Guns...

[pyrophilia]

Do you think guns should be legal? Also what is your favourite gun (if you have a favourite)?

I think guns should be legal because every man has the right to defend himself and it creates an equality of power amongst the people. Also the fact that guns are illegal in the UK allows the criminals to overpower the law-abiding citizens as criminals are still able to get them and don't give a **** what they carry whereas other people won't risk being caught in possession of a gun for the sake of self defence.

My favourite gun is the AK-47, its the freedom fighters gun.

[Zokita]

Re: Guns...

Man, this is hard for me. I've never handled a gun, but my relatives and friends are all ultra-conservative card-carrying NRA members who believe strongly that everyone should have and use a gun.

There's an interesting gun safety pros and cons thing here.

I think there should be a few limits---for example, I think allowing people to carry concealed guns into a bar (which is already legal in 41 states) is a very, very bad idea. The law says that the patrons secretly carrying loaded guns aren't supposed to drink (but in other states it's legal to drink with a concealed gun in a public restaurant), but if they're concealed how on earth is anyone going to know not to serve them alcohol?

[SportaKandy]

Re: Guns...

[LazyTownWW]

Re: Guns...

Tough one.
I'd say that owning a gun for self defence is ok...but too many would just use it to shoot others when they are angry/drunk/high.
So basicly...I don't think owning, carring, or discharging fire arms should be ok in a civilised society...sdon't know what to say about the police...sometimes they use it correctly, other times they just turn corrupt and use them wrongly.

[Rowan]

Re: Guns...

It's a difficult question, but I sort of think that the self-defense thing is bullshit. You made a valid point about what it's like in the UK, where they give someone the upper hand... but I just don't think giving everyone the chance to own a violent weapon is the right answer. Even if it was legal, not everyone would get one because they don't agree with idea of it or can't afford it, etc. so there would still be a huge amount of people who were at a "disadvantage". And I really don't think issuing everyone a gun is a good idea either.

So what is the right answer? I don't really know, but I don't think guns should be made legal. More legal, perhaps, because they're already legal under certain circumstances... I just think they need to be careful regulating it, I guess. There are already a lot of household objects like knives that can be just as dangerous in some situations and all you need to buy them is to be 18... so I don't really think guns, which are on the whole much faster and easier to use than something like a knife, need to be added to that list of easily available weapons.

[Deep4t]

Re: Guns...

Guns are illegal in UK, gun crime is low in UK

connection?

[Rowan]

Re: Guns...

Guns are illegal in UK, gun crime is low in UK

connection?

Haha, good point, I didn't think of that.

[LazyTownWW]

Re: Guns...

Guns are illegal in UK, gun crime is low in UK

connection?

What about knife stab crimes? :)

[Rowan]

Re: Guns...

Guns are illegal in UK, gun crime is low in UK

connection?

What about knife stab crimes? :)

What about them? A knife is something you use every day, so you can't ban it completely. A gun isn't.

[StingX]

Re: Guns...

I don't think guns should be completely illegalized.
Obviously police officers and the military should be able to use them, which I'm sure none of you were actually advocating that they shouldn't.
I don't think guns should be completely illegal for citizens either, but it should be no easy task to obtain one. Requiring a liscence that you would get taking many courses on gun safety and usage and stuff. I was thinking that this would just be abused and there would be underground gun salesman though....tough to regulate.

[LazyTownWW]

Re: Guns...

Guns are illegal in UK, gun crime is low in UK

connection?

What about knife stab crimes? :)

What about them? A knife is something you use every day, so you can't ban it completely. A gun isn't.

It's very handy to carry your 20 cm kitchen knife on the street with you, no telling when you need to slice bread.
About the guns (lol), Ithink people should be checked out by a shrinc before they can buy a very expensive gun (maybe the price would force some people NOT to buy a legal gun...just hope that won't force them to buy an illegal one).

[Deep4t]

Re: Guns...

Guns are illegal in UK, gun crime is low in UK

connection?

What about knife stab crimes? :)

What about them? A knife is something you use every day, so you can't ban it completely. A gun isn't.

i use my gun to butter my toast actually so....

[pyrophilia]

Re: Guns...

You've all got some good points here. I think I should have added that you would have to have a criminal record with no violent crimes in order to be allowed to buy a gun. Obviously it does mean criminals will be able to get it easier though.

One thing I know for sure, is I'd rather get shot than stabbed.

[LazyTownWW]

Re: Guns...

You've all got some good points here. I think I should have added that you would have to have a criminal record with no violent crimes in order to be allowed to buy a gun. Obviously it does mean criminals will be able to get it easier though.

One thing I know for sure, is I'd rather get shot than stabbed.

I forgot to answer, i like the AK too...and the MP 5 too...but I don't know if I have a favorite.
Yes, getting shot in the head is a quick death, pretty painless.
Quite frankly, I feel more confortable when someone next to me is holding a fire arm rather then a blade...the only time I feel ok around a blade is if I am holding it...I even dislike being around my mom when she uses a knife to cut in the kitchen.

[nindanjoe]

Re: Guns...

Guns are illegal in UK, gun crime is low in UK

connection?

There could be a lot of factors involved. Just using that would be a case of a correlation error. However, you can use that as an investigation point. Here are a few investigation points to check out:

1) If you're going for gun related crimes of a population over a random square piece of land, then compare it to other countries where guns are not banned over another random square piece of land. Would the crime rate still be low in the UK? A square piece of land can be something like the size of a town or a city. To be fair, the comparisons should be done over similarly populated areas.

2) Get illegal gun trafficking data for several countries and compare that to gun related crimes for those countries. Admittedly, this would be hard since it can only be based on guns that were confiscated without really knowing how many guns were not. Unless you get gun manufactured data vs missing gun. Maybe there are other ways to get this kind of data.

3) What percentage of crimes in general are commited with a gun vs other weapons. Comparisons should be done based on weapon type and other factors I haven't thought of. Like kind of crime.

There are other investigation points, I just haven't thought of them or are beyond my knowledge. I'm an amateur investigator! The gun owners I know are fairly responsible with their weapons, and are pretty strict with the gun safety training they received. However, I don't know if they represent a large portion of the gun owning population in the US. The folks of Mythbusters are gun nuts, and they're also pretty safe too.

Gun are pretty good up to a distance, once you get close a knife or a hand-to-hand weapon would do you better. Of course, there are other factors like people in the area, or how many gunners there are.

An argument for guns is they're good against zombies! Don't want those leg draggers getting too close!