POLL: Gun Ownership

Remove all ads!

Harbourboy,

My firearms can't kill anybody either... I can... but God willing... I never will.

 

It is stories like this that sometimes make me rethink my position and consider buying a gun.

 

And I could tell you the story about my uncle in New York who went nuts one day and tried to shoot his son and ended up shooting himself. He only managed to pull it off because he had not one but two guns in the house. Sure, he did flip out, but if he hadn't have had guns, he might just ended up smashing something up or hitting somebody (which still would have been unacceptable - but far less tragic because he could have gone to get psychological help etc and maybe it would have all turned out OK).

As with many of our debates, this one has as many pros as cons - and no easy answer either way.

 

To me, this quote sums up the essence of (what I see as) the problem, or the heart of the debate.

A firearm, in and of itself, cannot kill someone. It has to be loaded, aimed and fired (or used as a club) to do that, all of which requires a wielder. Barring mishaps from improper storage and accidents, lethal firearms encounters all require a human will behind the weapon that is committed to using that weapon to inflict damage and/or end life.

Therefore, any problem is a matter of the attitude and actions of the wielders, and their willingness to use a lethal implement. That's not to say that anyone who own a gun is a nut - because that's simply not true. The reasons why they own weapons, their readiness to use them in any given situation, and their affection for them are better indicators/symptoms of their attitudes.

My biggest problem with guns is that the level of force they can deploy is vastly disproportionate to the amount required in most settings, unless all parties are similarly equipped. All it takes is one over-reaction, one mistake or moment of panic, and someone can be dead. That's a hell of a responsibility to put into anyone's hands - and while I'm certain that many gun owners are constantly aware of the gravity of such a situation, I'm equally sure that there are probably just as many that aren't. Shooting at a range target is one thing - aiming a weapon at a person and pulling the trigger is something else entirely, and it's not something you can afford to make a mistake about, IMO.

I'm certain that not everyone who owns a gun has the level of calmness and restraint martaug displayed in his example. I'm just as certain that not everyone who owns a gun has the attitude that halfogremagi seems to - that it's something you hope will never be necessary, and that you'd only use with extreme reluctance.

The ante is up as high as it can get from the start of any confrontation involving a firearm, and as I've said before, there's really only two ways that it can end. If both/all parties have a weapon drawn, then that number will almost certainly go from two to one, and there are very few situations where that level of force should be needed.

That's why I'm glad that gun ownership is tightly controlled and very, very low in urban areas of Australia.

 

The Great Snook - such isolated incidents are certainly a motivating factor, and in that vein I could produce story after tragic story which would make your very skin crawl... however it is worth noting that a position in support of firearms ownership should not be motivated by fear, but rather prudence. That said, it is possibly more relevent to point out that the comfortable "civilization" which we all know... is very frankly still yet an anomoly as it pertains to the veracity of man's capability to affect evil upon his fellow man the world over.

The following is an except from an email a buddy of mine who was serving in Kosovo sent to me during his hitch over there.

I have removed the picture links... the descriptions are vile enough to make my point... It may also be a telling side note - that most of these atrocities were not commited with a firearm.

The moral to this story... I personally will never entrust my life and my liberty to anyone else... for anyone else so empowered with enough authority and means to effectively protect those... also has the power to take them away... or worse, decide to relinquish their duty... and do nothing.

[edit] Self edited as I realized that this content might have broken forum rule #13.

In it's place...

NonSequitur,

Force required...???

How much force does it require to show a 6'2" 235lb corn fed meth addicted boy from Alabama, armed with a tire iron, the error of his ways...
...for you, if he appears dead set on killing you?

...for your 5'1" 105lb wife, whom he intends to kill, only after first robbing her of her humanity?

...for your 83 year old grandmother, he intends to kill and rob of her meger belongings?

There is a reason the following quote was coined... it's true.

"The lord made men, but Sam Colt made them equal."

Crikey you're an Aussie ... I should put you in touch with a bloke I know down there in the land of Oz. He sees things a bit differently, course I'd have to say you Aussies see everything a bit differently - Lord if he sends me another picture of a Roo's "wormsack" I think I'll right puke.

[ March 07, 2006, 01:52: Message edited by: halfogremagi ]

 

That is how I see it as well.

 

@Tal:
Respectfully, you are so way off. I live in an urban city of about 300,000, and noone I know has a gun. We all feel safe. And there is a waiting period before getting a gun where they're required to run a background check on you, so you can't just "walk into a gun store, sign a piece of paper, and walk out with a gun." IIRC, it's a five day wait.

I'm not saying there aren't plenty of ways around this, like the black market or gun shows, and one particular Simpsons epsiode springs to mind rather readily from when Homer bought a gun. He went there, asked for a gun, they ran the background check, he waited five days, and then came back to the store. The clerk stamped "UNSAFE" on Homer's application (if you've ever seen any episode of the Simpsons, you know why ), and then said that it only limited him to three firearms or less. So it's easy, but not as ridiculously easy as you've implied.

Having guns able to be purchased freely is neither a good thing nor a bad thing; a "gun culture" is neither the death of a nation (re: "coffin") nor the life of it. We as a country don't exist purely for guns, and the nuts who actually do are typically taken down by the police at some point or another.

So? You could say the same for any deadly weapon. Noone in the "bad part of town" goes anywhere without a knife, but I don't hear you b****ing about knife control. I suppose it's a matter of severity and range, but still.

 

I have lived in the USA, UK, and New Zealand. And I know that I feel much safer in New Zealand (and to a slightly lesser extent, the UK) where almost nobody has a gun, than I did when living in the USA where guns were a noticeably more prevalent part of life. But that's just my view. The great thing about the world is that you can make decisions about where you want to live and go and live in the country that suits you best.

 

I am not a gun owner and i am not American.
Here in Greece people in urban areas (if ones exclude Cretes cities) most people don't own a gun for home protection.
On the other hand many people own a gun for hunting. But from many i know the gun is always dismantled when it is home (so no real use in protecting the house). To say the truth before Greek - Albanian borders open i know for sure that there were few or none weapons bought for that specific purpose. Yet after the border opening and due to the steep increase of crime here ( i know it may be coincidence, allthough numbers so differently) i guess those numbers rose.
And to say it last in Crete there is not a single home on the island without its personal weapons (for the whole family) but it is more of a custom (warlike and proud as they always are these guys) and they are being used (in most cases) with great respect and knowledge to what may happen. To say the truth these guys are a little bit crazy. Some own anti-aircraft weapons (when our new foreign affairs minister married in Crete, they used one of these in the celebrations by the locals during the feast) and there are many rumours from valid persons that several panzers that the nazis lost (or left) are hidden within the mountains by the locals in case need rise.
Still only few bullies do use to bring out their guns in quarrels. It is a shamefull act to bring out a gun if the other one is unarmed. And naturally it is illegal to walk around in the city carrying a gun unless you have a licence and a very good reason.

 

That's what the "From" bit says... from the sounds of it, your mate probably doesn't live near Melbourne. We don't get too many kangaroos near the city (wallabies, they're another story).

The whole concept of "self-defence" is predicated on the notion of proportionate force. If someone's dead-set on killing you, no-one is going to deny that you had a right to defend yourself.

To turn that around, though how often is this situation going to occur? You've fallen into the tabloid trap - these kinds of crimes, while terrible, are incredibly rare, and vastly unrepresentative. In fact, it's that rarity and horror that makes it newsworthy. Statistically, you're far more likely to be killed by an intimate partner (or ex-partner) than some juiced-up ice-head drug-crazed rampaging addict off the street (slightly biased reference). For some reason, though, I don't see too many people focusing on intimate or familiar homicides (my ex-GF's PhD research notwithstanding).

The debate is almost never what may happen at an extreme level of physical threat - it is more about the fear of crime (some would say paranoia) and what that will drive people to do in some situations - what they will "justify" to themselves.

I'll use a personal account, since I can at least claim a measure of knowledge of the situation. I was held up at knife-point by four teenagers while I was working a night shift at a service station. I had a baseball bat under the counter, and when the first guy came in with a knife, my instinctive reaction was to pick up the weapon. When the other three piled in, it was to drop the weapon, since I knew I couldn't win that fight, and that the $400 in the till and the cigarettes on the shelf behind me weren't worth getting injured or killed for.

Now, ask yourself - what would have happened if I'd been armed with a gun? Someone would probably have been killed or grievously injured, I would possibly have been up on a manslaughter or murder charge, and that first second would have determined everything that happened afterwards. My life would have been utterly ruined if I'd shot one of them, and it's pretty likely that I would have had I been armed with a gun.

Is defending $400 and a few packs of cigarettes worth a life? How about $1000? I have no doubt that my attackers had no desire to kill me; I had none at the time, either. Sure, I'm glad they're doing time for it, but was it anything that would have justified (or even excused) killing them? Here's a fundamental point of divergence - I'm saying no, I'm sure others will disagree with me, and some will say that they deserve what's coming to them.

That isn't to deny the seriousness of the events you've described and hypothesised (btw, I wasn't offended - I've helped researchers who have focused on rape and other atrocities in the former Yugoslavia). However, the issue of man's capacity for inhumanity is at best peripheral to this issue, IMO.

That's as may be - but the power to destroy life should always be accompanied by an understanding of the gravity of that power and a responsible attitude towards its use. The legitimate authority to use lethal force is one that must be granted sparingly - and I am of the opinion that the use of lethal force, by anybody, is rarely justified in practice outside of warfare (which is another topic altogether).

I'm just a bit confused, too - you say that you don't trust anyone with the power to take your life or liberty away. Yet, you seem to have no problem with that same power being freely available to almost everyone in your country? I'm sorry, but I just don't understand.

[ March 07, 2006, 07:23: Message edited by: NonSequitur ]

 

I'll give you a good example. in a small town near me there are 2 service stations side by side on the same side of the street. The first one is only about 10 years old and very well lit at night. The second is about 30 years old and kinda dark at night.The first has no weapons allowed signs on their doors. The have been robbed 23 times in the last 3 years that i know of. The second store is very well known as an armed store, it has suffered 1 robbery in the entire history of the store(and that accord almost 20 years ago)
crooks are well informed as to where to go and not to go.

 

@Tal specifically, but a lot of others too:

I have to echo what Fel said - while the statistics you provide may be true, I don't see the evidence of it around me. I also live in an urban area - just outside of Baltimore - and I'm not aware of anyone in my neighborhood owning a gun. Moreover, of all my family and friends, only two of them own a gun. One is a police officer, and the other one is a hunter.

Yes, there are some "bad parts of town" where you are much more likely to run into someone caring a gun than you are elsewhere, but those parts are few and far between.

There's also a huge difference between owning a gun, and carrying it with you when you go out. Yes, it's true, anyone can buy a gun in the U.S., but not anyone can get a permit to carry a concealed handgun. (Most people can if they really wanted to, but simply put - most people don't feel the need to, and most people do not bother to - they just don't carry a gun with them.) All I'm saying is that it seems many people have this impression that some huge percentage of Americans carry guns with them, and it's simply not true. The guns per capita in the U.S. is likely the highest in the world, but I'm sure the people who are actually walking around with a loaded gun isn't that much greater than anywhere else. The percentage is probably under 1% of the population.

 

NonSequitur,

We could argue statistics till we were both blue in the face, as there are in fact statistics for violent crimes prevented by otherwise armed victums which heavily outnumber criminal homicide by firearm in the US.

In all honesty... only considering my life being at stake... I did not own a firearm unil I was married with two children... I am now married with two young girls and two young boys.

I suppose to some extent I look at it this way... if statistically my number was up... and I did not take advantage of a means to protect my family... I would not be able to live with my decision to have remained unarmed. While in agrigate statistically rare as you say... that "rareness" can deviate or vary significanlty based upon the area in which you live - and while many would say "just move", that is not a sufficient answer for those in this world that are less financially or vocationally mobile.

For me... being armed is about personal responsibility... it is about duty... it is about not shortchanging myself in the face of the potential that a dire situation can touch any of our lives... it is about having all of my options on the table.

Tallutain,

FWIW - I have investigated that 8-1 Mc'y D's claim... to my knowledge that "statistic" was arrived at some years ago by taking the number of registered FFL holders, not the number of actual establishments or shops which actively sell firearms.

Offhand, I personally have 5 friends which are registered FFL holders... not one of them is in the business of selling firearms.

 

Personally... I do not find a 2-1 number astounding.

In my town there is 1 Mc'y D's and 2 gun shops... one caters primarily to hunters, the other is a wholesale only establishment... i.e. you must be a licensed FFL holder.

There is another town just North of here... no Mc'y D's, one excellent gunsmith who must be a licensed FFL to transfer and ship firearms.

Another town East of here... no Mc'y D's, and incidentally, no gun shop either.

Etc. etc. etc..

There are a hell of a lot of small towns out here in flyover country that don't have a Mc'Y D's yet do have a gun shop where local hunters will pickup their supplies, etc.

Good grief... not strange at all sir.

 

Key words: heavily outnumber criminal homicide by firearm.

Once you count accidental deaths and domestic disturbance shootings the numbers become quite illuminating. I have been extensively trained in weapons use (in fact, I just qualified Marksman not too long ago) -- I was in charge of a 300 person security force. And I have never owned a gun. I don't want one in my house. More children die from accidental discharge of a weapon than by an assailant entering a home.

Two stories: First one, my sister's-husband's-brother was an Army Ranger -- I'll call him John. John was considered by the Army to be a small arms expert. A friend had just bought a .357 magnum at a gun show (aside: no waiting period for buying guns at gun shows -- shows are exempt from most waiting periods). This friend brought the gun to John to check out before taking it home. While John was inspecting the gun, it discharged -- it had been sold loaded without the purchaser knowing. The bullet traveled through the cheap wall of John's on-base housing, through the sofa and into the chest of his six-month pregnent wife. Neither the mother nor baby survived. The family has not heard from John in over eight years. Yeah, guns save lives. Right.

Second story. My sister's family had the ultimate nightmare happen. A man entered their home and grabbed her 11 year old daughter out of bed at 2AM. He covered my niece's mouth and was dragging her out of the house. In spite of his threats and telling her he would kill her if she moved or made a sound -- my niece bit him. Hard. Then screamed loud enough to wake the dead (in the process waking my sister, her three brothers and her two other sisters). Two or three of the kids and my sister came running, the man dropped my niece, started to defend himself, then turned and ran out of the house. A gun would not have helped. In fact, a gun would have given the molester a target to attack (thereby netting himself a weapon and means to leave with his victim).

Most people are not willing to kill. Most criminals know this. I've heard most shooting victims in home break-ins are victims of their own weapon -- the slight hesitation the average person has in pulling the trigger gives the criminal time to react, take the gun, and fire. More people are victims of their own weapons (accidental or not) than are saved by them.

[ March 07, 2006, 20:00: Message edited by: T2Bruno ]

 

Oh brother... no offense, but what a bunch of FUD... if you'd like we can trade horror stories, and "statistics"... FWIW-that "accidental" death number includes inner city gang violence and "children" up to 21 years of age, statistically speaking, I would rather have a neighbor with a gun than a neighbor with an in ground pool... oh, and we can trade credentials as well... you sure you want to do that?

No... this argument comes down to bedrock philosphical differences in how folks look at life, personal responsibility, and what level of trust individuals are willing to invest in the government, thier neighbor, and themselves.

My condolences to your sister's husbands family... John broke rule #1... All guns are loaded - always check the chamber, always point them in a safe direction.

[ March 07, 2006, 20:22: Message edited by: halfogremagi ]

 

The accidental death number does NOT include gang violence and non-minor children in the reports I've read. And just what does fear, uncertainty and doubt have to do with my post? I am quite familiar with weapons and have fired nearly every firearm and gun in the Navy's arsenal from a 9mm to a 16-50. I know the capabilities and I know how to keep them locked and safe from children. I chose not to own one. Period. I also believe that most people who DO own weapons, should not. There are too many idiots with guns in this world. The only people guns protect are those willing to use them without hesitation. Everyone else becomes a victim.