Should guns be outlawed?

first-there are several members on this website from other countries that are making comments on american policy. with all due respect the laws of this country are none of your buisness. none of us go around telling people from other nations how thier laws should be. let americans make our decisions on the governing of firearms. nobody is forcing you to live or visit the usa.

second-by that same token what laws that other countries pass should not be influenced by the usa. the citizens of your respective nations have the right to decide on policy. if you want gun control that is your decision not for me to be attemting to make. reguardless of what i think about the laws in other countries.

third-numerous comments have been made about guns only being made for killing people. have any of these individuals ever heard of hunting or target shooting?

fourth-maybe those against gun ownership have never had themselves or loved ones threatened in any way. would you really let your families be hurt or even killed without doing whatever is neccessary to protect them?

fifth-what exactly are the anti-gun crowd taking martial arts for? if you are so concerned about the welfare of others why not take up tennis or golf. and do you eliminate techniques that might potentially hurt someone? kind of sounds like hyprocricy to me. sorry i did not spell that right.

sixth-the right to bear arms in this country is to protect our nation from threats be they foreign or domestic. there might not be anything other countries and their citizens would be able to do if thier own goverment turned against them. we have a different choice.

seventh-last word for now. never have i generalized people from other countries. nor bashed thier culture. not everyone here is living with the so-called john wayne mentality. some of us never want violence and disaprove of the movies,video games and the like that glorify violence.

 

Hate to burst your comfy little bubble, but that's exactly what we are currently doing in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

That's a pretty ridiculous statement. Seems to me that I've managed to protect mine in some pretty bad towns without ever having to own a gun for protection.

Sorry, that's a pretty ridiculous statement also. I practice Japanese sword arts. Swords are made specifically for killing people. Sure there are other things that we do with them in our practice, but that doesn't in the least change the fact that swords are made specifically to kill people, just like handguns.

For the record, I firmly believe in people's right to carry handguns. I think the world would be a much more polite place if everyone was armed. That doesn't mean that I am going to simply blow off other people's opinions as if I was some uninformed teenager out of school for the summer.

 

No, they shouldn't. Sure, people kille with guns but people also kill with knives, cars, pesticides, ropes, belts, crowbars, hammers and lots of other objects. Outlawing objects is only stupid, if you want to kill someone you'll always find a way no matter what the law is. Having a licenssystem is a different thing on the other hand.

 

This is similar to the idea of "Should Nuclear Weapons be outlawed?"

We can have all of the laws in the world, but once this technology was released upon the world, that was it. It was out. & there was no way that the rest of the First World countries were going to let the U.S. have an edge like this. Thus the Arms Race.

Firearm technology is out there. It will never be taken away. & you don't even need to buy them. With sufficient knowledge, you can make one, or even a very simple "zip gun". The British invented a gun, the Sten, that can be closely replicated by any adequately experienced machinist. Look it up, in the UK, where handguns are illegal, the police have found underground gun manufacturers. The tech is out there, & it isn't going anywhere. It can't be taken back, but that is basically what gun bans attempt to do. It's a ludicrous idea, but some folks are just that ignorant.

The only intelligent & logical answer is to arm law-abiding citizens in order to protect themselves. Law breakers will not abide such banning of firearms, so just like nuclear arms, mutually assured destruction is the one thing that will deter them. Look at the Israelis. They have a large percentage of their civilian population armed and it serves as a great deterrent to crime, and also a great tool to stop crime in the act. Here is a good article:
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/ayoob90.html

You can un-invent every manmade tool that is capable of killing or maiming someone, and at some point an angry or insane person will pick up a rock or a stick and injure, maim, or kill someone else.

 

Allthough I agree with your point that you cannot un-invent the knowledge of making firearms, I dont agree with your claim that the only intelligent and logical answer is to let everybody own a gun. It might be true in unstable countries like Iraq and USA , but in more stable regions, like scandinavia, this isn't nessecary. Because of the welfare-system and little risk of beeing gunned down by paranoid and armed law-abiders, the criminals do not arm themselves. -Even the police in Norway isn't usually armed

If there's one thing I've learned from this thread, it is to not generalize. If I moved to an unstable region, I would probably consider arming myself. Carrying weapons for self defence isn't only regarded as utterly weird and strange in Norway; it's allso illegal, whereas it might be regarded as utterly weird and strange to live in Baghdad and not own a Kalashnikov :woo:

 

Good points Stolenbjorn, but don't forget that some parts of the USA have much greater levels of gun control than others - and presumably manage just fine that way, just like we do!

 

That's a fallacious argument if ever I heard one. The question is whether the public should be allowed to own items which are specifically and solely designed to kill other people. Not whether anything that could be used to harm another person should be banned.

I'm really suprised that so many people have argued that the secret to a polite society is that everyone be terrified of everyone else. That doesn't sound particularly utopian to me!

 

I understand the premise of your argument Dr. Moose (hee hee still getting used to that Dr. monicur) but guns have orgins in both defense AND survival. Guns were better then bows, arrows, swords, etc at killing from distance which made them better at taking down game from greater distance too. I guess it is a Chicken or Egg scenario. Was the gun invented as a weapon to kill people, or as a tool to hunt game? We know what it has become.....

 

Where, if you don't mind me asking?

 

Communism looked good on paper, didn't it. Gene Roddenberry thought it would get us to the stars, looks like he was wrong. Can't build a warp drive when you're standing in line for toilet paper...

 

It might not be necessary NOW. If there's anything I know it's that Things Change, brother.

So, criminals don't arm themselves? How do they get you to comply, I wonder?

 

I couldn't actually name it state-by-state, but I could take a wild guess if you like and just say 'the nice bits'.

What a strange and irrelevant argument! Consider the fact that the USSR got a man into space before the USA. Then stop talking rubbish.

 

would like to comment on recent posts for this particular thread. some of this is about the response to my earlier post. and concerning other posts made later.

first-to pqsmith. just asking. how did you manage to protect yours in bad towns? what kind of situations are we talking about here? do you not think a handgun might be needed depending on level of threat?

maybe swords are specifically made for killing people. that is something which i have no qualifications to comment on. own a confederate replica sword for decoration and participation in civil war renactments although never took classes or whatever. that being said firearms is a different matter.

the knowledge and experience that i have concerning firearms is from years of hunting, formal training, and significant time on a firing range. saying that hanguns are specifically made for killing other people is a not much of an informed opinion

many people including myself own firearms, yes even handguns, that were created for hunting purpose. they would not be considered optimal for any self-defense or combat applications. please bear with me while providing a good example.

ever heard of a t/c encore? chances are they could be found in any local gunshop you visited. the pistol has a 12 inch long barrel and has the capacity of a single round. reload time would be slow. being chambered in a medium to large rifle caliber the recoil is significant enough to make follow up shots quite difficult if the t/c had more than a single shot. and the barrel of mine has no iron sights. just a mount for a scope. does that sound to you like a pistol made for harming other people?

about blowing off the opinions that others have on this issue. does the u.n. have any right to influence american policy on gun ownership? the u.n. has been attemting as much. which is a fact that people with an informed opinion would know.

 

I think you're missing the point. Aside from the fact that most hunting is ridiculous anyway, guns are designed to cause damage and loss of life. They are a weapon. The argument that if you ban guns you need to ban cars and knives and cyanide-tipped wasps doesn't take into account the fact that cars are designed to transport you, knives are designed to eat your dinner, cyanide-tipped wasps are designed to make marmite. Any loss of life or limb is incidental.

When a band comes out after the curtain and plays another song?

No, but it still sounds like something that should be in the hands of a professional, not a random guy on the street.

Good! Hopefully it'll eventually bring down the rates of gun crime.

 

forgot to comment on another post made on thread. besides the reply earlier was far longer than intended.

second-to @. there are places here in the u.s. that have extensive levels of gun control laws. new york city, chicago and washington d.c. come to mind. yet those cities have the largest crime rates of anywhere in this country. despite numerous restrictions concerning firearms ownership. things do not appear to be working out so well for them.

the whole idea of gun control to keep criminals from hurting others is a bad joke. criminals by defininition are people with no reguard for laws. do you really think criminals are going to break other laws and decide not to break laws about firearms ownership?

the only people that gun control has any effect on are law-abiding citizens that have no intention of bothering anyone else.

 

It removes guns from circulation and prevents people who have a minor grudge and a bad temper escalating the situation with firearms. What could start as a punchup over who rogered who's girlfriend can either end as a black eye or a shooting.

Once you've removed guns from the hands of petty crooks and average thugs, this frees up police manpower to work on the more organised criminals who are likely to have the unlawful ways to arm themselves.

 

to dr.moose. hunting is not the issue here so i will leave that for another time exept for saying that hunting often puts meat in my freezer and food on the table.

never did i make such a crazy remark that cars should get banned just because people get killed. besides neither the cars or guns are the reason that people get killed by them. the person using them is.

knives are just made for eating dinner? then what do military personell carry them for? the combat knives used by military forces looks nothing like a butter or steak knife.

what qualifies someone as being an expert? does my years of hunting and practicing on a firing range mean nothing? what about my formal training? or my qualifications based on n.r.a. guidelines.

what i will agree with is that anyone using a firearm should recieve proper training.

 

I understand that New York City introduced a 'zero tolerance' policy on crime a while back and the murder rate fell dramatically. (Not as a result of arming their citizens.)

That is a total oversimplification. It overlooks the fact that tighter gun control reduces the likelihood of crimes being committed with legally-owned guns - the recent massacre at a college in Virginia for example.

 

no kidding here. not farmiliar with either the term punchup or rogered. the punchup sounds like what americans call a fistfight. same thing? not sure about rogered though. please give me a definition that can be used for a frame of reference.

there are twice the number of firearms here in the u.s. than people. how can there be any way of stopping the circulation? how do you get criminals with stolen unregistered guns to just give them up?

 

This doesn't seem to happen. Those jurisdictions with the tightest gun control tend to have the highest crime rates, and gun use in crimes, especially in the U.S. Another fact to consider, that is often ignored by people from small, densely populated countries: Countries like the U.S. and Canada are HUGE, with vast stretches of sparsely populated areas. If someone perpetrates a home invasion in a rural area, the quickest police response could be an hour or more. The police cannot be everywhere, and were I living in such a remote area, I would keep a firearm for my own defense. It would be silly not to. Criminals aside, firearms are needed to protect livestock from wild predators. Even should a criminal use a knife in a crime, the most appropriate response is a gun. Unarmed knife defence is insanely difficult.

One will never remove guns from petty thugs and criminals, because the technology is simple and easy to get, and not terribly expensive. It's basic chemisty and metalwork... it's technology that's 600 years old! The Maori made guns after capturing british firearms and copying them during the colonization of New Zealand. If Maori tribesmen can make a musket, then 21st century ciminals can make pistols. It just ain't that hard.

Ironically, it's those U.S. states with concealed carry that have the lowest crime rates on average. Disarm the population, and we give the crooks free reign, because those that want guns will get them or make them. The genie is out of the lamp, and it can't be put back in.

They tried to stop people from using bows against knights, too. They couldn't outlaw that, either. The best thing to do is make sure that those who are responsible enough to have firearms and use them safely have access to them. The firearms users I know are more responsible than those that I know who don't have them. The world can never be made safe, and no one can make you safe. You have to do it yourself.

Best regards,

-Mark