Originally posted by: Rainsford
Originally posted by: 1EZduzit
Originally posted by: Taejin
Originally posted by: Nebor
Originally posted by: Skoorb
Originally posted by: Nebor
http://www.gazette.com/opinion...ml/view_wednesday.html
This is a terribly dissappointing problem. Hopefully the issue is resolved quickly.
Personally I think a big part of the problem is how classist the Texas CHL system is. It is the most expensive license in the country, at $140 initial cost. Add in a typical $100 class, and the cost of a handgun and (hopefully) a holster, and you've made the right to protect oneself only available to the rich.
If you cannot come up with $140 plus a basic piece and holster, chances are you're poor so nobody is likely to rob you anyway and therefore you have no reason to proect yourself or your property. Another way of looking at it is: if you cannot afford $140 plus a basic piece and holster, do you really deserve to be protected anyway? Society has enough poor people as it is. Let them fight amongst themselves like savages!
Poor people are far, far more likely to be a victim of violent crime, yet in Texas, like most states, the areas with the highest concentration of CHL holders is the wealthy areas. I'm not going to pretend like I don't live in one of the ritziest cities in Texas, but our system is classist. I remember discussing it with my dad, and his response was, "It keeps the riff raff from carrying guns." Sure dad. Just like "no guns allowed" signs keep campus shooters at bay. And laws against carrying guns keep gangsters in Chicago from carrying handguns. The truth is that a lot of people both on the gun and anti-gun side of the fence see guns as a rich man's game, and that's not how the founding fathers intended it.
No one should be denied their right to defend themselves.
right to carry a gun != right to defend themselves
You've been watching too much TV again, haven't you. We're not all just as capable of disarming an armed attacker with our bare hands as a Chuck Norris or Bruce Lee.
The regulations on firearms is what makes obtaining these permits necessary in the first place. They need to be affordable, $10 to $20 should cover it.
I think you missed Taejin's point....it's not about ability, it's about RIGHTS. Having the right to own or carry a gun doesn't give you the right to shoot someone dead with it. Despite how often gun ownership and self defense rights are mentioned together, they actually aren't the same thing at all. In some places where you can legally own or carry a gun, you can still get in trouble if you shoot someone with it...even if you think it qualifies as self defense. And these problems exist whether or not you have a gun, in many places you can't Bruce Lee someone, even in self defense, without facing prosecution for doing so.
That's part of the problem with the gun lobby, actually. They focus so much time and energy on gun ownership that the right to actually USE the gun (or anything else) to defend yourself is left up to a much weaker and much less organized lobby. Personally I think the latter problem is a more critical one, as it doesn't really matter whether you can carry 14 bullets or 10 bullets in a magazine if you can't use any of them on someone attacking you. Of course the issue is that the gun lobby is equal parts folks interested in self defense and folks who view guns as a recreational activity, so the debate tends to get side tracked by issues like barrel length and what defines an assault rifle vs things that actually matter to self defense.