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[Max™]

I didn't get the tank girl show because I had never had the sound on, so I say fuck it and click on a video since I had been on a wikiwalk for some tank or another and it's like

"_{blahblahblahblah}"
BKKRAAAAAMMMMM!!!!!
PTANG!
CLANKCLANKCLANK
KADOOOONNNNNSHHHH!

Which just makes me giggle at the ridiculous volume spikes which are otherwise always fucking insufferable.

[Kagus]

Now I can just imagine hunters driving around in the forest in little mini tanks claiming it is necessary protection from a bear attack while turning bambi's mom into a red colored cloud with a 120mm cannon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZvT3MHpffk

[hector13]

So...

Not sure how to be polite about that being a thing that happens now, so yeah. Awesome.

[Max™]

You people thought I was joking about needing to get rid of schools, but it's honestly more likely than ever expecting usians to even begin seriously discussing gun control implementation steps.

Full admission: I'm a Texan (not an american, important distinction, I don't think of myself as being american at all, to the point I was actually confused when I realized people don't learn about Texas History in school outside of the state... 'but, what do you learn about?') and I've always been around gun owners, and enjoyed firing the two revolvers and single semi-auto I've played with though the semi-auto .22 was a little too much like starting out on easy difficulty with full health and ammo cheats on.

I don't understand why more than a .22 revolver is needed for home defense, you're sneaking into a house and I pop you with that thing, I am pretty fucking sure you're not going to get a hard-on and come after me; this isn't florida and you aren't smoking bath salts.

[Lord Shonus]

A .22 isn't enough to reliably stop anything larger than a squirrel unless you're extremely accurate. Even a round that lands in a fatal location will often only kill with significant delay (and most of the really critical locations in a human body are protected by amounts of bone that a .22 is not guaranteed to penetrate), and in any situation where there is significant adrenaline produced, the target isn't even guaranteed to feel it.  This is why .22 is an extremely popular caliber for learning to shoot - even a total fuckup is unlikely to cause permanent harm as long as prompt medical treatment is applied.

[Trekkin]

Unfortunately, when people on the Internet keep arguing long enough about what type of gun is best for home defense (assuming arguendo that it is a gun) they generally divide into one of several groups:

1. Natural-born impossible sharpshooters who can shoot from the hip in bad lighting blindfolded and standing on their head and still hit the bad guy directly in whatever area they believe will instantly kill them from well beyond whatever distance they consider reasonable, and who therefore prefer the smallest possible weapon in order to out-draw:
2. Big hulking testosterone-soaked manly men who, being capable of absorbing the recoil from naval artillery and deflecting incoming antitank rounds with their massive pecs alone, would prefer the largest possible weapon, if only for lurid descriptions of what the bullet will do to ballistics gel and/or common household objects interspersed with vaguely defined phrases like "stopping power", the better to void the claims of:
3. Martial arts masters who have studied under esoteric gurus for decades until their secret decuple-black-belt training allows them to pulverize an entire city block with their earlobes alone while telekinetically redirecting bullets and therefore laugh at the very idea of guns.

Add claims of military or law enforcement experience as appropriate. Unfortunately, the kind of statistical evidence that would supplant anecdotes is not presently easily funded, owing in part to the chilling effect of the Dickey amendment, and so it is difficult to separate the actual usefulness of a given class of weaponry from the expressive responding produced by its cultural significance.

[Max™]

A .22 isn't enough to reliably stop anything larger than a squirrel unless you're extremely accurate. Even a round that lands in a fatal location will often only kill with significant delay (and most of the really critical locations in a human body are protected by amounts of bone that a .22 is not guaranteed to penetrate), and in any situation where there is significant adrenaline produced, the target isn't even guaranteed to feel it.  This is why .22 is an extremely popular caliber for learning to shoot - even a total fuckup is unlikely to cause permanent harm as long as prompt medical treatment is applied.

Ever been a criminal? Ever been shot at? Ever had a gun pointed at you?

Done 1 and 3, not interested in 2. Closest I've come is being outside late at night looking at the stars and hearing gunfire from far too close, which promptly lead me to head for cover asap, though I'm sure I wasn't being shot at, standing in a driveway with nobody around and hearing *POP POP POP* well before the echo off of the buildings around the area is no fun.

You generally try to break in to a house to steal stuff when there aren't going to be people there, suddenly discovering they are home is going to trigger panic, discovering they've just now fired some sort of handgun at you is going to terrify the shit out of you.

If you don't feel any wounds then you're probably going to be eager for an exit.

Now, I've never broken into a house, as I said, I grew up in Texas, I assume there will be gun owners aware that shooting an intruder isn't looked down in in that state.

I mean, there is a guy who does a comedy bit about guns, mentions how he was mowing the lawn for a guy in the south and dude asked him if he wanted to go down the road to shoot at a burned out car.

He then pauses and notes that only in the south is this just accepted rather than triggering bursts of laughter.

He said he pointed the gun, pulled the trigger, but never heard it.

Just "ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" for a while.

Says doing that at 3 am in a dark room (since psycho killers don't come by at 7 pm like "hey, just letting you know I'll be by in about 30 minutes and things are gonna get crazy, so you might wanna stretch and change into comfortable running clothes") means you're now blinded by muzzle flash, deaf from report, so how are you gonna find this guy? Taste him?

You get shot with a .22 you're not gonna be thrilled, hell, you get shot with a pellet gun it's gonna fuck up the rest of your night at least.

*plink*
"Ow, that was my fucking elbow!"
'Yeah well, this is my fucking house, and I was aiming for your eye.'
"Fuck, that stings... I'll be... *rubs elbow* yeesh... I'll be back, jerk."

[wierd]

I must be the odd man out who insists that one should carry a tool appropriate for the task.

If you are expecting unarmored humans, a 9mm pistol works great, carries several shots in case you miss, and is sufficiently low power that it wont travel extensive distances if you hit nothing but air.

If you are expecting hungry bears in your kitchen, you need something "a bit bigger".

Unless you are expecting to go up against armored personnel, you dont need full metal jackets in a high power pistol, or a sniper rifle.  Are you military? Are you police? No to both? Then you dont really need those. (yes, I know an M1 garand, and most bolt action rifles in sufficient caliber to take out large animals are basically sniper rifles. The difference is the ammunition you shoot through it, and how absurd you get with the optics on the gun.) 

It is a fan favorite to claim that you need the rifle for taking care of nuisance/dangerous animals, then go out and get hollow point bullets for the handgun, and armor penetrating rounds for the rifle.  Nonsense both times.  You can kill a coyote with a pistol without turning them wrong-side out with fragmenting hallow point rounds, and you can take out large nuisance animals without ammunition designed to penetrate a half inch of steel plate, M'kay?

Seriously.. Katanas being used to carve turkeys.  Morons.

[Max™]

9mm is roughly the same size bullet as a .357, and has something like four or five times the energy of a .22 Short.

[wierd]

It's (9mm) also the typical handgun sold. .22 cal is often hard to buy ammunition for as well.

https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/08/31/the-22-ammo-shortage-mystery-solved.aspx

[Cyroth]

There is something I (as an european) always wonder when US americans have the guns for home defence debate.
Are guns really the only thing that exists overseas for the purpose of self/home defence? Have you guys ever heard of pepper spray or is that stuff illegal there?

I mean, storing a few cans of that stuff is probably cheaper then a gun, drops someone as effectively as a gun (probably much better then a .22 or some other peashooter, even), less likely to end in permanent injury or death if children get their hands on them and much less likely to end up getting used to shoot up a school or shopping mall.

I'm a very pain resistant person, to the point where I sometimes end up ignoring stuff to the point of freaking other people out (like not noticing a shard of glass sticking 2 cm deep into my arm), and getting a short burst still dropped me instantly screaming.
(Not my proudest moment, it involved a little sister, the words "no idea if this will help me in an emergency, hold still for a second", a trip to the hospital and very pissed off parents)
A can of that stuff should easiely keep someone down long enough to get whatever weapon an intruder has away from him and run off to call for help.
I'm just assuming here that "run of and get help" is what people do after they down an intruder with their guns, instead of "lets bury them in the yard and act like nothing ever happened".

[Egan_BW]

Bury? Nah, we cook them up on the ol' grill. Makes good barbecue, that.
I'll agree that ye don't really need a gun though. Good circular saw does the trick juuuuust fine.

[wierd]

For europeans:

1) Consider firstly, that the continental US is about the size of *ALL* of Europe.
2) Consider secondly, that there are vast tracts of this territory that are completely uninhabited. (Owned by the BLM, not for sale, and non-negotiable.)
3) Consider thirdly, that due to the above, there are 'rural' areas, and then there are "Practically in the damn wilderness, dont bother trying to call police, there are no god-damned roads." areas.

Unlike the smaller nations of Europe, which can manage an effective state level police force, these vastly underpopulated areas of the US cannot sustain such. (See for instance, Wyoming in the linked map. See that tiny population? Do you REALLY think they can sustain a robust state-wide police? Did not think so.)

As a result, there *ARE* areas in the US where you REALLY DO need to have a gun for personal safety reasons.  It is not against humans, it is against wild critters that might take a liking to either eating YOU, or trying to bust into your cabin, and eat your cached food supply, tearing the place up in the process.

The debate in the US mostly comes from areas with dense population (NY, FL, CA, and pals), where there is dense urban populations, robust police systems, and other civil security apparatus in place--- where it really DOES NOT make even the tiniest bit of sense for the people there to own or carry firearms--- vs the areas where, if you take those firearms away, PEOPLE *WILL* DIE. A LOT.

Sadly, there is also a large demographic that uses this latter group (People who genuinely do have a need to own and carry a weapon, because there literally are no cops, forest rangers, or other state security service providers--- AND lots of wild animals) as an excuse to try and own their own anti-tank weapons, trying oh so desperately to conflate the two. The NRA often riles up and inflames this group, since this group is among its biggest customers/supporters.

There is also a very large demographic that does not know jack shit about guns (in general), who is terrified of even the very idea of a gun, no matter how tiny, or how well trained the private operator is, and so desperately want to get rid of *ALL GUNS*.-- Nevermind the poor bastards that don't live in the urban areas. ("They should just move into the city like sensible people." et al.)

Because the political climate in the US has, for the past 50 years, been on a downward spiral of ever greater degrees of isolationist ideological position taking, there is very little progress toward a 'sensible' solution to this set of problems, and instead there is a festering boil, where people get shot all the time in urban areas due to excessive availability of firearms, constant drumbeating by the NRA, and people who just want to be sure that they still have food before the snow falls and blankets them in for the winter by keeping the bears out, or who want to keep the reintroduced wolves from killing this years calves in calving season-- and nothing but rage and spittle flying in every direction, with finger pointing, name calling, and zero progress toward an actually effective solution.

Europe is much older than the US is.  Human populations have had CENTURIES longer to establish territories, roads, cultures, and the like.  The social infrastructure is much deeper and better established.  This is why you Euro people have a hard time understanding the concept that yes--- There really are places where you really do in fact need to carry a gun to be safe from carnivores in the US.  Such places really dont exist anymore over there.  They very much exist here.

[smjjames]

Or maybe just shoot nonlethal nanogel like in schlock mercenary (well, the few times they WERE aiming for nonlethal damage)....

Also, Europe is a hell of a lot smaller and more densely packed, I don't think theres anyplace in most of Europe with anywhere near the population density of rural Alaska. Then again, I'm tired and am probably conflating it and no idea what I'm talking about.

Anyways, I have nothing against those that need the weapons to protect against the big predators out in the rural wilderness, it's the whole 'how the hell do you deal with gun violence in general on balance' that's the problem.

And the NRA needs to shut it's head.

[Paxiecrunchle]

oh, dear, I will never catch up with this thread.