Thinking Robot on 20/5/2016 at 11:33
Hm, the argument for buying guns to defend yourself against government forces is not really strong. In my opinion, a normal citizen has no realistic chance against the SWAT (or in Germany the SEK) and their fully automatic guns. If the government really wants to take action against you, you still can´t oppose them. Here in Germany, most guns you can buy in America are forbidden for the broad mass of the people. It is possible to get a handgun, but only under strict conditions. This makes legal ownership of guns in Germany incredible expensive. Due to the actual political situation here, a lot of people buy fright firearms in recent months for so called "self defense". The only powerful thing people can do, is to vote.
In my opinion, a responsible citicen should have the freedom to buy a gun, if he really feels the need for this.
Nevertheless, I am also sceptical about the protective effect of a gun in case of raids and possible terror attacks. The first mentioned guys come from behind and will "surprise you", so you don´t have the time to draw your gun. If a terror attack would take place, I would try to flee - even if I had a gun - because I don´t think I would have a realistic chance against trained fanatics with assault rifles. A gun will quickly draw the attention on you.
Maybe the ownership of a gun makes sense to help other people in case of a raid, because in this scenario you will definitely have the time to draw the gun and get yourself an overview of the situation.
I don´t think, a society will be more violent, if they had guns. There are many other factors like social inequality and poverty, which cause gun abuse and the well known "American conditions". In example, the Swiss people are peaceful.
Gun ownership and peace must be no contradiction.
driver on 20/5/2016 at 12:27
Quote Posted by TheDarkOne93
I do like guns because I started going to the range when I was 10 years and it just clicked afterwards.
Did you forget to take the safety off?
Muzman on 20/5/2016 at 13:40
I don't mind them. They're fun. Most of the arguments for complete freedom to own them are hogwash though. You end up in weird places where people say your (non US) democracy of choice shouldn't actually function, if people thought about it for a few minutes longer than they usually do. But clearly plenty work just fine. "But just wait!" they say.
That's the real tell, I think. It's more about the strange catastrophism in the American psyche more than any true threat. To round preparedness and practicality up to some future, often fairly specific, disaster the argument is all but stating 'My gun is protecting me from tyranny right now!' (it's not). Which is related to the other notions you tend to hear that all but say 'My gun protects me from crime right now!' (it doesn't). It's not a vaccine folks, sorry.
TheDarkOne93 on 20/5/2016 at 14:06
Quote Posted by driver
Did you forget to take the safety off?
Ah I see what you did there. :p Yes I did
Tony_Tarantula on 20/5/2016 at 14:12
I'm coming from a different background where I have professional firearms training.
In that regards, I'm actually a big advocate of even anti-gun people at least knowing how guns work. The only way you're going to fully respect how deadly these weapons are is if you know how to use them yourself and you've seen the kind of damage they can cause.
I will say that most of the ideas people with no experience about guns have are wrong. It's rather ignorant to buy a gun anticipating any specific eventuality. Rather, you're buying it to reduce your odds of being a victim to any one of the numerous forms of violent crime out there.
Most people also shouldn't own guns. The people who fetishize them don't have a business carrying a defense weapon and should keep it ranges. Likewise, I remember when Kansas allowed carry on universities people were terrified that it would "stifle discussion". In other words it was utterly inconceivable to these people that someone would have a weapon and NOT use it to violently punish people who disagree with them.
If you're going to carry there's two main things you need to do: PRACTICE extensively. Far more than you need to. Practice your safety drills to a ridiculous level to get in the habit of always unloading and checking the moment you touch it, practice drawing and defensive drills using your real carry equipment and the gun unloaded (ALWAYS manually go through the steps to unload it even if it already is "unloaded"), and practice at the range until you're completely comfortable with the weapon.
Second thing is that you need to keep it on the down low. Nobody should even know you own a weapon, let alone are carrying one, unless a situation occurs where either you use it or the threat of death or grievous injury will be realized ( to include rape) and you are willing to use it.
There's an old, but very good, book on how to responsibly use a personal defense weapon by Massad Ayoob. I highly recommend it if you're not experienced((
http://www.amazon.com/Gravest-Extreme-Firearm-Personal-Protection/dp/0936279001)).
He makes one point that I've found to be true as well. It's somewhat counterintuitive but having the means of inflicting violence and being willing to use it is sometimes the only way to make sure nobody gets hurt. There was one incident in my own life where a buddy would have been beaten by a group until they realized that I was armed (with a melee weapon) and more than willing to use it.
Tony_Tarantula on 20/5/2016 at 14:20
Quote Posted by Renzatic
I can understand why some people would choose to walk around armed. They live in a bad neighborhood, or they work a dangerous job. There are good excuses for carrying a weapon.
But I wouldn't suggest everyone walk around open carrying at all times. For one thing, the mere presence of a gun can make some people twitchy. Even worse, it can make others overconfident, willing to do things they wouldn't otherwise do, because they have that extra boost of courage on their belt.
Open carry at all is usually an ego thing. If you can't keep your ego in check enough to keep your gun a secret, then you have no business carrying.
Renault on 20/5/2016 at 14:28
Quote Posted by Volitions Advocate
I own a few. A handgun, a couple of shotguns, a few hunting rifles, and an SBR AR15 that it ironically more illegal in the USA than it is in Canada where I live.
This is where somebody talks about my penis, like already happened in this thread, as though me owning multiple firearms is somehow different than me owning multiple guitars.
Just out of curiosity, why the SBR? What does that give you that the rest of the weapons don't?
And apologies re: the snary penis remark, if it helps it was intended as a joke, and I would have used it on more than just gun owners - large pickup trucks owners, bodybuilders, etc. (even people with large guitar collections fit the bill).
Quote Posted by Volitions Advocate
I also undergo a criminal record check every single day as my name is run through the RCMP computers, since I have a firearms license, and my human rights are given less consideration in Canada than that of a convicted child molester.
I don't think that's so strange. You have the
potential to wipe out a large number of people in a short period of time. The child molester doesn't. But yeah, I'm sure it seems completely unfair since they're a convicted criminal and you aren't. You haven't done anything wrong.
All that said, you obviously take all of this very seriously. If all gun owners were as responsible as you, all of this talk would be a non-issue.
Volitions Advocate on 20/5/2016 at 14:33
Quote Posted by faetal
Crime never goes away - they don't all decide to straighten up because people have guns now, they just get guns too, to level the playing field. And if they assume you're armed, they'll probably shoot more readily.
See, this I think is flipped 180 the wrong way. The criminals already have the guns, they already fight each other in public places and already don't give a damn about who might be unfortunate enough to be caught in the middle. It's not that the "good guys" having guns will make the "bad guys" behave themselves. It's that all the gun laws you can imagine will never make a criminal respect the law. Evil people always are, it doesn't matter whether or not there are laws to prevent it.
Quote:
These are tools whose design ethos is about the best way to terminate the life of something else.
I get into debates with people all the time up here about handguns and they always say this. "It's only designed to kill people." Of course in Canada, very explicitly, the only reason I am allowed to own a hand gun is for target practice. That means that every handgun legally imported into this country that is not destined for the police or military, is decidedly not for harming humans or any animals. If I were to put "home defense" on my application as reasons I want to own a handgun, the RCMP denies my license. I would, however, contend that wearing a pistol in public for the sake of self defense absolutely makes it a "weapon," which is a label most firearms get out of the box for nothing other than emotional grandstanding. I hate going to the range to shoot some steel plates and have people refer to my firearm as a weapon.
That aside though, the personal empowerment thing doesn't fit. Maybe it does for a lot of people in the USA who go buy a gun without proper training, but the kind of people in that video above don't think like that. It's not about having the option to destroy anything or anybody. It's about having the ability to save your own life, or somebody else's, if that awful miniscule chance that something horribly wrong happens in your presence, and you have a chance to do something about it.
There was a leaked FBI document that made its way around the internet a few years ago about why they started choosing to change their service pistols from .40 S&W to 9mm. More shots in the gun, easier to handle, less chance of their agents missing the targets and having bullets fly where they're not supposed to go etc etc. But the biggest thing I picked up on is that the ONLY important thing when a government agent uses their firearm is rapid incapacitation. They want to stop the guy doing the thing from doing it. as rapidly as possible. The intent is not to kill. It's literally irrelvant to them whether or not the target lives, and says so in the document. You stop that person from doing what they are doing that endagers other people, and that's where you put the gun away. People who look towards concealed carry as a life style understand this, and that's why they train.
Quote Posted by "Thinking Robot"
The first mentioned guys come from behind and will "surprise you", so you don´t have the time to draw your gun. If a terror attack would take place, I would try to flee - even if I had a gun - because I don´t think I would have a realistic chance against trained fanatics with assault rifles. A gun will quickly draw the attention on you.
It's entirely possible that you can not see it coming, but like I said, it's there for the tiniest chance you make a difference if the situation calls for it. At places like Haley Strategic and Front Sight in Nevada, they talk a lot more about when to leave in the holster than when to pull it out.
I see it this way. Society at large is uncomfortable with guns. Most are unwilling to see it from my point of view, or people who agree with me (I partly blame the NRA for that since they seem to be to be a bunch pigheaded jerks). The mentality is that the chance of being in a gunfight is so low with my lifestyle of NOT being involved in crime, that I really have no need to worry about it. Of course this means that anybody who is caught in this situation and has no ability to do anything about it is effectively just "taking one for the team" so that society can continue to feel comfortable in the fact that nobody around them but the police have guns (which is a lie in itself). If I am ever caught in that situation, I will not be comfortable taking one for the team. I really don't accept that I can be a statistic to make somebody else feel better. Yeah, there is about a 0.0001% chance that I will be a victim to a terrorist attack in North America that could reasonably be stopped by a bystander with a gun, but I think that's a horrible way to say that we are all okay with 0.0001% of people dying to make the rest of us feel a bit more comfortable.
I hope I seem rational in all of this thinking. These kinds of debates tend to get far out of hand. As for my guitar comment. Owning multiple guns is no more "compensating for something" than owning lots of guitars is. And guns are pretty mundane, boring chunks of metal when they're locked up in a safe, nowhere near any ammunition. Thus my comment.
faetal on 20/5/2016 at 14:35
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
Second thing is that you need to keep it on the down low. Nobody should even know you own a weapon, let alone are carrying one, unless a situation occurs where either you use it or the threat of death or grievous injury will be realized ( to include rape) and you are willing to use it.
This is something I've yet to understand - since only the assailant knows there is going to be an assault up until the moment it happens (unless for whatever reason they decide to telegraph it), how does anyone ever have time to get their gun into play before the assailant?
Further to this, how does having a concealed gun do anything other than increase your chance of getting shot if you do anything other than comply? If every civilian is potentially armed, then every assailant has to be too. If the civilian makes any sudden moves, then it's safer to assume a concealed carry, open fire and run away. Doesn't everything just normalise to the default level of threat? Removing guns from that possibility surely just downgrades the default level of threat. Sure, there's still always the risk of knifepoint, but I can run from a knife.
Volitions Advocate on 20/5/2016 at 14:36
Quote Posted by Brethren
Just out of curiosity, why the SBR? What does that give you that the rest of the weapons don't?
Mostly because in Canada, the AR-15 is deemed restricted no matter what length of barrel you have, It's only legal to shoot at a range. Not even legal to shoot at your buddy's ranch at some pop cans.
Honestly its' a 10" barrel because gun crap is expensive and I found it online by a guy who was selling it for cheap. (I was building my AR from parts) I wanted a 16 barrel, which would not be considered an SBR in the states, not that it makes any difference up here.
Shorter barrel = less muzzle velocity and lost accuracy. So to answer your question. It isn't really what I wanted, but it was a good deal.
