If you're that moronic that when put a gun in yr hand, you feel the urge to become criminal, than you don't deserve a gun. But as you state, Homo Lawfuls, are obeying the law if they seek gun ownership legally.

The deciding factor for me is that I don't think prohibition changes anything. Keeping guns legal will cause a few deaths and prevent a few deaths, but the serious factors--criminal and moronic use--won't be much affected. There are already black market guns all over the place. The legalization of guns makes it easier, but it doesn't make it more dangerous. They'd still get the guns they want.

Another good point is that prohibition of anything will cause fighting, which basically cancels out the good of prohibition of violent tools. Like drugs--the fact that they're illegal is the reason for drug wars in the first place.

There's nothing to convince me that criminilizing it would be worth the freedom.

No one ever feels the urge to become criminal. This is what you lack to see. Everyone can become a criminal under the right circumstances. Like I said, criminals are not some strange breed of man that was criminal from birth. While social consequences create more crime than anything, everyone is capable of crime. Owning a gun only shows how quicker we can kill each other if give a more convenient method of doing so. I wonder, do you think that the man that shot and killed the thieves of his neighbor's house was lawful in his vigilante justice?

funny you'd mention that.

there was a period in my life i really wanted to blow my brains out.

but i didn't have a gun or couldn't afford one and buying one was such a hassle, so i didn't, and other methods of self-destruction were just too convoluted. eventually i snapped out of that sorry state.

if there had been a gun lying around, at the time, i probably wouldn't be here today laughing at marleypumkin's silly arguments. the fun i would have missed!

so with that in mind, im not sure i want to have a tool nearby that's specifically designed for killing. instead, i'm having a security system installed.

I'm just open minded enough to see the good & bad in everything. You are obviously stuck in yr liberal sided mind.

The Good and the bad, that sounds a bit manichean. Is it the only way of thinking you have, yankies ?

owning a gun = dangerous
not owning a gun = safe

living in the US = dangerous
living in my place = (very) safe

That's my thinking.

Guns make violence too easy. Like nukes. It distances you from the violence. You want to kill someone, arm yourself with a knife or learn how to kill with a punch. Make it upclose and personal. Guns are for cowards.

Right, this is the statement I disagree with...

'Gun', to a great many Americans, represents 'freedom' or 'liberty'. Which is why Herr Pumpkin can replace the object of representation with the ideal of the representation - in one post, 'weed'.

Unfortunately, the referent, the object, the referred and the ideology must at some point have some purpose.

I'll articulate this otherwise - if you replace the potentially prohibited object of ideological representation with another object (a terrifically postmodern/ post-Lacanian project, by-the-by) its intensity, its represented ideological intensity remains the same - so if 'gun' represents liberty (or, if you like, inhibiting sovereignity through revoltus in potentialus), 'banana' (if threatened) can represent the same.

The problem is that 'gun' is also a particular object, and the purpose (forgive me if I get too Heidegarrian on your asses) of this object (which, to re-iterate, seems to represent 'liberty' in many American mind) is to blow cunting great holes in things. If you emit the statement 'every American has the right to own the banana' and the subtext is 'a banana represents freedom and liberty [from the crown]' then I have no problems. The problem comes when you get down to the particulars, which I'll put in big letters:

GUNS SERVE NO PURPOSE OTHER THAN STICKING CUNTING GREAT HOLES IN THINGS.

Again, I'll apologise if I'm just re-iterating parochial British sentiments that you Americans are tired of hearing with your vastly superior arguments of liberty.

^^^yay some action^^

I agree.

In this debate people have become so enthusiastic about the concepts that a gun represents, and have therefore removed themselves so far away from, or become desensitised to, what a gun actually is and does.
If people thought about it for a while, and looked at the facts of gun crime, nobody would have a leg to stand on if they are arguing that guns increase liberty and safety.

Well, I guess I stand alone on this. Which I respect if you disagree w/ me, but there's no need to belittle me because I feel differently than someone else. I'm just trying to offer my opinion.

I, personally, wasn't trying to belittle you. If you were other people who post on here, I'd just have ignored what you've said - in fairness, there's plenty people here who talk incoherent arse. I'm going to bed now, but I would genuinely like you to respond to what I've said (if you can get past the rhetoric).

The question is - what purpose do guns serve if not sticking holes in things?

Good luck, Marleypumpkin.

...

Nothing, but there are different situations & circumstances to each individual case that would cause in a different decision, &/or result in owning a gun. I'm only trying to give my opinion that you should have a choice between the two, rather than one standard policy for all.

Basically my stance is this, freedom of choice, & freedom of privacy. Each person has the right to their own choice, & if one chooses to own a gun, they have a right to privately own something they feel is best for their situation in life.

Hey hey.. hold on a second.

I'd punch a hole in a piece of paper myself, but doing it from 50 yards with a rifle is a lot more fun ;)

I'm not going to say a whole lot on this subject, other than - I think there's something deeply flawed with a society arming itself under the pretence of providing protection.

In my opinion owning a gun for sport and then locking it away when you're home from the range is a very different thing to owning a gun with the expressed purpose of killing anyone that walks into your home.

It's that mindset which is a large part of the problem - along of course with the proliferation of guns.

As to concealed weapons..

A guy tries to mug you on the street, you don't see it coming. Before you know it you're on your arse and he's already found your gun. What happens then?

What's the ultimate evolution of all this? Everyone with concealed weapons? What sort of a fucking life is that anyway? In an environment like that, you need to be alert at all times, you can't let your guard down. That's not a civilised existence, that's a warzone.

Maybe that's what certain people want.

Personally I like the luxury of being able to sit and drink a coffee and not having to worry that if some drunk guy starts harrassing a member of staff, or me, that one or the other of them is going to pull out a 9mm semi automatic pistol.

What's worse is that every so often a gun nut comes out and says, hey Columbine/Virginia Tech/Insert massacre here, wouldn't of happened if only those innocent students had been armed!

Yeah, sure.

There would have been a fucking bloodbath, people completely unprepared for this situation, in shock, shooting wildly at some guy who may or may not be the perpetrator, in a crowded auditorium or cafeteria or library.

So anyway..

I think pistols should be banned outright. Semi automatic rifles and shotguns should be banned. Absolute zero tolerance should be exercised after an amnesty.

Then see how the natives behave with bolt action rifles.

If the senseless murdering continues.

Take that off them too.

And I say this as a guy who owns a .22 rifle and likes to shoot paper and nothing else since I'm a vegetarian.

Shooting holes in paper on a range can be fun with friends.

Going to sleep at night with a finger on the trigger of a pistol and an ear listening for an intruder down the hall, is my idea of hell. It's not a life.

You summed up my every thought on this subject. Thank you.

Marry me?

as an added last note from me, I relish the freedom I enjoy NOT to carry a gun, NOT to have the extra burden and worry and responsibility of packing.

Okay, if I'm gunned down some night walking away from Starbucks, you all can say, he should have owned a gun. Then maybe he'd have stood a chance. Yes, well, I doubt it. As I've said, the violence that kills us is usually random and unstoppable. And at least I enjoyed my last sip of mocha latte without having to worry whether my safety was on or off.

I refuse to live in fear, basically, is what it comes down to.