Good thing you don’t, because it doesn’t.
Indisputably true, as the 4th Amendment covers unreasonable searches & seizures. :dubious:
Just out of idle curiosity, do you eat meat?
Why? I don’t know what your definition of military weapons is. Full auto? why isn’t the current system good enough? Other than full auto capability, “military weapons” are pretty weak in relation to hunting weapons if you’re talking about M-16’s, AK’s and the like. The main difference is that they’re designed purely for function, so they’re ugly.
Really? Have you been living under a rock? It happens all the time: I didn’t even have to think for a moment to recall reading about this recent case in which a woman fatally shot a man who broke into her home to rape her a second time, and a quick news search reveals many more.
I would wager that the OP is hunting for a way to avoid many thousands of deaths by handgun every year, possibly blinded by the idea that other countries, which have outlawed private ownership of handguns, also have few deaths by handgun…
You’ll note that very few of the answers given thus far to the OP’s question are “I’d have a lot less fun on evenings and weekends.”
Note that Switzerland requires that every able-bodied man keep a fully-automatic rifle (“assault gun”) in their home or business and they also have a very low violent crime rate. Or that DC and NYC have banned handguns but have a very high violent crime rate.
There is no significant decrease in violent crime tied to gun control laws.
As you have posted what I came back to the thread to say, I willl simply provide a citation for your claim.
Come on. Americans don’t settle disagreements with violence 51% of the time. In fact Americans settle disagreements with violence a vanishingly small percentage of the time.
When was the last time you settled a disagreement with your wife with violence?
When was the last time you settled a disagreement with your children with violence?
When was the last time you settled a disagreement with your parents with violence?
When was the last time you settled a disagreement with your co-workers with violence?
When was the last time you settled a disagreement with your boss with violence?
When was the last time you settled a disagreement with any other human being with violence?
This assertion is simply nonsense.
As for the larger point, I see the OP has been clarified that firearms suddenly just vanish. Of course, this has to mean not that guns just disappear, since guns are fairly simple machines that can be easily manufactured again, and in a few years we’re back where we started. So now we’re talking about waking up tomorrow to find that the laws of physics have changed such that firearms no longer function.
The trouble is that the laws of physics would have to change such that all sorts of chemical, electrical, magnetic, nuclear and mechanical reactions would have to change to eliminate every sort of firearm. Read S.M. Stirling’s “Dies the Fire” series referenced earlier. To eliminate firearms you’d have to use your magic wand to eliminate most technological progress since the beginning of the industrial era. It wouldn’t be enough to wave your magic wand and suddenly gunpowder doesn’t work, since there are dozens of explosives that could take the place of gunpowder…and already have, since only hobbyists use black powder nowadays.
There are all sorts of other methods that could be used as ways to accelerate a small lump of metal to deadly speeds. Railguns that accelerate projectiles electromagnetically. Steam guns. Compressed air guns. Mechanical methods such as crossbows. And that’s not even getting into exotic weapons…tasers, poison darts, and so on. Do grenades still work? Molotov cocktails?
But let’s say we’ve waved our magic wand and suddenly all these firearms and equivalent technologies no longer function.
There’s good old fashioned swords and spears. You’re not just taking away guns from the criminals and hunters and sportsmen. You’re taking away guns from the cops and soldiers. We have this idea that criminals with guns are particularly fearsome because they can whip out a gun and kill someone without much effort.
But this is to forget what life was like before the invention of guns. Guns are easy to use, anyone can learn to fire a gun and become a killer. A bullet doesn’t care how brave you are. But before the invention of guns it took a lifetime to master hand to hand combat. And this meant that those who had the leisure to spend all their time practicing fighting could easily outmatch those who spent their time working for a living. In other words, if you are an aristocrat you spend your life practicing with the sword, and with that training you can defeat any number of untrained peasants. And therefore those peasants have no choice when you ride into their village and demand a steady stream of tribute. Which neatly frees you from the need to work for a living, which frees you to spend all your time practicing the art of war, which allows you to dominate the peasants, which frees you from the need to work for a living. You see how this goes. This is the basis of the feudal system.
When a peasant can whip out a musket and plug their master between the eyes, the feudal system suddenly doesn’t work so well anymore. If your local cops don’t have firearms, what do you do when a gang rolls into town and starts robbing the place in broad daylight? Nowadays a shopkeeper might have a shotgun underneath the counter. But more likely he doesn’t because there aren’t any roving gangs because firearms equalize the deadliness of a scrawny shopkeeper and a burly armored professional swordsman.
The world is a better place because of firearms.
I don’t know exactly why these ‘ban the guns’ pieces of crap enrage me the way they do but they do and I don’t care how hypothetical the situation. If I have the money to buy a gun and I want one, then I see no reason why I should not have one. I’ve owned five guns in my lifetime and two of them were gifts; My ex wife sold one while I was in detox, three of them I gave to my son leaving me with one gun now. It is locked away in a safe place and it hasn’t been fired in over a year. But, dammit, it’s my damn gun. Leave me alone about it.
OK, second. :rolleyes:
And where do the criminals get the guns ? Stolen from legal gun owners. Eliminate private gun ownership and the criminals will largely be disarmed as well.
That has little to do with guns and everything to do with professional police forces and democratic government. A tyrant can crush his people, guns or not. And gangs will slaughter anyone who tries to play Punisher.
If it was all about guns, gangs would be MORE powerful than they are. It’s organization that matters, not guns.
Yes.
I am talking about full auto, armor-piercing bullets, other weapons designed for military purposes rather than hunting, law enforcement, or sport shooting.
What’s the “current system”?
Moving thread from IMHO to Great Debates.
Missing something that happened in St. Louis but was not reported in the DC media hardly qualifies me as living under a rock (the only confirmation I could find for this story in Google News was a Kansas City paper’s site). I don’t go out and search these down every week, but I read and listen to news daily.
If you want to compare anecdotes, look for accidental shootings (over 1,000 Google News hits on the phrase just within the past month), or another 1400 news itemswithin the last *month *on other shootings that occurred in the heat of an argument where lack of a gun would have made a life-or-death difference (including an argument over genital size). However, I have never found reliable statistics on this overall.
At some point you have to ask whether society is better off with them or without them, same as lots of other decisions are made. An argument that responsible gun owners exist, and most of them probably are, does not automatically negate the social and human costs.
Essentially banned already. Extremely difficult to acquire, only legal to do so in 50% or less of all states, and prohibitively expensive to purchase.
The recent episode of an 8 year old being accidentally killed at a shooting range aside, your full auto guns have killed maybe a few people since they were heavily restricted in the 1930’s. I’m not sure what other goals a total ban would accomplish…
You mention hunting is ok apparently, but suggest banning armor piercing ammo. Most hunting rounds will pierce body armor. Which do you want banned the ammo or the gun?
As far as “designed for military use” that accounts for about 100% of all guns in civilian hands if defined broad enough. Do you mean the scary looking black guns that are non-full auto copies of military guns?
How exactly do you define “sporting guns.” I would venture that my definition may be significantly different.
I don’t like great debates, people are too up-tight here. I prefer friendly discussions than fierce debating, but I don’t make decisions here the mods do.
And yes, I think “making” guns dissapear would reduce fatalities. I just don’t see advantages to having any form of fire-arms in the world at all.
I’m not going to cite a website in order to prove that a bullet is more likely to kill you than being hit with a bat or stabbed with a knife.
If you have any evidence pointing otherwise, feel free to share it.
Ted Kennedy’s car has killed more people than my gun ever will.
Well, which era were you more likely to die violently–the modern era, or back in the middle ages?
Lots and lots of people over the centuries have been hacked to death with swords and stabbed with spears. Read some history. Violence wasn’t created by the invention of gunpowder.
Unless you plan on melting your gun down tonight, how can you possibly make this claim?