I don't really get the thrill people get from using guns for sport. I dunno, I never felt the desire to go to a shooting range and fire a weapon. I just can't see why it would be thrilling, and personally I find the thought of holding a loaded weapon in my hands to be creepy.
I still find it bizarre that owning a gun for sport seems to be okay in the minds of many, but owning one for self-defense seems to be the more controversial topic. It must be some cultural thing that I just don't get, having grown up in an area without many gun owners.
Also, an interesting but scary fact: Without divulging too much of my private life, I do live somewhat near to Newtown, CT where the most infamous recent rampage killing occurred and have actually seen members of the Lanza family. When I learned of the tragedy it was shocking and I was stunned more then than I was on 9/11.
Oh I forgot to answer your question about guns and sport. I am not a gun nut, clearly, and I am absolutely against widespread legalised gun ownership. But actually I do enjoy shooting in a sporting sense. I went to a fairly posh school that had a 25m indoor range, and getting a good grouping in a session was always satisfying, and (personally) much more fun than getting battered by much bigger boys in rugby. XD
I was also in the Air Cadets when I was younger, which is like the youth corps sponsored by RAF, and we got to shoot at proper military ranges with L98 rifes, which is the training version of the British army standard issue assault rife (SA80). It was pretty thrilling stuff. I guess it's the modern version of boys playing with swords and bows.
I still find it bizarre that owning a gun for sport seems to be okay in the minds of many, but owning one for self-defense seems to be the more controversial topic.
I would argue that "owning one for self-defense" is 'worse' because you are keeping a weapon with the intention of possibly using it against a human being, whereas in sport, my intention was always to hit targets down the range.
Edit: by the way, I don't think that sport is a legitimate reason to keep a gun in your home. All of my school's rifles were safely stored in a locked armoury, and we could only get a rife for a shooting session, given a box of bullets for a session, and return everything at the end. With with Air Cadets, of course we never got to take any military gear home, no matter how much I'd have loved to as a teenager!
2. Guns make you feel safe. This doesn't mean they make your home safer. Statistics show that you are more likely to shot a love one than an actual intruder but some people feel safer with a gun in the house.
And this is why I would never keep a gun at home, even if I lived somewhere were gun ownership was legal, and why the 'guns makes us safer' argument is completely senseless.
3. And most importantly Money. There is a lot of money being made in the production and sale of guns. If it became illegal for the majority of the population to own guns there would be a lot of people out of business. If people were not making so much money off gun sales America would have stricter gun laws and this wouldn't be an issue.
And this at the end of the day is the crux of the issue. The politics is just a smokescreen. This is why non-Americans find it so difficult to understand why Americans are so attached to their guns, and this is why I said what I said regarding the power of media to influence culture.
Yeah the debate is mostly about military style assault rifles, which makes it even more ridiculous.
"I must defend my right to own this military weapon designed to kill lots of people... because how else can I defend my home against people who might use it against me?! Criminals got assault rifles, thus I must have them too!"
But the debate in the US isnt about gun banning? Just restriction?
Yes. Because anyone who tries to raise up a possible gun-ban gets shot down.
(Hehe. Shot down. Get it? Eh? )
I think there was a discussion about assault weapons, and those are banned in several states...if not the whole country. I can't recall.
And the term Assault Weapon is defined ridiculously. All gun companies had to do to get around it was change the way their gun looked. The same lethal functionality was not changed. Not that any gun is inherently safe. Some are just worse. I wish they would all just go away.
But the debate in the US isnt about gun banning? Just restriction?
Yes. Because anyone who tries to raise up a possible gun-ban gets shot down.
(Hehe. Shot down. Get it? Eh? )
I think there was a discussion about assault weapons, and those are banned in several states...if not the whole country. I can't recall.
And the term Assault Weapon is defined ridiculously. All gun companies had to do to get around it was change the way their gun looked. The same lethal functionality was not changed. Not that any gun is inherently safe. Some are just worse. I wish they would all just go away.
But the debate in the US isnt about gun banning? Just restriction?
@Aristillius It may seem that way from the outside, but if you understand the legislative process in the US you will see that no issue is simple (unfortunately). I'm in a bit of a rush since I need to sleep soon, so excuse any rambling or spelling errors in the following explanation:
The discussion is about both restriction and banning. Background checks have widespread public support. Bans are nowhere near as popular. The problem with passing legislation is that congress tries to do too much in one bill. For example the last bill on gun control had a lot of parts that had public backing, but the inclusion of several others caused it to lose support. The problem with the legislative process here is that they try to do everything in one big bill. They are often hundreds of pages long and include things completely unrelated to the subject at hand.
A lot of this legislative manipulation is intended to win support of certain congressmen who are lukewarm on the piece (if you vote for this, we will add in 10 million dollars toward a dam in your home state/district). Other times it is intended to add something deemed as necessary to and unpopular bill in order to use it as ammunition against the opposition
For example the last administration added the yearly proposal to fund bullet-proof vests for the military to the resolution to continue the war in Iraq. So if you vote against the war you are "voting against keeping our soldiers safe" and are therefore a horrible person. -_-
This is often the case with gun control, but the last bill for background checks really should have passed. It was one of the rare cases where the legislation was kept fairly simple and clean. Of course there were some shenanigans going on, but it was better than most.
This kind of impasse seems to occur on many problems that have the support of a strong minority on each side of the issue, yet when the majority of people are "moderate" or uninterested in or not passionate about the issue (Immigration, Gun Control, Gay Rights come to mind). Many suspect that politicians on each side of the issue find this impasse to be mutually beneficial: as long as Issue X remains an unresolved issue, their supporters will keep electing them to rectify the problem. The problem with politics is that existing problems are good for those who promise solutions. Unfortunately the only way to fight that is to have an informed electorate.
The other solution is to have simpler, smaller and cleaner bills. Background checks should be passed alone. Any bans should be voted on separately. This would allow for complicate issues to be handled piece by piece, so that we can at least get the parts of the bill that there is a consensus on passed without issues.
So long story short, you are right about the scope of the debate in the public. The debate in Washington, however, is much more complicated and needs to be looked at more closely. It is a tough thing to understand if you are not familiar with the American legislative process. I hope this gives you a better insight into the process, though it may not be all that coherent (it is 3am here, lol)
Thanks for the insight @booinyoureyes I guess what @Heindrich is putting forward (sorry if i am putting words in your moth here) is the discussion on principle, or even just logic. Increased volumes of hand-guns [leads to] increased numbers of homocides [therefore] there should be a reduced volume of handguns.
Incidently, John Oliver has made an interesting piece about gun control in Australia compared to the US:
The fact that Congress tries to do too much in one bill is not isolated to gun control bills and is indicative of a larger underlying problem, namely riders. Riders are tactical additions to a bill designed to either help or sink its chances of passing. They often have little to do with the bill itself, and few, if any issues are abused in this manner to the extent that firearm legislation is.
Really not seeing how the right to bear arms, particularly assault rifles, has anything whatsoever to do with this story. Police killing kids because they think they have a gun happens anywhere you can buy a fake gun (and in this case it seems like the kid just had the wii remote).
My gut feeling tells me that if firearms were not so prevalent in the U.S., police officers would be far less inclined to think "gun" when they see something like a Wii controller in someone's hand. They have been conditioned by their survival instincts. As far as assault weapons, I'm inclined to agree with you - that particular issue has little to do with the original topic.
Riders are tactical additions to a bill designed to either help or sink its chances of passing. They often have little to do with the bill itself, and few, if any issues are abused in this manner to the extent that firearm legislation is.
The only other issues I can think of that are abused to this extent are the imaginary budgets that never pass, responses to natural disasters and especially the much needed immigration bills that never seem to get a vote.
My gut feeling tells me that if firearms were not so prevalent in the U.S., police officers would be far less inclined to think "gun" when they see something like a Wii controller in someone's hand. They have been conditioned by their survival instincts. As far as assault weapons, I'm inclined to agree with you - that particular issue has little to do with the original topic.
Like I said this kind of thing can happen anywhere.
@booinyoureyes Okay I was being a bit disingenuous with that example, but my point was the absurdity of an arms race within the civilian population as justification for ever more lethal and advanced weaponry being made legally available for the general public.
Perhaps it is unrealistic to imagine that criminals might gain possession of a tank, but what about explosives? What about RPGs (rocket-propelled grendades), those are already in circulation in small quantities. Where do you draw the line?
In most political debates, I can understand both sides of an argument, even if I hold a strong opinion on one side or the other. When it comes to gun control however, I genuinely find it hard to respect the positions of the likes of the NRA, which, in my opinion, is purely driven by selfish commercial interest.
Heindrich, no one is calling for decriminalization of currently illegal weapons or increased availability of currently legal weapons. I think its hard to have knowledge of the debates within another country, which is why I tend to not concern myself with the inner workings of other nations, except when there is a case that affects the rest of the world or something very public or controversial (anti-gay sentiment in Russia for example). When you are on the outside looking in it is hard to understand the scope of the debate, especially when all the information you receive is from 3 or 4 major news sources (which is why I don't put much credit in pieces by comedians like the one @Aristillius showed. They get the stupidest people from the other side to misrepresent the opposition. It is a common tactic used in conservative talk radio and shows like Colbert or Stewart).
The tank issue, or even the explosive issue is ridiculous. Handguns are easily concealed, where as a machine gun, an rpg or a tank would immediately bring the attention of the authorities. To try and carry the debate into the realm of the absurd serves no one, and just kind of dumbs down the discussion into things that don't really matter or are not even the issue at hand. Even in some parallel universe in which someone was to try and mug me with an explosive, having an explosive would be no deterrent. However, if there was a home invasion or attempt at burglary, having a handgun might be beneficial. To say the two situations are one and the same is just silly.
No one thinks grenades should be legal, but handguns are part of a legitimate discussion that should be approached intelligently and people who support it should not be dismissed as a caricature of the "American Gun Nut". The NRA is not even representative of the average person who support the right to keep and bear arms, and most gun owners and gun rights supporters believe that a background check and other safety regulations are necessary. Grouping everyone who believes in something with the most extreme elements that share a common cause on one very specific issue serves no one.
Grouping everyone who believes in something with the most extreme elements that share a common cause on one very specific issue serves no one.
Excellent point. I feel this is a widespread issue affecting almost all politically-charged debates, and no good comes from it. Often times, it feels like misdirection to me. If people are to ever compromise on this or other relevant and divisive issues, this sort of thing must fade away.
@booinyoureyes Of course, the video I posted is mostly comedic - and should be treated as such. I took it for granted that most would But you raise an interesting point: what should we actually mean about other countries' legislation and generalt political direction. It is difficult because it is so easy to become condecending. Such as Russia's anti-gay laws are absolutely horrid, but many gay rights activists in Russia believe that the west's interest in the issue is damaging the cause more than it is helping it. Remember that the US government is very unpopular among common Russians.
But to bring the argument further one could argue that critisizing gay-hate in Russia is more controversial than fighting gun control in America. I mean, how many people die every day because of hand-guns - and how many homosexuals die in Russia because of discrimination? Put very pointedly of course, but you get the point.
Grouping everyone who believes in something with the most extreme elements that share a common cause on one very specific issue serves no one.
Excellent point. I feel this is a widespread issue affecting almost all politically-charged debates, and no good comes from it. Often times, it feels like misdirection to me. If people are to ever compromise on this or other relevant and divisive issues, this sort of thing must fade away.
@jackjack Completely agree. I've seen it happen so much toward people who are anti-war or are for a less aggressive forging policy. People who hold these views are often accused of being in favor of the Iranian government or the Syrian government over the US. It becomes ridiculous sometimes.
This is one of the reasons we have a a right to bear arms in our U.S. Constitution. It's potentially the difference between protecting yourself and your family (and possibly dieing in a hail of bullets) and meekly submitting to a life of misery and/or death. Without it, you have one choice.
The 1938 German Weapons Act
The 1938 German Weapons Act, the precursor of the current weapons law, superseded the 1928 law. As under the 1928 law, citizens were required to have a permit to carry a firearm and a separate permit to acquire a firearm. Furthermore, the law restricted ownership of firearms to "...persons whose trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a (gun) permit." But under the new law:
Gun restriction laws applied only to handguns, not to long guns or ammunition. The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as was the possession of ammunition."[3] The legal age at which guns could be purchased was lowered from 20 to 18.[4] Permits were valid for three years, rather than one year.[4] The groups of people who were exempt from the acquisition permit requirement expanded. Holders of annual hunting permits, government workers, and NSDAP members were no longer subject to gun ownership restrictions. Prior to the 1938 law, only officials of the central government, the states, and employees of the German Reichsbahn Railways were exempted.[3] Jews were prohibited from possessing any dangerous weapons, including firearms. They were also forbidden from the manufacturing or dealing of firearms and ammunition.[3] Under both the 1928 and 1938 acts, gun manufacturers and dealers were required to maintain records with information about who purchased guns and the guns' serial numbers. These records were to be delivered to a police authority for inspection at the end of each year.
On November 11, 1938, the Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, promulgated Regulations Against Jews' Possession of Weapons. This regulation effectively deprived all Jews living in those locations of the right to possess firearms or other weapons.[5]
Feel free to substitute at your pleasure. Jews can easily be changed to blacks, gypsies, Irish, "the rich".
"Legitimate", is determined by whichever way the political winds are currently blowing. Politically savvy persons will find a way to overcome regulations while the average person will not be. Should the politically influential be allowed to carry firearms or hire armed guards while the average person simply have to take their chances?
If you think that the humans of today are too wise or too smart or too civilized to repeat the atrocities of yesterday, I respectfully suggest that you are fooling yourself.
Wow, Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies strikes again. Although it's generally rare to hear someone compare their own country to 1938 Nazi Germany.
Comparing universal restrictions to firearm ownership is not the same as a selectively targeted law written by a government in the process of persecuting a minority. In any case, I have strong doubts about whether the Holocaust could have been averted by more civilian gun ownership.
Comments
I still find it bizarre that owning a gun for sport seems to be okay in the minds of many, but owning one for self-defense seems to be the more controversial topic. It must be some cultural thing that I just don't get, having grown up in an area without many gun owners.
Also, an interesting but scary fact: Without divulging too much of my private life, I do live somewhat near to Newtown, CT where the most infamous recent rampage killing occurred and have actually seen members of the Lanza family. When I learned of the tragedy it was shocking and I was stunned more then than I was on 9/11.
Oh I forgot to answer your question about guns and sport. I am not a gun nut, clearly, and I am absolutely against widespread legalised gun ownership. But actually I do enjoy shooting in a sporting sense. I went to a fairly posh school that had a 25m indoor range, and getting a good grouping in a session was always satisfying, and (personally) much more fun than getting battered by much bigger boys in rugby. XD
I was also in the Air Cadets when I was younger, which is like the youth corps sponsored by RAF, and we got to shoot at proper military ranges with L98 rifes, which is the training version of the British army standard issue assault rife (SA80). It was pretty thrilling stuff. I guess it's the modern version of boys playing with swords and bows. I would argue that "owning one for self-defense" is 'worse' because you are keeping a weapon with the intention of possibly using it against a human being, whereas in sport, my intention was always to hit targets down the range.
Edit: by the way, I don't think that sport is a legitimate reason to keep a gun in your home. All of my school's rifles were safely stored in a locked armoury, and we could only get a rife for a shooting session, given a box of bullets for a session, and return everything at the end. With with Air Cadets, of course we never got to take any military gear home, no matter how much I'd have loved to as a teenager! And this is why I would never keep a gun at home, even if I lived somewhere were gun ownership was legal, and why the 'guns makes us safer' argument is completely senseless. And this at the end of the day is the crux of the issue. The politics is just a smokescreen. This is why non-Americans find it so difficult to understand why Americans are so attached to their guns, and this is why I said what I said regarding the power of media to influence culture.
(Hehe. Shot down. Get it? Eh?
I think there was a discussion about assault weapons, and those are banned in several states...if not the whole country. I can't recall.
Yeah the debate is mostly about military style assault rifles, which makes it even more ridiculous.
"I must defend my right to own this military weapon designed to kill lots of people... because how else can I defend my home against people who might use it against me?! Criminals got assault rifles, thus I must have them too!"
... What if criminals got a tank?
I wish they would all just go away.
The discussion is about both restriction and banning. Background checks have widespread public support. Bans are nowhere near as popular.
The problem with passing legislation is that congress tries to do too much in one bill. For example the last bill on gun control had a lot of parts that had public backing, but the inclusion of several others caused it to lose support. The problem with the legislative process here is that they try to do everything in one big bill. They are often hundreds of pages long and include things completely unrelated to the subject at hand.
A lot of this legislative manipulation is intended to win support of certain congressmen who are lukewarm on the piece (if you vote for this, we will add in 10 million dollars toward a dam in your home state/district). Other times it is intended to add something deemed as necessary to and unpopular bill in order to use it as ammunition against the opposition
For example the last administration added the yearly proposal to fund bullet-proof vests for the military to the resolution to continue the war in Iraq. So if you vote against the war you are "voting against keeping our soldiers safe" and are therefore a horrible person.
-_-
This is often the case with gun control, but the last bill for background checks really should have passed. It was one of the rare cases where the legislation was kept fairly simple and clean. Of course there were some shenanigans going on, but it was better than most.
This kind of impasse seems to occur on many problems that have the support of a strong minority on each side of the issue, yet when the majority of people are "moderate" or uninterested in or not passionate about the issue (Immigration, Gun Control, Gay Rights come to mind). Many suspect that politicians on each side of the issue find this impasse to be mutually beneficial: as long as Issue X remains an unresolved issue, their supporters will keep electing them to rectify the problem. The problem with politics is that existing problems are good for those who promise solutions. Unfortunately the only way to fight that is to have an informed electorate.
The other solution is to have simpler, smaller and cleaner bills. Background checks should be passed alone. Any bans should be voted on separately. This would allow for complicate issues to be handled piece by piece, so that we can at least get the parts of the bill that there is a consensus on passed without issues.
So long story short, you are right about the scope of the debate in the public. The debate in Washington, however, is much more complicated and needs to be looked at more closely. It is a tough thing to understand if you are not familiar with the American legislative process. I hope this gives you a better insight into the process, though it may not be all that coherent (it is 3am here, lol)
I guess what @Heindrich is putting forward (sorry if i am putting words in your moth here) is the discussion on principle, or even just logic. Increased volumes of hand-guns [leads to] increased numbers of homocides [therefore] there should be a reduced volume of handguns.
Incidently, John Oliver has made an interesting piece about gun control in Australia compared to the US:
Riders are tactical additions to a bill designed to either help or sink its chances of passing. They often have little to do with the bill itself, and few, if any issues are abused in this manner to the extent that firearm legislation is.
As far as assault weapons, I'm inclined to agree with you - that particular issue has little to do with the original topic.
http://globalnews.ca/news/1010570/police-intercept-11-year-old-montrealer-at-gunpoint/
Canada has stringent gun control, particularly around pistols, and yet the only thing that probably saved this kid was his reaction.
Okay I was being a bit disingenuous with that example, but my point was the absurdity of an arms race within the civilian population as justification for ever more lethal and advanced weaponry being made legally available for the general public.
Perhaps it is unrealistic to imagine that criminals might gain possession of a tank, but what about explosives? What about RPGs (rocket-propelled grendades), those are already in circulation in small quantities. Where do you draw the line?
In most political debates, I can understand both sides of an argument, even if I hold a strong opinion on one side or the other. When it comes to gun control however, I genuinely find it hard to respect the positions of the likes of the NRA, which, in my opinion, is purely driven by selfish commercial interest.
The tank issue, or even the explosive issue is ridiculous. Handguns are easily concealed, where as a machine gun, an rpg or a tank would immediately bring the attention of the authorities. To try and carry the debate into the realm of the absurd serves no one, and just kind of dumbs down the discussion into things that don't really matter or are not even the issue at hand. Even in some parallel universe in which someone was to try and mug me with an explosive, having an explosive would be no deterrent. However, if there was a home invasion or attempt at burglary, having a handgun might be beneficial. To say the two situations are one and the same is just silly.
No one thinks grenades should be legal, but handguns are part of a legitimate discussion that should be approached intelligently and people who support it should not be dismissed as a caricature of the "American Gun Nut". The NRA is not even representative of the average person who support the right to keep and bear arms, and most gun owners and gun rights supporters believe that a background check and other safety regulations are necessary. Grouping everyone who believes in something with the most extreme elements that share a common cause on one very specific issue serves no one.
Of course, the video I posted is mostly comedic - and should be treated as such. I took it for granted that most would
But you raise an interesting point: what should we actually mean about other countries' legislation and generalt political direction. It is difficult because it is so easy to become condecending. Such as Russia's anti-gay laws are absolutely horrid, but many gay rights activists in Russia believe that the west's interest in the issue is damaging the cause more than it is helping it. Remember that the US government is very unpopular among common Russians.
But to bring the argument further one could argue that critisizing gay-hate in Russia is more controversial than fighting gun control in America. I mean, how many people die every day because of hand-guns - and how many homosexuals die in Russia because of discrimination? Put very pointedly of course, but you get the point.
The 1938 German Weapons Act
The 1938 German Weapons Act, the precursor of the current weapons law, superseded the 1928 law. As under the 1928 law, citizens were required to have a permit to carry a firearm and a separate permit to acquire a firearm. Furthermore, the law restricted ownership of firearms to "...persons whose trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a (gun) permit." But under the new law:
Gun restriction laws applied only to handguns, not to long guns or ammunition. The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as was the possession of ammunition."[3]
The legal age at which guns could be purchased was lowered from 20 to 18.[4]
Permits were valid for three years, rather than one year.[4]
The groups of people who were exempt from the acquisition permit requirement expanded. Holders of annual hunting permits, government workers, and NSDAP members were no longer subject to gun ownership restrictions. Prior to the 1938 law, only officials of the central government, the states, and employees of the German Reichsbahn Railways were exempted.[3]
Jews were prohibited from possessing any dangerous weapons, including firearms. They were also forbidden from the manufacturing or dealing of firearms and ammunition.[3]
Under both the 1928 and 1938 acts, gun manufacturers and dealers were required to maintain records with information about who purchased guns and the guns' serial numbers. These records were to be delivered to a police authority for inspection at the end of each year.
On November 11, 1938, the Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, promulgated Regulations Against Jews' Possession of Weapons. This regulation effectively deprived all Jews living in those locations of the right to possess firearms or other weapons.[5]
Feel free to substitute at your pleasure. Jews can easily be changed to blacks, gypsies, Irish, "the rich".
"Legitimate", is determined by whichever way the political winds are currently blowing. Politically savvy persons will find a way to overcome regulations while the average person will not be. Should the politically influential be allowed to carry firearms or hire armed guards while the average person simply have to take their chances?
If you think that the humans of today are too wise or too smart or too civilized to repeat the atrocities of yesterday, I respectfully suggest that you are fooling yourself.
Comparing universal restrictions to firearm ownership is not the same as a selectively targeted law written by a government in the process of persecuting a minority. In any case, I have strong doubts about whether the Holocaust could have been averted by more civilian gun ownership.