Originally Posted by torineko

I'm for gun control. I don't believe there is a legitimate reason for a civilian to own a gun. Even police now days can just have tasers/etc and leave the gun play to TRG/SWAT etc.

Originally Posted by RayA75

Well, Switzerland is a special case for a few reasons. They're a pretty small country, and they actually can supply their whole population with weapons. Though, on an individual level guns remain as excellent self defense in the hands of the average person. I can understand gun control in a state where crime isn't rare, but not giving people guns isn't the solution to crime.

Originally Posted by Gum

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I'm sorry, but if you truly believe that then you are an idiot. If the police barely have enough firepower now to protect themselves and citizens from criminals, what makes you think taking away their only truly effective weapon will help anything?

Gun control is a joke anyways. Criminals rarely use guns that they legally obtained to perform crimes anyways. If you are in America and want a gun, its very easy to illegally get one. Stricter gun control laws wont stop that. All they will do is stop a normal citizen from getting a gun to protect themselves, which in today's day and age is almost a necessity.

Now I haven't read the whole thread yet, so I'll be replying to all of that soon. I just felt the need to reply to this post first since it popped out as the most ill-informed.

Edit: Ok, read the whole thread now. I agree with most of the points presented in this thread that are against stricter gun control. Its simple, you ban guns and criminals will still get them. Banning alcohol didn't stop people from drinking during prohibition. Try disarming everyone who already has guns in America and you'll end up dead yourself too.

Btw, if anyone is curious, I'm not speaking out of my ass here. Most of what I've posted above comes straight from police officers I've worked with and talked to. I've actually asked them about this and most guns that criminals use are either stolen from people who legally own them or are illegally obtained in other ways.

Originally Posted by torineko

So, for example, you would be OK with private ownership of nuclear weapons? Because it's fine to have them if you are moral enough not to use them?

There is no legitimate reason for a civilian to own a weapon, other than hunting.

There are plenty of other self-defense solutions (for example living in a safe country) that are viable alternatives. Back to the Japan example, their crime rates are less than 1% of that of USA. Why would you need to own a self defense tool at all in a safe country? I would say that 99% of people go through life without ever needing to defend themselves, and of the 1% that do need to, 99% of them (if not more) do not need to kill their attacker.

In fact the stats back me up on that first assertion there, violent crime rates in Australia (a generally safe country) are around 2 per 100,000 population. So 0.002% of the population are involved every year (approximately). The homicide rate is around 1.5 overall. Sadly I couldn't find any statistics to decide as to how many people would have survived by owning a gun, but I can't imagine that it would be high.

Are you an American or something? If so it will be difficult for you to understand the world outside of your own country (not a judgement on you, it's just that is the way your education and culture works)

In Australia most cops don't have guns any more, and neither do most criminals.

Violent crime in USA is more than 100x more prevalent than in Australia (in fact I think it is around 400x).

Non-lethal weapons are superior, because Australia believes in justice not assassination. A quick example of this is that Americans rejoiced when Osama was assassination, where as the rest of the world was disappointed (if not disgusted) that justice was not served.

America has one of the easiest ways to get guns, and still a ton of illegal guns are acquired too. Perhaps this should be taken as a judgement on American society that they all want to have the ability to kill people.

As you pointed out, America is the most fucked up and bloodthirsty country in the world. Special precautions should be taken when dealing with their violent population. I don't have a "magic bullet" solution to fix America - but giving them less sharp objects to stab each other with, so to speak, can only help.


So anyway ass-speaker, please tell me about these Australian cops you talked to. inb4 really was speaking out of ass.

Originally Posted by kball

i agree with this guy and nd gum Some kids should just stop posting (torienko-oracle)
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if they make murder legal i wanna see how long it takes u to purchase a firearm

Originally Posted by Gum

Im going to assume that you're an idiot and you don't know where the shooting that caused this whole discussion was.

Just to inform you, it was in the US. You know, not Australia. So no, I haven't spoken to Australian cops because they wouldn't know how crime works in THE UNITED STATES.

It doesn't make sense to talk about gun control in places where this didn't happen.

Originally Posted by RayA75

Found a neat little study published by the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. It seems to corroborate with my claims that there's more to the situation than "less guns makes for less crime."

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/...useronline.pdf

Originally Posted by Oracle

That's something else though. Switzerland trains all it's male citizens to be soldiers, aka not idiots that have rifles. I can legally own a rifle in the US just by presenting documentation that I have resided in the States for the past 3 months. I can buy the ammunition even easier. I can own a handgun by taking a very shitty handgun permit class.

Plus, the guy in the Aurora shooting had all the ammunition he had delivered to his school residence. And that didn't tip ANYBODY off that something wrong might happen. Gee, either we're fucking morons, or there's nothing in place that rings every alarm bell in the fucking building and the building next door that something's fishy. At the very least, "school shooting" should have been blaring in somebody's head.