Thread: Here is why banning guns wont work

Originally Posted by Unique POV

Banning guns would not be any more successful than banning drugs, or alcohol... or anything else that has ever been banned. Nor should it even be attempted. Americans do have a constitutional right to own guns.

That being said, I disagree with the notion that "gun control" is a dirty word. IMO there should be reasonable limitations on certain types of weapons and who can own them. For instance, I could fully support denying anyone who had ever been convicted of domestic violence the right to own a gun.

Do you apply that metric to every "right" afforded by the constitution as well, though? I fully support convicted and violent felons being deprived of a right to own a gun. They forfeited that right. Along with the right to vote too, IMO. That is also the law in many states, do you support that as well? They may not be able to get violent with a lever in an election booth unless they rip it and hit an election observer with it but more than a practical and safety aspect there is also the issue of punishment for those who break the law. Losing some rights seems reasonable in response and if it is consistent amongst all rights, that is fine by me. (Or at least more than just one specific right).

Originally Posted by Unique POV

Gotta love blanket statements. I am a social liberal. I support the right of most Americans to own most types of guns.

Having grown up in a law enforcement family... I respect them, but I do not fear them nor am I particularly fascinated with them. I own two myself, but honestly they just stay in the nightstand. I can't tell you when was the last time I even picked one up. I have no need for them. I feel perfectly secure in my home and person, and would feel equally as secure if I didn't own them at all. Study after study has shown that by far the biggest deterrent to having criminals enter your home is dog ownership. My two dogs make me feel far safer than those two guns that I haven't even touched in at least two years.

ahoy Unique POV,

i see the whole "i need me gun to be safe" thing a red herring, matey. if americans were truly worried 'bout thar lives, they wouldn't be so bloody fat, as they are far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far more likely to die 'o heart disease than gun violence.

i think the attraction fer ownin' firearms be more elemental and emotional. i been to gun ranges a few times to try me hand at it (i be a really good shot, it turns out, yarrr!), and i can see the attraction.

regardin' yer comment on stronger regulation bein' needed fer gun ownership, i agree fully matey. i mean, i shouldn't be able to walk into a gun show and exit with handgun or a shotgun with no butt stock or whatever....and i can.

- MeadHallPirate

Originally Posted by michael h

Remembering the three kids beating the shit out of old guys recently ... one of them got shot. I'm older ... not particularly healthy, and I don't want to wrestle with someone period. I'm cranky from pain and I'd much rather just blast you with a 12 gauge ... then have a movie scripted knife fight, or pretend to know karate or ju jujitsu. I shoot both your knee caps out as you try to rob me ... walk up kick you in your dumb ass skull and deal with the consequences later. All this fighting for your life is bullshit ... I don't have the desire or energy for it.

And I should add: Ban what you want I'm willing to go to jail to have my firearms.

While I can understand the sentiment where do you live that you expect to at some point be violently attacked? I have no access to weaponry of any sort but I don't feel unsafe or that at any minute I might be set upon.

Originally Posted by Chloe

Do you apply that metric to every "right" afforded by the constitution as well, though? I fully support convicted and violent felons being deprived of a right to own a gun. They forfeited that right. Along with the right to vote too, IMO. That is also the law in many states, do you support that as well? They may not be able to get violent with a lever in an election booth unless they rip it and hit an election observer with it but more than a practical and safety aspect there is also the issue of punishment for those who break the law. Losing some rights seems reasonable in response and if it is consistent amongst all rights, that is fine by me. (Or at least more than just one specific right).

I don't know about "every" right... but I have no issues with felons losing the right to vote either. I wouldn't however see it as an imperative in the same way I see them losing the right to own dangerous weapons. Now if we want to go into more basic rights... like their right to free speech... I'd probably have to start to take some issue with that.

Yeah i can agree with that, too. I was mainly waxing philosophy but i can see both the practical and principled reasons to deny a violent felon a gun. I think fundamental rights like the right to free speech remain above most of the fray but other things such as marriage, flight and travel rights, arms rights etc remain at the regulated to the extent the rights can be revoked.

Originally Posted by PeterUK75

While I can understand the sentiment where do you live that you expect to at some point be violently attacked? I have no access to weaponry of any sort but I don't feel unsafe or that at any minute I might be set upon.

I introduced myself to 4 young men who took a family member for a walk ... who returned with facial injuries. If they didn't understand my introduction ... it was their 3rd assault in 2 weeks ... I would've returned with firearms ... not killed them and brutally tortured them in unimaginable ways. Another crew of two were introduced to my sledgehammer after coming to my home at night. Stubborn they are ... but when my patience runs out ... I can play with these types. I should mention I live in a town with no police force ...but a shared country sheriff. We have a murder rate similar to England ... but a much lower crime rate.

I've personally been assaulted many times when younger, had guns to my head and knives to my throat. Eventually you just got to smash some of these arrogant fucks into oblivion. I have no need for dogs and I am much calmer now ... my reputation serves well enough that I am not patient with stupidity. I've never pulled my guns on anyone but I make it clear if idiots want to up the ante ... I'm not stopping with shooting you, nor will I call the police. IF ... I gain the upper hand ... you are mine ... and I'm taking you to a hell of pain and disfigurement you could never imagine. If not ... I'll die trying.

Originally Posted by Voland

Gun laws are usually rooted in culture and mentality, and usually deeply. Therefore it is pointless to discuss wether the US should be more like Britain or any other country for that matter. It needs to find its own balance between personal freedom and public safety. Two small european nations can serve as illustration for that point. Switzerland and Luxembourg. While Switzerland has the highest gun ownership rate in Europe ( though limits it to people who have served in the military (obligatory)), its violent crime rate is insignificant, especially when compared to the US. Luxembourg bans handguns for private people, except in specia cases, like for hunters. And it is a VERY safe country with VERY little crime as well.
Crime usually has deeper roots, and while reasonable gun ownership limitations and oversight are common sense, restrictive gun laws are of course not the same as an effective counter-crime policy.
This is just another area where transatlantic debates would profit from a bit more cultural sensitivity and a bit less "mine is bigger than yours" attitude ( vice versa of course).

I'd disagree with most of this if not all. The culture is dictated by the environment on the ground, and the laws that regulate it. Britain had no bans on handguns until 1997 and the gun crime rate was incredibly low. Now, a lot of people still have shotguns and rifles. Gun crime is a bit higher now.

Knives though are legal everywhere.

Knife crime is the highest % of all violent crime where a weapon is used, in the UK.

Switzerland is kind of a unique example as they get to determine their citizen's rights to everything...including whether they can live in the country to start with. I am not aware of or familiar with any country that has a similar set of up of civilian council boards that determine immigration status of prospective citizens. In fact if anything, it seems to wreak of the pre 1960's era where segregation was rampant in the US.

Crime does indeed have deeper roots and ironically you hit the nail on the head there without intending to. Peter kind of referred to it with the infested vermin that rioted the living daylights out of the country last year and it kind of saddened me to the extent that even i felt grateful they don't have guns. Not because of the worry i had of what damage they would do (they managed to destroy half a country without any firearms used for the most part), but that if that sort of criminal debauchery didn't wake them up to the inability to realize that criminals benefit from their broken system over the average law abiding resident and that all the wrong people are rewarded for bad behavior over the honest decent people of the country then they truly deserve what they get.

I did grow up in a home with guns in it, i didn't own any of them. Wherever i am now i still pretty much will always be in a property with firearms in it, whether i want to be or not, with the odd exception now and then. Again, it doesn't worry me nor do i care what the cultural aspect to it is and to those who do...well it is their problem. But no matter how screwed up the mentality or the culture was of any of the people in the country when i grew up when it came to arms, never did it cause me or anyone i knew to do anything stupid with one. I saw plenty of idiots screw up property and scar themselves with fireworks, car racing and even fox hunting. But never a gun. And it was never the gun that was the problem.

Originally Posted by Chloe

I saw plenty of idiots screw up property and scar themselves with fireworks, car racing and even fox hunting. But never a gun. And it was never the gun that was the problem.

ahoy Chloe and well met,

all because ye did not personally witness it, doesn't mean that a great portion 'o this country isn't too culturally immature and savage to merit gun ownership.

and aye, the gun be not the problem, aye? people kill people, guns kill no one. it would be interestin' to take that arguement to its logical conclusion;

each country should arm itself with nuclear weapons. people kill people, nukes kill no one. responsible* countries with nuclear arms are okies dokies, because an armed society is a civil society.

aye.

- MeadHallPirate

* - of course if this metric was applied, the United States might very well lose its Nuclear Weapons ownership license.

I am not too worried if other countries start to obtain nuclear weapons ; Britain and France for example have had a few nukes for a while now and neither has bothered to launch a warhead thus far. In theory that isn't too shabby a record for Europe, but then again they had to soak up Germany as a collective whole which meant the Truman had to drop a couple nukes over Japanese cities to end the war Hitler started. Puts it into perspective a bit.

But your point is well taken about the fact the problem may well exist and the fact i didn't personally see it didn't mean much. Maybe i grew up in a more responsible household than the hooligans who end up involved in gun crime, perhaps? I doubt that is the reason by itself but maybe it factors in. That does kind of talk to Voland's point above about the deeper reasons for the crime in the first place. Some of it may be to do with the surroundings ; for example had a i been born a male and gone to Eton, instead of talking to Peter here, he may well have been my Butler and i would have been surrounded by guns at school. A lo of them would be not fit for use but for commemorative purposes but instead going to an all girls boarding school all i ever saw that closely resembled a weapon was a cane that was used maybe 50 years before. It had some stories that went with it but i could care less what they were. I behaved myself and never even got sent to the head's lair leave alone coming close to being told off. If i had though, i still wasn't allowed to be caned and nor was anyone there. But years ago (before corporal punishment was abolished) they could have been.

The culture back then was to have guns and a lot of people did. Handguns were legal for part of that time and the culture was changed, by force. Same way now in the US perhaps some of the culture is changing but i don't see much to indicate to me the country has too large a sector or portion that isn't mature enough to merit gun ownership. Maybe back through the London and Paris riots and now what is going on in Greece i do wonder what would happen if those idiots had the right to more lethal weapons. And how they would use them. The sad part is though, they are the most likely to be able to obtain them in the first place. And criminals like them will find other means any way.

Shame, but there you have it.

Originally Posted by MeadHallPirate

ahoy Thanatos144,

that may be true matey, and liberals may in fact be right....but nothin' will come 'o it, worry not. 'tis not much different from Republicans not trusting women are smart enough to handle thar fetuses properly.

at any rate, in 2009 and 2010 them democrats had total control 'o the bridge and they did absolutely zero regardin' curbin' gun ownership....nor was there an opportunistic push by President Obama fer any further regulation after the shootin' 'o Mrs. Giffords.

worry not, matey...no one is comin' fer yer guns.

- MeadHallPirate

To that point, hasn't Obama actually signed laws into effect that expand the areas in which guns can be concealed and carried? Federal parks is one of them i think and it is a good idea given the amount of wild beasts that are native to parts of the South and Midwest. In fact outside Australia i think the US has the most dangerous creatures in the western world so expansions like that make real sense to me in regards to safety. (So long as you value human life over animals).

For the most part, i do agree with you that almost no gun control legislation is likely any time soon and for the most part i think it is now a moot point in general. Heller upheld the right established an individual bearing arms, that is now precedent and SD will take care of the rest. States are also passing expansive castle and SYD doctrines (especially through the South) so i think the issue of guns is no more a political football that it used to be. To top it off, in an election year it would be suicidal for any candidate to make an enemy of the NRA.

Originally Posted by MeadHallPirate

if americans were truly worried 'bout thar lives, they wouldn't be so bloody fat, as they are far more likely to die 'o heart disease than gun violence.

What a disingenuous post! I know I am going to die. My concern is how am I going to live! If Americans want to eat themselves to death - that is pro-choice in action. The idea that they must abdicate their choices and their right to self-defense is an outrage of arguing on principles. Moral relativism strikes agian.

Originally Posted by MattInFla

So you'd prefer to make it easier for criminals to harm and kill their victims as a "solution" instead?

Do you acknowledge that there are instances where a completely innocent person avoids harm or death by using or threatening to use a firearm on a would-be assailant?

Yeah, I'll acknowledge that.


So???.....

Originally Posted by JohnLocke

What a disingenuous post! I know I am going to die. My concern is how am I going to live! If Americans want to eat themselves to death - that is pro-choice in action. The idea that they must abdicate their choices and their right to self-defense is an outrage of arguing on principles. Moral relativism strikes agian.

ahoy John Locke,

'tis wonderful to see ye live yer life with such gusto, matey, such joie de vivre.

well done!

now i'd hate to see ye blown to bits by some overzealous gun owner whilst yer enjoyin' yer journey with such brio.

wind at yer back, JohnLocke. i hope ye enjoy yer brief stay here on earth and yer expandin' girth will be a testament to yer sunny voyage.

*bows*

- MeadhallPirate