Because this is currently still a debate that lives in the hypothetical realm as the original statement of an attempted illegality of guns has not been confirmed, but is a possibility.
Printable View
Because this is currently still a debate that lives in the hypothetical realm as the original statement of an attempted illegality of guns has not been confirmed, but is a possibility.
Yes. Why should someone else decide how another person lives their life, if it doesn't harm anyone else? inb4 "choose something else to do".Quote:
Originally Posted by mixster
Over here, there's a saying that if you carry a knife, you're more likely to get stabbed yourself, maybe this principle applies likely to guns? but getting shot, not stabbed, of course.
void_hatred
Well, because it increases the likelihood of other people getting hurt (hunting accidents, guns accidentally discharging vs drugs creating violent tendencies, affecting peoples judgement leading them to do silly things). Not to mention all the previous debate about the legality of guns leading to increased gun crime because guns are easily obtainable.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Claw
Guns don't kill people. Rappers do.
Just a few days ago a kid in one of my classes was telling his friend that he was offered an AK-47 on the street but he didn't buy it because he couldn't afford it.
Good to know I'll be safe because anyone with one can just come storming in my house knowing I can't do anything about it.
Also, I'd like to re-emphasize this:
Sure, maybe we don't need guns.Quote:
Originally Posted by Infantry001
Or freedom of speech (hell, we already lost that).
Or privacy.
Or elections.
Or even the right to own property.
Bringing the constitution up again? I'm very confident the entire US populace would be unable to over throw the government if the army still supported them. If the army didn't support them, then they would be out of power very quickly. Guns don't magically mean you can overthrow a government - good leadership, skill etc are very important for a revolution. Also, watchers of Family Guy will know that "The right to bear arms" is actually an often misunderstood clause - it actually pertains to allowing people to possess arms of bears.
Anyway, instead of worrying that anyone can get a gun, why not think of why they can get one. If someone is going around selling AK47's, then it's because people want to buy them. Sure people still will if it's illegal, but there will be a lot less (as being illegal does that). What's more is making guns illegal would probably lead to gun importation tightening, making it harder to actually get the guns in, let alone finding people to sell them to.
Anyway, if someone did come into your house with an AK47 or another powerful gun, what chance would you have against them anyway? Rather than being able to have a small gun that might save your life if you're a decent shot and they're an absolutely terrible shot, wouldn't you prefer that the chance of that situation ever happening is reduced by a lot?
To analogise this, compare the difficulty of obtaining heroin compared to tobacco - being illegal with quite high penalties and police involvement in reducing it, heroin is pretty hard to find compared to the legal tobacco. Sure, you can still find it, but it's a lot harder and other things.
As a last little bit of food for thought, most modern societies have given up basing every aspect of their society around outdated religious texts, is it possible that the constitution itself can only be relevant to the modern world for so long? On the other hand, given religious influences, why is it that so few of the Christians that make up the US believe in 'forgive and forget' and the pacifist lifestyle, as Jesus preached and led?
You sure he wasn't talking about weed?Quote:
Originally Posted by Widget
Making guns illegal and practically impossible to obtain without a good reason (hunting for living) would most likely take guns away from 95%+ gun owners. Now that everyone has a gun already, they should go search houses of potential criminals (ex prisoners etc.). Of course the effect wouldn't show instantly, but a generation or two from now it would. Changes as big as this are worth waiting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tad
Lol, of course you can. Your example of Brazil is invalid, because the police are bribed there and there are many more issues that lead to violence.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tad
http://www.gun-control-network.org/GF01.htm
I doubt these numbers have nothing to do with the fact that guns are illegal in all the other countries in the list except for USA.PHP Code:USA (2001) 3.98
Italy (1997) 0.81
Switzerland (1998) 0.50
Canada (2002) 0.4
Finland (2003) 0.35
Australia (2001) 0.24
France (2001) 0.21
England/Wales (2002) 0.15
Scotland (2002) 0.06
Japan (2002) 0.02
And to your question "How do you take the gun away from A?"
Like that. Well, that's not the solution though. Just prevent A from getting the gun in the first place.Quote:
The two 1997 Firearms (Amendment) Acts resulted in the prohibition of the vast majority of handguns in Great Britain. As a result of the prohibition and the surrender exercise, more than 162,000 handguns were handed in to local police forces.
Handgun Surrender and Compensation. Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General NAO, 1999.
inb4 prohibition.
if they take away guns, crime will sky rocket because not only will there people not giving up guns, there will be criminals using them and not getting stopped, with the addition of gun boot leggers.
You do know that most crimes are solved by policemen, not gun wielding vigilantes?
Learn your facts before making statements like that. The details of your arguments show your ignorance; you should know the topic before you try to debate it.
I'm done here.
explain to me how that kept the bootlegers selling beer during the prohibition. crime sky rocketed so much, that the police couldnt keep up with it, and the government eventually had to make bber legal againQuote:
Originally Posted by mixster
explain to me how that was solved by gun wielding vigilantes. Explain to me how everyday people with guns haven't solved world hunger or stopped drug trades. Your asking retarded questions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Awkwardsaw
no, you are asking retarded questions. i am relating the problem with a real life problem in history, not bull shit problems that will never be solved like world hungerQuote:
Originally Posted by Blumblebee
so answer my question please :)
:p That's silly. Those are completely unrelated.. :) And he did explain how prohibition was stopped by "gun-wielding vigilantes." "[T]he police couldnt keep up with it," kinda shows that there was too much crime, and too many mobsters and gangsters and what not that they realized alcohol was too widespread to successfully outlaw it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blumblebee
ANYWAY. The right to bear arms in America was not, is not, nor will it ever be for the purpose of saving the whole world. You're using false scenarios to make it seem like this would be a good idea. Just like people do to say drugs are bad. "Marihuana has FOURHUNDREDUNGODLYCHEMICALS! WHARBGRLGRLR!!!!!1111!!!!!" even though that proves nothing since things like coffee have about double the chemicals compared to cannabis; it's just to scare people. Solving world hunger is a joke argument to prove or disprove anything, really.
:) But I see your point. It's just not valid since the first amendment has nothing to do with world hunger or anything.. It's for self security in one country. Not the whole world. ^^
Alcohol can be brewed locally for starters, so doesn't require importing/smuggling. Just that in itself is enough of a reason. What's more is just about every other country contains the number of illegal guns circulating, an example showing it is possible.
Either way, you pro-guns people still don't seem to actually be debating anymore - I haven't see any logically valid examples or the like that actually affect the argument.
Thus, I want to know why it won't work in the US when it works everywhere else. I also want to know how every other developed country isn't overrun by crime. Those are the main two, so answer those first please before challenging something else with a weak example.
I don't care if people have guns or not, and I wouldn't care if this passed. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by mixster
But uhh.. The two questions you're asking are easily answered.. Americans are idiots.
"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass." --Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
Fact: America has the highest rate of death by firearms.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tad
I don't see what owning a gun has to do with self defence at all. If someone plans to rob or kill you, how will you even use your gun?
If he wants to kill you, you won't have the chance to fire your gun. If he wants to rob you, he'll pay close attention to you, thus preventing you from grabbing your gun. You'll have a bullet through your head before you can say "God save me pl0x".
Making guns illegal DOES make it harder to own one. So no, it will not lead to more crimes. Criminals are not driven by fear, but it seems the population of America is.
I don't think making guns illegal makes it any harder to get a gun. I can go buy a illegal glock for less than 100$, not saying I know people personally but I wouldn't be surprised most people couldn't get one after a few phone calls. And whats worse, having guns in the hands of people committed to commit crimes or those who have lawful intentions? The people who take the gun courses, make sure they gun is safely secured.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wizzup?
While I don't agree guns make you any safer in the event of a robbery or such, and while having a gun doesn't make you murder proof ... I cannot help but look at the side view of this and point out that organized crime do not use legal firearms. They obviously are getting these weapons somehow, it isn't coming into their hands legally. At the end of the gun laws only restrict those who follow the laws.
And at the end of the day, I do not think it comes down to safety but freedom. Are Americans willing to brush aside their freedom? Especially the gun nuts? A country that prides itself on liberty is slowing losing what they once held proud, and it seems to be a exponentially increasing problem.
tl;dr version: How about we focus on keeping people out of the life of crime instead of trying to bandaid it? Violent crimes simply don't disappear when you make weapons illegal...
That's America for you, over 11,000 people a year die by guns there.
:D
Thats just a FEW of what me/my father own
eff gun control
EDIT: colt 45 is my baby :D, just got it not too long ago
Erm, actually your entire post is wrong. As stated a lot in this thread, there are a lot more gun related crimes and the like in the US compared to countries where guns are illegal for the general population to own. Please stop making the same point that has been said a lot before in this thread and has no factual bearing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Capricorn
I hope this reiterates my point that guns infact, do not kill people:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC03hmS1Brk
tis' sarcasm
Erm, actually most of my entire post is opinion. I wasn't claiming any of that as fact, in fact I don't see much of that that is supposed to be facts either. And heres a quote off of wikipedia, the same exact page you linked to.Quote:
Originally Posted by mixster
It starts off by saying there is a trend between gun ownership, and gun violence.Quote:
In the United States, cities tend to have higher criminal gun violence rates but lower rates of gun ownership,
And it is iterated again here, just inversely.Quote:
compared with rural areas which tend to have lower criminal gun violence rates but higher rates of gun ownership.[26]
If you do not consider suicide as gun violence then it says again that gun ownership does not always correlate with increased gun violence. I would guess that the reason why for increased suicides with guns is that they ARE accessible. But if some young adult is troubled by life, then making guns illegal won't stop him from eating a whole bottle of acetaminophen or ibuprofen.Quote:
Some areas have widespread gun ownership with low rates of homicide. Conversely, research has found that in the United States rural areas with high rates of gun ownership tend to have higher suicide gun violence rates and cities with lower gun ownership tend to have lower suicide gun violence rates.[27]
In Wyoming, 1 in 3 houses has a gun yet they have a lower homicide rate than their country.Quote:
In 2005, Wyoming had the highest number of homes with loaded and unlocked guns in the United States, at 33% of all homes in the state,[28] and had a homicide rate of 1.7 of every 100,000[29],
I bold the last sentence to really drive home what I am trying to say. It isn't Average Joe next door committing these crimes, its the people who have profit in illegal activities.Quote:
although Wyoming also has a very high suicide rate which researchers have accounted for due to the relative accessibility of firearms.[30] High rates of gang membership and gang violence in urban areas have been used to explain these differences in crime gun violence.[31]
Also I would like to talk about a interesting point about the graph you linked to in wikipedia. United States doesn't rank near the top for homicides not related to guns. In fact they only have around 1/2 more homicide per 100k people compared to Canada. You honestly think banning guns will make everyone stop violence? They will just switch to knives, eight balls and bear mace.
Yeah, I can see it now. Deep inside the drug dealers house with a hummer with armour and bullet-proof glass sitting in his garage. Hes counting his money and suddenly on the TV Obama says "Guns are now illegal!", yeah I can see it now. Hes panicing like hell, throwing his possessions around in a fury of anger. How is he supposed to make money with guns being illegal?! Man the hurdle that will be to jump over! oh wait ...
A rifle? Pretty tame compared to what they've got in the middle east. Maybe that quote was applicable 70 years ago, but I doubt it is now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brain
In places where guns are illegal and there are not ga.. owait. Most notorious gangs are in America. Sure you have the Triads, etc and a few scaryish gangs in England that use guns, but for the most part, gangs use fists, knives and bottles.
If someone wants to kill you, they WILL kill you. If someone is coming to rob you, who out of the people who support having guns will actually pull the trigger on someone? Not many people would (I couldn't doubt that Charmz would, however)
Also, Capricorn, you used Wikipedia for your argument, hence is it invalid.
Wikipedia is quite a valid sauce of information as long as the citations for the sauce are valid. The table of information is itself extracted from a UN survey of sorts, so I'm confident in the validity of that bit at the very least.
Regarding Capricorns post in general, the body of it is suggesting that gun violence in the cities is higher despite lower gun ownership levels, most likely due to gangs and the like.
However, he also pointed out the bit underneath. Wyoming, despite high gun ownership only has a gun homicide rate of 1.7 per 100,000. Which is also higher than all other developed countries and a lot of other countries. I also don't find it valid to suggest than an entire correlation is wrong based on a single example which somewhat defies said correlation.
Regarding the last bit about alternative violence. As I mentioned above, you can follow the citations to the UN site and some pdf's that give alternative information. Canada had approximately 40 times less major assaults in 1999 and similar levels of assault. The US is already incredibly violent, but in the end I would prefer to be attacked by someone with a knife than a gun.
Regarding the very last bit, I point you to an earlier post of mine. Should we legalise all drugs, murder, rape and all the rest of them, because some people still do it despite it being illegal? Making things illegal does change things, otherwise every other country in the world would have similar levels of gun violence and all the rest of it, but they don't. So, stop saying making guns illegal will have no effect - it will, you just don't think it will because you're too silly to actually look at other countries.
Lastly, restating my previous two questions. Thus, I want to know why it won't work in the US when it works everywhere else. I also want to know how every other developed country isn't overrun by crime.
I never even wanted to bring studies or stats into this argument. It was mixster who linked to a wikipedia, and it was him who brought the table with values of homicides "out of context".Quote:
Originally Posted by Torrent of Flame
From my view, I think its more of a freedoms issue then a safety issue so I never would have brought up a wikipedia article to argue a philosophy topic that may not be related to what I believe.
Edit: It never explicitly stated that wyomings homicide rate was the gun homicide rate, and I can't be bothered to check. But if its the overall homicide rate that wouldn't be to bad, and competes against other countries.
About alternative violence, how sure are you that all of that gets reported? Come down to the north side of Winnipeg and hang around at the right places and you will see people getting eight balled and maced. Some places are ghetto as it gets. I will only get into one part of what you said, because I still sincerely believe its a freedoms issue and that is this.
The sad thing is, and I think drugs are a great example is that legalizing drugs for personal use actually leads to less use. And I think it is silly to JUST look at gun laws, when USA borders Mexico who are having major problems with drug cartels importing drugs into America. And those drug cartels don't have tiny little glocks, they have army grade assault rifles, missiles and grenade launchers. As far as Canada vs USA goes, Canada isn't a big import country as far as drugs go. In fact a lot of drugs are actually made here and imported into the USA because historically their dollar has been better. You make fat stacks jumping the Canadian border with some poundage of marijuana.Quote:
Regarding the very last bit, I point you to an earlier post of mine. Should we legalise all drugs, murder, rape and all the rest of them, because some people still do it despite it being illegal? Making things illegal does change things, otherwise every other country in the world would have similar levels of gun violence and all the rest of it, but they don't. So, stop saying making guns illegal will have no effect - it will, you just don't think it will because you're too silly to actually look at other countries.
As for asking me if I want drugs and guns legalized, I think you will come to a very biased opinion. Though I find it pretty saddening that you consider drugs at the top of the ladder, up there with murder and rape. Theres a thing called personal freedom, I just think everyone should have it. After all someone smoking marijuana or dropping acid in a mature manner certainly isn't going to be causing violent harm to other people - just themselves, and that was their choice.
I don't really see how it's out of context at all. I brought stats into the argument because Tad already did earlier - I did it directly in reply to him because he used a very singular, unfair statistic by basing the entire world on Brazil. I also freely linked to it and I gave exact details on what the data represents.
Anyway, this is only a freedom debate when those who are pro-guns have lost any other leg to stand on when defending them.
i would hope America has a lower death count by guns than that of Somalia.
Sure, if your a authoritarian.Quote:
Originally Posted by mixster
The fact is that it WILL be harder to get guns if they are illegal. Think about it...Quote:
Originally Posted by Capricorn
Compare it to weed, even though it isn't really on the same level, the general idea is the same.
How hard is it to get weed in some states in America? You'll sure as hell won't buy it legally in a shop. I can just walk out of the door, walk 300 meters across the street and buy it in a shop legally; and cheap too.
It may still be possible to get your hands on a gun, but it will be a LOT harder.
It's simple. Saying it won't be harder to get one is just plain crap, and probably originates from fear.
The problem with America is that it prides itself too much on its liberty, while it in fact isn't liberal at all compared to a lot of European countries. They have already brushed aside their ``freedom'' ages ago. America is in fact, very restricted.Quote:
Originally Posted by Capricorn
Not much to fear, I live in a quiet neighborhood on a nice side of the city. It certainly wasn't hard for Mexican drug cartels to get weapons and they have some of the strictest gun laws. And the drug cartels contribute a lot to Mexico's violence.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wizzup?
I doubt pro-guns would let this stand, but maybe I am wrong and your right. We won't know until it happens after all.Quote:
The problem with America is that it prides itself too much on its liberty, while it in fact isn't liberal at all compared to a lot of European countries. They have already brushed aside their ``freedom'' ages ago. America is in fact, very restricted.
Erm, you're saying the US is as corrupt as Mexico is? The reason why it is so easy to smuggle things into Mexico is that it's so corrupt - easy to bribe officials and policeman and all that.
I would also like to defend my point. Racists can claim freedom of speech, but that doesn't make it right to be. Freedoms are great while they benefit the society, but when they no longer do it's time to reconsider them.
All that I have noticed from this debate is there are no real positives for allowing everyone to legally own guns, but that there are plenty of negatives. Still though, my questions go unanswered. Why will making guns illegal not work in the US? Why are all other developed countries not overrun by crime?
Banning the sale of guns to citizens won't help anything, it might even make it worse. First I'd just like to throw out on a side note that I have a few gun collecting friends, and they've spent thousands of dollars on their guns.
Let's look at the most ignored part of confiscate, destroy and banning of guns. That's going to cost millions, and screw over all the gun companies and their employees. It's really not something America needs right now.
Once guns are illegal, that won't stop certain criminals from purchasing them illegally. Some already purchase them illegally as is. Then there's now civilians who don't have guns. Right now there's at least a bundle of people per city that are very desperate for money, and would break into someone's house and steal valuables if not for fear that they possess a gun.
I find it very comparable to the idea of making it illegal for citizens to own a motor vehicle. Thousands of people die because of vehicles, and if we banned all private owned cars we would cut back massively on pollution.
At last, something new!
So you have brought up two points in that second paragraph. Firstly, the cost of implementing. As I don't do this for a living, I haven't researched it much, but I would think the long term savings on health care (from gun wounds) and the reduced crime would compensate for the short term costs.
The second point was companies. Well, there are a lot of industries that are banned even though they could bring in money. I'm sure anything as large as this would take some time to put into action and the like, giving companies time to close up and the like. However, I don't think money and jobs alone is enough.
Next, you don't raise a new point. Every other developed country has lower gun related crime than the US. Making guns illegal does have an effect - no two ways about it. What's more is that I would rather be robbed and left with my life than be robbed and killed.
Lastly, cars are an interesting point. Sure, banning cars would actually be a huge positive and the like (something I would be in favour of). However, most people would strongly disagree. My main problem with this analogy though is that guns are made to kill,where as cars are made to transport. Sure, guns may not be made to kill humans, they're still made to kill and that's something that not everyone needs in their daily life, where as cars provide transport that it's important for people to get from A to B.
do we also suggest that pepper spray is banned - people that are against guns?
I don't know if this has been brought up, but.....
When you legally buy a gun, you have to register it, so banning guns would get rid of all the legally purchased guns, that were probably being used responsibly but responsible people.
I would be willing to bed that most guns purchased by criminals for criminal activity were purchased illegally, thus not registered.
So banning guns would just take them away from everyone that legally and responsibly purchased their firearms, while leaving firearms in the hands of people that are using them for criminal activities anyway.
Unless of course you propose a search of every nook and cranny in the U.S. to find every gun, but even then you can't be in all places at once.
I would also like to bring up this story, in case it hasn't been brought up yet.