Well the symposium on gun control at Pitt went well tonight. It was fairly well attended. I counted 61 people at the maximum attendance. Including the photographer from the Bradford Era. And they had cookies!

There were the usual suspects there. A few professors, some students, a couple Bradford "dignitaries", a few from Bradford Today, and even a loon or two ..... make that three maybe.

Some people were conspicuously absent.

Before hand I predicted that the panel discussion would go something like this:

The gun nuts would say "don't take our guns".
Then the rational people would say "we have to do something". Then the gun nuts would repeat: "don't take our guns". And the rational people would respond with "we have to do something". Then the gun nuts would repeat: "don't take our guns". And the rational people would again say: "we have to do something". And so on and so on ..... Blah, blah, blah!

Imagine sitting through an hour and a half of that .... or something close to it! I bailed after ten minutes!

Not sure if they solved the worlds problems or even just the problem of gun control in this country ..... I doubt it.

Hope I didn't miss a gun fight at the end of the symposium!

When I went past Tops on the way out to Pitt, I could swear that the gas was priced at $3.73 and when I passed it on the way home, less than an hour later it was $3.74! It was still only $3.69 at the other end of town, near Pitt. Just two days ago I paid $3.63!

Isn't this the workings of a tyrannical government? At what point do we pick up our guns? (Tongue-in-cheek, JeffT)

I'm guessing you weren't really there? What you describe is nothing at all even close to how the meeting went. Everybody got a chance to speak, many good points were made from both sides, and a realization that we cannot have a knee jerk reaction to mass shootings was pretty much the consensus. There were plenty of facts sprinkled in, some by me. I was actually thanked by Professor Barry Gan for bringing up the DC vs Heller ruling specifically regarding semi automatics, the DC vs Miller ruling regarding military weapons, and 10 U.S.C. § 311 : US Code - Section 311 regarding who is legally in the unorganized militia.

FYI Professor Gan is director of the Center for Nonviolence at St. Bonaventure and stated he has never, and will never, own a gun.

If only you knew, Stony, the valuable technology you possess. Being able to jump from dimension to dimension is something scientists have been searching for for years!

What KIND of cookies? I wasn't told there would be cookies there! Dang!

Shadow- Chocolate Chip! And they were big and soft!


Ryan- nothing was accomplished by that talk last night. I would be willing to bet that everybody who was pro gun who attended is still pro gun. And everybody who was open to exploring new laws was still in favor of exploring new laws. I'd bet the farm not one person from either side changed their minds.

I firmly stand by my assessment of the meeting (which I did attend) (I saw you there) .... The pro guns people demanded "don't take my guns", the *other side* insisted "we have to do something".

That is how the meeting started, and that is how it ended. Everything else was rhetoric. Sure some people stated facts, some made great points- but that was irrelevant.

........ Or are you for gun control now?

If minds could not be changed, then poll results would never change.... They would never have to bother debating and would never have to bother even doing the polls. If minds can't be changed, why do you even bother arguing on here about this?

Good question Ryan.

Here's the answer. What ever the debate is about, environment, abortion, politics, guns ..... We on either side won't convince the other side we are right, but who we need to reach are the "fence sitters", the people in between, the undecided.

Here, on the internet we have such an audience. So debate on here is worth while. But at a meeting like the one last night, the attendees and speakers were decidedly on one side or the other. Everybody "in between" or undecided on that issue, didn't care enough about it to attend. Perhaps a few of the students attended for class credits or to do a report.
But for the most part, everybody in attendance had their minds made up already, before the meeting and had no chance of changing their minds.

This says it all... and here is the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJOkFAz89fc