Guns, Why do many countries not trust there citizens with them?

Help me understand why so many "free" countries around the world live in so much fear of there fellow citizens?

If these countries are so "free" and great why are they so afraid to trust there citizens with the right to defend themselves not only from a fellow citizen but their own Government?

I cannot even imagine living in such a place and living in constant fear to simply trust another citizens morals and better judgement, I mean what type of upbringing are they raised in that would suddenly make some one go on a killing spree if a gun magically appeared in their hand? I mean damn...

I just don't understand...

Control my friend control, and that is why our forefathers felt the need for the 2nd.


It’s that old absolute power thingy. You do not see much genocide going on in the US. One wonders if everyone in Europe had weapons and American attitude to use them would WWII ever happen.

Oddly enough, the ban on gun ownership in Japan was imposed by MacArthur during the post WW2 occupation.

Thanks for that. I`d love to be able to import my guns and get in a bit of deer hunting, but nooooooo.....

Conspiracy by governments to disarm the populace aside...

For every person who feels safer knowing that they can own a gun to defend themselves and their family, another person feels safer knowing that there isn't a cache of guns behind every door in the neighborhood.

For every person who sees a gun as a tool of defense, another sees it as an instrument of death.

Each person or peoples is searching for their own path to feeling safe and secure in their own way.

Either choice is an illusion.

If the government ever chooses to come to you with true force, whatever guns you have registered and in your house will not save you.

And if you live in a country that has outlawed guns, or believe that your country would be better if it did, the streets will never be emptied of guns and those who would use them for criminal purposes will always be able to get them.

Guns cannot be uninvented, so we better learn to trust each other, and we better grow as moral beings and be worthy of that trust.

Taking away people's guns is one of the most obvious signs that your country is losing it's freedom. And by the time your calling it "The Homeland" it is already too late, and now you actually need your gun.

Remember the "well organized and trained militia" part of the constitution?

That actually means the whole of the citizenry who are capable of bearing arms
(males ages 17-54). There is also a reason the second amendment is THE ACTUAL SECOND amendment as they are listed in order of importance.

The purpose of the second amendment is to protect the rest of The Constitution.
Especially the all important first amendment.

God Given Inalienable Human Rights....

America is not a democracy, it is a REPUBLIC

As the saying goes...God made men...Sam Colt made them equal.

If all men are equal, then they cannot be ruled by some.

The non-conspiracy explanation:

People are stupid. Fear is popular. Politicians like their control and money.

Some guy gets shot. Stupid people don't learn: "gee I should prepare myself should this happen to me" They learn: "gun loud, gun scary"

(of course completely ignoring the numbers of people attacked with blunt instruments, blades and bare hands)

Politician says "I'll save you from those scary loud guns! Just send me some money. And if you vote for that other guy babies will be crawling around murdering Jesus over and over with machine guns and rocket launchers."

Having a disarmed population perpetually relying on police and government to save them from a criminal element that will always be armed (though the police are under no obligation to save anyone they are merely a reactionary force) is a nice benefit as far as the taxing/ruling entity is concerned.

In the UK the ban on handguns was instigated because we were fed up with people going into schools and shooting dead defenseless children ..... (the alternative of issuing all 8 year olds with a Uzi sub machine gun was deemed to expensive )

Okay, a misguided act which hasn't solved gun crime. But that was the reason.

Oddly enough though, nowadays, shotguns and rifles - which may still be legally held by the public - are rarely used in any gun crimes.

Of course the main reason most of us don't have guns is because we don't want to shoot anyone, don't shoot for sport or work and therefore have no reason to have one. What's the point in spending money on something you neither use nor need?

the reason for gun control is because goverments don't want to deal with armed citezens overthrowing them period. the way i understand it in london the only cops who are allowed firearms are special response teams
and they must keep them in lock box in squad car unless the are ordered to use them by supervisor

Guns are nothing by themselves without the projectiles (bullets) and the users. When gun users get really upset or uncontrollably angry, their sense of judgment is impaired and sometimes their trigger fingers take over to do harm to themselves and others unfortunately. Guns cannot be trusted to just anyone where emotions run high and that is where gun control legislations come in – to allow a sense of security knowing that the citizens are responsible enough to own guns in the first place.

reply to post by pikypiky


Is that why trained police and special team officers routinely unload there guns into there victims while ordinary people pick and choose there shoots with a higher shot to hit ratio? Please read John Lott's book. Oh I can't remember the name.

respectively

reluctantpawn

do you know that the Australian government signed a treaty from th UN stating that they had to disarm the Australian people in 1996 ...... a few months latter in tasmania we had the port Arthur massacre 35 dead many believe and myself included that this was staged by certain members of the government
due to the speed that the government covered up the evidence and canned
any future investigation by slapping a stop on the public access to the information for the next 30 YEARS ........overnight every semi- auto was banned in australia......gone thats what you could call disarmament.....

A better question is why do the pro-gun lobby have the desire to possess devises designed and intended for killing people?

What is the difference between your crazy neighbour owning this:




and them owning this:






?????? - please explain

Here you can legally own personal firearms which are by law pistol or revolver [you need license for owning which is given by local department of Ministry of Interior], sport firearms and hunting firearms [license is needed, too]. But many have assault rifles illegally [because of 90s wars].

I once watched Chris Rock, and he suggested that guns should be cheap like $5, but bullets should be $1000 each. That way your only going to shoot someone if you really mean it and want to.

I'm in the UK and we don't need guns, the kids are happy stabbing each other.

Originally posted by C0le
I cannot even imagine living in such a place and living in constant fear to simply trust another citizens morals and better judgement, I mean what type of upbringing are they raised in that would suddenly make some one go on a killing spree if a gun magically appeared in their hand? I mean damn...

I just don't understand...

The irony is that that permanent state of fear is why most people in the United states own guns. The exact, and precise reason. You've been trained to see your fellow citizen as an enemy. It's why you're still allowed guns, becuase hte people in charge know that you would much rather turn them on each other than on the government.

This is easily proven by the current situation in the United States, where the president and his cronies are stripping the bill of rights down to the second and tenth amendment, and what are Americans doing? A general rule of thumb is that the more guns a given American has, the happier he is to see the rest of his rights stripped away - it pisses off those damned librulz, so it MUST be a good thing. Meanwhile these same people talk about how easily they could blow away some knucklehead who tries to take their television, and how happy and proud they would be to do so.

Very well-trained. Why ban guns when you can just convince gun owners to salivate at the thought of killing another person? Once you get the pavlovian response, how hard can it be to, say, point them at someone the government thinks needs to be dealt with?

But not to worry. If this situation ever changed, it wouldn't matter much. The US military can easily obliterate any civilian uprising no matter how well-armed those citizens think they are. You think that the people i nthe military won't sit for that? Unfortunately since the rise of the all-volunteer force and the inception of unquestioned mercenary outsources, the United States military has mutated from a force to defend freedom into a force to defend the GOP and their corporate buddies. They'll squish us, and they'll do it happily if the need arises. After all, if the military men haven't put their foot down with hte raping of our constitution yet, they're NOT going to.



[edit on 1-2-2008 by TheWalkingFox]

Originally posted by C0le
Help me understand why so many "free" countries around the world live in so much fear of there fellow citizens?

If these countries are so "free" and great why are they so afraid to trust there citizens with the right to defend themselves not only from a fellow citizen but their own Government?

I cannot even imagine living in such a place and living in constant fear to simply trust another citizens morals and better judgement, I mean what type of upbringing are they raised in that would suddenly make some one go on a killing spree if a gun magically appeared in their hand? I mean damn...

I just don't understand...

You see.. In my country the citezens are the country... And the government mostly works for the people, forfilling the peoples need and wishes

It is the peoples wish that we don't have guns all over....

We don't fear eachother, we respect eachother and our lives...
We have no need for guns, to defend against other people, because other people don't have guns either.

There is no fear, because there is nothing to fear...sure their will always be criminal elements, that get their guns on the black market, but thoose elements will exist nomatter what you do.

We are not afraid to trust our citizens with the right to defend themselves, but we are afraid to raise the amount of killing weapons like guns, knives etc..

If people get rubbed, in my country, they mostly just remain as calm as possible, knowing their items are ofcourse ensured, and they will be compensated.

Its really all in the mentality of the people and their mutual respect for eachother.

Believe it or not, but most people here, young and old, doesnt even want to have anything to do with guns, and many people have lived their whole life without ever having held a gun in their hands.

We are raised to see how dangerous guns and weapons are, and all we have to do is turn on the TV to see how weapons kill people all over the world, thats right...remove the weapons and many lives are saved.

This is true freedom, to be able to live in relativly peacefull surroundings, without having to worry about guns at all.

The fear you have, comes from the knowledge that everyone around you have a gun, and can use it whenever they see fit. That would scare the sh... out of me too.


[edit on 1-2-2008 by Bluess]

reply to post by quango


One of the more sensible and balanced posts on the subject that I've seen. After spending time actually living in foreign countries, you begin to measure the lack of trust a government has in its citizens through the laws that people live by.

America was a great experiment in a free and open government, but we are allowing it to slip back into the traditional, opressive and fearful governments from which it originally and rebelliously sprung.

Being an American citizen used to pair freedom and the trust of your government with the responsibility of striving to be worthy of that trust. When you challenge people to rise above their current state of being to become better than they are, as our founders, Lincoln, and Kennedy did, I believe they respond in kind and we all become immeasurably better as a society. When you restrict peoples' freedoms and assume that they cannot be trusted, you create that which you fear.

reply to post by Bluess


You're correct, but is the Danish army professional nowadays? Because the only need for the "Well armed militia" Americans talk about is a professional army loyal to an opressive government. This problem can never arise with a fully conscript army as the amount of "paycheck" loyal officers is always too small to subdue the population.

Like the incident in Australia, the catalyst here in the UK was a nutjob going into a school and shooting kids (kids for maximum impact?). From what I have read the perp had previously been turned down for a firearms license, which ras overridden by a well placed friend in the government - but that's worth a whole thread by itself

So, back to firearms ownership. Legitimate firearms ownership never had any link to armed crime and the knee-jerk press painting everyone who had firearms or supported ownership as some sort of wannabe Rambo figure, ready to explode and murder the populace, was sickening. I, and many of my friends, were keen shooters and we lost a well regulated and enjoyable sport - not to mention the many who lost a lot of money having to sell their registered firearms.
I'm certainly not supporting firearms ownership by everyone - hell, some of the people in my area I wouldn't trust with a pointy stick - but for legitimate sports users and people with a clean background, long citizenship etc, I'd advocate licensing.
I'm actually a bit of a pacifist and avoid trouble of any kind, but there may come a time where I have to put my personal safety and security, and those I hold dear, above all else. At present I'm not allowed to even carry non-lethal means of protection and I'm supposed to submit to an assault rather than protect myself and face charges for injuring the attacker.
I'm certainly of the opinion that a disarmed citizenry is a compliant one