Hiya, MiniD. Yes I thought I would chime in. Sorry to have left it so late – been busy last week and this...
I see the same old arguments are being trotted out, and I’m not going to repeat what’s been said in other threads over the past year or so. But I do have some observations on the various arguments being put forward.
- Guns are just inanimate objects. They don’t walk down the street shooting people...
This argument is so tired it’s got bags under its eyes. Of course we know that guns are inanimate, and that the real problem is a gun
in the hands of an irresponsible person, whether that person be an idiot, drunk, crazy drugger, criminal, serial killer – take your pick. The thing is, a gun crime can occur only if a gun is present. We can’t ban criminals, serial killers, idiots etc., but we can ban guns, and measures can be taken to get dangerous weapons out of the hands of those not sufficiently responsible to have them.
But saying that guns are not the problem because they are inanimate objects is a head-in-the-sand cop-out if ever there was one. Heroin is an illegal drug in the US. But why ban it? After all, a hypodermic syringe is hardly likely to draw itself full of heroin, and walk down the street injecting people.
- Guns being equated with “freedom”
I don’t buy that line, but I didn’t grow up in a west that was won, and my father was not a frontiers man who wore a racoon on his head to keep warm as he stood on the front porch, protecting our property and the people inside. Within the last ten years, heroin was legal in Holland. Probably still is. The government even runs a syringe bus, where addicts can trade in an old syringe/needle for a new one, so that they can be sure of getting a clean needle. Does this mean the Dutch have more “freedom”? In Germany, the 3-lane autobahnen have no speed limits. What was it in the US in the not so distant past? 55mph/double nickel rings a bell. Does this mean Germany has more “freedom”? So why should guns equate to “freedom”? (don’t give me any of that outdated, outmoded 2nd Amendment rhetoric) As far as I can tell, in many cases the reasons people keep guns at home is to protect themselves from the numerous armed wackos outside. I know that’s why CPP bought his gun. (It’s a .38 revolver, BTW. He doesn’t like it because it’s “too loud” – lol) I’d rather live in an unarmed society, than be cowering behind a gun every time the front doorbell rings.
- After Britain banned guns, crime went up – so why the ban?
A fatuous observation. As has been said before, banning in the aftermath of the Dunblane massacre in Scotland was a pre-emptive measure to try to stop a bad situation from becoming worse. There were also two gun amnesties, which pulled in about 77,000 guns and hundreds of thousands of rounds. The argument of “why have a ban if the banned article continues to pose a risk” is stupid. It’s like saying
“drunk driving causes accidents, that’s why we have a law against it. But oh! Many people still drive drunk, therefore the law doesn’t work, so let’s repeal it and legalise drunk driving. That way, no law would be being broken”. Lazs points out that many US gun crimes involve criminals killing other criminals, drug feuds etc. That’s probably true. But are British drug criminals any better than American ones? I doubt that, and yet we never have more than about 100 gun homicides per annum compared to many thousands in the US. But... if we had a gunshop on every corner, our homicide rate would skyrocket – not something the British public wants to see, whether or not the victims are criminals. Just last month, a former drug dealer was shot in NW London. His 7 year old daughter was with him and attempted to flee the scene. The gunperson (a woman was later detained in custody) shot the 7 year old girl in the back for fear of being identified. The girl died instantly. This incident made headline news because it is so rare. With an unrestricted supply of guns, such incidents would be commonplace, and might no longer make the news. If you think that such incidents are an acceptable price to pay for unrestricted gun ownership, that’s a choice you have to live with. But it’s not something we want to see here, thank you.
But Lazs, you say that your guns act as a deterrent holds water, but there is a hole in it. Most street crime is driven by drugs, according to police. People steal property to sell to get money to buy drugs. But these are desperate people. Some people involved in the drug world will even swallow dozens of condoms filled with drugs, and smuggle them into Britain. (The flight attendants report any passenger who refuses a meal on certain flights used by drug couriers – you can guess why) The hazards these desperate people face are enormous – all for a payment of around Ł5000. So I don’t think such desperate people are going to stand outside a house in the street, weighing up the likelihood of the owners being armed. They’re already taking huge risks – AIDS, overdoses, imprisonment...
By arming everyone who wants to be armed, the risk of guns getting into the wrong hands is increased. Many people who are armed are armed for fear of a burglar breaking into their property. If that really is a concern, it follows that these homeowners do not have confidence in the locks on their own doors and windows. So what happens when they’re out? The car is gone, and the potential burglar has the green light to go and steal your property, and your guns. OK, you take your gun with you when you go out to work, but you can hardly carry all of them!
