Poll: Lets pretend the government passes a law stating that you can't have a gun anymore...

[the clockmaker]

Funny, he calls a pro-gun, pro-liberty individual a "Maoist." I fear for this generation, truly. Do you even know who Mao was? Do you know that Mao believed firmly in...wait...

Gun control?

I don't know where it all went wrong. People today spout buzzwords left and right without actually understanding what they're saying.

Fucks sake mate, you need to quote people so people know when you have responded,
now I admit it may be a bit obtuse on my part, I am not accusing you of following the whole ideology, but I was trying to make a subtle allusion,

where did you say power comes from
where did mao say power comes from

hint mate, I am not trying to drag you down as a communist, I am trying to get you to see that your 'pro liberty' ideal leads anywhere but.

and by the way, you still have not responded to to bullshit you posted in your first few posts.

 

[Thyunda]

Now those are two words that shouldn't ever be said together. Democratic paranoia. The irrational fear that the government you voted into power might be in charge.

I am so going to note that one down, and, with your permission, use it in conversation now and then.

All yours buddy. Use it well.

If they government DID do that, then that proves to everyone that the country is a place that cares nothing about freedom or its citizens. I would honestly move out of the country. I dont want to live in a country where criminals have all of the rights and protection and law abiding citizens have none. I dont want to live in a country where im in a constant fear of people trying to kill me while not being allowed to defend myself in anyway whatsoever or have any help from the government in protecting me.

Don't move to the United Kingdom then. The only people with guns out here are farmers and gangsters. I'm genuinely too scared to leave my house in the daytime. I have to go out at night and stay out of the streetlights. I break into the local stores and steal tins of food to stock my basement so I never go hungry. The other day somebody knocked at my door. I made sure the boards over the windows were still on tight and locked myself in the wardrobe till they left.

Can't take chances in this mob-ruled country.

I know you are making a joke, but I live in one of the strictest gun control states in the US. We are constantly told to make sure all windows and doors are locked and to not go out at night because it is too dangerous. And i live in one of the "safest" neighborhoods. There are constant stories of people invading someone's home at night, killing the owners (mostly with knives), take whatever they can grab, and leave before the police show up. My parents have been robbed 3 times in a 15 year period, and they live in a "safe" neighborhood. They are just lucky they were never around when the house got robbed, otherwise they would be dead too.

Shall I tell you the story of a mother and her children who hid in the attic waiting for police to arrive? The intruder, armed with a crowbar, managed to break through multiple locked doors with his tool, barge his way into the attic, get shot 5 times in the chest, stumble back downstairs to his car, AND LEAVE before the police arrived.

Dont talk about what you dont understand.

Uh. What? How would guns even make any of that better?

You are right, that wife and her children being brutally murder by an intruder with a crowbar is so much better than her defending herself with a gun.

guns are an unfortunate neccessity. Yes, banning guns works in UK, im happy for you. Im not going to try to tell you that UK should stop. It wont work in the US. For one, it will cause extreme economic harm. Two, the police can not protect anyone, nor are they required to. Three, it will not stop criminals in the slightest. Four, people will die in droves from wildlife related incidents. More people die from deer in this country per year than mass shootings. Five, every single piece of evidence INSIDE the US shows that banning guns or restricting guns either makes crime WORSE or does nothing at all. It doesnt matter how gun control affects people in other countries, all that matters is how it affects ours. I live in a state with the stricest gun control laws in the country (about to get stricter, although i do agree with about half of the measures they are implementing), and it is one of the most dangerous states in the country.

If you remove the NEED for guns, then I would be much more persuaded. But so long as that need exists, banning guns is immoral, illogical, and irational

Once again...you've cited one anecdotal incident. A story. You've painted a picture of a nightmarish existence where everyone lives in fear because they don't have guns. I have a whole nation with no guns and where we don't live in fear. My example vastly trumps yours. Yeah, so, more people get stabbed. But we can work on that. Knives are tools for other purposes that just get blatantly misused.

Guns have no other purpose than to kill. You want guns to kill people. Keep citing self defence, my friend, but all I'm hearing is "People are bad and I deserve the ability to kill them."

you cited an example for your country, i cited one from mine.

which one carries more weight on how gun control affects my nation.

ill give you a hint, not yours.

does your nations suffer the same gang problems, has the same diverse population, organized crime, borders that make it impossible to stop illegal goods from getting in the country, population density across the nation, police response times, and a culture of mistrust towards law enforcement among certain communities due to the police being harsher on that community than normal?

if the answer to this question is no, then you have proven that you dont know anything about the gun issue IN AMERICA.

...let me tell you about a little group called the 'IRA'...

I will take the IRA, give them effing tanks and all the explosives they want, and STILL prefer them over the Cartels. The Cartels are nasty pieces of works. About the only good thing I can say about them is that they are businessmen, but if you get in their way they will kill you and your entire family just to make a point. Cartels are actually more dangerous than the terrorists who want to murder us, our only saving grace is that it doesnt make much sense to kill off your best customer (ie the US). But considering they have hundreds of officials bribed, blackmailed, or intimidated across both borders, their influence is immense.

Your IRA is closer to our Al Queda, and I still prefer the IRA to them. Bombings and mass murder is merely a tool for the IRA (at least that is how it seems to me, but im not in the UK so i may very well be wrong), it is not their endgoal. Mass murder and the destruction of the west is Al Qeuda's endgoal.

Al Qaeda are thousands of miles away from the United States and their acts were relatively few and far between. Don't forget the United Kingdom was also subject to a couple of Al Qaeda attacks. The IRA in their prime were easily more of a threat than Al Qaeda or the Cartels are to the United States. The Cartels thrive in Mexico - and while their influence DOES spread across the border, when's the last time you heard of a major, high profile Los Zetas attack? They don't happen. They're drug-runners and murderers but they're NOT an invading army.

Now you tell people over the age of forty that you would rather live with the threat of the IRA than in the situation you're in now. Why don't you ask people present at the Manchester bombings? Or even better, you could ask the police in Westminster why they have submachine guns. You live in an era of security where all the scary things are over the border. My country is no stranger to terrorism and violence, and yet as a culture we totally lack paranoia. Your government might take your guns away and you're in uproar. One of our party leaders tried to turn the country into a mirror image of Nazi Germany, and were the British angry? Not in the slightest. He was laughed at. Everything he tried to do was just mocked.

Your weapons and your media create a terrifying image of an America besieged on all sides by Arab terrorists and Mexican drug lords. As for being told to keep doors and windows locked? That's par for the course wherever you live. There are police bulletins all over the place in this country telling you to do it. It's nothing special.

Where I live, there's violence. There's a lot of violence. People get stabbed, mugged and beaten half to death every five minutes. I've had a few close encounters.

But I'm bloody glad there were no guns. Shoot and kill a mugger and I guarantee that won't be the last you hear of it. People with more guns and more bodies than you will want revenge, because that's how things get twisted. He just wanted your wallet but you took his life. You were in the wrong. Guns escalate violence.

Hah! Imagine Ireland with legal guns! Sorry. Read up on the Troubles. THEN imagine Ireland with guns. You'll see EXACTLY what I'm talking about.

 

[Single Shot]

If you call any of that tripe "common sense," then I feel for you. Sorry. Truly.

1) Sure, if it'll make you happy, let's just pretend I pulled those numbers out of my ass. Yeah, there you go, there's a point for you!

2) BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT KIND OF TRAINING THAT ACTUALLY IS? You MUST know before you herp a derp and say "lol everyone needs spshal militarre trainin'" WHAT, pray tell, is your "military training," and HOW can you ****ing justify asking your common, non-military, non-combat citizen being made to subject themselves to it for the purposes of carrying a firearm?

3) This...no. This doesn't even get an answer. That doesn't...just...no. Nope.

4) Yeah, and it's eminently clear that FAR too many people need to lay off the games and movies for a LONG, LONG time. I came a gamer, I'll probably leave an anti-games advocate. Who knew, right?

WWII has become a brand, a concept, a "thing," rather than an actual mass slaughter of millions upon millions of human beings. Thus the (tm).

The Nazis = National SOCIALIST Party. Try the Reading Rainbow. You can do anything!

And what's this crap about robbers "beating" people? Actually, more robbers use knives than they do guns, a little known fact. Criminals aren't stupid enough to run around empty-handed, and you shouldn't be stupid enough to allow yourself to think they do.

Fun fact anti-gun nuts love repeating: stabbings send people to the hospital instead of the morgue! Oh, yay! Let's not forget that knives inflict extreme physical trauma, cause extensive bleeding, and although many people survive long enough to get to a hospital, there's a 55% survivability rate for deep knife wounds versus 85% of most handgun rounds once they get there.

Don't want to be stabbed? It's pretty ****ing horrible business.

1) if you don't want to post a link, something that would take maybe a minute at the most, then yeah, let's assume that.
2) the Swiss system provided range time, tactical training for both open area nad urban combat, leadership training and command structure, and a course on gun care and safety.
3) you don't answer it, but explain to me how they are differnt. in both cases people are offered safely in exchange for essentialy murder. in both cases people would accept, in both cases people have accepted in the past.
4) the nazi's were fascist, not socalist, no matter what their name suggested.
4) again) despite what people think robbers are people too. they often don't want to risk murder charges and just want to escape if they get caught. as such most people are quickly assaulted and then left. it is far quicker and less personal to aim a gun than hack someone to death. and if they want to kill you they will succeed no matter what you have.

 

[Tayh]

Fortunately, I live in a country where guns are already outlawed, so I wouldn't be affected by this.

 

[Single Shot]

Range time? Sure, I spend plenty of time at the range. It's called target practice. Leadership training? Command structure? Pathetic. I sense more behind-the-scenes wikipedia. TELL ME HOW "leadership training" and "command structure" is relevant to anyone for anything? You're grasping for straws, here.

Gun care? Sure, that's fine. That's easy. Two pages in the manual and you're set. I can tell you right now, if you'd like. But improper gun care is only a DANGER TO THE USER, so...irrelevant.

Safety? A bogus topic if I've ever heard one. DON'T EVER, EVER, EVER, EVERRR point a gun at anyone, at all, for any reason, unless that person means to use violence against yourself or your loved ones. That's it. That's all there is to it. Now if we're talking gun mechanics, ANY REGULAR CLASS IS EXTREMELY SUFFICIENT.

Must people don't even need to know how to maintain a firearm - they need only the basics, because their gun can sit out of the way for years until a time may come where it is needed. Hell, almost 80,000,000 gun owners never shoot anyone, thank God. But millions are saved just by having a firearm available to them. Your knee-jerk "military training" response is completely bogus, and has no grounding in reality.

"Fascism" is NOT a political ideology. They WERE Socialists, no matter how today's Socialists dislike being associated with Nazis.

4) You are an idiot. That's it. That's all. You. Are. An. Idiot. "If they want to kill you, they will succeed..." Yeah, well, my Springfield XD has something to say about that. I don't understand how somebody can suffer from such a crippling lack of logic, but that's okay, I guess I'll just disregard the millions of cases reported to the FBI in which an armed citizen saved their own life, as well as the lives of others, by using their firearm.

1) Once you give some kind of structure to an armed militia it severly reduces crime among it's members. when was the last time a massicre took place in Switzerland? oh, that long ago? really? at least partly due to the training and respect for firearms instilledto them before they can take a rifle home.
2) you asked for a list of all training, i gave you it. don'r complain becasue some of it is basic.
3) their safely classes include what to do in high pressure situations, include how to indicate you are friendly to law enforcement (and avoid getting yourself shot in the process) and how/when to take action.
4) Fascism is a political ideology where the population of a country is united by the hatred of a faction/group of factions. it is often baised on strong properganda and utilized parts of both the left and right wing philosophies. it is an extension of nationalism. and the more i think about it the more that describes America.
A socialist goverment would spread power and make all people equal, a democratic goverment would allow the people to choose who controls them, a dictatorship would take power for the man in charge, and a fashism would take the power and then convince the people they were right to do so.

and no. i am not an idiot. if i was an idiot you would have realized that the attacker has surprise on their side. if they want you dead, you die. only robbers are shot by home owners in the casess you mentioned, the same people who DON'T WANT TO KILL YOU, only escape. as i mentioned earlier. and if less people had guins, less criminals would feel the need to carry guns, in England most robbers don't even take a knife becasue they know they probably won't be contronted by a weapon.

 

[Single Shot]

-snip-

Hello? Are you listening or even paying attention at all?

Why are you not quoting people you're replying to?

I'm pretty much "replying" to everybody at this point, in case you haven't noticed.

or don't know how the 'quote' button works

 

[superline51]

I live in Texas, I'd love to see them try to ban guns.

 

[Single Shot]

The way I see it, having the rights to own a gun makes people feel like they need to own a gun.

Look away from the US for a second. There are many, many countries where owning a gun is illegal, and the majority of the people there probably do not feel like they need to own a gun either. Now look back at the US, where owning a gun is legal, and many people feel like they need one.

I believe full gun control by government isn't such a bad thing. It's already that way here in the Netherlands. You can't have a gun, nor do you need a gun. What do you think you need a gun for anyway? To shoot people? I sincerely hope not! Someone could get hurt!

Yeah, and there are many, many countries in which human beings are treated like chattel and have no say in anything whatsoever, and it is only by the good graces of the government - or a lack of sufficient ammunition reserves - that they are not killed outright by speaking their minds.

But putting that point aside for a moment, I am thoroughly amused by the number of people I see coming onto forums like this extolling the virtues of their wonderful, utopian societies, which are apparently unaffected by fear, want, hate, or violence. I laugh. I laugh from the bottom of my heart because I know these people are completely full of s***. "We're sane here, we're not afraid of anything." Well, yeah, I guess you're a world-class gamer like a couple I've seen, who probably leave the house only for shopping and work, because it takes a serious disconnection from reality to vomit a 99.9% happy fun no violence rate for any place on earth. It's pitiful. It's pathetic. Hell, it's through this whole anti-gun argument that I learned that England is a shockingly horrid place to live. Many Brits will actually tell you this, while others apparently have some sort of sore spot with America for that whole revolutionary war thing. I guess it did happen only a couple hundred years ago, come to think of it.

England this, England that, now Iceland. Well, not only is Iceland short on population, it's essentially "statistically irrelevant" even if it is a peaceful paradise - which is complete BS by the way. But let's talk about Sweden. Or Norway. Or Belgium. These places are fraught with excessive crime relative to their populations. And guess what - they're all completely anti-gun.

http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Crime-statistics/International_Statistics_on_Crime_and_Justice.pdf

read that. it quite clearly shows that the rate of violent crime is much higher in America than Europe on average. (I like the graph on page 9) and that most of the violent crimes are in areas around the unstable african coasts or eastern areas that are unstable anyway.

also, it is the british mentality to complain a lot. that's just who we are. i doesn't make you right. i would prefer to live with a bit of cold weather than fear a gunman walking into my place of work.
as to being pissed about the revolutionary war ( Or the First war of American tax avoidance as i prefer to call it) what? it's not in living memory and America has lost every war they've ever joined without British support. (Remember 'Nam) so that's just you trying to be smart, and failing.

 

[AldUK]

America's pro-gun lobby and its sympathizers around the world scare and confound me. I have a lot more to say, but the last time I engaged in a debate about this topic I ended up with 2 warnings for defending myself from personal insults. It's a toxic subject on the Escapist and there's really been enough talk about it around here. The same arguments just get wheeled out and repeated, over and over. You're not going to convince the other guy that he's wrong and you're right on an internet forum.

 

[Single Shot]

Range time? Sure, I spend plenty of time at the range. It's called target practice. Leadership training? Command structure? Pathetic. I sense more behind-the-scenes wikipedia. TELL ME HOW "leadership training" and "command structure" is relevant to anyone for anything? You're grasping for straws, here.

Gun care? Sure, that's fine. That's easy. Two pages in the manual and you're set. I can tell you right now, if you'd like. But improper gun care is only a DANGER TO THE USER, so...irrelevant.

Safety? A bogus topic if I've ever heard one. DON'T EVER, EVER, EVER, EVERRR point a gun at anyone, at all, for any reason, unless that person means to use violence against yourself or your loved ones. That's it. That's all there is to it. Now if we're talking gun mechanics, ANY REGULAR CLASS IS EXTREMELY SUFFICIENT.

Must people don't even need to know how to maintain a firearm - they need only the basics, because their gun can sit out of the way for years until a time may come where it is needed. Hell, almost 80,000,000 gun owners never shoot anyone, thank God. But millions are saved just by having a firearm available to them. Your knee-jerk "military training" response is completely bogus, and has no grounding in reality.

"Fascism" is NOT a political ideology. They WERE Socialists, no matter how today's Socialists dislike being associated with Nazis.

4) You are an idiot. That's it. That's all. You. Are. An. Idiot. "If they want to kill you, they will succeed..." Yeah, well, my Springfield XD has something to say about that. I don't understand how somebody can suffer from such a crippling lack of logic, but that's okay, I guess I'll just disregard the millions of cases reported to the FBI in which an armed citizen saved their own life, as well as the lives of others, by using their firearm.

1) Once you give some kind of structure to an armed militia it severly reduces crime among it's members. when was the last time a massicre took place in Switzerland? oh, that long ago? really? at least partly due to the training and respect for firearms instilledto them before they can take a rifle home.
2) you asked for a list of all training, i gave you it. don'r complain becasue some of it is basic.
3) their safely classes include what to do in high pressure situations, include how to indicate you are friendly to law enforcement (and avoid getting yourself shot in the process) and how/when to take action.
4) Fascism is a political ideology where the population of a country is united by the hatred of a faction/group of factions. it is often baised on strong properganda and utilized parts of both the left and right wing philosophies. it is an extension of nationalism. and the more i think about it the more that describes America.
A socialist goverment would spread power and make all people equal, a democratic goverment would allow the people to choose who controls them, a dictatorship would take power for the man in charge, and a fashism would take the power and then convince the people they were right to do so.

and no. i am not an idiot. if i was an idiot you would have realized that the attacker has surprise on their side. if they want you dead, you die. only robbers are shot by home owners in the casess you mentioned, the same people who DON'T WANT TO KILL YOU, only escape. as i mentioned earlier. and if less people had guins, less criminals would feel the need to carry guns, in England most robbers don't even take a knife becasue they know they probably won't be contronted by a weapon.

You're telling me I'm pulling facts from the ether, and here you are using vague supposition to back up your argument. You have no idea at all what you're talking about, and you have no idea at ALL how many robbers in England "don't even take a knife with them." I KNOW you don't.

Let me tell you something about home invaders, pal. If someone breaks into someone's home, they do so with at least SOME reasonable suspicion that there might be innocent bystanders IN THAT HOME. At any time. Most people sleep at night - if someone breaks into a house at night, they KNOW given the odds there ARE people in that home. They are not there to "not hurt you." They are there knowing there are people in that home who can jeopardize their lives or freedom at any time, and they're going to break in anyway because they intend to deal with it.

Though I guess you might be right. In lovely England, you can be put away for life for trying to defend yourself in any way. Maybe the criminals know this, and just kindly waltz in the front door, tip their hat to you, and ask you to help them take your TV to their car. Is that how it is? Because that way there is no actual aggressive intent, just a sad, sad, craphole of a place to live where, guess what, the weak and willing bend to the strong and able.

I never said ALL, i said MOST. and that is baised on having friends and family robbed three times recently, they live in student halls that area common hunting ground for thieves, and none of their robbers had a weapon. one tried to defend himself with a pen when security turned up.
and again, night break ins often DO escape before they are discovered. so what you said is total crap.

and no, recent change has allowed people to defend their homes. hell, as long as you're smart enougth to say "He was attacking me" you can stab the bastard as much as you want.


I like how you keep abandoning points as i disprove them. keep going.

 

[monkey_man]

you can´t expect him to go toe/to/toe with goddamn vampires, (the first, just looking at that page) Second page, he doesn't use the gun to shoot at bad guys, just to warn the authorities. So is he really using it?

I think all guns are bad options, but that's just me.

he's the batman he should be able to go toe to toe with any god damn one he sees, thats why he's the batman.

And it was never said you had to use the gun to kill someone, just know how to use it. he seems pretty comfortable with it. really you could got tit for tat and saw the batgun is a gone and batman does use that.

I probably would know how to use a gun, I´ve never even seen a real gun with my own eyes. If you use a rake to brush your hair, you're using it as a comb, not a rake. If you use a gun as a `call-police-here´ button, instead of a ´click-to-kill-unit-extravaganza´ you're not using the gun as a gun. not really. I bet if Brucey saw a flaregun lying around he'd use that. Batman will never kill using guns. Except vampires. Fuck those guys. cheating bastards. with their wings and teeth and *grumbles off into the distance*

also I've not been able to find mentions of a batgun

 

[Single Shot]

HA! Let's see your proof on that one. And by the way, what makes "stabbing the bastard" worse than shooting him? Or, I daresay, if this criminal is such an unarmed innocent who just so happens to be confused about the concepts of privacy and personal property, why aren't we shooing him away at gunpoint so nobody gets hurt (which happens thousands upon thousands of times)?

But I know that last bit is absolutely bogus. There is NO provision for a citizen's right to life in UK law. NONE. There are laws in place that persecute life takers, however you have no right to defend yourself whatsoever. Prove me wrong.

I said you COULD. but the fact is that you'd never need to. once they had surrendered then why would you need to do anything but phone the police? and if they attack you you can defend yourself. and if they try and escape i have their face, they will be caught. why wopuld i need anything differnt. and because of gun laws there is almost zero chance the robber will have a gun to shoot me, and a much lower chance he will bring a knife. THAT'S WHAT I WAS SAYING EARLIER!

 

[Wedgetail122]

If I actually privately owned a firearm with a caliber over and including .22 then yes I would, If I want others to be law abiding then by principle I need to be law abiding myself, anyway unless your an ASIO agent (the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation but like your CIA) taking a weapon for protection is looking for more trouble.
I don't think it would be possible to ban ALL firearms here in Australia, , considering the abundance of Rabbits, Feral Pigs, Foxes and other pests. I swear cane toad culling is becoming national sport and by far the easiest and most humane way to dispatch them is a .177 Slug from an air rifle. Although after a series of unfortunate massacres in the 70's Assault and Semi-Automatic weapons have been banned (whilst we still had a couple of shootings nothing on the magnitude of those few dark days), as far as what i'm told the country handed back most of these arms with open arms.