And the madness continues

[stewski]

Are chemical weapons or an rpg arms and do americans have the right to bear those?

 

[teaboy5]

Just a case of a gun not being stored correctly. Again there is nothing wrong with owning guns of any kind.

In any of these cases it comes down to the owner of the gun not storing it correctly.

 

[stewski]

Just a case of a gun not being stored correctly. Again there is nothing wrong with owning guns of any kind.

In any of these cases it comes down to the owner of the gun not storing it correctly.

In any of the around 11500 fatalities per year?

 

[simpletom]

You say that like it's the only country in the world with stupid laws.
"you must pay a tax to watch TV" is much worse

Started reading this tread and hit gold with the most idiotic thing I have read. Anywhere.

 

[h4rm0ny]

The argument about protecting oneself from burglars is something of a red herring anyway. The purpose of the right to bear arms is to guard against government overreach.

 

[teaboy5]

In any of the around 11500 fatalities per year?

So what's your issue with guns? In NI we can own and store hand guns at home for example and you don't hear of kids accidentally shooting their sister or taking it to school. This is because we have to store the gun correctly and this gets checked randomly by the police.

What I meant is that when a kid gets a hold of a gun and shots someone accidentally it could have been avoided by storing the gun correctly in a gun safe.

 

[stewski]

So what's your issue with guns? In NI we can own and store hand guns at home for example and you don't hear of kids accidentally shooting their sister or taking it to school. This is because we have to store the gun correctly and this gets checked randomly by the police.

What I meant is that when a kid gets a hold of a gun and shots someone accidentally it could have been avoided by storing the gun correctly in a gun safe.

I don't believe it is impossible to own a gun in England either, just that it isn't legal to randomly take it around the place or to play group which seems eminently more sensible both statistically and in this case, what is your issue with guns?

 

[Angilion]

This is simplistic and wrong. You've arbitrarily narrowed down the possible scenarios to a single one of your choice (violent robber bursts into your room and attacks you without warning) and then declared a locked up gun wont solve it and sat back in satisfaction. But you don't have any experience with guns in the USA, do you? Nor did you bother to look into gun safety practices either, did you?

A gun for self-defences doesn't need to solve every possible scenario in order to be useful. It needs to be applicable to some. Safely storing a gun can be done in a number of ways. There's the archetypal safe - which you can open in 20 seconds if you know the combination and not at all if you don't. There are trigger guards which lock the gun from being used until you undo them - which will require a key or a combination (much like a bike lock). These are less secure than a safe but still offer a significant level of protection. If the trigger guard had been on the gun then this tragedy would not have occurred. And again, they can be removed by the legitimate owner rapidly. Secondly, you're disregarding all of the many scenarios in which you have more than a few seconds to get the gun. You hear someone downstairs and decide to investigate. You hear someone outside in your garden or at your back door. Or the most obvious - you don't live alone. So maybe YOU don't have time to go and get the gun, but your partner does perhaps being able to save themself. You also overlook just how violent robberies are in the USA. There was a real wave of Home Invasion style robberies and still are.

So lets summarise: You didn't look into how long it might actually take to get a safely stored gun. You also didn't consider the wide range of scenarios in which a gun might help.

EDIT: It ****** me off every time there's a horrible tragedy like this, some people immediately jump on it as an opportunity to push their anti-gun agenda.

Which is all rather funny since you didn't bother to look into my position on guns. So you're just being ****** off for your own assumptions.

To make it clear - I don't have an anti-gun agenda. You should have spotted a clue to that in the post of mine that you made assumptions about and replied to, when I wrote "The law in the USA isn't stupid. It's based on a different premise, namely that civilians should be allowed guns to defend themselves and each other."

I'm fine with people in the USA being allowed to carry guns openly or concealed. I'm fine with them being allowed to have handguns, rifles and shotguns. A dozen apiece if they want. I'm fine with them being allowed to keep loaded guns under their pillows if they want to.

You're fine with people in the USA being allowed to have a gun to defend themselves in some situations.

I'm fine with people in the USA being allowed to have a gun to defend themselves in any situations.

So you're more "anti-gun" than I am.

So let's summarise: You didn't look into my position before ranting about something you made up and claimed was my position.

 

[Angilion]

The argument about protecting oneself from burglars is something of a red herring anyway. The purpose of the right to bear arms is to guard against government overreach.

Then it's not working and it's increasingly designed to not work. Government reach is ever-increasing, militia are outlawed and the weapons that the government have are increasingly superior to those that civilians are allowed.

Also, the purpose of the right to bear arms was framed mainly as defence against external threat rather than to facilitate armed revolt against the government. That's why militia were mentioned - the idea was that a large proportion of the population would be able to form armies to defend against invasion. Same sort of thing as Switzerland, though much less organised.

Also, a person in the USA is far more likely to be attacked by another civilian than by government forces. So it's definitely not a red herring.

 

[Rroff]

Also, the purpose of the right to bear arms was framed mainly as defence against external threat rather than to facilitate armed revolt against the government. That's why militia were mentioned - the idea was that a large proportion of the population would be able to form armies to defend against invasion. Same sort of thing as Switzerland, though much less organised.

Yeah - IIRC partly due to the fledgling united states having a somewhat patchy proper armed forces at the time and still facing the potential of serious external threats - however it runs deeper than that as many went to the Americas to escape oppression from governments in Europe, etc. and there is a whole thing about the people having the power to depose the state as a mechanic against tyranny.

Despite the government having significantly superior firepower they'd be unlikely to prevail against the sheer numbers of armed civilians, etc. if it came to it (even assuming large amounts of the army didn't defect).

In any of the around 11500 fatalities per year?

It is something I find a bit frustrating actually - though ultimately if that is how the US wants it to be that is what it is - if you look at incidents involving legally owned firearms a large number involve someone owning or easily obtaining a gun that absolutely wouldn't have had easy access in any other country in the world - even those with high levels of civilian gun ownership.