Guns and the Controlling of Them

[drummerhead7]

Now everybody. After the terrible happening in colorado, who still thinks anybody should be able to use the internet to buy 6000 rounds of ammunition, and be able to buy any assault rifles they want, and desert eagles, and glocks, and as many gas grenades, and concussion grenades as they want?

[Darth Crater]

Pretty much the same number of people who did before. Like I said, this is a statistic. It's also a great tragedy, and I would trade a great many things to retroactively prevent it, but it's just one crime. It doesn't singlehandedly change any of the studies done on gun crime.

Willing to serve as a control of sorts for Panama's questions, based on just what's on the top of my head before Dutch's response. Will be interesting to see how I do.

I suppose I've never clarified my actual position on gun control. That's mainly because I don't have a concrete one. I haven't gone over enough statistics, and I can see persuasive arguments on both sides but don't know how they balance out. What I value, though, is pretty clear - minimizing deaths.

[NiteRunner81]

What gets me is this: statistics aren't always reliable. I mean come on, you get pregnant as a teen you become a statistic. A statistic that is defined as: life ruined, uneducated, uneducatable, a drain on your family, and a drain on society. I know TONS of teen parents who have later went on to get married and stay married for 30+ years, get a great job, make it on their own without governmental help or family help. My aunt and uncle are a good example.

Statistics aren't perfect definitions.

[(SWGO)Minas_Thirith]

@Pana

Most popular assault rifle is an AK-47 right? just correct me if i'm wrong

About "The right to bear arms"

I do understand both arguments about it....
Criminals and gangs will alwayes find guns from the blackmarket, gun control isn't going to stop this, i agree.
However in my opinion there should be some mather of gun control in the USA...

Personally if a mentally unstable person is able to get a gun this easely in the USA then there is something wrong with "the right to bear arms"
I mean, in my opinion if this isn't going to change there would be ways to have some minor form of gun control which still allows USA citizens to bear arms.
An example would be for starters making "The right to bear arms" effective when said person is over 18
While adding that said person needs to undergo a test to see the mental state of this person.
These are just examples of how making this a bit safer.

In the EU it's hard to actually get a gun, i don't remember who said "Gun control leaves unarmed victims" well here almost noone has guns, and i don't see the unarmed victims thing happening here.

Either it's me, but i do notice that things like the Colorado shooting happens more often in the USA then in the EU.

I do have to add that guns are a bussiness, the right to bear arms has been a great way of making money out of the USA citizens.
Gun control would easely be opposed due to this.

MT

[Mandalore]

The success of strict gun control laws relies primarily on three things: The size of your country, permeability of your borders, and distance to other countries. A few examples of success stories with strict gun control laws would be Singapore, a city state with perhaps the most rigid judicial system in the world and Australia, a country with comparatively small port facilities, and an island continent. Conversely we have Mexico which totally bans guns, but due to its proximity to the United States and the extreme ease of cross border travel is a flooded market.

Strict gun control wouldn't work in America for the same reason that attempting to stop drug smuggling hasn't been successful in the past forty years. We're just too god damn big. With some of the largest ports, and quite a fair number of them not to mention being the only country with a significant gang presence from the top five organized crime cartels on the planet the inevitability of organized crime having weapons is unavoidable. I would be interested in seeing how much crime is perpetrated on victims by people who the victims knew. And whether or not knowledge of gun ownership would chip that statistic down.

[Dad]

"Gun control is being able to hit your target."

In states with concealed carry/open carry laws, the rates of home break ins, muggings, car jackings, etc., are greatly lower than in states without carry laws. I currently live in New Jersey, a right to retreat state. Just think about that phrase, "right to retreat". According to the law, if someone breaks into your house through the front door, you are supposed to run out the back and hide. HIDE?! Is this some kind of joke? Unfortunately not. Here, in my home state, we are not allowed to defend ourselves. This silly law even applies to animals. We have a serious bear problem and we are not even allowed to defend ourselves from them.

A couple years ago I was forced to find work in Las Vegas. Nevada is a state with a "castle doctrine" law. This law states that , not only are you allowed to defend yourself with deadly force, you don't even have to announce that you have a firearm. I had to find the first apartment available, which happened to be in what I was told "the naked city" part of town. Every person I worked with told me I had to get out of there before I was killed. I even walked out my front door at 4 in the morning to go to work and got hit by a helicopter spotlight, twice. Three times while sitting watching television, I heard a bump at the door or window, only to see an apparently drunk/drugged out punk. I still believe to this day the only thing that made them go away was the sight of a loaded, cocked pistol aimed between their eyes. (I have since been back to Vegas and checked out where I used to live. The gangs have apparently taken over. Doors ripped off hinges, air conditioners ripped out of walls, gang colors everywhere have replaced the decent people who lived there.)

After seeing both sides of the coin, taking guns and the right to defend yourself is the worst thing that could happen to the law abiding people of this country. Make it criminal to own guns, and only criminals will own guns.

[WD-40]

@Mandalore: We certainly are too big to control it. I agree. But you still need a few other things to enforce it: Money, Law Enforcement entities that are large and effective enough to do it, and a Congress that will pass then laws to abolish gun ownership...none of which will happen.

As far as the 'Right to bear arms' goes, the environment that existed when the Fore Fathers wrote it, was far different than the world of today. As stated, we have huge cities, far more crime (drugs being a big one they never envisioned), many more poor and desperate families, much more effective and deadly weaponry, Terrorist activity everywhere on the planet, etc.

But having the right to bear arms is necessary for the basic right of survival (i.e. Hunting, defense). We can never capture the utopian society that many would love to have where weapons were never needed or wanted ever again. Weapons will always be a part of our lives. And unfortunately, weapons will be used to kill people.

[Duel of Fates]

But having the right to bear arms is necessary for the basic right of survival (i.e. Hunting, defense). We can never capture the utopian society that many would love to have where weapons were never needed or wanted ever again. Weapons will always be a part of our lives. And unfortunately, weapons will be used to kill people.

One guy was close to creating a utopian, gun free society. What was his name? Oh yeah. Adolf Hitler. He was a big "gun control" fan.

[(=DK=)Samonuh]

But having the right to bear arms is necessary for the basic right of survival (i.e. Hunting, defense). We can never capture the utopian society that many would love to have where weapons were never needed or wanted ever again. Weapons will always be a part of our lives. And unfortunately, weapons will be used to kill people.

One guy was close to creating a utopian, gun free society. What was his name? Oh yeah. Adolf Hitler. He was a big "gun control" fan.

Don't do that. Don't pull correlations between Adolf Hitler and people in favor of gun control. Hitler was also vegetarian. Does that make all vegetarians fascists?

[Duel of Fates]

But having the right to bear arms is necessary for the basic right of survival (i.e. Hunting, defense). We can never capture the utopian society that many would love to have where weapons were never needed or wanted ever again. Weapons will always be a part of our lives. And unfortunately, weapons will be used to kill people.

One guy was close to creating a utopian, gun free society. What was his name? Oh yeah. Adolf Hitler. He was a big "gun control" fan.

Don't do that. Don't pull correlations between Adolf Hitler and people in favor of gun control. Hitler was also vegetarian. Does that make all vegetarians fascists?

I don't trust vegetarians, but that's just me.

As far as "pulling correlations", look at any dictatorship, totalitarian regime of the past, and every one of them disarmed their civilians population for their "safety". That's not a correlation, that's common sense. It's a real beyotch trying to run a dictatorship when your civilian population has the means to defend itself.