Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

http://crimepreventionresearchcenter.or ... countries/

Last post on the subject. When you have close friends or family members who have been saved from violent crime due to the fact that they were armed, you may change your mind. Or, in the case of those who choose to not carry/own a weapon, you could just become another victim. Or maybe, you could reason with the drugged out mugger, rapist, or armed robber, explaining that he shouldn't commit the crime and explain the consequences of his actions. I hear that is quite effective.
I'll keep my rifles, shotguns, and handguns. I've already been forced to use them once, and it saved some property at my house. Could have saved more had the perp decided that he could come back again and maybe this time instead of targeting tools in my shed, would decide to break into my house with my wife and children. You call 911 and wait for an average response time of 11 minutes(my area), I'll take my chances with my training and my weapons.

Coach... I always wondered about those statistics based on localities. Lets say I'm a crook who lives outside of Boston... and then they outlaw guns in Boston. Guess where I'm gonna go to commit my crimes? I'm certainly not going to rob someone in my hometown who may be carrying a gun.... I'm going to Boston! yeah... it makes sense that crime rates go up.

Now on the other hand.... When I look back at the pictures of Rowanda(?) and the scores of bodies along the roadsides attacked by machete carrying thugs, I like to think the odds would be at least a little better of protecting my family if I am a practiced, experienced gun owner.

Now the whole bit about laws restricting airsoft vs. paintballs... what don't you understand? Airsoft is cutting into the sales of paint ball equipment... Gee, I wonder who might have sponsored those laws? Couldn't be the people who had been around a while and had time to build a war chest of $$$ arming themselves with lawyers and such??

Those silly laws do nothing except to make it look like the politicians have done something, when all they have done is buggered up the system with so many poorly worded laws that anyone with a cheap suit can get them off. time to revamp the political structure as to how laws are constructed and passed. It would be nice to have a department of redundancy (or maybe two...) that reviews all laws for sensibility and well....redundancy. Passing a law to make it illegal to kill someone with a gun? ummmmm... wait a minute, it's already illegal to kill someone, so does it matter how it's done? nope... toss it.

Maybe even *GASP* restrict the right to vote.

Yes, I do feel the need to defend myself and my country against tyrannical governments. They need to be thinking that, in the end, that citizens are not such easy targets. I bet some of the population in Syria are wishing they had a weapon under their pillow as the govt. helicopter is hovering over their house pushing a cement bomb out the door.

Cars kill by far a larger number of people than guns have - other than under the control of governments. Will they outlaw cars? No. The effort is always on to make them safer... and eventually to replace the idiot behind the wheel.
Make the gun smarter, make the ownership more difficult but less restrictive.

Yeah, I get the whole fear of registering your guns and licensure, but heck unless you have bought your guns with cash, trust me, your gun ownership is NOT a secret. I once was given access to the data from a company that sells a service to companies that want to prescreens their customers to be able to target clients who are most likely to purchase their product. As a test I ran a report on myself. I was shocked and scared. I ran the one report and refused to touch it again. I didn't want to run it on anyone else I knew. Phone company records are minor when you compare what is known about you and your habits.

But I am a strong believer in gun control in the form of ownership control. Why should anyone with a violent, or criminal, or even mental illness be allowed to own a gun?

The whole thing is too huge, too complex, too time consuming for the average Joe wrap their heads around an issue without relying on what someone else tells them. I don't see a solution without some borg-ish brain meld where everyone knows what everyone else knows. That won't be around for at least two more years...

Poppa, you bring up some good points. I'm very aware of what not only the government knows about, but private companies to. With social media now, they can pinpoint every like and dislike of every individual. I can target student athletes who are in a specific zip code and then narrow down which support they play. Pretty specific.
There's also some pretty interesting statistics regarding crime rates in areas with high gun ownership. Violent crime in far lower than in areas where there were strict gun control regulations. Where I come from, 2 + 2 is still 4. Trying to tell me that taking guns away will reduce crime is at best wishful thinking, and at worst, pure stupidity.

I live on the other side of the world. A completely different culture. ‘Separated by a common language”
I watch in horror, as I am sure you do, as angry young men murder innocent people at random.
Two things puzzle me.
You live in the USA. The land of the free and the home of the brave.

Why are you so frightened of your democratically elected governments that you feel the need for military grade weapons to protect you from them.

Your law enforcement agencies are huge. Well equipped. Well trained.
And yet you still live in fear of crime!

The recent incident when an eight year old child was badly supervised with an automatic weapon and accidentally killed someone is,
beyond belief.
Uzi and Big Mac? For children?
I humbly suggest that something needs to change.

Not sure if you directing that at me or Poppa, I'll answer for myself. I don't live in fear of anything. I do realize there is a criminal element that has no respect for my, nor my families right to possess items that we worked hard for, and in some cases to our lives. I'm not a conspiracy theorist who believes the government is going to take over and an stockpiling mass amounts of guns and ammo. I know plenty of law enforcement and current and former military personnel. To a man, they all highly recommend that I be armed and have weapons available for my protection. Like I posted previously, our average response time is around 11 minutes...much longer in some more remote areas. Not sure if you're aware of what can, and does happen if someone had you or a loved one at knife point or gun point, but 11 minutes is far longer the than I care to put myself or family member in. Each to his own, and I don't try and convince other people what they should do to protect themselves, but also don't want the government our anyone else telling me how to protect my family.

My kids, all adults now, all know basic gun safety, and how to handle a weapon. If they choose to arm themselves is entirely up to them. Thankfully, we still live with country where they have that choice. You can keep the police force with Billy clubs, it didn't work too well in Paris a few months ago. Don't bring a knife to a gun fight.

I don't know the American context so the best response I've got is like EB "what jim said"

Something I've always supported is less strict restrictions on farmers particularly for pigs, foxes and rabbits.

What I've never understood is the whole "protection" argument. For starters as Jim said a responsible gun owner has their guns locked up, unloaded with the ammunition in separate secure storage. Second if I'm a criminal you are not going to get a chance to use your gun.

Offence always has the initiative over defence and if I were to suspect that a house had guns I'd be shooting first asking questions later.

I think you guys (Americans) have bigger problems than people wanting to take your guns away. The 2nd amendment exists to enshrine the right to bear arms in your constitution so that the populace may defend itself from the government should it ever descend into tyranny.

Well some large parts of the community are experiencing that. The number of unarmed people that are being killed by police is truly shocking. How long till people start shooting police in "self defence". When the UK government sent the army into Northern Ireland instead of more police they made one of the biggest mistakes since WWII. They turned an unstable civil situation into a low level war.

Given the level of militarisation of the American police how many more incidents have to happen in the states before the police start becoming targets? I know a few police have been killed recently but this would be something different. Like I said offensive operations always have the advantage and police will become subject to snipers and ambush unless the underlying tensions are dealt with.

Good luck keeping your guns when that happens.

Hi Chris
I respectfully suggest that we must agree. To disagree.
As I said other side of the world. Different culture.
Can I suggest when possible you travel a bit.
Shake the dust from your shoes, in many different villages as you pass through life.
In my village my door is always open to strangers.
You would be more than welcome.

Somewhere above one of the Americans said that anything the government controls they stuff up.

Patently even for America this is not true but it is a pervasive belief. Joel Salatin was out here just recently waxing lyrical about all sorts of cool alternative farming stuff. Suddenly he took a turn into health care policy and the need to fight back against the governments moves into "controlling" and supplying health care.

A room that had been carefully filled with a number of key policy makers, politicians and all the alternative farmers literally drew back in their seats. An amazing message about the need to change the way we farm got dilluted nay corrupted by his complete ignorance about the Australian health care system.

Some facts for the Americans, our health care system is one of the cheapest and most effective in the developed world. When I say cheapest I don't mean how much it costs someone to go to the Dr or to hospital but how much it costs in real terms the docket being picked up by the tax payer. American society spends WAY more on their health care for VASTLY inferior results.

So while it may be true that the American government isn't good at some things its not true of governments in general.

You might be interested in what these guys say but it be warned it does contradict many of the standard mantras

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMuXcuudvCc

Now you may not agree with him but there are a number of things that you HAVE to accept. Many nations have vastly better health care systems than the US and they spend significantly less money to get that better health care.

This means that there is something seriously wrong with the American health care system and that it needs to be changed. The direction that Obama tried to take the US may be the wrong direction for the US but staying with what you have got is definitely a really bad idea.

I know you said it wasn't, but I think it's more of a society of fear in the US. You need to protect yourself.

I look at that and think protect from what? If you were in South Africa, I'd agree with you, but you're in America, it's not a lawless country (well I'm sure some areas are bad in slummy/gang areas, but I'm sure 99% of it is a friendly happy place).

I walk my dog at night, in what would be a low income area compared to the rest of the city, not a problem in the world, I'm not paranoid somebody is going to jump out and kill me.

I used to live in a country area, and you didn't lock your car, let alone your house when you went away. Then I visited the US,and the doors auto lock when you're in the car. You go through customs, and you're looked at like you're going to murder somebody. You watch TV, and the ads are focused on suing somebody, and not letting yourself get screwed over, and going into the army to learn how to protect your family, and so people can be proud of you being taught to kill other human beings.

And sure, somebody might break into my house (might happen once or twice to people in their lifetimes), and steal stuff, hell, it happened to my dad in the country. You put a claim into insurance, you get shiny new stuff. Done. I wouldn't dream of potentially killing an intruder because they wanted to take my tv, or my welder from the shed. I don't think theft is equal to a murder sentence, they might be in a bad place, drugs or baby and no job, or whatever. It doesn't mean they'll always be in that place, and when you take a shot at somebody, you are potentially killing that person.

We just had 3 thugs break into a home where my son live(20 minutes away from Sarasota) this morning at 3AM. They have the guys on surveillance cameras. They came in and killed the man and his wife. Colum, I respect your views, although I think they are a bit naive. Someone breaking in my house at 2 AM is not there to wish me well. If he has a drug problem or no job, he's going to have much bigger problems if he chooses my home. I would not hesitate to shoot someone who chose to break into my house. If you want to reason with them and maybe give them a sandwich and a few bucks and send them on their way, God bless you. I'm not going to wait and hope that they aren't planning on doing what they did to the couple in Bradenton this AM. I don't walk down the street thinking I'm going to get mugged, but I am very aware of my surroundings. I could bring you to so many areas where you would be lucky to make it out alive if you were dropped off during the evening hours. Try downtown Tampa,Detroit, Flint, S. Chicago. You would be wishing you had a sidearm. Perhaps, the person out robbing and stealing should try working. It's a lot less dangerous. I would shoot for center mass, and yes, that would potentially kill the intruder. That's something I would have to live with. I think it would be easier to live with that then knowing that I didn't do all that I could to prevent my wife and/or kids from getting hurt/killed. To each his own. I'm the nicest guy you would ever meet...until you mess with my family, and then I'm one mean bastard. For that, I make no apologies.

http://wfla.com/2015/07/09/2-dead-in-br ... -shooting/
This is what happens when you don't have a plan and a way to protect yourself. You end up with 5 orphaned kids. I don't know if my 12 guage and .45 would have been adequate, but it would have been better then nothing. One of those guys would be dead, hopefully 2. Usually these types run when the "victims" shoot back.

It's funny how so many Americans seem to think that "gun control" equals "they're trying to ban all guns and take mine away!!"

We have gun control up here in Canada and I'm a big fan of it. I took a 2 day training course, paid $80 and had to wait 2 months for my Restricted Possession and Acquisition License. But now I have the option of carrying either a 12-gauge/Mare's Leg or a .44 mag revolver with me when I'm working in the bush (really I could carry anything I wanted to, but those are the practical options when looking at weight vs. effectiveness against bears). That seems more than reasonable to me...

And then there is this ridiculously stupid argument: "the criminals aren't going to obey the law so what's the point of putting it there in the first place". How does that make sense to anyone? Theft is illegal, yet criminals still steal. So maybe take that law off the books? Rape is against the law, yet criminals still rape. There's another law that needs to be erased. The fact that the criminals are going to break the law is why we have police.

I think that America is such a different culture and the reality in America is so different that our lived experience in Australia is not really applicable.

Having said that you can make objective observations comparing the two countries and make your decisions accordingly.

From here we can look at the kind of things CoachChris is saying and think he is wrong and then think that Americans need to look at their country and look at other countries like Australia, New Zealand, the UK or Canada for crying out loud and make appropriate changes.

Alternatively we can assume that CoachChris is correct in what he is saying and then think that Americans need to look at their country and look at other countries like Australia, New Zealand, the UK or Canada for crying out loud and make appropriate changes.

It actually doesn't matter if CoachChris is right or wrong either way America and Americans face some pretty serious challenges in the next few decades. We better hope they get their act together because as flawed as their nation and society are I'd much prefer it to China.

Well I'm naive too then and probably 99% of Australians too. I've never felt like the need to carry a weapon. I've been to the U.S. and a lot of other countries 3rd & 4th world included. I think Columnmn summed it up well stating society being the issue.
Come to Oz Coach, enjoy the country for a few weeks, then tell me if you feel the need to carry a gun here and I'll be surprised.
I'm not saying that weapons shouldn't be carried in the States, by all means if it makes you feel safer why wouldn't you? It's just not how we roll here so it's a bit hard to get our heads around it, especially the concealed bit.