Ok, bear in mind that I live in England. 
I don’t understand quite why people get so upset about dis-arming, surely its a good idea.
(Think about Colorado’s Columbine High School, Hungerford, Dunblane, etc etc).
I’m not interested in people who think its an infringement on their constitutional rights - or feel its the first step in the New World Order.
I want to know why people feel they need a gun?
(and no bollocks about “Its safe because its dangerous”).
Well, despite the somewhat insulting tone of your OP, hopefully unintentional, I will take your bait, because I’m in a bad mood this morning.
So next time some men feel they need to rape me, I can kill them.
Or, is that “bollocks” as well? Think carefully before answering.
The Post was not ment to be insulting at all, unfortunately you cant emote very well in text.
Something as sickening as rape is certainly not bollocks.
I hope those bastards get what they deserve.
I’m going to have to side with Anthracite here.
The premise is not a “constitutional” right, it is the inalienable right of all living things to fight back against that which might do it harm. A gun is merely an effective tool used to that end.
If you waved your magic wand and deleted every firearm from the face of the planet, that would not somehow also magically remove the need for a firearm.
The crook or criminal will always have a weapon. ALWAYS. Look at prisons- how many inmates are killed or injured every year, inside a “secure facility” with no guns whatsoever?
It’s the same situation in the “real world”, but, naturally, worse. Almost anything can be used as a weapon- a length of chain, a stick, a rock, a toothbrush, a mailbox, a car key.
If a thug wants to commit mayhem, he WILL commit mayhem, even if he has to break the leg off a table to get a suitable club.
Because of this, the fact that a criminal will always have access to a weapon, even if that weapon is no more than a bad attitude and two fists, it is simply morally wrong to deny me an implement with which I may counteract his weapon, and quite possibly save my life or the lives of others.
I may as well reply before this gets shipped off to GD or The Pit…
Let me start by saying that the firearms used in the Columbine shootings were obtained illegally. There are laws that prohibit people under the age of 18 from owning a firearm (21 for handguns). You might say that the shooters were banned from having what they did, but they got them anyway.
American society is different from other societies. Unlike countries where the population was strictly controlled by the governments, we are citizens, not subjects or serfs. Americans have had to be self-reliant from the start (hell, England wouldn’t even allow the colonials to make metal shovels!) and this self-reliant history has made us aggressive and cocky. We just don’t like people telling us what to do.
I have about 20 firearms, and you know what? I’ve never used them in anger. I don’t hunt. I’m a collector who likes the history and the function of the machines. Some people collect stamps. Some people collect cars. It’s a choice. And we have the freedom here to make choices. Almost no one needs a gun, but almost everyone has the right to choose to own one. And if you take the number of firearms in this country and divide that number into the number of firearms that were used in crimes (whether they were fired, brandished, or just happened to be nearby), I think you’ll find that 99% or more of the guns in this country are not used in crimes.
I live in L.A. During the riots there were a lot of violent people going around bludgeoning people and setting fire to businesses. According to an L.A. Times article I used to have, the police told people that they were unable to protect them and they’d have to protect themselves. I believe there was a Supreme Court decision that stated the police did not have a duty to protect individual citizens. In any case, there aren’t enough police to do that, and I wouldn’t want to live in a society where I had my own personal cop. A person has the right to protect himself, no matter what country he lives in. In America, we have access to a very good means of self-protection.
If you don’t want to own a gun, then don’t. But don’t tell me what to do.
KAT 22,
As an American living in England, I get this one all the time. The bottom line as I see it is as follows: it doesn’t matter if a nation lets it’s population own guns or not, it’s the laws surrounding guns that make the difference. Clearly, there are many law abiding citizens in the US who own guns (I had two shotguns when I lived there, which I used for clay pigeon shooting only, and were disassembled and locked away when not in use).
At no time did I feel the urge to hold up a bank or take any hostages.
I’m not pro or anti-gun. I just feel badly for those people who use them for recreation, and may lose them to overly strict rules.
Just a point of view from an American on the sceptered isle…
E-Train
Thank you for responding kindly. I’m glad you clarified the tone for me. Yes, e-text is very hard to emote in - something that gets me in trouble all the time.
Ok, I think I didnt get my meening across in the original post correctly.
I’m not saying wave a magic wand and make everyone love each other.
If every man and his dog has a gun, then you increase the chances of some bullied kid going to school and gunning down 30 innocent(?) kids before turning the gun on themselves.
Would you leave meths and matches lying around, or bleach in an old lemonaide bottle, or razor blades?
These items are not necessarily dangerous, if a bit of good sence is used. The same with guns.
But bring in the suicidal, insane, ignorant or vigilante and you may have problem.
And I probably havent explained myself very well again!
I didn’t know you had bears in England, let alone armed ones.
Oh, wait, what’s that? Bear arms, not arm bears? Oh, well, never mind then… 
Zev Steinhardt
I think you’ve pretty much summed it up. Responsible firearm owners keep their weapons secure, just like a responsible janitor locks up the bleach when he’s done. But the efforts of responsible people will never prevent nutballs from obtaining such items and wreaking havoc with them.
Most gun rights supporters in the US (myself included) take it as a given that there are assholes in the world. Access to a firearm or chemicals doesn’t make them any more or less of an asshole, and it’s our duty as citizens to protect ourselves and our neighbors from said anal orifaces.
As previous posters pointed out, Americans have a culture of being arrogant, argumentative bastards who don’t like being told what to do. That’s why I love this place so much.
I would also like to applaud said previous posters for keeping the answers factual and descriptive in such a hot-button topic.
Well, we got some in the zoos, and I got a teddy, and my hubby is a big hairy thing…
Anthracite: while I absolutely do not quibble with your right to kill a man attempting to rape you, I humbly suggest that you consider, for a first offense, shooting off on arm or a leg.
As to the OP, who said:
Kat22, your question is a loaded one. It assumes that citizens of a free society are required to justify themselves and their actions to the state, ie in the case of guns, by showing why they “need” a gun, in order to get the state’s “permission” to possess one.
A proper question would be, why does the state “need” to prohibit or regulate a particular gun or guns? Why should we, the people, permit our government to take such an action?
To the moderator(s): I am sorry if I am edging this over into GD territory. I tried to keep my response limited. If we feel a question in GQ is loaded, I would hope we get to point that out.
Very simple the more guns bad guys have the more crime…but … it has been shown that when good guys have a easy time obtaining the right to carry firearms crime goes down.
This would appear close to a request for information. But then:
I have the uneasy feeling that you actually want to debate rather than acquire information. Could you be in the wrong forum?
Still I will give you the benefit of the doubt. I own guns for self defense.
I hope that helps.
As I said, I have never used a firearm in anger; but from what I’ve heard the shooter should aim for the centre of mass – the torso. If you aim for an arm or leg, you stand a better chance of missing.
I don’t have statistics, but I believe that most times a person uses a firearm in self-defense that the firearm is not fired. Often just making it known that you are armed or displaying (pointing) the firearm will discourage an intruder/attacker. In close quarters displaying a firearm risks the attacker taking it from you, so you need to be ready to pull the trigger.
Again, my firearms (including the so-hated-by-some “assault rifles” – which they really aren’t because they cannot fire automatically) are for my personal enjoyment and are not for protection. I don’t live in a neighbourhood that is rough enough that I feel the need to carry a weapon. (I haven’t heard shooting in the alley outside of my window for several years now.) But although I am anti-Capital Punishment, if I need to defend myself with deadly force, and I have access to a loaded firearm, I will choose that option in order to stop the attacker from doing what he is doing.
Historical factoid (for which I don’t have a cite at-hand): Dodge City, the eptome of the Wild West, actually didn’t have many shootings (according to The History Channel (?)).
Let me play the semantics game. The US Constitution does not give citizens the right to bear arms; it precludes the government from infringing on that already established right.
Anthracite: you probably don’t need to hear this from me but, f*#k Al’s arm or leg theory. If you feel threatened enough to shoot, shoot for the center of mass until the threat is eliminated!
As to why I need a gun, I don’t. I choose to own several guns but as to need, it does not currently exist. I would much rather have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it.
Kat22, you have asked a very good question. It happens to be a hot-button topic here on this Board, and it has generated literally tens of thousands of posts on the subject, on either side of the debate. If you would like to explore the issue in-depth, to see different sides of the debate, perusing some past threads in GD might help out as well. Many of them include questions from non-US citizens who ask a similar thing to your original post.
I was not trying to be flip, BTW, in my terse response. Nor was I trying to play the Victim Card, as I am so often accused of doing. I was answering in my style which sometimes is too “matter of fact”, so please forgive me. I was raped by two men, and was helpless at the time. I will never be again. And if someone tries again, I will shoot them. I don’t want to kill them, necessarily, I just want to not be victimized.
Small, physically weak people like myself will always be the potential victim of larger, heavier, stronger people when physical violence comes to play. When I have my 9 mm or my .44 Mag Super Redhawk, no 300 pound linebacker-type is going to commit a crime on my body. A gun equalizes things for me - or unequalizes, I really don’t care too much which way one looks at it.
Before the event, I didn’t own, or even want a gun. I never even fired a gun (except for one occasion on my Grandfather’s farm, which I did not really like or dislike) until 3 years afterwards. When I saw what I could do - that I could use a weapon safely, responsibly, and effectively - and I saw that I had not only the ability to protect myself but the will to use it, that is when I changed from being slightly anti to profoundly pro-gun.
Later on, I started shooting rifles for sport. And although I am sick a lot, and physically weak and short of endurance, I found a sport I was actually good at. And with my little .22 rifle I was an absolutely fantastic shot - the best of anyone I ever shot against. It gave me a feeling of pride and accomplishment, that I was good at a competitive sport. So there was another reason I liked, and wanted firearms in my life.
Then, later on - about 1989-1990, when the first attempts to ban some guns were intorduced, I had started Engineering School. And I no longer looked at guns as just a self-defense mechanism or a sport, but also as a machine. And I started to get very interested in the mechanics and physics of firearms - in much the same way the physics of a billiard table will fascinate me somewhat (I know, it’s hard to shoot up a school with a pool cue…). But then, something else happened. I started to read the arguments of the anti-gun crowd, and found the lies. And I wondered - if their cause was so good, and so right, why did they lie about the operation of the guns?
I remember Senator Metzenbaum introducing legislation that said one thing, while on TV he said nearly the opposite. And I thought - “Oh my God, either he hasn’t read his own legislation, or else he’s lying on national television - and the media is letting him get away with it! Why?” And I started to think. And research. I found out the truth about “cop-killer bullets”, “assault rifles”, “Saturday-night specials”, and all the other buzzwords that were invented in the media seemingly overnight. (I still recall the words “assault knife” and “assault dog” being used for the first time in my local paper then.) And the truth was not what the newspapers and TV were telling me it was. And that scared me.
So, when I wrote to the people with the anti-gun legislation, trying to get clarification, I received either a form letter response, or a response that went completely at odds with what the actual text of the bills in question said. And I really, really started to get scared. Scared that the issue wasn’t really about the guns, it was about a power play by certain politicians, milking a very few, select tragedies for political airtime. You know, at that time, if the anti-gun crowd had come out and been 100% truthful and up-front, they might have kept me out of the NRA. Then again, I’ve heard anti-gun people say the same sorts of things about the NRA and the pro-gun politicians as well, so perhaps this goes all around. But listening to Senator Metzenbaum say on national TV things that were not in his own bills, and listening to people lie openly about the physical operation of certain firearms was, I guess, what put me over the edge on the other side of the fence.
And then, under Clinton the anti-gun lies and hysteria got to be truly oppresive and frightening. And it solidified my position firmly, and permanently. I don’t trust a Government that does not trust me, who has comitted no crimes, and done no harm or wrong.
Sorry to be long-winded. I hope this explains things a little better about my position, anyhow.
The world just ain’t as safe as it used to be. You don’t have to go all the way to America to see why it is sometimes necessary. Not so long ago in Northern Ireland a man helped bouncers eject someone from a pub for being rowdy. The man ejected was an IRA member and decided that the besy way to resolve the issue wasn’t to go back and apologise but to pay the guy a visit with the helps of some friends and some guns. The only reason the guy survived was because he had a legally held shotgun and got one of them in the leg. Legally held personal protection weapons have saved peoples lives before in NI.
People who want to use a gun to kill in NI can unfortunatly get one relatively easily if they so wish as the many arms bunkers sprinkled so liberally about the countryside of NI. I have never held or used a gun and I can’t say I have any interest in them but if people with balaclavas and Armalites ever came knocking on my door I think I’d change my mind.
Kat22,
It works basically like this in this country: The government in this country derives it’s power from the populace. The only reason the government can use to justify denying the citizens anything is when it can clearly be shown that it’s in the best interest of citizens to do so, and that decision must be supported by the populace. WE give the gov’t permission, not the other way 'round.
As for a quick-n-dirty analysis of gun-related crime:
In 1994, there were 544,880 gun related violent crimes (32,162 actual shootings){FBI}. There were 192,000,000 privately held fire arms in this country, of which 65,000,000 were handguns {Violence Policy Center}. Using 1990 population figures (Sorry, couldn’t find accurate numbers for 1994), the population of the US was 249.4 million{US Census Bureau}. That works out to 2.18 firearm-related violent crimes per 1000 people, 2.84 firearm-related crime per weapon, or if we assume only handguns were used in crimes (bullsh!t assumption, but I’m playing devil’s advocate on this one), 8.38 firearm-related violent crimes per handgun. It also means that per million persons, 129 persons were shot. Only 16,305 murders were commited by firearm in 1994{FBI}, which works out to roughly 84 murders per 1,000,000 firearms, or 65 firearms murders per 1,000,000 people (less, actually, as the populations of the US was certainly greater than 249.4 mil in 1994). Hardly what I’d call a national crisis.
Now: This is statisticly meaningless, as some firearms were used repeatedly for criminal activity, and some victims suffered more than one crime. Numbers for repeated use of a firearm are essentially impossible to come-by, as are numbers for repeated victimization. Never-the-less, we can fairly safely take the above numbers as a conservative upper estimate of the scope of firearms-related crime in the US, circa 1994.
Oops! Make that: …8.38 firearm-related crimes per 1000 handguns…
Terribly sorry about that.