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General discussion

This could cause a stir

Apr 7, 2015 4:43AM PDT
Turn 21 and buy a gun. No permit or training needed

My guess is this one is already dead. Owning something is one thing but walking around with it hidden in your clothing is another. You don't get to drive an automobile without demonstrating some sort of proficiency with it and we still have plenty of loonies behind the wheel. I'm not for prohibiting gun ownership but this idea scares me a bit.

Discussion is locked

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There's a way around it
Apr 7, 2015 5:09AM PDT

Make it a requirement to have firearm training in High School as the last semester of the year for all students and only if you pass the class do you get your diploma.

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Guns in the hands of 17-18 year old city kids
Apr 7, 2015 6:33AM PDT

makes me cringe. You'd probably face a firestorm (pardon the bad pun) of angry parents who'd burn the school down first. I do remember "Driver's Ed" in High School but I don't think that's common now.

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who said put guns in their hands?
Apr 7, 2015 6:37AM PDT

If it was sex education, would you think it meant having sex at school?

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You mean a paper test only?...and the "sex ed" comparison
Apr 7, 2015 7:00AM PDT

isn't really a good parallel. As for "hands-off" firearms training, try that with driver's licenses too. Let 'em get a permit just by identifying traffic signs and signals, promising to behave, and then turn 'em loose!

My real thinking here was that this guy's idea was a backward step at the wrong time. He's going to make the fence sitters run away from him. There are already too many misinformed folks with regards to our constitution and the notion of what affect gun ownership has on crime and violence. Scare just a few more into their corner and you'll have the votes needed to begin the roundup.

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But....but...
Apr 7, 2015 11:44AM PDT

the Liberals told us it worked for sex education!

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And Conservatives disagreed
Apr 7, 2015 1:07PM PDT

NOW the same people say the method is a good one.

Go figure

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No
Apr 7, 2015 1:26PM PDT

I was being facetious comparing it to sex education.

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RE:I was being facetious
Apr 7, 2015 1:40PM PDT

Me to.....enjoy


used to describe speech that is meant to be funny but that is usually regarded as annoying, silly, or not proper

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I don't know what's taught in sex ed anymore
Apr 7, 2015 6:59PM PDT

It was fairly new when I was in school and was an extension of "Health" classes taught by Phys. Ed. teachers. More or less it was simply the biology of the human reproductive system as it related to puberty and physical changes kids of that age were undergoing. Any discussion of avoiding health issues was limited to STDs. Anything else was a given. There would be little or no parallel with driver or firearms training which would necessarily require experience with automobiles or guns. Perhaps it's different in school today. Maybe they teach less about the perils of unwanted disease and pregnancy and more about the embarrassment of ED.

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the military
Apr 9, 2015 5:03AM PDT

doesn't mind training and putting guns in the hands of 18 year olds and sending them onto a battlefield.

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Yes...it's about training and proper qualification
Apr 9, 2015 7:39AM PDT

in the right environment. When one joins the military, they are immersed in a very narrow and focused regimen that runs 7 days a week. They don't worry about being tested on social justice and and the perils of climate change. Wink

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You're right...
Apr 8, 2015 4:25AM PDT

Having our young men and women access to guns would be dangerous. But, of course they did that during our own young nation. The teaching and training that homesteaders and out west or even the midwest in the 16-18th centuries that was the norm. I do believe having current proper training is allowed for anyone being 21 in most states access upon going through the permit and buying stage., right, nope!

https://www.nraila.org/gun-laws/state-gun-laws/ohio/

http://www.handgunlaw.us/states/ohio.pdf

Anyways, it seems you can't take anything fro granted. as the yrs. go by it seems more paperwork or roadblocks of sorts crop-up to prevent any ownership in the immediate sense. I guess buying a .22 would cause an uproar. ------Willy Happy

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As I read it, the NRA's first objective
Apr 8, 2015 5:21AM PDT

when created after the Civil War was to teach safety and the handling of firearms. Apparently the war taught us that young folks thrust into combat didn't have the basic skills needed to handle the rifles put into their hands. You'd think every farm kid would have plenty of practice but apparently not. It was the NRA that first pushed such training before one could acquire a gun. So what's different now? Well...for one thing, we're much more dense population wise and that alone is reason to make sure stray bullets don't find human targets. Hey. If I wanted to promote more gun control I just might use that reverse psychology of suggesting some absurd loosening of controls already in place. It worked for Archie Bunker, didn't it? Happy

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It wasn't that many years ago that the NRA was in favor of
Apr 8, 2015 9:31PM PDT

training and gun control. Now they are just shills of gun manufacturers.

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They became "political"
Apr 10, 2015 1:18AM PDT

Of course, they had to in order to fulfill the ownership of any gun. The right of gun ownership has become a quagmire of rules and regs. that really is a PITA. Most buyers do get guns in order to hunt and protect themselves. The small group that do nefarious deeds are of course what all the fingers are pointing to have more laws. As much as i like gun ownership, I find NRA hard to shallow when taken as a whole at times. Its so big now its more about keeping the membership in place to pay for all those that work within and pay to sway political figures and all. That's just the way it is. -----Willy Happy

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When you always punish the many
Apr 10, 2015 2:50AM PDT

for the sins of the few, you end up with more sinners. Why is that, you ask? Well, if your parents are going to punish all of their kids if just one of them steals a cookie from the cookie jar, they may as well start enjoying the cookies right away. Wink

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I believe that, before the Civil War,
Apr 13, 2015 6:37AM PDT

not that many could afford a gun. But my ex-boss said he was an expert shot when he entered the Army, because one of his chores in rural Illinois was to put meat on the table, with his single-shot .22. Them rabbits is quick!

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An American Westerner said,
Apr 13, 2015 6:34AM PDT

back in the 19th cent., that the commonality of gun carrying made everyone extra polite.

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What???
Apr 13, 2015 4:42AM PDT

This is crazy! Just cause you are 21 years old doesn't mean that you are mature... I forgot where I read this, but I remember that everyone that owns a gun hidden in their closet, is bound to use it at least once. BTW, the owner might not use it, but their children might get an access to it. Idk about this ... but I hope to hear more stories about this. Whether their may be more danger involved, or whether its actually keeping the citizens safer.

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It's an axiom of playwriting that
Apr 13, 2015 6:33AM PDT

'if you show a gun over the mantlepiece in Act I, you're bound to use it by the end.'
Don't know about real people. My daily news tells me they don't need much encouragement.

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From what I know...and my entire knowledge
Apr 13, 2015 6:52AM PDT

of this comes from TV, a gun over the mantle usually had the head of a dead animal above it. I can't say what that symbolized but I suspect such a weapon was disabled before being put on display. Why give a crook a weapon that's in plain sight?