1) Guns are a form of protection.
Shields, armour and helmets protect you. Guns shoot toxic pieces of lead into other people.
2) Guns are a form of self-defence.
They can be, sure. However, statistically speaking, more guns are used in crimes than are used in self-defence.
A study of gun use in the 1990s, by David Hemenway at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, found that criminal use of guns is far more common than self-defense use of guns.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States
Obviously, potential criminals are going to purchase guns if they are legal. Therefore, you make a useless trade: increased personal protection for increased need for it. The only logical outcome of that trade is more people will die.
3) I don't trust the government.
If the government wants to get you, then your Dirty Harry handgun is not going to stop them. End of story.
4) A 100 lb woman shouldn't have to struggle with a 300 lb rapist.
But you can't arm the victim without simultaneously arming the rapist. So, instead of a rape occurring, which is consequently then investigated by the people whose job it is to investigate rapes, you have a bloodbath. Maybe the rapist gets killed, maybe the victim gets killed, maybe they both get killed, or maybe innocent bystanders get killed.
There are alternative ways to deal with rapists which are final, much safer, and do not end in loss of life.
5) Guns don't kill people. People kill people.
Then it is a stupid idea to give them guns then, isn't it? Unless you are trying to make fucking sure.
Any thoughts?
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pcdude ago
Making firearms from scratch is easy. I have personally done it. Guns are a form of protection as a deterrent. Taking guns away does not take them from those who disregard the law. Even if you remove them all, I repeat, they are really easy to make with power tools from Home Depot. They also will not all go away. They try to get mine, they will find 2 that I give up, then I hide 7 and sell 5. Against the supposed tyrannical government, those gentlemen need turn a bloodbath into a war of attrition. Without guns, the population that resists loses more people faster. With them, soldiers might die with every raid and police action. Gun owners outnumber the US military 500 to 1. If every 10th house took 1 soldier out, the people win quite quickly. The one common factor in the liberation of populations in the past 200 years is guns in the hands of the people.
So point 1 is false, point 2 can go either way, point 3 is false, point 4 is false, since the rapist is armed either way, and point 5 is silly, since there are many lethal machines to the one looking to kill.
If they come for the guns, there will be a bunch of boating accidents, so they won't get as many as you think. The only people you disarm are those who are not s threat with them in the first place.
One key stat you fail to mention is that in any given population, as gun ownership increases, all violent crime goes down.
xeemee ago
fuckin' shop teacher asked my why i wanted to harden the trigger parts of my "replica" semi-auto - i said because i wanted it to be realistic
that was the end of that :)