(April 12, 2011 at 5:47 pm)Ace Otana Wrote:Quote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_peasant_revoltsAnd this relates to legalising concealed weapons...how? When I mentioned a time when everyone was given a knife, it was to defend themselves. Stabbings went sky high soon after, it demonstrates what could happen again but this time with guns. You have to ask yourself, are we repeating the past and it's mistakes?
Or even better...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rev...rebellions
Surely you don't presume all of these occurred without the use of extremely deadly force?
Rebellions and uprising is a different topic.
It's easier to organize a revolt when your enemy cannot see all your cards. Everyone has always had shovels, hoes, pitchforks, sickles, hammers, hands and feet... and all of these have been used to slay. Those murders that occurred via stabbing would quite likely be instead handled via strangling, beating, stabbing with non-knife sharp objects (ie: pitchforks), etc.
And knives have been a somewhat common household item in most countries for a fairly long time indeed. The castle kept swords (and now the government keeps the automatics), the people kept mini swords (knives).
We aren't repeating the past and its mistakes, you are taking the past out of context when you note that there were more stabbings without an understanding of what was going on in the time period. With very limited data, you claim that people were murdered because people had knives. I counter that people in america have knives and I haven't heard of a stabbing in this area in at least a year.
Quote:Quote:Only... everyone can have a knife. They are remarkably easy to conceal. Sword too if you are doing it rightAye, it's so very easy to pick up a knife and go use it on someone. You know how easy it would be for me to buy a deadly crossbow online, go to the town centre with it, get onto a roof top and shoot people dead with it. I could go wait in the trees until someone walks by. Just aim and fire. Too easy.Handguns are much harder to obtain.
Not hard at all. Despite the easiness of it, no one has. Not to my knowledge anyway. I think it's through education, prevention, community minded people and improved security that we can stop violent and potentially armed criminals. Not arming up the general public.
The general public which *is* armed, you mean?

As for the reason not many people engage in such crimes as multiple murders: it is *not* easy to get away with. The government is almost certain to find the person. That person could well spend the rest of their life bored or waiting in line to die.
Arming your populace means that they don't even get to wait in line to die, and have a very low chance of escape. Having another tool isn't going to cause very many people to go murder someone else... most of those that are murdered with a tool would have been attacked anyway (if not murdered anyway).
Please give me a home where cloud buffalo roam
Where the dear and the strangers can play
Where sometimes is heard a discouraging word
But the skies are not stormy all day