Poll: Guns, are they good or bad?

[Irandrura]

Read the Second Ammendment...Right to bear arms.

As an Australian, I've always been baffled by the American tendency to say 'it's in the constitution therefore it's good' or 'the Founding Fathers said it, therefore it's good'. Those sorts of appeals to authority do not sit well with me.

Incidentally, go Superbeast!

As far as my opinions on the matter go, I honestly don't see why it's a big deal for Americans. Guns are deadly weapons; restricting them to some degree is therefore sensible. Everyone would agree that some degree of gun control is sensible. You wouldn't sell automatic weaponry to a young adult who just wandered in off the street; you wouldn't sell that person explosives; there are a host of restrictions.

It seems to me that this entire argument is a quibble over how much gun control is required. I think there are happy middle grounds, where responsible citizens can undergo training courses and obtain gun licenses, and purchase firearms.

For it must be admitted that there are valid reasons to own guns. Suppose someone is a collector. I will say, though, that I think 'self defense' is an extremely bad motivation for gun ownership. Superbeast already covered some of the statistics. Owning firearms does not make a person safer. However, that's not a reason to stop people owning them, if those people can show themselves to be responsible and able to safely handle guns.

 

[GozerTC]

Agreed this is a tired old topic but one that will always return. *Shrugs*

My wife is Australian, I'm a born and bred American, so you can imagine her response to knowing I had guns in the house. Especially once we found out she was pregnant. It was one of the few areas I wasn't going to bend on, I had guns and she wasn't going to take them from me. Simple as that.

Well recently we had someone come into my house in the middle of the night while I was on my way back from work. She was alone in the house wit hour daughter. She was napping and he came up to our room and stood in the doorway. She heard a sound and called out thinking it was me, but of course I wasn't in town yet.

Luckily he left when she realized he wasn't me. I came home shortly there after and secured the place but as with the police I was far FAR too late to have done any good if he didn't just leave then and there.

Since that day she's been a changed woman when it comes to guns. She now has a loaded weapon nearby (nowhere near our baby girl BTW) whenever I'm not home. We're looking at getting her a personal firearm and not one of mine. (I prefer much larger weapons so she'll need something better than my .22 plinker she's using now.)

For me this is the a number ONE reason behind the 2nd amendment. Personal Self Defense. It is OPTIONAL to have a gun, but we should all have that option to defend ourselves and our family. Removing that option removes the ability of me and mine (or you and yours even) to defend themselves from those who would do them harm. And as the old saying goes "you don't bring a knife to a gun fight." So if the baddies have a gun am I going to just hope they don't do anything to me and mine or try and stop them with a knife? I'm sorry, when a criminal wants to use force he WILL, and there's nothing you can do to stop him if you can't respond in kind.

 

[Irandrura]

Or you could, you know, lock the door (and upgrade locks etc. if worried), get a guard dog, or take any number of equally effective measures. And then there are statistics that show that having a loaded gun on the premises actually makes it more likely someone will be shot than otherwise...

Here's an important point: most criminals do not attack people when invading a home. Burglars usually target empty houses, and flee if anyone is home. It's just good sense. They want to steal something they can sell, and they don't want to get caught. Confronting anyone is simply a bad idea, and also a reason why, if a person is home during a burglary, they should usually not attempt to confront the thief. Confronting them with a gun will escalate the situation and make it considerably more likely that someone will get shot.

 

[GozerTC]

Read the Second Ammendment...Right to bear arms.

As an Australian, I've always been baffled by the American tendency to say 'it's in the constitution therefore it's good' or 'the Founding Fathers said it, therefore it's good'. Those sorts of appeals to authority do not sit well with me.

/Agreed. Though that's also the point here. We don't want the authorities butting in as much or having to depend on them when the world we live in is not all sweetness and light.

(BTW Where in OZ do you hail? My Wife's from Sydney.)

As far as my opinions on the matter go, I honestly don't see why it's a big deal for Americans. Guns are deadly weapons; restricting them to some degree is therefore sensible. Everyone would agree that some degree of gun control is sensible. You wouldn't sell automatic weaponry to a young adult who just wandered in off the street; you wouldn't sell that person explosives; there are a host of restrictions.

Most pro-gun folks are perfectly fine with the current levels of gun control. The biggest complain we have is that folks keep trying to add more and more laws that do nothing to help stop crime, or even make things safer.

Automatic weapons? Already banned for normal people, no worries there. Must be 18 and pass a background check. Good. You can't buy a gun for someone else (that's a straw purchase and also illegal). Certain states require different safety classes, here in California I had to pass a pistol safety class before I could take it home. Waiting periods in most states.

So except for those who openly want to ban guns (who I respect since at least they're HONEST with their views) I don't see why there's an issue with the laws we have on the books.

It seems to me that this entire argument is a quibble over how much gun control is required. I think there are happy middle grounds, where responsible citizens can undergo training courses and obtain gun licenses, and purchase firearms.

See above, I'm with you on everything there except the gun licenses and registrations. Mainly because they've been used regularly to confiscate weapons later on if the government decides to take them. Australia is a prime example since every one of your firearms owners (what few there were and are) that OBEY THE LAW are all known to the government and at any time can be searched and had their property seized.

Oh sure you can do that now in the USA, but at least it's a bit more difficult to find who's got what. Or what exactly we have. Though I'm not one of those paranoids who thinks the government is going to come knocking on my door at any moment.

For it must be admitted that there are valid reasons to own guns. Suppose someone is a collector. I will say, though, that I think 'self defense' is an extremely bad motivation for gun ownership. Superbeast already covered some of the statistics. Owning firearms does not make a person safer. However, that's not a reason to stop people owning them, if those people can show themselves to be responsible and able to safely handle guns.

I would also point out that many of those stats are all a matter of interpretation. As the saying goes, "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics." For instance my favorite one listed was the kids killed by guns line. What counts as a kid? Well if you're under 18 and a gang banger and you're shot by another gang banger guess what? You're a kid killed by a gun. For anyone who wants to seriously look at how messed up the numbers really are in all of this please check out http://www.gunfacts.info

 

[lizards]

Fact: Countries such as Malta and Japan have a ban on firearms and most lethal weaponry, whereas the USA does not.
Fact: Crime, especially murders, are almost nonexistant in Malta whereas in Japan they tend to be very rare occasions.

When you're raised in a society that believes any kind of problem can be solved with pulling a trigger you're asking for it.

fact america has VERY different cultures to both of them

when you are raised differently your countrys will be different

edit: on topic: guns are good when im walking down the streets trying to watch out for thugs and gangsters its much nicer to know that you have 7 9 milimeter suprises for a would be thug

 

[GozerTC]

Or you could, you know, lock the door (and upgrade locks etc. if worried), get a guard dog, or take any number of equally effective measures. And then there are statistics that show that having a loaded gun on the premises actually makes it more likely someone will be shot than otherwise...

Here's an important point: most criminals do not attack people when invading a home. Burglars usually target empty houses, and flee if anyone is home. It's just good sense. They want to steal something they can sell, and they don't want to get caught. Confronting anyone is simply a bad idea, and also a reason why, if a person is home during a burglary, they should usually not attempt to confront the thief. Confronting them with a gun will escalate the situation and make it considerably more likely that someone will get shot.

Came through a window. Ignored the dog. Anything else?

I'm sorry I've been through this BS about "invasions" a bunch already. Try living through one and you'll know that just having the gun there will make you feel better if nothing else. Shouting and telling the guy to get out isn't as dangerous as you make it sound. It's just like how she asked "Who is it" was "confronting the intruder." She would have felt a whole HELL of a lot safer in that situation having a gun aimed at the jerk!

*Breaths*

Seriously though EVERY incident is different. I can bring up hundreds if not thousands of articles showing how a gun can save the lives of those who have been invaded. Many of those would have been dead had it not been for the fact that they could respond to deadly force in kind. If YOU want to live without a chance to defend yourself that is YOUR choice, please don't force it on me.

My gun hasn't harmed anyone and it won't unless they're coming to harm me.

 

[GozerTC]

Oh a few statistics just to add into things: (May have been said earlier and all of these have foot notes and references listed http://www.gunfacts.info)

Myth: Accidental gun fatalities are a serious problem

Fact: Firearm misuse causes only a small number of accidental deaths in the U.S.270 For
example, compared to accidental death from firearms, you are:
? Four times more likely to burn to death or drown
? 17 times more likely to be poisoned
? 19 times more likely to fall
? And 53 times more likely to die in an automobile accident

Fact: In 2001, there were only 65 accidental gun deaths for children under age 13. About
11 times as many children die from drowning.

Fact: In 1993, there were 1,334 drownings and 528 firearm-related accidental deaths
from ages 0-19. Firearms outnumber pools by a factor of over 30:1. Thus, the risk of
drowning in a pool is nearly 100 times higher than from a firearm-related accident for
everyone, and nearly 500 times for ages 0-5.

Fact: Medical mistakes kill 400,000 people per year ? the equivalent of almost three fully loaded Boeing 747 jet crashes per day ? or about 286 times the rate of all accidental firearm
deaths. This translates into 1 in 6 doctors causing an accidental death, and 1 in 56,666
gun owners doing the same.

Fact: Only 3% of gun deaths are from accidents, and some insurance investigations indicate that many of these may not be accidents after all.

Fact: Around 2,000 patients each year ? six per day ? are accidentally killed or injured in
hospitals by registered nurses

Myth: 13 children are killed each day by guns

Fact: Adults included ? This ?statistic? includes ?children? up to age 19 or 24,
depending on the source. Most violent crime is committed by males ages 16-24, these
numbers end up including adult gang members dying during criminal activity. The
proper definition of ?child? is a person between birth and puberty (typically 13-14 years
old).

Fact: Criminals are included - 70% of these deaths are juveniles or adults, ages 17 to
20, during gang warfare. Half of the juveniles killed are involved in gang activity at the
time of their deaths: often drug related firefights.

Fact: Suicides and criminals included - These numbers include criminal activities and suicides. As suicides make up more than ½ of all gun deaths, the number children killed could drop even further, to about 1.3 a day.

Fact: The federal government lists the total firearm related deaths for children were 612,
or 1.7 per day, in 1998. 154 were suicides

Fact: Over 13 teenagers die every day in automobiles, seven behind the wheel.

Fact: Four children die each day in the U.S. from parental neglect and abuse.

Fact: For contrast: 1,917 children die each day from malaria around the world and 15
men, women, and children per day are murdered by a convicted felon in government
supervised parole/probation programs in the U.S.

 

[JRslinger]

A well armed population is safer from large scale government persecution. It's because the authoritarians fear being shot so they are more reluctant to act on their authoritarian ambitions. Don't forget positions of power are often filled by power hungry people. This is what the 2nd Amendment is for.

Whist that is indeed true (it's a constitutional right, regardless of my opinion on it), how do you explain the stark contrast in murder/rape* rates between the United States and any European country?

It's a combination of the decline of traditional moral values, the war on drugs and the fact that America has a large racial underclass unlike Europe. This gives rise to strong criminal subcultures in the ghettos where most of the gun crime happens.

I've also noticed that some anti gun people can't imagine a gun being successfully used in self defense. The national crime victimization survey estimates 100,000 defensive gun uses per year. It's on page 8

http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/165476.pdf

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Oh a few statistics just to add into things: (May have been said earlier and all of these have foot notes and references listed http://www.gunfacts.info)

Myth: Accidental gun fatalities are a serious problem

Fact: Firearm misuse causes only a small number of accidental deaths in the U.S.270 For
example, compared to accidental death from firearms, you are:
? Four times more likely to burn to death or drown
? 17 times more likely to be poisoned
? 19 times more likely to fall
? And 53 times more likely to die in an automobile accident

Fact: In 2001, there were only 65 accidental gun deaths for children under age 13. About
11 times as many children die from drowning.

Fact: In 1993, there were 1,334 drownings and 528 firearm-related accidental deaths
from ages 0-19. Firearms outnumber pools by a factor of over 30:1. Thus, the risk of
drowning in a pool is nearly 100 times higher than from a firearm-related accident for
everyone, and nearly 500 times for ages 0-5.

Fact: Medical mistakes kill 400,000 people per year ? the equivalent of almost three fully loaded Boeing 747 jet crashes per day ? or about 286 times the rate of all accidental firearm
deaths. This translates into 1 in 6 doctors causing an accidental death, and 1 in 56,666
gun owners doing the same.

Fact: Only 3% of gun deaths are from accidents, and some insurance investigations indicate that many of these may not be accidents after all.

Fact: Around 2,000 patients each year ? six per day ? are accidentally killed or injured in
hospitals by registered nurses

Myth: 13 children are killed each day by guns

Fact: Adults included ? This ?statistic? includes ?children? up to age 19 or 24,
depending on the source. Most violent crime is committed by males ages 16-24, these
numbers end up including adult gang members dying during criminal activity. The
proper definition of ?child? is a person between birth and puberty (typically 13-14 years
old).

Fact: Criminals are included - 70% of these deaths are juveniles or adults, ages 17 to
20, during gang warfare. Half of the juveniles killed are involved in gang activity at the
time of their deaths: often drug related firefights.

Fact: Suicides and criminals included - These numbers include criminal activities and suicides. As suicides make up more than ½ of all gun deaths, the number children killed could drop even further, to about 1.3 a day.

Fact: The federal government lists the total firearm related deaths for children were 612,
or 1.7 per day, in 1998. 154 were suicides

Fact: Over 13 teenagers die every day in automobiles, seven behind the wheel.

Fact: Four children die each day in the U.S. from parental neglect and abuse.

Fact: For contrast: 1,917 children die each day from malaria around the world and 15
men, women, and children per day are murdered by a convicted felon in government
supervised parole/probation programs in the U.S.

Wow. I think that covers about the entire "accidental deaths of children" angle.

I don't think guns should be outlawed... IN AMERICA! [/Yu-gi-oh: TAS] If we had started with them banned, it may have been a different story, but at this point, banning guns would be like trying to ban alcohol. Remember how well that worked out?

 

[tsb247]

outlawing pistols and assault rifles, sure there only meant to kill people but hunting rifles are fine with me

Allow me to introduce you to my hunting rifle:

Spoiler

IMG]http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l202/tsb247/100_1311.jpg[/IMG]

I use it for prairie dogs, cyotes, rabbits, and other small game (whenever I can get a hunting trip put together).

The problem here is how ignorant people try and classify a firearm by, "How deadly," it is. I promise you that the firearm in the image I just posted will make a human no more or less dead than falling down a long set of stairs, getting hit by a car, overdosing on a prescription medication, getting hit by lightning, etc.

The fact is, that a firearm is a tool. It exists only to do the bidding of its master (the person wielding it). It my hands, the only living things that should fear me are the prairie dogs that called the wrong rancher's pastures their home.

thats an assault rifle variant probably made to only fire semi-automatic for civilian use, sure you can kill things,other than people, with it but try using that on a deer and you will only wound it. When I said hunting rifle im talking about bolt action rifles not all semi-automatics.

So when you referred to, "Assault rifles," you were referring to automatic rifles of a similar design?

Restricting automatic weapons does not bother me as long as they are legal in every state and at most, lightly regulated (and they are not). I am not a fan of restriction at all, but that seems to be the only way to make both sides of the argument happy. People have the guns they want, and there is some piece of mind in knowing that the individual with the weapon had to get checked out beforehand in order to own/use it.

The great thing about this particular rifle is that it is modular. It can be whatever caliber I choose to make it. All I have to do is switch out the upper reciever and it can be a .308 (a great deer round).

The problem I am referring to is the definition of an 'assault' weapon, hunting rifle, target rifle, etc. Who is it that should decide? This rifle can be almost anything I chose to make it. In my opinion, nobody (and one could argue that the Constitution says that as well). As long as the proper steps are followed to ensure the weapon is in the hands of a responsible individual that know how to use it, there is no problem.

 

[Irandrura]

(BTW Where in OZ do you hail? My Wife's from Sydney.)

Melbourne.

Automatic weapons? Already banned for normal people, no worries there. Must be 18 and pass a background check. Good. You can't buy a gun for someone else (that's a straw purchase and also illegal). Certain states require different safety classes, here in California I had to pass a pistol safety class before I could take it home. Waiting periods in most states.

And that's all reasonable. I have no complaints there. Background check. Waiting period. Mandatory safety class. That's all ideal.

See above, I'm with you on everything there except the gun licenses and registrations.

We require people to obtain licenses before we let them drive cars, don't we? Aren't mis-handled guns just as dangerous as mis-handled cars?

Incidentally, I personally am not a gun owner - which is more to do with my opinion that they're very ugly pieces of metal - but I am a sword owner, and we do have a number of safety laws to do with it. I have my license. I have to lock it up when at home. When I take it out, I must either hold it openly, visible to all, or put it inside a bag that encloses the entire thing (golf bags are ideal). This is all reasonable, I would think. Certain safety measures are desirable.

I would also point out that many of those stats are all a matter of interpretation. As the saying goes, "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics."

You don't like the way I quoted a statistic... so you respond with a large post full of statistics yourself? Doesn't that seem inconsistent to you?

In any case, the way that statistics can be randomly selected makes me naturally skeptical of any pro-gun or anti-gun site anyone might link to. We are not going to get fair reports from sites with political agendas.

Came through a window. Ignored the dog. Anything else?

They are significant obstacles and sensible precautions. Are you arguing that those precautions have a significantly higher failure rate than gun ownership? That claim needs a good deal more justification than a few glib dismissals.

Try living through one and you'll know that just having the gun there will make you feel better if nothing else.

So, what, you suggest people should own guns for the sake of their own paranoid fears? I thought we were smarter than that.

She would have felt a whole HELL of a lot safer in that situation having a gun aimed at the jerk!

This isn't about how comfortable she feels. A gun might act as a placebo and calm her down somewhat. That does not mean it actually makes her safer.

A well armed population is safer from large scale government persecution. It's because the authoritarians fear being shot so they are more reluctant to act on their authoritarian ambitions. Don't forget positions of power are often filled by power hungry people. This is what the 2nd Amendment is for.

Actually, that argument is equally invalid and makes less sense than the 'self defense' line.

The fact is that gun-wielding rabble are never going to be able to stand against a state military. You have your militia run out with side-arms and... then what? The government has tanks, jets, missiles... even all that aside, the government has a professional army. Training and discipline count for far more than people often assume. In any uprising against the government, you have two possibilities. 1) The military sides with the government. The military may be used to crack down on gun-armed rioters. The military wins. 2) The military sides with the rebels. The government is overthrown.

I mean, seriously, what do you imagine will happen when ordinary people try to fight soldiers?

Compare, for example, ancient Rome. There, the most advanced personal weaponry were swords, and every person could own a dagger or smallsword. Most people did have some basic weapons; knives are extremely useful things to have. Rome's enemies were very similar. The Etruscans, the Gallic Celts, the Iberians... these were all universally armed. And yet we find that a professional military steamrolled them.

Look at Iraq. Very wide gun ownership. (Linky. [http://www.cdi.org/program/document.cfm?documentid=2041&programID=69&from_page=../friendlyversion/printversion.cfm]) And yet that did nothing to prevent Iraq's own government, or to effectively combat the US military when it came charging in. The same US military that would be your enemy were the US government to unleash it on you.

Sorry, but having a shotgun in your cupboard (or whatever) does precisely nothing to make you safer from government persecution.

 

[Jacobistheshiz]

Guns are a good thing as long as their used responsibly. As in you don't go murder people.
Now if you take guns away from law abideing citizens that just means only criminals will have guns. Does this sound like a good thing to you? And if anyone thinks that the police will help them is sadly mistaken. It takes police about a half an hour to get to you. Longer if your out of town. So this gives you a 40 minute window where you got to fend of attackers with a kitchen knife.
Chances are all rights to arms will be striped away. Because the government doesn't care about their people. If you ask me I just think it's the government tameing our asses so we have nothing to fight back with when they take away all rights.

 

[TundraWolf08]

The problem is that people blame guns and not the user. I've been shooting fire arms since I was six years old. And I've probably shot tens of thousands of rounds. Not one has hit a person because I'm mentally stable, I'm well raised, I'm financially stable, and I know how to handle a weapon. Problem is, not everyone else is like that. Crazy people use fire arms to kill. They also use knives. Fists, and anything else you can think of. I remember hearing over the radio through a period of one month that three people were killed. One by fire. One by being beaten to death. Then the last was beaten half to death and then lit on fire. My state has relatively loose fire arm laws. And yet there are very few gun crimes. As for the statistics that gun haters so often quote, this is a FBI statistic. For every 3 lives taken by guns, SIXTY TWO, are saved.

Guns are just tools. No gun in existence can willingly harm a human. And if guns are taken away then there will be few things to keep the government from taking away other liberties. that we have. The cops can't be everywhere after all... and I'd rather have my life in my own hands than risk it with some crazy, desperate criminal.

http://scottthong.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/rapedeterrencemotiv.jpg

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

Your numbers are flawed and absurd. Canada has more *registered* firearms per person than the US has Firearms per person, and look at the difference in gun related violence. Its a social problems. Take away one tool, and criminals will find another and/or keep using it anyways.

This is something many people overlook and was actually part of Moores 'bowling for Columbine' but because of a few anti-gun stances he holds even pro-gun people over looked it! He pointed out, clearly, that Canada has just as much firearms as the USA and are just as easy to get. Yet Canada has only a fraction, a TINY fraction at that, of the gun related violence. He even asked the NRA* about this but they used the question to promote sensationalism, trying to say Canadians are having their guns taken away and the US should fear the same, instead of addressing this very key point. A great loss, I felt, cause this was proof right there that the guns where NOT the problem and they just threw it away!

It is the mentality between the two countries which is telling. In the USA people are being driven to be fearful of EVERYTHING. It is no surprise that a fearful person is more likely to do something stupid with a firearm then someone who is in a rational mindset. The American people are being groomed to respond violently to imagined threats. The main culprit for this is the media outlets themselves, the worse part, is simply because fear sells the news! No conspiracy to make people more blood thirsty. Just one to sell papers, air time and net space by being the most sensationalistic response driven media outlet....

For those curious about this just do a comparison of the media outlets, particularly TV and radio, over the course of a few months. Take a sampling from around the world and compare it to the US stations and see just how fear driven the US media is. It is down right scary and the affect is a society believing that every rape and murder is happening right on their own street.

Nothing increases news stories about crime like a drop in crime rates.

*My personal view is this group is nothing more then a nut case 'cult' designed around sensualist and emotional responses. Sadly this is very common with any 'focus group' coming out of the US these days. I feel groups like the NRA add to the problem as they become the 'spokespersons' of the whole group and they are, as I mentioned, nuts.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

I will say it here as I have in other gun threads: There is enough statistics and 'facts' for both sides to quote but that proves the whole response is nothing but opinion and emotional! The real issue is not to yell at each other and bang on the tables to if 'guns are bad' but to damn well sit down and work out ways to reduce the amount of gun related death and violence.

Proper handling and care for firearms would be a good place to start.
There are also many devices out there that can 'lock out' firearms.
There are even new firearms being developed (metal storm for example) that will prevent firing if they are not being used by the correct owner!

Instead of arguing for or against gun control maybe we should find the proper middle ground... safe gun ownership.

 

[RelexCryo]

Guns are guns. They're as good or bad as the person holding one. And yes, I'm well aware of all the ninja activity around here, but I'm ignoring it.

But it'd be interesting to see what'd happen with crime if every bank teller and City employee was required to carry a firearm at all times (after an extensive screening process, of course).

"Hey, I'd like to rob your bank. See? I have a gun."

"I'd like you to not rob our bank. See these thirty guys behind me? They all have guns."

QFT. Law abiding citizens outnumber crooks. And most (not some, most) crooks have access to the illegal market anyways.

Apart from which, if self defense is a right, then isn't the ability to defend oneself also a right?

Of course, you might argue, "But if crooks didn't have guns, you wouldn't need one!" But, with the existence of the illegal market, it doesn't really work that way.

 

[Superbeast]

As an Australian, I've always been baffled by the American tendency to say 'it's in the constitution therefore it's good' or 'the Founding Fathers said it, therefore it's good'. Those sorts of appeals to authority do not sit well with me.

Incidentally, go Superbeast!

For it must be admitted that there are valid reasons to own guns. Suppose someone is a collector. I will say, though, that I think 'self defense' is an extremely bad motivation for gun ownership. Superbeast already covered some of the statistics. Owning firearms does not make a person safer. However, that's not a reason to stop people owning them, if those people can show themselves to be responsible and able to safely handle guns.

Thank you - at least someone read the links (unbiased in any way from pro/anti-gun control - they're just the flat rates of crime) and drew the logical conclusion for them. It seems that now I have backed my argument up with solid statistics I've just been ignored in favour of sensationalism - people since my post are still saying guns prevent murder and rape (which if they do makes those statistics far more terrifying).

I really don't see how 58% of murders being carried out by firearms (and double-to-three times the numbers of murder per-capita) compared to 0.07% of murders carried out by firearms in the UK shows that guns are not a part of the problem. A 3x higher rape rate and roughly equal (slightly higher) assault rate too. You can say that a "racial underclass" is the cause of these issues, but there is some extreme discrepancy here that I do not think can be brushed under the rug like that (for instance the UK is having an increasing issues with gangs and drug usage is pretty high, so there are the same root causes of the issues in America - just on a smaller scale (but not 57.93 times smaller)).

As it happens, I quite like the way the Aussies handle gun control - and feel that America should adopt regulation that is more Australian since it cannot ban firearms.

 

[Tedy567]

you know this is 7 pages of either A) people that i hate and cannot stand, or B) people i agree with.

so here. im not going to read through 7 pages on the escapist forums because i dont have the time, patience, or temper management too.

so how about this

You say: "People do not need guns. if you take away guns you take away crime"

I say: "Criminals will ALWAYS find ways to steal and own firearms, the concept of de-arming a country is about as stupid as trying to eliminate drunk driving by taking away all the alcohol. your gonna be able to find it somewhere."

You say: "Guns kill people, therefore they shuld not be allowed in our society"

I say: "Guns kill people, yes they do, then again, so do: Knives, cell phones, cars, computers, insects, rats, cricket paddles, air conditioners, and every other object on this earth. if you can name it, IT HAS KILLED SOMEONE"

You say: "guns cause people to think their better than other people, and make them unstable to live in a peaceful world."

I Say: "there is no peace, no harmony, their is only the time between conflicts. and it is that time when gun owners are non violent. if a man walked into my house right now with bad intentions i would not hesitate to kill him. if a man walked into your house that had no gun in it he would kill you, rape your wife. and burn the place to the ground."

You say: "a gun is evil, it makes people do evil things because they thing they are better and more powerful"

I say: "yes, yes it does make people do things out of the ordinary. im standing in line at the local quick stop with a carton of eggs and a quart of milk. the man in front of me pulls out a stolen revolver and tells the cashier to empty the register and give him the money. i pull out my .45 and shoot him twice in the head. and the crisis has been averted."

You say: "that robber was someones son!"

I say: "well then maybe you should have told his parents to raise him in a way that he would go to school and not rob quick stops. so fuck you"


and thats one thing to all you fucking Ninjas and post modders on here. fuck you. fuck you all. your all pices of shit and i hope that at least 2 or 3 people read this before it gets modded.

Power to the public.

Let free speach endure

if you dont like what i have to say

FUCKING GET OVER IT.

know what.

as a matter of fact.

im out