Probably the best explanation of why guns are an important part of America

[cavedweller]

Someone forcefully trying to enter my home is a threat period. The reality is we live in a society where street thugs are carrying guns, shooting each other, breaking into houses and robbing people to support their drug habits among other things. Gun prohibition will not stop them from having weapons to harm others. It will simply prevent others from protecting themselves. I keep a 12 guage shotgun with 4 rounds and a 22 mag pistol loaded next to my bed.

[Snowhog]

Gun prohibition will not stop them from having weapons to harm others. It will simply prevent others from protecting themselves.

Which again, lemming liberals just don't get.

[cavedweller]

Which again, lemming liberals just don't get.

Agreed.

[cavedweller]

I kind of figure when guns are outlawed, then I will be an outlaw. My guns are basically insurance that I will be able to put food on the table, and I have the means to protect what's mine.

[Detonate]

For revolvers the "double" in double-action means the trigger performs two functions: cocking, and then firing the gun. The hammer cannot be manually cocked back; only the pull of the trigger can cause that to happen.

A double action revolver can be fired as though it were a single action weapon. You can cock it and then fire it by pulling the hammer back. In fact, I prefer this method of firing the first round because I can be more accurate.

[GreyGeek]

Agreed, Detonate. I should have added "with covered hammers", which several service revolvers have so that the hammer cannot snag on the holster, clothing, when drawn quickly, especially concealed holsters.

[NickStone]

US gun debate continues.

[tek_heretik]

Back to the gun debate huh? Ok, I get it, Americans love their guns, but there really needs some control with WHO gets them, I'm shocked there wasn't a more strict screening process in place already AND, how about making the people that let the psychos get a hold of a gun(s) responsible, they, in a roundabout way facilitate tragedy, maybe a few stiff jail sentences and fines will make people lock up their guns a little more carefully.

[dmeyer]

Wow, this thread has become impressive. I feel compelled to chip in.

I'm from South Africa. A country known for its crime, particularly murder and rape. Most statistics are horribly understated as many cases are not reported by people/opened by police, the government "adjusts" statistics, and the method in which we even record data. Police response times are awful and everything is just a mess. The state of crime is so bad that many people resort to private security firms to look after them and their property. I don't mean bodyguards, we aren't that degenerate a country but firms make great money providing armed response service. My mom and brother were in an attempted hijacking in 2006, police took over 45 mins to respond to the action. Do you know how far they had to travel? 200m. Hell, the one person outside the police station even noticed, ran inside and told them what was happening. I don't care what the police's reasoning was, they should have responded. By the way, when we did ask for a reason for their slow response it was, "Eishhh, we are very very sorrrry. It was lunch time and the criminaaaaals would have been gone before we got to you, eishh." To be fair to the police, they aren't always that incompetent, but many are poorly trained, under resourced and stretched very thin but as a general rule of thumb they are as useful as used tampons.

Since, I was small, probably about 5 or so, my dad has taught me about guns. I know more about gun safety and maintenance than most so don't think my dad never drilled that into me. I'm probably more careful with guns than a police officer. I'm a fantastic shot and have made a shot at just over 600m (I was upwind from the animal and it was basically flat as can be so don't judge). All I'm trying to say really is that I've grown up with guns and they have become a part of life for me. My dad owns a .38 special another handgun and a rifle (I can't name the last two as they were never released to the public and were provided only to a few important people.)

So onto the point I want to make, a gun is a necessary part of self preservation for me. Everybody in my family, mom included, are deadly accurate and are not afraid to use the weapons if we need. When I was 9 my dad gave me free access to the weapons so that I can protect my mom and brother when my dad is away. Which might I add is a lot. Have I ever used a gun on a human being? No. Am I glad that I have access to one to defend myself when the situation inevitably arises? Very. My uncle has been assaulted 6 times on his farm by armed assailants. 6 times! The police would never be able to get to him in time. He's also been attacked by lions twice and a buffalo once. Guns have saved his life. Our neighbor was attacked (remember our proximity to the police) and after waiting 5 min for the police arrived was forced to deal with the armed intruder himself. If somebody told me that guns were to be outright banned I would acquire them illegally because its that important to me to have the ability to protect myself, my property and most importantly my loved ones from whatever danger might arise.

I understand that guns are often used in crimes. I understand that they seem like an incredibly powerful tool but the truth is, guns are not as powerful as you may think. The majority of people can't hit a can from 10m with an iron sight - hell, most don't even know how to load/unload the magazine, unchamber a round or just fire it. I took an English friend to a gun range once and let him have a go. The idiot wanted to shoot one handed? WTF? Pulling the trigger alone would throw your aim since the trigger is stiff. Guns are not magical. You need skill to kill - or a shotgun/automatic weapon then you just need a lot of ammo. Another point is that automatic weapons are useless to commit mass murders with. Even with a full cartridge, you'd expel all your rounds in a matter of seconds - again not so dangerous really. Most mass murders are done by somebody who has planned their attack. No amount of regulation can stop an enterprising person from killing a f**k ton of people.

Look I'm not saying have no gun control. I definitely encourage gun control. What I don't encourage is banning guns or making them prohibitively difficult to obtain. Weapons should require a license to own that mandates training and gun safety. Owners should have their background screened to look for felonies and mental issues. People should be subjected to a rigorous enough screening that you catch people who are unfit to own a gun but not restrict a normal person's access. Gun related crimes should be more harshly punished to ensure people understand that a gun is a responsibility that when abused will be both taken away and involve serious punishment. The argument that an all out gun ban is an actual solution tend to think that an all out ban on guns will will make it impossible for criminals and mass murders to get access to them but they are wrong. Even with a full on ban, so many guns are already in circulation that even with a comprehensive disposal program they would only scratch the surface. The are literally thousands of illegal guns and that won't change because a piece of paper says so. Remember your grandfather? He almost definitely had a gun and after he passed nobody handed it over to the authorities. Its probably lying in your attic right now. What about a person that lives or spends a lot of time in the wilderness, what are they going to use to protect themselves from dangerous creatures. What about hunters? Are you going to entirely eliminate a favorite sport for many people? What about people who hunt for sustenance? Oh here is a proposal, how about you give them special licenses to do that? Oh wait isn't that the status quo? So either you have to take this away from people or you've brought about no change. Anyways, weapons will always leak into the system as long as the police have them. Are you going to ban police from using weapons? Don't think that will happen.

So in summary I just want to say that I whole heartily agree with regulating guns in the same way that we regulate cars - give only those that common sense would permit access, access but don't make it impossible for those deemed fit to own one. By the way, I am going to do another post about statistics.

[dmeyer]

Long rant about stats!

Another huge issue I have with all discussion related to gun control is statistics. To this day many powerful people in Washington -along with the general population- have still not been taught basic damn statistics! I'm going to list some common points/statistics that people like to quote and discuss them. By the way I am going to make the assumption that Wikipedia's statistics are right. Obviously some may be wrong but they are all cited and Wikipedia tends to be more accurate than not especially since it often gives figures from multiple sources. Don't damn my discussion on my sources just work with me and extend me the benefit of doubt.

### Things to think about ###

The US #th (Usually 1 to 10) highest gun related death rate is a loved factoid. You'd think this would be pretty conclusive but a quick grab of stats from List of countries by firearm-related death rate yields that the US has the 9th highest rate of deaths by firearms. Scary number. But a quick breakdown shows that deaths/100K is 10.2 However just two columns over we see that 6.1 of those are suicide. Many people just quote the first number! Anyways, lets filter for homicides particularly. US comes up as 14th. Wow, still unacceptably high but then you look over the list again and notice something. Many countries that you have always viewed as dangerous aren't appearing. Russia isn't even on the list. South Africa is missing data. Heck most collections of statistics even by the UN don't show a comprehensive list as they aren't primary data collectors so they rely on countries self reporting values. I have been to most Africa, I have spent extended periods of time in more than 20 of them. I can say this with much certainty. The numbers are wrong! There is very very little reliable data on this that allows you to compare between countries.

You might agree with that and say then that lets compare it with Europe. Ok that’s fine but then stopping saying America is #th highest in the world because you cannot say that with any certainty. More likely than not, globally speaking America is probably doing average. Now Europe is also huge, if you include Eastern Europe then America probably doesn't fair too badly especially when you think about how many murders etc are never reported or how statistics are manipulated by unscrupulous parties. Most of Eastern Europe has little to no transparency or reliable statistics at all. Most is just estimates by third parties.

Ok So now lets focus on Weastern Europe. Now all of a sudden America is definitely the worst country but I remind you on a global level they are probably doing OK. People need to keep perspective when talking about statistics! So America is doing badly now that we have some comparability and we can finally start drawing conclusions. Well its not that simple. We need to actually account for the way "society functions" or is composed of for a lack of an articulate term to use. So lets add more perspective to the statistics. America tends tob eat Western Europe in GDP per capita. When it comes to Education and Human Development index the numbers are too close to draw conclusive winners as small changes in methodology would cause drastic changes. Ok so what about happiness? No good metric exists so leave it at that. Well Everything seems comparable if not favoring the US with GDP so how can I still be saying that the values aren't comparable? Simple. Have you ever been to Western Europe? Its incredibly different compared to the USA. Yes sure, life in Western Europe has become ever more American nature but some things bear looking at. Income inequality in Europe is much less than the United States. Most countries require 4 - 6 weeks vacation a year. People work on average 20% fewer hours. Terrible cite. Heck, if you ever go there you'll notice everybody seems to be less stressed and overall happier. There is also a far greater emphasis on social security. I don''t mean social security in the US sense but social security in the sense that society will look after you if you need it to. In essence a lot of day to day stress is reduced. The vastly different cultures is just another factor to take account of.

Another serious though is geography. Western Europe tends to have a far higher population density therefore its easier to cover more of the population just because everybody is closer together. Its well known that its cheaper to render equal services to the same number of people if they are more concentrated because of Economies of Scale and The Last Mile Problem. So back to the US, keeping the previous point in mind, its easy to see how the US will require more policeman per capita because of economies of scale. So does the US? No. USA = 256, Spain = 511. Most European countries are not as high but are still substantially higher than the US and remember that for equal resources invested they still get greater return. Essentially Western Europe is far, far more policed than America. Everywhere you go in many British cities you are being monitored by CCTV. There is so much more policing in these countries that we like to compare ourselves to than in the US. So the question becomes, is the increased policing or decreased access to guns responsible for their better statistics? <<<Disclaimer: Also before anybody brings up the Nordic states having less policing, just remember that they tend to have better GDP, Education, happiness, social security and other statistics than the US and the rest of Europe.>>>

In essence what I am saying is, you can't compare the US to other countries because the US is very very unique. Most comparisons are worthless because they lack perspective. I am sure though that we can all agree sometimes perspective must be reduced so that we can draw some type of meaningful conclusion other than "unique case so not possible to compare" just like we simplify complex behavior to try create models. So what we need to do is stop comparing the US to the rest of the world and start comparing it with itself based on historical values and choose to improve from there.

### So what is the right solution ###

Rather than more restrictive regulation of guns, lets first take note of key points the previous section dealt with. Issues when comparing the US:

• Greater income disparity
• Worse social investment/insurance/security to protect/help average citizens. To name a few:
  healthcare costs
  cost of education (particularly college)
  [INDENT]cost of retirement/INDENT]
• Less heavily policed compared to Western Europe
• People tend to be more stressed/unhappy

THESE ARE CLEARLY SOCIAL FACTORS THAT ARE PROBABLY THE UNDERLYING CAUSE OF THE ISSUE AT HAND.

Rather than spending valuable time and money on a silly issue like gun regulation we should instead spend it on those issues. How about improved labour conditions? How about cheaper higher education? Cheaper and greater access to healthcare would be nice too. What about narrowing the income divide? Heck, even without spending more money on police, and just addressing these issues, I'm sure you would see a massive reduction in gun related homicides never mind the reduced suicides and fixing like a billion other issues too. I am sure nobody will argue that tackling these shortcomings are noble goals and are for the good of society. Why not tackle them rather than bickering about guns and fix the underlying social causes?

### Conclusion ###

I know this is a rant, not very well structures and seems mostly unsupported but it is. I am just not in the mood to compile a comprehensive report on the matter. The use of the two economic concepts aren't 100% technically right but they are valid points when you consider more pragmatically. Hope you don't mind my long posts. I'm just really passionate about Washington and politicians generally wasting time. Also don't take me as being excessively a Democrat nor a Republican - I'm far too pragmatic that those communists and aristocrats. Excessive socialist programs in the US is not going to work Obama. Boehner and company, stop blocking Democrats just because they are democrats and become more empathetic. Both parties need to stop being so damn extreme. Seriously, life is not black and white, we live in a spectrum and politics should be the same.

tl;dr Leave my nuclear weapons alone and fix the real problems.

[Detonate]

A very thought provoking post. The problem is, that unlike you, most Americans do not wish to examine the real facts. Instead they base their opinions on knee jerk reactions which are the result of beliefs which are in turn the result of incomplete or faulty information. As someone once said, "My mind is made up don't confuse me with the facts".

[Shimapan]

I just happened upon this post and read the first post - or better, I started to read that insane drivel, but I didn't get very far, because very soon, I felt a strong urge to vomit >
Deranged creeps like the one who wrote this insane drivel are the reason why the US has the most dementented gun nuts.

Short summary of what these freaks are generally saying: "On noes, yet another of these school shootings, of which we already had so many, with hundreds of people dead... Look, these shootings are the reason why we need *more* guns in school! In fact, every pupil should bring his own gun! See, if they all had guns in schools, they could have proper shoot-outs! So what if a few more people get shot because they get into the line of fire during those shoot-outs. Everyone knows that you don't get into the line of fire, so it's their own stupidity if they get shot! It's the same in any war. With those shoot-outs, it'd be finally like in the good old days of the Wild West again! Oh my, how I miss the Wild West... we really need to bring back those times! So that's why we need guns in schools, so we can have shoot-outs in schools when someone starts shooting there! Heck, if everyone had guns in schools, they didn't even need to wait for someone to come and start shooting around, they could start shoot-outs all by themselves! Now that would really rock! Hooray for guns!"

A very thought provoking post. The problem is, that unlike you, most Americans do not wish to examine the real facts. Instead they base their opinions on knee jerk reactions which are the result of beliefs which are in turn the result of incomplete or faulty information. As someone once said, "My mind is made up don't confuse me with the facts".

Quoted for truth. It's the same for gun nuts and religious zealots in the US: don't confuse them with facts!

[dmeyer]

I just happened upon this post and read the first post - or better, I started to read that insane drivel, but I didn't get very far, because very soon, I felt a strong urge to vomit >
Deranged creeps like the one who wrote this insane drivel are the reason why the US has the most dementented gun nuts.

Short summary of what these freaks are generally saying: "On noes, yet another of these school shootings, of which we already had so many, with hundreds of people dead... Look, these shootings are the reason why we need *more* guns in school! In fact, every pupil should bring his own gun! See, if they all had guns in schools, they could have proper shoot-outs! So what if a few more people get shot because they get into the line of fire during those shoot-outs. Everyone knows that you don't get into the line of fire, so it's their own stupidity if they get shot! It's the same in any war. With those shoot-outs, it'd be finally like in the good old days of the Wild West again! Oh my, how I miss the Wild West... we really need to bring back those times! So that's why we need guns in schools, so we can have shoot-outs in schools when someone starts shooting there! Heck, if everyone had guns in schools, they didn't even need to wait for someone to come and start shooting around, they could start shoot-outs all by themselves! Now that would really rock! Hooray for guns!"

Yeah that’s one of the issues I have with pro gun activists too. Rather than defending their right to bear arms and be responsible about it, they instead over react and create ridiculous excuses why gun ownership is an actual necessity for survival. It simply isn't necessary to survive. No amount of gun regulation or vigilante acts by the public could stop a determined person from committing an atrocity. Owning a gun should be a right, but a right that people should never feel the need to exercise in a civilized society. As with many rights, the right to bear arms, comes with a host of responsibilities and many pro gun activists don't want the responsibility. Do we let the insane get a truck driver's license? No. Just because we have rights, does not mean we can forget about the rights of others. Its called balance and pro gun activists need to find some. Strict gun control = very good. Draconian gun control/bans are not the real solution as they don't address the real issues.

Seriously, even if we laxed gun control as many pro gun activists recommend, more people wouldn't all of a sudden carry guns with them. Social protocol doesn't allow for it. Guns make people uncomfortable. Guns create implied hostility because of the ridiculous amount of distrust it conveys and so you'd stop carrying it everywhere. So varying the amount of gun control will not really affect the number of people who carry guns and could respond to an emergency. All it would do is make it easier for the unfit to posses guns. If you love guns then enjoy your rights but take responsibility and live with the needed regulation to keep you and others safe. Key for everybody to be happy: pragmatism and balance.

By the way, I know quite a lot of gun lovers in many countries around the world. I've yet to meet one, even in America, that actually carries a piece everywhere they go. The exception? Farmers and game rangers but its part of the job.

[tek_heretik]

Ok, I know this is a really bad joke, but here goes...the NRA made a new TV show...The Cartridge Family...OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh! boo

[dibl]

Thanks dmeyer for a calm, thoughtful, and unbiased opinion. There is so much hysteria and hyperbole in the debate here, that there's not a lot of room for common sense improvements in the control of who gets guns, and what kind they can have. One side plans to use Bushmaster .223s to fight off the U.S. military, and the other would like universal colonoscopies to accompany permit applications for BB guns.