# Why Should Guns Be Legal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 7, 2017, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154 "2017-10-07T00:21:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/101 "2017-10-08T00:22:21Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Recreation? Really? See, you’d have been better off talking about defending yourself from the Evil Nazi Groundhogs. > > If continuing to sell deadly weapons is all in the name of “recreation,” or “fun,” then who cares? Swimming pools are just for recreation. Thousands of children drown in them every year. People die skiing. People die using toothpicks. Smoking and drinking kill. Eating sugar kills. There are all kinds of recreational activities that are dangerous to those doing them and those around them. Do you know that at least 90 people die and over 3200 annually are seriously injured due to underinflated tires? What’s wrong with recreation? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/102 "2017-10-08T02:54:32Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > The only problem I am trying to solve right now is the biggest one. How to stop that guy from killing scores of people. Take away assault weapons which I define as auto and semi-auto rifles and you do it. Since nobody was killed by a gun in the Las Vegas massacre your problem isn’t solved. What killed all those people was a suicidal maniac who could have driven his plane full of gasoline into the crowd. Or an 18 wheeler. Both would have killed many more people. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/103 "2017-10-08T03:03:53Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > The only problem I am trying to solve right now is the biggest one. **How to stop that guy from killing scores of people. Take away assault weapons which I define as auto and semi-auto rifles and you do it.** You make it harder, not impossible. Oklahoma City, 9/11, etc. were all done without any firearms and had a cumulative death toll 50 times greater than Vegas. ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/104 "2017-10-08T03:15:04Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Our rights are inalienable, and they come from God, or if you prefer, Nature. Ok. So did God, in his holy write, decide that we have the right to semi-automatic weapons but not machine guns and antitank missiles? What is it that you can derive from nature or god that says in order to defend yourself, you must have a device with a kilometer of range that can fire as fast as you can pull the trigger? And carry as many bullets as can practically be fit into the ammunition feeding device the weapon uses? Why don’t your self defense rights stop at multi-shot tasers? That would stop most attackers. Or why don’t they continue to anti-aircraft missiles? That would stop even those nasty drones that government now has. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/105 "2017-10-08T03:36:32Z")
> [@SamuelA](#): > > Ok. So did God, in his holy write, decide that we have the right to semi-automatic weapons but not machine guns and antitank missiles? What the heck is a holy write? ---
**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:** [October 8, 2017, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/106 "2017-10-08T03:43:58Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > You make it harder, not impossible. This is true for all regulation of any kind, of anything. It’s all that any law can ever accomplish. That turns out to be a lot, especially when it starts to change how people think about dangerous things, whether it’s smoking, drunk driving, or guns. > [@Velocity](#): > > Oklahoma City, 9/11, etc. were all done without any firearms and had a cumulative death toll 50 times greater than Vegas. Is that a riff on that other comical digression, “you’re all gonna die eventually”? The focus of firearms laws is the indisputably very large number of preventable tragedies that involve firearms. This is not a difficult concept to understand unless one is very intent on not understanding it. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/107 "2017-10-08T03:44:05Z")
Guns should be legal because their positive utility outweighs the negative utility of making them illegal. This is evidenced and affirmed by the system of laws that we have in this country. The moment that calculus changes the laws of the country can be changed to reflect the new calculus. Good luck. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/108 "2017-10-08T04:26:01Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Guns should be legal because their positive utility outweighs the negative utility of making them illegal. This is evidenced and affirmed by the system of laws that we have in this country. The moment that calculus changes the laws of the country can be changed to reflect the new calculus. I agree with the general principle here. But the problem seems to be that the debate is being driven by the extremes. We have a crowd on one side arguing that guns have no positive utility and a crowd on the other side arguing that guns have no negative utility. Which makes if difficult to compare the two. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/109 "2017-10-08T05:31:23Z")
> [@Fubaya](#): > > I was using the term loosely and meant assault rifle style semi autos. Hunting rifles that happen to be semi auto aren’t really a problem as much as assault rifle style semi autos that a few people actually happen to use to hunt. > > I don’t know why you brought up a ban on selling larger magazines. That has nothing to do with my post and I have no feeling either way about it. OK, let us say you have two semi auto rifles, both in the same caliber. Same magazine. One has a nice walnut stock. The other a black plastic stock, in a military style. It even has a bayonet lug. why would rifle A be legal and Rifle B illegal? They have the exact same potential for lethality. The only reason why semi-auto rifles are used often in spree mass killings is the large capacity magazine. ---
**Author:** ![Hintur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85f322/32.png) [@Hintur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hintur)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/110 "2017-10-08T11:16:59Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > A gun is a tool, much like a shovel or an axe. The difference is that while a shovel can be used for digging and an axe can be used for chopping wood, there’s only one use for a gun: killing things. This argument makes no sense. A shovel can be used for a single purpose, as can an axe, but a gun can only be used for a single purpose. Oh, but an axe can be used to pick your teeth and a shovel can be used to change the channel on your TV when the remote’s out of batteries; but the gun butt can be used to crack walnuts or to hammer a nail into the wall. ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/111 "2017-10-08T14:08:55Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > OK, let us say you have two semi auto rifles, both in the same caliber. Same magazine. > > One has a nice walnut stock. > > The other a black plastic stock, in a military style. It even has a bayonet lug. > > why would rifle A be legal and Rifle B illegal? They have the exact same potential for lethality. > > The only reason why semi-auto rifles are used often in spree mass killings is the large capacity magazine. This has nothing whatsoever to do with my post. I mistakenly said no one hunts with “semi autos” when I meant “semi autos with detachable magazines.” Is there some point to continuing down this unrelated tangent? ---
**Author:** ![Textual\_Innuendo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@Textual\_Innuendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Innuendo)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/112 "2017-10-08T14:28:47Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > People who are physically weaker can defend themselves against people who are physically stronger using tools like guns. You want to prohibit that, I believe that even people who are weak, sick, or handicapped have as much right to defend themselves as a stronger person. “Societies” isn’t a cite, provide and actual cite or don’t call it one. > [@aruvqan](#): > > And I happen to have the right to defend my home against people breaking and entering. If you bash in my front door, you get a warning shot and verbal warning to leave. You don’t leave, you die, simple as that. If all you are after is a tv then you deciding to shoot me - you deserve to die. > [@SamuelA](#): > > A murderous psychopath doesn’t have to give you a chance to get your weapons. If you, mdcastle, are one of those 2nd amendment nuts with a gun in every room of the house, that won’t do you any good if your attack is even semi-competent. All they have to do is wait for you to step outside and snipe you. Or sneak in while you’re asleep. Or just open fire on your bedroom from outside - did you upgrade your walls to ballistic glass and armor your windows? Hell, do you even own body armor? Great point, **SamuelA**. My read on this has always been that the majority of gun people are, fundamentally, pussies. They live in constant, crippling fear of criminals, liberals, and large black men storming into their house, smacking them around, and making themselves sandwiches as they roundly abuse their family members, which they would be absolutely cringeingly powerless to stop. Ah, but if they had a GUN! Then they would be Arnie and Sly combined! They’d be twelve feet tall and ripped like a greek god, and they’d be able to boom out in an authoritative god-like voice "Hold it right there, punk! ", whip out their 45 caliber hand-cannon, and righteously prevail over the evildoers in a puissant frenzy of action-movie tropes! So ignoring all evidence that large-black-men sandwich-and-outrage house invasions are essentially nonexistent, that guns wouldn’t protect you then unless you literally had it in your hand 24/7, and that guns in your house are vastly more likely to kill or injure one of your family members instead of “protecting” you, they indulge in these teenage-boy fantasies of them being the action hero to assuage the nigh-constant cringeing state of fear they live in. Fear which is constantly stoked by a whole industry built around it - news media concentrating the .01% of bad stuff into a never-ending stream of disaster, arbitrary violence, and black-sandwich-invasions. Simlarly, if the GUBMINT got all uppity, and tyrannical, they would put it back in it’s place toute suite! After all, that’s what the second amendment is ABOUT! And I promise you, buddy, nobody - but NOBODY - is quartering troops in THIS house, nosirree! That damn king of england went off with his tail between his legs and has never been back, thanks to me and my gun buddies! They all talk a game orders of magnitude bigger than they walk. I used to be on their side re the argument that a well-armed populace is a defense against tyranny. That’s not a bad thought to have. But then what happened when the government decided to take away huge chunks of our rights, essentially in perpetuity, with the Patriot Act? They’re at the front of the line cheering and calling anyone who doesn’t like it commies. What about when we found out that _our own government_ is spying on literally everything any of us ever does, and storing it in perpetuity? Not a peep. Not a problem! That’s not tyranny, that’s _necessary_! The terrists, you see! They’ll get me if we don’t do that! And I know they’re a problem because the Gubmint and the Teevee tell me so! What about the fact that [police steal more than burglars now](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-took-more-stuff-from-people-than-burglars-did-last-year/)? We literally live in a country where everything we do is spied upon, and the police steal more than burglars with absolute impunity. But is that a problem? Hell no! They’re stealing from those damn sandwich-invaders! What do I care?? Any credibility around gun people ever reacting against tyranny is well out the window by this point, completely aside of it being laughably antiquated in an age of stealth fighters, drones, and advanced military technology. In the aggregate, all they want to do is lovingly caress their guns because they make them feel big and important, and indulge in masturbatory action-movie fantasies to assuage their constant state of cringeing fear. The actual, empirical, side-effects of that? The highest gun violence rate of any industrialized nation, the most mass-shooting events, the most gun suicides, the most gun-related domestic violence, the most kids and family members killed by guns in the industrialized world. Pussies, the vast majority of them, who indirectly kill women, children, and others just to assuage their own never-ending fear the tiniest amount. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/113 "2017-10-08T15:00:47Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > You make it harder, not impossible. > > Oklahoma City, 9/11, etc. were all done without any firearms and had a cumulative death toll 50 times greater than Vegas. Now there’s a stat with some mental heft behind it. When you say “cumulative” you kind of leave real life behind. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/114 "2017-10-08T15:44:10Z")
I haven’t gone through all three pages so forgive me if this has been brought up already. The second amendment’s right to bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution not, as the NRA contends, so you can have a hobby of shooting paper or putting meat on the table, or even so you can shoot uppity criminals. The purpose is so you can shoot uppity bureaucrats. Wiki’s article on [Federalist No.46](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._46): > [@](#): > > During the ratification debate, many Americans feared that the federal government would become too powerful and too similar to the monarchy in Great Britain. Madison calculated while writing Federalist Paper 46 that the standing military, controlled by the federal government, should be kept under a maximum of 30,000 troops, enough to defend America against other nations but not enough to oppress the states. The states themselves, to protect themselves from the federal government from overpowering them with the threat of a standing army like Great Britain did when King George III sent his battalion to America, were allowed a total militia of 500,000 people. And lest you think “militia” refers to the National Guard, that is not so. The [Militia Act\_of 1903](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_Act_of_1903) defines the Guard is the “organized militia.” Every able-bodied male citizen from age 17 to 45 in this country is liable to be called up as part of the reserve (or “unorganized”) militia. Every veteran (male or female) is in the unorganized militia to age 64. Now, times have changed since 1789 or even 1903. Perhaps all is lollipops and roses and our governments would never, ever change the way they are now. But I think the the number of people who will think making Donny Two-scoops President for Life is a great idea is far, far greater than the fans of Obama ever would have. Since those without guns only enjoy as much freedom those with the guns are willing to grant them, I’d like to keep mine. [_We Did It to Ourselves_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVhBAI9a66s) ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/115 "2017-10-08T15:51:09Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > You make it harder, not impossible. > > Oklahoma City, 9/11, etc. were all done without any firearms and had a cumulative death toll 50 times greater than Vegas. The guns were bought legally. He got the room legally. There was nothing illegal about bringing them to his room. In fact, he did not break the law until he broke the window and started shooting. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say it should have been harder than that. Neither of the other incidents were as easy as you mention. Of note, is that apparently Paddock had a plane, apparently he had some bomb precursors. Ultimately, he went the gun route. Maybe just because it was easier. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/116 "2017-10-08T15:57:43Z")
> [@Textual\_Innuendo](#): > > Great point, **SamuelA**. My read on this has always been that the majority of gun people are, fundamentally, pussies. They live in constant, crippling fear of criminals, liberals, and large black men storming into their house, smacking them around, and making themselves sandwiches as they roundly abuse their family members, which they would be absolutely cringeingly powerless to stop. > > Ah, but if they had a GUN! Then they would be Arnie and Sly combined! They’d be twelve feet tall and ripped like a greek god, and they’d be able to boom out in an authoritative god-like voice "Hold it right there, punk! ", whip out their 45 caliber hand-cannon, and righteously prevail over the evildoers in a puissant frenzy of action-movie tropes! Great way to stereotype. To get back to reality, none of that is true. We have some hard-core liberals on this board that are gun owners. Some are even women and minorities. They all have them for their own reason and I would bet good money that none of them are going to kill anyone with them. I have two chain saws. Are you also going to claim that I am a threat to Texas? ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/117 "2017-10-08T16:19:11Z")
> [@Textual\_Innuendo](#): > > In the aggregate, all they want to do is lovingly caress their guns because they make them feel big and important, and indulge in masturbatory action-movie fantasies to assuage their constant state of cringeing fear. This is a warning for sexualizing posters and their arguments. Really it was a grab bag in this post but this one was pretty clear. If you feel you must, the BBQ Pit is right around the corner. [/moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/118 "2017-10-08T18:11:12Z")
Sorry for my absence – not trying to post and ditch, just been busy. I’ll try to respond to everyone who hasn’t been responded to already by someone else making the same point I was making… > [@D\_Anconia](#): > > The Second Amendment doesn’t “make guns legal”; it recognizes a right that the people already have. > [@D\_Anconia](#): > > No, it does not. The right already exists. That was certainly the Enlightenment-era line of thought when they wrote the Bill of Rights, but it doesn’t MEAN anything. You have no rights, beyond what society guarantees for you. And even if society says that you have a right, if that right isn’t enforced, you lack it (see: Jim Crow era. Blacks may have equal protection by law, but that doesn’t do jack squat for them. Maybe they should have had more guns? :smack:) > [@Boo\_Boo\_Foo](#): > > And I’ll offer the far more powerful conter-argument that I offered Scylla. Even when you look at the Australian model of a compulsory compensation scheme to remove 320,000 Semi Automatic Rifles from circulation, it still cost Australia roughly $400 million at the time and roughly 10% it’s estimated were never handed in and remain in circulation. Extrapolate that to American society, the compensation figure becomes billions of dollars and what makes you or anyone think the outcome in America would be any different? > > Forget about overturning 2A - just focus on the real world physical implications of what’s being proposed here… If 90% of guns in the US went away, that’s 270 MILLION guns. If we reduced mass shootings in the US by 90 percent, that’s 315 fewer mass shootings a year. 27,000 fewer gun deaths. That sounds PRETTY FUCKING GOOD to me. Let’s DO IT! > [@Pantastic](#): > > When you start from a base question of ‘justify why should this be legal’ instead of ‘justify why should this be illegal’, you’re doing a good job of building a police state. In a free society, things should be legal by default and the burdern of proof on people who want to make them illegal. I disagree. When a drug company comes up with a new drug, we make them prove that it’s safe and does what it promises before we allow them to sell it. Does that make us a police state? Besides, guns are an extreme case. You are saying, “I want the right to possess the ability to kill you, or anyone else, at a whim, from a distance, with a minuscule twitch of my finger”. I think “Absolutely not! Are you batshit CRAZY?!” is a valid response to that request, thank you very much. I don’t care that you don’t have the right to ACTUALLY DO IT. You have the right to posses the means to do it. The fact that you’ll end up in jail afterwards doesn’t really help me very much, does it? > [@Ruken](#): > > I don’t understand this obsession with guns. Especially with mass shootings. The risk they pose to me is so small as to be non-existent. And certainly not sufficient to justify legislating away people’s hobbies. 30,000 dead Americans a year isn’t “minuscule”. > [@aruvqan](#): > > We have a part time animal control officer, she works one day of the week. When an animal or group of animals is harrying my animals, it is harrying them _right now_ and they will be DEAD by the time anybody could respond [as it was, a group of 3 ‘pets’ did over 250 stitches worth of damage to one of my show rams … and it took them the 5 or so minutes between hearing the ruckus and my getting onto the side porch with a weapon and killing them to kill 2 ewes and permanently maim my ram.] And the dick move is letting your pet dogs out to roam and kill other peoples animals. > > And I happen to have the right to defend my home against people breaking and entering. If you bash in my front door, you get a warning shot and verbal warning to leave. You don’t leave, you die, simple as that. If all you are after is a tv then you deciding to shoot me - you deserve to die. Get a taser. Get your own dog. Get a BB gun to scare away another person’s pet rather than brutally gunning it down. These are all valid alternatives that don’t require me to agree that you, a guy I don’t know from Adam, deserves the ability to kill me dead at a thousand feet. > [@SamuelA](#): > > About the same as if I had a machine gun. > > A murderous psychopath doesn’t have to give you a chance to get your weapons. If you, mdcastle, are one of those 2nd amendment nuts with a gun in every room of the house, that won’t do you any good if your attack is even semi-competent. All they have to do is wait for you to step outside and snipe you. Or sneak in while you’re asleep. Or just open fire on your bedroom from outside - did you upgrade your walls to ballistic glass and armor your windows? Hell, do you even own body armor? > > Most 2nd amendment nuts have all the guns in the world, but no real alarm system, nothing to stop an intruder breaking down a door, no body armor, and essentially would die in seconds in any real gunfight. > > If you’re the exception and sleep in a bunker, good for you, but most I know of don’t have the resources for that. Exactly. Either you are a “responsible gun owner” who keeps his gun unloaded at all times and in a safe, in which case when someone breaks into your house, you’re fucked anyways; or you sleep with a loaded pistol under your pillow, in which case you still have pretty good odds of getting shot, but you also run the risk of blowing your own stupid head off. > [@Esox\_Lucius](#): > > That would be a legitimate point to make in Sudan and Somalia, but you’re in arguably the greatest nation ever. Is American society so weak that law and order can’t be maintained if citizens don’t have guns? Really? > > And how is it that guns are the only way to stay safe in America? Are you sure there are no other options? Again, this. We all agree that vigilante justice is a bad idea, yes? Batman is a comic book character, not a role model. It’s not your job to “defend yourself” by gunning down trespassers. That’s what law enforcement is for. In most civilized countries, it is NOT legal to shoot someone just because they barged into your house. Frankly, the fact that it’s not only legal in America, but that so many Americans think it’s the right thing to do, really troubles me. > [@Pantastic](#): > > People who are physically weaker can defend themselves against people who are physically stronger using tools like guns. You want to prohibit that, I believe that even people who are weak, sick, or handicapped have as much right to defend themselves as a stronger person. “Societies” isn’t a cite, provide and actual cite or don’t call it one. They can also use tasers or pepper spray, or call for help, or take self defense classes. I don’t know what fantasy world you live in, but if a mugger grabs a woman from behind in a dark alley, she isn’t going to be able to whip out her pistol and shoot him if he’s so much stronger than her anyways. Knowing that your targets are carrying deadly weapons would make muggers much more likely to carry their own weapons, or just use deadly force. > [@](#): > > The poster used ‘it makes me feel safer’ as a justification for restricting people’s rights. There are a lot of people who feel safer restricting the rights of blacks, muslims, gays, and other minorities, and their argument of “it makes me feel safer” is equally valid. Muslims, blacks, gays, and other minorities aren’t by their very nature deadly threats to human life. They don’t have the magic power to spew hot lead in your general direction from a distance. > [@DrDeth](#): > > Guns are only used for killing? :dubious: That’s their intended purpose, yes. > [@](#): > > There are about 16 Olympic sports games that use guns. More guns are used in the Olympics (including qualification rounds, of course) than are used to murder in the USA. You could shoot a target without using a tool capable of stripping a human of his life at a hundred yards. > [@](#): > > In some areas of the USA, notably Alaska, subsistance hunting is still a way of life, without guns those people would starve. Last time I checked, hunting involved killing. So this isn’t a counterexample. > [@](#): > > Sport hunting is very common, there are almost 40 million hunting licenses sold in the USA each year. 40,000,000 vs 10000. See the difference? Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize that sport hunting involved gently tickling the target. Oh wait, the purpose of guns is still killing. > [@](#): > > Shooting skeet is a sport. Sounds like fun. Could you do it with a weapon that’s not capable of killing a human? > [@](#): > > Gun collecting is a hobby- many of those 300 million guns have never been fired. Great, you can get any kind of gun you want – from a pistol to an m249 machine gun – if it’s not functional. If you aren’t gonna shoot it anyways, what’s the difference? > [@](#): > > We dont have any good stats on gun use for defense. While it is true that the number of times a gun was used to KILL in self defense was low, anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that simply \*showing \*a firearm prevent many crimes. And how much more often do American criminals shoot their targets than criminals in other countries, both because they know their target could have a gun and because they themselves can easily get their hands on one? > [@Shagnasty](#): > > However, there is no gun control measure that would have stopped the recent Las Vegas shooting so let’s not kid ourselves. You can’t just legislate away every problem. People always say this. “But the gun was legal! So gun control wouldn’t help!” It would if the gun was ILLEGAL and so the shooter couldn’t buy it in the first place! > [@Shagnasty](#): > > That is not a good argument and the consequences are not predictable. My own father owns a metric shit-ton of guns and most of them have never been fired. He just buys them as works of art. They are collectively worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Gun stock craftsmanship and metal engraving artisanship is a real field of the arts that only a few people in the world can do. People pay dearly for Spanish and Italian shotguns that cost over $15,000 for example just to put them over their mantle. Those aren’t going to be used to kill anyone and it would cause a huge stir if someone tried to confiscate them. That said, they are functional and could be used to kill or injure a large number of people. > > How tight does the lockdown need to be and for how long? I am starting to think we need a remedial class in statistics on the SDMB. Yes, it is terrible but so is everything else. You are all going to die. Sounds good. I think a 1886 Winchester Repeater would look great on my wall. But if I ever bought one, it would be a non-functional replica. Why can’t your father’s collection of guns be similarly disabled? > [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Our rights are inalienable, and they come from God, or if you prefer, Nature. Bullshit. You think cavemen had rights? You think people in ancient Rome had rights? Your rights come from the society you live in and its willingness to defend your rights. If your society is shitty enough, your rights come from your own ability to defend said rights. In other words, in a place like Somalia, your rights come from the barrel of a gun. Why are so many Americans eager to make America the same? ---
**Author:** ![Unabashed\_Fascist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/c2a13f/32.png) [@Unabashed\_Fascist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unabashed_Fascist)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/119 "2017-10-08T19:10:17Z")
I’ll jump on the pro-gun bandwagon. I own a few firearms, all for the same reason, because they’re fun. Generally speaking the larger the caliber, the louder, and the more powerful the gun is, the more fun it is to shoot. That’s where it ends for me; I have never, and will never shoot anything living. Much the same as drinking alcohol, I don’t do it for any productive reason, I do it because it’s fun. Alcohol has it’s uses as a chemical, sure, just like guns have their usage (military and police), but for the every-man their sole purpose is recreation. If we went back to prohibition, far fewer people would die from drunk drivers; the trade-off there is analogous. I understand that because I have the right to drink alcohol recreationally, some number of people may die each year because of other people are abusing that right. Same goes for firearms, I understand that by having the right to own and operate firearms, some number of people are going to die from abusing that right. In my mind, these are comparable in that their both needless recreation with negative externalities, but I accept them because I don’t personally want to lose my rights just because of some bad people. I concede it’s a bit self-centered, but that’s my reasoning. ---
**Author:** ![PlaceboTarget](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/placebotarget/32/1073_2.png) [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2017, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154/120 "2017-10-08T19:32:34Z")
There is little reason why guns should be legal. I live in Bucharest, Romania. My brother has lived in the United States for 20 years, where he graduated high school and university. He’s a great gun ownership supporter, which comes as a shock to me. Romania and Cyprus have the strictest gun control laws in Europe. Where do you think you can find the lowest murder and violent robbery rates in Europe? Exactly - in Romania and Cyprus. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-guns-be-legal/798154.md?page=7)