The right to bear arms was not implemented solely for the purpose of repelling foreign invaders.

There is nothing in the United States except for the politics of America to be fought over. It has an antiquated infrastructure, very little worthwhile natural resources and it's education system needs serious updating and has the worst health care system among any of the OECD countries.

The 2005 U.S. military budget is almost as much as the rest of the world's defense spending combined and is over eight times larger than the official military budget of China. (Note that this comparison is done in nominal value US dollars and thus is adjusted for purchasing power parity.) The United States and its close allies are responsible for about two-thirds of the world's military spending (of which, in turn, the U.S. is responsible for the majority). In 2007, US military spending was above 1/4 of combined industrial and agricultural production in the USA.


Outside of the concept of God, America, and mom's apple pie. I don't see how anyone would want to invade the United States because they would have to repair 50 years worth of neglect. The United States is just not worth invading.

I'm already in a bad mood, so, hey, why not?


Funny how the open minded, progressive, Europeans can't help but stereotype and insult to try and make a point. I thought you guys were supposed to be all sophisticated and erudite and whatnot. Why the need to resort to namecalling?

I'm sorry things went so poorly for your country the last time you took up arms in any meaningful fashion (whoops!), but that's not our fault, it was yours. You might hold riflemen in low regard, but others know better. Tell yourself what you need to tell yourself to feel better about being a disarmed subject rather than an armed citizen, but don't expect us to listen, because we know you don't really know what you're talking about.

Oh, and speaking of WWII: "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass." - Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. I guess you know more than some silly Japanese guy, though, right? I mean, you're one of the most powerful military officials in your Axis country, right...right? Aww, you're not. Well, nevermind, then. It's not like there are several times as many guns in the hands of American citizens today as there were at the time the comment was made anyways, right (HINT: wrong!).

It never ceases to amaze me how in one breath Europeans can butt in and try to tell Americans how dangerous all our guns are, and how many we have, and how powerful they are, and how many people they can kill efficiently and quickly (and rant hysterically about how you couldn't possibly "need" a gun that powerful for any good reason, as if "need" has anything to do with having a right to own something)...and in the next breath, they'll casually dismiss those same millions of firearms and insist that they're worthless for defense of yourself and your community.

Which is it? Are all our big, nasty, American guns the most dangerous weapons (oh noes, "assault rifles!") in the world, liable to go off at any second and murder a whole city block by themselves...or are they magically unable to hurt an infantryman? You can't have it both ways. Either they're dangerous enough they need to be controlled, or they're weak enough no one has to be scared of them. You're wrong either way, but at least pick just one argument and stick with it.

Well, I'm sure glad you feel that way. I was all set to lose some sleep, worrying Finland was on the way to put us in our place. It must be nice to hang out in the most sparsely populated country in the European Union and have fun pointing out what someone else's country is doing wrong. Finland's got almost the same population as Atlanta, though, so I'm sure you've got all sorts of keen political insight and you can tell us how America's not doing things the right way.

Critias old boy, I am an American. Not only am I an American I am a former US Marine. Not only a former US Marine but a medically discharged Purple Heart bearing US Marine.

I love my country. There have been a few advances in weaponry since WW2 bubby. Like a Nuclear Arsenal powerful enough to sterilize the globe several times over and orders of magnitude more capable of defending the nation than every guy with a gun he doesn't know which end of fires the bullet.


Isshia

Where did you come up with the misconception that nobody in America knows how to use a firearm? You've repeated this statement twice now.

Most of the firearm owners I know are VERY proficient with their firearms, and practice quite frequently. I fail to see where you derive your claims of "Mr Beergutt and his fabulous abilities to defend his nation with the gun he is more liable to shoot himself or his neighbors with than anyone else" and "a gun he doesn't know which end of fires the bullet".

Care to provide any insight on where you acquired this opinion?

LOL Any Rand.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/32/Ayn_Rand1.jpg

And yet Finland for fifty years had to carefully step between both the United States and the Soviet Union who liked to think of Finland as either their backyard or as a welcome mat. It is easy to point how things are wrong. Finland has its own share of problems. From 1995 it has turned itself into a market economy and unfortunately it has fifty years of corporate legislation that still thinks its under the Cold War economic system.

I was simply saying that the United States in all its vainglory is not worth invading, because there is nothing worth invading for that cannot be achieved through other means.

If I had unlimited money I'd buy a tropical island somewhere, build a MMA cage, and give away plane tickets to arguing people on the internet so that they could have no holds barred matches in the middle of nowhere. I'd also video record the NHB fights and host them on a web page for the internet as a whole to see and comment on. You have to admit it would make internet forum arguments freaking awesome.

Who are you calling a Heathen? The Conch Republic will live on!

And on (Another) serious note, a bunch of individuals have been doing a pretty decent job of repelling the 'invaders' in Iraq. And they are fighting one of those big countries with nuclear arsenals.

Yes Warlordtheft, I do believe the answer from alot of Americans is yes. "the real question an American should ask himself/herself is does he still believe that death is prefereable to oppression and tyranny as Patrick Henry espoused."

Americans are like Hobbits. Leave us the hell alone, and we'll happily eat and watch television. Screw with our rights or lifestyle, and watch out.

The problem with "gun control" is that in most cases it is simply a politically correct way to say "ban guns." The people in this country who are pro gun control (a large majority of the time) just want to ban guns outright, but they know they have to do it a bit at a time. I don't know a single gun owner who is in favor of REASONABLE gun control. The NRA (The National Riflesman Association for non Americans) is in favor of reasonable gun control, and it's the main gun lobby in the country.

It's the "who watches the watchers" situation. If you try to limit guns, who gets to decide this limit? Who gets to decide who is fit, and who isn't? Hawaii is a "May Issue" state with regards to concealed weapon permits. It does not issue however (to anyone) with the exception of a tiny handful of token permits. That is one very relevant example of what happens when the goverment can "control" guns without strict rules on who they will and will not issue permits to.

Edit: That is awsome Ronin. Make it near Key West, so when they become the Conch republic, it can be one of their major industries.

Sure, at the gun ranges, where yahoos more than once came near, in heavily divided areas, to actually shooting other people accidentally. And hey, most "gun owners" do not go to ranges, do not practice even basic gun safety and from what I saw on many (albeit not all by ANY means) cases it would have been safer being the target than being in the next stall with morons around.

Hey RESPONSIBLE gun owners I have no issues with. I simply have seen, in my experience, that they are a minority.

Look guys, I do NOT believe that all people should be excluded from gun ownership, but rather that it should be ATLEAST as hard to get a gun license as a drivers license.


Isshia

Anyone who isn't a friend of the mighty Conch! I lived upstate but had many a friend and acquaintance who blew the conch!

Anyway, before this is misrepresented, I was a "gun owner" and taught my son gun safety long before I ever let him shoot one. I simply hold issue with what was, at least at the time, the ease with which a person could grab a rifle capable of killing a bull at 1000 yards from a pawn shop, on a whim, and get the ammo for it and go out pot shooting with it, all in the same day.

This isn't about responsible ownership, this is about idiots, like the ones you see on youtube (who seem to me to be allot closer to the average than you are letting on) who are running around with guns they know shite all about, knocking themselves on their keisters or nearly shooting themselves with while other morons capture their stupidity for posterity. THOSE people should definitively be required to put ATLEAST as much effort into obtaining the licenses to operate a gun as to operate a motor vehicle, an iten who's primary motility ISN'T to put holes into others.


Isshia

We differ in opinion on this, particularly: isolation is no longer possible in the way it once used to be, and I believe that we should be striving towards a more global community. It's why patriotism irks me so much - draw borders between people and they will be prideful of them, and fight over them.


Why must it always be about enemies and fighting? Why must you wage war in the first place? No-one wants to invade america, so you hardly need to be able to defend against extraterritorial 'threats,' and are you really so paranoid that you think that one of your presidents - people who, almost universally, enter politics in the first place because they love the US and want to further their nation - are going to usurp the government and opress the people? Even if one or two people did end up in government for the wrong reasons (and they do), there are so many other people there because of their ideals that it would be literally impossible for them to suddenly turn the USA into a dictatorship. Taking a mentality of conflict rather than cooperation only causes other people to do the same.


That idea is flawed though. Not everyone can be self-reliant all the time, particualrly in the free-market economy that your country's policies have encouraged. Ultimate freedom includes the freedom to harm others; by subsrcibing to the ideal of 'an it harm none, do what thou wilt,' you have already willfully given up some basic freedoms, indicating that freedom is not, in fact, the most important thing in life. By giving up the freedom to harm others, and expecting others to give up that freedom as well, you demonstrate that you think safety is the most important thing. Levying higher taxes on the rich and giving tax breaks to the poor, while using the extra money gained to provide better healthcare and schooling would likely make your county a better place to live, but all the people who enjoy having the freedom to profit outrageously while others die homeless resist that change. And Australia isn't much better, I'll admit. I just wish people in the 'west' would realise that a certain amount of regulation by the government is a welcome thing, as it improves the quality of life for all but the upper-classes, and they have it too good anyway.


Well, yeah.

We've never had the freedom to harm others, as that infringes on their personal freedom. We do, however, occasionally have a responsibility to harm others...

Being harmed in no way infringes upon my freedoms. A freedom describes only what you are allowed to do, not what others are not allowed to do. There is no such thing as a 'freedom to not be hurt by people.' There is a right to live unmolested, a right that infringes upon other people's freedoms, I might add.

As for having a responsibility to harm otehrs, I disagree. While I do agree that violence can occasionally be justified (such as in self-defense), I do not believe that the responsibility is specifically to harm others, so much as it is to protect others who might be harmed. Sometimes that will involve violence, and other times it may not need to. By changing the focus of the phrase, you change the way people think about and react to it, and avoiding harm to others, even when they are the agressor, should be of utmost importance.

I'll pick up what others have asked, can you site proof? also as you give your location as austria it seems a little off for you to say how Americans behave at gun ranges. I regularly keep my hand in and have never once seen anythnig like you discribe and I'm on the edge of freaking rural Pennsylvania where there are a lot of gun owners.

About 15 miles South of where Mel Gibson and M Night Shamalan made "Signs" and the audiences here were pretty contremptous of a farmer in this region that didn't even have a gun for varmits.

Sorry, son in law of "Isshia" here. Yep, he grew up in Florida and has been a Marine, he just moved over for personal reasons. Lets just say he has seen his share of American Gunnuts.
Let me just, as a neutral bystander- in a neutral country- say that theres few things America is better known for over here than its irresponsible use for firearms. The "facts" that Michael Moore brings up in his "documentations" might not all be true, but we kinda get the news over here, of people that shoot for the fun of it, or another arms-fight in new york city.
It might be that the international press is trying to put America in a bad light here, but I personally find it unlikely. Of course there are more responsible gunuseres over there -otherwise the whole country would´ve died out over there . - But a lot of Americans seem to think that the RIGHT to own a gun is equivalent with the DUTY to own one..

Peter

I know lots of non-American people who 'shoot for the fun of it'.

As for shootings, three out of the last seven school shootings I have heard about were in Europe (2 in Finland and 1 in Germany).

In Austria the bad guys just kidnap girls (or their daughters) off the street and rape them for a decade or two, with nobody thinking anything of it. "He was SUCH a nice man. But I always wondered about the naked girl he kept chained up in the back yard...."

funny? nope...
out of 8 million people, of course you have a psychopath sooner or later.. but thats the best you can bring up?! 1 guy? ... i cant even put it in words how easy it seems to be to influence you. by the way.. it was the cellar, not the back yard.. do your research before you run your mouth!

not doubting a word your saying, europe is far from perfect too. But one thing you can say - that over here.. in Austria, Finland or Germany it is a lot harder to get a gun than in the U.S.A. But you know, thats still only 3 out of 7.. which is the minority..

That's partly my point. It's supposedly much more difficult to get a firearm in Europe (a point brought up numerous times in this thread), and yet still almost half of the last seven school shootings have occurred there. Seems to me that too much fuss is being made of your gun control laws.

I have to wonder, were the other four all within the US? The USA is one country, Europe is, like, 50 of them. =P

As for wether gun control will have an affect on mass shootings, I'll point out again that there were 13 mass shootings in 18 years before the gun ban in Australia, and there have been none since.

What I can really tell you with my degree of education, and my age (18) is that I have never heard/seen or spoke with a person that fired a firearm outside the Military in my life (besides cantankerous). Which means there are far less firearms.. The Crimerate´s of violent crimes are a LOT lower - and maybe there´s school shootings yes - but those happen in countries that currently undergo heavy problems with their youth. Theres a simple logic in saying that the easier it is to get firearms - the easier it is for psychopaths/idiots to get them - I think theres not much doubt about that - and THATS the main point of this discussion as far as I gathered.

Fifty, eh? If you say so.

Fair enough though ... let's compare one country to another. Finland has had two school shootings out of the last seven. That is over a quarter of those incidents, but their population (last I head about 5.25 million) is much lower than the U.S (at about 300 million). And they are supposed to have strict gun laws to prevent this type of thing.



I guess that depends on your definition of 'mass shooting'. If the definition is more than one victim, then I call bullshit, as there have been numerous incidents of multiple victim shootings in Oz in the last few years since the gun ban.

47 to be precise..


and europe total has (according to Wikipedia) 731 Million... 3 out of 7 then... with double the inhabitants.. thats not bad i´d say..

Don't you read the newspapers? Natascha Kampusch and Elisabeth Fritzl. That's two. Two that made the press here in the US. Clearly Austria is chock full of crazed sociopaths dragging dragging 10 year old girls off the streets and into captivity, and fathers locking up and raping their daughters. Go to google and enter "austria crime". What other conclusion can any rational person possibly draw?

And easier for those non-psychopathic people to defend themselves against the psychopathic and/or idiotic.

Also, the point has been raised earlier in the thread that there has only been two incidents of shootings with legally-acquired guns in the States in the recent past.

automatic! .... so.. the none automatic... are not included...

So, then let's continue with the fair comparisons of country vs. country. Germany has had 1 school shooting to the four in America (for a ratio of 1:4). Now Germany has roughly 82.5 million people, just slightly lower than a quarter of the U.S. population. The ratio of school shootings to population seems pretty much on a par, if you ask me.

those were the two things that shocked news over here for over 6 months as well - and yes - it is pretty bad.. but so you have 2 examples out of 8 million, but you think google has the answer because it brings up the most shocking story about 20 times?? - Besides those two, how doubtless were victims of twistet fuckers- there are FEW cases of murder etc over here... and PLEASE dont tell me exactly how MY country works - just because you google´d it. I'm not a nationalist - but hell - it gets recorded in the newspaper over here if COPS shoot a raging RABBIT! ... so please.. as I said - do your research!
And Kampusch right now is living a live in fame and wealth - from the interviews she gave. Nobody deserves a fate like her- but none of those girls were killed - nor were any firearms involved ... and I personally do not wanna know what happens in the "you got a pretty mouth"-swamps of America. Those cases were uncovered- and there was nobody killed.. besides the young baby who died because it was born in "captivity" .. which is sad enough - but no shot victims. Firearms are a simple and easy way to take lives- it doesnt require much to pull a trigger - and thats the main issue!
Peter

Seems I misremembered the post.

Still, it seems that you are conveniently ignoring my other points.



You don't seem to have a problem telling other how theirs works.

there were 3 shootings since 1964...
1964 in Volkhoven
1983 in Eppstein-Vockenhausen
and the 2002 in Erfurt...

so that means 1 shooting every (rounded) 15 years in Germany.. wanna continue the math?!

I can find 9 in America that go back to 1998 if i qucksearch...

I'm always trying to make sure that I can ONLY talk about the impression of America over here - if i didn't stress that point enough - I´ll do it again - I do not KNOW how it really is im America - I´ve been there only for 2 months. You of course DO know better - all I can say is about the media that we have over here - where else should I get my info from.
Please do not feel offended - it´s just.. that.. whatever America might think of itself (golden shining example on top of the hill) - its not precieved as that over here.
If you read over my posts, I try to use as many words as my vocabulary allows to stress that I do not think I know better - I can just report from what I know over here.

Peter

Note, as I stated earlier, that I am not an American. I have however, resided there (and elsewhere, including several countries in Europe) for extended periods though.

As for the media, I believe that's kzt's point. If you only believe what you hear in the media, then Austria is full of the type of people he mentioned, just as the U.S. is full of psychopathic gunslingers. If, on the other hand, you don't just judge an entire nation on the media, then things appear different.

I never said all of them are, as you can read in this post.

C-Bucks, come over here so I can pop a cap in your ass for dissing Americans.

And you guys wonder about your bad reputation......

If you mean cite it as in it was reported...

People, I am an American citizen who has been living and working here since mid 2000, but I was a Marine, did my bit, caught a leg full of shrapnel in Grenada (yes, way back when) and had a bullet whisper by my ear close enough that that whisper was a shout. I was a gun owner myself, as I've already stated, and went to allot of ranges (mainly in south western Florida) over a period of more than 20 years as an adult. In that time I've seen more irresponsibility, some of it grotesque, than responsibility, in gun ownership and DEFINITELY believe that we need MUCH stricter gun control than is in place now. At one point after having sold off every firearm I had (even with a gun cabinet I didn't want a really young child) in the same house as a gun, so when my son began to walk I sold off the lot of them, and started reacquiring them when he was eight and started teaching him basic gun safety at that point. When he was eleven I took him to a range for the first time and right from that point you could see the difference in the way he handled his weapon as compared to MOST of the adults, one of whom came wandering over with his pistol stuck in the waist band of his trousers and had the damned thing fall out. On another occasion another man managed to spang a bullet through the wooden wall of the stall next to the one we were in. And USUALLY the degree of gun safety exhibited was low enough that it would equate to driving with 50mph in the rain without the windshield wipers on.

Clear now?


Isshia

Anecdotal evidence is not really all that telling ... therefore I'll add mine.

My experiences (and it seems those of Snow Fox) are completely different to your own. I have seen and met many more responsible and competent gun owners (even among those residing in the Tampa area) than I have people like you describe.

Sure, I'll buy that. Mileage may vary. But at the same time you've got to admit that it is embarrassingly easy to legally obtain a firearm in SW Florida...much easier than it is to obtain, say, a cheap car, and then operate it.... and for rifles at least (unless the law has been changed) you need no license to do so. The item created to end life needs no license and the one created to transport you from point A to point B does. THAT is what I hold issue with.


Isshia

Would you invite Frank Dux to participate on the condition that he makes a movie about it with Jean Claude Van Damme?

Of course, one could say that the problem lies with the Driver's License being too difficult to obtain (or even unnecessary).

To me, the telling thing is just how many guns are in private hands in the States, as compared to the times they are actually used against another human. Sensationalism aside, I honestly don't think the ratio is all that bad.

I just want to react to the idea that was given that gun control in Europe was a restriction of our freedom.

I won't repeat my whole previous post, but I'd just like to insist on the fact that it's mostly a cultural issue. It's not as if we were taken our guns, since we (the general French population, but I think it's the same for most Europe) never had them in the first place (except for soldiers or hunters). And even if we did at one point (I don't know for sure), it's not rooted in our culture at all.
So for us gun control isn't a restriction of our freedom. I've never met anyone who felt it as a restriction or who wanted to be able to own a gun.

Copy that for Germany.

I for myself feel a lot safer, knowing that mainly the specially trained state officials, i.e. police and military, are armed. Although I have never been robbed, I never would imagine the prospective criminal to use a gun. And I know how I can protect my life without weapons: by handing over my wallet.

Still gun ownership and registration in Germany should be a lot stricter. I know two persons who own damn pumpguns - an insane amount of personal firepower for a safe and snuggly republic where the monopoly of force shouldrest solely with the state. One of them even has a sniper rifle from the horribly old days when the laws were more lax.

While it's fun and easiest to poke at statistics and yell "SEE?!?", one thing to keep in mind is how the statistics are often warped by how the initial crime is reported and how it is subsequently changed by the local government.

In the UK and AUS the government will alter the crime reported to be for public dissemination to match the conviction rather than the crime. That is is mentioned to demonstrate that the low homicide rates, while probably still lower than the actual rate in the US, is largely a fallacy because the actual crime report has been altered. Let's say some drug dealer has decided to plead their murder charge to manslaughter. The clerks and the Home Offices happily will go back to change this homicide to a manslaughter charge, even though this guy had just murdered someone, and tell you that a murder had never happened so you can feel nice and safe compared to those crazy gun toting yanks across the pond(s).
Now add the quantum leap in emergency medicine in the last 10-15 years in both the UK and (especially) AUS and you can get the idea that people are simply surviving more often rather than trying to kill each other less because people are, well...people and we really haven't changed much when it comes right down to it.

The USA, on the other hand, treats anything that can possibly have been a homicide in the eyes of the initial investigator as a homicide for reporting purposes. If the criminal pleads down or it turns out to be something else, tough titties. It's still reported to the FBI for the annual UCR as a homicide for the UK and AUS guys to point at and yell, "SEE?!?" while they shake their heads in worry for us poor bloodthirsty yanks. That's right, any instance of death that is not immediately 100% certain to not be an accident or otherwise non-homicide in nature is reported and published as a homicide even if the charges are later dropped or changed in the USA. This is why we don't call a good shooting by civilians or police a "self defense shooting", we call it "Justifiable Homicide".

So on one side we have a manipulation by the powers that be to lower the homicide rate by treating plea-downs as non-homicides in the interest of public comfort and on the other you have a manipulation by the powers that be to report even non-homicides as homicides because they can't be arsed to change the report to match the facts.

Now comes the question..."Would you rather be told that everything is doom and gloom so you can be prepared for the worst or be told that it's all flowers and prancing through sunshine meadows so you can blindsided when reality comes knocking on your front door with a butcher's knife in it's hands?"

And police action is still the #1 firearms killer in the USA. Also, the vast majority of firearms homicides are criminals killing other criminals, not random people getting gunned down in the streets as your various medias are fond of having you believe. Well, over 90% of gun crime is done with stolen weapons and well under 1% of gun crime is done with weapons attained via the much-maligned "gun show loophole" I'm sure gets beaten around over there with great hysterics to show how phenomenally stupid we are here in the USA and make you happy that you have your oh-so-sensible government to protect you from yourselves.

Or the DLs are way to easy to get a hold of too, which is why we have such a high death toll on our highways compared with so many other nations.

Try being shot and say the same then. I lost a very close friend to one of those "sensationalist" statistics and have been shot AT myself. The telling numbers are the per capita crime rates. Almost ALL of our major cities have per capita crime rates, especially violent crime rates, especially involving firearms, that are way to damned high compared to any other first world (or even second world) nation. Do a comparison, per capita, of firearms related deaths in other first world nations compared with the US... and prepare to be outright shocked, and maybe, hopefully, dismayed at what you find out.


Isshia


Edit: As a quick aside: that 90% "stolen gun" crime rate ...who were those weapons stolen from? Guys who have a locked gun cabinet and pay attention to the safety issues generally? Or maybe Joe Beergutt who impulse bought his piece at a gun show and left it in the glove box of his car, or on the gun rack in his rear window...and then left the damned pickup unlocked? Or maybe from the gun show vendor himself or a pawn ship owner who didn't have (or didn't bother with having) the proper means to secure his stock? Few guns get stolen from locked gun cabinets, from collectors and responsible hunters, from specialty stores that sell firearms and the like simply because they are harder to steal with due diligence given a moments thought. Impulse buyers, such as are the stock and trade for gun show retailers, just are seldom bothered to secure their impulse buys as well as the serious collector who takes his time and THINKS and goes through the proper channels and motions.

My own experience is two-fold. First of all in the united states back in 1996 I was in Blockbusters and my mom was getting something out of the car. This one woman who thought my mom was too close to her car pulled out a .357 revolver and threatened her to back off. At the range over a car she would have been killed.

I have been mugged twice in Finland. Both at knife point. First one demanded money with a rusty carpentry knife and as soon as someone else became involved he shuffled off.

Fast-forward to 2007 and I was applying for a handgun license in Finland. The paperwork is for me to ask if I may legally purchase a handgun down to make and model. I would be expected to keep it in a locked case at all times and transport it unloaded in that locked case to and from the shooting range. At the shooting range I would be expected to undergo training by the range staff to make sure that I have the proper training to safely use that handgun.

Hell, I learned to do weapons drill in my sleep as a university officer cadet and anything less would have made me fail our MTQ1. In the words of our trainer the purpose of the rifle is to kill people, not to go out shooting rabbits.

We had two school shootings in Finland. Both a year apart from each other. We talked about the first event in detail when I was doing my teacher training in 2007/2008. We often talk about the Americanization of crime here in Finland. Movies and news gives ideas how to perpetuate crimes where guns are one of the main tools for righting social wrongs.

It turns my stomach and amuses me no end that a German would sing the praises of safety and security that come with only the government having the weapons. I mean, what could go wrong, right?

Well, THIS at least is amusing. There were FAR fewer gun control laws, less than the US has now, when the Facists came to power. The electorate was as or more able to arm itself than the one in the US is presently. It did NOTHING to so much as slow down the rise of the Facists. So, what could go wrong? More like, what would it matter?


Isshia

For those toting their statistics: Switzerland has, with a population of about 7'000'000, about 200'000 assault rifles - full-auto - in civilian hands. They're collecting the ammo, but anyone of legal age can buy that ammo without a fuss. We've got a like number of assault rifles converted to semi-auto in civilian hands, just from people leaving the military service and choosing to keep their rifle. And we've got enve more weapons than this among marksmen, hunters and collectors. My grandfather owned four firearms, and was neither, for example. For about 50 years past WW2, we've been free to concealed carry a firearm in half the country without any restriction.

Now, I dare anyone of you here in Europe to claim that for the past 50 years, Switzerland ever was known as "Wild West", or any other place where you were likely to be shot.

Quite frankly, unless you're somehow so different from us, you do not need your strict gun laws to be safe. And I honestly do not think we swiss are somehow morally superiour than anyone else on this planet, or the only ones in Europe able to handle weapons safely.

Also, for those citing US gun violence, the gun laws in many of the US cities that have such big crime problems are far stricter than over here. Strangely, the parts of the US with very lax gun laws, generally the rural ones, are much safer with regards to gun-related crime.

Now, why is this so?

Hint: It's connected to the fact that, no matter how much you may hate it, that guns do not kill people. People kill people. Among them are evil and/or crazy people. Many more than you would be comfortable to know. And if they are not legally allowed to have weapons then they either get them illegally - and don't tell me they have any troubles getting them over here in Europe, not with our organised crime, and the relatively close Russia, where you can get weapons rather easily - or they take the next best thing: Knives (as in Japan) or baseball bats, etc.

Anyone who tells you that there wouldn't have been a crime if there were no guns is someone excusing a criminal, and trying to make people believe that the gun, not the criminal is at fault. And trying to protect those criminals like that, to absolve them of their own responsibility, to blame the gun, not the man, is almost as bad as committing the crime yourself.

Until we're starting to deal with the real cause of crime - which is people - we're not going to be safe. Any energy spent on gun control is wasted, nothing more than some cheap political show. What we need to do as a society is to deal with people, with ourselves.
Some people will always be evil, or crazy. We can't prevent them from bring born, we can just lock the former up once we catch them, and try to treat the later. But we can stop the "manufactured crime", we can break the cycle of people growing into crime because they do not want to take other options, because everyone they know is doing it, because their only role models glorify it.
But as long as we treat every criminal as a not responsible, as led to crime by the evil gun, as long as we do allow them to fool themselves and do not try to make them change, as long as we treat symptons and not the causes, we'll never be safe.

Of course, almost all the well-off middle-class citizens in Europe won't be hurt either way - the price for their illusions, for their stupidity, is being paid by the victims of the criminals.