Should Guns be Outlawed in the U.S.A?

We each have to stand up, speak out, and take action as necessary, or else we all eventually become consumed by a government, or governance, as the case may be which ends up allowing us only to choose who of the choices provided we will allow to make the choices in life we as individuals once were allowed to make for ourself. Political philosophies are about how to control large populations of people, who are each unique from one another and when allowed their freedom vary greatly dependent upon their abilities, motivations, and any number of unforeseen variables.
Although I remove myself from the application of political philosophy as best I can, it cannot be ignored as it always finds a way of creeping into each and every area in which people occupy, with or without their consent.

 

I hated guns before I joined the Army.

I now believe every sane American should own one......Our Governments crazy and I get a first hand look at their atrocities.

Buy a gun, buy several. You'll need them.

 

I am actually trying to get one now for home protection. I wanna go to bed knowing that no matter what comes through my door I can handle it and protect my loved ones. Its every ones right to be able to defend themselves if we didn’t have guns people would try to outlaw like bows and arrows then it would be swords the rocks then sharp sticks then people would have to have their hands and feet tied back so they couldn’t hit each other then their teeth until no one and nothing was left. People hurt people ya can’t stop it.

 

You hated guns - so what you did was to join the army? Did you understand at the time what the army was? Did you never notice what soldiers usually carry around with them?

Anyway - guns and government suppression -

Here is the short version –

The false sense of power that guns can give people also seems to appear in the idea that they are a protection against government persecution.

For example over the years several pro-gun people have implied that the Jews would have been safe and the holocaust may never have happened if the Jews had just been armed.

The problem is that the German people had been taught the Jews were dangerous. So what if some of them had fired on the police that had come to take them away, do you think the German people would have seen this as a justified reaction and come to their defence or just seen it as proof the Jews were indeed dangerous and needed taking care of?

Think about US history, did the Native Americans that fought back against the treaty breaking US government get the support of the American citizenry? What if the US citizens of Japanese decent had resisted the unconstitutional internment imposed on them after Pearl Harbour and had shot at the police; do you think they would have got general and popular support? What about those hauled in front of McCarthy or the un-American committees, would Americans have rallied to them if they had refused to go before such witch hunts and opened fire on those that came to take them?

Here is the long version –

Can guns save you from suppression?
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s...&postcount=217

 

Gun theory

My theory is that there is a general attitude among many Americans that accepts threat of violence, intimidation and suppression as legitimate means of societal control and this mindset gets in the way of them actually working toward solutions to their social and political problems.

This is because that attitude colours the way they think about and view the world from personal interaction to how they see other countries.

They can come to see the world as threatening, they can feel intimidated and fear that they are or could be the victim of criminal or political suppression.

This attitude can lead to a near paranoid outlook were everything and everyone is seen as a potential threat that is just waiting to attack or repress them. This taints the way they see the government, how criminality can be dealt with, how they see their fellow citizens, differing social classes, differing ethnic groups, and even differing political philosophies or ideas.

Within the framework of such a worldview guns seem attractive as a means of ‘equalising’ the individual against what they perceive as threats, it makes them feel that they are also ‘powerful’ and intimidating and that they too, if needs be, can deal with, in other words suppress the threatening.

The problem is that such attitudes can build up an irrational barrier between reality and myth, between what they see as prudent and sensible and what actually is prudent and sensible.

 

This is exactly what I’m trying to highlight - the view of many Americans of their fellow citizens - that they’re so violent and murderous that they just want to kill, kill, kill. That its not guns that count for the high level of murders but the murderous nature of Americans, that the same amount of carnage would go on because Americans are so bloodthirsty that they would use anything to kill, kill, kill.

When you think your fellow citizens are like that it is no wonder that so many Americans are so frightened.

But why do they think that is it true?

Are Americans truly that different than other people, so much more violent and murderous?

Now if things are looked at in those terms (that Americans are murderous savages that are just waiting to kill people) then when crime figures are looked at they seem to back up that view.

For example

I live in London it has a population of around 7.5 million and it only had 175 homicides between Apr-2005 to Apr-2006. In fact in 2009 there were only 651 murders in the whole of England and Wales with a population of around 55 million.

But let us take an American city - Philadelphia – it I believe has a population of around 6.1 million yet it had 406 homicides in that same year. So two Philadelphia’s with only 12.2 million people would create 812 murders, more than what is produced by 55 million Brits.

But if you take out gun related homicides from the US crime figures they are not that much different from those of many European countries that have gun restrictions (although it is incredible difficult to compare any crime statistics other than homicide).

So the question is are Americans more murderous or is it just that Americans have easier access to much more lethal weapons.

 

Now I’ve got nothing against the law abiding and responsible owning a gun but I question why they feel they need to have one.

And it seem to come down to fear

This person is so frightened of their society and the people that live in it that they fear that at any moment some one is going to smash through their door and try and hurt them, even kill them.

The problem to me is that so many Americans seem to think the answer to this fear is a gun, but is it?

I mean a gun can only be used to tackle the symptoms of the problem it cannot be used to tackle the root causes.

But again the problem is many pro-gunners think it can because they seem to have this general attitude that actual violence or the threat of it, intimidation and suppression are legitimate means of tackling problems.

But having that attitude they believe (or come to believe) that everyone else thinks the same, and so they come to fear their fellow citizens.

But wouldn’t it be better to try and tackle the root of this fear and start working toward having a society that isn’t frightening?

*

 

Uhh yeah, no shit.

I grew up around guns. I grew up hunting and shooting. I was quite the marksman before I enlisted......Just into my teenaged years, I hated guns. It was during my "hippie" stage.

 

I think that discussion of political philosophy is a derailment too far for this thread.

Please take the debate somewhere else.

Thank you

Balbus

 

I grew up in the countryside around people that owed guns for keeping down vermin and hunting. I was also a member of a gun club and was a fair shot, but I grew out of it.

As I’ve said before it is possible to get a gun in the UK, many people have shot guns and if you are law abiding and seem responsible it is possible to get a license. It is just that most people don’t feel the necessity to have a gun. I mean what would I do with a shotgun in the city? Hunting, I’d rather preserve the wildlife we have, rather than shoot it. Keeping down vermin, I think calling a professional exterminator would be more efficient and less time consuming than sitting out on my porch in the hope a rat will show up. As to home defence, well, as I’ve said there just doesn’t seem to be the US pro-gunner’s level of fear about that here.

 

See, you relate

Only I rekindled that interest and now make a living toting one around lol.

 

Cal

But my point is that you seem to be trying to use fear to promote guns as a means of tackling political problems.

You seem to be suggesting that gun ownership can be a protection against government persecution.

But if as I said, if you look at US history, that doesn’t seem to have been the case.

Did the Native Americans that fought back against the treaty breaking US government get the support of the American citizenry? What if the US citizens of Japanese decent had resisted the unconstitutional internment imposed on them after Pearl Harbour and had shot at the police; do you think they would have got general and popular support? What about those hauled in front of McCarthy or the un-American committees, would Americans have rallied to them if they had refused to go before such witch hunts and opened fire on those that came to take them?

try reading - Can guns save you from suppression?
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s...&postcount=217

 

No

 

Which is a crazy argument. The government IS us, it came from us, we make it and determine what it does, and it contains us as its entire membership. A war between an artificial division of ourselves. Gives real meaning to the phrase "we only need protection from ourselves"...

 

try reading - More Guns, Less Crime by John Lott

 

owb

I found it anecdotal, selective and its methodology seemed rather flawed and of course its findings have been disputed for example at –

Myths about Defensive Gun Use and Permissive Gun Carry Laws
http://www.bmsg.org/pdfs/myths.pdf

Try reading – Gun Show Nation by Joan Burbick

 

Balbus, I do not wish to discuss this or any subject with you. I merely was pointing out that there is a book that seems to disagree with your theory on this subject. Now that you are posting to this thread, I shall not post to this thread again.
Have a nice day,

 

Eugene Register-Guard,June 14th,2011

Alsea.-A man who was shot during a domestic disturbance is now in jail,accused of assaulting the woman who fired upon him. The man.Joseph Pellet,25,of Alsea,is being held in the Benton County jail on charges of unlawfull use of a weapon,4th degree assault,strangulation and menacing.

Pellet suffered what appeared to be a gunshot wound that was not life threatening early Saturday morning. Investigators found that Kaila Courtain, 22,had fired a single shot from a small caliber handgun that struck Pellet in the head,Benton County officials said.

Courtain and Pellet had been in a physical struggle before the shooting. At this time,Courtain does not face any criminal charges in connection with the incident. An investigation is continuing.

 

OWB

And I was just pointing out that Lotts theories have been disputed for example here from the Harvard School of Public Health, where Professor David Hemenway says “Much that Lott writes is either wrong or misleading”.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/Hemenway/book.html

As to you not posting that is your right but it seems to me like an excuse to get out of a debate.

 

This thread is two years old and still goin strong...

As for gun restrictions in the U.S., we have guns in my house: two rifles, two shotguns, a pellet gun pistol, and i have a gun that shoots bb's and pellets. My brother has limited space in his apartment, therefore he stores at our house: a pellet gun pistol, and a semi-automatic russian shotgun which is frikkin sweet. We don't keep these for self defense, we keep them because we like to hunt- except the pistols, those were for shooting stray neighborhood cats that like to poop in our yard and leave dead birds and squirrels, etc.
We live in the middle of the city, but that doesn't mean you can't go somewhere and hunt. Actually hunting helps out the environment quite a lot. If people didn't hunt deer, the population would explode, disease among them would spread, the whole ecosystem would be out of whack. Plus they taste good too
As for the self defense deal, I don't live in the "bad" part of town. Generally the most crimes happen up in North O and it's always on the news and pretty much every time, it's gang/drug related. That being said, the firearms that they use are reported most of the time to be illegal. So really, stricter gun laws being in place wouldn't solve a thing around here as for crime rates. Gang bangers who kill people and get a hold of drugs and do other illegal things would just keep getting illegal guns and keep doing what they're doing.

So no. No guns being outlawed. Even if they were, i don't think my family would give them up.

And then what about a zombie apocolypse? I'd like to be at least somewhat prepared if that happens