You guys and your guns...

[MrJonno]

If you want to be a sovereign individual its time to find that desert island that for some reason noone has claimed. You still don't have any rights there of course as they are function of society/government but you can preach to yourself

You to cease to master of your own destiny the second you choose to live in any society then its compromise all the way often for your personal benefit but sometimes for other peoples

[Wumbologist]

If you want to be a sovereign individual its time to find that desert island that for some reason noone has claimed. You still don't have any rights there of course as they are function of society/government but you can preach to yourself

You to cease to master of your own destiny the second you choose to live in any society then its compromise all the way often for your personal benefit but sometimes for other peoples

I don't think owning guns makes me a sovereign individual. But it does make me have fun at the range. Plus everyone be jealous of my classy Hi-Power.

[MrJonno]

Nah don't think owning guns for sport makes you a psychopath (still makes you potentially dangerous) but owning one to be a sovereign individual is what high security mental units and straight jackets were invented for

[Blind groper]

The other problem with looking at local murder rates in the USA is that people are not limited to getting their guns locally. If one state has tight restrictions, and the next state has lax restrictions, guess what the gun enthusiast is gonna do? What he is not going to do is fail to buy the gun he wants when it is freely available just across the state border.

The only restriction that would cut gun homicides is a federal restriction - one that applied right across the nation. As I pointed out before, since hand gun homicides are half of the total, it makes sense to restrict hand gun ownership.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The other problem with looking at local murder rates in the USA is that people are not limited to getting their guns locally. If one state has tight restrictions, and the next state has lax restrictions, guess what the gun enthusiast is gonna do? What he is not going to do is fail to buy the gun he wants when it is freely available just across the state border.

Residence requirements.

[cogwheel]

This is not about statistics, it's about real, actual individual lives and government policies that infringe on the right of EACH individual to choose or not choose to be armed for self defense.

Principles > reality.

This is why I no longer call myself a libertarian.

[Blind groper]

Residence requirements.

It is obedience to the 11th commandment. "Thous shalt not get caught."

People do what they want to do, under the common delusion that they are immune from getting caught and prosecuted. Strangely enough, this is most frequent with criminals, who are the ones we want not to have hand guns. It is no good passing an impotent regulation. You have to make it as near as you can to impossible.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Residence requirements.

It is obedience to the 11th commandment. "Thous shalt not get caught."

People do what they want to do, under the common delusion that they are immune from getting caught and prosecuted. Strangely enough, this is most frequent with criminals, who are the ones we want not to have hand guns. It is no good passing an impotent regulation. You have to make it as near as you can to impossible.

Okay, so you want to ignore any and all information that doesn't agree with your position? Fine. Have a nice life.

[JimC]

What a dumb argument.
It's obvious that areas with high gun-crime rates will be more likely to enact stricter gun laws, and areas with low will leave them more lax.
What the fuck is the mystery about that?

How dumb can you get, to look at it backwards, and claim the complete opposiite of what's bleedin obvious?

And as we've seen, those strict gun laws are super duper effective.

Well, if they're enacted after vast amounts of guns are in circulation, they will have little chance of being effective...

And, to show I do get the other side of the argument, just in that narrow context, they may make things slightly worse. Criminals will clearly ignore extra restrictions, citizens will grumble but mostly follow them, and there may be occasional situations where an armed civilian could have deterred a crime and/or saved a life. However, this is not a generalisation, but in the narrow context of a crowded, high crime inner city area tightening its gun laws.

[Wumbologist]

Well, if they're enacted after vast amounts of guns are in circulation, they will have little chance of being effective...

Right. Add in the rapidly improving capabilities of 3D printing technology and it's clear that the idea of banning guns is pretty much a no-go at this point. So the real question in these discussions should be how to prevent criminals and the mentally ill from acquiring guns, and how to lower instances of violence, not just violence with guns but in general. The issues involved in that are much more complex and challenging to address than just "guns are bad, ban 'em", but at some point you've got to realize that guns are here to stay and work around that.

The other important discussion to be had is, how do we all work together to get Wumbo more guns?

[JimC]

Well, if they're enacted after vast amounts of guns are in circulation, they will have little chance of being effective...

Right. Add in the rapidly improving capabilities of 3D printing technology and it's clear that the idea of banning guns is pretty much a no-go at this point. So the real question in these discussions should be how to prevent criminals and the mentally ill from acquiring guns, and how to lower instances of violence, not just violence with guns but in general. The issues involved in that are much more complex and challenging to address than just "guns are bad, ban 'em", but at some point you've got to realize that guns are here to stay and work around that.

The other important discussion to be had is, how do we all work together to get Wumbo more guns?

I'm sure that's the case in the States - realistically, you have many guns in circulation, and are never going to have the restrictive gun laws of other countries, so harm-minimization strategies like the ones you mention are sensible. However, that doesn't change the fact that personally I'm glad to live in a country with relatively few guns (particularly hand-guns and military-style semi-automatic rifles), and the restrictive gun laws that keep it that way, but still with the opportunity for young blokes to do a bit of hunting out bush.

[Blind groper]

Okay, so you want to ignore any and all information that doesn't agree with your position? Fine. Have a nice life.

Or to translate your sarcastic comment into plain English, you believe that the people who should not have hand guns (criminals) will not break the law to get them. That makes sense.

The reality is that as long as hand guns are widely available, local restrictions will not limit criminals from getting all the hand guns they want. It is in countries where hand guns are largely banned nationwide that hand gun homicides are rare. In the USA, hand gun homicides account for almost half of all murders. And the murder rate is horrendous.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You really need some reading comprehension time.

[Seth]

What a dumb argument.
It's obvious that areas with high gun-crime rates will be more likely to enact stricter gun laws, and areas with low will leave them more lax.
What the fuck is the mystery about that?

How dumb can you get, to look at it backwards, and claim the complete opposiite of what's bleedin obvious?

And as we've seen, those strict gun laws are super duper effective.

Well, if they're enacted after vast amounts of guns are in circulation, they will have little chance of being effective...

And, to show I do get the other side of the argument, just in that narrow context, they may make things slightly worse. Criminals will clearly ignore extra restrictions, citizens will grumble but mostly follow them, and there may be occasional situations where an armed civilian could have deterred a crime and/or saved a life. However, this is not a generalisation, but in the narrow context of a crowded, high crime inner city area tightening its gun laws.

Nope. Crowded, high-crime inner city areas are exactly where people need personal protection the most. In the case that finally affirmed the RKBA as an individual, personal right (as opposed to the false "militia only" claim) the plaintiff was a resident of Chicago who was denied his right to be armed IN HIS OWN HOME by Chicago ordinances and Illinois laws. Our Supreme Court expressly stated that self defense in the home is one of the aspects of the RKBA that the 2nd Amendment protects, including residents of crowded, high-crime inner city areas.

As for those "occasional situations," all the research points to somewhere between 80,000 (FBI) and 2 million (Kleck, Lott et al) defensive handgun uses every year in the US. That's 80,000 to 2 million potential victims that weren't victimized. Some 60 percent of the time, the firearm wasn't even discharged, it's mere presence was adequate to thwart the crime.

The NRA publishes six to eight current news reports from around the US every month in its "Armed Citizen" column in it's magazines, and has a collection of tens of thousands of examples of law abiding armed citizens using their arms properly to defend themselves.

So your idea that people only "occasionally" use their arms lawfully to protect themselves is based in gross ignorance of the facts.

[mistermack]

The biggest gun-nut I ever met was in Washington State.
If there are worse than him in those states, you're in the shit.

So what qualifies one as a "gun nut"? Does the mere ownership of a firearm make one a gun nut? Is there a number of guns one must own to achieve "gun nut" status? Is there an attitude about gun ownership that is needed to qualify?

Simple. A gun nut starts with a W and ends with a umbologist.

Unmistakable.