[Ylide]

>>>I would (and have) eject unwanted people from my house without the need to shoot them

You say that like I pop a cap in every person that overstays their welcome.  

So what happens if the person breaking into your house has a weapon?  Or what if there is more than one person coming in?  In urban America, these things are not unheard of.  Or riots...even in nice calm Denver we have rioting every few years over things like police brutality and sporting events (yes the latter is stupid, but it happens) that invariably result in looting, assaults, and property damage.    

>>>I sure wouldn't shoot anybody over any ideals that I may hold dear.

What if those ideals are the right of you and your family to be alive?

I respect your right to passive resistance, but if someone tries to harm me or my loved ones in the sanctity of my home, it's their a$$.  I am not a violent person and I don't walk around armed, but until I have children, my guns stay right where they are.  

>>>Basically, the gun laws in Australia were changed (tightened) after a shooting incident a few years ago.

I can't say that I like Australia's gun ownership laws.  Legislating blanket gun control because of an isolated incident is overreaction.  The black market will supply guns to criminals with the right cash.  Restricting honest citizens from owning them doesn't make much sense to me.  Isn't Australia the same country that censors web site content that is deemed "objectionable?"  Those are our first two constitutional amendments...speech and gun ownership.  Apparently our founders had different priorities than did the founders of Australia.  


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[Raedon]

Ylide has a good point.

 It's like when the UK banned Kava Kava, a safe herb for relaxation, because of 10 cases of liver damage and one death brought about by lobbying by the makers of Valium and Xanax.  

Yet Acedamenaphen (pain killer) causes houdreds of thousands of liver problems a year and is left on the market.

  It's almost like people don't see their rights getting pulled out from under them.. same in the States.. that Patriot Act was a big blow to everyone.. but I guess we still have Kava Kava herb and guns.. ehh.

  Think I'll just go drive fast and forget.  There really aren't that many problems in my world.


It is good to be alive! It's impossible I'm here but here I am.. and I rock!

[roberth]

The changing of gun laws because of an isolated incident may have been an overreaction, but more than one had occurred in the period before. Criminals, or anyone else, can still get access to illegal guns, but there are a lot less in our communities generally.

I didn't mean to infer that you "pop a cap in every person that overstays their welcome" but I laughed when I read it.

There is also no censorship over web sites. Maybe there would be if they could, but all you have to do is have your site hosted elsewhere. Also don't forget, we have a population of only 20 million spread over an area the same as the mainland US.

Maybe our respective settlers had different agendas, but the sort of stuff you are both talking about just would not happen here. You can walk any street, anywhere, anytime without being afraid of some loopy idiot wanting to end your life. Well, I can anyway, 'cause they wont have a gun and I'm 196 cms and 115 kgs.

Clearly, our respective views are formed by our experiences in life, upbringing, environment, family, etc, but Australia is just not that unsafe that you feel the need to own a gun. The people that do own them probably don't feel the same way as me because of their lifestyle choices.

Australia is a democracy and our rights to everything but gun ownership are very similar to the US.

[Raedon]

quote:Originally posted by roberth

 You can walk any street, anywhere, anytime without being afraid of some loopy idiot wanting to end your life. Well, I can anyway, 'cause they wont have a gun and I'm 196 cms and 115 kgs.

Actually I walk a mile every night at 9pm before the news.  I think you are generalizing the States as, "Tha Ghetto" when that just isn't so.  I, personally, have never seen Compton or a drive by. lol

  Where I live there have only been 8 murders this year and only 5 of those involved a gun and they ALL involved drugs.  but there have been worse years and better years.


It is good to be alive! It's impossible I'm here but here I am.. and I rock!

[Raedon]

Hunting is a way of life where I am.  It's a sport that a father teaches his son and daughter in Texas.  It's one of those things that make a family what it is.  A father doesn't just hand a gun to a kid and tell him to go flinging it around at anything that moves.  Before I was EVER handed a gun I was taught gun safety from like 6-10 or so with a Pellet rifle.  When I actually got the honor of shooting a live round at a practice range I had a strong respect for it as an instument of survival and sport.

  I know you see all those action movies or old westerns where people are just flailing around pistals, shooting them into the air but that isn't how it is for a middle class family that sport hunts.

 
I see guns as sport, be it hunting or target practice.  I keep a pistol, and I keep it loaded at my house.  I don't have any kids or a wife though.. just me.  If I had a kid or wife or.. crazy girlfriend I'd lock it up unloaded and forget about it.




It is good to be alive! It's impossible I'm here but here I am.. and I rock!

[roberth]

I wasn't meaning to generalise. We were chatting about guns when you guys bought up a couple of scenarios. I'm sure in most places the US is as safe as here (apart from the guns...hehe).
And I really like your car, too.

You snuck a post in before I could finish this one. You have a loaded pistol in your house? Not locked up? Why?

[Raedon]

So if anyone touches my car I can pop a cap in their ass..

Seriously, because it's quite safe that way with the safety on and it isn't cocked.  When I throw a party or have anyone over that I don't know I put it in my gun safe.

 



It is good to be alive! It's impossible I'm here but here I am.. and I rock!

[petersayles]

Americans love guns mostly out of tradition I think. But there is no doubt we are a gun crazy nation.  Many people own guns because they think they need to protect their homes from criminals. Others because they don't trust the government and think they need a gun for when the revolution comes.

[Simmer]

Secretly I think a lot of people love guns, shooting stuff is fun and carrying a gun makes you feel pretty tough and dangerous.  The problem is other people's guns - they cancel out the toughness and leave only the danger!

But I don't think it is possible to ban them in the US - apart from political considerations there are so many available and so many would be hidden away by otherwise respectable citizens that the only people effectively disarmed for a hundred years would be the most law-abiding.

[VAlibrarian]

Well, I am pretty well convinced that many of my fellow americans are nutcases. If I had not believed it fervently already, this thread would have convinced me of the fact.

The silly thing about those who purchase automatic weapons to protect themselves against criminals is that you can't carry around an AK47 to protect yourself. What good does it do you? Then when you go on vacation and some druggie busts into your house he walks away with a stolen AK and he can shoot whoever he wants whenever he wants. Criminals get to choose the time and place. You do not, so try walking around 24/7 with a loaded gun in your hand. It's asinine.
Maybe I will change my tune someday after I am murdered, right? Still, I hardly feel that I would be willing to blow away a criminal myself, so what would be the point of having a weapon? WIth my luck, one of my daughter's friends would find it and put a hole through his own head, and I would have the remaining thirty odd years of my life to regret it.

chris wiegard

[Corbeille]

I wonder if gun sales will increase after Katrina?. Will people start to worry about hordes of dispossed roaming their streets after another disaster? If the government can't help the refugees in their own land then they will help themselves.

pass the ammo!







"They're all animals anyway. All the animals come out at night"

[David Sparkman]

I guess I will offer my two cents as well. American (and Canada) started with the extreme need for self-defense. Indian wars started within months of almost every new settlement. The Indians were constantly fighting with each other for land, slaves, insults, and loot. They did the friendly thing and invited the Europeans to join in.

An outgrowth of these wars was the concept of depending on yourself for your self-defense until the government could arrive to help. We called it the first line of defense. This concept has carried to the present day. Our law enforcement is not set up to offer the highest level of protection to its citizens. You must be prepared to defend yourself until help can arrive.

When the fourth airplane was hijacked, the hijackers were depending on the current doctrine of going along with a hijacking and getting the hijackers after the flight was again safely on the ground. A few made cell phone calls (against the regulations, but Americans often ignore stupid regulations) and found out about the other three hijackings. At that point they took matters into their own hands, over powered 3 hijackers and broke into the cockpit just as the 4th hijacker dove the plain into the ground - mission unaccomplished.

So back to guns. We have trial by jury i.e. our own peers decide whether to apply the law or, on rare instances to ignore the law. So some years ago, a guy is mugged on a subway. The criminals did not have a gun, but they had a long screwdriver with a sharpened end that could easily be a murder weapon. He shot them up, some of them with a vengeance after they were down and hurting. The jury convicted him for illegally having a gun; he was acquitted for shooting his attackers.

Juries acquit self-defense if you are truly an innocent. Gang wars don't get such a break. Most of the time, crimes are prevented when the victim simply shows he is armed. There are some politically incorrect statistics that show right to carry states have a lower crime rate for crimes committed with a weapon. You don't hold up a restaurant when it is likely 10% of the customers are carrying.

Likewise breaking into a house when people are sleeping inside is very risky. Personally, I have a 12-gauge shotgun for such a situation.

You Europeans have had it easy. Part of it has been that criminals haven't needed weapons to commit crimes. Part of it is that being nice has been so much a part of your culture. Now that the drug gangs are moving into Europe, and terrorists are surfacing, things may change a little if the criminals are more willing to use violence.

If you can't have a gun, and long knives are banned, buy yourself a good baseball bat, and learn how to use it. It is far more lethal than a knife: breaks bones, smashes skulls, ...

David

[Simmer]

quote:Originally posted by David Sparkman


If you can't have a gun, and long knives are banned, buy yourself a good baseball bat, and learn how to use it. It is far more lethal than a knife: breaks bones, smashes skulls, ...

David

A cricket bat would be equally effective and offers the choice of "stun" and "kill" (flat or edge).  []

[VAlibrarian]

"Shawn of the Dead" was at least a bit funny with the cricket bat thing and the zombies.
I would rather not do any homicidal whacking or stomping with real people however, it's too grotesque. Better to give than receive, maybe. Better to avoid, definitely.

chris wiegard

[David Sparkman]

The main value of a weapon is deterance, but for that the aggressor needs to believe you know how to use it. But once the criminal decides to have a go at you, you don't stop until he can't hurt you anymore, not just when he pretends to give up. Don't ever loose your life trusting a criminal to keep his word.

David

[Corbeille]

If you can't have a gun, and long knives are banned, buy yourself a good baseball bat,

got one!

and a nunchaka!






"They're all animals anyway. All the animals come out at night"

[NLJB]

It is called the constitution and yes we do have under the 2nd amendment the right to bear arms. The west (execpt most of CA), the south, and the North East (where I live and where I from) have VERY differnt cultures, in the West it is part of the culture, In my opinion America does not have the best governmental system: It was designed so that everything was checked and balanced: which is dysfunctinal (I'm not saying we should turn communist I'm saying the UK and other Euroean governments have the better idea (Exept for all the damn smoking) America would indeed be a safer place by banning guns, however with Presidents like the loathsome, hated, atrocious Bust: That's not likely to happen: I HATE BEING FRIGGIN AMERICAN- Peace

NLJB

[NLJB]

By CA I mean California

NLJB

[NLJB]

*Bush DAMN YOU TYPOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!ARG

NLJB

[sharkeyandgeorge]

there seem too be some critisim of the uk for the reactionary way we banned guns but do you know why because a couple of years ago a guy who had his neighbors fill out the application forms so he could own rifles shotguns and pistols walked into a school gyn about twenty miles from where i sit now and proceeded to kill a dozen children thier teacher and himself all in under five minutes this was the primary school in dunblane and thomas hamilton the killer was a respected if abit aloof member of the communitty who managed to get several nieghbours to say he was a well balanced man and no threat back then our gun laws were far more stringent than americas and it still wasnt enough if you are a hunter you need a rifle but nobody ever needs pistols or shotguns

Giggidy Giggidy Goo
The philosopher Q man