Gun Control is ridiculous

[Garrette]

Oh, and what bad things justify an armed response? Would you shoot dead a vandal? A mugger? A burglar? What price death?

Already addressed in the legislation. Self defense is sufficient reason in all states (being defined as imminent threat to life or limb of self or other) with the caveat that lesser force is impractical. In Kentucky, catching someone in the act of arson is also justification. Whether someone's illegal presence in your home is sufficient justification in and of itself varies from state to state.

 

[shanek]

Well, the Missouri State Highway patrol says:

which seems to lend at least some credence to my crackpot theory.

Actually, you've hit upon the very problem with the Uniform Crime Reports. Another state might report both--but then it would appear as two different crimes when in reality it's one, at least in American jurisprudence (since the same evidence would apply to both offenses).

 

[Quad4_72]

That's a hugely paranoid position, Quad.

And it ignores the fact that even most crazy-people don't start of crazy. It ignores the fact that the more guns that are available, the more likely you are to be shot. It ignores the fact that the bad things people might do will be generally less bad if they haven't got a gun. It ignores the fact that carrying a gun around with you turns any relatively minor crime you might suffer (mugging, for example) into a major incident. It ignores the fact that the more that the lawful citizens carry guns, the more the criminals do.

Oh, and what bad things justify an armed response? Would you shoot dead a vandal? A mugger? A burglar? What price death?

If I carry a gun around with me, all that is happening is me being able to defend myself. I am not any more likely to commit a crime. The majority of people out there are good, law-abiding citizens who would not think about armed robbery. Having a gun does NOT make them more likely to go bad. Most people are inherently good.

I have already been through the second part of your post. If someone breaks into my home, I give verbal commands/warnings first, and then if any aggression is made towards me, bullets are going to start to fly. I am not going to sit there and ask him "hey, were you just robbing me and not planning on harming me? Cause if thats the case go ahead and continue."

 

[Garrette]

That's a political issue.

I agree, and concede your prescience in anticipating this maneuver.

Any sort of threat? Do you really think your gun will avert all threats?

He has made it clear in other posts that he does not think so.

Other people with your background have broken the law, using their gun to create havoc. Why should I trust you?

Because of the verified training and background check.

Other people have driven drunk and killed people. Why should I trust the next one who wants a license?

 

[CFLarsen]

Actually, hot burglaries are much more common in the UK than the US. The US has more cold burglaries. This would mean that people in the UK would be in greater physical harm from burglaries than in the US; they can't harm you if you ain't there.

You do realize that this is a strong argument against having guns in the house to protect against intruders?

 

[volatile]

Bolding is mine.I don't have the time recently to post much, but I wanted to respond to this. I will preface by saying that I disagree with you position, volatile, but I appreciate the thought in your posts, particularly this one (#306) and the one previous to this.

That said, what are the legitimate uses of shotguns that differentiates them from the legitimate uses of handguns or hunting rifles?

Farmers use them to shoot game, if I'm not mistaken. Now, as a hippie vegan I don't agree with that either, but I admit that I'm rather more marginalised in that opinion as I am on my one on gun control.

I don't think handguns are particularly effective for that purpose, are they? Handguns have no useful purpose other than killing and wounding at short range. Shotguns have very limited but (marginally) justifiable uses, but even their acquisition is massively controlled (returning to the title of the thread, again).

 

[shanek]

Of course bad people will have guns. But good people will be less able to go bad with guns.

This is why gun control people seem to be very misanthropic to me. They act like we're all just a bunch of killers deep down inside waiting to come out.

Would the Columbine Massacre have happened if the TCM didn't have very easy access to firearms?

Um, you are aware that they got their guns illegally, right?

Those kids were law-abiding up to the moment they opened fire.

No, they weren't. They obtained their guns illegally.

 

[Quad4_72]

Good start for who ?

Yes education would lower the gun death rates but the costs would be excessive. Even then the best education would be do not carry a gun.
These sceanarios do not help. I can give you one where you would not want to be in possession of a gun. We are talking about life here and a way of living. It is not just a case of a gun springing into existance when you need it. If the threat is as you say it is we need to carry a gun at all times. Not only that we need it cocked ready in our hand at all times to ensure we get the first shot. If a gas canister was thrown at you by a criminal who would then kill your wife and rape your children while you were incapacitated would you want to have a gas mask. So why do you not carry one ?

I note that in all these scceanarios the person with the gun comes out on top. In the film the baddies miss with 6 shots and the good guy hits with one. I don't think life is like that.

So you get up to go to the toilet at night and when you open the door there is a burgler with a gun pointed at you. Do you think that seeing a gun in your hand he will wait for the warning shot ?




That is not the life I want.

To be honest, that post was JUST barely coherent. But I will try to address it anyways.

First of all, your scenario of a robber throwing a gas canister at me is VERY ridiculous. It does not apply here.

Second, you obviously have had no experience with guns have you? You act like they are some evil objects that once they enter your house your life is going to be completely governed by them. Its very obvious that you have no experience. I keep a gun in a binder right next to my bed. The only time that gun moves is when I leave my house. I really am not sure what you are talking about so more clarification in your next post would be great.

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

That's a silly argument, principally because of the property of guns that they are expressly designed to kill or maim. In the UK, long knives carried in public, flick knives, butterfly knives, hand grenades, explosives, nunchucks, samurai swords and other things expressly only designed to kill or maim are also banned. Things with legitimate uses, like shotguns, are regulated and controlled.

I was not making an argument, I was asking Claus for clarification of his statement.

 

[Garrette]

Farmers use them to shoot game, if I'm not mistaken.

Not just farmers. Subsistence hunting is widespread in the US, though I'm using "subsistence" in a very broad sense in that most such hunters are not on the verge of starvation without the hunt.

Now, as a hippie vegan I don't agree with that either, but I admit that I'm rather more marginalised in that opinion as I am on my one on gun control.

Marginalisation may make a position harder to argue but does not make it less valid. Of course, it doesn't make it more valid, either.

I don't think handguns are particularly effective for that purpose, are they?

It depends. I have one relative and a few friends who hunt deer with high-powered handguns. Successfully. But in the sense of full disclosure, it is because they had the handguns first for other reasons and didn't want to spend the money on rifles.

Handguns have no useful purpose other than killing and wounding at short range.

Setting aside target practice, okay. Are you suggesting that there is no instance in which such a purpose is justified?

Shotguns have very limited but (marginally) justifiable uses, but even their acquisition is massively controlled (returning to the title of the thread, again).

If you're supporting regulation and control, that's an entirely different issue from a general ban.

 

[Quad4_72]

That's a political issue.

That is correct. And I have a problem with it.

Any sort of threat? Do you really think your gun will avert all threats?

A threat against my life or others a gun will indeed come in handy.

Other people with your background have broken the law, using their gun to create havoc. Why should I trust you?

What would it take FOR you to trust someone? You seem very paranoid that anyone who owns a gun is going to go crazy with it. I would really like to see a percentage of the people who LEGALLY own hand guns versus the amount of deaths caused by legal handgun possession. I have a feeling that the percentage would be very low.

 

[Thanz]

Let me posit a hypothetical (after all, everyone else here has): Let's say a battered woman is threatened by her husband. She's tried to leave him, he keeps following her and finding her. He's violating a restraining order to do so. He has directly threatened to kill her. And, as so often happens in these cases, the police do nothing until he actually tries--in which case it's often too late.

She wants to get a gun so she can kill her husband if he breaks in and tries to kill her. Why should she have to wait, go through a training course etc., when he could very likely try to kill her tomorrow? Or this afternoon?

There is an old axiom that "hard cases make bad law". However, if the husband is that dangerous, I don't see a problem with the wife obtaining an order at the same time as the restraining order allowing her to obtain a gun immediately provided that she undertake the training course within X days.

I don't see a house fire as that likely, either. I still have my fire extinguisher.

Some scientists are now saying that fire extinguishers and guns are radically different devices. Hard to believe, I know, but nonetheless true.

So, you've done a risk/benefit analysis and decided that the risks of having a gun aren't worth the benefits. Fair enough, but why take the option away from people who have concluded the opposite?

Guns are inherently dangerous. I am all for regulating them. Lots of other dangerous things are regulated - I don't see why we shouldn't do the same for guns. And some guns are so over the top dangerous vis a vis any reasonable use of them, that they deserve the tightest controls possible. No one (outside of possibly a military use) needs an Uzi.

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

How does a shotgun have a legitimate use? You can blast someone in half with the right ammo.

Bolding is mine.I don't have the time recently to post much, but I wanted to respond to this. I will preface by saying that I disagree with you position, volatile, but I appreciate the thought in your posts, particularly this one (#306) and the one previous to this.

That said, what are the legitimate uses of shotguns that differentiates them from the legitimate uses of handguns or hunting rifles?

My understanding is that shotguns are viewed there as being primarily for things like waterfowling, quail hunting, pheasant hunting, etc.

<snip>
Um, you are aware that they got their guns illegally, right?
<snip>

Additionally, they had homemade explosives which, thankfully, did not detonate, but certainly presented as much, or more, of a threat to others as the firearms did.

 

[CFLarsen]

They obtained their guns illegally.

Robyn Anderson, a friend of Klebold and Harris, bought the shotguns and the Hi-Point 9mm Carbine at The Tanner Gun Show in December of 1998 from unlicensed sellers. Because Anderson purchased the guns for someone else, the transition constituted an illegal "straw purchase." Klebold and Harris bought the TEC-DC9 from a pizza shop employee named Mark Manes, who knew they were too young to purchase the assault pistol, but nevertheless sold it to them for $500.
Source

If that isn't evidence that it is ridiculously easy to get guns in the United States, I don't know what is.

 

[volatile]

No, they weren't. They obtained their guns illegally.

According to Wikipedia, they were obtained through a "straw purchase", meaning they were bought legally. The guns were legal, Shane. Those boys weren't the legal owners, but the guns were bought and registered within the confines of the law. Until they picked up the guns to use them, until Robyn Anderson gave them the weapons, the weapons were legal.

So to prevent future massacres in the future, do we control guns, thus making legal and black-market ones rarer and harder to get, or just make it easier for people to get legal ones? Is "gun control ridiculous"? What would have prevented Columbine - More gun control, or less?

 

[Garrette]

Bolding is mine:

If I carry a gun around with me, all that is happening is me being able to defend myself. I am not any more likely to commit a crime. The majority of people out there are good, law-abiding citizens who would not think about armed robbery. Having a gun does NOT make them more likely to go bad. Most people are inherently good.

I have already been through the second part of your post. If someone breaks into my home, I give verbal commands/warnings first, and then if any aggression is made towards me, bullets are going to start to fly. I am not going to sit there and ask him "hey, were you just robbing me and not planning on harming me? Cause if thats the case go ahead and continue."

Quad, I know I owe you a source regarding concealed carry criminal history in Kentucky, but I'm going to pretend I have forgotten that for now.

And I hate playing devil's advocate when the one I'm countering is one whose views are close to mine, but our arguments don't get stronger if we ignore their flaws. So here goes:

Having a gun may not, as you say, make a good person go bad. But having the alternative of pulling a firearm may make it less likely that a lesser alternative is tried.

I won't claim any studies on this, but anecdotally through years of experience in both the military and in the civilian security profession, I can tell you that the individual dealing with an angry person is far more likely to keep trying to talk that person down when they don't think they have another choice. The moment you tell a security officer that he's got four buddies outside the room ready to help restrain the shouting psychiatric patient is the moment you more than double the likelihood that restraints will be used.

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

If that isn't evidence that it is ridiculously easy to get guns in the United States, I don't know what is.

It does highlight the ease of obtaining guns illegally.

 

[CFLarsen]

That is correct. And I have a problem with it.

Take that to your congressman.

A threat against my life or others a gun will indeed come in handy.

That's not what I asked. I asked if you gun will avert all threats.

What would it take FOR you to trust someone? You seem very paranoid that anyone who owns a gun is going to go crazy with it. I would really like to see a percentage of the people who LEGALLY own hand guns versus the amount of deaths caused by legal handgun possession. I have a feeling that the percentage would be very low.

Answer the question: Why should I trust you?

You're the one with the gun. Why should I trust you?

 

[Quad4_72]

Guns are inherently dangerous. I am all for regulating them. Lots of other dangerous things are regulated - I don't see why we shouldn't do the same for guns. And some guns are so over the top dangerous vis a vis any reasonable use of them, that they deserve the tightest controls possible. No one (outside of possibly a military use) needs an Uzi.

Are you aware of what types of weapons in reference to guns cause the most deaths? Which do you think it is...assualt rifles or handguns? Handguns are WAY more restricted for a reason. The can be concealed very easily. Rarely do you see places being robbed with AKs...The reason I have an AK-47 is because it is a blast to shoot.

 

[Garrette]

My understanding is that shotguns are viewed there as being primarily for things like waterfowling, quail hunting, pheasant hunting, etc.

I understand. It appeared (and still appears) as if it is okay to want to kill for entertainment purposes but not for purposes of self defense.