Unlike Bill, I did not grown up in a hunting family. There were no
guns around my house and my parents were quite anti-gun: No guns, toy
guns, sling shots etc. I do not hunt. My main use of firearms is for
competition.
I am on the board of drirectors (membership secretary) for a 750 member gun club here in Connecticut (http://www.metacongunclub.com/). At this point I own a number of pistols and rifles including:
AR-15
Style semi-automatic Rifle (Actual make and model Stag Arms Model 3 -
made in the New Britain, CT the town next to where I live) - AR-15 is a
generic term for the style of rifle. Hundreds of companies make
an AR-15 style rifle, for the most part all the parts on those rifles
are interchangeable, they follow a strict pattern. Bushmaster, the brand
of rifle used in several mass shootings, is taking a lot of heat lately from the media because they are one of the companies
that make this rifle. I would be like saying a Victoria Secret bra was
used in the murder and people storming Victoria Secret stores for
justice. I use this rifle
in competitions at the club. The
standard capacity magazines for this rifle are 10, 20 and 30 rounds.
There are higher capacity but they are not as reliable and expensive.
This rifle by name, type and magazine capacity would be banned
A
9mm semi-automatic carbine rifle (Beretta CX-4 Storm). I use this in
Class III competitions at the club. Class III is an ATF (Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms) designation for firearms that break the main
stream firearm rules such as fully automatic weapons, rifles with barrels shorter than 16 inches and suppresors (silencers). You can have a fully automatic weapon in the United States, provided that the weapon was made
prior to a certain year and is considered "transferable", no new ones
are available to the public. The thing is, because there is a very
limited supply they are very expensive to purchase. Minimum price at this
point $5000 up to $30000 and beyond. These items are registered to the
owner, you must carry the paperwork around with the items and you pay a
"tax" for each item owned.
Because of their relative rarity
and expense, these items are very very rarely an issue in crime. Usually
if they are an issue in a crime they have been stolen from the
military. My rifle is not a Class III weapon but because of
the rarity of them they let us use them in these competitions, otherwise
there would only be two or three guys in the match. The standard
magazine capacity is 17 rounds. Because this rifle is based on a pistol there isn't any higher capacity magazine for it.
This rifle by name and magazine would be banned.
2
9mm semi-automatic pistols, a SigSauer P226 (Made in Germany / New
Hamphire) and a Kahr K9 (Made in Massachusetts). The SigSauer is a full
size pistil with a standard magazine capacity of 15 rounds. This
pistol was in close competion back in the 1980's to be the standard
issue for our military - lost out to the Beretta 92. I use this pistol
for IDPA competition (http://www.idpa.com/ ). Although the magazine holds 15 rounds, in
competition we limit it to 10 rounds because other type of pistols and
revolvers with lower capacity are used. This makes it a little more
fair. The Kahr K9 is a compact pistol and holds 6 rounds. This is used
in competion against similar sized pistols and revolvers .
The SigSauer magazines would be banned
A
.22 caliber semi-automatic pistol (Browning Buckmark - Made in Utah). I
use this for falling plate matches. Think of it as a drag race. Two
people shooting a rack of standing steel plates. The buzzer goes off and
the first one to knock down his plates wins. This has a magazine capacity of 10 rounds.
2
.22 caliber semi-automatic rifles (Both Ruger 10/22 models - Made in
New Hapmshire). I use these in the falling plate matches and
marksmanship rifle matches. These have a magazine capacity of 10 to 25
rounds.
There are higher capacity magazines but they are not very reliable and quite cumbersome.
The magazines larger than 10 rounds would be banned
1
.22 caliber pump action 22 rifle (Winchester model 61 - Made in New
Haven) This belonged to my father in law. I rarely shoot it.
I mention the place where these are made because these are jobs that would be lost if these are banned.
So, now on to the actual questions....
What is your opinion on the use of guns by owners to protect their private property?
People should be allowed to protect themselves and others by
any means necessary in and outside of their home. Protecting property
with deadly force is another thing. I'm not going to shot somebody for
stealing the lawnmower in my garage, I may shoot somebody who
has broken into my house before I ask him why he broke into my house. I
do have a concealed weapons permit (which means I took a NRA firearms
class and have had an FBI backround check - the permit is
good for 5 years), you cannot purchase a pistol or revolver without one
in Connecticut. I do not carry a concealed weapon. My firearms are
locked up in a safe when not being
used at the range.
What is your opinion on mandatory background checks for gun ownership?
Yes!
Everybody who purchases a firearm should have a backround check.
Currently in Connecticut as I said before, you need a permit to purchase
a pistol or revolver. When you do that you also get a quick backround
check. You do not
need a permit to buy a rifle and if purchasing from a private party
there is no backround check. If you purchase from a licensed dealer
there is a two week waiting period where a backround check is done. You
should need a permit to purchase any firearm and I'll throw in ammunition as well.
What is your opinion on the proposed reinstatement of the automatic weapons ban?
Again, be careful of the terminolgy here. New automatic weapon
sales are already banned and existing ones highly regulated. Banning
semi-automatic weapons would be be pointless. There are millions of the
listed weapons out there already. Most of the versions of the
bans do not confiscate the existing ones. The AR-15 rifle was not
popular until it was banned. Tell somebody they can't have something and
you instantly create a desire for it. When President Obabma
took office in 2008 there was a run on guns because everybody felt that
he would reinstate the ban. That died down afer a while. Now it comes up
again and there are no AR-15's, ammunition, 9mm pitols,
ammunition
etc to be found. People are buying everything up. I'm not blaming this
on the president, it goes back much further and deeper than that. The
only real resolution here would be to turn on a giant magnet to pull out
and destroy all the guns. But in the end if
it makes them feel better and prevents someone from purchasing a weapon
at a moment when they feel most at odds with whatever demons they have
I'm ok with it.
What is your opinion on hunting as a beloved American sport?
I
don't hunt, But if people want to sit out in the cold wearing silly
clothes in order to shoot poor defenseless ducks out the air to satisfy
their unresolved gender issues it's fine by me. It's a free country. :)
What can America change to make public schools safer from massacres as occurred in Newtown?
I
am not downplaying the recent events, but they are rare. If a person is
determined to cause harm they will find the available means to do
it. The availblity of weapons is not the cause it's the means. If they
are not available they will find another way. In teh early
20th century the largest school massacre was performed by blowing the
building up. That guy was not happy with his taxes.
Treat the cause of the issues. Be a good parent, be a good friend, be a good citizen.
What does the 2nd amendment mean to you?
It's either very shortsighted to the events of the time it was written
or brilliantly wrritten to protect ourselves from our own government in
the future. Like the Bible you can interprate it in many ways. I think
it means that it give the citizens a means to protect
themselves from the goverment should the government decide to infringe
upon life, liberty and the persuit of happiness. Sometimes a government
decides it does not want to play by it's own rules and I
think our forefathers took that into account. There have been and are
plenty of examples where a government has decided it no longer likes
certain citizens. Now we can always say that won't happen here
because of our constitution but you never know.
But with these rights come responsibilities and it should be proven that your are responsible enough to handle those rights.
Any other question you think might help you say what you think about this issue!
I agree on Bill's gunshow comments. You should not be able to buy a firearm with out a permit and a backround check.
I don't like the idea of categorizing certain guns as more bad than others its uneducated and arbitrary.
I
already by default register firearms purchased through a dealer, the
state knows I have it, not need for me to do more than that.
I do not want the government to turn me into a criminal by banning what I already own.
I do not want to pay additional taxes to own or purchase a firearm or ammunition.
I do not think banning guns will reduce crime.
I have purchased each firearm for a specific competition.
I have no plans on ever using my firearms on a living creature.
When I lived in Philadelphia I actual sold my guns because I felt I might have to use them, or have them used on me.
Gun control is an easy answer to an unsolveable question, look how well controlling drugs has gone.
I could go on and on but I hope this helps.
I would hope that if you read this and have any interest in answering the same questions (as you should) you will. If you can't post them completely in the comment section please send them to me. I will provide my email if you don't know how to get in touch with me, but knowing this blog, nobody is reading anyway.
GBCH
“We
started with high numbers of breeding ducks, and we have great water in
the right places for renesting and duckling survival,” said Frank
Rohwer, president of Delta Waterfowl. “Duck production should be
excellent.”
