Gun Control

Alsmost all societies are safer than 20-30 years ago, it is a global trend. Of course not for all areas, but the overal picture is, we're living in a safer place for now.
 
MutantScalper said:
So in your opinion a dirty nuke in a big city, say NYC, would be a "meh"-type situation and not "OMG!!1"-type one? Not just saying the direct impact, I'd say the panic would be more from media etc.
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Well, depends on which city it is! New York? Sure, whole place would jump into their big SUVs and drive to the other cost without a single stop, i bet! Moscow? They'll just say "ah, another accident probably". The dam place has over 35 nuclear reactors within city limits, after all. :D :D
 
Works pretty well where I live. I know people like to make out as though any nation with a lower population than the US somehow doesn't count toward the argument, but per capita figures are per capita figures anywhere you go in the world.

I like guns, I've owned them for hunting and sport in the past. However I still support our gun laws completely. They don't stop regular people from owning guns responsibly if they wish to use them for hunting or sport, they just reduce the circulation and amount of crime committed with guns.

I think the biggest problem is a cultural one, specifically as concerns the level of responsibility gun owners feel toward their ownership of guns. In nations with successful gun laws, most people see gun ownership as a privilege that demands a high level of responsibility. In the US, most people see it as an entitlement, and any effort to regulate that entitlement as an attack, regardless of whether deregulated gun ownership is a bad thing for the country or not.

I'm unconvinced that there is any good solution for the US at this point. What are the figures now? 1.01 guns per 1 citizen? Yeah... good luck with that.
 
Lanfear said:
In nations with successful gun laws, most people see gun ownership as a privilege that demands a high level of responsibility. In the US, most people see it as an entitlement, and any effort to regulate that entitlement as an attack, regardless of whether deregulated gun ownership is a bad thing for the country or not.
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It is both, and fought for to first obtain. It is also not a privilege that everyone here has; most* felons cannot legally buy a gun. The problem is not the existing gun laws (or a need for stricter ones), it is that the these laws are only kept by the lawful; which can include [reformed] convicted felons...who cannot own a gun. https://people.howstuffworks.com/can-felon-own-gun-in-united-states.htm

It is the lawless that are the problem here (and everywhere); they don't care if it's legal for them to possess a gun or not. Why is it so difficult to impart the point that banning gun ownership withholds from the innocent, and empowers the guilty? It's common sense.

To reiterate (again), if you ban guns, then only the law abiding citizens won't have them—which makes them the de-facto victims to everyone else (being the only ones that are always unarmed). They become a second-class citizen, and unable to compete 1:1 with an armed criminal element. Lemon trees with no thorns.

The notion that 'making firearms illegal would make it impossible for criminals to get firearms', is naive, but some seem to really think that. This was tried with booze, once upon a time, and inspired a bootleg alcohol industry, and a surge in the popularity for serving "coffee".

There are criminals who are also gunsmiths, not to mention stockpiled gun caches hidden all over the place. Making guns illegal would make them an even hotter commodity than they already are; they would still be bought and sold, stolen and traded for.

And Guns can now be 3D printed.
 
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Gizmojunk said:
It is both, and fought for to first obtain. It is also not a privilege that everyone here has; most* felons cannot legally buy a gun. The problem is not the existing gun laws (or a need for stricter ones), it is that the these laws are only kept by the lawful; which can include [reformed] convicted felons...who cannot own a gun. https://people.howstuffworks.com/can-felon-own-gun-in-united-states.htm

It is the lawless that are the problem here (and everywhere); they don't care if it's legal for them to possess a gun or not. Why is it so difficult to impart the point that banning gun ownership withholds from the innocent, and empowers the guilty? It's common sense.

To reiterate (again), if you ban guns, then only the law abiding citizens won't have them—which makes them the de-facto victims to everyone else (being the only ones that are always unarmed). They become a second-class citizen, and unable to compete 1:1 with an armed criminal element. Lemon trees with no thorns.

The notion that 'making firearms illegal would make it impossible for criminals to get firearms', is naive, but some seem to really think that. This was tried with booze, once upon a time, and inspired a bootleg alcohol industry, and a surge in the popularity for serving "coffee".

There are criminals who are also gunsmiths, not to mention stockpiled gun caches hidden all over the place. Making guns illegal would make them an even hotter commodity than they already are; they would still be bought and sold, stolen and traded for.

And Guns can now be 3D printed.
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Reducing the number of legal guns in circulation also reduces the number of illegal guns in circulation. Almost all illegal guns begin life as legally manufactured weapons. Effective gun laws make it harder for everybody to acquire guns, criminal or not, thus reducing the amount of crime in which guns are used. Furthermore there is no actual evidence that allowing law-abiding citizens to walk around armed in any way reduces gun-related crime (in fact the opposite may be true). But there's plenty of evidence to suggest that effectively regulating firearm possession does.
 
Lanfear said:
Furthermore there is no actual evidence that allowing law-abiding citizens to walk around armed in any way reduces gun-related crime (in fact the opposite may be true). But there's plenty of evidence to suggest that effectively regulating firearm possession does.
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Did you miss the interview link (earlier in this thread), where ABC's 20/20 news show interviewed prisoners about their choice of victim—and they expressed a preference for those who were not armed... This sounds like a line from Monty Python... but seriously, that is sufficient enough by itself, them taken at their own word. They would reconsider their action if the victim was armed.
  • Do you think that a criminal with a knife, would choose to rob a victim with a gun?
  • Do you think that a criminal with a gun, would choose to rob an armed victim over an unarmed one?
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  • Do you think that a criminal would invade an occupied home if the owner was known to be armed?
    • BTW This happened, to [former] national news anchorman, Dan Rather.
      His home was broken into, and it was the sound of him chambering his shotgun
      that made the intruder quickly leave.
      Excerpted from an interview of him:
      ___________
      • The then-White House correspondent had been scheduled to go to Florida to cover the president, but instead stayed home. Late at night, his daughter heard an intruder. Rather, immediately did what any Texan would do: "I made sure the family was safe, then grabbed the shotgun." Rather went downstairs and saw the intruder. He loudly chambered his shotgun and the burglar very quickly skedaddled.
      __________
Are you not professing that citizens be legally forbidden to defend themselves (at all effectively) in their own homes?
(...and offering no alternative recourse—aside from to call the police to come out and photograph their dead bodies?)
Per chance... Do you think this restriction is for their own good?
 
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Loudly chambering his shotgun was not the only possible method to make that burglar go away, though. Any indication the family is awoke and calling police would suffice. As for the lady with 38 special in her purse, 357 in glove compartment and 45 in console - sure bold of her to not be affraid of anything, but at 95 years of age, any physically fit person willing to drop her dead can easily do so by posing as a friendly, approaching for any fake reason to melee range, then simply overpowering poor soul with a surprise attack. Weapons needed? None...
 
If someone wielding a knife accosts someone else by surprise in close quarters, and their target makes a move to draw a concealed gun, the target will most likely end up critically injured or dead, as the criminal (who in virtually every case will have a weapon in hand and the advantage of their target) will immediately assume that if they do not stop their target from drawing, they will probably end up critically injured or dead themselves.

There is an extremely good reason for why police do not recommend that citizens confront criminals directly, because it almost always has the opposite of the intended effect; all you end up doing is escalating the situation and putting yourself at vastly greater risk. Might not jive with whatever ideas you have about fighting off criminals like a hero, but that's the facts.

Speaking of escalation, you can see similar patterns playing out over and over in police encounters in the US, too, and these caused by people who are ostensibly trained for gun use in a crisis. Situations in which no one should ever have been injured or killed have unnecessarily become lethal encounters simply because of how peoples' reactions escalate when facing someone thought to be in possession of a deadly weapon.

The Wild West mentality does not actually reduce crime, it only increases the average lethality of crime.
 
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Coming soon, the Just Shoot Yourself In The Head Already Challenge, where the terminally stupid attempt to put a bullet through their own skull without hitting anything vital and dying. Bonus points if you can combine it with the Tide Pod Challenge and make your head pop in a fountain of foamy blue suds.
 
Lanfear said:
Coming soon, the Just Shoot Yourself In The Head Already Challenge, where the terminally stupid attempt to put a bullet through their own skull without hitting anything vital and dying. Bonus points if you can combine it with the Tide Pod Challenge and make your head pop in a fountain of foamy blue suds.
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But that's no fun, it's masturbatory. Now doing it in public and are an immediate mutual threat and to all those around them, that's the stuff
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