Poll: Gun Control For or Against?

[GrandAdmiral]

I'm for some type of gun control but I'm against making a new law everytime someone gets shot and it makes a headline. Gun control laws can only do so much. Sometimes we have to actually deal with people who think its okay to shoot other people. Even though I don't own a gun knowing I can if I don't feel my govenrment can protect me in a given situation is important.

 

[sysyphus]

Originally posted by GrandAdmiral
I'm for some type of gun control but I'm against making a new law everytime someone gets shot and it makes a headline.

Very true, knee-jerk reactions to individual incidents are beggin for bad policy.

Mind you, Charlton Heston beelining it to Denver in the wake of the Columbine tragedy, waving a gun and blaring "from my cold dead hands" was in very poor taste.

 

[luiz]

I believe every sane person would like to live in a world where nobody has guns. However that's not possible.
About gun controll, I can give the exemple of Rio, a city where crime is completely out of controll. Guns are controlled here, not entirely banned, but it takes a long time and background checks to legally buy a gun. Some politicias wanted to ban all guns, so they hired a company to do a survey to find out how many of the murders are committed by legal weapons. The result: only 2% of the total. So what will be effect of a gun ban? None, for sure. If I want I can buy an assault rifle this very day, and there are criminals here who use Stinger missiles. My conclusion is that a gun ban only takes the weapons of honest folks.
My opinion would be different if I lived in Europe, though.

 

[polymath]

For you Americans, if there was an argument between me and some fella, sadly the fella may have a gun, so I'd want one too. That, my friends, is human nature. Now, shall we talk about A-bombs?

 

[Laughing Gull]

THERE IS SOMETHING SATISFYING ABOUT FIRING AN AK-47 AT A NON-LIVING TARGET.

I went target shooting this weekend. I'm really a novice, but I was shooting a .223 Fireball at a target 50 yards away and I hit 5 out of 7 in a 1 inch diameter circle. it was therapeutic. This was the third time I've had a "GUN!" day, and I have shot a variety of weapons in the past. AK-47, .357 mag, .25 semi-auto pistol, 9mm Beretta, remington pistol grip 12-gauge shotgun, .22 rifles (various sizes), 20-Gauge over/under shotgun, and I once blew up an empty arrowhead 2 gallon water bottle with a frazzled San Francisco Giants hat duct taped to it (I'm a Dodgers fan) with a half stick of dynamyte. it was sweet.

of course, I'm a nice guy and would never want to kill anyone. Plus, there are far more satisfying forms of revenge than killing someone.

I believe gun ownership should be limited to non-fellons and require a background check that crawls up your rear-end so far you can taste it. that, and a mandatory IQ test to HELP keep guns out of the hands of real idiots.

 

[Mobilize]

No guns at all for civilians, only for the military.. cops maybe.

Look at Japan, guns are illegal and look at their homicide by gun statistics.. extremely extremely low (and I mean low, I think below the 100 per the entire population). Now look at the USA.. exact opposite.

No civilians need hand-guns and rifles. Native Americans on the hand get to use rifles for hunting because that's how we get our food because the USA is really horrible on letting us buy and get food.

 

[Loaf Warden]

Yeah, there's a great idea. Allow or forbid people to have guns based on their ethnic group.

 

[cgannon64]

Originally posted by Laughing Gull
THERE IS SOMETHING SATISFYING ABOUT FIRING AN AK-47 AT A NON-LIVING TARGET.

I went target shooting this weekend. I'm really a novice, but I was shooting a .223 Fireball at a target 50 yards away and I hit 5 out of 7 in a 1 inch diameter circle. it was therapeutic. This was the third time I've had a "GUN!" day, and I have shot a variety of weapons in the past. AK-47, .357 mag, .25 semi-auto pistol, 9mm Beretta, remington pistol grip 12-gauge shotgun, .22 rifles (various sizes), 20-Gauge over/under shotgun, and I once blew up an empty arrowhead 2 gallon water bottle with a frazzled San Francisco Giants hat duct taped to it (I'm a Dodgers fan) with a half stick of dynamyte. it was sweet.

of course, I'm a nice guy and would never want to kill anyone. Plus, there are far more satisfying forms of revenge than killing someone.

I believe gun ownership should be limited to non-fellons and require a background check that crawls up your rear-end so far you can taste it. that, and a mandatory IQ test to HELP keep guns out of the hands of real idiots.

Yeah, to most people

Gun = Power over life and death

Unfortunately its usually the power of someone else's life...

 

[Speedo]

No civilians need hand-guns and rifles. Native Americans on the hand get to use rifles

Keep dreaming...

I went into a shop in a small town in the states and it had guns that the army would use.

People don't seem to understand. A hunting rifle is far deadlier than your average military rifle. Assault rifles are designed to wound; hunting rifles to kill.

If a guy comes into your house with a gun, are you going to actually be doing you and your family a favor by going to him, shouting, "You there!" and challenging him to a duel? No, at least not unless you're a perfect marksman. First of all, anyone who breaks into your house is most likely crazy or drugged (or both), and you won't know what to expect. The best thing to do is have a reliable security system (or a couple howling dogs) (not to mention calling the police, of course), not a gun. If I'm not mistaken, people with guns to protect their families lead to the deaths of their family members more often than protect them. Or at least lead to so many accidents that it's not worthwhile.

No one's forcing you to get a gun. Get your dogs, security system, or etc. I know that I'm a good marksman, and I know that anyone in my house with access to guns is going to know proper gun safety or be supervised, so I'll keep my P220, thanks.

No one needs a machine gun unless they want to kill alot of people quickly...

The only people who can own them (legally) are collectors. Those are rare. Joe Average can't just walk into the Army/Navy store and pick up a M-60.

 

[polymath]

I'd love a P220

I used to have a couple of Dobermans.

Believe me, you cannot beat a couple of Dobermans. Pure vibrant energy, plus they are the most loyal creatures in the world. You will rarely find a truer companion.

 

[newfangle]

I see no rational basis for banning any sort of material thing.

 

[sysyphus]

Originally posted by newfangle
I see no rational basis for banning any sort of material thing.

What about heroin?

 

[Lyonesse]

Originally posted by Mobilize
No guns at all for civilians, only for the military.. cops maybe.

Look at Japan, guns are illegal and look at their homicide by gun statistics.. extremely extremely low (and I mean low, I think below the 100 per the entire population). Now look at the USA.. exact opposite...

As taken from the NRA website (I know I know, [sarcasm] NRA blah [/sarcasm]...but it does have a LOT of stats! And they do back up what they say....it may be worth a look to a LOT of people who think the gun control laws are helping....Anyway....about Japan....

"Japan does have severe gun control laws and low crime, but as the Independence Institute's David Kopel noted in a work voted 1992 Book of the Year by the American Society of Criminology's Division of International Criminology, Japanese-style gun control requires measures that could not be imposed in the U.S.

In Japan, citizens have fewer protections of the right to privacy and fewer rights for criminal suspects than in the United States. Japanese police routinely search citizens at will and twice a year pay "home visits" to citizens' residences. Suspect confession rate is 95% and trial conviction rate is more than 99.9%.

The Tokyo Bar Association has said that the Japanese police routinely engage in torture or illegal treatment. Even in cases where suspects claimed to have been tortured and their bodies bore the physical traces to back their claims, courts have still accepted their confessions. Amnesty International, Kopel noted, calls Japan's police custody system "a flagrant violation of United Nations human rights principles."

But, Kopel wrote, "Without abrogating the Bill of Rights, America could not give its police and prosecutors extensive Japanese-style powers to enforce severe gun laws effectively. Unlike the Japanese, Americans are not already secure from crime, and are therefore less likely to surrender their personal means of defense. More importantly, America has no tradition like Japan's of civil disarmament, of submission to authority, or of trust in the government." Thus, "Foreign style gun control is doomed to failure in America. Foreign gun control comes along with searches and seizures, and with many other restrictions on civil liberties too intrusive for America. . . . It postulates an authoritarian philosophy of government and society fundamentally at odds with the individualist and egalitarian American ethos."

Perhaps Don. B. Kates, a noted civil rights lawyer, best put the international comparison myth in perspective, writing, "In any society, truly violent people are only a small minority. We know that law-abiding citizens do not commit violent crimes. We know that criminals will neither obey gun bans nor refrain from turning other deadly instruments to their nefarious purposes. . . . In sum, peaceful societies do not need general gun bans and violent societies do not benefit from them."

I don't know about you but I'm not willing to have police come into my home whenever they feel the urge, to insure that I have no guns.

Also from the above website....

"Only a fraction of 1% of firearm owners ever use their guns in crimes and only a fraction of 1% of guns are used to commit crimes. Also, the number of privately owned firearms has increased to an all-time high while the violent crime rate has decreased every year since 1991 and is now at a 23-year low. Additionally, a comparison of FBI crime statistics and firearms ownership surveys reveals that firearm-related violence is less prevalent in many states and cities where firearms ownership is greatest."

Now as for self defense. Leave me with my .45, 357, or 9mm And even though I do own a "guard" dog, that will NOT deter a determined criminal with a gun by any means. Though I would not initiate a "duel" with an intruder you can be sure that if "he" comes near me, my husband or children I will not hesitate to fire. "He" can take any material thing "he" wishes, but once he becomes a threat to me and mine, then that threat will be challenged.

 

[thestonesfan]

Originally posted by newfangle
I see no rational basis for banning any sort of material thing.

Weapons of mass destruction, I'd say. You can't really defend yourself by nuking the guy attacking you.

 

[sysyphus]

Originally posted by thestonesfan


Weapons of mass destruction, I'd say. You can't really defend yourself by nuking the guy attacking you.

I guess the principle is that WMDs invoke a sort of "preventative defense", i.e. that he will not attack you becuase he knows that if he does he will get the same in return.

 

[The Yankee]

I am for some gun control. Why would someone interested in self defense and only self defense want a gun that can spray 50 bullets in a couple of seconds?

 

[Archer 007]

All guns outlawed except pistols and hunting weapons.

 

[sebanaj]

I live in Argentina, and off course i want total forbiddance of guns.
Here most of them are illegals, and there are lots of thieves, that would shoot you, just because you don't have enough money, or just shoot you because they can.
Plus the people killing people confusing them with thieves.

In some thieve villages they have militar weapons. How did they get them!? Well, its fault of the corrupted liberal government of the 90s who didn't control anything excepting the profit of its own members.

Police may have agreements with thieves to sell stolen auto-parts, etc...

We must forbid it completely, everyone who has a gun it's a criminal, stop the doubt.

And we don't want hunters killing our wild animals. I'm not going to defend the brainless and irrational.

 

[Lyonesse]

Originally posted by archer_007
All guns outlawed except pistols and hunting weapons.

So handguns and "sporting" firearms are okay? This is where some of the gun control laws are AWFUL! What determines a "sporting firearm". What one person consider's "sport" another does not. Does the term `sporting purposes` mean the traditional sports of target shooting, skeet and trap shooting, and hunting? If yes, then you can pretty much argue the support of any firearm. As MANY people use "assult weapons" for target shooting.

Maybe we should look more closely at the actual stats in that handguns are used more in crimes than rifles, semi-, and fully-automatic weapons. So should we not look closer at handguns?

"Reports from state and local law enforcement agencies have uniformly shown that the guns in question (assault weapons)have been used in only about 1% of violent crimes. In 1997, a study mandated by Congress found, "the banned weapons and magazines were never used in more than a fraction of all gun murders." (Urban Institute) A second study found that criminals rarely fire more than 10 rounds, that wounds involving pistols (which use magazines) are less likely to be fatal than those involving revolvers, and that the average number of wounds in pistol crimes is lower than with revolvers. Many more people are murdered with knives, or clubs, or bare hands, than with "assault weapons." Fact Sheets

MANY people are fooled into thinking that semi- and fully-automatic weapons are a HUGE problem. When in fact they are not! Handguns are used MUCH MORE than semi- or fully-automatic weapons, rifles, legal or illegal. <shrug>

The number of "assault weapons," and nearly identical guns, and magazines of over 10 rounds capacity is greater today than when the law was imposed, and all are still rarely used in crime. Meanwhile, the nation`s violent crime rate has fallen every year and is now at a 27-year low.

 

[sebanaj]

you may have it in the usa, but not here where 50% are uneducated uncultured lazy thieves and addicts.