Should guns be outlawed?

bowling for columbine was biased, by far.

gun deaths are even lower in north korea - doesn't mean i'm going to wish to live in such a police state.

 

outlawing guns certainly isn't going to stop anyone but the criminals from getting them. and upon outlawing them, good luck forcing me to relinquish mine....

 

However, what would the carnage have been like if one of those groups was without weapons? Less or more? I think it's easier to kill those who can't shoot back.

The military value of an armed population isn't a new idea. After all, the Serbs were (IIRC) the only country to kick the Nazis out on their own in WWII. Refer also to the performance of the Canadian infantry in both world wars... made up of rural kids who were used to hunting... if you can hit a rabbit, you can hit a person. Like anything, an armed population can go bad... just like democracy in Germany went bad in the 30's. There is no way to totally prevent tyranny. You can only give the population many ways to deal with it. Arming them is one way. Armed populations aren't by nature chaotic. Take Switzerland as an example. What is required is a population mature enough to use firearms responsibly. Luckily we seem to have this in Canada.

We've got lots of guns in Canada as well... probably about the same per capita as the U.S. We have also had succesive governments try to disarm the Canadian public piecemeal. If gun violence isn't much of a problem in Canada (debatable question), why take weapons from those who are using them legally? What is the ulterior motive? Here are some quotes from Canadian politicians:

"The registering of hunting rifles is the first step in the social re-engineering of Canadians"

- Liberal Senator Sharon Carstairs

"I came to Ottawa last year, with the firm belief that the only people in Canada who should have firearms are police officers and the military."

- former Justice Minister Alan Rock

"...disarming the Canadian public is part of the new humanitarian social agenda."

- Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axeworthy at a Gun Control conference in Oslo, Norway in 1998

Sounds kinda fishy to me, if the quotes are accurate. Can anyone debunk them for me?

Best regards,

-Mark

 

"Can you prove provide real statistics to back that up?

And if there are statictics which would show that, can you prove it is a result of the guns being banned, and not just a normal yearly increase as a result of population increase or some other factor?"

yes, try google.

the problem is, it's not about guns. blaming guns for crime is a knee jerk reaction to a much larger problem.

in the usa, the places where guns are highly restricted, are the most dangerous places to live. go figure. take a look at the stats at cdc.com

"So it's OK for these people to shoot each other?

Maybe if there were less guns in general and it was harder for the average person to obtain such weapons, there wouldn't be as many guns for them to use.

Yes they could get them off the black market, and yes they would just use other weapons, but at least it would be harder for them to get the guns."

well, it's not okay for the government to take away my rights because they do NOTHING to curb crime and drug activity. harder to get guns? criminals can't just go to a gun shop in the usa and buy a gun. there is something called the NICS check. if you are a felon, you ain't getting a gun through legal means. hence, banning guns won't stop criminals from getting guns.

"So what is the problem then? Maybe it would be better to put resources towards fixing that problem instead of arming to the teeth."

huh? yes, it would be great if the government would put resources towards fixing social issues in this country. but, they aren't, and never will.

 

No, firearms just make it easier for people to succeed, without them you would have more people who slit their wrists and end up in the er.

 

This is just my personal opinion. I’m not exactly naïve about guns; I spent 14 years in the military so I’m fairly familiar with a range of them. I just can’t think of very many valid reasons for someone to own one. I don’t rate self-defence as valid as most people that are injured with guns in Australia are injured with their own weapon, either by accident or used against them. I don’t have a problem with target shooting, but the weapons should be kept secured at the firing range. There could be an argument for gun ownership on farming properties to deal with vermin or put sick or injured animals down, but really there are probably more efficient ways of doing this. I also doubt there would be many people out there needing guns to hunt for their food. There are probably still many that just like to hunt, but they could have a more challenging experience without the gun.

 

Guys, I assume we are all martial artists on this forum. People can justify self defense as a reason why they train religiously in their discipline but the interest goes way deeper than that with most people. The fact of the matter is that many people view their secondary role in society as that of warriors. I think this mindset is intrinsic in every society particularly amongst the males.

I know I am digressing a bit, but if you apply this perspective to owning and training with firearms, self defense and safety is only a pretext. Many people simply like to own and train with guns, same as they like to practice martial arts. They develop protocols for cleaning and maintaining the firearm, discharging a round, range etiquette, ways to carry and draw a concealed weapon that they make it part of their spirituality just like a martial artist makes the strikes and drills of his style part of his spirituality.

My personal perspective on using a firearm for self defense is that it is not worth it. Simply because even if you were justified in shooting someone you would have to go through a lot of legal hoops to prove that lethal force was the only option available to you and this would invariably take up a lot of your time and money. The point I am making is that gun ownership comes down to the fact that some people simply like weapons and other people find guns troubling and intimidating.

I personally think that letting off rounds down a range at a paper target gets old vey fast and I much prefer to train in something that gives me a better physical workout whilst feeding that innate warrior need within myself. That is why I would always opt for martial arts instead of guns. Having said that I think handgun and longgun training is just a modern martial art and no matter what the statistics for gun crime, suicide and accidents there will always be a hardcore market for people willing to pay good dollar to recieve training even if it involves travel to the US or Israel.

 

I will admit the problem is not guns in themselves, but guns are certaintly a tool for those affeced by the problem.

How do you think the school masacres in the USA would have went if the killers only had access to, for example, knives?

There would still have been deaths, but without a gun, would they have managed to kill as many as they did?

The same could be said for any criminal with a gun. There is arguably more potential to do large damage with a gun than with a knife or other similar weapon.

Personally, I believe there is arguably no absolute answer as to whether or not to ban guns, just the decisions made by individual cultures.

Maybe not banning guns is the way for Americans, but I believe that Australia made the right decision when we decided to ban guns.

The problem there is that there is no way to tell 100% who will be a criminal in the future, and if a criminal would have access to a gun owned by a responsible person.

After all, criminals can break into a house and steal the guns within. Ever seen Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels?

Personally, I think that would be a much easier way to obtain guns than dealing with potentially dangerous black market people.

And you can't say the owners of the guns could just shoot the robbers. How hard is it to watch a house for a while and wait until they go out one night?

That's a shame, although I can't say we in Australia have it any better in that respect.

Not to mention the psychological consequences of knowing that you seriously hurt or killed a person.

Justified or not, I believe that it would still get to even the hardest person.

 

well, guys, we could always just making killing people illegal. that way, no one will kill anyone because it'll be illegal. recently here in the us we had a nut that ran down 14 people with a truck. maybe vehicles should be banned? if you go to cdc.com, look at the stats. doctors kill more people than guns, WAY more. should we ban doctors?

known fact that the only reason governments press for weapons restrictions is so they can push the people further into repress them.

"The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, bows, spears, firearms or other types of arms. The possession of these elements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues, and tends to permit uprising." -- Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Shogun of Japan, August 29, 1558

i take it you MUST support sword bans and fighting art bans as well?

guns aren't just for hunting or self defense, but for collecting and target shooting.

no offense, guys, but some of you sound like nazi's.

"Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA. Ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State" - Heinrich Himmler

"All military type firearms are to be handed in immediately . . . The SS, SA and Stahlhelm give every respectable German man the opportunity of campaigning with them. Therefore anyone who does not belong to one of the above named organizations and who unjustifiably nevertheless keeps his weapon ... must be regarded as an enemy of the national government." SA Oberfuhrer of Bad Tolz, March, 1933.

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let's not have any native militia or native police. German troops alone will bear the sole responsibility for the maintenance of law and order throughout the occupied Russian territories, and a system of military strong-points must be evolved to cover the entire occupied country." - Adolf Hitler

 

i just think guns are gay, i mean its fun to shoot at things but any kind of projectile weapon i just see as cheap if you want to kill someone they should have a fair chance to defend themselves. that may have sounded stupid but i think wars would be alot cooler if we went back to swords and whatnot.

 

Those guns that are being collected and used for target shooting can still be used to kill someone.

Nazis. I see you're using the Creationist method of debating. I'm impressed. :bang:

 

first off yoiu can buy guys legally in america. Secondly, yes your right in that guns can be bought in the black market, but if its made law that you cant have guns then surley there will be less deaths as police would have the power to search and confiscate guns? I live in a relativley gun-free country so I may not know the extent of problem in America but it seems common sense to me that banning guns will reduce several problems; as opposed to simply allowing anyone to possess a gun for spending a few dollars on a licence.

 

I think it would be fair to say on the basis of this debate that guns should not be outlawed but at the same time they should also not be used for self defense.

I think there are many people in Britain are missing out on the pleasures of handling handuns sensibly at a shooting range and hunting deer,pheasant, rabbit and fox because the government is so anti-gun. As a result we now have wildlife that is out of control and are becoming vermin as well as littering our roads as road kill and spreading disease.

People in the UK are physically terrified of guns because they do not know how to safely handle and live with a firearm. I think we should take a look at a country like new zealand where there is at least 1 firearm for every 4 people. Where most kiwis carry a gun in their vehicle just so they could keep the possum population down which is destroying their forests and endagering their indeginous flightless birds. These people are used to guns and big game hunting is a common past-time which also attracts many tourists. Yet despite having lots of biker and Maori gangs, gun crime is very rare as many gang members would rather battle it out with tomahawks, baseball bats, swords etc. as they view guns as a pussy option.

 

In principle, yes.

But if drug crazed nazies hanging people making the streats unsafe becomes a problem here in Norway, I'll be glad for rope beeing banned (or restricted).

IMHO this thread is biased towards the pro-gun-people, as banning firearms is a very extreme solution. I'm against banning firearms in general, myself, but I'm very much for imposing restrictions on weapons. (I don't see any reason why I should be allowed a gun in my house, but I appreciate the fact that a person taking a hunting-course and buying a hunting lisence is allowed to have a rifle in his house.)

I'm actually fascinated that the pro-ban wiew have reached as hight as 47%!

 

There seems to be loads of people arguing "there's no point banning guns because some criminals will use them anyway" - doesn't this apply to all laws? There's no point making murder illegal because some people will do it anyway? Are there really so many anarchists on here?

 

my point Moosey, just because it may not make an absolute constraint, if a law is made against a certain issue concerning the majority of the soceity then the perception of soceity tends to change over time. Moosey I know why ur anti-firearm, its because people hunt down mooses ay? ^^

 

You got me there!

 

Actually, tyrants wants as smooth a takeover as possible. Very seldom have unarmed populations been wiped out/massacered by gouvernments-turned-dictatoried, simply because they need the masses to man the industry and infrastructure. I have a hard time buying your argument that an armed population can do anything to or fro' when it comes to preventing tyrant-takeovers. Actually; some jews resisted violently to the nazi "final solution", but that didn't help much on their situation, it was only used in the nazi propaganda to explain to the german public just how evil and dangerous the jews were.

Yes, but that is to repell foregin forces, not internal. Norway use this principle too, and I don't disagree with this statemen. But it is a funny thing to mention that few nations suffered higher civilian casualties than the serbs during ww2. To compare, denemark (and norway) hardly resisted at all (weaponwise, despite the fact that we had a lot of weapons), and norway suffered allmost no civilian casualties at all (apart from the jews that was deported and killed).

I feel you contradict yourself here. Yes, any armed population can go bad, and there is no way to totally prevent tyrany. I allso agree with the fact that you can give an armed population many ways to deal with it; I mentioned 5 in one of my previous post, and arming the population isn't one of them. Like you say; an armed population can contribute either way; "evil" or "good".

But I doubt that the Canadians, Swiss (and Norwegians) are mature because we have firearms.

I don't know enough about Canadian politics to comment on this, but I'm too optimistic/naive to believe that certain Canadians' ambitions to disarm the civilian population of Canada is caused by an evil plan to do a hostile takeover of Canada and to turn Canada into a dictatorship

 

I think all guns should be legal. You should also be able to carry in at any time.

 

Where are you from, and what's your reason for having this wiew?