At the risk of putting words in his mouth, I think the idea was that guns make irrational people more dangerous.
Oh, I agree on both points. I was just responding to the person who said it would be impossible to try and remove firearms from the US. It would just be “difficult to the point of near-impossibility” (, why yes, I pride myself on my hair-splitting ability), but if there were unlimited politicial will (hah!), I think it would be possible at least to restrict the numbers of handguns in circulation.
In regard to the gun issue, we can produce endless personal stories, common-sense justifications and stasitics on both sides to prove our points, and neither side is likely to sway the other (mind you, since I started reading the SDMB, I have certainly swung away from my previously fervently-anti-gun policies). So in that vein…
I only know that, as a resident of Britain, my chances of being fatally shot are vanishingly small. The police fatally shot 3 people last year, and a murder with a gun will make the papers in most regions. Whether that just means a murderer is more likely to stab me I don’t know, but I feel (possibly irrationally) safer knowing that I have next to no chance of being gunned down on the street or in my home- and I don’t think owning a gun myself would make me safer in either of those situations.
While I appreciate that a gun can be compared to a chainsaw, knife or chair as a “dangerous item of personal property”, guns seem to make killing someone so damn easy that I would be extremely uncomfortable in having a society in which gun ownership was the norm. The possibilities of someone acting in the heat of the moment (not to mention accidents, of all stripes), just seem to great to me.
Whoop, bunch of personal anecdotes. If anyone shouts “cite” at me, I’ll run screaming.
Site? 
Extremism provokes extremism, unfortunately. Person of calm judgement get lost in all the shouting and posturing. Personally, I think, to honor all those people who fought, lived and died to make our countries what they are today (ideally), we should cut each other some slack. Everywhere.
Besides, I don’t need a big gun as a penis-extension. That’s why I own a battle-axe!
But remember, you have to take it to bed with you. At least a gun is compact.
Ah yes.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Of course, but the point is that it makes rational ones safer.
My 2 cents:
I can’t imagine America being able to completely rid itself of firearms. We’ve had a pretty poor success keeping drugs and illegal aliens from crossing our borders. I see the idea/desire to rid America of guns as being completely impossible, kinda like keeping the floods out of New Orleans. But in both case people want it, and so will try, no matter the logic behind it that points to how impossible it is.
My personal feeling is that I would never own a firearm for self defense. If I had someone enter my home and the sight of my gun wasn’t enough to scare the intruder off, then the situation just escalated. So then I guess I’d have to shoot. And we all know how lovely the courts and lawyer fees are. Personally, I’d rather a large bat, or better yet one of those bean-bag guns.
Lastly, someone mentioned removing the second ammendment, as our times are not the same as when the constitution was written. The notion that mankind has become ‘better’ since the times of the constitution is absurd. Sure, we don’t live in the sticks fight’n injuns and wild animals, but don’t kid yourself that society has changed so much that democratic governments are here to stay, no matter what. Hell, look at the past 5 years with the 2000 election and worse, the Patriot Act. Are my neighbors, you know, the ones that don’t vote (something like 60%) are ensuring that democratic principles are upheld? I don’t understand why people think that democratic governments will just keep on rolling along. It’s only been a little over 200 years. So, having said that, I think the right of the people to take arms to revolt is just as important as the right to vote. Actually, I just heard that NH is the only state that protects the citizens right to revolt.
I simply don’t believe that, for all the reasons I’ve mentioned previously.
I’m in Kent, WA (USA). My neighborhood has gotten a rash of break-ins in the last year or so, otherwise it’s not too shabby. So my neighbor and I keep an eye on each other’s house since we work odd hours.
You of course can believe what you want. But I might not be typing this if I didn’t have a gun, and I know half a dozen other people who can say the same thing. All of them rational and none of them shot anyone in the process.
GQ hijack, but in which situations exactly is a bounty hunter allowed to actually use a weapon? I assume that he couldn’t open fire on a fleeing felon, for instance. Say, I’m the felon, he threaten me with a gun and I just walk away. How would his weapon be of any help in such a situation? So, apart from protecting himself, what would he use a weapon for?
Pretty much its to protect the bounty hunter from getting his ass shot off by the bad guy. I guess the law would depend on the state but I’m pretty sure none of them would allow you to shoot a fleeing prisoner.
Just as a random aside that some of you might find interesting, here is an article on Gun Number Six - an individual firearm that the English police have been trying to track down for a while.
Well, for a non-fiction cite: The existence of the Webley “British Bulldog” revolver. chambered in .450 Adams and .455 Webley, the British Bulldog had a 2.5" barrel and was designed to be carried in a coat pocket.
Considering that the .455 Webley cartridge was considered to have superior stopping power to the .45 Long Colt cartridge (according to the Thompson/LaGuardia tests), and was well known to be a “Zulu Stopper”, the brandishing of a Bulldog would have been enough to dissuade a petty thief- and if he was too persistant (or actually attacked), the round would have been more than sufficient to stop him in his tracks. There were millions of Webley RIC and British Bulldogs made, and they’re easily found at gunshows these days, usually in pretty good shape because they were carried in coat pockets (or kept in cupboards/drawers) and almost never used. It was also considered a good idea for travellers in the 18th century to carry Saddle Pistols, in the event of being waylaid by highwaymen.
However, the basic theory is that, up until fairly recently, persons in the UK finding themselves the victim of a criminal act would raise a “Hue & Cry”, and passersby (as well as the local constabulary) would join them in apprehending the wrongdoer. And if this meant packing heat, then so be it.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that the idea of a “Police Force” as we know it is actually surprisingly recent (From Napoleonic times, more or less)
Gold miners in Victoria also carried guns during the Gold Rushes of the 19th Century, and Miner’s Pistols show up at gunshows here all the time, but most of them aren’t especially collectible or interesting, unless you’re into that sort of thing, however.
As a fiction cite, Michael Crichton’s novel The Great Train Robbery covers the subject, and Dr. Watson is indeed shown to be carrying his Adams revolver on several occaisons (admittedly when they’re going after the bad guys). The main character in H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau is also competent with a revolver, and although the location is an Island full of strange experiments, the fact the Humans are carrying revolvers isn’t regarded as unusual.
Indeed, when you do enough research into antique guns- especially British ones- you detect a sort of expectation, if you will. It’s a little hard to definitively cite or pin down, but it’s definitely insinuated (if not clearly stated) that Gentlemen Carried Arms with which to defend themselves, their honour, and that of any female companions.
The difference today, of course, is that you can carry a concealed handgun in many parts of the US, but doing so in the UK is going to get you in a world of trouble…
Well, I can certainly see that as a valid conclusion if we’re talking about eighteenth-century travelers riding through highwayman-infested areas. Or gold miners in comparatively lawless mining towns—no surprise there, either. And I can buy the argument that many men, especially middle- or upper-class ones, would have owned guns and/or known how to use them—after all, shooting and hunting were popular activities, and many men served in the military.
But I’m still pretty skeptical that carrying firearms as part of the daily habits of everyday life would have been a routine expectation for British men (or even upper-class British men) in general up till the mid-1920’s. AFAICT, the average Victorian or Edwardian gentleman would not have considered it necessary or desirable to pack a handgun on ordinary occasions. I’m inclined to think that the reason such an “expectation” is hard to definitively cite is that it didn’t really exist, at least not to the extent that you’re suggesting.
The manly art of self-defense was very much important to gentlemen of the era you describe. Use of the gun, walking stick, and unarmed techniques were all things that a gentleman knew. See here for starters. Gentlemen of that era were very touchy about their honor and their persons. They knew very well how to deal with hooligans, blackguards, and ne’er do wells.
I join Kimstu in being skeptical. It’s all very well to blather about honour and so forth (sorry, Scumpup) and to quote fictional sources (although note than in the case of, say, Doctor Watson, the weapon in question is his old service revolver, and there’s no suggestion that he would otherwise be proficient with handguns) but I have never run into any evidence to suggest that carrying weaponry (other than a stout stick, perhaps) was either expected or usual amongst the British upper-to-middle classes.
The cite you give is just a collection of articles from the British magazine Health and Strength in 1903 and 1904, all discussing aspects of one Pierre Vigny’s “system of self-defence”, involving a combination of unarmed combat and blows with a walking-stick or some such object. The use of firearms doesn’t appear to be even mentioned.
I definitely agree that in middle- to-upper-class Victorian Britain, various forms of fighting were embraced as “manly arts”, along with other aspects of physical culture and “muscular Christianity” and so forth. I also agree, as I’ve said, that a number of British men of that era owned and/or knew how to use guns.
But it’s a long way from those statements to the notion that Victorian/Edwardian gentlemen routinely carried firearms while going about the ordinary business of everyday life. That, I’m still highly skeptical about.
From the article I linked. Bolding mine. If revolvers weren’t carried, why then would it be mentioned as a plus that a properly wielded cane makes one unnecessary?
I don’t say that they weren’t carried at all, I just doubt that they were routinely carried by most Victorian/Edwardian gentlemen. (The Health and Strength magazine target demographic may not have been entirely representative, either.)
I think you may have an image of daily London city life as being largely non-hazardous and that’s not necessarily the case. They were rough times
All the violence, murder and robbery beat downs that occurred as part of city life, cited in Victorian literature and fiction wasn’t conjured out of thin air.
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