Originally posted by Spotless
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2. And almost no gun control at all like in Switzerland. Swiss don't have an actual army. Their people are the army.
A ton of people have guns there, and i don't mean .

My understanding is they have a state militia. A person is issued a gun at 18 with X number of bullets and is checked out once a year for proficiency. If bullets or the gun are missing its pretty much instant jail time? The was the explanation my friend from Zurich gave me. Am I incorrect?

I have to say this is one of the most heated and evenly matched debates there is, both sides have good points to make, I find myself agreeing with many posts from both sides. I honestly can't really come to any clear solution on this issue, but I'll just say this.

Obviously a full out ban isn't the answer, but more guns definitely isn't either. The real problem as everyone knows is society, the way people act and feel towards each other. Ideally we want to move towards a more peaceful and civilized world, where crime rates are so low there is no need for protecting yourself, where there are no armies, and no guns accept for hunting, in which case hunting should only be done where out of control animal populations threaten the local wildlife and environment.

But we won't get there with more guns, I know that ideal future is probably far off due to the state of the world, it may never come, but I think it's worth the try, and for me, trying to make that future real for everyone now and for those to come is worth my life, if I die because someone murders me, whether it be with a gun or whatever then so be it. Getting to that future starts within the minds of the people, I personally have no interest in owning a gun, I don't know anyone who has a gun here expect one of my friends, he has a bunch and has invited me to the range a few times and I always declined.

This is kinda getting long so to end I'll just say this, it is an obvious fact, more guns means more deaths, whether it be self defense or not its is still more loss of life, instead of more guns, violence and paranoia, which only propagates this crooked society, we need to take down the barriers, think of others outside of our little boxes, help people, help people, work hard, know your neighbors, build your community, help and encourage low income/at risk people, donate, volunteer.. etc..

If we're banning knives, lets ban spoons and forks while we're at it. Hell lets ban my coffee cup too .. pretty sure I could kill someone with it.

If we're banning knives, lets ban spoons and forks while we're at it. Hell lets ban my coffee cup too .. pretty sure I could kill someone with it.

Yeah! Wait. Huh?

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people"

Legend:
Toast=noun, Akin to Bread toast
Toast=verb, To Toast
Toasters=Machines that toast bread that in turn become toast

So...

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people."

Akin to...

"Toasters don't toast toast, toast toast toast."

Point is... it sounds stupid. I'd ask for a star if it made you think, but i feel i shouldn't coz it's a no-brainer. Honestly, it doesn't make sense at all. Because it's a slogan., If more complex wordings were to be used, it should've been more like:

"Guns are modernized weapons of the old. They grant the user a more efficient way to severely maim or kill the other party involved as compared to antique weaponry. We shun or shy away from such gadgetry to avoid the whole fiasco altogether and stick with mano-y-mano oftentimes or moreoften keep it verbal or just keep quiet. But we wish to express ourselves, to vent THE anger. So our hands will soon find its way to the beast of burden, the machined work of art that serves our thirst for murder, the gun."

But that took like more than a few seconds of precious human concentration, didn't it? Considering that modern peoples have shorter attention spans?

It ain't catchy. End of RANT. Take that to the bank bro.

Guns are not the only way to commit homicide. If guns are gone they can use poison, knives, hammers or anything else under the sun.

Banning a gun does not fix the issue that people will harm each other. What is used to harm people with is of little consequence.

banning guns have resulted in government abuse (given most tyrants like gun control) and you also put criminals at an advantage with law abiding citizens. Criminals break laws because that is their nature. They also like to harm people. THey will always find a way to have an advantage over their victims. By banning guns every criminal in the world knows that if they go to rob a home/store with a gun there will be no one who could defend against them since the targets are disarmed. YOu could argue that you can call police but what happens in that 20-30 minutes till they show up??

People having guns is not the problem as the only people who kill or commit violent crimes are the problem. Criminals do not have to have a long history of being criminals to be criminals as anyone can become a criminal the moment they decide to break the law.

People are the problem. YOu can ban everything under the sun and people will still kill people. All of you who support gun control/bans do not understand that those who do the killing with guns are ciminals. You are trying to take guns from law abiding citizens. IF someone wants to kill they will kill, it does not matter what you do. Whether they have to go above and beyond a gun ban to get a gun or if they have come up with inventive ways to kill huge amounts of people it does not matter.

People will kill the only thing you are doing is making others more susceptible to those criminals who can acquire a gun. The power of the gun will increase by a huge amount if you disarm the people.

ALso by banning guns you will open a black market for that. Even gun control would stimulate such a market. There is a market now with all the guns that are illegal to possess.

Banning an item is not going to solve the problem. How is that ban on illegal substances working out??

One thing that I found somewhat funny... I have a friend who is pro gun ban and control. One day we were having a discussion about gun control and I was telling him why I disagreed and he was telling me why he believed in it. Well as we talked he was collecting the trash in his house to take outside. We walk outside and after he set the bags at the end of the drive way we stood there continuing our conversation.

As we were talking I notice that we did not close the front door all the way and his cat was attempting to open the door. The cat finally does and my friend takes off running after it and loses it. He is freaking out and I tell him to relax that it will come back once it is hungry. He turns to me and says that his cat is declawed and there are many strays running around the neighborhood and that its not safe for it to run around outside.

So I smiled and said " SO it is okay for people to walk around in public unarmed with armed criminals but its not okay for your unarmed cat to run around with armed strays. Makes perfect sense to me! So are we to stay locked up in our house too just like mr kitty??" he just rolled his eyes at me.



I

Is this a joke?
we don't need to ban "Knifes" in America.. .. xD
maybe you should carry one, so you can disarm and save the lives of people being victimised by a human being with whatever motive that compells him to murder someone.
ban knives? You're seriously asking questions like "How did this teen get his hands on a knife?" and "Who sold him the knife?"
this ban weapons surge is getting ridiculous. You can't ban knives.. I can break a piece of obsidian and tie it too a stick.., are we going to ban the posession of sticks you can shape into bows too, how about string for slings and carrying rocks as well. A knife is a tool for carving, shaping, cutting, and prying. lol !!HOW DID HE GET KNIFES??!
I've carried a knife since I've been nine years old, I've never used it besides using it as a tool and even at times a conflict detterant.

This may sound weird to you OP, but it was a tragedy there weren't more knives amoung those people.

Originally posted by SpearMint

If you have not guess by now, I’m clearly being sarcastic of this issue. I bring up this article to show all those people that want to ban guns that guns are not the problem, crazy people are the problem. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people!

And if you don't allow citizens to have guns, those crazy people won't have access to them. Sure people may be better protected in very rare situations, but it's statistically obvious that guns increase homicide, those deaths outweigh the lives saved by a citizen owning a gun.

Not much point in me posting this, since most of ATS seem to ignore the numbers and insist everyone should have a gun, so I'm not expecting anyone to agree with me here. More people having guns means more potentially crazy people having guns.

edit on 2-8-2012 by SpearMint because: (no reason given)

Will you pretty please point to the source of those numbers?

What a dumb comparison... Weapons are far more dangerous and gives another lvl of confidence for the attacker to go through with such acts.