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.

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.

I'm against gun control.

I do think that it will dramatically decrease violent crimes, and i think it's bullshit to think you "need a weapon to defend yourself", because if you need to defend yourself you probably have a reason to be targeted by criminals, maybe because you're a criminal yourself. Or that you are rich, i will take that up later.

I also think that the problem won't be entirely solved with just gun control, because criminals aren't criminals because they want to be. I mean look at America atm, in some places you have a nice neighbourhood with little crime, and then look at the places where people are afraid to get off at the station.

The American dream is bullshit, you need money to get money. And if you can't get money you're homeless, and if you are homeless you don't get any jobs. And don't try to blame it on education either, because going to college costs a lot of money. You need money to get money.
So, that's why people are criminals, they don't have a choice. And then people look down at those with no money.


Very much my point. People get weapons illegaly from people who owns them legally. Make it harder to obtain legal weapons and the illegal weapons will decrease.

Argue with me.

Im against gun control simply because criminals dont wanna rob a house of a gun owner they wann arob that guy that doesnt have on.Criminals when trying to do their dirty work don't wanna go against an even or superior matched (reason why the run from cops). And people like me like to go shoot our guns at the range and go hunting so taking away guns especiially in a southern state such as North Carolina i don't see happening anytime soon ( lots of rednecks). If it does happen people will start to look on black market for weapons. Then we end up in a worse situation.

Agreed. There are very few illegal weapons that were manufactured illegally. Almost 100% were once legally owned.



I guess we should make murder legal then, if it is illegal people will do it anyway, may as well make it legal!

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.

I live in a country with strict gun control and I can guarantee that it only helps the criminal.
There is no plausible argument to be against civilian guns, countries like mine that ban them still have a ridiculous amount of illegal guns flooding the streets. It basically means that everyone that wants to walk within the law is properly fucked because the guns will be there, legal or not, and criminals will use it, no matter how much control you put into it.


I just think that some states in the U.S go a little too much crazy about the right to bear firearms.

I heard that you can buy ammo from Wallmart. Of course there needs to be some limits and good regulations.

I'm willing to go a LONG ways back to explain the reasons why the US Constitution has the Second Amendment, and why it's seriously out of date. I'm also willing to explain the reasoning why having a gun for self-defense is a pretty stupid claim. I'm ALSO willing to explain the reasons why gun crimes in America are higher from a purely cultural perspective.

So ya. Long post coming...

History of the Second Amendment and Why it's Outdated

The Second Amendment is a fairly well cited part of the Bill of Rights, however people are taking it out of the context from which it was written: 200 years in the past. The origins of the Second Amendment don't actually originate in America, but rather in rural areas of Britain. These sparsely populated areas rarely, if at all, had a public police force. This made crime a fairly hard thing to combat in these areas. Therefore, the British government gave their citizens the right to carry and bear arms for the purpose of maintaining the peace in the area. They were also allowed to train and maintain a militia for this very purpose. Notice the context. This is not to protect themselves from a tyrannical government, but to protect themselves from outlaws when public authority was NOT available.

But how does that relate to the Second Amendment? Literally, the Founding Fathers copied that very law for the very same reason. America was to be a very new country, so an established system of law could very well take time to reach some of the parts of the country. For this very reason, they copied the law to give their citizens the rights to defend themselves, since law enforcement could literally be days away from even hearing about a crime, let alone reaching it.

This also requires a bit of prefacing about the Constitution. The Constitution was not written in stone. The Founding Fathers made it clear that Amendments were crucial to the preservation of the State. They outline the process of proposing an Amendment to the Constitution because they knew that times change, and with it so should the laws. When a law becomes obsolete, it's only common sense to remove it. No doubt, the Founding Fathers would have wanted many more revisions to the Constitution by now, considering we've been following pretty much the same document over the past 200 years.

So now, we come to today. There is virtually no part in America where law enforcement is not readily available. The need for citizens to take the law into their own hands, which is what the Second Amendment was proposed for, is virtually non-existent. The law is clearly obsolete by the standards by which it was implemented. However, there's an interpretation that it's for the sake of defending oneself against one's government. If anybody sits down and thinks about that, if you really needed to defend yourself against your own government, would you REALLY GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THEIR LAWS!? Fuck, the reasoning that it's in place to justify defense against the government is the stupidest bit of logic I hear.

That's, in a nutshell, the history of the Second Amendment.


Why That Gun is More Likely to Kill You Rather Than Protect You

People always have this stupid notion that having a gun will protect you from being the victim of violent crime. Let's get some facts very, VERY, clear. One, having a gun to protect yourself only works if you're aware of the threat before the threat incapacitates you. Two, it's only useful if you can react to the threat before it incapacitates you. Now lets look at basic criminal logic. One, I'm not going to run at you from 100 m with a knife drawn. I'm going to attack from behind, or ambush you, or attack from a much closer distance. Two, if I have a gun, and you have a gun, and my gun is drawn and jammed against your forehead, you're either an idiot or have a death wish if you try to draw your gun at this point. Three, once I have my gun jammed against your forehead, I'm going to make sure you don't shoot me in the back when I run. And a gun on the black market can easily fetch a couple hundred bucks. So I have all the incentive in the world to steal your gun and use it against you. Four, if I'm robbing you when you're sleeping, I've probably already stolen your gun. So even if you do wake up, you can wake up to the barrel of your gun in your face. Five, if I'm robbing you when you're not asleep, calling the cops will stop me just as effectively as pulling a gun on me.

Now let's look also at the definition of self-defense. If the crime is over, and the perpetrator is running away, will shooting him in the back be self-defense? Is shooting somebody because I'm afraid of the possibility of harm considered self-defense? The answer to both of these is, without a doubt, no. But then how does one decide if an act was in self-defense? Are you just going to take the word of the last person standing that it was in self-defense? Where is the line drawn? This has never been formally established.

Lastly, with guns more readily available, guns are most readily available for criminals. In fact, most crimes committed with guns are committed using guns that were either purchased legally, or were stolen from a person who had purchased it legally. So rather, one of the best options against gun violence is to remove guns from the equation. More guns in circulation results in more opportunities for criminals to receive guns.


Why America is a Gun Happy Culture, Historically

This is fairly evident if anybody looks back the past 100 years. Name some of the most idealized points in American History. I will almost guarantee you that you named at least one war. Name some of the most romanticized jobs in America, past and present. I will guarantee you that cowboy is one of them. Basically, America's gun culture isn't just something that exists just recently, but is the culmination of several decades of glorification of gun ownership.

Shortest paragraph, yea \o/

But ye, long post is long. And no tl;dr. This is discussion, so you read it.

Amen, couldn't have said it better myself.

Why allowing weapons for citizens in costumes in a cinema with an armed madman in a costume doesn't work as well as it sounds:

1. How would you know who to shoot? The madman has a similar costume to the visitor's costumes. And if everybody has weapons and fires them, how would you know who the madman is? What happens if you shoot the wrong person?

2. Missfire, oops now i'm a murderer... my bad, it was an accident. Self defense.

3. If someone really killed the madman, how would the rest of the crowd know that the one who killed him isn't the madman?

4. Exactly how does an armed madman get into a cinema through the back door and throw in tear gas undetected? Might there be something wrong with the cinema security?

1. In the US, most theaters are now not allowing anyone to wear costumes or masks into a movie anymore.

2. Felony Murder Rule. Look it up

3. Umm, if someone in the crowd shoots back at the crazy guy in front of everyone, its kind of obvious.

4. Movie theaters don't have security guards. Most individual theaters inside the main building each have their own emergency exits, so he likely walked right to the back door of that theater and went in.

Now yes, most of this stuff probably only applies in the US. Hopefully this disclaimer is enough to satisfy all of you US hating assholes who think we all know nothing and carry around bazooka's.