Gun Control

[Bart Scovill]

Okay, I'm going to post this question and then duck and cover. Gun control, good or bad?

(This can be a sensitive topic, please remain respectful.)

[southpaw0727]

I think that it is mostly bad because only the "good guys" will follow it and the bad will not.

[Jonathan Forrester]

Since I am a proud member of the NRA and the IDPA I believe gun control is a good thing for felons. But if you are a law abiding citizen then your right to own a gun is protected by the second amendment. Also the police can't be everywhere so the right to own a gun to protect me and my family should not be interfered with.

Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

[Berserk]

"Guns don't kill people. People kill people."

Sorry, Jonathan, I'll have to disagree with that. That's a line, that is supposed to 'justify' the ownership of a gun. What if you didn't have a gun? You wouldn't pull the trigger. It's very easy to use a weapon, when you have one.

I hope that wasn't rude or anything. :)

[southpaw0727]

If someone wants to kill someone else they will find a way with or without a gun.

[Berserk]

True but it would be very easy if you had a gun. You might not have wanted to kill someone but rage probably might over-power you and make you do the deed.

[SheepDog]

Well, thanking God and the founders of this great nation, ownership of firearms doesn't have to be "justified" in the USA - it is a right enumerated by the Second Amendment to our Constitution.

Notice I didn't say it was a right given to us by the 2nd amendment, or by the government. The right to defend oneself (and one's family, and helpless others) has always been recognized, worldwide, as a natural right, as natural as the right to breathe the air. Of course, unless you live under a totalitarian government. Then even your right to breathe the air is given only at the convenience of the all-powerful state. In this great nation, that right includes the use of deadly force up to and including the use of firearms.

As far as the ease of use of firearms being a good reason to ban their use and possession, that's a specious argument, the premise of which is flawed - that murder would be prevented, or less likely, if only people had no access to weapons, as if we lived in some kind of Utopia.

As noted, in many ways it's easier to use a knife than a gun (it's quieter, doesn't jam, no need to reload it, no real training required...)

[Jonathan Forrester]

Berserk - not rude at all. However let's do a simple science experiment. Lay a loaded gun on a table in a crowded room. The gun can do no harm by itself. There must be someone to pick it up and pull the trigger. Unless you believe the gun can mysteriously fire on it's own.

your argument proves my point. Someone must make a conscious decision to kill or disregard the first rule of gun safety-Always assume the gun is loaded.

[Berserk]

Sure, I agree with you that someone has to pull the trigger. The gun can not fire itself.

However, give a loaded gun to a short tempered person. Let's say, he has a heated argument with an acquaintance and the argument gets physical. What do you think the short tempered person would do? I'm pretty sure he'd pull the trigger, without thinking of the consequences. On the other hand, if he didn't have the gun, there is a good chance that his acquaintance wouldn't die.

You can still argue and say that it was the short tempered guy that pulled the trigger and killed the other person but he wouldn't have done that in the first place, if he didn't have a gun on him.

[SheepDog]

One of the major points here is that, like the martial artist, a legally licensed gun owner is less likely to be a hot-head prone to flying off the handle and shooting the place up.

That wild-eyed gun-slinger is the image portrayed by the media, and it just has not happened in these states with concealed-carry laws.

Anyways in your analogy the short-tempered guy could just as easily (more easily, really) grab a beer bottle or a brick and kill the acquaintance - and do it a lot quieter than using a gun, with correspondingly less chance of being caught at it.

[Art for Art's sake... Sake?]

Short tempered person could be a politician with millions of guns and men at their disposal. I'll give up mine, when every one on earth does the same. Then we can all hug and stuff.

[Joseph]

"Guns don't kill people. People kill people." I hate to say this but I believe you are both wrong.

guns don't kill people, Chuck Norris kills people.

[Rathryn]

For me it's real simple, if I wanted to kill a guy, yes a gun would make that simpler maybe even easier, as it's different from ramming a knife between someone's ribs, don't know.
But if I REALLY wanted to kill the guy I could also grab a hammer and smash his skull in, does that mean we'd need hammer control as well? What about bricks then? Car keys? Hands? Feet? Safety boots/shoes?
If you want someone dead really badly, you'll kill him anyway, the weapon you use is a mean to an end, not the end itself.
I like the idea of people here NOT having a gun, but that in itself seems a false comfort, as the ones that are most likely to use it on me are thus made people that are WILLING to use it, regardless.