|
Jesus H Christ.
You really think you need guns to defend yourselves from the government or criminals? Honestly?
When was the last _armed_ uprising of _civilians_ that actually succeeded in overthrowing or radically overhauling it's government?
Has it every happened in a modern state?
When you're attacked by a criminal, how are you going to get your gun from it's concealed position when there's a knife or gun in your back?
The conservation/hunting thing. Well, for one, It isn't hunting. It's slaughter. If you want to go out into the woods with just a knife, whittle your own bow and arrow, make traps, turn ferral, learn how to track, etc. then i'll reckon you're hunting. With a rifle, the odds are stacked too far in your favour. Out of earshot, downwind and invisible but for the flash.
That's as much hunting as shooting tin cans in a fair with a BB gun.
And in any event, for hunting purposes you need a basic rifle, not a handgun. Completely different arguement, more moral then practical.
You point to rises in violent crime in the UK and Australia. The reason for the rise in gun crime there is the same as the rise in gun crime everywhere.
Prohibition of substances for which there is a substantial demand.
Give poor people (in general, not all dealers start out poor, of this i am aware) or the greedy a means of making large sums of cash, make it illegal. Voila. Friction between small but powerful clans will turn into fighting.
Fighting leads to escalating violence, which leeds to the procurement of guns/rocket launchers/whatever they can lay their hands on with the vast sums of money the STUPID drug laws throw into the hands of the ruthless.
It was ever thus, and ever will be.
I ain't covered every base because i'd like more posts. I'm really fascinated with what Bill Hicks aptly described as the "tingly feeling" that americans seem to get when guns are even mentioned...
__________________
"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." - Winston Churchill, 1937 --{ORLY?}--
|