First, let's get the Second Amendment out of the way. "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
It was not written as some sort of neo-con creedo declaring that everyone is allowed to own a gun for personal safety. It was written so militias could be gathered amongst the citizenry should the British decide to attack. America has a militia now. It's called the military. If ever an Amendment needed to be re-written, it's that one.
But that's irrelevant to the argument of gun control now anyway, because every gun-toting American has memorized the second part of that sentence, and considers it a creed to live by as an excuse to stroke their penis extensions.
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It's very, very hard, as a non-American, who has grown up literally without access, interest, education, knowledge, and only a rare SIGHTING of a gun, to argue about this with Americans. It always is.
On the one hand, you have the argument that "if we ban gun ownership, criminals will still have guns, but now citizens won't." I hear that and think "dammit, it sounds logical."
But then on the other hand, every single statistic shows that countries without gun ownership have little or no violent gun crime. The United States is responsible for over 80 percent of all the gun deaths in the 23 richest countries in the world combined. Anywhere from 9000 to 12,000 people a year are killed by guns in homicides (so, not counting suicides or accidents.) And that doesn't count tens of thousands of non-lethal shots.
Japan has some of the strictest gun laws in the world. Almost no one owns guns. There is almost no gun crime, averaging less than 20 a year. In fact in 2006, the total was TWO murders.
In the UK, almost no one owns guns. Homicides are typically 40 or less a year.
Germany, which has gun ownership but the requirements are MASSIVELY more strict than the US, has around 200 murders a year.
And here in Canada, our number hovers around 200 deaths a year as well.
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Now that last part is where it gets weird--on the one hand, hand guns are virtually impossible to own here. But on the other hand, we are a nation of hunters, perhaps even more so than the US, so our long gun ownership numbers are about the same as America's. We have guns all over the place, they're just rifles. And yet we have (comparatively) no murders.
So is it as simple an answer as having adults grow up, stop waving their giant dick-extensions around in the air, and get tougher on what it MEANS to own a firearm, get more strict on WHO owns them?
I agree wholeheartedly and completely that civilians should not own automatic weapons. Ever. Period. Or grenades. Or fucking RPGs, or whatever else. There is no reason to own any weapon beyond a simple rifle for hunting or, in theory, a simple handgun for personal defense, if you must. Anything else is dick-waving bullshit.
And even owning the handgun is a dubious argument. Like I said, we have virtually none in Canada, and the crime reflects that. People have a shotgun or rifle around the farm for hunting and, if someone ever comes on the property threatening them, well, they've got a rifle I suppose.
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My attitude toward the whole thing is ambivalent because guns simply aren't a "thing" here. For anyone. And I suspect that much is true everywhere else in the first world that isn't America.
Americans always ask me "what if someone breaks into your home, don't you just want to shoot them?" :roll:
Well no, no I don't. I don't want to shoot anyone. First off, someone breaking into my home is an INCREDIBLY rare possibility, because crime in general is rare. Second off, the odds are INCREDIBLY in favour of that burgler not carrying a gun. Likely no weapon at all. I have a steel pipe by my bed, and another by the door, because I happen to live in one of the few cities in Canada that has ANY sort of home invasions happening, and I still suspect I'm being overly paranoid.
Canada's laws generally dictate equal force for defense. If I shoot a burgler who is unarmed, I go to prison for Manslaughter. If I beat the shit out of him with my hands or a pipe but leave him alive, chances are I'll be just fine, and he'll go to jail for BnE. And in most cases historically, the jury has sided with the homeowner in these cases, UNLESS they murder the kid.
The thought of beating a home invader with my bare hands fills me with a sort of odd mixture of pride and, at the same time, sadness, because I'm using a physical self-defense tool I learned on another human being. The thought of shooting one fills me with nothing but anger and sickness.
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It's hard NOT to blame the "culture of the gun." And I don't mean violence in video games or violence in movies. The rest of the world has that too, and we're getting along fine. It's the culture ingrained in your society since the revolution. Americans shoot first and ask questions later. Literally, they do. In the above example, in many States, you are permitted to shoot a fucker dead if he's on your property, REGARDLESS of the situation. Most Americans think that's just fine and dandy. It's their solution to everything, from the genocide of the Natives all the way to current foreign policy (invade and "free" Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) Most gun-owning Americans will never agree to stricter gun laws because they literally believe they have a right to determine life and death, a right to take another's life easily and quickly, if they see fit. x(
I think it's abhorrent, and a very scary way to live life. I fear for the human race if this is somehow the example of how to live that the world is supposed to "look up to." :uhm:
In Canada we have no need for guns. It just doesn't enter into the public consciousness. When we had OUR mass school shooting at École Polytechnique, there was no massive outcry to allow us to carry guns. It was a rare tragedy, and most (MOST) Canadians were thankful this sort of thing is very rare because NO ONE OWNS GUNS. So it's very, very hard for the rest of us in the world to take anything Americans say seriously about gun ownership when the numbers ARE RIGHT THERE. If guns are banned, there's less guns, which means criminals have less/no guns. Americans I talk to argue VEHEMENTLY against that, but the NUMBERS ARE RIGHT THERE.
Is it a fear thing? Are all American inherently paranoid? And maybe they should be, with crime as rampant as it supposedly is.... In America, easy gun ownership allows for more gun crime, and more gun ownership is required to defend against gun crime. Which is an argument to keep hand guns. The only question is how such a vicious circle can ever be stopped.
EDIT: And to answer the original post, things like background checks, thorough psychiatric evaluations, and other such things, likely will never happen either, because they impact on gun retailers' "freedom" to sell guns to nut jobs. Which means it hurts the bottom dollar. So it won't happen.