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Originally Posted by dksuddeth
you shouldn't have to and there are quite a few of us over here who are still doing what we can to get these policies overturned.
Gun ownership in the states has been considered a natural right since our country was founded. That doesn't mean that every one is forced to own one. It simply means that if someone wants to, they can. Is someone a pansy because they don't want to own one? certainly not and I don't believe I said that they were.
Do criminals still have guns in England? by all accounts, they still do so from what I can gather is that banning guns only truly affected those that wished to abide by the law.
IT is a fallacious argument to say that a gun caused that childs suicide. It is also a fallacious argument to say that guns cause crime. If guns caused crime then Englands crime rate should have dropped precipitously, but it hasn't.
depending on what kind of shootings you want to consider, most of it is gang on gang shootings while some of it is criminal/victim shootings.
a speed limit violation or a parking ticket does not a violent criminal make. It's useless to reduce an argument down to semantics of this nature. We all know that when we consider guns and criminals, that we are talking the violent criminal type. It is offensive to garner every individual who has committed a jaywalking infraction in to the violent criminal category.
There were less random shootings in the wild west than there are today, even given the population increase. You've bought in to the myth that cold pieces of steel in the shape of a gun cause mass hysteria, random acts of violence, and surges of testosterone.
Back in the 18th century here it was policy to lock someone up for life or hang them if they committed a crime with a gun. gun crime barely existed for that reason. You CANNOT stop bad people from getting guns, even if England totally banned lead and gunpowder from the island. It's never going to happen, so yes, the bad guys are always going to have guns. Tell me what good it is going to do to keep the populace vulnerable to rape, robbery, and murder?
In a perfect world the bad guy wouldn't have a weapon. That is never going to happen while the bad guy is free. It also wouldn't matter if he had a weapon or not for me to shoot him. All that would be required would be for him to intend to do harm to me or someone near me for me to shoot him.
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How would you define intention? How would you define harm? Would you kill him, or just wound him? I'm all for killing intruders into ones home, but would you do the same on the streets?
You said people don't want guns, so if the bad guy has guns, that person now has no way to defend themselves, yes? Obviously they need to go buy a gun, because the bad guy has one.
Despite your claims otherwise, you don't seem to be grasping the difference between petty criminals and gang warfare. Your average criminal in england does not have a gun, your average criminal in england couldn't get a gun if he tried. Apart from the usual inner city/crime hotspots, guns are pretty rare. I'd imagine it would be significantly easier to get one in the states.
'Hardcore' criminals will have guns, normal criminals won't. Its hard to commit a gun crime if you don't have a gun. By definition, gun crime is drastically reduced. If someone has a knife, they are in theory less dangerous than someone with a gun, but still dangerous.
Getting knives off the streets, either by confiscating them/imprisoning or educating the owners is a priority. You'll never be able to get everyone to give up their weapons, thats stupid, but its a priority nonetheless. Your approach seems to be along the lines of 'well, theres gona be drunk drivers, so lets give law abiding people a tank'.
Ok, i accept the fact that guns arn't a major factor in child suicide, but what about gun accidents? Pretty hard to have a gun accident if you can't get hold of one.
I also never said petty criminal acts were violent acts, i said they were merely criminal, you then took it onto yourself to infer violence. The point was about the line between criminals and law abiders being a thing one.
I havn't bought into the idea of guns caused random acts of violence, i've watched in on many many a police reality show from the states. Watch a reality show from england, and you'll see a gun hardly ever, and even more rarely used.
Yes, you cannot stop bad people getting guns, but you can make it harder. I don't know why you consider your police so inept, but its their job to keep law and order, not ours.
You are simply subsituting one form of violence for another, not once have you properly adressed the problem behind it. Social change will not happen if one only tries to change one part of the populance.