# Resolved: Every adult will be required to carry a gun at all times in public **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 25, 2024, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216 "2024-08-25T22:31:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2024, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/23 "2024-08-25T23:24:27Z")
I am a klutz with bad eyesight who can’t tell people apart. So I shouldn’t. I’m also almost always already carrying as much shit around me as I can comfortably carry. Don’ wanna add anything else. > [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Wasn’t there a municipality in the States a few years ago that passed a bylaw that all heads of household had to have at least one gun, in case the militia needed to be called out? Isn’t that Switzerland? – no, not quite. Apparently there’s mandatory military service including firearm training and quite a lot of people apply to and keep their weapons afterwards (plus women can get permits also), but that’s not the same as requiring one in each household. And the guns are supposed to stay at home, not to be carried around. > **[Switzerland has a stunningly high rate of gun ownership — here's why it...](https://www.businessinsider.com/switzerland-gun-laws-rates-of-gun-deaths-2018-2)** > > Here's what the US can learn from Switzerland, which has nearly eliminated mass shootings while maintaining a high rate of gun ownership. And apparently you’re right about the US town, but it’s not enforced: > **[In this American town, guns are required by law | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/06/us/kennesaw-georgia-gun-ownership/index.html)** > > As the debate over guns continues in Washington and in communities across the country, there’s at least one place where owning a gun is technically required by law. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2024, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/24 "2024-08-25T23:27:50Z")
Thank you. That’s what I was thinking of. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2024, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/25 "2024-08-25T23:29:53Z")
> [@DtypeJag](#): > > requiring every non felon, non insane adult to carry a gun seems a good solution Would that mean that as a tourist I would be compelled to conduct an armed invasion of the US should I return? Would immigration and border protection officers stationed at airports provide a working firearm gratis to those incoming without a firearm but with an approved USA ESTA Application with their visa stamp or maybe demand payment with menaces to provide these entrants with a working gun? Or that tourists would be clearly marked for exploitation because they were not carrying? Would that mean that for any endeavouring to enter the US seeking a better life or to avoid persecution, the first thing they must do is acquire a working gun. Or is this a Catch22, i.e. that every 'merkin who is open-carrying a gun for their own safety and identity is arguably insane and hence disqualified from carrying? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2024, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/26 "2024-08-25T23:31:20Z")
It was the OP being sarcastic and pushing the pro-gun position past its logical limits. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2024, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/27 "2024-08-25T23:40:45Z")
It was the poster being pragmatic and indicating the pro-gun position is already beyond its logical limits. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2024, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/28 "2024-08-25T23:44:33Z")
> [@DtypeJag](#): > > What could go wrong? Semi-serious answers to the tongue-in-cheek question: Only about 42% of Americans say they live in a household which has one or more firearms; only 32% of Americans say that they, personally, own a firearm. (Source: [Pew Research](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/24/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/)) So, you’re going to be arming most of the 2/3 of Americans who don’t currently own a gun (excluding the [roughly 8% of Americans who are convicted felons](https://news.uga.edu/total-us-population-with-felony-convictions/), and the mentally unfit). Many, probably most of them don’t _want_ a gun, and aren’t going to be happy about being forced to not only own one, but carry one in public at all times. So, you’re going to be getting many people who either try to skirt the law: they might carry an unloaded gun, a prop-replica gun, etc., or just engage in civil disobedience and refuse. But, worse, we already know that the firearms that are already out there, and already owned by people, wind up injuring and killing Americans through accidental discharges, poor adherence to gun safety protocols (including children getting their hands on guns), and suicide attempts. Just based on numbers, we can expect those injuries and deaths to double or triple if every American citizen is required to own and carry one. You’ll also see a rise in felons being able to get hold of guns, even though they legally cannot, through theft, if nothing else, simply because twice as many households, and three times as many people, will now have guns which could potentially be stolen. ---
**Author:** ![Sylvanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Sylvanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylvanz)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/29 "2024-08-26T02:01:19Z")
I’ll carry a gun when you force it into my cold dead hands. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/30 "2024-08-26T02:27:03Z")
I’ll be sure and stand behind you during the Zombie apocalypse.😊 ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/31 "2024-08-26T02:38:24Z")
Treating this as semi-seriously as @kenobi_65 did: First, let’s say that the numbers cited are correct, and that 2/3 of American’s don’t own a gun, and that with rounding, felons, etc, around 150 _million_ people (based on a 2020 census that had the _adult_ population around 260 million, but over 200 million if it’s the equally silly assumption that we’re arming the kids too, but staying with the OP for the moment). Okay, what does that entail. Well first, we’re going to assume that in order to pass, the government is going to have to pay for this, otherwise, people aren’t going to buy guns before groceries (in most cases, especially the sort that didn’t already own guns). So, let’s assume a basic budget for a low cost (ha, government procurement, low cost? I crack myself up) of say $300 for a basic 9mm handgun (seriously, this is on the pretty darn low end for current 9mm costs at retail so plausible). Now, the OP said you have to _carry_ at all times, so let’s include a reasonably priced holster and a belt that can handle the weight, let’s just figure another $50 there. We’re getting a bit pricey, so assume the government, DOESN’T give you a safe, you’re going to have to hope the trigger lock is good enough (it isn’t) in terms of securing the safety of other household members. Also figure in a ONE time inclusion of 2 50-round boxes of 9mm (again, retailing around $50 total), and you’re set. Well, of course you have no cleaning supplies, or anything to maintain the weapons, and no damn training, but there you have it, around $400 per person to comply with the minimum legal requirements of the OP for adults. Which, by my math, says the government just handed out roughly 60 billion USD. Which is great (major /s), after all, we’ve spent more on boondoggles in the past, but I don’t think the Republicans (who obviously would be sponsors of such a proposal, duh) want to spend that much money on it. ESPECIALLY because from their POV, all “right thinking patriots” already own one or more guns, so all of these would be going to them horrible, brown, low class, poor, welfare criminal folk! The very people they fear arming the most! [to be extra clear again, I’m paraphrasing their feelings, NOT my own!] So nah, will never happen. Just like how in ye olde days the NRA supported gun control if it meant keeping guns out of the hands of those they disapproved of, like the [Black Panthers](https://www.history.com/news/black-panthers-gun-control-nra-support-mulford-act). ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/32 "2024-08-26T02:41:54Z")
Let’s give everyone over the age of seven (that’s the age of reason, yes?) a button that, when pushed, will unleash a thermonuclear barrage sufficient to extinguish the species and most other life on earth. Now we’ll all treat each other with respect, huh? ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/33 "2024-08-26T02:48:31Z")
The button needs to display/say, “That was easy!” ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/34 "2024-08-26T02:50:55Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#): > > Also figure in a ONE time inclusion of 2 50-round boxes of 9mm (again, retailing around $50 total), and you’re set. Nothing in the OP says you have to have ammunition, just carry a gun. That cuts cost a bit. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/35 "2024-08-26T02:55:53Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Wasn’t there a municipality in the States a few years ago that passed a bylaw that all heads of household had to have at least one gun, in case the militia needed to be called out? There were experimental “communities” proposed by far-right lunatics where such things would have been required (and also, as @thorny_locust mentions, in the fine municipality of Kennesaw, Georgia [town motto: “No, we’re not insane, why do you ask?”]). Makes good sense, because you never know when King George III might rise from the dead and send British Redcoats over to collect taxes from American colonials. Or Putin might send over a nuke that the good citizens of Kennesaw, Georgia, would be able to shoot down with their six-guns. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Isn’t that Switzerland? – no, not quite. Apparently there’s mandatory military service including firearm training and quite a lot of people apply to and keep their weapons afterwards (plus women can get permits also), but that’s not the same as requiring one in each household. And the guns are supposed to stay at home, not to be carried around. Switzerland actually has very rigorous gun control, something that gun nuts should keep in mind when they argue that Switzerland has a high rate of gun ownership but low gun crime. The typical American yokel open-carrying an AR-15 in a donut shop would go straight to jail if he tried that in Switzerland. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/36 "2024-08-26T14:11:26Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Nothing in the OP says you have to have ammunition, just carry a gun. That cuts cost a bit. Also weight; though not by much. If the ammo’s carried inside the gun, it won’t help bulk a bit. It would certainly reduce the risk of my shooting my own foot off; or managing to shoot something/one else by accident. > [@wolfpup](#): > > Switzerland actually has very rigorous gun control Yeah; the article I linked said so too. It’s just the sort of rigorous gun control that allows most people to have guns. A combination of concepts which is indeed possible. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/37 "2024-08-26T15:19:20Z")
If you carry a gun no one know that it is empty. This might make it more likely that someone looking to take your money and/or valuables will just shoot you first just to make sure. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/38 "2024-08-26T15:23:43Z")
Not if I throw my gun at them first. Really hard. And they’re not Superman. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/39 "2024-08-26T15:35:30Z")
Nobody remembers The Right Of The People? > **[The Right of the People](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_of_the_People)** > > The Right of the People is a 1986 made-for-TV crime drama movie starring Michael Ontkean, Billy Dee Williams, Jane Kaczmarek, Jamie Smith Jackson and Lisa Jakub, with special guest John Randolph. It debuted on ABC on January 13, 1986. The movie, originally intended as a feature film, was written and directed by Jeffrey Bloom. He wrote the script in outrage over the mass murder during the robbery of a Los Angeles Bob's Big Boy restaurant in 1980. At the network's request, Bloom revised his o Chris... > Plot [[edit](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Right_of_the_People&action=edit§ion=1)] > > Christopher Wells is a District Attorney, in fictional St. Lawrence, [Kansas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas). One evening, his wife, Angela, and daughter Katie, are among several people shot to death in a [robbery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbery) by two ex-cons. Wells, previously opposed to handguns, then pushes for mass arming of his town’s citizens for [self defense](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_gun_use), while his best friend, police officer Mike Trainor, and Angela’s friend Alicia remain opposed. Nonetheless, Wells’ proposal passes and the movie explores Bloom’s visions of an armed public. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/40 "2024-08-26T16:04:14Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > If you carry a gun no one know that it is empty. This might make it more likely that someone looking to take your money and/or valuables will just shoot you first just to make sure. You are aware that most muggers are not willing to risk a conviction of murder just for the contents of someone’s wallet? Or that if they were people would not tolerate it and summary justice would make a comeback? Sorry, but this idea– that self-defense is pointless because criminals will be with us always and they’ll just up their game to whatever level necessary for them to tax us and we have no choice but to take it– has been cited before in gun control debates on the SDMB and it irks me no end. By that logic no one should carry pepper spray or alert whistles because that will just “provoke” the criminals. So if criminals who have violated the social compact resorted to murder, it would be their victims’ fault for “pushing” them to it? Why not advise rape victims to just surrender too? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/41 "2024-08-26T16:12:23Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > > [@wolfpup](#): > > > > Switzerland actually has very rigorous gun control > > Yeah; the article I linked said so too. It’s just the sort of rigorous gun control that allows most people to have guns. > > A combination of concepts which is indeed possible. Which is in fact the striking difference between Swiss and USA concepts of gun control. The Swiss have gun regulations in order that as many people as possible can keep firearms. In the USA gun control proponents see the very existence of firearms as a bane upon society, or see gun ownership as at best a sort of vice to be heavily discouraged. In the USA gun control is less about safety (because there are few practical obstacles to criminals possessing guns illegally) as it is about trying to push a sort of faux-pacifism that hopes that eventually most people will have been conditioned to be hoplophobes who flinch at the very sight of a gun. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216/42 "2024-08-26T16:16:17Z")
[When I put bullets in the gun, it gets too heavy.](https://youtu.be/L7U-im5GKjA?si=9rSc8-WQegE7H-LZ) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-every-adult-will-be-required-to-carry-a-gun-at-all-times-in-public/1006216.md?page=3)