Gun control discussion

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Obviously this is a very heated debate...

It seems that a lot of folks from Europe and other countries are against the right to bear arms, but most Americans are for it. As a Texan first and foremost and an American, I live by our constitution which gives me the right to bear arms. I do respect other countries view points on the issue for their country and if I ever went there I would have no problem living by their laws. I would never argue with you that your laws should be changed to allow the right to bear arms, so why try to police us?

Feel free to continue discussions on this topic, but let's refrain from any personal insults. Surely we can get our point across without insults.
 
Zatnikitelman said:
Has anyone ever considered that 90% of gun owners in the United States are the responsible citizens who can and have stopped tragic events from happening? Let's think about the Virginia Tech massacre. What if one of the students, or professors had had a handgun with them and had all the proper training ahead of time? That jerk could have been stopped, possibly after he fired the first few shots BEFORE they became fatal? Or even 9/11. If the tsa and our govt in general didn't have their heads so far up their butts...and a few or even one passenger had had a gun with them, the terrorists could have been stopped. Plane might have gone down, but I'd prefer a plane crash of 200 versus a building collapse of 3000 if no other options are available.
Point it, that regrettable events could be and have been stopped by responsible citizens with guns.
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Everyday life full of armed students, professors and passenges? Boy, something is going wrong in your country in case a lot of people prefer such an armed society.

By the way, which regrettable events have been stopped? All you point out are events which happened.
 
The whole problem with Americans having guns in my view (and ONLY my view) is that it's based on an outmoded concept. I may be wrong on this (as frankly it's not my country, and whatever Americans choose to do is not my concern) but isn't the right to bear arms only in relation to forming an organised militia to defend the state?

How many of the gun owning people in America have the first idea about howto do that? This is my oproblem with gun laws as they stand, they make no sense.
I'd have no problems with Americans being legally allowed to own guns because they want to shoot at little targets, or because they feel that a CAR-15 under the bed will defend them from a drug addict, but if that's the case then that's what the law should say.


Contrary to what a lot of people believe, btw, it's perfctly legal to own guns in many parts of Europe. I have three in my home (Handgun and two hunting rifles), but only a small percentage of people (around 12% in Sweden iirc) feel the need to arm themselves, and the vast majority of those use their guns solely for hunting.
 
Linguofreak said:
@Moonwalker, in English "common person" carries the connotation of "Herdenmensch" as opposed to "Adel"
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For "Herdenmensch" I can't find any translation. For "Adel" I found nothing which is related to common, person or common person at all.

But just replace common person by average citizen ;)
 
Moonwalker said:
For "Herdenmensch" I can't find any translation. For "Adel" I found nothing which is related to common, person or common person at all.

But just replace common person by average citizen ;)
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Basically, in English, a "common person" (Herdenmensch) is one who is not a noble (Adel). (I'm not sure if "Herdenmensch" is the best translation of "common person," but it was the one that I thought fit best). So your choice of phrase led to people thinking that you were saying that it's fine if the nobility own guns, but all us peasants should just go around pacifistically and bow whenever one of the well-armed nobility walks by. "Average citizen" works *much* better.

I don't agree that average citizens shouldn't be armed, but saying that sure sounds alot better than "common people shouldn't be armed," which sounds rather aristocratic and dictatorial.
 
Linguofreak said:
@Moonwalker, in English "common person" carries the connotation of "Herdenmensch" as opposed to "Adel"


@Nomad, I've not been shot at, but I have been robbed by someone who either had a gun or a finger under his shirt, and I agree, nothing like the movies.

@Gun training, licensing, and insurance:

Messierhunter objected to being classified as a potential criminal, but the thing is that *everybody* is a potential criminal. This includes the gun-owner, the government, and the guy that wants to rob the gun owner. That's what makes the entire debate even an issue.
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Then I guess you're going to make sure that big brother charges EVERYONE for insurance, not just law abiding gun owners, right? If not then you're not treating gun owners equally. And since law abiding gun owners who carry concealed weapons are not nearly as likely to kill you as a randomly chosen person off the street, your solution is in search of a problem.
 
Urwumpe said:
Messierhunter: No further questions :lol:
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When you can show me a serious problem with concealed carriers accidentally killing unarmed innocents then come back to me. Until then your entire argument is worthless. The facts of the matter are that concealed carriers are safer to be around than a randomly chosen person and that most "accidental gun deaths" by non-carriers are in fact suicides - not accidental at all and not a gun-related problem.
 
Moonwalker said:
Everyday life full of armed students, professors and passenges? Boy, something is going wrong in your country in case a lot of people prefer such an armed society.

By the way, which regrettable events have been stopped? All you point out are events which happened.
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He's pointing out events that happened because nobody present had a gun to stop them from happening. 9/11 probably wouldn't have been prevented by guns because the hijackers on at least one flight claimed to have a bomb, and if the bomb in fact existed, and was on a deadman switch, starting to shoot hijackers would have been the worst thing one could have done (Plus, up till that point, the general wisdom was that you don't resist hijackers. Now people resist whether they have guns or not). In any case, I don't really support letting passengers carry guns onboard planes, because there's a whole lot of bad things a gun could do in that situation before anybody could ever intervene by any means at all, whether by tackling the gunman or shooting him.

In the case of Virginia Tech, OTOH, I very much agree that it would have been over with much less loss of life if somebody had had a gun with them. (Though confusion could lead to bad things, a student opens fire on the gunman, another student thinks the first student is the gunman and starts shooting at the first student, for example. Unlikely but possible.)

And another reason that he's giving examples of bad events that could have been stopped with a gun is that only the ones that don't get stopped make national or international headlines.
 
Moonwalker said:
Everyday life full of armed students, professors and passenges? Boy, something is going wrong in your country in case a lot of people prefer such an armed society.

By the way, which regrettable events have been stopped? All you point out are events which happened.
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My brother goes to a church where an event was recently stopped by a citizen legally carrying a gun to church. The assailant had an assault rifle and over 1000 rounds of ammo. There were 7,000 people at the church that day (yes, it's a megachurch). Two teenage girls were killed in the parking lot as the assailant approached the entrance. It would have been a blood bath inside except for the fact that an armed woman ran to stop the attacker.
 
Messierhunter said:
When you can show me a serious problem with concealed carriers accidentally killing unarmed innocents then come back to me. Until then your entire argument is worthless. The facts of the matter are that concealed carriers are safer to be around than a randomly chosen person and that most "accidental gun deaths" by non-carriers are in fact suicides - not accidental at all and not a gun-related problem.
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That's probably because anyone planning to use a concealed gun to commit a crime won't bother to get a licence.

Regarding the cases where people go on a shooting rampage, this seems to happen more often in the US than in countries with tighter gun control laws. This is probably due in part to the larger population, but I suspect that easy access to guns also plays a role.
 
Messierhunter said:
Then I guess you're going to make sure that big brother charges EVERYONE for insurance, not just law abiding gun owners, right? If not then you're not treating gun owners equally. And since law abiding gun owners who carry concealed weapons are not nearly as likely to kill you as a randomly chosen person off the street, your solution is in search of a problem.
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When you say this, it sounds like you think the government will be providing the insurance as well as saying that you have to have it, am I right, or did I misinterpret?

If I interpreted it right, why does big brother need to be the one providing insurance? The government can mandate that you carry insurance, but it doesn't need to be the one providing the insurance and charging you for it (in fact, it shouldn't be). That's what happens with automobile liability insurance. The government mandates that you carry liablity insurance, but independent insurance companies provide it (though as I said, car vs. gun is a rather apples and oranges comparison).

And the need for liability insurance doesn't come from gun owners breaking the law, it comes from civil liabilities that can arise *even when you do everything right.* You can observe every rule of gun safety, and you can be perfectly within your rights to shoot the guy who has broken into your home in the dead of night, or who is robbing you at knifepoint on the street, but once you've shot the guy, the odds are fairly good that he (or his family, if he dies) will find some ambulance chasing lawyer and sue you for every penny you have, and when he does, the odds are fairly good that the judge will be corrupt enough that he won't throw the suit out as frivolous.

If you want to leave law abiding gun owners at the mercy of the joke that is our judicial system and don't want to protect them from being screwed over by ambulance chasers, then you don't need to mandate (or even establish) such insurance coverage. Otherwise, I'm all for it.
 
simonpro said:
The whole problem with Americans having guns in my view (and ONLY my view) is that it's based on an outmoded concept. I may be wrong on this (as frankly it's not my country, and whatever Americans choose to do is not my concern) but isn't the right to bear arms only in relation to forming an organised militia to defend the state?
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Well, it's a prickly question. That is the specific reasoning listed in the Second Amendment, but just because it's the reason listed doesn't mean the founding fathers didn't have other reasons, nor do the reasons that the founding fathers had for including it in the Constitution have anything to do with whether (or not) it actually is a basic human right.

How many of the gun owning people in America have the first idea about howto do that? This is my oproblem with gun laws as they stand, they make no sense.
I'd have no problems with Americans being legally allowed to own guns because they want to shoot at little targets, or because they feel that a CAR-15 under the bed will defend them from a drug addict, but if that's the case then that's what the law should say.
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Well, also, you're failing to differentiate between gun laws (the specific legislation governing the use and registration of guns), and the Second Ammendment guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms. The Second Ammendment is part of the national Constitution, and as such determines what laws are and are not permissible. Gun laws are specific regulations, often at the state or local level, that dictate how guns are to be regulated, but they can't (as long as the courts are willing to uphold the constitution, which is somewhat shaky) regulate guns in such a way that it infriges on the Second Ammendment.

Gun laws are relatively easy to change. The Constitution is very hard to change, and is designed to be (it's supposed to be a framework governing the basic structure of the government and what laws are or are not permissible, not a set of laws in itself, and as such it should be fairly stable. The Texas state constitution is a nightmare that shows what happens when you make your constitution too easy to ammend). So while the reasons that Americans want to have the right to keep and bear arms have changed, it's not worth going through the whole process of ammending the Constitution just over some quibble over wording. It's still essentially the same concept: Citizens should be free to act independently to defend themselves from threats. Originally it was considered that the government was more of the threat, which is why the Constitution is worded the way it is (basically, if the government gets tyrannical, the militia gets together and starts a revolution). Now it's considered that the common criminal is the threat the citizen needs to defend himself against.

Contrary to what a lot of people believe, btw, it's perfctly legal to own guns in many parts of Europe. I have three in my home (Handgun and two hunting rifles), but only a small percentage of people (around 12% in Sweden iirc) feel the need to arm themselves, and the vast majority of those use their guns solely for hunting.
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Yeah, I really don't feel the need to arm myself, but I will defend the right of my fellow citizens to arm themselves.
 
Linguofreak said:
And another reason that he's giving examples of bad events that could have been stopped with a gun is that only the ones that don't get stopped make national or international headlines.
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Those who get stopped are often also appearing. The problem is: How can you evaluate the interference? For example in the current case, the attacker got disrupted by a man, which was in turn killed. How much did the disruption change? The attacker got overwhelmed by unarmed people.

Could have been stopped by somebody, preferentially trained with a gun, is a very lazy point. There could also have been a police man on scene. The attacker could not even had a gun. Friends could have kept an attacker from planning his attacks in solitude.

All these what-ifs, don't bring you anything.

The best end for a shooting, is a shooting which does not even take place at all.

Also, I would ask the question why you have such a high number of church shootings this year in the US.

Messierhunter references to the New Life Church Shooting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Colorado_YWAM_and_New_Life_shootings

Additionally to the rather bad idea of using amateurs as volunteer guards for a megachurch (10000+ people inside ) with concealed weapons - the account of the volunteer does not sound like she knows that the shot, with which the attacker killed himself, could also have gone in her direction - there had been many warnings signs before, which individual people took serious, but not the officials. This was a shooting, which was avoidable, by taking threats more serious and increase the security already at the first location.

I searched for more data on the church (you can for example find a useful map including doorways) to get an idea of the tactical situation, but it does look like

a) The security concept of the church itself was not adequate. We are talking about a enclosed room where 10000 people can be on a christmas celebration. Here you would have at least one police car on standby for such large events.
b) The volunteer guards have not had adequate training for such situations. 3 shots without one being lethal is no sign of good training. It is a sign of not acting decisive.

Let's start already at the point, that the shooter was able to shoot people on the parking lot right in front of the main entrace and enter the building armed and fire another shot there. When minimal two trained guards had been placed at the guest information or entrace, the attacker could have been overwhelmed faster. Even without firing a shot, at least from the map I have. It is not like the guy had conceiled weapons.

Damn, and my local church has as the biggest problem the finding a new organist....

The shooting did not end well, because the shooter got shot on the second incident on the same day. It was luck. And people should be happy about that luck instead of relying on it a second time.
 
Tex said:
Obviously this is a very heated debate...

It seems that a lot of folks from Europe and other countries are against the right to bear arms, but most Americans are for it. As a Texan first and foremost and an American, I live by our constitution which gives me the right to bear arms. I do respect other countries view points on the issue for their country and if I ever went there I would have no problem living by their laws. I would never argue with you that your laws should be changed to allow the right to bear arms, so why try to police us?
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Tex, the whole problem is a matter of respect. As Simonpro suggested, that part of your constitution is outmoded, but you do have the right to your policies within your border.

Unfortunately, what we have seen up here is the predilection to export those attitudes and the problems that arise with them, both politically and culturally. If you and your fellow Americans do possess the respect you claim, then prohibit your arms merchants from trading in countries where they are not wanted, keep you criminal element within your own borders and prohibit the NRA form interfering in the political process of other nations (which they have on this issue).

And keep your movies and music that glorify violence and antisocial behaviour ... at home.
 
DAMN! a Euro-American insult-fest develops over gun rights while I'm at work and I miss all the fun!

Let me say that, having spent a good deal of time working with Europeans over the years, this is simply something that there will never be deep or broad cultural understanding on -- the huge majority of Europeans have no experience of private gun ownership, and find American attitudes on the subject dangerous and strange, while many Americans find the common opinions expressed by Europeans on the subject to be based on ignorance and fear.

For what it's worth, our friends across the pond should be aware that the reporting on gun violence like the church shooting this weekend is simply unrepresentative of reality in America. When you combine the natural sensationalism of the press (if it bleeds, it leads) with the tendency of the leftist elites who feed the pool of media workers to be much more anti-gun than the population at large, you will get a very skewed picture of "gun culture" in America from press reports.

The reality is that the vast majority of gun owners in America are 1) safe and 2) law-abiding. I've been an avid shooter all my life and, while my arsenal isn't as large as it used to be, I could still equip a small army. I go to the range to stay sharp when too much time has gone by between hunts, and I see the cross-section of people in America who own and use guns legally. They aren't scary. They're normal people.

Beyond this, if you take drug-related violent crime out of the picture, America's gun-violence statistics really aren't that bad. We have a drug crime violence problem in America, not a gun violence problem.

If you want to take issue with some policy of our government, don't attack out constitutional right to own firearms; instead, consider the absurd was on some drugs.
 
Its a bit like the chicken and the egg again.

Damn, and my local church has as the biggest problem the finding a new organist....
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We are deciding what to do with our organ , since we are Lutheran that means a government style meeting.



Also can everyone PLEASE Calm Down

Country Bashing on ANY kind is against the forum rules and WILL be enforced

If you don't I WILL close this thread
 
Aahh.. politics again.

Here mass-media often makes a lot of noise when a richman's dog kills someone. Or when a street dog kills. or when dog owner's kills with a dog. or when he is unable to stop his dog. (or when he revenges for his dog that was killed by father that revenged for his daughter. )

And that's dogs - not firearms. Humans are fragile, aggressive and not so responsible. Whatever the weapon is allowed - it WILL cause trouble somewhere someday. Of course, if someone is really concerned he will kill anyway with whatever means are accesible. Guns just make it easier to kill somene when no intention was present.

2 Uwumpe - I don't think that a higher responsibility will compensate for less strict weapon regulations. Responsibility only matters when people act rationally. And people do it not often enough for me to feel safe landing in a city where eveyone can own a SAM launcher.
 
GregBurch: The USA have the highest number of homicides by firearms per 100,000 citizens in the world, with 3.72. Twice as high as Italy. Six times higher as Switzerland. Germany has only 0.22.

Similar ratios on unintentional deaths by firearms. Do you think, this can only be explained by drug related crimes? Can somebody look for similar statistics for drug addicts per n people? I don't find something unbiased with my english skills.
 
n0mad23 said:
I'm curious, has anyone here actually ever been shot at?

I can't help think it changes personal perception a bit. Really, it's nothing like TV.
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Yep... lots of times.
 
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