Poll: 2nd Amendment bug you? Me too.

[Rotting Corpse]

most criminals that end up getting their hands on some type of gun don't do it legally

This is the most common argument I get from friends of mine who have conceal carry permits. "If criminals can get guns illegally, why shouldn't I be allowed to carry one legally to defend myself?"

The problem with any gun control laws is that a law can't control guns in the US. There are simply too many. The United States is the largest weapons manufacturer in the world. (there is some debate on which nation is the leading small arms manufacturer in the world, but the US makes the most "weapons", at any rate) The drug wars happening in Mexico right now are being fought with guns made in the US, traded illegally across the border with drugs that will be consumed in the US.

A law to complicate or prohibit gun ownership in the US would likely only affect law abiding citizens, and do nothing to hamper a criminal's ability to own a gun. And because of the 2nd amendment, a federal law against gun ownership is unlikely, meaning the individual states would have to create and enforce their own gun laws to varying degrees of success. Which means a criminal living in California, where gun laws are strict, could easily drive to Arizona to legally (but untraceable) purchase guns where gun laws are less strict, and bring them back to California, effectively making gun laws useless.

Instead of more gun laws, the systemic problem of gun accessibility needs to be addressed across the entire nation. If you want to keep guns off the streets, the manufacturers of guns would need more government regulation to ensure that weapons are tracked with some degree of certainty as they come off the assembly line and make their way to the end user's hands. Travelling gun shows need to be disbanded, as gun shows (in some states) are usually the best place to buy lots of guns with no paperwork.

We could also use technology to aid gun control, fitting all weapons with biometric security (so they'll only be usable by specific people) and GPS tracking devices.

As a gun owner myself, I'm strongly in favor of tighter gun control. I might not be in favor of an outright ban on all firearms, but there is a lot we can do to keep guns off the streets.

Now, for those of you who live in the US and think gun violence is completely out of control and the worst in the world, try living in South Africa, which experiences 3 times as many fatal gun related crimes per year as the US, mostly by criminals using guns that have never been legal for private citizens to own. This fact seems to make the point that gun laws simply don't work. Gun accessibility, both legally and illegally needs to be addressed.

If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. I have never heard of a single argument that even comes close to refuting that statement.

/Thread

 

[Ipswich67]

In regards to the second half of that statement, if the U.S. government today suddenly was ridiculously oppressive, enough to warrant a revolution of some kind, sorry to tell you that U.S. citizens would be screwed. As the owners of the most powerful military in the world, average, untrained citizens armed with pistols, rifles, and maybe some semi or automatic weapons are not going to defeat the well trained, organized, supplied, well armed, and massive U.S. army. It would not happen. We would need bazookas, jets, tanks, the best automatic weaponry, and a lot of ammo. We reasonably can't give those to citizens. Why give them light weight guns that usually end up in the perpetration of crimes instead?

If this is true, then why can't we stamp out a rag-tag insurgency in the Middle East? They continue to kill more of our troops every day; sure it's not major losses, but we haven't really made any headway in removing them.

EDIT: Besides, according to the poll, those against gun regulation are outnumbered. May the majority rule.

 

[Wintermute_]

In regards to the second half of that statement, if the U.S. government today suddenly was ridiculously oppressive, enough to warrant a revolution of some kind, sorry to tell you that U.S. citizens would be screwed. As the owners of the most powerful military in the world, average, untrained citizens armed with pistols, rifles, and maybe some semi or automatic weapons are not going to defeat the well trained, organized, supplied, well armed, and massive U.S. army. It would not happen. We would need bazookas, jets, tanks, the best automatic weaponry, and a lot of ammo. We reasonably can't give those to citizens. Why give them light weight guns that usually end up in the perpetration of crimes instead?

If this is true, then why can't we stamp out a rag-tag insurgency in the Middle East? They continue to kill more of our troops every day; sure it's not major losses, but we haven't really made any headway in removing them.

EDIT: Besides, according to the poll, those against gun regulation are outnumbered. May the majority rule.

Answer: They are not rag tag. There has been conflict and war in that region for decade after decade. Most of the enemies we face have been fighting and using weaponry in an organized military group before the age of 15. They use children and women as suicide bombers, civilians as human shields, and there are A LOT of them, hiding over a huge area, even among civilian populations. The multiple insurgencies draw fighters, like I said most of whom have been holding and rpg since age 10, from multiple countries. Yeah they use guerilla warfare, but they are very, very good at it.

They are not rag-tag. They are a very devious, moderately skilled, and it is a WAR over there. Now imagine your neighbor with a grenade launcher or rpg trying to shoot at the circling blackhawk as your rag-tag team of gun toters try to hind in woods and buildings in urban warfare. A ridiculous situation all around actually, since I doubt americans will ever have real need of rebellion.

And yeah, the poll says guns stay street legal. Not like this thread would change that entrenched demographic.

 

[Sovvolf]

Well it would be nice for a different poll option for revision and abolishment. I don't think it needs abolishing but I imagine a little revision wouldn't hurt it. I think they all could do with a little updating given that what was relevant then isn't always relevant now.

 

[TOGSolid]

What do you mean "Define?" I think at this stage the fact that you can't tell on your own why guns wouldn't be useful in hand-to-hand is concerning. Now if you'll get off your lazy ass and look at the person who made the first post that was quoted by the person i quoted, you'll see someone else factored them into the argument. The fact that you demanded justification without first learning the context is also a bit worrying.

I did read through who you were talking to. In fact, I made a massively huge post responding to the OP who, by the way, is the person that was quoted. Maybe you should, yanno, read through the thread before posting?

I read through who you were responding to and that general conversation. At no point did you ever mention close range combat with a handgun. You haven't discussed training levels, psychological issues of a firefight, etc. You said close range but didn't say hand to hand, but now you are just to attempting to talk down to me. It ain't gonna work kid.

I am not an idiot. Do not attempt to argue with me and think I'm not going to notice your attempts to warp each post you make to suit your needs. Keep it up and you'll be reported for trolling so be damn sure you pay attention to what you're writing.

 

[Ipswich67]

In regards to the second half of that statement, if the U.S. government today suddenly was ridiculously oppressive, enough to warrant a revolution of some kind, sorry to tell you that U.S. citizens would be screwed. As the owners of the most powerful military in the world, average, untrained citizens armed with pistols, rifles, and maybe some semi or automatic weapons are not going to defeat the well trained, organized, supplied, well armed, and massive U.S. army. It would not happen. We would need bazookas, jets, tanks, the best automatic weaponry, and a lot of ammo. We reasonably can't give those to citizens. Why give them light weight guns that usually end up in the perpetration of crimes instead?

If this is true, then why can't we stamp out a rag-tag insurgency in the Middle East? They continue to kill more of our troops every day; sure it's not major losses, but we haven't really made any headway in removing them.

EDIT: Besides, according to the poll, those against gun regulation are outnumbered. May the majority rule.

Answer: They are not rag tag. There has been conflict and war in that region for decade after decade. Most of the enemies we face have been fighting and using weaponry in an organized military group before the age of 15. They use children and women as suicide bombers, civilians as human shields, and there are A LOT of them, hiding over a huge area, even among civilian populations. The multiple insurgencies draw fighters, like I said most of whom have been holding and rpg since age 10, from multiple countries. Yeah they use guerilla warfare, but they are very, very good at it.

They are not rag-tag. They are a very devious, moderately skilled, and it is a WAR over there. Now imagine your neighbor with a grenade launcher or rpg trying to shoot at the circling blackhawk as your rag-tag team of gun toters try to hind in woods and buildings in urban warfare. A ridiculous situation all around actually, since I doubt americans will ever have real need of rebellion.

And yeah, the poll says guns stay street legal. Not like this thread would change that entrenched demographic.

What makes you think that if the need ever arose, gun owners here would react differently? Guerrilla tactics are indeed very effective; and there are a large number of civilians and urban areas to hide in and fight from. Most RESPONSIBLE gun-owners have had training with their firearm of choice, both safety and personal defense measures (usually sponsored and/or instructed by police or military personnel).

I believe guns' effectiveness as a a self-defense tool is reason enough to keep them around. Look at Switzerland: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1566715.stm
Every man/every family MUST own and be trained with a firearm, even if that happens to be an assault rifle. As a result of this, you'd think the country would be in a constant state of anarchy, yet their violent gun-crime rate is one of the lowest in the world.
What could be the cause of seemingly counter-intuitive situation?

 

[DevilWolf47]

What do you mean "Define?" I think at this stage the fact that you can't tell on your own why guns wouldn't be useful in hand-to-hand is concerning. Now if you'll get off your lazy ass and look at the person who made the first post that was quoted by the person i quoted, you'll see someone else factored them into the argument. The fact that you demanded justification without first learning the context is also a bit worrying.

I did read through who you were talking to. In fact, I made a massively huge post responding to the OP who, by the way, is the person that was quoted. Maybe you should, yanno, read through the thread before posting?

I read through who you were responding to and that general conversation. At no point did you ever mention close range combat with a handgun. You haven't discussed training levels, psychological issues of a firefight, etc. You said close range but didn't say hand to hand, but now you are just to attempting to talk down to me. It ain't gonna work kid.

I am not an idiot. Do not attempt to argue with me and think I'm not going to notice your attempts to warp each post you make to suit your needs. Keep it up and you'll be reported for trolling so be damn sure you pay attention to what you're writing.

It's hard to take your claims of not being an idiot seriously when you just accused me of your own habit. Warp a post to suit my needs? I would never entrench on your territory, i'll just continue my bad habit of assuming people know more than what is average about using bare hands to deal with armed enemies.

 

[omega 616]

We should be Civil and mature to have Guns for self-protection. We wouldn't have issues if people just learned not to misuse Guns. For the matter, I feel taking away Guns is pointless because there will be people buying off Guns in Black Markets and when they threaten us, we'll have no way to protect ourselves then. Plus, it'd also cause other Nations to feel the urge to invade us if we don't have Guns, let alone only the Army does. It's all complicated really..

Nobody is going to invade USA, even if they did they won't call on the public to run at them with purse guns.

USA has god knows how many nukes, tanks, planes, boats, ships (boats go under water, ships go on top) infantry etc plus there is the UN, which I am pretty sure is there to stop anybody attacking anybody in it.

I think the UN works like a gang, so if a member attacks another member, the attacker gets gang raped. If a non-member attacks the UN goes after the attacker either by politics, sanctions on trade or all out war. There are 192 countries in the UN, whoever attacks will be fucked!

I live in the U.K and it's hard to get a gun over here, you don't see everybody getting robbed at gun point every day. This notion that each house must have a gun to protect it and each person has there own gun to protect themselves is silly! In fact very few places actually have armed police, there is a back up squad of armed police though.

All it does is rise the stakes from losing a bit of cash to somebody losing there life. I mean how much do you carry in your wallet at any point? $50 at most? You would kill (not just effecting that person but there friends and family) for the sake of $50, maybe your phone and MP3? To me, it's not worth it.

 

[Agayek]

Ok, even without considering the recent events in Tuscon (So hundreds/thousands can die each year from gun crimes but if its a politician then suddenly "holy shit, guns may be dangerous"?) I'm really tired of hearing anyone in the news or wherever talk up 2nd amendment rights.

Hate to tell you, but the 2nd amendment is RIDICULOUSLY OUTDATED.
It reads
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Lets run this down. Firstly, the second amendment was written when there was still a serious threat of Indian attack, British attack, and in general no exceedingly superior standing army in the U.S.. The National Guard was farmers and home owners with rifles and pistols. further more, it was written to ensure that if ever a oppressive regime took power, the American citizens could revolt much the same way we did against the british.
But hey guys, guess what?

In regards to the second half of that statement, if the U.S. government today suddenly was ridiculously oppressive, enough to warrant a revolution of some kind, sorry to tell you that U.S. citizens would be screwed. As the owners of the most powerful military in the world, average, untrained citizens armed with pistols, rifles, and maybe some semi or automatic weapons are not going to defeat the well trained, organized, supplied, well armed, and massive U.S. army. It would not happen. We would need bazookas, jets, tanks, the best automatic weaponry, and a lot of ammo. We reasonably can't give those to citizens. Why give them light weight guns that usually end up in the perpetration of crimes instead?

So what you're saying is that the well-trained, extremely well funded, and most powerful military in the world can't win against a bunch of farmers armed with little more than a Kalashnikov and some rocks?

I'm just going to point at Afghanistan and whistle innocently until it dawns on you.

Secondly, you don't need an automatic weapon. You are not fighting any insurgents. Cops, officers of the law, have those to stop all those gangs or criminals that got their hands on automatics who whoa! did illegal things with them. You do not need more then at most 1-2 guns. What the hell are you using them for if its for defense, unless your a collector, and even then, collecting tools of death is questionable. What I'm getting at is everyday someone who has a gun uses it for criminal purposes. Furthermore, having a gun or concealed weapon means the likelihood of you firing your gun and killing someone just soared into the realm of very possible, instead of not possible. Gun regulation should be intensified several folds before I can see it being reasonable to own weapons.

Owning a weapon does not automatically turn one into a criminal. They are tools and, just as with any other tool, they can be used for both good and evil. It all comes down to the bearer.

And on a bit of a tangent, I feel the need to point out that by far the most dangerous weapon a person has is their mind. If someone wants someone dead, barring outside intervention, the target will die. It doesn't matter what tools are available or banned. As long as the instigator is capable of functional thought, they can kill someone else. Using the threat of violence to try to garner support from a fear reaction is never a valid argument.

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, the groups of hardcore gun owners/advocates that hide behind the second amendment for their right to own a god damned AK-47 or something of another unnecessarily large scale need to have that shield taken away so law making can continue and reduce the levels of gun toting potential criminals and deaths.

Am I justified in this view escapists? Or is there something I don't get about laws regarding a tool meant to kill something or someone?

First, remember the old phrase "innocent until proven guilty"? It's a pretty big deal in legal circles. Assuming everyone who's ever been in the same general vicinity of a weapon is a criminal is not the way to go about it. Especially since you'd then have to declare all of humanity criminals.

Second, you'd be surprised by the number of actual criminals in the more vocal gun-nut groups. The actual rate of felony convictions of people in such groups is staggeringly low.

 

[Agayek]

Nobody is going to invade USA, even if they did they won't call on the public to run at them with purse guns.

USA has god knows how many nukes, tanks, planes, boats, ships (boats go under water, ships go on top) infantry etc plus there is the UN, which I am pretty sure is there to stop anybody attacking anybody in it.

I think the UN works like a gang, so if a member attacks another member, the attacker gets gang raped. If a non-member attacks the UN goes after the attacker either by politics, sanctions on trade or all out war. There are 192 countries in the UN, whoever attacks will be fucked!

I live in the U.K and it's hard to get a gun over here, you don't see everybody getting robbed at gun point every day. This notion that each house must have a gun to protect it and each person has there own gun to protect themselves is silly! In fact very few places actually have armed police, there is a back up squad of armed police though.

All it does is rise the stakes from losing a bit of cash to somebody losing there life. I mean how much do you carry in your wallet at any point? $50 at most? You would kill (not just effecting that person but there friends and family) for the sake of $50, maybe your phone and MP3? To me, it's not worth it.

If you'd actually look at crime rates, you'd see that while there is a significant decrease in gun-related crimes in the UK, there's a corresponding increase in physically violent crime (with knives being the most common weapon).

The elimination of guns won't limit the crime rate at all. It will simply cause the crime to be performed in another fashion.

It's really quite simple. Some people are not nice. These not nice people will inevitably attempt to harm the nice people. When that happens, they will use whatever they need to to achieve the desired effect. If it's a gun, then they'll use guns. If it's a knife, they'll use a knife. If it's a god damn Godzilla doll, they'll use that and beat someone to death with it. Limiting weapons does absolutely nothing. And since it does not accomplish anything, there's no point in doing it in the first place.

 

[Duskwaith]

Bullet control? in the words of chris rock.

I agree that "guns dont kill people, people do" and that there are thousands if millions of people who arent idiots with guns just the minority

 

[Superhyperactiveman]

I love the 2nd ammendment. Because of it, I can own guns, which means I can protect myself, my loved ones, and my property, and that's one less thing I need to rely on the government for, which is pretty fucking awesome in my opinion.

 

[omega 616]

Nobody is going to invade USA, even if they did they won't call on the public to run at them with purse guns.

USA has god knows how many nukes, tanks, planes, boats, ships (boats go under water, ships go on top) infantry etc plus there is the UN, which I am pretty sure is there to stop anybody attacking anybody in it.

I think the UN works like a gang, so if a member attacks another member, the attacker gets gang raped. If a non-member attacks the UN goes after the attacker either by politics, sanctions on trade or all out war. There are 192 countries in the UN, whoever attacks will be fucked!

I live in the U.K and it's hard to get a gun over here, you don't see everybody getting robbed at gun point every day. This notion that each house must have a gun to protect it and each person has there own gun to protect themselves is silly! In fact very few places actually have armed police, there is a back up squad of armed police though.

All it does is rise the stakes from losing a bit of cash to somebody losing there life. I mean how much do you carry in your wallet at any point? $50 at most? You would kill (not just effecting that person but there friends and family) for the sake of $50, maybe your phone and MP3? To me, it's not worth it.

If you'd actually look at crime rates, you'd see that while there is a significant decrease in gun-related crimes in the UK, there's a corresponding increase in physically violent crime (with knives being the most common weapon).

The elimination of guns won't limit the crime rate at all. It will simply cause the crime to be performed in another fashion.

It's really quite simple. Some people are not nice. These not nice people will inevitably attempt to harm the nice people. When that happens, they will use whatever they need to to achieve the desired effect. If it's a gun, then they'll use guns. If it's a knife, they'll use a knife. If it's a god damn Godzilla doll, they'll use that and beat someone to death with it. Limiting weapons does absolutely nothing. And since it does not accomplish anything, there's no point in doing it in the first place.

Well thats obvious.

All I know is, if a person breaks in and your both armed with guns, somebody is probably going to die due to the mexican stand off situation. If a guy breaks in armed with a knife and your armed with a coat hanger your going to let him rob your ass and everybody is going to live ... unless the guy is a bit of a ****.

 

[Angus565]

I don't know what everyone's mad about, I wear t-shirts all the time, no one ever bugs me about my bare arms...

 

[TimeLord]

Being non-American, from my point of view across the pond, it's an outdated law that needs serious revision. If only to cut down on the gun crime in America.

Although implementing such a change I could see as near impossible for the amount of privately owned weapons in America.

 

[FUAU]

Here's something interesting. According to this website (www.areaconnect.com/crime/compare.htm) in 2006 the murder rate in Washington D.C. was 29.1 people out of every 100,000, while New York City's rate was 7.3 people for every 100,000. Also bear in mind that the national average is about 7 as well.

The interesting thing to note here is that the D.C. all-out handgun ban was in effect in 2006, no citizen was legally able to own a gun. And still homicide rate was still 3.98 times higher than New York's.

 

[WeBeNukin]

1. U.S. military vs. Civilians
Even if every American owned an AK, we are of course forgetting that the military has artillery, aircraft, tanks, etc. Small arms < Military grade war machines

Though I have a hard time picturing our military EVER attacking America. It would take a lot for Americans to start slaughtering other Americans like that.

2. Guns aren't the problem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox9XGFliiig
*American Dad Clip*

The underlying problem, I think is desperate people with guns. It seems like places like the UK would have fewer violent gun crimes, because there are fewer violent and desperate people. Whereas in the U.S. guns and people who will use them illegally are much more plentiful. Note: I'm American.

 

[TOGSolid]

bare hands to deal with armed enemies.

use effectively at close range

If you're going to specify hand to hand, then do it from the start. You're attempting to wedge an entirely different topic into this thread. Please feel free to tell me what any of this has to do with the 2nd amendment and its validity.

1. U.S. military vs. Civilians
Even if every American owned an AK, we are of course forgetting that the military has artillery, aircraft, tanks, etc. Small arms < Military grade war machines

Though I have a hard time picturing our military EVER attacking America. It would take a lot for Americans to start slaughtering other Americans like that.

2. Guns aren't the problem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox9XGFliiig
*American Dad Clip*

The underlying problem, I think is desperate people with guns. It seems like places like the UK would have fewer violent gun crimes, because there are fewer violent and desperate people. Whereas in the U.S. guns and people who will use them illegally are much more plentiful. Note: I'm American.

Basically. If you really want to reduce crime, then work on issues like reducing poverty, increasing education, and so forth. Yanno, things the left wing claim to really love doing but never do? (Note, I'm not a right winger and hate both sides).

 

[Some_weirdGuy]

I know you didn't want a reply, but I felt that you should realize this. In most cities it takes the police an average of 4 minutes to respond to a 911 call. By then you'd be a lifeless corpse wasting away on the ground, or if you're a woman, you'd be a sexually assaulted lifeless corpse.

They're less likely to shoot someone who is unarmed, as their main motivation is to shoot you before you shoot them. If you aren't a threat then they're far more likely to take the money and run, rather than make it worse for them self by needlessly murdering someone.

Yes, there are exceptions, but if they're like that they're going to shoot you first weather you have a gun or not.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

We should be Civil and mature to have Guns for self-protection. We wouldn't have issues if people just learned not to misuse Guns. For the matter, I feel taking away Guns is pointless because there will be people buying off Guns in Black Markets and when they threaten us, we'll have no way to protect ourselves then. Plus, it'd also cause other Nations to feel the urge to invade us if we don't have Guns, let alone only the Army does. It's all complicated really..

Nobody is going to invade USA, even if they did they won't call on the public to run at them with purse guns.

USA has god knows how many nukes, tanks, planes, boats, ships (boats go under water, ships go on top) infantry etc plus there is the UN, which I am pretty sure is there to stop anybody attacking anybody in it.

I think the UN works like a gang, so if a member attacks another member, the attacker gets gang raped. If a non-member attacks the UN goes after the attacker either by politics, sanctions on trade or all out war. There are 192 countries in the UN, whoever attacks will be fucked!

I live in the U.K and it's hard to get a gun over here, you don't see everybody getting robbed at gun point every day. This notion that each house must have a gun to protect it and each person has there own gun to protect themselves is silly! In fact very few places actually have armed police, there is a back up squad of armed police though.

All it does is rise the stakes from losing a bit of cash to somebody losing there life. I mean how much do you carry in your wallet at any point? $50 at most? You would kill (not just effecting that person but there friends and family) for the sake of $50, maybe your phone and MP3? To me, it's not worth it.

..*sigh* Honestly I would answer, but like 7 other people quoted my opinion and told me different things. Not just one thing, but many different views and I grew kind of tired. No offense, but my answer will be short cause I feel like I keep repeating to myself. I wouldn't kill anyone for anything, and I feel if people were mature and behaved then we could be trusted with guns is all. There's always going to be people who hide their weapons spite if a law came out saying we can't have any in our possessions. It's a factor.. and I like your avatar (lol). But, point is that it can lead to many scenarios and I for one just puts it out there in case. I respect your opinion and am very tired from College so all I shall say is - Let us become more Civil to not need guns, but for now we need them to protect ourselves if someone invades our house. That is all.

i will highly agree with this.

yes things need to be civil, and i think gun laws need to be updated, (note: i do not own a gun personally) i WILL voice my opinion and fight for peoples right to own a gun, as if you aren't strong, or are independent (as in you live alone or are alone most of the time), than mean people prey upon this idea (especially if your a woman) and having a gun gives you that better edge

just saying, if im in a horrible situation, and im generally alone , and i see 2-3 goons coming at me with a horrible look on their face, having that gun their is ALL the difference, between me being god knows what and dying and possibly living or scaring off the scumbags or possibly taking one down if they come at me with the intent to hurt/steal/kill/etc...