Gun owners?

[downbeatplumb]

If there is a genuine need for a gun like living near creatures that pose a danger, then the appropriate gun should be allowed with strict controls. What seems to happen in America is that all the people who shouldn't have guns are the ones that buy the most. The lack of control on gun sales seems to be insane and guaranteed to produce tragedy after tragedy.

[Minimalist]

There will always be a tradeoff between liberty and security. Those who argue against handgun ownership are saying that people do not have the right to protect themselves, their family or their property. Antigun people expect victims of crime to wait helplessly until the government rescues them. By then its usually too late.

Yeah, yeah.... the old "I'm different" routine.

The reality is that you are less safe with a gun in your home.

https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/...tudy-finds

Guns rights advocates won’t be any happier with these new findings, which were published earlier this week in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, than they were with the previous ones. For the meta-analysis found that people who have access to a firearm in their home are twice as likely to be killed and three times more likely to commit suicide than those who live in homes without guns.

[Godscreated]

The militia was armed by the public, without their guns we would not have had a chance, there was no real central government to to supply arms.

They were still organized and - occasionally - trained although not really effectively.  The idea that some bunch of assholes came running with their hunting rifles and shotguns to defeat the British Army is Hollywood horseshit at its worst. 

You suggested in your original answer to Nappy that the mere thought that a bunch of idiots with rifles would stop a foreign power from invading.  A bunch of shitheads with rifles are out of their league against tanks, attack helicopters, and artillery.

If the army and navy can't stop them we're in deep shit.

 Be realistic Min, I didn't come close to say that people would come running unorganized, I was saying that the public has enough in arms be a second army. There are many citizen militia groups in this country to begin to fight immediately. Those machines you mention wouldn't make it here, we all know that our missile systems would take care of those things. Not only would hunters be of an advantage because of weapons, hunters know the terrain in there areas very well, which is a huge advantage in a small arms war. I know where the sunlight will shine on every part of the area I hunt, those who hunt know the importance of this. Another thing most armies, even ours use very small caliber rifles, hunters like myself use heavy caliber rifles that cause greater damage, understand we are not out to wound animals, we want to take then down as quickly as possible and their range is quite long, for me 500 yards is no problem. It would only take a few rounds at a tree that a soldier could hide behind and the bullets would be traveling through said tree and soldier.

GC

[Whateverist]

There will always be a tradeoff between liberty and security. Those who argue against handgun ownership are saying that people do not have the right to protect themselves, their family or their property. Antigun people expect victims of crime to wait helplessly until the government rescues them. By then its usually too late.

But would they really be that much better off if they manage to get off a few stray rounds which spray the general neighborhood where we all live?  I guess it would give them the illusion of efficacy while providing them with some neighbors to share the grieving process with if they lost some family and your stray shots found a home.

[Godscreated]

There will always be a tradeoff between liberty and security. Those who argue against handgun ownership are saying that people do not have the right to protect themselves, their family or their property. Antigun people expect victims of crime to wait helplessly until the government rescues them. By then its usually too late.

But would they really be that much better off if they manage to get off a few stray rounds which spray the general neighborhood where we all live?  I guess it would give them the illusion of efficacy while providing them with some neighbors to share the grieving process with if they lost some family and your stray shots found a home.

People around here do not come in and spray a few rounds around, because they know that many more would come their way, that's why we should be able to arm ourselves, it's a good preventative measure, kinda like the nuclear weapons, shoot at me and I'll return the favor.

GC

[Minimalist]

 Be realistic Min, I didn't come close to say that people would come running unorganized,

That's exactly what you did.  If you wish to re-phrase go ahead.

We spend a shitload of money every year training a military.  We even spend a shitload of money militarizing the police to keep gangs of random gun nuts in line.

The militia companies in the colonies were set up in different ways but there was a chain of command.  In some cases men had to buy their own weapons - and the Brown Bess musket and bayonet always figured prominently as the need to simplify ammunition supply was always critical.  Some units were supplied by the wealthy men who raised the company and had themselves appointed officers by the governor.  Some militia companies were still using left-overs from the French and Indian War.  While individual towns would form militia companies there would be an artillery battery (or section ) in larger towns/cities.

In any case, the Dick Act of 1903 effectively dissolved the state militia system, which had demonstrated numerous failures during the Spanish American War , and replaced it with the National Guard system.  And here we sit, 112 years later.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Unfortunately the facts simply do not support the opinion that more gun ownership means less crime. The opposite was demonstrated to be true in Harvard’s Journal of Public Law and Policy, volume 30, “Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide”.

Page 655 has the following tid-bit:

“In the late 1990s, England moved from stringent controls to a complete ban of all handguns and many types of long guns. Hundreds of thousands of guns were confiscated from those owners law‐abiding enough to turn them in to authorities. Without suggesting this caused violence, the ban’s ineffective‐ ness was such that by the year 2000 violent crime had so in‐ creased that England and Wales had Europe’s highest violent crime rate, far surpassing even the United States.”

Another interesting statistic: for 1 every gun crime there are 80 instances in which a crime has been thwarted by the use of a privately owned gun.

I mean, look at all those British people being constantly raped and murdered waymore than the overly armed Americans because they cannot own a handgun for protection....oh wait.

I know, facts suck.

Indeed they do.


BTW I used to believe that the mere presence of guns in a society contributed to crime. The facts have convinced me otherwise.

[KUSA]

I've never needed a gun to protect myself and my loved ones. Nor has the big bad government ever offered to do it for me. Sometimes there's a middle ground between two extremes.

I've never needed an airbag before but I kind of like having it there. Maybe I'll take it out because I probably won't need it. I hear they bruise your face up anyway.

[Cyberman]

Not as much as a gun would.

[KUSA]

Not as much as a gun would.

A good friend of mine was fishing alone in the country years ago. Several thugs drove up, robbed him, beat him almost to death, and left him for dead. He laid there in a pool of blood until someone found him. His face was crushed in from the club they beat him with. He now has titanium plates in his face as a result of reconstructive surgery.

He always carries a gun with him now. If he had one then, I'm sure this wouldn't have happened to him.

I carry a gun everywhere, especially when I don't think anything bad might happen. I will not accept being a victim. If you want to take your chances then it's fine with me. Really you don't have much of a choice since your government cut your nads off.