So your guns keep you safe?

[Faron]

I don't understand why people debate about a ban, because there is about a 0% chance of that happening for a number of reasons.

[Llodd]

Originally Posted by Harmonium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You do realize that criminalizing guns will create a flourishing black market for them. Thereby increasing the availability of guns to criminals.

Alcohol prohibition sure didn't work.

Drug prohibition sure isn't working.

But THIS.... this will work, right?

Well that depends on whether you think guns are addictive or not.

[Faron]

Originally Posted by Llodd [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Well that depends on whether you think guns are addictive or not.

The point is that it would be an illegal item that people would desire to have, and thus it would be made available one way or another. But again, this is all moot as fuck because it's not going to happen.

[finalgrunt]

Let's try to have a rational view on the subject.

1°) "Guns do not kill, people kill." or "inanimate objects don't kill".

Throw 100 loaded guns in a room filled with 4 years old kids. Wait few hours. Wanna bet they're all safe by the end of the experiment? The thing is, it's not always safe when it can and will be misused.

2°) 2nd amendment. Yes it says the right to the people to bear arms. Let's not go into the "well regulated militia" stuff. If we really want to dig into it, it's written you've got the right to bear. Not to use. Since it was written to prevent a tyranic government to take over its people freedom, you shouldn't be able to use it legally. Because if you use your weapons, it's when the government has gone made. In other words, you can be pretty sure going against your tyranic government won't make you a law abiding citizen. Nowhere the 2nd amendment allows you to use your weapons to defend yourself outside this case. People took the freedom to think so over the years, from a past where there was no police, no army.

3°) Many people abuse the tyranic government excuse to defend the right to own and use guns without any sort of restriction. For example, the funding fathers were pretty clear about their view on a standing army:

A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.

Yet, I don't see gun owning americans standing up against their own governement for that matter. So either you're ok with an army, and federal police, which means you TRUST your government to take care of your safety, or you don't, and you should be forming a militia. Tyranic governments don't take over a country by force. It's often because a majority of the people backup the tyran when he/she got access to power.

4°) "People can make bombs, when people want to kill, they will kill and find a way". True, banning guns won't stop tragedies. But it will certainly lower the frequency of such slaughters, and overall reduce the casualties. USA are too centered on their own way of living / history, they don't feel like they could learn from other countries history. The fact is, even though there are madmen slaughters in other countries, the amount and figures are way below what the US see on their grounds.

Also when making a bomb, the perpetrator is taking risks. There are chances of blowing self while manufacturing them, or getting noticed when buying them.

After Oklahoma City bombing, measures were taken to try and detect future tragedies like them. Notice how many bombings there are been since. Lastly, people often lose sight of Timothy McVeigh motives. The nutcase was antigovernment, anti gun restriction, and pro militia. It was a terrorist act against the government. Had the militia stuff and government fear theories been less important then, maybe it wouldn't have happened.

5°) "Car kill more people each year, you don't see people willing to ban cars". Yet you accept that there are strong conditions to using a car (license, tests, controls, speed limitation). Because in the wrong hands, a car is a weapon. If you were to accept the same conditions in order to use a gun, you would simply have a Gun Control process. Nothing more, nothing less.

6°) "If you disarm people, only bad guys will have guns". True, if banning is the only thing done. In Australia, they backed up their tough gun control laws with two (controversial when they occured) buybacks sessions. Banning without removing the guns in circulation would indeed be ineffective. That's the very reason some big cities in US, or Mexico has such a large crime rate despite a supposed gun restriction/ban. Easy access / proximity to guns make it easy for everybody, even more criminals to get them. In Europe, getting a gun is not easy. And if you try to get one on the black market, chances are you'll be noticed by some policemen under cover and stop you in your track.

7°) "Ban the guns? Drugs are illegal, see how it worked for that". Yes banning, doesn't mean things will go away. All it means, is that the approach doesn't work on drugs. Then if you follow the logic, why having laws in the first place, because criminals will always break them. That's reverse thinking. Laws give a society grounds to distinguish criminals from others. You can only say you're a law abiding citizen when there is a law. Doesn't mean all laws are good and / or effective. Citizens are responsible in a way to make sure laws are for their own good.

8°) "Removing guns will make violent crime go up". It's true, many violent crimes which usually end up as homicide will switch to other categories. Like rapes which end up as homicides, will likely end up as rape. Not that rape is ok (it's a monstruosity), but some say alive is better than dead.

9°) "People will suicide regardless of gun ban, they'll find a way". It's one thign which has been proven wrong. In Israel, they made their soldiers stop keep their weapons at home, because of the high suicide rate. After they did so, some switched to other methods, but the figures were far much lower. Easy access to a gun, which makes it easy to end your life, means a person with a sudden urge to end his / her life will likely do so. When the same person must find more complicated ways, that makes them think and sometimes (most often actually from studies on the subject), that buys time for the urge to decline, or give them time to ask for help.

10°) "When somebody breaks in my home, I want to have a gun to prevent the bad guy to kill and rape my family". People who tell you this play with your innate feelings to make you crave for security. Fact is, rape still occurs a lot in the states, and is most likely to occur from a person the woman/girl knows. Have you ever tried to check statistics on house breaking which resulted in a family slaughter / rape? These are almost urban legends actually. Also, there are many reported cases of people shooting relatives / neighbors who were sneaking in at night after a late night / or just came to see if everything was fine after hearing some noise. Buying a good alarm system, locking yourself up in your room, and calling the police will be much more effective than trying to gun people in the dark, which could also be armed.

11°) "Had the teachers / principal been armed, the shooter would have been stopped" or "Schools should have an armed cop at the entrance to protect our kids". For columbine, there was an armed guardian, and also an armed cop close enough. Even though the guardian happened to be close by luck (eating in his car), it didn't prevent the slaughter to happen. For the simple reason than when there is a panic among people, they're running everywhere, and identifying and hitting the shooter in such setup is extremly hard. Now imagine if there were teachers running with guns and shooting. What a cop is supposed to do? Shoot that person in case it's the bad person?

Also having guns in school is just begging for accidents. Lastly, the day a teacher or a school guardian goes mad, I don't see how arming people in a school will prevent mass shooting. While having a teacher not able to get access to a gun in the first place could prevent part of the slaughter. Lastly, you will never have people ready everywhere, anytime to protect the civilians, it's an illusion, and would cost a ton of cash anyway. And a person with bad intentions, will likely have the jump on armed people anyway.

12°) Disregard any statistics which would put crime in other equally civilized countries close or on par with the US. Because when it happens, it comes from the NRA lobby which will compare apples and oranges, and have always been proven wrong by a large margin.

Violent crime
The burglary rates of selected developed countries as published by the US Bureau of Justice Statistics

The reported US violent crime rate includes only Aggravated Assault, whereas the Canadian violent crime rate includes all categories of assault, including the much-more-numerous Assault level 1 (i.e., assault not using a weapon and not resulting in serious bodily harm).[34][35] A government study concluded that direct comparison of the 2 countries' violent crime totals or rates was "inappropriate"

Comparing crimes is not easy, because there are variables like the rate of crimes reported to the police (even though violent crimes are more likely to be reported). And the definition varies between countries. Every single time a strict comparison has been made, the US were way ahead though.

13°) "We've got a culture of violence, and must protect ourselves against it". Doing nothing about it, is what the US have done for the two past centuries. And the culture didn't change, obviously. Changing access to weapons will change your culture. Just read more what happened in other countries, and you'll see where it can go. This is all about global security versus personal security. When everybody focuses on their own security, it seems it bites them in the ass in the end.

14°) "Hitler, Mao and Stalin wanted to get their population without weapons, see what happened". This is indeed the strongest case for weapon bearing. I also believe an armed population is harder to deal with. However, these tyrants gained access to power WITH the population consent. And because many agreed with the racist/ideologist theories, the slaughters eventually occurred. If something similar were to happen in the US, it would become a civil war (like Whites deciding it's time to eradicate the Hispanics, if we go for a good analogy). However, it doesn't mean it would prevent it to happen, would just take longer maybe for the bloodbath reach its peak.

Isolated population is much easier to deal with, armed or not. And with current US density, my guess is a redneck in his farm with his shotgun, would still be downed by a militia at war against that person, by a sniper or whatever. If army means were added, the poor redneck would have his farm blown from so far, there would be nothing to do.

15°) "In the 2 past centuries, US haven't had any tyrannic government or invasion, thanks to guns". Like many other countries actually. US happen to have two oceans on its sides. This in itself is the most advanced form of defense a country can have. When you think how hard it was to make D-Day happen, can you imagine a country sustaining a war over such distance in the US, really? That's just impossible to maintain. US did not have common borders with Germany, or Russia. Therefore, obviously, US remained safe (and had it been the case, a country as vast and developed as the US then would have been safe). This is not disorganized colonies vs the strong British empire anymore. US are more likely to get nuked then invaded, by a very large margin.

16°) "It's always people with mental illness doing the slaughters, get rid of them, and be done with the problem". Most people aren't born with mental illness. Perfectly sane people can go overboard any moment of their life, when they lose someone close, or go through hard times. Or without any reason really. Criminals can be perfectly sane / law abiding citizen up to few hours before their acts. This is not a simple science. Like it's been proven that death sentence doesn't prevent violent crimes from happening, temporary mental disorders which can lead to a first criminal act is not something you can detect. However, agreed, treating people with proven/known mental illnesses/ disorders will likely lower issues in society. But it costs money. And US citizens don't like expenses (well not when the effects might not be immediate / obvious). Socialism yada yada yada.

17°) "Government is pushing an agenda to strip us from our fundamental rights". In my opinion, the damage has already been done, and they don't care about your gun.

Let's see what Jefferson said once:

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered."
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies..."
"The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

Yet it's the case. And you're not using your guns to get rid of the corrupted bankers / government. What makes you think your people will stand up one day against its government? If nobody moves or does anything, they will get what they want: a modern scheme to steal a people's work and wealth without them noticing. Why would they want anything else? They already got it.

My prayers go to the US, because I don't see anything happening anytime soon (with no central power, my guess is that no strong policy can see light to deal with such controversial matter), and tragedies will keep happening. Good luck with that. But I'm confident to say, the day the US citizens will give up their fears and guns to feel safe, the world will be a much safer place as a whole. And if some people say they would happily give their lives to save those of the poor children who died recently, then I'd take them to their word, and ask them to fight for a gun free world, even if it may cost their individual life, by being unarmed during an assault, until the time comes where even the criminals can't easily get a gun (which is the case, in most countries around the world, at least far enough from the US gun factories).

[Strifer]

Originally Posted by Harmonium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You do realize that criminalizing guns will create a flourishing black market for them. Thereby increasing the availability of guns to criminals.

Alcohol prohibition sure didn't work.

Drug prohibition sure isn't working.

But THIS.... this will work, right?

My best friend overdosed on marijuana once, he had a whole five marijuanas and injected two of them directly into his veins. This was after those terrible people looking to destroy our nation made such a terrible substance somewhat legal.

Guns are awful and we should lock away such awful advocates for them such as John Romero, who we all know tried to make us his bitch years ago. He probably was drinking alcohol when he was thinking that, or probably snorted a marijuana or two.

For real all kids need today is church and life jackets, because clearly illegalizing any and all things that could remotely pose a threat to our children by being used in an unsafe and unintelligent manner is exactly what needs to be done. While we're at it lets make sure we ban all video games that show violence because as we all know from multiple cases and very well documented studies, that games that depict simulation of a soldier fighting armed enemies or science fiction heroes battling space creatures for the survival of the human race always undoubtedly leads to school shootings, or at least mall massacres.

Yet of course that is the only wrong media in today's society, not your quarterly released shitty horror film depicting teenagers getting slaughtered, or "romance" novels discussing violent and semi-non-consentual intercourse. No...clearly the only one that is wrong is the one that fifty year old news media execs dont actively use or see.

For real tho, shits crazy. People are going to do awful things with guns regardless especially considering the story of what happened two days ago near Rochester,NY. It's more of our society realizing that there are in fact people whose mental capacities do not warrant the same rights as the general populace. Many people may use guns to hunt, or feel safe to keep a rifle for a worst-case scenario hoping never to have to use it. However it takes an especially fucked up individual to start his house on fire, call the fire in to the fire department and pick off the first responders.

There's no good answer for this situation and as long as we remain delusional there's no real way to completely stop the actions of madmen.

[Tarathiel]

Originally Posted by finalgrunt [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Let's try to have a rational view on the subject.

whats that?

anyways tho, i agree with everything you have said

[Llodd]

Originally Posted by Faron [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The point is that it would be an illegal item that people would desire to have, and thus it would be made available one way or another. But again, this is all moot as fuck because it's not going to happen.

Plenty of illegal items that people don't desire. Why is the desire of guns so strong.

Has the 2nd ammendment or whatever the hell it is people keep whinging about made a lot of americans addicted to guns ?

[Andrew Jackson]

because we live in a dystopic hellscape with high unemployment and tons of criminals looking to beat down your door kill you rape your wife and steal your tv

[Tarathiel]

Originally Posted by Andrew Jackson [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

because fear mongering

[Andrew Jackson]

how is it fear mongering when home invasions are a literal every day commence occurrence across the entire world and all social classes