TheByte

450SEL6.9

A little late to the thread, but I hope I can give you an outside-the-USA take on the issue, Jeff.

In short, I am pro-gun. If you are a law-abiding citizen, I think you should be able to to legally buy and own a gun. I think the gun control activist argument that goes something "you own a gun, well, shit, now you can shoot people in public!", gets too much media coverage. Owning a legally-acquired firearm does not automatically give you an accompanying legal right to carry it concealed in public! Gun ownership and concealed possession are two different things! Just because you bought a gun properly does not make it legal for you to wear it on your hip when you go to the movies or to church.

Lawful citizens that acquire firearms and ammunition legally are likely not going to carry it around in public, if public possession is illegal, which it should be. I am not against gun ownership, but I am against giving permits that would allow those guns to be taken out onto the streets freely.

The bottom line is that criminals can get their guns no matter what. They buy black market guns. I don't think stopping lawful citizens from legally owning guns for their own protection will keep guns out of criminal hands.

coolraoul

Interesting point...
A criminal will always have a gun, on the black market, that is for sure. This is happening in France, only the criminals have weapons...and often better ones than the police...

However, I am against the free-guns.

If you are being attacked, you often have no time to find and use your gun; you often don't know how to use it properly.

The risk of an accident is enormous, is it your kid playing with it or you making a wrong move with it. I read somewhere that a weapon has 60% of chances to be used against your family by accident...

A really clever criminal knows that a weapon can be traced. He does not use his weapon everytime he wants, so how practical if everybody have one, he can fire everyday with a different weapon he found in your houses...No need to buy it...

And, the real problem is that if everybody has a gun, if it is easy to buy one...Someone that is not a criminal, but is in a difficult personal or psychologic situation can do something really stupid. He could not if it was forbidden and really hard to buy or find a gun. But id he already has one, or his parents, or he can buy it easily, something terrible can happens... Like all we see in the news, young people killing in colleges and things like that.

If you are fragile, it is better not to be near a gun.

All these reasons make that I am firmly against these laws in the US.

In France it is very hard to obtain the right to have a gun, and almost impossible to obtain the right to carry it. And for me it is better like that.

DaSilva

Very interesting thread! I will respond to it later..
Breakfast

450SEL6.9

Good points, coolraoul.

I think gun owners should have the good sense to take a basic course and learn how to use and store their gun safely. The accidental use statistic does not surprise me because I think most people don't have the basic knowledge that ought be required. If I invest in a gun for protection, but I just stash it in a drawer somewhere and neglect to learn how to safely handle it, then what's the point? I hope I'm bright enough to realize that owning a gun under such a scenario would not even make me any safer, thereby defeating the purpose in me owning it in the first place.

A lot of companies and rich individuals buy factory-made armoured cars from the likes of Mercedes, BMW, Audi, etc . . . and don't get their drivers trained to handle the car! It's just silly! It got to the point where the car makers and armourers started to mandate driver training because they were tired of their cars and reputation being damaged by untrained drivers.

As for a person who suddenly loses it psychologically, there really is no defense. It really would be discriminatory to forbid gun ownership to prevent such occurrences because the government would not be banning sale of all the other things that the same distraught individual could buy. He could simply get into his car and drive it into a bus queue. He could buy gasoline and propane containers and set them on fire with a lighter. Could the gov't then ban car, propane tank and lighter sales? They could arguably do even greater damage.

Sunny

They tried this whole every one has a gun and can shoot back at bad guys in the wild west. It didn't exactly pan out too well. What I find even more ludicrous is the "we need guns to protect against the government" line of reasoning. Well, guess what? The government has aircrafts and tanks now, so maybe you should get some shoulder fired SAMs and RPGs. And what about some nukes too since the government has that too.

Choleric

Yeah look how effective all those aircrafts, nukes and tanks put down the resistance in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq...

Sunny

Look at how effective it was in killing life in all those countries. Occupying a foreign country thousands of miles away for years for is a different ball game.