Quote:
Originally Posted by muised
My mother always taught me there are four subjects not to discuss in polite company:
1. Sex
2. Politics
3. Carrying weapons on board a cruising boat
4. Religion.
|
While I completely agree with your mother please remember she was referring to
polite company. That would be a different forum.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lt.
the following are my reasons for carrying guns:
- an armed society is a polite society ie. would you break into someone home or boat if you thought they had a gun? or would you break into the home or boat of someone if you thought they didn't have a gun?
|
- My travels suggest that the more polite industrialized societies are the ones less armed. There are few places I feel uncomfortable traveling in Western Europe or Canada but many in the USA. My perceptions only, of course.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lt.
- America didn't save England, France, and the rest of the world during ww1 and ww2 by throwing rocks!
|
How that relates to peace time I do not know but that comment seldom wins friends in polite society.
FWIW, France
lost over 40% of it's able bodied 20 to 40 year old
men in WWl from death or maiming. It was decimated and paid a horrific
price. England was the bulwark in WW1 and if it weren't for
Russia in WWll you'd be speaking Japanese and I would be speaking German when calling my fore fathers in
Scotland (though really, I don't think they'd have ever gotten the Highlands. Or, for that matter, wanted them.

)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lt.
If I take a walk in the woods in alaska (or any other true wilderness or city, or nation) what would I rather have, A good gun-- or a bottle of pepper juice?
|
Methinks the necessities for walks in Alaska,
Baltimore, Montreal, or Paris vary widely.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lt.
shortly after almost every country in the world that has outlawed guns started (for lack of better vocab.) outlawing guns, their crime rates shot up!!
|
Could you show us some
research on that?
Research I have read tends to show that where there are more guns there is more violent crime, and as guns proliferate, so does crime.
For disclosure, if I lived in many areas of the US,
Russia,
Belize, the
Ukraine, etc., I would own a handgun. If my ex'es mother in law started hanging around again, I would own one here. Depends on one's circumstances really, doesn't?
My cruising has been limited to the
Great Lakes, the Maritime provinces, and
Maine, and I have never carried nor even considered carrying a firearm. I have never had any situation make me feel remotely nervous at sea save the time the
engine failed in the Bay of Fundy and I had to sail through the Reversing Falls in Saint John. If I did have a gun that day I would have shot the
mechanic who had just overhauled the
engine; this life saved should prove to all of you that firearms and
boating do not mix, at least in
Canada. Had I a gun aboard I expect there would be a few more widows in Canada whose husbands had inadvertently (or so they said) dropped one of my
winch handles
overboard during a weekend
race.
I have never understood why
winch handles are not sold in six packs.
Someday I should make a sailing related post. Somebody start a thread called '
The best sailing on the N.A. east coast' so I can talk about the St John River, or the Bras D'or Lakes

.
Now, back to the tax return. I just love all nighters. Sorry if I'm cranky.