Guns! Pro/Con?

[TetsuoShima]

Last week a police officer was shot very close to my house with a kalashnikov rifle. Yes, they ARE illegal over here, it didn't stop them!!

Forbidding law abiding citizens to have weapons will not stop anybody intend on breaking the law from owning them. The only thing it'll do, is drive people who collect such guns and like to use them as a hobby into illegality. I can see only one part of the population that could do harm with legal guns and is unlikely to do so with everything completely illegal, and those are the people who're having a nervous breakdown (however, what would happen if a police officer would get a nervous breakdown, or a military officer?).

They will also do harm without access to guns, maybe less, but denying all people the right to some arms, because a few people may abuse it if they get crazy, is like denying all people computers because a few people write viruses and use them to steal money and download things illegally (ok, nobody dies here, so maybe not the best example, but you catch my drift I suppose). If you cannot see the obviousness of my analogies, then it is my opinion that you do not abstract things enough. Everything can be used for harm, most things can be used to kill people, a lot of things can be used to easily kill a lot of people fairly rapidly. You cannot make everything illegal that has potential for harm. To quote (yes easy way to argument, but I couldn't help thinking about it):

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security"

I do know a thing or two about firearms and all sorts of other weaponry, I've probably handled more different kinds than you have or ever will (even though I know you've been in the army).

In the end the gun doesn't kill the person, the one using the gun does so. I've stated my own opinion about how firearms should be strictly regulated in the topic already. I do not see the need for a person to own a fully automatic AR-15 for example, I don't see anything wrong with a hobbyist owning a semi-automatic one (conversion between the two is usually fairly simple though, if you know what you're doing, so the smart well equiped hobbyist, could probably transform it anyway), provided he gets through a tough selection process, which all sane people probably should, as there are plenty of other weapons that a nut-job can use allmost as effectively to kill people if he's had some basic training.

As for weapons being toys... Maybe not quite, but they sure are a lot more than just killing tools. Maybe you are the kind of person who doesn't let his 12 year old son cut his own meat because he could slip and cut himself?

[psheldrake1]

 A gun is just a tool.

You just can't let tools have guns.

[Ulysses]

If Firearms are used sensibly then yes people should be able to have them, but on the other side theres always a nut case who does not care about what damage they do and who they kill.

[Hilander72]

I've always been anti firearms and consider that all firearms should be illegal to own. Those that argue it's for sports are fully aware that there are plenty of low powered alternatives (and there's tons of FPS games). Hunters should only be allowed to temporarily loan a weapon and not own one personally and only for a limited time (like a library system for guns).

[TetsuoShima]

I can see where you're going with the lending, you should however be aware, that every gun is different and it takes several days (with high intensity) or several weeks, to get used to a gun to such an amount that you're actually proficient in using it. Even when it's the exact same type there are differences. If you wish to stay proficient you need to train regularly.

As for the FPS games.... That's a really silly comparison, you're not telling me that a person playing fifa gets the same experience as someone playing soccer on a field, aside from the physical excercise even.

Low powered? I suppose you mean air guns? Serious limitations there, try using an air gun for 200m range target practice. That's gonna be hard. Plus if you hit a person with it from, say 10m, you can still kill (if unlucky) or seriously wound him. CO2 guns? Just as lethal as normal guns. Everything is dangerous, it's just a matter of where you draw the line. It's really easy for a person who doesn't use a particular utensil to give guidelines and rules and regulations for it or even completely forbid others from using it. As it doesn't touch your life, you won't miss it.

Pretty much no one owning a gun is out to kill anybody and even if they are at a certain point in there life, chances are extremely slim that they'll actually go through with it. Banning firearms would amount to banning soccer matches, because tentions may get too high and they may fight and destroy property (which happens just about every month on a somewhat large scale btw). The amount of effort spend each year on soccer match safety by police action has to be at least several hundred times higher than fire arms safety. The amount of serious crimes commited with legally owned guns, is negligable, if you remove the temporary insane (as I believe they call it) people from the list, it's so short, that it's virtually non existent. I'm talking Western Europe here.

My guideline in life is that everything should be legal, so long as you don't harm other people with it. Slippery slope maybe, as almost everything can be construed in such a way that it would harm other people. That's where individual values (and common sense?) come in I suppose. That's what you get for being human I guess, humans and real life situations aren't science that can be placed into always true postulates, not usually at least.

[J-NUKE]

I am in the US Army and I work at a hospital.  I see what guns do every week.  I also see what drinking and driving, drugs, gang beatings, explosions and stabbings do every day.  These things are illegal to do as well  and still roll through here consistantly.  I don't really think the general public should have access to automatic weapons but I also don't really think outlawing all guns will accomplish anything.  There are too many other evils in the world to hang so much blame on this one object.  People are gonna always do crazy stuff.  They will do it another way if they dont have a gun.  Taking away firearms  is like placing a large stone in a river, it is not going to stop the river from flowing, the water will just go around it.  Does anyone honestly think that in the criminal mind it would occur like this: "Gee I was gonna do something violent today but since guns are illegal I think I'll go to church instead".

Just my two cents

[Ulysses]

What would be interesting is who is anti/pro guns and what country they are from, probably different cultures see this subject in different ways

[TetsuoShima]

That would probably be more interesting on a larger scale I agree, but this forum is just too small to do something like that, we'd end up with 1 person from quite a few countries probably and from the other countries probably no more than 5 either. ^^

What made me open this topic in the first place, is that I was involved in a discussion about this on another forum and I was kind of curious how people felt about it on this forum, as the other wasn't scifi related at all and if that would make a difference. (But at first sight, I'd have to conclude that scifi interests aren't really a determining factor.)

[Amnot Borg]

cultural differences probably are the best determining factor of who would do what with various items.