• Welcome to The Cave of Dragonflies forums, where the smallest bugs live alongside the strongest dragons.

    Guests are not able to post messages or even read certain areas of the forums. Now, that's boring, don't you think? Registration, on the other hand, is simple, completely free of charge, and does not require you to give out any personal information at all. As soon as you register, you can take part in some of the happy fun things at the forums such as posting messages, voting in polls, sending private messages to people and being told that this is where we drink tea and eat cod.

    Of course I'm not forcing you to do anything if you don't want to, but seriously, what have you got to lose? Five seconds of your life?

Gun Control

And in my state (which is technically Mid-Atlantic, but we did secede way back when) we saw a huge increase in gun sales in December (hell, my classmate's parents got her 8-year old brother a rifle for Christmas, as she pointed out while our English teacher was subtly arguing for gun control). Guns are ingrained in American culture in a way that it's not in Europe or more recent splits from Europe. There's both a very Enlightenment "the people must rise up to protect themselves from government" and frontier "I have to protect myself and my family" way of looking at them.

Australia is the ideal for American gun control (my dad actually was using you all as it the other day before your post), but Americans have a particularly strong obsession with guns that even Australians didn't have.
 
Guns don't kill people. People kill people. If a criminal wants a gun and they're banned, they'll find a way to get one. Banning guns really wouldn't help that much because people can still kill people without them...I mean there's hammers, knives, scissors, ropes, cars, baseball bats, golf clubs, shovels, pillows for smothering people with, etc...I could go on and on. You don't need Gun Control you need Psycho Control.
 
Kaithepokemontrainer said:
Guns don't kill people. People kill people. If a criminal wants a gun and they're banned, they'll find a way to get one. Banning guns really wouldn't help that much because people can still kill people without them...I mean there's hammers, knives, scissors, ropes, cars, baseball bats, golf clubs, shovels, pillows for smothering people with, etc...I could go on and on. You don't need Gun Control you need Psycho Control.
Click to expand...

Sigh. Read the thread!! These are not new arguments and we still feel the way we do.

a) removing guns does help lower gun crime.
b) most people do not bother or manage to get a gun if it's a lot harder.
b) those things do not have the primary purpose of killing things.

I mean, didn't you realise how silly that sounds when you wrote 'pillows for smothering people with'?? The vast majority of times a pillow is used, it's to sleep on! We need these things and their existences are not particularly linked to death! The vast majority of times a gun is used, it's to cause injury! There is a difference!
 
Spoon said:
Something to note: gun concentration is pretty high. Not everyone owns a gun, but people who do tend to have quite a few of them.
Click to expand...

A largely unimportant factor. Guns are still much more accessible -- both legally and illegally -- in the United States than most other places. Many guns used in crimes are smuggled from the south.

Kaithepokemontrainer said:
Guns don't kill people. People kill people. If a criminal wants a gun and they're banned, they'll find a way to get one. Banning guns really wouldn't help that much because people can still kill people without them...I mean there's hammers, knives, scissors, ropes, cars, baseball bats, golf clubs, shovels, pillows for smothering people with, etc...I could go on and on. You don't need Gun Control you need Psycho Control.
Click to expand...

I'm glad Cirrus addressed this post before I did.
 
Kaithepokemontrainer said:
You don't need Gun Control you need Psycho Control.
Click to expand...

as problematic as calling anyone 'Psycho' is (read: don't do it), it's pretty silly and even dangerous to assume that only people with mental health issues are the ones that contribute to gun crime.

edit: also wow I posted statistics about lowering gun crime literally a page ago. great job reading!
 
hopeandjoy said:
Australia is the ideal for American gun control (my dad actually was using you all as it the other day before your post), but Americans have a particularly strong obsession with guns that even Australians didn't have.
Click to expand...

My mother has been making the same argument. Gun control wasn't exactly popular in Australia at the time, but it's had a considerable impact since.

In Australia, after the mass shooting in Port Arthur, the conservative Prime Minister was in favor of strict gun control. In the states, after a tragedy like the Newtown shooting, people (especially in the South) go out to buy more guns. It just baffles me how stubbornly attached people are to their killing machines here in the South.

I honestly cannot comprehend how, in some states, people can be allowed to own guns without a license!
 
Kaithepokemontrainer said:
Guns don't kill people. People kill people. If a criminal wants a gun and they're banned, they'll find a way to get one. Banning guns really wouldn't help that much because people can still kill people without them...I mean there's hammers, knives, scissors, ropes, cars, baseball bats, golf clubs, shovels, pillows for smothering people with, etc...
Click to expand...

This is assuming that every person who kills someone else with a gun would go out and find something else to commit murder with. Guns can be used to kill someone near-instantly and from great distance. You can shoot first, ask questions later with a gun in a way that you can't with any of the other things you mentioned. While, no doubt, people have killed others using the other impliments you mention, they also probably only kill the intended target - knife crime is terrible, but it doesn't have a giant body count of innocent bystanders, either.

And, particularly related to mass-shootings - nobody's ever taken out 20+ people in an afternoon with a shovel. These mass shootings are appalling and they would stop happening in the way they currently are if only the right kinds of guns were banned or even restricted. Being able to fire 100 rounds in a matter of seconds is something that only a gun can do, and why guns in particular need to be restricted.
 
I am sort of split on the issue.

I did competitive shooting for quite a few years, and just actually bought a gun [this is type of gun I purchased, Glock 17]. I don't have my conceal and carry, and I'm not sure if I will get it or not. I'm on the fence.

One thing that bothers me is gun owners that don't know how to properly safe their weapon when it's not being carried.

This is something that happened just last month here in MN.

^This would have been completely avoidable had the gun owner locked their weapon up properly.

I know there are some here that say that there never would have been a chance of it happening if there wasn't a weapon there in the first place. And I agree, that's true. But guns are here, and they aren't just going away.

I am all for tighter regulations on how to purchase guns, and on who can own what type. Maybe elimitating sources to obtain weapons might be something, I don't know.

There is no reason to get a fucking M4 or AR-15 as a civie, no point at all, especially to keep one at home.

As it was, I bought mine through a equipment that sells to police officers and other uniformed personel (which I am). I don't even keep my weapon in my home. It's safe in a locker at the gun range (the local police allowed me to rent a locker with my post), in a locked box, cleared, and with a trigger lock, just to be damned safe. I use it for target shooting, which I help teach my old police post. (Teaching 14 year old cadets to use a weapon safely and train for competition. We have two dozen guns that are owned by the post that are kept at the range, but I use my own because, well, I like it better than the post owned ones and I shoot better with it. )

And I have Aspergers.

I am perfectly capable of being safe with a weapon. I'm sort of interested in how you folks would take that. I was taught by police officers how to use my weapon safely. I've shot in competitions. I went through every proper channel, registry, and everything. Should I be denied ownership of my gun? Or is it still my right?

EDIT: Uh, I just wanted to add that, I won't take offense no matter the response, I'm legit curious.
 
Last edited:
I am perfectly capable of being safe with a weapon. I'm sort of interested in how you folks would take that. I was taught by police officers how to use my weapon safely. I've shot in competitions. I went through every proper channel, registry, and everything. Should I be denied ownership of my gun?
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but yes. For the simple reason that you are not everyone: the proper channels can only go so far. The problem of gun crime in the US is not limited to people who acquire their weapons outside the proper channels.
 
opaltiger said:
I'm sorry, but yes. For the simple reason that you are not everyone: the proper channels can only go so far. The problem of gun crime in the US is not limited to people who acquire their weapons outside the proper channels.
Click to expand...

I work as an EMT, but I am also a security officer. There are three basic levels of guard here in MN, 1-3. Right now, I am level 2, meaning I carry asp, cuffs, mace, and am trained in PPCT. If I go to level 3, I will be armed.

Would it be okay then? I still won't be a police officer. I'd still be an armed civilian.
 
Dalek said:
I work as an EMT, but I am also a security officer. There are three basic levels of guard here in MN, 1-3. Right now, I am level 2, meaning I carry asp, cuffs, mace, and am trained in PPCT. If I go to level 3, I will be armed.

Would it be okay then? I still won't be a police officer. I'd still be an armed civilian.
Click to expand...

Well, no, not in my view, but I also think most police officers shouldn't be armed. But if you were armed, it should only be in the course of your duties as a security officer.
 
opaltiger said:
Well, no, not in my view, but I also think most police officers shouldn't be armed. But if you were armed, it should only be in the course of your duties as a security officer.
Click to expand...

That's fair.

I was more interested in the fact that I have Aspergers and own a gun, and what people would say.
 
hopeandjoy said:
Guns are ingrained in American culture in a way that it's not in Europe or more recent splits from Europe. There's both a very Enlightenment "the people must rise up to protect themselves from government" and frontier "I have to protect myself and my family" way of looking at them
Click to expand...

This is exactly how I feel. America as a country was built on violence and that obsession with it and power has caused an idealization of it. I mean seriously, look at have the movies out here nowadays and they're all shooter flicks with explosions and such. e^e
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom