Let’s take their guns

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

It’s perfectly possible for a country to be awash with guns and have extremely low levels of gun crime and gun accidents. I agree that it isn’t so much the guns themselves as it is how gun ownership is viewed.

When you enshrine gun ownership as a right, you inexorably foster a higher level of gun tragedy than when you have a culture that views gun ownership as a privilege that can be taken away.

Boru

That's interesting.

Here, we got loads of shotguns and rifles, and not until a few years ago - not even a decade ago - did we get competence & "background check" requirements, that didn't exist beforehand. It used to be only a requirement, for buying a shotgun or rifle, was to merely have reached the age of 18, and a silly required pamphlet and manual with it. I honestly don't know what changed, probably some Danish law change that was dumped on the Faroese government, but anyways, the point is that the change in the readily availability of shotguns and rifles here got another tier of competence check before you could walk out of the shop with a gun. How people considered guns here remained, largely, unchanged.

I'm confident in saying that here we view guns, particularly shotguns and rifles, as tools to shoot game (mostly hares and birds). Of course we know that some asshole, even when passing the check at the shop or just buying it on the illegal market, can easily get one and use it maliciously, I just doesn't happen that often - probably because guns are viewed the way they are here, as tools and nothing more. I don't think anyone here, to my knowledge, views the availability of guns as either a right or a privilege, that's a view I haven't considered before. To me, personally, I just see guns as nifty ways to secure dinner; that can be, like any other tool, be used maliciously as well, but that is the same with any tool, knives, hammers, saws, screwdrivers, etc.

Here (New Zealand), the ownership and use of firearms is absolutely a privilege. After jumping through all manner of regulatory hoops to get your gun license, it can still be suspended or revoked for things like transporting a loaded gun or failing to secure it properly in your home.

That said, NZ ranks fairly high in gun ownership (about 20th), license revocations are unusual enough to be newsworthy, and we have extremely low rates of gun injuries, gun deaths, and gun crime. Why? Because the culture here is one of responsibility and safety, and we never developed the paranoiac American notion that without guns, we are are at the mercy of our government. 

Boru