another school shooting
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Yeah, because there aren't ways to get things into this country. Talk about turning a blind eye.
So what you're saying is that you don't have an answer to thousands of years of world history? There's that blind eye again.
Dude, I've lived the realities of guns and gun violence. Your fear isn't going to change my mind. You can lay down and die but I'm going to defend myself against people who would gladly put me in a grave for pocket change.
I guess all that time in the military didn't teach you anything about guns. Whatever, this is going to go 'round and 'round. Your side is just completely incapable of seeing the realities of life in America.
apparently you didn't learn to read....
Guns arrived in Japan along with the first trading ships from Portugal in 1542 or 1543. Confident of the superiority of Japanese civilisation, the Japanese dubbed the Western visitors namban, 'Southern barbarians'.[52] The Portuguese had landed on Tanegashima Island, outside Kyushu. One day the Portuguese trader Mendez Pinto took Totitaka, Lord of Tanegashima for a walk; the trader shot a duck. The Lord of Tanegashima made immediate arrangements to take shooting lessons, and within a month he bought both Portuguese guns, or Tanegashima as the Japanese soon called them.[53]
The Tanegashima caught on quickly among Japan's feuding warlords. The novelty of the guns was the main reason that the Portuguese were treated well.[54] Lord Oda Nobunaga noted that 'guns have become all the rage...but I intend to make the spear the weapon to rely on in battle'. Nobunaga was worried about how long--15 minutes--it took to prepare a gun shot, and how weak the projectile was. The Portuguese guns, among the best of their era, were matchlocks (ignited by a match), and Japan's rainy weather made the gun's ignition system unreliable.[55]
Despite some initial problems, the Japanese rapidly improved firearms technology. They invented a device to make matchlocks fire in the rain (the Europeans never figured out how to do this), refined the matchlock trigger and spring, developed a serial firing technique, and increased the matchlock's calibre. They also dispensed with pre-battle introductions.[56] Superior quality guns were produced; during the 1904 Russo-Japanese war, 16th century matchlocks were converted to modern bolt-action and performed admirably.[57]
The Arabs, the Indians, and the Chinese had all acquired firearms long before the Japanese. But only the Japanese mastered large-scale domestic manufacture.[58]
By 1560, only 17 years after being introduced in Japan, firearms were being used effectively in large battles. That year, a bullet killed a general wearing full armour.[59] In 1567, Lord Takeda Harunobu declared, 'Hereafter, guns will be the most important arms'.[60] He was right. Less than three decades after Japan saw its first gun, there were more guns in Japan than any other nation on the planet. Several Japanese feudal lords had more guns than the whole British army.[61](p.32)
It was Lord Oda Nobunaga, an early critic of the Portuguese matchlocks, whose army truly mastered the new firearms technology.[62] At Nagashino in 1575, 3,000 of Nobunaga's conscript peasants with muskets hid behind wooden posts and devastated the enemy's cavalry charge. There was no honour to such fighting, but it worked.[63] Feudal wars between armies of samurai knights had ravaged Japan for centuries. Nobunaga and his peasant army, equipped with matchlocks, conquered most of Japan, and helped bring the feudal wars to an end.[64]
Guns dramatically changed the nature of war. In earlier times, after the introductions, fighters would pair off, to go at each other in single combat--a method of fighting apt to let individual heroism shine. Armoured, highly trained samurai had the advantage. But with guns, the unskilled could be deployed en masse, and could destroy the armoured knights with ease.[65] Understandably, the noble bushi class thought firearms undignified. Even Lord Nobunaga personally refused to use guns and included samurai warriors in his armies. The warriors who became heroes were still those who used swords or spears.[66]
B. The Sword Hunt
Yet as Japan grew more pre-eminent in firearms manufacture and warfare, she moved closer to the day when firearms would disappear from society. The engineer of Japan's greatest armed victories, and of the abolition of guns in Japan, would be a peasant named Hidéyoshi. Starting out as a groom for Lord Nobunaga, Hidéyoshi rose through the ranks to take control of Nobunaga's army after Nobunaga died. A brilliant strategist, Hidéyoshi finished the job that Nobunaga began, and re-unified Japan's feudal states under a strong central government.[67]
Having conquered the Japanese, Hidéyoshi meant to keep them under control. On 29 August 1588, Hidéyoshi announced 'the Sword Hunt' (taiko no katanagari) and banned possession of swords and firearms by the non-noble classes. He decreed:
The people in the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, short swords, bows, spears, firearms or other arms. The possession of unnecessary implements makes difficult the collection of taxes and tends to foment uprisings... Therefore the heads of provinces, official agents and deputies are ordered to collect all the weapons mentioned above and turn them over to the Government.[68](emphasis added)
Although the intent of Hidéyoshi's decree was plain, the Sword Hunt was presented to the masses under the pretext that all the swords would be melted down to supply nails and bolts for a temple containing a huge statue of the Buddha. The statue would have been twice the size of the Statue of Liberty.[69] The Western missionaries' Jesuit Annual Letter reported that Hidéyoshi 'is depriving the people of their arms under the pretext of devotion to religion'.[70] (p.33)Once the swords and guns were collected, Hidéyoshi had them melted into a statue of himself.
The historian Stephen Turnbull writes:
Hidéyoshi's resources were such that the edict was carried out to the letter. The growing social mobility of peasants was thus flung suddenly into reverse. The ikki, the warrior-monks, became figures of the past...Hidéyoshi had deprived the peasants of their weapons. Iéyasu [the next ruler] now began to deprive them of their self respect. If a peasant offended a samurai he might be cut down on the spot by the samurai's sword.[71]
The inferior status of the peasantry having been affirmed by civil disarmament, the Samurai enjoyed kiri-sute gomen, permission to kill and depart. Any disrespectful member of the lower class could be executed by a Samurai's sword.[72]
Hidéyoshi forbade peasants to leave their land without their superior's permission and required that warriors, peasants, and merchants all remain in their current post.[73] After Hidéyoshi died, Iéyasu founded the Tokugawa Shogunate, which would rule Japan for the next two-and-a-half centuries. Peasants were assigned to a 'five-man group,' headed by landholders who were responsible for the group's behaviour. The groups arranged marriages, resolved disputes, maintained religious orthodoxy, and enforced the rules against peasants possessing firearms or swords. The weapons laws clarified and stabilised class distinctions. Samurai had swords; the peasants did not.[74]
The total abolition of firearms never took place by a formal decree. Hidéyoshi had taken the first step, by disarming the peasants. In 1607, the Tokugawa Shogunate took the second step by dictating that all gun and powder production take place in Nagahama.[75] Permission from the central Government was required to engage in the business.[76] In theory, the gunsmiths could fill any orders they got, as long as they got permission from the Teppo Bugyo (commissioner of guns). In practice, almost no orders except those by the Government were permitted.[77]
The gunsmiths, starving for lack of business, slipped out of Nagahama. Some went to work for Lord Tokitaka's heirs on Tanegashima Island, where guns had first arrived in Japan. In 1609, the Government ordered the gunsmiths back to Nagahama. This time, they would receive an annual pension, regardless of whether they produced guns, as long as they stayed put and let the Government keep an eye on them.[78]
The pensions were low, and the work ethic was still strong. Many gunsmiths turned to sword production. The Government compensated the other smiths by paying increasingly high prices for small gun orders. By 1625, the government monopoly was secure. There were four (p.34)master gunsmith families, and forty families of ordinary gunsmiths under them. The Government ordered 387 matchlocks a year, and cut orders even further in 1706.[79] Eventually, the number of gunsmiths dwindled to 15 families, who supported themselves with government repair orders.[80]
The historian Noel Perrin offers five reasons why Japan was able to renounce the gun while Europe was not, despite the fierce resistance to guns by the European aristocracy. First, the Samurai warrior nobility, who hated guns, amounted to 6-10 per cent of the population, unlike in Europe, where the noble class never exceeded 1 per cent. The nobility simply counted for more in Japan.[81] Second, Japan was so hard to invade, and the Japanese were such formidable fighters, that swords and bows sufficed for national defense.[82] Invasions were unlikely in any case. One hundred miles separate Japan from Korea; 500 divide Japan and China. Third, writes Perrin, swords were what the Japanese truly valued. Guns depreciated the importance of swords, so a policy of protecting swords by eliminating guns was bound to be popular, at least with the classes who carried swords. Hailed as 'the soul of the samurai', the sword was the physical embodiment of aristocratic honour and of the soul itself.[83] When gun manufacture was still legal, and the Government decided to honour the four leading gunsmiths, it gave them swords.[84] The cult of the sword persisted into the Second World War, when Japanese officers lugged traditional, cumbersome swords into Southeast Asian jungles.[85] Even today, the sword is a common source of Japanese metaphor. Self-indulgent behaviour is called 'the rust of my body', identifying one's body with a sword.[86] The fourth reason Perrin cites for the success in elimination of guns was a general reaction against outside influences, particularly Christianity. Although the firearms made in Japan were the world's best, they remained a symbol of Western technology.[87] Finally, writes Perrin, in a society where aesthetics were prized, swords were valued because they were graceful to use in combat.[88]
Sociologist William Tonso adds one more reason why Japan saw no need for guns; there was not a great deal of big game to hunt.[89]
The abolition of firearms and abandonment of military aggression were just one element of the sakoku policy of isolation from the world and exaltation of 'Japaneseness'. The policy worked. Edwin O. Reischauer, America's leading historian of Japan, writes: 'The brawling, bellicose Japanese people of the sixteenth century gradually were transformed into an extremely orderly, even docile people...Nowhere in the world was proper decorum more rigorously observed by all classes, and nowhere else was physical violence less in evidence in ordinary life'.[90] When Commodore Perry and his 'Black Ships' arrived in 1853, Japan was backwards only in technology. An officer in Commodore Perry's fleet reported, 'These people seemed scarcely to know the use of firearms'.[91] Japan had built a more harmonious, peaceful society than any Western nation has before or since.[92]
True, the Japanese paid a price for their order. Freedom was an alien concept. Interclass, social, and geographic mobility were extinguished. Indeed, as Turnbull points out, (p.35)Hidéyoshi's hunt for swords and firearms marked the end of social freedom in Japan. The abolition of firearms probably would not have succeeded if Japan had a free economy or a free political system. If the Japanese sacrificed a certain degree of economic and personal freedom, they also spared themselves the bloody conflicts that engulfed the Western world.
C. The Rush to Militarism
Though Japan had lived happily without guns, militarism, violence, or foreign influence, Commodore Perry's arrival shook the nation deeply. The Japanese realised that, however harmonious their society, they were centuries behind the West technologically, and, like China, in imminent danger of colonisation. The Government tried to strengthen itself by adopting Western military technology and sending missions abroad to learn about the West.[93]
Under Hidéyoshi, the peasant class had lost its political power, and with it the privilege of owning arms. When the aristocracy lost its own political power during the Meiji period, it too lost its right to bear arms. In 1876, the Government forbade the samurai to wear their two swords. The next year, 40,000 discontented conservative samurai rose up in the Satsuma Rebellion led by the Shimpuren ('God-wind League'). They rejected the chance to use imported muskets, fought with swords instead, and were crushed by the conscript peasant army using guns.[94]
The new Japanese Government embarked on a rapid industrialisation program, including development of a self-sufficient munitions industry.[95]
During the early 20th century, the gun controls were slightly relaxed. Tokyo and other major ports were allowed to have five gun shops each, other prefectures, three. Revolver sales were allowed with a police permit, and registration of every transaction were required. Nevertheless, the ownership of revolvers was 'practically nil' according to one American observer.[96]
In the 1920s and 1930s, the military came increasingly to control civilian life. Sonoda explains: 'The army and the navy were vast organizations with a monopoly on physical violence. There was no force in Japan that could offer any resistance'.[97] The 1930s degenerated into a horrible period of government by assassination, as military factions attempted to destroy each other, and as militarists murdered opponents of war.[98] Despite the strict gun laws, the frequency of assassinations far exceeded anything seen in Europe or North America this century. Even today, assassinations still occur.[99]
Under Hidéyoshi and the Tokugawa Shogunate, strict gun control succeeded in Japan because it was consistent with the cultural needs of Japanese society. Today, the gun control policy continues to succeed because it continues to match the basic character of Japanese society.(p.36)
V. The Preference for Paternalism
The Japanese historian, Nobutaka Ike, observes in modern Japan a 'preference for paternalism'.[100] An American historian writes: 'Never conquered by or directly confronted with external forms of political rule (except for the MacArthur occupation), they remained unaware of the relative, fallible nature of authority. Authority was a "given", taken for granted as an unalienable part of the natural order'.[101] A Tokyo University historian describes 'an assumption that the state is a prior and self-justifying entity, sufficient in itself. This results in a belief that...the state should take precedence over the goals of other individuals and associations...'.[102]
The differing meanings of the phrase 'rule of law' highlight the contrast between American and Japanese views of authority. In America, observes Noriho Urabe, 'rule of law' expresses the subordination of Government to the law. In Japan, the 'rule of law' refers to the people's obligation to obey the Government, and is thus 'an ideology to legitimize domination'.[103]
The Japanese individual's desires are 'absorbed in the interest of the collectivity to which he belongs', whether that collectivity be the nation, the school, or the family.[104] There is no theory of 'social contract', and no theory that individuals pre-exist society and have rights superior to society.[105] The strongest sanctions are not American-style punishments, but exclusion from the community.[106] When Japanese parents punish their children, they do not make the children stay inside the house, as American parents do. Punishment for a Japanese child means being put outside. The sublimation of individual desires to the greater good, the pressure to conform, and internalised willingness to do so are much stronger in Japan than in America.[107]
More than gun control, more than the lack of criminal procedure safeguards, more than the authority of the police, it is the pervasive social controls of Japan that best explain the low crime rate. Other nations, such as the former Soviet Union, have had severe gun control, less criminal justice safeguards, and more unconstrained police forces than Japan. But the Soviets' crime rate was high and Japan's minuscule because Japan has the socially-accepted and internalised restraints on individual behaviour which the Soviets lack. While social controls fell and crime rose everywhere in the English-speaking world in the 1960s, social controls remained and crime fell in Japan.[108]
More than the people of any other democracy, the Japanese accept the authority of their police and trust their government. In this cultural context, it is easy to see why gun control has succeeded in Japan, the people accept gun control with the same readiness that they accept other Government controls. Further, they have little incentive to disobey gun controls, since they have hardly any cultural heritage of gun ownership.(p.37)
VI. An Unarmed Government
The Japanese Government promotes a social climate for gun control by the good example of disarming itself. The police have little interest in using or glamorising guns. When the national police agency was created in the late nineteenth century, many members were ex-samurai who were unemployed because of the abolition of feudalism. They, of course, believed that guns were for cowards, and that real men fought with the martial arts. Indeed, the Japanese police only took up firearms when ordered to do so in 1946 by General MacArthur. Two years later, when the American occupation forces noticed that few police officers had obeyed the order to arm, the Americans supplied the police with guns and ammunition.[109]
The police have only .38 special revolvers, not the high-capacity 9mm handguns often toted by the American police.[110] No officer would ever carry a second, smaller handgun as a back up, as many American police do. Policeman may not add individual touches, such as pearl handles or unusual holster, to dress up their gun. While American police are often required to carry guns while off-duty, and almost always granted the privilege if they wish (even when retired), Japanese police must always leave their guns at the station. Unlike in the United States, desk-bound police administrators, traffic police, most plainclothes detectives, and even the riot police do not carry guns.[111]
Instead of using guns, the police rely on their black belts in judo or their police sticks. Indeed, police recruit training spends 60 hours on firearms compared to 90 hours on judo, and another 90 on kendo (fencing with sticks). (The number of hours that Japanese police recruits do spend on firearms training is larger than what most of their American counterparts receive; that the Japanese are so thoroughly instructed in a weapon which they are expected to use in only the rarest of circumstances testifies to the highly cautious approach of the Japanese police towards firearms.) After police school, few officers show any interest in further firearms training, while continued judo and kendo practice is frequent. Annual police martial arts contests are important events. Sixty percent of officers rank in one of the top judo brackets. Beer bellies are non-existent. In contrast, many American policemen, if confronted with deadly assault, have no combat technique to use except gunfire.[112] The American police's heavy reliance on guns serves, intentionally or not, to legitimise a similar attitude in the rest of the population.
The official Japanese police culture discourages use or glamorisation of guns. One poster on police walls orders: 'Don't take it out of the holster, don't put your finger on the trigger, don't point it at people'.[113] Shooting at a fleeing felon is unlawful under any circumstance. Police and civilians can both be punished for any act of self-defense in which the harm caused was greater than the harm averted.[114] In an average year, the entire Tokyo police force only fires a half-dozen or so shots.[115](p.38)
The police being disarmed, criminals reciprocate. Although guns are available on the black market, there is little use of guns in crime. The riot police leave their guns at the station; and the masses of angry students who confront the riot police also eschew modern weapons. The two sides instead study medieval military tactics, using mass formations of humans as battering rams or as shields. For a short time in the early 1970s, some demonstrators broke the informal rules by resorting to molotov cocktails and home-made pistols similar to zip guns. The riot police augmented their armour, but continued to eschew firearms. In 1972, the radical students resumed adherence to the old code, and the firearms vanished.[116]
Comparative criminologist, David Bayley, a proponent of stricter American gun controls, suggests that American police attitudes towards guns makes it impossible for gun control to be achieved. As long as the police are armed, writes Bayley, they send the implicit message that armed confrontations with civilians are the norm, and that shootings of police officers, while sad, are nothing extraordinary.[117]
The model of Governmental disarmament is repeated at the broadest levels of Japanese society. The military barely exists. Japan's rejection of militarism sets another good example for both gun control and for non-violence in general. The lack of involvement in foreign war, in earlier centuries and today, may be an important factor in Japan's culture of conformity and non-criminality.[118]
and both could have been stopped by responsible gun owning citizens
all utopian delusions aside, we live in a world where "bad guys" often have armed themselves with guns... i see no reason why the "good guys" shouldnt be able to at very least level the field and arm themselves as well, if they so choose to
criminals, more often than not, are pussies and will not go after people who have the ability of successfully defending themselves
if crimes against citizens become enough of a risk the criminals will be forced to find a new way to get their money/drugs/thrills/power
im not saying that everyone has to own a gun, or that everyone even should own a gun... it is a big decision, and carries with it potentially huge, effects, responsibilities and consequences... if a person can not accept that or doesnt think they can handle it then they should not carry
the answer is not making guns or ammunition illegal... laws do not, and will not work... it is already illegal to have a gun on school grounds... yet for some reason school shootings still happen... laws only effect law abiding citizens, who already are not the probem... so unless you can figure out a way to keep criminals from committing crimes, people need to have the option of protecting themselves available
just like the ban on drugs, prostitution, drinking and driving, or any of a million other things in the US. Might as well cars while you're at it cause they kill more people in the US than guns do.
...and both would have never occurred in such brutality if it were not for guns in the first place.
By that reasoning, guns are both the problem and the solution. Delving into the situation deeper, the real problem is irresponsible, evil people and as such we have no means of controlling these people. Guns simply aide in their attacks. With that said, how do you keep the guns out of the hands of the bad people and into the hands of the good people?
I don't think anyone knows the answer, which is the root of our social dilemma.
gomezkun
Yay for DOHC VTEC ^_^
I personally hate guns in general.
What happened to the good ol days where if you had an issue with someone you handled it with fists; one on one.
This whole bull**** and using firearms to prey on the vulnerable or defenceless makes me sick.
Alas, its the world we live in. Just another day of hardship and a patch to try to 'control' or fix the situation.
What happened to the good ol days where if you had an issue with someone you handled it with fists; one on one.
This whole bull**** and using firearms to prey on the vulnerable or defenceless makes me sick.
Alas, its the world we live in. Just another day of hardship and a patch to try to 'control' or fix the situation.
interesting point... seeing that guns were not used in either situation (well a pellet gun was used in cheshire... but it was just for show... baseball bats were used for the assaults)
i agree
the fact that they exist means you are not going to be able to keep criminals hands off of them...
police also have guns... but this isn't 'the minority report' and police are not able to stop acts of crime before they happen... and i don't know about where all of you are from but the times that i have needed to call the police their response time was far from good (20-45 minutes is unacceptable in my eyes)... making them all but useless while something is happening, and only good for sorting out the details of a situation after it is already over... therefore i feel that citizens should have the option of leveling the playing field with the criminals and defending themselves (again, if they so choose to)
if someone breaks into your home with intent to harm you or your family, and you call the police (which you should do any way)... what are you going to do for the 15 minutes or more that they are going to take to show up... a locked interior door isn't going to hold up for very long and there are only so many places to hide... maybe you have a panic room, i don't
how bout if your out somewhere and someone decides they want the contents of your pockets or your car or whatever else more than you do... the "give them what they want" line of thought is great... but all too often the criminals want no witnesses... now what? do you give them the material goods AND your life??? this situation is becoming more and more common... someone robs a gas station... the cashier cooperates and gives them the money and the 5 cartons of cigarettes that they demand, because they have no interest in dieing to protect the $50 in the register or the 50 packs of newports... the criminal then shoots the minimum wage cashier any way along with the 2 people who were simply there to pick up a soda and a bag of chips... maybe he is identified on the security tape... maybe he is caught, maybe he's not.... either way it doesn't bring the cashier or the 2 customers back
I'm sure a lot of people look at carrying a gun for protection as living in fear... i don't see it as living in fear... its simply being prepared to handle a situation that might occur... i don't wear my seatbelt because i am in constant fear of getting into an accident, i wear it because i want to be prepared in case an accident does happen... i don't have the ability to predict them, or schedule them, so instead i try to be prepared for one at all times
your mileage may vary
Why take away the right of a law abiding citizen because a group of people do wrong with those rights? We need to look at the implications of outlawing firearms. The reasons for owning/carrying a firearm aside. If you take away my right to carry a firearm or purchase a firearm then I take away your right of freedom of speech. Also please convert to catholicism. If you strike out one RIGHT pick one anyone one of them. You may as well flush the whole list.
It is not okay to me for someone that breaks the law to begin with to decide my rights as an American Citizen. If you look at other countries the reasons for lower crime rates and such have nothing to do with firearms most of the time. It has to do with there social structures and things like that. In Japan, like Airjockie mentioned they are very respectful and carry them self with a great deal of honor. When was the last time you saw someone in America treat others with respect and honor? I am very pro 2nd Amendment but I see the other sides point, but I cannot agree with them because I love this country. I love every right that I have in the this country. I love the fact that we can sit here and debate such a topic without the Secret Police kicking in our doors and black bagging us. These are the reasons we cannot outlaw firearms. You cannot take the rights this great country was founded on and throw it away. That is a slap in the face for those that have and are fighting and dieing for this country.
It is not okay to me for someone that breaks the law to begin with to decide my rights as an American Citizen. If you look at other countries the reasons for lower crime rates and such have nothing to do with firearms most of the time. It has to do with there social structures and things like that. In Japan, like Airjockie mentioned they are very respectful and carry them self with a great deal of honor. When was the last time you saw someone in America treat others with respect and honor? I am very pro 2nd Amendment but I see the other sides point, but I cannot agree with them because I love this country. I love every right that I have in the this country. I love the fact that we can sit here and debate such a topic without the Secret Police kicking in our doors and black bagging us. These are the reasons we cannot outlaw firearms. You cannot take the rights this great country was founded on and throw it away. That is a slap in the face for those that have and are fighting and dieing for this country.
I feel the main problem is the prison system....
shoot someone, and you get to go to a cell that has cable, a gym, free food, no rent...blah blah blah...
in Japan's case....their prison system is so strict that your lucky to get a glass of water and a bowl of rice a day, and your pounding boulders into gravel all day.
get the population to fear prison again...and more people will start doing shit right. Shoot someone...and you should die ...no courtroom....eye for eye, hand for hand.....that would make criminals think twice.
shoot someone, and you get to go to a cell that has cable, a gym, free food, no rent...blah blah blah...
in Japan's case....their prison system is so strict that your lucky to get a glass of water and a bowl of rice a day, and your pounding boulders into gravel all day.
get the population to fear prison again...and more people will start doing shit right. Shoot someone...and you should die ...no courtroom....eye for eye, hand for hand.....that would make criminals think twice.
So since this one isolated incident didn't include a firearm, the point is not valid?
Do you always play semantics? Clearly its a well known fact that guns are the weapon of choice for many violent attacks. As I said, when we go into the situation deeper the problem isn't the guns themselves but rather the drives of sick human beings. Unfortunately, guns help facilitate these terrible acts more so than any other weapon. A gun allows you to both intimidate your target and stand a safe distance away.
Guns in the hands of responsible citizens are fine, but how do we determine who is responsible and who is not?
Speeding, when the driver is a professional racer, is 'fine' as well, but alas we have laws that govern the entire population for the good of the entire population. The statistical outliers are not what intelligent legislation is concerned with, but laws are black and white and made to be applied with the lowest rung of society in mind.
if you payed attention to the context of what i was saying you would see that it was a reply to specifically the 9-11 hijackings and the cheshire home invasion/triple homicide
^^see?Quote:
Originally Posted by Airjockie
chesire was just as fucked up as the 9-11 hijackings...
and the highjackings was done by box-cutters...
and both could have been stopped by responsible gun owning citizens
i once again agree with this statement
very true, but it is a lot harder to intimidate someone who is also armed and is capable of successfully defending their self
i dunno... how bout taking a 8 hour safety course, proving your competence and accuracy with a firearm, followed by a full local state and federal background check that can take upwards of 8-12 weeks to complete... along with having your fingerprints on file with both the state and federal authorities??? because that is what a person needs to go through in my state and many others... so the fact that someone has a concealed carry weapons permit, tells you a lot more about me or anyone else who is licensed to carry a concealed weapon, than you know about someone who is not licensed to carry... it tells you that i am a law abiding citizen with a clean record, it tells you that i have undergone some level of training to competently and safely handle that firearm, it tells you that the federal government has looked into me and deemed me not a threat to the public... thats a hell of a lot more than i know about you
Does it tell me your inner most thoughts and your true intentions for the gun?
... didn't think so.
Thats the system thats in place and its failing.
... didn't think so.
Thats the system thats in place and its failing.
you're kidding right????
perhaps this would work better for you
i mean seriously.... you think the "system" is failing because we cant tell peoples inner most thoughts
you can mix powdered sugar and XXXXXXX together and end up with an explosive on par with or stronger than TNT
should we stop people from being able to purchase sugar because we dont know their intentions... i mean they "say" its to sweeten their coffee... but how can we be sure???
the Oklahoma City bombing and the first bombing at the World Trade Center were both carried out with the use of rental moving trucks... should we ban rental trucks because we dont know the renters intentions... they "say" they need it so that they can move... but how can we be sure???
if someone is going to go through the trouble of legally getting a gun, most of the time they are not going to use it in a crime... yes i know that the VA tech shooter owned his guns legally... there are exceptions to every rule... but i dont agree with punishing the masses for the actions of the few
if you want to argue this then show me statistical proof that most legal gun owners use them in a crime
show me the number and types of gun crimes along with how many of each crime was carried out by someone who legally owned their gun vs illegally
i guaran-fuckin-tee there is a hell of a lot more gun crime committed by people who own them illegally
to which i say if they are already breaking the law to get their gun... what the hell are more laws and restrictions going to do
laws only effect law abiding citizens