Utah begins to celebrate Gun Appreciation Day, about to make Colt 1911 state gun. - Polidicks

[quote]This week in Washington, Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey introduced three very modest gun regulation bills, including one making it more difficult to sell guns to people on the terror watch list. Meanwhile, in Salt Lake City, the State Legislature is considering a bill to honor the Browning M1911 pistol by making it the official state firearm. Guess which idea has the better chance of passage? Can I see a show of hands? Oh, you cynics, you! Yes, a committee in the Utah House of Representatives voted 9 to 2 this week to approve a bill that would add the Browning pistol to the pantheon of official state things, along with the bird (seagull), rock (coal) and dance (square). Also, although it really has nothing to do with this discussion, I have to mention that the Utah Legislature has provided its citizens with an official state cooking pot, and it is the Dutch oven. “This firearm is Utah,” Representative Carl Wimmer, the Browning bill’s sponsor, told The Salt Lake Tribune. He is an energetic-looking guy with a huge forehead who has only been in office four years yet has, according to one of his videos, “sponsored and passed some of the most significant pieces of legislation in Utah history.” Capitol observers say the Browning bill has an excellent chance of becoming law. Meanwhile, Lautenberg will be lucky to get a hearing. The terror of the National Rifle Association is so pervasive that President Obama did not want to poison the mood of his State of the Union address by suggesting that when somebody on the terror watch list tries to buy a gun, maybe we should do an extra check. “But people are now commenting on the fact that the president didn’t talk about it in his speech. That hasn’t happened for years,” said Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, whose job really does require an inordinate amount of optimism. Lautenberg’s bills are extremely mild, and no one seems eager to argue in public against the one that would end easy access to 30-bullet magazines that allow someone with a semiautomatic pistol to mow down a parking lot full of people in a matter of seconds. Instead, they just refuse to come to the phone or toss out platitudes. “The people that are going to commit a crime or are going to do something crazy aren’t going to pay attention to the laws in the first place. Let’s fix the real problem. Here’s a mentally deranged person who had access to a gun that should not have had access to a gun,” said Senator Tom Coburn on “Meet the Press.” Another of Lautenberg’s bills would tighten a loophole in current law so a mentally deranged person who should not have access to guns could not go to a gun show and buy one without the regular security check. But never mind. On Monday, the Utah State Capitol celebrated Browning Day, honoring John Moses Browning, native son and maker of the nominee for Official State Firearm. There were speeches, a proclamation, a flyover by a National Guard helicopter, and, of course, a rotunda full of guns. “We recognize his efforts to preserve the Constitution,” Gov. Gary Herbert said, in keeping with what appears to be a new Republican regulation requiring all party members to mention the Constitution at least once in every three sentences. It is generally not a good policy to dwell on the strange behavior of state legislators since it leads to bottomless despair. If I wanted to go down that road, I’d give you Mark Madsen, a Utah state senator who tried to improve upon the Browning Day celebrations by suggesting they be scheduled to coincide with Martin Luther King Day since “both made tremendous contributions to individual freedom and individual liberty.” But it’s a symptom of a new streak of craziness abroad in the land, which has politicians scrambling to prove not just that they are against gun regulation, but also that they are proactively in favor of introducing guns into every conceivable part of American life. National parks. Schools. Bars. Airports. “There is abundant research suggesting in cities where more people own guns, the crime rate, especially the murder rate, goes down,” Utah’s new United States senator, Mike Lee, told CNN. Actually, there’s a ton of debate about this, which is hard to resolve given the fact that, as Michael Luo reported in The Times, the N.R.A.’s crack lobbyists have managed to stop almost all federal financing for scientific research on gun-related questions. But Lee has definitely made the list of most creative commentators on these matters, ever since he dismissed calls for a calmer political rhetoric after the Tucson massacre by arguing that “the shooter wins if we, who’ve been elected, change what we do just because of what he did.”[/quote] [url]http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/opinion/27collins.html[/url] I know it's an opinion article, I'll try to find a non-biased report ASAP.

Browning was born in Utah, it only makes sense that his most famous design get some official praise. Happy 100th birthday to the 1911. Some companies put out weird anniversary editions. [img]http://www.tactical1911.net/wp-content/uploads/Kimber_1911_Centennial_Edition.jpg[/img] I've never seen a stained steel automatic before that.

Oh god that thing is fucking ugly. It looks blued and rusted at the same time.

Yes, celebrating guns is great! Fun for the whole family guns are!

Fantastic choice, but I think all but the original service guns look pretty ugly. Don't ruin a good thing.

[QUOTE=Led Zeppelin;27701168]Fantastic choice, but I think all but the original service guns look pretty ugly. Don't ruin a good thing.[/QUOTE] Sure they have that nice rustic look but I can guarantee you'd rather have something more modern than a great war service gun in a matter of life and death.

California should have an Orange Day.

[QUOTE=marlkarxv2;27701140]Yes, celebrating guns is great! Fun for the whole family guns are![/QUOTE] Yeah, get a .22 for the kids, they can join in, it's great fun. I practically grew up on one.

[QUOTE=marlkarxv2;27701140]Yes, celebrating guns is great! Fun for the whole family guns are![/QUOTE] 4 posts and you're already stirring shit? Get your facts straight or the collective of facepunchers that actually know what they're talking about are going to jump on your ass.

[QUOTE=Fycix;27701480]4 posts and you're already stirring shit? Get your facts straight or the collective of facepunchers that actually know what they're talking about are going to jump on your ass.[/QUOTE] I await my ass to be jumped on.

Sometimes I wish I lived in Utah.

american people are so very silly

[QUOTE=thisispain;27702173]american people are so very silly[/QUOTE] good one

i didn't mean that in a negative way it's just to a brit like me it's something totally far out, to us any kind of appreciation day is strange there's nothing wrong with being silly

[QUOTE=thisispain;27702173]american people are so very silly[/QUOTE] Don't you live in the US?

[QUOTE=jjsullivan;27703237]Don't you live in the US?[/QUOTE] ya

[QUOTE=thisispain;27703248]ya[/QUOTE] Okay, well yeah we do kind of pretty much find any way to make some crazy holiday.

The M1911 is a great handgun. A hundred years after it was created and it is still in use by law enforcement and the military. Because it is a reliable and proven design. There haven't been any major advancements in handgun technology since the M1911, besides polymer frames and high cap magazines.

I love guns myself, so this is pretty cool. Though, guns aren't toys. At all, not even empty ones.

Happy birthday 1911, sorry your day has been ruined by the gun control lobby.

Making the [i]one million[/i] Americans on the farcical and disgustingly un-libertarian terror watch list have to go through a ridiculous and ineffective bureaucracy in order to make a legitimate purchase? Sounds reasonable. Honoring a legendary inventor? THOSE CRAZY HICKS

Why do so many of you Americans appreciate guns so much? What's with the love for the #1 tool of killing? Countries where guns are restricted by the government have much lower gun crime rates per capita than the US. Don't think that because everyone carries guns everyone is safe. It's the other way around. I'm not saying you should start restricting gun-trade and possession. It's too late for that, there are already millions in circulation, to remove them all at once would be impossible and would only create an imbalance, and since you got Mexico so close-by without a proper border control criminals could just get the guns from there. But there is still no reason to love these killing machines like so many of you seem to do.

[QUOTE=Mindtwistah;27711296]Why do so many of you Americans appreciate guns so much? What's with the love for the #1 tool of killing? Countries where guns are restricted by the government have much lower gun crime rates per capita than the US. Don't think that because everyone carries guns everyone is safe. It's the other way around. I'm not saying you should start restricting gun-trade and possession. It's too late for that, there are already millions in circulation, to remove them all at once would be impossible and would only create an imbalance, and since you got Mexico so close-by without a proper border control criminals could just get the guns from there. But there is still no reason to love these killing machines like so many of you seem to do.[/QUOTE] Because those killing machines can be exceptionally useful in terms of self-defense. Also, see current protests in the Middle East. The results would be much different if the protesters were as armed as Americans were. The founding fathers of the United States, just coming out of attempted subjugation by a ruling regime, understood the role firearms play in determining power, and decided that the possibility of increased crime was worth the defense against tyranny. [quote=Benjamin Franklin]Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security.[/quote] [/quote=Thomas Jefferson]"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."[/quote] Anyhow, an invention that had existed for one hundred years (with the pace of scientific discovery in the last 100 years), and continues to produce competitive performance with very little alteration, is clearly deserving of praise.

[QUOTE=Mindtwistah;27711296]Why do so many of you Americans appreciate guns so much? What's with the love for the #1 tool of killing? Countries where guns are restricted by the government have much lower gun crime rates per capita than the US. Don't think that because everyone carries guns everyone is safe. It's the other way around. I'm not saying you should start restricting gun-trade and possession. It's too late for that, there are already millions in circulation, to remove them all at once would be impossible and would only create an imbalance, and since you got Mexico so close-by without a proper border control criminals could just get the guns from there. But there is still no reason to love these killing machines like so many of you seem to do.[/QUOTE] Guns primary purpose is to kill, yes. It's what they were designed and built for. But you're ignoring other possibilities. Firearms are actually very fun, under the right conditions. Shooting clay pigeons with shotguns or going out for a day on the range is very enjoyable, at least to me. Like you might find a game of football or a game of TF2 enjoyable. There's an entire competitive sport based around shooting - and people get paid [i]a lot[/i] to do it. Hunters use them as well, although I don't condone hunting just for sport. We appreciate them so much because they're part of our culture, and have been for over two hundred years. People from other parts of the world, say what you will, but that's what it comes down to.

[QUOTE=Mindtwistah;27711296]Why do so many of you Americans appreciate guns so much? What's with the love for the #1 tool of killing? Countries where guns are restricted by the government have much lower gun crime rates per capita than the US. Don't think that because everyone carries guns everyone is safe. It's the other way around. I'm not saying you should start restricting gun-trade and possession. It's too late for that, there are already millions in circulation, to remove them all at once would be impossible and would only create an imbalance, and since you got Mexico so close-by without a proper border control criminals could just get the guns from there. But there is still no reason to love these killing machines like so many of you seem to do.[/QUOTE] Switzerland

[QUOTE=Mindtwistah;27711296]Why do so many of you Americans appreciate guns so much? What's with the love for the #1 tool of killing? Countries where guns are restricted by the government have much lower gun crime rates per capita than the US. Don't think that because everyone carries guns everyone is safe. It's the other way around. [/QUOTE] Eh, gun crimes may go down, but overall violence skyrockets. Also, Switzerland. Every military age citizen owns a military grade assault rifle for serving in the militia, I believe. I know I'm late, I was expanding on what you said. He might not know about Switzerland.

John Browning deserves a day of honor, he was a truly brilliant. Hell, quite a few of his designs (and a few of his weapons, in almost unmodified form) are still in military use today, 100 years later.

[QUOTE=Timebomb757;27712924]John Browning deserves a day of honor, he was a truly brilliant. Hell, quite a few of his designs (and a few of his weapons, in almost unmodified form) are still in military use today, 100 years later.[/QUOTE] Of what other inventions can you say the same thing?

[QUOTE=Contag;27713009]Of what other inventions can you say the same thing?[/QUOTE] Well, now that I think about it, quite a few others probably. But the fact that his designs have survived 100 years in a MILITARY environment is arguably more impressive considering how incredibly quickly military technology advances, especially in the US military.

Good for them! Hopefully they can make it so they can carry sidearms over there just like here in AZ