Questions for gun owners, afficianados, and those curios.

[Mulholland]

When I was youg I stole a few .22 calibre bullets from rifle training at my cadet camp. Being the naturally curious/stuipd lad I was i decided to take them apart with a pair of needlenose pliers to extract the gunpowder. Eventually I became lazy and removed the lead bullet from the shell with my teeth. Could I have ebded up with a lead bullet lodged in my brain?

A related question: Could gun/bullet legalization be as stuipid as drug legalization, given that they have the possibility to do as much harm?

 

[warpus]

Somehow I think you could do a lot more damage with a shotgun than with a joint.

 

[skadistic]

When I was youg I stole a few .22 calibre bullets from rifle training at my cadet camp. Being the naturally curious/stuipd lad I was i decided to take them apart with a pair of needlenose pliers to extract the gunpowder. Eventually I became lazy and removed the lead bullet from the shell with my teeth. Could I have ebded up with a lead bullet lodged in my brain? Not unless some freak electrical thing happened and......

A related question: Could gun/bullet legalization be as stuipid as drug legalization, given that they have the possibility to do as much harm?
Thats a loaded question if ever there was one.

............

 

[Mulholland]

............

You really think it's a loaded question? Both are large regulated industries. Big Pharma and the gun makers. Big Pharma makes drugs that are possibly harmful, as does the weapons industry. What I want to know is why you can buy assault rifles for 'hunting purposes' but you cant buy a gram of weed for personal use without getting screwed?

 

[Simon Darkshade]

Chewing bullets, whilst safer than some pastimes, is not the best activity to take part in.

No. Guns are tools with great utility, whereas drugs have a single purpose. One can own many guns, and use them for a variety of purposes, and never come close to dangers that are inherent in many drugs. You can unload and make safe a gun, and it is simply a hunk of metal and parts; one cannot unload a pill or joint.

 

[Mulholland]

Chewing bullets, whilst safer than some pastimes, is not the best activity to take part in.

No. Guns are tools with great utility, whereas drugs have a single purpose. One can own many guns, and use them for a variety of purposes, and never come close to dangers that are inherent in many drugs.

Drugs are also tools with great utility. One can use them to relieve stress, escape a generally poor frame of mind, poision a dictator etc... Guns I thought were the the tool with a single utility. Killing, and deterring because they kill. Yes I realise it's easy to kill with a machette. But it's much easier to kill with a gun.

 

[Eukaryote]

Chewing bullets, whilst safer than some pastimes, is not the best activity to take part in.

No. Guns are tools with great utility, whereas drugs have a single purpose. One can own many guns, and use them for a variety of purposes, and never come close to dangers that are inherent in many drugs. You can unload and make safe a gun, and it is simply a hunk of metal and parts; one cannot unload a pill or joint.

What do you mean guns have a vareity of purposes? As far as I know there's only two:
1. Shoot stuff, to kill stuff.
2. Shoot stuff, to eat stuff.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

Apart from poisoning a dictator, which is not a use that could be characterized as everyday, the other uses of drugs are subcategories of a main idea - altering one's consciousness; or poisoning oneself. There are always side affects to every drug, be it alcohol, tobacco or adrenochrone.

Guns, on the other hand, are extremely safe, and useful in everyday life - work purposes, particularly on the land; professional security; and recreation that does not leave you with any physical ill affects.

Guns also defend countries; although experiments were done, there is not a viable use for LSD and its ilk on the battlefield.

And when you mix guns and drugs, you get Hunter S. Thompson.

 

[Mulholland]

And when you mix guns and drugs, you get Hunter S. Thompson.

lol. I do have a counter to that point but I have to sleep. Too many drugs in my system.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

What do you mean guns have a vareity of purposes? As far as I know there's only two:
1. Shoot stuff, to kill stuff.
2. Shoot stuff, to eat stuff.

Guns serve purposes without being used as well, which is more than can be said for drugs. A pistol on the belt of a policeman or responsible citizen is not in use, but is far more effective than a fifth of juju in the claws of some depraved insane hippy.

 

[malclave]

What do you mean guns have a vareity of purposes? As far as I know there's only two:
1. Shoot stuff, to kill stuff.
2. Shoot stuff, to eat stuff.

3. Collectors.
4. Competition (target shooting, biathlon).
5. Recreation (I know one person who goes to a firing range for relaxation).

 

[batteryacid]

3. Collectors.
4. Competition (target shooting, biathlon).
5. Recreation (I know one person who goes to a firing range for relaxation).

you forgot opening cola cans and turning off the light as Homer Simpson prooved

to be serious: In my opinion guns and rifles should be banned except for army and policemen and certain sports where they are long established.

Killing with guns has a far too low psychic barrier - a lot of deaths caused by strong emotions like jealosy, quarrel with family members or neighbours, teenagers with trouble at school, troubles in life and feeling of hopelessness (~50% of kills by guns is suicide according to death statistic) wouldn´t have happen without gun

 

[saleg37]

you forgot opening cola cans and turning off the light as Homer Simpson prooved

to be serious: In my opinion guns and rifles should be banned except for army and policemen and certain sports where they are long established.

Killing with guns has a far too low psychic barrier - a lot of deaths caused by strong emotions like jealosy, quarrel with family members or neighbours, teenagers with trouble at school, troubles in life and feeling of hopelessness (~50% of kills by guns is suicide according to death statistic) wouldn´t have happen without gun

So your argument is that if we get rid of guns we'll cut down on suicide? If a person is going to kill themselves then they will find a way. Getting rid of one way to do it is not going to prevent it. People who wish suicide do not truly care if if it's a bullet to the brain or a slit throat. They will use what is available.

Another note. If you ban all gun ownership except for police officers and those in the military, guns will still be there. It will become more dangerous. If you are going to break the law by taking another persons life, then I have little doubt you will also break the law by buying an illegal gun off the black market.

 

[IglooDame]

When I was youg I stole a few .22 calibre bullets from rifle training at my cadet camp. Being the naturally curious/stuipd lad I was i decided to take them apart with a pair of needlenose pliers to extract the gunpowder. Eventually I became lazy and removed the lead bullet from the shell with my teeth. Could I have ebded up with a lead bullet lodged in my brain?

Conceivably, yes, though the odds were probably greater of you getting hit by lightning. Ordinarily a cartridge (bullet+casing+powder+primer) outside of a gun is essentially a brass firecracker - if it were hot enough (or hit in the primer hard enough) to ignite the powder, the bullet would go a couple feet one way, the brass casing a couple feet the other. It is being chambered in a gun that gives the bullet the speed needed to do damage.

Now, had you held it tightly enough between your teeth, and somehow gotten the (rim) primer to go off (maybe squeezing the end with pliers and getting really lucky), the bullet would have headed brainward with enough force to penetrate the back of your mouth, and the brain stem being right back there, you might have managed to show up in the annual Darwin awards, but frankly I think you would have more chance of being killed by a slab of concrete in a tunnel in Boston, overall.

 

[IglooDame]

Killing with guns has a far too low psychic barrier - a lot of deaths caused by strong emotions like jealosy, quarrel with family members or neighbours, teenagers with trouble at school, troubles in life and feeling of hopelessness (~50% of kills by guns is suicide according to death statistic) wouldn´t have happen without gun

Please do us a favor and read this, excerpt here:

The full body of relevant studies indicates that firearm availability measures are significantly and positively associated with rates of firearm suicide, but have no significant association with rates of total suicide.

and

In 1972 the suicide rate was 11.9 per 100,000. After this "arms build-up" [per capita gun ownership rising in the US by over 50% in the next two decades] the total suicide rate remained unchanged at 11.9 in 1995.

 

[Mulholland]

Guns serve purposes without being used as well, which is more than can be said for drugs. A pistol on the belt of a policeman or responsible citizen is not in use, but is far more effective than a fifth of juju in the claws of some depraved insane hippy.

True, and a fifth of ghanja in the hands of a responsible citizen poses no threat to public saftey. Even responsible people can have fits of rage, delusions of grandeur etc. All I'm saying is that guns pose more of a treat than illegal drugs when it comes to the domain of pulic safetey. I'd like to see recreational drugs treated the same way. Leagalized and regulated.

@ igloodude. The Darwin awards, eh? I'd have had my 15 minutes of fame afterall.

 

[IglooDame]

@ igloodude. The Darwin awards, eh? I'd have had my 15 minutes of fame afterall.

Indeed. When people refer to "biting the bullet" in the old days, they meant literally biting the bullet, but not in a way that would cause the cartridge to go off.

 

[batteryacid]

Another note. If you ban all gun ownership except for police officers and those in the military, guns will still be there. It will become more dangerous. If you are going to break the law by taking another persons life, then I have little doubt you will also break the law by buying an illegal gun off the black market.

So, with less guns around the world is going to be more dangerous? So with zero guns around, it must look like hell on earth....

With less guns around, illegal gun prices will go up, so the average criminal will have less access to guns. You can never fully prevent murder by a determined killer as you described, but you can prevent murder in the other cases I wrote, where the average gun owner has a bad day and ticks out- there IS a big difference in survival chances if you are attacked by your jealous partner with a knife or a gun.

 

[IglooDame]

So, with less guns around the world is going to be more dangerous? So with zero guns around, it must look like hell on earth....

With less guns around, illegal gun prices will go up, so the average criminal will have less access to guns. You can never fully prevent murder by a determined killer as you described, but you can prevent murder in the other cases I wrote, where the average gun owner has a bad day and ticks out- there IS a big difference in survival chances if you are attacked by your jealous partner with a knife or a gun.

Meanwhile, the average gun owner is also less able to defend him/herself against the average criminal, because the average criminal is able to scrape up another 50 bucks but the average gun owner is now legally prevented from carrying one at all.

Do average gun owners having bad days and ticking out form a significant percentage of the homicides anywhere?

 

[batteryacid]

Meanwhile, the average gun owner is also less able to defend him/herself against the average criminal, because the average criminal is able to scrape up another 50 bucks but the average gun owner is now legally prevented from carrying one at all.

Do average gun owners having bad days and ticking out form a significant percentage of the homicides anywhere?

Crime statistics in England after the handgun restrictions clearly showed a decrease in homicide, car theft, domestic burglary by 27%, so YES

Virtually all guns in the US black marked are first legally purchased and enter afterwards the black market, so you WILL make the access for average criminals to guns harder so I ask the question: Do you want more or less criminals who own a gun ?