Why More Americans Want to Own Guns

[God of Mr. Hanky]

I'm not a knee-jerk liberal, but then I'm hardly the right wing.

I will vote for Sanders if he gets on the November ballot.

I have many good reasons not to trust the government, but I will never advocate dealing with such issues by slashing it to the core - if you need a big dog, then you need a big dog, just keep it on a tight leash while you're out walking it!

There is a need for a society which permits people to monopolize markets and make billions of dollars for themselves to take care of all said society's people, or stop pretending to be a society at all. This necessitates the socialization of medical care, and as much education as is necessary to make future generations competitive for success (not the hopeless enslavement of poverty wages).

I will always stand against the privatization of services which should be performed only by government employees, having seen too much for myself what comes of crooked government administrators pretending to get anything done well at all when they can show millions of dollars in savings which have to be spent to do it all over again much too soon because it's never done right when you consistently hire the lowest bidder!

Therefore, despite having grown up on a "gentleman's farm", I ain't no fucking libertarian either!

So why do I think it's a bad idea to ban guns in the US? Maybe it's because I grew up shooting guns in a geographic area where you weren't considered bad for that, knowing that not all people who like to shoot guns are violent freaks (target shooting is an actual sport unto itself for some), but after watching the video below, it reminded me of what New Hampshire is like. Compared to neighboring Vermont, it's a bit more rugged and cold, which may be one reason why it could never really be competitive for tourism. Much of it borders the most urbanized part of MA, and NH fears the spread of its drug culture and the threat which that brings to their comparably isolated homes. It's a sparsely populated State in a cold and rugged part of the US, therefore hard to effectively patrol, not pretty.

http://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100...title-area


American violence has been blamed mostly on easy access to guns in the wrong hands, and while this is a point hard to argue, the argument that taking guns from law-abiding citizens will make them more safe is weak at best.

Yes, I know such policies work well enough in Britain and Europe, but the geography of the US isn't Britain, nor Europe. For one, there's a high population density throughout most of Britain and Europe. Where the real estate isn't hot, there tends to be low tree cover too.

West of the Alps, Europe doesn't really have much in rugged mountainous regions either. Mountains tend to be gentle rolling hills by comparison, and bald of cover. Also, there are parts of Europe which do not ban guns, in fact they are required in each household in Switzerland, where the real mountains are.

Of course there is also the Scots Highlands, and all of Britain prohibits guns, but another factor hasn't been weighed for America: Britain doesn't have an enormous span in square miles, so where road and foot patrolling may be difficult, there isn't as much for air patrol vehicles to cover. Which is an enormous problem in the vast mountain ranges of the US, where more of the people live who want their guns.

To be fair, there is also the cultural isolation in the US, which vast square mileage has permitted. MA residents may call their NH neighbors gun-loving idiots, but the NH residents are terrified of getting too close to the druggies of MA who they don't understand. In much of Europe, more citizens want to arm themselves because they are afraid of incoming Muslim refugees. Honest to fuck, I don't know how it happened that Englanders, who live in close proximity to all that and then some ever willingly gave up their own weapons. Or maybe they never did so willingly, never had legal access to guns, or don't remember the last time there ever was such a choice. If you became the witness to a crime by a London thug who then comes after you and follows you home, then what do you do?

I reject the notion that gun control worked well in Britiain. The murder rate didn't go down after the various gun control measures there. So by what standard did it work well? Britain has a lower murder rate then the US, but then it has a similarly lower murder rate before it had gun control as well. Britain has always had a lower murder rate then the US, regardless of it's gun control laws. I haven't seen any evidence that Britain's gun laws lowered the murder rate there. If it isn't causing less murders, what's the point?

If you can point to some figures which I could reference, I'd be very happy - frankly I've had to take the word of the anti-gunners here, who make the claim that violence is down where the guns are banned, and nobody else seems to have offered a denial, even though there are numerous gun owners on this site.