Guns legal in the U.S? OUTRAGEOUS!?

gomanyes562

The gun lobby (which is controlled by gun manufacturers, not gun owners) has so much money to spend on campaigning that they can manipulate the public's opinion and literally convince them that guns make them safe. Most studies have verified the common-sense logic that more people carrying guns means more crime. However, gun manufacturers have bigger public relations budgets, so they have more control over mindshare. That is why you get ridiculous answers like "guns don't kill people, people kill people" and "it's my constitutional right" over and over again.

Emily

Criminals and other thugs will always have access to guns anyways. By banning guns, you ban individuals the right to protect themselves and in turn, lower gun related crime rates. Criminals and thugs will think twice to hurt individuals if most adults have guns to protect themselves.

Micky

Um...no. First off the criminals don't go through legal means to get their guns. Second off,good law abiding citizens buy guns legally to protect themselves not to harm others unless in self defense. Third,If you make guns illegal,bad guys will still have them,good guys wont and a lot of innocent people will die with no way to protect themselves.
Last but not least,they will take my gun away only when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

P.S. Having a gun saved the life of my child and myself when I had to face down an intruder breaking into my bedroom window.

fsfa

It's our constitutional right. Trust me, no foreign country is going to be occupying the USA any time soon.

rickinnocal

Great idea. Make gun ownership illegal.

I can just imagine Jimmy and Billy getting ready to go rob a bank.
"So, Billy, how are we going to make the clerk give us the money?"
"Heck, Jimmy, we'll point our guns at him!"
"But Billy, guns are illegal!"
"Damn, Jimmy, I never thought of that. We'd better turn in our guns and go get factory jobs instead"
"OK, Billy , just as soon as we get back from church"

What a spectacularly bad idea. The ONLY people who pay ANY attention to gun control laws are law abiding citizens. Criminals are not going to give a damn if gun ownership is illegal - they're ALREADY criminals.

The proof is in the statistics :-
"Since Australia's 1996 laws banning most guns and making it a crime to use a gun defensively, armed robberies rose by 51%, unarmed robberies by 37%, assaults by 24% and kidnappings by 43%. While murders fell by 3%, manslaughter rose by 16%."
"After enacting stringent gun control laws in 1991 and 1995, Canada has not made its citizens any safer. "Over the past decade, the rate of violent crime in Canada has increased while in the United States the violent crime rate has plummeted."
"According to the BBC News, handgun crime in the United Kingdom rose by 40% in the two years after it passed its draconian gun ban in 1997."

Richard

justanotherone

If we banned firearms, we would:

1) Be taking away the right to bear arms. A constitutional right that is part of being American

2) Only be taking away guns from law abiding citizens. The criminals would keep their guns.

Don't see a "pro" in the situation...

Ken B

And what happened to your crime rate? Went up, eh? So did Canada's and England's, and every other place where guns were banned. You live your way and I'll live mine.

jglawson80

Switzerland has virtually no gun control laws, yet thet have one of the lowest violent crime rates in the world, where as when guns were banned in England, Canada, and Austaria, violent crime increased dramatically. This goes to show that banning guns is not the solution. Making sure those that those who cheese to own them are respsonsible with them is!

Tom K

For our sakes, as well as those of our children, allow those of us who are of good character and properly trained to actually carry the firearms we own and, because of attitudes like yours, are forced to leave home.

You will NEVER hear in the mainstream media of an incident in which the mere presence of an armed civilian prevented crimes, but they happen every day. As the Florida carjacker said when asked why he concentrated on visitors: "They don't carry guns."

Cookie Monster

Laws do not stop criminals. If they did, there would be no crime in America.

shortdude42004

I was talking to a cop, and he said he has never had a problem with a legally owned firearm in his entire 17 year career.

Lillian

Then stay there. We have a saying here. What do you calls citizens who have had their guns taken away? .....Subjects.

Gustove

and then their will be people getting killed by stabbings and strangulation and then we outlaw knifes and rope and plastic bags cigarettes ect. guns don't kill people people kill people

ALbert B

as other have said if the criminals want guns they can get them .. and they don't care about illegal firearms do they?!

I don't agree with the no guns laws here is australia - mind you I have never owner a gun.

compare 350 million people in america to the 25 million australia - of course you are going to have a few crazies and fools but the problem here is the media makes a big thing of it so people think that everyone over their carries a gun around and shoot other people - and that aint so..

the gov here doens't trust its own people with guns as they have falled for political correctness gone mad

besides which they didn't pay as much a the guns were worth for those people who had rare firearms

so who has guns now? the criminals who don't care about being caught with guns as they have so mnay other things wrong with them they just don't give a flying f..k

Rachel

And what are you going to do when someone holds you at gunpoint in the streets and you're unarmed? You're useless, defenseless, meaningless. With a gun it equalizes the power. Look at Kennesaw, Georgia. Each household was required to own a gun. Homicide rates went down dramatically. Australia might be different than the states. Look at Eric and Dylan. If they wanted guns, they could've gotten them even if they were banned. Banning firearms is a way to shoot ourselves in the foot.

rogueriverbob

read the book,....."More Guns Less Crimes,.....written by John Lott, after you read it then come back and ask your question,.....

Mike

Actually your crime rate in Australia went up when guns were banned. You did not save any lives with your gun ban. You just made private citizens easy prey for criminals.

A gun ban will not prevent the crime sprees that you mention.

In fact, in the United States, in the jurisdictions where private, law abiding citizens are permitted to carry loaded handguns, the crime rate has gone down dramatically.

Interviews with criminals will tell you why. The criminals themselves will tell you that it is very risky for a criminal to assault an individual in a jurisdiction where private citizens are permitted to carry guns, because they can defend themselves against the criminals.

What we do need is better control of criminals and the criminally insane.

The people who committed these acts had long histories of behavior that would normally have resulted in their involuntary confinement in a mental hospital.

Over the past 50 years our laws that permit the confinement of the mentally unstable and criminally insane have been watered down to such an extent that these people are permitted to roam free when they should have been locked up long ago.

What we need is laws that permit us to confine the mentally ill who would harm other people, not a gun ban.

Fortunately in the United States the right of private individuals to own firearms was made part of the constitution.

It would take a Constitutional amendment to prevent private citizens of the United States from owning firearms.

Fortunately it does not take a Constitutional amendment to confine the criminally insane to mental hospitals. It requires only the willingness of the state legislatures to act.

Also most Americans do not agree with you. Candidates who propse bans on guns are defeated in National elections.

Only a few liberal pockets of people in the United States will support candidates who want to ban guns. Support for banning guns in the United States is only among a small minority of left wing people.

ab dominance

hmmm... that's exactly what Hitler did right before he took over the country, newspapers, media, movies, schools and Europe.

you are authoritarians, or statists, just like Hitler. good for you.

mhargitay4

Well ik ow is like in aussie land but here thee are ALOT of time. Wneed guns for protection

DAR

No, thanks.

There are 500,000 guns here, at least, per government estimates. The bad guys get them illegally. I'd like some in the hands of the good guys, who are the only ones who would be hampered by a law like that.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,267540,00.html

colin b

Well Sunny as one Aussie to another the reason is nobody has bothered dragging Americans in to the 21st century. They still think its the wild west of a 150 years ago when the local sheriff was a 3 day horse ride away not a phone call to 911.

Charlie

your question is full of ignorance. there are actually more crime prevented by guns than are caused . and if they took away our guns the crimes would become more violent. ex: instead of getting shot and dying fast people would be getting cut open and beaten to death instead.

VSpy464

because it is getting out of hand, just last weekend not too far from my house 5 women were shot at point blank and all died, because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, this happened in Tinley Park,IL same weekend as the shootings in Missouri

Susie D

Sunny ~ it's not the legally owned gun, by a responsible gun owner that is causing the problem. The problem is the gun in the hands of the unstable and the criminal.....when they take the guns away from the kooks, the angry, and the criminal....then I will turn in mine. Until then - not a chance.

All of the other countries who claim to be so great because of their "gun control" have issues just the same as we do -- so you deal with your issues, we'll deal with ours.

open4one

Would this be a better world, the same, or would we all be worse off had private ownership of firearms been banned in all of Great Britain and their colonies from 1750 onward?

Kmmv

Because it is our Constitutional right as Americans, and....we're not Australians

Skeptic

Thanks. Many Americans agree with you. Unfortunately, 50% of the population has an IQ less than 100 ;) and many of these individual listen and parrot mainstream media people like Rush Limbaugh. Too many choose to have guns in their homes resulting in senseless deaths.

Guns are easy to obtain, and are used frequently in crimes.

Aaron

As an Australian I am happy with the laws we have on guns. If Americans are happy with the way their laws are - then so be it. Gun are not banned here but there are very strict rules as to who has them and how they are kept. We dont have people running through shopping centres or schools with guns. On CNN the other day a reporter said that in America they have these sort of incidents weekly somewhere in the country. No thanks. But if that is how they want to be - that is their business.

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