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Firearms debate (formerly Symantec Firewall blocks freedom)

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flap:

quote:Do I need evidence? Use your imagination.
--- End quote ---


I think he was asking if you have any evidence to support this statement:

 
quote:Why does burglary still happen? This is because many people in the US do not own a gun, due to anti-gun messages and anti-gun laws in many states
--- End quote ---


All of this hypothesising about different home-defence situations is largely irrelevant anyway. It's not necessary to theorise about the potential advantages of guns being legal, because we can already see the immense disadvantages by comparing the US with other countries. As I've said before, the US has a significant culture of death and violence that you just don't see in other countries, and that's down purely to guns being readily available. Even if you believe that guns do act as a deterrent, or make people feel safer, I don't see how you can feel that this outweighs the damage they do to society.

To quote from the page I mentioned earlier:

 
quote:- in the USA, more people died from gunshot wounds in the last 2 years alone than the whole Vietnam War

- by contrast, Japan with a population of 120 million has lost the number of young men to gunshot wounds in a year that is lost in a single weekend in New York City

- armed robbery is 100 times the rate of Japan
--- End quote ---


It's fairly obvious that guns are a bigger aid to the criminals than they are to innocent people trying to defend themselves. And in reality home-owners and business owners having guns isn't really a deterrent anyway. The robber will always have the upper-hand as they're catching their victim off-guard. And since trained, alert and armed security guards in banks don't always deter criminals from robbing those, it's unlikely that a civilian having a gun in their home is going to put anyone off. The fact is that when someone breaks into a house they don't expect to be caught.

[ November 10, 2003: Message edited by: flap ]

Calum:
guns do not kill people.

for anybody who has time, read "deadeye dick" by kurt vonnegut. i just finished it. it is not pro or anti gun but the main character accidentally kills a pregnant mother of two at age twelve, which features as one of the main themes in the novel.

anyway, guns don't kill people. get a few hundred guns together and nobody will die till some people start loading them with ammunition and pointing them at each other. of course, that's what guns are for so you will have a hard time stopping people from doing it. that's one part of it.

but the MAIN part of it is this:
people see people shooting each other on TV. they read about people shooting each other in the paper. They feel inadequate and fed up with modern life, living in shitty assed dumps and no government gives a fuck and people are nasty to each other on the streets for no reason. And they see guns on the TV. guns are cool when you see them on columbo or LAPD or something, you know? black kids see TV shows about blacks shooting people and think they can get recognised by doing it. white kids can afford guns, and maybe white kids read in the papers about white kids who shoot up their class in high school for a laugh and think it's big and clever.Not only that but in this fast paced high tension, high debt world of the US and its social colonies (of which the homogenous UK is one), people get a bit crazy under pressure.

In the same way as people divorce and fight and beat each other up and get pregnant at 13 and drink to excess in the UK because it is on TV, people in the US shoot each other because it's on TV. it is that simple. in canada, there are something like 4 times as many guns per head of population than there are in the US. guess what, there are a TENTH of the gun deaths. why is this? there's something unique about the USA's media and culture. This has in some ways affected other countries, but not to the same extent, especially while other countries can obsess over sex, drink, drugs etc. whatever tickles the local fancy.

anyway, go ahead, take your bestshot, but after you have let loose, please do think about what i said.

pofnlice:
Guns are tools.  A weapon is nothing more than a tool to accomplish a job.  Whether the weapon is a knife, club or gun is regardless.  ANYTHING can be used as a weapon, if modified properly in some cases and without any modification in others.

I also believe the history of America becoming what it is today is largley to blame for the "Gun related incidents."  I've been in law enforcement for 12 years.  Most shootings I have worked had alcohol/drug involvement.  In a close second were cases of pride (you know, gang stuff, infidelity and rights of passage).  America has been raised in a culture of violence.  It's how we became a country.  Even before the revolutionary war, we fought.  We fought french, Spanish, American Natives, we fought along side and against them.  Then we fought the British.  Ever since, we've fought ourselves.  With the occaisional bombing of some country which we deemed earned themselves one.
America is also comprised of many subcultures.  The first one everyone seems to single out is black.  Black violence is popular because the media have sensationalized it, the equal rights activists have dramatized it and the communities have accepted it.  Fact is there's just as much white crime.  The stats taken concerning the race of offenders, to no surprise, would be dominated by the dominate race of the area.  I would be surprised to see whites as the dominant criminal in Spanish Harlem.  That's just logical.
No one is surprised when "Rednecks" shoot each other, so it's not much for anything beyond local news, also they tend to happen in rural areas.  People want to hear City news.  It's where large portions of society live and visit.  Honestly, lets compare the number of tourists to NYC against some small town like Nevada, Missouri (after you do a yahoo map just to figure it out where it is...then you should understand my point on that).
What the gun debate really boils down to is an issue of Public safety.  Does the government have the right to restrict or take away a right that our founders wrote into the constitution if that act would improve public safety?  Again I refer back to my experience as a Law Enforcement Officer.  For every 1000 peeps I encounter in a day/week/month with guns, maybe 1 or 2 of them are "Bad Guys." That's only peeps with guns now, not the average "Joe." Most people in America are not gun owners.  Correct me if I am wrong...but that makes gun owners a minority.  So, back to logic.  If the majority truely beleived guns were a problem wouldn't they have been banned or higher restrictions placed on them by now.
Freedom, Freedom, Freedom.  We have the choice to make a choice.  If you make good choices then you live your life in relative peace.  If you make bad choices then you usually infringe on other peeps rights and should be ready to accept the consequences of your actions.  It's what freedoms all about.  Making your own choices and living with/accepting the outcome/consequences.
Should the minority speak for the majority?  If the majority refuses to speak then they have empowered the minority over them.  We see this everday in other issues as heated as the gun debate.  There's always no winner debates floating around.  Abortion, Religeon, Politics, Foriegn Affairs, Drugs, bla bla bla.
Back to the question I asked before...As I have said, I am a Police Officer.  I am also a sniper.  I own personally a PSG-1.  It's a silenced sniper rifle.  Because I am a police officer, I get a couple of documents which allow me to personally own that rifle.  Should I be allowed to.  My personal thought is, why should I be allowed to.  It's subsonic, so it's really not effective for anything other than people.  I can shoot a quarter sized target at 300 meters with it.  I can also hit a 3 inch bullseye at 800 meters with it.  Should it be legal for me to own that.  Some would say "Well you're a cop, it's a tool for your job and for a specific duty you perform for your Department."  If that were true, and it was a necessary tool for my job, then why wouldn't the Department keep and issue that to me as needed (For situations and training only).  You have to be prepared when arguing any ethics based debate to plan for all contigencies.  or leave the plan flexible enough to deal with them as they come up.
By the way, just for the record.  Being shot is nowhere near as painfull as being bludgeoned by a bat, and not all shootings end in death.  It's actually hard to kill with a gun if you're not placing your shots.  Sure there are random stories of the one that went through a wall and killed the girl in bed.  Rare and even more coincidental.  Those are one in a billion.  There are only about 5 places on your body where you can get shot and die almost immediately or instantaneously.  With a bat, you just have lay there and continuously get hit with a bat over and over until they decide they've done a good enough job.

slave:
We just need to encourage a more civil and humane society in this country.  And people should have to be trained or at least prove they know how to safely handle a gun, and have a license to buy or posess one.  You have to do the same for cars, after all. (Cars or guns - which ones cause more deaths, that's a thought)  Personally, I enjoy shooting.  I live in the country and regularly go out with a shotgun and just blast things like rotten apples and beer cans and so on. Now that I'm in college I don't have a gun and simply play violent video games instead -- nothing wrong with a bit of harmless carnage if you ask me.  It's in our human nature to enjoy violence to some extent, and if that emotion is directed at harmless activities it it can be a very positive experience.  If you think we as a society can't enjoy violence and at the same time be non-violent then please think things through again.

istruthfull:
I don't think that a gun is the problem, just a symptom. Many people have mastered many weapons including their own body. That doesn't mean that they are going out and hurting people. With proper knowledge anything can be turned into a weapon. Defending and attacking are not the same thing. Defending oneself at home or fighting in a war type combat doesn't mean the loss of values. When in war one doesn't have to rape and pillage. It's the character of the person that makes all the difference. However a gun in the hands of an 150lb man sure can help him defend his wife and kids against 2-200 n some lb men burglarizing his home with the intent of raping and killing his wife and kids. With better values those men wouldn't be in his house to begin with.

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