Anyone can get a gun if they show good reason that they need one. Killing people doesn't count.

Farmers use guns for pest control.

Burglars don't count as pests?

Funny that you can have them to hunt rats and other pests, but not to defend against intruders.

You folk have too much faith in your police in their little fast cars and their billy clubs. I simply prefer to take the safety of my family into mine own hands. Is that so wrong?

You got a gun - the burglar gets a gun. Your family is less safe. I prefer a baseball bat.

You keep a gun - your child gets to play with it.

You keep a gun - your child gets to take it to school to use it on his friends.

You keep a gun - one day your child is depressed. So he gets your gun.

I'm not sure how guns keep your family safer.

In 1997 there were 57 gun related murders in the UK. There were 316 reported burglaries which involved guns.

My fault, my fault, and my fault. If I can't keep my gun secure and my kid in line, then natural selection just may rule me out. But, don't punish my neighbors for my stupidity by taking away their freedoms.

Didn't a ban on weapons encourage the development of at least some of the martial arts?

[ 10-01-2004, 09:48 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

Sure, after years of intensive training, a martial artist may have the skill to kill a few people, in an intense hand-to-hand-fight, during which they could be outnumbered and disabled by people in the vicinity. An amateur with a firearm can kill lots of people, very quickly, with ease.

'Freedom' arguments don't wash with me. There's no such thing as freedom. Hell, the ideology of revolution is itself a mentally-skewing dogmatism. For all of the chest-banging and constitution-quoting and founding-fathers invoking that I've seen going on at IW, who among any of us bourgeois computer geeks would actually have the stones to incite and/or pursue an open rebellion against a so-called 'tyranny'? None. I betcha.

We have computer games to dull our fighting instincts and fulfill our adrenaline cravings for us. Let's stick to those shall we? You can save and reload when things inevitably fly out of your control. Nice and safe.

You're not free, and you don't want to be, whoever you are.

[ 10-01-2004, 11:11 AM: Message edited by: The Hierophant ]

Well, if we were going to do it, we would be smart to not announce it in writing online, since it *is* illegal to advocate open rebellion.

Which is another freedom we've given up along the way.

from a population of 60 million that has a history of violence (war or soccer take your pick) and similar victim figures to Australia with 20 million people (and most of them are villians shooting each other) yet of course gun ownership down here is so wide spread.


the right to arm bears indeed! (LOL)