As a newcomer to the SDMB I have been frustrated by the fact that threads concerning particularly controversial issues which I am interested in expressing my opinion on quickly degrade to open argument with little useful being said. Therefore I would like to try something a little bit different. My proposals are as follows –
Individuals can post their own opinion on any controversial topic to this thread
No quoting or direct reference to other posts should take place, if you disagree with someone’s opinion post your own opinion. If someone’s post lacks cites and punctuation or their argument is full of holes, then please allow the poor quality of the post to speak for itself. If you want to argue with someone else on a point raised in this thread please start another thread to do it.
If someone else’s post exactly expresses your views on an issue please think before posting the same thing again (I do not want this thread to become dominated by a single topic) but if you think you have a valid point to add by all means do so.
If someone appears to be ignoring these guidelines then please ignore them rather than pointing it out to them.
As I have said above these are only proposals, I cant make you do what I want. All I ask is that if you can’t stick to this then could you please consider posting somewhere else or start your own thread. I apologise if this has been done before and I am inadvertently stealing someone else’s idea (I couldn’t think of a good way to search on this). I wasn’t entirely sure which forum this should be posted in, I want to see people’s opinions, but the subject matter I am aiming for is more great debate material. If I have gotten this wrong then please feel free to move this thread. I will post these rules and then start the ball rolling by posting my own opinion on an emotive topic determined by my coin of randomness +2 (gun control).
I have to start by saying that I like guns; there is something intrinsically cool about lining something up in the sights and blowing it into itty-bitty pieces. I own an old air pistol and use it to plink at cans occasionally, I feel I understand why people want to own a gun. All of this is basically why I agree with my government’s stance on firearms, I believe that guns can be a little too seductive and that people do not spend sufficent time considering the dangers intrinsic to them or want to consider the possibilty that owning their own gunis not the best thing for them and their family.
When the banning of pistols in the UK was initially announced I thought it was an overreaction, an unfair measure that would not achieve any meaningful results and prevent thousands of people enjoying a legitimate hobby. However a good few years down the road I think the decision was the correct one, this country has not suffered (for example) the tragic high school shootings that have plagued other countries. It is of course debatable whether the banning of firearms is solely responsible for this (there have never been that many guns in this country to start with), nonetheless I feel that if even one life has been saved then this is worth the price, people can always find a new hobby but you only get one life.
One of the particular problems I see with firearms is the impossibility of adequately controlling who gets them. One of the first things many pro gun people have said to me is “are you implying that I can not be trusted to own a gun”, in the vast majority of cases I do not think anything of the sort but I can’t think of any workable way to restrict guns to those people. I have a aquaintence (lets call him Bob) he’s a nice enough guy in his own way but I would not trust him with a firearm of any calibre greater than a cap pistol (I’m sure everyone can think of a similar individual). The problem is I can not think of a single factor that could be applied to a registration scheme that would let me have a gun and keep them safely out of the hands of Bob (general and persistent dumb recklessness is not a crime).
In most cases owning a gun necessitates keeping it in the house and in my opinion a gun in the house is an irresistible attraction for a young child. I would certainly have found it difficult to resist the temptation to search out the offending firearm and gain the means of access to it (small children are sneaky). Some of you may be thinking that your little Jimmy would never dare to do something like that and you may be right (although I think that you might be underestimating little Jimmy), but as a fairly well brought up, obedient child with excellent parents I would certainly have had a shot at it and probably succeeded (although to be fair I would almost certainly not have done anything stupid once I had found it). Even If you some how manage to childproof the thing it is still a danger. At some point in their life everyone gets angry and depressed and the presence of a gun must make this far more likely to end in tragedy.
I accept that the UK is a whole different country from the US in regard to crime. I have heard people on this board convinced that lethal force is necessary to defend yourself from certain types of crime in North America, you may be right. However over here at least I cannot think of a circumstance where this would be a good thing.
In this part of my country I am confident that if I hear someone moving around in my house in the night, that if I start to turn the lights on and make some noise the burglars will flee and not come upstairs and murder me in my bed. I am confident that I will not be mugged by someone intending to kill me afterwards (I am fairly confident that I won’t be mugged). I am happy about the fact that if I do fall victim to crime it is unlikely that the perpetrator will be armed with a gun or a replica at worst (I do not know a single person who has ever been held at gunpoint). I am happy about the fact that those criminals who do posses guns mostly use them to kill each other, as doing anything else with them would attract a lot of police attention. I realise that some of this might vary if I was to live in a different part of the country and the above represents only my perceptions about crime (I can’t be bothered to start digging out statistics) but I feel confident in my opinion that I much less likely to be shot living in England as oppose to the good old USA and that (unsurprisingly) much of this is as a result of the restriction on handguns in this country.
We already have a forum for this type of discussion-it’s called IMHO. By the way, if you do start a discussion in IMHO, I would suggest that you pick a topic and stick to it.