Witness in a gun control trial.

Eihli · #1 12-13-2006, 02:00 PM

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...42711704783849

edit: I couldn't think of a good way to summarize it. It's a video of a court room talking about gun control and the 2nd amendment. Note: the video is much better than my summary.

TomCollins · #2 12-13-2006, 02:08 PM

Summary please?

wacki · #3 12-13-2006, 03:16 PM

ya, that was a crazy story. She didn't say this but she had a gun locked in her car when the guy started shooting. Apparently the right to carry wasn't legal in Texas at the time. She ran for office and helped change the laws. She can say with 100% certainty that gun control killed her parents. Penn & teller interviewed her during their gun episode.

So many forms of gun control really are dumb.

nef · #4 12-13-2006, 06:31 PM

On October 16, 1991 in Killeen, Texas, a man named George Hennard drove his 1987 Ford Ranger truck into a Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen Texas, yelled "This is what Bell County has done to me!" then opened fire on the restaurant's patrons and staff with a Glock 17 and later a Ruger P89. He killed 23 people and wounded 20 before he killed himself. Only the work of a large man breaking through a window allowed the rest of the patrons to escape. One noted exception was a mother and her 4-year-old child, who Hennard allowed to leave. Though Hennard was shot several times by police only when he ran out of victims did Hennard walk to the rear of the seating area and take his own life with a gunshot to the head.

It should be noted that many of the patrons, such as Suzanna Hupp, had firearms in their vehicles but by law were not allowed to carry them on their person.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luby%27s_massacre

http://www.suzannahupp.com/

mosdef · #5 12-13-2006, 09:14 PM

This woman's argument doesn't really hold water though. She's suggesting that we all need to carry firearms to protect ourselves from the maniacs with firearms. I'm surprised that the illogic in that wasn't brought to her attention. If anything, the observation that a maniac was able to take a gun into a crowded cafeteria and kill everybody lends support to the opposite extremists that don't want anyone that's not a cop to have a gun. And it's easy for her to point to this situation where gun control "caused" lives to be lost, but having limitations on guns also (one has to believe) prevents other guns from killing other people. Her argument is not "fair" because pro-gun control people can't point to the deaths prevented by gun control because they didn't happen. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't count.

AlexM · #6 12-13-2006, 09:30 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I'm surprised that the illogic in that wasn't brought to her attention. If anything, the observation that a maniac was able to take a gun into a crowded cafeteria and kill everybody lends support to the opposite extremists that don't want anyone that's not a cop to have a gun.

[/ QUOTE ]

You appear to be the one having trouble with logic here. What makes you think a person who's willing to violate murder laws and shoot up a restaurant is going to obey gun control laws? Gun control laws don't stop criminals, they stop law-abiding citizens. Most guns used in crime are already obtained illegally...

And even if we somehow magically legislated guns out of existence, what's to stop a guy like this from simply making home-made grenades? It's not exactly hard.

Copernicus · #7 12-13-2006, 09:37 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm surprised that the illogic in that wasn't brought to her attention. If anything, the observation that a maniac was able to take a gun into a crowded cafeteria and kill everybody lends support to the opposite extremists that don't want anyone that's not a cop to have a gun.

[/ QUOTE ]

You appear to be the one having trouble with logic here. What makes you think a person who's willing to violate murder laws and shoot up a restaurant is going to obey gun control laws? Gun control laws don't stop criminals, they stop law-abiding citizens. Most guns used in crime are already obtained illegally...

And even if we somehow magically legislated guns out of existence, what's to stop a guy like this from simply making home-made grenades? It's not exactly hard.

[/ QUOTE ]

The flip side of your argument as that with very strict gun control the manufacture of guns would be scaled back so far and the guns produced so much easier to keep tight controls over, that illegal guns would be much harder to come by.

The tradeoff with home made hand grenades isnt even close. They arent particularly effective at victim control since they put the criminal either at a distance from the victim or at risk himself. They also wouldnt be involved in more spur of the moment crimes.

mosdef · #8 12-13-2006, 09:50 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm surprised that the illogic in that wasn't brought to her attention. If anything, the observation that a maniac was able to take a gun into a crowded cafeteria and kill everybody lends support to the opposite extremists that don't want anyone that's not a cop to have a gun.

[/ QUOTE ]

You appear to be the one having trouble with logic here. What makes you think a person who's willing to violate murder laws and shoot up a restaurant is going to obey gun control laws? Gun control laws don't stop criminals, they stop law-abiding citizens. Most guns used in crime are already obtained illegally...

And even if we somehow magically legislated guns out of existence, what's to stop a guy like this from simply making home-made grenades? It's not exactly hard.

[/ QUOTE ]

You have a point and I didn't mean to suggest that the "counter view" to this woman's testimony was the end of the argument. I think it's a circular argument (guns => crime => need for guns => crime => ...) which is why people on both sides just dig in because they already hate the other side for other reasons.

The other thing is that you are saying that the law needs to be enforceable to be of any value which is also correct. I'm not pro gun control. But I think that OP's link is an excellent example of how one side can pick a stance and say "gun control killed my family, it's bad, end of argument" and it's all BS because it puts the other side in a position where they can't argue without seemeing like they support the death of this woman's family. It isn't an argument against gun control. It's an emotional smokescreen to support the anti-gun control lobby.

AlexM · #9 12-13-2006, 11:40 PM

[ QUOTE ]
The tradeoff with home made hand grenades isnt even close. They arent particularly effective at victim control since they put the criminal either at a distance from the victim or at risk himself. They also wouldnt be involved in more spur of the moment crimes.

[/ QUOTE ]

But neither one of those are the things that make people go "OMG, gun control". It's the random school shootings and other maniacs who are just looking for insane random destruction before killing themselves, and who could just as easily meet their goals of random destruction with home-made bombs.

BCPVP · #10 12-14-2006, 01:18 AM

[ QUOTE ]
The flip side of your argument as that with very strict gun control the manufacture of guns would be scaled back so far and the guns produced so much easier to keep tight controls over, that illegal guns would be much harder to come by.

[/ QUOTE ]
Very strict drug laws have not stopped drugs from getting to people who want them enough...