Firearms.

[tombom]

I agree with the-middleman as well, although I'm sure we'll get somebody posting about how we're all wimps or something.

[Mars]

Atleast we are wimps without schoolshootings and gunwounds

And a relatively low crime rate here atleast aswell.

[Caydr]

Don't you live in Canada? I didn't realise guns were widely available there. Nice pulling out the "sorry to be a member of this species" card when somebody disagrees with you without providing any sensible counter arguments except ridiculous hyperbole and a strawman of other's views.

I didn't read any of the preceeding posts so I didn't realize "somebody disagrees with me". Honestly I thought most people would be of the same opinion... this wacky idea that guns cause violence just because they're the preferred means of killing is refuted everywhere. But if you want the non-"ridiculous hyperbole" version, here it is:

Yes I'm in Canada, and it's easy to get a gun here. You take a firearms test - basically a guy comes over and asks you to identify features of a gun and how to safely handle them - and then you can go anywhere and buy whatever you want - BASICALLY as long as it's not fully automatic.

I'm not going to get into social engineering or anything, but I think that blaming violence on the existence of guns - for instance, in the USA where the murder rate is relatively high - is nonsense. I don't know what those contributing factors are, but my reasoning tells me that there are a hundred other ways to kill a person - if you take away someone's gun, they can still use any of those. The problem lies with the fact that there are desperate and angry people who don't have anything to live for. It's likely a problem to do with the extreme difference between the middle class and lower class citizens. People who have to turn to a criminal lifestyle don't have any other choice. Take away their guns and they still need to put food on the table somehow.

Honestly how naive can you be, saying that making something illegal will stop criminals from doing something?

Contrary to what you've seen on 24 or CSI or whatever, giving someone a gun does NOT give them the capacity to realistically kill someone any more effectively than if you give them a knife. Believe it or not, you don't just aim and pull the trigger and someone dies. It's HARD to hit someone at a range farther than a few feet unless you have a lot of practice. It's easy to stab someone at that range, no matter how much experience you have.

Not only that, but a knife isn't easily traced back to an owner. Ballistic profiling can prove that a bullet came out of a particular gun. If that gun is found in your possession, that's it, you're guilty. What are they going to say if you stab a guy? Well, you owned a knife an inch wide and 6 inches long, just like every other person on the street. Also, stabbing a guy doesn't alert the entire neighbourhood to your location and the fact that a crime's been committed, making the odds of a clean getaway dramatically better. Heck, as long as you're not sloppy about it, you could stab a guy, close the door behind you, and walk away calmly and inconspicuously. Try that with a gun.

A gun is not as easy to conceal, either. It has one shape and you can't do anything about it. You can't just tuck it into your back pocket and suddenly nobody will notice it. A knife can be folded and hidden easily. Heck, you could accidentally drop a knife in public and what happens? Nobody cares. Lots of people have a knife, it's not that crazy of an idea. I carry a knife regularly, it's useful at my job when I'm opening boxes, etc. Drop a gun in public and you're guaranteed to be arrested.

A gun is not a magic bullet for murder. You don't just own one and suddenly you're dangerous. If I was going to commit a crime, frankly I'd take the knife.

Geez, if you want to get right down to it, take a freaking screwdriver. Sharp or not, one of those going into your chest or throat won't be doing you any favours. If you want to kill someone, there are a hundred better ways than using a gun. I daresay, if guns didn't exist, violent crime might decrease slightly as a result of the fact that it's no longer as easy as pulling a trigger. But there's a catch! Suddenly it's not so easy to know a crime's taken place, and I bet you'd see a dramatic increase in the number of UNSOLVED crimes.

Suppose some country made it law that you had to have an alarm system in your house to prevent burglary. This is a sort of alarmist response to a problem similar to outlawing guns. But what would happen? Criminals would attack you when you were at home instead, and you'd actually be trading the risk of getting belongings stolen for the risk of getting killed to prevent witnesses! Same for guns. Outlaw them and you're not eliminating the problem, you're just changing its face.

For the record, I don't own a "gun"-gun (I have pellet/bb ones for target shooting) and I don't intend to - for the reason that, if you think about it rationally, there are better ways to defend yourself. A proper lock on your door that can't be bumped, for instance. An alarm system. Good sense not to walk around waving a fistfull of money or valuables. Not going places where I'll be alone and out of earshot, etc. I recognize that if a guy's going to kill me, he's going to kill me, gun or not.

Violence is a social ill that won't go away by introducing laws against it. If you want to reduce the crime rate, elect someone who will get rid of the need to turn to crime. Of course, this probably won't ever happen in the 'States since their electoral system is a fraud, but in other countries this is the real solution.

It's like making a law against breathing. Since we NEED to breathe in order to survive, we'd break the law. 99 times out of 100, when a person turns to crime, it's not because they want to, but because it's their only way to survive. Take some gun-toting drug-addicted punk off the street, clean him up, put him through rehab, and give him job and a place to live until he gets back on his feet - do you think he'd say he prefers the criminal life? No, it was his only choice, it was all he knew, but now that he has an opportunity to live a real life, you can bet he doesn't want to go back.

The US has laws against prostitution too - does that stop women living on the street from prostituting themselves in order to make enough money to eat and live another day? Arrest a prostitute, she goes to jail for a little while and it's back to the streets. Fine her, and she'll just have to turn MORE tricks to pay off the fines, if she doesn't just ditch town. I think it's safe to say no woman would choose "prostitute" as a job if given the choice.

Saying that eliminating guns would have any significant effect on murder rates is denying reality. A psychotic person is going to kill people if he wants to. A regular person reduced to a criminal lifestyle will kill if it's their only choice. No human would choose to murder someone for no reason at all, but if it comes down to life and death, if they have to kill someone to survive, they will do it whether they have a gun or not.

Like any sensible person, I don't LIKE guns. They're an instrument of death, and nobody in their right mind really wants to kill someone. But to vilify them, making out as though THEY were the cause of a problem, rather than one of many possible instruments, is ridiculous. "Gun control" in any modern setting is nothing more than a political platform. Some person gets shot, their mom writes a letter that gets published, the bandwagon-jumpers get bitchy, and a politician jumps on it. Instant votes. The same way Juliani keep on bringing up that he was the mayor of NY when 9/11 happened. Do you really want the legacy of the victims of violence to be nothing more than hollow political maneuvering? Guns do NOT cause violence, politicians KNOW this, they use it for fearmongering and avoiding the real issue, that being their mediocre leadership that has forced people to a violent lifestyle.

"Mr. President! Crime has gone up 300% during your term! What do you have to say for yourself???!" "Well Jimmy, you can rest assured we're doing everything we can to keep guns off the streets. Just last week we siezed <###> guns from a crime ring in <###>." The politicians win because they sound like they're tackling the problem. The media wins, because they got a good story. The blissfully ignorant populace feels a little better. The gun manufacturers win, since now they can sell more guns. But the biggest winners are the criminals, especially when you consider that most of them don't even use guns in the first place.

[rattle]

[Caydr]

People bitch when I make a post that doesn't go into detail, then when I go into detail the other people bitch...

[malric]

It was anyhow worth reading as most of the other opinions.

Regarding being easiear to kill with the knife than with a gun I think there might be a psychologial problem because of two things: we all have cut ourselves and we know it hurts - killing with a gun is more impersonal (and this could be easiear). And second there is also much advertisment (ie. movies) about killing with guns and many (stupid, idiot whatever you want) could think it is cool or could develop their madness based on that (is there any cool hero that uses knives ?...)

Yes, I agree that saying that a gun ban would be the solution to lower crime rate is not at all reasonable.I responded mostly for people arguing 'this is the way it should be and I want my gun because I'm free'.

Nemppu summarized it very well. We just can't compare the situations (US vs EU, ban vs free) , given the fact that we do not fund now a country, but we have to live with the history.

[KingRaptor]

Many of you seem to play this life like PVE

Are we not supposed to share this world with all other human beings? Should we not try to live with the criminal, the thief and even the rapist? Im shocked how many here consider shooting someone out of whatever reason. If I catch a thief in my flat then YES I do call the police and wait 30 mins for them to arrive. Maybe they will catch the thief, maybe not. Shoot him? Insane!

I shouldn't even reply to this, but the level of condescension and holier-than-thou attitude pissed me off so much, I'm going to feed it through the reductio ad absurdum shredder until there's nothing left of it.

Should we "share this world" with Mutsuo Toi?
Should we "share this world" with Ted Bundy?
Should we "share this world" with Danny Rolling?
Should we "share this world" with Paul John Knowles?
Should we "share this world" with Richard Speck?
Should we "share this world" with Woo Bum-kon?
Should we "share this world" with Alexander Pichushkin?

And those are just the ones I could be bothered with. But hey, if your "I don't need one, therefore no-one else does" feewings make you happy, have fun with them.

[RavingManiac]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... rate#2000s
Note that the countries with the lower homocide rates are a mix of both countries which allow guns and countries which do not. I personally think that both systems work equally well overall, but in different situations. Say you have a nice civilized country like Japan or Singapore, where there is a low crime rate but there can still be gun-related deaths caused by domestic violence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_contro ... c_violence), duh you should ban guns - it is not like the people are going to need them. However, in a place like Ethopia with rampant crime and the like, it is impossible to remove the presence of guns in the hands of criminals, so you might as well allow guns for everyone.

[tombom]

Well at least you explained what you were saying but I guess you couldn't resist quoting me as "million marching moms".

[the-middleman]

Should we "share this world" with Mutsuo Toi?
Should we "share this world" with Ted Bundy?
Should we "share this world" with Danny Rolling?
Should we "share this world" with Paul John Knowles?
Should we "share this world" with Richard Speck?
Should we "share this world" with Woo Bum-kon?
Should we "share this world" with Alexander Pichushkin?

And those are just the ones I could be bothered with. But hey, if your "I don't need one, therefore no-one else does" feewings make you happy, have fun with them.

it appears they all were arrested by police or committed suicide

[Machiosabre]

Should we "share this world" with Mutsuo Toi?
Should we "share this world" with Ted Bundy?
Should we "share this world" with Danny Rolling?
Should we "share this world" with Paul John Knowles?
Should we "share this world" with Richard Speck?
Should we "share this world" with Woo Bum-kon?
Should we "share this world" with Alexander Pichushkin?

And those are just the ones I could be bothered with. But hey, if your "I don't need one, therefore no-one else does" feewings make you happy, have fun with them.

it appears they all were arrested by police or committed suicide

but I bet some citizens shot em in the leg or something, and that was what got em!

[KingRaptor]

Should we "share this world" with Mutsuo Toi?
Should we "share this world" with Ted Bundy?
Should we "share this world" with Danny Rolling?
Should we "share this world" with Paul John Knowles?
Should we "share this world" with Richard Speck?
Should we "share this world" with Woo Bum-kon?
Should we "share this world" with Alexander Pichushkin?

And those are just the ones I could be bothered with. But hey, if your "I don't need one, therefore no-one else does" feewings make you happy, have fun with them.

it appears they all were arrested by police or committed suicide

itt we miss point

[Machiosabre]

Should we "share this world" with Mutsuo Toi?
Should we "share this world" with Ted Bundy?
Should we "share this world" with Danny Rolling?
Should we "share this world" with Paul John Knowles?
Should we "share this world" with Richard Speck?
Should we "share this world" with Woo Bum-kon?
Should we "share this world" with Alexander Pichushkin?

And those are just the ones I could be bothered with. But hey, if your "I don't need one, therefore no-one else does" feewings make you happy, have fun with them.

it appears they all were arrested by police or committed suicide

itt we miss point

itt we use arguments that are completely besides the point and then complain when people point that out.

[the-middleman]

sorry if my post was confusing

To answer your question: IMO yes we should share this world with all these mass murderers...as long as they are behind bars of course.

My statement about these guys being arrested or killing self was directed toward those who say they need guns to protect themselves from criminals. How come none of these murderers was stopped by an armed civilian?
To protect yourself you would have to carry the gun with you 24/7. Your entire life run around armed just for that one moment that when using a gun MIGHT be justified.

[BaNa]

I feel that a lot of the points made here are irrelevant to the subject. Appeals to emotions are useless, whether on the pro or the con side of the argument. Thus refering to mass murderers and/or poow widdle cwiminals is of no use. The laws governing private property (and defense thereof) in the United States of America, while being a stirring topic, are different from the aim of this thread (to debate gun ownership), since for instance you could kill an intruder with a butter knife, and it would still be legal, while in other countries you would still be regarded as a murderer.

Cadyr, as I understood it, you more or less made the following points:
1, "people can kill other people with weapons other than guns"
2, "making guns illegal wont make criminals stop using it"
3, "Violence is a social ill that won't go away by introducing laws against it"

Regarding 1.: I argue that guns make it easier for people to kill (harm) others, for a number of reasons -
A- a gun is the least "personal" way of killing somebody (looking at face-to face killings, obviously poison wins out otherwise). To stab somebody, you need to get up close, intrude into their close personal zone, ect. I think that you need to be less desensitized to kill somebody with a gun.
B - guns are democratic in the sense that you dont need to be especially strong to fire a handgun. This means that a person who has a gun has a good chance to kill anybody else, while a person without a gun will be limited to the pool of people who are physically weaker than he is (okay, other weapons also skew this, but not nearly to the levels guns do).
C - because of the speed, range and efficency of guns, rage killings are much easier. If you have a gun and lose control for a few seconds, then someone can be dead. If you lose control for a short time without a gun, the chances of you killing somebody will be much slimmer.

To address your second point: If you make guns illegal, you make it much harder for criminals to conceal them. I think this is fairly evident. In a no-gun society, any guns will be instantly noticed. If the police find a gun on somebody, he wont have any excuses.

Third point: I disagree. If you look at the jumps in crime in times that law-enforcement breaks down (only recently: Katrina) , you will see that enforced laws indeed have a negative effect on crime. Thus, they will have a negative effect on violent crime (unless it is an act of the moment, e.g. rage, in that case look above).

edit: 1337 spellingz

[KingRaptor]

Machio, take your snark somewhere where it's actually funny.

The ending part of my second post was a jab at the second half of the-middleman's post which I felt was a meaningless appeal to emotion nothing more. I wasn't specifically arguing against outlawing of firearms, as you might have figured out if you'd read the post and my previous one in the thread.

sorry if my post was confusing

To answer your question: IMO yes we should share this world with all these mass murderers...as long as they are behind bars of course.

Glad to hear that.

My statement about these guys being arrested or killing self was directed toward those who say they need guns to protect themselves from criminals. How come none of these murderers was stopped by an armed civilian?

Because none of the victims were armed.

It helps to not use a skewed sample, you know.









Anyway, something actually worth discussing.

To address your second point: If you make guns illegal, you make it much harder for criminals to conceal them. I think this is fairly evident. In a no-gun society, any guns will be instantly noticed. If the police find a gun on somebody, he wont have any excuses.

Actually, not entirely correct - laws on possession and laws on carry can be and are separate. In the US for instance, most states (of those that allow it, all but two) require a separate concealed carry permit, without which you are barred from carrying a firearm on you outside the home. (Yes, it is theoretically possible for a criminal to have a CCP, but unlikely).

guns are democratic in the sense that you dont need to be especially strong to fire a handgun. This means that a person who has a gun has a good chance to kill anybody else, while a person without a gun will be limited to the pool of people who are physically weaker than he is (okay, other weapons also skew this, but not nearly to the levels guns do).

This is generally a plus for the victim rather than for the criminal.

[Comp1337]

itt you all suck

[ginekolog]

i like our EU no guns society. As there are allmost not guns around its so much harder to kill a man. I could get beaten and robed by more man but i would live 99%. In USA its better to rob and just pull the triger to silence the victim.

To conclude: Survival rate is higher in country with less firearms. (and all other factors the same ofc)

[BaNa]

Actually, not entirely correct - laws on possession and laws on carry can be and are separate. In the US for instance, most states (of those that allow it, all but two) require a separate concealed carry permit, without which you are barred from carrying a firearm on you outside the home. (Yes, it is theoretically possible for a criminal to have a CCP, but unlikely).

True, although I think that societies where guns are legal to own and legal (with a permit) to carry take a laxer stand on carrying guns without license, since there will probably be some minority of gun owners without a license who carry their guns around, just for protection...

This is generally a plus for the victim rather than for the criminal.

I disagree. While it is true that this would allow weaker victims to "defend" themselves against criminals, there are some problems with the situation:
a, If CCP's are so easy to obtain that a random civilian has one for self-defense, then criminals will surely have them too.
b, With guns, initiative is very important. If someone has a gun pointed at you, the fact that you have a gun in a pocket is not too beneficial (unless you're Bruce Willis, of course). In most encounters, criminals are likely to initiate aggression, thus they have the advantage that guns give.

Thinking about some situations where guns would be used criminally, I guess there is a big difference between rural and urban areas. I have lived in big cities all my life, so when I imagine gun crime it is in a public space, like a hold-up, where having a gun at home (or even with you) is of little benefit. I think that in rural areas, the tendency shifts to private break-ins, where gun ownership would be arguably more useful, since you have a better chance of anticipating the attack and you are on your own territory, having no need for a CCP. I guess that is one of the reasons why mostly urban Europe has different policies from the US, with its big swaths of rural areas. An other reason would be different historical background, since the US has been a frontier society for most of its modern history, where private lawkeeping is much more dominant, while the last time Europe was a frontier was in the time of the romans.

Also, people in rural areas are more protective of their private sphere -which is also much bigger- not being as used to crowding as us city folk are.

[Machiosabre]

Machio, take your snark somewhere where it's actually funny.

you're just mad because my itt joke was better than yours.

proving there are bad people in the world is the worst argument for having lots of weapons around I've ever heard.