Diesel man
member
Very Anti gun person who I find nieve and very unrational
What do you think?
http://www.endevil.com/guncontrol.html
What do you think?
http://www.endevil.com/guncontrol.html
Gun Control
International Gun Statistics
Gun control is an important issue which people tend to feel very strongly about. This page used to have this article on it, which is an honest opinion about guns and includes fully referenced facts. Gun supporters have emailed me and I´ve read abuse on pro-gun forums because of this article. Most of the detractors are ignorant and instead of making anything approaching an actual argument they just curse and rant, usually with no awareness of grammar or spelling. Occasionally someone has an actual argument with you, they try to defend their point of view and this can lead to an interesting debate. Below I´ve laid out some classic anti-gun arguments and pro-gun arguments and answered them. Feel free to send your own thoughts on this subject and I´ll add interesting ones to this page. If you can´t think of a coherent argument then at least try and make sure your ignorant abuse is witty.
By the way this section focuses on private gun ownership but the arms we produce for export are causing a lot more trouble. The UK is one of the biggest arms exporters in the world and you can read about British tax and the illegal arms trade here. Or find more information at the Campaign Against Arms Trade website.
Guns are designed to kill people
Pro-gun people hate this idea and amazingly try to deny the obvious truth of this statement by saying "no they´re for hunting or target practice". Well the development of guns has been driven by warfare there is no denying this. Make no mistake many of the guns which are popularly sold in the US were designed specifically to kill people. While there may be a legitimate claim for some farmers to own a rifle or shotgun this is very different to a city dweller owning a .357 Magnum or an Uzi. It doesn´t matter if you don´t use your gun for killing humans that is still what it was designed to do.
Guns make accidental death, murder and suicide more likely
This is often taken as a highly inflammatory statement but again it is obviously true. If you don´t have a gun you can´t shoot yourself or someone else with it. In situations where people are getting emotional a gun instantly makes things life and death. While you could argue that people will kill anyway, using whatever is to hand, you have to admit that guns are much more effective at killing than most of the other available options. Even discounting deliberate deaths from guns what about the number of accidental deaths which result from having guns in the house?
These two simple points are the crux of my argument. The world would be a better place without guns. Sadly not everyone believes this....for example -
I need a gun to protect myself
Well by owning a gun you are increasing your chances of being killed by a gun. Someone may steal it and use it, someone may accidentally shoot someone with it or someone might just wrestle it from you and shoot you. Gun owners are not immune to crime, gun owners are just as likely to be attacked and burgled as the rest of us. Owning a gun does not make you safe. How many of the people who claim they need a gun for their own safety have actually had to use it anyway? If you claim to need a gun but you´ve never used it then why do you need it? If you live in a really rough place perhaps it is normal to own a gun for your own protection and in the absence of government or police action to improve your area this may be your only way to feel safe. This is tough to argue with, because this shouldn´t be the case, it basically means that your government and police are failing to keep you safe, instead of arming yourself you should fight (peacefully) for them to do their job. I realise this is easier said than done but hey I´m idealistic, I´d like a world without guns or wars, this is often discounted as naive, it´s not naive it´s an honest statement, naivety would be believing that I could make it happen. However if enough people worked together with this aim it could be achieved and if you agree then you should swallow your cynicism and try to do something about it, if you don´t think the world would be a better place without guns and wars then you should seek professional help.
If guns were more strictly controlled it would leave law-abiding citizens at the mercy of criminals who obtain their guns illegally anyway
This argument simply leads to the idea that guns aren´t controlled strictly enough. There are too many in circulation and too many still being produced for the government or police to keep them from falling into the wrong hands. Well maybe we shouldn´t allow our governments to subsidise the weapons manufacturers with our tax money, maybe the manufacturers should be held to account for profiting from death. It is a failure of government if people have to protect themselves in this way and the corrupt link between the weapons manufacturers and government must be broken.
Canada has proportionally more guns than the US and yet a much lower gun murder rate
This is true but you have to look at the differences in the types of gun, why they have been bought and where the owners live. All this really shows is that guns are even more dangerous in violent cultures than they are elsewhere, the gun is worshipped in the US, a nasty hangover from the war of independence. The National Rifle Association spends a fortune promoting guns and deflecting publicity from gun murders because there is lots of money to be made selling them. The media spews a parade of violence and terror and the US army is actively engaged in a number of countries. The attitude to guns in the US is consequently very different from Canada. There are gun deaths in Canada too though, how many is too many?
Guns don´t cause the problem people do
This is a good argument; you can´t blame an inanimate object for the actions of mad people. The thing is it would be much harder for these people to kill anyone if they didn´t have a gun. The Columbine massacre wasn´t caused by guns but they certainly made things worse. The real causes of this atrocity should be addressed, it was a failure of society but you have to question a situation where two teenage kids can get their hands on this amount of weaponry. If you are going to have guns then at least treat them responsibly, keep them locked away and educate people about the dangers.
My gun protects me from corrupt government
This would be a good reason to allow gun ownership, if people actually took action but they don´t. If the government raid someone´s house and they resist with a gun then they generally get shot dead by police marksmen. In a democracy we are supposed to oppose government by voting them out, granted this system has failed because not everyone is represented but I don't think it would make much difference if people opposing the government were armed or not unless they organised themselves into a military force and to be honest I am opposed to violence so that doesn´t strike me as a great idea.
Any erosion of the first amendment would be a slippery slope
This is another good argument, along the lines that the right to defend yourself is a basic human right. I think it is a basic human right to defend yourself if you are attacked but guns are used in all kinds of situations and too many gun owners don´t limit their gun use to firing ranges and self defence. I can see how any erosion of the first ammendment would be a serious cause for concern and could pave the way for other changes which would undermine basic human rights and if that was the cost of banning guns then it wouldn´t be worth doing. I live in the UK so this doesn´t really have the same meaning for me, we have no constitution just an ever changing set of precedents and I think the only way people keep their human rights is to constantly fight for them. Ultimately if the government want to erode those rights they seem to be capable of doing so anyway, just take the Patriot Act for example or the newly introduced "anti-terrorist" laws in the UK which allow detention without charge amongst other things.
The media ignores incidents in which gun ownership saved someone or prevented a crime
The media definitely concentrates on awful stories about guns, but then they concentrate on awful stories in general, mostly about death, crime and celebrities. I guess there will be occasions when a gun saves the day but I don´t believe that makes up for the misery they cause.
