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Originally Posted by Martian
I strikes me as an observer that Americans seem to be some of the most fearful and paranoid people in the developed world (so much for non-confrontational).
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Yes because you get the gist of it threw thew interweb and the press.
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I don't have a weapon that I carry in public in case of attack.
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Ditto.
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I do not have a home defence strategy (I suppose, if it came to it, I could swing my bass guitar at an intruder; that sucker's heavy)
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Me either, but thats just stupid on both our parts. Nothing wrong with being prepared.
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. When I lay me down to sleep at night, the last thing on my mind is what I intend to do in the event of a home invasion.
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Nor I. It used to be will the wife put out, now its will the kid sleep through the night. Home invasion rates would also most likely go up with a lack of firemarms, if for example we followed the pattern seen in england where the gun ban had lead to a rise in violent crimes and thefts.
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Baraka_Guru, a fellow Canadian, believes that anyone who feels the need to possess more than one firearm is being unreasonably paranoid. And we're not alone up here; the only Canadian owned firearms I have ever encountered in my 24 years riding this rock around the sun were exclusively for use in hunting.
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Only guns outside of those on the police and some other security personal people I've encountered were hunting/target rifles.
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We're talking bolt-action long guns totally unsuited to any other application. You want to defend your home with one of these bad boys, you damn well better get them on the first shot.
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I'd rather have a bolt action gun than a knife in a fight.
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I can count on one hand the number of murders I've encountered that were closer to me than a newspaper page. Three of the four just happened to occur in the same town as me, in towns where such events were rare enough to be remarkable. The fourth was a friend of a friend. Firearms were not involved in any of the four.
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Thats 4 more than me. No one I know even remotely has been murdered. Kinda funny that you mentioned the lack of fire arms, I wonder if that is comfort to the victims.
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I'm not passing judgment on the right to keep and bear arms. That's a decision that you all as a nation have made, and it's your right to run your country in the manner of your choosing. If you support it, more power to you. But I can't help but wonder. The United States of America is a nation founded in violence. The founders felt the need to protect the nation and it's people because they were dealing with personal experience; they'd just come out of a bloody rebellion with what they deemed an oppressive government and they were understandably paranoid that the same thing might one day happen again. The effectiveness of small arms against fighter/bombers and main battle tanks notwithstanding, what is the real probability that the general population of the United States of America will need to rebel against it's government in the near (or even distant) future?
Again, not passing judgment. The answer to that question is entirely a matter of opinion.
There has not been, to my knowledge, a single Canadian Prime Minister ever assassinated by use of a rifle or any other means. The worst our nation's leaders have to worry about are pies and pushy reporters. So far as I'm aware, England can make a similar claim, although I'm not familiar enough with English history to assert that with any real confidence. And while random shootings do occur throughout the rest of the world, they do seem to be much more prevalent in the United States of America. Initially I thought it might be population, but other equally of more populated nations don't seem to suffer the same problems.
None of this provides a solution, or even a clear argument really. I just sit and I wonder. How much of the fear comes from the very right that's meant to keep you safe? If everyone has the inalienable right to keep and bear arms, how much more do you feel you have to defend yourself against all the other people who potentially exercise that right? And how much does having a culture in which firearms play such a prominent role encourage these sorts of tragic events?
Unfortunately, I don't have any answers. The only thing I'm really good at is asking more questions.
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People look at their lives when its 'good' and think that it will always be good. Its funny you mention English history, which has had more then its share of assassinations and political murders, just not recently. Governments can change, democracies can become dictatorships in the span of a few years, and I'm willing to live with the extra 'danger' (which I'm not sure is so extra, my chance of being murdered as a middle class white male are about the same as my European counterparts) to maintain an armed populous.
I'd also add that were Canada to become a superpower you would see a change in how things work rather quickly. It was less than two lifetimes ago that the president could walk in the open shaking hands.