My Winchester Model-94 "Trapper" 30-30

[Dan Vincent]

I really appreciate my Nikon D90 for being able to take pictures and see instant results. I had my Winchester 30-30 down at the barn the other day and decided to snap a few quick pictures. It's amazing how the sunlight and shade can alter the color of the wood in the stock.

[philbirch]

I don't like guns but that's a handsome one and looks like it may be fun to use. Like an old camera. My daughters hair used to look different colours in photos depending on the light, but the other one who had similar colouring always looked the same. It's probably due to texture.

Now of course my daughters' hair colour changes by the month although its a bottle not texture.

[Dan Vincent]

I like precision made stuff, be it a camera, gun, tractor, car, truck or anything else that has a mechanical beauty.

The way I see it the neighbors' teenage daughter texting on a cellphone while driving down the road at 75 MPH is far more dangerous to society than I would ever be with a gun. Just compare the number of car accidents per year compared to gun accidents.

I only shoot in safe situations and only at targets. Hunters are fine because that's how all of our families got meat for the table many years ago.

Whenever new gun laws are enacted they effect me, because I will obey them but criminals do not.

It is amazing to me how a country like England, known in the past for it's many fine gun makers, has been changed to anti-gun in a few short decades.

I recently had a couple of friends from Scotland at the house and they wanted to see my guns but declined to even touch them.

[Stephen]

It is not so much that it is more anti gun than before, shotguns remain in use, but there was never widespread use of conventional guns, apart from estate use for deer hunting etc. The clamp down came from miss use by criminals, which escalated after the 1950's, pump action guns were banned, and then hand guns, which have no real use anyway apart from target shooting.

My father was a small bore rifle national champion, but even in the 1950's there were pretty severe restrictions on the use of all target rifles.

Shooting generally was confined to large Estates, or wild fowling, with the size of the country there are no open spaces that are not private property, and the owners controlled hunting strictly for themselves.

The is no right to arms, or anything like the US approach, never has been in the UK, and by the way, the right to bear arms in the US is a bit miss-understood, maybe deliberately, by the US gun lobby, the right refers to protecting the US citizen from attack by the British!
It made legal and desirable to the US Authorities to have an available force to repel any further attack on the new country. It has slowly become a right to generally own guns, perhaps not quite what was intended by the founding fathers.

You can't fail to admire the engineering in the best guns, and shotguns continue to be manufactured and sold widely.

Stephen.

[Dan Vincent]

I heard that during WWII the Japanese did not fear the American armed forces because the USA was badly out of touch with modern equipment and short on trained troops. The thing that kept them from an American invasion was their fear of the American cowboys and the vast militia that could be raised from the gun-owning citizens.

Most governments want a disarmed public so they never have to fear opposition to their taxation and power that cannot be questioned. Obama is going crazy trying to rip the guns out of the hands of American Citizens. They point to gun violence in Chicago, Obama's town, and Chicago has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the USA. The shootings are being done by criminals, not law-abiding citizens who can't protect themselves from the criminals.

You would have to live in America to understand the underlying causes of crime and letting criminals out of jail early to save money. Every time there is a financial crunch and the government wants more money they threaten to lay off police and fire fighters. A gun can be of comfort if crime is rising and police forces are being weakened.

[daveh]

The thing that kept them from an American invasion was their fear of the American cowboys and the vast militia that could be raised from the gun-owning citizens.

Dan, that is a load of nonsense promoted by the gun lobby to support what it wants to believe. Japan never wanted to invade the USA. What Japan did want was to have Pacific domination and so, perhaps more importantly, subjugate China and its people. Pearl Harbour and the Aleution Islands were attacked to lessen American influence in the Pacific, not as a prelude to invasion of North America. Sino-Japanese conflicts had been ongoing since the late 1800s. China had received help various countries including (and mainly from) the USA. Japanese domination of the Pacific would cut off many of the supply routes to China: at least that was the Japanese thinking.

[philbirch]

Watch the film: 'Bowling for Columbine'.

[Deleted]

Don't like to get into politics here but IMO "Bowling for Columbine" and its director Michael Moore are best described by words I won't repeat. It also is interesting that the U.S. cities with the most stringent gun control laws also have among the highest murder rates while areas with few firearm restrictions are among the lowest.

Dave is correct, the idea that the Japanese did not invade because of all the guns in the U.S. is a totally fairy tale. They never had any intention of invading. They just wanted to win enough victories to make the U.S. sue for peace and let them keep their initial gains.

I have been around firearms my entire life. I enjoy target shooting and have several firearms, including a 30-30 like the one shown which I have had for more than 30 years but actually belongs to my brother-in-law. He lives in England where he obviously can't keep it. I no longer hunt because no one in my family but me will eat wild game and I don't believe you should kill an animal unless you intend to eat it.

I know it is difficult for many people in other countries to understand but if government here tried to outlaw private ownership of firearms, many previously law-abiding citizens would fight to keep their guns by whatever means necessary. Firearms are part of the American culture--especially in rural areas, and any attempt by government to change that would have catastrophic consequences.

[Dan Vincent]

I'm going to bow out of this one when people think Michael Moore is a reliable source of information there isn't much point in discussing anything. Glad I live in America.

[philbirch]

Jul 13, 2014 21:25:48 GMT -5 Dan Vincent said:

I'm going to bow out of this one when people think Michael Moore is a reliable source of information there isn't much point in discussing anything. Glad I live in America.

I mentioned the film only, to see what the OP's view on it was. Not because I thought it was a reliable source of information, I made no comment to that effect, nor did I deliberately seek to offend. 

I did say in an earlier post that I disliked guns but that was not meant as an attack on American culture. I didn't feel the need to explain why I didn't like them which is why I didn't, this thread after all was about a camera. But this (in short) is why I don't like them:

I used to own a short rail ČZ 75 (probably a copy) in the 1980's, stored at the gun club range of which I was a member. I also had a Mauser M69 from about 1901. Both nice guns to fire. My time at the gun club (introduced by a policeman) was good and I was a good shot. We had trips to an open air range to Wales once in a while.

After not too long I realised there were a few guys there who were storing and carrying loaded guns illegally outside the confines of this police-run club and that put me off. I didn't want to be associated with these individuals. So I reluctantly sold mine to another member and left with a bad taste in my mouth. That, and the fact that my pistol, loaded with (I think) twelve 9x19mm rounds weighed in at nearly 2kg hurt like hell to hold at arms length.

My (5-year) licence expired in 1994, three years before handguns were banned altogether. 

I appreciate a piece of well made machinery and craftsmanship as much as the next person