Why don't you just get a fucking dog if you're worried about your security? He sure as hell will know you have one. Not just think you might have one.
So in your hypothetical why are the arms dealers even buying the guns? If they are so expensive that criminals can't afford them, are the arms dealers just stocking up and hoarding them, shipping them to other countries (I'm sure that's real easy to do), what?
No, they're buying them for cheap from drugged out idiots and selling them to professional criminals who can afford them. Again, I'm not gonna sit here and act like they'll just disappear. They'll just be a lot harder to come across to the point that you wouldn't assume that any normal person walking down the street might have one on them.
This is as stupid as comparing guns to cars and drugs. But honestly if you know any rednecks, you can probably get your hands on some. I mean I know some people that use it in beaver hunting.
Your average everyday joe who randomly finds himself mad about something won't have a gun. You average inbred in South Carolina won't have a gun lying around to shoot up a church with. You won't stop all gun crime but you'll cut out a lot of it.
And it's documented that they have it somewhere. If they sold it to you and you used it nefariously, it would be easy to track down and they would be liable. It's not as stupid because it used to be the primary method of mass killings instead of guns, until we put restrictions on it.
10,000 kids are injured by guns in the US. 4.5 million kids are bitten by dogs. Seems a little reckless to just put a dog in a house with kids with no training or anything. you've already said that possessing a gun, or even the mere threat of possessing a gun is an adequate deterrent to crimes committed against you, and I totally agree. That's why I think disarming people would have a potential detrimental effect in that regard. Can you defend your position that it wouldn't? Maybe you should put a sign in your yard.
by the way, I love the idea of taxing people to raise the hundred billion dollars needed to fund the gun and ammo buy-back program. What's the bill going to be called, The Bill That No Republican Will Vote For Ever?
Here is where I would start lol https://www.google.com/webhp?source...pv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=how+to+make+your+own+dynamite
The first point is too incredibly stupid to address. I said that it is when I'm buying something illegal. Why do you think less people having guns would cause a detrimental effect? Do you agree that the poor disproportionately commit more crime? Do you think that they would be more or less likely to have a gun if a gun was a lot more difficult and expensive to procure?
I could procure dynamite and blasting caps in a few hours. I still have no idea how I could get heroin in any amount of time
This is what I'm saying though. It hasn't been used in forever in a terrorist manner because it's just a little more difficult to come across. You can't see how that would apply to guns?
Do you think that criminals ONLY do bad things to people when they are buying something illegal? I think they would be less likely to have a gun and more likely to commit crime.
By and large it isn't legal gun owners committing crimes with guns. I'm all for more severe punishment for crimes committed with a firearm. But I'm not for punishing law abiding gun owners for the actions of criminals.
Would mace or a taser be more effective if you weren't worried the other guy was gonna pull out a deadly weapon? I'd think a nonlethal weapon would be adequate if you weren't worried the other guy has a lethal one.
So I see your point and I kind of argue with it. Its not that it is hard to get, but rather, alternatives are much easier to obtain and use. Hell last weekend Dallas PD was attacked with EXPLOSIVES. Yes it wasn't dynamite, but it was basically the same thing. Guy set a bunch of pipe bombs all over the place. Was that because dynamite was hard to come by? My problem is restricting access isn't going to eliminate the problem. Making dynamite restricted didn't stop the guy last week from dropping a bunch of pipe bombs all over the place. He just went with an easier solution.
Nothing is a catch all. Using explosives isn't very common and it sounds like this one case that you brought up, wasn't even successful. Part of the reason the Columbine shooters weren't successful with their explosives because they didn't have access to professional made explosives. They had to make themselves and most of them were faulty.
I don't fully understand the dynamite analogy. Are we saying that dynamite used to be the weapon of choice for criminals, and since it became illegal usage of dynamite has dropped? I attribute that to ease of use over ease of acquisition. Dynamite may have been the weapon of mass killings back when guns took 2 minutes to reload. Catapults were choice weapons at one time as well.
anything would be better than nothing, but you have some major issues with all of those things, including guns. There have been several inmate polls where they indicate the 3 things that prevented them from committing crimes were a gun, the fear of a gun, and a dog. So I'm with you on the dog thing, but disarming the population, I think, eliminates a major fear that criminals have that may give them pause before committing crimes. I'd like to make committing crime as difficult and fear-driven as possible. Sure, a woman might be able to fend off an attacker with mace, but I think it much better that she not even have to do that, to stop a crime before it happens. Just on it's face, anything that makes criminals less afraid to commit crimes seems like a bad idea.
for reference An independent body of data confirms the survey evidence on the incidence of defensive gun use. This second data source consists of formal and informal surveys taken among inmates of various federal and state prisons over the past two decades. Some of these surveys are methodologically crude and/or involve inadequate samples.[100] Given that the results of all of these surveys are consistent and supportive, it will suffice to refer to the latest, which was conducted under the auspices of the National Institute of Justice in state prisons across the country.[101] While most of its questions on victim arms possession focused on the question of deterrent effect,[102] several did address self defense. Thirty-four percent of the convicts responding "said they had been 'scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim,' and about two-thirds (69%) had at least one acquaintance who had this experience."[103] Also suggestive of the effectiveness and frequency of defensive gun use were responses on two other points: thirty-four percent of the felons said that in contemplating a crime they either "often" or "regularly" worried that they "[m]ight get shot at by the victim;" and fifty-seven percent agreed that "[m]ost criminals are more worried (p.145)about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police."[104] [100] Policy Lessons, supra note 27, at n.50; Mich. L. Rev., supra note 5, at n.276. [101] National Institute of Justice Felon Survey, supra note 97, at 154. [102] See text accompanying infra notes 155-165. [103] National Institute of Justice Felon Survey, supra note 97, at 154. Crime Control, supra note 84, feels that this 34% figure should be viewed as a minimum, because some respondents may have falsely denied, or at least underreported, in answering the survey "[g]iven that being 'scared off' by a victim is not the sort of thing a violent criminal is likely to want to admit ...." [104] National Institute of Justice Felon Survey, supra note 97, at 145 and Table 7.2.
I'm not arguing that the threat of a gun is not a deterrent. I'm saying that I don't want them to have the guns in the first place. And I don't want senseless killings due to the fact that everyone might have a gun. How many times has the excuse "I thought he had a gun" been thrown out there after someone is killed? It's not just criminals killing people. Misunderstandings kill people. And suicides are incredibly common because everyone has easy access to guns.
Despite all the freaking out about "assault" rifles, handguns are disproportionately used in criminal activity.
I don't want criminals to have guns in the first place either. I just don't think "guns are illegal" is going to accomplish that as easily or quickly as you do, and the transition period will be: many criminals with guns and no good guys with guns. I don't know how anyone sees that as anything but a recipe for disaster. I don't deny that guns are used often in suicide, but I'm also not sure that someone intent on taking their own life needs a gun to do it. I've never really understood blaming guns for those cases.
On the first point, I do think the transition period would be rather hairy. I won't deny that. I just think it will fix a lot of problems over time as access to guns becomes more and more difficult. These aren't drugs that can be grown out in a field, they have to be manufactured and the supply will shrink drastically over time. (3d printing still requires the plans and materials, but that throws a wrench in things no doubt) Most people who take their own lives do it in the spur of the moment through the easiest method. In England the preferred method for a long time was putting your head in a coal oven and asphyxiating. When they discontinued those models, the suicide rate overall dropped 33% because other methods of suicide required more planning. Guns are an easy spur of the moment tool to kill yourself. 50% of suicides in the US are committed using them. Without guns, the suicide rate overall would drop in the same way that discontinuing coal ovens dropped the rate in England.
Interesting read on Canada's national restrictions and prevalence of gun-related crime and homicide. Handguns are severely restricted, long guns aren't. Gun homicide per capita rate is 1/7 of the US. From what I could glean off a cursory look at the stats, violent crime is decreasing but still there, but not many people are getting killed in the commission of those violent crimes in large part because handguns are hard to get. Stats don't include suicides or accidents. I think Canada is a good comparison to the US because they're probably the most "like us" of the rich countries; we share language and culture, relative affluence, large open spaces, and probably a bit of that rugged frontier individualist mentality that doesn't necessarily exist in, say, England or France. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2014001/article/11925-eng.htm (I didn't see any data on dynamite restrictions or how easy it is to score some heerawn in the Toronto burbs)
My handguns haven't harmed anyone. If they do it will be in self defense. Banning guns is up there with banning alcohol to stop DUI IMO. Stop the criminals, not law abiding citizens.
Do people not have access to rope and the internet to be able to fashion a noose? Seems like that's just about as easy as killing yourself with a gun
I'm not sure if I could find heroine. I could find about anything else though with a phone call. I have a lot of guns. They're fucking awesome.
"Constitutions become the ultimate tyranny, they’re organized power on such a scale as to be overwhelming. The constitution is social power mobilized and it has no conscience. It can crush the highest and the lowest, removing all dignity and individuality. It has an unstable balance point and no limitations." - Muad'Dib
I think part of the problem is shortsightedness. Yes, a law that bans all guns except for hunting guns would be a clusterfuck in the first couple of years and may not even show dramatic results in ten years, but what about in fifty years? Maybe your ridiculous gun culture would begin to subside and 21 year olds would stop receiving guns as birthday presents. As a resident of a nation with tight gun restrictions, I wouldn't even know where to begin to search for a gun. If someone wanted a gun for their birthday people would think they're insane. And I'll never understand the gun for safety thing. Storing a deadly weapon in your house for the sole purpose of defending your family from an event that is likely to never happen seems completely irrational.
Do you think anything and everything should be legal to possess? Do you have any interest in common good? I want a bazooka. I'm a law abiding citizen and I want to have one.
I'm sure the families of people killed by drunk drivers would disagree. The difference is you like a drink and don't like guns. Folks just want to police the other guy.
Basically, what you're saying is that a sign on the front of your house saying you have a gun offers more protection than having a gun itself. Like having an ADT sticker on your window repels more crime than the actual system.
In what scenerio do you think only "criminals" will have guns? I guess if guns are outlawed anyone with a gun would be a criminal.