The police are almost never there when a crime is in progress. I can attest to it. I have been robbed at knife point twice. Once, I gave them the money. The other, I got the knife out of their hands and stuck it into their thigh. I have had my house broken into. My father and I confronted the intruder and stopped any violence from happening -- with the help of a shotgun, a handgun, and two maglites aimed at the guy's face; that is a scary sight for somebody that just wants a TV or a laptop. All three times, when I/we called the police, the response time was at or over ten minutes -- what would have happened had any of them decided to go the distance and stabbed/shot? The human body can lose a pint of blood in sixty seconds from a decent stab wound. Yes, let the police do their jobs; put your life into the hands of somebody that's desperate enough to rob somebody on the street, somebody that's probably erratic, jumpy, and inexperienced. There is a good reason for cooperating with a robber -- unless you have the opportunity to stop that crime. That robber has probably got a shotgun in your face; there is no reason for you or any other bystander to die, especially when he is probably on camera and you can probably get his license number or some other form of identification. The police here tell shop keepers to use their judgment; if you can stop the crime without hurting a bystander or yourself, they say to do it. If I want a gun, I will go down the street. I have my reasons for owning guns, and "because I want a gun" is not among them. Do you just automatically assume that anybody that owns a gun just does it because they think they're cool? Rather biased of you. Some people hunt, some people shoot targets, and some people are concerned with their safety. Personally, I think the knowledge that, if I break into that house, that woman will fill my ass with rock salt is a hell of a lot better deterrent than the police who drive through the neighborhood maybe once an hour on a good night.
I complete realize that crims wont just drop their weapons...that would be a fools hope, making the weapons harder, if not nearly impossible to get a hold of will eventually result in their removal from the criminal community over time. what I'm saying is at least remove them from easy reach... btw how much harder is it to pull the trigger compared to stabbing someone in the gut with blood flowing out over your hands, trust me its a bit of a deterrent I'm sorry i have to post this page I find the comments on here rather racist however it is an official American statistical resource Burea of Justice Statistics America This site puts the rate of homicides in America currently at 5 per 100,000 people...this is much higher than any of the countries without the right to carry guns around. Australian Institute of Criminology Whilst this site puts Australia's homicide rate at its PEAK at 2 per 100,000, it is currently hovering around 1.4 per 100,000 Also this site has a list of the safest (ie least murders per 100k) Benbest.com Notice the ones with the lowest rates those without the right/privilege to bear arms. I also none of these state the murder weapon therefore it is not conclusive that the right to bear arms is the only cause...if i manage to find this material i will contribute it to this thread. After this hour of research i have something to ask the Americans here, what would you do if the government held a referendum (or whatever you do in America) to change the constitution to remove your 2nd amendment? What would you vote and why? Is it worth owning a gun that can kill, or a non lethal weapon like the many carried in Australia? both have equal crime stopping ability...just the latter don't cause as much grief when they get in the wrong hands.. Please answer logically I'm not interested in participating in a discussion if it degenerates into a flame war.
And, in the mean time, you've still got the guns on the streets? There are still guns being used (though not as much) in crimes in the UK, and they've been banned for twenty (?) years. They do/did not have the 'gun culture' that the US did, nor did they have the easy access to firearms that a US citizen enjoys. They did not have even a fraction of the guns present (in the US, somewhere around 50% of households have guns in the home/it was nowhere near that in the UK). In the US, a ban is not enough. You would need to change people's culture, values, and beliefs for it to be effective. Aye, its a sad realization but even here in Australia criminals are able to get there hands on weapons, guns have been somewhat restricted for about 20 yrs here also. The point still remains, if someone has a gun they can kill someone with it, this is not saying that every person that carries a gun will kill someone, it just means they carry the ability. As i alluded to in my last post non-lethal weapons are just as effective in crime stopping situations which seems to be your main justification for owning a weapon. I carry 2 short knives on me wherever I go, both are under 6 inches (which is the longest concealed knife you are allowed to carry in Australia) but in any situation I know i could handle those in a manner that would in-capacitate any attackers without lethal force, this is not a method for everyone though...I've practiced with these knives for about 5 yrs and i know mine and their limits as well. I realize this makes me the target of criticism also because my same argument could be used against me, it is still possible for a law-abiding citizen that owns a knife to snap and go on a killing spree, but I feel that it would have less of an impact compared to the same assailant going on a killing spree with a shotgun. There are alternatives to fire-arms, thispage is one example of how non lethal weapons are used in your own military, It is also to the best of my knowledge that your law enforcement agencies also try to employ non-lethal weaponry when ever possible. The only problem with these non-lethal alternatives is that your population might feel they have had the ability to kill taken away from them. This may or not be true as much of the information on the internet may be biased or infatuated, but this is the general feeling im getting. OK, so it's easy. If banning guns would be a deterrant to murders, etc., would banning cars that go faster than the speed limit be a deterrant to speeding (#1 cause of fatal car accidents in the US)? Yes actually, here in Australia young people (that is the age group that tends to speed over here) have been banned from acess to cars above a certain power to weight ratio, and all V8's and a list of performance cars and any car that has been turbo-charged or super-charged. So far this has been very effective, but this is much easier to enforce than a gun ban in America...As you said changing the beliefs of a nation would neither be easy, would we even necessarily have an effective way of going about doing it? I think not ant this point in time...your continued argument seems to speak for a majority of the American nation, and i feel it would take something drastic to change your point of view. [color]As for the last part, again, if somebody is hell-bent on murdering somebody, a gun ban probably won't stop them.[/color] Of course not, if i was hell-bent on murdering someone they would be dead, there are still many methods at my disposal when I want to deal lethal force, just at the moment they don't include shooting him with a gun. In America, an amendment (what is needed) can be done one of two ways: 1. A bill can be introduced into Congress to amend article/amendment X of the Constitution. Long, complicated process, boom: vote occurs, two-thirds majority of both House and Senate needed. 2. Bill can go through state legislatures, and with two-thirds of those legislatures ratifying said bill, it becomes nationally ammended. Option two is more representative of the people. Still, to remove ammendments one through ten is unconstitutional; they are the Bill of Rights, rights that shall not be removed, infringed upon, etc. etc. etc. That, and most people in the US firmly believe that we should have the right to bear arms. Other nations, it's probably not like that. After studying and researching your Bill of Rights I have made the conclusion that these rights have not changed since there were adopted...correct me if I'm wrong on this. If this is the case changing them now would be rather difficult, but it also can be said that they have become outdated. In the 1700s or so when they were first adopted i feel that the right to bear arms was not a significant problem, and would not cause the problems that it does in todays society. It also appears that the United States Bill of Rights was modeled form the English bill or rights which did originally contain the rights to bear arms as individuals. This shows that the English were able to effectively remove it from their Bill of Rights as they felt the right to own a weapon to protect ones self and ones free speech was no longer applicable. This to me seems the biggest point of controversy... As your argument stands I take it that you feel the Individual Rights Model is the true meaning of the amendment. Though after shedding some light on the way your government works i believe the interpretation is up to them...meaning they could quite easily change the laws to make them considerably stricter. In a perfect world, I would feel safer in that situation as well. Unfortunately, unless you can go back to 1500 or whenever the gun was invented and uninvent said gun, it's not practical. Somebody will always have a bigger stick (something more lethal), and not everybody is going to be nice to each other. In the real world (in America), I'd actually feel safer if more people around me held CCW permits. Why? Deterrance. Not everybody is willing to lay dead in the street for somebody's wallet. True, but what if that same criminal decided his first action was to end the life of everyone in range... a CCW permit and a gun wont help you if your dead... However in the same situation when he had the gun, and the people he was attacking dint he wouldn't feel the need to insure that they would not fire at him, meaning he is less likely to kill anyone, but still as likely to get caught and serve his term in jail. I have been in a situating when someone has attempted to take my wallet, he had a knife and was too close for me to do anything about it so i gave him the money. Fortunately I had one of my very reliable friends with me though so when he turned round he was facing 6 foot of muscle that was more than prepared for him, the only bad thing about that incident was that we had to wait for the police to arrive and I missed my train as a result. Me and my family were driving to California in 1999 from Tennessee. Along the way, there is a town in Arizona. We stopped to get gas, food, etc. As I walked into the gas station with my dad, I noticed a sign, "Please keep all firearms unloaded inside the store." The town allowed open-carry, meaning the gun could be openly displayed (not brandished, but in a belt holster or something). My dad asked a police officer who was in the store about it, since we had never seen a town that allowed something like that. Among other things, their last murder had been somewhere around twelve years before. Yes , trying to commit a crime amongst armed individuals would deter you, but if you were committed to carrying out the crime it would not stop as you have said. We haven't had a murder in more then 50 yrs in the small town I now live in, I think country towns are less prone to criminal offenses. I think to a degree we stand in a stalemate, I await your response.
blame it on HIP-HOP thats wat EVERYONE'S DOIN!!!!!!!!! *i am definitely no serious about that, but i know the hip-hop issue may come about soon so just throwin that in, for a lil comic relief. Then again why point the finger.
I'd like to give you a better response, but I don't have the time. More on this later. Cant agree more. It was alot of fun though
