100% support it. We have laws against using them for violence against others already. Banning them is no different to banning cars because you could go on a driving attack like with the trucks in Europe. You can own a gun and not go on a shooting spree, but lots of people don't see it that way unfortunately.

There's also the liberty and its protection argument, which I also agree with. If only the government is armed, then the public becomes a prisoner that serves the state, and not the other way around as it is supposed to be. Guns are not the be all end all against tyranny though as others like to portray. Guns are part of the puzzle but statist thought being so prevalent as it is, as like I said above, is equally dangerous to a free society. If guns are going to be had to protect the people from a tyranny, what good is having them if nobody is willing to turn them on the government anyway?

I think it'd be good if guns were banned for the sale of cutting down on crime and violence. However, banning them as is would be insane because there's so many in circulation already. People should be able to defend themselves. I also think current restrictions for people who look to get guns legally are insane and only serve to prevent good honest people from getting guns, where as there's no red tape in the blackmarket.

>>185
>I also think current restrictions for people who look to get guns legally are insane and only serve to prevent good honest people from getting guns, where as there's no red tape in the blackmarket.

That's a good point. Someone willing to break the laws against homicide isn't going to care much about getting busted for owning a gun illegally in the first place.

Post edited on 15th May 2017, 4:27am

It's pretty much necessary if you live in a rural area.

It could take the cops an hour to get here on an emergency call. And when they get here you better hope they actually do something. Because small town police forces, usually don't do anything but stop speeders and get an occasional drug bust. Any actual case gets handed off to state police. At most they regularly interact with bar brawls, but even then, excise police usually handle that. Not the town's police department.

Then in big cities the police go way too far. The only way they can justify their existence is through problems they created in the first place with shitty zero tolerance policies.

Nobody actually likes the police which is why I find the gun control debate so baffling. If police are so corrupt and racist why would you trust them to be the sole wielders of such authority? And if you really care so much about cutting down on welfare, on the 2nd amendment... why spend so much money propping a parasitic class? For the most part people seem to do pretty fine policing themselves.

tl;dr police are parasites and I don't trust them to protect me

>>187
>Nobody actually likes the police which is why I find the gun control debate so baffling. If police are so corrupt and racist why would you trust them to be the sole wielders of such authority?

They're trying to disarm the police as well. I think in the UK and Sweden the police aren't armed. In some liberal US cities there are movements to disarm the police force as well.

Though that would just lead to the army being responsible for more rather than the police, don't you think?

>>188
I'd prefer communities to try and do their own policing, though that has its own problems when it comes to ethics and fairness. But in small towns it's not like this isn't a problem already.

It's kind of hard to fully explain how parasitic police can be until you see it first hand. My home town, they've only got a population of ~2000 and have been shrinking for decades. Buildings downtown are crumbling, roads aren't maintained. But by god they've got some of the latest equipment in the fire department, they've always got new police cruisers the moment they can apply for another grant. It's "free" money from the government so they pretend it's no big deal. And the whole time they're sitting on their ass collecting fat checks. Their biggest concern is some of these teenagers that skateboard down the sidewalks saying "They'll get tore up". Don't pay any attention to all the buildings we've had to demolish making mainstreet look emptier and emptier. In fact, they'd rather the kids did meth so they can justify their own existence and feel like big strong men for once in their lives.

When the police actually do something useful it's usually not really within their job description; they're just trying to stay busy. Or look busy, rather. Some of them are good people, but they don't seem to stick around. The job selects for people with an authority complex.

It's the same in any small town I've lived in. And I've heard similar thoughts from all over. You're much better off getting armed and developing decent relations with your neighbors. You don't have to be buddy-buddy, but know you both want to stay safe and watch out for each-other. And if you must call the cops, call the state police. Unless time is of the highest importance it's far more likely you have a satisfactory experience.

To my understanding (I may be wrong) this is generally how policing was treated in early America, but faded away as states became more populated and the frontier closed. People paint it as a bad thing now with phrases like "wild west". But it doesn't seem that bad to me.

Cities have their own policing problems, but in small towns, it's about waste and people not doing their jobs while sucking money right out of the very community they protect. Without weapons of our own it's hard to tell what the petty tyrants might try.

I personally find the idea that the individual would not be capable of attack and defense absurd. There are only two types of animals, those who armed with combat capabilities, and those who are at the mercy of the whims of those with combat capabilities. I don't "support" anyone elses gun ownership, although I certainly encourage it, I support my own offensive and defensive capability. Which is funny because unlike many trigger happy folks, I'd prefer to avoid conflict and killing as much as necessary.

>>189
>The job selects for people with an authority complex.
Yeah no kidding. It's a way for bullies to keep being bullies when they get out of school. I've known a couple power hungry douchbags myself who aspired to be police officers, and the idea of them with any real power is horrifying.

If you 'have' to own firearms to protect yourself, because your government is incompetent, then there is something very wrong with your country.

>>192
An armed citizenry that is willing to act if the need arises is a good system of checks and balances too keep the government honest and stopping it from getting to that point. It's when the government is both dysfunctional and has all the firepower that things can go south very quickly. There's no despot that a bullet can't fix after all. What's happening in the US is the classic 'bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing' idea, where despite the country being 1000% more oppressive than when under British rule, nobody starts any shit, so they might as well be unarmed for all the good it does them. I think the Lexington militia would be rolling in their graves if they saw what their country was like now.

>>192
Why should people require a reason to be armed? It's just sensible to keep for yourself the ability to attack and defend. You have too much trust in the continued stability and just behavior of governing powers.

All the guns in the world wont save you from a drone strike to your house ans a swat raid if the government really does become that much of an issue.

>>195
Sam Adams argued very eloquently against this at his Philadelphia Speech in 1776

>Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say "what should be the reward of such sacrifices?" Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!

>>195
You seem to be envisioning a scenario in which:

1) The entire military would side with the politicians
2) The military is attacking one house full of gun owners for some reason

Neither of which is particularly realistic. Historically, a government does not typically maintain full control of its own military during a coup. A fragment of the military is often responsible FOR the coup in the first place.

That aside, >>187 and >>190 already outlined much more tangible reasons to own a gun. Even if you don't live in a rural area, you're at an armed attacker's mercy if you have no way to defend yourself. Are you going to call the cops with a gun to your head?

The anti-gun crowd loves to paint firearms as being used strictly for mass murder by inherently violent psychopaths, but the majority of guns simply sit idly in homes for self-defense. Like it or not, guns exist in every country in the world. Folding your arms and refusing to use them because of some political or "moral" principle when criminals have them and have no problems using them on you is asinine.

>>195
That's why we need fighter aircraft and ICBMs.

>>193
Aye.
Right to bear arms has been quite effective at populace control. It is like giving a crying child a toy so it will shut up.

>>194
Living in constant fear of your own government is not healthy. The government and the citizen are supposed to live together, like a wedded couple.
Is the American citizen forever to live in fear of the American government?

>>200
>It is like giving a crying child a toy so it will shut up.
I'd argue that gun control is that. At one point you could furnish a private warship or even a fleet if you could afford it and felt the need to. It wasn't really practical but you had the option. That's freedom, the option to do something even if you decide not to. The ones being given things, are the anti-gun crowd who have been given chunk after chunk of the 2nd Amendment rights.

>Living in constant fear of your own government is not healthy.
Precisely why having a population with as many freedoms as humanly possible is good. Guns among them because it lets them shoot back. I'd much rather see a vigilant citizenry with a healthy distrust of someone in Washington telling them how to live, than one fearing a totalitarian regime.

>Is the American citizen forever to live in fear of the American government?
The idea is not to fear the government, it's to fear what the government is capable of becoming if left unchecked, and honestly with what's come out of the closet of the US Government in recent years, there is a lot of cause for fear. It's like I said though, guns are but half the puzzle. Without the old revolutionary mindset of the founding fathers and the continental army, the guns will remain silent and useless.

>>201
Anti-gunners are not capable of starting violent revolution, so the government does not fear them. Pro-gunners are left complacent, no revolution will happen exactly because they have their guns.
Both are controlled. Pro- and anti-gunners fight each other, while the USA government does things it wants, to benifit the barons, because the population is too busy being worried about other things.

>Precisely why having a population with as many freedoms as humanly possible is good.
Fear comes from what? The unknown. Order and stability rids unkowns, freedom creates unkowns. Imagine, were you to be free from corporeal existence, would you enjoy that freedom? Your skin is a restriction of freedom, it holds together your body so it may NOT move freely.
Enjoying 'freedom' is merely the rope-bridge theory, getting high and misappropriating emotions.
>I'd much rather see a vigilant citizenry with a healthy distrust of someone in Washington telling them how to live, than one fearing a totalitarian regime
Then you do not refute my point. To exist as an American is to fear the American government ad infinitum.

>The idea is not to fear the government, it's to fear what the government is capable of becoming if left unchecked
Same thing. Fear of government.
>Without the old revolutionary mindset of the founding fathers and the continental army
You know what these men had that you do not? NO right to bear arms.

>>202
>Fear comes from what? The unknown. Order and stability rids unkowns, freedom creates unkowns.
You don't go for freedom because it's easy. See the Sam Adams quote I posted. I agree with how he puts it, specifically the second half of it. Personally I think that the more you try and have some power force order and stability, the less of it you'll have

>Enjoying 'freedom' is merely the rope-bridge theory, getting high and misappropriating emotions.
If it is, then so is enjoying 'stability' and 'order'.

>To exist as an American is to fear the American government ad infinitum.
Okay, sure. Though I'd add that any country that calls itself free should be doing the same thing of their governments. It's a lot of power to blindly trust to be used for the good of the people. To believe as such is naive at best.

>You know what these men had that you do not? NO right to bear arms.
Try again. It was generally held in British Common Law in the colonies prior to the Revolutionary War that there was a right to keep and to bear arms. It was basically allowed through the Bill of Rights of 1689, but was further codified in several colonial bills. Massachusetts had it in their Code of 1650 even. https://archive.org/stream/codeof165000conn#page/70/mode/2up go to page 70, under 'Military Affaires'. Some states just had the right to bear (I think it was NY who had arms stockpiles by law and every able bodied man over the age of 16 had to know how to use them) while others had the right to keep and bear which is what the US has now (to some extent).

It was also officially stated in 1870, 'The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second Amendment means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress, and has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the National Government.' Messed up case to be sure and the Supreme Court didn't deliver justice but the point stands that the Constitution as a legal document protects existing liberties from infringement instead of actually granting any rights in and of itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Cruikshank

>>200
>Is the American citizen forever to live in fear of the American government?
That's some pretty ridiculous hyperbole. I'd wager they live less "in fear of their government" than Germany, Sweden, France, et al. It has nothing to do whatsoever with "fear".

>>202
>Your skin is a restriction of freedom, it holds together your body so it may NOT move freely.
Trying way too hard at that metaphor. Skin exists for a reason.

>>204
>You don't go for freedom because it's easy.
Freedom is very easy. Go into the woods, uncontrolled by the opressive government.
You will get a disease and die, that is freedom.

>If it is, then so is enjoying 'stability' and 'order'
Stability and order bring harmony of society. That is the opposite of fear. There is no fear, to the point of boredom, but that can be remedied.

>Though I'd add that any country that calls itself free should be doing the same thing of their governments
America probably the worst of the developed nations. Without its money, America would look as if though it is only a developing nation.
>It's a lot of power to blindly trust to be used for the good of the people
Power always finds a place to rest it's head. Government is not a omnipotent being, who props up instantaniously simply to spoil a good time. Government is formed through thousands of years of bloodshed and primitve savagery, then those who are the strongest and most benevolent will gather a following larger, and that group will be called 'government'.

>It was generally held in British Common Law in the colonies prior to the Revolutionary War that there was a right to keep and to bear arms
Very unfortunate for them, then. After having defended America from French colonisation, their own citizens attack them.


>I'd wager they live less "in fear of their government" than Germany, Sweden, France, et al
None of these nations 'fear' their government. As of current circumstances, it is hatred.
So in times of good, the citizen lives happily with his government and in times of strife, the citizen will destroy his government. There is no living in perputual fear of his government, as in the USA.

>Skin exists for a reason
Government exists for a reason.

>>209
Now the 'fear' of a government taking the country to its demise is 'hatred'... just not in the case of the USA? Don't devolve into semantics.

>There is no living in perputual fear of his government, as in the USA.
But this isn't really the case. It's a strawman you conceived out of someone making the argument that guns can be used as a system of checks and balances against a theoretical tyrannical government. Nobody except the most insane SJW, who wouldn't touch a gun in the first place, has any serious fear of military action of the government on its citizens in the US.

Your arguments seem vested in personal, emotional dislike (especially with use of subjective adjectives like 'worst' and 'trash') of the US rather than rational observation.

>>211
>rather than rational observation.
I used to be pro-American, so I have knowledge from both sides.

>>183
If I were to run a country, I'd make it the following way:
-there are gun ranges where you can go and fire guns just for fun, sport and leisure, just about anyone can open one and anyone can play with anything in those ranges: automatic guns, explosives, artillery etc.
-you can own guns for self defense at your home and carry them around your home freely, but there would be some restrictions such as no automatics, no explosives, magazine and caliber size etc
-people who have gone through vigorous checks, tests etc can conceal carry for self defense in public
Anyone with strong mental disabilities, criminal backgrounds or substance addictions would be automatically excluded from any gun ownership.
Other regulations or deregulations would be up to the congress, parliament or whatever equivalent of said country to debate and implement.