Let me see if I understand the point of this post.

• Five permit holders commit or are accused of crimes with guns
• A Memphis paper reports to have found at least 70 permit holders with violent histories that should have prevented them from having permits (do you think the permits caused them to go bad).

Based on every thread posted on firearms R Neal's post appears to be saying that seventy-five permit holders out of over 280,000 permit holders (that’s 0.000269 of all TN permit holders) are the basis of much progressive fear and loathing.

Moreover, on this basis many progressive posters call for more laws, more restrictions, more controls, etc. on permit holders.

If these posters are correct, doesn’t it stand that if 0.0269 of one percent of a group who uses a tool or piece of equipment illegally is basis enough for tough new regulations and stringent training requirements, we had better get busy because nearly every tool and piece of equipment we know falls into the “bad” thing category and nearly all people will fall under the new laws meant to control the use of these bad tools.

Interestingly that Memphis paper showed photos of nine men who ought never have had permits - eight were black and one white. R Neal’s post makes a clear statement in its attempt to cast dispersion on all permit holders based on a tiny subset of those permit holders. Thus, based on the logic of his post, we should not allow white men to own firearms - after all 1 out of 9 is 11 percent which is 409 times over the threshold of 0.0269%.

Folks, you will be hit and killed by lightening before a permit holder shoots you.

You or your family will be killed by a drunk driver, stabbed with knife, or killed by a doctor before a permit holder kills you or anyone you personally know (unless you are a criminal). Your child will drown in a 5 gallon bucket before he or she will be shot by a permit holder.

In fact, you are more likely to die by any other means than by a gun in the hands of a permit holder.

Come on folks your stand on permit holders is as illogical and devoid of fact as any stand you ridicule those hated tea baggers over. When it comes to firearms where is that great education, vaunted logic, and factual argument you progressives claim rules your discourse.

You are alone in a room. You are barefoot. Another person enters the room wearing shoes with laces. The probability that one of you will be hanged with a shoe lace goes to one (or is it two)?

Having a gun, a knife, or a shoe lace does nothing to raise or change probability. It changes the possibility, but there is no causality to suggest probability.

Otherwise - If you are alone in a room with a new number 2 pencil the probability that you will jam the pencil up your nose and into your brain is one. In which case, how are you able to walk into a dining room containing a table laden with silverware? What a nightmare if others are present with all those "probable" utensils of death.

Why do you insist on believing guns are like the one ring? And if you want to play it safe, lock your naked self in your padded cell because if you leave statistically speaking something is going to get you (and it probably won't be a permit holder's gun).

I'm so glad you recognize my words are superlative and swollen with grand meaning unlike your impotent ramblings.

But I must admit that your ludicrous analogy inspired me.

Credit where credit is due and all that.

Now it's time to say good nite.

The process for screening applicants for gun permits and carry permits and ownership is not able to do the job well enough. Obviously, from the examples cited, people who should never be allowed to carry legally have gotten through the process without a hitch. Something is wrong. These people make good, responsible gun owners LOOK bad, by association. The process has said that the bad ones were GOOD ENOUGH to pass the screening, even though a rational person looking at the totality of the evidence in these people's past would have said, "Uh-uh, no way this guy should have a gun or permit..."

What I would like to see is a longer waiting period so that local, state, or federal (yes, I said the "bad" word...FEDERAL) law enforcement agencies can do a real, thorough background check on applicants so that folks like those in the articles could not just slip through the Mack truck-sized loopholes in the laws as they stand now. I would like for gun SALES at gun shows to be stopped. Gun shows are fun and interesting, but having been to some, based just on appearances (I know...I'm PREJUDICED) I would NOT want some of the characters I have seen at said shows to just be able to walk out of there with a gun that day.

If you truly are a RESPONSIBLE, reasonable gun owner and firearms proponent, you should have NO problems with better screening processes for aspiring gun owners...and neither should they. It keeps headlines like those cited above from becoming more and more frequent...making you and other "good" gun owners look just as unbalanced and unstable as the ones that actually did the crimes.

If you are innocent and law-abiding then you have nothing to fear from a background check and a few weeks waiting period before you can pack your shiny new "Sweetness" (thank you Stephen Colbert) around with you everywhere you go.

_________________________________________________
"You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White"
"I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali

The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says "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". It does not say that a permit is required to keep and bear arms.

We need the BOR because government is rarely innocent and is often abusive.

Can you prove this with evidence? Otherwise you sound like any other right-wing, anti-government extremist making unfounded claims.

And your occupation is important because as a gun dealer, or any service that sells services or devices that convey to the owner a sense of safety and security, the buyer must feel a need for safety and security.

Without potential buyers who don't feel that they need to enhance their safety and security by buying a personal weapon, except for sport shooting, you have no market.

Your business is based, like any business, on a constant demand for its products or services.

I heard a gun shop owner on the HHH show say that ammunition should be replaced annually. He said it was OK for target practice, but not for personal protection weapons to have ammunition more than a year old.

My father-in-law who hunts and traps and makes his own ammo just laughed.

I did too.

I don't have a problem with guns. I have a problem with gun dealers who are trying to sell the idea that guns are as necessary in a person's life as food and water.

The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present.
President Abraham Lincoln 1862

Sarge said:

"The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says '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.' It does not say that a permit is required to keep and bear arms."

Actually, it seems pretty clear to me that "well-regulated" not only means REQUIRE A PERMIT AND BACKGROUND CHECK, but also BAN GUNS IN PUBLIC PLACES, such as schools, parks, courtrooms, etc.... It also seems clear that there are some gaping holes in Tennessee's permitting process, which means it is anything but "well-regulated." You can't have your second amendment and eat it, too.

Gotta say that I do appreciate the "gun nuts" hanging in there with a few coherent, rational points despite some personal attacks from the other side (not that y'all are not as guilty at times). So I won't call you guys nuts anymore. I'll save that for the carry permit holders who should never have had one in the first place.

you would be against those on flight 93 being armed?

I would be for trained and armed federal air marshals on every flight. (Rep. Jimmy Duncan is against this.)

I would be for allowing pilots to carry, which I believe we do now (although I believe there has also been at least one accidental discharge by a pilot).

I would have been for the FBI and the Bush administration anti-terror task force looking in to the Phoenix memos. (Look it up.)

Would I want to fly on a plane where anybody or everybody was carrying? No way.

It would be pretty ease for a terrorist to get through our pathetic background check and hcp "screening". Just look at the news about the creeps and yahoos who already do. Terrorists are a lot smarter.

Has never stopped a cop from going bad, "losing it", or using bad judgement. There are plenty of POST certified officers cooling their heals in prison.

Am I the only one to notice how many comments supposedly supporting the 2nd amendment turn into law enforcement, anti-government type rants?

Did Tim McVeigh get Internet hook up in hell, or does Terry Nichols have it in prison?

The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present.
President Abraham Lincoln 1862

I'm not a historian but, I can find nothing on the etymology of the word "regulate" that contains a reference to training. In my limited reading of letters and essays of that era, the writers used a high level of specificity and among the educated, word meanings appeared to be consistent.

There have been some incredibly flimsy arguments made in this thread. I can probably come up with a hundred different groups that have a lower incidence of gun crime than HCP holders.

I personally wish it was as hard to get a drivers license here as it is in most European nations. In this nation automobiles are a huge threat to most people's lives and health.

As for flight 93, I wish that flight had been full of Americans so fucking paranoid that they all felt the need to keep themselves in good physical condition and that they all were reasonably well versed in martial arts. I wish that each and every one of them thought of a handgun as a backup weapon in case their hands, elbows, knees and feet could not do the job.

Self defense, personal protection is not a single event or a single tool. If that truly is a concern of yours, then you should develop a system that includes any manner of weapons of which firearms could be a part.

I do own firearms (and a variety of other weaponry). I do not have a HCP at this time.

----------------------------------------------------------- 

It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.
  - William G. McAdoo

The Flight 93 reference is interesting. One of the passengers was a US Fish & Wildlife officer, who was authorized to carry his firearm on the plane. Unfortunately, he either left his pistol at home or put it in his checked luggage.

The whole idea of carrying a handgun is to be prepared to confront evil and violence. The carrier doesn't expect to be attacked (or would have avoided the location entirely).

One more local permit holder helps dispel myth:

"Guider said Whitton has a valid gun permit and was carrying his .38-caliber revolver in his car when he approached a slow-moving golf cart, driven by Butcher, on Toqua Road. "

(link...)