Wha? I've talked to Australians who've shot plenty of guns before...adam5396 said:
Maybe it's because they were in the countryside.
Poll: 2nd Amendment bug you? Me too.
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Maybe it's because they were in the countryside.
/threadKeyMaster45 said:
Seriously though, you don't need a gun to go on a homicidal rampage, and you don't need a tank to fight an army. Some of you guys are putting too much stock in the technical capabilities of the US military. The US hasn't fought a war with normal casualty rates in decades.
Oh boy, debunking time. This is patently false. Weapons and explosive devices that can disable even the most advanced weapons can be bought and constructed with tools and supplies bought from your average Home Depot type store, ect.Wintermute_ said:
All the advanced weapons in the world won't win wars. But I dunno, lets ask the Germans, Vietnam and the Middle East what they think.
Automatic weapons can be made "safe." Often the argument that you don't need one is that the collateral of firing one is excessive, yet you can find automatic weapons that range in power from pistol munitions to full blown rifle rounds. At any rate gun control has been repeatedly found to not work. At the dawn of the 20th century in Britain you could literally buy any gun available on the market right down to a heavy machine gun like the ones used in WW1, and police officers often carried a revolver that they'd seldom use. Today with a near-universal ban on all guns and tightening laws on knives you'd think they'd bring a night stick, at most, but instead they often sport MP5's and other weapons.
At a very basic level I'd say that I'd rather carry a gun than a cop because a cop is heavy. Beyond that someone trying to inflict harm on you can often be seconds away, while a cop can be 10 minutes away, being generous.
Because this is a capitalist economy, I have the right to buy what I want. If I want to buy 10 cars you can't stop me. If I want to buy 10 computers you can't stop me. If I want to buy 10 bottles of vodka and take a bath in it while I get criminally drunk you can't stop me. Obviously I need the money first, but the only rules regarding quantitative consumption in the US is a sales tax. In other words, if I want to buy a lot of stuff the Government wants a cut of my money. Gee, thanks.
Guns jam, break, and require maintenance. So at a very basic level I may want to own more than one or two on the sheer basis that I might not have the luxury of having the time to keep them ready.
Guns are not "tools of death." That's a very generous term. What's a knife then? A butcher's knife? If a gun is a tool of death does owning a camera make you a pedophile? I mean they're used to take pornographic pictures of children, so they can't possibly have another use, right?
Gun violence is a symptom of poverty. People don't kill each other for no reason, and they certainly don't shoot each other on similar logic. Follow gun fatalities by income demographics. Gun control has been universally found to not work in societies that have such stratification of income as you see in the US. And before you harp on about accidental gun deaths being preventable, remember that you're actually more likely to be struck by lightning or accidentally killed by your doctor, than you are to be shot by a gun. And that's bearing in mind that most everyone has at least one doctor, but not everyone has even one gun.
The man in Arizona was clinically insane. It doesn't encourage gun control, it encourages the government to take an active role in the managing and welfare of it's citizens that suffer from a full range of mental illnesses.
The second amendment is fairly straight forward about what it means, and if you really need to pick the brains of the founding fathers you won't find a single one of them chirping about how they need to control the flow of guns.
I'm in agreement with you overall, but there are a few problems.
Finally, it doesn't make sense to have an option that says "it is not a right to own guns" because it is. You might say "it SHOULDN'T be a right", but saying that it isn't is like saying "people don't kill people" rather than saying "people shouldn't kill people".
Like I said, I agree completely with changing things. Guns are tools designed for the express purpose of killing people. Most other weapons get by on being actual utilitarian tools with other uses, like knives, but guns are JUST for killing people. You might find them fun to use for target shooting and such, but that isn't what they're designed for (at least not the sort of guns used for personal defence). I don't think it's okay for someone to go into Walmart and buy something that is DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR KILLING PEOPLE. Yes, it might be killing people "for defence", but the main reason you need that defence is because guns are so easy to get hold of. Add on top of that all of the usual statistics regarding how little carrying a weapon actually improves your safety (the real statistics, not one or two isolated places where the opposite happens to hold).
Politicians deal with gun crime in the legislature. Politicians aren't the victims of gun crime terribly often since there aren't very many of them and they're typically in relatively safe environments. Actually having this happen to one of them is like a wake-up call. They can't continue just trying not to think about it quite as easily.Wintermute_ said:
The overwhelming majority of the Constitution is similarly outdated. The idea is to keep to the core ideas rather than the specific instantiations of them.Wintermute_ said:
The primary reason for the Second Amendment was defence against OUR OWN government, not against foreign enemies. If it were about foreign enemies, it would have been included in the original Constitution. The Bill of Rights is just that -- a set of RIGHTS (protections for citizens against their own government).Wintermute_ said:
Not even remotely true. Urban warfare SUCKS. A LOT. A large uprising would be effectively impossible to fight in conventional terms (you can't just bomb cities because they contain YOUR supporters too) and the US military is TINY compared to the actual US population. Not to mention the number of troops that might themselves join the rebellion.Wintermute_ said:
Cops don't have automatic weapons. Automatic weapons are, by and large, not a problem. There are of course some incidents where the fact that the weapon was automatic made a situation worse, but by and large it's the run-of-the-mill semiautomatics that cause the overwhelming majority of problems. As for collecting, I completely and totally agree. There ARE solutions allowing collectors to continue too. Imagine a secure facility that stores weapon collections for instance. You could easily prevent the "grandfather's arsenal" problem with gun collections.Wintermute_ said:
There are so many laws and rulings in place that prevent you from owning a fully automatic AK that it's almost silly. People hiding behind the "shield" of the Second Amendment for that purpose are hiding behind a shield that doesn't exist. Eliminating the nonexistent shield doesn't make it any more nonexistent.Wintermute_ said:
Finally, it doesn't make sense to have an option that says "it is not a right to own guns" because it is. You might say "it SHOULDN'T be a right", but saying that it isn't is like saying "people don't kill people" rather than saying "people shouldn't kill people".
Like I said, I agree completely with changing things. Guns are tools designed for the express purpose of killing people. Most other weapons get by on being actual utilitarian tools with other uses, like knives, but guns are JUST for killing people. You might find them fun to use for target shooting and such, but that isn't what they're designed for (at least not the sort of guns used for personal defence). I don't think it's okay for someone to go into Walmart and buy something that is DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR KILLING PEOPLE. Yes, it might be killing people "for defence", but the main reason you need that defence is because guns are so easy to get hold of. Add on top of that all of the usual statistics regarding how little carrying a weapon actually improves your safety (the real statistics, not one or two isolated places where the opposite happens to hold).
Funny how some people are ready to oppress the rights of the majority because some people use that right to hurt others. Maybe we should all be castrated because a small group of people are running around raping everyone. Maybe no one should be able to own a steak knife, because I hear some muggers use knives. Ridiculous.
As for the Arizona shooting, they already had laws in place. The man responsible obtained a gun through entirely legal means. The only thing to do that would have stopped that is if guns were banned all together. If that is seriously the proposition of this thread, then I'd have to say you're nuts.
As for the Arizona shooting, they already had laws in place. The man responsible obtained a gun through entirely legal means. The only thing to do that would have stopped that is if guns were banned all together. If that is seriously the proposition of this thread, then I'd have to say you're nuts.
It's true, think about how quick a healthy person can run with something as light as a knife in their hands. A knife attack is so much easier than people realize.
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The OP is right in my opinion it's stupid to let civilians have guns which will most likely end up in them committing some crime and saying "I have the right to own a gun" is a stupid excuse I mean why would YOU a normal everyday person want an instrument of death?!. Besides in you're country every psycho can buy a gun from the store like it was freaking candy. And also tell you're military to stop selling they're high caliber fully automated weapons to our drug dealers, there is a lot of innocent people getting killed by those bastards over here.
Firstly, plenty of gun-owners are not criminals. Criminals who use guns never hide behind the second amendment; the second amendment only guarantees the right to own guns, not to use them for whatever reason their owners please. Secondly, there are checks in place to prevent dangerous people form obtaining weapons. These restrictions obviously need to be tightened, but they're there.Kaleion said:
And about your last thing...um...what? The military isn't allowed to sell weapons. Anyone who is doing that is breaking the law and costing Uncle Sam a mint, which he doesn't like.
I'd like to take the opportunity to make a distinction between the two things being discussed here. One is the subject of the first two choices on the poll; the other is the subject of the second two. The first one is "What was the original purpose of the Second Amendment, and is it now outdated and/or obsolete?" There are a lot of arguments to be made here about the intent of the Founding Fathers and the change in technology since the late 18th century. This is, however, really an academic discussion only. The second thing being discussed here is "Should people be allowed to have guns, and if so, in what capacity?" This is the question that affects what America should do with the Second Amendment. Maybe the Second Amendment was written with a totally different intent than allowing everybody to have guns, but that is a moot point if it is decided that we should have guns anyway. Conversely, maybe the Founding Fathers did, in fact, want every single person in the country to have a handgun on them at all times; however, if it is decided that guns should be restricted, then that's what should happen regardless. I'm not arguing one way or the other, just pointing out that these two debates are largely unconnected, though they deal with the same topic.
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Well that last thing was me getting of subject but I've seen people buying weapons without using they're ID in you're country so maybe there are regulations but they are NOT being applied which means that pretty much every moron can get they're hands on a weapon and use it irresponsibly.macfluffers said:
The Third Amendment is hopelessly outdated: who quarters troops in private residences anymore?! But there are no movements to remove it are there? Any opposition to the Second Amendment is purely politically motivated.
The Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, the most fundamental protection of human rights in this country. If you alter or remove a single part of it you will create a legal precedent for removing or changing other rights as well, including ones you might like more.
Think about long-term consequences before you make knee-jerk suggestions like this in the future.
The Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, the most fundamental protection of human rights in this country. If you alter or remove a single part of it you will create a legal precedent for removing or changing other rights as well, including ones you might like more.
Think about long-term consequences before you make knee-jerk suggestions like this in the future.
I've lived in a crime ridden city for over three years now while in college. In this time I have never been mugged or robbed, but I have been confronted. I've found shell casings outside my apartment. I've had death threats on myself and my fiance. All of this, because we wanted some peace and quiet in our apartment. It's every person's right to defend themselves. Sometimes, it's a mental defense. With that said, I've contemplated buying a firearm. If I were to purchase anything it would be cheap and I would take training courses and file the proper forms to carry and conceal.
I understand the idea that people do not like firearms, but it's exceedingly unlikely that in the United States we will ever abolish firearms on the federal level. There are people who love their guns and there are people who hate them. There are also those of us in between that want some peace of mind.
The only amendment I would make to the law would be that every person would have to undergo a psyche evaluation. Then again, criminals get their hands on weapons easily so we're going to have to abolish and enforce or keep it the way we have it.
I understand the idea that people do not like firearms, but it's exceedingly unlikely that in the United States we will ever abolish firearms on the federal level. There are people who love their guns and there are people who hate them. There are also those of us in between that want some peace of mind.
The only amendment I would make to the law would be that every person would have to undergo a psyche evaluation. Then again, criminals get their hands on weapons easily so we're going to have to abolish and enforce or keep it the way we have it.
The idea that people should have the right to own a gun is a ridiculous notion.
People should NOT have the right to have a gun. They should have the right to be given the opportunity to gain the privilege to be permitted to own a gun.
Being permitted to own a gun should be a privilege that is difficult to earn and only for people with the cleanest records possible.
People should NOT have the right to have a gun. They should have the right to be given the opportunity to gain the privilege to be permitted to own a gun.
Being permitted to own a gun should be a privilege that is difficult to earn and only for people with the cleanest records possible.
I want to add something else:
Narcotics are illegal in this country at all levels: local, state, and federal. Yet no one can deny we have a massive drug problem in this country. Making private gun ownership illegal would have a very similar result - people who want them would still be able to get them, except the whole market would be in control of criminals instead of legitimate, regulated dealers.
Narcotics are illegal in this country at all levels: local, state, and federal. Yet no one can deny we have a massive drug problem in this country. Making private gun ownership illegal would have a very similar result - people who want them would still be able to get them, except the whole market would be in control of criminals instead of legitimate, regulated dealers.
Criminals used illegal guns, there is simply no reason regular citizen can't get one.
Victims of a mass public shooting? If every member of the audience got guns the guy would think twice before doing it. if the guy's suicidal and he can't get guns legally, he will use a knife or just get it from black market.
If everybody carry guns, Just like robbing a gunstore theory, It can be done but if you're going to rob one you have to be prepared to take on guys with automatics, wore kevlar vest and possibly a deadshot with whatever in his hand. These odds will deter most criminals
Victims of a mass public shooting? If every member of the audience got guns the guy would think twice before doing it. if the guy's suicidal and he can't get guns legally, he will use a knife or just get it from black market.
If everybody carry guns, Just like robbing a gunstore theory, It can be done but if you're going to rob one you have to be prepared to take on guys with automatics, wore kevlar vest and possibly a deadshot with whatever in his hand. These odds will deter most criminals