Nope. Society wants cars. If safety were really the issue, there are plenty of alternatives the absurdly lethal practice of having privately owned individual cars. Why, if we look at the environmental costs alone, there is clearly no excuse for having them. Don’t confuse want with need, please.
Comparing cars and guns IS silly.
Hows about a basic description of the differences between cars and guns.
Cars: Expensive big boxes primarily used to transport humans and things. Have been known to occasionaly kill humans.
Guns: Cheap pocket sized boxes primarily used to put / threaten to put, holes in animals and humans. Have been known to put holes in inert objects also.
They are similar in quantity. They are not simmilar in either use or intent.
How about y’all consider just stating that you dislike/fear guns and that is why you like gun bans? Trying to phrase it as a safety issue and then dancing around the cold, hard fact that they aren’t as much of a danger as many other consumer items makes you look disingenuous.
It’s more like a “safety vs utility” issue. Many Brits can see a compelling reason to have personal transport available and accessible, and are prepared to accept the tradeoff in safety that this entails. Far fewer Brits see a compelling reason to have the means to kill people easily available, when the devices used to do so have few other uses that justify the risk.
As pointed out earlier, there has not been a case where a college student went mad and drove up a school.
My name is sinical brit and i dislike/fear guns and that is why i like gun bans.
The Finnish - who love hunting, are also considering banninghandguns.
President Vanhanen: “We must considerably tighten [gun controls]. We should consider whether to allow these small arms for private citizens at home. They belong on firing ranges.”
Are they going to be less free, or perhaps more subservient, than Americans ?
I don’t, as I stated way upthread, care what your gun laws are in your countries. Your countries are yours to run as you see fit; as our country is our country.
However, we are supposed to be about intellectual honesty here, among other things. Since it is your country, you can ban guns for any reason you wish, to include simple dislike/fear of them. Many laws concerning other items or actions have been passed on that basis alone.
Spinning it as a public safety issue, though, smacks of misdirection. More lives would be saved by banning Big Macs or cigarettes than by banning guns; but that isn’t being done. If you’re really concerned about saving lives, you’d go with the numbers. Banning guns would have saved 11 people. How many lives would have been saved by banning tobacco? By banning alcohol? It’s about what you dislike and fear, not about whose life is saved.
Lifestyle choices that kill me aren’t the same as somebody shooting me and killing me.
The title of the debate is “Was there strong opposition to the UK gun bans? Could the same happen in the US?”
Although this is a divisive issue these border on GQ fodder. The first question has been answered by UK dopers, the answer being not much. The second one is easily answered by the American respondents on this thread, the answer being not bloody likely.
No it’s about choices. They could save more lives by banning cars but that would destroy their economy and cause lots of problems to the general public in general. There are many groups that advocate tobacco* and fast food bans but they don’t have much public or political support. If they did they’d be on the table.
Guns are an issue that people over here (UK and Ireland, as that’s what I’m familiar with) have little to no problem being restricted. The police over here don’t want guns more available to the public or to beat cops. The public and the political world agree so a ban is in place for safety reasons.
There are many things that have been restricted for safety reasons that don’t cause a lot of deaths.
*I’m talking about a ban here not a “smoking in the workplace” ban
That is an assertion, not an explanation. Expand, please.
Stranger
Or at least, the uses of a car far outweigh those of a gun.
You could make the argument that all motorised vehicles are potential lethal weapons, but that wasn’t what they were designed for, and their positive uses are far greater than the the negatives.
By banning alcohol and/or cars Finland could have saved 32 lives in 2006 alone. That’s more than the death toll from both of their school shooting incidents.
Cars and alcohol - never a good combination. Guns and alcohol - never a good combination. Guns, cars and alcohol, and you’ve almost got a great movie!
All that you left out was the breasteses.
We’ll fit them in post-production. 
So now we have to have a ban on cars because we restrict guns because there is a logical inconsistency when you only look at the argument and take the actual items (guns and cars as exactly the same thing).
There are many laws that are illogical when brought down to that level. Will I go and look at something that kills less people than guns in the US but is restricted so I can then beat you over the head with the US’s illogical thinking involved in restricting that but not guns?
It still doesn’t change the fact that the majority of people don’t have a care in the world about the gun restrictions. We are culturally bvery different from the US.
I don’t see the point in going much further than that as all it is now is semantics on both sides. We’re using orr frames of reference and you yours. They are so different that we are barely speaking the same language on this subject.
If you phrase it honestly there is no inconsistency.
We ban guns because we dislike/fear them.
We do not ban cars because we do not dislike/fear them.
When you start making it a public safety issue, then it’s hard for an onlooker to not wonder at the inconsistency or hypocrisy involved.
We ban guns because people get killed by guns.
More people get killed by cars, but we don’t ban them.
Maybe if you explain it this way:
“We keep the cars but not the guns because the convenience of having personal transportation for those who can afford it outweighs the value of the human lives lost and societal resources expended.”
Either plain old fear or valuing convenience above the lives lost is a more logical and consistent position than claiming it is about public safety.
It is a public safety issue though. As is car usage.
We restrict car usage (speed, road legal car, drive on the road and not the kerb etc.) The ramifications of banning cars are too many and any major political party that ran on a ban all cars platform would be laughed at and certainly never get into power.
A gun ban however doesn’t have the same ramifications and so is able to get through the political process without pissing off many people. Restrictions are not all equal and the specific type of ban and what is being restricted is important.
So, it still isn’t really about public safety. It’s about getting and keeping political power?
So, it still isn’t really about public safety. It’s about how much you can restrict people before they get pissed off? (see above)
No it’s about doing what is possible. Laws are not put in place by a dictator here. They have to pass through a political process. These politicans have to get votes and also live in the real world.
So, it still isn’t really about public safety. It’s about how much you can restrict people before they get pissed off? (see above)
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Again it’s a political process.
Please name any democracy in the world were laws are brought in by people removed from the considerations of the voters?
Politicics is the art of the possible not the loggically consistant.