Safer WITH, or WITHOUT, Gun Control? USA -vs- UK

Don't feed the Troll,anymore.

Almost 30 post explaining College/University differences in a gun control thread . get a room.

 

Who needs guns when you have a degree?

 

Tell it that to the Virginia tech guy

 

Oni

This just back up what I’ve been saying.

Your fear – with reason or not – and your reaction to that fear, you solution to it, is to get armed.

But why is the fear there? Why not try and deal with the causes of that fear?

The thing is that to me that the desire for a gun, as a means of protection, is only a symptom of the fear.

What you are saying here is – I’m not fear mongering…BUT the world is a very dangerous place full of very bad things and very scary people, so get armed.

That is just an advert for guns, it is not actually tackling the underlying socio-economic problems that seem to be the root of the problem.

Shouldn’t you be asking – why is my society seemingly so dangerous, why do so many bad things seem to happen in it, and why do so many of my fellow citizens seem so scary to me?

But that seem very seldom to be the question being asked by most pro-gunners.

And that’s it.

Why are pro-gunners seemingly more interested in promoting guns as a solution when it can never actually be a solution?

 

It is striking, I mean reading through the posts since I was last here, it is glaring by its omission.

The pro-gunners over and over again promote guns as a solution to there societies ills but never seem to wonder (or only cursorily) why there are these societal ills.

*

I mean honeyfugle and others wonder ‘what can be done’, but that never seems to be taken up by the pro-gunners who seem more interested in scaremongering as a means of promoting (selling) guns, to the point that they often come across as hawkers at a gun fair.

In my opinion if you are so frightened of the society you live in that you feel you need a gun to protect yourself from it then there is something deeply wrong with your society – it means your society needs fixing.

I mean adding yet more guns to the mix doesn’t to me to be thing to do, but even if you think it is – it still doesn’t address the underlying problems that have caused you to reach for the gun in the first place.

*

For example some are still pushing the view that guns are a way of dealing with government suppression.

But as I’ve pointed out the history of the US does not back up that viewpoint, in fact guns in the hands of the public have been used more as a means of suppression than liberation.

Can guns save you from suppression?
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=253937

But the thing is that the idea is based around the fear of these peoples own government.

They fear that their own government might suppress them so they fall back on the gun for protection.

But to me if you fear your own government then the solution isn’t a gun (which as shown wouldn’t be of much use) it is to change the government for the better.

*

I think many have fallen back on guns as a solution and this has lead to the mentality that there is therefore no need to deal with the problems that are affecting their society.

The desire for guns should be a wake up call but instead it seems to be a sedative.

 

I agree with you for most issues. It's food for thought. I don't think I have so far seen pro-gunner asking how to solve the underlying issues that cause people to think they need self-protection. No, I will admit, the UK have not hit the hammer on the head with that, but remember Tony Blair's big catchphrase? "Tough on Crime, Tough on the causes of crime" Read this for size.
"What I'm saying is if you want a hard headed approach to law and order in the modern world, you require a thought through strategy that deals with the underlying causes of crime as well as those that are committing crimes and should be brought to justice within the criminal justice system. If you don't do that then you're forever firefighting and never getting to grips with the real problems. " (http://www.bbc.co.uk/otr/intext92-93/Blair4.7.93.html).
Tony Blair said this. Yes, maybe a lot of it was PR nonsense and so forth, but he was right. You have to solve underlying issues in society. Granted that's a very old interview, but he kept that same stance for much of his time in office until recently.
But I think that's what's needed. I believe still, that it is the job of the police and government to keep the public safe, not the common vigilante. For this reason and others I believe gun control is right.
The most difficult thing is to rid society of underlying problems and personally I don't think Labour have done this. But neither has that been done in America, where relaxed gun laws act of a sticking plaster to these problems.

 

The funny thing is anti-gun people have yet to find a solution to the problem of crime either except taking away guns. The difference is they think that is in fact some kind of solution vs pro-gun people see it as nothing but another infringement on our rights in an area where the problems are socio-economic in cause.

 

yeh man in a perfect world we can all just hold hands and will away this corrupt society we have, lets all get together and come up with a peaceful world government, then we wouldnt need guns

BARF.

yeh good luck changing the world. Theres six billion people on this planet good luck pulling them all from their prospective society's and creating a new order then force people to think like you and make them believe they don't need to be able to defend themselves or hunt.

 

OH come on Mad

I’ve personally put out hundred of ideas about tackling crime and improving society that have absolutely nothing to do with ‘taking away guns’ (as I said earlier in this thread, a good place to start would be a change in the way the drugs issue is currently being dealt with). I’ve even stated I have nothing against the law abiding owning a gun.

But that is the problem many pro-gunners don’t want to see alternatives or even oppose ideas that might help and instead groan on about people wanting to take away their guns or using fear to try and sell more of them.

What I’m saying is that many pro-gunners seem to have fallen back on guns as a way of protecting themselves from their society rather than trying to actually make that society a better place.

 

McRaver

Exactly the attitudes and mentality I’ve mentioned.

Unable to think of any alternatives the only thing they can think of to do about their societies ills is get armed.

 

How optimistic. And FYI there's a world of difference between those who hold guns for hunting and those for self-defence.

 

If you can kill a deer you can kill a person. While I agree hunting and self defense are different they both ensure survival and IF you needed to defend yourself with your deer rifle you absolutely could.

 

Not in the slightest, only difference is most people who hunt have no reason to hunt and do it for fun, protection is always relevant

 

But that is the difference! You think a team of hunters shooting small animals for sport (IMO cruel bloodthirsty "sport") is in any way like someone holding a gun in the slight chance someone attacks them?

 

well its different in the sense that self defense weapons are typically not long guns but handguns but yeh, point, shoot, dead

 

Exactly, if anything the person holding the handgun is more in the right

 

Not sure how you get to that conclusion from what I said?

 

They're not at all alike, it's just the fact the person holding the handgun by far is more in the right.

 

But how? In which case? That a hunter killing animals for his own sick pleasure is in the right for holding the gun? Or that someone is in the right when he shoots dead a man for stealing, say a PSP from his home? What brings you to this concusion?

 

I think madcat means that if you disagree with hunting and your a gun owner you will only fire to protect yourself instead of firing for the pleasure out of killing a living thing.

if you are opposed to hunting that is