Guns Everywhere

[longblackcoat]

redtwin said:

longblackcoat said:

But they have a much lower proportion of handguns.

Guns don't kill people, Handguns do.

Pretty much true, though there are always idiots with assault rifles. Far more dangerous, but there are way fewer of them.

[mackie1]

Rifles make up a very small proportion of gun murders in the USA. I think more are killed with hammers and clubs each year.
Actual assault rifles must make up a tiny number - they are not cheap!

[Bill]

santona1937 said:

The right to bear arms is a sign of responsible citizenship. Some folks will be killed because other folks do not handle that citizenship correctly. That is no reason to ban guns. more folks die on the roads but no one talks about banning cars.

It does seem like a good argument for some sort of control, no? It does seem easier to get a gun legally than a car.

[santona1937]

Bill said:

santona1937 said:

The right to bear arms is a sign of responsible citizenship. Some folks will be killed because other folks do not handle that citizenship correctly. That is no reason to ban guns. more folks die on the roads but no one talks about banning cars.

It does seem like a good argument for some sort of control, no? It does seem easier to get a gun legally than a car.

Surprisingly enough driving is considered a privilege not a right and therefore has more controls placed upon it.
Gun control should be very limited at best.

[skyrover]

santona1937 said:

The American Gun culture is part of the whole rugged individualism thing the USA has had since the beginning.
people have individual responsibility for their lives and their actions. Owning a gun is a right not a privilege, and folks need to be responsible enough to deal with gun use.
If you start banning guns, you are on a slippery slope to ending up as a socialist country with a nanny state.
Cold Dead Hand is a god given right.
To a point they are right, if you want a society based on individual responsibility then you have to accept the consequences.
If every one takes care of themselves you do not need a national health care system, or to provide benefits to all, etc etc, and you devolve power to the individual some will handle it better than others.
The right to bear arms is a sign of responsible citizenship. Some folks will be killed because other folks do not handle that citizenship correctly. That is no reason to ban guns. more folks die on the roads but no one talks about banning cars.

Pretty much this...

American are a very proud people, and fiercely defensive of their so called "freedoms".

Many Americans would rather go hungry than collect welfare...

It up to you to forge your own way in life, support your family and defend them in the American mindset.

[Bill]

santona1937 said:

Surprisingly enough driving is considered a privilege not a right and therefore has more controls placed upon it.
Gun control should be very limited at best.

Presumably because the founding fathers didn't predict the internal combustion engine. I don't suppose they anticipated school kids using semiautomatic weapons on their classmates either.

[Liokault]

AshVX220 said:

Yes, but the point is, it's not the gun that's the problem, it's the crewed squishy bit, holding the gun. I don't believe there should be "stricter" gun controls, I don't like the anti-gun rhetoric and controls in the UK. I do however believe there should be much better gun control with more stringent and regular checks.

I like my anti gun rhetoric and my tiny chance of gun related death or crime in comparison to the USA thanks.

[Pommygranite]

skyrover said:

It up to you to forge your own way in life, support your family and defend them in the American mindset.

Strangely enough I do forge my own way in life, support my family but haven't really found the need to defend my family against a nutjob with an M16 in a cinema.

America will one day implode before it wakes up and realises its biggest enemy is itself.

[Liokault]

skyrover said:

Pretty much this...

American are a very proud people, and fiercely defensive of their so called "freedoms".

Many Americans would rather go hungry than collect welfare...

It up to you to forge your own way in life, support your family and defend them in the American mindset.

How do you square the "proud" sense of personal responsibility along side the USA being the litigation Capitol of the world?

[skyrover]

Liokault said:

skyrover said:

Pretty much this...

American are a very proud people, and fiercely defensive of their so called "freedoms".

Many Americans would rather go hungry than collect welfare...

It up to you to forge your own way in life, support your family and defend them in the American mindset.

How do you square the "proud" sense of personal responsibility along side the USA being the litigation Capitol of the world?

It's an idiosyncratic nation... I don't claim to answer why, I just comment on what I see.

[redtwin]

Bill said:

It does seem easier to get a gun legally than a car.

It isn't.

[Bill]

redtwin said:

Bill said:

It does seem easier to get a gun legally than a car.

It isn't.

I did say "seem", but afaik in some states you just need id to prove your age and address to get a gun whereas you need to pass a test to get a car.

[Silent1]

Randy Winkman said:

AJL308 said:

Blib said:

I see no point in legally held handguns in a modern, 21st Century society. So, you want to go to a gun club and shoot a hand gun at a target? Pointless.

I see no point in legally held cars which can do more than 70mph in a modern, 21st Century society. So, you want to go to a race track and drive at high speed? Pointless.

Another persons view.

ajl.

Although most UK adults drive cars and are content that cars can do more than 70mph (unless I'm much mistaken). Whilst most UK adults want nothing to do with guns (again, I could be wrong).

So because the majority don't want to do something then it shouldn't be allowed?
That's quite a statement if you're making it.

[redtwin]

mackie1 said:

Rifles make up a very small proportion of gun murders in the USA. I think more are killed with hammers and clubs each year.
Actual assault rifles must make up a tiny number - they are not cheap!

Upwards of $5,000 for anything worth owning and that is if you meet the criteria and get ownership approval.

It is money in the bank though as prices are only climbing.

[redtwin]

Bill said:

I did say "seem", but afaik in some states you just need id to prove your age and address to get a gun whereas you need to pass a test to get a car.

You need to do much more than than prove age and address to buy a gun from a legal firearms dealer.

You don't need to prove anything to buy a gun...or a car privately.

[heppers75]

[Bill]

redtwin said:

You don't need to prove anything to buy a gun...or a car privately.

You're not reassuring me.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

AJL308 said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

I believe the 2nd amendment was specifically to allow for the individual to bear arms as part of a well regulated militia, and not just as a stand alone individual.

The two are inseperable though. A militia is, by definition, a collection of 'stand alone' individuals who are acting in their capacity as private citizens. A militia - by its very definition - need not be a permanent, standing organisation, and may be formed and disbanded (with varying degrees of formality or greyness) as the need is felt by those concerned.

If it isn't an individual right then it couldn't exist as a collective right because there would be no right for anyone not currently part of a militia to possess arms. Besides, it would require the state to establish what the legal definition of 'militia' was and it could choose to put the bar impossibly high and, hence, claim that no one was a member of a recognised militia so no one had a right to possess arms defeating the entire purpose of the right. The state would be very hard pushed to claim that no one was an individual, however.

The Amendment says that a 'well regulated militia' is 'necessary' to a free state, no where does it say that continuous membership of such by the individual is a requirement of exercising the right.

ajl.

Which is why they say "keep & bear". Why not just say keep. Or just say bear. But it says keep and bear. Keep meaning to own, and bear meaning to carry and use. You can keep them as an individual, for use only as part of a militia.

Whatever the intention of the authors, it certainly isn't the best use of English and isn't clear. But what is clear is that at the time of writing, they knew nothing of automatic or even semi automatic weapons.

The American people already accept that they cannot keep and bear nuclear warheads, regardless of what the 2nd amendment says. Why they think they should be able to keep weapons that fire 200 rounds a minute when the constitution was referring to guns that fired one shot and then had to be reloaded to fire the next shot 2 minutes later, is beyond me.

[redtwin]

Bill said:

You're not reassuring me.

I wasn't trying to reassure you, just disprove your thought that it is easier to buy a gun than it is to buy a car.

[mackie1]

Are you seriously saying we should try and uninvent 200 years of firearms technology (which hasn't really changed much in the last 100 I suppose) and people should only be allowed muzzle loading muskets? "Arms" refers to no specific weapon.
I can own many more effective firearms than a musket in this country, so why not Americans who have more freedoms afforded to them?