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Originally posted by Brood
How bout Americans stop shooting eachother for reasons as sad as stepping on your property (stink eye at Texas)... and I'll see this as a non-issue. Until then I'll reserve my respect for those who have been shot by their fellow Americans, and rip it away from those who complacently pretend it is not an issue.
Originally posted by Freeborn
And now we get the by now all too famliar anti-UK bollocks coming out with absolute cod# statements like 'you'd all be speaking German if it wasn't for us', 'you gave up your right to bear arms' and the best ever yet 'Britain was trying to get everyone to worship The Catholic way'.
Do American's have any other source for history other than Hollywood fairy tales?
Fortunately there are some Americans here who have some integrity and credability.
And people wonder why some of us are despairing at the standards to which ATS is slipping.
Still, the bairns will be in bed soon as it's a school night and hopefully the adults will soon start posting soon.edit on 14/12/10 by Freeborn because: grammar
Originally posted by kevinunknown
I got into this debate recently but it seemed a little bit of topic so I thought I would take a risk and write a thread myself asking the above question “why do Americans need guns?”
Now to me I can understand why a farmer might own a few shotguns or a hunter might own a few hunting rifles but why does anyone need a semi-automatic, unless their objective is to kill. To me guns are inherently evil objects that have been designed to kill our fellow man and therefore are evil as is to use a gun to kill. Further to this there have been a number of high profile shootings in America were a gun man has committed multiple homicide or gang warfare has resulted in innocents being killed. Now with that in mind how can you possibly say that the right to bear arms is justified? Yes some people need guns to do their jobs such as game keepers, farmers and law enforcement but why does Joe the plumber really need one.
The argument is always that it’s for self defence, that way if someone pulls a gun on a knife on you, you can protect yourself. It’s a hard one to argue against, but surly if it were the case that gun’s were outlawed or heavily regulated it would lead to a overall reduction in the number of firearms owned and therefore the odds of someone pulling a gun on you would be greatly reduced therefore you wouldn’t have to own a fire arm and the odds would fall further. In any case you can never be sure it’s going to help your odds, if two gun men mug you or break into your house you’re already on the losing side. Now baring in mind that there are almost enough firearms America for every citizen the robbers are going to know you have a gun in your house, they are going to be prepared and have the element of surprise on their side.
Now am sorry to spit on your 2nd amendment right, but for me self defence is not a valid argument for defending the 2nd amendment. Also the ability to carry arms has been severely restricted by the Gun-Free School zones act of 1990 signed by Gorge H W Bush, which is ironic considering that 41% of republicans own a firearm compared to only 23% of democrats so kudos to Bush. This does mean though that as a law abiding citizen in a town or city you really can’t carry a gun knowing that you are not breaking a law. As such you would be better just not carrying one, so again if you get attacked by someone you shouldn’t have a gun to defend yourself in the first place because to be carrying said firearm you would be breaking the law.
The line that I love is this “we have places to keep people who can’t use their guns properly, they’re called prisons”. Very true, but you also have places called hospitals and mortuaries filled with the victims of the scum your keeping in prison, and thousands of homes full of grieving families. Would it not just be better to ban or regulate these guns out right that way no idiots going to prison and cheaper hospital bills and less tears.
Then we get to my favourite, the line that all gun loving conspiracy theorists loves. “ I need my guns to protect myself for when the government turn on its people and try to through us all in the FEMA camps”. If that is your reason for keeping a gun, then you shouldn’t be allowed to own a gun based on your sanity. This fantasy that one day the feds are going to come knocking at your door to put you on the FEMA bus, then you, in a spectacular move pull out your Glock and take them all out then spend the rest of your life like the incarnation of the movie Rambo: First Blood, is just a fantasy no more. It’s not going to happen and even if it does your guns won’t do you any good, you will either die or be put in the camps so again I don’t give that fantasy any credibility as a reason to keep a locker full of AR-15’s in bedroom.
So can someone please tell me why you need a gun? In the UK I know no one who owns a gun, and no one I know has ever been disadvantaged because of this why is it that the worlds “super power” is any different, Gun Laws are out of date, rip up the second amendment and join the 21st century .
Originally posted by kevinunknown
also, you are a perfect example of why the right to freedom of speech should be heavily regulated, just because you have a right doesn’t make it righteous.
Originally posted by SeventhSeal
Instead of a civil discussion, the gun crazy nutbags have come out of the woodwork to bash the OP. Typical, so very typical.
Tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of death in the United States. Each year in the United States, cigarette smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke causes 443,000—or 1 in 5 deaths. Economic losses are also staggering. Smoking-caused diseases result in $96 billion in health care costs annually.
•According to the Alcohol-Related Disease Impact (ARDI) tool, from 2001–2005, there were approximately 79,000 deaths annually attributable to excessive alcohol use. In fact, excessive alcohol use is the 3rd leading lifestyle-related cause of death for people in the United States each year.
Impaired Driving
Every day, 32 people in the United States die, in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver. This amounts to one death every 45 minutes. The annual cost of alcohol-related crashes totals more than $51 billion.
Crime & Self defense
Roughly 16,272 murders were committed in the United States during 2008. Of these, about 10,886 or 67% were committed with firearms.
* Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year./ex]
Originally posted by kevinunknown
reply to post by projectvxn
Well yes that is my 5 year goal.
No its not,
The point is you really don’t have freedom of speech anymore, if the government passes a law saying that you can’t say something then you don’t have freedom of speech.
You don’t need guns, no one has answered my question yet.
And I don’t see the government coming to put you into a FEMA camp anytime soon
Fact Sheet: Guns Save Lives
A. Guns save more lives than they take; prevent more injuries than they inflict
* Guns used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense. Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year -- or about 6,850 times a day.1 This means that each year, firearms are used more than 80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.2
* Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker.3
* As many as 200,000 women use a gun every year to defend themselves against sexual abuse.4
* Even anti-gun Clinton researchers concede that guns are used 1.5 million times annually for self-defense. According to the Clinton Justice Department, there are as many as 1.5 million cases of self-defense every year. The National Institute of Justice published this figure in 1997 as part of "Guns in America" -- a study which was authored by noted anti-gun criminologists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig.5
* Armed citizens kill more crooks than do the police. Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year (1,527 to 606).6 And readers of Newsweek learned that "only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The 'error rate' for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high."7
* Handguns are the weapon of choice for self-defense. Citizens use handguns to protect themselves over 1.9 million times a year.8 Many of these self-defense handguns could be labeled as "Saturday Night Specials."
B. Concealed carry laws help reduce crime
* Nationwide: one-half million self-defense uses. Every year, as many as one-half million citizens defend themselves with a firearm away from home.9
* Concealed carry laws are dropping crime rates across the country. A comprehensive national study determined in 1996 that violent crime fell after states made it legal to carry concealed firearms. The results of the study showed:
* States which passed concealed carry laws reduced their murder rate by 8.5%, rapes by 5%, aggravated assaults by 7% and robbery by 3%;10 and
* If those states not having concealed carry laws had adopted such laws in 1992, then approximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, 60,000 aggravated assaults and over 11,000 robberies would have been avoided yearly.11
* Vermont: one of the safest five states in the country. In Vermont, citizens can carry a firearm without getting permission... without paying a fee... or without going through any kind of government-imposed waiting period. And yet for ten years in a row, Vermont has remained one of the top-five, safest states in the union -- having three times received the "Safest State Award."12
* Florida: concealed carry helps slash the murder rates in the state. In the fifteen years following the passage of Florida's concealed carry law in 1987, over 800,000 permits to carry firearms were issued to people in the state.13 FBI reports show that the homicide rate in Florida, which in 1987 was much higher than the national average, fell 52% during that 15-year period -- thus putting the Florida rate below the national average. 14
* Do firearms carry laws result in chaos? No. Consider the case of Florida. A citizen in the Sunshine State is far more likely to be attacked by an alligator than to be assaulted by a concealed carry holder.
1. During the first fifteen years that the Florida law was in effect, alligator attacks outpaced the number of crimes committed by carry holders by a 229 to 155 margin.
2. And even the 155 "crimes" committed by concealed carry permit holders are somewhat misleading as most of these infractions resulted from Floridians who accidentally carried their firearms into restricted areas, such as an airport.15
C. Criminals avoid armed citizens
* Kennesaw, GA. In 1982, this suburb of Atlanta passed a law requiring heads of households to keep at least one firearm in the house. The residential burglary rate subsequently dropped 89% in Kennesaw, compared to the modest 10.4% drop in Georgia as a whole.16
* Ten years later (1991), the residential burglary rate in Kennesaw was still 72% lower than it had been in 1981, before the law was passed.17
* Nationwide. Statistical comparisons with other countries show that burglars in the United States are far less apt to enter an occupied home than their foreign counterparts who live in countries where fewer civilians own firearms. Consider the following rates showing how often a homeowner is present when a burglar strikes:
* Homeowner occupancy rate in the gun control countries of Great Britain, Canada and Netherlands: 45% (average of the three countries); and,
* Homeowner occupancy rate in the United States: 12.7%.18
Rapes averted when women carry or use firearms for protection
* Orlando, FL. In 1966-67, the media highly publicized a safety course which taught Orlando women how to use guns. The result: Orlando's rape rate dropped 88% in 1967, whereas the rape rate remained constant in the rest of Florida and the nation.19
* Nationwide. In 1979, the Carter Justice Department found that of more than 32,000 attempted rapes, 32% were actually committed. But when a woman was armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of the attempted rapes were actually successful.20
Justice Department study:
* 3/5 of felons polled agreed that "a criminal is not going to mess around with a victim he knows is armed with a gun."21
* 74% of felons polled agreed that "one reason burglars avoid houses when people are at home is that they fear being shot during the crime."22
* 57% of felons polled agreed that "criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police."23
gunowners.org...
edit on 14-12-2010 by hawkiye because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by FrancoUn-American
reply to post by Advantage
Thats why you need a mosin nagant and practice. The mosin laughs at modern military armor, Our soldiers in Afghanistan fear it's mighty power.