Politics Should it be a civil right to bear arms?

Kahland

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In the 1700s an arm was any weapon, you could own a knife, rifle or a cannon if you wanted. The cannon was the most powerful weapon during that time so why is the government infringing on our right to own certain weapons? Such as firearms. Kitchen knives are allowed, why should firearms not be?

If you can afford the weapon you should be able to own it. If you can afford a tank or drone you should be able to buy one if you want.

Owning powerful weapons will make people safer. Banning guns / limited guns keeps innocent people from being able to protect themselves from criminals who will use any weapon they want.

In these times of riots and civil uprising all around the world, should we not be able to protect ourselves accordingly to these threats?
 

old.Tohtori

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I personally want this;

Panda-Gun-Gallery-05-600x400.jpg
 

Zenith

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Kahland, you base your argument on people being safer with more civilians owning guns. However, you ignore the fact that more guns = more guncrime. How does that equal more safety?
 

ford prefect

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Kahland said:
In the 1700s an arm was any weapon, you could own a knife, rifle or a cannon if you wanted. The cannon was the most powerful weapon during that time so why is the government infringing on our right to own certain weapons? Such as firearms. Kitchen knives are allowed, why should firearms not be?

If you can afford the weapon you should be able to own it. If you can afford a tank or drone you should be able to buy one if you want.

Owning powerful weapons will make people safer. Banning guns / limited guns keeps innocent people from being able to protect themselves from criminals who will use any weapon they want.

In these times of riots and civil uprising all around the world, should we not be able to protect ourselves accordingly to these threats?

I don't really see the logic. More guns means more gun crime. I would think that obvious. In the US, an average of 31,000 people die every year due to fire-arm related incidents. Allowing the public to freely carry or even own weapons without good reason is lunacy.
 

Mabs

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i have no problem with the original concept
as ive said before, i would love to see an upset kid burst into his high school canteen and massacre 20-30 people with a smoothbore musket

same argument as "i need AP ammo for deer hunting, and a machine pistol with a silencer".
if you cant hunt with a single shot weapon, you arent much of a hunter, sorry, give it up

people are clearly too stupid, or too bound to exact words of the law that now, i dont think people are safe with them :(


and i would like to ask you something in return - what the fuck do you think you need a tank for ? pre christmas shopping rush ?
 

ford prefect

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If anything, I would like to see double standards dropped in terms of weapons.

A couple of years ago in the UK, the government went up in arms about knife crime and sentencing was pretty fast and quite harsh. Around that time I was being called in to police stations regularly to perform mental health assessments, something I regularly have to do. I saw a lot of people arrested on knife related charges. One day I was called in to see a chap who had spent an hour walking through a busy city centre brandishing a loaded military grade crossbow. He was bailed within six hours!
 

Gumbo

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I don't really see the logic. More guns means more gun crime. I would think that obvious. In the US, an average of 31,000 people die every year due to fire-arm related incidents. Allowing the public to freely carry or even own weapons without good reason is lunacy.

And yet Canada has a far higher gun ownership per population than the US, and a massively lower gun crime rate.

Imagine if one of the leaders on Utoya Island had perhaps been licensed to carry a handgun.
 

ford prefect

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I accept the point on defence but statistically more lives would be lost and the crime rate would rise.
 

Kahland

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Kahland, you base your argument on people being safer with more civilians owning guns. However, you ignore the fact that more guns = more guncrime. How does that equal more safety?

But what is the alternative? Naysayers always put the blames on law-abiding tax payers instead of law enforcers who are supposed to protect them.

It seems that if a mad man suddenly draw a gun in a shooting spree, the innocent victim only has himself or herself to blame for not having a gun. If he had he'd, merely need to pull the trigger before the criminal shoots him or her. No firearms, maybe equals less mad men, but how would the scenario really differ if the mad man entered with a machete or a bomb, instead of a firearm.
 

ford prefect

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In the UK, the best alternative is the one we have right now. Make it very difficult to buy fire-arms and rely on the fact that gun crime is rare. Not a perfect solution, but better than making access to guns easier.
 

Kahland

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In the UK, the best alternative is the one we have right now. Make it very difficult to buy fire-arms and rely on the fact that gun crime is rare. Not a perfect solution, but better than making access to guns easier.


Personally i'd say violence by clubbing or a machete is much worse than getting shot.

What about home protection then? - Is it not more safe to have a firearm in your bed drawer. than installing tripwires using hydraulics to shoot nails 800mph though the air aiming at doors&windows, if anyone breaks in while you're asleep. Atleast safer for the fire department, entering your house in emergency.
 

throdgrain

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In the old adage, if guns are outlawed, only outlaws have guns.

I should have the right to defend myself, so should you, and so should the granny down the road.

edit

This thing about gun crime being rare isnt really true either.
 

Kahland

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In the old adage, if guns are outlawed, only outlaws have guns.

I should have the right to defend myself, so should you, and so should the granny down the road.

I agree, a government that does not trust its citizens with guns is a government can not be trusted.
 

ford prefect

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Kahland said:
Personally i'd say violence by clubbing or a machete is much worse than getting shot.

What about home protection then? - Is it not more safe to have a firearm in your bed drawer. than installing tripwires using hydraulics to shoot nails 800mph though the air aiming at doors&windows, if anyone breaks in while you're asleep. Atleast safer for the fire department, entering your house in emergency.

In a bedside drawer? Where children can access it? And who on earth sets up booby traps for burglars?

If a burglar sees you swinging a baseball bat or better still hears police sirens, his or her first priority is likely to be getting out of there.

I think you have a slightly skewed view of crime, that may be from a bad experience, I don't know.

I work quite closely with a few major incident teams and I am usually called out to perform an assessment, which covers them under the Police and Criminal Evidence act, and on occasion, when I deem it necessary I sit as an appropriate adult for the detainee. As a result, I see first hand the circumstances around major crimes, such as murder. I've been doing this on and off for nearly 11 years and I can count on one hand the number of crimes committed using a gun and all but two of those involved replicas.

My point is simple. Guns are not needed.
 

TdC

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ding! in this case, it's not really the government: it's the other civvies who don't trust you.
 

throdgrain

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You say guns arnt needed, wait till some looney is invading your house and you have no way of defending yourself. You may not agree then.

And yes, you can say "oh it will never happen" but the truth is it does happen, and maybe it is unlikely, but unlikely isnt never is it. Your theory appears to be that because it's not likely then the people who do get murdered, raped, tortured, whatever, they can pay the price for your "safe society".
 

TdC

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the existence of said loony, to me, means the society system failed elsewhere. the fact that I have or do not have a gun changes nothing imo.
 

soze

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I think guns should be allowed. But i think they should be stored at gun clubs in conditions tightly controlled by the police. I do not want to live in a country where my neighbour shoots me when I am taking the bins out because he thinks I am breaking in. And also the potential for a child to get hold of it. So for me any semi automatic weapon should be allowed as long as you go to a proper club (range or hunting) to use the weapon.
 

old.user4556

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Personally, I think if someone breaks into your home, you should have every right to shoot them in the face.
 

soze

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Personally, I think if someone breaks into your home, you should have every right to shoot them in the face.

Then more than gun laws need to change for that. With out laws if you hit an unarmed man in the head with a cricket bat and kill him because he broke in you will probably do time.
 

Tom

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Then more than gun laws need to change for that. With out laws if you hit an unarmed man in the head with a cricket bat and kill him because he broke in you will probably do time.

No you won't.
 

throdgrain

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It's not relevant. If you're lucky enough to have said cricket bat to hand at 2am when there's a crack head coming up your stairs then you may be able to do smething about it.

But how about aforementioned granny down the road. Cricket bat or not, she's unlikely to be able to do anything with it. However chances are she can do something with a S&W .38.

As far as saying
the existence of said loony, to me, means the society system failed elsewhere. the fact that I have or do not have a gun changes nothing imo.
no offence teeds but that wont make any difference at all come the time will it?
 

dysfunction

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Having a gun doesn't solve anything. It won't stop a looney breaking into your house.
You may not even be home when they break in and they could get hold of your gun and shoot you when you get home.

If you are home you may not have time to get your gun or they wrestle it off you and shoot you with it.

Just because you have a gun doesn't make you any safer.
In fact I think it makes your home a more dangerous place to live in
 

soze

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No you won't.

There are excessive force laws. If you walked up to a burglar with no weapon who was not threatening you or your family and caved in his skull you would not just get a pat on the back.

A judge on a case where a man attacked a knife wielding intruder with a cricket bat and got jail time for it 'If persons were permitted to take the law into their own hands and inflict their own instant and violent punishment on an apprehended offender rather than letting the criminal justice system take its course, then the rule of law and our system of criminal justice, which are hallmarks of a civilised society, would collapse.'

What is the law on defending your home?

If you use force which is 'not excessive' against burglars then the law is on your side.

Last year's Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill contained clauses to protect people from prosecution if they act instinctively and out of fear for their safety.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw said:

'Law-abiding citizens should not be put off tackling criminals by fear of excessive investigation.

'For a passer-by witnessing a street crime or a householder faced with a burglar, we are reassuring them that if they use force which is not excessive or disproportionate, the law really is behind them.'
 

dysfunction

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Well a friend of mine in South Africa had a gun and they were being broken into. They fired a shot and then the next minute a hail of bullets came flying through the house.

They then ran out the back door and fled via the neighbours gardens.

So much for having a gun!
 

TdC

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As far as saying no offence teeds but that wont make any difference at all come the time will it?

none taken biker buddy. here's the thing: ideally I would like the loony to be cared for in such a way by the society I live in that s/he will not desire to break in to my house for shits/giggles/playstations. I have no need for a gun, and I certainly have no desire to own one. I don't even have a bat or stick in my house.

I was mugged at gunpoint once, and I assure you that having or not having a gun at the time made absolutely no difference at all...other than the fact that if I would have had a gun, the guys would have taken that too.

Now if someone decides to enter my house while I am there, and I happen to notice....then I am going to get the hell out of dodge, while calling the police. If I don't have time to do that, then they're prolly in the bedroom with me, and if that's the case I don't have time to get a potential gun from a safe, get bullets from another safe, combine the two, etc. I'm not going to confront the robbers. That's what I have police men for. I have insurance to replace my kit, etc.

I know you may find this weak, or soft, or whatever, and I realize that robbers may stop doing homes when every home they visit is a potential death trap, but they're just going to do something else.
 

Huntingtons

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It's not relevant. If you're lucky enough to have said cricket bat to hand at 2am when there's a crack head coming up your stairs then you may be able to do smething about it.

But how about aforementioned granny down the road. Cricket bat or not, she's unlikely to be able to do anything with it. However chances are she can do something with a S&W .38.

As far as saying no offence teeds but that wont make any difference at all come the time will it?
burglars will still have to BnE, instead now theyll break in and shoot people. Then steal. Great plan.

Or even better, rape victims carry a gun, they get raped. Now theyre paranoid. A guy walks behind her, she panics and kills him.
 

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