60% of firearms fatalities are suicides.
1) Suicide is premeditated murder.
2) So far the wrong person has never been executed for this crime.

Unless you are involved in the sales and distribution of illegal drugs or are a career criminal the odds of you being harmed by gunfire are less than being hit by a drunk driver. Here's some dog bite stats.Dog bite stats

I'd much rather have my sidearm and not get it out in time/miss than to not have the chance to protect myself to begin with.

Speaking of Canada, how's that spiffy gun registry working out for you? It's cost how much to solve how many crimes?

I'm gonna loose my stars for being snarky ain't I?

I have been reading what has been said and because it does have nothing to do with dogs I did send a PM to Will, Sarah, and Dennis. And thank you for saying sorry because I was not trying to be mean! I just don't agree with guns. I love the United States and enjoy visiting and spending money. I have learned many things from this form.
God Bless America

I also sent you a PM. I also enjoy your dog advice and used it with my new dog!

God Bless America

I know I'm not mad at anyone, just trying to educate. No gun has ever "Just gone off". There has to be some human pulling the trigger either on purpose of by accident, but leaving a gun alone has never hurt anyone.

Dogs on the other hand do just go off. And it too is the human's fault.

thanks! And thank you for the information.

Looking at one of the links that Scott gave, seeing the man in the hospital bed and feeling badly for him, then looking below at the female pitbull and just the way she looked - felt badly for her too.

Marcia, just one point addressing what you said "More people in the United States die from dumb owners with guns then dumb owners with dogs!" - this statement doesn't take into account that there are millions of responsible gun owners (and guns) in the US and the number of dog owners with vicious dogs pales in comparison. The only way your statement would be an accurate comparison is if there were as many vicious dogs as there are guns. So the ratio of guns to dogs doesn't make your statement a fair comparison.

Ok not only in the United States but in all countries there are dumb gun owners and dumb dog owners. I do hope the people who had the dogs get charged!
Please no more I hate Canada comments! I also really do enjoy the information I get on this form and leave it at that!

God Bless America

 Quote: Red Thomas

Speaking of Canada, how's that spiffy gun registry working out for you? It's cost how much to solve how many crimes?

LOL, sorry even I had to laugh at that! Sometimes I think a bunch of monkeys run this country. Yeah, we have CRIMINALS (who generally aren't model citizens to begin with) running around shooting people... So they tell all Canadians that we have to register our guns. And so the law-abiding citizens do. But the very people who were a problem to begin with (the, uh, criminals... Who, again, generally aren't known for rule following) STILL DON'T register their guns! And this problem wasn't anticipated from the outset?!

As if that isn't bad enough, add to it the irony of the fact that, shortly after implementing the gun registry it was determined that (surprise!) it wasn't being used as intended by criminal organizations and instead registerd owners of legal guns were being targetted in robberies by (surprise again) criminals... Who then use their legally registered guns for illegal purposes!

Duh, eh?!

Wow... you think you'd get used to reading these stories after a while. But I'm still shocked every time.

I agree with you Sandy, it's shocking to see the poor man's condition, but it's also heartbreaking to see that pathetic scared look on that female pit. Sigh. Frankly I believe that gun and dog ownership should be regulated. How about a basic IQ or responsibility test for potential owners?
I have no issue whatsoever with responsible people owning "dangerous" dogs or guns. It's the armed wackos out there that scare me.

I hate these stories; the guilty party just never seems to get the punishment they deserve.

As for the "I hate Canada" comments, I couldn't agree more with Marcia
As Canadians, we have the special privilege of being close neighbours to you Americans. That's why we can see that for the most part you're excellent, honourable and well-intentioned people, despite your nation's (often) astonishing arrogance and lack of diplomacy in domestic and international matters.
Whereas much of the rest of the world judges you only on your sometimes misguided politics, as Canadians we have great respect for who you are (despite the occasional poking fun, but that's reciprocal and all in fun).

Please extend the same courtesy to us. We don't need to agree with eachother's politics to respect eachother.

As others have already pointed out, most of us come here for dog information anyway, not politics

Marcia, you should be proud of yourself for maintaining such class and decorum in your comments. It's the intelligent, mature and diplomatic people like you who make me proud to be Canadian

As for the gun control issue, Jennifer I laughed just as you did when I saw the results.

The one thing that made me reconsider my stance was not the average joe's comments (who cares about those anyway??), it was the pleas made by law enforcement officers. Police all over the country praised the initiative saying that it was a huge help to them to be able to check and know whether a residence they were going to had guns registered to it.

Granted, many criminals don't bother with registration and I thought the registry seemed like a naive idea doomed to fail, but after hearing those police officers and their pleas I certainly saw that I hadn't had the whole picture...

Maybe we should leave that type of legislation and decisions up to the people who are legitimately affected by it (police officers). If they say it's of great use to them and they don't want the registry scrapped, who am I (or anyone else) to argue against that?

The whole "support our troops, support out law enforcement etc." rhetoric is great, but it's worthless and hypocritical unless you're willing to live up to your words by parting with a few extra tax dollars to support programs (like the gun registry) when these people ask for them, regardless of how annoying they may seem to you.
I don't go announcing patriotic slogans wherever I go, but I try to support the programs that will benefit them when they ask for it. If it means paying a bit more in taxes, then so be it. There are other places where cuts can be made, I just don't believe it should be in something as vital as law enforcement.