Happy Halloween!!! (a.k.a. The Gun Debate Thread)

[Gesro]

i'm going as The Crow played by brandon lee awsome movie may he RIP

That is hilarious in light of last night's new South Park episode

As far as guns go, I'm a collector and a shooter. It's my right, and it'll never be taken away here. The people who LEGALLY own guns do very little damage, 99% of gun deaths are by illegal guns.

True, but many of the guns are stolen from legal gun owners. We have just as many guns per person up here in Canada as you do, but the rules around owning, sotring and using that gun are much stricter. We have had an increase in gun deaths in Southern Ontario over the last few years as well, 99% of those guns come up from the US.

[Leviathen]

The people who LEGALLY own guns do very little damage, 99% of gun deaths are by illegal guns.

Then if you don't see the greater moral acceptance of guns in the USA as a reason for having tremendously higher gun crime rates per capita that any other 1st world country (including those with a higher population density), what is it?

[Jaysont]

i'm going as The Crow played by brandon lee awsome movie may he RIP

That is hilarious in light of last night's new South Park episode

[Waucod Meesman]

very meaningful post Jaysont...

[Kurke_Aumea]

I live in the middle of fucking nowhere, Ohio. If you don't own a gun, you don't belong. Then again, if you live in Youngstown and don't own a gun you will be mugged, raped, knocked up, or murdered so there you go...

Here's my thoughts on it all. Guns don't kill people. Husbands that come home early kill people.

[Leviathen]

I live in the middle of fucking nowhere, Ohio. If you don't own a gun, you don't belong.

Then that's a sad reflection of where you live.

[Apium]

Here's my thoughts on it all. Guns don't kill people. Husbands that come home early kill people.

woot /hi5

[Kurke_Aumea]

I live in the middle of fucking nowhere, Ohio. If you don't own a gun, you don't belong.

Then that's a sad reflection of where you live.

No, not really. To be serious for a moment, I do live in the middle of nowhere practically. My township has a grand two police cars and like three police officers, but it is all part time to my knowledge. If any of them are full time, it is just one at a time. So, due to the lack of police protection and the size of my township (25sq miles), it would be hard for any police officer to show up in a timely fashion. Hell, we have a volunteer fire department and i know if our house caught on fire, it would be burnt to the ground by the time the fire trucks got here.

Anyways, as a U.S. citizen it is my right to defend myself, my family, and my property from anyone who would try to trespass, steal, or anything else. On that note, my father has had a small pistol somewhere in his bedroom for many, many years. I don't know where it is at and I really don't want to. My father, mother, and myself all know the realities of a gun and therefore treat it with respect.

Your solution for banning guns simply just creates more problems than it solves. I honestly don't belive guns should be necessary, but they are a fact of life and are present whether you like it or not. Banning guns will simply cause growth in the black market for them. By banning guns, you also mean to get rid of gun safety classes and therefore, people end up uneducated about how to use a gun and the consequences associated with using one.

Now, I do belive in gun control. Pistols and shotguns have been around many generations and citizen ownership of them is understandable. I cannot, however, support the legalization of semi-automatic or fully-automatic weapons for sale to citizens. Only our armed forces should have access to those kinds of weapons. Lets face it, if you have a fully-automatic rifle, some serious shit is about to go down.

I also believe in educating gun owners and proper licensing. By educating owners, they can learn the circumstances in which they can use a gun in self defense. And by properly licensing those who can own guns, I think we can limit who should have a gun and who shouldn't.

And as far as scaring the shit out of high school students tealing pumpkins, well perhaps it isn't legal, but sometimes you do have to teach those arrogant little bastards a thing or two. Yes, it's just pumpkins, but it is theft and it is trespassing. And I can gaurantee that after those little pricks came to our house, they quit their pumpkin running then and there.

And now for my serious quote: Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

And now for my Charleton Heston quote: Guns don't kill people. Apes kill people!!!

[Leviathen]

Anyways, as a U.S. citizen it is my right to defend myself, my family, and my property from anyone who would try to trespass, steal, or anything else.

Your solution for banning guns simply just creates more problems than it solves. I honestly don't belive guns should be necessary, but they are a fact of life and are present whether you like it or not.

Two things with that, I don't condon all out banning of guns, my main problem is with the fact that for some reason the USA needs to have a RIGHT to own a weapon... not a law, a right. As such, you get bunch of patriotic people whose sole reason for owning a gun is because they have a right. To say people have the right to own a gun because they need it for self defense is idiocy, especially considering (this is not a particular year, but an average) out of 20 000 hand gun deaths in the US, 178 were self defense.

Second thing, does it raise alarm bells to no one that the US sees gun deaths in the 10 000 area each year, where great britain is around 25, austrailia 10, sweeding 15? You can account for population density of cities all you want, the difference in population density of a US city of a city in Great Britain does not account for a difference in about 10 000 gun deaths.

[Kurke_Aumea]

Out of all of those gun deaths in the States, how many were at the hands of legal gun owners? Trust me, I drive through Youngstwon on a daily basis. I know each and every person I pass on the sidewalks is carrying a sidearm just because of the neighborhood it is. I also know that none of those side arms were obtained through legal means.

It is our right as Americans to bear arms. But, it is also our right to do so responsibly. We have laws in place to control this right, as there should be. However, our laws do need to be more strict. We need to limit what guns are sold to the public and we need to crack down on illegal gun sales with the same tenacity with which we go after drugs.

Believe me, I would love to live in a world where the only weapons in war is words. Unfortunately, we live in a world where we have guns. Sometimes they are necessary, but most times they are not. Still, I fault our politicians for not focusing on the real problems in our own country and the world. Instead, we are more concerned about non-important issues...

By the way, I don't condone the ownership of a gun just because it is a right. Logic like that is simply flawed. And yes, some Americans tend to take their "patriotism" just a tad too far...

[Erougn]

If the US gov't would only enforce the gun laws in place the problem would be solved. Too often a person is arrested on a drug charge, found with a gun, and the person is relieved of the gun and not charged with having it.

Let me give you an example of why we need them, from personal experience.

My next door neighbor, who is in his 70s, was out back washing his car. Two people (one male one female) came up and asked to use his phone. He said no and they began beating him. His wife (also in her 70s) came to the door and let loose with a 12 guage barrage. They ran away, but the old man died as a result of his injuries. I firmly believe that had she not defended her home, she would've been the second corpse. This isn't something I read in the paper, this is life in the crack hole that is the USA.

And the 2nd amendment isn't as antiquated as people say. We have the constitutional right and duty to fight an oppressive government. If that was to happen, we need guns. Just because it's been 250 years since we've had to exercise it, doesn't mean that the tyrant's yoke has gone away. There will always be people who feel the need to control the masses, so the masses need to be armed to keep them in check. If you can't accept that, then try North Korea.

Oh yeah, and a country boy will survive

[Leviathen]

First off, there wouldn't BE so many guns manufactured and end up stolen and used as illegal guns if the USA didn't give its citizens the right to arms. That is not just a "what if" statement, look at european countries. There aren't as many illegal guns simply because legal guns aren't manufactured in the same quantaty as they are in North America.

But I do agree with you that the legality of guns is souly to blame on the high rate of crime... i would point the finger more towards social issues, but thats another topic.

[Kurke_Aumea]

A. I have to side with Erougn on this.

B. I really need to start that side project I have been contemplating. Let's just say you'd be free to speak your political mind there.

[Gesro]

The orginal "right to bear amrs" was put in place to keep yourselves safe from a British invasion coming down from Canada here, it happened in 1812, but that was resolved rather quickly after the white house was burtn down, some battles were faught, ect...Now that we're close allies and an independant country, as well as Britain no longer being the super power that controls the entire world, do you guys really need every citezen to carry a gun?

[Erougn]

Don't worry gesro, we have proven our point with GB, and if Canada was gonna be the 51st state we'd already have it.

And don't confuse context with content. The second amendment wasn't written to protect us from a half assed invasion from an empire in decline, it was written to provide us the freedom to defend our land from ANY tyrant.