Forbidden Donut

Link for details ?

They happen constantly; at this point it's probably not even the latest school shooting, so I don't know which one he's even talking about.

Northern Illinois, they don't happen THAT often

Blame the guns. The guns did it.

It wasn't the fact that they were probably "good" kids up until the day that they (or he) went around the bend and shot up a school. It wasn't that the laws aren't strict enough. It wasn't the simple fact that you can't stop a normal person who goes insane from doing insane things.

God, I love Penn.

the fact of the matter is, countries that ban civilian arms have a much lower gun crime rate. don't care how you put it.

Hahaha "countries with less guns have less gun crime!"

Congratulations on the most stupidly obvious thing I have ever heard.

Countries with less cars have less accidents!

/laugh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":lol:" border="0" alt="laugh.gif" />

Sorry, people should have the right to protect themselves from people that don't follow the laws anyway.

isnt that the point? gun isn't a necessity. why is that even funny?

I think the problem is that you judge the situation quickly, and suggestion turns into mockery. I've personally lived in a country without guns, and it is much harder to commit crime. This allows for police officers to operate differently as well. They have less rights, as in no searching your stuff by just making you do something suspicious. The police are the only one with weapons, but giving them less rights also loosens the tension between officials and civilians. People have a tendency to be more tolerant with the police and less likely to commit crime when they don't see the police officers as opposition as often as people here. I think some people just need to get outside of their own society more.

what should you do when the police dont show up fast enough?

If I'm unarmed and my house is invaded (using the legal term) by an individual armed with a firearm, I'm probably fucked. My chances are a bit better if I have a firearm at my disposal. What's important to note is that crime does not disappear if guns are banned. Yes, crime can be significantly dropped. The problem is you take guns away from predominantly law-abiding individuals and leave them at the general mercy of those who do not. And the fundamental problem with the police is that, for the most part, they can't function until after the crime has been committed (or, to be generous, when the crime is in progress). Which leaves me dead, and this guy more than likely free, until he (hopefully) gets brought down.

If I'm fucked either way, I'd at least like to go down after having had a chance.

I think you should try to refute what I said instead of posting something like "well, what if..."

I know if i'm ever accosted by some hoodlums i'd like to have a fair shot (unintentional) at defending myself.

On the other hand, are the lives of all those starry-eyed kids worth one of your liberties?

On a third, mutant hand growing out of my back, maybe the solution is to divert the war budget to develop smartguns which target only terrorists, murderers, and rapists

Even if banning guns miraculously did decrease crime (against all historical evidence), that doesn't mean it is justified. Having a police-state would most certainly decrease violent crimes by a large amount, as well, but does that mean we should do that?

We are a free society, or at least we're suppose to be. We're suppose to penalize criminals for their crimes; we're not suppose to penalize citizens for their potential to commit crime. I'm sure there are many countries around the world that ban guns and maybe it is even successful, but in a free society, we have every right to protect our property and person by any means necessary.

there are some quotes from the founding fathers saying that a gun owning citizenry keeps the government honest because they can threaten to overthrow it

i want to see you try that. you honestly believe our gun rights are working against our current government than FOR it?

No, that's his point.

I'm gonna have to call you out on this one. I don't think much of anything is working for our "current government."

The other thing about crime rates between countries is, its not always the availability of guns that causes or prevents crime. Societal norms play a lot into how people behave. Traditionally communal societies (such as Asian countries) have far less crime then societies than societies that aren't, as most Western countries are. It's as much a state of mind and upbringing as it is gun availability.

Plus, as someone said above, you make guns illegal, you only deny the law abiding citizens from having them. The people using the weapons to break laws aren't going to give a damn if it is legal to own a gun or not; they're already breaking the law. That's what makes them criminals.

Even if you did manage to prevent everyone from having a gun, people were killing each other with knives and axes long before guns ever came around. You want to outlaw knives and axes as well?

Keeping guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens will not prevent people who are going to commit crimes anyway from finding a gun to use to do it. It may work in countries that are smaller, or don't have such a long history of gun violence (ours extends from foundation to the present day without any breaks... ever) but if you suddenly said, "sorry it's against the law to own a firearm" the best you can hope for is for everyone who would only be using it for self protection anyway walking up to the police station and turning in the only thing that makes criminals think twice about robbing every asshole on the block.

2¢

I never said the switch could or should be quick. A progression would do well here.

Would you care to elucidate?

So yeah, how many hundreds of years slow progression are you talking about here? This country was FOUNDED on guns. Ever seen Lord of War? The guns aren't going anywhere. It's too much ingrained in American lifestyle.

Maybe sometime in the future guns will start to fade out, but something lethal will replace it. Pew pew lasers for example.

The whole issue is whether or not the people are allowed to defend themselves or not.

I for one and glad that our government is willing to constantly scrutinize our rights because we need to have people evaluate whether or not we deserve them. Then after they decide we do I want them to double check and triple check because they are probably mistaken.

HEARING TIME!

rofl to this comment on ANunes story: "When you are willing to place a large sign on the front of your house stating that you don't have a gun in your house, then, and only then, will i listen to you."

fun fact: you have to graduate from a police university (4 years) to become a police officer in taiwan. could explain for the lack of assholes in the 5-0.

"Mankind has found out, in society, that he has to lose some of his liberties to gain security." - Thomas Hobbes
( I translated the real quote from French )

That is a really good argument to point out that we do not have all the liberties that we want or it would be chaos. Having a gun on you constantly is an example of what could be a liberty that shouls be lost.

Hobbes was a cockface who had no faith in humanity and thought that the only way for any society to function was to basicly turn it into a police state.

I need some concrete proof that loss of liberty actually results in a boon to personal security.

Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.
—Ernest Hemingway, Quoted in: A. E. Hotchner, Papa Hemingway

Carrying a knife is prohibited in schools, that's an example. Any kid that gets angered could stab a fellow student without thinking he could harm the other boy to death.

Since when did people need knives to stab one another?

since knives were invented

They certainly make the act easy, but they're not needed. School boards and airlines realized that and tried to ban everything pointy.

I acknowledge the fatalism here, but it just doesn't work. And zero is better than a negative, if you follow me.

Jason Bourne tooled a guy with a ballpoint pen

He also slapped the shit outta someone with a magazine.

Riddick killed a guy with an aluminium coffee cup.

looked tin to me

Riddick can kill anyone, with anything.

except chuck norris

I think the only plausible course of action now is to test that theory.