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[Sebatianos]

Originally posted by taikara@Apr 27 2005, 09:04 PM
Especially in America, where for some reason, just about every other person possesses a "criminal mind."

That reason must be eliminated.

Now of course you should protect yourself from being robbed, harmed, raped, killed,... But if everybody starts preparing themselves for this - you end up with a militant society. You need to prevent the criminal element to be such a strong factor in your society (and the "I'll shoot you if you come to rob me" way of thinking isn't the right answer).
It's still better then "I'll shoot you because you are looking mean and I feel threatened by you" way of thinking (somthing this law is said to allow), but that "I'll shoot you" only produces violence.
Most of the people that have guns illegaly posses it just because they feel it's their right to have a gun (there are more people in US that legally posses a gun, then those who posses it illegaly). That's the way of thinking that led up to this law - and if you wanna have a gun to protect your self in your home you're contributing to this way of thinking.

[Lizard]

My 5 cents:
Myself I think that desire of needing a gun(and to use it in self-defence,or something that would owner of gun classify as "self-defence) depend of how much people trust,that law and police is going to protect them.I can easily imagine that in countries/states with effective police and more or less functional law is desire to use guns for self-defence lower than in countries/states that dont have effecitve police etc...
Here in slovakia are people allowed to have firearms,but just under very specific and limited circumstates....
And the only thing I say about new floridan law is:
It will make work of certain lawyers, much less dificult :whistle:

[Fruit Pie Jones]

For the record, this law does not sound like a good idea to me, although I have not read its actual text, so I can't really pass fair judgment on it. (News articles about this sort of thing tend to leave out all sorts of important information, so they're not of much use.) I want to know if the law provides any kind of concrete definition of a "threat," as that would seem to be a very important thing to know when determining whether or not to shoot someone. Regardless of that, I think taikara has a valid point about innocent bystanders. Police are trained not to shoot if there's a chance that someone else could be hit besides the intended target; Joe Citizen does not have that kind of training and will be a lot more likely to spray bullets at random in a high-adrenaline situation.

That said, I am staunchly against gun-control laws, the primary reason being that no anti-gun lobbyist has ever come up with a feasible way to take guns from criminals. Gun-control laws will only keep guns out of the hands of those who obey those laws. Criminals, by definition, tend not to do that. There seem to be a few here who are in favor of gun control, so I'll ask you directly: After banning the sale and ownership of guns by private citizens, how would you take the guns away from the criminals who already have them? Seriously, I'd like to hear some solutions. Change my opinion on this matter, and I'll kiss you full on the mouth.*



*No. No I won't.

[Sebatianos]

Originally posted by Fruit Pie Jones@Apr 27 2005, 09:20 PM
Seriously, I'd like to hear some solutions. Change my opinion on this matter.

Well I know this might sound a bit radical, but you know what demilitarized zones are? That's an military term, for a place where no one should own a gun. The solution might be radical, but one way would be a large scale house search. If you agree to the search - then they can search every corner anyway. If you don't agree that's reason enough to suspect that you posses a fire arm - so you're suspected of breaking the law, taken away for questioning and your house is searched.

A group of people with metal detectors going from house to house and big fines for everybody who doesn't give in their weapons would probably do it.

Like I said - radical, but I bet it would eliminate at least 85% if illegal gun possesion.

Also people would know that no-one should have a gun, so just by seeing somebody with one you should report that person (now that's imposible, because all those people probably are allowed to carry them). So if every school punk would get reported and would stay without a gun if not imediately at least in a span of a few years it should produce resoults.

[omg]

i dont think you having a gun is protection from someone breaking into your home and killing u. if you are a normall person you psychologically dont have the internall mechanism to kill, so you will hesetate, maybe only for a second but the guy who has come to kill you doesnt have this problem and that second is all it takes for him to squeeze of the first shot, also it is a fact that when under fear for there lives normall people shake, the criminal who has broken into your home with the intent to kill you, most likely will not, his shot will be more accurate, yours has a greater chance of going off target. yes in england due to the gun control laws the only people who have guns are criminals and farmers, but we have a lower per capita murder rate than you do. also chew on this
i have quite a nice knife, were i the type that is inclined to murder people, all that would be heard as i stabbed someone is a scream, which the nieghbours would probablly put down to a domestic. if i shoot someone, unless it is with a modded air gun, it is far more likely the police will be called upping the odds of me being caught.

[taikara]

@Sebatianos' response:

Somehow, I don't see that flying too well in the U.S. ...

I tend to agree with FPJ... without completely removing personal liberty, there's no way to effectively remove firearms from the possession of the criminals who wish to use them.

[Fruit Pie Jones]

Originally posted by Sebatianos@Apr 27 2005, 01:28 PM
A group of people with metal detectors going from house to house and big fines for everybody who doesn't give in their weapons would probably do it.

A house-to-house search of every residence in the United States? Really, how practical is that? Not to mention the fact that nobody, law-abiding or otherwise, would allow those sorts of police-state tactics here. Plus, how do you propose to enforce those big fines? Remember, we know the violators have guns.

[DeathDude]

Yeah ditto where I live in Alberta, there was a lot of protest when the gun control issue was mentioned, mainly because of the many rural areas we have around here, there would still be protest to the issue if that was going to happen, people wouldn't just give up so easily imo, they'd just fight it and that could even lead to more violent revolt.

[Sebatianos]

Originally posted by taikara@Apr 27 2005, 09:33 PM
completely removing personal liberty

Why? Personal liberty is much more then just possesing firearms, and BTW - how do you know you even have any (have you checked that the big brother is turned the other way at the moment)?

[omg]

hand guns were also legal here in the 80s. removel of handguns from the public market has lead to a dramatic decrease in the number of people being shot, altho in london it has started to increase again. oddly enuff all of the people i have met who illigally own guns have quite a large hip hop collection. (except for one guy, all he owns is death metal)