Whats your stance on gun control ?

[Badger Bob]

Originally Posted by T@T

Second amendment: right to keep and bear arms.

If you think the forefathers were serious then the people should be able to possess rocket launchers,artillery,tanks,fighter aircraft and nuclear bombs.

If you don't like this idea then agree to ban firearms from the American people (who obviously can't handle them)

The Second amendment is the almost the most misunderstood part of american society..(first being their understanding of canadian geography)

Let's see what they had to say:

http://www.eskimo.com/~bpentium/articles/guns.html

Thomas Jefferson: The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Badger Bob

Let's see what they had to say:

http://www.eskimo.com/~bpentium/articles/guns.html

Although history teaches us tyranical goverments operate with the consent of the people and in the case of the US keep their citizans quiet while stripping them of liberty by letting them keep their guns as a pacifier, in the end guns in america did nothing to stop slavery, prohibition the jim crow laws the Japanese internment, McCarthy, drug laws or the systamatic stipping of basic rights of habeus corpus execution without trial or privacy under 'the war on terror'.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Azure

And how are you going to take away their access? By banning them? Drugs are banned, and they still have access to them.

In fact, the war on drugs is the REASON for many of the problems that lead to gun crime.

Drugs are easily manufactured or grown therefore by definition difficult to control, firearms on the other hand all require heavy manufacturing facilities to make, therefore if the US goverment decided to outlaw guns, assuming a reasonable amount of public support, the flow of weapons would dry up to almost none very quickly, it would take a few more years, maybe a decade or so to take out the existing weapons on the street, but within a few years the US, and almost all of the rest of the developed world, would become gun free.

It is the US that drives the gun industry, if there are no legal sales in the US manufacturers like Glock and Smith and Wesson become insolvant almost overnight, illegal weapons in Canada and europe are all mostly sourced from the US origanally, it is the only place you can buy cheap legal guns freely.
If you take out the 300 million US market gun making goes back to being an almost exclusive military/goverment supply industry, guns everywhere become very expensive and tough to obtain, even the third world would see its supply tighten up and costs increase.

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

It is the US that drives the gun industry, if there are no legal sales in the US manufacturers like Glock and Smith and Wesson become insolvant almost overnight, illegal weapons in Canada and europe are all mostly sourced from the US origanally, it is the only place you can buy cheap legal guns freely.
.

Don't forget about where guns in Mexico come from for the most part.

[flamesfever]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

Drugs are easily manufactured or grown therefore by definition difficult to control, firearms on the other hand all require heavy manufacturing facilities to make, therefore if the US goverment decided to outlaw guns, assuming a reasonable amount of public support, the flow of weapons would dry up to almost none very quickly, it would take a few more years, maybe a decade or so to take out the existing weapons on the street, but within a few years the US, and almost all of the rest of the developed world, would become gun free.

It is the US that drives the gun industry, if there are no legal sales in the US manufacturers like Glock and Smith and Wesson become insolvant almost overnight, illegal weapons in Canada and europe are all mostly sourced from the US origanally, it is the only place you can buy cheap legal guns freely.
If you take out the 300 million US market gun making goes back to being an almost exclusive military/goverment supply industry, guns everywhere become very expensive and tough to obtain, even the third world would see its supply tighten up and costs increase.

Given your understanding of the American mindset for the 2nd Amendment, the pervasive ownership of guns by the average person for protection, hunting, etc. can you honestly see the Americans suddenly handing in their guns en masse...even if the manufacture and sale of all guns was prohibited, which IMO would never get passed into law?

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by Flame Of Liberty

Of course I'm going to believe statistics coming from China. Right.

Numbers of guns in circulation are estimates at best, pulled out of thin air at worst.

There's a semi-auto in almost every household in Switzerland yet their gun-related crime rate is lower than in many countries with gun restrictions.

Statistics rarely paint a full picture.

I didn't quote any statistics from China, I quoted numbers for an incident, which happened to be covered by a number of international sources including AFP, CNN, etc. Fact is normalized gun deaths in China have fallen from 2.3/100k to 1.1/100k as per UNDOC (United Nations Department of Drugs and Crime) in the past decade in part due to tightening gun control laws. These are internationally recognized stats. Unless of course you refuse to believe the UN as well.

Guns in Switzerland are a completely different story since military service is mandatory and often the weapons are given to the owners from the government at the end of their service. Everyone is trained in gun safety from their military service, compared to the US a good chunk of the people have guns laying around and people receive them as gifts at Christmas. Switzerland also has very strict gun control laws including background checks which consider mental, criminal and domestic violence records as well as a requirement of proof for legitimate use.

But go ahead, distort facts to fit, ignore things when it isn't convenient, blame conspiracies and count stats as outliers when it doesn't jive with your worldview.

[BigBrodieFan]

Originally Posted by flamesfever

Given your understanding of the American mindset for the 2nd Amendment, the pervasive ownership of guns by the average person for protection, hunting, etc. can you honestly see the Americans suddenly handing in their guns en masse...even if the manufacture and sale of all guns was prohibited, which IMO would never get passed into law?

About this and your other comment.. I would actually have to agree with you. To make it clear- I never expect all guns to be banned here. My husband owns 7 guns, all hunting rifles, and they are locked away and any ammunition we have is locked in a separate place. My single friend sleeps with a loaded gun under her pillow. It's our right in America (not mine because I am just a resident alien, but that's not the point), to bear arms. I don't think the constitution should be changed at all. And you're right, as Canadians we are often hardly empathetic when it comes to Americans and their constitution, and their history. I think however, that a big step in our society would be banning assault rifles. And I don't think that hand guns should be legal. My single friend's daughter came to surprise her for her birthday, and she almost shot her daughter thinking it was an intruder. It's this type of accidents that happen every day. Look, I was an officer in the Canadian Navy, I know what happens to a person's body when they are hit by a C7/M16- I know the bullets are designed to rip a persons insides up after entering the body. I also know that hand guns, if shot from 10 feet or more away, are probably not going to be able to hit a broad side of a barn unless you're a marksman.

The point I would like to make is that the NRA is the most powerful organization in this country and it's absolutely asinine to promote the ideology that 'more guns is the answer.' On THIS particular issue, focus needs to be banning guns that are the most dangerous, and most useful for mass killing. The democrats are going to try and do it, and if it even saves one life, and if one whackjob doesn't get his pick of his mother's arsenal, and if we can feel just a bit safer sending our kids to school, then I think it's a good idea. 'No guns at all' is not practical, but better regulations on guns that are good for nothing but killing people en masse should be illegal, and penalties for having them should be severe. And, it needs to start now. Because as we've seen, it's getting so much worse.

My son's highschool has four policeman at all times with guns and there are all kinds of provisions in place, like mandatory lockdowns when the threat of any violence is near. We had one kid this year go into the office and try to kill the principal with a knife, and the police had to taze him. The kid was off his rocker, and we are just so thankful he didn't have a gun. We also had an incident where some idiot was outside the school with a crossbow and the school was locked down, and this is in a very affluent subdivision in Overland Park Kansas. It doesn't always happen in the 'ghetto.' We had a school shooting in Leewood, which is one of the wealthiest subdivisions in Kansas City. A kid was gunned down on the front stairs on graduation night. This stuff happens, and it's ridiculous and stupid and it ruins the lives of so many involved. I will NOT stand by and do nothing because it is morally WRONG.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Badger Bob

Let's see what they had to say:

Thomas Jefferson: The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Then I suppose the 2nd amendment should certainly allow it citizens Tanks,fighter aircraft,rocket launchers and nuclear bombs.

How in hell could you fight a tyranny government without them!

[flamesfever]

I think the best that one can hope for in the US, at this time, is the reintroduction of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban.


I think it would make things much safer if all States got together and enacted universal legislation to make it mandatory to possess permits to carry potentially concealable weapons i.e. handguns.

[Flame Of Liberty]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

I didn't quote any statistics from China, I quoted numbers for an incident, which happened to be covered by a number of international sources including AFP, CNN, etc. Fact is normalized gun deaths in China have fallen from 2.3/100k to 1.1/100k as per UNDOC (United Nations Department of Drugs and Crime) in the past decade in part due to tightening gun control laws. These are internationally recognized stats. Unless of course you refuse to believe the UN as well.

Guns in Switzerland are a completely different story since military service is mandatory and often the weapons are given to the owners from the government at the end of their service. Everyone is trained in gun safety from their military service, compared to the US a good chunk of the people have guns laying around and people receive them as gifts at Christmas. Switzerland also has very strict gun control laws including background checks which consider mental, criminal and domestic violence records as well as a requirement of proof for legitimate use.

But go ahead, distort facts to fit, ignore things when it isn't convenient, blame conspiracies and count stats as outliers when it doesn't jive with your worldview.

What conspiracies? Are you drunk?

Switzerland is not a completely different story because the story is gun ownership and gun related violence and in Switzerland you don't have mass shootings every other day even though they are in every other house.

Maybe look at the ghetto culture in the US and compare it to the Swiss trained in gun safety and you may come to surprising conclusion as to what is relevant when it comes to gun related crime and that simply banning guns won't solve a thing in Murica.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by Flame Of Liberty

What conspiracies? Are you drunk?

Switzerland is not a completely different story because the story is gun ownership and gun related violence and in Switzerland you don't have mass shootings every other day even though they are in every other house.

Maybe look at the ghetto culture in the US and compare it to the Swiss trained in gun safety and you may come to surprising conclusion as to what is relevant when it comes to gun related crime and that simply banning guns won't solve a thing in Murica.

I could ask you the same thing after you implied that I got numbers made up by Communist to support gun control when I simply quoted CNN and UNDOC. Why is it some gun owners so easily dismiss facts and attribute them to things like Communism simply because it tells them what they don't want to hear? It's like some people are stuck in a McCarthy era cold war mindset.... actually scratch that.... more like a American revolutionary war mindset.

And you never got the point of my post. I'm pointing out you can have very effective gun control. Gun control is not a gun ban as so many of the gun apologists and gun advocates seem to equate it to. The point of that post was to show gun control, which Switzerland has and America doesn't, is very effective in preventing gun deaths. That is the difference here. Another fact gun advocates like to ignore is that Switzerland has a complete ban on automatic weapons, hollow point, incendiary and armour piercing rounds and most types of body armour. Also proof of legitimate use is required to obtain a gun license. Basically the Swiss have taken guns away from the crazies, criminals, wife beaters and psychopaths, forcing mandatory gun training and taken guns away from people who have no business owning them. None of which the US has nor would the US find politically appetizing. Don't know much about US Ghetto culture, but it's probably safe to say that a lot of the violent ghetto culture fits in the crazy, criminal and wife beater group wouldn't you say?

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by Flame Of Liberty

Maybe look at the ghetto culture in the US and compare it to the Swiss trained in gun safety and you may come to surprising conclusion as to what is relevant when it comes to gun related crime and that simply banning guns won't solve a thing in Murica.

OK, so we can conclude that you are of the that belief that nothing can be done, so do nothing. And if you are going to say that if they did something about the ghetto culture to effect gun crime, that's doing nothing.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by Flame Of Liberty

What conspiracies? Are you drunk?

Switzerland is not a completely different story because the story is gun ownership and gun related violence and in Switzerland you don't have mass shootings every other day even though they are in every other house.

Maybe look at the ghetto culture in the US and compare it to the Swiss trained in gun safety and you may come to surprising conclusion as to what is relevant when it comes to gun related crime and that simply banning guns won't solve a thing in Murica.

The Switzerland thing is such a red herring. It does, afterall, have the highest gun-related death rates and gun homicide rates in Western Europe. It's neighbour, Germany, has relatively strict gun control laws (though still high gun ownership rates), and a gun homicide rate less than 1/8th of Switzerland's.
I agree fully that cultural issues play a major role in gun violence, but looking at Switzerland and its neighbours simply demonstrates that there's a direct correlation between looser gun laws and higher gun death and gun homicide rates.

[canflip_101]

thank you all for your responses.

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by canflip_101

thank you all for your responses.

what was the question again?

[KTrain]

Here's an infographic to spur a little more debate:

http://guns.periscopic.com/

[DuffMan]

I was watching some of Piers Morgan last night and he was in Texas talking to some Republican gun fanatics, but near the end of the show Ted Nugent was going to be on.

So they were having the expected conversation, and Ted came out with the "an armed society is a polite society" statement. piers asked him if he knew what the 2 mosted heavily armed countries were. Ted guessed US and Switzerland, but Piers said it was US and Yemen, then he asked if Ted thought Yemen was a polite society. I laughed.

[mikey_the_redneck]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

Drugs are easily manufactured or grown therefore by definition difficult to control, firearms on the other hand all require heavy manufacturing facilities to make, therefore if the US goverment decided to outlaw guns, assuming a reasonable amount of public support, the flow of weapons would dry up to almost none very quickly, it would take a few more years, maybe a decade or so to take out the existing weapons on the street, but within a few years the US, and almost all of the rest of the developed world, would become gun free.

If you take out the 300 million US market gun making goes back to being an almost exclusive military/goverment supply industry, guns everywhere become very expensive and tough to obtain, even the third world would see its supply tighten up and costs increase.

Actually, new 3-D printing technology allows small businesses or even individuals to create guns much more easily out of plastic even.

http://defcad.org/

People who advocate a state monopoly on deadly force scare the crap out of me.

[GoinAllTheWay]

Originally Posted by mikey_the_redneck

Actually, new 3-D printing technology allows small businesses or even individuals to create guns much more easily out of plastic even.

http://defcad.org/

People who advocate a state monopoly on deadly force scare the crap out of me.

And it's miles away from being useful. They tried printing a lower reciever (the part of the rifle that is the controlled part) and it broke after three shots. It's one of the lowest stressed parts and it did not stand up well.

[mikey_the_redneck]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

And it's miles away from being useful. They tried printing a lower reciever (the part of the rifle that is the controlled part) and it broke after three shots. It's one of the lowest stressed parts and it did not stand up well.

They've had some failures, but I wouldn't say they are "miles" away.