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Ahtman wrote:Going by the responses the main reason is that people live in constant fear of home invasion.

I don't "live in fear" of it. I'm just smart enough to acknowledge that it happens and that it's better to be prepared and shoot a criminal dead than it is to be gang-raped and have all my stuff stolen and probably be killed afterwards.

Melissia wrote:

Albatross wrote:Criminals in the USA arm themselves with guns because they have a reasonable expectation that the people they are victimising may own a firearm.

Bull freaking shat.

Criminals arm themselves with guns because it makes being a criminal easier regardless of whether or not the other person has a gun.

So why are guns so rare amongst criminals in the rest of the world? I doubt there are more than a dozen guns amongst the criminals where I live and shootings are very, very rare.
Fact is here if you want to rob someone, you know they'll be unarmed. In america if you want to rob someone, you know they'll have a gun, so you're sure to bring plenty of your own.
Then someone says the wrong thing and some poor mother's son is killed like a dog in a heartbeat.
Gun ownership begates gun ownership.
Hell our police have even had to stop the government from giving them firearms because they know full well it'll mean that criminals will arm themselves.


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Melissia wrote:

Ahtman wrote:Going by the responses the main reason is that people live in constant fear of home invasion.

I don't "live in fear" of it. I'm just smart enough to acknowledge that it happens and that it's better to be prepared and shoot a criminal dead than it is to be gang-raped and have all my stuff stolen and probably be killed afterwards.

One girl against a group of men, with or without guns on either side, will have the same concequence.
I suggest you watch the news less.

MrMerlin wrote:a car is used to transport people

Also to run people down or to demolish buildings. A car is basically a missile on wheels, and it can be used to blow gak up and cause far more damage than a gun can.

MrMerlin wrote:knives are used in the kitchen

Also to cut people, to hold people up much like you would with a gun, and to murder people. There's a thread about a kid who murdered a bully by stabbing him twelve times on the front page of the off topic forum..

MrMerlin wrote:garden tools are used to garden

Also to bludgeon others to death with.

MrMerlin wrote:the main purpose of a gun is to kill somone

No, the main purpose of a gun is to expel a metal slug out of a barrel at a target at very high speeds. The target does not need to be a human being.

corpsesarefun wrote:So what do you say to those that own swords?

Or Bows?

Joey wrote:One girl against a group of men, with or without guns on either side, will have the same concequence.
I suggest you watch the news less.

I do.

Girl charges terrorists who were beating her father and planning on taking her to be a sex slave for their terrorist group. She takes an AK47 from them, kills their leader, and scares the feth out of them and causes them to run off.

I can't claim to be that badass. But if she didn't manage to get that gun, she'd have just been another victim. A gun can kill or incapacitate many people very quickly, and having one is a damned sight better than being utterly defenseless.

Your gun-hate will never convince me otherwise.

Joey wrote:So why are guns so rare amongst criminals in the rest of the world?

They aren't.

Melissia wrote:

Joey wrote:One girl against a group of men, with or without guns on either side, will have the same concequence.
I suggest you watch the news less.

I do.

Girl charges terrorists who were beating her father and planning on taking her to be a sex slave for their terrorist group. She takes an AK47 from them, kills their leader, and scares the feth out of them and causes them to run off.

I can't claim to be that badass. But if she didn't manage to get that gun, she'd have just been another victim. A gun can kill or incapacitate many people very quickly, and having one is a damned sight better than being utterly defenseless.

18 year old girl overpowers a "badass terrorist"...sorry but he can't have been particularly scary in the first place.

Melissia wrote:
Your gun-hate will never convince me otherwise.

Joey wrote:So why are guns so rare amongst criminals in the rest of the world?

They aren't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
USA 15.2...England 0.46.
So, yes, it is. You are very, very, VERY unlikely to be shot in the UK, because most criminals do not own a gun.

Joey wrote:18 year old girl overpowers a "badass terrorist"...sorry but he can't have been particularly scary in the first place.

Oooooor... she had a weapon that equalized her.

You know.

Like a gun.

Which she did by the way. She charged him with an axe and stunned him, then took his gun, and killed him with a burst of automatic fire and turned the gun on his companions, injuring several of them and scaring them off.

Melissia wrote:

Joey wrote:18 year old girl overpowers a "badass terrorist"...sorry but he can't have been particularly scary in the first place.

Oooooor... she had a weapon that equalized her.

You know.

Like a gun.

Which she did by the way. She charged him with an axe and stunned him, then took his gun, and killed him with a burst of automatic fire and turned the gun on his companions, injuring several of them and scaring them off.

Except a grown man will weigh about 40-50% more than an 18 year old girl.
It's also unclear what the man's friends were doing while all this was going on. Considering they were all armed and bigger than her you'd think one of them would have shot/grabbed her.
Oh and ONE instance in a world of 7 billion people really doesn't prove move. As depressing as you may find it, every day there are men who break into peoples houses and the teenage girls do not kick everyone's ass.


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Oh and according to the BBC it was her brother who used the axe. Not sure what she actually did.

Joey wrote:So, yes, it is.

Argentina has more restrictive gun laws than the UK but it also has a similar level of firearm death per capita as the US.


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Joey wrote:Oh and ONE instance in a world of 7 billion people really doesn't prove move.

It proves taht it's possible. That's all that I need to desire a gun to defend myself.

A gun is an equalizer. I don't need to be a musclebuilder to take on a musclebound thug. I just need to shoot him in the chest a few times.

In Cali we cant even have our guns loaded to defends outselves.
While i agree that maybe a handgun is needed for protection some our not.
There is little sane reason to stock pile weapons.

Melissia wrote:

Joey wrote:So, yes, it is.

Argentina has more restrictive gun laws than the UK but it also has a similar level of firearm death per capita as the US.

An outliner. I have no idea how someone can claim that being able to walk into a shop and buy a gun has no baring at all on gun crime.

Melissia wrote:

Joey wrote:Oh and ONE instance in a world of 7 billion people really doesn't prove move.

It proves taht it's possible. That's all that I need to desire a gun to defend myself.
A gun is an equalizer. I don't need to be a musclebuilder to take on a musclebound thug. I just need to shoot him in the chest a few times.

Well his friends are going to be awfully pissed off with you.
And you better hope you have your gun to hand.
And that you get the drop on him.
And that you don't turn the light on to see your brother/boyfriend/father lying dead on the floor.
The fact is that humans are just not able enough to be able to deal with the power of taking away another human's life, it's best left to the armed forces.

Actually, for much of United States history, the armed citizenry was the armed forces. Gun culture is just part and parcel of American life.

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:Actually, for much of United States history, the armed citizenry was the armed forces. Gun culture is just part and parcel of American life.

No different from any other rural country. Thing is a farmer who has a gun for killing pests/predators, is harmless.
No one who lives in a city needs a gun.

Melissia wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:a car is used to transport people

Also to run people down or to demolish buildings. A car is basically a missile on wheels, and it can be used to blow gak up and cause far more damage than a gun can.

MrMerlin wrote:knives are used in the kitchen

Also to cut people, to hold people up much like you would with a gun, and to murder people. There's a thread about a kid who murdered a bully by stabbing him twelve times on the front page of the off topic forum..

MrMerlin wrote:garden tools are used to garden

Also to bludgeon others to death with.

MrMerlin wrote:the main purpose of a gun is to kill somone

No, the main purpose of a gun is to expel a metal slug out of a barrel at a target at very high speeds. The target does not need to be a human being.

i see your point(s)

still, guns are no toys. If you are a responsible person, accicends might not be very likely. But they can still happen, and unlike cars or knives, guns aren't really useful. Why do you want to expell a metal slug? To hit some kind of target. Fun!

sad thing is, somethimes human beings accidentally serve as targets. Sometimes it isnt even accidental. there are countless incident were a fight between to dudes ended with one shooting the other in rage. Husbands and wives shoot at each other in a big fight, wich they wouldnt (couldnt) do if there just were no guns around!

Joey wrote:An outliner.

Out-lier you mean.

And it's not an outlier so much as it is proof that gun control does not equate to lessened gun violence.

Joey wrote:Well his friends are going to be awfully pissed off with you.

I don't give a rat's ass.

Joey wrote:And you better hope you have your gun to hand.

Loaded in a childproof lockbox within easy reach.

Joey wrote:And that you get the drop on him.

Doors and windows are shot and locked, alarm system is activated so that any of the doors or windows being opened or broken without putting in the password (and the only way to put the password in is well inside the house) will release the alarm and wake wake everyone in the household up and probably wake up our neighbors. And it will summon the police.

You suggest throwing caution to the wind, but that is nonsense.

Joey wrote:And that you don't turn the light on to see your brother/boyfriend/father lying dead on the floor.

If they're sneaky enough to get past the alarm system and kill someone silently while I'm still sleeping, it's likely that very little would have stopped them-- obviously the police and armed forces you venerate so much couldn't stop them.

But that's also a stupid situation anyway because we've taken plenty of precautions to make sure that this is a very unlikely situation to happen in the first place.

Joey wrote:it's best left to the armed forces.

Feth that noise, there's not enough soldiers to patrol the nation in the first place, and soldiers also go bad too.

Joey wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Joey wrote:So, yes, it is.

Argentina has more restrictive gun laws than the UK but it also has a similar level of firearm death per capita as the US.

An outliner. I have no idea how someone can claim that being able to walk into a shop and buy a gun has no baring at all on gun crime.

Melissia wrote:

Joey wrote:Oh and ONE instance in a world of 7 billion people really doesn't prove move.

It proves taht it's possible. That's all that I need to desire a gun to defend myself.
A gun is an equalizer. I don't need to be a musclebuilder to take on a musclebound thug. I just need to shoot him in the chest a few times.

Well his friends are going to be awfully pissed off with you.
And you better hope you have your gun to hand.
And that you get the drop on him.
And that you don't turn the light on to see your brother/boyfriend/father lying dead on the floor.
The fact is that humans are just not able enough to be able to deal with the power of taking away another human's life, it's best left to the armed forces.

Agree 100%

Joey wrote:No one who lives in a city needs a gun.

You keep telling yourself that, but you will of course always be wrong.

Melissia wrote:

Joey wrote:No one who lives in a city needs a gun.

You keep telling yourself that, but you will of course always be wrong.

people also keep telling themselves that they need a gun.

but they will of course always be wrong

dont know where you live, but here in germany i haven't even HEARD about a burglary in this area. EVER!

i certainly dont need a gun

Melissia wrote:

Joey wrote:An outliner.

Out-lier you mean.

And it's not an outlier so much as it is proof that gun control does not equate to lessened gun violence.

Joey wrote:Well his friends are going to be awfully pissed off with you.

I don't give a rat's ass.

Joey wrote:And you better hope you have your gun to hand.

Loaded in a childproof lockbox within easy reach.

Joey wrote:And that you get the drop on him.

Doors and windows are shot and locked, alarm system is activated so that any of the doors or windows being opened or broken without putting in the password (and the only way to put the password in is well inside the house) will release the alarm and wake wake everyone in the household up and probably wake up our neighbors. And it will summon the police.

You suggest throwing caution to the wind, but that is nonsense.

Joey wrote:And that you don't turn the light on to see your brother/boyfriend/father lying dead on the floor.

If they're sneaky enough to get past the alarm system and kill someone silently while I'm still sleeping, it's likely that very little would have stopped them-- obviously the police and armed forces you venerate so much couldn't stop them.

But that's also a stupid situation anyway because we've taken plenty of precautions to make sure that this is a very unlikely situation to happen in the first place.

Joey wrote:it's best left to the armed forces.

Feth that noise, there's not enough soldiers to patrol the nation in the first place, and soldiers also go bad too.

Seems like you have anxiety over something. I'm not going to go all Freudian since it tends to offend people, but I assure you no one is going to break into your house, and if they do then owning a gun is going to do feth all.

Who needs a gun when you can get a big dog?

Well my somewhat radical view is that the US and UK are different places, and what they have in place currently suits them for the future.

The fact is that the UK has far less gun crime, far far less than the US, because there are few guns in circulation. Those few being shot are generally from various gangs, the possibility of being shot as a bystander is very remote. The occasions when someone has gone on a killing spree are rare, these events in the UK are once a decade, in the US you hear of public shootings about once a year and gun crime is much higher. Because the public don't have guns, the criminals don't feel the need to be arms. Once some people have guns, everyone needs guns, or feels the need to.

In that sense gun ownership in the US makes sense to a degree, because many criminals are armed. It does not make sense in the UK. The introduction of firearms into the UK would simple cause a rise in gun crime, regardless of the fact you can own a gun, your odds of coming to harm is greatly increased. It just wouldn't make sense to introduce widespread gun ownership into the UK. Most people in the UK will not see or handle a gun outside a museum.

On the other side you have the US. Certainly gun crime is much higher, but the reality is you can't disarm the nation. Thus even though guns are a problem, you have to work with it. Trying to outlaw them in a country already awash with guns simply means that the public are disarmed and the criminals have very easy access to them.

The other problem is that most people who own a gun in the US do not have the opportunity to use them. I've read a lot of people boasting about how they need a gun and how they'll sort out any one who breaks in. I've read people who claim that if people in the UK were armed then the mass shootings we have seen wouldn't have happened. This is utter nonsense, while there's a possibility someone will get a gun and stop such a person, what we see in the US is that these occurrences are far more frequent and there strangely is not hero with a gun ready to stop them dead in their tracks.

The fact is that if you are going to buy a gun you need to know how to use it, and many don't have the training or familiarity with a gun required to use it effectively when woken in the dark of night. This is why most gun related injures result from accidents and not crime, we've done this topic before and statistics are easily available.

Regardless though, US citizens will not allow themselves to be disarmed, it's a different culture. There's no point in people in the UK arguing that the americans should abanding their guns, you might as well expect everyone to give up car ownership. I've no problem in someone in the US owning a gun, but most importantly I think they need to be confident in how to use it. Owning a gun in itself does not make you safer. Similarly Americans should respect that the UK won't be taking up gun ownership. We are a safer country for not having guns and introducing them to the public is a one way street to a society with significantly high gun crime. It's just something we don't want and for as long as guns are generally illegal to own, that can be maintained.

DeadlySquirrel wrote:On the whole "guns can kill peple so should be banned" thing... So can knives, should there be a ban kitchen utensils? Bows can kill, should the tradition of Archery in England be banned? Tea Cosies are responsible for 3 deaths a year, should they be banned to?

Emergency surgery studies show that gun wounds are far more dangerous and deadly than knife wounds.

OTOH it's possible to slip on your kitchen floor and break your neck.

Should floors be banned?

Everything is a risk/benefit trade off.

The risk of lots of guns is a weaponised society with a higher murder rate and higher accident rate. As Switzerland shows, that isn't an automatic outcome.

Warrior Squirrel wrote:Who needs a gun when you can get a big dog?

But they weigh so much and you get tired after carrying them around in a holster after awhile.

Joey wrote:Seems like you have anxiety over something. I'm not going to go all Freudian since it tends to offend people, but I assure you no one is going to break into your house, and if they do then owning a gun is going to do feth all.

Yes it will when I shoot them with it. Have you ever been shot? It's quite debilitating. Just the THREAT of gunfire is enough to dissuade many criminals, and the ones that aren't dissuaded get a nice injection of lead.

Oh, and just because I like destroying poorly thought out arguments, I'm going to continue my comparisons to US and other countries' gun laws:

South Africa has more stringent gun laws tahn the US and also has more gun deaths per capita. Columbia has more stringent gun laws than the US and has more gun deaths per capita. Guatemala has slightly more stringent gun laws than the US and has more gun deaths per capita.

I could go on. And I will.

The Phillipines have more stringent gun laws than the US and yet still has far higher gun deaths per capita than the UK. Brazil has more stringent gun laws than the US and has very similar gun deaths per capita. Estonia has more stringent gun laws than the US and has similar gun deaths per capita. Mexico has more stringent gun laws than the US (and, arguably, the UK) and has similar gun deaths per capita.

Your argument is not based off of fact. Argentina wasn't an outlier. Frankly the UK is the outlier.

I will just leave this here:

A young Oklahoma mother shot and killed an intruder to protect her 3-month-old baby on New Year's Eve, less than a week after the baby's father died of cancer.

Sarah McKinley says that a week earlier a man named Justin Martin dropped by on the day of her husband's funeral, claiming that he was a neighbor who wanted to say hello. The 18-year-old Oklahoma City area woman did not let him into her home that day.

On New Year's Eve Martin returned with another man, Dustin Stewart, and this time was armed with a 12-inch hunting knife. The two soon began trying to break into McKinley's home.

As one of the men was going from door to door outside her home trying to gain entry, McKinley called 911 and grabbed her 12-gauge shotgun.

McKinley told ABC News Oklahoma City affiliate KOCO that she quickly got her 12 gauge, went into her bedroom and got a pistol, put the bottle in the baby's mouth and called 911.

"I've got two guns in my hand -- is it okay to shoot him if he comes in this door?" the young mother asked the 911 dispatcher. "I'm here by myself with my infant baby, can I please get a dispatcher out here immediately?"

The 911 dispatcher confirmed with McKinley that the doors to her home were locked as she asked again if it was okay to shoot the intruder if he were to come through her door.

"I can't tell you that you can do that but you do what you have to do to protect your baby," the dispatcher told her. McKinley was on the phone with 911 for a total of 21 minutes.

When Martin kicked in the door and came after her with the knife, the teen mom shot and killed the 24-year-old. Police are calling the shooting justified.

"You're allowed to shoot an unauthorized person that is in your home. The law provides you the remedy, and sanctions the use of deadly force," Det. Dan Huff of the Blanchard police said.

Stewart soon turned himself in to police.

McKinley said that she was at home alone with her newborn that night because her husband just died of cancer on Christmas Day.

"I wouldn't have done it, but it was my son," McKinley told ABC News Oklahoma City affiliate KOCO. "It's not an easy decision to make, but it was either going to be him or my son. And it wasn't going to be my son. There's nothing more dangerous than a woman with a child."

corpsesarefun wrote:I honestly don't understand the whole "guns are evil" thing, how is it a more valid argument than "knives are evil" or "chainsaws are evil"?

There was a push a while ago in the UK to only allow the sale of larger knives with the "anti-stab" points to cut down on knife violence.

Personally, I would like a relaxation of gun laws in the UK to allow for shooting ranges and target shooting here - not for private ownership and storage though. A lot of people forget that gun ownership is actually legal in the UK - it is just quite hard to jump through the hoops to get a permit; there are a lot of shotguns out there

Melissia wrote:Yes it will when I shoot them with it. Have you ever been shot? It's quite debilitating. Just the THREAT of gunfire is enough to dissuade many criminals, and the ones that aren't dissuaded get a nice injection of lead.

Which is why US's crime rate is so low compared to Europe, I guess. Damn I need more guns to dissaude all this criminality that's going on.

Melissia wrote:
Oh, and just because I like destroying poorly thought out arguments, I'm going to continue my comparisons to US and UK gun laws:

South Africa has more stringent gun laws tahn the US and also has more gun deaths per capita. Columbia has more stringent gun laws than the US and has more gun deaths per capita. Guatemala has slightly more stringent gun laws than the US and has more gun deaths per capita.

I could go on. And I will.

The Phillipines have more stringent gun laws than the US and yet still has a far higher gun deaths per capita than the UK. Brazil has more stringent gun laws than the US and has very similar gun deaths per capita. Estonia has more stringent gun laws than the US and has similar gun deaths per capita. Mexico has more stringent gun laws than the US (and, arguably, the UK) and has similar gun deaths per capita.

Your argument is not based off of fact. Argentina wasn't an outlier. Frankly the UK is the outlier.

Guns only became illegal to own in the UK about 15 years ago when some mental guy shot up a school, until then it was pretty easy to get a gun, but virtually no one had one.
Legislation is no reason to fetishise over a phallic devise (a gun) protecting your womb (home) from foreign invaders.


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SilverMK2 wrote:

corpsesarefun wrote:I honestly don't understand the whole "guns are evil" thing, how is it a more valid argument than "knives are evil" or "chainsaws are evil"?

There was a push a while ago in the UK to only allow the sale of larger knives with the "anti-stab" points to cut down on knife violence.

Personally, I would like a relaxation of gun laws in the UK to allow for shooting ranges and target shooting here - not for private ownership and storage though. A lot of people forget that gun ownership is actually legal in the UK - it is just quite hard to jump through the hoops to get a permit; there are a lot of shotguns out there

It's actually pretty easy to get a shotgun in the UK. My ex's dad had one until a couple of months ago.
I asked him why and he blunty said "to shoot people".

Is there a version of Godwins law for poor use of Freud?

MrMerlin wrote:

CptJake wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:Sure, owning a pistol to defend yourself against burglars/ dangerous animals (in areas where they are commomon) seems reasonable to me. But who needs machine guns? Who needs 50 fething rifles in his house? Some people just go too far with it, and many people die from that (kids playing with daddys machine gun for example)

I assume you are ignorant of US gun laws. Folks cannot have machine guns without an expensive Federal license which has an annual renewal fee. That tends to limit legal ownership to collectors who generally are not using them to defend their house and don't leave them laying around. In fact, I bet you cannot find an example from the last ten years where some child has killed him/herself with Daddy's legally owned machine gun. Folks who own a machinegun illegally, well no law is going to keep a law breaker from breaking the law...

Additionally a pistol for use against dangerous animals is a real bad choice. You have to get too close and pistol caliber rounds may not work the best. We had a cougar take down a couple cows less than a mile up the road from my place a couple of years ago. No way I would want to face that with a pistol when I don't have to.

well, then buy a proper gun to kill a snake. Dont have a problem with that.

Who i do have a problem with are peolple who own guns because they think its cool. "becaue its fun to shoot with it" is not an argument for owning something that can kill a person.

Why should anyone give a toss what another free person decides to own/collect as long as the items collected are not themselves the result of harming another human (kiddie porn comes to mind)?

I know folks who collect motorcycles and custom cars, beanie babies, wines, 40k armies, comic books, and guns and other assorted stuff. A couple of my guns I own because though not really practical, they are cool and fun to shoot. Between my wife and I we also have three motorcycles and could only ever ride two at a time between the two of us, and because we have kids the bikes are often not practical to take someplace. We have even more horses. Why is it anyone elses business what we have/collect?

Why does it bother you that free people spend money on something they consider cool, something cool that is not going to affect your quality of life at all?

corpsesarefun wrote:Is there a version of Godwins law for poor use of Freud?

Yeah, it's called "just report it and let the mods deal with it because the guy is just flamebaiting now".

That's a bit too long. Let's just call it trolling.

It's also funny that he utterly ignored the fact that quite a damned few of the countries with more heavily regulated gun laws also have some of the highest gun deaths per capita-- in fact the overwhelming majority of those countries which have a higher gun death per capita rating are more restrictive about guns than the US is.