Poll: Guns and you!

[Patrick Dare]

I remember watching a show about gangs on the History Channel. One of the founding members of this particular gang (I forget which gang it was) went into a house in broad daylight with a shotgun and killed everyone in the house. When police asked him why he did it he said "because I can". After hearing a story like that I'll be damned if I'm not going to own a gun. I don't care if the chances of something like that happening are 1% it happens. The problem isn't guns, it's poverty and attitude.

If weapons bans work why are there so many crimes in cities with strict gun control laws like Chicago, DC and NYC? I think fighting poverty is a better way to fight crime than banning weapons. I'm still for some regulation such as registration, background checks, some restrictions for felons/mentally unstable, etc. The majority of gun owners are responsible citizens who enjoy target shooting, competitive shooting and hunting. The majority of those who commit crimes with guns are obtaining, owning and carrying those guns illegally. If you can provide some actual evidence that banning weapons actually reduces crime I'll be willing to change my stance but I have yet to be presented with such evidence.

And I'm a liberal.

I think they should ban all weapons larger then handguns.

So its ok to own handguns, even .50 cal handguns. But nothing larger the a handgun.

That's funny because most laws target handguns while larger weapons like rifles and shotguns you can purchase and own without a license.

 

[whitewing]

Aussie here, and personally I love guns, and the skill required to utilise them properly. I have a collection myself (which is dwarfed by my dads) but the issue I always see is people trying to argue for gun ownership, citing personal defense or hunting, both good arguments, to a point.
Down here it's illegal to own automatic or large calibre firearms, either rifles or handguns, and frankly, low calibre weapons are more than fine for both defense and hunting. A .22 will kill a deer or a man just as easily as a .44, and if you need to fire more than once when hunting you are doing something seriously wrong.
And before people start arguing with me over the usefulness of firearms for defense and hunting, let me state that I own a number of rifles and handguns for the singular purpose of target shooting.

 

[Baneat]

Don't ban. You ban guns, it's only a few minutes before someone like the IRA bursts in and takes advantage of this. Bad Idea to ban them. Restrict them yes, make it necessary to have a license issued by your Government or whatever, but don't ban them. That's pretty much asking for an Extremist Group/Other Country to burst in and raze everything to the ground.

Yeah us over here in the UK get assaulted every day by people who grannies with .357 magnum pistols could take down in a heartbeat.

As a Libertarian, my initial response was to say yes, allow them. Then I looked at the stats in the US which do not exist in the UK, and the cost is so great that I'd consider the right to own a gun to invite harm to enough to invalidate the common libertarian concept of a right. I'm following the maxim "Anything goes unless the action will inflict harm upon others, to a degree with which they have no choice against". It seems to violate it.

Example: sitting in a coffee shop. We don't allow guns, you guys do. Guy comes in to rob it. The odds of a low level crime (below robbing banks etc) involving guns is actually very low. In the US it's much higher.

Now these people in the restaurant are now being threatened with a gun, not a knife.

 

[Hman121]

don't ban most guns, only those which make things explode and cause colateral damage i.e. rocket launcher or RPG. People should be able to defend themselves.

 

[Salad Is Murder]

And don't buy a glock, get yourself a nice Ruger or something, like a GP-100 or an SP-101. They make a GP-100 in .327 Federal Magnum that holds 7 rounds; "Did I fire five rounds, or six? Eh, who cares, I've still got at least one left!".

My husband has a GP-100 .357 Magnum/.38 Special, I think you could hammer a nail with that thing.

 

[ReaperzXIII]

I miss the days when people just used edged weapons! There is something about guns I don't like compared to the good ol' beat the crap out of your opponent until he can no longer move.

 

[tawmus]

"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."

Interpret this as you will fellow Americans.

(Sorry if this was posted already, didn't read other posts.)

 

[Patrick Dare]

Criminals have guns/knives so civilians carry guns/knives to protect themselves. But then because the civilians have guns/knives then the criminals feel the need to carry guns/knives to protect themselves from the civilians.

I worked with the police in the UK and this is a proven fact and is also an opinion i agree with. But this thread will just be a "i am pro/against guns and you suck" thread so it is a waste of time. Like politics, you can not turn a person to like/loathe guns if they like/loathe them.

I'm a little confused. Civilians owning weapons causes criminals to carry weapons they were already carrying anyways?

 

[Koroviev]

I haven't done the research, so I do not have the information necessary to present a well-supported argument.

Nevertheless, I'll venture some reasoning (in other words, part of an argument).

Conclusion: Guns should be banned.

...A gun is a weapon. For all intents and purposes, it is designed to inflict harm, whether it be upon a human or an animal. Even if a gun is being used in self-defense, the fact of the matter is that it's being used to hurt another person. There is scarcely a good reason for permitting gun ownership for those working outside of the executive branch of government. Some may argue that every person has a right to defend his or her life and property. First, burglary does not warrant lethal force. Beyond that, how common is murder? Certainly not commonplace enough to justify placing guns in the hands of untrained civilians. Rather than arming themselves as though they were a self-contained military outfit, families should invest in home security systems. Not only would this serve to deter potential thieves and those looking to commit other heinous acts, but it would also alert trained professionals in the event that such criminals are foolish enough to disregard the precautions. The bottom line is that guns do not belong in the hands of unauthorized persons, even if such people have the best of intentions.


Conclusion: Guns should be permitted with reasonable restrictions in place.

...Prohibition is a tired game. Sure, it works if the product in question is military-grade or otherwise difficult to find, but neither of these stipulations applies to a standard firearm. That being the case, prohibition would do more harm than good with respect to guns. People with the necessary resources would find a way to get their hands on them, while average people looking to protect their families and property would be left vulnerable. It does not stop there, either. There is no doubt that organized crime groups would capitalize on such government restrictions. Such a probability would serve to further fan the flames of violence. At the end of the day, people need to come to terms with the fact that the police are by and large an after-the-fact solution. People need a means to defend themselves when no one else can or will. Concerns about such people being unequipped to handle firearms are misplaced. Few people will advocate gun ownership in the absence of appropriate licensure. Therefore, given licensing necessities and restrictions on what types of firearms can be owned, there is no good reason why citizens should be barred from capable self-defense in the form of gun ownership.

I did my best to argue each side to a reasonable extent. Without doing further research, I cannot say that I necessarily support one side or the other.

 

[mklnjbh]

Whether you ban or not, people will still keep and use firearms. I would rather have every one in a hundred people have a tank in their driveway as long as it is documented than one in 1000 with an illegal Glock 13.

Don't ban, just make sure as many weapons are registered as possible, and restrict some ownership. (Licenses)

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

The ban of some types of firearms is reasonable. No one needs an M16 or G36 for home defense or hunting. The issue of a license for automatic, suppressed, and other extremely destructive firearms makes sense to me.

 

[Chrinik]

Great that I live in a country that hates guns, and even forbids armed rallys (and you have to be careful with any other kind of rally) of any kind, so revolting against a fashist dictator from austria usurping power again is still off the hook by our very constitution.
I love this country...even toys are treated as real guns if they look the part and fire projectiles<.<
Makes us all the more safer when some dude decides to take his illegaly bought guns and fuck everyone up, or rob a bank.

But it is not totally impossible to own a firearm, I myself have shot alot of them, and firearms in german culture are firmly integrated into society (hunters, for example), it´s just that it has a very meh-feeling to the general populace if their non hunting neighbor owns an AR-15 and a SAIGA 7.62mm and several Handguns with apropiate ammo.

Also, it goes very weird at time...the same dude who brought IPSC competitive shooting to germany, is now trying to get rid of it because it teaches "how to use firearms in high-stress, high speed situations, like a combat training."....

 

[tawmus]

I like how there is an option to ban all weapons. There is probably a dozen things in this room I am sitting in that could be used as a weapon. I'm looking at you 10th grade shop class lamp, you would make an excellent bludgeon.

 

[ajh93]

banning all types of (conventional) fire arms is one of the worst ideas i have ever heard...

 

[Khada]

Other: Educate people. Not too many professors packing.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

I loves me some guns. I think now it's the best: I don't have to worry that much about weapons besides shotguns, rifles and handguns.

 

[Paksenarrion]

I was sold on "a Howitzer in everyone's backyard."

 

[Shock and Awe]

The way that it is in the US is more or less about right. Just keep the automatic, explosive and other similar weapons illegal.

 

[swolf]

You shouldn't be able to walk down the street and have a gun with you. I could accept a handgun or shotgun at home or a small collection at a gun range, but both guns and owners would need to have a complete licensing and screening process, while individuals with a firearm inventory over a certain threshold automatically get put on a special watch list. All this, and it is illegal to carry a loaded gun with you off your property or any other licensed area.

Not to troll but criminals will take their guns whereever they want so only allowing people to carry in certain areas handicaps their ability to defend themselves. If somebody's family got killed in front of them and they would have had a chance to save them if they had carried their gun...how would you justify that to them? I can't think of her name but there is a famous progun woman whose parents were killed in a mall massacare and she could've stopped it if she had brought her gun into the mall but that was illegal.

 

[swolf]

You shouldn't be able to walk down the street and have a gun with you. I could accept a handgun or shotgun at home or a small collection at a gun range, but both guns and owners would need to have a complete licensing and screening process, while individuals with a firearm inventory over a certain threshold automatically get put on a special watch list. All this, and it is illegal to carry a loaded gun with you off your property or any other licensed area.

Not to troll but criminals will take their guns whereever they want so only allowing people to carry in certain areas handicaps their ability to defend themselves. If somebody's family got killed in front of them and they would have had a chance to save them if they had carried their gun...how would you justify that to them? I can't think of her name but there is a famous progun woman whose parents were killed in a mall massacare and she could've stopped it if she had brought her gun into the mall but that was illegal.