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Gun Control

Shad

Veteran Member
I'd like to see comparisons with other countries, if this is actually possible given all the cultural and historical differences.

I do not have those stats.

And the pressure to own a weapon might be more related to the number of weapons out there anyway.

You mean crime and immorality. A gun is just a tool.

In a society without so many guns, like the UK, we seem to have an issue at the next level down, with knives.

The UK does not have the cultural issues of the USA.
 

Guitar's Cry

Disciple of Pan
No, it suggests they believe in freedom, less headaches. Atleast thats how some would look at it.

I would hope that the responsibility in owning a gun is a stronger belief than convenience.

You can get training without it being a law. You can be good without a screening. And you can be bad WITH A SCREENING.

Sure. But as you stated, people don't want to go through with this process. They just want their gun. I would prefer that people carrying firearms are responsible enough to go through things like safety training and de-escalation techniques and nonlethal self defense methods (heck, add first aid training in there). If they carry a gun for self-defense this shouldn't be a problem since these will only help a person in a crisis.

Some people can snap, it dont mean there gonna shoot someone. People still have a brain. Except those on here who disagree with me, lol.

But it does happen. People at their angriest are at their dumbest.

If youd hesitate, then shame on you. Your wife is about to get gang mugged and youd hesitate to use that gun? Id shoot them all and then twice over. And those left in agony, id take my shoe and press on there wounds. Then spit on them.

My wife would expect me to hesitate. And if I were to use a firearm to defend myself I certainly wouldn't go beyond what I needed to escape the situation. Basic self-defense rule: escape as soon as you can.

Unfortunately, it's the armchair Rambo mentality that ultimately makes gun ownership problematic. The point is to avoid a society in which violence isn't the basic way to solve problems.

Thats good, no shame on you there then.

Thanks!

Why? There thugs, ready to attack your wife and steel her perse. Id feel no ramifications only anger.

Different mentalities. I treat taking any life very seriously. The idea of killing another human, no matter the situation is not a pleasant one.
 

Guitar's Cry

Disciple of Pan
It would be so nice to have this conversation just once without people basing their entire argument on some weird pop culture cowboy revenge fantasy.

Right! The gun culture when I grew up (I am a born and bred rural guy) treated guns with respect and were considered weapons, not toys. Sure we played war games and cowboys and such, but never that guns were anything less than a grave responsibility. It's frightening to see some of the same folks I grew up with taking this "If I were there with my gun I'd show them what for!" mentality, as if shooting someone is just another thing to feel manly about.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
No, it suggests they believe in freedom, less headaches. Atleast thats how some would look at it.
It's not at all clear than lax gun laws help the cause of freedom.

People who have been shot are generally less free than they would have been otherwise.

The more access people have to guns, the more people get shot.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
Guns are very seductive, having owned an air pistol and having fired a proper gun once, such that they often give one a greater sense of power than actually exists. As in - how many people would actually be prepared to kill another based on some sketchy belief or knowledge concerning another's intent. L

People's feelings about possession of a weapon must
vary a lot, and how you felt at first contact would not
be how you'd feel later. Just human nature.

Personal observation-
To the extent that I ever thought about guns, it
was entirely negative,

Not so long ago, recently enough that the
effects are constantly with me, I was attacked
and,well, left in bad condition, lucky to have
survived, really.

If I had had a gun at the time, I dont know.
Probably would have kept thinking this
cant be real until it was too real, and too late.

Now? I did go to a training class, and learned
a lot. I fired my little pistol, a lot. I know how
to use it.

The emotions-first afraid of it. I had to have it
proved ten times over that it was not loaded.
That it is not alive and ready to bite me.

I just looked at it, worked the mechanism,
studied how it works, "dry fired" it, until it
was as familiar as driving a car, or, you know.

So the fear-emotion was gone. Sense of power?
No. More like a sense of immense responsibility.

That should never leave one!

I got some kind of low powered practice bullets
and shot shot shot. Pretty soon I found out it
is fun! Weird. Guys at the range thought I
was cute I guess, so they would be like here,
try this gun, try this gun. Funny guys.

So I shot the ar15 and the ak47 and the
whatever. Take it slow, be sure you understand
it, and, when confident, go ahead!

It is fun. So I kind of saw how that is.

I dont have the gun anymore. I gave it to
a girl-friend as I cannot have it in NYC, and
I see no need for it anyway.

Power? IF someone were breaking down my
door, or had entered my home, I would have
had at least the chance to defend myself.
A chance is a lot better than no chance.

Believe me, I would rather die than go through
what happened to me again, and, I would
find it in me to shoot.

So we are all different.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
The more access people have to guns, the more people get shot.


An account told in my training class was of a kidnapped
woman, forced into the trunk of the car.

When the guy opened the trunk to do whatever
he was going to do to her, she shot him.

The more access people have to guns,
the more people get shot
.

As noted in my above post, this is not always and
automatically a bad thing.

Oh, and in Switzerland, your truism is not true at all.
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
People's feelings about possession of a weapon must
vary a lot, and how you felt at first contact would not
be how you'd feel later. Just human nature.

Personal observation-
To the extent that I ever thought about guns, it
was entirely negative,

Not so long ago, recently enough that the
effects are constantly with me, I was attacked
and,well, left in bad condition, lucky to have
survived, really.

If I had had a gun at the time, I dont know.
Probably would have kept thinking this
cant be real until it was too real, and too late.

Now? I did go to a training class, and learned
a lot. I fired my little pistol, a lot. I know how
to use it.

The emotions-first afraid of it. I had to have it
proved ten times over that it was not loaded.
That it is not alive and ready to bite me.

I just looked at it, worked the mechanism,
studied how it works, "dry fired" it, until it
was as familiar as driving a car, or, you know.

So the fear-emotion was gone. Sense of power?
No. More like a sense of immense responsibility.

That should never leave one!

I got some kind of low powered practice bullets
and shot shot shot. Pretty soon I found out it
is fun! Weird. Guys at the range thought I
was cute I guess, so they would be like here,
try this gun, try this gun. Funny guys.

So I shot the ar15 and the ak47 and the
whatever. Take it slow, be sure you understand
it, and, when confident, go ahead!

It is fun. So I kind of saw how that is.

I dont have the gun anymore. I gave it to
a girl-friend as I cannot have it in NYC, and
I see no need for it anyway.

Power? IF someone were breaking down my
door, or had entered my home, I would have
had at least the chance to defend myself.
A chance is a lot better than no chance.

Believe me, I would rather die than go through
what happened to me again, and, I would
find it in me to shoot.

So we are all different.

Seductive then? And I agree, that if guns were legal in the UK there might be pressure to own one. It just feels a lot safer knowing that they just aren't common, nor is the threat of being invaded in one's home, but the fear can easily be stoked so as to make one feel vulnerable. One might only have to read the daily news from some sources to get that. I can see why the USA has what it has but I can't really see why, when they look at so many other countries (even visiting them perhaps) that they don't recognise a better way, even if it takes a long time to transition. I think basic insecurity plays a role here.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
Seductive then? And I agree, that if guns were legal in the UK there might be pressure to own one. It just feels a lot safer knowing that they just aren't common, nor is the threat of being invaded in one's home, but the fear can easily be stoked so as to make one feel vulnerable. One might only have to read the daily news from some sources to get that. I can see why the USA has what it has but I can't really see why, when they look at so many other countries (even visiting them perhaps) that they don't recognise a better way, even if it takes a long time to transition. I think basic insecurity plays a role here.

Seductive, insecurity, fear, threat, vulnerable,,...
I dont guess I can remote- analyse other people.

And in that vein, one need not assume only the
negative about others.

My opinion is that very little about gun ownership has
to do with self defense, and that none of the descriptors
used apply in a very large percent of the time.

"better way", to do what?

Life in the USA could definitely use some
improvements on a very broad front.
Gun ownership / use is a very very minor
issue, as things go.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
I can see why the USA has what it has but I can't really see why, when they look at so many other countries (even visiting them perhaps) that they don't recognise a better way, even if it takes a long time to transition. I think basic insecurity plays a role here.
Dan Carlin had an interesting line in his episode "The American Peril" from his Hardcore History podcast: the American people never got over the closing of the frontier.

(FYI: The Closing of the Frontier)

It's interesting to see how deeply ingrained the idea of the American as the rugged individualist, alone against the wilderness, has informed Americans' view of themselves.

I see something in the US that seems a lot like what was seen in Japan with the end of the warring period: as the samurai class transitioned from actual warfare to being civil servants, they continued their "warrior" ethos and applied these principles to their new work, but in many ways became more conservative: since they weren't fighting wars any more, to demonstrate that they had "warrior spirit," they had to make themselves into "ultra-samurai" who held to their codes even more tightly than had been traditionally the case.

I think something similar happened in the US: historically, someone who lived on a homestead a day's ride from anyone else and a week's ride from the nearest railway station was obviously self-reliant... they had to be. These days, virtually nobody in the US is a day's ride from anyone else, so they need something else to signify that they're trying to hold true to that old spirit of self-reliance.

And in some circles, the way people signify this is by keeping a loaded AR-15 in their house and parroting slogans like "when seconds count, the police are minutes away!"

It had toxic results when it happened in Japan and it's having toxic results in the US today.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
Dan Carlin had an interesting line in his episode "The American Peril" from his Hardcore History podcast: the American people never got over the closing of the frontier.

(FYI: The Closing of the Frontier)

It's interesting to see how deeply ingrained the idea of the American as the rugged individualist, alone against the wilderness, has informed Americans' view of themselves.

I see something in the US that seems a lot like what was seen in Japan with the end of the warring period: as the samurai class transitioned from actual warfare to being civil servants, they continued their "warrior" ethos and applied these principles to their new work, but in many ways became more conservative: since they weren't fighting wars any more, to demonstrate that they had "warrior spirit," they had to make themselves into "ultra-samurai" who held to their codes even more tightly than had been traditionally the case.

I think something similar happened in the US: historically, someone who lived on a homestead a day's ride from anyone else and a week's ride from the nearest railway station was obviously self-reliant... they had to be. These days, virtually nobody in the US is a day's ride from anyone else, so they need something else to signify that they're trying to hold true to that old spirit of self-reliance.

And in some circles, the way people signify this is by keeping a loaded AR-15 in their house and parroting slogans like "when seconds count, the police are minutes away!"

It had toxic results when it happened in Japan and it's having toxic results in the US today.

Interesting
 

MonkeyFire

Well-Known Member
We need God, not guns. Justice should be left compassionate pacifism. If you could defend yourself with inner peace, would you?
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
Seductive, insecurity, fear, threat, vulnerable,,...
I dont guess I can remote- analyse other people.

And in that vein, one need not assume only the
negative about others.

My opinion is that very little about gun ownership has
to do with self defense, and that none of the descriptors
used apply in a very large percent of the time.

"better way", to do what?

Life in the USA could definitely use some
improvements on a very broad front.
Gun ownership / use is a very very minor
issue, as things go.

I guess it's just my general impression, which like any impression of another country, might not be that realistic. :rolleyes:
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
On Sunday, a friend lent me this....
how-to-talk-to-your-cat-about-gun-safety_30631.jpg
 

Ponder This

Well-Known Member
I found some more information about mass shootings.

Mass Shootings in Gun-Free Zones | The American Spectator | Politics Is Too Important To Be Taken Seriously.

The point is that the overwhelming majority of mass shootings occur in gun-free zones.

Of course, now we want to fact check:

Do most mass shootings happen in gun-free zones?

The claim here is that it is "half true" because there is not a good definition of what comprises a gun-free zone or a mass shooting. But this is an obfuscation because:

UPDATED: Mass Public Shootings keep occurring in Gun-Free Zones: 94% of attacks since 1950 - Crime Prevention Research Center

This site is very clear about what is considered a gun-free zone and what is considered a mass shooting. There's really no ambiguity about it. You can't just hand-wave it away as a semantic argument and ignore it.

So gun-free zones are where most mass shooters go to maximize the number of people they can kill before they are stopped. Given this information: that disarming the populace makes those that have been disarmed more likely to be targeted by a mass shooter, the better option is to make sure that armaments are available for people to defend themselves with, which is to say if you want to discourage mass shooters then get rid of gun free zones.

The outcry for gun control when mass shootings take place is very much an emotional reaction without real knowledge of information about mass shootings. More gun control laws get passed and more mass shooting occur, because gun control laws increase the amount of damage mass shooters are able to inflict before they are stopped. The cycle continues.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
I found some more information about mass shootings.

Mass Shootings in Gun-Free Zones | The American Spectator | Politics Is Too Important To Be Taken Seriously.

The point is that the overwhelming majority of mass shootings occur in gun-free zones.

Of course, now we want to fact check:

Do most mass shootings happen in gun-free zones?

The claim here is that it is "half true" because there is not a good definition of what comprises a gun-free zone or a mass shooting. But this is an obfuscation because:

UPDATED: Mass Public Shootings keep occurring in Gun-Free Zones: 94% of attacks since 1950 - Crime Prevention Research Center

This site is very clear about what is considered a gun-free zone and what is considered a mass shooting. There's really no ambiguity about it. You can't just hand-wave it away as a semantic argument and ignore it.

So gun-free zones are where most mass shooters go to maximize the number of people they can kill before they are stopped. Given this information: that disarming the populace makes those that have been disarmed more likely to be targeted by a mass shooter, the better option is to make sure that armaments are available for people to defend themselves with, which is to say if you want to discourage mass shooters then get rid of gun free zones.
By the same logic, we should get rid of hospitals in order to stop sick and injured people from dying.

Gun-free zones are a response to mass shootings. They're an attempt by officials to do something at the places most vulnerable to mass shootings.

But you're right. They aren't very effective. I agree that it's a bit ridiculous to expect that "gun-free zone" signs will stop a mass shooter when that shooter can acquire and carry whatever weapons he wants a short distance away.

The outcry for gun control when mass shootings take place is very much an emotional reaction without real knowledge of information about mass shootings. More gun control laws get passed and more mass shooting occur, because gun control laws increase the amount of damage mass shooters are able to inflict before they are stopped. The cycle continues.
... because the weapons are freely available.

The legal gun market feeds the market for criminal guns, which enable criminals to use those guns against others. Unless you shut that pipeline off at the source - the legal gun market - you'll never be able to really address the problem.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
By the same logic, we should get rid of hospitals in order to stop sick and injured people from dying.

Gun-free zones are a response to mass shootings. They're an attempt by officials to do something at the places most vulnerable to mass shootings.

But you're right. They aren't very effective. I agree that it's a bit ridiculous to expect that "gun-free zone" signs will stop a mass shooter when that shooter can acquire and carry whatever weapons he wants a short distance away.


... because the weapons are freely available.

The legal gun market feeds the market for criminal guns, which enable criminals to use those guns against others. Unless you shut that pipeline off at the source - the legal gun market - you'll never be able to really address the problem.

Describe what "shut off at source" would consist of?

How would that be done?
 

Ponder This

Well-Known Member
By the same logic, we should get rid of hospitals in order to stop sick and injured people from dying.

Are most sicknesses and injuries actually contracted/inflicted in hospitals?!? :confused:
For example, are most gun wounds inflicted within hospitals? Statistics please!

Gun-free zones are a response to mass shootings. They're an attempt by officials to do something at the places most vulnerable to mass shootings.

Sure the gun-free zones were an attempt to limit gun violence around children, but not because those were the places most vulnerable to mass shootings. They became the most vulnerable to mass shootings after the gun-free zones were passed. And I think you've really highlighted the point that it isn't really enough to want to do something. There has to be some deeper rational consideration and not simply an emotional reaction.

But you're right. They aren't very effective. I agree that it's a bit ridiculous to expect that "gun-free zone" signs will stop a mass shooter when that shooter can acquire and carry whatever weapons he wants a short distance away.

Removal of these gun-free zones would qualify as less strict gun laws in regards to the OP question of:
Stricter gun laws, or more guns in the hands of the people?
So we at least agree that stricter gun laws aren't necessarily helpful.

... because the weapons are freely available.

The legal gun market feeds the market for criminal guns, which enable criminals to use those guns against others. Unless you shut that pipeline off at the source - the legal gun market - you'll never be able to really address the problem.

Do you really believe that in today's world where it is possible to 3D print a gun, that it is actually possible to reduce the availability of guns in legal markets enough to have a significant enough impact on mass shootings to justify that restriction? If so, then... why do you think that? What reason might you have besides wanting to do something?
 

ImmortalFlame

Woke gremlin
Do you really believe that in today's world where it is possible to 3D print a gun, that it is actually possible to reduce the availability of guns in legal markets enough to have a significant enough impact on mass shootings to justify that restriction? If so, then... why do you think that? What reason might you have besides wanting to do something?
It may be a crazy suggestion, but...

Have you tried looking at the mass shooting rates of other countries that either have much stricter gun regulation or an outright ban on all private-held firearms?
 
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