Talk Elections

In my opinion, we should ban all guns except for hunting purposes, and I would also limit hunting.
Banning guns/strict gun laws work
Examples:
USA- lax gun laws 15 people killed by guns per 100,000 a year
Switzerland-lax gun laws-6 people per 100,000
Uk-bans guns- 0.49 for England/Wales per 100,000, 0.6 for Scotland
Hong kong-bans guns 0.19 per 100,000
Japan-bans guns 0.07 per 100,000
South Korea-bans guns- 0.13 per 100,000
If we banned guns, we would have a lot less gun-related deaths.

So what does everyone else think? I hope this will be a civilized discussion.

Gun control certainly works when it's coming to reduce gun-related killings. Even moderate, after all, Brady Bill saved thousands of lives.

However, I wouldn't agree with you that guns should be limited to hunting only. What about shooting as a sport discipline? I think that category, regulated carefully as well, should be included too (I enjoy shooting to the targets myself).

I forgot that. Yes, that would also be allowed, but limited. But not for non-sporting purposes.

I don't like guns. I don't own one myself. And I think automatic weapons should be banned. But if someone wants to keep a handgun in their nightstand for protection I don't think the government should stop them.

I'm generally opposed.  Some adult that is without a record and sane should be able to buy an carry a gun.

I have always thought the 2nd amendment was an anachronism and more to do with the era. I dont think we should ban guns, but it shouldn't be so easy to get them either. Not sure exactly how and where to draw the line. After the shooting in NV last week and the shooting in Tuscon in Jan shows that there needs to be some way to keep crazy people from getting guns, but not sure how you do that.

Lying sure is fun!  Unfortunately, claiming that the US has more gun-related homicides than the total homocide rate in Mexico (which bans guns!) just makes you look retarded.

Where did you get these numbers? There's no way Switzerland is higher than UK, much less 10x higher.

Opposed.

People have a right to defend themselves. For those who stayed awake in their history classes, if they even mentioned it, I am sure you would recall that the Armenians were forced to give up their firearms to the Ottoman Empire shortly before the Armenian Genocide. And we all know how much safer the people in the Soviet Union were after they imposed gun control.

Gun control... I'm moderate on. Weapons such as hunting rifles I'm okay with others as long as there is background check to make sure the individual has never committed any crimes in regarding to guns and other weapons.

Guns such as AA-12... there is no reason for someone to own such a dangerous piece of weapon. I mean, do you honesty believe someone should go around the street and carrying this? If you do believe the individual should go around the street and blowing people heads off away until some corrupt cop comes out of his car and kills the individual with the AA-12... you have mental problems.

The statistics you present do not make your argument for you. It is a logical fallacy. What is behind the gun related deaths? Self-defense during a home invasion? Homicide by an already illegal firearm? What you have presented actually has nothing to do with your topic. I read that and I think "So what?". There has to be something more.

Assuming those were real statistics they don't really take into account regional or racial differences either, which skew the crime rate statistics a lot in general for the US. Also:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/03/national/main576422.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

1/2 suicide? A gun is probably the least of their issues.

And Switzerland?  A vast majority of those firearm related deaths (let me see here 5.61/6.4*100=87.65625%, since I'm an honest user of statistics) are suicides!
Yeah, lax gun laws in Switzerland are sure making them murder crazed psychopaths.

Want a civil debate?  Well you can start by being a little goddamn honest.  6 people per 100,000 in Switzerland aren't killed by guns, 5.61 per 100,000 in Switzerland kill themselves with guns!
Like Americans, the Swiss apparently have major depression issues.

One might also note that the US suicide rate is below average - the highest suicide rates in the world are found in Sweden and Japan.

Still, countries with less strict gun laws tend to have more murders than countries with stricter gun laws. Fine, I'll do murders.
Even just with murders
Us-7.07
Switzerland-0.58
England/Wales 0.07
Scotland 0.2
Hong Kong 0.12
South Korea 0.04
Japan 0.02

Just note that you're talking about homicide by firearms. Also some of the figures in that article are nearly two decades old. If you look at overall more recent murder rates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate) (not just guns), Switzerland is lower than the other countries you listed.

     Gun violence is really a cultural thing. Switzerland has really liberal gun laws & a very low homicide rate. For that matter, so does Vermont. To say that banning guns reduces gun murders misses the issue that people in the countries where they are banned in many cases never used guns much anyway, hence why they were banned there when attempts in the United States & Switzerland have been less successful.

The issue here is gun control, correct?
Also, I didn't want to ban guns, I would ban all but for hunting/sporting purposes.

I've never owned a gun, and I'm neither a hunter nor someone who would find a gun useful in case they got mugged on the way to school, so I never really felt the connection to guns that other Conservatives might have. That said, when I turn eighteen, I fully intend on using my right to bear arms and own a gun. In case of the zombie apocalypse, collapse of government, dictatorship, burglar in my house, etc., I plan on owning a gun. Therefore, I believe that at least some guns should be legal, though my opinion isn't as formed on things like assault rifles (but hey, who wouldn't want one? Hell, once I start exercising my right to bear arms, I might get one!).

You Gun Control people should be happy that the people you vote for have dropped this issue.

Yeah, I agree that it's a vote-loser. But sometimes, the things you think are right must be done, not saying this is necessarily right, just that I would because I think it is.

Yes, but I don't really see how being killed with a gun is worse than being killed any other way.

I'm generally supportive of gun rights as long as we aren't trying to legalize something dumb like allowing guns to be brought into bars. I support gun rights even though I haven't shot a gun in years and even then I've only shot a .22 at boy scout camp. When I was growing up no one in my family had a gun, but my brother bought a handgun last year after getting mugged at his home in Toledo (and later getting it broken into). Since then, he's convinced my dad and uncle to take up shooting and my dad now has a rifle.

I feel kind of uncomfortable holding a gun and will probably never get one even though I live near some questionable neighborhoods myself. I don't want to have the ability to kill someone because I trust other people more than I trust myself when it comes to that sort of thing. All that being said, if someone (who isn't a convicted felon or mentally unstable) feels the need to have one to protect himself, then I feel he should be allowed to.

What, you mean in places like Virginia where the number of gun crimes (http://www.newsleader.com/article/20110815/NEWS01/108150309/Report-Guns-bars-little-impact-crime-stats) in bars went down after they legalized concealed carry there? (http://www.city-data.com/forum/politics-other-controversies/1358036-virginia-gun-related-crime-down-5-a.html)

It dropped by a whopping eight crimes. I was unable to find the number for previous years before the 153-to-145 decline everyone is reporting but I doubt it's stastically significant. My opposition here is four years' worth of watching falling down drunks make fools of themselves. I don't want to picture people in that state of mind with guns.

Even assuming there was no statistically significant difference, doesn't that imply the law has no real justification since it didn't actually effect things much anyway? Shouldn't it be on the government to explain why it's absolutely necessary that something should be banned (at gun point, if it comes down to it), not on us to explain why it should be legal?

We'll have to give it more time (and more states changing laws) to be able to determine this using statistics. A couple datapoints doesn't show much.

The government doesn't need to 'prove' why bringing guns into bars should or shouldn't be illegal; it just needs popular support for that point of view and a legislative majority to make that the law.

As for my personal position, until I see drunk people suddenly start acting responsible or we get a ton of data in agreement (at least 20 points) I will oppose changing this.

I would consider instead of banning guns in bars to just ban carrying a gun while under the influence of alcohol. If someone is in a bar and can blow under a .02, I'd be fine with letting them have a gun.

While I generally am anti-gun... and think too many people in the US fetishise them... I don't think the solution to a higher homicide rate is to ban guns... if someone wants a gun, they can get them.

I wonder where the nation neighboring ours with a very large border to us manages to find the guns they use in their criminal enterprises! Such are the mysteries of life!


You're right, of course. I'm personally quite opposed to guns, but blanket bans are silly overreactions. There are certainly, however, plenty of places for sensible restrictions, which for some ridiculous reason the gun lobby still opposes. Restrictions on clip size, waiting periods, registration, serial number imprints, more rigorous background checks, closing gun show loopholes, etc. None of these things take away gun ownership and encourage selling of guns to much more responsible individuals.

The ATF? (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0726/How-Mexican-killers-got-US-guns-from-Fast-and-Furious-operation)

"How Mexican killers got US guns"

So you agree that using statistics and empirics can help us judge policies? In that case you should be against the NRA trying (successfully) to suppress studies (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/us/26guns.html?pagewanted=all) using statistics and empirics in the spirit of free inquiry.

More people die from swimming accidents than from gun incidents. In fact, children are one hundred times more likely to die in a pool than from a gun incident. In other words, we should pass a gun ban after the pool ban is implemented, right? Do it for the kids, comrades.

Opposed.  Though, I don't necessarily oppose a waiting period ("cool-off period"), in which to obtain one.  Nor do I oppose those with a record of violent behavior being restricted.  I find my stance rather reasonable, but I guess that's subjective.

And if we banned cars we'd have a lot less car-related deaths.

I'm generally pro-gun. I'm from a family with a lot of sportsmen and hunters, so I've never really had a problem with guns.

Better yet: let's just ban death along with scarcity.

All of our problems are solved, comrades!

I tend to oppose gun control with a few exceptions (not on airplanes, schools, campuses, and concealed requires a license, background check, limits on certain criminals and those with certain mental illnesses)

Don't you know?  If you use a gun, no matter where you are or what you're doing, you're 75% more likely to kill a small child.

In case you haven't noticed, gun control isn't exactly a winning issue on this board except among a few, mostly European, posters. Part of this is latent moderate heroism on the left... Gun control is an issue you can make yourself appear more moderate with pretty easily without giving a whole lot of ground, partially because it's a very jingoist issue to begin with and partially because guns don't particularly impact the life of the average white middle-class suburbanite teenager very much, which this forum is mostly populated with.

I don't like guns, I have no use for guns, and I don't understand the obsession that people have with them. It's quite dangerous, much like guns themselves.