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Even though my stance is anti-gun (or at least anti handgun), there is something that i want to point out. In Australia, the made owning a gun illegal. in the weeks following home invasions in australia went up about 400% or so i think. I don't have specific information or sources on this, maybe our friend renegade can help?

Yeah I heard about that. There was a piece circulating on the internet about it, and then Charlton Heston made up some statistics about it in an empassioned NRA commercial as well. Fact is, though, it's completely false:

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/ausguns.htm

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Originally posted by nrjizer Correct, but their use can meet many different circumstances. One of them being to protect. Banning guns would do nothing but take them out of law abiding citizens who want to protect themselves and their families. Just look what good outlawing drugs has done. People still get and use them. Even on this very forum, many people regularly take illegial substances. Guns are no different. Criminals will still get them and use them. There is no possible way to completely abolish guns. And when one of those maniacs wants to break into my house, tie me up and rob me, prehaps planning to kill me afterwards, what will I do to protect myself if guns are banned? Weild a kitchen knife? Surrender to his demands? Like I said, criminals will still get guns. If responsible citizens don't have them, the shift of power would be completely tilted to the criminal. Crime rates would likely sky rocket. I dont know if you have ever lived in a rough area, but the city I used to live in got pretty bad before I moved out. Several homes in my neighborhood were broken in to. Gang grafitti was everywhere. My friend got chased around the high school by gang members wanting to kill him for wearing a Green Day shirt. Just around the corner from me, 3 guys got held at gun point for their money; one was shot and killed, the other shot but survived, and the last one got away. The same gang that chased my friend shot and killed someone at the soccer fields just down the road that I used to practise at three times a week. I still love that town and really it wasnt that bad of a place to live, but the way it had gotten, I wouldnt really feel safe living there without a gun.

So the solution is to let every dolt own a gun? I'm sorry but the solution to the problem of society having too many dangerous firearms isn't to pump MORE firearms into society. Yes criminals can still get guns but it's a lot easier for criminals to get guns in a country where guns are legal than in a country where they are banned. Besides, most of the cases you mentioned are of common thugs having guns. If guns were banned throughout, the price of guns are going to skyrocket, it's goign to be a lot harder getting a gun, and more often than not you will never be confronted in situation where someone will assault you with a gun. The only criminals that would be able to get a gun would be professional high rollers that likely only the police need to worry about. I say Europe and Canada have the right idea with regards to gun control.

Do you really want people like this having access to a gun?

http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/02/24/s...g.ap/index.html

I don't think guns should be made illegal because every person has a right to defend himself if attacked. But, that doesn't mean guns should be given to anybody. It would be best if the person that wants to own a gun first has to pass through extensive and strict psychological examination before being allowed to buy one. Also, punishments for illegally owning a gun should be much higher than they are now. That way guns could be owned only by people who are capable of controling themselves. Besides, you can kill someone with bare hands if you want to, so it's not like prohibiting guns will make murder rates drop by much. People will then either own guns illegally or they'll be attacking each others with knives or other more basic weapons.

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because drugs hurt the USER, not a target.

Not always. People on drugs can be highly irresponsible and can behave very dangerously. Imagine a heroin addict that's got no money and is going through a crises. He'll rob the first person he sees to get the money for the drug. Also, imagine someone who's totally high trying to drive a car and imagine the possible consequences.

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the simple truth is that the purpose of a 9mm, a 357 magnum, or an AK47 is to kill a human being. nobody goes hunting deer with an uzi.

On the contrary, during the war here, people hunted deers with AK47's and even with bazookas. Funny thing, just a few days ago I was talking to a guy of my age (20) who has a pig farm close to the town of Karlovac (probably the town with the highest percentage of people who own machine guns in whole of Europe) and when he's killing his pigs, he does it with a Kalasnjikov. He also hunts fishes with dynamite. And he's not a total freak, it's normal behavior there. Btw, that town is totally crazy, I once went to another friend's house there and he gave me a MLRS rocket. It was empty though, the explosive from it is still in his basement.

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Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0 .... Not always. People on drugs can be highly irresponsible and can behave very dangerously. Imagine a heroin addict that's got no money and is going through a crises. He'll rob the first person he sees to get the money for the drug. Also, imagine someone who's totally high trying to drive a car and imagine the possible consequences. ....

well but the arguement with drugs is not necessarily that ALL drugs should be legal, just as with firearms not ALL weapons (nukes, etc) should be legal. most anit-prohibitionists lobby for soft drugs, cannabis, psylocibin, etc. NOT smack, PCP, crack and all the other hard chemistry created drugs. just as your point argues tho, just because heroin is illegal doesnt mean the robbing wont happen either.

and to what exact definition does 'totally high' fall under? i dont think thats scientific, and it depends on what drug youre using too. its been proven that drivers under the influence of THC are MUCH safer than a driver with ANY alcohol in their system. late|

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Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0 I don't think guns should be made illegal because every person has a right to defend himself if attacked. But, that doesn't mean guns should be given to anybody. It would be best if the person that wants to own a gun first has to pass through extensive and strict psychological examination before being allowed to buy one. Also, punishments for illegally owning a gun should be much higher than they are now. That way guns could be owned only by people who are capable of controling themselves. Besides, you can kill someone with bare hands if you want to, so it's not like prohibiting guns will make murder rates drop by much. People will then either own guns illegally or they'll be attacking each others with knives or other more basic weapons.

Yes people will still kill each other but it's a lot harder to kill somebody with a knife or your barehands. People don't understand what it's like to kill someone when they use a gun. They're far away, they really aren't doing the dirty work. Going up to somebody and sticking a knife into them is a lot different then shooting them. My guess is that a ban on guns would drop the murder rate significantly.

For those that make the 'guns for sportshooting' argument, I and some of my forest-dwelling friends would tend to disagree...

Secondly, universal gun ownership in America is quite unconstitutional. Even if we forget about the critical passage in the second amendment which explicitly mentions "militias," a passage, incidentally, which conservatives gloss-over, if you look at the debates of the constitutional convention, you will find ample evidence of the Founding Fathers' views on gun ownership.

The Federalists (Adams, Hamilton, Jay) were unapologetic elitists and wouldn't under any circumstances agree to having an armed proleteriat running around the countryside of their nascent country.

The Anti-Federalists (Jefferson, Mason), who were the architects of the Bill of Rights, also were against popular gun ownership. When the Whiskey Rebellion and other riots broke out in the wake of Constitutional ratification, the leaders and the moderates of the anti-Federalist party (elitists in their own right) were appaled and terrified of their gun-toting compatriots in the lower classes. They feared arming the popular classes just as much as their Federalist counterparts.

The only people, in fact, who did support universal gun ownership were a radical fringe group of the anti-Federalists whose politics can most aptly be characterized as proto-syndicalist. The militia clause was inserted because of anti-Federalists fears of a standing, national army, and not because they wanted cowboy-types in the west to be armed to the teeth or because they wanted to gun down deer for sport.

Good topic

I think its quite a hard topic to tackle, because the USA has this frontier style history thats its every mans right to posses a firearm, it would be so difficult with the amount of firearms on the streets in USA if ever they were made totally illegal, it would be immpossible to remove them from the street.

Where I live in the Uk there is a firearms ban, you face 3 to 5 years now in jail if your caught with one. The ban started after a number of mass shootings one being some paedofile up in Scotland who entered a school and shot 16 kids and a teacher dead with 4 firearms including a 45 magnum, the other a guy in his 20s in the 80s, entered an office building with an AK 47, and a pump action shotgun, gunning dead I think about 27 ppl odd including two coppers. But as much as we don't get scenes like that no more, gun crimes been on the increase, Manchester the 3rd Biggest City, has a homocide rate worse then most American Cities and its got around 2.5 million ppl living there, its got the nickname Gangchester, clubs are practicially bullet proof in some areas, as gangs turn up not in a group of about 7 ppl its usually around 30 ppl threating innocent staff and customers.

Londons got pretty bad too theres some serious problems with people getting a lot of guns off the street, and as much as the ban is usually scum will always kill scum, crack dealers and gangs will always try and kill eachother weather it be with guns or knives, the criminal element in society will always find a way to be armed, right now as much as theres lots of arms dealers walking around, another big method for getting guns in the UK, is you can buy a deactivated gun like a M 16 assualt rifle, even M 60 chain guns for around 200 - 300 GBP, if you look carefully you can walk into any old dingy pub or bar, and theres a bloke sitting there who will put in a firing pin for about a 100 quid, and will most definatly be able to find you ammo too.

The Uk has got according to a newspaper report out of the biggest economic powers in the world has the worst record for assualts, now if you gave everyone here the same availability of firearms as the USA you would be looking at one hell of a high murder rate, someone finding their wife cheating instead of a heated row, and a punch up if there was a 9mm handgun lying around you know the score and happens in heat of blind rage, also the ammount people drink here the beers a lot stronger and we're bigger drinkers, I could imagine it being like dodge city to go for a drink.

At the end of the day gun control would stop murders being commited some nutjob who gets the piss taken out of him at school who picks up his dads assualt rifle and sprays a group of classmates. Will also stop the guy who finds his wifes been fucking her boss for year from killing two ppl in a fit of rage, It will stop Mr Joe Average from killing however as I said before the criminal element will always have access to weapons.

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At the end of the day gun control would stop murders being commited some nutjob who gets the piss taken out of him at school who picks up his dads assualt rifle and sprays a group of classmates. Will also stop the guy who finds his wifes been fucking her boss for year from killing two ppl in a fit of rage, It will stop Mr Joe Average from killing however as I said before the criminal element will always have access to weapons.

That's a good point actually. I don't think that gun control could ever eliminate premeditated murders, but it will certainly serverely cut down those "heat of the moment" murders that we hear so much about. For instance:

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When looking at the risk of a woman being killed at the hands of a spouse, intimate acquaintance, or close relative, the authors found that having one or more guns in the home made a woman 7.2 times more likely to be the victim of such a homicide.

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...family members that had a history of buying a handgun from a licensed dealer were twice as likely to die in a suicide or homicide as were persons similarly situated who had no such family history of gun purchase. This increased risk persisted for more than five years after the handgun was purchased.

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Other studies have looked specifically at the narrow question of keeping guns in the home for self-defense. One, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that having a gun in the home made it nearly three times more likely that someone in the family will be killed. This risk is particularly high for women, who are more likely to be killed by a spouse, intimate acquaintance, or close relative. An Archives of Internal Medicine study found that, with one or more guns in the home, the risk of suicide among women increased nearly five times and the risk of homicide increased more than three times.

I think a ban on handguns that prevented Joe Suburbs from having a gun in his house would prevent the majority of crimes like this.

The only genuine argument for keeping guns, I feel, is self-defence("recreation" just doesn't cut it - no recreational pursuit is worth the destruction guns are so obviously responsible for) but even then I think that the risks far outweigh the benefits. For instance:

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But how often do people use guns successfully to protect themselves from criminal acts? Does it justify the deaths and damage that comes with guns? Apparently not. Most studies have found that guns play a relatively minor role in preventing crime but a major role in facilitating it. For example, the US Department of Justice study found that, on the average, between 1987 and 1992 only one percent of actual or attempted victims of violent crime, or about 62,000 people, attempted to defend themselves with a firearm. On the other hand, criminals armed with handguns committed a record 931,000 violent crimes in 1992. Data from the FBI's Crime in the United States reveals that for every time in 1999 that a civilian used a handgun to kill in self-defense, 48 people lost their lives in handgun homicides alone.

The NRA would have you believe that the second gun laws are tightened you'd have homes broken into, with the average person now helpless to prevent crime like this, when - in actual fact - the stats say that guns were rarely used for self-defence in the first place. As I said before, a tightening of gun-laws (which involved the sensible banning of weapons such as semi-automatic rifles - no one needs to unload 40 rounds/second for self-defence) in Australia reduced armed robbery and homocide rates, and theft and violent assaults were relatively unchanged. It's no coincidence that the country with such lax gun-laws has the highest homocide rates in the western world, and if these people - who seem to have a worrisome emotional attachement to their weapons (perhaps Freud would have something to say about that ) - could just put one and two together and put aside their extreme paranoia for a second, perhaps we could see the end of unnecessarily tragic domestic homocides like the ones described above.

All quotes taken from:

http://www.prairienet.org/cchcc/gunrp.htm

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Studies ... sources ....logic ... common sense ... Now that is a well put together argument!

Btw it's nice to have a thread longer than a page that doesn't talk about the middle east or the US.

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Originally posted by occrider Btw it's nice to have a thread longer than a page that doesn't talk about the middle east or the US.

ya kinda refreshing....

about the topic, in all generality i agree that there should be strict gun control, even to the point of not allowing civlians, other then those who go through rigourus gun schooling or are some part of enforcement agency...

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