Proposed article targets firearms

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Linky...

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=118486&format=&page=1

Excerpt...

Proposed article targets firearms
By Casey Lyons/ Daily News Staff
Thursday, January 5, 2006 - Updated: 12:54 AM EST

BOXBOROUGH -- The National Rifle Association has long championed phrases like, "Guns don’t kill people, people kill people."

For a group of concerned residents in Boxborough, however, that same idea is focused more on prevention: before people with guns kill people, people should ban guns.

Suzanne Schmitt, a 17-year Boxborough resident, has drafted and gathered names on a petition to prohibit the discharge of firearms outright. By pounding the pavement and enlisting help, Schmitt convinced 109 Boxborough residents to sign on the line -- 89 more than are needed for a resident-driven article at the annual Town Meeting in May.



"We felt it was sort of a publicity issue," Schmitt said of her and her husband Stephen’s efforts. "No one knew that we were doing this. Through the petition we spread the word that we thought this was important and should come up at Town Meeting."

Like previous gun-related issues, this one has origins in a December 2004 hiker and hunter confrontation on conservation land. When the hiker told the hunters about hunting prohibitions in the area, one hunter had reportedly said that bullets don’t know the difference.

The incident touched off a debate in town about the continued appropriateness of hunting in an increasingly rural town. After several months of investigation, the trail safety subcommittee of the Conservation Committee concluded that hunting served a necessary purpose.

Unlike the previous thrust to limit hunting, this one seeks to prohibit the discharge of firearms in town, though with several exceptions.

To Schmitt, firearm discharge presents a threat to all residents.

"We thought it was a public safety issue that needed to be addressed," she said. "It’s difficult to control situations where guns are involved."
 
For a group of concerned residents in Boxborough, however, that same idea is focused more on prevention: before people with guns kill people, people should ban guns.

Before people with cars kill people, we should ban cars.
Before people with knives kill people, we should ban knives.
Before people think of killing people, we should ban thinking.

can go on and on.. :)
 
Brent said:
For a group of concerned residents in Boxborough, however, that same idea is focused more on prevention: before people with guns kill people, people should ban guns.

Before people with cars kill people, we should ban cars.
Before people with knives kill people, we should ban knives.
Before people think of killing people, we should ban thinking.

can go on and on.. :)

Preach on brother!

This crap kills me.

People drown, we should ban water.
 
Cars? knives? Water? Heck, even oxygen can kill you. IMNSHO, these asshats are already wasting far too much of it.

Ken
 
KMaurer said:
Cars? knives? Water? Heck, even oxygen can kill you. IMNSHO, these asshats are already wasting far too much of it.

Ken

The only thing that doesn't kill, and rather regretably, is ignorance and stupidity - as in the ones with the affliction dying. THEIR stupidity usually winds up killing folks like us. [roll]
 
This is just another example of fuzzy headed thinking....but remember it is for the children :)

I would like to know more about this alleged incident between the hiker and the hunter. Could it be that this whole thing started because "Bubba from Boxboro" met up with "Muffy from Cambridge"...and maybe Bubba didn't keep his cool when Muffy started talking about how animals have rights and how we have to hug trees and save the butterflys (for the children, of course)

Sounds like a clash of cultures, just another skirmish in what Charlton Heaston and others refer to as cultural warfare.

Truthfully, when I meet a Muffy anymore, I just get as far away as I can from them and keep my mouth shut as hard as it may be. It is best to fight battles at a time and place of one's own choosing.

Of course, we really don't know what happened or if it happened at all.

Mark
 
Of course, we really don't know what happened or if it happened at all.

Or if anything happened at all. For all anyone knows, "Muffy" made the whole thing up because the thought that someone might be hunting got her nervous!

Matt
 
Geee... I wonder what the odds are that Suzanne Schmidt isn't originally from the Boxborough area or even originally from a rural area?

Isn't there already a state law that prohibits discharging a firearm within XXX' of a dwelling? Isn't there also a law that prohibts nusaince actions against ranges that existed before neighboring parcels became developed?
 
They usually include an exemption for existing shooting ranges. This is true of a few towns around me that I know about.
 
If you read the article:

"Schmidt said other towns and cities in Massachusetts, including, Arlington, Belmont and Somerville, have all passed similar bylaws.
The bylaw would provide for a number of exceptions to its prohibition. Law enforcement officers would be exempted, as would contractors using powder-fired tools. Also exempted would be people at authorized target ranges and residents acting in the lawful defense of themselves or others."

So, why don't they just call it a ban on hunting and bb/pellet/paintball guns?
 
and that fact that she thinks she doing a good thing is the saddest part.
little does she realize that shes really a 17 yr old domestic terrorist fighting to destroy her own constitional freedoms one signature at a time..
 
If someone had been killed or had a near miss out in the woods, that would be one thing, but it sounds like this is all completely hypothetical danger.

It's not good to start passing laws for non-existent threats.
 
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