Guys!! The tangent argument on the legality of firearms is better suited for a different thread.

On Topic... wow, how unstable is that guy that he felt the need to shoot the judge? And where was security... every courthouse I've ever seen has mandatory metal detectors.

Elara : I meant to edit the original post to include a question posing gun control, but I never got around to it. Sorry lol

Sephitard9001 : Ok, that is better then. Go ahead an edit your first post.

Sephitard9001 : you were saying its a human right,im saying its not.
Obviously i know people in the us can buy guns or we wouldnt be having this conversation...
And yet plenty of people who have criminal records buy guns.
I said hunters can have guns already.
Muggings in the uk are not as common in usa,and more people are killed in muggins in the usa...
Most people dont display there gun so how is it easy.
I never said no massacres,youre not reading what i say.i said no significant ones
Those british ones were like,20 years ago and under 2
Deaths compared to about a hundred in 1 massacre every year in the usa.
Gangs arent massacres,if they were,the american mob bosses and drug lords would account for a lot more gun crimes in the usa.
Youre clearly missing the point, car deaths are predominately accidents and are needed for everything.guns arent.
I can totally argue with the us police and military,its my RIGHT.
You can shoot more than 4 people before getting taken out,and i never said shot dead,ready my post.i said having a gun pulled on me,and its not incredibly low.
Why should anyone be gratefull?when asked to help,when tens of thousands were being killed,america refused,even when france,the country that made u.s independence possible,was conquered,usa never steped in.the reason usa jumped in is because without european help the odds of america defeating germany and japan were,negligible.gratitude is due toward a selfless act,not a self serving one.
And saving billions upon billions,europe had less than half a billion people back then.
The government is acountable for the army,and gave the orders.they told the army to destroy everything so the communists couldnt get food or shelter,causing the south vietnamise to starve to death.
Maybe the usa shouldnt have set the standard by mass producing nukes.you could have intervened before they had them,you didnt.what about africa?why not get rid of there dictators?
I addressed every point you made...

thenumberone : The only people that buy guns who have also committed a crime are people who have either committed a non-violent crime, or purchased an illegal weapon. It doesn't matter whether or not they're are hunters, everyone should be treated equal. Just because someone's too poor to afford groceries, doesn't mean they should be the only ones able to defend themselves. The massacres in the UK both had 16 deaths more or less, and the same amount of injuries. No massacre committed in the U.S. has had more than 100 victims, that's ridiculous. Yes, gangs are accounted for in massacre reports and death tolls. Car accidents, yes. Amazing how a car, which is supposedly less dangerous, can kill more people in an accident, then a gun wielded in crime, which is supposedly incredibly dangerous. My point is, car ACCIDENTS are more common then gun HOMOCIDES. That's more than enough reason to prove that cars are simply more dangerous. Imagine if someone drove around hitting everyone they could find. It would be more dangerous than someone shooting everyone they could find. It may be your right to disagree with the police and military, but it's also your right to argue the correct way to perform a brain surgery with a certified doctor. Point is, you're probably wrong when you argue with a professional about their profession. What are you talking about, of course getting mugged is a low rate. How would this be a country if more than 50% of people are robbed? Again, where are you getting this information? Movies do not count. I could walk down 4 blocks in every major city 5 times, and probably never get mugged. Your whole point about WWII is strange. America should be ashamed of itself because it didn't get involved with a European war until they were directly threatened? The same people who say this, are the same people that say America should be ashamed of itself when it involves itself in Asian wars when the U.S. is dragged into it. WE were attacked, we didn't attack. Please make up your mind. Either option is met with outcries from the same people. Umm, what? Hitler was a threat to the entire planet, not just Europe. He was going to cleanse the planet of people who he didn't think were necessary. That happens to be billions of people.
The government is not responsible for anything that happened there. Like I said, the officer acted of his own accord. Also, the South Vietnamese were our allies in Vietnam more or less. They opposed the communist north.
Intervened before they had them? Are you serious? It's not like the countries developing nuclear weapons friggin' advertised it. They were discreet about it, for obvious reasons. It's also not like America are the world police either, we can't always take bad toys away from countries whenever we feel like it.

Sephitard9001 : i said about a hundred.and i disagree,if you dont need a gun you shouldnt have one.
Youre logic is,if something COULD be more dangerous,everything else is safe.this is false.
I never said mugged,i said have a gun pulled,under any circumstance,and even 20% is enough to be likely.
I never said ashamed,i said you were owed nothing,and not to confuse self serving wars with selfless acts.
Your point was i should be gratefull,my point was america has never entered a war for any reason than self serving,be it defence or invasion.
Of course the government is responsible,its there army.if i gave a gun to a 5 year old and he killed someone,do you think the courts will accept,i never told him to do that?hell no,im going to jail for manslaughter,along with about 8 other charges.
America very much installed the south vietnamise government and had little public support.the people in the south,the us army alienated,causing your defeat and withdrawl.
It was not a war for the people.
If you were invading to help people,you would have.so are you retracting your statement that said america went to war to help the people there?

Historical evidence supports that Vietnam happened because America didn't want another communist country... it was all about the Cold War. I've spoken to sailors that were on the ship that was supposedly attacked, thus triggering the actual fighting... and they said flat out the attack never happened. Someone got jumpy, things got out of hand, and the higher ups took the advantage. We had no right to be there, especially not once France backed out and admitted defeat.

But that actually is another topic entirely... so let's try not to go off on merits of old wars.

I believe the legality of private ownership of firearms is, in fact, a deterrent to violent crime. No matter what our government does in the way of banning firearms, criminals always have ways to access illegal ones. Therefore by taking the right from the ordinary citizen, you leave all the remaining firearms undocumented, and in the hands of unsavory characters. In other words: If you outlaw guns, only outlaws have guns. Sure, I would support strict regulation of firearms, but that's very different.

I know of no reason banning firearms would significantly decrease violent crime rates. The way things are now, all legally purchased guns are meticulously documented and easily traced. The vast majority of citizens who buy firearms will never even use them, let alone murder another human being. These people who slip through the cracks and murder people are rather few and far between (and I've never heard of any American spree killings even close to 100 in body count), and although I would love those cracks to be closed, violent crime rates in the United States are actually quite low on average. The proliferation of news media makes it seem like more bad things are happening than ever, but that's not the case. It just seems worse now because you will actually hear about some random crime that happened in another state that you might never have heard otherwise. These crimes will occur regardless, and in fact I've known very few Americans who have ever even been threatened with a firearm (and I live in a state that is pretty lax in gun control). I have, however, known multiple Americans to have been mugged at gunpoint in the UK, oddly enough. Obviously this evidence is anecdotal at best, but it's just what I've been exposed to. Our violent crime rate has decreased tremendously since my birth.

I guess ultimately I think it's a question of how much faith you are willing to put in your citizens. "He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither" -Benjamin Franklin.

thenumberone :

Morsalbus : This, I very much agree with. That one bit of logic is the ONLY one you need to argue against very strict laws.. Law-abiding citizens will not have guns. So the guns are left for the criminals. It's a non-disputable fact that around 300,000 people in the every year in America use firearms in self defense. If guns weren't available to everyone, the government would be responsible for 300,000 deaths each year, much like how they're "responsible" for the atrocities in Vietnam.

Sephitard9001 : if america hadnt pumped guns out over hundreds of years 300,000 people would not be getting shot at.
Annette :


Elara : not entirely, it arose after i debated the idea that americas army only used guns as tools of peace and prosperity, but i get your point,at any rate thats more or less resolved now.

Elara :
thenumberone :
Sephitard9001 :

All I can say is I want to have the opportunity to defend myself as I believe is necessary. If I feel my life is in jeopardy I would like to have the opportunity to defend myself with a gun, and I feel that right should be extended to everyone who provides evidence of their own account that they can wield a weapon properly and justly. I must say everyone here has made impressive arguments for and against the topic at hand. I kind of felt there was a growing tension within, so I just thought I would get this out in the open and get you all over here to see what Annette had to say --though I now see that thenumberone already has.

Annette :

thenumberone : You can get illegal weapons anywhere, like Northern Ireland for example.

Sephitard9001 : they have guns in n.ireland because during the ira campaign in ireland countrys like libya gave them guns.

thenumberone : I think his point was that America doesn't supply all of the world's guns, and the criminal element will get its hands on some regardless. America was not and is not the only place to have been "pumping out guns over hundreds of years."

Morsalbus : i never said america was the only place,and i never said that they were responsible for the guns in other countrys.eastern europe is the main source of those,ukraine,russia etc.
There (criminals)supply is a lot more restricted when guns are illegal.

thenumberone : What you did say is that those 300,000 Americans wouldn't be getting shot at if America hadn't been producing guns, and I would argue that less than half of those incidents involve the offending parties using American made firearms. Regardless of the nationality of the firearms, I think people who are going to perpetrate violent crimes will do so with any means. Many illegal firearms here in the USA are imported and sold to gangs and the like, they have a supply line regardless. And the people who are not as well-provided with weapons will try to kill (or mug or what have you)with whatever means they can. The fact that you think denying firearms to the majority who won't try to kill anyone unnecessarily is a reasonable policy makes me wonder whether you a) have too little faith in normal citizens, b)have too much faith in governments ability to keep weapons from criminals if guns are outlawed, or both.

thenumberone : America isn't even the one to invent guns. Blame China for firearms if you're gonna blame us for nukes.

Morsalbus : the vast majority of illegal us weapons are american manufactured,and i would no sooner trust someone with a gun than i would with a bomb.
Sephitard9001 : china invented gun 'powder' not guns.
Guns were made as lethal as they are today by america.

thenumberone : Are you kidding me? Some of the most popular illegal weapons are Uzis and AK-47's, and those are Israeli and Russian made respectively. Most automatic weapons are not made in America. That's because most automatic weapons in the US are military issue. Any gun is lethal, even the very first one created. Americans don't make guns, "more lethal", they create weapons that are just as lethal, but with modifications to make them perform better in combat. The only way to make a gun, "more lethal" is to give the gun a higher capacity, or a larger round.