Gun Laws- Positive or Negative?

[Profesco]

Well, usually a criminal that wants to get into a house doesn't come a long knocking on the front door. Baseball bats, crobars, etc. These are all tools that can be used to get into a house, if you're dead set on getting in.


There is also less conventional ways, like digging a tunnel with a tea spoon.

Ahaha, well, if somebody is going to dig into a house with a teaspoon, maybe we should study their awesome teaspoon technology and see if we can turn it around for defensive purposes.

And yes, I know burglars don't burgle by politely asking to enter your house; that they employ burgling tools designed to defeat security. When I allude to effective (yet not prohibitively costly) security measures, though, I am supposing that "effective" means something along the lines of "effective at securing whatever it is they're protecting from invasion/affront."

(Thank you for giving me the opportunity to say "burgle" and its associates so often!)

I'll definitely agree that those are fair, but what kind of idiot criminal let's his victim get within arms length of his gun, his only advantage? Plus, even if you are a skilled martial artist, is that a risk you want to take? What if you mess up? What if he pulls the trigger to soon?

Excellent questions, so I apologize for pulling a cop-out here. They're questions that have already been addressed, and I am frankly too lazy to go looking for the posts right now. I feel awfully guilty about just dropping your argument, though, so I will seek them out and bring them here. *bows*

Edit: The discussion about non-firearm self-defense begins here in the previous gun regulation debate. In that thread, chuboy and belbackinblack made the case for self-defense better than I believe I can now.

Oh, they're definitely less fatal than guns, but they can still be deadly. Especially if the person wielding it doesn't know how to use it properly, or know when to relinquish. Sending a person into cardiac arrest, etc. Heart problems like you mentioned. They can kill. Not as readily or as handily as a gun can, but they can. Now my point is, how do you differentiate between how certain tools should be more strictly regulated, or even further, banned, when we don't really have a line drawn in the sand? Is there a point where we say "No this weapon is too deadly." Now obviously, we know this line is drawn somewhere. Average Joe's aren't allowed to own nuclear warheads. When it comes to guns though, where and how do you draw the line? What's the criteria that has to be met?

Well, I suppose the "not as readily or as handily as guns" part is enough to satisfy me, but more practically, I guess the decision would be based on how much fatality is built into the machine's proper use. The function of a gun is to expel a projectile at lethal or injurious force - in fact something guns do whether they're being used by someone knowledgeable and cautious or by an uneducated kook. If I'm understanding you properly, tasers are only fatal in extenuating circumstances like severe misuse or pre-existing medical conditions in the victim/target. Even more practically, I would bet that there is some defensible statistical measure of how lethal gunshots are on average versus how lethal being tasered is on average, and that the difference would describe statistically significant critical interval. (Though I can't myself conduct the study, naturally. Unless we have some willing participants for the gunshot portion of the study? Anybody? Hands up!)

Though I am kind of bemused at this being a point of contention at all. A handheld weapon that can fire mulitple lethal projectiles with the flex of a finger is, so far as humanity is concerned at present, the single most convenient and reliable personal weapon available. =/

Edit: Oh I forgot! Dude, what about people that own some seriously brutish looking guard dogs, that it's common sense not to screw with? Guard dogs like German shepards, etc attack, maim, and kill intruders every year. No one seems to want them illegalized though.

There's probably some discussion to be had here along the lines of modifying guard dog training procedure and the responsibilities/involvement of the owner and the warnings they place around their property, and of the intruder's own responsibility for ignoring them, and probably much more, but I don't much want to get too far off topic. As long as I can't pull a doberman's tail and instantly kill a guy hundreds of feet away, I don't think guard dogs are as pressing a safety concern as guns are. =s

 

[UltimatePokemonExpert]

Having guns is a right. Of course some rules should be in place like for hunting or to control people from going out and killing people, but it's our right to have them as a mean of hunting for food and protection. "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."

 

[randomspot555]

I guess I could assume that, too. I don't exactly think that, for example, every person confronted with an aggressor, a threat to their life, is naturally (or even mainly) compelled to launch into a fight to protect themselves.

But people are compelled to do what's in their best interests when faced with a life-death situation. People would react differently depending on a situation. A criminal who had me cornered and making demands in a calm demeanor I'd act differently than a criminal who busted into my home and I was hiding in a room.

But in any case, we began with the mutually agreed-upon premise that people have a natural right to be alive. I was hoping you'd explain the transition from that premise to the right to bear arms, randomspot.

In worst case scenarios, and God willing they're rare, people are faced with aggressively advocating for their life. You see this in war, at least in the days where land invasions of civilian areas was more common.

While this might be a part of Stockholme Syndrome, one of the considerations of the proposed land invasion of Japan in WWII, Operation: Downfall, was the "fanatically hostile population" that the Allied Forces would face. Japan, as a culture, has always seen outside forces and influences as a threat, and in WWII, that was expressed militarily that women and children would likely take up arms against trained, American soldiers.

I think it's an inherent part that we want to live,that's natural, and not feeling that is unnatural. How we express that desire to live varies depending on situations, but I firmly believe most people would fight for their life or the lives of others if they had to, in dire circumstances. EVEN if that person was otherwise timid or passive or whatever.

But they still don't have the right to defend themselves? Remember, we were talking about right, not capacity.

Rights aren't just up to individuals to protect and preserve, but the soicety as a whole. Those who don't have the capacity, we owe it to them to do it on their behalf. Just like a parent is obligated to protect a child.

ell, that's still kind of confusing. Either using a gun is the only effective way to defend oneself from harm, or there are other effective ways to defend oneself from harm.

A gun is by far the most effective, easiest/user friendly way of protecting one's self. Guns get a bad rap in that their machines and whatnot, but handguns are not rocket science. You load, you point, you shoot.

Now the important part of knowing how to use a gun is that "shoot to maim" is pretty much something populated by Hollywood. Sure, if you're a professionally trained sniper shooting from hundreds of feet away, maybe you can do it. But if someone has to pull a gun out on another human being, they are shooting to STOP the aggressor. That doesn't mean "kill them" it means you shoot until you draw and if necessary, shoot until they're no longer a threat. If they turn around and hightail it out of there, well, then it's over.

Martial arts and other forms of physical defense are useful to know, but they require far more training. Mace and pepper spray can hurt you as well in close distance. And both of these require the criminal to be unarmed AND close.

As for law enforcement, I've previously linked to a US Supreme Court decision that law enforcement is not private security. They are under no obligation to protect you as an individual. They protect the state as a whole. Even if they royally screw up, or choose not to respond to a distress call, they can't be sued for negligence.

In no way am I ever advocating for a shoot first, ask questions later policy. Or even that other self-defense suck. But they all require an amount of learned skill that a firearm doesn't.

I'm not convinced that a taser can actually effectively stop an aggressor for an extended period. According to this, a systemwide shock can stop them for "several minutes". And I've noticed tasers, as used by law enforcement, are always at close range, and the alleged criminal is almost always being restrained or needs to be restrained while or shortly after being tased.

I'm not a big guy. I ain't gonna be able to restrain anybody.

But what I am advocating is against this mass banishment of firearms because if you dearm a populous, you've effectively made them less save in their own homes. Maybe out in public where police presences are noticeable they'll be fine, but that doesn't transfer to the home.

 

[kaiser soze]

I also think that the risk of needing to fight off heavily-armed aggressors in a government coup is sort of an unrealistic (at least these days) situation to use, if the argument is featuring the average individual's right to defend his or her life or property. And that describing the situation always as a case of the harmless, innocent, patriotic man being denied any and all weapons while the insurgent criminals have only to snap their fingers and be granted any and all weaponry they want, while every aforementioned defense is assumed useless or unavailable, is kind of like stacking the deck. >_>

Armed revolt is still a reality in today's world. Case in point the Libyan Civil War, whose participants were (to an extent) honored as TIME's person of the year. And there's always the Orwellian Police state example (not my favorite, but theoretically possible).

 

[Zekromaster826]

I believe that guns should be allowed merely for self defense and sport.

 

[Noheart]

Switzerland and their 0 crime rate should be the /thread argument. In case any of you didn't know, over there it is law that every citizen is required to own a firearm.


Everyone has a firearm.
Zero crime rate.


???

 

[chuboy]

Switzerland and their 0 crime rate should be the /thread argument. In case any of you didn't know, over there it is law that every citizen is required to own a firearm.


Everyone has a firearm.
Zero crime rate.


???

This has been covered already. Switzerland's citizens are 'required' to own a firearm because the entire army is composed of militia. The required firearm is a standard issue weapon that must be kept safe and in working order in the militia's house until they are called up for duty. It is only at this point that ammunition is supplied to the soldier. (Ammo used to be kept with the weapon in a sealed container that was regularly inspected for unauthorised use but they put a stop to even that.)

Make no mistake, Switzerland has very strict gun laws.

 

[CaptainGarchomp]

Well,in my opinion,I think some states are too strict with gun laws.In States where they allow firearms,if someone breaks into your house you can kill them legally and that is fair.But I believe the only reason that they allow firearms is because of the wild animals that live there,maybe in recent years there have been many attacks by wild animals and thats why they allow use of firearms.

 

[Liberty Defender]

Gun control laws are counterproductive and usually achieve the opposite effect than their stated goals. The only people who are deterred from owning guns are people who obey the law. A criminal who does not respect the law will own a gun regardless of what the law says.