How do my fellow escapists feel about guns? (The real kind)

[Scout Tactical]

Sorry, I missed the fully auto part of the previous statement.

Yeah, fully automatic is generally where I draw the line.

And to be honest, our hunting rifles are pretty scary. Sometimes I feel like we need better restraint on them too.

 

[VanityGirl]

Love 'em.

I grew up with a gun. I lived on a farm growing up and honestly I needed a gun when I was out checking on the crops so I didn't get attacked by a boar, snake, coyote, gator, ect.

I have a feeling like many people here think that people buy guns just to shoot other people. When I was in south Georgia in a farming community, everyone owned a gun. We had NO gun crime.


Take away the guns and then what? People will still kill people. If you think it's going to solve a problem, I think you're delusional.

 

[theamazingbean]

Sorry, I missed the fully auto part of the previous statement.

Yeah, fully automatic is generally where I draw the line.

And to be honest, our hunting rifles are pretty scary. Sometimes I feel like we need better restraint on them too.

And we should cover every hard surface in the world with foam padding so no one falls down and gets a boo-boo.

 

[Malyc]

Sorry, I missed the fully auto part of the previous statement.

Yeah, fully automatic is generally where I draw the line.

And to be honest, our hunting rifles are pretty scary. Sometimes I feel like we need better restraint on them too.

Not necessarily... Some of the game that people use them to hunt would kill you if you didn't stop it fast enough. But, I can understand where you are coming from with those feelings.

 

[Malyc]

Sorry, I missed the fully auto part of the previous statement.

Yeah, fully automatic is generally where I draw the line.

And to be honest, our hunting rifles are pretty scary. Sometimes I feel like we need better restraint on them too.

And we should cover every hard surface in the world with foam padding so no one falls down and gets a boo-boo.

Wow... Best comeback I've seen in a while. Keep in mind though: friction burns hurt. This plan may cause more injuries than it prevents...

 

[Scout Tactical]

And we should cover every hard surface in the world with foam padding so no one falls down and gets a boo-boo.

I guess I'm just concerned about hunting rifles because I go to a university where a sniper got into the tower and gave lots of people boo boos. Thirteen people died of their boo-boos. Last semester a shooter took hostages in the library next to my dorm, and killed himself with a boo-boo to the head after the police surrounded the building, but fortunately he didn't give any boo-boos to the people reading.

I'll tell you what, though, I'm willing to intentionally hit a hard surface and bruise myself if you willingly take a bullet to the head.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman

 

[duckfi8]

I own more guns than I can count, I use them for hunting though

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Conflicted.

One on hand, there's the FPS geek in me that loves them and gets all excited talking to my army buddies about the effects of a 50CAL bullet on a body.

At the same time, they kill people and that doesn't sit right with me as it's something I'm not sure I could ever live with doing.

It's people like you that try to blame everything on weapons, instead of poor education/bad intentions.
Does the knife in the kitchen drawer have the ability to stab someone of it's own accord? How about the axe? Can it cut down a tree by sitting in your shed?
Objects don't, and can't have a will of their own. Plus, as a hunter I've never seen a gun kill anything. The venison in my freezer? I killed that. The gun just made the job slightly easier, and if i didn't have the gun, I'd have used my bow. If I didn't have a bow, i'd have used a spear. If I really want something dead, it's going to die regardless of what I use to kill it.
Now, LET THE RAGING COMMENTS FOR ME BEING A DEFENDER OF GUNS COMMENCE!!!

The hell are you on about? I merely said I had conflicted feelings on them. Don't involve me in your supposed moral debate.

 

[Malyc]

Conflicted.

One on hand, there's the FPS geek in me that loves them and gets all excited talking to my army buddies about the effects of a 50CAL bullet on a body.

At the same time, they kill people and that doesn't sit right with me as it's something I'm not sure I could ever live with doing.

It's people like you that try to blame everything on weapons, instead of poor education/bad intentions.
Does the knife in the kitchen drawer have the ability to stab someone of it's own accord? How about the axe? Can it cut down a tree by sitting in your shed?
Objects don't, and can't have a will of their own. Plus, as a hunter I've never seen a gun kill anything. The venison in my freezer? I killed that. The gun just made the job slightly easier, and if i didn't have the gun, I'd have used my bow. If I didn't have a bow, i'd have used a spear. If I really want something dead, it's going to die regardless of what I use to kill it.
Now, LET THE RAGING COMMENTS FOR ME BEING A DEFENDER OF GUNS COMMENCE!!!

The hell are you on about? I merely said I had conflicted feelings on them. Don't involve me in your supposed moral debate.

You also said guns kill people, which is false.

 

[Rachel317]

I'm from the UK so have never had any dealings with guns, but I don't really understand why this is relevant in this day and age. Fair enough, 200 years ago there was a need for 'em but now...
I heard a lot of schools have metal detectors outside. This isn't how it should be, surely?

I mean, yes, guns don't kill people, people kill people, but look at that Republican lady (sorry, I forget her name) who was shot the other day, along with a child and several others. I'm not saying the guy wouldn't have tried to hurt her if he didn't have a gun, but having a gun made it a HELL of a lot easier to do damage. If he had a knife, for example, he could only really attack one person at a time, giving someone enough time to restrain him. With a gun...well, there's only going to be one winner. I'm glad to see that the woman will recover, but did the child have to die? What about the guys who have taken guns into school and gone on killing-sprees? Yes, they're in need of mental help to begin with and I'm not suggesting that they wouldn't have tried to do harm to people even if they didn't have guns, but it sure made it easier for them.

Surely prevention should be the key thing here, not dealing with the consequences AFTER someone has died?

Police, yes, they should have guns, but civilians...there are too many mentally unhinged people out there, and what with guns being relatively easy to obtain in the US, it seems like it's just ASKING for trouble.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Conflicted.

One on hand, there's the FPS geek in me that loves them and gets all excited talking to my army buddies about the effects of a 50CAL bullet on a body.

At the same time, they kill people and that doesn't sit right with me as it's something I'm not sure I could ever live with doing.

It's people like you that try to blame everything on weapons, instead of poor education/bad intentions.
Does the knife in the kitchen drawer have the ability to stab someone of it's own accord? How about the axe? Can it cut down a tree by sitting in your shed?
Objects don't, and can't have a will of their own. Plus, as a hunter I've never seen a gun kill anything. The venison in my freezer? I killed that. The gun just made the job slightly easier, and if i didn't have the gun, I'd have used my bow. If I didn't have a bow, i'd have used a spear. If I really want something dead, it's going to die regardless of what I use to kill it.
Now, LET THE RAGING COMMENTS FOR ME BEING A DEFENDER OF GUNS COMMENCE!!!

The hell are you on about? I merely said I had conflicted feelings on them. Don't involve me in your supposed moral debate.

You also said guns kill people, which is false.

Their primary function is to kill. If I were to use a gun, or any other instrument, to kill a person (and don't give me some bullshit about hunting rabbits with an AK-47) I would have a hard time dealing with what I had done. What I had done.

That was my point. Save your NRA rantings for someone who actually wants to argue with you.

 

[Falconguard]

...does anyone else find it HILARIOUSLY ironic that there's a lot of people saying guns are bad blah blah blah and the ad banners on either side of this forum is a picture of a gun made of guns advertising a movie where lots of guns are used to assassinate people?

 

[Amyler]

It causes more trouble than it might help prevent crime.

Criminals own guns no matter what the law is, look at the mess in california and its illigal to have a gun outside your home and how it peopl are still shot with guns Bought off the black market? now look at texas were you can openly walk around with a gun and compare the crimrate between taxas that allows citizens to carry guns to california that does not allow citizens to carry guns and tell me what the differense is. Would anyone risk robbing a person with the strong possibility of being shot in the process? i own a few rifles, handguns and shotguns all locked up, empty and trigger locked in a weapons locker. I also live in california but i am not allowed to walk out of the house with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate

Texas has nearly double the violent crime rate that California does. Apparently, lots of people would risk robbing a person with the strong possibility of being shot.

The evidence is clear. The more available the tools, the more people use them. Sure, you can say how criminals will get guns anyway. To an extent, that is true. But you look at the black and white picture, missing the huge mass of grey. Massive amounts of people who don't get access to weapons won't have them, so they won't use them, so they won't cause damage with them.

 

[mxfox408]

It causes more trouble than it might help prevent crime.

Criminals own guns no matter what the law is, look at the mess in california and its illigal to have a gun outside your home and how it peopl are still shot with guns Bought off the black market? now look at texas were you can openly walk around with a gun and compare the crimrate between taxas that allows citizens to carry guns to california that does not allow citizens to carry guns and tell me what the differense is. Would anyone risk robbing a person with the strong possibility of being shot in the process? i own a few rifles, handguns and shotguns all locked up, empty and trigger locked in a weapons locker. I also live in california but i am not allowed to walk out of the house with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate

Texas has nearly double the violent crime rate that California does. Apparently, lots of people would risk robbing a person with the strong possibility of being shot.

The evidence is clear. The more available the tools, the more people use them. Sure, you can say how criminals will get guns anyway. To an extent, that is true. But you look at the black and white picture, missing the huge mass of grey. Massive amounts of people who don't get access to weapons won't have them, so they won't use them, so they won't cause damage with them.

as far as violent crime rates go California has the highest in that category on the chart, robbery also is highest in california as far as that chart goes. which goes to show even with a anti gun law in place its still higher than in texas thats 2009 so here is the rankings of 2010 by top worst cities and youll notice youll see alot of california cities before youll see one texas city. http://www.docstoc.com/docs/63100794/2010-City-Crime-Rate-Rankings

 

[deedoubleyou]

I don't know enough about America to comment on that country's gun laws or their effectiveness but I can say with absolute certainty that Britain is fine the way it is with gun law, from Wikipedia; "The number of homicides per year committed with firearms has remained between a range of 49 and 97 in the 8 years to 2006".


Having said that I would probably enjoy going shooting if I was allowed to own a gun however there is no way I would want the current laws to change in order that I could do so, its just not worth it.

 

[Gentle Dementia]

I'm divided. I know society would be better without them ("illegal guns means only criminals have guns" is false in every way). But on the other hand, I want one!

How exactly is that 'false in every way?'

Just look at Japan, or Jamaica (I think, could have been a different Caribbean nation). Most gang violence there is done with swords and or knives/machetes, and there is a lot less of it because they don't have guns in the same numbers we do. They have banned guns, and it makes them not "only available to criminals" because they don't get to the country in the first place. They're still there but not nearly as many.

 

[queenorivers]

[deleted]

 

[mythicdawn12]

Of course everyone is going to pull up statistics that make their sides sound better. "Britain doesn't have as much gun violence now that they're banned" etc. Have you looked at violence in general? Stabbings? Whatever. But what I ask of the anti-gun crowd is to have a quick objective stance right as I'm explaining this part here, that has everything to do with logic. Emotion clouds judgment so if we could leave that behind for a bit this will work out fantastic. Guns are overall tools for killing, yes. So were swords and maces a long time ago and a loooong time ago people used rocks. Our history is a history of war, really. And we have a lot of the good guy versus the bad guy stories. Dark side versus light.
There are attackers and defenders ladies and gentlemen. We give freedom of speech here in America because it lets everyone speak freely and openly. Yes, even the KKK and the Neo-Nazis get to have their parades or whatever the hell they have. Do I agree with it? Not at all, they're incredibly close-minded and generally stupid in my opinion. We can't just take away the most disgusting things just because we don't agree with it. To do that is to go down a slippery slope, the majority silencing anyone they don't care for.
It's the same concept. Weapons, (I'm saying weapons in general here to distinguish from guns) have been used by both sides of the moral spectrum. There have been many people who have defended their families from home invasions. There have been many drive-by shootings and murders of passion. The mistake most are making here is pitying the robber or the rapist: the criminal in general. Their death is a tragedy because a life, a LIFE, was taken.
But criminals are like rabid dogs. They need to be locked away or put down before they hurt anyone else. Either one is fine to me, but practical means also apply. If you can't lock them away at the moment they are trying to harm you or your child or someone innocent you don't know what are you going to do? The way most are saying, you would whimper, plead and beg, and then you or someone you care for would die.
The power to hurt and destroy is the most important power in the world. Not to use it against other people, but so that you do not become subject to that power from others.
Take the "violence is bad" completely out of the emotional equation. Because whether it's good or bad, it can happen to you at any time. It does happen every day to honest people like you or me. I prefer living, to be honest.

 

[Scout Tactical]

It causes more trouble than it might help prevent crime.

Criminals own guns no matter what the law is, look at the mess in california and its illigal to have a gun outside your home and how it peopl are still shot with guns Bought off the black market? now look at texas were you can openly walk around with a gun and compare the crimrate between taxas that allows citizens to carry guns to california that does not allow citizens to carry guns and tell me what the differense is. Would anyone risk robbing a person with the strong possibility of being shot in the process? i own a few rifles, handguns and shotguns all locked up, empty and trigger locked in a weapons locker. I also live in california but i am not allowed to walk out of the house with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate

Texas has nearly double the violent crime rate that California does. Apparently, lots of people would risk robbing a person with the strong possibility of being shot.

The evidence is clear. The more available the tools, the more people use them. Sure, you can say how criminals will get guns anyway. To an extent, that is true. But you look at the black and white picture, missing the huge mass of grey. Massive amounts of people who don't get access to weapons won't have them, so they won't use them, so they won't cause damage with them.

Texas also has a much higher illegal Latino population per capita, and illegal immigrants (who are already breaking the law) are much less likely to respect the existing laws. Notice that Florida, which has the loosest guns laws of any state, is pretty low on that list. Maybe you should be more careful about your assumptions. Correlation does not imply causation.