Forums → WEPR → Gun Control Legislation

One more reason to just regulate guns more. Simply letting children use guns or have access to them is absurd. Soldiers go through months of training before being allowed live ammo.

Wrong, my friend. Having children comfortable around guns and the safe operation of their use is better, not worse, for society. From an early age they know not to point it at anyone, and prevents far more accidents than it allows. Most children involved in firearm accidents, if not all, were not conditioned to the safe operation of the weapon.

No.

Then which? I can't post a counter-argument without researching the bill in question.

assault rifles.

What's wrong with assault rifles? Automatic assault rifles are either highly illegal or only in the hands of wealthy individuals, costing tens of thousands of dollars. Long rifles, such as AR15s and semi-automatic AK47s are nothing more than traditional long arms with a repeating capability, and long arms account for 4.7% of gun crimes. It's pointless to ban assault rifles, especially since an assault rifle ban is governed by aesthetic look and not practical application.

Where are we to draw the line then?

Nowhere. There are pistols, long rifles, and shotguns, each regulated according to the application that lawful use permits. There is no need to draw a line, because drawing the line is an utterly pointless endeavor.

And banning guns doesn't mean you'll get your fully automatic guns.

Seeing as the guns are illegal (in the scenario), what's stopping me from going to my local black market gun dealer and getting the better model? I'm breaking the law either way, and because I want my rifle, the more fun variant is certainly getting purchased when placed directly in front of me.

hence increase the crime rate will increase ''five or fourfold''

When I said other gun related felonies, I had just previously directed out violent offenses. This leaves the only other option: Possession, a non-violent gun felony. And yes, there will be a massive increase.

such as assault rifles and the like.

What is up with gun control advocates always blaming the assault rifle, when long guns account for 4.7% of gun crimes. If you were to separate traditional long guns from assault rifles, you would see this drop to about 1% for assault rifles. Assault rifle bans are ridiculous, and simply stating possibility of intent is not intent. Yes, an assault rifle is a great weapon for a mass murdering maniac. No, there are not a lot of mass murdering maniacs. There are as many as fifteen million AR15s legally owned in this country, and nearly zero of those are used in crime.

The law, police, and enforcement exist for a reason, to protect you.

Wrong. Several court cases have ruled that the police protect the public at large, and cannot knowingly stop me from becoming a statistic in the never ending war on crime. This is why an estimated two million or more crimes are stopped by concealed carry permit holders, and I can count a dozen cases where this has saved somebody I know from becoming worm bait in just the last six months.

Are we going to allow most people the right to arms then?

You just grouped three hundred million people in with a lunatic. You know that, right?

And only comment in hindsight that they shouldn't have been allowed it?

He was a law-abiding citizen. He exercised his right to legally purchase weapons effectively, and I would rather one lunatic kill a few people and maintain my right as an American the right to protect myself than see my own life put in jeopardy at some point down the line because of said lunatic and his extremely rare decision to use legally purchased weapons in his rampage. His actions are not the rule, they were the exception. He exercised his right, and he abused them, and now he will likely face the death penalty for that. I will not let one person stop the ability of millions to protect themselves and their families, more than two million times a year, because he was unstable.

is that the ''metal tube'' was designed to harm and incapacitate

And? A gun is just an object. It takes a person, who is clearly not a moral person, to pull the trigger. This works both ways. Just as the Aurora shooter can use his rifle to kill a dozen people, a law-abiding citizen can stop him with the same weapon. Guns don't care who's on the other end, be it poor store clerk in a stickup or Charles Whitman at the UT bell tower, where a dozen local citizens used their own weapons to aide the police in returning fire.

Taking them away from people is the same as taking away lighter fluid because it might be used to burn down buildings. Lighter fluid's one sole use is to light fires, but 99% of people use it in their backyards and not on their neighbor's car.

Nor do I see any link between regulating guns and thought crime, unless you care to make the leap more explicitly?

You want to take away guns from people who are well versed in their safe operation because a few bad apples use them to kill. At least punishing somebody for thinking badly is punishing them for something they did, rather than nothing at all.

Germany has proven via very strict gun laws, that sportsmen, hunters, can own guns, but at the same time, limit the vast ocean of guns floating around.

By what standard does Germany have hundreds of millions of guns floating around? And since when is America Germany? Last I checked, we're an ocean and two world wars away from each other. The culture, the people, it's different. This is another case of comparing somewhere that is not America to America.

If you're going to regulate guns, you're going to regulate the suppliers as well, which would in turn, make the supply decrease.

Not with Mexico behind us it won't.

such as strengthening enforcement

Who don't protect people but society.

Between trained, trusted personnel,

Who aren't there to protect you, but to protect your city.

and my own lack of training,

So get some. I don't know you quite well, but I can assume you aren't from an American family where guns were present. Half of American children come up knowing how to use a gun quite effectively, and safely at that. I trust my own ability to protect myself than that of the police. As they say, when seconds count, the police are just minutes away.

Wrong, my friend. Having children comfortable around guns and the safe operation of their use is better, not worse, for society. From an early age they know not to point it at anyone, and prevents far more accidents than it allows. Most children involved in firearm accidents, if not all, were not conditioned to the safe operation of the weapon.

Children aren't even supposed to be allowed access to such weaponry in the first place. Even as you ''condition'' them, there's a reason why they're considered minors until they're 18, or of the minimum age, to be able to handle such items, as do other privileges when you turn 18. There have been numerous cases of children actively using the guns for a malicious purpose, if adults can't even be regulated, much less children should.

Then which? I can't post a counter-argument without researching the bill in question.

It came directly from an online NY Times article in that wording if it helps.

What's wrong with assault rifles? Automatic assault rifles are either highly illegal or only in the hands of wealthy individuals, costing tens of thousands of dollars. Long rifles, such as AR15s and semi-automatic AK47s are nothing more than traditional long arms with a repeating capability, and long arms account for 4.7% of gun crimes. It's pointless to ban assault rifles, especially since an assault rifle ban is governed by aesthetic look and not practical application.

The repeating capability is what makes it more dangerous, more deadly than a pistol. You don't need an assault rifle to defend yourself, much less for sport and entertainment. Assault rifles might count as just a fraction of gun crimes, but that's no reason not to ban them. They have no part in civil society.

Nowhere. There are pistols, long rifles, and shotguns, each regulated according to the application that lawful use permits. There is no need to draw a line, because drawing the line is an utterly pointless endeavor.

Drawing lines is not pointless. It clearly demarcates what people will and can own, and puts into place strict regulations to prevent illegal ownership. ''Arms'' have to be properly defined.

Seeing as the guns are illegal (in the scenario), what's stopping me from going to my local black market gun dealer and getting the better model? I'm breaking the law either way, and because I want my rifle, the more fun variant is certainly getting purchased when placed directly in front of me.

Stricter gun regulation, as mentioned, will clamp down on the supply, by banning mass production of such guns for civilians. It would also entail tougher crackdowns by the police on illegal sellers of such weapons.

When I said other gun related felonies, I had just previously directed out violent offenses. This leaves the only other option: Possession, a non-violent gun felony. And yes, there will be a massive increase.

Not if phasing them out bit by bit is in placed. The government is not as stupid to declare that such guns are illegal, and immediately arrest those who own them.

What is up with gun control advocates always blaming the assault rifle, when long guns account for 4.7% of gun crimes. If you were to separate traditional long guns from assault rifles, you would see this drop to about 1% for assault rifles. Assault rifle bans are ridiculous, and simply stating possibility of intent is not intent. Yes, an assault rifle is a great weapon for a mass murdering maniac. No, there are not a lot of mass murdering maniacs. There are as many as fifteen million AR15s legally owned in this country, and nearly zero of those are used in crime.

A life is a life taken, when people argue that owning guns is part of their ''freedom'', this is nonsense. One person's freedom will almost always infringe on another person's, in this case, we have to choose. The freedom to one's life, or the freedom for people to simply own guns that serve almost no purpose. No one needs to fire 50 or 100 rounds a minute. You're getting prepared to go to war if you're doing that. In 2005, the Miami-Dade Police Department reported two homicides involving an assault rifle; in 2006 there were 10. That agency covers numerous unincorporated areas in the nationâs eighth-largest county, but not its biggest cities, which have their own police forces.

The Miami Police Department said 15 of its 79 homicides in 2005 involved assault weapons, up from the year before. In the first half of 2006 12 of the 60 homicides have involved the high-power guns. With police officers being outgunned by assault rifle using criminals, it is a serious case for concern. Even if it's ''4.7%''.
Since enactment of the law, the number of assault weapons traced to crime scenes has dropped 45%, according to Crime Gun Solutions LLC, a consulting firm. Deaths caused by guns dropped from 38,505 in 1994 to 29,573 in 2001, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While crime experts say the drop resulted from several factors, such as fewer gang shootings involving crack cocaine, they cite the assault weapons ban and other gun controls passed in 1993 and 1994 as among the causes.

And as a final point, a University of Pennsylvania National Annenberg Election Survey in April 2004 found that 71% of respondents, including 64% of those in households with guns, support a renewal of the ban. If people love democracy so much, then democracy has shown what the people want.

Wrong. Several court cases have ruled that the police protect the public at large, and cannot knowingly stop me from becoming a statistic in the never ending war on crime. This is why an estimated two million or more crimes are stopped by concealed carry permit holders, and I can count a dozen cases where this has saved somebody I know from becoming worm bait in just the last six months.

And yet in Japan, with increased police enforcement, and strict gun rules, there are almost no gun fatalities yearly. Guns are a dangerous leverage; especially without proper training. My teacher got stopped when he bumped into another man's car, the idiot stepped out and threatened him with a gun. For every case where people are saved, there are unnecessary and petty cases where people are threatened or killed.

He exercised his right to legally purchase weapons effectively, and I would rather one lunatic kill a few people and maintain my right as an American the right to protect myself than see my own life put in jeopardy at some point down the line because of said lunatic and his extremely rare decision to use legally purchased weapons in his rampage. His actions are not the rule, they were the exception. He exercised his right, and he abused them, and now he will likely face the death penalty for that. I will not let one person stop the ability of millions to protect themselves and their families, more than two million times a year, because he was unstable.

Close to 70,000 Americans have died or been injured unnecessarily in 2000 alone due to guns. I would definitely support saving these lives in favour of simply letting millions of others possess nice looking shiny guns. If guns were wholly regulated, and the illegal market clamped down extremely tightly, as numerous other nations have shown is perfectly possible, then there would be no need in the first place to have guns to protect yourself from other guns, because those guns were there in the first place due to earlier needs to protect yourself. Its a vicious cycle that just inflates the number of guns yearly.

You want to take away guns from people who are well versed in their safe operation because a few bad apples use them to kill. At least punishing somebody for thinking badly is punishing them for something they did, rather than nothing at all.

Given that most of the time, you need almost no training, and sometimes no permit to own a gun, I wouldn't even dare to call them ''well versed''. These are not a ''few bad apples'', the number of gun crimes is quite frightening.

And? A gun is just an object. It takes a person, who is clearly not a moral person, to pull the trigger. This works both ways. Just as the Aurora shooter can use his rifle to kill a dozen people, a law-abiding citizen can stop him with the same weapon. Guns don't care who's on the other end, be it poor store clerk in a stickup or Charles Whitman at the UT bell tower, where a dozen local citizens used their own weapons to aide the police in returning fire.
Taking them away from people is the same as taking away lighter fluid because it might be used to burn down buildings. Lighter fluid's one sole use is to light fires, but 99% of people use it in their backyards and not on their neighbor's car.

Taking away guns is taking away an object that such ''immoral'' people can use. Guns may not care, but when juxtaposed with the criminals, guns are part of the whole issue, and disconnecting the two is useless. I disagree. Guns are made mostly for self defense, or to cause harm. How many people actually hunt in the city? Or engage in sports with guns? Lighter fluid on the other hand, is mostly used for smoking.

By what standard does Germany have hundreds of millions of guns floating around? And since when is America Germany? Last I checked, we're an ocean and two world wars away from each other. The culture, the people, it's different. This is another case of comparing somewhere that is not America to America.

When I said ''vast ocean'' I was referring to America. Culture might be different, but culture is not the sole factor in this issue, and harping on that alone, whilst weighing it up with the thousands of lives lost, is clinical. Cultures are dynamic, they change over time, as can be seen with attitudes towards gay marriages. America claims they should not change because they're culture is different, yet this is clearly untrue when we look at the Jim Crow Laws era, and today's world; clearly cultures are not static.

Not with Mexico behind us it won't.

Yet how many Mexicans cross the border and engage in shoot ups? How many Mexican drug deals actually affect Americans directly? Are you going to justify the ownership of guns in Alaska, because Mexicans are running riot?

Who don't protect people but society.

People are society. I don't see the profound need to think the police are useless or inapt.

So get some. I don't know you quite well, but I can assume you aren't from an American family where guns were present. Half of American children come up knowing how to use a gun quite effectively, and safely at that. I trust my own ability to protect myself than that of the police. As they say, when seconds count, the police are just minutes away.

Yet in Japan as shown, the police can literally be seconds away. I would think it takes more than just growing up knowing about guns to actually understand them fully; if guns are to be allowed, mandatory training and safety courses need to be in place. That's the bare minimum.

but how would you feel if things like crossbows, with broad head bolts, were sold legally to any age? (I'm pretty sure they are)

Badly.

Children aren't even supposed to be allowed access to such weaponry in the first place.

Safe and supervised usage is bad? Why shouldn't they be allowed access to weaponry? I'm under 18, and I quite like guns, but I also know how to use them. Had I not had the experience I have now, when I do indeed buy my nice assault rifle for my 18th birthday, I am quite certain I would not be versed in the safe operation of it.

There have been numerous cases of children actively using the guns for a malicious purpose,

You word it as if it is frequent, as if it is the norm. Children using their parents legally owned weapons to maliciously murder anybody is incredibly rare, and the fact that it makes national headlines every time is a bit of a backward testament to that.

if adults can't even be regulated, much less children should.

Adults regulate their behavior quite well, all considered, and so do children. It's not as if children are out buying heavy arms all by their lonesome. The weapons are used in a supervised condition, same as any other activity.

It came directly from an online NY Times article in that wording if it helps.

Oh. Unreliable source on the issue. Then again, few sources are.

The repeating capability is what makes it more dangerous, more deadly than a pistol

Last I checked, pistols have repeating capabilities as well, and just as there are pistols that don't, there are rifles that don't.

You don't need an assault rifle to defend yourself

I can think of a case last year where a 15 year old much like myself, well versed and practiced with his father's legally owned AR15, shot a burglar in his own home multiple times, and showing restraint like most Americans would, allowed the other to escape with his buddy. Until the Aurora shooting, that was the only case where an AR15 had been used in a defensive or offensive shooting that I've known about. An AR15 is just as good attacking as it is defending, but all it is, is a semi-automatic rifle. There are dozens of these that don't qualify for assault weapons bans simple because they don't look the part. Let me tell you from my own experience, I'd rather be shot by an AR15 than an M1 or M14, having seen the damage those can inflict.

much less for sport and entertainment

You degraded defense to below entertainment. Protip: Something that may not be practical for defense is usually a lot of fun. Like at AR15, 15,000,000 legally owned AR15s and nearly zero (I'm talking a mere single or double digits here) crime from these same weapons crusaders are on about.

Assault rifles might count as just a fraction of gun crimes, but that's no reason not to ban them.

So now you're leaving logical facts on the train to emotional appeals. Congratulations, you make no sense.

They have no part in civil society.

By whose standard is our society civil? The media bathes in the blood of our enemies, our poor, weak, and sick are left to starve and die, and we have a murder rate that's one of the highest in the developed world. Sure, they may have no part in your 'civil' society, but they very much have a part in ours.

It clearly demarcates what people will and can own

What people will and can own are two entirely different things. People cannot: Own long guns or rifles under age 18 with the exception of Vermont, which is 16. They cannot own a pistol under age 21 (one of the few gun control laws that legitimately makes sense and I fully agree with). They cannot own any weapon if they have a documented mental illness or have been convicted of a felony. They cannot own pistols period in several civil jurisdictions, a proven ineffective policy. They cannot own post-1986 automatic weapons, period. There is almost no way around this. Most people cannot own pre-1986 automatic weapons as they cost tens of thousands of dollars. In the state of California, people cannot own a post-1982 .50 caliber rifle, a law that has so far done quite literally nothing, and was a complete waste of tax-payer money. There are dozens of other ordinances and state laws. We have all the regulation we need, and half a dozen laws we don't.

and puts into place strict regulations to prevent illegal ownership

This is America my friend. Since when has the law stopped us?

''Arms'' have to be properly defined.

As what, exactly? If you simply say a metal tube that slings lead via propellant charge, then you are also excluding muzzle loading rifles and not excluding the mother of all cannons, the rail gun.

Stricter gun regulation, as mentioned, will clamp down on the supply, by banning mass production of such guns for civilians

So you want to simply eradicate a multi-billion dollar industry? Barrett Arms, the manufacturers of our military's and a dozen other military's primary anti-materiel rifle, simply would not exist without the civilian market share it possesses. Then where would we be? Even with government contracts, the company would still cease to exist.

It would also entail tougher crackdowns by the police on illegal sellers of such weapons.

Unless you're seeking life imprisonment or the death penalty, they already can't get much tougher, being a Class B or C felony in most jurisdictions.

Not if phasing them out bit by bit is in placed.

So you expect people do surrender their arms that easily? You must like seeing law enforcement's body count skyrocket.

The government is not as stupid to declare that such guns are illegal, and immediately arrest those who own them.

Why is this what so many gun control advocates want, then? While I admit, the government is smarter than them, even if not by any other measure, this is having too much faith.

In 2005, the Miami-Dade Police Department reported two homicides involving an assault rifle; in 2006 there were 10. That agency covers numerous unincorporated areas in the nationâs eighth-largest county, but not its biggest cities, which have their own police forces.

This is minuscule and is likely due to just a few individuals. The fact is, on the whole, the big picture of strategic thinking you are not showing you possess, this is nothing. Yes, a life is still a life. Taking away freedoms we are blessed with in this country, and have been for centuries, because a few people die, is just spitting on their grave. That's all it is. You may as well ban freedom of speech because six million Jews died in the Holocaust.

The Miami Police Department said 15 of its 79 homicides in 2005 involved assault weapons

Not exclusively assault rifles. Multiple other weapons are considered assault weapons under the aesthetic bills introduced, including TEC-9s and several shotguns.

Since enactment of the law

What law? I need law names.

Crime Gun Solutions LLC

Trusting a gun control advocacy and consultant group is about as reliable as trusting FOX News for coverage on healthcare.

such as fewer gang shootings involving crack cocaine

Main reason.

they cite the assault weapons ban and other gun controls passed in 1993 and 1994 as among the causes.

Tertiary reasons, responsible for at most 1-3% of the overall drop.

After looking at the almighty FBI UCR, gun related homicide (2001-2006) involving long guns (as assault weapons are not actually a category in crime) were highest in 2002, at 488 homicides using rifles, before the expiration of the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, a bill that banned weapons on aesthetic look and general scariness and not practical ability or logical reason. This dropped in 2003, rose in 2004, rose in 2005, and dropped in 2006, never once exceeding the 488 recorded in 2002. Now, there are any number of reasons to this, but as I can only infer based upon my own experience in gun ownership and knowing gun owners (many who possessed assault weapons during the ban, as the ban did not require owners to give up arms purchased before the ban, as they knew that would be impossible to do and would lead to more than a few unnecessary law enforcement deaths), that about a quarter to a third of those crimes are assault rifle related, and would actually fit nicely in with Miami's statistics. With that in mind, the ban did, quite literally, nothing. The crime rate involving long guns from 2001-2006 was highest during the enactment of the ban, lowest during the ban, and long gun crimes neither rose nor dropped after the ban was allowed to expire.

The ban expired for a reason. Even the FBI did not support either the assault weapons ban or the Brady Bill as they knew it would do... nothing.

These are unnecessary bills that waste congressional time and law enforcement resources.

And as a final point, a University of Pennsylvania National Annenberg Election Survey in April 2004 found that 71% of respondents, including 64% of those in households with guns, support a renewal of the ban. If people love democracy so much, then democracy has shown what the people want.

A non-scientific poll is now reliable? Cool. Take that same poll and bring it to this side of the Mississippi, see how well it does.

And yet in Japan, with increased police enforcement, and strict gun rules, there are almost no gun fatalities yearly

The culture is vastly different. Even their organized crime, some of the most vicious in the world, actually makes respect important. Comparing the Far East to America is like comparing apples to cinder blocks.

For every case where people are saved, there are unnecessary and petty cases where people are threatened or killed.

So you're telling me that because of one hothead, there are now two million plus cases of violence or threat of violence? What planet is this research from?

Close to 70,000 Americans have died or been injured unnecessarily in 2000 alone due to guns

And? I've known people that were injured or killed by guns. I had a childhood friend in my hometown that accidentally shot himself. My opinion hasn't moved one bit. Danger is a part of life, and everybody dies. Banning something because it speeds up the inevitable is pointless. As a matter of facetiousness, life is a far deadlier thing than guns. We should ban life! It's what hurts other people, after all.

I would definitely support saving these lives in favour of simply letting millions of others possess nice looking shiny guns

Condemn the majority for the partial advantage of the minority. Tell me, are you a supporter of social welfare?

If guns were wholly regulated, and the illegal market clamped down extremely tightly, as numerous other nations have shown is perfectly possible,

Other nations... that aren't America. Germany isn't America, Britain isn't America, Romania isn't America, Japan isn't America, get my point? There are only a few countries on earth with a similar opinion to guns as America, and they all have similar laws or are in the process of relaxing laws. Russia, for instance, is one such country. A bill allowed pistol ownership and Castle Doctrine is planning to be put into motion in the Duma next year, and something tells me it's probably going to pass. Every time they relax the law, it's followed by a drop in crime. Their crime and weapons culture isn't that different from ours, but is different from say, Britain or Germany. While they still are nowhere near as free, they are certainly on the path.

then there would be no need in the first place to have guns to protect yourself from other guns,

What about a burglar in my home armed with a crowbar? The fact that he's in my house proves the law has failed, and now me or my family are in danger of getting our heads crushed and our home ransacked. Regardless of the law, I'm shooting that man, and if he squirms, I'm shooting him again. The second he entered my house with unlawful intent, he forfeited his right to live.

It's a good thing in Texas I can.

you need almost no training

You do need practice and knowledge to keep it in working order and shoot where you want it to.

These are not a ''few bad apples'', the number of gun crimes is quite frightening.

Throw out the pistachios because a few have mold? The absolute number of gun crimes is frightening to you, but I have yet to be shot and killed or accidentally die despite my love of guns. When considering the relative impact of these crimes, it's on the hundredths and thousandths of a percent. Yes, it is a few bad apples. An incredible few, who are mostly stolen apples anyways.

I wouldn't even dare to call them ''well versed''.

The vast majority of gun owners I know can take apart and reassemble their weapons blindfolded, and can use them both accurately and under stress. I can do the same with a 1911 .45 pistol. Contrary to popular belief, people don't buy guns to leave them laying around. They do actually enjoy the company they're provided. Hell, I know some collectors whose sole reason for owning their weapons is to become familiar with them. The practical applications have no meaning, they just enjoy the weapon at the range every once in a while.

Guns may not care, but when juxtaposed with the criminals

And when juxtaposed with cops? Or concealed carry licensees? I know cops who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn and are out on patrol. Most concealed carry holders I know, however...

disconnecting the two is useless

As is disconnecting them from those who do good two million times a year or more, including people in my personal life who are still alive because of their gun. Guns are the great equalizer. To quote: God may have made man, but Sam Colt made them equal. I enjoy being the equal of any cop on the street in my ability to protect myself and my family, and after all, is that not the most important thing we can do? Laws be ****ed, I would be content spending the rest of my life in the state penitentiary knowing that my family is alive because of what I did.

How many people actually hunt in the city?

Nobody, it's illegal. They go into the country instead.

Or engage in sports with guns?

Many many many. Shooting for recreation is the same as shooting for sport.

Lighter fluid on the other hand, is mostly used for smoking.

Is that not a lethal behavior? It causes damage to you and those around you, much like an irresponsible gun owners. Or it can be used to make delicious barbecue, like a responsible gun owner. Then there is that tiny fraction of a fraction, that use it to burn down houses. They are the criminals. Naturally the proportions are different, but the point remains. Lighter fluid is just as bad as guns, as all it does is destroy.

When I said ''vast ocean'' I was referring to America. Culture might be different, but culture is not the sole factor in this issue, and harping on that alone, whilst weighing it up with the thousands of lives lost, is clinical. Cultures are dynamic, they change over time, as can be seen with attitudes towards gay marriages. America claims they should not change because they're culture is different, yet this is clearly untrue when we look at the Jim Crow Laws era, and today's world; clearly cultures are not static.

Culture may not be static but some things never change. Guns are freedom, and you know how Americans are about freedom. Attach the word to war and it justifies genocide.

Culture is not the sole reason, no. Culture plays a very big part, however. That and stealing.

Yet how many Mexicans cross the border and engage in shoot ups?

Who said they needed to shoot people? All they need to do is smuggle, and they get paid. In money, or a free ride across.

How many Mexican drug deals actually affect Americans directly?

Big deals do. I live in one of the first stops for drugs going north, a trafficking hub. Our murder rate is through the roof for just this reason.

Are you going to justify the ownership of guns in Alaska, because Mexicans are running riot?

Alaska is one of the most single heavily armed entities on earth, yet its murder rate is quite low compared to the national average.

People are society. I don't see the profound need to think the police are useless or inapt.

Police will protect you if they see you being assailed, but how many criminals are dumb enough to mug you in front of a cop? They are phenomenal at investigation, at least American police are. You may be murdered, but they'll find your killer. They are not there, however, to save you from being murdered. The protect not the individual but the society at large by arresting criminals so they will not inflict harm to other members of society, but can't do anything about the already dead. They don't protect you, and are not obligated to stop crime, merely to arrest those for breaking the law. The only way to protect individuals is to completely lock down society.

Yet in Japan as shown, the police can literally be seconds away.

That is Japan. American police are not so fast. Average response time for high priority calls is anywhere from 8 to 11 minutes, which means if you're getting stabbed to death, you're probably going to bleed out before they arrive. Getting shot to death? Well, that's when seconds really count, because you're dead in that time. I'd rather die fighting than die waiting, but I come from that pedigree. I've no idea how the average coward feels.

if guns are to be allowed, mandatory training and safety courses need to be in place

They already are for concealed carry (very stringent), hunting (also stiff), civilian security work (similar to CC), and most shooting sport leagues. Any other use is just putting a burden on public services, as nobody is likely to be in danger from that.

I would think it takes more than just growing up knowing about guns to actually understand them fully

Killing things is about as good as you get. Ever killed a wild boar? Thought not.

[quote]but how would you feel if things like crossbows, with broad head bolts, were sold legally to any age? (I'm pretty sure they are)

Badly.[/quote]

Agreed. The minimum age is 16, and I would personally like to see it raised to 18 for purchase, but I don't much care for longbow and compound bow use. That can stay at 16.

broad heads get stuck in you and when you pull them out, out comes some of your gizzard/heart/lung/leg as well.

Most modern hunting arrows are designed to pass through or dive very deeply to sever arteries of the animal, to make its passing as quickly as possible. Broad head arrows were primarily used in warfare, and while some are still used in hunting, most hunters prefer razor tipped arrows as they are quicker and cleaner.

Dang that was a long post.

People are society. I don't see the profound need to think the police are useless or inapt.

Police can't stop a street crime from happening, it only can catch culprits afterwards.
If street crime level is high, I think should have a gun.
If I settle in Pakistan, I will definitely buy a handgun.

I've no idea how the average coward feels.

May be he is a coward,
or may be where he lives, he is not afraid of getting robbed at 2 am while going to store.

Lighter fluid is just as bad as guns, as all it does is destroy.

frankly, thats a stupid argument

May be he is a coward,
or may be where he lives, he is not afraid of getting robbed at 2 am while going to store.

i meant
May be he is a coward,
or may be where he lives, he is not afraid that he will be robbed at 2 am while going to store.

May be he is a coward,

I wasn't explicitly calling him a coward. It was most a sarcastic ad hominem attack against gun control advocates in general.

or may be where he lives, he is not afraid of getting robbed at 2 am while going to store.

I don't make such assumptions. I go on my personal experience and data collected by various organizations. I couldn't care less what his worries are.

frankly, thats a stupid argument

Stupid is irrelevant, it gets my point across.

But being able to posses assault rifles and tear gas is a bit too much.

Tear gas is already illegal in quite a few jurisdictions. As for assault rifles, I'm sick of telling people they aren't the problem.

So you want to simply eradicate a multi-billion dollar industry?

I do. Not because I don't like guns or don't uphold the use of them, quite the contrary, but because I prefer the Age of the Tradesman, when a Gunsmith wasn't a Hobbyist, he and his kind supplied to armies. A Tradesman learned his craft and worked alone, and kept the profit. Unlike companies, where your very existence is superfluous (the machines do the work), although older guns by bad craftsmen were finicky and often killed their user.
Also, what is it with banning assault rifles? A pistol is just as deadly, and there is such a thing as a machine pistol. You want to ban them for their aesthetic look? Sure. Let's also ban 80lb longbows because they're too big. Also, let's not let post-marines (no such thing as ex marine) keep their KA-BAR knife, it's too violent in its look.