Is it better to carry a gun or not?

[Sir Kenyth]

Originally posted by Noble Wolf: Sir Kenyth, I was an officer in the army and was trained in using weapons from pistol to howizter. GUNS ARE BAD Without trying to put to blunt a point on it - there are more people killed EACH day by guns in the USA than there are killed in several years in countries like Japan. (where firearms are prohibited) There is only ONE answer to the gun/death combination - make firearms TOTALLY illegal, and the penalties for being caught with one should make life imprisonment doing hard time look like a weekend at summer camp. (lock up the offenders and FORGET them - end of story) Then when firearms have been removed from all but military and police services you will end up with a society where people can walk down the street at night.

So you're saying that there are more murders in the US in one day than there are in several years in Japan? In a per populus comparison? I find this EXTREMELY hard to swallow. As a matter of fact I would be willing to bet it is 100% false! If you're saying there are more firearm deaths then you're no Sherlock Holmes. Firearms are illegal there and not here. That's like saying that more people who carry insulin vials have diabetes than people who don't carry insulin vials. So by this logic we should ban insulin vials as they cause diabetes?

[Sir Kenyth]

I'm sorry if I sounded snitty there but I grow weary of otherwise intelligent people who fall for "sham" statistics. False and convoluted statistics are an epidemic in this country.

[Thoran]

Originally posted by Noble Wolf: I said it before The problem is people keep whining about their "civil" rights - well what about MY right to feel safe in my house, in my suburb, in my city, without the need to have a GPMG under the bed. People who want to shoot firearms as some form of "sport" I can live with, providing that their prepared to have their weapons kept locked away in special facilities. We don't have a gun mad mentally here in Australia and those few criminals that choose to carry or use firearms know that the penalties for doing so are a lot, lot, LOT worse.(and I strongly believe that these penalties still could be doubled or trippled) Taking firearms away from people doesn't solve crime - but if you make it nearly impossible to obtain or acquire them(by not having them freely distributed throughout your society) you make the "likelyhood" of a violent offence involving firearms occurring less. In the 1800,s people living in frontier regions of the world "may" have had reason to carry firearms; but I thought I was living in the 21st century.

sigh, you guys are looking for the quick fix, and while the desired result is admirable... what you're proposing is like trying to stop a carpenter by taking away his hammer. If the guy wants to build something, he'll find a suitable alternative to a hammer.

SO... given the preponderance of evidence that the presence or lack of guns doesn't have much of a statistical bearing on violence... why do you cling to this belief that if all the guns were gone our problems would be solved?

Pointing to non-violent/non-gun countries just isn't a good argument, because there's examples of pro-gun/non-violent countries too. The bottom line is that violence is the problem, and the tool of the violence is TOTALLY irrelevant to the solution.

I think it's just a LOT easier for people to pick a scapegoat to blame the problem of violence on... a nice easy target for our ire. But the real problem does not present such an easy target, violence is woven through our society, supported by our media (who would rather show someone getting their head blown off than two people making love). The solution to the problem involves EVERYONE changing... not just some OTHER gun owning freak needst to change... YOU need to change! Not as much fun to point fingers and realize your pointing at yourself... MUCH better to blame problems on some distorted picture of a gun owner.

(NOT talking about anyone in particular here, just generically about society in general and especailly about the non-gun owning parts of society who desperately want to be able to blame others for their problems... even as they let their kids sit in front of the tube and watch Dragonball Z for 8 hours day)

[Sir Taliesin]

I'm not saying that criminals shouldn't be punished. I think the punishment should fit the crime. I have no problem what so ever with the death penalty. I have a real problem with the idea that if someone is labelled a criminal, then he should be locked up forever. After all, if that were the case then some notable people would still be in jail i.e Nelson Mandela, Merle Haggard...etc.

Noble Wolf (love your name btw), you say that only the military and police should have firearms. What about this. You apparently live in Australia, right? What if the country of Indonsia were to hold legal elections and a government was installed that was extremely hostile to Australia, to the point that they attacked your country.
Let's us suppose that they invaded and captured the terriotory that you lived in. Would you try to fight back? If so, how would you do it? Would you take up a privately held firearm and defend your country or would you stand by and wait on the Australian Army and retake the area?

[Noble Wolf]

Originally posted by Sir Kenyth If you're saying there are more firearm deaths then you're no Sherlock Holmes. Firearms are illegal there and not here.

That is precisely the point of you your whole thread. You've answered your own question. Yes - take away the firearms and there will be less firearm related tragedy (ei. read DEATH)

Now, as for the problems that cause high and violent crime rates, well that my friend IS a totally different ball game to this.

[MILAMBER]

Elif!!!

Great post man. I'm completely with you!

[Noble Wolf]

Originally posted by Sir Taliesin Would you try to fight back? If so, how would you do it? Would you take up a privately held firearm and defend your country or would you stand by and wait on the Australian Army and retake the area?

As stated earlier, I am ex-military, so your point beggs two answers

Firstly,- most regular fighting armies now a days wear some form of body armour, wich tends to stop most "civilian" grade weapons (and if private citizens are ever allowed to own armour defeating weapons then I'm outta here!!)Therefore your privately owned weapons are worth squat against regular front line troops.

Secondly, - I hope I don't need to point out your own history to you; in the fact that most western nations in the past have allways supplied fighting weapons (Mgs etc) to their allies/resistance cells in times of need.

Therefore any firearm that I could possibly own now, is irrelevant in such circumstance.

thanx for noticing the name

[ 05-03-2002, 01:09 PM: Message edited by: Noble Wolf ]

[Epona]

Originally posted by Thoran: Pointing to non-violent/non-gun countries just isn't a good argument, because there's examples of pro-gun/non-violent countries too. The bottom line is that violence is the problem, and the tool of the violence is TOTALLY irrelevant to the solution.

The very point I was trying to make yesterday, but put much more succinctly Thoran.

To quote Disraeli: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, Damn lies, and statistics."

[ 05-03-2002, 01:04 PM: Message edited by: Epona ]

[Sir Taliesin]

Originally posted by Noble Wolf: quote: Originally posted by Sir Taliesin Would you try to fight back? If so, how would you do it? Would you take up a privately held firearm and defend your country or would you stand by and wait on the Australian Army and retake the area?

As stated earlier, I am ex-military, so your point beggs two answers

Firstly,- most regular fighting armies now a days wear some form of body armour, wich tends to stop most "civilian" grade weapons (and if private citizens are ever allowed to own armour defeating weapons then I'm outta here!!)Therefore your privately owned weapons are worth squat against regular front line troops.

Secondly, - I hope I don't need to point out your own history to you; in the fact that most western nations in the past have allways supplied fighting weapons (Mgs etc) to their allies/resistance cells in times of need.

Therefore any firearm that I could possibly own now, is irrelevant in such circumstance.

thanx for noticing the name[/QUOTE]Don't know about Australia, but the body armor the US supplies you with sucks! It's only good for shrapnel. It will not stop a bullet. A police officer is much better protected. However most hunting rifles will penetrate standard body armor. Better start running!

In Vietnam, the US Army and Marines armed their snipers with hunting rifles. Snipers were frowned up on in the US military. It wasn't sporting I guess (stupid IMO). Snipers accounted for many causilites in the Vietman War. One man by the name of Carlos Hathcock tied up a whole NVA battalion for an entire day once. He used a Winchester 70 in 30.06, a hunting caliber. There are two books about this guy. Here is a link to Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/se...848644-7268124

If my memory of history serves me right, most of the weapons the French Resistance had in WWII was captured or stolen from the Germans or were privately help weapons. The Allies didn't start arming the Resistance movements heavily until near the D-Day invasions. During the early part of the war The US, Britain and Australia had a hard time even arming their own armies. The Russians had no where near enough weapons to go around. Most of the time Russian Troops where armed in pairs. One was given a rifle and a loaded stripper clip and the other was given just a loaded stripper clip. They then told him to pick up the rifle after the first soldier was killed.

[ 05-03-2002, 01:33 PM: Message edited by: Sir Taliesin ]

[Alexander]

Originally posted by Thoran: quote: Originally posted by Alexander: You seem to think that any armed Jews would be armed and trained in the exact same way as the Germans were - which, as we know, would not be true.

Not at all, you're right of course about trainging, but it's fairly standard that an armed resistance inside your borders will require many more troops to quell than the numbers of those armed against you. Look at Israel for instance, I'd guess there's at least an order of magnitude (probably several) more Israeli troops involved in trying to control terrorism than there are terrorists.[/QUOTE]That has nothing to do with gun control!