An idea about gun control. Let me hear you opinion

[turbo]

And isn't interesting that in some places in the US, Maine for instance, where gun laws are quite lax, the gun crime rate is the lowest - in Maine, it is less than half the national average.

There is only one family on this rural road (Central Maine) that I know of that has no guns. Most have LOTS of them for hunting, pest-control, target shooting, home defense etc.

I'm down to about 8-9 or so after selling off a very large collection of lever-action rifles. My Christian neighbors down and across the road have a pile of modern guns. The wife is not a shooter or a hunter, but her husband, two sons, and daughter all have shotguns, rifles, pistols, etc. They have a 50-yd range and a 100-yd range on their property, and often host friends and fellow parishioners when they need help/training getting used to new firearms, sighting them in with new sights, scopes, etc...

Due to many generations of people hunting, there are lots of families here that have guns that never even show up on the radar. One day, a couple was cleaning out the husband's uncle's house after he died and they brought in the uncle's favorite rifle to see if it was worth something. It was a martially-marked Henry lever-action. The martial markings were very rare and unconventional, making it a rare find. When my sister's husband's grandfather died, he left a huge impressive collection of Winchester rifles, many with scarce special-order features. He was a Maine guide around the turn of the century, and many of the wealthy "sports" that he guided tipped him with the rifles that they brought for the hunt.

Maine is not a hotbed of firearm crime. The ownership and use of guns is ingrained here.

 

[leroyjenkens]

I had a friend kill himself last Thursday by shooting himself in the head. He was young too, only 22. He was really cool and I wouldn't have thought he was suicidal. He drank a lot and did drugs, so that's what I blame, even though I don't know if he was on drugs at the time. Having a gun so readily available makes it pretty easy for someone to kill themselves or someone else if they suddenly have a mental breakdown.
I think there should be a lot more scrutiny for getting a gun.
I had to jump through hoops for about a month to get a credit card, but I could go down to the gun show and walk out with a gun.
If to buy a gun, people had to go through what I had to go through to get a credit card, people would just build their own guns instead.

 

[turbo]

If to buy a gun, people had to go through what I had to go through to get a credit card, people would just build their own guns instead.

And they would die or permanently maim themselves the first time they shot it. Building guns ain't rocket-science. Building safe, dependable guns that will work for a long time without failure IS rocket science.

Winchester was not a household name because he was a lucky manufacturer who managed to attract talented engineers. There is a lot more behind his fame, including Paterson pistols and revolving rifles, Walker pistols, and Henry repeaters. By the time he had become successful, he had the fame and intelligence to collaborate with the really hot designers, like the Browning clan, and build the best of the best. You can't say "I'm going to make a pistol" and just go out and do it. If you have a machine-shop in your garage, you can try but I'm not going to be within a few hundred yards of you when you test-fire it.

 

[lisab]

I had a friend kill himself last Thursday by shooting himself in the head. He was young too, only 22. He was really cool and I wouldn't have thought he was suicidal. He drank a lot and did drugs, so that's what I blame, even though I don't know if he was on drugs at the time. Having a gun so readily available makes it pretty easy for someone to kill themselves or someone else if they suddenly have a mental breakdown.
I think there should be a lot more scrutiny for getting a gun.
I had to jump through hoops for about a month to get a credit card, but I could go down to the gun show and walk out with a gun.
If to buy a gun, people had to go through what I had to go through to get a credit card, people would just build their own guns instead.

I'm so sorry to hear about your friend .

 

[turbo]

I'm so sorry to hear about your friend .

I am sorry, as well. I would be just as sorry if the friend used self-induced carbon-monoxide poisoning, drugs, strangulation, etc to kill himself.

Anecdotal "evidence" is just that, and it is often used to demonize the method of suicide as an excuse for overlooking the driving force behind the suicide. How many times have we seen newspaper stories about "choking game" deaths that go no further than a short explanation of the facts (assumptions) and then go on to (Pulitzer-wannabe) lengths to "explain" a phenomenon that the writer evidently knows nothing about? Kids die from huffing and a host of other lethal behaviors, but the behaviors all seem to have periods of popularity in the press, despite the fact that they continue when the attention wanes.

 

[Proton Soup]

it's a horrible idea. it's tragic when someone kills themselves, but it's not like they don't have options if you take away their gun.

they could just as easily

• jump off a bridge
• slit their wrists
• tie a noose
• swim with cement shoes
• climb a power pole
• crash an automobile
• join the army
• swallow a bottle of tylenol
• climb into the polar bear enclosure
• poke a stick at africanized bees
• eat a few pounds of pennies
• etc.

 

[G037H3]

if someone is going to kill themselves regardless, why would you want to try to take away a relatively painless and foolproof method?

do you want others to suffer more?

 

[Evo]

I am sorry, as well. I would be just as sorry if the friend used self-induced carbon-monoxide poisoning, drugs, strangulation, etc to kill himself.

Those all take more time, effort, and planning. Being depressed and picking up a gun requires nothing except pulling the trigger.

If you like guns, go for it. What I don't understand is why gun supporters insist on making all of these incredibly lame excuses. Heart attacks kill more people than guns. If owning guns was a crime only criminals would own guns. Oh and needing guns to keep the government from taking over the country. And self defense. Sorry, reading every single homicide in this city for the last 2 years, not one was in self defense. Three years ago, one guy did kill himself with his own gun in his own home when someone unarmed broke in.

Gun owners might get more support if they didn't make non gun owners laugh so hard with their excuses.

Last night on tv, one gun owner told the truth. "it's the rush you get when you fire a gun, I love it, best feeling in the world."

 

[Siv]

Second, a firearm does not make it “ridiculously easy” to kill someone as Siv put it. To actually pull the trigger would take immense mental strength by most people, and would only be a last resort.

On the contrary, evidence shows that, when there is easy access to a gun, arguments and domestic violence which would earlier have ended just with some injuries often ends with death.

Owning and carrying a firearm comes with great responsibility. To take someone’s life in defense of yourself or a loved one would haunt you for the rest of your life.

I wish it were true that people's conscience always prevails ... unfortunately, the crime rates don't support that at all

Finally, in response to Siv about the “ease” of killing versus using some other method: the firearm is an equalizer. What I mean by that is: how can you expect a 105 pound woman to use hand-to-hand combat to defend herself from a 250 man determined to rape her? Or how about you versus 4 guys attacking you and beating you with baseball bats? Being armed levels the field to some extent. A big strong bad guy and a 100 pound grandma are much more equal being armed than going at it in hand-to-hand combat.

That argument is not new, its the standard excuse used to carry firearms, right ? Self defense.

I remember reading an article somewhere that the factor which most successfully reduces crime rate is the presence of an efficient police force and legal system, as well as the homogenity of income levels in a society. I am not sure evidence supports your claim that crime rates plunge in an area where people own firearms.

I don't have as much time now as I used to when I was a full fledged poster of PF several years ago (Hyper Wave or something, wasn't it ?!), so will need time to dig up the links to the evidence.

 

[mugaliens]

That was priceless, Evo !

Except for the fact that Evo's comment was a blatent red herring with respect to the quite non-red-herring and very real issues which have been mentioned here in this thread and which I believe most of us would like a more direct, non-red-herring answer.

I'll be perfectly honest with you, Siv;2941033. The rest of your post seems to be a rhetoric-laced plant from the anti-gun community.

Gosh! You're unbelievable adept with words! But you're also incredibly thin on stats, history, law, order, and all the other reasons as to why 43 states in our country (the U.S.) allow open carry and all but a couple allow concealed carry, while also being a stated member of an entirely different country (India). I mentioned the country difference in a previous post here on PF, and it's a serious one, as we come from some rather seriously different cultures.

So, sorry, until you provide stats/details with respect to my country, instead of your dividing rhetoric which appears to be based on your country, I'll not choose to respond any further, for if I did, it'd simply be an ideological argument based on little if nothing more than ideological fluff, as were your posts with respect to my country's way of conducting our internal affairs.

If that's your thing, go for it - fluff up. I personally prefer to stick to the law and law-provided (FBI) statistics.

In the meantime, we have much more important world issues, statistically speaking, than whether or not US citizens choose to both support (nearly all do) and exercise (more than half do) the freedoms upon which our nation was built.

 

[cristo]

Gosh! You're unbelievable adept with words! But you're also incredibly thin on stats, history, law, order, and all the other reasons as to why 43 states in our country (the U.S.) allow open carry and all but a couple allow concealed carry, while also being a stated member of an entirely different country (India). I mentioned the country difference in a previous post here on PF, and it's a serious one, as we come from some rather seriously different cultures.

Sorry, I guess I must have missed the part where this thread was restricted to people living in the US

 

[cristo]

I'm down to about 8-9 or so after selling off a very large collection of lever-action rifles. My Christian neighbors down and across the road have a pile of modern guns. The wife is not a shooter or a hunter, but her husband, two sons, and daughter all have shotguns, rifles, pistols, etc. They have a 50-yd range and a 100-yd range on their property, and often host friends and fellow parishioners when they need help/training getting used to new firearms, sighting them in with new sights, scopes, etc...

What does these people being Christian have to do with anything?

Maine is not a hotbed of firearm crime. The ownership and use of guns is ingrained here.

What was that about anecdotal evidence?

 

[mugaliens]

Furthermore, this being a science board, I'm going to ask you to substantiate your wild claims:

On the contrary, evidence...

Which evidence? Where? Whose evidence?

shows that, when there is easy access to a gun, arguments and domestic violence which would earlier have ended just with some injuries often ends with death.

This is Bradyism extraordinairre, and has been disproven in countless other pro/anti-gun forums. If you're attempting to bring it here, please either provide the detailed stats supporting your assertions therefore while allowing for the full and complete refutation thereof, or don't allow it at all, including the original argument posed by Siv. If you allow that and not any refutation, then PF's credibility as an objective science board, both here on PF as well as throughout a far wider community of objective participants and observers, will have been self-destroyed by internal political agendists whose ideas subverted stats.

I personally don't think that's what any of us here would desire.

I wish Siv's presupposition were true that people's conscience always prevails ... unfortunately, the crime rates don't support that at all. There are bad people in our world, and only the most insulated among us believe otherwise. That argument is not new, nor is the standard excuse used to carry firearms for self defense. In fact, I think it's been around for perhaps 70,000 to perhaps 2.5 Million years, albeit in the form of whatever weapons our previous societies may have had on had to protect our ancestral societies against the subversive elements who might/would have attempted to undermine sound peace and order.

That's anthropology, from our deep past through our very relavent present. I love Star Trek, but as a species, folks, we're just not there for one simple reason - we still have a highly viable crimal element whose exploitation of such an environment would undermine it altogether. The Star Trek environment is predicated on the relative absence, or at least reasonable control, or such a criminal element.

Given the fact that the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world (possibly second), we're just not there, folks. In fact, we're nowhere near there, folks.

 

[Andre]

Those all take more time, effort, and planning. Being depressed and picking up a gun requires nothing except pulling the trigger.

If you like guns, go for it. What I don't understand is why gun supporters insist on making all of these incredibly lame excuses. Heart attacks kill more people than guns. If owning guns was a crime only criminals would own guns. Oh and needing guns to keep the government from taking over the country. And self defense. Sorry, reading every single homicide in this city for the last 2 years, not one was in self defense. Three years ago, one guy did kill himself with his own gun in his own home when someone unarmed broke in.

Gun owners might get more support if they didn't make non gun owners laugh so hard with their excuses.

Last night on tv, one gun owner told the truth. "it's the rush you get when you fire a gun, I love it, best feeling in the world."

Exactly, 100 points. And to get the feeling, there are still legal shooting clubs and what not in countries where guns are illegal.

But it's not about changing the law, it's about turning a culture upside down. Almost as difficult as raising the retirement age from 60 to 62 in France.

 

[JaredJames]

I have to agree with Evo and Andre on this. The arguments some people throw around are laughable. The only well rounded and thought out arguments come from people like mugaliens.

I've also noted over the past few posts that you can't compare the UK with its no gun laws to the US when restrictions on people are placed. As Andre said, they are two separate cultures and comparing a country that has never been allowed guns to a country where a significant number have guns but are then placed under strict controls, just doesn't work.

 

[leroyjenkens]

And they would die or permanently maim themselves the first time they shot it. Building guns ain't rocket-science. Building safe, dependable guns that will work for a long time without failure IS rocket science.

I was pointing out that it would be so hard to buy guns that people would sooner make them themselves than buy them. I'm not advocating making them, but that was just to express the difficulty in purchasing one.

I am sorry, as well. I would be just as sorry if the friend used self-induced carbon-monoxide poisoning, drugs, strangulation, etc to kill himself.

Anecdotal "evidence" is just that, and it is often used to demonize the method of suicide as an excuse for overlooking the driving force behind the suicide.

I'm not demonizing guns by saying it's an easy method of suicide, I'm just explaining how easy it is to kill yourself with a gun if you suddenly have the urge to do it. Hanging yourself, for example, takes a while to set up. By the time you're done, that sudden urge to kill yourself has probably waned. It gave you time to think about what you're about to do.

 

[Siv]

Ok, since the pre-requisite to participate in this thread is being a US citizen, I guess I won't participate anymore.

 

[Evo]

And another gun thread comes to an end.