You sound like you work for an insurance company. Or maybe someone who just wants to make guns expensive enough to keep them away from the poorer minorities. Are you republican?
This still works.
sigh. It has lready been explained multiple times why that is NOT an option when using a firearm defensively.
I thought it was common practice among the sane and responsible gunowners to keep the first shot of guns a blank so that idle 4 year olds don’t blast their face off on accidental discharge. If it isn’t, it sure as hell should be.
Fine. You’re right. Even 1 gun is too many. Get rid of guns all together. And for the record, I don’t dislike guns. I’ve shot them and it’s fun as hell. However, I’m a rational adult who realizes that giving up the “right” to shoot something for the greater good is something worth sacrificing. It’s called living in a society and not being a selfish ass.
Seriously, in the spirit of the OP, are there any reasons that pro-gun advocates can give other than leaning on an archaic law, and the “sense of security” ? When you bought your gun, did you think “this is awesome” or “I will use this to kill people (in self defense)”.
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I thought it was common practice among the sane and responsible gunowners to keep the first shot of guns a blank so that idle 4 year olds don’t blast their face off on accidental discharge. If it isn’t, it sure as hell should be.
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It used to be a fairly common practice to keep the firing chamber clear (i.e. not blank but empty) with the older guns, especially revolvers, to prevent accidental firing. Some people still do this (when I used to carry a semi-automatic pistol as concealed I used to carry with the clip in but no round in the chamber), but modern safety actions make it less necessary than it was. A lot of safety actions on newer guns actually put a block into the breach, completely preventing an accidental fire, and many of my dads guns have multiple safeties built into them (in the grip, ambidextrous flip down safety and on the trigger). Your hypothetical 4 year old couldn’t shoot any of my dads guns by accident with the exception of some of the revolvers if they had the strength for the trigger pull or to cock the hammer back, but in those cases my dad has trigger locks and keeps the revolvers unloaded.
Go ahead, ban guns. It really doesn’t matter. Millions of scofflaws will report their guns were lost or stolen and will keep them in the house for an emergency; or maybe even continue to conceal-carry. An underground cottage industry of gunsmiths who have the necessary tools and skills to crank out guns and magazines will thrive. The black market for hijacked, smuggled or homemade guns will be more lucrative than ever, and continue to supply the drug dealers and gang members. Police will be bushwacked for their firearms. If home 3D printing ever takes off, there will inevitably be specs for making guns with them. The “War on Guns” will continue decade after decade, never reducing the prevalence of guns below a certain threshold. And yes, massacres will continue to happen occasionally- with illegal guns, with machetes, with bombs, with gasoline, with poison. With regards to guns, the US will become another Mexico. And the one thing that will never, ever happen is that we’ll get the violence-free haven of safety the banners dream of. Congratulations gun banners, I hope you’ll be happy. :mad:
So why all the ruckus?
I thought “this is awesome” AND “someday I may need to use this to kill people in self-defense.” They’re not mutually exclusive thoughts, you understand.
And firearms are the only defensive weapon which equalizes the odds between a stronger person and a smaller, weaker person, or between one person and multiple attackers. A world without guns would not be a safer world for me as long as that world still contained aggressively-inclined males, as most males do not need guns (or for that matter, any weapons at all) to kill or seriously injure me. Get rid of aggressive males, and then we can talk about getting rid of guns.
Because most of us would prefer not to have to become felons in order to possess an effective defensive weapon?
How are you managing without rocket propelled grenades?
Hyperaggressive males are the reason that you thought “This is awesome. I’m going to kill someone with this.” I’m so glad the 2nd amendment was so graciously accommodating.
Quite easily. I can foresee no situation where I need to take out a battalion of attackers or a tank. I can easily visualize a situation where I’m being confronted by 1-3 attackers. A gun suffices for that.
Yes, aggressive males (who commit nearly 100% of violent crimes against adults) are the reason I bought a gun for self defense. In a world where they did not exist, I wouldn’t feel the need for a defensive firearm.
I would still feel the sensation of shooting a firearm was awesome, but that can be achieved by simply renting a gun at a range. No need to bring it home just for that.
I’d like to think through and discuss with someone: what would happen if guns were completely outlawed except for the military. I asked this question to solosam, and he responeded:
Then my response was, “Now these criminals you speak of, that would acquire their guns illegally and would still keep their old guns, what kinds of crimes could they commit with these illegally owned guns? (List as many as you can.)”
I just want to see if there is any way to justify outlawing guns. I may be wrong, but I would like to explore this situation a little more.
So, a 30 round magazine would be overkill, right?
just to throw my own experience in to answer the OP: I own a couple guns. Most of them are heirlooms with historic value and I do not carry or fire those. I have one rifle which I use to hunt deer because I like venison. I have one handgun which I can legally carry for self defense. Why the handgun? In 1995 (only months before the Texas CC laws came into effect,) my youngest brother took a knife in the carotid saving my ass in a mugging. I got my CCL and well above and beyond the required training for said CCL because I was never going to be a victim like that again. As the years have passed, I have pulled my concealed carry weapon 20 times (I keep a log book,) and I have had to discharge my weapon once. That one time was a doberman who should have been put down because it had mauled two people previously. It got out of it’s yard and was intent upon requiring me to receive numerous stitches I had no interest in having. I have found my pistol to be useful and to have saved my worthless butt more than once, but most importantly, the responsibility of my firearm taught me how to avoid situations where it would become necessary. I haven’t carried my pistol in the past two years unless I was going to the range. To answer your question, bad things may not happen to you, but when every last cop I talked to said ‘its too bad you can’t carry till next september. Everyone probably would have walked away tonight,’ you start to think that maybe a gun might be reasonable. Now, I am not a good example. My experience (and I would like to say that it has been MY EXPERIENCE,) has been that most people who have guns do not treat them with the respect, caution and introspection that is appropriate to a device which can end a human life easier than opening an app on an iPhone.
oh yeah, my deer rifle is a Vietnam vintage XM-21. It is what would be called an assault rifle (it takes a 20 round magazine and has a flash hider, and it was military issue.) I have 4 twenty round magazines for it. the only time I use those is the shooting range which is the only reason I see for a magazine which holds more than 10 rounds: it allows me to be lazy at the range. any other time it’s the 5 round magazine for me.
What would they do? How about everything that previously convicted felons who illegally possess guns do?
I can get by with a couple of 10 round magazines just fine.
The whole point of this thread is to come to a conclusion about whether a gun is needed per household.
I am not talking about public places because that’s a different story. The shooting in Newtown happened due to poor security. At our local elementary school, they literally lock the door and it doesn’t open until you push a button. But for now, that is irrelevant because you having a gun in your house is not going to stop these kinds of public events.
Many argue that the necessity of owning a gun is so that you can defend yourself. Now people don’t carry around a gun in public, do they? No! They keep them at home. So if one’s gun stays at home all the time, what other purpose can it serve other than to protect him/herself from attacks at their house?
So going back to the imaginary situation I have created for my arguing purposes, guns are completely outlawed except for the military. But I would like to revise that. Let’s make it so that guns are outlawed to everyone except the authorities, military, and the police. Aside from this, guns are outlawed.
So now we have this new imaginary situation where you don’t have a gun. However criminals can acquire it illegally and that is the danger of guns - that criminals can come and attack anyone’s house and the owner of the house in discussion has no gun so therefore, he/she has no way to defend him/herself.
Before proceeding to any kind of discussion about this, I would like to ask anyone to specifically list all the possible crimes that can be committed by illegal gun owners (pretend that my imaginary situation exists) against home owners. What Lumpy said makes sense, but that is too vague. Now I am asking for specific crimes that one can commit with an illegally possessed gun only against one’s house. Not a public crime like the shooting in Newtown, because remember I am trying to get at whether an average person really needs a gun so public crimes like this are irrelevant. I mean like crimes like someone breaking through your house and shooting you at night, etc. Crimes like those.
You may think, “Why is this random person asking me to list all the possible crimes illegal gun owners can commit?” But it’s relevant and if you answer, you’ll find out where I’m going with this.