Obama to Seek New Assault Weapons Ban (PPR Version)

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Dussel:

Last I heard, weren't all knives over four inches illegal over there? So by your reasoning, since illegality means hard-to-come-by, most murders are committed with even smaller knives? What's next, banning martial-arts classes, since someone might run around Judo-chopping people to death?

Ok, so the gov't can forcefully take away my lawfully-purchased items and lock them securely inside a steel foundry's crucible, agreed. On the other hand, I'd love to see a thief sneak into my house, down my stairs, into my bedroom, and get away with a 300-pound gun safe that has another 60 pounds of gear in it.

Why should the masses be punished for the stupidity of the few?

Firearms: Because when every second counts for your family, the cops are only minutes away.

The first thing: It is much more likely that you will your family or will get killed by your family than any stranger would it. The most cases of homicide happen within the family or close friends. It is not a good idea to have here weapons around.

Besides this fact: The normal criminal don't want to kill - he wants to steal. So long he has no reason to believe that you will kill him, he has no reason to kill you. The likelihood that he will leave the place of burglary undiscovered is quite high; for a murder case the situation is quite different. A burglary is a matter for the files - in a murder case the police will investigate and it is very likely that they will bring the murder to justice. Therefore a burglar has strong interest not to kill anyone. If you force with a weapon to defend his live his interest change drastically: He may will you!

The same is true for almost any kind of crime.

Help another country in need?

It's your nation's duty to intervene if Mexico risks falling to drug lords, surely?

Whoops, it posted twice.

Last edited by zerooftheday on 27 Mar 2009, 12:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If a member of my family intends to kill me, they wouldn't need a gun, knives and pipe bombs work perfectly well. But in any case, you're right, it is much more likely that a family member will commit murder than a total stranger. Or maybe it is on average, I happen to trust my family.

I don't leave my firearms lying around, they're locked up. No one in my house has the combination, and the paperwork is at my mother's house, locked in her file safe. When folks I don't know show up at my roommates' behest, the door to my room gets locked immediately.

The thing is, if stuff is breaking upstairs, I'll take a peak, then call the cops, who will probably arrive right after the criminal is done watching a DVD. If someone starts screaming, then I'll grab my rifle. If I had a house built, everyone would live upstairs on the second floor, and burglars would simply be warned to not approach the stairs. Hell, while some of my stuff is utterly irreplaceable, it's not worth killing someone over. If they enter my room, the funny part is that I have a sword by my bed, not a firearm.

In 2001, drunk driving killed 17,448 people (NHTSA). Excepting suicides*, firearm deaths totaled 12,704 (USDOJ). Why not ban cars or booze?

*I'm excepting suicides because it is utterly impossible to tell how many would have chosen a different method had a firearm not been available, which simply provides a way for both sides to throw up a random % that makes their side look better.

No one ever answers why the masses should be punished for the failings of the few. Do you even have an answer? Go punish people that deserve it, I've yet to use a firearm in a dangerous manner. You can play all the what-ifs you want, but you still can't say why this is the only issue in which it's OK to punish people who haven't, and are statistically extremely unlikely to, commit crimes.

Go look it up, the vast majority of firearm owners in the US are law-abiding citizens.

Off Topic:That's a bit more complex: If drugs were not illegal in the USA (and the same to say for Europe) Mexico wouldn't have the problem with crime. But that's an other issue.

Quite, and I hope they stay illegal.

So, pushing the drug trade underground to fund gangs which cause large quantities of death and violence in American inner cities, and to fund drug lords which, well, do what they're doing in Mexico is cool with you eh?

Uhhhhh, I guess you've never seen any local news here.