How many of you carry a gun as part of your cycling equipment?

cbjesseeNH

You said: "Its not a right, its a privilige, just like having a driver's license. And don't give me this Second Amendment crap. The Second Amendment specifically refers to "well armed militias." We are a bit passed that now, and its been twisted from allowing militias to be armed to allowing every Tom, Dick and Mary to carry a handgun."

Thought I was paying attention - perhaps you meant something other than what you wrote.

Bill of Rights says, specifically: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Citations of court opinions: See US Department of Justice "WHETHER THE SECOND AMENDMENT SECURES AN INDIVIDUAL RIGHT" August 24, 2004 http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.html

Scholars: See "The Journalist's Guide to Gun Policy Scholars and Second Amendment Scholars" http://www.gunscholar.org/


Did you have opposing sources for me to review, or were you just looking for educational resources on the topic? If so, a less in-your-face approach will get you more education.

cbjesseeNH

Handguns turn out to be the most concealable and easily managed weapons for self-defense. Private Citizens are prohibbited from owning RPGs in the US. But perhaps you were trying to be sarcastic?

dgregory57

I read some messages dealing with "I carry because..." even a couple that mentioned they were in a situation where they could have used a gun...

But, I didn't read any (of course I only skimmed) that said that carrying a gun saved their life. Or that they were somehow permanently damaged in the situation that they found themselves in that caused them to start carrying.

It is precisely those "I could have used" statements where the person made it out unharmed that are the strongest argument against carrying. It generates a self-defeating argument.

If you would have been carrying, the other person would be dead instead of WHAT as the alternative??? The answer is a stressful, and even perhaps painful, but successful retreat.

With the above, you may find it surprising that I support the right to carry. However, I am also in favor of responsibility. For those of you that carry weapons, I have no problem with it. However, if you use it, be prepared to do the time. If you can honestly say to yourself that the danger to yourself is so great that it is worth spending the rest of your life in jail if a jury disagrees, then shoot.

It would be nice to have such confidence in my judgement that I would be willing to risk my life for the ability to end someone else's.

In addition, I will add my support to those that have said that you don't pull a weapon for any reason other than to shoot. Pulling to scare someone is childish and dangerous.

BTW - I regularly cycle and walk past a bar where three people were shot a couple of months ago. I walk through an area where a few drug houses have been shut down in the past few months. I sometimes see people that I suspect commit crimes to fuel their own habits. I don't carry, nor do I think I would feel safer if I did.

PS for you non-Americans - Although it may appear otherwise, not all Americans live in fear, nor do we all have the first strike mentality, and many of us don't even own guns.

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mikado

So you ( gun carriers ) neither. You are ready to kill a man, basing on your own judgment of the potential danger of the situation. You may have the law on your side, you will be a murderer. You might have killed a scumbag, but you still a murderer.

JulianL

While I do own guns I have never carried one while riding. Then again, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon in California. I honestly can't say that I've ever felt the need to carry one with while riding though. I'm 38 and I've been riding since I was in high school.

martin_j001

I'll take the title "murderer" and alive and happy with my wife and me in one piece unharmed over dead or watching my wife be raped any fucking day. Sorry if you're too dumb to do the same--I guess thats also natural selection, huh?

So, a crimanal should be able to point his illegal gun at me or my wife, and I should be able to take no action against him other than wait to see what he wants to do, and then, if I am still alive when he decides to leave, at that point I am free to take action against him by calling the cops? Is that your idea. No thanks, as thats about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. If someone threatens the life of me or my family, I have a right, and an obligation to my fellow Americans to do what needs to be done to protect my right to life. Fortunately for people like you, there are those of us out there that will protect our own rights. If we didn't, there'd be even more criminals out there to get you someday. Then, you could make the choice to sit there and play "see what the psycho does next" when you and your wife are being held hostage in your own home. Good luck with that!

I think the fact that I honor the right of other people to live is quite well proven, as I have yet to kill or even injure someone intentionally in this lifetime. Its a ridiculous comment to make that because I would choose to defend my own right to life that I have no respect for others to live. In just about all of society in the whole world, since man has been on this planet, true self defense is just that--it isn't called murder in any country. People, worldwide, have a right to defend their own lives. Because we choose to protect ours with guns makes us no different than those who choose to pretect their lives with bats, tasers, stun guns, their own hands, etc. This great country we live in has allowed us the right to defend ourselves. If you choose not to use that right, so be it, move on with your life--you aren't going to change my mind or that of others. Accept the fact that we have that right. End of story.

__________________
--Jeff
my Gunnar Roadie
The one who dies with the most tattoos wins!!
For sale: Time Impact Mag pedals; Dura Ace 7700 crankset (172.5), front der. (braze), bottom bracket (109.5). PM or email martin_j001 at hotmail dot com

mikado

I'm not tryin to change the views of 80 millions of us citizens about gun control. Its a lost war. I just hoped that calling a cat a cat would made you think about why you really carry a gun. Why in europe, where we have armed thugs too, we dont feel that need ? and thats not about law, see how many people are shocked to hear you carry on a bike in this thread. So why is it if it's not hunger and habbit for violence ? What makes you think your wife gonna get raped in your own bed ? Where the bloody hell you get such freakin ideas ? In the news ? Maybe thats the start of an answer....

It is total non sense to me that you live in such a permanent state of fear that you think you gonna get lethaly attack at any minute. And you say yourself it has never happened. Non sense !

EoinC

Leaving aside the debate on defending oneself, of those of you who do carry a weapon when riding, what form of defense do you put in place to prevent suffering the violence of being hit by a vehicle which, for most of us when cycling, would be an order of magnitude more likely to happen than suffering a form of attack whereby a gun would save our lives.
I have been riding bikes in various places around the World for a grotesque number of decades. I have hit and been hit by several vehicles (although not all at the same time). I don't feel a necessity to equip my road bike with crash bars or a roll cage. I just (sometimes) ride in a way which, at least to my feeble brain, lessens the likelihood of getting crunched. I'm having trouble envisaging a situation where, either riding or stationary, on my bike, carrying a weapon would be likely to save my life. Perhaps someone has experienced a scenario they could relate for us.
Interestingly, I have had guns pulled on me a few times (Thailand, Pakistan and Afghanistan), but have never felt any need to carry any form of weapon (other than my monotonous droning voice) to defend myself. I have fired quite a few guns, mainly assault rifles, and can understand the sense of power such a weapon instills, but have no desire to make that a part of my life.
In Countries where the Police Force do not usually carry guns, those Officers who do usually have to go through very intensive training designed to inject responsibility and reason into their split-second decision-making (and it doesn't always work, as demonstrated by the recent death of a Brazilian in the UK). Do those of you who carry firearms believe that you have been trained in their use (perhaps, more correctly, non-use) to the same level as Police Officers who are permitted to carry? You do, after all, carry the same resources for dispensing instant justice as an armed Police Officer.
I agree with the much publicised statement that guns don't kill people, people kill people. Guns do, however, make it a lot easier for people to kill people. I would hope that anyone who carries any form of weapon with the intention of self defence is well trained in exactly what self defence is.
Given that a weapon should only be pulled if one is prepared to use it and that one or more deaths are likely to occur if it is used, are those of you who possess weapons for self defence trained in how to prevent such a situation occurring and how to defuse or escape such a situation? Probably some of you are, but I would see that as being a necessary prerequisite to owning a firearm for the purposes of self defence. Is it so?

two_short_plank

I'd just like to say that living in the UK carrying a gun on my bike would be both illegal and (at the moment) a potentially lethal thing to do.

However, every time I get shoved into the kurb by a blind idiot car driver or chased out of my two wheeled reverie by yet another bloody dog that wants to eat me, I tend to wish I was packing something more deadly than a Mars bar in my back pocket!

EoinC

Frozen Mars Bars (core temperature <= -2 Degrees Celsius) are considered lethal weapons and require a permit in most Shires. Mars Bars maintaining a core temperature above -2 Degrees Celsius are not considered lethal and may be carried concealed but, as a cautionary note, please excercise responsibility in their usage.

cbjesseeNH

Most people appear to qualify to own/operate a deadly weapon with little training. That would be the automobile which, in the hands of anyone able to pass an eye test and a mutiple choice questionaire after multiple tries, has killed far more people by negligence or malice than all firearms outside a course of war of civil unrest.

Most Law Enforcement Officers, after their initial training, fire their guns only a few times a year to qualify and at the rare mandatory practice session. Often, police who go to the range to practice are viewed by their colleagues as being abnormal or odd, so the average LEO may fire only a dozen or so magazines yearly.

I hit the range at least monthly, and have invested in quality training, but that is not a requirement for continued gun ownership and carry. But how many people have taken a driving test since their youth? Most people actually don't know you have to stop before turning right on red, or think "lane ends, merge left" means drive as far and as fast as you can before cutting back into the left lane - they would likely fail a yearly license renewal.

I do have respect for LEOs, but recognize they are there to get the facts after the crime rather than to intervene to stop crime. It's mostly a coincidence if a LEO is present during a violent criminal act. Most never draw or fire in the line of duty.

The pen is indeed mightier than the sword, and nobody has to qualify to exercise 1st Amendment Right to Free Speech. However minimal or complex a qualification a state's citizens must pass to own or carry a firearm, the effort is greater than required to exercise other Rights.

mitosis

So you tell me, with your vast experience and facts, what guns are used for if not for shooting peopl. There must be some use that I haven't thought of. LOL.

The fact is that without guns people cannot get shot. Or do you want to argue that one.

mitosis

There are enough posters on this thread who are not gun happy to offer similar reassurance to you. Thank goodness for that. The idea of threatening someone with a gun while riding a bike is a joke. Standing there in lycra with a gun. LOL.

Arathald

In an ideal world, maybe, but, unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world. I agree completely that if guns were outlawed in an ideal world we'd all be much safer (well, we'd be safer just being in an ideal world, but that's not my point). But in out world, if someone intends on shooting someone or stealing something, they will find a gun somewhere.

In Switzerland, virtually every male citizen is in the country's militia (they have no army because of their neutrality), and therefore carries a weapon. Incidentally, they have one of the lowest rates of violent crimes in the world. The reason this is so is that someone is much less likely to, say, hold up a store clerk when he knows that the clerk and every single other male customer will be carring a weapon. Wouldn't you be less inlcined to shoot someone if they had a gun (assuming they weren't threatening your life)?

Now, I know that this isn't a direct comparison that says that the more guns we have, the safer we are. Switzerland's official state of neutrality no doubt has left a similar attitude on its citizens, most likely a major reason for its lowcrime rates. But nevertheless, you can't ignore the fact one of the most armed countries in the world is also one of the safest.

There are two sides to every coin.

And that said, I cannot legally carry a gun (I'm a minor in Chicago-- do you have any idea how much trouble I'd be in?), and if I could, I wouldn't, because I would not want to risk having someone's blood on my hands if I killed them, even if it was fully justified, and/or completely unavoidable. But I do support the right for people to carry guns, they jsut gotta realize that they take full responsibility for their weapon. I'm not a pacifist, but I would like to not unnecessarily weigh down my concience.

Just something to think about.

Oh, and guns can be used recreationally too (hunting, target shooting, etc. -- I have shot guns before, but only at a range).