Poll: Do you believe in the Second Amendment?

[likalaruku]

I believe in the right to OWN guns, but not in the right to USE them. (Yes, guns are like fine china).

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

I intend to get a class c weapons license as well as a license of concealment.

I want to own land outside of city limits so I can maintain my own firing range. Preferably enough land on which to do militia drills.

I fucking love guns.

 

[ROTMASTER]

I DO NOT think murder is acceptable for ANY REASON, this was to prove the point that the absnece of guns does not remove the drive to commit crime, to remove crime you dont remove the tool you remove the causes for instance poverty and racism

But guns provide criminals with the tools they would otherwise be unable to acquire and helps to expand the range of crimes they can commit. Kids are stupid, they try to kill each other over petty shit. They bring a knife to somebody with the intent to kill, the other person has a much better chance of escpae the kid has a chance to rethink. Both are more likely to live and the kid doesn't do something he'll regret. If he has a gun he might act rashly, he can fire from distance, all it takes is the pull of a trigger. Can't outrun a bullet, but you have a chance if it's only a knife.

thats why you regulate sales and the only reason we have this problem is because we have a to deal with more of rhe things that cause crime the gun doesnt cause crime and kids cant but a handgun you need to be 18 and have a licience

 

[Thaluikhain]

In fact, modern armed forces use smaller projectiles to wound the enemy, since a wounded man takes up more resources than a dead one.

Do you have a source for that? I've heard it said a few times, but I've never seen an official statement to that effect.

Also, it seems very unwise. The theory makes some sort of sense, but in practice...if you're in a firefight, you want to put your opponent down right now, and you're not going to have the finesse to ensure you merely "adaquately" wound the enemy, and nothing more. Overkill is less risky to the firer than underkill. Complaints are often made that various bullets aren't damaging enough, I can't remember (beyond war crimes type things) people complaining the enemy was too damaged by their weapons.

 

[ROTMASTER]

In fact, modern armed forces use smaller projectiles to wound the enemy, since a wounded man takes up more resources than a dead one.

Do you have a source for that? I've heard it said a few times, but I've never seen an official statement to that effect.

Also, it seems very unwise. The theory makes some sort of sense, but in practice...if you're in a firefight, you want to put your opponent down right now, and you're not going to have the finesse to ensure you merely "adaquately" wound the enemy, and nothing more. Overkill is less risky to the firer than underkill. Complaints are often made that various bullets aren't damaging enough, I can't remember (beyond war crimes type things) people complaining the enemy was too damaged by their weapons.

there is no real source for that its just a fact, cuz a dead soldier you fly the body home, a wounded one you have medical costs and it takes on battlefield resources to attemt to treat him

 

[bushwhacker2k]

I rather dislike guns, I wouldn't mind them being outlawed, that way no one could stand in the way of my physical martial prowess >

I don't think there's any perfect answer to the situation, I can't imagine human ingenuity could be stifled so that no one could ever have any weapon of any kind, but I also don't like the idea of people having automatic firearms (automatic is actually under 'mass destruction' I believe).

 

[OmniscientOstrich]

thats why you regulate sales and the only reason we have this problem is because we have a to deal with more of rhe things that cause crime the gun doesnt cause crime and kids cant but a handgun you need to be 18 and have a licience

But when guns are so easy to get a hold of, when a kid's parent will most likely own more than one then there isn't much stopping them from getting there hands on it. Availability, they're in plentiful supply. Look, America has a complicated situation but the only point I'm making is that Britain and many other countries like it are perfectly happy without the threat of firearms. Our crimerates and murder rates are much lower than those with guns available. That's not to say that it's impossible for a country to have a country that can keep crime rates low and have guns (see Canada) but personally I'd rather expunge the risk altogether and stick with what has worked for us all these years so far. Don't fix what ain't broke, good day sir.

 

[psijac]

I DO NOT think murder is acceptable for ANY REASON

This is the Core of the problem. If someone wants to take your life or the life of your loved ones then you Take the moral High ground and let them.

Google Tony Martin. He is a farmer that got sent to prison for shooting an intruder that tried to rob his house the intruder had been arrested 29 times by the time of his death at the age of 16

 

[Trippy Turtle]

Even if you think you will handle it responsibly there is no saying everyone will. How many shootings have been in America compared to Australia? I feel so much better not having guns in Australia because nobody having weapons is a lot safer then everyone having weapons.
Off topic (Kind of): If you were getting mugged, and new you were in no serious danger as long as you gave over your money, would you shoot the person doing it?

In that question you are only giving us two choices. To kill the guy or give my money to him. In an actual situation like that, there would be way more choices than: I'm gonna shoot him even though I'm not technically threatened or I'm just gonna give him my money to avoid trouble. If you had a gun you could easily just take it out and tell him to gtfo.

Also, I feel a hell of a lot safer knowing that I can protect myself if need be because I have a gun in my nightstand.

I would feel a lot more nervous knowing everyone else has a gun at their nightstand.
Kind off unrelated but I know the guy who made gun laws tougher in Australia after his family was killed.

 

[Avistew]

I think people should be able to own a weapon (be it a gun, a sword, whatever) if they receive proper training for it, get a license, are well registered as the owner and aren't allowed to sell it. There also should be a limit, like for instance only one of each kind, since they'd be for personal use only (nobody else than the person with the license is allowed to use them).

I believe their main use should be sports, but in a case of self-defense they would be an option at someone's disposal. Of course then an investigation would check if you were in the right using it, like they would for anything else.

I also think the original amendment was not about owning guns to use them against one another, but owning guns to be able to start a revolution if the government became totalitarian, and that the goal wasn't being allowed to carry a weapon and use it, but being able to have one at all and maintain it in case it was ever needed, which in most people's lives it wouldn't be.

 

[Apollo45]

As an avid hunter, shooter, and beginning gun collector, I support the amendment. I don't honestly see a problem with trustworthy civilians being able to own automatic weapons either. It's been beaten to death though, and I'm pretty sure much of what I wanted to say has already been said, so I'll leave it at this:

After WWII, a prominent Japanese Admiral was being questioned. During the questioning, he was asked why the Japanese didn't invade America proper after their attack on Pearl Harbor. The Admiral, before going in to specifics on tactics, laughed out loud and said, "We would have to be crazy to launch an assault on a country whose citizens are as heavily armed as its military."

Whether the story is true or not (I can't remember where I found it, either a book or a website somewhere), it illustrates a point; before the invention of the Atomic Bomb, it would be crazy to invade America because you would not only be facing a well armed and organized military, but also a well armed and near-fanatical civilian base. It would be an army of a couple hundred thousand at the very most versus an army of similar sized plus a militia numbering in the millions. Suicide. And, in truth, the invention of atomic weapons hasn't changed that fact much, simply due to M.A.D.; any use of nuclear weaponry will likely result in a nuclear response, which would devastate the world. The only logical course of action would be a ground invasion, and if that were to happen, again, it would be a force of a few hundred thousand at the very most versus a similar force plus an extremely large militia. Again, suicide.

 

[Bluefire7]

Well I grew Up in deep south Texas
Were I grew up your parents could Give you a gun (Legally)

I got my first rifle when I was 14 (K98k Izzy .308)
My best friend got his at 15 (SKS 7.62x39)
My brother got one at 16 (10/22 .22)
Another friend of mine got his first at 14 (Mosin-Nagant 7.62x54R)
My cousin got his at 15 (M700 .243)
My other cousin got his from his dad when he passed away at 15 (AR-15 .223)

Gun crime was almost nothing were I was
were older now, and we own many different guns

Notice how most of those are military style rifles
I'll leave you all with the fact that we have only one regret, at least two of us have an annoying flinch

 

[Grospoliner]

I think everyone should read this paper in it's entirety.

http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUnderstandingWhyCrime2004.pdf

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

No, not at all. When considering this law, you have to think of the context in which it was written. Back then, when guns were nowhere near as deadly and they were still fighting Native Americans, sure. Now? Not so much.

I think it's a mistake to say they were less deadly. While a Revolutionary Era musket wouldn't stand up to even your most basic modern "juniors" rifle, we also have much more advanced medicine. A single bullet wound to a non-vital area could give you a lethal infection. Nowadays, infections are easily prevented with antibiotics. Bullet wound for bullet wound, Revolutionary Era bullets win. We've just gotten much speedier and accurate with our bullets. Also, some ammunition can leave holes the size of a grapefruit in a person...So it's not really cut and dry.

I think there should be regulated access to firearms, as I'm sure most people do. Some parts of the wilderness in the U.S. are just plain scary without a firearm, like Detroit. OH BURN!

Also, gun manufacturing is a big business in the U.S., wouldn't want upset the Economy.

Ok, ignoring the deadliness, how about the historical context I spoke about afterwards? And in regards to your later paragraph. Would it be as scary if it were way harder to get guns? Just think about the ease of which you can obtain a firearm in the US compared to over here in Aus. That has a flow on effect to criminals obtaining guns.

Think of it this way, committing a crime with a firearm I assume leads to harsher penalties correct? If this is the case why do criminals use these weapons? Simple answer, because their "targets", if you will, might be carrying them too.

Lawful citizens say they carry guns for protection, from people with guns. The people they're afraid of carry them for protection too. If you can commit the same crime without a firearm, leading to less harsh penalties, wouldn't you do that on the off chance you're caught?

 

[Extragorey]

Well, I believe in escalation. The bigger the public's guns are (or the police force), the bigger the criminals' guns will be. Bigger in this case meaning more dangerous or in a greater quantity.

Basically, if every civilian has a couple of guns to their name, then someone who's out to commit a crime will prepare accordingly.
Look at the UK: their police don't carry guns, and the intentional homicide rate is much lower.

Conversely, America was more or less founded on the following statement:
"To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace." (George Washington)

So that tells you all you need to know about the traditional American federal goverment's views on the matter. No surprises there. Americans are, after all, known for their love of guns.

But obviously to have no substantial firearm is hardly a solution. So I think the focus needs to be more on the training rather than the equipment. Criminals can buy guns - they can't as easily obtain professional combat training.
Imagine if every law enforcer was a John Rambo or John McClane. While that's still not possible in a million years, the paradigm shift from shotguns to skill would be a good place to start.

 

[AtheistConservative]

The second amendment doesn't make sense when arguing for a "collective" right to own firearms. A militia ceases to be a militia when its controlled by a governmental authority and becomes really more of a police or National Guard type of situation, which is what would happen under "collective" ownership.

Alright now to address the danger of private citizens owning firearms, in the US (this is using 2009 data) you had a 0.8% chance of dying from anything. If you were going to die, it would be a 0.3% chance of you being murdered with a gun. So for the general population, a "random" citizen stands a 0.0003% chance of murdered with a gun in a given year, which means a random citizen would need to live 238 years for it to become more probable that they would be murdered with a firearm.

From Women's rights perspective, concealed carry is incredibly important because as weapons get more advanced, the playing field becomes more level between women and their attackers. A woman fighting a man when no one has weapons is at a severe disadvantage. At the stage of knives and batons a man still has the advantage but not as large. With modern firearms, a woman is still at a disadvantage when it comes to pure deadliness but she would have come close enough to parity to make a potential attacker really consider if its worth the risk.

 

[Thaluikhain]

there is no real source for that its just a fact, cuz a dead soldier you fly the body home, a wounded one you have medical costs and it takes on battlefield resources to attemt to treat him

Oh, yeah, I understand that, I was just wondering if it was anyone's official policy to try and deliberately reduce the damage when shooting someone, which seems unlikely.

With modern firearms, a woman is still at a disadvantage when it comes to pure deadliness

Hey? Why is that?

Whether the story is true or not (I can't remember where I found it, either a book or a website somewhere), it illustrates a point; before the invention of the Atomic Bomb, it would be crazy to invade America because you would not only be facing a well armed and organized military, but also a well armed and near-fanatical civilian base. It would be an army of a couple hundred thousand at the very most versus an army of similar sized plus a militia numbering in the millions. Suicide. And, in truth, the invention of atomic weapons hasn't changed that fact much, simply due to M.A.D.; any use of nuclear weaponry will likely result in a nuclear response, which would devastate the world. The only logical course of action would be a ground invasion, and if that were to happen, again, it would be a force of a few hundred thousand at the very most versus a similar force plus an extremely large militia. Again, suicide.

Er...firstly, an invasion of the US is going to lead to a nuclear response, whether the attackers use nuclear weapons or not. T

Anyway, I'm not sure of the benefit of private gun ownership in the case of an invasion, as opposed to a state mobilisation and arming of the populace. We've seen that sort of thing, in WW2, formation of Home Guard and Home Guard reserves and so on, but under state control, and with state owned weapons, which has obvious benefits with regards to standardisation and so on.

 

[AtheistConservative]

Snip

With modern firearms, a woman is still at a disadvantage when it comes to pure deadliness

Hey? Why is that?

There are a couple reasons, the main and most important one is that women tend to have less muscle mass in their upper bodies compared to men. This means that allowing everything else to be equal, a woman firing the same weapon with the same ammunition is going to notice more recoil and therefor, greater point of aim disruption. This a problem that everyone who intends to use a firearm for self defense must face is: the trade off between the damage done and point of aim disruption. While men face this too, they simply have the advantage of having their trade off curve be further out.
To better explain the above statement: Essentially everyone could use a pistol chambered in .22 LR and be able to fire it without the gun moving to such a degree that it needs to be re-aimed.
However as the power of the cartridge increases, the gun will move more after each shot, which makes it less and less effective to shoot in combat. That said, the weaker a cartridge the less effective they are at stopping an attack.

That's the main reason, there are cultural as well. Many kids in general aren't raised around guns, and if your not raised around them, the chances of you really/intelligently considering firearms as a viable method of self defense are rather low. Even among girls that grow up around guns, interest is rather low in learning about guns for any purpose. As to why that is, you'd have to ask a girl from that background.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Spoiler: snip

There are a couple reasons, the main and most important one is that women tend to have less muscle mass in their upper bodies compared to men. This means that allowing everything else to be equal, a woman firing the same weapon with the same ammunition is going to notice more recoil and therefor, greater point of aim disruption. This a problem that everyone who intends to use a firearm for self defense must face is: the trade off between the damage done and point of aim disruption. While men face this too, they simply have the advantage of having their trade off curve be further out.
To better explain the above statement: Essentially everyone could use a pistol chambered in .22 LR and be able to fire it without the gun moving to such a degree that it needs to be re-aimed.
However as the power of the cartridge increases, the gun will move more after each shot, which makes it less and less effective to shoot in combat. That said, the weaker a cartridge the less effective they are at stopping an attack.

Ah, ok. I've never been too convinced about the necessity for a large calibre weapon myself (in part because the 9mm round is popular worldwide), but I'd be the first to admit I'm not an expert.

Oh...as an aside, that thing when the recoil moves the hand backwards, instead of the moving parts of the weapon, so another round isn't chambered (limp wristing, is it called?), is that greatly affect by strength, or is that a matter of psychology and training?

 

[MorganL4]

I don't think we need to outlaw the ownership of guns by civilians. However, we do need MUCH stricter background checks in the US in regards to gun sales. I do not beleave you should be able to purchase a firearm at a gun show, and walk out of the room with it the same day. There need to be prison record checks metal health checks and a number of other verifications that I cant come up with right now, because we have serious problems with people that SHOULD NOT have fire arms getting a hold of them.

I don't need to remind everyone about the issue with Congresswoman Giffords:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/22/forcible-medication-of-ja_n_906591.html

and then there is this: