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[Quartz_Mace]

Okay, I guess I actually will chime in here. I live in the U.S. myself, and I'm sorry to say that an attempted buy back in the U.S. Would work nothing like the one in Australia.

Our congress is so slow and ineffective, that even if the Democrats held power for the forseeable future, and even if someone finds the secret to effective immortality, none of us will ever live to see the day they pass such legislation.

Even if they did, the protests would be horrible. The moment anyone in congress proposes that automatic weapons should maybe be banned, the gun advocates  instantly scream "They're tryna' take our Guns away!" And honestly, we already have the occasional "armed" protest when a bunch of conservatives get together, arm themselves, and take a stand (literally just standing or sitting in a field for the publicity while people run out to get supplies for them and the media films and encourages this behavior. No violence occurs, really.), all because someone proposed extending background checks. While most of these happen in the middle of nowhere and are essentially publicity stunts, a whole bunch of armed people leading a pro-gun protest is a very hard situation to disarm.

And honestly, and I know I might sound crazy, but I think they might be right. We've seen that these laws don't stop terrorists from committing their atrocities, and if I ever find myself in a situation where a gun is my best means of self-defense, I want to have that. People have rights, the right to life being one of the most important, and the right to arms is vital to protecting said life. I'm not saying that no regulations should be in place, but if we're going to get more watered-down nonsense out of congress, maybe they should spend their time fixing one of the millions of other problems that desperately needs to be fixed.

In all seriousness, the U.S. government was formed with the Bill of Rights to protect these rights, not give them. The government does not own my life, I own my life. And I also have the right to use weapons to protect my life, as protected by the second amendment. If a person wants to own a gun for self-defense, if they are mentally stable, and buy it legally going through legal processes, that should be allowed. And arbitrary restrictions on what can be considered a "lawful arm" endanger this right. At this point, there are so many guns in the U.S. that can't feasibly be tracked down that could be continually circulated. And all of this means nothing if we don't work to shut down the black markets and illegal weapons trafficking that plague this country. Even if you had all of this in place, people can learn how to make effective weapons on their own, or even more easily make bombs or use other weapons to achieve their killings. The rights of law-abiding individuals should not be infringed upon because other people who are willing to break these laws have done bad things using these systems, especially if disarming the law-abiding citizens takes away a vital defense mechanism that is their inalienable right.

[Insanegame27]

Okay, I guess I actually will chime in here. I live in the U.S. myself, and I'm sorry to say that an attempted buy back in the U.S. Would work nothing like the one in Australia.

Our congress is so slow and ineffective, that even if the Democrats held power for the forseeable future, and even if someone finds the secret to effective immortality, none of us will ever live to see the day they pass such legislation.

Even if they did, the protests would be horrible. The moment anyone in congress proposes that automatic weapons should maybe be banned, the gun advocates  instantly scream "They're tryna' take our Guns away!" And honestly, we already have the occasional "armed" protest when a bunch of conservatives get together, arm themselves, and take a stand (literally just standing or sitting in a field for the publicity while people run out to get supplies for them and the media films and encourages this behavior. No violence occurs, really.), all because someone proposed extending background checks. While most of these happen in the middle of nowhere and are essentially publicity stunts, a whole bunch of armed people leading a pro-gun protest is a very hard situation to disarm.

And honestly, and I know I might sound crazy, but I think they might be right. We've seen that these laws don't stop terrorists from committing their atrocities, and if I ever find myself in a situation where a gun is my best means of self-defense, I want to have that. People have rights, the right to life being one of the most important, and the right to arms is vital to protecting said life. I'm not saying that no regulations should be in place, but if we're going to get more watered-down nonsense out of congress, maybe they should spend their time fixing one of the millions of other problems that desperately needs to be fixed.

In all seriousness, the U.S. government was formed with the Bill of Rights to protect these rights, not give them. The government does not own my life, I own my life. And I also have the right to use weapons to protect my life, as protected by the second amendment. If a person wants to own a gun for self-defense, if they are mentally stable, and buy it legally going through legal processes, that should be allowed. And arbitrary restrictions on what can be considered a "lawful arm" endanger this right. At this point, there are so many guns in the U.S. that can't feasibly be tracked down that could be continually circulated. And all of this means nothing if we don't work to shut down the black markets and illegal weapons trafficking that plague this country. Even if you had all of this in place, people can learn how to make effective weapons on their own, or even more easily make bombs or use other weapons to achieve their killings. The rights of law-abiding individuals should not be infringed upon because other people who are willing to break these laws have done bad things using these systems, especially if disarming the law-abiding citizens takes away a vital defense mechanism that is their inalienable right.

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."


Tell me, what militia are you a part of? Unless you answer that with the 'US armed forces' or 'military', the second amendment does not apply. The Army and Police fulfill the role of 'A well regulated militia'.


You don't actually need a gun for self-defence. Earlier, I told my recount of my attempted mugging and subsequent strobelighting of my attacker. I didn't have a gun. Nobody died or was injured permanently and I successfully defended myself against a man twice my bulk who was in possession of a knife.


I'm not saying that guns are all bad. Sometimes they are necessary, but for fuck sake man, at least do a background check on people before you give something which is designed and manufactured to end lives. One of my friends went to America and was standing behind a woman at the mall, grabbing something off the shelves. She hears this massive BANG and looks up to see the woman collapsing. Her infant child had reached into his mother's handbag and discharged the pistol she had for 'self-defense.' The mother was shot through the heart. That little kid has to grow up knowing that he killed his own mother.


There are thousands of these recountings, although this one struck me home because my friend told me: 'I heard a loud bang and next thing I know, I'm covered in blood. I thought it was me who had been shot before I saw her collapse.'


Guns are not at fault - as with all things, it's the operator. Make it illegal to own a firearm without a licence.


RE: if I ever find myself in a situation where a gun is my best means of self-defense
I can imagine exactly zero situations when this would be applicable. Someone pulls a gun on you, are you going to run to your car, get an assault rifle out and mow him down? Are you going to reach inside your jacket to 'defend yourself' with a pistol? No, anyone reaching inside their jacket can be presumed to be pulling out something to 'defend themselves' with. It may be a means of self-defence, but it's by far the stupidest and never the best means.


RE: If a person wants to own a gun for self-defense, if they are mentally stable, and buy it legally going through legal processes, that should be allowed.
The problem here is that it's nigh-impossible to tell if somebody's mentally stable, and gun store owners are not all trained psychologists. The means of getting one legally is what we want to see changed. People should need full-on proper mental evaluation, thorough background checks, risk assessments, waiting periods and proper 'shoot-to-not-kill' training before they should even be able to consider buying a gun. Other forms of self-defence should be promoted. Stick a bright strobe light in someone's eye and they can't see for a long time, disoriented even longer and better yet: Nobody died (unless the dude has epilepsy). Learn a martial art and get in shape. Guns kill. Imagine if your life ended: consider all your family, your friends; then imagine that the other guy has the exact same thing as you, a family, loved ones. Imagine your parent's grief if you were killed. Imagine the other guy's parent's grief if they lose a son. Then imagine if he wasn't dead, but you had 'protected yourself' by some other means other than a gun. GET A TASER/STUN-GUN instead of a gun which kills!

[Erkki]

"Assault rifle ban" didn't work in Belgium. Third of the country's guns went "missing" until they returned back to the old firearm law some 2 years later when populists parties gained power. I think its similar to the gun violence and homicide rates versus gun ownership, for every example of there being correlation/causality relationship and something working or not working, you have one proving there isn't.

edit:

Guns are not at fault - as with all things, it's the operator. Make it illegal to own a firearm without a licence.

I believe this is the case in most of the world and would probably be good in the US too... At least for certain types of firearm.

edit2:

The problem here is that it's nigh-impossible to tell if somebody's mentally stable, and gun store owners are not all trained psychologists.

Officials give licenses, not gun stores.

[Strife26]

Good to know that insanegamer is a constitutional scholar and that his singular personal experiences are good bulwarks for justifying the killing of a right.

[Insanegame27]

Officials give licenses, not gun stores.

The gun store owner should at least have some responsibility to make sure that he's not arming someone who's going to go on a killing spree.

Good to know that insanegamer is a constitutional scholar and that his singular personal experiences are good bulwarks for justifying the killing of a right.

The killing of a right? A right to kill people for 'pew pew gunz are cewl' I would rather the killing of a flawed 'right' than the killing of a human being. The right to defend yourself does not have to be done through gun (mis)use. It can be done effectively and non-lethally. You're talking about the right to end somebody's life and destroy their families. No human being should have that right.

[Frumple]

... seriously man, you're digging yourself into a hole. The 2nd amendment is currently considered an individual right, and started heading in that direction in the 60s. There's not exactly a guarantee it'll stay like that -- there's a fair number of constitutional scholars and general legal folks that are of the opinion that the individual right may not actually be constitutionally protected, due largely to the fact that for the first century and change of the existence of the US, it was basically not even considered as a possibility by anyone -- but currently the legal precedence is on that side of things, and there's not exactly any denying that.

Though it's not like even most of the more rabid anti-control advocates actually stick to their dukes in regards to an unlimited, unrestrained 2nd; most of them are still perfectly fine with denying quite a few people access to firearms for what's often no particularly good reason (coughnonviolentfelonscough). And if you're willing to let a person's right to firearm ownership be infringed because of a criminal record -- i.e., you're saying their ownership of a weapon is sufficiently a risk to the public, such that it's acceptable to kill their 2nd amendment rights even if they don't have a history of violence -- there's plenty of room for other restrictions as well (just apply the same concept to anyone who isn't trained/licensed/etc., or apply it to certain categories of weapon. We already kinda' do for some of the higher end stuff; the limits on ownership and usage for stuff like chainguns or rocket launchers and whatnot are pretty strenuous, iirc). Or at least plenty of room for a great deal of hypocrisy :V

[Antioch]

What kind of grammar and wording is this anyway:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

I mean seriously, you can make anything of that sentence.

[Frumple]

Sure? A legally mandated and defined/regulated paramilitary organization (e.g. militias) is to be allowed to have and carry firearms, for the protection of the country against threats to its freedom. Would be the more or less direct translation.

[Insanegame27]

Sure? A legally mandated and defined/regulated paramilitary organization (e.g. militias) is to be allowed to have and carry firearms, for the protection of the country against threats to its freedom. Would be the more or less direct translation.

Exactly. A legally mandated and defined paramilitary organisation, one man is not.

[Frumple]

Which is only sorta' relevant, because firearm ownership is currently being treated as an individual right in regards to legality, and has been for a few decades. That it could change does not mean it has. Just means it actually being constitutionally protected is fairly tenuous.

Which is more or less entirely irrelevant, tbh, because you don't need constitutional protection to instate a law, just a lack of conflict with the constitution. And the individual right does not particularly conflict with the constitution, any more than any of the dozens of other potentially fatal/high risk (relatively, at least) things we allow.

[Antioch]

The entire problem is that the document clearly stems from a completely different time. When it was written the only weapons used were basically muskets and melee weapons.

When taken literally "shall not be infringed" means there are not to be any restrictions at all. Which makes sense in a time of muskets, but rather less in a time of machine guns, assault rifles and cruise missiles.

In fact the entire premise that a militia is "necessary to the security of a free state" only makes sense when considered in that time, today the premise is somewhat laughable.

[DJ]

Isn't the National Guard the modern day equivalent of the militias from the founding period? Do the guardsmen get to take their weapons home between exercises? Am I misunderstanding how the Guard works? I'm assuming it's basically reserve force where you normally only do a couple of days of exercises each year and pretty much nothing else, except in case of national emergencies like natural disasters where you have to go help, and in exchange you get a modest yearly allowance.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

Sure? A legally mandated and defined/regulated paramilitary organization (e.g. militias) is to be allowed to have and carry firearms, for the protection of the country against threats to its freedom. Would be the more or less direct translation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Bell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Labor_Wars

[Sonlirain]

I called it.
One side calls out to ban every gun ever because once that's done violence shall be abolished.
The other is ready to suck dicks and blame everything and everyone as long as they can keep their guns.

Guns are no longer a necessary good like they were back in 1600-1900 when people were pushing the frontier and had to defend themselves and their families from wildlife and Natives.
Now that there is no frontier then what's the point of a gun for anyone who's not a Hunter/Policeman/Soldier?

Are gas/stun guns not enough for self defense? People also tend to die after getting zapped by a tazer more than once so what more do you want?
Is the ability to (possibly lethally) defend yourself from a range higher than 10-15 meters (considering that an average house has rooms smaller than that and most assaults in the street start well within that range) that necessary of a right?

Is crime REALLY that rampant to warrant civilians being armed? What is this? Mad max?


I'm actually ok with guns for personal defense but can anyone explain me why in flipping fuck can people buy a high capacity semi auto rifles in the US?
Yeah i get some people are enthusiasts or want to start a collection but why are weapons with a high refire rate and large magazine even availble to them?
And if they really want a long range weapon why not a bolt action or a shotgun with a rifled barrel for firing slugs instead?
Both are significantly harder to rack up the next high score in mass shootings with compared to a fucking semi auto with a 30 round magazine.

But what do i know right? The last mass shootings of civilians where i live were done by Einsatzgruppen SS.

[Frumple]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Bell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Labor_Wars

... kay? Would probably be an example of it, though which side you consider to be acting against threats to the country's freedom probably changes based on person :V

Did realize a fairly amusing (inasmuch as it'd make a number, particular of the more right leaning folks, in the gun control discussion froth at the mouth) comparison while I was cooking some breakfast, though. There's a pretty strong parallel to make between the various subordinate powers of the commerce clause and the individual right to firearm ownership, heh. The treatment of the Interstate Commerce Commission (which had pretty close to unlimited power from the 30s to the 90s, eheh) and similar such things over the years would probably be a pretty good example of how the sort of interpretations involved can play out.

... and sonli, you didn't really call much, because that's pretty massively misrepresenting the discussion that's been going on over the last several pages. There's maybe one or two people in here advocating for a complete ban, and as stated repeatedly that's basically a fringe position so far as the stateside gun control debate goes. People can buy a pretty wide range of firearms because, well, that's what the US citizenry has pretty largely supported. Hobbies, sports shooting, and wildlife control are reasons enough for us (and note, even many countries with stronger gun control laws still allow for those to one extent or another), nevermind self-defense and whatnot. Good chunk of the pro-control folks in the states would be perfectly fine with you owning and operating a chaingun or some shite, just maybe not allowed to store it at home or somethin'.