but you're not asking for it? That can't be what you mean. Please explain.

[Occhidiangela]

Huey's have hoists, typically rated at 600 pounds. Just run me down the hoist (I'll have to trust you) , I hook up the harness to each kill, we run it back up the hoist, then me. We then skin and gut each one (whatever is left after the M-60 treatment!) in the cabin while flying back to the hunting lodge. Toss the guts out on "targets of opportunity" on the way home. Have huge water fights while hosing out the insides of the Huey, or pay a bit extra for "clean up fee" up front to the charter service.

Or, I can fly, you shoot, and we bring along the wives to run the hoist. Hmmmm, need to work on the details on that one . . . the ladies may want to just shoot the M-60's! :D

"Mildred, did you see them guts land on old Uncle Lem?"
"Sure did, Caleb, I guess its raining guts again . . must be helicopter hunting season."
"Well, at least we have a lot of sausage casing for that elk I shot last week . . ."

[--Pete]

Hi,

I haven't touched the controls on a Huey in nearly 40 years. And even back then I couldn't keep a hover over a forty acre field :)

Forgot about the hoists. The machines I was familiar with didn't have them by default but we did install a few on medivac D models (none on B's which we did convert to the 540 rotors). Primitive beasts by today's standards. We did occasionally hunt from Hueys, though we used the odd left over M-15 in single shot mode to do so. And we landed before shooting :)

I suspect that the ladies might well want the fun. One must remember one's Kipling :) But wouldn't we want the guts to make our own sausage? Mountain goat sausage, lots of sage, oregano and pepper. Beats a ball park frank any day. Yum.

--Pete

[Professor Frink]

You want there to be no guns but you're not asking for it? That can't be what you mean. Please explain.

Makes perfect sense to me--In an ideal world, there'd be no guns and nobody would get shot. This is not an ideal world, and there is no way to uninvent the firearm: The only choice we have is, do you want everybody to have guns, or just the bad guys?

Parallels to "If you would have peace, prepare for war."

-- frink

[eppie]

The only choice we have is, do you want everybody to have guns, or just the bad guys?

That is a very bold statement. Maybe you can define "bad guys" a bit better. There are different bad guys: the big criminals who anyway will have guns (like in NL) will ussually not hassle normal people on the street and crazy guys. I'd rather have a few big criminals rob a bank once in a while, or kill eachother in gang wars, than that every small thief, every crazy drug addict, every drunk, every stressed employee has a gun (together with the normal people), making life a living nightmare because you know you have the chance to be shot, in school, in the supermarket, a the petrol station, walking in the forrest etc.

[--Pete]

Hi,

In an ideal world, there'd be no guns

There were no guns for a damn long time. So people who could afford to spend all their time training fro war, who had the means to buy weapons, horse, and armor ruled by force and their personal whim. It was the gun that made people "equal". It was the rise of personal weapons readily and widely available that made democracy possible (and, yes, that includes the democracies of ancient Greece). Pick any "right" in any country and you can trace it back to blood shed to buy it.

Don't weaken your argument by accepting the fallacious statement of the loud and shrill. The right to be armed, the right to fight for one's rights and protect one's life and property requires no excuses. Those who deny this deny their history and disrespect the memory of the very people that gave them the right to express an opinion in the first place.

--Pete

[Occhidiangela]

Now, to put the wheels into motion so that in about 2 years, we could actually make this happen, absent the M-60's. A couple of deer rifles would do.

Hmmmm, need to get that commercial helicopter rating after all . . .

[Professor Frink]

Hi,

In an ideal world, there'd be no guns

There were no guns for a damn long time.  [...]

Er, Yes, I seem to have fallen into the internet-discussion trap of arguing about the argument instead of just making sense. I was attempting to say that the position that "guns are bad, but anti-gun laws are worse" is not illogical or self-contradictory; I don't actually believe that myself, for mostly the same reasons you gave.

Sorry for the confusion.

-- frink

[Cybit]

Where's Bowling for Columbine when we need it anyway? :)

[Premezilla]

People, people, PEOPLE. Thinking too deep, are we? I believe the essence of what everybody is trying to say can be meshed into 7 little words: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."

Or, from our favorite Family Guy, "Guns don't kill people, dangerous minorities kill people."

~Preme

p.s. I'm surprised no one has resorted to that quote yet.

[NiteFox]

:)

[Rhydderch Hael]

"Guns don't kill people. It's peoples' evolutionary shortcoming of not having grown skin tough enough to resist bullets that kill people..."

So I say, to counter any brain-donor who decides to spout off anything in the vein of "Darwin Awards" for stupidity. Lauding the fatal mistakes and missteps of others can only go so far before it incurs my wrath to the callousness of such activity.

Darwin himself never approved of his theory being applied to the human creature.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Darwin himself never approved of his theory being applied to the human creature.

Yes, but nature doesn't seem to mind. ;)

--Pete