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

[Do4600]

I would buy a huge bag of popcorn and ticket to southern part of USA.

This is the wrong answer, there is no reason to go to the southern United States.

 

[Strazdas]

You don't understand how to fight an asymmetrical war, that's your own fault. Why don't you bother reading up on such things? Being a USAF veteran, I can tell you that AFBs are some of the most easily breached bases in the world. A civil war in the US would see the majority of military bases overun by armed civilians considering almost all of them are near or surrounded by cities of at least 10,000 people. The only safe place the US Military could operate from would be MEUs and CSGs, everything else would be crawling with rather upset american citizens.

i saw a report on an incident yesterday where the military was doing some sort of containment and two cars full of men armed with their "hunting guns" decided to breact it and started shooting at the military. the reaction was "are they fucking seriuos? they think they can do anything like that?" and the folks were gunned down with ease with no military deaths. military can take the civilians 1:100 and those 10.000 people will be reduced to 0 very fast. Then again your whole premise is based on a fact that america would revolt by everyone grabing a gun and going to shoot "teh evul government" when that would NEVER happen.

"Troll troll troll" buzzword buzzword buzzword. Good job adding nothing to the conversation strictly because you have nothing of any import to say whatsoever.

Typical liberal tactic.

sorry, i can stop laughing from all the irony in this post.

Or maybe we should cite George Washington, once again, for having said that guns are to be carried anywhere and everywhere, and deserve a place among all things which are good.

well, if you want to live as badly as people did in those times, sure.

You crazy effigy-burning nutjobs and your violent anti-violence crusades pretty much prove that, nope, humanity isn't one iota more responsible now as it was generations ago. And back when EVERYONE and his kid sister had guns - many guns in some cases - homicidal rampages among neighbors were highly rare.

So according to you, since we are irresponsible, we should all be given guns and told to act responsibly? how does that make sense?

Homicidal rampages against "TRIBES" of men, however, are something that will never go away. Hence the argument that "force" equals "power." Some people will never learn. Some people just want to hurt others for kicks. That will NEVER change. If you want to render yourself helpless before those people - which are real by the way, not just boogeymen - then by all means do so.

so, taking away guns from people who go on killing rampages are bad. ok. Let me just stop laughing and lets move on.

Not to mention the country is filled with armories whose defenses include a barb-wire fence and a dozen or so people. All you need is a few hundred people to overrun many of the american bases or armories. They are designed to keep out intruders and thieves, not a small army.

did you just called some not so bright folk grabing thier guns and heading to loot an armory "a small army"? seriously? and then you tell us that we dont know the reality?

Oh, and dont count on the National Guard to fire on their own families considering every state and territory has a national guard compromised mostly of locals.

and national guard would need to do that because?

Half the people I hear who are anti-gun are from fringe crapholes with a population of a single state or -snicker- the UK.

a very mature and realistic view of the rest of the world, certainly not emphasizing the ignorant american stereotype. Thank you kind man for proving is wrong.

Anyone on that side in the US end is rich and want to disarm the "undeserving masses" or just horribly stupid, one or the other, because the facts are overwhelmingly on the side of gun owners. Overwhelmingly. Beyond any rational, conceivable doubt. And yet they bay and scream anyway, because that is what they do, and then they say the NRA won't come to the table. Double standards for the win.

everyone who disagrees with me is stupid, therefore i am correct. all hail to my intelligence.

Criminals don't give a damn about the people they're hurting or killing. At all. But they certainly don't want to bleed out on the sidewalk themselves. The threat is the ONLY thing that dissuades them.

you know what also dissuade them? not having a gun to shoot others with.

On the other hand, the fact that guns SAVE lives - there's cold, hard proof of that.

of which you have provided us exactly zero.

actually, as i was typing this i jtu heard on the radio: a primary school boy has been found carrying a loaded weapon in his backpack that he got from his brother that is in a local gang. Lets say somone tried to bully the kid and bam you got a school massacre.

 

[Do4600]

Why not just turn my back on them and ridicule them from afar?

Let them build their socialist Utopia and - inevitably - fail, like everyone before them. I really want no part in this.

"And it's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them..."

Any way you could embody these words more?

 

[TD5160]

The reason we have the right to bear arms, is so we can fight against the government, should they try to opress us like this. Damn right, I'm gonna start shooting

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Would you like to provide some of this "proof"?

I'll give you proof...

How about some 80 proof bourbon?

 

[Single Shot]

which makes the assumption that the entire military would follow the government when in all likelyhood they will fracture as soldiers and vets tend to prize freedom/american rights/constitution/yadda yadda more so than the common citizens as that is what they are fighting and bleeding for.

But hey, continue to talk about a subject you know nothing about and continue your anti-american bigotry.

Not to mention the country is filled with armories whose defenses include a chain link fence and a dozen or so people. All you need is a few hundred people to overrun many of the american bases or armories. They are designed to keep out intruders and thieves, not a small army.

government operated Power plants have much better defenses.

Oh, and dont count on the National Guard to fire on their own families considering every state and territory has a national guard compromised mostly of locals.

Ya. Sorry. I didn't realize I was talking with someone who has been part of taking over 21st century governments. I'll back off.

And BAM, just like that nothing to say. Rhetoric exhausted, the little bigot falls back on pithy insults and posturing.

I'm surprised these anti-gun nuts even have a platform. I mean, Rosie O'Donnell and her little anti-gun crusade instantly invalidated itself when Rosie's bodyguard was instructed to obtain a CCDW permit. "Nobody needs a gun, ever, for any reason," she screamed at the top of her lungs on her little soapbox, and then she turns around and gets her personal escort a pistol. I mean, really?

Half the people I hear who are anti-gun are from fringe crapholes with a population of a single state or -snicker- the UK. Anyone on that side in the US end is rich and want to disarm the "undeserving masses" or just horribly stupid, one or the other, because the facts are overwhelmingly on the side of gun owners. Overwhelmingly. Beyond any rational, conceivable doubt. And yet they bay and scream anyway, because that is what they do, and then they say the NRA won't come to the table. Double standards for the win.

And, yeah, about the "immovability" of the NRA? Funny. The NRA has been playing defensive for years. It's the only game they know. I think laws expanding gun rights need to be implemented. Violence plummets in areas where more people are armed in more places, a solid fact that anti-gun lunatics refuse, blatantly, to acknowledge.

Criminals don't give a damn about the people they're hurting or killing. At all. But they certainly don't want to bleed out on the sidewalk themselves. The threat is the ONLY thing that dissuades them.

Of course, simply dissuading crime isn't a long time answer, isn't the only solution. But the short term result is that innocent people are saved - more than would have died otherwise. And before you whine about that logic, the medical community and the government work together to force drugs on the populace which possess serious, proven mortality rates "because the few deaths are statistically irrelevant next to the (theoretical) lives saved."

On the other hand, the fact that guns SAVE lives - there's cold, hard proof of that.

If the fact are so overwhelmingly in support of gun ownership, then why haven't you posted any of that evidence? something beyond just "I say" or "The people I like say" something that's hard fact.

 

[DaKiller]

Would you like to provide some of this "proof"?

I'll give you proof...

How about some 80 proof bourbon?

In the absence of anything else, I'll take it!

Did somebody say absinthe?

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Would you like to provide some of this "proof"?

I'll give you proof...

How about some 80 proof bourbon?

In the absence of anything else, I'll take it!

Hey, this is my celebratory 'Got my 1st preference University placement' bourbon I'm offering to share.

 

[Korolev]

If I were a gun owner, I would give them up when told to, and then do what I could to convince others to vote for pro-gun politicians to repeal the laws. America is a democracy. You might laugh at that claim, but it is, and the people ultimately decide the laws. If enough Americans care about gun-rights, then eventually you'll elect politicians who will allow Americans to have guns. If enough Americans, however, don't care about gun rights and want gun control, then you'll just have to deal with that and accept that you and your opinions are in the minority.

Resorting to violence, when you have democratic means to voice your opinion, is the act of a barbarian. You have a vote - use it instead of a gun. And if you and your group have fewer votes than your citizens, then try to change their minds through debate. And if you can't do that, well, accept your fate.

 

[Strazdas]

The reason we have the right to bear arms, is so we can fight against the government, should they try to opress us like this. Damn right, I'm gonna start shooting

Oh, look, another guy who thinks a civilian with a gun is a match against trained army.

you know what also dissuade them? not having a gun to shoot others with.

And then they decide to stab, beat, or strangle the person they're after instead.

Some improvement.

Some indeed. would you rather have:
a. a person beaten up and left to live
b. a person shot and dead

"Point and kill" only happens in video games. Combat marksmanship in the real world is a whole other story.

except that it takes extremely little mastery to shoot weapons accurately enough to kill at short range. something you cant say about other weapons.

Yes, I'm sure your four to six incher will do just fine against the sword, mace, machete, or axe that your new order will encourage the predators out there to start wielding.

yeah, because criminals in countries where they go no acess to easy weapons go around runing with swords and maces. oh wait, they dont.

That's why I need an equalizer, sunshine.

Yes, lets equalize things, lets give the criminals the power to kill you in seconds without much effort. its such a good proposal you should be the next president. maybe then you can force police to care too.

 

[Angie7F]

Though eventually I would give it up and would be ok with the decision to take away guns, I will hide and wait until everyone else has handed their guns in too.

 

[chadachada123]

That's why I need an equalizer, sunshine.

Yes, lets equalize things, lets give the criminals the power to kill you in seconds without much effort. its such a good proposal you should be the next president. maybe then you can force police to care too.

You misunderstand. The "equalizing" is done on behalf of the citizen, since a thug is generally going to be stronger, faster, and more resilient than their victim, and could easily overpower them when both are unarmed or armed only with physical weapons. If you're frail, old, or handicapped, a taser or pepper spray isn't going to do jack to protect you, while a handgun would.

Ballistic weapons give the citizen a fair chance. A better chance, even, considering criminals tend to have next-to-no experience with firearms while a responsible gun owner knows quite well how to use their weapon, and especially the layout of their own house/property. Beyond this, we need only look at Washington DC, which, after making all handgun ownership illegal in the (70s?), saw a massive increase (think: more than double and triple) in murder up until its reversal in 2008, after which the annual number of murders very quickly (within two years) fell below the rate prior to the law. This is largely because, after that point, only criminals had firearms, and despite many attempts to seize illegal firearms, including sweeping any houses that were "suspect," police found but a trivial number of them, even when focusing most of their resources on it. And that's the CAPITAL OF THE COUNTRY, where the President lives.

1: The police can legally sit by and watch you die while they sip coffee
2: Even if the police did care, out where I live, it takes them nearly an hour at the best of times to respond to an emergency call (which by the way, they don't have to respond to).

That's why I need an equalizer, sunshine.

First of all, it's a shame law enforcement is so lax there. But if you live out in the wilderness, you're practically never going to see a criminal though, right?

And I still don't understand why other first world countries, that don't allow their civilians to be armed, don't seem to have this particular breed of criminal.
Or at least, they're presumably nowhere near as prevalent...

You do understand her point about police and protection, right? The police have no obligation to protect citizens, since that is not their job. Their job is to stop (or apprehend) criminals after the fact. Protection is left in the hands of the people.

Besides this, police officers are far more likely to shoot an innocent person than an armed civilian. Five times more likely, in fact, despite US civilians killing over twice as many people overall. Check it:

Newsweek has reported that law-abiding American citizens using guns in self-defense during 2003 shot and killed two and one-half times as many criminals as police did, and with fewer than one-fifth as many incidents as police where an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal (2% versus 11%).

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/02/21/disarming-the-myths-promoted-by-the-gun-control-lobby/

Crime stopping is better left in the hands of civilians, since many officers are roid-raging, violent, and dangerous.

 

[Vegosiux]

You do understand her point about police and protection, right? The police have no obligation to protect citizens, since that is not their job. Their job is to stop (or apprehend) criminals after the fact. Protection is left in the hands of the people.

Well that's a damn shame for the US then. Because here, on this side of the Atlantic, last time I checked, the police do have obligation to protect.

I suppose your legislation sucks there, how about pushing for changes so that your police has obligation to protect?

Oh, I forgot, that takes effort. Easier to wave a gun around.

Crime stopping is better left in the hands of civilians, since many officers are roid-raging, violent, and dangerous.

So are many civilians, what's your point? Nobody's denying the existance of corrupt cops, but I'd be quite interested in what happens if you leave the law/protection in the hands of the vigilante man. Maybe you should abolish the police altogether, see what happens.

 

[Pat8u]

well they've already passed it in australia... so I would do nothing.

But... if I was an american and if I did own a gun I would give it up

 

[Talaris]

If I were a gun owner, I would give them up when told to, and then do what I could to convince others to vote for pro-gun politicians to repeal the laws. America is a democracy. You might laugh at that claim, but it is, and the people ultimately decide the laws. If enough Americans care about gun-rights, then eventually you'll elect politicians who will allow Americans to have guns. If enough Americans, however, don't care about gun rights and want gun control, then you'll just have to deal with that and accept that you and your opinions are in the minority.

Resorting to violence, when you have democratic means to voice your opinion, is the act of a barbarian. You have a vote - use it instead of a gun. And if you and your group have fewer votes than your citizens, then try to change their minds through debate. And if you can't do that, well, accept your fate.

This makes a lot of sense. I'm not an American, but regardless if a law was passed in a democratic society I would still abide by it, whether I agree with it or not. For example I hate the really high taxes here in the UK but I would never resist paying them as I understand the reason why those laws are in place, and if most people agree they should be there then I would accept it.

Reading through this thread it genuinely scares me how hostile some peoples feelings are that this change in law may come to pass. The only way I can empathise is to imagine if in the UK a law was passed that made guns legal, and encouraged people to buy them. I would be scared for my safety. Especially given the area I live in in London already has a high crime rate.

I originally believed safety concerns to be the only reason why people would want to keep their guns; sadly this doesn't seem to be the case.